st in its extension.

Any specimen of Mr. Ferrar's binding I never saw, but by those who
_have_, it is said to have been magnificent. He and his family were
once, if not twice, visited by Charles I., and they presented to that
prince a most sumptuous Bible of their own binding; which Bible, a lady
once told me, was in that collection gradually formed by George III. at
Buckingham House, and finally presented to the nation by his son. I
should fear it must be in ruins as a specimen of the Little Gidding
workmanship. The man who goes to bed in his coffin dressed in a jewelled
robe and a diamond-hilted sword, is very liable to a visit from the
resurrection-man, who usually disarms and undresses him. The Bible that
has its binding inlaid with gold, sowed with Oriental pearl, and made
horrent with rubies, suggests to many a most unscriptural mode of
searching into its treasures, and too like the Miltonic Mammon's mode of
perusing the gorgeous floors of heaven. Besides that, if the Bible
escaped the Parliamentary War, the true _art_ of the Ferrar family would
be better displayed in a case of less cost and luxury. Certainly, in no
one art was the stupidity of Europe more atrociously recorded than in
this particular art practised by the Ferrars. Boundless was the field
for improvement. And in particular, I had myself drawn from this art, as
practised of old, one striking memorial of that remarkable genius for
stupidity, which in all ages alike seems to haunt man as by an
inspiration, unless he is roused out of it by panic. It is this. Look at
the lettering--that is, the labels lettered with the titles of books--in
all libraries that are not of recent date. No man would believe that the
very earliest attempt to impress a mark of ownership upon some bucket of
the Argonauts, or the rudest scrawl of Polyphemus in forging a tarry
brand upon some sheep which he had stolen, could be _so_ bad, _so_
staggering and illegible, as are these literary inscriptions. How much
better to have had a thin tablet or veneering of marble or iron adjusted
to the back of the book. A stone-cutter in a rural churchyard once told
me that he charged a penny _per_ letter. That may be cheap for a
gravestone, but it seems rather high for a book. _Plato_ would cost you
fivepence, _Aristotle_ would be shocking; and in decency you must put
him into Latin, which would add twopence more to every volume. On a
library like that of Dresden or the Vatican, it would rais