Another friend informs me that in the Natural History Museum of the Devon and Exeter Institution is a specimen of “another little pest, which has a great affection for bindings in calf and roan.  Its scientific name is Niptus Hololeucos.”  He adds, “Are you aware that there was a terrible creature allied to these, rejoicing in the name of Tomicus Typographus, which committed sad ravages in Germany in the seventeenth century, and in the old liturgies of that country is formally mentioned under its vulgar name, `The Turk’?” (See Kirby and Spence, Seventh Edition, 1858, p. 123.) This is curious, and I did not know it, although I know well that Typographus Tomicus, or the “cutting printer,” is a sad enemy of (good) books.  Upon this part of our subject, however, I am debarred entering.

The following is from W. J. Westbrook, Mus.  Doe., Cantab., and represents ravages with which I am personally unacquainted: 

“Dear Blades,—­I send you an example of the `enemy’-mosity of an ordinary housefly.  It hid behind the paper, emitted some caustic fluid, and then departed this life.  I have often caught them in such holes.’ 30/12/83.”  The damage is an oblong hole, surrounded by a white fluffy glaze (fungoid?), difficult to represent in a woodcut.  The size here given is exact.

CHAPTER VIII.

BOOKBINDERS.

IN the first chapter I mentioned bookbinders among the Enemies of Books, and I tremble to think what a stinging retort might be made if some irate bibliopegist were to turn the scales on the printer, and place HIM in the same category.  On the sins of printers, and the unnatural neglect which has often shortened the lives of their typographical progeny, it is not for me to dilate.  There is an old proverb, " ’Tis an ill bird that befouls its own nest”; a curious chapter thereupon, with many modern examples, might nevertheless be written.  This I will leave, and will now only place on record some of the cruelties perpetrated upon books by the ignorance or carelessness of binders.

Like men, books have a soul and body.  With the soul, or literary portion, we have nothing to do at present; the body, which is the outer frame or covering, and without which the inner would be unusable, is the special work of the binder.  He, so to speak, begets it; he determines its form and adornment, he doctors it in disease and decay, and, not unseldom, dissects it after death.  Here, too, as through all Nature, we find the good and bad running side by side.  What a treat it is to handle a well-bound volume; the leaves lie open fully and freely, as if tempting you to read on, and you handle them without fear of their parting from the back.  To look at the “tooling,” too, is a pleasure, for careful thought, combined with artistic skill, is everywhere apparent.  You open the cover and find the same loving attention inside that has been given to the outside, all the workmanship being true and thorough.  Indeed, so conservative is a good binding, that many a worthless book has had an honoured old age, simply out of respect to its outward aspect; and many a real treasure has come to a degraded end and premature death through the unsightliness of its outward case and the irreparable damage done to it in binding.