s, renders forgivable vagaries of design, which
when translated, as they have been of late years in France, into the
time-honoured and solemn leather, seem merely incongruous and
irreverent.

In binding, then, as in the other bookish arts, the part which English
workers have played has been no insignificant or unworthy one, and the
development of this art, as of the others, in our own country is worthy
of study. In this case much has already been done, for the illustrations
of _English Bookbindings at the British Museum_, edited, with
introduction and descriptions by Mr. W. Y. Fletcher, present the student
with the best possible survey of the whole subject, while the excellent
treatises of Miss Prideaux and Mr. Horne bring English bookbinding into
relation with that of other countries. Here, then, there is no need of a
new general history, but rather of special monographs, treating more in
detail of the periods at which our English binders have done the best
work. The old stamped bindings of the days of manuscript, the
embroidered bindings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the
leather bindings of Mearne and his fellows under the later Stuarts, and
the work of Roger Payne--all these seem to offer excellent subjects for
unpretentious monographs, and it is hoped that others of them besides
the _English Embroidered Bindings_, with which Mr. Davenport has made a
beginning, may be treated in this series.

In other subjects the ground has not yet been cleared to the same
extent, and for the history of English Book-Collectors and English
Printing, not special monographs, but good general surveys are the first
need. To say much on this subject might bring me perilously near to
re-writing the prospectus of this series. It is enough to have pointed
out that the bookish arts in England are well worth more study than they
have yet been given, and that the pioneers who are endeavouring to
enlarge knowledge, each in his own section, may fairly hope that their
efforts will be received with indulgence and good-will.

ALFRED W. POLLARD.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

EMBROIDERED BOOKS

The application of needlework to the embellishment of the bindings of
books has hitherto almost escaped special notice. In most of the works
on the subject of English Bookbinding, considered from the decorative
point of view in distinction from the technical, a few examples of
embroidered covers have indeed received some share of at