423

Class XVIL] BOOKBINDING—MAGNITUDE OF THE TRADE.

The Institute for the Blind, Stanton, Virginia ,exhibited specimens of books and types for the blind.T he characters are capitals and lower-case; the printingis sharp and good.

Apparatus, &c., for the Blind—France .

M. Marcellin Lecrand, Paris (584, p. 1206), exhi-bited type-plates to print in relief for the blind. Thecharacters are rather too small, and possess the disad-vantage of having both capitals and small letters.

Apparatus, See., for the Blind—Austria.

G. B. Marciiesi, of Lodi (139, p. 1014), exhibited awriting-machine for the blind, producing the charactersin black or in relief. The letters are formed with pinpoints, and they are sufficiently tangible; but havingcapitals and small letters, this plan oilers the disadvan-tage that two alphabets have to be learnt.

Apparatus, See., for the Blind—Bavaria.

MM. Feiir and Eisenring, Augsburg (2 Zollv. 54,p. 1100), exhibited metal plates, with letters and cha-racters in relief. The letters are too broad, and are notwell adapted for the blind.

The Jury beg to suggest that a uniform system shouldbe adopted, and that, in future, all books printed for theblind should be printed in the same character. Dr.Howe’s plan appears simple, easy, and fit for generaladoption.

II. BOOKBINDING.

Splendour in the binding of books is a taste whichdates back from remote times. The rarity of manu-scripts, and the ornaments of every kind with which theywere enriched, reiidered them so precious that theywere exhibited upon desks for the purpose of gratifyingthe sight and the pride of their possessors. Seneca saidof them: “ Plerisque libri non stndiorum inslrumenta sunt,ad adum ornamenta.” But if these rich bindings, somebeautiful models of which still exist in public libraries,were suitable before or soon after the invention of print-ing, when books were almost as scarce as manuscripts,they are an anachronism, when we are compelled to heapthem so closely iu our libraries. These magnificentcovers, executed for the greater part by jewellers, whoenriched them with reliefs in gold, silver, steel, andivory, with precious stones, with enamels, and with deco-rations of every kind, could only be suitable for themissals, and the antiphoners placed in churches. Onseeing at the Exhibition, inclosed in the beautiful ar-ticles of furniture from Austria , the superb bindings inivory carved with so much art, or in gold and silverinlaid with gems, and enamels still more precious, itmight be supposed that these were shrines inclosingsacred relics, or even the casket of Darius, in whichAlexander deposited the poems of Homer.

Between simple bindings and those in which costlinessis carried to extreme, a medium may be found whichlovers of books delight in, combining elegance with so-lidity and simplicity, qualities preferable to richness ofgilding. At the period of the 1Renaissance, artists ofgreat taste executed admirable bindings for kings, princes,and a few rich and learned amateurs whose names arepreserved in the recollection of bibliopoles, who main-tained in their houses binders whose taste they directed.*Some chose the Byzantine style; but the greater portionadopted the style called the Renaissance . After them,the binders confined themselves to imitation, applyingthis style of ornament indiscriminately to every speciesof book.

Some attempts have been made to submit bookbindingto general principles, and to adapt the binding either tothe period iu which the books were written, or accordingto the subjects of which they treat: and a variety ofornaments have been devised in consequence. The idea,though a happy one, is not new, but has not generally

* This is probably the cause which has kept us in igno-rance of the names of these artists.

been adopted. We have seen the cap of liberty, theowl, and the wand of Dsculapius applied to bindingswith respect to the contents of the works. The Egyptian ,Grecian, and Roman ornamental emblems have been re-sorted to, as well as the Gothic borrowed from monuments.Others have thought it desirable that bookbinders, de-parting from the beaten track, should endeavour to givea more peculiar character to their bindings, a characterwhich should mark our era ; and that thus the choice ofcolours—more or less sombre or more or less bright—might always be in accordance with the nature of thesubject treated of in the books. They contend that thissystem would at once afford, in a large library, the ad-vantage of facilitating the search for books by immediatelystriking the eye: that it is also to be desired that certainstyles of ornament should indicate whether such a work,on Egypt for example, belonged to the Pharaonic, theArabic, the French, or the Turkish era; and that itshould be the same with ancient Greece, ByzantineGreece, or modern Greece , the Rome of the Ciesarsor the Rome of the Popes .

All these suggestions may be useful if they are placedunder the control of taste and judgment.

Modern bookbinding is carried on in England on ascale of such magnitude as the binders of former timescould scarcely have foreseen. The production of booksgreatly exceeds that of any former period, and hascaused the application of so much machinery to book-binding, that it may fairly be said to have become amanufacturing business. Books, handsomely bound, gilt,lettered, embossed, and otherwise ornamented, no longerdepend upon individual skill; but are produced, withextraordinary rapidity, by the aid of machinery. Mr.Burn, of Hatton Garden, first introduced rolling-ma-chines to supersede hammering; the iron printing-pressesof Hopkinson and others were altered to form arming-presses, by which block-gilding, blind-tooling, and em-bossing can be effected with accuracy and rapidity.Leather covers, embossed in elaborate and beautifulpatterns by means of powerful fly-presses, were intro-duced by M. Thouvenin, in Paris , about 25 years ago;and almost simultaneously in this country by Messrs.Remnant and Co., and by Mr. De La line, who werequickly followed by others. Embossed calico was alsointroduced about the same period, by Mr. De La Rue;hydraulic presses, instead of the old wooden screw-presses; Wilson’s cutting-machines, which supersede theold plough : the cutting-tables with shears, invented byMr. Warren De La Rue , and now applied to squaring andcutting millboards for book covers: all these means andcontrivances, indispensable to large establishments, provethat machinery is one of the elements necessary to enablea binder on a large scale to carry on that business suc-cessfully.

Mr. Starr, of New York (8S, p. 1438), had, in theUnited States Department, two machines, one for backing,and one for finishing backs; but the Jury were notfortunate enough to see them at work, although theymade many applications for the purpose.

Binding in clotli-boards is carried on with such ra-pidity by houses like the Remnants, the Leightons, theWestleys, and others, that 1,000 volumes can be put incloth, gilt, in six hours, provided the covers be previouslygot ready, and this can be done iu less than two days!Notwithstanding all these numerous improvements, theJury could have wished for some advantages and realprogress iu ordinary leather bindings, where large quan-tities are not bound at one time. Those in the Exhibi-tion were generally well executed; but the price is stillhigh in proportion to that of the books, the cost of whichhas been much reduced by modern improvements inprinting and paper-making.

France applies binding in boards chiefly to ephemeralbooks, which must attract the eye by their splendour,and which are intended either to ornament the drawing-room tables or to be given as prizes, and especially tobooks which are exported to South America . Thebindings iu boards exhibited by M. Mame, of Tours(France , 321, p. 1192), display elegance combined witha relative degree of solidity.