IN a work treating of bookplates some space devoted to the subject of inscriptions in books can hardly be out of place. In the view of the real book-lover—and no others are asked to look at this volume—a book, until actually destroyed, is a very living reality. As he takes it carefully into his hands he thinks of the wondrous thoughts and deeds that may be unfolded between its covers. He also thinks, if it be an old book, of the host of scenes of other days through which the book has passed. Bookplates in it of former owners are of interest; but so, too, in a very striking manner, are any manuscript names and notes of former owners.

After these few words, the following few notes will probably speak for themselves.

The following curious inscription is at the beginning of a precious Little Gidding large folio volume in the British Museum. The pressmark is l 23. e 2:—

“Johannes Collet,
Filius
ThomÆ Collet,
Pater
ThomÆ Gulielmi Johannis,
Omnium superstes,
Natus
Quarto Junii 1633,
Denasciturus,
Quando Deo visum fuerit,
Interim hujus proprietarius.
————
John Collet.”

The armorial bookplate of Robert Chambers is of interest, as I have it in a copy of the Bible which has passed through terrible experiences, as related in The Times, 23rd October, 1902, and given more fully below:—

It carries the following inscriptions:—

“this Bible
is a token of respect to
W? Chambers
from his Sister Mary
on the 23? of Septr 1805
and hopes he will esteem it
and By the Grace of it’s Author
find in it a faithfull
Companion a Wise Counseler
a Comfortable and Sure Guide
through every Dispensation
of Life that it may Please
the Almighty to Place
—him in—”

“W? Chambers his Book / Gibralter Oct? 24?? 1806”

“In case of Death By Accident I trust the Person Whoever this Book may fall in their hands that will send a Line to the Person mentioned in the above hand. Intimating the same Oct? 24 1806 W? Chambers”

Then, happily, in another inscription, signed “R. Chambers,” we get the story completed:—

On a fly-leaf at the end of the Bible are the three following separate inscriptions:—

“Col Wild, Malta
Serv? Name John Bacchens”

“William Chambers
Born Anno Domini
Sep? 13?? 1782”
————
“Mary Chambers
her Book April 19 1809”

Robert Chambers has cut the printed name off the foot of his bookplate and pasted it above, so as not to cover the earlier inscription: “W? Chambers his Book, Gibralter Oct? 24?? 1806.” I have just bought this relic of Corunna—where Sir John Moore ended his glorious life amid the fires of victory—from Mr. William Harper, a second-hand bookseller of the true old-fashioned type, a man to whom a book is an object of reverence. He catalogued the late Edward Solly’s interesting library. His old chief, Andrew Clark, bought it at the sale, of which I quote the catalogue title in full, from good Andrew Clark’s own marked copy: “removed from Gray’s Inn. A catalogue of the valuable Library of 3000 vols. containing several excellent works on Topography, Theology, Law, History, and Miscellanies; many of the best editions of the classics, a very curious collection of old Bibles, In nearly all languages, illuminated missals, breviaries, and old MSS. in good preservation, And various works, in nearly all classes of Literature, many being exceedingly curious and scarce, Which will be sold by Auction by Mr. Geo. Berry at the auction rooms, Quality Court, Chancery Lane, on Thursday, June 29th, 1854, and Following Day, at 11 for 12 oclock, each day, without reserve, By direction of the Executors of the late Robert Chambers Esq. Barrister at Law. May be viewed the day prior and Morning of Sale; and Catalogues had at the place of Sale; And of the Auctioneer, no. 8a, Motcomb Street, Belgrave Square. H. D. Pite, Printer, 37 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.”

“Q. F. F. Q. S.

Hunc librum pro summo suo in Tyrones apud eum Literas discentes studio, D Robertus Spence Ludimagister in Schola illustri Edinburgensi Jacobi Regis Scotorum ejus nominis Sexti, Gulielmo Binning discipulo suo, hoc anno Syntaxi Latine operam navanti, tanquam latÆ a condiscipulis victoriÆ palmarium, & futurÆ diligentiÆ & industriÆ incitamentum, dono dedit.

Prid: Id: Ian:
MDCCXXVIII”

is inscribed at the beginning of a copy of phrases “linguae latinÆ, ab aldo manutio p.f, conscriptÆ: ... londini excusum pro Societate Stationariorum. 1636.”

“M.DC.VIII
Illustrissimo NorthamtoniÆ Comiti Dno Henrico Howarde
regiÆ Maiestati a secretis et sanctiaribus consiliis.
Quinque Portuum prÆfecto vigilantissimo
in noui formosissimi ineuntis Anni
auspitium Perceuillas Harte
LL: MM. DD:”

This inscription was in a book in splendid English sixteenth-century binding, which belonged then to the Royal Society, and has the well-known old bookplate of the Royal Society. Nothing now remains but one cover and three fly-leaves.

The Henry Howard of this interesting inscription was born at Shottesham, in Norfolk, on February 25th, 1539, being the second son of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and the younger brother of Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk. His father dying when he was but seven years old, he was left to the care of his aunt, the Duchess of Richmond, and lived at Reigate, a manor of the Duke of Norfolk’s, under the tutorship of John Foxe, the martyrologist. On Queen Mary’s accession the Duke of Norfolk, the grandfather, was released from prison, and he dismissed Foxe. Howard was now put under the care of a zealous Catholic, John White, Bishop first of Lincoln and then of Winchester. Soon came another turn of the wheel—Mary died! Elizabeth turned White out of his bishopric, herself took charge of Howard’s education and sent him to King’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1564.

In 1572 his brother, now Duke of Norfolk, was accused of plotting to marry Mary Queen of Scots, and Banister, the Duke’s confidential agent, declared in his confession that Henry was the subject first proposed for the hand of Mary Queen of Scots. Henry Howard was at once seized, but proving his innocence to Elizabeth’s satisfaction, he was released, and a pension assigned to him. To follow him would be to write an elaborate book; but, in short, his life of seventy-four years was too full of variety to be peaceful or pleasant. He was constantly suspected of strong Roman Catholic sympathies, and he was often in close correspondence with Mary Queen of Scots, although, as regards the tendency of his influence, he himself at least said that he gave her the prudent advice to “abate the sails of her royal pride.”

At all events, much romance must always attach to the name of anyone who, like Henry Howard, was oft exchanging tokens with Mary Queen of Scots. In the latter years of Queen Elizabeth he entered into a secret correspondence with James of Scotland, who wrote to him often on intimate terms, and who, on hearing of Elizabeth’s death, sent Howard a ruby as a token. On January 1st, 1604, Howard became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and soon afterwards Baron Howard of Marnhull, Dorsetshire, and Earl of Northampton. In the next year he was made a Knight of the Garter, and in 1608 he was appointed to the office of Lord Privy Seal.

Sir Percivall Hart, Chief Server, and Knight Harbinger to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, died in 1580, leaving a son, Sir Percivall Hart, who married twice, first to Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Manwood, Knight, Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, by whom he had a son, William; and his second wife was Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Stanhope of Grimston, Knight, by whom he had issue Sir Henry Hart, Knight of the Bath, who died in his father’s lifetime, having married Elizabeth, daughter of—— Burdet, and a widow of Sir Simon Norwich, by whom he left Percyval, Francis, George, and Elizabeth, who died young; Percyval and Jerome, who died without issue; and George, who married Elizabeth, daughter of—— Berisford, and left two sons, Percival and George, and two daughters, Jane and Elizabeth.

William Hart, only son of Sir Percyval by his first wife, succeeded his father in the possession of Lullingstone, and died on March 31st, 1671, aged seventy-seven, and was buried there. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Anthony Weldon, of Swanscombe, Knight, who died in 1677, and lies buried there, by whom he had no issue, upon which the Manor of Lullingstone descended to Percyval Hart, Esq., eldest son of Sir Henry Hart, Knight of the Bath, eldest son of Sir Percyval Hart, Knight, by his second wife as abovementioned. He was afterwards knighted, and left issue by Anne, his wife, one son, Percyval Hart, Esq., who was of Lullingstone, was sheriff in 1707, and Member of Parliament for the county in the ninth and twelfth years of Queen Anne. He died October 27th, 1738, aged seventy, and was buried in Lullingstone Church, having by Sarah, his wife, youngest daughter of Henry Dixon of Hilden, Esquire, an only daughter and heir, Anne, then married to her second husband, Sir Thomas Dyke of Hexham, in Sussex, Baronet.

The notes given below, and many more, all evidently in the hand of John Crane, are in a 1649 copy of ReliquiÆ SacrÆ CarolinÆ:—

Look back in the Record Office to the time of Naseby fight. There is written as follows:—

1645, June 23??.—Ordered in the Comon’s House this day that the 23 members here named are added to the committee where Mr. Tate hath the chaire, and are to meete tomorrowe morning att 7 of ye clocke in ye Queenes Court, and to appoint persons to transcribe those particulars (in the several letters and papers taken at Naseby field) that are most materiall, and to consider what shall be done with the Portugall Agent, and to examine Mr. Browne & his sonne (if ye House sitt not) when they are brought up.

This Mr. Tate has been indexed as Zouch Tate, M.P. for Northampton, chairman of the committee for regulating the armies.

Baker’s Northamptonshire relates that John Crane, of Loughton, Bucks, Clerk of the Household to James the First and Charles the First, was living in 1651 at the age of seventy-five and lived long after that. He married Mary, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham. They had many children, including a son John and a daughter Anne; the latter marrying Francis Arundell of Stoke Park.

On the blank lower half of the page preceding the Eikon, and on the title of the Eikon:—

“Some tyme after the King was murtherd by accident I was in ye company of one of Mr. Tate’s servants (with my wife & several others) whose master was one of those appoynted to examine the kings letters I asked him whether he ever saw aney of ye kings writing, he told me that his master tate committed severall of those letters to his custodie, and that those letters ye Parlt. put forth in print were written with ye king’s own hand, I asked him whether they printed all they had, he said no they burned maney, I asked ye reason, he said because they vindicated the king from maney things they charged upon him & that if those letters had bin printed they would have bin very much for the kings advantage & that they caused to be printed only those they thought would make against him, and that it was pittie they were burned. This my cosin Zouch Tats man spake at my sister Arundells at Stoake in ye company of maney with me John Crane junior. This he had told me before, but I loved to hear him againe.”

“Ex libris Joannis Holleri Brixi:
In Domino confido
Quisquis es inuentor nostri
te quÆso libelli
Huic reddas cujusque nomen adesse”

is the contemporary inscription over the bookplate reproduced on another page:—

“BibliothecÆ”
“Novacellensis.”
“T”

It appears in a copy of D. Radvlphi Ardentis Pictavi, Doctoris Theologi per antiqui illustriss. AquitaniÆ Ducis Gulielmi huius nominis quarti, Concionatoris disertiss in Epistolas et Euangelia (et vocant) Sanctorum, HomiliÆ, Ecclesiastis omnibus animarum curam gerentibus plurimum necessariÆ, et ante annos propÈ quingentos ab Auctore conscriptÆ, nunc primum in lucem editÆ.

Quibus annecti curauimus eisusdem Homilias in Epistolas et Euangelia, quÆ in communi Sanctorum legi consueuerunt. Then the printer’s block of two birds in fighting attitude between an upright staff separating them, with the motto: “Resparia crescunt concordia,” and the date 1560. Below the printer’s block: “AntverpiÆ, In Ædibus ViduÆ & HÆredum Joan. Stelfii. M.D.LXX. Cum Priuilegio.”

Nova cella, or Newstifft, a beautiful Bavarian cloister of the PrÆmonstratensian Order in the diocese of Freysing, near the junction of the Moselle and Iser, was, in the year 1141, founded by three brothers: Otho, Bishop of Freysing; Henry, Margrave of Austria, and Conrad of Salzburg. They dedicated it to the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. Alas! in the time of the Thirty Years’ War it was quite destroyed. On one blank leaf is pasted the bookplate here given, and on another is written, “Ex libris/T. H. Foster/In Festi Purificationis/ B.V.M. 88/+”. The book is in its original stamped binding, with clasps.

Now this short gossip on ex libris must draw to a close.

In one sense—that of variety—the study of bookplates can be elaborated in a never-ending course. You can set your mind on collecting, arranging, and studying the bookplates of lawyers. Again, you can limit that, and collect only the bookplates of barristers, as distinguished from solicitors; you can limit your attention to judges; you can confine it to a century, a country, or even a county; you can strive to put together all the Chippendale bookplates ever made; you can strive to collect every portrait-plate, every plate with a ship, every landscape-plate, every military bookplate, or collect military bookplates, at the same time excluding every aspirant below a general! The varieties are endless; it is merely a question of ringing the changes. Perhaps one of the most sensible divisions, in a small way, is that of collecting the plates of the various members of certain families.

Memorable words were spoken in March, 1891, by John Leighton, F.S.A., the first chairman of the Ex Libris Society: “The Society should be select, and in no way connected with profit, other than the pleasure to be derived in making the past patent to the present and future.”

The present writer is not a bookplate collector; but an honoured member of the Council of the Ex Libris Society has kindly lent most of the numbers of the Society’s Journal, from the date of its foundation. One or two of several years he had lost, and very many of the numbers had not, till now, made the acquaintance of a paper-knife. There is, I need hardly say, much in the Journal of interest, and reflecting highly on the ingenuity of Mr. W. H. K. Wright, fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

In turning over the numbers of the Journal a fond, vain wish seizes one; and it is this—Oh! that I could strike out the trade journal element, or relegate it to certain pages, wholly apart from the interesting historical and antiquarian portions. Alas! how could this be expected, seeing that leading members of the Society were professionally busied with bookplates? Perhaps this has all been remedied.

Then, too, in turning over numbers one cannot help thinking that a bookplate of simple taste was sadly discouraged. In the first place, a “fanciful” design was directly recommended; and in the second place, by constantly urging that each member of the Society must sport at least one bookplate of his own, and must be ready to exchange. Thus anyone who has joined the Society, and whose own library may be limited to Bradshaw and the Stock Exchange Year Book, must start an ex libris, not to place in the primary proper place for bookplates, but to post to Dick, Tom, and Harry, similarly placed. Again, unless he wish to be ignored, he must make every effort to have as grand and fantastic a plate as his neighbour.

A volume has just, on going to press, come into my hands, which, although printed as late as 1850, is deliciously redolent of old-world life. The work is the Life of James Davies, a village schoolmaster, written by Sir Thomas Phillips. London: John W. Parker, West Strand, 1850. On the inner cover, facing the half-title, is a most charming black silhouette profile portrait of a lady of some ninety years ago, subscribed “ever your sincere Friend Sarah Jones.” Above is written, “S Jones born 9?? April 1771.” In, of course, another hand, is written at the foot, “Died July 18??: 1852.” The portrait is of the wife and widow of the Rev. William Jones, as shown by several marked passages of the book. Her husband was in pastoral charge, and she his devoted helper, where James Davies was the earnest and evidently very unpedantic pedagogue: “It was in the summer of 1815 that James Davies removed from Usk to the Devauden, and received the charge of rude, ragged, and boisterous mountain children, whom he long instructed by precept and example.”

This biography, the work of Sir Thomas Phillips, a neighbouring squire, is illustrated with very good engravings, and altogether recalls at every turn, scenes worthy of good George Herbert and Nicholas Ferrar.