*"THE CONTRAST was written by Royal Tyler of Vermont for Thomas Wignell, the comedian, by whom it was produced with considerable success in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. He took the part of Jonathan, written expressly for him, and a much more accurate representation of a real Yankee than any of the modern caricatures. It was published for subscribers only. . . . Royal Tyler was a genuine wit. He was aid to the Gov. of Mass, in the Shays rebellion, and followed the rebels into Vt., where he settled, and became eminent in public life. He was a lawyer and Judge. He wrote the ' Algerine Captive' and many articles for the Polyanthus and other Journals - Dec. 3, 1876." Copy of manuscript note inserted in the book.
It is a royal octavo, bound in a hard, close-textured, highly polished dark red morocco, the sides inlaid with green borders, with ornamental gilt scroll tooling. The back of the volume is elaborately gilt-tooled with small stamps, one of which is the acorn, a tool so frequently used by the Mearnes (the distinguished English bibliopegist predecessors of Roger Payne), as to have become considered as reliable an indication of their work, as is the " sausage " pattern which appears upon so many of the bindings attributed to them.
Positive proof that this binding was executed in this country is lacking, but appearances and the circumstantial evidence in the case, point to that conclusion. This Comedy in five Acts by Royal Tyler, which claims to be the first " Essay of American Genius in the Dramatic Art" has become exceedingly rare, notwithstanding the fact that as the printed list of subscribers shows, the edition consisted of at least 600 copies. It contains a curious and interesting frontispiece, engraved by Maverick,* after a painting by William Dunlap, which, as a manuscript note in the volume states, comprises five portraits, the persons being dressed as in the scene ; viz., Mr. Wignell as Brother Jonathan ; Mr. Henry as Colonel Manly ; Mr. Hallam as Dimple ; Mr. Morris as Van Rough; and Mrs. Morris as Charlotte.
The "American Latin Grammar, or a compleat Introduction to the Latin Tongue," which is shown in our illustration, is undoubtedly in its original boards, which are, as may be seen, as perfect, sound and true as when first applied ; and they have had to withstand the exceptionally hard usage, which falls to the lot of school and textbooks
*This must, I judge, have been Peter R. Maverick, the first of that noted family of engravers and copper-plate printers.
These oaken boards continued in general use by binders down to the close of the eighteenth century, and for some time afterwards, were not altogether superseded, by the cardboards now universally employed. The manner in which these thin veneers of wood have retained their shape is quite remarkable. They have neither warped nor cracked through all these years, and have successfully defied alike the cold and dampness of the mouldy cellars, and the heat of the sun-scorched garrets into which they were flung to neglect. Moreover, they have proved a somewhat better barrier than their pasteboard successors, to the ravages of the book-worm ; for are we not told that the Ptinidae generally are not borers of wood ? the chief mischief-maker in this material being that minute insect to which entomologists have given the altogether disproportionate name of Hypothenemus eruditus Westwood or the Hypothenemus bispidedus as it is described by Dr. Le Conte in Trans. Amer. Entom. Soc. 1868, p. 156 - Satis verborum !
" The Columbian Harmonist , A Choice Collection of New Psalm Tunes of American Composition," by Daniel Read, New Haven, Connecticut, 1793, which lies before us, is clad in its original homely but what has proved to be a fairly serviceable coat of brown sheepskin.
THE COLUMBIAN HARMONIST Number III
A Collection of Anthems and Set-Pieces of Music chiefly New
It makes no bibliopegistic pretensions whatever, and simply represents the rank and file of the bindings of the day. This quaint old Psalm Singer, which belongs to an age when the " singing of psalms was an act of devotion, and not an amusement among the people," "sings of simple pieties." and is as plain and unadorned within as without; but doubtless the young men of the village church choir lifted up their voices as lustily in " Old Hundredth" and the rustic maidens, their fair associates, chanted the Easter Anthem as sweetly, from the coarsely engraved score of this brown and battered "Harmonist" as if it had been cut on copper by a master hand, adorned with a frontispiece by Hogarth, and bound in French gros-grained bright red morocco, elegantly ornamented like unto the binding here displayed, which Francis Bedford placed, at a cost of nine guineas, upon another book of soulful melody, to wit, Mr. Leveridge's "Collection of Songs with the Musick" London, 1727.
It must have been from a counterpart of this " Introduction to Psalmody" by Mr. Read, " fitly calculated for the use of Singing-Schools," that the lank, long-shanked school-master, Ichabod Crane, instructed the sweet and buxom Katrina in the divine art of Music, whilst he was laying fruitless siege to the heart and hand already made willing captives, by the dare-devil Brom Van Brunt.
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