It is said that the invention of half-binding originated among the economists of Germany; and some wealthy bibliophiles have stigmatized this style of dressing books as "genteel poverty." But its utility and economy have been demonstrated too long to admit of any doubt that half-binding has come to stay; while, as we have seen, it is also capable of attractive aesthetic features. Mr. William Matthews, perhaps the foremost of American binders, said that "a book when neatly forwarded, and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any finishing or decorating." It was this same binder who exhibited at the New York World's Fair Exhibition of 1853, a copy of Owen Jones's Alhambra, bound by him in full Russia, inlaid with blue and red morocco, with gold tooling all executed by hand, taking six months to complete, and costing the binder no less than five hundred dollars. Book lettering, or stamping the proper title on the back of the book, is a matter of the first importance. As the titles of most books are much too long to go on the back, a careful selection of the most distinctive words becomes necessary. Here the taste and judgment of the librarian come indispensably into play. To select the lettering of a book should never be left to the binder, because it is not his business, and because, in most cases, he will make a mistake somewhere in the matter. From want of care on this point, many libraries are filled with wrongly lettered books, misleading titles, and blunders as ludicrous as they are distressing. I have had to have thousands of volumes in the Library of Congress re-lettered. A copy of Lord Bacon's "Sylva Sylvarum", for example, was lettered "Verlum's Sylva"--because the sapient binder read on the title-page "By Baron Verulam", and it was not his business to find out that this was the title of honor which Bacon bore; so, by a compound blunder, he converted Verulam into Verlum, and gave the book to an unknown writer. This is perhaps an extreme case, but you will find many to match it. Another folio, Rochefort's History of the Caribby Islands, was lettered "Davies' Carriby Islands," because the title bore the statement "Rendered into English by John Davies." In another library, the great work of the naturalist, Buffon, was actually lettered "Buffoon's Natural History." Neither of these blunders was as bad as that of the owner of an elegant black-letter edition of a Latin classic, which was printed without title-page, like most fifteenth century books, and began at the top of the first leaf, in large letters--"HOC INCIPIT," signifying "This begins", followed by the title or subject of the book. The wiseacre who owned it had the book richly bound, and directed it to be lettered on the back--"Works of Hoc Incipit, Rome, 1490." This is a true story, and the hero of it might perhaps, on the strength of owning so many learned works, have passed for a philosopher, if he had not taken the pains to