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Updated: May 20, 2025
Upon his legs he wore red stockings rolled up over the joint of the knee, his breeches were of blue drab, with vellum button-holes, and garters of gold lace, his waistcoat of scarlet, his coat of rusty black cloth, his hair, twisted into a ramilie, hung down to his rump, of the colour of jet, and his hat was adorned with a white feather.
A smell of mustiness for smells go through what nothing else can was the first thing to perceive, and then, having moved the disk of gold, I found a piece of vellum. This was doubled, and I opened it, and read, in small clear writing: "May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only child of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.
These are books written with gold and silver on vellum stained purple, probably with the now lost murex or fish-dye of the ancients, the tint of which dye-stuff Pliny describes minutely and accurately in his 'Natural History. I need scarcely say that no ordinary flat tint could reproduce this most splendid of colours. I believe it has been noted by Mr.
F. Havergal thus describes it: "This MS. is written on stout vellum, and measures about 9 x 7 inches. It consists of 135 leaves. Three coloured titles remain, those to the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John. Two illuminated leaves are missing—those that would follow folio 1 and folio 59. With the exception of these two lacunæ, the MS. contains the whole of the Four Gospels.
These designs by Miss McManus were printed direct from the wood blocks in very limited editions, on genuine vellum, on Japanese vellum, and a small issue on a real sixteenth-century hand-made paper. The various editions were immediately taken up in London on publication; hence it is unlikely that copies will be generally seen in America.
There are very few vehicles which will form a connecting and permanent link between these two substances. There is a general impression that white of egg was used to hold the gold: but any one who has experimented knows that it is impossible to fasten metal to vellum by white of egg alone.
They were printed in blunt type on thick yellowish paper, the edges of which seemed as if they had been cut by the forefinger of an impatient reader, so ragged and irregular were they, and they were bound in vellum, the titles of these two slim flowers of poetry, "Flotsam" and "Jetsam," were printed in black letter type and the covers were further adorned with a sort of embossed seal and with antique looking tapes so that you could tie it all up with two bows when you had finished with Mr Lucas's "Flotsam" for the time being, and turned to untie the "Jetsam."
One cannot get the Jesuit "Relations" shabby little missionary reports from Canada, in dirty vellum. Cartier, Perrot, Champlain, and the other early explorers' books are beyond the means of a working student who needs them. May you come across them in a garret of a farmhouse, or in some dusty lane of the city. Why are they not reprinted, as Mr.
Garrick took pride in their sumptuousness, in their immaculate, virginal splendour. Johnson gathered them to his heart with scant regard for outward magnificence, for the glories of calf and vellum. Garrick bought books. Johnson borrowed them. Each considered that he had a prior right to the objects of his legitimate affection.
"I am ready to die," writes Erasmus of him, "when I shall have seen any young man purer or kinder or more sincere than this one." It is a worthy mate, at all events. The vigour and finish of this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or body-colour, make it a gem of the first water.
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