ton, of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, in
unblemished primitive clothing, could not be re-attired without making
the party convicted of the act liable to capital punishment without
benefit of clergy.

Besides the methods and kinds of binding above mentioned, there are
others of a metallic and a textile character. We find volumes clothed
in bronze, silver, silver-gilt, gold, and embroidered silks, the last
variety usually associated with the Nunnery of Little Gidding, without
absolute certainty of correctness so far as the claim set up on behalf
of that institution to be an exclusive source of such products goes.
Mr. Brassington has furnished in his well-known work examples of all
these more or less exceptional and luxurious liveries. In the most
precious metal the most celebrated specimen is the _Book of Prayers_
of Lady Elizabeth Tirrwhyt, 1574, formerly belonging to Queen
Elizabeth, and ascribed to the Edinburgh goldsmith, George Heriot.
Next in point of rarity to gold comes bronze; silver and silver-gilt
are comparatively frequent; and the embroidered style is only uncommon
where the execution and condition are unimpeachable, as in the case of
a few in our public libraries. The most ordinary books found within
embroidered covers are small editions of the Common Prayer and Psalms;
and they are almost invariably in a dilapidated state. Gilding books
was usually considered at a later epoch, at all events in France, part
of the business of a binder, and so perhaps it may have been in the
case of Dubuisson, who flourished about the middle of the last century
at Paris; yet we observe on his ticket attached to an exquisitely gilt
copy of an almanac for 1747, in red morocco of the period, simply
"Dore par Dubuisson," as if that portion or branch of the
work only had been his.

Some curious episodes have ere now occurred in connection with sets of
books, or even works in two or three volumes, in historical bindings,
or with a remarkable and interesting _provenance_ of another kind. It
was only at the sale of the last portion of the Ashburnham Library
(1898), No. 3574, that the third and fourth parts of Tasso, _Rime e
Prose_, 1589, bound together by Clovis Eve for Marie-Marguerite de
Valois Saint-Remy, was acquired by a French firm through Mr. Quaritch,
the purchaser having already secured at the Hamilton Palace sale the
first and second portions, also in one volume, in the same binding,
and the set still wants Parts v.-vi., so th