The manuscripts of the ancients being written on papyrus and parchment, and put upon rollers, were, of course, not in a shape to admit of binding, considering the term in its modern acceptation. By the bye, we may as well mention that the ancients made their manuscripts without even the convenience and comfort of a desk. From many manuscripts and early books, and especially from the Dioscorides published by Lambecius, we have representations of Scribes, whose only desk was their knees. We have, however, our individual doubts as to the universality of this uncomfortable and tedious mode. No doubt the knees were the earliest desk, and probably frequently employed, for a line of Homer's Iliad is, besides the early manuscripts, conclusive proof. But the use of some desk or support cannot have been long delayed, for what Greek or Roman could be so accommodatingly constructed as to write for long periods without possessing sufficient of mortal weakness to feel tired with his back bended double, and his knees up to his chin, or not to have possessed sufficient gumption to find something easier. Doctor Dibdin quietly asks if a desk can satisfactorily be proved to have existed before the VIIth century. So poor antiquity must suffer by default ! If this digression on desks be pardoned we shall proceed from the undefined embryonic to the nascent state of the art. Isaac Vossius says that, in his apprehension, King Attalus was the first who ordered books to be squared-in whose time was discovered a more ready process of cleaning skins on both sides, whereas before they were written only upon one side. However (he continues,) although the custom of squaring commenced with Attalus, the previous method of a long roll, continued till the days of Catullus and Cicero, and some time afterwards. Now, it requires no antiquarian ingenuity to ascertain the next natural step, which was the arrangement of these pieces of squared parchment into twos, fours, &c., as folios and quartos and then! book-binding is a tangible thing, for what could follow but that these leaves would be cared for by inclosure in some durable, protecting cover-say of wood, vellum, or leather. The ancients used, in the preparation of these leaves, the Pumex, the Cedrium and Umbilicus, severally the polisher, the antiseptic and moth-destroying cedar oil, and the boss, or piece of wood to which the parchment was attached. The ornamentation and carving of this boss, no doubt, being suggestive to the later decorators of bookbindings.

The ancient diptycha ana triptycha of wood, ivory, metal, &c., enclosing the waxed tablets upon which the Greek and Romans wrote with the Stilus, probably gave the form to the modern book. These diptycha were frequently carved and otherwise elaborately ornament ed. The invention of papyrus naturally resulted in its substitution for the waxed tablets and the sheets of papyrus would receive a protection of the same character as that afforded to the tablets. Some of these diptycha have been preserved to modern times, and resemble in size our ordinary octavos.

Libri Plicatiles and Volumina were ancient terms applied to manuscript parchment, indicative of its form,-consequently the modern term volume is anomalous. The name given

to the ancient thing which merely expressed its form has been, regardless of propriety, applied to the modern substitute. The art of sticking or sewing together the leaves in a movable back between two pieces of skin, wood, ivorv, metal, &c., came into usage among the ancients, so soon as they found books of a square or oblong form more convenient and comfortable to read than the primitive roll.

Ornamentation was soon applied to this early binding, at first possessing no other merit than solidity, and having in view no other object than the preservation of the books. This

that the skins with which the ancients used sometimes to make their books were put together by means of a thread or string only, and not with glue.' Nor must we forget the 'lora rubra' of Catullus, in his splendid description of ancient bibliomaniacal luxury, which words (from the note of Vulpius, edit. Catulli, 1737, P.-77) should seem to mean thongs of red leather, to tie up the rolls in a cylindrical form- majoris elegantiæ causa. Hence the red-tape of the lawyer! And Mabillon (De Re Diplom. p. 32) mentions two vellum-skin bulls of Pope John XIII, which were fastened together in the middle, membraneo vinculo;' but these are somewhat solitary positions and must not be considered as detracting from the reputation of the mighty PHILLATIUS. In Cicero's time (from his IVth letter in the IVth book of his Epistles to Atticus), we have unequivocal attestation of the use of glue. The orator tells his friend to send him some two of his Librarians, who, amongst other things, might conglutinate his books,' &c.-Dibdin.

6

ornamenting was rapidly elevated to an intimate relation with the luxuries of Greek and Roman civilization. Books were laid flat upon the shelves of the library, and the titles were written upon the sides. The wooden covers were not considered sufficient protection to books of value, and a piece of leather was placed upon the board as a protection against dust and the effect of attrition. The book was closed by a leather strap or thong, several times wrapped around it. This thong or strap was replaced at a later period by the clasp. In some cases the volume was enveloped in a thick wrapper, or inclosed in a shield of skin and wood.

In the times of Cicero book-binding was not a very widely expanded art. Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, desires of him two of his slaves, skillful book-binders (Ligatores Librorum.) Some of these early books, with their ponderous wooden covers and huge bosses and clasps (to say nothing of their contents) were weighty enough. Poor Petrarch pretty nearly got his quietus for being o'er much devoted to heavy reading, for these very Epistolæ ad Atticum fell upon his left leg, and so wounded it, that he was threatened with amputation. Probably the poet gave way to his inclinations to somnolence during some prolonged "small hour" cogitation, and the relaxation of his muscles permitting free action to the gravity of the subject-became a subject of no inconsiderable gravity to the unfortunate poet. This manuscript, once the property of Petrarch, is preserved in the Laurentian Library in Florence. The work is remarkable for its caligraphy and workmanship. The binding is of the VIth century. Its corners and clasps are brass. We give ready credence to the story of Petrarch's accident. We have before us now a folio some four hundred years old, with heavy wooden covers and corners of wrought iron, which could not fail, in falling from a table or shelf, to carry death and destruction to anything in the shape of feet or legs which should unfortunately interpose. Square books, notwithstanding their convenience as to form, had not yet generally supplanted the rolls, except in the Levant, where this accessory art had taken an immense stride. In the notice of the Dignities of the Empire of the Orient (Notitia Dignitatum Imperii), written about 450, it appears that certain officers of the empire carried in the public ceremonies, large square books, containing the administrative instructions of the Emperor. These books were bound in green, red, blue, or yellow leather, shut by leather straps or clasps and ornamented with little lozenge-shaped and horizontal gold lines, with the portrait of the Sovereign painted or gilded on the side of the cover.

From the fifth century, bindings were richly ornamented by the goldsmith and lapidary. These plied their arts in the ornamentation, decoration and enrichment of the furniture of churches and palaces. Glittering gold, shining silver, and sparkling jewels making ostentatious luxuries of books of religion, caused St Jerome to exclaim, "Books are covered with precious stones, whilst Christ dies naked at the gate of his temple."

It is one of these rich bindings which still covers the Greek prayer-book given to the Basilica de Monza, by Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, about the year 600. These lavish goldsmiths' bindings were, however, almost exclusively confined to books of a religious character. Though manuscripts adorned with precious metals and stones were kept as reliques in the treasuries of churches, abbeys, and palaces, books for ordinary use were simply covered with wood or skin, but not without the bestowing of considerable attention in view of the preservation of the volumes. Many documents still exhibited in monasteries are witness to the minute care with which books were bound and preserved.

After the books had been pressed and bound between two pieces of hard, sound and durable wood, various kinds of skin were employed to cover them. In the North the skins of seals and sharks seem to have been in much use-elsewhere the skin of a sow seems to have had preference.

* Did we repose the same faith in the verity of the statements of the juicy, jolly old author of Pantagruel, as does a late writer on American Antiquities, we should quote, as apropos of weight, books, "the huge pantofled breviary' "of that famous stuffer Gargantua :-"its weight, what in grease, clasps, parchment, and cover, little more or less than eleven hundred and six pounds."

On

Luxurious bindings have been the cause of the destruction of a multitude of precious manuscripts. At the sacking of cities, covers enriched by the goldsmith's and lapidary's art, were well adapted to excite the cupidity of pillagers, nothing loth to yield to the temptations exposed to them in the riches of monasteries and palaces. Of course, jewels were plucked out and the covers ruthlessly torn up to have the silver and gold broken away and melted. the other hand, the sumptuous, the magnificent bindings of bibles, prayer-books, missals, &c., which have been the property of royal or wealthy persons, have certainly secured the preservation of a number of these curious manuscripts, which otherwise would have been mutilated, defaced, or entirely destroyed. Thus is preserved to our times the famous manuscript of Sens, bound in two plates of ivory, sculptured in relief, representing the fetes of Bacchus.

Many of the antique cameos are of considerable interest to the student of Greek and Roman archæology.

The great collections of Europe, whose fortune it is to possess, exhibit with pride, these rare and venerable bindings, ornamented with gold, silver, or copper, carved or inlaid with precious stones, colored glass, cameos and antique ivories. (See the illustration, a representation of the binding of a prayer-book of the 11th century, gold, ornamented with precious stones, representing Christ crucified and the Virgin and St. John at the foot of the cross.)*

The richest specimens of binding are traceable to the age of Charlemagne, when such an impulse was given to everything connected with literature that the decoration of manuscripts was carried to a high degree of perfection. Among the books of this period must be promi nently mentioned the book of Hours, written with letters of gold upon purple parchment, bound with red velvet, given by Charlemagne himself to the city of Toulouse, now preserved in the Louvre; also the prayer-book given to the Abbey of Saint Riquier, "covered with. plates of silver, and ornamented with gold and gems," and that of St. Maximin de Treves, which belonged to Ada, daughter of Pepin and sister of Charlemagne. An engraven agate

set in the binding of this last book represents Ada, the Emperor, and his sons.

History makes mention of a great number of beautiful prayer books, written on purple vellum in letters of gold and silver, and which were no less remarkable for the magnificence of their bindings-the majority belonging to the epoch of Charlemagne and his successors.

This specimen is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE SHAKESPEARE FOLIOS,

(CONTINUED.)

This third folio, an unmatchable copy, measuring (131 by 85,)" brought but £46. Lilly the buyer.

66 a magnificent copy, The fourth edition, (14 by 91.) 21/. 10s.; bought by Boone.

There are copies of the fourth folio, the title pages of which vary in several particulars, Mr. Lenox (a sight of whose folios would drive any Shakespeare collector to some act of desperation,) has two copies of the fourth folio with variations.*

Dr. Bliss's second folio, with unique title page, and Lord Stuart de Rothsay's third folio of which the peculiarity is the large type (Jonson) verses. Bibliop. page 100.

See

Notes and Queries in a recent number, liam Shakespeares | Comedies, | His

* Mr. Lenox's collection of the Shakespeare folios, like all his other specialties, is truly remarkable.