There was yet another beautiful style invented by Mearne. It is not so real a design as the Cottage, as it partakes to some extent of the principle of the semis, inasmuch as symmetrical repetition is an integral part of it. There is no doubt that Mearne saw and admired the work of the great French contemporary binder Le Gascon, and from him he borrowed several ideas, among them that of the pointille or dotted stamps, and also that of the interlacing fillets with interstitial spaces filled with small gold tooling. [Illustration: FIG. 116.--English gold tooled binding by Samuel Mearne. Made for Charles II.] The radical change that Mearne made with regard to Le Gascon’s interlacing fillets was that he made them up by using successive impressions of a two-horned curve instead of a continuous fillet or ribbon. Although at first sight there would seem to be no connection between one of these “all over” bindings by Mearne and one of Le Gascon’s exquisite little interlacings, I think the connection is undoubted. [Illustration: FIG. 117.--English gold-tooled binding in “all-over” style, by Samuel Mearne.] The all-over bindings, always small, are not uncommon; they are in black or red morocco, with colours interchanged, and are tooled in gold, with the very decorative addition of silver paint, water-colour, applied by hand here and there. Eliot and Chapman did much excellent work in the eighteenth century and invented large ornamental borders for their bindings. These borders are not rolls, but the component parts are separately stamped. There is an excellent design with arches, a bird and a fly, and another with a globe, but all of them are admirably and effectively designed. Except the work of Eliot and Chapman, the main English ornamentations on bookbindings during the eighteenth century were modifications of one or other of Mearne’s designs. [Illustration: FIG. 118.--English gold tooled binding showing the influence of Samuel Mearne.] Eliot and Chapman bound largely for Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, and their broad bordered style is known as the “Harleian.” The centres, in the finest examples, are left unornamented, but there are numbers of examples, especially in later work, in which the centres are filled with a diamond-shaped mass of small gold toolings. Their style has been very largely copied. [Illustration: FIG. 119.--The book stamp of Robert Harley.] Towards the end of the eighteenth century English binding received a remarkable stimulus by reason of the advent of Roger Payne, a native of Windsor, who set up in London as a bookbinder about 1770. Payne’s two predecessors, Berthelet and Mearne, had both enjoyed Court positions, but Payne never did; he worked when he chose, and only then, and even if the brilliancy and genius shown of his work had ever been known to George III., it is doubtful whether so unreliable a man as Payne was could ever have been allowed to hold any responsible position.