Studio: international art (10.1897)

A Spanish IVritiug Book

tern has not always been influenced by the same
rule.

But in speaking generally of " styles " in binding it
is hard to find any old "style" peculiar to bindings
whence to start a survey. Bindings have hitherto
employed with certain adaptations the style in
vogue at the period for the decorative metal work,
embroideries, and other substances. Scarce one
has been developed by the material, and possibly
not one has been consciously developed in a logical
attempt to analyse the structural features of the book,
and to plan the decoration accordingly. Limiting
our attention to whole-bound books, we find that the
raised bands of the older fashion will show almost the
only distinct effort to emphasise the construction by
the ornament. It is true that good craftsmen, from
the earliest to the latest, have kept the proportions of
the decoration to a pleasant scale, and have taken
now the lettering as the unit (as in Mr. Cobden-
Sanderson's Chaucer), and again the principal
" motive " of the ornament (as in the Grolier bind-
ings). But when stock stamps are used, it follows
that the scale can only be varied within limits.

Perhaps, as a hasty attempt to differentiate
between the old and new methods, we may say
that Mr. Cobden-Sanderson has replaced the
stock stamp by a variety of incomplete parts, which
are capable of being reunited in a thousand ways,
and that Miss E. M. MacColl has superseded
" stamps" by her rouletted line. This is, of
course, a very rough-and-ready definition; but
while Mr. Cobden-Sanderson himself employs
" the line" in curves built up for certain fixed
segments, and Miss MacColl uses a few simple
stamps, these secondary details do not clash with
the main principles which govern the work of
each. In this paper the decoration, and that only,
has been touched upon. The equally important
principles which regulate the "forwarding" of the
book must be left to a more convenient occasion.

Glekson White.

ASPANISH WRITING BOOK
OF THE SIXTEENTH CEN-
TURY. BY EDWARD F.
STRANGE.

It is with something more than curiosity that we
turn from the iron-shod haste of modern penmanship
to study old styles of writing. Quite at the outset
arises a sense of dignity and deliberation, of nice
selection, of clever craftsmanship, with all its dainty
little evidences of the scribe's love for his work—

the whole inspiring a sentiment very new and strange
to the younger among us, with whom the pen is
but a mere inconsiderable slave. And a little
learning so increases love for this homely art—
already, if we only knew it, lying at the finger-tips
of each of us—that it seems worth while to sit for
a space at the feet of one of the long-forgotten
writing-masters, and see if his teaching has not yet
a value.

Int ilin ci p i o e

mt'verbum, Csf'verbum eratapudDeum$,
2>eus erat verbum Hoc erat inprillcipio ci-
pud Veum: Omnia,per ipfumjutfitJiint,
&Jine ipfojhttum eft nihil. Qupdjactiim
eft in ipfovita erat. &viiaerat hixbomi-.
num. &lux intenebris lucet. &tenebre e-,
am non comprehenderunt. Tuithomo i
tniflusa Deo cui nomen erat loannesS

Tedevmlavda-

mus:te Dominum confitemur.Tca;-
ternum patrem omnis terra vencra-
tur.Tlbi omnes angeli.tibi czhfiuvni-
ucrfajpoteftates.TIbi Cherubim &Sc-
raphim, in ceflabili voce proclamant,
San&us, Sanftus, Sandus Dominus
Dens Sabaoth. Pleni Hint ca;li&>ter-
ra maieftatis gloria: tua Te gloriofus

But first a note is needed to explain the existence
of any professed teacher of caligraphy. In the age
which saw the birth of printing, the art of fine
writing was a rare acquirement outside the religious
institutions, the legal seminaries, and the guilds
of illuminators and scribes, which, so far from
popularising it, fenced about their craft with many
and various limitations, especially as to the admis-
sion and training of new members. But this new
device of printing not only revolutionised the old
corporations. It carried a knowledge of letters
farther than had hitherto been dreamed of; so that
a common habit of writing sprang up among mere

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