In the Track of the Bookworm

BINDING.

The binding of books for several centuries has held the dignity of a fine art, quite independent of printing. This has been demonstrated by exhibitions in this country and abroad. But every collector ought to observe fitness in the binding which he procures to be executed. True fitness prevails in most old and fine bindings; seldom was a costly garb bestowed on a book unworthy of it. But in many a luxurious library we see a modern binding fit for a unique or rare book given to one that is comparatively worthless or common. Not to speak of bindings that are real works of art, many collectors go astray in dressing lumber in purple and fine linen—putting full levant morocco on blockhead histories and such stuff that perishes in the not using. It is a sad spectacle to behold a unique binding wasted on a book of no more value than a backgammon board. There are of course not a great many of us who can afford unique bindings, but those who cannot should at least observe propriety and fitness in this regard, and draw the line severely between full dress and demi-toilette, and keep a sharp eye to appropriateness of color. I have known several men who bound their books all alike. Nothing could be worse except one who should bind particular subjects in special styles, pace Mr. Ellwanger, who, in “The Story of My House,” advises the Book-Worm to “bind the poets in yellow or orange, books on nature in olive, the philosophers in blue, the French classics in red,” etc. I am curious to know what color this pleasant writer would adopt for the binding of his books by military men, such for example as “Major Walpole’s Anecdotes.” (p. 262)

Ambrose Fermin Didot recommended binding the “Iliad” in red and the “Odyssey” in blue, for the Greek rhapsodists wore a scarlet cloak when they recited the former and a blue one when they recited the latter. The churchmen he would clothe in violet, cardinals in scarlet, philosophers in black

I have imagined

HOW A BIBLIOMANIAC BINDS HIS BOOKS.

I’d like my favorite books to bind
So that their outward dress
To every bibliomaniac’s mind
Their contents should express.
Napoleon’s life should glare in red,
John Calvin’s gloom in blue;
Thus they would typify bloodshed
And sour religion’s hue.
The prize-ring record of the past
Must be in blue and black;
While any color that is fast
Would do for Derby track.
The Popes in scarlet well may go;
In jealous green, Othello;
In gray, Old Age of Cicero,
And London Cries in yellow.
My Walton should his gentle art
In Salmon best express,
And Penn and Fox the friendly heart
In quiet drab confess.
Statistics of the lumber trade
Should be embraced in boards,
While muslin for the inspired Maid
A fitting garb affords.
Intestine wars I’d clothe in vellum,
While pig-skin Bacon grasps,
And flat romances, such as “Pelham,”
Should stand in calf with clasps.
Blind-tooled should be blank verse and rhyme
Of Homer and of Milton;
But Newgate Calendar of Crime
I’d lavishly dab gilt on.
The edges of a sculptor’s life
May fitly marbled be,
But sprinkle not, for fear of strife,
A Baptist history.

Crimea’s warlike facts and dates
Of fragrant Russia smell;
The subjugated Barbary States
In crushed Morocco dwell.
But oh! that one I hold so dear
Should be arrayed so cheap
Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear
My Lamb must be half-sheep.

No doubt a Book-Worm so far gone as this could invent stricter analogies and make even the binder fit the book

So we should have

THE BIBLIOMANIAC’S ASSIGNMENT OF BINDERS.

If I could bring the dead to day,
I would your soul with wonder fill
By pointing out a novel way
For bibliopegistic skill.
My Walton, Trautz should take in hand,
Or else I’d give him o’er to Hering;
Matthews should make the Gospels stand
A solemn warning to the erring.
The history of the Inquisition,
With all its diabolic train
Of cruelty and superstition,
Should fitly be arrayed by Payne.
A book of dreams by Bedford clad,
A Papal history by De Rome,
Should make the sense of fitness glad
In every bibliomaniac’s home.
As our first mother’s folly cost
Her sex so dear, and makes men grieve,
So Milton’s plaint of Eden lost
Would be appropriate to Eve.
Hayday would make “One Summer” be
Doubly attractive to the view;
While General Wolfe’s biography
Should be the work of Pasdeloup.
For lives of dwarfs, like Thomas Thumb,
Petit’s the man by nature made,
And when Munchasen strikes us dumb
It is by means of Gascon aid.
Thus would I the great binders blend
In harmony with work before ’em,
And so Riviere I would commend
To Turner’s “Liber Fluviorum.”

After all, whether one can afford a three-hundred or a three-dollar binding, the gentle Elia has said the last word about fitness of bindings when he observed: “To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume; magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be lavished on all kinds of books indiscriminately

“Where we know that a book is at once both good and rare—where the individual is almost the species,

‘We know not where is that Prometian torch
That can its light relumine;’

“Such a book for instance as the ‘Life of the Duke of Newcastle’ by his Duchess—no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honor and keep safe such a jewel

“To view a well arranged assortment of block-headed encyclopoedias (Anglicana or Metropolitanas), set out in an array of Russia and Morocco, when a tithe of that good leather would comfortably reclothe my shivering folios, would renovate Parcelsus himself, and enable old Raymond Lully to look like himself again in the world. I never see these impostors but I long to strip them and warm my ragged veterans in their spoils.”

There spoke the true Book-Worm. What a pity he could not have sold a part of his good sense and fine taste to some of the affluent collectors of this period!

Doubtless an experienced binder could give some amusing examples of mistakes in indorsing books with their names. One remains in my memory. A French binder, entrusted with a French translation of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” in two volumes, put “L’Oncle” on both, and numbered them “Tome 1,” “Tome 2.” Charles Cowden-Clarke tells of his having ordered Leigh Hunt’s poems entitled “Foliage” to be bound in green, and how the book came home in blue. That would answer for the “blue grass” region of Kentucky. I have no patience with those disgusting realists who bind books in human or snake skin. In his charming book on the Law Reporters, Mr. Wallace says of Desaussures’ South Carolina Reports: “When these volumes are found in their original binding most persons, I think, are struck with its peculiarity. The cause of it is, I believe, that it was done by negroes.” What the “peculiarity” is he does not disclose. But book-binding seems to be an unwonted occupation for negro slaves. It was not often that they beat skins, although their own skins were frequently beaten.

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