Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/271

 Record of Bibliography and Library Literatim. 259 selves, do not accord well with English paper and print. In the repro- ductions of the bindings, Mr. Griggs has on the whole done slightly better than in the illustrated catalogue of the bindings at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, but his work is continually improving, and we hope to see even better plates by him than these. The majority here are excellent, but the two great difficulties in all such illustrations, the avoidance of flatness and the attainment of the real colours of the leather, have occasionally triumphed over the artist's skill. Of the choice of the bindings to be illustrated there is not very much to be said. The Royal Library has been twice depleted for the enrichment of the British Museum, once when the old Royal collection was transferred to the nation by George II., and a second time when George IV., not without value received, handed over the present " King's Library" formed by George 1 1 1. Thus the books now at Windsor, with one or two exceptions, have all being acquired, mostly by purchase, since 1830. That so many interesting bindings have been brought together speaks well for the skill and alertness of the Royal librarians, but the number of examples here reproduced is certainly greater than the wealth of the collection warrants, and it may be doubted whether some of the bindings, if sold, would fetch as much as the cost of the illustrations of them. It must be owned, however, that most of the poorest specimens are wanted to fill gaps in the sequence of examples of special bindings for the successive Kings and Queens from Henry VIII., onward, and their presence is therefore excusable. As it is, Mr. Holmes is able to boast that only one English sovereign, Queen Mary, is un- represented, and if we accept the theory that a binding with the royal arms is a royal book we do not see on Mr. Holmes' showing, why this exception should be made. Plate 5 shows a copy of Paynell's transla- tion of The Conspiracie of Catiline, printed by John Waley, and bound in vellum with large gilt stamps in the centre and sides. The plate is fool- ishly lettered " Bound for Henry VI 1 1.," but in the description it is said to have been " Printed and bound about 1557," though it preserves an earlier dedication to Henry. The Museum copy is actually dated 1557, and if we agree with Mr. Holmes that the book was bound in the same year, the royal arms in the centre would be those of Mary. To our thinking, how- ever, the binding is probably some ten or fifteen years later. The discrepancy which we have noticed in this case between the under- line on the plate and the formal description exists in several other instances. Thus three blind stamped bindings bearing the royal arms (plates 2 to 4) are all lettered " Bound for Henry VIII.," though Mr. Holmes in his pre- face admits the absurdity of this theory so beloved by booksellers, the truth being that the arms of the reigning sovereign were stamped on bindings by certain stationers, possibly in gratitude for royal favours, but certainly with no intention of indicating that the books they enclosed were intended for the royal library, or even, as Mr. Holmes tries to argue, that such particular care had been spent on their production that they were not unfit for its shelves. How far the same state of things prevailed later on with gilt stamps is a more difficult question. We are quite certain that we are at liberty to doubt whether the copy of the Eikon Basilike, shown on plate 34, was really bound for Charles II., as stated. It is much more probable that the royal arms were merely stamped on the covers in sympathy with the subject of the book, and this principle may probably be extended to a good many other cases. Turning over the leaves of the book the first really notable binding we come to is the fine cover, bearing on labels the inscriptions "The Kynges Revenues," "Anno Quinto Regis Edwardi Sexti." In the centre are the king's arms, and there is a handsome fillet round the margins in the Venetian style. Plate 2 shows a delightful vellum binding tooled in the