Mr. ARNETT's Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the
Books of the Ancients, will be curious and interesting to the bibliographer, and informing, though dry, to the general reader. After a brief description of the inscribed bricks and burnt clay pillars of the Asiatics, the author investigates the origin of the roll-up manu- scripts, or vol amen of Egypt, and the various ways in which it was put together, defended, and decorated by the ancients. He next traces the present formed book, from the simple folding tablet of ivory or lead with its waxed surfaces, through an added num- ber of leaves, till EUMENEs. King of Pergaurius, bound up his manu- script instead of sticking or pasting them together and rolling them up. The skill of the Monks, and the splendid decorations of the manuscripts in the middle ages, are next handled. Then fellow, the rise of book-binding with the discovery or printing ; its early splendour, and cumbrous solidity ; the improvement, fluctuations, and occasional decline of the art, with its late revival ; and lastly, brief biographical notices of some of the most eminent artists, the foremost of whom was a drunken dog hight ROGER PAYNE.
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