An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
23
ever had to do. If we would properly appreciate the great merit of Roger Payne, we must
compare his work, not with the finest productions of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, but
with the debased work of the binders, who immediately preceded him, and whose methods he
reformed. That scrupulous particularity as to every detail of his art, and that instinct for
scholarship, (no matter how little actual scholarship he possessed), which are conspicuously
illustrated by the foregoing bills, enabled him to lend to his work a distinguished and personal
air, and to endue it with more charm and interest, than a greater mastery of forwarding, and a
more copious invention, have commonly succeeded in accomplishing. He had the true
temperament of an artist; for that very sensibility, which led him into excesses, rendered
distasteful to him the perfunctory work, with which he found himself surrounded; urging him on,
not only to conceive, but, also, to realize a finer and better manner in his art. As such, he
appeared to his contemporaries: 'those,' observes the writer of his obituary notice, in the
Gentleman's Magazine, 'who are not accustomed to see bookbinding executed in any other than
the common manner, can have no idea of the merits of the deceased.' 'This ingenious man
introduced a style of binding, uniting elegance with durability, such as no person has ever been
able to imitate.
The tradition of fine binding, which Roger Payne had revived, was continued after his death by
certain German binders, Baumgarten, Benedict, Kalthoeber and Staggemier who settled in
London; and, also, by Charles Lewis and Charles Hering, who especially imitated his manner.
Lewis did much work for the Rt. Hon. Thomas Grenville, Earl Spencer, the Duke of Devonshire,
among other collectors: and was greatly esteemed by Dibdin, who lauded him somewhat to the
disparagement of Roger Payne. Lewis was, doubtless, a more reliable workman, than Payne;
and Dibdin, in his Decameron, has enumerated his virtues: but that estimable writer has
forgotten to add, or, perhaps, did not quite appreciate, that Payne possessed, what is above
merely technical excellence, original genius, which cannot be said of Lewis. Kalthoeber, who did
much work in Payne's manner, revived the art of painting the edges of books, under the gold; a
form of decoration, which is more particularly associated with the name of Edwards, a binder of
Halifax, who afterwards settled in Pall Mall. In 1785, Edwards took out a patent for the
decoration of vellum, in covering books, by rendering it transparent, and painting upon the
under-surface. A Prayer Book, printed by Baskerville in 1760, which belonged to Queen
Charlotte, and which is now in the British Museum, is elaborately decorated in this manner, with
a border in the Etruscan style, and painted edges. This style was derived from the ornament on
Etruscan vases, by John