are almost without parallel. The designs for many of her bindings are said to have been prepared by order of her royal lover Henry II., under the superintendence of the celebrated artist Le Petit Bernard. Her books are marked with her favourite symbols, the lunar crescent and the bow, and the monogram D ᗡ, sometimes (probably in the case of love-gifts) with the H of Henry interlaced, and surmounted by the crown. It would be a useless and almost endless task to name the patrons of artistic bindings up to near the period of the revolutionary outbreak, during which long time French binders stood at the head of their craft. Such outstanding names among many bibliophiles as those of the historian De Thou (Jacobus Augustus Thuanus) and Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV., cannot be passed over. Such was Colbert's care for artistic bookbinding that, in a treaty with Marocco, he inserted a stipulation for a certain number of skins annually to be used for bindings in the Bibliothèque Royale. Much less is known concerning the bookbinders themselves than of their patrons and the works they executed; but prominent among the bibliopegic artists of all times stand the chief French relieurs of the 17th and 18th centuries—Le Gascon, Abbé Dusseuil, Padeloup, and Derome. Bindings by these artists are among the esteemed prizes of modern collectors.
Although during the 16th and 17th centuries bindings were produced in England which suffer no disgrace by comparison with contemporary masterpieces of French, Italian, and German bibliopegy, it was not till well into the 18th century that England took the leading place in the workmanlike forwarding and artistic finishing of books. Silk and velvet long remained the favourite coverings for the more costly bound books in the royal library, and down to the time of James I. we find very elaborately worked bindings in these substances. But, at the same time, there are not wanting magnificent examples of work in calf, morocco, and vellum, with blind and gold toolings, and gilt gauffré edges. The bindings of John Reynes, bookbinder to Henry VIII., had embossed on them the curious heraldic conceit of a shield, supported by a pair of unicorns, charged with the emblems of the passion, and along with his monogram the inscription Redemptoris mundi arma. Before James VI. of Scotland came as James I, to the English throne, he was, as became his literary character, a collector of books and a lover of bindings. John Gibson of Edinburgh held, under James, the office of royal binder, with an annual salary of £20 Scots. A detailed list of bindings, with the prices charged by Gibson, is printed by the Bannatyne Club in The Library of Mary Queen of Scots and James VI. Mr J. T. Gibson-Craig of Edinburgh has in his excellent collection an original Scotch binding from the library of Queen Mary, the Cronique de Savoye, a small folio in brown calf, richly tooled in silver, with the Scottish arms, and the initial M. The same collector also possesses a Scotch binding in brown calf, with blind and gold panelling, gilt and gauffré edges, with the name and arms of the Earl of Bothwell, the third husband of Queen Mary. De Quincey, in a paper on "Secret Societies," ranks a Bible bound by Mr Farrer in 1635 above the chefs d'œuvre of British and Continental artists.
The acknowledged supremacy attained by English book binding in the latter half of last century is due in large measure to the work of Roger Payne, a man gifted with extraordinary skill, dexterity, and taste, but unfortunately also of the most erratic and dissolute habits. Payne's work was, as he himself expressed it, "very carefully and honestly done;" his tooling especially was very beautiful, his ornaments, many of which he fashioned with his own hands, were at once highly appropriate and artistic. In his bills he was in the habit of taking his patrons into his confidence in an unusual manner, and one of these may be worth copying.
"Aeschylus Glasguæ MDCCXCV Flaxman illustravit. Bound in the very best manner, sew'd with strong Silk, every Sheet round every Band, not false bands: the Back lined with Russia Leather, Cut Exceeding large; Finished in the most magnificent manner. Embordered with Ermine expressive of The High Hank of the Noble Patroness of The Designs, The other Parts Finished in the most Elegant Taste with small Tool Gold Borders Studded with Gold; and small Tool Panes of the most exact Work. Measured with the Compasses. It takes a great deal of Time making out the different measurements, preparing the Tools, and making out new Patterns. The Back Finished in Compartments with parts of Gold studded work and open Work to relieve the Rich close studded work. All the Tools except studded points are obliged to be worked off plain first, and afterwards the Gold laid on and Worked off again. And this Gold Work requires double Gold being on Hough Grained Morocco. The impressions of the Tools must be fitted and cover'd at the bottom with Gold to prevent flaws and cracks."
Payne, in poverty and distress, came prematurely to a drunkard's grave in 1797. His style of binding has still many admirers, and the Roger Payne style is one of the established methods of finishing in bookbinders establishments at the present day. After Payne, Charles Lewis was the next famous English binder flourishing in London in the early part of the present century, and his bindings come down to and connect with the work of bibliopegistic artists who still exercise their calling.
The operations of bookbinding are now carried on upon a scale which could not have been dreamt of even at the beginning of the present century, and the millions of volumes which annually issue from the press could not possibly be put into the hands of the reading public in the form and at the price at which they are sold without the aid of machinery. In Great Britain nearly all books are first issued in cloth cases, and while the greatest variety of grain and colouring has been reached in the preparation of the cloth for such cases, their gilding, embossing, and lettering, all accomplished by machinery, leave almost no improvement to be desired, and the most handsome and fairly durable bindings can thus be supplied at an incredibly small cost. At the same time, it is practicable to prepare, emboss, and gild cheap leather covers by the same processes and machinery adopted for cloth cases, and the bindings of cheap family and pocket Bibles are thus produced. But although the old solid and substantial handiwork of the craft is thus fairly eclipsed, there is still employment—and more employment than ever—for binders in leather, who chiefly rely on manual dexterity for the forwarding of their work, and individual taste and skill for its artistic finishing.
Modern bookbinding thus divides itself into two principal branches—1st, Leather work, and all kinds in which manual labour and skill are chiefly employed; and 2d, Cloth-casing, or such work as is largely executed by the aid of machinery.
It may be convenient first to notice the various operations through which a book passes in ordinary or leather binding. These operations are grouped under two main divisions—"forwarding" and "finishing." Under the first is comprehended everything necessary to the preservation of a book; the second concerns merely the embellishment.
Forwarding.—In the first place, the sheets of a book are folded in such a manner that the pages follow each other in consecutive order. In this operation the binder is guided by the "signatures," which indicate the part of a sheet to be superimposed upon another. This labour is performed by women and girls, who acquire in credible dexterity by continued practice. The sheets, after being folded, are loose and bulky. The next operation has for its object the bringing them into a more compact form, which was formerly accomplished by beating them with a broad-faced hammer upon a smooth flat stone. The condensing or compacting is now generally accomplished by passing the sheets between the cylinders of a rolling-machine. A quantity of sheets, called a "section," is gathered and arranged between two pieces of tin plate and passed through
