silent workers. Their names, famous in this phase of decorative art on the other side of the great highway, are familiar as "household words." Yet we, too, have those in our midst who would make their impress in any nation. Danforth, Jones, Seely, Burt, and John Halpin, in historical; Smilie and Beckwirth, in landscape; and Fred. Halpin, in portraiture, are names that could not be lightly passed over anywhere; and among our artists on wood, Bobbett, Childs, Andrews, Lossing, and others, keep up in a corresponding degree the merits of their particular professions. Bookbinding is an art of great antiquity. It is two thousand years and more since Phillatius, a Greek, divided the rolled volume into sheets, and glued these together in the form which. is familiar to us. The rolls had been preserved from dust and injury by being kept in cylindrical cases, and a protection for the book in its new shape was soon found to be more necessary than before. This was supplied by securing the leaves between stiff covers, probably of wood at first, and thus began the modern art of book binding. Soon the board was covered with leather, making in external appearance a still nearer approach to the workmanship of our day; but it was not until the close of the fifteenth century, or the beginning of the sixteenth, that the stont pasteboard, called mill-board, which unites lightness with sufficient strength, was used as the foundation of the book-cover. When the sheet of paper of which a book is made is folded in two leaves, the book is called a folio; when into four leaves, it is called quarto; when folded into eight leaves, it is called octavo; when into twelve leaves, duodecimo, or 12mo. ; when folded into 16 leaves, 16mo.; and when into eighteen leaves, 18mo., &c. The ancient Romans ornamented the covers of their books very elaborately. Those of wood were carved; and upon some of these, scenes from plays, and events of public interest, were represented. About the commencement of the Christian era, leather of brilliant hues, decorated with gold and silver, had come into use. In the Middle Ages the monks exhausted their ingenuity, and frequently, it would seem, their purses, in adorning the covers of those manuscripts which they spent their lives in writing and illuminating. Single figures and groups, wrought in solid gold, solid silver, and gold gorgeous with enamel, precious stones and pearls, made the outside of the volume correspond to the splendor within. Less expensive works were often bound in oaken boards very richly carved; scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin, or the Apostles, furnishing the subjects. Many still exist upon which the Nativity, or the Crucifixion, is carved in high relief. In the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the beginning of the sixteenth, kings, princes, and wealthy nobles, expended much money upon the binding of their libraries, which were, in many cases, very extensive. Carved ivory covers, protected by golden corners, and secured by jewelled clasps, were common, as were also those of velvet, silk brocade, vellum, and morocco, elaborately ornamented after designs made by great artists, and protected with bosses, corners, and clasps of solid gold. The precious stones and metals upon these book-covers, cost us the loss of many a more precious volume, for they frequently formed. no inconsiderable part of the plunder of a wealthy mansion in a captured city. Mr. Dibdin tells us of one library of thirty thousand volumes-that of Corvinus, King of Hungary-which was destroyed on this account by the Turkish soldiers, when Buda was taken in 1526. Quite an era in the history of bookbinding in England was formed by the publication of the Great Bible, by Grafton, in 1539. His first edition was of 200 copies, and within three years there were seven editions. A substantial binding was thus needed for nearly twenty thousand volumes, and from this time there was a noticeable advance in the art in England; chiefly, however, in the mechanical department; for Henry VIII. had many books richly and beautifully bound. In his reign the use of gold tooling was introduced, and the designs for some of the rolls are attributed to Holbein. Queen Elizabeth herself embroidered velvet and silk book-covers, some of which were also tooled in gilt.* The art has been carried to a high degree of excellence and finish in France. Many have acquired great renown there, in this department of handicraft. They hold themselves far above their brethren of England; and Duru once said that he should consider himself insulted if he were told that he could bind as well as Hayday. Their prices were enormous-three times as great as those of the best London binders, large as those were. The French books are remarkable for the firmness of their boards, the smoothness of their leather, and the delicacy, the richness of design, and the sharpness of outline of their gold tooling. The designs upon one of Beauzonnet's Capé's, or Lortie's books, seem hardly to be stamped upon the leather, but rather to be inlaid in it. But for pleasure and convenience in use, the work of the French binders is inferior to that of the English. Books bound by the former are very stiff; that is, they open with great difficulty, and require constant pressure to keep them open.t The father of the English school of binders was Roger Payne, who lived towards the close of the last century. The great modern English binders are Hayday, Clarke, Bedford, Riviere, and Wright. The Remnants have a very large establishment, and bind richly and substantially. The work of Charles Lewis was highly prized, and merited its reputation. The fitness of the binding to the character of the volume which it protects, though little regarded by many binders, and Illustrated Record of Art. It may be well to say here, for the benefitof those not familiar with the bookbinder's vocabulary, that gilt tooling is what is commonly called gilding, the figures in gilt being produced by the impression of a hot tool, sometimes stamped, sometimes rolied, upon gold leaf. Blind tooling is produced by the use of the hot tool without gold leaf. The forwarding of a book is the sewing and putting it into the cover. Finishing is the tooling, gilding, &c. still less by those for whom they work, is of the first importance. Many a good book is mercilessly sacrificed by an incompetent binder; persons of fastidious taste will prefer the servi ces of one who is possessed of artistic taste and feeling. Here, then, we finish with the binder, as he finishes his book, and here also we reluctantly conclude our chapter upon Bookcraft-a theme of exhaustless interest to all who have any affinity of taste for books and the intellectual sweets they con tain-since our too lavish indulgence in such refined epicurism might challenge our mental digestion too severely. We therefore offer a change by way of dessert. |