In the Century the use of coats of arms fully displayed in gold, and occasionally in all the colors of the different bearings, became the most common adornment, though indeed such ornamentation dates from all earlier epoch. The tendency of design in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries was away from polychro matic effects and toward insistence upon the beauty of the grained leather set off by the slightly impressed points and lines of gold. It is during the last quarter of the Nineteenth Cen tury that effects of color, generally procured by means of inlay, have been restored to fawn Metal mountings of all sorts are adjuncts whose principal object is dignity and sumptuous ness. When books are very heavy and very pre cious, clasps have their utility, and bosses, four or five on each side, keep the leather and its ornamentation from being rubbed. Still, how ever, these mountings. like the far more elaborate covers of wrought silver-gilt set with enameled plaques and cabochon jewels, are chiefly orna mental in their purpose. Europe has never made so great a use as might have been expected of binding in rich stuffs beautiful in themselves.
The term bookbinding should properly be con fluted to the process of covering a folded and sewed book by stiff side-pieces of paper, board. or wood, which are secured to the package of folded leaves by flexible strips running across it at the hack; which side-pieces are afterwards covered by material such as leather of sonic kind. cloth, or paper. pasted or glued to the stiff sides and to the back. The mounting of a book which is issued in a roll like the Roman rolumen, or the Japanese scroll of similar character, is hardly bookbinding. although the very delicate use of decorative paper and rich stuffs, and the mount ing of the scroll upon a cylindrical roller with ivory or other knobs at the ends, may provide the medium for much decorative treatment; and the modern so-called binding in pasteboard covered by muslin or silk and issued in large quantities by publishers should not be called bookbinding at all. For this the entirely appropriate name `easing' may be used.
Considering now the art of binding as it is commonly understood. and as it has been prae ticed in Europe since the Fifteenth Century, the first process is collating. that is to say, examin ing the book to see if it is complete. In close connection with this is. of eourse, the folding of the sheets, if they have not been folded, or the pulling of the book to pieces if it has been bound or eased or stitched before. ln the eourse of this preparation all plates or maps that have been put in with glue or paste are soaked off and their folding or placing considered with a view to the new binding. The sheets to be folded
are indicated by special marks called 'signatures.' These are the letters such as A, and so on through the alphabet, which one sees at the bot tom of sonic pages in almost any book. The folding of the sheets is the important matter. but it can never be neatly done unless the sheets have been so printed that the letterpress on one side comes exactly over that on the opposite side. Other sheets. similarly folded, but of plain paper, imprinted. are added at beginning and end for 'end-papers' or 'fly-leaves.' The sheets once folded have to be sewn, but before the sewing is done the plates which are 'guarded,' or amounted upon guards (French. 'owlets), must be set into their places. Also before the sewing, the edges may be marbled or gilded or painted or sprinkled. It is to be noted that if the gilding is to be very effective it must be done on the rounded front edge, the leaves being deliberately hammered back until they reach the curve intended to be given to the book. This has to be done after the sewing; but if it is desired to avoid the look of a solid, smooth surface, and to let the leaves show individually at the edge, the gilding or coloring had better he done first. After the sewing is done the leaves may he considered as a solid block, and some times landscapes and the like are painted on the edges, which are afterwards gilded; the picture showing only when the mass of leaves is bent or rolled. Sometimes, too, the smooth surfaces made by the edges are stamped before gilding, produc ing impressed patterns.
The leaves of the book are secured together by sewing either to cords or tapes or slips of vellum; and these are, in modern practice, often let into the book by means of saw-cuts carefully made across the whole pile of sheets. This is not oni ducive to first-rate binding. It is far better to let the bands of cord or tape project from the back, and then to let the covering leather adapt itself to these. This, indeed, is the origin of those raised bands which are common on the backs of leather-bound books; but the modern custom leads to the making of wholly false bands. which have nothing to do with the actual sewing of the book. The projecting ends of the cords or strips are the means of securing the whole back to its covers, and therefore their length and the treatment of them is of extreme importance. If cord is used, it is raveled or frayed at the two ends in such a way that it will afford a good opportunity for glueing to the covers.