Vnto xxv. of his partners, for whom he is vndertaker there. Truely published verbatim, according to his letters, by Nich. Gorsan, one of the said partners, for that he would his countrymen should be partakers of the many good Notes therein conteined. With diuers Notes taken out of others, the Authoures letters written to the said partners, sithenes the first Impression, well worth the reading. At London, printed by Thomas Dawson, 1590.’ The first edition, though mentioned by Ames (Typogr. Antiq. ii. 1127), is not known to be extant. The pamphlet was reprinted and edited for the Irish Archæological Society in 1841 by Dr. Aquilla Smith; but whatever its utility may have been to Payne's partners, it cannot be regarded as of any great value for historical purposes. Payne, on the whole, wrote favourably of the situation: there were good undertakers as well as bad; the natives were not so black as they were painted; justice was firmly administered; the prospect of a Spanish invasion was remote; the country was rich and fertile, and prices were low. But from the absence of Payne's name from the survey of 1622, it may probably be conjectured that he did not settle permanently in Munster.
[Payne's Brief Description of Ireland, ed. Aquilla Smith (Irish Archæol. Society); Ames's Typogr. Antiq.]
PAYNE, ROGER (1739–1797), bookbinder, was born at Windsor in 1739. It is said that after having learned the rudiments of his art from Pote, the Eton bookseller, he came to London about 1766, and worked for a short time for Thomas Osborne (d. 1767) [q. v.] in Gray's Inn. Soon afterwards—between 1766 and 1770—through the kindness of ‘honest Tom Payne,’ the bookseller at the Mews Gate, who was not related to him, he was enabled to set up in business for himself as a bookbinder, near Leicester Square [see Payne, Thomas, 1719–1799]. He was then joined by his brother Thomas, who attended to the forwarding department, while Roger, who possessed artistic talent far superior to that of any of his fellow-craftsmen of the eighteenth century in England, devoted himself to the finishing and decoration of the volumes entrusted to his care. After a time, however, the brothers parted, and Roger, late in life, took as his fellow-worker Richard Wier, whose wife became known as a clever repairer and restorer of old books. The partners were alike addicted to immoderate indulgence in strong ale, which led to frequent quarrels and at last to separation. Roger's aspect betrayed his inordinate liking for ‘barley broth.’ ‘His appearance,’ says Dibdin, ‘bespoke either squalid wretchedness or a foolish and fierce indifference to the received opinions of mankind. His hair was unkempt, his visage elongated, his attire wretched, and the interior of his workshop—where, like the Turk, he would “bear no brother near his throne”—harmonised but too justly with the general character and appearance of its owner. With the greatest possible display of humility in speech and in writing, he united quite the spirit of quixotic independence.’
Payne died in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane, London, on 20 Nov. 1797, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, at the expense of his old friend Thomas Payne, ‘to whom,’ writes John Nichols, ‘in a great measure the admirers of this ingenious man's performances may feel themselves indebted for the prolongation of his life, having for the last eight years provided him with a regular pecuniary assistance.’ Thomas Payne had also a portrait taken of his namesake, at his work in his miserable den, which was etched and published by Sylvester Harding in 1800, and again engraved by William Angus for Dibdin's ‘Bibliographical Decameron.’
Payne is considered by some to have originated a new style of bookbinding; but he was undoubtedly influenced by the beautiful work of Samuel Mearn and other binders of the end of the seventeenth century. His bindings united elegance with durability; and the ornaments, which are said to have been designed by himself, were chosen with excellent taste. His best work was executed either in russia leather or in straight-grained morocco, usually of a dark blue, bright red, or olive colour. The sheets of the books were often sewn with silk, and the backs lined with leather, to give them additional strength. As a rule the backs only were elaborately tooled, while the sides were left almost plain. The ornamental devices were chiefly circlets, crescents, stars, acorns, running vines, and leaves, placed at intervals in the spaces to be decorated, and studded between with golden dots. The end papers were usually purple or some other plain colour. Each volume was accompanied by a bill describing the work done, and the ornaments used, written in a most precise and quaint style. Many of these bills are still extant in the volumes which he bound.
Payne's chief patrons were Earl Spencer, the Duke of Devonshire, Colonel Stanley, and the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode. The books which he bound for Lord Spencer are now in the John Rylands Library at
