Lewis, in his very best style, in morocco, with vellum linings, within
    a broad border of gold, and all other similar seductive adjuncts. 
    Lewis considered it as a CHALLENGE to the whole bibliopegistic
    fraternity at Paris:—­a sort of book-gauntlet;—­thrown down for the
    most resolute champion to pick up—­if he dare!  Thouvenin, Simier,
    Bozerian (as has been intimated to me) were convened on the
    occasion:—­they looked at the gauntlet:  admired and feared it:  but no
    man durst pick it up!

      Obstupuere animi:——­

      Ante omnes stupet ipse Dares[D]....

    In other words, the Marquis de Chateaugiron avowed to me that it was
    considered to be the ne plus ultra of the art.  What say you to
    this, Messrs. Lesne and Crapelet?

        [D] Thouvenin.

[155] This poem appeared early in the year 1820, under the following title.
    “La Reliure, poeme didactique en six chants; precede d’une idee
    analytique de cet art, suivi de notes historiques et critiques, et
    d’un Memoire soumis a la Societe d’Encouragement, ainsi qu’au Jury
    d’exposition de 1819, relatif a des moyens de perfectionnement,
    propres a retarder le renouvellement des reliures.  PAR LESNE.  Paris,
    1820. 8vo. pp. 246.  The motto is thus: 

      Hatez-vous lentement, et sans perdre courage,
      Vingt fois sur le metier remettez votre ouvrage;
      Polissez-le sans cesse et le repolissez.

      Boileau Art.  Poet. ch. 1.

This curious production is dedicated to the Author’s Son:  his first workman; seventeen years of age; and “as knowing, in his business at that early period of life as his father was at the age of twenty-seven.”  The dedication is followed by a preface, and an advertisement, or “Idee analytique de la Reliure.”  In the preface, the author deprecates both precipitate and severe criticism; “He is himself but a book-binder—­and what can be expected from a muse so cultivated?” He doubts whether it will be read all through; but his aim and object have been to fix, upon a solid basis, the fundamental principles of his art.  The subject, as treated in the Dictionary of Arts and Trades by the French Academy, is equally scanty and inaccurate.  The author wishes that all arts were described by artists, as the reader would gain in information what he would lose in style.  “I here repeat (says he) what I have elsewhere said in bad verse.  There are amateur collectors who know more about book-binding, than even certain good workmen; but there are also others, of a capricious taste, who are rather likely to lead half-instructed workmen astray, than to put them in the proper road.”  In the poetical epistle which concludes the preface, he tells us that he had almost observed the Horatian precept:  his poem having cost eight years labour.  The opening of it may probably be