A second essayist in the same way, who has become almost a member of the vocation, is Cobden Sanderson, who bound several books of ordinary character and moderate value for William Morris, and whose merit, if the prices realised for the lots in the auction be any sort of a criterion, must be extremely high. The present writer and many others carefully examined the volumes, and failed to see any justification for the enthusiasm awakened in at least two competitors.
Specimens occur also now and then in the market of the beautiful morocco bindings executed by another and (as some think) superior amateur, Mrs. Prideaux. A copy of Arnold's edition of Wordsworth's _Select Poems_, 1893, bound by this lady in Levant morocco, with elaborate gold tooling on back and sides--only one small octavo volume--is priced in a catalogue of 1898 at £12, 12s.
The Parisian differs from us islanders in these particulars _toto cælo_. There is an utter and hopeless incompatibility. His predilection is for morocco _in genere_; he estimates it not only above russia (_calf_ is hardly in his dictionary), but above even the choicest vellum encasement to be procured or conceived; but on _maroquin rouge dentellé_ or _aux petits fers_ from some pre-revolutionary workshop he is hobbyhorsical to a pathetic extent.
The most celebrated French binders are carefully enumerated by the latest authorities in their chronological order, but there is a difficulty in respect to many of them analogous to that encountered by the inquirer on English ground, since the names of several even of the best period are unknown, and the productions are accordingly classable only under their styles or their early owners.
A good deal of the finest French work is attributed to the two Eves, whose _chefs d'oeuvre_ must, and can easily, be distinguished from the tolerably frequent imitations put into the market from time to time, some probably nearly coeval with the original examples. Prior to the Eves, however, France had more or less skilful artists in this line of industry. In the Frere sale at Sotheby's in 1896 occurred a copy of Philelphus _De Liberorum Educatione_, printed by Gilles Gourmont in 1508, in the original stamped leather covers, with the name of André Boule on the sides. Under Francis I. we find the names of Estienne Roffet, _dit le Faulcheur_, as "Relieur du Roy," and also with that of Pignolet. The initials _G. G._ occur on a volume of 1523 in Messrs. Pearson & Co.'s catalogue, 1897-98, No. 679; they are probably those of Gilles Gourmont above mentioned. In 1528, according to his edition of _Meliadus de Leonnois_, Galliot du Pré was sworn binder to the University of Paris. In the imprint of his edition of _Lancelot du Lac_, Paris, 1533, Philippe le Noir describes himself as one of the two sworn binders of the same University; and we gather elsewhere that François Regnault was then the other.