ry biting
in his sarcasm upon these 'purple leaves covered with letters of gold
and silver.'--'For myself and my friends (adds that father), let us
have lower priced books, and distinguished not so much for beauty as
for accuracy.'

"Mabillon remarks that these purple treasures were for the 'princes'
and 'noblemen' of the times.

"And we learn from the twelfth volume of the Specileginum of Theonas,
that it is rather somewhat unseemly 'to write upon purple vellum in
letters of gold and silver, unless at the particular desire of a
prince.'"

"The _subject_ also of MSS. frequently regulated the mode of executing
it. Thus we learn from the 28th Epistle of Boniface (Bishop and
Martyr) to the abbess Eadburga, that this latter is entreated 'to
write the Epistles of St. Peter, the master and Apostle of Boniface,
in letters of gold, for the greater reverence to be paid towards the
Sacred Scriptures, when the Abbess preaches before her carnally-minded
auditors.'"

About the close of the seventh century the Archbishop of York procured
for his church a copy of the Gospels thus adorned; and that this
magnificent calligraphy was then new in England may be inferred from a
remark made on it that "inauditam ante seculis nostris quoddam
miraculam."

This art, however, shortly after declined everywhere; and in England
the art of writing in gold letters, even without the rich addition of
the purple-tinted material, seems to have been but imperfectly
understood. The only remarkable instance of it is said to be the
charter of King Edgar, in the new Minster at Winchester, in 966. In
the fourteenth century it seems to have been more customary than in
those immediately preceding it.

But we have been beguiled too long from that which alone is connected
with our subject, viz., the _binding_ of books. Probably this was
originally a plain and unadorned oaken cover; though as books were
found only in monastic establishments, or in the mansions of the rich,
even the cover soon became emblematic of its valuable contents.

The early ornaments of the back were chiefly of a religious
character--a representation of the Virgin, of the infant Saviour, of
the Crucifixion. Dibdin mentions a Latin Psalter of the ninth century
in this primitive and substantial binding, and on the oaken board was
riveted a large brass crucifix, originally, probably, washed with
silver; and also a MS. of the Latin Gospels of the twelfth or
thirteenth century, in oaken