SIXTY years ago the intelligent European reader would have rubbed his eyes and looked at his feet to be sure that they were not where his head ought to be, if told that American readers formed, in a marked degree, a very large class to whom publishers and authors should look for sympathy and encouragement. That is all changed now, and there is probably no country in the world where books, and all that is implied in that magic word, arouse so keen an interest.

It will not be out of place to pause and think of the honoured names of a few of those who have helped to prepare the road for this change. Of course, some seeds of good fruit were sown many generations before. Passing over Sir Walter Raleigh, colonist and author, we reach, in a few years, George Sandys, poet and colonist, one of the brave companions of Captain John Smith.

John Smith was a member of the council of the 105 emigrants who on December 19th, 1606, set out from Blackwall to found a colony in Virginia. Combining prudence with intrepid enterprise, he became the trusted founder and leader of the colony. In one expedition inland in December, 1607, he was taken prisoner by the Indians, and is said to have been rescued by the intervention of Pocahontas, the Indian Princess.

George Sandys, son of the Archbishop of York, born in 1578, two years before John Smith, was, in 1611, named as one of the “Undertakers” in the third Virginia charter, and in 1621 was made Treasurer of the Virginia Company, not very long before the colony was taken over by the Crown. What is to the point of our story is that, in his colony home on the banks of James River, he translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses, dedicated to Charles I., and published in folio in London in 1626.

In 1623 the Rev. William Morrell, armed with a commission to superintend the churches there, went out in Captain Robert Gorges’ expedition to Massachusetts, lived at Plymouth there one year, and, returning to England, published in London, in 1525, in quarto, Latin hexameters, with a translation into English heroic verse, and entitling the book: “New-England, or a briefe Enarration of the Ayre, Earth, Water, Fish, and Fowles of that Country. With a Description of the ... Habits and Religion of the Natives.”

In 1629 William Wood emigrated from England to Massachusetts, and after staying there about four years, he came back to England, and in 1634 published his “New England’s Prospect: A true, lively, and experimentall Description of that part of America commonly called New England: Discovering the State of that Countrie, both as it stands to our new-come English Planters and to the old Native inhabitants: Laying downe that which may both enrich the Knowledge of the mind-travelling Reader, or benefit the future Voyager, London, by Thomas Cotes for John Bellamie. 1634.”

The author soon went back to the colony, became a representative in the State Legislature, became the chief founder of Sandwich in Plymouth Colony, and died there in 1639.

Of the youth of Roger Williams, the next colonist author, a curious incident is recorded: “He attended trials in the Court of Star Chamber, in order to take down notes of them in a shorthand.” Many will recall at once, how often working as a reporter, has led to a literary career. In this connection the name of Charles Dickens, and a host of other authors, occur at once.

In 1626 Roger Williams took his B.A. degree from Pembroke College, Cambridge; and on December 1st, 1630, he embarked from Bristol in a ship named the Lyon, and after a voyage of over two months, reached Nantasket February 5th, 1631. He had been ordained in England; but neither in the old country nor the new did his ideas of a Church and Church government generally agree with the views of those in authority.

In January, 1636, he was cited by Boston, but declining to appear, Captain John Underhill was despatched to Salem with a sloop to arrest him and put him aboard ship for England. Receiving a hint from Winthrop “to arise and flee into the Narrohiganset’s country, free from English Pattents,” with a few companions he “steered his course for the land of the Narragansett Indians, being sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.” In 1639 he became an Anabaptist, was duly immersed, and founded the first Baptist church in Providence—the mother of 18,000 Baptist churches in America. In a few months he completely separated from the Baptists, and became a “Seeker.” His whole life and journeys to and from the old country cannot be followed here. He lived till 1683, “preaching the Gospel of Christ, not only to his own people, but to the Children of the Forest, who received the Missionary, and loved the Man.” Some of his chief published works were:—

“A key into the Language of America, or an Help to the Language of the Natives in that Part of America called New England; together with Briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners and Worships of the aforesaid Natives in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death, London, Gregory Dexler, 1643.”

“The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, discussed in a Conference ... 1644.”

“Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health and their Preservatives. London 1652.”

“George Fox digg’d out of his Burrowes, or an Offer of Disputation on fourteen Proposals made this last Summer, 1672, (so call’d) unto G. Fox, then present on Rode Island, in New England. Boston. Printed by John Foster 1676.”

John Winthrop, born on January 12th, 1588, at Edwardston in Suffolk, was one of the twelve signatories at Cambridge on August 26th, 1629, to the document which practically made Massachusetts self-governing. Those who signed undertook to set sail with their families to inhabit and continue in New England, provided that the whole government, together with the patent for the plantation, be first by an order of court legally transferred and established, to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said plantation. Shortly John Winthrop was elected to be governor, and in March of the next year sailed from England. His literary character was in evidence even throughout the voyage, as the famous diary was then begun, and also in his journey across the seas he wrote a little manual, the manuscript of which now belongs to the New York Historical Society, and is called Christian Charitie. A Modell hereof.

Now we come to talk of a man who is perhaps the most interesting figure in early American authorship. John Eliot, the Indian apostle, born in Herefordshire in 1604, took his degree at Cambridge in 1622, and afterwards entered Holy Orders. He landed at Boston, New England, in 1631. On November 5th, 1632, he was made a “teacher of the Church at Roxbury, and held this post until his death at Roxbury on May 20th, 1690.” In the meanwhile, between 1632 and 1690, John Eliot had, amongst other vast labours, translated the whole Bible into native Indian; but to be more precise: First came the New Testament in 1661, and a second edition in 1680. In 1663 the whole Bible, first edition, and in 1685 the second edition. These wonderful works were published at Cambridge, in New England. He also helped in the preparation of the English Metrical version of the Psalms, the first book printed in New England. This was known as the Bay Psalm-book, and was printed by Stephen Daye in 1640. Everett declared of him: “Since the death of the Apostle Paul, a nobler, truer, and warmer spirit than John Eliot never lived.”

Again, Mather wrote of him: “He that would write of Eliot, must write of Charity, or say nothing.”

Richard Baxter, another contemporary, recorded: “There was no man on earth whom I honour’d above him.”

The credit for the first really original work published in America seems to belong to Anne Bradstreet, whose maiden name was Anne Dudley, her father, Thomas Dudley, becoming Governor of Massachusetts. She was born in Northamptonshire, and at the early age of sixteen married Simon Bradstreet, and in 1630 went with him to America. Her husband became Governor of Massachusetts in 1680.

Mrs. Anne Bradstreet’s poems were first published in 1640, under the title of “Several Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight; wherein especially is contained a compleat Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Three first Monarchies, viz: The Assyrian, Persian, and Grecian; and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King, with divers other pleasant and serious Poems: by a Gentlewoman of New England.”

This is not a treatise on history, and we must pass on to later days, and soon find firm ground with American-born literary men and women.

Jonathan Edwards, born at Windsor, in Connecticut, became a student at Yale College in 1716. Already, at thirteen years old, he was reading Locke on The Human Understanding, “with a keener delight than a miser feels when gathering up handfulls of silver and gold from some newly-discovered treasure.” The greatest of his many writings was “A careful and Strict Inquiry into the modern prevailing notion that Freedom of Will is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency,” and this work has been described as undoubtedly the great bulwark of Calvinistic theology. Edwards’ father had been fifty years minister of a church in America, and his ancestors first emigrated from England in Queen Elizabeth’s days; but the origin of Benjamin Franklin, to whom we come now, was much humbler.

His father, Josiah Franklin, came from England, and started in Boston as a tallow chandler. Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17th, 1706, and when ten years old his father took him home from school to cut wicks for the candles! The boy became anxious for the life of a sailor; but the father, with what now, looking back, we may call happy instinct, apprenticed Benjamin to his elder brother, James, who, just returned from a voyage to London, had, in 1717, set up a printing-press in Boston.

This change brought Benjamin at once within reach of reading, and as what is here written relates wholly to books, the following words of Benjamin Franklin, written to a son of Cotton Mather in his later years, are worth repeating: “When I was a boy, I met a book entitled Essays to do Good, which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by its former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out, but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence upon my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than any other kind of reputation: and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes all the advantage of it to that book.”

In 1724, with aid from Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin came to England with the object of obtaining and bringing over a printing-press and all materials for himself; but not succeeding in this, he stayed two years in London, working at his trade, and at this time, 1725, he published A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. This publication is not in any old collection of Franklin’s writings, and even now only one copy seems to be known.

In 1730 Benjamin founded the Public Library in Philadelphia. In 1753 he became Postmaster-General for British America. In 1743 he had originated the American Philosophical Society, and in 1749 he became the real founder of the University of Pennsylvania. The year 1752 saw the verification of his theory identifying lightning with electricity. After the Declaration of Independence Franklin was, in 1776, appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to France. In 1785 he became President of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and in 1787 sat with Washington and Hamilton in the Federal Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. On his death, on April 17th, 1790, Mirabeau announced in the General Assembly of France: “The genius which had freed America, and poured a flood of light over Europe, had returned to the bosom of the Divinity.”

Nicolas TrÜbner, in the interesting Introduction to his Guide to American Literature, London, 1859, points out that until 1793 no American devoted himself exclusively to literature as a profession. In this year Charles Brockden Brown’s first novel appeared. The title of this was Wieland; or, the Transformation. The author was born in Philadelphia in 1771.

The great historian William Hickling Prescott, whose grandfather, Colonel William Prescott, commanded at Bunker’s Hill, was born at Salem, in Massachusetts, in 1796. In 1814 he graduated from Harvard with honours, although in 1811, his first year at Harvard, he had lost the sight of one eye, and shortly afterwards the other eye was seriously affected in sympathy with it. This unfortunate accident was caused by a blow from a crust of bread thrown at random at a college dinner. The years from 1815 to 1817 he spent in England, “delighting not the less in the charms of nature because by him they could be seen only” as through a glass, darkly. He returned, resolved “that the ample page of knowledge, rich with the spoils of time,” if obscured to his external organs, should be no stranger to his intellectual vision.

In 1837 his first great work, The History of Ferdinand and Isabella, was finished. With inborn modesty he did not mean it to be published; but his father, Judge William Prescott, of course insisted on its publication, and soon it was published, not only in the author’s own tongue, but in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, in the respective languages of those lands. In 1843 appeared The History of the Conquest of Mexico, and in 1847 his History of the Conquest of Peru. Next came the first volumes of the great work which Prescott was never destined to finish. In 1855 were published the two first volumes of The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, and in December, 1858, appeared the third volume. Early in the year he had been attacked by a slight stroke of paralysis. Early in the next year this was followed by a second, and he passed away on January 28th, 1859. In a conversation only forty-eight hours before his death he spoke of various friends, and particularly of George Ticknor, whom he described as “having shortened and brightened what, but for him, must have been many a sad and weary hour.” Asked if he was not coming to New York, he said: “No; I suppose that the days of my long journeys are over. I must content myself, like Horace, with my three houses. You know I go at the commencement of summer to my cottage by the seaside at Lynn Beach; and at autumn to my patrimonial acres at Pepperell, which have been in our family for two hundred years, to sit under the old trees I sat under when a boy; and then with winter come down to hibernate in this house. This is the only travelling, I suppose, that I shall do until I go to my long home.”

George Ticknor, to whom the dying historian Prescott made such interesting allusion, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on August 1st, 1791, and from early childhood displayed a passion for books. He became a barrister, but could not long keep away from literature and learning. In 1815 he came to Europe, and haunted some of the best libraries and universities of the Old World. Actually, before his return home to America, he was, in 1817, appointed Smith Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard College. In 1819 he returned to America, and for fifteen years held this chair of teaching, delivering all the while the most valuable courses of lectures. In 1835 he gave up his professorship in order to go again to Europe and study for preparing his great book. After three years he came back to his native land, and, in 1849, The History of Spanish Literature was first published in New York by Harper and Brothers, in London by John Murray.

Of it Washington Irving wrote to the author: “No one that has not been in Spain can feel half the merit of your work, but to those who have it is a perpetual banquet. It is well worth a lifetime to achieve such a work.”

Washington Irving, almost the first author noticed as a native of the city of New York, was born on April 3rd, 1783. His father was a Scot, and his mother English. Passing over interesting publications like Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams, and Diedrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York, we come to The Sketch Book, first issued in 1819. Curiously enough, Washington Irving, as a fact, wrote the MS. for this in England; but it was at first only printed and published in New York. Incidentally, Lockhart, in Blackwood’s Magazine, February, 1820, paid a high compliment:—

“We are greatly at a loss to comprehend for what reason Mr. Irving has thought fit to publish his Sketch Book in America earlier than in Britain; but, at all events, he is doing himself great injustice by not having an edition printed here of every number after it has appeared in New York. Nothing has been written for a long time for which it would be more safe to promise great and eager acceptance.”

Washington Irving’s fame was now secure, and these few concluding words, from Allibone, must suffice: “When Bracebridge Hall was ready for the press, in 1822, Mr. Murray was ready to offer 1,000 guineas for the copyright without having seen the MS. He obtained the coveted prize at his offer, and subsequently gave the same author £2,000 for the chronicle of The Conquest of Granada, and 3,000 guineas for the History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.”

Very few words here must be written of John Lothrop Motley, born in Massachusetts in 1814. It is enough to mention his splendid work, The History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic. Now, from what is gone before, it will readily be granted that America was well prepared, by the work of her own sons, to take a proud position in Literature, and in concluding these introductory remarks only one honoured name shall be mentioned further.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27th, 1807, and was descended from William Longfellow, who, born in Hampshire, England, in 1651, emigrated to Massachusetts. The chief incidents of the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are like household words, and to think of all that is pure and noble in America without naming him, is impossible. All his writings are instinct with the breath of a pure and noble life.

Naturally we turn, at first, to look at books taken to America by early English and Dutch settlers. They and their near descendants, when using a bookplate at all, mostly adopted an armorial plate. Copper-plate engraving was, of course, in vogue then, and most of their ex libris are from copper-plates. There are a few from wood-blocks. Of comparatively late plates, some are steel plates; but the copper are usually the more satisfactory; the steel being so difficult to work. In comparing a number of the earlier specimens of bookplates in America an interesting point involuntarily arises. From which of two views is an ex libris the more interesting? Is it a work of art or a piece of history? In spite of all that skilled designers and cunning workers in metals may say, the majority will probably value most what for want of a better name may be called the historical aspect. When the Tudor, Stuart, and Guelph Exhibitions were held in London, somewhat unfortunately so many of the expert critics, in writing of portraits, groups, or historical scenes, seemed only able to write from a pure art point of view. As an instance, not connected with any exhibition, I had, but am afraid that I have lost it, a somewhat seedy-looking oil painting, perhaps 18 × 12 inches, which depicted an earnest, bent old figure on horseback returning the salute of a wonder-struck old countryman and his good dame. Following the keen old horseman is another horse, bearing the groom with despatch-bag. The scene is, in fact, a contemporary representation from life of “The Duke” just before passing out of Birdcage Walk for Apsley House. In the left background is the Wellington Monument, as many of us remember it, and on the right the Hercules statue. These accessories fix the date as in the last few years of the great Duke’s life.

What thousand-guinea portrait, plastered with elaborate uniform and robes and saturated with a learned artist’s technical postures and perfections, could have so perfectly pourtrayed the most interesting figure ever seen in London half a century ago? Field-Marshal Moltke was respected throughout Germany as Der Schweiger—the Silent. Wellington, too, and the late Lord Salisbury as well, did not revel in long-winded talk. Once, in the Duke’s last years, he had become very unpopular with the ignorant crowd. Stepping out of the House of Lords into Old Palace Yard, he was met by the howls and threats of an angry mob. His groom was there with the aged Duke’s horse for him to ride home as usual. By a sign, sending away horse and groom, the calm old veteran walked into and with the mob. Before he and they came to Apsley House, the wild threats and jeers had become good British cheers. The old man spoke no single word, but only pointed to his study windows, which had lately been barred up owing to a mob breaking the glass.

I bought this painting from Charles Dickens’ friend, old Mrs. Haines, as it hung in her inner parlour or sanctum. I also bought from the old lady an old crockery clock-case, depicting the young Pretender and Flora MacDonald; also a separate figure of Flora MacDonald. The old dame talked the while of her recollections of uninteresting (!) folk, such as Lord Byron and Charles Dickens. To hear her talk of her own father, a Thames waterman, landing Byron at the Tower stairs, carried one in fancy almost back to Wenceslaus Hollar’s London, with its picturesque quaintness. Describing Dickens’ appearance when first he came to London, she spoke of him as having somewhat the look of a groom. Then she pointed with pride to the plain chair in which Dickens, in later years, spent many an hour of many a day reading her husband’s library books.

This house, No. 24, Fetter Lane, has long been pulled down, and the foregoing remarks are from my memory of my last call there about nineteen years ago. In an article shortly afterwards (5th January, 1884) in the Pall Mall Gazette—I have just looked it up in one of my commonplace books—are many curious particulars, and two good illustrations: “The walls are lined all round with books that have long been forgotten by the world, all arranged with some attention to regularity. A little angular counter protects them from the profane touch of curio-hunters. This is covered with old books, prints, tarnished silver, glass cases, tattered engravings, and paintings cracked and stained. In one corner Dame Haines sat down. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘I have seen Dickens sit many hundreds of times, and here he used to lean his shoulder on the counter. Ah!’ she went on, making a movement with her hands, and with ecstasy expressed on every one of her wrinkled features, ‘I can see him now, with his pleasant face, his quiet, rippling laugh and his gentle ways.”

Now, the earlier bookplates hailing from the more northern colonies of America differ generally from those of southern colonies. Most of the early northern families were of stern, unimaginative mettle, rather despising as unholy anything so “worldly” as an ex libris, and bringing few such gewgaws with them in their trunks. On the other hand, what bookplates they in time adopted were home-made, and if not fine works of art, they were of essential interest as a bit of history.

The southern colonies, on the other hand, were frequented by a more polished and wealthy class, bringing along with them the trappings and social trinkets of their old society.

Mr. E. N. Hewins, in his extremely valuable treatise on American bookplates, gives the book-label of the Rev. John Williams, dated 1679, as the earliest dated example. This is particularly interesting, as the said John Williams was a native. He was born at Roxbury, in Massachusetts, his grandfather having settled there in about the year 1638.

John Williams graduated at Harvard in 1683, was ordained in 1688, and became the first pastor of Deerfield, a frontier town. On the night of February 28th, 1704, Deerfield was attacked by about 300 French and Indians. A great number of citizens were captured; two of John Williams’ children and a negro servant were killed; and then he, with his wife and remaining children, were forced to march for Canada. On the second day out, his wife, falling exhausted, was at once slain with a tomahawk. Urged on, they marched 300 miles to their destination.

After a long while John Williams was ransomed, and came back to his faithful charge of Deerfield in 1706. One daughter, Eunice, was still kept a captive, and her after history was very remarkable. She was only a child of eight when captured; but in time she forgot the English language, became a Roman Catholic, and married an Indian. She lived to a great age, and several times visited her relations, but refused to give up any of the habits or dress of Indian life.

Another early native-wrought label ex libris is that dated 1704 for the books of Thomas Prince. He, too, was of an old stock, his grandfather having emigrated from Hull in 1633.

Thomas Prince became pastor of the Old South Church in Boston. A fine scholar and linguist, he made valuable collections, both manuscript and in print. Some of these stored in the tower of the Old South Church, of great interest for the early history of America, were unfortunately destroyed by the British forces in 1775.

Now we find a bookplate known to have been engraved on copper by a native engraver.

Nathaniel Hurd, whose grandfather, emigrating from England, settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, was probably the first American who engraved copper-plates. His best designs had humour and character. One of his well-known plates represents Hudson, the forger, in the pillory. He engraved a seal for Harvard University. Hurd was born in 1730, and only lived to 1777.

Hewins gives Hurd’s plate of Thomas Dering, 1749, as the first American plate by an American engraver which is both signed and dated.

Much interest among bookplate collectors has, of course, centred round the plate of George Washington, both on account of its being George Washington’s, and being rare. It is a good armorial Chippendale plate. Learned inquirers have failed to establish who engraved it, and on which side of the broad Atlantic!

The plate of the next worthy to be named is a fine armorial ex libris with the motto: “nec elatus nec dejectus.” The owner of this plate was Isaiah Thomas, born in Boston in 1749, and dying at Worcester, also in Massachusetts, in 1831; he was, at six years old, apprenticed to Zachariah Fowler, ballad printer. In 1770 Thomas became partner with his former master. Together they issued the Massachusetts Spy, “open to all parties, but influenced by none.” Thomas was soon left alone in his undertakings. A few days before the battle of Lexington, in which he bore his part, he packed up his press and types, and took them by night to Worcester. There he resumed the issue of the Spy, which, at all events in 1888, was still being regularly issued. In 1786 he got from Europe the first fount of music ever used in New England. In 1788 he opened a book store in Boston. In 1791 he issued the Bible in folio. He gave his own fine collection of books, amounting to 8,000 volumes, to the Worcester Antiquarian Library.

Of him William Lincoln wrote; “His reputation will rest on manly independence, which gave through the initiatory stage and progress of the Revolution, the strong influence of the press he directed, towards the cause of freedom, when royal flattery would have seduced, and the power of government subdued, its action.”

The wreath and armorial bookplate of John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, is almost more pleasing to behold than one could expect to have been chosen by one of the very sternest old Puritans that ever breathed; but, after all, John Quincy Adams was a scholar and man of affairs, who from early boyhood had travelled much, and in good company. All this would give him some ideas of good taste. “J. Q. A.” seems to lead involuntarily to the thought of another wreath and armorial bookplate of a not less interesting character.

The lawyer, Josiah Quincy, was born in 1744, in Boston, and died at sea in 1775; but much happened in that short spell of years. He was one of the first to say in plain terms, “that an appeal to arms, followed by a separation from the mother-country, was inevitable.” Early in 1773, when already suffering from consumption, he took a voyage under doctor’s orders; but, returning to Boston, he was present in the Old South Meeting-house on December 16th, and as the men, disguised as Indians, rushed past the door on their way to the tea-ships, he exclaimed: “See the clouds which now rise thick and fast upon our horizon, the thunders roll and the lightnings play, and to that God who rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm, I commit my country.”

The plate, with armorial shield and crest, of Dr. John Jeffries may be remembered, though no draughtsman or engraver’s name is tied to it, as the bookplate of the man who, in Boston, in 1789, delivered the first lecture on anatomy ever given in New England.

We may turn now from surgeons to a doctor of divinity. The plate of Samuel Farmar Jarvis, D.D., here reproduced from my copy of Bingley’s Voyagers—in which Jarvis has written: “To my dear Edrica Faulkner a small token of regard from her affectionate

friend Saml Farmer Jarvis. Siena, Septemb, 24. 1832.”—is described by Hewins as: “Armorial. Literary. Mottoes ‘Hora e sempre,’ and ‘Sola salus servire Deo.’ The shield rests against a pile of books, and, above, the cross and crown are seen in a blaze of glory.”

S. F. Jarvis, son of the bishop, was born at Middletown, in Connecticut, in 1786, and from his tastes and scholarship his name is well worthy of record where books are concerned. In 1826 he sailed for England, and spent nine years in literary study, exploring many of the great libraries of Europe. The fruit of these labours may be seen in some valuable works afterwards published. His fine collection of paintings and interesting library were sold after his death in 1851.

Leaving now the armorial plates, and coming to a literary name which is almost as familiar a sound in London as in New York, we find the bookplate of Oliver Wendell Holmes, a charming original design—a nautilus shell, with the motto “per ampliora ad altiora.”

“If you will look into Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise,” said the autocrat one morning, “you will find a figure of one of these shells and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral.”

A very curious plate is that of Laurence Hutton, the author. The plate consists mainly of a full-length portrait of William Makepeace Thackeray, with “Laurence Hutton” inscribed under it! The author of Vanity Fair stands in an arched doorway, which leads to bookcases and books. Laurence Hutton was born in the city of New York in 1843. As a writer he is well known on both sides of the ocean, and for twenty years he always spent the summer months in England.

Turning from peace to war, the bookplate of Lieutenant E. Trenchard, of the United States Navy, represents another side of life. In this plate, as, happily, in almost all bookplates of American origin, the name is there clear and unmistakable. Behind the horizontal oval bearing the name, are flags, cannon, cannon-balls, and an anchor. The owner of this plate was born in New Jersey in 1784, and on April 30th, 1800, he was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy, and became lieutenant on February 18th, 1807. In the war of 1812 to 1815 he commanded the Madison in some of her engagements on Lake Ontario, and also rendered distinguished service at the blockade of Kingston. These were stirring times, and the following exact quotation from, not improbably, the only copy in existence of a tiny printed manual, is of real interest. Following Article II. are many other regulations. Then, Firelock Manual of the Sergeants, and the full name of every member of this patriotic band.

A splendid non-armorial and naval plate is the bookplate with the name “Stephen Cleveland” under the engraving of a fine man-of-war of the old time in full sail.

Stephen Cleveland went to sea in 1756, being seized in Boston, and pressed for a British man-of-war. His father, a clergyman, founded, in 1750, at Halifax, the first Presbyterian church in Canada. On the Declaration of Independence Stephen Cleveland was given a captain’s commission, and brought over from Bordeaux valuable munitions of war. His commission is said to have been the earliest issued by the American Government.

Of quite modern plates a good specimen is that of a well-known New York collector, Mr. Eduard Hale Bierstadt. The style is allegorical; a piping shepherd, naked, but for a sergeant’s sash! Books and flowers, with the motto: “nunc mihi mox aliis.”

A very pleasing, particularly because unpretending, plate is that of “Melvin H. Hapgood. Hartford, Conn. U.S.A.” It is but little more than a very finely ornamented label including a very small shield-of-arms.

“Thomas Bailey Aldrich His Mark” is the inscription on the frame bordering a rectangular modern bookplate. Inside is a bird over a mask, and, failing more serious emblems, the idea of the bird as a young rook is not inappropriate to the familiar expression “his mark.”

A more pretentious plate, and well illustrated by Mr. Hewins, is that of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Henry Dubbs, professor in Franklin and Marshall College. In the middle is a shield-of-arms fastened in front of a spreading oak tree. The several inscriptions are: “1880 Joseph Henry Dubbs D:D:—ex recto decus—” and the migrations of the family noted as follows: “Styria 1446; Helvetia 1531; America 1732.”

Of modern American library interior ex libris may be mentioned James Phinney Baxter’s, with an easy-chair, a table, an old clock, and rows of books. Louis J. Haber’s plate bespeaks ease and comfort. Here, as usual, are the rows of books, and the old motto: “My silent but faithful friends are they.”

Albert C. Bates’s bookplate reproduces an early woodcut of a Leyden University old library, with its chained books.

A beautiful plate, mentioned by Mr. Hewins, is the coloured ex libris of Gerald E. Hart, of Montreal, representing the interior of a cell in some medieval monastery, with a tonsured monk sitting on his stone bench, illuminating a manuscript. The Gothic window admits light through its highly coloured design, and rows of vellum lie beside the desk of the old monk.

Leaving library interiors, we note, amongst scores of other good literary bookplates, that of the Rev. Wm. R. Huntington, Rector of Grace Church, New York City, a design adapted from a frontispiece by Walter Crane for the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and in which a curly-locked youth is, with a huge key in hand, opening the door of a house. Upon the roof are seen two cupids, making pleasant sounds with lyre and voice. With this plate is the charming motto: “In veritate victoria.”

Many pleasing American ex libris are not personal at all. The bookplate of the Grolier Club is in itself a beautiful object, befitting a society which, although only founded in New York less than twenty years ago, occupies such a unique position in literary circles.

Of a far different style is the allegorical plate inscribed: “This Book belongs to the Monthly Library in Farmington. Laws. 1. Two pence per day for retaining a Book more than one Month. 2. One penny for folding down a Leaf. 3. 3 shillings for lending a book to a Nonproprietor. Other Damages apprais’d by a Committee. 5. No Person allowed a Book while indebted for a Fine.”

The following lines probably refer to the allegorical drawing:—

At the foot of the plate is “M. Bull’s and T. Lee’s sculp.” This said Martin Bull was an interesting village character. For thirty-nine years he held the post of clerk of probate, and for eight years was town treasurer. He also worked as a goldsmith, manufactured saltpetre for the army, and conducted the church choir! This interesting local library was founded in 1795, and then was called “The Library in the First Society in Farmington.” In 1801 it acquired the name engraved over the bookplate.