Early American Bookbinding (and kindred subjects) (illustrated) William Loring Andrew H-*. &/>?■ A Oct- /j**. Vol. XVI. No. i THE BOOKMAN AN ILLUSTRATED M A G A Z I X E OF LITERATURE AND LIFE CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER Chronicle and Comment Two Curious Facts ..... The Unspeakable Scot— Some Phases of Mr. W. T. H CroslancTs widely discussed Book (with portrait of Mr. Crosland) ...... Charles Paul de Kock — Portrait (see Article page 23) Carmen d' Assilva— A new Patisian literary Sensation (with portrait) ..... The late Elizabeth Drew Barstow Sioddard (with portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Henrv Stoddard) George Eliot — Similarity of the Plots of Adam Hede and Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of ^Midlothian (with illustration) Elizabeth Higgins — The author of Out of the West I A ilh portrait) . . . 1 Eden Phillpotts's Methods of Work — (with portrait and illustration 1 . . . . < ; Some Impressions of Richard Harding Davis — Ran 1 sou's Folly — Van Bibber— .Mr Davis's Heroes and 2 Heroines — His Humour — His Patriotic Kffects (with portrait 1 ..... 8-9-1 j 3 About Mrs. Wharton — Her Book Titles— The Valley of Decision. The Greater Inclination, The Touchstone. 4 (]> ncial Instances . . . . .11 St. Elmo and its Author — The wide popularity of St. t Elmo- lis Merits and us Absurdities— Mrs. Wilson's s other Books (with portrait of .Mrs. Wilson") 12 : ", .1 The Dumas Centenary — The exact date of Dumas's 6 Birth ....... 14 The Homing Bird (Poem) Some Humour of Some Humourists (illustrated) Charles Paul de Kock .... The Quest of Ann Achron— (Some Blurred Impressions of the Omnipresent) ....... Was Talleyrand Born in Mt. Desert, Maine? A New English Poet ... French Men of Letters in Caricature. The Second Empire Richard Bukion La Touche Hancock Beverly Stark Charlton Andrews Jane Marsh Pokier Joseph B. Gilder L. E. RoUSSILLON Annah Robinson Watson' Marguerite Merington Frederic Taber Cooper Edward W. Barnard Period (illustrated) .... A Vision (I'oem) ...... The Bases of the Drama. III. The Audience . Maeterlinck and the Forbidden Play A Ballade of the Reviewer (Poem) Four Books of Some Importance I. The Story of the Mormons II. Mr. Wilson's "The Spenders" III. Elizabeth Godfrey's "The Winding Road" IV. Mr. Harben's "Abner Daniel" Early American Bookbinding (and Kindred Subjects) (illustrated) William Loring Andrews The Confessions of a Vicarious Person . . Patience Croswell Shakespeare and the Metropolitan Stage .. Elizabeth McCracken Fuel of Fire. Chapters XIV., XV. and XVI. . . . Ellen Thorneycroet FowLtK The Book Mart. I. WOODBRIDGE RlLEY James L. Ford Walter Strong Edwards Carl Hovey Pastern Letter Western Letter Knglish Letter . 89 Books Received from July 10 to August 10 90 Sales of Books During the Month 91 The Best Selling Books 2b JO 42 4 = 4" ;6 93 00 Published Monthly Pkiul. Cen is Per Yeai Copyright, 1902. bv Dood. Mead & Company: * 41 1 rights reserved. Entered at the Post Office, New York, N. Y., as Second-ciass Mail Matter. EARLY AMERICAN BOOKBINDING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS. By William Loring Andrews. That bookbinding is an ancient, hon- ourable and aesthetic employment, will not be gainsaid by any intelligent student of industrial art, and yet it is only within the last quarter of a century that it has begun to receive the attention to which it is deemed entitled by that small but constantly recruited band of enthusiasts who delight in fine books fitly bound, and who for this and other idiosyncrasies in regard to books have been mercilessly satirised ever since the days of that iron- ical old scribe Sebastian Brant. Prior to this comparatively recent period, writ- ers, both here and abroad, taking their cue, it may be, from the crusty author of The Skip of Foolcs and his equally caustic translator, aider and abettor, Al- exander Barclay, Priest, appear to have regarded the topic as a trivial one, and of too little general interest to justify the expenditure upon it of even a modicum of their energies and talents ; but of late the times have vastly changed in this re- spect, and the art which is to so great an extent preservative of the art of print- ing — for without a binding the leaves of a book would speedily part company — has now a surfeit of notoriety. Those past-masters in bibliopegy — the Eves, Le Gascon, Padeloup Le Jeune and the vari- ous members of the numerous and tal- ented family of Deromes, would, T fancy, start in amazement from their long, dreamless sleep, could they hear the pae- ans now chanted in praise of the handicraft they carried to such perfec- tion, in their quiet eyries, aloft amid the cooing and circling of doves, under the eaves of the steep-pitched roofs of the old city of Paris. Few authors, little or great, since the days of that archetype of bibliophiles of loved and revered memory, Richard de Bury, have shown themselves possessed of a love of well-made books, or mani- fested any concern in regard to the man- ner in which their lucubrations were printed, bound and presented to the pub- lic gaze. Apparently, they regarded the matter with indifference, if not with a feeling akin to contempt — an altogether unnecessary painting of the fair lily of literature, which had budded and blos- somed under their fostering care. This attitude on their part must strike even the casual observer as being a rather short- sighted one, to say the least. Most writ- ers, I have been led by observation to conclude, are not free from a touch of egotism, and believe sincerely that "the thoughts that breathe and words that burn" which flow from the tips of their fluent pens, deserve, and will achieve, lasting fame. But how, pray, can they be transmitted to posterity, if printed upon paper that has latent within it the seeds of decay, and encased in machine- made bindings too unsubstantial to with- stand the gentlest usage for any pro- tracted length of time, much less the rough-and-readv treatment that is quite certain to be their future lot ; for few peo- ple know, or are solicitous to know, how to care properly for books and bestow Early American Bookbinding 57 upon them the zealous guardianship they require, in order to ensure them a ripe and serene old age. If the books of the ancients had been of as perishable a nature as are the major- ity of those the modern press puts forth, the perennial fountains from which we now draw the wisdom and learning of past ages would have ceased to flow at tbeir very sources, and we should have in lieu thereof, only the scanty and turbid rills of oral tradition and legendary lore. It is only too true that never since printing was invented has there been a time when books, as a rule, were in all respects, and not alone in the matter of binding, to so great an extent as they are to-day, the "larcenies from future ages" that Lesne, the poet bookbinder of the eighteenth century, declared poorly- bound books to be. For this state of things the typographers are responsible. A decline in the art of printing is inevitably followed by a de- cadence in the arts related thereto. A fine exterior presupposes a well-made book ; for, as has been well said : "The binding is the robe of honour in which we insert a noble book, and upon the binding we impress its external insignia, of rank and merit." The conclusion which forces itself upon the mind of every one inter- ested in the matter is this : that book- making in most of its branches, as prac- ticed with varying degrees of skill and taste for three centuries after the great invention of movable type, is to-day as completely a lost art as is that of Oiron pottery or the enamel of Limoges. Then a book was still a book, Where a wistful man might look, Finding something through the whole Beating — like a human soul. In that growth of day by day. When to labour was to pray, Surely something vital passed To the patient page at last. Something that one still perceives Vaguely present in the leaves, Something from the worker lent, Something mute — but eloquent. Truth and poetry are equally blended in these graceful lines of Austin Dobson ; and now let us read the words penned by that scholar and bibliophile, Richard Grant White, a quarter of a century ago, concerning the state of the arts of print- ing and bookbinding in this great, free and enlightened Republic : "When I say that the art of printing and of bookmaking in general has not advanced in New York, or even in the United States, within the last fifty years, I may expect a chorus of protests, in which I fear the voice of Henry Houghton, of the Riverside Press, may be heard. But I do say distinctly, and without reserve or qualification, that New York could and did produce a handsomer book fifty years ago than she does (whatever her ability) now, and I hold myself ready to prove this by an example before a jury of ex- perts in the art of bookmaking. This example is a copy of the Book of Com- mon Prayer, published in New York in the year 1819. The printing of it, both for accuracy and beauty, is admirable, and would compare advantageously with the best work of its period in England. The letter, the justification, the register, the ink and the presswork are of the best kind, and have a solidity and dignity of expression which command respect. The binding, which is in straight-grained crimson Morocco, is such as William Matthews need not be ashamed of, and such, indeed, as he himself puts only on the finest, specially ordered 'extra' work. The taste of the ornament would not have satisfied Count Grolier, but it is far better than that of the usual English work of its period, and the delicacy of the tooling, both the gilt and the dead work, and the exactness of the mitring are •quite equal to that of the most celebrated English binders of the time, superior, in- deed, to Roger Payne's. It might not unreasonably be supposed that such a book as this was printed and bound in England. Not so. It was stereotyped by D. and G. Bruce, New York, a well- known firm of that period, and it was printed by J. and J. Harper, a New York printing firm, tolerably well known at the present time, but then only of nascent fame. . . . Who was the binder I do not know, and I am sorry that I cannot give him credit for such a specimen of New York skill and taste at that period. It might be supposed that this copy was specially bound to order, which, however, if it were the case, would not affect the question of the skill and the taste of the 5» The Bookman period ; but it is not so. This copy is not only one of two exactly alike which were in mv father's pew in St. George's Church in Beekman Street, but I have seen other copies of it exactly like these in design and execution- although the work is not done with a stamp, but what is known as hand-tooling. This shows that the book was bound up for general sale in this style, and although it, of course, must have been very costly at that time, particularly as it is illustrated with line engravings, none the less it is like St. Paul's Church, the Old City Hall and the statue of Hamilton, a witness to the taste and culture of New York, and the skill of her artisans fifty years and more ago." This is warm praise and sharp criti- cism, and will no doubt be met with a smile of incredulity by our modern bookmakers, but the bibliophile will en- dorse every word of it, save, I trust, the statement that the binding on this Book of Common Prayer is superior to any produced by Roger Payne. I would not name them in quite the same breath, for one is the work of a master, whose style of decoration, as William Matthews has truthfully said, was strikingly his own, the other that of a pupil and imitator. Furthermore, the paper used in the book so highly extolled by Mr. White must have contained that deleterious ingredi- ent which proved the bane of so much of the paper manufactured at that period, both here and in England, and caused it, in process of time, to "fox" and turn a dirty brown in spots ; but Mr. White probably was not aware of this imper- fection when he wrote his spicy comment and threw down his gauntlet to the book- makers of New York. We are more fortunate than the Shake- sperian commentator in that we have be- fore us two copies of this Book of Com- mon Prayer bound in the style that he de- scribes, one of which, an heirloom in the family of Mr. Beverly Chew, contains the binder's ticket, H. I. Megary, a New York stationer, printer and publisher in the early part of the last century whose name is well and favourably known to collectors of engraved pictures of the City of New York. The other copy, belong- ing to Mr. Bowen W. Pierson, is in the same style, and the same tools were em- ployed in the decoration, but were worked after a different design. The let- tering on the back is in Gothic type, a character we would not he surprised to find employed upon the back of a black- letter "fifteener," but its use on a modern book is quite exceptional. The artistic binding and exterior deco- ration of books, so long a neglected study, may be said without exaggeration to have latterly become a rage. Annual ex- hibitions of richly-decorated bindings are conspicuous features of our Metropolitan book-shops, and treatises more or less erudite upon the art of bookbinding, fol- low one another in rapid succession from a press whose watchful pilots are ever closely scanning the literary horizon, and stand prepared to trim their sails hourly, if need be, in order to catch the shifting winds of capricious popular fancy. Thus the pendulum swings to and fro, and we vibrate from one extreme to the other in our tastes and temporarily ruling pas- sions. The Bibliography of Books upon Bookbinding, published in 1893 by Miss S. T. Prideaux, herself a successful prac- tical exponent of the art, embraces four hundred and seventy-five titles. In the years that have elapsed since, additional works by the score have made their ap- pearance, many of which are little more than compilations from the writings of previous authors. A small proportion (such as essays by those whose own trained and skilful hands have produced fine examples of bookbinding) has made us, no doubt, more conversant with the technical methods and the mysteries of the craft, but from an historical point of view the subject was exhausted long ago. We have been told with tiresome repeti- tion of the books "so fairly bound" which graced the famous libraries of those mu- nificent patrons of the arts, Maoli, Gro- lier, Canevari, De Thou and those "light and airy ladies" of fastidious taste in books and bindings, Margaret of Valois and Diana of Poictiers ; of the books elab- orately tooled and richly painted for the kings, queens, princes, prelates and statesmen of Italy, France and England, which long since were allotted their rightful place among the priceless art treasures of the world ; of the Eves, Gas- cons, Padeloups. Monniers, Deromes, Capes, Trautz-Bauzonnets, Chambolle- Durus and Cuzins : the Mearnes, Roger Paynes, Lewises and Bedfords : the Early American Bookbinding 59 French tinselled and silk-embroidered bindings, and those deftly fashioned and patiently wrought by the pious hands of the nuns of Little Gidding, but few and faint are the whisperings that fall upon our listening ears, concerning bibliopegy on this side of the broad and boisterous Atlantic. In the report of a French delegation of artisans to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition* sixteen pages are allotted to a description of the American bindings there displayed, which were, however, largely composed of the commercial bind- ings of the time, and the heavily stamped and floridly gilded outward covers of the pictorial histories, and huge illus- trated family Bibles which were the pride of our forbears, and lent an air of distinction to the parlor centre table in all well-to-do and well-regulated house- holds. Mr. Brander Matthews, in his Bookbindings Old and New, descants at some length upon modern bookbind- ing in the United States, and we find here and there in other publications* curt paragraphs of a disparaging tenor, similar to the following, which we quote from Octave Uzanne's La Rclinre Moderne; but in respect to the practice of 'an art in this country, prior to the days of William Matthews, the silence is, we repeat, well- nigh profound. "L'Amerique [writes M. Uzanne] se rejouit de posseder Matthews, que les New Yorkais considerent comme un demi-Dieu et qu'ils inondent de centaines de dollars, lorsque celui-ci daigne, des ses propres mains, revetir une belle edition de brown or red maroco. Matthews a cree un genre d'ornamentation ; e'est un original, et ses reliures peuvent hardi- ment se comparer a celles de MM. Mar- ius-Michel, sauf peutetre ce (je ne sais quoi) qui tient la grace franchise et qui ne saurait passer les mers sans y perdre son caractere." Have a care, Monsieur Uzanne. Evi- dently some one has been imposing upon your credulity, for I can and do here tes- *Ext>osition Universelle de Philadclphic, 18/6. Delegation Ouvriere de Libres Relicurs. Paris, 1879. *L'Art dans la Decoration Exterieure des Livres en France et a I'Etranger, Paris, 1898, devotes a page and a half in a book of 275 pages to American bindings, and mentions the names of Matthews, Bradstreet, The Club Bindery, Smith and Stickerman (Stikeman). tify of my own knowledge that Mr. Mat- thews's charges for his finest bindings were moderate in the extreme. They were done, be it understood, for friend- ship's sake and not for gain, and Mr. Matthews would not, I am quite certain, have undertaken the elaborate binding of a book for any and every one, no matter how many "centaines de dollars" might be cast at his feet. The frank in matters of art is suf- ficient unto himself. As for bookbind- ers, he believes in his heart of hearts that there never were nor will be any outside of his own beautiful and adored city of Paris, worthy of the name. That the Parisian bookbinders stand, and always have stood, in the front rank of their pro- fession, no bibliophile the world over will deny. But is not variety the spice of life? The gastronome, if restricted to a single article of diet for a length of time, finds that it palls upon his palate, even though the dish be concocted with all the culinary skill of a Careme or a Vatel. We of the Anglo-Saxon race — more catholic, if less refined, in our tastes, than the perhaps hyper-aesthetic descendants of, the ancient Gauls, enjoy the lesser art achievements of other nations, in which the French dilettante manifests little or no concern, simply because they are not the products of the skill and genius of his own countrymen. Apologetical of this indifference and neglect on the part of our own, as well as European writers, upon bibliopegy, the undeniable fact may be adduced that our bookbinders had not, until the last thirty or forty years (except for a brief period immediately after the close of the Revolu- tionary War, which ended as unaccount- ably and precipitately as it began), shown themselves able to produce work that could be pronounced artistic. A sur- vey of the art as it flourished in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries leads us through the winding paths of a well-ordered garden, bright with the variegated colours, and redolent with the fragrance of lovinglv and pa- tiently nurtured flowers ; whereas, a study of bibliopegy, as it was haltingly and laboriously developed in this coun- try during the corresponding period, con- ducts us for most of the tiresome way over a field of brown and withered win- ter stubble. For many years the bindery 6o The Bookman in the United States remained a sub- sidiary but necessary adjunct to the print- ing house, and nothing more. It re- quired a generation of book-lovers and collectors, and the imperative demand thereby created, to establish artistic bib- liopegy in our midst as a separate and distinct occupation. But books have been bound by our native workmen after one fashion or another, and better, on the whole, than might have been expected, for the past two centuries and a half, and the story of the craft from its humble be- ginnings in New England in the seven- teenth century to modern times should not be devoid of interest to the American bibliophile, if to no other, and he assur- edly is the one to be reckoned with in the immediate future of book-collecting, for he happens, just now, to be the possessor of the best-lined purse, and by virtue thereof, master of the situation. In the quiet sanctuary of the soon-to- be-evicted Lenox Library, where repose in peace for yet a little season so many rare and priceless manuscripts and printed books, drawn thither by its founder from the scriptoriums and presses of both the old and new worlds, there is a copy of The Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, printed in 165 1 by Samuel Green, the successor of Stephen Dave, New England's first typographer. This little volume — only 2^x4^ inches in size — of about 400 pages, is known as the Third Edition of the Bay Psalm Book. It is of greater rarity (for this, I under- stand, is the only copy of it known) than its predecessor and namesake, which en- joys the distinction of being the first book printed in British North America; but it is hardly necessary to add that it does not approach it in money value. It came from Mr. Charles H. Kalbileisch's re- markable collection, whom it is said to have cost one thousand dollars, and was presented to the library by Mr. Alexan- der Maitland. It is well and stoutly bound in brown calf, the covers held to- gether by leathern and brass clasps, the only attempt at ornamentation being a narrow gold line traced around the bor- ders of each side, a small centre orna- ment and the initials F. B. If it is, as we presume, the original binding, it is one of the earliest examples extant of bookbinding executed in the province of Massachusetts, and consequently in this part of North America, for the old Bay State may pride itself upon having been the cradle of bibliopegy, as well as of typography, in the new and unsettled land of our forefathers. This edition of the Psalms turned into metre is known as the "Bay Psalm Book Improved." The nature of the re- vision which the first issue of this noted book underwent, will be seen by the par- allels we have drawn below of the first, second and sixth stanzas of the First Psalm, in the two editions : THE BAY PSALMS. 1640. 1 O, Blessed man, that in th' advice of wicked doeth not walk ; nor stand in sinners' way, nor sit in chayre of scornfnll folk. 2 But in the law of Jeho- vah, is his longing de- light: and in his law doth meditate by day and eke by night. 6 For the righteous men the Lord acknowledgeth the way : but the way of un- godly men, shall utterly decay. THE BAY PSALM BOOK IMPROVED. 1651. 1 O blessed man yt walks not in th' advice of wicked mem Nor stadeth in ye sin- ers' way nor scorners seat sits in. But he upo Jehovah's law doth set his whole delight; And in his law doth meditate both in the day & night. For of the righteous men the LORD acknowledgeth the way Whereas the way of wicked men shall utterly decay. The Bay Psalm Book passed through many editions without further altera- tions, until it was revised in 1758 by the devout and learned theologian, Rev. Thomas Prince. The copy of this edi- tion in the Lenox Library is probably in its original morocco binding, for the same tooling precisely appears upon a more ordinary copy of the book, bound in dark-brown calf of which the same li- brary is the owner. Special care was doubtless taken with this particular book, mmmi**~+* mm Early American Bookbinding 61 as it was a presentation copy from the reverend author to "The Honourable Thomas Huchinson, Esq., Lieut. Govr., &c, of The Province of the Massachu- setts Bay in NE," but whether it was bound in England or this country is a question the writer admits his inability to answer. A full account of the Bay Psalm Book and of the numerous American, English early colonial newspapers contain, almost without exception, advertisements an- nouncing the preparedness of the printers and publishers thereof to undertake the binding of books. These paragraphs re- cur as constantly as do the now seem- ingly shameful proclamations of rewards offered for the return of runaway slaves and notices of slaves for sale which, with news from Europe three to six months * '.'*>»? *>/rt l . 7iO/t/r>: &rt'&ii y <>?ra*Agrnf-<0. 'W/?? wyvfft'ir ?', '/./ '(ftien -> binding for himself as formerly, and lives in Dukes St. (commonly called Bayard St. ) near the Old-Slip Market; (New York) where all Persons in Town or Country may have their Books carefully and neatly new Bound either Plain or Gilt reasonable." In Samuel Willard's Body of Divinity (folio), Boston, 1726, one of the contro- versial writings of which the literature of Puritan New England so largely con- sisted, we have an example of American bookmaking from start to finish.* It is *A Compleat Body of Divinity, etc.. by the Reverend and Learned Samuel Willard, M.A., a large folio — one of the first books of its size printed in New England — bound in foxy brown sheepskin with panelled sides, and so far as the makers were able to accomplish that result, it is a counter- part of cotemporaneous English binding. We copied as best we could, and I fear without proper acknowledgment, both the exteriors and the interiors of the pop- ular English books of the day. As one out of many instances of this practice that might be supplied, we reproduce on a re- Boston, in New England. Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Hench- man, and sold at their shops. MDCCXXVI. BINDING OF THE THIRD EDITION OF THE BAY PSALM BOOK. The Bookman 4— -MTWto duced scale one of the plates in a London (1794) edition of a little work on the Newtonian system of philosophy, and one from a reprint of it published in Phil- adelphia in 1803. The latter is illus- trated with exact reproductions of the en- gravings in the London edition, except that the plates are reversed and enlarged as shown on pages 48 and 49. These copies were engraved by William Rollin- son, an artist who enjoyed the unique dis- tinction of having chased the buttons upon the coat worn by Washington at his first inauguration as President of the United States in Federal Hall, New York. Rollinson's descendants are still engaged in the business of copper-plate engraving in this city. Isaiah Thomas, whose position as the foremost and most prolific ( it is said that at one time he had sixteen presses in use and owned eight book-stores) of New England's eighteenth century printers, is now clearly recognised, was author, an- tiquarian, typographer, paper manufac- turer, bookbinder and bookseller all in one. Of which of the disciples of Guten- berg of the present day can all this be said ? That Thomas was also a born bib- liophile will. I think, appear by what I shall presently relate. The proclivity, amounting at times to a mania, of the ordinary bookbinder to plough ruthlessly through the leaves of a book, even though the process involves the snipping away of the entire margin and occasionally of a portion of the au- thor's text, is so well known to the fra- ternity of book-collectors as to have be- come proverbial. Listen to friend Thomas's timely word of caution upon this vital point ! "The Directions to the Binder" in the Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems by Charlotte Smith., published by Thomas at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1795. contain, in addition to careful instruc- tions for the placing of the plates, this admonition to the binder: "Cut the Book As Large Each Way As It will Bear." These "directions" of old Father Isa- iah, with the addition of a short post- script to the effect, "Avoid Whenever Possible Any Use of the Knife," might well be engrossed in capital letters and hung upon the wall of every book- binder's shop in the land. This biblio- pegistic principle should be impressed with emphasis upon the mind of every apprentice to the art of bookbinding as one of the axioms of his craft. I HIH1HH1 ^^IHH ./y/,//.,„s,Y*„,/,/,„ /y Early American Bookbinding 65 Thomas states in his "advertisement" that the paper upon which the Elegiac Sonnets of Charlotte Smith is printed "is a new business in America, and but late- ly introduced into Great Britain; it is the first manufactured by the editor." He further informs us that the plates were executed, not by European engravers books in a variety of styles pursuant to the notice he inserted at the foot of the green paper covers, in which the monthly parts of the Royal American Magazine, edited and published by him and Joseph Greenleaf, were issued, to wit : "Book- binding performed in all its branches with great care and cheap." C^we^/ih- fe///*>. />3 "faff /C* <'ne/i* 19t0r&0C0. rryxnA 'i«J. / who settled in the United States, but by an artist who obtained his knowledge in this country. The book, therefore, is throughout of purely domestic manu- facture. This eminent Boston and Worcester printer, the founder, president and bene- factor of the American Antiquarian Society (for which he erected a build- ing at Worcester, 'Massachusetts), bound Thomas's chap-books, such as The Devil and Dr. Faustus, were covered with a coarse and substantial brown canvas — a coat of buckram — than which, says An- drew Lang, there is nothing cheaper, neater or more durable. The numerous children's books, Little Goody Two Shoes, The Juvenile Biographer, and the like, which, issued from the Columbian, as Thomas named his press, were clad in 66 The Bookman gay coats of gilt and brilliantly tinted papers, with intent to delight the eyes and conjure the pennies from the pock- ets of our grandparents when they were yet in their knickerbockers and short frocks. worse for wear. I have not been able to identify Thomas's more elaborate bind- ings, if any such have survived to our time. The German is nothing if not conserv- Scsan^ lint eh The plain leather bindings of Isaiah Thomas are, I judge, represented by the one shown in our plate, which covers a copy of The Psalms of David, To- gether with Hymns and Spiritual Songs, with Indexes, and Tables complete by Isaac Watts, D.D., Tsaiali Thomas, Wor- cester, 1786. Tt is of sheepskin over oak boards, the former now decidedly the ative, and his racial characteristics are slowly modified by new environments. Consequently, we are prepared for the Teutonic plainness and solidity of the brass-knobbed calf binding, with its brass-tipped leather clasps, which covers, as with a coat of mail, the Gcsang Bitch, printed at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1762, by Christopher Saner, 2d, for the L Early American Bookbinding t>7 spiritual comfort of his Danker Breth- ren, in their vernacular tongue, and the black-letter type of 'their Fatherland. The sides have a panel in dumb* or blind tooling, which is a modest attempt at decoration, but the book now stands in need of none, for the rich mahogany col- our and glossy surface which the leather has acquired through careful reverent touch, and its strong and honest con- struction inspires one with a feeling of respect for both the book and its maker. It has been said that the history of mu- sic in New England for the first two cen- turies is the history of Psalmody alone. It might be asserted with equal truth that the history of bookbinding in this coun- ©hr psalms of £>atto /)rr,/r /A,, //.i. . use, and the alchemy of time, make full amends for all other deficiencies. This sombre-looking volume, from the hands of the pre-Revolutionary typographer, is indeed a very pleasant thing to sight and *"This is an ornamental operation applied after the book has been polished. It is exe- cuted in the same way and with the same tools as for gilding, but without any gold applied on the places thus ornamented." — Arnctt's "Bib- liopegia." try in colonial days brings us in contact with little besides books of a religious character. Bibles, psalm and prayer- books, and theological works almost mo- nopolised the time and services of the printer. As we turn from this book of sacred songs, printed by Christopher Saner, the next volume that falls under our notice is the Book of Books, namely, the English version of the Sacred Writ- ings, printed by Robert Aitkin in 1782. 68 The Bookman Robert Aitkin, best known perhaps, as the publisher of the Pennsylvania Maga- zine, which began and ended its journal- Edinburgh. He came to Philadelphia in 1769 as a bookseller ; returned to Scotland the same year, but came back to this B*Tili;i)W«<'llHIIIBMIUHlMIBIMU1BU^^ ^W'-'i«W!ii:i!IH!lilW^ Frontispiece to Major Robert Donkiris Military Collections and Remarks New York, 1777 istic career during that critical period in our national life, the years 1775 and 1776, was born, we are told by Isaiah Thomas, at Dalkeith, Scotland, and served a reg- ular apprenticeship with a book-binder in country in 1771 and followed the busi- ness of bookselling and bookbinding both before and after the Revolutionary War. In 1774 he became a printer, and in 1781-82 printed, at a very considerable Early American Bookbinding 69 pecuniary loss, upon a poor quality of pa- per manufactured in the State of Penn- sylvania, an edition in small octavo of The Holy Bible, which is claimed and gener- ally conceded to be the first version of the Scriptures in English published in this country ; but in Isaiah Thomas's ac- count, in his History of Printing, of the Boston printers, Kneeland and Green, we find the following statement (Vol. I, p. 305^: "The booksellers of this time were en- terprising. Kneeland and Green printed, principally for Daniel Henchman, an edi- tion of the Bible in small 4to. This was the first Bible printed in the English lan- guage in America. It was carried through the press as privately as possible, and had the London imprint of the copy from which it was reprinted, viz. : 'Lon- don. Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty,' in order to prevent a prosecution from those in England and Scotland, who pub- lished the Bible by a patent from the Crown ; or cum privilegio, as did the English universities of Oxford and Cam- bridge. When I was an apprentice I often heard those who had assisted at the case and press in printing this Bible make mention of the fact. The late Gov- ernor Hancock was related to Henchman, and knew the particulars of the transac- tion. He possessed a copy of this im- pression. As it has a London imprint, at this day it can be distinguished from an English edition of the same date only by those who are acquainted with the niceties of typography. This Bible is- sued from the press about the time that the partnership of Kneeland and Green expired. The edition was not large. I have been informed that it did not exceed seven or eight hundred copies." This story is doubted by Bancroft and other historians, but Thomas was an au- thor of more than ordinary accuracy and reliability, and some there are who, hav- ing investigated the matter, are inclined to the belief that an edition of the Bible was surreptitiously printed by Kneeland and Green as Thomas relates. Two copies of the first volume of the Aitkin Bible are preserved in the Lenox Library. One is bound in smooth red, the other in olive morocco ; the back of the latter being tooled in a style faintly suggestive of the lace-like pattern char- acteristic of the bindings of the great French bibliopegist, Padeloup Le Jeune. The back of the copy in red morocco is decorated with a design similar in char- acter to that upon the sides of the copy of ll'atts's Hymns and Spiritual Songs, to which we shall shortly refer. These bindings are unsigned, but it may be pre- sumed that they represent Aitkin's skill in the dual capacity of printer and book- binder. Another of the books in the Lenox Li- brary, the binding upon which might at a venture be taken to illustrate a minor phase of our subject, is a copy of Major Donkin's Military Collections, printed by Hugh Gaine, New York, 1777. It is an octavo bound in red skiver (split sheep- skin), without the slightest attempt at or- namentation ; but aside from the binding the book is interesting for its allegorical frontispiece, said to represent Hugh, Earl Percy, being rewarded by Britannia, with Major Donkin seated at a table (Donkin was a major in the British army serving in America in 1777), engraved by J. Smither, an artist whom Dunlap asserts occupied a unique position in the arts of his time. He was, writes the author of the History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, originally a gun engraver, and employed in the Tower of London. He came to Philadelphia in 1773 and undertook all kinds of engraving. He probably stood high in public opinion ; he was the best, for he stood alone. We do not clearly comprehend this singular assertion, for certainly there were others, such as Doo- little, Hill, Turner and Trenchard, among Smither's contemporaries whose engravings appear to us to equal, if not to excel, his work. (To be concluded.) EARLY AMERICAN BOOKBINDING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS. By William Loring Andrews. {Concluded. ) If this book of Major Donkin was bound by the- printer of it, as may possi- bly be the case, we have here an example of Hugh Gaine's plain morocco binding, and perchance we may also attribute to him the binding, in olive morocco gilt, on the Book of Common Prayer, Hugh Gaine, Printer, at the Sign of the Bible in Hanover Square, New York, 1793, in the possession of Mr. Beverly Chew. This edition, which was published by di- rection of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the same printer, fol- lowed, two years later, by one in large folio, for use at the lectern of the Church. It is printed in bold, clear type, and hand- somely bound in mottled and sprinkled calf. It is probably as fine a piece of typography as ever issued from the press of the "turn-coat" printer, who was de- servedly made to say in a poetical version of his petition at the close of the Revolu- tionary War, And I always adhere lo the sword that is longest And stick to the parly that's like to be strongest. If Gaine's political principles and rule of action had been as sound as the printing of this folio Book of Common Prayer, he would have left a less unsavory memory. A copy of this noble Episcopal Church Service bonk presented by the Scotch merchant, Robert Lenox, "to his most re- spected friend, James Sheafe," in 1812, may be seen in the library founded and endowed by his Presbyterian book-loving and philanthropic son. Among the countless hymn books which have voiced the faith, trust and hope of English-speaking Christians for ages past is a small octavo, printed in Ed- inburgh in 1776 which bears the follow- ing title : HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS IN THREE BOOKS. I. Collected from the Scriptures. II. Composed on Divine Subjects. III. Prepared for the Lord's Supper. The binding on the copy of this hymnal, which lies before us, might readily be at- tributed to an English binder, and the dark crimson morocco in which it is en- cased was undoubtedly an imported arti- cle, as also must have been the binder's tools employed in its decoration. Its native workmanship is, however, estab- lished by the inscription upon the fly-leaf, which certifies that this was "Hannah Boudinot's book, bound and gilt at Tren- ton, 1785." It is to be regretted that the artisan who, at this early period, was able to pro- duce a binding of so creditable a charac- ter remains unknown. He left his work unsigned, but this is as we might ex- pect, for the bibliopegists of all times have been a modest race of men, quite content apparently to quietly pursue their calling and "wake up each morning to still find themselves obscure." The dam- Early American Bookbinding 165 ask, velvet and pigskin bindings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were frequently stamped with the initials or trade-marks of the binder or gilder, but the names which either rightfully or wrongfully we have connected with the In the same class and order of merit as the binding upon Hannah Boudinofs Hymn Book, but of a different style of decoration, is the one upon a thick paper copy of The Federalist* in the Lenox Li- brary, printed and bound, as the ticket _-/ */r/ */- tive, and many articles for the Polyanthus and other Journals. — Dec. .3, 1876." Copy of manuscript note inserted in the book. graved by Maverick. * after a painting by William Dunlap, which, as a manuscript note in the volume states, comprises five portraits, the persons being dressed as in the scene, viz., Mr. Wignell. as Brother Jonathan ; Mr. Henry, as Colonel Manly ; Mr. Hallam, as Dimple; Mr. Morris, as Van Rough : and Mrs. Morris, as Char- lotte. The American Latin Grammar, or a compleat Introduction to the Latin Tongue, which is shown in our illustra- tion, is undoubtedly in its original boards, which are, as may be seen, as per- fect, sound and true as when first ap- plied ; and they have had to withstand the exceptionally hard usage which falls to the lot of school and text-books. These oaken boards continued in general use by binders down to the close of the eigh- teenth century, and for some time after- ward, were not altogether superseded by the cardboards now universally em- ployed. The manner in which these thin veneers of wood have retained their shape is quite remarkable. They have neither warped nor cracked through all these years, and have successfully defied alike the cold and dampness of the mouldy cellars and the heat of the sun- scorched garrets into which they were flung to neglect. Moreover, they have proved a somewhat better barrier than their pasteboard successors to the ravages of the book-worm ; for are we not told *This must. I judge, have been Peter R. Maverick, the first of that noted family of en- gravers and copper-plate printers. that the Ptinida? generally are not borers of wood? the chief mischief-maker m this material being that minute insect to which entomologists have given the alto- o-ether disproportionate name of Hypoth- %,emus eruditus Westwood, or the Hy- pothenemus hispedus, as it is described bv Dr Le Conte in Trans. Amer. Entom. S'oc, t868, p. 156— Satis verborutn! "The Columbian Harmonist, A Choice Collection of New Psalm Times of American Composition," by Daniel Read, New Haven, Connecticut, 1793. which lies before us, is clad in its original home- ly, but what has proved to be a fairly serviceable, coat of brown sheepskin. It makes no bibliopegistic pretensions what- ever, and simplv represents the rank and file of the bindings of the day. This quaint old Psalm Singer, which belongs to an age when the "singing of psalms was an act of devotion and not an amuse- ment among the people," "sings of simple pieties," and is as plain and unadorned within as without; but doubtless the voung men of the village church choir rbiMtipi ■ Early American Bookbinding 169 lifted up their voices as lustily in "Old Hundredth," and the rustic maidens, their fair associates, chanted the Easter Anthem as sweetly, from the coarsely engraved score of this brown and bat- tered Harmonist as if it had been cut on copper by a master hand, adorned with a frontispiece by Hogarth, and bound in French gros-grained bright red morocco, elegantly ornamented like unto the binding here displayed, which Fran- hand already made willing captives by the dare-devil Brom Van Brunt. By the close of the eighteenth century it is evident that the arts of printing and bookbinding had come to a parting of the ways, and that the bindery, sanguine of its ability to walk alone, had begun to take upon itself the risks and responsi- bilities of a separate establishment. The New York Citv Directories of the closing cis Bedford placed, at a cost of nine guineas, upon another book of soulful melody, to wit, Mr. Leveridge's Collec- tion of Songs with the Mustek, London, 1727. It must have been from a coun- terpart of this Introduction to Psalmody, by Mr. Read, "fitly calculated for the use of Singing-Schools," that the lank, long- shanked schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, instructed the sweet and buxom Ka- trina in the divine art of music whilst he was laying fruitless siege to the heart and vcars of the eighteenth century, contain the names of a number of individuals, among them the following, who style themselves simply bookbinders, although some of them were also stationers and printers ; John Black. 20 Little Queen (Cedar) Street. Alexander Christie. 15 Cliff Street. Charles Cliland. 15 Madison Street. Peter Kirby. 44 Crown (Liberty) Street. Robert Macgill, 212 Water Street. 170 The Bookman John Reed. 17 Water Street. Edward Wier, 52 Maiden Lane. Robert Hodge. 38 Maiden Lane. Benjamin Gomez, 32 Maiden Lane. The advertisement of the last-named in the New York Journal & Patriotic Regis- ter for the year 1791 reads as follows: Book-binding carried on with neatness and dispatch. Orders from the country will be carefully attended to. That the typographers were, however, disinclined to abandon the field to special- ists in bibliopegy is shown by this adver- tisement, clipped from the New York Journal for December 21, 1791 : Binding. Gilding & Blank-book Ruling Per- formed in the neatest manner, and with the utmost expedition at Greenleaf's, No. 196 Water St. Tn order to give the most ample satisfacton to his customers in his general business, as binding is closely allied with printing, Mr. Greenleaf has engaged a complete binder, gilder, and ruler at an extraordinary salary. and will engage that every one who may be pleased to employ him shall be satisfied, or no pay; and that all the work which may be done shall be charged quite as low as the current prices. . . . N. B. — A few well-dressed calf skins for sale. Wanted, several hundred Sheep Skins. These establishments were probably able to produce litte beyond the mercan- tile bindings upon blank books, or work of a simple character, although some of the handsome bindings which, as we have seen, the binders of the time were capable of executing may have issued therefrom. Who knows? Admitting, however, that the chances are that these men plied their tools with little skill, all the same we are L^lad to recognize them as members in g 1 and regular standing of the Guild of Bookbinders. Little Brothers of the Honourable Order of the (due-Pot and Pack Thread, we salute you ! An earnest and creditable attempt to improve the arts employed in the produc- tion of books was made during the few short years of its existence by the Amer- ican Company of Book-Sellers,* an asso- ciation of book-sellers in New York. Philadelphia and Boston, founded in 1801 and dissolved in 1805. Annual fairs were held by this organization in Xew York City, Philadelphia and Newark, X. J., at which premiums were offered for the best examples of paper, printing, ink, typography and bookbinding. In 1805 a gold medal of the value of $50 was awarded to one William Swain of New *See Book-Trade Bibliographv in the United States in the XlXth Century. By A. Growoll. Xew York. 1898. Early American Bookbinding 171 York for the best specimen of binding executed in American leather. Mr. Swain, so far as I am aware, left no mark of identification upon his handiwork, so that we snail never know how meritori- ous were the bindings that sufficed to win for him, in the early dawn of the nine- teenth century, this bibliopegic prize. Books which contain the ticket of an American binder are so few and far be- tween that I am disposed to make a note of even the unimportant example of the art of bookbinding, to which is affixed the following label : BOUND AT I'VRSON'S BINDERY, Where binding is executed in its various branches. PATENT RULING Done in the neatest manner. HUDSON", x. v. This little duodecimo Book of Psalms, printed in 1805, is bound in dark red mo- rocco, gilt edges, with a simple decora- tion upon the back, which is sufficient. however, to lift it out of the grade of commercial bindings, and prove that Air. Parsons was not a mere cobbler of books. More, however, of an adept at his craft was one Benjamin Olds, as is demon- strated by the binding in red morocco gilt on a copy of the By-Laz^s and Rules of the Society of the Cincinnati, Trenton, 1808, in which a modest little label one- quarter the size of the following appears : BENJAMIN OLDS BOOK-BINDER & STATIONER SIGN OF THE BIBLE NEWARK One of the most ornate signed bindings of this period which has come to my no- tice is one upon the presentation copy from the city of Xew York to Robert Lenox of Colden's Memoirs of the Erie Canal Celebration, Xew York. 1825. It is bound in red straight-grained morocco, with wide rolled bands, partly blind- tooled and partly gilt. The panel back is elaborately tooled, and at the foot is the signature of the binders, Wilson & Nichols, whose names appear in Long- I 72 The Bookman ivorth's New York City Directory for 1826-j, as engaged in business at Pine Street, corner of Broadway. The same directory contains the name of William Walker, 32 Eldridge Street, at whose bindery, or that of his sons, removed to Fulton Street, the writer remembers to lishment the reputation it enjoyed as a bindery. I regret that I cannot give the names of the binders of the little three- volume Herodotus, New York. 1828. which recently fell into my hands, and have had some of his earliest bindings executed. No examples of their skill, or rather the lack of it. are, however, now in my possession. It was a heavy and in- artistic binding, only one remove — namely, that of the substitution of calf- skin or morocco for Russia leather — from the bindings in which the firm en- cased the heavy clay-books, journals and ledgers which, I judge, constituted their principal business, and won for the estab- the copy of The Minstrel and Other Poems, by B. A. Eaton, Boston, 1833, be- longing to Mr. Beverly Chew, for they are at least an approach to the bindings which the collector accepts and places on his shelves because they are examples, if not elaborate ones, of bookbinding prac- tised as an art, and not as a trade. The design on The Minstel is surprisingly Al- dirie in character, and cleanly tooled. Only bindings, in part at least, tooled by Early American Bookbinding '73 hand rank as artistic in a bibliophile's es- timation, i.e., those bindings the decora- tion upon which is first designed and drawn upon paper, then transferred to the leather and worked out either with small tools or by these in combination with rolls, fillets and panel blocks. It is not intended, however, by this statement to convey the impression that a stamped binding is entirely devoid of artistic qual- ity. In the production of a stamped bind- ing taste in design, as well as a high de- gree of mechanical skill and accuracy, may be displayed. The brass die which impresses the design must be made by the process known in the printing of engrav- ings as overlaying,* to operate upon a perfectly plane surface, otherwise the im- pression in the leather will he of uneven depth, to the absolute ruin of the design. The registry must also he exact, for an impression must first be taken in dumb, or blind, tooling, the same as in hand work. The gold leaf is then applied, and the hook again subjected to the heavy heated press. The hack, if decorated when on the book, must be tooled by hand. A stamped hack, in either cloth or leather, generally indicates that the cover is simply a machine-made case, at- tached to the book with glue after the leaves have been sewn together; but the leather may be stamped with the design before it is applied to the cover and then drawn over the boards, which are laced to the book, as in fine-tooled binding. The principal items of expense in con- nection with a stamped binding are the designing and cutting of the die. If ap- plied to but one book, it might prove a more costly binding than one in which the same design was tooled by hand. The economy results where long sets of books uniformly bound and decorated are con- cerned. As an example on a small scale of American stamped binding executed in the early part of the last century, we have reproduced one which covers a copy of the poetical works of Robert Burns, Xew York, 1813. The fac-simile of the National Portrait Gallery] binding which *Over1aying consists in pasting exactly where needed successive layers of paper, un- derneath the tympan, or top sheet, of the print- ins; surface. ""The National Portrait Gallery of Distin- guished Americans," conducted by James B. follows shows how elaborate these stamped bindings became at a later pe- riod, and how well they were designed and engraved. The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, Philadelphia, 1846, is a book which deserves to be well bound, for it contains the finest cabinet- size steel-engraved portraits ever exe- cuted in this country. This truth we have been slow to recognise, as also the fact that the book is becoming difficult to find, for the reason that for years past copies innumerable have been despoiled of their prints by "extra illustrators," to whom the four quarto volumes, with their nearly 150 very useful portraits, have proved a veritable gold mine. From both an historical and artistic standpoint the National Portrait Gallery was an im- portant publication, and it is natural to suppose that certain sets of it would be entrusted to the hands of the best binders of the day. The cover we reproduce shows how capable, both in design and execution, were the stamp-cutters of those days. The classical medallion in the centre links it in a degree to the highly prized bindings said to have be- longed to Demetrio Canevari, physician to Pope Urban VIII. The period from 1820 to late in the '50's was prolific of a class of books the popularity of which simply re- flected a contemporary English taste, and shows that in matters literary and artistic we were still in leading strings. These annuals, Offerings of Friendship, Tokens, Talismans and Souvenirs, as they were sentimentally entitled, were is- sued by the publishers in stamped cloth, morocco, or calfskin, overlaid with glit- tering gold foil. They are equally, if not more, valuable for their text and illus- trations than as examples of book- binding, for they contain some of the best steel line engravings to be found in the books of their own or any subsequent pe- riod. It is the admirable work of such engravers as the Mavericks, Durand, Longacre, Philadelphia : and James Herring. Xew York-, Under the superintendence of the American Academy of Fine Arts. 4 vols., royal 8vo and quarto James R. Longacre, Philadelphia. 1846. Con- tains 144 steel line engravings, each accompa- nied by a short biographical notice. J 74 The Bookman ( honey, Balch, Pease and Hatch after paintings by Newton, Leslie, Inman, Morse, Mount and other American paint- ers of the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury, whose charming genre pictures, the writer ventures to assert, none of their successors have surpassed. The essays, tales and poems which these engravings accompany and illustrate were contrib- uted by some of the foremost writers of the day. These annuals, for years in the height of fashion, passed away with the Civil War, which changed for better or for worse the old order of things in so many respects, and poorer books have taken their place ; for these gift books were hon- estly constructed, and the arts applied to them were legitimate and true, which is more than can be claimed for many, if not most, of the books which have suc- ceeded them. These "Gifts and Keep- sakes," antiquated as they have become, are. however, no longer entirely neg- lected. They are sought by collectors with some avidity, for they are interest- ing as mirrors of the simple living and quiet thinking of their age; and, more- over, they have become somewhat scarce, and this is — shall we admit it? — a sine qua uon with the collector of every spe- cies. We now come to an exhibition of Yan- kee ingenuity applied to bibliopegy, which might be described as book-cover decoration made easy. But the name be- stowed upon the process by its shrewd inventor is "Patent Stereographic Bind- ing." The presumed advantage of the process was, I understand, the facility with which, by the application of differ- ent colours to the compartments mapped out by one and the selfsame brass stamp, a surprising, and we may add a startling, variety of ' effects could be produced. This parody upon the art of book-bind- ing appears to have met with the disfa- vour it deserved, for I have never seen any example of it, save the one upon a gift book entitled The Rainbozv, pub- lished in Albany, N. Y., [848, A. L. Har- rison, Hinder. The variety of effects in form and col- our which mottled, marbled and sprinkled calf are capable of assuming are as in- finite and haphazard as those which cause the children's eyes to dance with delight when they turn with their impatient little hands the wonder-working wheel of a kaleidoscope. The two most common styles of coloured calf bindings are the "Cambridge," in which the calf is col- oured over the entire surface, except a panel left uncoloured in the centre of the boards, and treed calf, which was so great a favourite with the late Francis Bedford, of England. These calf bind- ings certainly possess one paramount ad- vantage, and that is the smooth and glossy surfaces they present, and which render them the most inoffensive and harmless of all bindings to their neigh- bours upon the book-shelf. No calf bind- ing, however, can hold up its head before one in crushed levant morocco, the ne plus ultra for the covering of a book. A curious effect in coloured calf is shown in the cover of one of Lopez and Wemyss's Prompter Books, a presenta- tion copy to the Library of the American Dramatic Association, and presumably, therefore, as elaborate a binding of its kind as could at the time be executed. I find the same vividly coloured calfskin upon a copy of Ackermann's Repository, London, [809, which has in it a ticket which states that it was bound by Neal, Willis & Cole, Baltimore, Md. Prior to the Revolutionary War sheep and calf skins appear to have been the only leathers employed by American bookbinders. Russia leather, so popular in England in the days of Roger Payne, came in vogue at a later period, but, for- tunately, was never used to any extent, except for covering merchants' blank books and the like, for it is the most ob- jectionable of all leathers for bookbind- ing purposes on account of its tendency to become brittle with age and to part at the joints. The one redeeming quality possessed by Russia leather is its fra- grance, which, like properly-cured rose leaves, it will retain for years. Long after morocco leather became a regular article of commerce between Eu- rope and the United States, calfskin con- tinued to be extensively used for the cov- erings of books, probably on account of its relative cheapness. Tts use for fine or special bindings is now entirely aban- doned, both here and in Europe. The credit for having raised bibliopegy Four Novels of the Moment l 75 in the United States permanently to the rank of a fine art belongs indisputably to William Matthews, who was horn in Ab- erdeen, Scotland, in 1822, and died at his residence, 19 Pierrepont Street, Brook- lyn, X. Y., April 15, [896. He served an apprenticeship to a London bookbinder, and came to New York in 1843, where for three years he worked as a journey- man at his craft of bookbinding. In 1846 he began business on his own ac- count, and in 1854 assumed charge of the bindery of the large publishing house of D. Appleton & Co., at the head of which he remained until 1890. The fine bind- ings he executed were mainly a relaxa- tion in which he indulged for his own pleasure, the gratification of his cultured artistic taste, and the accommodation of a few of his book-loving friends. So far as my knowledge extends, he never pro- fessed to make a business of special and elaborately tooled bookbindings. The lecture* read by Mr. Matthews be- fore the Grolier Club of New York (of which he was one of the earliest, most in- *"Modern_ Book-binding Practically Consid- ered." A lecture read before the Grolier Club of New York, March 25. 1885, with additions and new illustrations. Bv William Matthews. The Grolier Club, MDCCCLXXXIX. terested and valued members), March 25, 1885, and subsequently printed by the so- ciety, demonstrates his familiarity with the history of the art he loved and prac- tised, as well as his thorough acquaint- ance with its technique. Of living American bookbinders I have determined not to speak, for it would involve criticism and also compari- son, which, we are told, is always odious. The annual exhibitions of fine book- bindings held at our principal book- stores, to which I have already drawn at- tention, embrace examples of the best work of all the prominent American, as well as European, bibliopegists, and those interested in the subject have in these at- tractive displays ample opportunities to examine, compare and judge for them- selves of the respective merits of the men and women who at present are following in the United States the time-honoured and beautiful art of bookbinding. Before them still lies the task of creat- ing a style of book-cover decoration that can compare in originality and fitness with those of the master bibliopegists of past times, whose designs even Trautz, the greatest of modern French binders, felt his inability to improve upon. THE END. FOUR NOVELS OF THE MOMENT T. Richard Harding Davis's "Captain Macklin."* "We have here." said Clay, gaily, but in a low voice, "the key to the situation. This is the gentleman who supplies Mendoza with the sinews of war. Captain Burke is a brave soldier and a citizen of my own or of any country, indeed, which happens to have the most sympathetic Consul-General. . . . The Captain is a man of few words and extremely modest about himself, so I must tell you who he is myself. He is a promoter of revolu- tions. That is his business — a professional promoter of revolutions. ... I wish I ♦Captain Macklin. By Richard Harding Davis. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. could give these boys an idea of how clever you are. Captain. The Captain was the first man, for instance, to think of packing- cartridges in tubs of lard, and of sending rifles in piano cases. He represents the Welby re- volver people in England and half a dozen firms in the States, and he has his little stores in Tampa and Mobile and Jamaica ready to ship off at a moment's notice to any revolu- tion in Central America. When f first met the Captain," Clay continued gleefully, "he was starting off to rescue Arabi Pasha from the Island of Ceylon." Among: the considerable number of ex- ceptional and adventurous men to whom Mr. Davis has introduced us in the last ten or twelve years there has been none who has made a better impression on first