CHAPTER XIII
English and other national binders—Anonymous bindings—List of binders—The Scotish School—Mr. Quaritch out-bidden—The vellum copy of Boece's Chronicles of Scotland—Most familiar names in England—Embroidered bindings ascribed to the Nuns of Little Gidding—Provincial binders—Edwards of Halifax—Fashion of edge-painting—Amateur binding—Forwarding and finishing—A Baronet-binder—French liveries for English books—Bedford's French style—Incongruity of the Parisian goût with our literature—List of French binders—Ancient stamped leather bindings of Italy, Flanders, and Germany copied in France—Ludovicus Bloc of Bruges—Judocus de Lede—Rarity of early signed examples in France—André Boule (1508)—Enhancement of the estimation of old books in France by special bindings—The New Collector counselled and admonished—What he is to do, and where he is to go.
The English School of Binding brings before us a roll of names borne by artists of successive periods and of varying merit, from the last quarter of the fifteenth century to the present time. That it is by no means exhaustive is due to the circumstance that in the case of many of the older, and some of the more recent, masters, there is no clue to the origin in the shape of an external inscription on the cover, as we find on foreign works, or in that of a ticket or a signature. As it so frequently happens with old pictures, the style of a binder was often, indeed generally, imitated by his pupils or successors, and we are apt to mistake the original productions for the copies, unless we engage in a very close study of minute details.
In the English, Scotish, and Irish series it is equally true that the preponderance of bindings are unidentified. The monastic liveries, in which so many venerable tomes have come down to us, were executed within the walls of the buildings which held the books, and had perhaps produced them; and analogously most of our early printers were binders of their own stocks, as well as of any other works brought to them. We may incidentally remind the reader that one practice on their part was to utilise waste as end-papers or pasteboard, and to that circumstance we are indebted for the recovery of numerous typographical fragments belonging to publications not otherwise known. That Pynson, Julian Notary, John Reynes, and others executed book-binding outside their own productions seems to be proved by the existence of much early literature of foreign origin with English end-papers and covers. In fact, till the Stationers' Company made the sale of books or printed matter a separate industry, the typographer was his own binder and vendor.
The bibliopegist, as an independent artificer whom we are able to identify, dates from the seventeenth century. We have already mentioned Francis Rea or Read of Worcester as flourishing in 1660. John Evelyn seems to have employed some one who executed good work in morocco, and in better taste than that done for royalty at the same period; yet we cannot be sure that he did not carry the books abroad for the purpose. Pepys had in his service a binder named Richardson, whom he mentions in the Diary, and who is otherwise known. A copy of Stow's Survey, 1633, passed through his hands; it is in the original calf; and he was merely engaged to repair it, as appears from a memorandum inside the cover.
Of authentic names of later English binders, considering the incalculable amount of work done, the number is extremely limited. If we tabulate, we find only:—
| Samuel Mearne. | Charles Lewis the Younger. |
| ∴ Bookbinder to Charles II. | Charles the Younger. |
| Elliot & Chapman. | J. Mackenzie. |
| ∴ The Harleian binders. | C. Murton. |
| Robert Black. | Charles Smith. |
| ∴ About 1760. | F. & T. Aitken. |
| Edwards of Halifax. | Wickwar. |
| Richard and Mrs. Wier. | J. Wright. |
| Roger Payne. | Hayday. |
| Roger Payne and R. Wier. | Hayday & Co. |
| Baumgarten. | J. Clarke. |
| Staggemeier. | Clarke & Bedford. |
| ∴ The binder of the Psalter of 1459, formerly in the Sykes collection, and bought by Quaritch at the Perkins sale for £4900. | Francis Bedford. |
| Roger De Coverly. | |
| Grieve. | |
| Henderson & Bissett. | |
| McLehose of Glasgow. | |
| Charles Hering. | Holloway. |
| Benedict. | Robert Riviere. |
| H. Walther. | ∴ The business is carried on by grandsons. |
| Fargher & Lindner. | Zaehnsdorf. |
| H. Faulkner. | Cobden Sanderson. |
| C. Kalthoeber. | R. Montague (1730-40). |
This represents not only the entire assemblage and succession, so far as England is concerned, but covers Scotland and Ireland; and several of the names are obviously those of foreigners. The Scotish artists, if, as there is no absolute reason to doubt, a large number of early books were clothed on the spot, possessed much taste and originality, and some of them have descended to us in a pristine state of preservation with the lavish gilding as fresh and brilliant as when they left the workshop. We may fairly consider, looking at the intimate relationship between Scotland and France in former times, that a certain proportion of volumes of Scotish origin were bound abroad, just as Americans at present send over their books to England. Coming down to more recent days, the two names chiefly associated with Scotland are C. Murton and J. Mackenzie, neither of whom attained special celebrity.
But it is to be more than suspected that all important work in this direction was long executed out of Scotland—either in London or in Paris. The time came, however, when the Scots acquired a school and style of their own, and all that can be pleaded for it is, that it is manneristic and peculiar. Of recent years heavy prices have been paid for first-class examples, which are of unusual rarity. Messrs. Kerr & Richardson, of Glasgow, bought over Mr. Quaritch at the Laing sale in London at a preposterous figure (£295) a copy of one of Sir George Mackenzie's legal works simply for the covers; it was offered by the purchasers afterward to the underbidder, who quietly informed them that he had come to his senses again.
There is no reason why the magnificent copy on vellum of Boece's Chronicles of Scotland (1536), which occurred at the Hamilton sale in 1884, should not have received its clothing of oaken boards covered with gilt calf at home.