L I T T L E B O O K S O N A R T
GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT
B O O K P L A T E S

LITTLE BOOKS ON ART
Demy 16mo. 2s. 6d. net.

(see page [11])

BOOKPLATES

BY
EDWARD ALMACK, F.S.A.
WITH FORTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
1904

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOKPLATES

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

remarks—Various modes of engraving—Styles in bookplates.

OF course some people have exaggerated the importance of bookplates, and on the other hand some have affected to ignore them. Now the simple fact is that bookplates belong to books, and anything that has to do with books will assuredly charm cultivated minds until time shall be no more. If this essential point were oftener remembered, the exaggerations of both sides would be avoided.

In Germany, a country where bookplates very early found a home, the word bibliothekzeichen, or library label, is used. Germans also use the name ex libris, and in France the Latin expression ex libris is the only term in use. Naturally the owner’s name in the genitive case is always understood. In France manuscript inscriptions of ownership are very fittingly included as ex libris.

It is too late to change now; but, at all events, whether included or not under any special word, manuscript inscriptions in books by their owners will always be a very interesting study.

What, as explained above, are in France included under ex libris, were known long before the days of printing, as personal inscriptions with or without the delineation of armorial bearings are often to be found forming part of the text of books in manuscript. In fact the various relationships of wealthy patron, learned scribe, and skilled illuminator, gave much scope for these.

To come to what may be said to be known everywhere as ex libris, is to treat of those wonderful days when the earliest printed books were still a novelty. Directly several people or institutions each had copies of a certain printed book, each copy being a duplicate of the other, a wish arose to distinguish ownership.

Before treating further of bookplates, it will be well to clearly point out the different kinds of blocks or plates. The woodcut block, known in some manner to the Chinese 400 years before, was first cut in Europe early in the fifteenth century. The St. Christopher engraved in Germany in 1423, is probably the earliest. The piece of wood to be engraved was cut longwise with the grain, as a plank is cut to-day. A thin piece of some soft wood, such as pear, apple, or lime, was chosen, the design drawn upon it, and then with a knife the engraver cut away to a certain depth everything except the drawn design.

In modern times—about 1785—a revolution took place in wood engraving, when Bewick began to engrave on a piece of wood cut endwise, and with a graver instead of a knife. Bewick chose some very hard wood, usually box. This manner has been continued to this day; and sometimes to distinguish the old art from the new, as the one is so different from the other, the former is called a woodcut and the latter wood-engraving.

Next as to etchings. To produce an etching a copper plate is covered with wax, then with an etching-needle the design is drawn through the wax to the copper. Acid is then applied, which, of course, only eats out the copper where the design has been etched.

Now as to copper-plate line engravings. The engraver first traces on the plate the outline of his design, and then with the triangular-pointed graver he furrows out the lines, inclining his graver deeper or shallower according as he wishes to produce varying effects. Copper-plate engraving has been practised ever since early in the fifteenth century. About 1820 engraving on steel came into vogue. More impressions can be taken from a steel than from a copper plate; but steel is more difficult to engrave upon. By a new process, however, a copper plate can now be strengthened with a steel film.

Mezzotint engraving is an art by itself, and of great interest to English readers, because of the many charming mezzotint engravings after England’s great portrait-painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds; and also by reason of Prince Rupert, the brave cavalier’s, close connection with the art. He has often been said to have invented mezzotint; but the first credit for this is now given to another gallant soldier, Ludwig von Siegen, who engraved a plate in 1642, and kept his discovery a profound secret until, in 1654, he found himself in Brussels with Prince Rupert. The two kindred spirits meeting, the secret was soon unfolded. Rupert became as eager in another field as if he were leading a cavalry charge, and in four years’ time appeared his splendid mezzotint engraving, The Executioner of John the Baptist. As the object of this book is not to give a serious treatise on elaborate methods of engraving, it will best express mezzotint to state that it is in general terms produced by the opposite process from a line engraving, A very smooth copper-plate surface is, as it were, engraved all over. Then the design is wrought on this by a scraping process.

A kind of stipple or dotted engraving was known early in the sixteenth century; but what is really famous as stipple and dotted engraving, only came into vogue in the eighteenth century. The copper plate was first covered with wax, and a dotted outline of the subject pricked through the wax with an etching-needle. Then the shadows were filled in, and finally acid used, as with an etching, Francesco Bartolozzi’s is probably the name best known in this connection, though in masterly ability, William Ryland, who was hanged for forgery, far surpassed him.

In aquatint engraving, the plate to be engraved is covered with a solution made of resin and spirits of wine; this process produces a surface more or less open to the action of acids when applied. In the hands of a skilful manipulator, a fine engraving results from this “more or less” condition.

Here, in beginning to record the succeeding styles of ex libris, let us refer to the varieties which have prevailed at different times amongst Deutschland bookplates. In the first place careful note must be made regarding six coloured drawings of the fourteenth century which Herr Warnecke includes as bookplates, in his splendid work—Die Deutschen Bücherzeichen. Now if once it be admitted that something inscribed in a book as in fact a necessary integral part of that book, is a bookplate, then it becomes impracticable to draw a distinguishing line.

Next, if like the old preachers, we divided the description into three headings, firstly, secondly, and thirdly, we should on this subject record: firstly, German ex libris are armorial; secondly, they are armorial; thirdly, they are armorial. Especially in the earlier plates, the crest is always in its proper place over a helmet, and the helmet over the shield of arms. It would be well if with just an artistic frame to enclose the whole the bookplate stopped there; but alas, there is only too often besides a multitude of fantastic accessories, which give a confusing instead of a pleasing impression. Coming down towards the seventeenth century, you are sometimes favoured (?) with a fantastic maze of the quarterings and emblems of the owner’s relatives to the fortieth generation.

Predominant in the seventeenth century is what is known as the Baroque style, with designs of endless curves and contortions, drawn in a very heavy manner.

Some of the plates which are most pleasing, are those where the arms are surrounded by light wreaths of leaves and flowers.

Reaching the eighteenth century, the Rococo or Shell style, begun in France, becomes common in German bookplates. Late in the century there are, too, some curious and pleasing allegorical plates.

Of early nineteenth-century German ex libris, perhaps the less said the better; but a few are good and all help in making history, so that it is interesting to know that the famous author and collector, Karl Emich Count zu Leiningen-Westerburg, had between seven hundred and eight hundred specimens.

Since then, with the union of Germany, has come, as all the world knows, an artistic and literary development in ex libris, as well as in other branches of art. All this, and a million other points about German bookplates, are admirably told in the late Karl Emich Count zu Leiningen-Westerburg’s book, translated into English for the ex libris series.

In the styles of French bookplates, the more or less simple armorial is most often met in the earlier examples, although one of the best known—that of Charles Ailleboust, Bishop of Autun, had nothing armorial about it.

Heraldry, of course, took an early and masterful hold of the French aristocracy, although even in France, in quite early years, it was found necessary to fix fearful fines and penalties for people assuming insignia to which they had no lawful claim.

Up to about 1650, the almost rectangular shield prevailed in French bookplates; but soon after this, oval shields predominate, and not seldom capped by coronets to which the owners had no title. There is often at the base of the shield a solid plinth, usually bearing the chief inscription.

Then in the latter half of the eighteenth century comes the Rococo or Shell style of bookplate. At the same time, too, there are of course Field-Marshals’ ex libris, defended by guns, and Lord High Admirals’ bookplates reclining amongst anchors.

In 1790 the French Assembly passed a decree annulling the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier; also doing away with all armorial bearings.

In regard to the styles of English bookplates we cannot do better than, for the most part, to refer to the learning of Mr. W. J. Hardy—a man steeped to the finger-tips in ancient lore.

Up to about 1720, “Simple Armorial” is the best brief record. The shield is surmounted by a helmet, on which are the wreath and crest. From the helmet is outspread mantling, more or less voluminous. In earlier examples this terminates generally in tassels, before reaching the base of the shield. In later examples its heavy folds descend quite to the base, and often ascend from the helmet to the level of the top of the crest. Below is a scroll for the motto, and below that, the owner’s name. Next we come to what is known as the Jacobean style, but to which the much more fitting name of “Queen Anne and early Georgian” should be given. The style includes mainly an ornamental frame, suggestive of carved work, resting as often as not upon some kind of conventional support; the ornamentation of both frame and support being of the interior architectural order, making frequent use of fish scales and trellis or diaper patterns for the decoration of plain surface.

Next we find the Rococo style introduced from across the Channel, and this before long time, merging into the well-known Chippendale style, so closely associated with English bookplates. After this, in English bookplates comes the festoon, or wreath-and-ribbon style, in which certainly many charming ex libris were engraved. As Mr. Egerton Castle points out, one of the surest ways of knowing this later Georgian style is by the spade shape of the shields, and altogether a manner which calls up memories of designers and architects such as Sir W. Chambers, Adams, Wedgwood, or Sheraton.

CHAPTER II
BOOKPLATES CHRONOLOGICALLY

Very early plates—Albert Dürer—Other German artists—Early English.

THE bookplate here given as a frontispiece, may be the oldest in the world. At all events, it remains to this day a fifteenth-century bookplate in a fifteenth-century book. The work is a Latin treatise on logic, in a German hand. Mr. W. H. J. Weale has very kindly looked at the book, and writes: “The binding is German, I think Bavarian; but although the same stamps, or rather, to be accurate, some of them, occur on several bookbindings I have copied, I have never been able to locate them. The S. Benedict with the book, and glass with the serpent issuing from it, is evidently German; the arms have nothing to do with the Saint, or the order, nor are they the arms of an abbey, but no doubt those of a layman to whom the book belonged.”[A]

Now to come to the real or almost personal story of engraved bookplates or ex libris, as we may call them indifferently. First we will talk of the oldest, and then gradually come down to our own time. Germany was the fatherland of bookplates, and it is of great interest to remember that it was, too, the fatherland of printing and of wood-engraving.

The earliest known engraved bookplate is that of Hildebrand Brandenburg, a monk of the Carthusian Monastery at Buxheim, near Memmingen, to which he was evidently in the habit of presenting books. The woodcut shows an angel holding a shield on which are displayed the arms of the Brandenburg family, a black ox with a ring passed through its nose.

The late Karl Emich Count zu Leiningen-Westerburg, the great authority on German ex libris, suggests that either Biberach or Ulm was the birthplace of this bookplate, and in or about the year 1470, which is a year before Albert Dürer was born.

Another bookplate, also armorial, of about the same date, and found in a book given to this same monastery at Buxheim, is that of Wilhelm von Zell. Lastly, there has as yet been found one other which is grouped with these two, as of about the same date. It represents a hedgehog with a flower in its mouth, on grass strewn with flowers. It was engraved for Hans Igler. Igel means a hedgehog, and at the head of the ex libris is cut the inscription: “Hanns Igler das dich ein Igel Küs.”

After this there may be mentioned the following six plates before we turn over the leaf of a new century. The inscribed armorial ex libris of Thomas Wolphius, Pontificii Juris Doctor, and that of Rupprecht Muntzinger, a block of South German origin, and ascribed by some to the hand of M. Wohlgemuth. Two anonymous plates, both armorial, and in saying anonymous it must not be supposed that the owner was not well known in his day, and probably long afterwards. One represents the head of a bull caboshed, with a sickle issuing from it. The other, the fleur-de-lis, is on a shield, and for crest, the half figure of a man with a battle-axe. Then two bookplates, the body of which has been engraved and space left for one or another person to use them.

Passing now into the sixteenth century, and still keeping to chronology as our main guide, we can turn at once to Albrecht Dürer as a designer of ex libris, and we now move on to safer ground, as we begin to find dates, and then soon names or monograms of engravers.

Albrecht Dürer, the second son of Albrecht Dürer, goldsmith, was born in the good city of Nuremberg on the 21st May, 1471.

Like Benvenuto Cellini, born some thirty years later, young Albrecht Dürer’s first experience of handiwork was in the goldsmith’s craft; but with a difference, as Benvenuto Cellini learned the goldsmith’s art against his father’s will. On St. Andrew’s Day, 1486, young Albrecht had the joy of inducing his father to apprentice him for three years to Michel Wohlgemut. This step, important in the young artist’s life, is especially important in our consideration, as, with the aid of Anton Koburger, the princely printer, who was Albrecht Dürer’s godfather, Michel Wohlgemut founded the great Nuremberg school of wood-engraving. From 1490 to 1494 Dürer was on his travels, and spent some while in Venice, where he was again in 1505 to 1507. On the 14th July, 1494, after his home-coming from his first wanderings, he was married to Agnes, the daughter of Hans Frey. For the rest, this is not the place for a history of his works. His noble life was closed on the 6th of April, 1528, and thus before he had reached the age at which many artists have done their best work; but what vast treasures he had wrought within those fifty-seven years!

The following five ex libris have been, on good authority, distinctly ascribed to Albrecht Dürer’s art: two varieties of a woodcut made for Willibald Pirckheimer, of Nuremberg, one with and one without the well-known motto “Sibi et Amicis.” This is a fine armorial plate with helmet, and arms of himself and his wife. One of three ex libris used by Johann Stab, a learned mathematician and poet, a friend of Albrecht Dürer. This is an armorial plate, and is distinguished by having a laurel wreath; but no inscription. In the Albertina Museum at Vienna is Dürer’s original drawing in violet ink for the armorial woodcut bookplate of his friend Lazarus Spengler, Recorder of Nuremberg. The armorial woodcut ex libris of Johann Tscherte, exhibiting a satyr and dogs. Tschert, in Bohemian, means a satyr or devil.

Besides the foregoing, there exist several sketches by Dürer which can hardly have been intended for anything but bookplates; and also, before passing from Dürer, the large bookplate for Dr. Hector Pömer, the last Prior of the Abbey of St. Laurence in Nuremberg, must be mentioned. In itself a beautiful work of art, it bears a date, 1525, and the wood-engraver’s initials, “R. A.” The drawing is worthy of the hand of Dürer himself, and “R. A.” probably cut the block in Dürer’s studio, from the great master’s own design. On the chief shield are the arms of the monastery, the gridiron of St. Laurence quartering the arms of Pomer. By the shield, stands St. Laurence holding in one hand a gridiron, and in the other the martyr’s palm. The motto: “To the pure all things are pure,” is given, as was Dürer’s wont, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. At the bottom of all is the owner’s name, “D. Hector Pomer Praepos S. Lavr.”

Before quite leaving Dürer, the earliest dated German bookplate should be named, as some think that he had a hand in it, especially as it was for a friend of his, Hieronymus Ebner von Eschenbach, born in Nuremberg on the 5th of January, 1477, educated at Ingolstadt, and afterwards in the household of the Emperor Maximilian, he became a learned lawyer and judge. He was a friend and ally of Martin Luther, and engaged in a cultivated correspondence with many of the leaders of that age.

Following the start given by Albrecht Dürer, Nuremberg continued to be the home of bookplate engraving; but very soon copper-plate engraving took the place of woodcuts.

Two of the best engravers were two brothers, Hans Sebald Beham, born in 1500, and Barthel Beham, born in 1502. Both were skilful engravers, and both were expelled their native city as heretics. The elder engraved the plate for one of Dr. Hector Pomer’s smaller ex libris, and the younger brother engraved the two varieties of bookplates for Luther’s friend, Hieronymous Baumgartner. He also engraved a plate for Melchior Pfinzing, provost of a church in Mainz.

Here we will turn aside from Germany for a moment just to refer to an undoubted English bookplate of this early period. It remains to this day in a book known to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and afterwards to Henry VIII. This, though not an engraving, is none the less a bookplate. Mr. W. J. Hardy, our best authority on English ex libris, has described it: A carefully drawn sketch of the cardinal’s arms, with supporters, and surmounted by a cardinal’s hat, the whole coloured by hand.

Thus the very earliest English ex libris of which we know was used by the more than princely Thomas Wolsey, and at some time between 1514 and his death in 1530, in which interval he was the arbiter of empires, sometimes journeying attended by a personal retinue of two hundred gentlemen in crimson velvet, and then, later, what a contrast—“He was without beds, sheets, table-cloths, cups and dishes!”

Matthias Jundt, born at Nuremberg in 1498, and died in 1586, engraved a good number of ex libris. He produced several for members of the Nuremberg family of Pfinzing, and in one of them, that of Seyfried Pfinzing von Henfenfeld, there is used one of those fanciful conceits so common of old; the motto “Saluti Patriæ Vixisse Honestat” is used to show the owner’s initials. Virgil Solis, born at Nuremberg in 1514, engraved both on copper and on wood, working mostly from his own designs. The engravings known to be by him number eight hundred. He engraved an ex libris block for Gundlach of Nuremberg in 1555. It represents Pomona, with the arms of Gundlach and Fürleger, in a beautiful landscape. In the same year he engraved an armorial and landscape plate for Andreas Imhof, another Nuremberger. This is our first mention of landscape bookplates, but it will be by no means the last. The last of this set of engravers whom we will mention was not a native of Nuremberg, but came there from Zurich, at the age of twenty-one, in 1560, and died there in 1591. His best work was in woodcuts. The curious in calligraphy will find that he signed his initials in twelve different forms. His name was Jost Amman.

In German Bookplates, translated for George Bell and Sons’ ex libris series, nearly twenty bookplates engraved by Jost Amman are enumerated, and good reproductions are given of several. There is the usual armorial shield, but a large amount of richly decorative renaissance engraving outside it. In the plate engraved for Veit August Holzschuher, the owner has evidently signed his name in a space at the foot of the block left for it. His arms fittingly display a pair of wooden shoes to fit his name. One cannot help wishing that more of these early private ex libris had such a space, bearing the ancient owner’s autograph.

CHAPTER III
BOOKPLATES CHRONOLOGICALLY

Lucas Cranach—Charles V.—Hans Holbein—Early French and English bookplates—Sir Nicholas Bacon—Queen Elizabeth—Bookplates that are not armorial—Bookplates in Switzerland, Sweden, and Italy.

In the ex libris which Jost Amman made for “Johann Fischart genannt Mentzer” the initial letters J.F.G.M. are the initial letters, too, of the owner’s motto: “Jove fovente gignitur Minerva.”

Leaving now the Nuremberg school, we come to Lucas Cranach the elder. He is just one of those figures of old time of whom one would like to know much more. His chivalrous attachment to Frederick the Magnanimous, the last of three Electors of Saxony, all of whom he served, points to noble traits of character. He shared all the sufferings of Frederick the Magnanimous in the five years that he was in the hands of Charles V., although himself an old man, went with him to Weimar on his release in 1552, and died there in his eighty—first year, on the 16th October, 1553. His paintings and engravings are without number, the latter mostly woodcuts. One special interest of his work is that he was fond of introducing homely portraits of his friends, and portraits always give great interest to ex libris.

Among the ex libris from the hand of Lucas Cranach the elder are the woodcuts, in four different sizes, engraved for the Library of Wittenberg University, and each bearing the portrait of Frederick the Magnanimous.

At the foot of each is the inscription—

“Et patris, et patrui, famam, virtutibus, æquat.
Sui patris et patrui, nobile nomen habet.
Adserit, invicto divinum pectore verbum,
Et Musas omni dexteritate juvat.
Hinc etiam ad promptos studiorum contulit usus,
Inspicis hoc præsens quod modo Lector opus.”

Hans Holbein has been credited with the designs for two woodcuts ex libris.

With the great amount and variety of work done by Holbein it would be most natural that he should have designed some ex libris. We of to-day can only deal with what has survived. For instance, scores of precious works printed three hundred years ago have wholly passed out of knowledge.

What a charming bookplate Hans Holbein would have invented—who knows that he did not?—say, for his noble martyr friend Sir Thomas More—perhaps depicting sweet Margaret Roper reading to her father, adding at foot of the plate some quaint motto from Erasmus! Hans Holbein lived scarcely forty-six years.

Next we will mention Hans Burgkmaier, born, too, at Augsburg in 1473, and a son of Hans Holbein the elder’s father-in-law. Several ex libris have been assigned to his hand; but with no certainty. The Emperor Maximilian I. was his patron, and Albrecht Dürer his friend.

Now we reach about the time of what, until lately, was accounted the earliest French bookplate with a date. This bears the brief but comprehensive inscription: “Ex bibliotheca Caroli Albosii. E. Eduensis. Ex labore quies.” The earliest known dated English ex libris is also of 1574; but we always, in courtesy, put our friends before ourselves, and remember Napier’s splendid remark on hearing that Lord Mahon had contemptuously spoken of Napier’s History as the best “French” history of the war: “I always thought that to be generous to a noble foe was truly English, until my Lord Mahon informed me it was wholly French.”

Sir Nicholas Bacon’s bookplate bears his arms with helmet surmounted by crest; the crest being, of course, the only crest that could belong to Bacon. The Germans very properly never dreamt that a crest ought to appear anywhere but on a helmet. We have not been so correct. This recalls the blank amazement of a German on beholding a British officer in plain clothes. I remember thirty years ago, in Germany, my friend FitzRoy Gardner happening to show a photograph of Field-Marshal Sir John Burgoyne in plain clothes. The exclamation came at once, “He cannot be an officer, he is not in uniform.” This was, of course, the chivalrous old warrior who, in his yacht, brought the lovely Empress of the French safely to our shores.

This very interesting and early English bookplate has at the foot Sir Nicholas Bacon’s motto: “Mediocria Firma,” and we need not go here in full into the point of its date, which is fairly established. It is with an inscription in books given in 1574 by Sir Nicholas Bacon to Cambridge University. Sir Nicholas, perhaps best known for being the father of Francis, was the close friend of Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, fellow-ministers with him of Queen Elizabeth. Queen Bess often made herself his guest, and after her visit of six days in 1577, her host had the door by which she had passed under his roof nailed up, so that no one, after her, might cross the same threshold. Oh for the picturesque days of old! Lord Beaconsfield alone, in our day, might have thought of such a graceful act.

The second dated engraved English bookplate known at present is that of Sir Thomas Tresham, knighted by Queen Bess in 1575. The plate is armorial, with a huge array of quarterings; helmet surmounted by crest in proper style. Inscription: “Fecit mihi magna qui potens est. 1585. Jun. 29.”, and below the arms: “S Tho: Tresame Knight.”

Sir Thomas married Muriel, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, and their son was Francis, “a wylde and unstayed man,” who first engaged in, and then revealed, the Gunpowder Plot. The father’s dying, in 1605, was probably the cause of the son’s not going forward in the plot, as he inherited property which would steady his aspirations. Sir Thomas left interesting memories of himself in fine buildings; and particularly in his own county of Northampton, the market-house at Rothwell, and the triangular lodge at Rushton.

A characteristic German plate of about 1570 is that of Johann Hector zum Jungen, with his name thus engraved in full under his arms, and the Latin motto: “Memorare nouissima tua,” at the top of the plate. In the earliest ex libris we did not find the owners’ names engraved.

So far almost everything has been purely armorial, and now we will turn to something different. This is a 1588 German plate; certainly it bears a small shield of arms, but most of the plate is occupied with the following engraved inscription: “Reverendus et Nobilis Dominus Wolfgangus Andreas Rem à Ketz, Cathedralis Ecclesia August: Sum: Præpositus, librum hunc unà cum mille et tribus aliis, variisque instrumentis Mathematicis, Bibliothecæ Monasterii S. Crucis Augustæ, ad perpetuum Conventualium usum. Anno Christi M.D.LXXXVIII. Testamento legauit.”

We have noticed 1574 as the date of the earliest English dated bookplate, the next dated is not until 1585, and in France the gap is still wider; 1574 is the earliest dated French plate, and the next that has been found is dated 1611.

In Sweden, too, many years passed after the 1595 example without a dated successor. In Switzerland, also, where the earliest dated ex libris was in 1607, a long interval followed, in which we do not find dated Swiss ex libris. In Italy we do not find any dated ex libris before 1623.

This 1611 plate is that of Alexandre Bouchart, Viscount de Blosseville. This was found in a folio copy of the works of Ptolemy printed at Amsterdam in 1605, in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The graver-work and probably the design, too, was done by Leonard Gaultier, who also executed an engraved portrait of Alexandre Bouchart. Leonard Gaultier was born at Mayence in about 1561, and died in Paris in 1641, having engraved above eight hundred plates.

Herr Carlander, the chief authority for Swedish bookplates, finds 1596 the earliest date, and this on the plate of Senator Thure Bielke, of whom we do not know much more than that to his own cost he took the wrong side in politics, was beheaded in 1600, and had therefore no further use for his dated ex libris.

A German ex libris of near this date is interesting, as, like a good many others, it is to be found in three sizes. This is the ex libris of Johann Baptist Zeyll, designed by P. Opel, and cut on wood by C. L. in 1593.

Of course now in the days of photography it is easy to have your bookplate in several sizes; but it was far otherwise in these old times.

Next must be named a plate engraved in 1613 for placing in the books presented by William Willmer, a Northamptonshire gentleman, to his college library in Cambridge. Mr. Griggs reproduced it among his eighty-three armorial examples. It is inscribed “Sydney Sussex Colledge Ex dono Wilhelmi Willmer de Sywell in Com. Northamtoniæ, Armigeri, quondam pentionarii in ista Domi. Vizin Anno Domini 1599 seddedit in Anº Dñi 1613.”

In France, as likewise in England, there are hardly any dated bookplates at this period. Mr. Walter Hamilton, in writing of French ex libris before 1650, refers to three in different sizes, all engraved for Jean Bigot, Sieur de Sommesnil; and somewhat later, another set differing from the former, and with the owner’s name engraved as Johannes Bigot. After that we read of three bookplates engraved for the son, L. E. Bigot. In this connection the late Mr. Walter Hamilton is drawn on to give particulars of a family of ardent book collectors, thus incidentally illustrating very happily how the possession of one dirty scrap of paper—an old ex libris—may lead on from one fascinating inquiry to another.

A fine characteristic German ecclesiastical ex libris of 1624 is the plate given—page 330, George Bell and Sons—of Otto Gereon von Gutmann, Doctor of Theology, Electoral Councillor, and Suffragan Bishop of Cologne.

A very fine armorial plate, of which we do not know the designer, the engraver, nor the date, is that of Alexandre Petau. His father, Paul Petau, Conseiller au Parlement de Paris, died in 1613, bequeathing to his son a fine library of manuscripts and printed books.

A bookplate in two sizes, engraved for Claude Sarrau, Councillor to the Parliament of Paris. He died in 1651, and his son Isaac, in 1654, edited his father’s correspondence with the learned of his time. The larger Sarrau plate, and probably the smaller as well, were engraved by Isaac Briot, who was born in 1585, and died in Paris in 1670.

Reaching the seventeenth century, we find German ex libris multiplying greatly, but not improving in design.

Armorial bookplates still predominate, but the shield is often in one way or another surrounded by wreaths of leaves and flowers. It can hardly be insisted on too clearly that there is nothing mysterious, though much that is interesting, about the varying modes and manners of ex libris. They, in fact, represented the art, customs, learning, and taste of successive ages.

Thus turn to Johann Sibmacher’s Wappenbüchlein, published in 1596, and you will find plenty of illustrations of these wreaths, though with no reference to bookplates.

CHAPTER IV
BOOKPLATES CHRONOLOGICALLY

The seventeenth century begins—German plates—William Marshall—Lord Littleton—Huet, Bishop of Avranches.

IN 1604 Egidius Sadeler of Munich engraved for Arnold von Reyger a plate which is both signed and dated. At the top of the plate is the Latin motto “Ad Deum Refugium,” and in another part of the plate are the letters “Z. G. M. Z.,” standing for “Zu Gott meine Zuflucht,” the German version of the Latin motto.

In 1619 Hans Hauer designed and Hans Troschel engraved a characteristic and very elaborate ex libris for Johann Wilhelm Krep von Krepenstein, of Nuremberg. Both designer and engraver were natives of Nuremberg, the former born in 1582, and the latter about six years later.

In about the year 1623 Raphael Sadeler engraved a bookplate in three sizes for the Electoral Library of the Dukes of Bavaria at Munich. He also engraved a plate for the Elector Palatine’s libraries in Heidelberg and in Rome.

Raphael Sadeler and his elder brother Jan, and their nephew Gillis or Egidius Sadeler, were all skilful with the graver. Raphael was born at Brussels in 1555, and with his elder brother travelled through Germany, producing many engravings, and afterwards settling at Venice. Egidius, the nephew, was born at Antwerp in 1575; taught by his uncles Jan and Raphael, he lived to far surpass his teachers. After spending some time in Italy, he was invited to Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II. He died at Prague in 1629.

In 1640, or a little earlier, William Marshall engraved a bookplate for Edward, Lord Littleton, born in 1589 at Munston, in Shropshire, his father being Sir Edward Littleton, Chief Justice of North Wales, and his mother being a daughter of Edmund Walter, Chief Justice of South Wales. From Christ Church, Oxford, Littleton, in 1608, entered the Inner Temple. On his father’s death, in 1621, he became Chief Justice of North Wales. In 1625 he became member of Parliament for Leominster. He became counsel to the University of Oxford, Reader to the Inner Temple, and Recorder of London. In 1634 he was made Solicitor-General. In the meantime his great learning and high character made him much respected, and the City Aldermen sent him a courteous gift of two hogsheads of claret and a pipe of canary. Next, he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and soon Lord Chancellor. In February, 1641, he was created Lord Littleton of Munston. Happily for him he died young, as in those stormy times he was too just a man to be a good party politician. It is interesting to note that on May 21st, 1644, he was commissioned to raise a regiment of foot soldiers, consisting of gentlemen of the Inns of Court and Chancery and others, himself becoming colonel. The great Lord Clarendon wrote of Littleton as a “handsome and proper man of a very graceful presence, and notorious for courage, which in his youth he had manifested with his sword.”

Above all, Littleton was incorruptible, winning, and keeping the respect of such opposite men as Clarendon and Bulstrode Whitelocke. Here we get a glimpse of his library, as it is recorded that when the Commons seized his books Whitelocke interceded and got the books given into his own care, so that, as he expressed it, “when God gave them a happy accommodation” he might restore them to rightful hands. The arms on the bookplate are the arms of Lyttelton of Frankley.

Littleton’s first wife was a daughter of John Lyttelton (spelt as you please) of Frankley, Worcestershire. Littleton died at Oxford on August 27th, 1645, and is buried in Christ Church Cathedral.

Not the least interesting point about this Littleton plate is that it was engraved by William Marshall, a name or initials found on such a great number of portraits and other book illustrations of this period. Not very much is known about him. The dates of his works range from 1591 to 1649.

A characteristic German plate, dated 1645, is, by the good authority of Warnecke, the work of the engraver Raphael Custos of Augsburg, eldest son of Dominicus de Coster, painter and engraver, and grandson of Pieter De Coster or Balten, poet and painter. This plate, engraved for Wilhelm and Clara Krep von Krepenstein, embraces the coats-of-arms of the small number of thirty-one ancestors.

“curæ numen habet justu move 4° eneid.
inde cruce hinc trutina armatus regique deoque
milito disco meis hæc duo nempe libris
ex libris Petri Maridat in magno Regis
consilio Senatoris”

are the inscriptions on the plate here illustrated of Theophilus Raynaud or Raynald, born in Piedmont, and died at the age of eighty in Lyons on October 31st, 1663. He was a learned Jesuit, and a most untiring student all his life, but, unlike most inveterate readers, he was bitter and morose of temper. Perhaps this was caused by his reading excesses, as it is told that he thought fifteen minutes almost too much to give to any meal. His portrait is in his: “tractatus depileo, cœterisque capitis tegminibus tam sacris quam profanis. D. D. Petro de Maridat, in magno Regis Christianissimi Consilio Senatori dicatus.” Under the portrait is the shield-of-arms, as on the bookplate, and above it the motto: “Dextera Domini fecit virtutem.” Below is: “Non potuit cœlum Capiti par addere, tegmen, Hoc Cœli effigiem perficientis erit.” The engraving is signed “L Spirinx fecit.” Nagler gives Ludwig Spirinx as an engraver born at Lyons or Dijon, and working in Brussels from about 1640 to 1660.

Coming once more to Nuremberg, there is the 1674 plate engraved by D. Krüger for Colonel Georg Christof Volckamer. There is no inscription on the plate, which shows a cherub sitting on a hill and holding a shield-of-arms. The colonel was not content to choose between helmet and coronet; he has elected to have both.

One of the many plates of which the engraver is not known is that of Franz Ludwig Anton Freiherr von Lerchenfeld-Prennberg. The shield is borne on two flags crossing one another. At the foot of the plate is engraved “Ex Libris, Francisci Ludovici,” etc., giving all the owner’s titles. He was Chamberlain of the Munich High Court of Appeal.

A well-known plate is that of Pierre Daniel Huet, Bishop of Avranches, and probably the best-remembered holder of that ancient See, and tenant of the famous Bishop’s Palace. He was Bishop of Avranches from 1689 to 1699, but, born at Caen in 1630, he was already, in 1650, a renowned savant, and twelve years later founded the Academy of Sciences at Caen. He did not become a priest until he was forty-six years old; but all his life he was an enormous reader, and gifted with a wondrous memory. Of course he wrote books as well as reading the lore of others.

At Avranches visitors, calling for advice from their bishop, were told “He cannot see you, he is studying”; and in vain they claimed that they wanted to see a diocesan who had finished his studies.

The plate was engraved in four sizes for the Jesuits’ College in Paris, to which he gave his library in 1692. As he spent the latter years of his long life with the Paris Jesuits he was not long separated from his books, and lived ninety-two years, so that none might say that in him much study had produced a weariness of the flesh.

In 1692 another library, left this time by will, and accordingly, too, another ex libris, came to the Jesuits of Paris, and from a friend of Huet, Gilles Ménage. Like Huet, his appetite for study was vast and his memory unfailing. Born at Angers in 1613, he died in Paris in 1692. Thus he spent some eighty years among the shrewd litterateurs of that day, and the following conversation need not be taken as a sign of want of veracity on his part. Angers seems, like Crete of old, to have had a lying reputation. He, asking a lady to define untruthfulness, received for reply, that as for defining lying she did not quite know, but liar she would define as “Monsieur Ménage!”

It will be seen how little it had yet become the custom for bibliophiles to have bookplates. Neither Huet nor Ménage used ex libris for themselves, and to this day no bookplate of Molière, or Racine, or La Fontaine, or of many other leaders of that age has been found.

After about 1650 a change is seen in the styles of French ex libris. Helmets go out of use, and, for lack of better ideas, coronets are assumed, often by those who had not the faintest right to them. The square shield, in time, gives place to the oval form.

CHAPTER V
BOOKPLATES CHRONOLOGICALLY

Some French and some German plates—The cap of liberty—Buonaparte—Alsace and Lorraine.

AS a date is always a signal advantage, the bookplate “Petri Antonii Convers Laudonensis. L Monnier Divione. 1762” may be mentioned. It is, of course, topped by the irrepressible coronet. Louis Gabriel Monnier was born at Besançon in 1733, and died at Dijon in 1804. The Convers plate is wholly Rococo; but taking from Walter Hamilton another French ex libris engraved but nine years later, we see that with some artists the heavy brigade is already on duty. Here we have a big gun, an armorial shield flanked by three flags on each side, but without any graceful design. Still the inevitable coronet, and below all, the inscription: “Le Chᵉʳ. Dé Bellehache officier de Cavalerie au Regᵗ D’artois / 1771.” Here, after all, there is no possibility of mistaking for whom this plate was engraved,

and thus, though not beautiful, it quite fulfils its duty.

Sixteen years later we have a plate which also has these essential points, but is in the shell-work mode, light and elegant. Round the upper part is a label inscribed: “Ex libris Ant. Franc Alex Boula de Nanteuil,” and at the base: “Libellorum suplicum Magister. à mandatis Regiæ &ᶜ &ᶜ—et in supremà Galliarum curià senator ad horrorem. 1777.” The shield is azure, three bezants.

Here is an instance of an ex libris not inserted, but impressed, seemingly a copper-plate engraving. The design is simple; but quite serves its purpose. It is an oval frame surmounted by a ribbon tied in a bow, and in the oval the words “Ex Bibliotheca Ecclesia Aug. Conf. Posson.” The book is a copy of Prodromus idiomatis ... adparatus criticus ad linguam Hungaricam ... auctore Georgio Kalmar ... Posonii, ... 1770. The copy bears also another ownership inscription—in other words, another ex libris: “Obtulit / Frider. Frank. / Posen. / 1789. /”

A curious plate here illustrated is that of Peter Mairdat.

Of about 1780 is the copper-plate of Klemens Wenzel, Duke of Saxony, Prince of Bland, Elector-Archbishop of Trier, and Bishop of Augsburg. The plate represents the arms of Augsburg, of Trier, of Saxony, and also of Poland.

This is not the place to write the story of the first great French Revolution; but it is to the point of our subject in hand to note that on June 20th, 1790, a decree was proposed and passed in the French Assembly suppressing the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier, and at the same time all armorial bearings were done away with. Now followed a bad time for bookplate artists and engravers. The cap of liberty and the bloody guillotine do not breathe high artistic inspiration.

The plate of Marshal Jourdan consists chiefly of a shield wholly occupied with the simple inscription “Bibliothèque du Maréchal Jourdan.”

Coming to the days of the first Empire, Buonaparte, the despot, ruled armorial insignia with the same iron hand as he regulated anything else. His orders and restrictions were numberless, and in particular he introduced the various forms of a headdress denominated une toque. Cities under Buonaparte’s sway bore certain badges according to whether he ranked them as cities of the first, second, or third order.

Those of the first order had the honour of bearing the Napoleon badge—three golden bees on a chief gules.

The bookplate of the Bastille is well illustrated in French Bookplates (Walter Hamilton), but must not be quite passed over here. It represents a shield on a bracket, bearing the fleur-de-lis. The shield is ensigned with a crown and enclosed by the collars of the orders of S. Michel and the Sainte Esprit. Above all is the name “chateau royal de la bastille.”

In July of 1789 the Bastille was destroyed by the Paris mob.

I give a reproduction of the characteristic French “Ex libris du Comte Paul de Malden de la Bastille.”

In the ex libris of Claude Martin, cannon, cannon-balls and flags, tents and scaling-ladders, are to the fore; whilst on a rock in the middle there is a lion rampant, holding up a sword in one fore paw and an ensign in the other. Since the Belgians disfigured the field of Waterloo with a huge mound to celebrate the tiny devotion of their race, a lion on a hill does not stand for much! At the head of this plate is the motto “Labore et constantia,” and at the foot “Ex libris Claudii Martin.”

In 1814 Napoleon Buonaparte abdicated, and in the same year Louis XVIII., the younger brother of Louis XVI., became king. In 1824 Louis XVIII. died, and his younger brother, Charles X., came to the throne, which he held until 1830, when he was deposed, and his cousin Louis Philippe sat on this unstable throne. In 1848 he in turn abdicated, and a Republic was proclaimed, with Louis Napoleon as President. During these foregone thirty years the old nobility, after a manner, recovered their ancient titles, and many new nobility were created; but it cannot be said to have been an age productive of fine or interesting ex libris.

A variety from the sometimes too stern formality of ex libris designs is found in the plate engraved by D. Collin for Monsieur Riston. A fantastic R., or perhaps A. R., is figured on an oval, with child figures, a few books, and a pen and ink, all apparently in the open-air around.

The ex libris of Pierre Antoine Berryer is not of any striking character, but is a fair specimen. In 1855 he was elected to the Académie Francaise; but he was best known for his great defence of Count Montalembert before the French Courts in 1858.

Alsace and Lorraine have given us some good specimens of bookplates, and as might be expected, the manners and styles of several nations are here included. In some an interesting feature is the introduction of a view of the owner’s parish church.

CHAPTER VI
BOOKPLATES WITH MANTLING

Viscount Cholmondeley—James Loch of Drylaw—William Pitt of Binfield.

MR. G. F. BARWICK, to whom the Mercator ex libris belongs, has kindly sent me the following:—

“Nicholas Mercator was born at Cismar, Holstein, about 1620, and after completing his studies in Copenhagen he continued to reside there until 1660, when he came to England. His fame as a mathematician was already well established, and he was almost immediately elected a member of the Royal Society, which had recently been founded. Some years later he entered the service of Louis XIV., and superintended the construction of the fountains at Versailles. For this work, however, he could not obtain payment, in consequence of his refusal to become a Catholic, and the trouble which it caused him is said to have shortened his life. He wrote a number of

small treatises and contributed to the Philosophical Transactions, but his fame chiefly rests upon his Logarithmotechnia, London, 1668-74, 4to, in which he developed the well-known formula which bears his name. A portrait of him was formerly in the possession of Mr. T. D. F. Tatham of Althorne, Essex, a collateral descendant of the Mercators, and passed at his death into the possession of his nephew, Mr. W. Tatham-Hughes of Chelsea Hospital.”

A bookplate with fine mantling and supporters is that of “The Right Honourable Hugh Lord Viscount Cholmondeley.” It occurs in a copy of “The causes of the Decay of Christian Piety ... London, Printed by R. Norton for T. Garthwait, in S. Bartholomew’s Hospital, near Smithfield, 1667.” This copy—it belongs to Mr. E. F. Coates—has been finely bound, probably by Charles Mearne. Hugh, first Earl of Cholmondeley, succeeded his father, Viscount Cholmondeley, in 1681. Objecting to the arbitrary measures of James II., he was soon honoured by William and Mary, who, in 1689, created him Lord Cholmondeley of Nantwich. In 1706 Queen Anne made him Viscount Malpas and Earl of Cholmondeley. Later he held the appointments of Comptroller and Treasurer of Her Majesty’s household. The book has underneath one another, both in old but different hands, two signatures—“Elizabeth Cholmondeley.” It has also an inscription—“Wm. Lemon, 1855”; since then it has travelled far, as it has twice inscribed on it “W. A. Rebello, Sylvan Lodge, Simla. October, 1864.”

“John Stansfeld,” an armorial plate with mantling. The arms are sable, three goats trippant argent. Crest a demi-lion rampant argent. An ancient family settled in Yorkshire at the Conquest. This modern plate is in a fine copy, belonging to Mr. E. F. Coates, of The Yorkshire Library, by William Boyne, 1869. I think that this John Stansfeld, Esq., was a collector of fine books, and especially about Yorkshire.

A nice plate here illustrated is that of Prescott Pepper.

A plate with good mantling is that of “James Loch of Drylaw.” Given by Burke as arms or, a saltire engraded sable, between two swans naiant in fesse proper. Crest, a swan with wings endorsed, devouring a perch, both proper. Motto, “Assiduate non desidia.” This is in a copy of A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy ... Glasgow, Printed by Robert & Andrew Foulis, printers to the University. 1764. James

Loch of Drylaw, born in 1612, was treasurer of Edinburgh, and in 1851 his descendant was James Loch of Drylaw, M.P., son of George Loch of Drylaw, and his wife a daughter of John Adam of Blair Adam. The arms were confirmed in 1673 by Sir Charles Erskine of Cambo, Knight, Lyon King-of-Arms.

“William Pitt of Binfield, Berks Esqʳ—” here reproduced, has very full mantling and no crest, unless the Satyr-looking head in the top of the mantling be meant for a crest. This plate is taken from a copy of a 1648 edition of Eikon Basilike.

A good Scotch ex libris with mantling, and engraved by Lizars, is that of “Brown of Waterhaughs,” evidently connected with some scion of the clan Campbell. The crest is a lion holding a fleur-de-lis. The motto is “Tandem licet sero.” This is in a copy of a scarce little volume, Baxter’s Anacreon—“Londini Augustæ Imprimetatur Impensis Matthæi Hawkins, prostatque venalis ad Angelum in Areâ Paulinâ.” 1710. The “errata” note at the end contains some facetious expressions—in English thus: “Correct if you please, friendly reader, those heavy printers errors, which were printed when we were off our guard, and fell out when we were intent on blackberries.”

A plate with fine mantling is that of Richard Boycott. It is altogether a good plate. In an ornamental frame below the shield of arms is the engraved inscription: “Pro Rege et Religione / Richard Boycott.”

Gules, on a chief argent, three grenadoes proper, and the motto, “Pro Rege et Religione,” are of peculiar interest. These arms were granted by Charles II., in 1663, to Sylvanus Boycott of Hinton, and Francis Boycott of Byldwas, sons of William Boycott of Byldwas. The father had furnished Charles I. with grenadoes and other supplies. The sons had aided Charles II. when a fugitive wanderer. The family claim to descend from the ancient Norman house of Bygod. This worthy plate is in a rich red morocco bound copy of Sermons, by George Stanhope, D.D., preached at the Boyle Lectures in 1701.

A bookplate with rather curious mantling is that of “Rowland W. D. Collett.” The arms seem to be intended for those borne by Collett, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1486,—Sable, on a chevron between three hinds trippant argent, as many annulets of the first. The motto is “virtutis præmium honor.”

An armorial plate with heavy mantling—“Thomas Maitland, Dundrennan.” Burke’s

Armorial gives quarterly, first and fourth or, a lion rampant, déchaussé, within a bordure embattled gules; second and third argent, the ruins of an old abbey on a mound proper. Crest a demi-monk vested grey, holding in the dexter hand a crucifix argent, in the sinister a rosary proper. The motto is “Esse quam videri.”

In the same volume, the round armorial plate “Johannis Whitefoord Mackenzie Armigeri.”

It is most fitting that the book holding these Scottish bookplates is a fine copy of the first edition of the great Montrose’s Book, the book which the canting Covenanters hung round that hero’s neck as he proudly trod the bloody scaffold. It is clothed in fine contemporary morocco, richly gilt.

A modern bookplate with nice mantling is that of “Charles Lilburn.” The family hails from the county of Durham. The arms argent, three water-bougets sable. Crest, a dexter arm in armour proper, holding a truncheon or. The motto is “Vis viri fragilis.”

This is in a copy of Montrose Redivivus, or the Portraicture of James, late Marquess of Montrose, ... London: Printed for Jo. Ridley at the Castle in Fleet Street, near Ram-alley, 1652. The water-bouget was a mediæval vessel for carrying water, and was made of two leather pouches appended to a yoke or crossbar.

The “Hampson” plate is, in its way, as good a bookplate as one need wish to see. The clearly cut mantling is tastefully decked with light sprigs of evergreen. The arms are argent, three hemp-brakes sable. The crest is out of a mural crown argent, a greyhound’s head sable collared of the first, rimmed or. Motto: “Nunc aut nunquam.”

Thomas Hampson, the son of Sir Robert Hampson, Knight, and Alderman of the City of London, was created a baronet on June 3rd, 1642. He died in 1655, leaving four sons and five daughters.

The hempbrake, or hackle, was an instrument used for bruising hemp.

The royal plate of Charles I. needs some explanation, as it is not a bookplate. It occupies the first leaf in the full-sized octavo issues in 1649 of Eikon Basilike. In photographing the Throckmorton bookplate the photographer, seeing this also at the beginning of the book, not unnaturally thought that it was a bookplate, and to be illustrated. This need not be regretted. It is a characteristic copy of an Eikon. The surrounding lines are old red ink, and the old ownership signature—

“Fra: Vaughan”
“:1656:”

is as true and perfect an ex libris as the finest draughtsman and engraver could ever produce.

The very fine armorial plate of Sir Robert Throckmorton, Bart.—“Virtus sola nobilitas”—is here reproduced from the above-named 1649 copy of Eikon Basilike.

The armorial plate, with supporters, of Sir James Stewart Denholm, Bart., of Coltness and Westshiel, is here illustrated.

I do not know the history of the plate with the two oval shields here illustrated. The motto, “Mors sola resolvit,” seems rather to suggest a funeral hatchment.

The illustration here given of the plate of “Thoˢ. Beckwith, of York Painter & F.A.S.” is, of course, a piece of his own workmanship, and is inserted in a small, thick volume of manuscript genealogies, no doubt the work of T. Beckwith, and now in the library of Mr. Edward F. Coates. Thomas Beckwith was of an ancient, if not distinguished, Yorkshire family. He was born at Rothwell in 1730, “and served his time to George Fleming, an ingenious man and house painter, from whom he acquired his skill in drawing and painting, and imbibed a love for antiquities.” By means of his great knowledge of genealogies he composed manuscript pedigrees for some of the leading families of the North of England. He was not only an unwearied collector, but very generous in imparting information. He died at York on February 17th, 1786.

CHAPTER VII
SOME SPECIMENS INSERTED IN A BOOK KEPT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM FOR THAT PURPOSE

Some bookplates kindly lent by Mr. G. F. Barwick—Wrest Park plates—Sir John Lubbock.

THE following are all in a small collection of ex libris in a book kept for the purpose in the British Museum. The press mark is C 66 f3:—

“Frhr. v. Barckhaus Wiesenhütten Bibliotheck” is the inscription on the ornamental bracket of an elaborate armorial plate, with two most amiable-looking young lions holding up the shield.

On the same page in the same collection is a plate of somewhere near the same date, and hardly armorial. The form of the plate is, for the most part, a representation of carved stonework. In the middle is a sort of oval shield, and within that a shield with a figure of a man with a child on one shoulder. Along the base of the structure are the words: “Ex libr Chro TheopChristoff Ulme.” A few books are standing on the ground against the stonework, and, as oftens happens in looking at such plates, one hopes they are not rare books or in interesting bindings, as one would like to take more care of them.

In the same collection is a remarkable plate giving a view of a library interior, enclosed in a richly decorated oval frame. At foot the inscription: “Ex libris d. zach: conr: at uffenbach, m.f.”, and above: “non omnibus idem est quod placet petron fragm.” At the very bottom, in tiniest letters, is “J U Kraus sculp.”

Johann Ulrich Kraus was born at Augsburg in 1645, and died there in 1719. He was a pupil of Melchior Küsel; he imitated the manner of Sebastien Le Clerc and did a large amount of engraving for the booksellers.

A handsome plate is that “Ex Bibliotheca J. S. Ochs, at Ochsentein.” It is a plate with heavy mantling to the shield. An ox is, of course, prominent in arms and crest. “P Feber sc” is in the corner. There is another very much smaller, but almost identical plate.

From the same collection, and of rather uncertain date, is a plate subscribed: “Ex bibliotheca rosenbergiana.” A rose tree is appropriately prominent in arms and crest.

Another example is simply a Chippendale fancy shell frame enclosing the words: “Ex supellectile libraria Bened: Guil: Zahnii.”

A bookplate very roughly engraved, and with some very curious-looking heraldry, is that subscribed “malmendier. = de malmedye,” and “solum forti patria est.”

There is a circular plate with a Library view, and the library itself is evidently circular, the plate being engraved “Bibliotheca regia parmensis.” Apollo, looking very cold, stands on a pedestal in the middle, holding his garment instead of putting it on, and sitting down quietly to read the books. Round the upper part is inscribed “Apollini palatino sacram.”

An armorial plate with fine mantling, then a helmet: on that a crown, and over that, for crest, a man girdled, holding in right hand a mallet, and in left a flag. Under the shield is the name engraved: “A. W. Schlegel von Gottleben.”

Pasted on to the same page is a plain small ex libris—arms, a fleur-de-lis; name, “Franz Salmon Wüss.”

Here is a plate which appears to be round. In the middle is placed what seems to be meant for a tomb, with a book placed open at the words: “vita lux hominum Joh I v 4.” Near, and on the vault is engraved: “adhuc stat terminus.” Round the outside circle of the plate is engraved: “lex est non poena mort.”

Other plates of interest in this collection are those of Christian Gottlieb Joher, on page [5], Godefrid J. F. Thomas, on page [23], and on page [27] a plate dated 1757.

Mr. Barwick’s plate of a Baron Bunsen is, he assures me, not that of the Baron Bunsen so familiar to, and appreciated by, cultivated English readers, not a generation ago. The plate is nice, as any approach to simplicity is always pleasing. The shield, hung from the coronet by the ribband of some order, is not loaded with charges. Dexter, a lion between two fleur-de-lis, sinister, three heads of barleycorn. The motto, too, is reverential and in keeping: “In spe et silentio.” Below all is the legend, “ex libris christiani caroli bunsen. Uratislaviæ ad eadem S. Elis Ecclesiastes.” J. B. Stracchusky Sc Urat.

Uratislavia spells Breslau, but very curiously the name Uratislavia seems to have some fitness on a bookplate; as in Zedler’s wonderful Lexicon, of some sixty-six volumes, it is recorded of Jacob de Uratislavia, a Benedictine monk who died in 1480, that his literary labours were so vast that seven powerful steeds could scarce drag his load of books.

Mr. G. F. Barwick has lent me three quite different Wrest Park bookplates. In an ornamental frame, which forms the lower part of one, is engraved “Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey, Wrest Park.” Two fearful-looking dragons support the shield, or rather seem bent on devouring the shield and then each other. Above is an earl’s coronet, and below the motto, “Foy est tout.”

Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey, was born in 1781, and was the elder son of Thomas Robinson, second Baron Grantham, and his wife the second daughter of Philip York, second Earl of Hardwicke. He was therefore a descendant of Henry Grey, ninth Earl of Kent. In 1833 his maternal aunt, Amabel Hume Campbell, Countess de Grey of Wrest, in Bedfordshire, dying, he became second Earl de Grey and Baron Lucas of Crudwell, Wiltshire. From 1841 to 1844 he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and achieved great success in his administration there. In 1844 he was made a Knight of the Garter.

The second of these plates consists of two crests, a dragon and a stag, encircled by the garter. Above is the earl’s coronet, and over that the inscription “Wrest Park.” Neither of the other plates has the garter.

In what, for distinction, may be called the third plate, the outspread and double-headed black eagle holding the shield-of-arms is the most prominent object, and in each beak it holds what, as argent, no doubt is a silver coin, but looks rather like an Osborne biscuit.

Mr. Barwick has also two bookplates of “Sir John William Lubbock. Bart.” Below the shield is the happy motto: “Auctor pretiosa facit.” John William Lubbock was born in 1803, and in 1840 succeeded his father in the baronetcy. He died in 1865. His scientific tastes and cultivated habits were just such as his own son, Sir John Lubbock, has pursued happily for so many years, in the knowledge of many now living. The other plate is evidently what he used for his books in his earlier years. The bloody hand of Ulster is absent from the shield, and below the shield is simply the monogram “J. W. L.”

The Sir John Frederick, Bart., plate of Mr. Barwick’s is quite a change from the customary conventions. The shield fills a very small part of an oblong oval frame. The arms are by Burke, or on a chief azure, three doves argent. Crest on a chapeau azure turned-up ermine, a dove, within the beak an olive branch.

Mr. Barwick has two ex libris of Thomas

James Tatham, Esq., a gentleman of Bedford Place, Russell Square, London, and a third which has belonged to some near kindred. It agrees with that which has merely the crest, but has engraved underneath: “T. D. F. Tatham.” His chief plate has dexter, argent a chevron gules between three swan’s necks, coupled sable. Sinister are presumably his wife’s arms. Crest on a trumpet or, a swan’s wings displayed sable.

Mr. Carruthers has, with great kindness, contributed the following in reference to his interesting bookplate:—

“The notion of the plate was to introduce two plants named by botanists after me. Many genera of plants have received their names in this way.

“The outside plant was called Carruthersia scandius Seem. by Dr. Seemann in his Flora Vitiensis, London, 1865-73. I described the ferns in this work (pp. 331-378), and otherwise had given assistance. The plant is described on pp. 155, 156, and figured on Table XXX. Appended to the description of the genus is this note: ‘I have named this new genus in honour of my esteemed friend William Carruthers, Esq., F.Z.S., of the Botanical Department, British Museum, to whom I am indebted for much kind assistance in working up the South Sea flora.’

“The inner flower was named by Otto Kunze Carruthia Capensis, O.K. It was originally called Aitonia Capensis by Linnæus the younger, but a different plant had been previously named Aitonia. Botanists do not allow the same name to be applied to different plants that are widely separated. O. Kunze wished to associate the plant with my name, and, following an example set by Linnæus, he cut off the last syllable and formed a generic name which could not be confounded with Seemann’s generic name. This arose from a curious accident. O. Kunze called on me at the Natural History Museum, and asked me to let him see the specimens of Aitonia. I inquired which Aitonia, and, showing him a seal I was wearing which belonged to Aiton, who had engraved on it the Cape plant named after him, I asked if that was the plant. He exclaimed ‘How strange! that is the plant.’ I showed him the specimen that the younger Linnæus had named, which was in the Herbarium. When Kunze published the results of his work on these plants he gave it the name Carruthia Capensis. The seal was oval, and the drawing in the

centre is taken from the seal. I used for separation of the two plants an ornamental border of an early Edinburgh printer, I believe, for I got it in the binding of an old Edinburgh book. And the motto belongs to the section of the Carruthers tribe to which we belong.

“The drawing was made by W. G. Smith, F.Z.S., a good botanist and an excellent draughtsman.”

CHAPTER VIII
CHIPPENDALE AND CRESTPLATES

William Sharp the Engraver—The Rev. John Watson—Edward Trotter—Patrick Colquhoun.

THE few following bookplates are all in the manner known as Chippendale:—

The Chippendale bookplate here given, with “Wm. Sharp” engraved at the foot of it, was one, we may suppose, engraved by William Sharp, the engraver, for himself. He was the son of a gunmaker, in days when gun-barrels and other parts of guns were often finely engraved.

William Sharp was born in 1749, died at Chiswick on July 25th, 1824.

Seeing that he became an engraver of very great skill and originality, the main points of his life are well worth recording. Born in Haydon Yard in the Minories, his father apprenticed him to Barak Longmate, an engraver and genealogist. Out of his indentures, he

soon married a Frenchwoman, and set up in Bartholomew Lane as a writing engraver.

About 1782 he sold this business and migrated to Vauxhall, where he now pursued the higher branches of his art. True to the prophet’s fate, he was in due course elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy at Vienna and of the Royal Academy at Munich. In early days he had been a friend of Thomas Paine and Horne Tooke, and was, in fact, examined before the Privy Council on treasonable charges, but soon dismissed as a harmless enthusiast. After becoming a convert to Swedenborg, he became a brave upholder of Joanna Southcott, and was the very last of her adherents to admit the reality of her death.

A good Chippendale plate is that of “The Rev. John Watson.” He was born on March 26th, 1725, at Lyme Handley in the parish of Prestbury, Cheshire, and became a learned antiquary. He was elected F.S.A. in 1759, and contributed six papers to Archæologia. In 1775 appeared his best-known work. The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax, Yorkshire, where he had held a curacy from 1750 to 1754. In 1782 he brought out two fine quarto volumes, Memoirs of the Ancient Earls of Warren and Surrey. He died at Stockport on March 14th, 1783.

A good Chippendale bookplate is that of “Edward Trotter, A.M.”

In the Lyon Register the arms are given as of Trotter of Gatchibraw, in Scotland, argent a chevron gules between three boars’ heads, couped sable. Crest a horse trotting proper.

This is in a copy of Essay sur l’histoire générale, et sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations, depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à nos jours. 1756.

A pleasing plate of late Chippendale style is that with the monogram “J. B. W.” at the foot. On the title-page of the book “Six Discourses” ... “Temple Church” ... “Thomas Sherlock ... 1725,” is the autograph “J. B. Watkin.” Burke’s Armoury gives azure a fesse between three leopard faces, jessant de lis or.

An unpretending little Chippendale bookplate, with crest only, is that of “Patk. Colquhoun.” A stag’s head, with above it the motto “si je puis.” Patrick Colquhoun, Minister of the Hanse-towns, was born at Dumbarton on March 14th, 1745, and died at Westminster on April 25th, 1820.

The following are a few crest bookplates named together:—

The Marshall crest, a man in armour proper, holding in the dexter hand a truncheon or, forms the very picturesque modern ex libris of “F. A. Marshall.” The motto is fitting: “Nunquam sedeo.” This in a collection of Actes, printed by Pynson in 1512-1514, “concernynge—Archerye—Crossbows—Mummers,” and other quaint subjects.

As a specimen of a crest bookplate there is the “Beavan,” which is simply the name Beavan under two crests, one a dove with outspread wings and a ring in its beak, the other a lion. This can hardly be called a satisfactory plate. It is in a volume of The Edinburgh Review of 1826.

A pretty crestplate is that of “Henry St. Clair Feilden.”

The crest is a nuthatch feeding on a hazel branch. The crest is enclosed in an oval belt inscribed with the motto, “virtutis præmium honor.” This plate is in a copy of Benjamin Thorpe’s History of England under the Norman Kings. Oxford, 1857.

Another crest bookplate, that of “Walter Farquhar.” The crest is an eagle rising, proper. The motto, “mente manuque.” This plate is in a copy of Sermons preached in the Parish-Church of Olney, ... By John Newton, Curate of the said Parish ... 1767.

A good crestplate is “John Savill Vaisey”’s, presumably of the race of the Viscounts de Vesci. The crest is a hand-in-armour, holding a laurel branch, all proper. Over the crest is the motto, “sub hoc signo vinces.”

“Brownlow William Knox”’s bookplate is simply the Knox crest, a falcon close on a perch, all proper. It is in a copy of that work, which is so curious to study now, “Catalogue of five hundred celebrated authors of great Britain, now living; ... London 1788.”

“Burns, Robert. A ploughman in the county of Ayr in the kingdom of Scotland.” A good simple plate, merely a crest, below that a motto, and then at the foot of all, the name,—is the ex libris of “William J E Bennett.” The crest is in a mural crown, or, a lion’s head, gules. The motto is “de bon vouloir servir le roy.”

There was a nice bookplate in the volumes of the first work which I ever bought. Don Esteban was the title, and the date 1825. I was thirteen years old, and bought this in an auction in Mr. A. H. Beesley’s, House Class-room, in that fine old home of the Seymours, then and now a part of Marlborough College. The ex libris is a simple name, crest, and motto: “Champion,” a family belonging to Berkshire and Essex. The crest is an arm embowed and erect, in armour proper, garnished or, holding in the gauntlet a chaplet of laurel, vert. Motto: “Vincit veritas.”

Marlborough, with the glorious beech avenues of Savernake Forest, is the home of the Ailesburys, and in this connection the family bookplate should always be remembered, with its pathetic motto at the foot of it. They are Bruces, and the motto is “Fuimus.”

One day the then Marquis, alighting from his carriage and pointing to the motto beneath the arms, asked a small boy to translate it.

“Fui, I was; mus, a mouse,” was the ready reply.

No Bruce of old could have behaved more honourably than the Marquis of those days, for when some boys had worried some of the deer, and Bradley said that he was afraid he would have to put the forest out of bounds, the Marquis replied: “No; Savernake Forest shall always be free to every boy of Marlborough College.”

A modern neat ex libris, with only the two family crests and mottoes, is that of the late Sir “Wroth Acland Lethbridge,” Baronet. The baronetcy was created in 1804. The crests are: First, out of a mural crown, or, a demi-eagle displayed proper; and second, out of a ducal coronet, two arms in armour, holding a leopard’s face. Mottoes: “Truth” and “Spes mea in Deo.” The owner of this plate was born in 1831, and, after serving in the Rifle Brigade, succeeded his father as fourth baronet on 1st March, 1873.

A pretty crestplate of perhaps about 1770 is the ex libris of “Thoˢ Wᵐ Plummer.” The crest is a bird’s head, and the bird seems very properly to be about to devour a plum. The crest is framed by two branches, presumably of plum trees.

CHAPTER IX
MODERN BOOKPLATES

Remarks on examples given in The Studio, special winter number, 1898-9.

MODERN bookplates are not easy to discuss satisfactorily. The following are some of the plates which were named or illustrated in The Studio special winter number, 1898-9, which went out of print at once. Mr. Gleeson White, who was by no means blind to the failings of up-to-date ex libris, wrote this, and gave with it the large number of one hundred and forty-nine illustrations.

On page [3] is given the ex libris, “T. Edmund Harvey,” a gruesome jumble of sticks and bones. This plate is by Cyril Goldie. In any comments now written no injurious reflections are intended; as, for one thing, it is impracticable, and probably undesirable, to know whether, and in what proportions, owner, artist, or manufacturer, are responsible. Besides these three, there is a fourth and oft-predominating partner to be considered, namely, fashion. Probably the only value of the impressions here written is that they are formed by one who is an entirely independent critic and a true lover of beautiful ex libris. The phrases of professionals will not therefore be expected.

On page [4] is given the ex libris “Eduard John Margetson,” by W. H. Margetson. This plate seems simple and pleasing enough. On the other hand, it is not exhilarating to find in this evidently very fair sample volume no less than twenty-seven bookplates, each depicting a female and a book.

On page [5] the ex libris “Richard Trappes Lomax,” by Paul Woodroffe, is very refreshing to look upon. It has all the familiar points of a bookplate, in that it is armorial, with mantling, and flowery foliage. At the same time the plate is not common, crowded, or eccentric. Now, on the other hand, turn to page 7, where is a plate “From among the books of Fred. W. Brown.” In this there is doubtless some good work, but in looking at the plate the eye and brain at once feel tired and bewildered; you seem to long to turn from a crowded hotch-potch, if only, it might be, to stare for a while at a blank barn door.

On page [9] are three plates by W. R. Weyer. These are distinctly good to look at; there seems a wholesome taste about them; there is plenty of decoration, without any attempt to crowd a volume of emblems and a market-gardener’s flower-show into two inches by one and a half. In each the owner’s name is clearly given, and, of course, no bookplate ought to want this. In addition, two are dated—that of Richard Chapman, 1892, and Reginald Balfour’s, 1898.

On page [12] is a distinctly satisfactory modern plate. It is a portrait-plate, and is by J. W. Simpson, for himself. He has depicted himself enjoying a long clay pipe. Beneath is the simple record in the plainest of letters: “J. W. Simpson His Book.”

On page [14] are the presumably portrait-plates of “Mary A. Bridger” and “Julia Eustace,” both by M. E. Thompson. These may be pretty, but seem, as in so many modern bookplates, to lack simplicity.

On the next page is a portrait-plate, “Edith E. Waterlow,” by J. Walter West. This, although the portrait is only a face in an oval, and outside the constant florist’s paraphernalia, still the plate has some saving simplicity.

On page [16] is what seems a sensible bookplate. It is by E. H. New, for Edward Morton, and seems to give simply a view of Edward Morton’s home, a modern house built in old style, and named Kingsclere.

On page [48] is shown a plate to which we would gladly give the palm for ugliness. We suppose it is meant for a bookplate, as it is given in this volume, and the words ex libris are distinguishable through the gloom.

On page [49] is a plate, Aubrey Beardsley, inscribed ex libris “Olive Custance.” It is not much to be admired.

On pages [50] and [51], where we are among the French ex libris, may be seen at one glance some half-dozen plates, which all happen to illustrate what is a marked eyesore in many bookplates, but has not been seriously noticed. A bookplate is naturally designed for use in a book. Now, with books should always be associated the idea of something to be valued and taken care of. How does this agree with the plates here shown? I think that symbolism should avoid this disturbing element.

There is water to drown the precious volumes, and there are beasts to devour them. In one a poor disconsolate-looking tome is shown trying to float on the dark cold waters of the deep, and as if that were not a sufficiently uncomfortable position for a book, a bird seems to be flying down, with open beak, to have a peck at it. In another cheerful composition, an angry tiger is in charge of the library of precious volumes, and has the talons of one paw on a beautiful binding, while it sticks the talons of its other paw into the leaves of an open volume.

In a third plate, a wolf is in a library, and, of course, behaving there as a wolf would. In yet another plate, a wolf is playing with a fine folio, and forming altogether as incongruous a picture as a bull in a china shop.

On page [54] is reproduced a plate, by Léon Lebègue. This may be, in disguise, a lovely creation of modern art; but the ordinary observer would take it to be a muddled map of everything or nothing, and would not paste it inside the cover of any book he or she hoped ever to open again.

As another painful instance of bookplates exhibiting books in the very last position anyone would care to see them in, on page [56], is shown a book being drowned in a pond. This is by Bracquemond.