Nowadays it is quite different. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition did much, and the second-hand booksellers, in quite ordinary places, are beginning to give in their catalogues reproductions of noble specimens. Nothing else is required. To see is enough. There was recently, as most people know, a wonderful exhibition of bindings to be seen at the Burlington Fine Art Club, but what is not so generally known is that the Club has published a magnificent catalogue of the contents of that Exhibition, with no less than 114 plates reproducing with the greatest possible skill and delicacy some of the finest specimens. Mr. Gordon Duff, who is credited with a profounder knowledge of pigskins than any living man, has contributed a short preface to the volume, whilst Miss Prideaux, herself a binder of great merit, has written a general introduction, in which she traces the history of the craft, and duly records the names of the most famous binders of Europe. A more fascinating picture-book cannot be imagined, for to the charm of colour and design is added all the feeling which only a book can impart. Such a book as this marks an epoch, and ought to be the beginning of a time when even sale-catalogues shall take pains to be splendid. When the library of the Baron de Lacarelle came to be dispersed at his death a few years ago, the auctioneer’s catalogue, as issued by Charles Porquet, of the Quai Voltaire, made a volume which, wherever it goes, imparts dignity to human endeavour, and consecrates a virtuoso’s whim. It was but a small library--only 540 books--and to call it well selected would be to abuse a term one has learnt to connect with Major Ponto’s library in ‘The Book of Snobs.’ ‘My library’s small,’ says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, ‘but well selected, my boy, well selected. I have been reading the History of England all the morning.’ He could not have done this in the Baron’s library. As you turn the pages of this glorified catalogue, his treasures seem to lie before you--you can almost stroke them. A devoted friend, _de la Société des Bibliophiles français_, contributes an ecstatic sketch of the Baron’s character, and tells us of him how he employed in his hunt after a book infinite artifice, and called to his aid all the resources of learned strategy--‘poussant ses approches et manœuvrant, autour de la place, avec la prudence et le génie d’un tacticien consommé, si bien que le malheureux libraire, enlacé, fasciné, hypnotisé par ce grand charmeur, finissait presque toujours par capituler et se rendre.’ This great man only believed in one modern binder: Trautz. The others did not exist for him. ‘Cherchez-vous à le convertir? Il restait incorruptible et répétait invariablement, avec cet esprit charmant, mais un peu railleur, dont il avait le privilège, que s’il était jamais damné, son enfer serait de remuer une reliure de Capé ou de Lortic!’ It is all very splendid and costly and grand, yet still from time to time,