In the Track of the Bookworm

by Irving Browne

HOW A BIBLIOMANIAC BINDS HIS BOOKS.

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

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

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

So we should have

THE BIBLIOMANIAC’S ASSIGNMENT OF BINDERS.

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

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