INDUSTRIES 



Spencer, the Duke of Devonshire, Colonel 

 Stanley, and the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt 

 Cracherode. The brothers did not long 

 continue their partnership, and on the depar- 

 ture of Thomas Payne, Roger took as a 

 fellow-worker Richard Wier, whose wife was 

 a clever mender and restorer of old books. 

 The new partnership had one serious draw- 

 back, both Payne and Wier being addicted to 

 strong drink ; this led to frequent quarrels, 

 and at last to separation. During his associa- 

 tion with Wier some of Payne's finest bindings 

 were executed, and they are all characteristi- 

 cally English. Dibdin 7 gives a sad picture 

 of the condition to which Payne was brought 

 by his intemperance. ' His appearance be- 

 spoke either squalid wretchedness or a foolish 

 and fierce indifference to the received opinions 

 of mankind. His hair was unkempt, his 

 visage elongated, his attire wretched, and the 

 interior of his workshop where, like the 

 Turk, he would " bear no brother near his 

 throne " harmonized not too justly with the 

 general character and appearance of its owner. 

 With the greatest possible display of humility 

 in speech and in writing, he united quite the 

 spirit of quixotic independence.' Payne died 

 in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane, on 

 20 November 1797, and was buried in the 

 churchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, at 

 the expense of his friend Thomas Payne, the 

 bookseller. To this friend, who was not a 

 relative, he was indebted for his first start in 

 business on his own account, and for his 

 support during the last eight years of his 

 life. 



As an artist in binding Payne certainly 

 shows signs of the influence of Samuel Mearn, 

 who was the English court binder towards 

 the end of the 1 7th century, but his genius 

 enabled him to originate a style which was 

 quite his own. The covers of his books 

 usually bear a simple design, whilst the backs 

 are elaborately decorated. His bindings also 

 combine elegance and strength, the sheets of 

 the books being often sewn with silk, and the 

 backs lined with leather to give them addi- 

 tional strength. The centre of his covers is 

 usually left vacant, but among the specimens 

 of his work in the Cracherode collection at 

 the British Museum many examples are found 

 in which the centre of the board is embel- 

 lished with the beautiful and delicately- 

 engraved Cracherode coat-of-arms. The 

 decoration which he generally employed for 

 his covers consisted of a rectangular line as a 

 border ornamented with beautiful and very 



' Bibliographical Decameron (1817), ii, 506-18. 



delicately stamped corners, and angle-pieces of 

 decorative work. Occasionally he adds orna- 

 mental designs which fill or nearly fill the 

 space between the outer edge of the book and 

 the inner panel. Payne's decorative devices 

 are made up chiefly of small stamps, some- 

 what resembling those of Mearn, interspersed 

 with minute dots, stars, and circles. The 

 stamps he most commonly used were crescents, 

 stars, acorns, running vines, and leaves. To 

 each of his bindings he attached a bill describ- 

 ing the design and the ornaments used, written 

 in a most quaint and precise style. Many of 

 these bills are still preserved in the volumes 

 whose bindings they describe. Payne took 

 considerable care in choosing his leather, 

 usually selecting russia or straight-grained 

 morocco of a dark blue, bright red, or olive 

 colour. The olive morocco which he some- 

 times used being perhaps the most perfect 

 binding material that is procurable for receiv- 

 ing the impression of a gold stamp. Samuel 

 Mearn and his son Charles, who were binders 

 to Charles II, lived in Little Britain. 8 



Exigencies of space will only admit of a 

 brief summary of the masters of the art in 

 modern times. Among the later binders of 

 the 1 8th century were a little colony of Ger- 

 mans Baumgarten, Benedict, Walther, Stag- 

 gemeier, Kalthoeber who continued the 

 traditions of Robert Payne. Charles Herring, 

 a binder of repute, chiefly worked in Payne's 

 style. The excellence of the work of these 

 binders was largely inspired by John Mackin- 

 lay, for whom Payne worked before his death. 

 John Whitaker introduced the Etruscan style 

 in which designs from the decoration of 

 Etruscan vases were copied in colours by 

 means of acids instead of in gold. Charles 

 Lewis, in conjunction with Staggemeier, 

 bound most of the Althorp books, and also 

 those for Beckford at Fonthill. Dibdin, who 

 was a great admirer of Lewis's work, says, 

 ' He united the taste of Roger Payne with a 

 freedom of forwarding and squareness of 

 finish peculiar to himself.' Lewis wis assisted 

 by Clarke, famous for his tree-marbled calf in 

 binding the library of the Rev. Theodore 

 Williams. Bedford, who has been regarded 

 as the best of all English binders in forward- 

 ing, did much important work for Mr. Huth. 

 Of the binders of to-day among the first- 

 class firms who carry on the traditions of the 

 past, that of Mr. Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf is 

 specially well known. 



' An excellent account of Mearn by Mr. Cyril 

 Davenport will be found in Bibliografhica, iii, 129 

 et seq. 



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