ume; the leaves lie open fully and freely, as
if tempting you to read on, and you handle them without fear of their
parting from the back. To look at the "tooling," too, is a pleasure, for
careful thought, combined with artistic skill, is everywhere apparent.
You open the cover and find the same loving attention inside that has
been given to the outside, all the workmanship being true and thorough.
Indeed, so conservative is a good binding, that many a worthless book
has had an honoured old age, simply out of respect to its outward
aspect; and many a real treasure has come to a degraded end and
premature death through the unsightliness of its outward case and the
irreparable damage done to it in binding.

The weapon with which the binder deals the most deadly blows to books
is the "plough," the effect of which is to cut away the margins, placing
the print in a false position relatively to the back and head, and often
denuding the work of portions of the very text. This reduction in size
not seldom brings down a handsome folio to the size of quarto, and a
quarto to an octavo.

With the old hand plough a binder required more care and caution to
produce an even edge throughout than with the new cutting machine. If a
careless workman found that he had not ploughed the margin quite square
with the text, he would put it in his press and take off "another
shaving," and sometimes even a third.

Dante, in his "Inferno," deals out to the lost souls various tortures
suited with dramatic fitness to the past crimes of the victims, and
had I to execute judgment on the criminal binders of certain precious
volumes I have seen, where the untouched maiden sheets entrusted to
their care have, by barbarous treatment, lost dignity, beauty and value,
I would collect the paper shavings so ruthlessly shorn off, and roast
the perpetrator of the outrage over their slow combustion. In olden
times, before men had learned to value the relics of our printers, there
was some excuse for the sins of a binder who erred from ignorance which
was general; but in these times, when the historical and antiquarian
value of old books is freely acknowledged, no quarter should be granted
to a careless culprit.

It may be supposed that, from the spread of information, all real danger
from ignorance is past. Not so, good reader; that is a consummation as
yet "devoutly to be wished." Let me relate to you a true bibliographical
anecdote: In 1877, a certain lord,