Hartley Coleridge's opinion on the subject of taste in Bookbinding is thus given:--"The binding of a book should always suit its complexion. Pages venerably yellow should not be cased in military morocco, but in sober brown russia. Glossy hot-pressed paper looks best in vellum. We have sometimes seen a collection of whitey-brown black-letter ballads, &c. so gorgeously tricked out that they remind us of the pious liberality of the Catholics, who dress in silk and gold the images of saints, part of whose saintship consisted in wearing rags and hair-cloth. The costume of a volume should also be in keeping with its subject, and with the character of its author. How absurd to see the works of William Penn in flaming scarlet, and George Fox's Journal in bishops' purple! Theology should be solemnly gorgeous. History should be ornamented after the antique and Gothic fashion; works of science, as plain as is consistent with dignity; poetry, _simplex munditis_."
And it may not be irrelevant here to introduce the opinion of Dr. Dibdin, whose connection with some of the first libraries in England, and whose intimate knowledge of all the great book-collectors of the same, must tend to stamp him as a good authority on the subject:--
"The general appearance of one's library is by no means a matter of mere foppery or indifference; it is a sort of cardinal point, to which the tasteful collector does well to attend. You have a right to consider books, as to their _outsides_, with the eye of a _painter_; because this does not militate against the proper use of the contents.
"Be sparing of red morocco or vellum. They have each so distinct, or what painters call spotty, an appearance, that they should be introduced but circumspectly. Morocco, I frankly own, is my favourite surtout; and the varieties of them--_blue_, (dark and light,) _orange_, _green_, and _olive-colour_--are especially deserving of your attention.
"The colour of the binding may often be in harmony with its contents. Books of poetry may be red, or light green, or blue, and have as much ornament as may be desired. And Fine Art books, above all others, ought to rejoice in beautiful coloured moroccos and gorgeous ornaments. In the British Museum, books of divinity are bound in blue, history in red, poetry in yellow, and biography in olive.