Horace N. Pym

"To all their dated backs he turns you round:

These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound."

—Pope.

It is the present fashion to extol the old bookbinders at the expense of the living, and for collectors to give fabulous prices for a volume bound by De Thou, Geoffroy Tory, Philippe le Noir, the two Eves (Nicolas and Clovis), Le Gascon, Derome, and others.

Beautiful, rare, and interesting as their work is, I venture to say that we have modern bookbinders in England and France who can, and do, if you give them plenty of time and a free hand as to price, produce work as fine, as original, as closely thought out, as beautiful in design, material, and colour, as that of any of the great masters of the craft of olden days.

For perfectly simple work of the best kind, examine the bindings of the late Francis Bedford; and his name reminds me of a curious freak of the late Duke of Portland in relation to this art. He subscribed for all the ordinary newspapers and magazines of the day, and instead of consigning them to the waste-paper basket when read, had them whole bound in beautiful crushed morocco coats of many colours by the said Bedford; then he had perfectly fitting oaken boxes made, lined with white velvet, and fitted with a patent Bramah lock and duplicate keys, each box to hold one volume, the total cost of thus habiting this literary rubbish being about £40 a volume. Bedford kept a special staff of expert workmen upon this curious standing order until the Duke died. By his will he, unfortunately, made them heirlooms, otherwise they would have sold well as curiosities, many bibliophiles liking to have possessed a volume with so odd a history. Soon after the Duke's death I went over the well-known house in Cavendish Square with my kind friend Mr. Woods of King Street, and he showed me piles of these boxes, each containing its beautifully bound volume of uselessness.

But to return to our sheepskins. I would ask, where can you see finer workmanship than Mr. Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf puts into his enchanting covers? He once produced two lovely pieces of softly tanned, vellum-like leather of the purest white colour, and asked if I knew what they were. After some ineffectual guesses, he stated that the one with the somewhat coarser texture was a man's skin, and the finer specimen a woman's. The idea was disagreeable, and I declined to purchase or to have any volumes belonging to my simple shelves clothed in such garments.

An English bookbinder who made a name in his day was Hayday; he flourished (as the biographical dictionaries are fond of saying) in the beginning of the present reign. I possess Samuel Rogers' "Poems" and "Italy," in two quarto volumes, bound by him very charmingly. In this size Turner's drawings, which illustrate these two books, are shown to admiration, and alone galvanise these otherwise dreary works. Hayday was succeeded by one Mansell, who also did some good work; but I think domestic affliction beclouded his later years, and affected his business, as I have lost sight of him for some years.

Among other English bookbinders of the present day I would name Tout, whose simple, Quaker-like work, with Grolier tooling, is worth seeing. Mackenzie was, in his day, a good old Scotch binder; but the treasure I have personally found and introduced to many, is my excellent friend Mr. Birdsall of Northampton. His specialty is supposed to be in vellum bindings, which material he manipulates with a grace and finish very satisfactory to see. He can make the hinges of a vellum-bound book swing as easily as a friend's door. He spares no time, thought, or trouble in working out suitable designs for the books entrusted to his care. For instance, I possess Benjamin D'Israeli's German Grammar, used by him when a boy, and to bind it as he felt it deserved, he specially cast a brass stamp, with D'Israeli's crest, which, impressed adown the back and on the panels, correctly finishes this interesting memento. Then, again, when he had Beau Brummell's "Life" to work upon, he used dies representing a poppy, as an emblem flower, a money-bag, very empty, and a teasel, signifying the hanger-on: these show thought, as well as a pleasant fancy, and greatly add to the interest of the completed binding.

I have some work by M. Marius Michel, the great French binder, whose show-cases in the Faubourg-Saint-Germain, in Paris, were a treat to examine. He was kind enough to let me one fine day select and take therefrom two volumes of E. A. Poe's works translated and noted by Beaudelaire, beautifully clothed by him; and he, at the same visit, gave me an autograph copy of his "L'Ornamentation des Reliures Modernes," with which, when I returned to England, I asked Mr. Birdsall to do what he could. Set a binder to catch a binder, was in this case our motto, and Mr. Birdsall has, I think, fairly caught out his great rival, although I have not yet had an opportunity of taking M. Michel's opinion upon the Englishman's work.

One of the leading characteristics of the present day is its craze for work, unceasing work, work early and late, work done with a rush, destroying nerves, and rendering repose impossible. "Late taking rest and eating the bread of carefulness" do not go together, the bread being as a rule anything but carefully consumed. R. L. Stevenson somewhere says, "So long as you are a bit of a coward, and inflexible in money matters, you fulfil the whole duty of man," and perhaps this is the creed of the present race of over-workers. In the City of London we see this hasting to be rich brought to the perfection of a Fine Art (with a capital F and a capital A).

Charles Dickens, who always resolved the wit of every question into a nutshell, makes Eugene Wrayburn, in "Our Mutual Friend," strenuously object to being always urged forward in the path of energy.

"There's nothing like work," said Mr. Boffin; "look at the bees!"

"I beg your pardon," returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, "but will you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to the bees? ... I object on principle, as a two-footed creature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I have only one."...

"But," urged Mr. Boffin, "I said the bee, they work."

"Yes," returned Eugene disparagingly, "they work, but don't you think they overdo it? They work so much more than they need—they make so much more than they can eat—they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them—that don't you think they overdo it?"

Some time since I cut from the pages of the St. James' Gazette the following "Cynical Song of the City," which pleasantly sets forth the present craze for work, and again proves, like Dickens' bee, that we rather overdo it:—

Guests at Foxwold are given the opportunity, when black Monday arrives, of catching a most unearthly and uneasily early train, which involves their rising with anything but a lark, swallowing a hurried breakfast, a mounting into fiery untamed one-horse shays soon after eight, and then being puffed away through South-Eastern tunnels to the busy hum of those unduly busy men of whom we speak.

To catch this early train, which means that you "leave the warm precincts of your cheerful bed, nor cast one longing lingering look behind," some of our friends most justly object, preferring the early calm, the well-considered uprisal, the dawdled breakfast, and the ladies' train at the maturer hour of 10.30. Our dear friend, Mr. Anstey Guthrie, having firmly and most wisely declined the early train and any consequent worm, one very chilly morn, as the early risers were starting for the station, appeared at his chamber window awfully arrayed in white, and muttering with the fervour of another John Bradford, "There goes Anstey Guthrie—but for the grace of God," plunged back into his rapidly cooling couch, "and left the world to darkness and to us."