Note 477 — PART IV.

Good binding—even Roger-Payne-binding—is gadding abroad every where. At Oxford, they have "a spirit" of this description who loses a night's rest if he haplessly shave off the sixteenth part of an inch of a rough edge of an uncut Hearne. My friend, Dr. Bliss, has placed volumes before me, from the same mintage, which have staggered belief as an indigenous production of Academic soil. At Reading, also, some splendid leaves are taken from the same Book. Mr. Snare, the publisher, keeps one of the most talented bookbinders in the kingdom—from the school of Clarke; and feeds him upon something more substantial than rose leaves and jessamine blossoms. He is a great man for a halequin's jacket: and would have gone crazy at the sight of some of the specimens at Strawberry Hill. No man can put a varied-coloured morocco coat upon the back of a book with greater care, taste, and success, than our Reading Bibliopegist.