# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Payne, Roger

​PAYNE, ROGER (1739–1797), bookbinder, was born at Windsor in 1739. It is said that after having learned the rudiments of his art from Pote, the Eton bookseller, he came to London about 1766, and worked for a short time for Thomas Osborne (d. 1767) [q. v.] in Gray's Inn. Soon afterwards—between 1766 and 1770—through the kindness of ‘honest Tom Payne,’ the bookseller at the Mews Gate, who was not related to him, he was enabled to set up in business for himself as a bookbinder, near Leicester Square [see Payne, Thomas, 1719–1799]. He was then joined by his brother Thomas, who attended to the forwarding department, while Roger, who possessed artistic talent far superior to that of any of his fellow-craftsmen of the eighteenth century in England, devoted himself to the finishing and decoration of the volumes entrusted to his care. After a time, however, the brothers parted, and Roger, late in life, took as his fellow-worker Richard Wier, whose wife became known as a clever repairer and restorer of old books. The partners were alike addicted to immoderate indulgence in strong ale, which led to frequent quarrels and at last to separation. Roger's aspect betrayed his inordinate liking for ‘barley broth.’ ‘His appearance,’ says Dibdin, ‘bespoke either squalid wretchedness or a foolish and fierce indifference to the received opinions of mankind. His hair was unkempt, his visage elongated, his attire wretched, and the interior of his workshop—where, like the Turk, he would “bear no brother near his throne”—harmonised but too justly with the general character and appearance of its owner. With the greatest possible display of humility in speech and in writing, he united quite the spirit of quixotic independence.’
Payne died in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane, London, on 20 Nov. 1797, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, at the expense of his old friend Thomas Payne, ‘to whom,’ writes John Nichols, ‘in a great measure the admirers of this ingenious man's performances may feel themselves indebted for the prolongation of his life, having for the last eight years provided him with a regular pecuniary assistance.’ Thomas Payne had also a portrait taken of his namesake, at his work in his miserable den, which was etched and published by Sylvester Harding in 1800, and again engraved by William Angus for Dibdin's ‘Bibliographical Decameron.’
Payne is considered by some to have originated a new style of bookbinding; but he was undoubtedly influenced by the beautiful work of Samuel Mearn and other binders of the end of the seventeenth century. His bindings united elegance with durability; and the ornaments, which are said to have been designed by himself, were chosen with excellent taste. His best work was executed either in russia leather or in straight-grained morocco, usually of a dark blue, bright red, or olive colour. The sheets of the books were often sewn with silk, and the backs lined with leather, to give them additional strength. As a rule the backs only were elaborately tooled, while the sides were left almost plain. The ornamental devices were chiefly circlets, crescents, stars, acorns, running vines, and leaves, placed at intervals in the spaces to be decorated, and studded between with golden dots. The end papers were usually purple or some other plain colour. Each volume was accompanied by a bill describing the work done, and the ornaments used, written in a most precise and quaint style. Many of these bills are still extant in the volumes which he bound.
Payne's chief patrons were Earl Spencer, the Duke of Devonshire, Colonel Stanley, and the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode. The books which he bound for Lord Spencer are now in the John Rylands Library at ​Manchester. Among them are many very beautiful bindings, as well as the large-paper copy of Potter's translation of ‘Æschylus,’ printed at Glasgow in 1795, in which are contained Flaxman's original drawings, bound in blue morocco. This is thought by some to be Roger Payne's masterpiece. The same collection includes also the Aldine edition of Homer's ‘Iliad,’ printed on vellum in 1504, on which he was at work at the time of his death. The Cracherode collection, now in the British Museum, likewise contains many excellent examples of his work, among which may especially be noted Cicero's ‘De Oratore,’ printed at Rome by Ulrich Han in 1468, bound in red morocco; the ‘Historia’ of Justinus, printed at Venice by Jenson in 1470, in blue morocco; Cicero's ‘De Finibus,’ Venice, 1471, in red morocco, with blind tooling on the outside; Cicero's ‘Epistolæ ad Familiares,’ printed by Jenson at Venice in 1475, in red morocco; the ‘Erotemata’ of Lascaris, Venice, 1495, in olive-brown morocco; the Cambridge edition of Euripides, 1694, in blue morocco; and the Aldine Virgil of 1505, in blue morocco, with a cameo inserted in each cover. The British Museum also possesses, in the Grenville collection, two good specimens: East's undated edition of the ‘Storye of Kynge Arthur,’ bound in red morocco; and the Genoa edition of Tasso's ‘Gierusalemme Liberata,’ 1590, in olive morocco. A copy of the first folio Shakespeare, 1623, bound in russia, is in the library of Mr. Christie-Miller at Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire.
R. E. G.