| To William Pekerynge, a ballet, called a Ryse and Wake | 0 | 0 | 4 |
(From the books of the Stationers' Company).
See pp. 13, 15, 126, and 133, of Mr. Nichols's work.
[182] By the kindness of Mr. William Hamper, of Birmingham (a gentleman with whom my intercourse has as yet been only epistolary, but whom I must be allowed to rank among our present worthy bibliomaniacs), I am in possession of some original entries, which seem to have served as part of a day-book of a printer of the same name: "it having been pasted at the end of 'The Poor Man's Librarie' printed by John Day in 1565." From this sable-looking document the reader has the following miscellaneous extracts:
| A.D. 1553. | £ | s. | d. | |
| (Two) Meserse of bloyene in bordis One Prymare latane & englis | } | 0 | ii | 0 |
| Balethis (ballads) nova of sortis | 0 | 0 | ii | |
| Boke of paper 1 quire in forrell | 0 | 0 | iv | |
| Morse workes in forrell | 0 | 9 | viij | |
| Castell of Love in forrelle wi: a sarmo nova | 0 | 0 | x | |
| A.D. 1554. | ||||
| Balethis nova arbull in 8vo. 1 catechis | 0 | 0 | viiij | |
| Prymare for a chyllde in 8vo. englis | 0 | iv | ||
| Halles Croneckelle nova englis | 0 | xii | 0 | |
From a Household Book kept in London, A.D. 1561
(in the possession of the same Gent.)
| Item, p-d for a Lyttellton in English | xijd. | |
| —— —— for the booke of ij englishe lovers | vjd. | |
| —— —— for the booke of Songes and Sonnettes and the booke of dyse, and a frenche booke | } | ijs. viijd. |
| (viz. the frenche booke xvjd. the ij other bookes at viijd. the pece.) | ||
| —— —— for printing the xxv orders of honest men | xxd. | |
Lis. All this is very just. You are now creeping towards the seventeenth century. Go on with your prices of books 'till nearly the present day; when the Bibliomania has been supposed to have attained its highest pitch.
"Don't expect," resumed I, "any antiquarian exactness in my chronological detail of what our ancestors used to give for their curiously-covered volumes. I presume that the ancient method of Book-Binding[183] added much to the expense of the purchase. But be this as it may, we know that Sir Ralph Sadler, at the close of the sixteenth century, had a pretty fair library, with a Bible in the chapel to boot, for £10.[184] Towards the close of the seventeenth century, we find the Earl of Peterborough enlisting among the book champions; and giving, at the sale of Richard Smith's books in 1682, not less than eighteen shillings and two pence for the first English edition of his beloved Godfrey of Boulogne.[185] In Queen Ann's time, Earl Pembroke and Lord Oxford spared no expense for books; and Dr. Mead, who trod closely upon their heels, cared not at what price he purchased his Editiones Principes, and all the grand books which stamped such a value upon his collection. And yet, let us look at the priced catalogue of his library, or at that of his successor Dr. Askew, and compare the sums then given for those now offered for similar works!"
[183] As a little essay, and a very curious one too, might be written upon the history of Book-Binding, I shall not attempt in the present note satisfactorily to supply such a desideratum; but merely communicate to the reader a few particulars which have come across me in my desultory researches upon the subject. Mr. Astle tells us that the famous Textus Sancti Cuthberti, which was written in the 7th century, and was formerly kept at Durham, and is now preserved in the Cottonian library, (Nero, D. iv.) was adorned in the Saxon times by Bilfrith, a monk of Durham, with a silver cover gilt, and precious stones. Simeon Dunelmensis, or Turgot, as he is frequently called, tells us that the cover of this fine MS. was ornamented "forensecis Gemmis et Auro." "A booke of Gospelles garnished and wrought with antique worke of silver and gilte with an image of the crucifix with Mary and John, poiz together cccxxij oz." In the secret Jewel House in the Tower. "A booke of gold enameled, clasped with a rubie, having on th' one side, a crosse of dyamounts, and vj other dyamounts, and th' other syde a flower de luce of dyamounts, and iiij rubies with a pendaunte of white saphires and the arms of Englande. Which booke is garnished with small emerades and rubies hanging to a cheyne pillar fashion set with xv knottes, everie one conteyning iij rubies (one lacking)." Archæologia, vol. xiii., 220. Although Mr. Astle has not specified the time in which these two latter books were bound, it is probable that they were thus gorgeously attired before the discovery of the art of printing. What the ancient Vicars of Chalk (in Kent) used to pay for binding their missals, according to the original endowment settled by Haymo de Hethe in 1327 (which compelled the vicars to be at the expense of the same—Reg. Roff., p. 205), Mr. Denne has not informed us. Archæologia, vol. xi., 362. But it would seem, from Warton, that "students and monks were anciently the binders of books;" and from their Latin entries respecting the same, the word "conjunctio" appears to have been used for "ligatura." Hist. of Engl. Poetry, vol. ii., p. 244. Hearne, in No. III. of the appendix to Adam de Domerham de reb. gest. Glast., has "published a grant from Rich. de Paston to Bromholm abbey, of twelve pence a year rent charge on his estates to keep their books in repair." This I gather from Gough's Brit. Topog., vol. ii., p. 20: while from the Liber Stat. Eccl. Paulinæ, Lond. MSS., f. 6, 396 (furnished me by my friend Mr. H. Ellis,[D] of the British Museum), it appears to have been anciently considered as a part of the Sacrist's duty to bind and clasp the books: "Sacrista curet quod Libri bene ligentur et haspentur," &c. In Chaucer's time, one would think that the fashionable binding for the books of young scholars was various-coloured velvet: for thus our poet describes the library of the Oxford Scholar: