SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF BOOKBINDING.

The earliest records of Bookbinding that exist prove that the art has been practised for nearly two thousand years. In past ages, books were written on long scrolls of parchment or papyrus, and were rolled up and fastened with a thong which was made of coloured leather and often highly ornamented. These scrolls were usually attached to one, or, occasionally, two rollers of wood or ivory, or sometimes of gold, much as our large maps are now mounted, and the bosses at the end of the rollers were frequently highly decorated. This decoration may be called the first step toward Ornamental Art applied to the exterior of books.

A learned Athenian, named Phillatius, to whom his countrymen erected a statue, at length found out a means of binding books with glue. The sheets of vellum or papyrus were gathered two or four together, sewn much in the same way as at the present day; and then, in order to preserve these sheets, there came, as a matter of course, a covering for the book.

The probability is that the first book-covers were of wood—plain oaken boards, perhaps; then, as books in those days were all in manuscript, and very valuable, carved oak bindings were given to those which were the most decorated within.

To cover the plain wooden board with vellum or leather would, in the course of years, be too apparent an improvement to be neglected; and specimens of books so bound, of the great antiquity of which there are undoubted proofs, exist at the present day.

There is reason to believe that the Romans carried the Art of Binding to considerable perfection. Some of the public offices had books called Dyptichs,* in which their acts were written. The binding of one of these in carved wood is thus described:—"Seated in the centre of each board is a consul, holding in one hand a baton, and in the other, upraised, a purse, as if in the act of throwing it to some victor in the games. Above these are miniature portraits, various other ornaments, and an inscription; below, on one board, are two men leading out horses for the race, and beneath them a group, with a ludicrous representation of two other men, exhibiting their endurance of pain by allowing crabs to fasten on their noses." A small print of an ivory dyptich of the fifth century, in Mr. Arnett's "Books of the Ancients," may be consulted as a specimen of the kind of ornament then adopted. An old writer says, that about the time of the Christian era the books of the Romans were covered with red, yellow, green, and purple leather, and decorated with gold and silver.

If we pass on to a few centuries later, we find that the monks were almost the only literati. They wrote chiefly on subjects of religion, and bestowed the greatest pains upon the internal and external decorations of their books. In the thirteenth century some of the gospels, missals, and other service-books for the Greek and Roman churches, were ornamented with silver and gold, apparently wrought by the hammer; sometimes they were enamelled and enriched with precious stones, and pearls of great value. Carved oak figures of the Virgin, or the Infant Saviour, or of the Crucifixion, were also the frequent adornments of the outside covers. One of these ancient relics is thus described by the librarian of Henry VIII.

"All I have to do is to observe, that this book (which the more I have look'd upon the more I have always admired) hath two thick boards, each about an inch in thickness, for its covers, and that they were joined with the book by large leather thongs, which boards are now by length of time become very loose. Tho' I have seen a vast number of old books and oftentimes examined their covers, yet I do not remember I ever saw boards upon any of them of so great thickness as these. This was the manner of Binding, it seems, of those times, especially if the books were books of extraordinary value, as this is. 'Twas usual to cut Letters in the Covers, and such letters were the better preserv'd by having them placed in some hollow part, which might easily be made if the boards were pretty thick. I suppose, therefore, that even the copies of Gregory's Pastoral that were given to Cathedral Churches by King Alfred had such thick covers also, that these by the Æstals might be fix'd the better. What makes me think so is, that the outside of one of the covers of this book is made hollow, and there is a rude sort of figure upon a brass plate that is fastened within the hollow part, which figure I take to have been designed for the Virgin Mary, to whom the Abbey was dedicated. Over it there was once fastened another much larger plate, as is plain from the Nails that fixed it and from some other small indications now extant,—and this 'tis likely was of silver, and perhaps there was an anathema against the Person that should presume to alienate it, engraved upon it—together with the Name of the Person (who it may be was Roger Poure) that was the Donor of the Book. This will make it to have been nothing else but an Æstal, such a one (tho' not so valuable) as was fastened upon Gregory's Pastoral. But this I leave to every man's judgment."†

At a later period we find on the binding of books gold and silver ornaments of very beautiful design, enclosing precious stones of great variety; carved ivory tablets let into framework of carved oak; rich-coloured velvets, edged with morocco, with bosses, clasps, and corners of solid gold; white vellum stamped in gold and blind tooling; and morocco and calf covers inlaid with various colours and adorned in every conceivable way. This was at the end of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the love of Art was universal, in the land where Michael Angelo, and Raffaelle, and Da Vinci produced their great works, and where, under the auspices of the Medici, the Art of Bookbinding as well as all other arts was encouraged.

Mr. Dibdin, in his "Bibliographical Decameron," to which we are much indebted, has given an account of the library of Corvinus, King of Hungary, who died at Buda about the year 1490. This library consisted of about thirty thousand volumes, mostly manuscripts of the Greek and Latin poets and historians, and was contained in large vaulted galleries, in which, among other works of art, were two fountains, one of marble and the other of silver. The binding of the books were mostly of brocade, protected with bosses and clasps of gold and silver; and these, alas! were the subsequent cause of the almost entire destruction of the library; for, when the city of Buda was taken by assault, in 1526, the Turkish soldiers tore the precious volumes from their covers for the sake of the ornaments that were upon them.

The general use of calf and morocco binding seems to have followed the invention of printing. There are many printed books, still in good preservation, that were bound in calf with oaken boards at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. These are mostly stamped with gold or blind tools. The earliest of these tools generally represent figures, such as Christ, St. Paul, the Virgin, coats of arms, legends, and monograms, according to the contents of the book. Afterward attempts were made to produce pictures, but these were necessarily bad.

In England, the earliest binding with ornament was about the time of Henry VII., when we find the royal arms supported by two angels; the heraldic badge of the double rose and pomegranate, the fleur-de-lys, the portcullis, the emblems of the evangelists, and small ornaments of grotesque animals. There are in the British Museum and in the Record Office many English bindings which undoubtedly were executed in the time of Henry VII.

In the reign of Henry VIII., about 1538, Grafton, the printer, undertook to print the great Bible. Not finding sufficient men or types in England, he went to Paris and there commenced it. He had not, however, proceeded far, before he was stopped in the progress of this heretical book; and he then took over to England the presses, type, printers, and bookbinders, and finished the work in 1539. The edition consisted of 2500 copies, one of which was set up in every church in England, secured to a desk by a chain. Within three years there were seven distinct editions of this work; which, supposing each edition to consist of the same number of copies as the first, would amount to 17,500 folio volumes. The binding, therefore, of so great a number of this book would alone give some importance to the Art of Bookbinding at that period. We know that Henry VIII. had many splendid volumes bound in velvet with gold bosses and ornaments. In his reign the stamping of tools in gold appears to have been first introduced in England; and some beautiful rolls, probably from Holbein's designs, were used as well on the sides as on the gilded edges of books still in existence.

In the reign of Elizabeth some exquisite bindings were done in embroidery. The queen herself used to work covers with gold and silver thread, spangles, and coloured silk, for Bibles and other devotional books which she presented to her maids of honour and her friends. From these brilliant external decorations, many of them entirely inappropriate for a book, we turn to a purer taste, the exercise of which will be found to reside within the peculiar limits of the Bookbinder's Art.

We return to Continental binding, and pass to the time of the ever-famous Jean Grolier. This nobleman was the first to introduce lettering upon the back; and he seems to have taken especial delight in having the sides of his books ornamented with very beautiful and elaborate patterns, said to have been drawn by his own hand. Many of them exist at the present day, either original Groliers or copies. Books from his library are eagerly sought for. All Grolier's books were bound in smooth morocco or calf, the pattern being formed of intersected line-work, finished by hand with a fine one-line fillet and gouges to correspond, with the occasional introduction of a conventional flower. Sometimes also the patterns were inlaid with morocco of different colours; and it is our opinion that no style of book-ornamentation has been since introduced that is worthy of entirely superseding the Grolier, a specimen of which will be given when treating on style. Very many of the Chevalier's volumes have the Latin inscription "Johanni Grolierii et amicorum" at the bottom, signifying that Grolier wished his books to be used by his friends as well as by himself. Connoisseurs rejoice when they meet with a work from the library of Maioli, a disciple of Grolier, or those of Diana of Poictiers, the mistress of Henry II., and whose books, in consequence of her influence and taste, are elegantly bound. It is supposed that the bindings for Diana of Poictiers were designed by Petit Bernard. They were bound in morocco of all colours, and usually ornamented with the emblems of the crescent and bow and quiver.

Among the earliest French binders must be mentioned Padeloup, Derome, and De Seuil. Pope celebrates De Seuil in one of his poems. Derome's plain morocco bindings are excellent; they are sewn on raised bands, are firm and compact, and the solid gilding upon the edges is worthy of commendation; his dentelle borders are fine, but unfortunately he was not careful of the trenchant steel. Padeloup's tooling or ornaments consist chiefly of small dots, and the forms he invented are elegant. When met with in good state, they look like gold lace upon the sides and backs of the books.

The bindings of books which belonged to De Thou are highly prized. He possessed a magnificent library, mostly bound in smooth deep-toned red, yellow, and green morocco. De Thou died in 1617. The Chevalier D'Eon used to bind books in a sort of Etruscan calf, the ornaments on which were copied from the Etruscan vases. The use of the black and red dyes have very frequently corroded the leather.

We must now resume our account of binding in England.

During the early part of the last century the general bindings were, with the exception of what was called Cambridge binding, (from being executed at that place,) of a depreciated character, many of them very clumsy, and devoid of taste in their ornament. Toward the middle some degree of attention had begun to be paid to the improvement of bindings, the general kinds being, up to the end of the eighteenth century, nearly all executed to one pattern,—viz.: the sides marbled, the backs coloured brown, with morocco lettering-pieces, and gilt.

The artists of the earlier part of the period of which we have been treating must have been numerous; but few are known. Two German binders, of the name of Baumgarten and Benedict, were of considerable note and in extensive employment in London during the early part of this century. The bindings of Oxford were also very good at this period. Who the distinguished parties at Oxford were has not been recorded; but a person of the name of Dawson, then living at Cambridge, has the reputation of being a clever artist, and may be pronounced as the binder of many of the substantial volumes still possessing the distinctive binding we have before referred to. Baumgarten and Benedict would, doubtless, be employed in every style of binding of their day, but the chief characteristics of their efforts are good substantial volumes in russia, with marbled edges.

To these succeeded Mr. John Mackinlay and two other Binders, named Kalthoeber and Staggemier; but to Mackinlay may, perhaps, be attributed the first impulse given to the improvements which have been introduced into bindings. He was one of the largest and most creditable binders in London of the period of which we are treating. Several specimens of his, in public and private libraries, remain to justify the character given of him; and of the numerous artists that his office produced, many have since given evidence, by their work, that the lessons they received were of a high character. The specimens alluded to exhibit a degree of care, ingenuity, and skill, highly creditable to them as binders. Though well executed, they did not pay the time and attention devoted, in later times, to the finishing or gilding of their work, and it was not till Roger Payne exhibited the handiwork of the craft, that any decided impulse was given to the progress of the art, which has gone on, under able successors, from one improvement to another till there exists much doubt whether or no we have not now, so far as mechanical execution depends, arrived at perfection. About the year 1770 Roger Payne went to London, and, as his history is an epoch in the history of the art, we will devote some space to it.

The personal history of Roger Payne is one among the many of the ability of a man being rendered nearly useless by the dissoluteness of his habits. He stands an example to the young, of mere talent, unattended with perseverance and industry, never leading to distinction,—of great ability, clouded by intemperance and consequent indiscretion, causing the world only to regret how much may have been lost that might have been developed had the individual's course been different and his excellences directed so as to have produced the best results.

Roger Payne was a native of Windsor Forest, and first became initiated in the rudiments of the art he afterward became so distinguished a professor of, under the auspices of Mr. Pote, bookseller to Eton College. From this place he went to London, where he was first employed by Mr. Thomas Osborne, the bookseller, of Holborn, London. Disagreeing on some matters, he subsequently obtained employment from Mr. Thomas Payne, of the King's Mews, St. Martin's, who ever after proved a friend to him. Mr. Payne established him in business near Leicester Square, about the year 1769-70, and the encouragement he received from his patron, and many wealthy possessors of libraries, was such that the happiest results and a long career of prosperity might have been anticipated. His talents as an artist, particularly in the finishing department, were of the first order, and such as, up to his time, had not been developed by any other of his countrymen.

He adopted a style peculiarly his own, uniting a classical taste in the formation of his designs, and much judgment in the selection of such ornament as was applicable to the nature of the work it was to embellish. Many of these he made himself of iron, and some are yet preserved as curiosities and specimens of the skill of the man. To this occupation he may have been at times driven from lack of money to procure them from the tool-cutters; but it cannot be set down as being generally so, for, in the formation of the designs in which he so much excelled, it is but reasonable to suppose, arguing upon the practice of some others in later times, he found it readier and more expedient to manufacture certain lines, curves, &c. on the occasion. Be this as it may, he succeeded in executing binding in so superior a manner as to have no rival and to command the admiration of the most fastidious book-lover of his time. He had full employment from the noble and wealthy, and the estimation his bindings are still held in is a sufficient proof of the satisfaction he gave his employers. His best work is in Earl Spencer's library.

His reputation as an artist of the greatest merit was obscured, and eventually nearly lost, by his intemperate habits. He loved drink better than meat. Of this propensity an anecdote is related of a memorandum of money spent, and kept by himself, which runs thus:—

No wonder then, with habits like these, that the efforts of his patron, in fixing him, were rendered of no avail. Instead of rising to that station his great talent would have led to, he fell by his dissolute conduct to the lowest depths of misery and wretchedness. In his wretched working-room was executed the most splendid specimens of binding; and here on the same shelf were mixed together old shoes and precious leaves—bread and cheese, with the most valuable and costly of MSS. or early-printed books.

That he was characteristic or eccentric may be judged by what has been related of him. He appears to have also been a poet on the subject of his unfortunate propensity, as the following extract from a copy of verses sent with a bill to Mr. Evans, for binding "Barry on the Wines of the Ancients," proves.

The following bill is, like himself, a curiosity:—

Roger commenced business in partnership with his brother Thomas Payne, and subsequently was in like manner connected with one Richard Weir, but did not long agree with either, so that separation speedily took place. He afterward worked under the roof of Mr. Mackinlay, but his later efforts showed that he had lost much of that ability he had been so largely endowed with. Pressed down with poverty and disease, he breathed his last in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane, on the 20th of November, 1797. His remains were interred in the burying-ground of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, at the expense of Mr. Thomas Payne, who, as before stated, had been his early friend, and who, for the last eight years of his life, had rendered him a regular pecuniary assistance both for the support of his body and the performance of his work.

Of the excellencies and defects of his bindings, Dr. Dibdin, in his "Bibliographer's Decameron," has thus recorded his opinion:—

"The great merit of Roger Payne lay in his taste—in his choice of ornaments, and especially in the working of them. It is impossible to excel him in these two particulars. His favourite colour was that of olive, which he called Venetian. In his lining, joints, and inside ornaments, our hero generally, and sometimes melancholily, failed. He was fond of what he called purple paper, the colour of which was as violent as its texture was coarse. It was liable also to change and become spotty, and as a harmonizing colour with olive it was odiously discordant. The joints of his books were generally disjointed, uneven, carelessly tooled, and having a very unfinished appearance. His backs are boasted of for their firmness. His work excellently forwarded—every sheet fairly and bona fide stitched into the back, which was afterward usually coated in russia; but his minor volumes did not open well in consequence. He was too fond of thin boards, which, in folios, produces an uncomfortable effect, from fear of their being inadequate to sustain the weight of the envelop."

Though Roger Payne's career had not been successful, so far as he was personally concerned, it had the effect of benefiting the whole race of English bookbinders. A new stimulus had been given to the trade, and a new and chastened style introduced among the more talented artists of the metropolis. The unmeaning ornaments we have before alluded to were discarded, and a series of classical, geometrical, and highly-finished designs adopted. The contemporaries of Roger—Kalthoeber, Staggemier, Walther, Hering, Falkner, &c.—exerted themselves with a generous rivalry to execute the most approved bindings.

Mr. Mackenzie deserves to be mentioned with respect among modern binders. Charles Lewis, so highly eulogized by Mr. Dibdin, attained great celebrity, and his bindings are much prized. His style of ornament was very neat, the panels of the backs generally double-mitred, and the sides finished in a corresponding manner. Mr. Clarke deserves especial commendation; for tree-marbled calf he stands unrivalled, although Mr. Riviere has executed some beautiful specimens. Mr. Bedford also enjoys considerable reputation; but it is to Mr. Hayday that the leading position among the London artists is now generally assigned. His quaint old-fashioned morocco bindings are inimitable. Lady Willoughby's Diary has been extensively copied, but not equalled. His Bibles and Prayer Books are well forwarded; the edges are solidly gilt with gold of a very deep colour, while the finishing is rich and massive without being gaudy. A book in the library of J. W. King Eyton, Esq., bound by Hayday, is thus described:—

"The work is a large paper copy of the late Mr. Blakeway's 'Sheriffs of Shropshire,' in imperial folio, with the armorial bearings beautifully coloured. The binding is of blood-coloured morocco, extending an inch and a half all round the inside of the cover, on which is placed a bold but open border tooled in gold, forming a fine relief to the rest of the inside, which is in purple, elegantly worked all over in hexagons running into each other in the Venetian style. In each compartment is placed the lion rampant and fleur-de-lis alternately. The fly-leaves are of vellum, ornamented with two narrow gold lines, and the edges are tooled. The back consists of hexagons, inlaid with purple, containing the lion and fleur-de-lis aforesaid, but somewhat smaller than those in the interior. The design on the outside is a triumphal arch, occupying the entire side, highly enriched, with its cornices, mouldings, &c. executed in suitable small ornamental work; from its columns, (which are wreathed with laurel,) and other parts of the structure, are suspended the shields of the Sheriffs, seventy in number, the quarterings of which, with their frets, bends, &c., are curiously inlaid in different colours of morocco, and, with the ornamental parts of the bearings, have been blazoned with heraldic accuracy on both sides of the volume. When we state that more than 57,000 impressions of tools have been required to produce this wonderful exemplar of ingenuity and skill, some idea may be formed of the time and labour necessary for its execution."

This volume was finished by Thomas Hussey, who is now employed in Philadelphia, and who has in his possession the patterns executed upon the sides and back.

The French degenerated in binding from the time of Louis XIV. until they became far inferior to the English. This continued to the beginning of the present century; the books bound for the Emperor Napoleon, upon which no expense appears to have been spared, are clumsy, disjointed, and the tools coarse and unevenly worked. They were generally bound in red morocco, with morocco joints, lined with purple silk, upon which the imperial bee was stamped repeatedly. Thouvenin enjoys the honour of rescuing the art from its long-continued degradation in France, and of founding a school whose disciples are now acknowledged to rank with the great masters of the art. His tools and patterns were designed and cut by artists in his employ; his establishment was on a large scale; but at his death he left nothing behind him but his reputation as an artist, to stimulate others to attain excellence in workmanship and a cultivated taste in ornament and design. Among the most celebrated binders of the present day in France are, Trautz et Bauzonnet, NiÉdrÉ, Duru, CapÉ and Lortic. The books of these artists are distinguished for solidity, squareness, freedom of the joints, firmness of the heads and back, and extreme nicety of finish. The fore-edges are gilt with the round in them, giving them a solid rich appearance, as yet unequalled. The material employed is of the choicest kind,—soft, rich Levant morocco being the favourite covering for choice books. This leather, in the hands of an ordinary workman, would make a clumsy covering upon account of its great thickness; for it cannot be shaved down by a skin-dresser without destroying the natural grain of the leather, and, with it, its velvet-like richness and beauty; and yet, under the manipulations of these French artists, it becomes one of the most plastic of materials; rare volumes of the smallest dimensions, containing but one or two sheets, are not only covered on the exterior, but the interior of the boards, and even the joints are of Levant morocco. There are many specimens of binding executed in France for gentlemen of taste and lovers of the art in this country; and, in speaking of the productions of French artists, it is to these that we refer. As a binder, Lortic appears to be the least known; but he will probably become more so. CapÉ is rapidly growing into favour. Duru is celebrated for the excellence of his forwarding. In this respect he cannot be surpassed. The full morocco specimens that we have seen have generally been bound À la Janseniste, and were truly exemplars. In exterior gilding he is not so happy as some of his brethren. NiÉdrÉ possesses fine taste; his styles of finishing are varied and graceful in design, and the execution admirable. The reputation of Trautz et Bauzonnet has been established principally by the senior partner, Bauzonnet, Trautz being his son-in-law, and whose name has recently been placed at the head of the firm, perhaps to anticipate others in claiming to be the inheritors of the skill, and pupils of his father-in-law's school. Bauzonnet's bindings combine excellence in every department. They are specimens of the art in its highest state, being solid, firm, and square in every portion of the forwarding department. The covering, joints, and inside linings are matchless. The finishing may safely be pronounced perfection, so far as any thing produced by human agency can be. In style of finishing he generally confines himself to modifications of the Grolier, or to a broad border, composed of fine tools; and in the tooling the execution is faultless. Those who are accustomed to English bindings are apt to find fault with the firmness of his backs, as they do not throw out like English loose backs; but this subject of loose backs is but little understood; for, when it is known that what is generally esteemed an excellence is often but an indication of weakness,—that, in order to make the book throw out and lie open flat, the substance by which the sheets are secured together is a single strip of paper,—and that, where the band upon which the book is sewn can be plainly seen upon the opening of the volume, there is a strain upon it, the result of which must be its breakage, if in constant use, (a catastrophe that will never happen to one of Bauzonnet's books,)—the firm back will be preferred. In tracing the progress of the Art, and upon comparing the merits of artists of ancient and modern times, it is to the moderns that we assign the palm of superiority, especially for perfection of detail in the ornamentation.

^* "The antiquity of illuminated missals has been traced, conjecturally, even to the time of the apostles themselves. At the beginning of the Christian era, missive letters were usually written on tablets of wood, hollowed so as to present something of the appearance of a boy's slate in a frame. Two of these were placed face to face to preserve the writing, which was on wax, and a pair of boards thus prepared was called a Dyptich. The Epistles of St. Paul and the other apostles to the primitive churches were, in fact, missive letters despatched to their distant congregations; and there is every probability that imaginary or real portraits of the writers accompanied the letters, and headed the contents of the Christian dyptichs, in order to insure to them the same degree of reverence which was paid to the missives of the government when headed by the imperial effigies.

"The compact form of the dyptich suited the purposes of a movable altar-piece admirably. And the names dyptic or triptic, which implied at first but a double or triple page, came with time to designate those folding altarpieces so frequently found in the earliest Christian churches."—Lady Calcott's Essay.

^† Leland's Itin. vol. ii. p. 86, Oxford, 1769.]