a large ring of paste the Ulysses of the
kitchen framed a chimney to the pie, as a
sort of ventilating shaft, and also shaped a
garland of sharp myrtle-like leaves to wreath
the ring and chimney aforesaid, while all
around he wove a trellis-work of brittle
thread, and spread vine-leaves of paste, and
made a sort of low wall round the flue, to prevent
the gravy and fat from boiling over, and so
spoiling the monster corporation pie. The
great work was now nearly accomplished; it only
wanted two or three finishing touches from
the master-hand. Ude brushed the pie with
dorure, and then gravely and thankfully placed
it in a moderate and carefully-tempered oven.
It took three long hours, and it was all the fire
could do in that time to blend those flavours and
soften those intermingled meats. Before he
withdrew it from the oven, Ude, ever cautious,
thrust with thoughtful probe into the chimney
of the monster, a long keen larding-pin, to make
the final assay, and try if the meat were
soft enough and thoroughly done down to
the lowest stratum. He next, with learned
unction and placid triumph, added, down the
funnel, the gravy and fat hoarded from the
brazier. He also made a jelly of bones of
fowls, rabbits, turkeys, and pheasants, and
some knuckle of veal and ham highly seasoned
with spice, bay-leaves, sweet basil, thyme,
cloves, mace, cayenne, and plenty of salt.
Then reducing this jelly, part of it was poured,
when boiling, into the pie. This pie took
two days to become cold. It required great
care to lift, as it was too heavy for one
French cook. The remaining jelly was spread
over the pie when it was opened. It was indeed
a veritable chef-d'Å“uvre, reflecting much
credit on Ude's heart, but more upon his
head. It gave great satisfaction to the generous
earl, who, as the cruel wits said, had intended
giving the town a library, but was convinced
that the pie would be more appreciated.

BOOKBINDING.

BOOKBINDING comes to glory among us once
a year, at the approach of Christmas. Many
people look upon it as quite a secondary art,
but true lovers of books justly consider it to
be a most important branch of bibliophily,
which has had as yet but few, if any,
historians. No indications as to the origin, the
progress, the rise, or the decline of that art,
so deserving of study, not only on its own
account, but also by reason of the great masters
it has produced, are to be found in those
bibliographic works where one would chiefly expect
to find them. A Frenchman, M. de Gauffremont,
wrote some two centuries ago a Treatise
on the Art of Binding, and a M. Jauglon, a
fellow-countryman of his, attempted a few years
later to handle the same subject; there was also
a Booke of Counselles to Bookebinders published
in London by one James Eddowes in
1643, But all these works, together with a few
others by authors unknown, were simply books
of technical advice or criticism; they did not
profess to deal with the historical side of the
art, and such copies of them as were circulated
have now become so rare, that not even the
best of national libraries, in England or on the
Continent, are to be found provided with them.
We have thought, therefore, that it might prove
interesting to hear a few details, not upon the
manner and fashion of binding books, but upon
the various phases of success or failure, progress
or retrogression, through which the art has had
to pass.

Amongst the ancients (whose manuscripts
were not of paper) binding did not exist. It is
easy to understand this by recollecting the
usages of the times. When men wrote upon
the skin of fishes, upon linen, upon leaves, upon
the bark of trees, upon ivory, upon stone, and
upon metals, it was both useless and impossible
to bind. The most that could be done was to
collect some of the pieces of bark or fish-skin
together, and to string them by files after cutting
them of a size. But even this was rarely done,
and the bookshelves of an Assyrian, an Egyptian,
or an early Greek scholar must have been
a scene of confusion indeed. At the time
when Pharaoh, and afterwards Cheops,
distributed stripes with an unsparing hand to the
children of Israel, it had already become the
fashion in Egypt to write upon thin planks of
wood. By writing we mean here, of course,
those strange hieroglyphics of birds, sphinxes,
and other monstrosities which it has taken
Europe some three thousand years to decipher.
Writing as we understand it now was not
known then, and as the painting of birds,
winged beasts, and men with hawks' heads
demanded a great deal of time and pains, literary
matter was both rare and costly; rich men
alone could pretend to a collection of poems,
and books of divination; a thousand planks, of
a foot square each, containing the substance of
perhaps a dozen modern octavos, was
considered a right princely library, and it would
have been thought as bad as hiding a light
under a bushel to have concealed any of these
treasures from view by an attempt at binding.
On the contrary, the custom was to bore a hole
through the painted planks, and to hang them
up by strips of leather in conspicuous places
about the house. When any one wished to
read he unhooked one of the planks, as people
now-a-days do the bill of fare in a club dining-
room, and as soon as he had had enough of it
he put the thing back, and passed on to another
plank.

The Chinese were undoubtedly the first nation
to fabricate paper, and hence must have been also
the first people to practise bookbinding. At
what precise date paper was first made in China
it is not very easy to determine, but a material
very much resembling our straw paper, although
yellower in colour and more flimsy to the touch,
seems to have been in use before the Christian
era. European travellers, D'Umont d'Urville
amongst the number, bear witness to having