The Book-Collector Part 13

The two former modes of treatment may, as we have said, be developed to any extent in the direction of tooling and gilding; the sheep has to be left unadorned--_simplex munditiis_.

What can we desire more characteristic and harmonious than a Caxton, uncut and in oaken boards, or even in a secondary vesture of vellum, like the Holford copy of the _Life of G.o.dfrey of Bouillon_? Or than a volume of Elizabethan poetry or a first Walton's _Angler_, in the primitive sheep, as clean as a new penny, like the Huth examples of Turbervile, 1570, and Walton? The purest copy of the first folio Shakespeare we ever saw was Miss Napier's, in the original calf, but wanting the verses. It sold at the sale for 151, and subsequently for over 400. There exist such things as Laneham's _Letter from Kenilworth_, 1575, Spenser's _Faery Queen_, 1590, Allot's _England's Parna.s.sus_, 1600, and Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_, 1611, in the pristine vellum wrappers; and one of the Bodleian copies of Brathwaite's most rare _Good Wife_, 1618, is just as it was received 280 years since from the stationer who issued it. Would any one wish to see these remains tricked out in the sprucest, or even the richest, modern habiliments?

Among ourselves in these islands we commonly prize and preserve (even in a leathern case) a highly preserved specimen of Tudor or Stuart binding; and there are instances where to exchange the old coat for a new one, however magnificent or (so to speak) appropriate, is not merely sacrilege, but absolute surrender of value. A copy of the first folio Shakespeare, of a Caxton, of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, in unblemished primitive clothing, could not be re-attired without making the party convicted of the act liable to capital punishment without benefit of clergy.

Besides the methods and kinds of binding above mentioned, there are others of a metallic and a textile character. We find volumes clothed in bronze, silver, silver-gilt, gold, and embroidered silks, the last variety usually a.s.sociated with the Nunnery of Little Gidding, without absolute certainty of correctness so far as the claim set up on behalf of that inst.i.tution to be an exclusive source of such products goes.

Mr. Bra.s.sington has furnished in his well-known work examples of all these more or less exceptional and luxurious liveries. In the most precious metal the most celebrated specimen is the _Book of Prayers_ of Lady Elizabeth Tirrwhyt, 1574, formerly belonging to Queen Elizabeth, and ascribed to the Edinburgh goldsmith, George Heriot.

Next in point of rarity to gold comes bronze; silver and silver-gilt are comparatively frequent; and the embroidered style is only uncommon where the execution and condition are unimpeachable, as in the case of a few in our public libraries. The most ordinary books found within embroidered covers are small editions of the Common Prayer and Psalms; and they are almost invariably in a dilapidated state. Gilding books was usually considered at a later epoch, at all events in France, part of the business of a binder, and so perhaps it may have been in the case of Dubuisson, who flourished about the middle of the last century at Paris; yet we observe on his ticket attached to an exquisitely gilt copy of an almanac for 1747, in red morocco of the period, simply "Dore par Dubuisson," as if that portion or branch of the work only had been his.

Some curious episodes have ere now occurred in connection with sets of books, or even works in two or three volumes, in historical bindings, or with a remarkable and interesting _provenance_ of another kind. It was only at the sale of the last portion of the Ashburnham Library (1898), No. 3574, that the third and fourth parts of Ta.s.so, _Rime e Prose_, 1589, bound together by Clovis Eve for Marie-Marguerite de Valois Saint-Remy, was acquired by a French firm through Mr. Quaritch, the purchaser having already secured at the Hamilton Palace sale the first and second portions, also in one volume, in the same binding, and the set still wants Parts v.-vi., so that it will demand a small fortune to effect a perfect reunion.

It is hazardous to discount the durability and permanence of our best modern bindings of English origin, and to answer our own question, whether hereafter they will be appreciated in the same way as those of the old masters here and abroad. Yet we think that we can offer a valid and persuasive reason why we shall fall short of former ages in this handicraft. The feudal conditions and atmosphere, which go far to win our regard or arrest our attention in the case of the older binders and their work, have vanished, and can never revive. It is with the book from this point of view as it is from that of the autograph inscription or signature; both are extensions of the owner's personality; and what a personality it was! Those who follow us at a distance may find reason to think and speak differently; but we can at the present moment scarcely realise the possibility of our latter-day literature acquiring a pedigree and an incrusted fragrance such as belong to works, however dull and worthless in themselves, from the libraries of Grolier, Maioli, De Thou, Peiresc, or Pompadour.

There is a sort of sensation of awe in taking up these volumes, as if they had pa.s.sed through some holy ordeal, as if they had been canonised. It is not the piece of dressed leather with its decorative adjuncts which casts its spell over us: it is the reputation of the courtly patron of learning and art; of the statesman and soldier who sought a diversion in the formation of a library from severer employments; of the prince who loved to gather round him such evidences of his taste, or to lay them at the feet of _a chere amie_; of the licentious but superb Lady Marquise, who vied with her king in the magnificence of her books, as she did with his consort in that of her toilette--it is this which exercises upon our imagination its ridiculous yet unalterable sway.

It is impossible to avoid the discovery, if we take for the first time a survey of a library chiefly conspicuous for the splendour of its bindings, how almost invariably we are disappointed by the contrast between the exterior and the contents. It would probably be far from easy to fill a small case with examples where a really valuable book was enshrined in a covering of corresponding character. It is our ordinary experience to meet with some obsolete nondescript cla.s.sic, or some defunct theological treatise of alike infinitesimal worth, in a sumptuous morocco garb, bestowed on it by the author as a compliment to his sovereign, or by the sovereign as an oblation to his mistress.

In those princely establishments for which such things were destined and reserved, it was necessary that all the const.i.tuent features should correspond in external grandeur, the costumes of the great folks themselves, the furniture, the decorations, the equipages, the dependents, the book-bindings.

The remarkable changes of taste in books cannot be more powerfully and decisively exemplified than by the thousands of volumes which have descended to us in all languages and many branches of literature in liveries once only a subsidiary feature in the eyes of the possessors or acquirers, and at present often the sole t.i.tle to regard and the sole object of compet.i.tion. The work has become mere printed paper; but it is perhaps not less covetable as a triumph of bibliopegistic art, than as a memorial of the distinguished or interesting personages through whose hands it has pa.s.sed to our own. The book, alas! has degenerated into a vehicle for external accessories. We are asked to admire, not the quality of the text or the style of the writer, but the beauty of the type, the splendour of the ink, and the elegance of the initial letters, on the one hand; on the other, the excellence of the leather, the brilliance of the gilding, the ingenuity and skill of the design, and the curiosity of the _ex libris_. But this has to be kept well in mind. It is the binding which const.i.tutes the supreme feature of importance and attraction. A second copy in shabby attire may plead in vain its merits of production; but it fares as ill as a person of the highest respectability who labours under the misfortune of being badly dressed.

There is no point of distinction on the part of our own countrymen more marked and enduring than the very qualified allegiance which they give to the Parisian book-binding code. It is true enough that in England we admire not merely the old French School, but the modern one; but our loyalty and liking are by no means unreserved. A Frenchman, in nine cases out of ten, will not, in the first place, buy any book that was born out of France, any more than he will buy an article of furniture or china, or a coin, emanating from a less favoured soil; nor will he willingly acquire even a volume of native origin in any state but the orthodox morocco; but his first impulse and act, if he does so under protest, is to strip and re-clothe the disreputable article, and have it put into habiliments worthy of the _cabinet choisi_ of Monsieur.

Now, we have had, and no doubt have still, on this side of the Channel certain heathens in the likeness of collectors who, no matter how perfect and how fresh, and how suitable, the original jacket, commit the heinous offence of following the Continental mode, and in such a way thousands of lovely examples, transmitted to us as heirlooms from our ancient families, have been sacrificed. But let us congratulate ourselves that we have among us many who know better, who will not even let the binder desecrate a faultless copy of Tennyson, Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, or Keats in the publisher's boards.

This is, however, not exactly an a.n.a.logy. The a.n.a.logy arises and grows possible when we compare such writers as Montaigne, Moliere, Corneille, or again, certain of the Elzevir series, with our corresponding foremost names. If we meet with the latter in vellum or in sheep, we only too gladly preserve them as we find them, provided that the outward garb is irreproachable. Of how many gems do we not know, in all the peerless glory of their pristine life, tenderly ensconced in morocco envelopes. Let them never be acquainted with another existence! Let no binder's unholy hand come near them! Let them be exhibited as historical monuments.

On the other hand, if we could oblige Monsieur to comply with this law, he would be _desole_; for it is not the matter which makes the book; it is the _maroquin rouge_.

Even in England, where we are more robust in our taste, the true collector is not a reader. He may buy a cheap book now and then; but he hands it to the cook when he has perused it. Such things are outside his category; they are for those interesting creatures the toiling million. His possessions or _desiderata_ are not vehicles of instruction; they are far too valuable; they are objects of ocular and sensuous indulgence equally with china, paintings, sculpture, and coins. They are cla.s.sable with bric-a-brac. You have an opportunity of appreciating the quality of the paper or vellum, the type, and the binding. The merits of the author are reserved.

It is better, if a gentleman leans a little to the practical side, and chooses to admit literature for actual reading, to have two cases, one for Books, the other for Bibliographical _Simulacra_. For it is not for one till he has graduated to lay his prentice fingers on a tome in the pristine _mutton_, or to endanger the maidenhood of a Clovis Eve, a Padeloup, or a Derome, which you must handle as if it were the choicest and daintiest proof medal or etching. Why, one has to bear in mind that he is not dealing with a mere ordinary source of intellectual gratification and improvement, but with a mechanical product perfect in all its parts. Let him come gloved, and his friend the owner will bless him.

Between a book bound in its original cloth or paper boards, and one in its rich vesture of morocco or russia, there is a contrast similar to that between a woodland and a park. In the one case, at a distance, perhaps, of fifty or even a hundred years from the period of publication, we hold in our hand a volume precisely in the state in which it pa.s.sed from that of the contemporary salesman to the contemporary buyer; and not a stain nor a finger-mark save the mellowing touch of time is upon it anywhere. Let us look at the description in a sale catalogue of such a rarity as Lamb's _Poetry for Children_, 1807, "in the original grey boards, with red labels," or a copy of the first edition of Fielding's _Tom Jones_, absolutely uncut, and in the bookseller's pristine covers, or, better still, of the first part of the first edition of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, 1590, in the Elizabethan wrapper! It is not the mere circ.u.mstance, let it be understood, of untrimmed edges which makes the charm; many a book or pamphlet occurs as innocent of the binder's knife as the lamb unborn, and highly desirable it is too; but to render an example of this cla.s.s complete, its authentic outward integument in blameless preservation is as essential to its repute and its marketable worth as the presence of the claws is held to be in the original valuation of a fur of fox or beaver.

No educated eye can regard with indifference a more or less interesting volume clothed in a becoming livery by an accomplished artist either of other times or of these. If it is an ancient vesture, with the credentials in the form of a coat of arms, an _ex libris_, or a signature, or all of these, handed down with it to us, we appear to be able to disregard time, and feel ourselves brought within touch of the individual who owned it, of him who encased it in its lavishly gilt leathern coat, and of the circle to which it was long a familiar object, as it reposed unmolested in a corner of some _pet.i.te bibliotheque_ or study during generations--if the subject of which it treated had to be handled, a vicarious copy in working raiment doing duty for it. For it is not a book in the ordinary acceptation of the word; it is a _souvenir_ of the past, a message and a voice from remote times, ever growing remoter, or an _objet de luxe_, a piece of literary, or rather bibliographical, dandyism. In any case, its ident.i.ty is to be preserved and held sacred.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Hazlitt's edition, 1871, iii. 193.

CHAPTER XIII

English and other national binders--Anonymous bindings--List of binders--The Scotish School--Mr. Quaritch out-bidden--The vellum copy of Boece's _Chronicles of Scotland_--Most familiar names in England--Embroidered bindings ascribed to the Nuns of Little Gidding--Provincial binders--Edwards of Halifax--Fas.h.i.+on of edge-painting--Amateur binding--Forwarding and finis.h.i.+ng--A Baronet-binder--French liveries for English books--Bedford's French style--Incongruity of the Parisian _gout_ with our literature--List of French binders--Ancient stamped leather bindings of Italy, Flanders, and Germany copied in France--Ludovicus Bloc of Bruges--Judocus de Lede--Rarity of early signed examples in France--Andre Boule (1508)--Enhancement of the estimation of old books in France by special bindings--The New Collector counselled and admonished--What he is to do, and where he is to go.

THE English School of Binding brings before us a roll of names borne by artists of successive periods and of varying merit, from the last quarter of the fifteenth century to the present time. That it is by no means exhaustive is due to the circ.u.mstance that in the case of many of the older, and some of the more recent, masters, there is no clue to the origin in the shape of an external inscription on the cover, as we find on foreign works, or in that of a ticket or a signature. As it so frequently happens with old pictures, the style of a binder was often, indeed generally, imitated by his pupils or successors, and we are apt to mistake the original productions for the copies, unless we engage in a very close study of minute details.

In the English, Scotish, and Irish series it is equally true that the preponderance of bindings are unidentified. The monastic liveries, in which so many venerable tomes have come down to us, were executed within the walls of the buildings which held the books, and had perhaps produced them; and a.n.a.logously most of our early printers were binders of their own stocks, as well as of any other works brought to them. We may incidentally remind the reader that one practice on their part was to utilise waste as end-papers or pasteboard, and to that circ.u.mstance we are indebted for the recovery of numerous typographical fragments belonging to publications not otherwise known.

That Pynson, Julian Notary, John Reynes, and others executed book-binding outside their own productions seems to be proved by the existence of much early literature of foreign origin with English end-papers and covers. In fact, till the Stationers' Company made the sale of books or printed matter a separate industry, the typographer was his own binder and vendor.

The bibliopegist, as an independent artificer whom we are able to identify, dates from the seventeenth century. We have already mentioned Francis Rea or Read of Worcester as flouris.h.i.+ng in 1660.

John Evelyn seems to have employed some one who executed good work in morocco, and in better taste than that done for royalty at the same period; yet we cannot be sure that he did not carry the books abroad for the purpose. Pepys had in his service a binder named Richardson, whom he mentions in the _Diary_, and who is otherwise known. A copy of Stow's _Survey_, 1633, pa.s.sed through his hands; it is in the original calf; and he was merely engaged to repair it, as appears from a memorandum inside the cover.

Of authentic names of later English binders, considering the incalculable amount of work done, the number is extremely limited. If we tabulate, we find only:--

Samuel Mearne.

# Bookbinder to Charles II.

Elliot & Chapman.

# The Harleian binders.

Robert Black.

# About 1760.

Edwards of Halifax.

Richard and Mrs. Wier.

Roger Payne.

Roger Payne and R. Wier.

Baumgarten.

Staggemeier.

# The binder of the Psalter of 1459, formerly in the Sykes collection, and bought by Quaritch at the Perkins sale for 4900.

Charles Hering.

Benedict.

H. Walther.

Fargher & Lindner.

H. Faulkner.

C. Kalthoeber.

Charles Lewis the Younger.

Charles the Younger.

J. Mackenzie.

C. Murton.

Charles Smith.

F. & T. Aitken.

Wickwar.

J. Wright.

Hayday.

Hayday & Co.

J. Clarke.

Clarke & Bedford.

Francis Bedford.

Roger De Coverly.

Grieve.

Henderson & Bissett.

McLehose of Glasgow.

Holloway.

Robert Riviere.

# The business is carried on by grandsons.

Zaehnsdorf.

Cobden Sanderson.