remember that while Nodier could get out of debt by selling his collection, ours will probably not fetch anything like what we gave for it. In half-bindings there is a good deal of room for the exercise of the collector's taste. M. Octave Uzanne, in a tract called "Les Caprices d'un Bibliophile," gives some hints on this topic, which may be taken or let alone. M. Uzanne has noticed the monotony, and the want of meaning and suggestion in ordinary half-bindings. The paper or cloth which covers the greater part of the surface of half-bound books is usually inartistic and even ugly. He proposes to use old scraps of brocade, embroidery, Venice velvet, or what not; and doubtless a covering made of some dead fair lady's train goes well with a romance by Crébillon, and engravings by Marillier. "Voici un cartonnage Pompadour de notre invention," says M. Uzanne, with pride; but he observes that it needs a strong will to make a bookbinder execute such orders. For another class of books, which our honest English shelves reject with disgust, M. Uzanne proposes a binding of the skin of the boa constrictor; undoubtedly appropriate and "admonishing." The leathers of China and Japan, with their strange tints and gilded devices may be used for books of fantasy, like "Gaspard de la Nuit," or the "Opium Eater," or Poe's poems,
