t, let us look at the
priced catalogue of his library, or at that of his successor Dr.
Askew, and compare the sums _then_ given for those _now_ offered for
similar works!"

[Footnote 183: As a little essay, and a very curious one
too, might be written upon the history of BOOK-BINDING, I
shall not attempt in the present note satisfactorily to
supply such a desideratum; but merely communicate to the
reader a few particulars which have come across me in my
desultory researches upon the subject. Mr. Astle tells us
that the famous _Textus Sancti Cuthberti_, which was written
in the 7th century, and was formerly kept at Durham, and is
now preserved in the Cottonian library, (Nero, D. IV.) was
adorned in the Saxon times by Bilfrith, a monk of Durham,
with a silver cover gilt, and precious stones. Simeon
Dunelmensis, or Turgot, as he is frequently called, tells us
that the cover of this fine MS. was ornamented "forensecis
Gemmis et Auro." "A booke of Gospelles garnished and wrought
with antique worke of silver and gilte with an image of the
crucifix with Mary and John, poiz together cccxxij oz." In
the secret Jewel House in the Tower. "A booke of gold
enameled, clasped with a rubie, having on th' one side, a
crosse of dyamounts, and vj other dyamounts, and th' other
syde a flower de luce of dyamounts, and iiij rubies with a
pendaunte of white saphires and the arms of Englande. Which
booke is garnished with small emerades and rubies hanging to
a cheyne pillar fashion set with xv knottes, everie one
conteyning iij rubies (one lacking)." _Archaeologia_, vol.
xiii., 220. Although Mr. Astle has not specified the time in
which these two latter books were bound, it is probable that
they were thus gorgeously attired before the discovery of
the art of printing. What the ancient Vicars of Chalk (in
Kent) used to pay for binding their missals, according to
the original endowment settled by Haymo de Hethe in 1327
(which compelled the vicars to be at the expense of the
same--_Reg. Roff._, p. 205), Mr. Denne has not informed us.
_Archaeologia_, vol. xi., 362. But it would seem, from
Warton, that "students and monks were anciently the binders
of books;" and from their Latin entries respecting the same,
the word "conjunctio" appears to have been used for
"li