ered books, and it is largely due to their use that pieces of
work apparently of the greatest delicacy are really extremely
durable--far more so than is generally supposed. Certainly if it had not
been for the efficient protection of these little metal walls we should
not possess, as we actually do, delicate-looking embroidered books,
hundreds of years old, in almost as good condition, except in the matter
of colour, as when they were originally made.

Thin pieces of metal are sometimes used alone, caught down at regular
intervals by small cross stitches; this is, I believe, called
'Lizzarding' (Fig. 3). Metal is also found in the form of 'guimp,' in
flattened spirals (Fig. 4), and also in the 'Purl,' or copper wire
covered with silk (Fig. 5), so common on the later satin books (compare
p. 46).

[Illustration: FIG. 4. Edging made with a piece of spiral wire
hammered flat, appearing like a series of small rings.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5. Loop made of a short length of Purl
threaded, the ends drawn together.]

Spangles appear to have been introduced during the reign of Elizabeth,
but they were never freely used on velvet, finding their proper place
ultimately on the satin books of a later time. The spangles are
generally kept in position either by a small section of purl (Fig. 6) or
a seed pearl (Fig. 7), in both cases very efficaciously, so that the use
of guimp or pearl was not only ornamental but served the same protective
purpose as the bosses on a shield, or those so commonly found upon the
sides of the stamped leather bindings of mediaeval books.

[Illustration: FIG. 6. Spangle kept in place by a stitch
through a short piece of Purl.]

[Illustration: FIG. 7. Spangle kept in place by a stitch
through a seed pearl.]

[Illustration: FIG. 8. Binder's stamp for gold tooling, cut in
imitation of a spangle.]

It may be mentioned that the seventeenth-century Dutch binders, Magnus
and Poncyn, both of Amsterdam, invented a new tool for gilding on
leather bindings, used, of course, in combination with others. This was
cut to imitate the small circular spangles of the embroidered books
(Fig. 8), and the English and French finishers of a later period used
the same device with excellent effect for filling up obtrusive spaces on
the sides and backs of their decorative bindings. Thus it may be taken
as an axiom that, for the proper working of an embroidered book, except
it be tapestry-stitch or tent-stitch, on canvas, whic