that for ordinary books no binding is cheaper, neater, and more
durable, than a coat of buckram.

The conditions of a well bound book may be tersely enumerated. The
binding should unite solidity and elegance. The book should open
easily, and remain open at any page you please. It should never be
necessary, in reading, to squeeze back the covers; and no book,
however expensively bound, has been properly treated, if it does not
open with ease. It is a mistake to send recently printed books to
the binder, especially books which contain engravings. The printing
ink dries slowly, and, in the process called "beating," the text is
often transferred to the opposite page. M. Rouveyre recommends that
one or two years should pass before the binding of a newly printed
book. The owner will, of course, implore the binder to, spare the
margins; and, almost equally of course, the binder, durus arator,
will cut them down with his abominable plough. One is almost
tempted to say that margins should always be left untouched, for if
once the binder begins to clip he is unable to resist the seductive
joy, and cuts the paper to the quick, even into the printed matter.
Mr. Blades tells a very sad story of a nobleman who handed over some
Caxtons to a provincial binder, and received them back MINUS 500
pounds worth of margin. Margins make a book worth perhaps 400
pounds, while their absence reduces the same volume to the box
marked "all these at fourpence." Intonsis capillis, with locks
unshorn, as Motteley the old dealer used to say, an Elzevir in its
paper wrapper may be worth more than the same tome in morocco,
stamped with Longepierre's fleece of gold. But these things are
indifferent to bookbinders, new and old. There lies on the table,
as I write, "Les Provinciales, ou Les Lettres Ecrites par Louis de
Montalte a un Provincial de ses amis, & aux R.R. P.P. Jesuites. A