[40] Lists of Founts of Type and Woodcut Devices used by printers in Holland in the Fifteenth Century. Memorandum No. 3. No. 14 in the Collected Papers.
The number of books known only from fragments rescued from bindings is much larger than is generally supposed. Of books printed in England before 1530 more than ten per cent. are only known in this way; and now that more attention is being paid to the subject, remains of unknown books are continually being discovered.
Blades in his Life of Caxton [edit. 1861, vol. ii. p. 70] gives a most interesting account of a find of this sort in the library of the St. Alban’s Grammar School. ‘After examining a few interesting books, I pulled out one which was lying flat upon the top of others. It was in a most deplorable state, covered thickly with a damp, sticky dust, and with a considerable portion of the back rotted away by wet. The white decay fell in lumps on the floor as the unappreciated volume was opened. It proved to be Geoffrey Chaucer’s English translation of Boecius de consolatione Philosophiæ, printed by Caxton, in the original binding as issued from Caxton’s workshop, and uncut!... On dissecting the covers they were found to be composed entirely of waste sheets from Caxton’s press, two or three being printed on one side only. The two covers yielded no less than fifty-six half-sheets of printed paper, proving the existence of three works from Caxton’s press quite unknown before.’
Off a stall in Booksellers Row the writer some few years ago bought for a couple of shillings an imperfect foreign printed folio of about 1510 in an original stamped binding, lined at each end with printed leaves. From one end came the title-page and another leaf of an unknown English Donatus printed by Guillam Faques; from the other end, two leaves, one having the mark and colophon of a hitherto unknown book printed by Richard Faques, and which is at present the earliest book known to have been issued from his press. The finding of these two fragments is further of interest as showing a connection between the two printers called Faques.
Nor do these early fragments always come out of very old bindings. From a sixpenny box at Salisbury the writer bought a large folio of divinity, printed about 1700, in its original plain calf binding. The end leaves were complete pages of the first book printed in London, the Questiones Antonii Andreæ, printed by Lettou in 1480.
The boards of a book in Westminster Abbey Library, which must have been bound at Cambridge in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, were composed of leaves of the Pontanus de Roma, one of the ‘Costeriana.’
Service-books were very largely used by the bookbinders, for the many Acts passed for their mutilation or destruction soon turned the majority of copies into waste paper. Several copes of Henry VIII.’s Letters to Martin Luther of 1526, which remain in their original bindings, have their boards made of such material, a practical commentary on the King’s opinions.
Manuscripts, many of the utmost importance, have been cut up by the bookbinders; sometimes in early days the librarian handed out what he considered a useless manuscript to the bookbinder whom he employed. Bradshaw notes that Edward VI.’s own copy of the Stephen’s Greek Testament of 1550 contains in the binding large fragments of an early manuscript of Horace and Persius. Vellum was often used in early books to line the centre of each quire so as to prevent the paper being cut by the thread used for the sewing. Many pieces of Donatuses and Indulgences have been found in this manner cut up into long strips about half an inch wide. The copy of the Gotz Bible of 1480 in Jesus College, Cambridge, bound in London by Lettou, has the centres of the quires lined with strips of two editions of an indulgence printed by him, and which are otherwise unknown.
When the leaves used to line the boards of an old book are valuable or important, they should be carefully taken out, if this can be done without injury to the binding or to the fragments. A note should at once be put on the fragments stating from what book they were taken, and a note should also be put in the book stating what fragments were taken from it. In soaking off leaves of vellum, warm water must on no account be used, as it causes the vellum to shrink up. Indeed, it is better to use cold water for everything; it necessitates a much greater expenditure of time, but it is very much safer.
If the fragments are not of much importance, they should not be taken from the binding, for the removal, however carefully done, must tend to hurt the book. It will be sufficient to make a note of their existence for reference at any time. When important fragments are extracted, it is best to bind them up separately and place them on the shelves, and not keep them loose in boxes or drawers, or pasted into scrap-books. For many typographical purposes the fragment is as useful as the complete book.