copied in England for the royal and noble libraries of the Tudor era.
In some of those executed abroad, the artificer, as we have seen, was
accustomed to place his name or initials very conspicuously outside
the cover. Ludovicus or Lodewijk Bloc, for instance, who flourished at
Ghent or Bruges at the close of the fifteenth century, usually signs
and claims his work in an elaborate inscription. Two specimens bear:
_Ludovicus Bloc ob Amorem Christi librum hunc recte ligavi_. Jodocus
de Lede adopted a similar method of commemoration.

In the case of foreign books, especially those of French origin, the
presence of a pure and unblemished morocco binding by a recognised
artist, coupled with the armorial cognisance or _ex libris_ of some
famous amateur and the binder's ticket, which is equally _de rigueur_,
enhances the commercial importance of a volume or set of volumes
beyond calculation, and has its only analogue in the stupendous
figures paid for the Sevres soft paste porcelain of the true epoch,
when all the necessary conditions are happily united and fulfilled.
Nothing is more striking than the immense disparity between a book in
the right sort of garniture and in the wrong one, or, again, in the
true covers with some ulterior sophistication in the shape of added
arms, restored joints, renovated gilding, and a hundred other
subtleties difficult to detect. The case is on all fours with a
specimen of unimpeachable Sevres contrasted with another of which the
porcelain dates back beyond the painting and the gold. A French book
in old morocco by Derome, Le Gascon, or some other esteemed artist,
with its credentials and pedigree above suspicion, may fetch L50 or
double; the identical production in old calf or in modern morocco or
russia will not bring the price of the binding; all the magic is in
the leather and the ticket. It is not a literary object, but an
article of _vertu_. There is probably no description of Continental
books which has so greatly risen in value during the last thirty years
as the illustrated publications of the last century, provided always
that they conform to the very exacting requirements of a Parisian
exquisite. Above all, they must be of the statutory tallness and
breadth, and in the livery by bibliographical injunction and usage
prescribed.

No more impressive exemplification of the difference between a book or
set of books in the French series, in the _right_ and in the _wrong_
state, could b