not seen--nor am I likely to see--one
single binder: either _Thouvenin, or Simier, or Braidel, or Lesne_. I am
not sure whether Courteval, or either of the Bozerians, be living: but
their _handy works_ live and are lauded in every quarter of Paris.

The restorer, or the Father, (if you prefer this latter appellative) of
modern Book-binding in France, was the Elder Bozerian: of whose productions
the book-amateurs of Paris are enthusiastically fond. Bozerian undoubtedly
had his merits;[151] but he was fond of gilt tooling to excess. His
ornaments are too minute and too profuse; and moreover, occasionally, very
unskilfully worked. His choice of morocco is not always to my taste; while
his joints are neither carefully measured, nor do they play easily; and his
linings are often gaudy to excess. He is however hailed as the legitimate
restorer of that taste in binding, which delighted the purchasers in the
Augustan age of book-collecting. One merit must not be denied him: his
boards are usually square, and well measured. His volumes open well, and
are beaten ... too unmercifully. It is the reigning error of French
binders. They think they can never beat a book sufficiently. They exercise
a tyranny over the leaves, as bad as that of eastern despots over their
prostrate slaves. Let them look a little into the bindings of those volumes
before described by me, in the lower regions of the Royal Library[152]--and
hence learn, that, to hear the leases crackle as they are turned over,
produces _nearly_ as much comfort to the thorough-bred collector, as does
the prattling of the first infant to the doating parent.

THOUVENIN[153] and SIMIER are now the morning and evening stars in the
bibliopegistic hemisphere. Of these, Thouvenin makes a higher circle in the
heavens; but Simier shines with no very despicable lustre. Their work is
good, substantial, and pretty nearly in the same taste. The folio Psalter
of 1502, (I think) in the Royal Library, is considered to be the _ne plus
ultra_ of modern book-binding at Paris; and, if I mistake not, Thouvenin is
the artist in whose charcoal furnace, the tools, which produced this
_echantillon_, were heated. I have no hesitation in saying, that,
considered as an extraordinary specimen of art, it is a failure. The
ornaments are common place; the lining is decidedly bad; and there is a
clumsiness of finish throughout the whole. The head-bands--as indeed are
those of Bozerian--are clumsily managed: an