CYRIL DAVENPORT note. Instead of using four or five bands as would be done now, the ladies at Nicholas Ferrar's establishment used fifteen or sixteen, giving themselves much sewing to do, but making their books so strong that they seem, indeed, to be intended to last for ever. Very small books were highly appreciated in England during the first half of the seventeenth century, whether they were produced in this country or abroad. These appear to have been frequently made into sets of about the same size and bound in some way to suit the taste of their owners. Fragments of one most interesting set of this kind exist in the British Museum as part of the old Royal Library of England. Twenty little volumes, mostly classics, each measuring about 3 inches by 21- inches, are all bound alike in olive morocco, they bear upon their sides the monogram of Henry, Prince of Wales, and their backs have a spray of laurel upon them. It may be hoped that more of these little volumes are still unrecog- nised upon the shelves of our immense national library. In the same library is also a perfect example of a small set of books of the seventeenth century. This is the travelling library of Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls in i614, and it is all contained in a box charmingly finished with gold tooled leather, as a binding, in the style of the time of Charles I. There are 44 little books, the smallest measuring 21 inches by 2 inches, and the largest not much more, arranged in subjects, bound in white vellum and distinctively stamped in gold. Theology is marked on the sides of each volume by an angel bearing a scroll, History by a crowned lion rampant, and Poetry by a double olive branch. The tie ribbons also are differently coloured : the theological works have blue ribbons, the historical red, and the poetical green. Inside the lid is an elaborately illuminated list of the contained works, and coats-of -arms and devices of the owner all emblazoned in proper colours and inserted in an architectural framework. 1 9
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