or if a piece of it is missing, it can be facsimiled, and
the whole of the inside of the volume can be washed throughout. Never
destroy an old binding if you can help it, and never obliterate marks of
ownership, for it is interesting to trace the owners of a book. If a
bookplate is in your _Clarissa_, and you wish your own to appear,
transplant the former one to the end cover, and put your own in the
front if you wish. Never have such a book as we are now discussing cut
down. A book has recently been written and published by Mr. C. G. Leland
on _Mending and Repairing_, in which the author recommends the amateur
to repair his own books. I believe Mr. Leland is an expert hand at many
arts and crafts, but I do not think that every amateur should attempt
experiments in repairing his own books unless he means to give a great
deal of time to it, which very few would, I think, care to do.

The following remarks, taken from a review, I think by Mr. A. Lang, are
valuable:--'The binder is often very mischievous. He not only "cuts
down" books, impairing their shapeliness and ruining them for sale, nay,
even cutting off lines, but he is apt to lose fly-leaves, with imprints,
and rare autographs. What he rejects may have a merely fanciful or
sentimental interest, still that interest can be expressed in terms of
currency. An eighth of an inch in margin may represent a large sum of
money, and it is just as easy not to cut down the volume. Old bookplates
ought to be kept, on new bindings of old books. They are the pedigree of
a volume. The ancient covers, if discarded, should be examined. They are
often packed with fragments of old manuscripts, deeds, woodcuts, or
engravings. The ages have handed books on to us; it is our duty to hand
them on to coming generations, clean, sound, uninjured.'

The fourth case shall be paper-bound novels, English and French
editions, and Tauchnitz copies. I have no hesitation in saying that the
best material is Buckram. It has the merit of being good--that is to
say, durable, cheap, artistic, and not harsh to handle, as many linens
are. There are some half-a-dozen good colours in Buckram, and these,
when relieved by lettering-pieces of some contrasting colour, can be
made most decorative and economical. I believe buckram is in every way a
most excellent material for binding, and for students who buy and use
German and French text-books published in paper, this material is
excellent for their libraries as