BOOK-PLATES.

A rather modern form of book-spoliation has arisen in the collection of book-plates. These are literally derived “ex libris,” and the business cannot be indulged, as a general thing, without in some sense despoiling books. It cannot be denied that it is a fascinating pursuit. So undoubtedly is the taking of watches or rings or other “articles of bigotry or virtue,” on the highway But somehow there is something so essentially personal in a book-plate, that it is hard to understand why other persons than the owners should become possessed by a passion for it. Many years ago when Burton, the great comedian, was in his prime, he used to act in a farce called “Toodles”—at all events, that was his name in the play—and he was afflicted with a wife who had a mania for attending auctions and buying all kinds of things, useful or useless, provided that they only seemed cheap. One day she came home with a door-plate, inscribed, “Thompson”—“Thompson with a p,” as Toodles wrathfully described it; and this was more than Toodles could stand. He could not see what possible use there could ever be in that door-plate for the Toodles family. In those same days, there used to be displayed on the door of a modest house, on the east side of Broadway, in the city of New York, somewhere about Eighth Street, a silver door-plate inscribed, “Mr. Astor.” This appertained to the original John Jacob In those days I frequently remarked it, and thought what a prize it would be to Mrs. Toodles or some collector of door-plates. Now I can understand why one might acquire a taste for collecting book-plates of distinguished men or famous book-collectors, just as one collects autographs; but why collect hundreds and thousands of book-plates of undistinguished and even unknown persons, frequently consisting of nothing more than family coats-of-arms, or mere family names? I must confess that I share to a certain extent in Mr. Lang’s antipathy to this species of collecting, and am disposed to call down on these collectors Shakespeare’s curse on him who should move his bones. But I cannot go with Mr. Lang when he calls these well-meaning and by no means mischevious persons some hard names.

In some localities it is quite the vogue to take off the coffin-plate from the coffin—all the other silver “trimmings,” too, for that matter—and preserve it, and even have it framed and hung up in the home of the late lamented. There may be a sense of proprietorship in the mourners, who have bought and paid for it, and see no good reason for burying it, that will justify this practice. At all events it is a family matter. The coffin plate reminds the desolate survivors of the person designated, who is shelved forever in the dust. But what would be said of the sense or sanity of one who should go about collecting and framing coffin-plates, cataloguing them, and even exchanging them?

Book-worms penetrate to different distances in books. Some go no further than the title page; others dig into the preface or bore into the table of contents; a few begin excavations at the close, to see “how it comes out.” But that Worm is most easily satisfied who never goes beyond the inside of the front cover, and passes his time in prying off the book-plates

I think I have heard of persons who collect colophons. These go to work in the reverse direction, and are even more reprehensible than the accumulators of book-plates, because they inevitably ruin the book

A book-plate is appropriate, sometimes ornamental, even beautiful, in its intended place in the proprietor’s book. Out of that, with rare exceptions, it strikes one like the coffin-plate, framed and hanging on the wall It gives additional value and attractiveness to a book which one buys, but it ought to remain there

If one purchases books once owned by A, B and C—undistinguished persons, or even distinguished—containing their autographs, he does not cut them out to form a collection of autographs If the name is not celebrated, the autograph has no interest or value; if famous, it has still greater interest and value by remaining in the book. So it seems to me it should be in respect to book-plates Let Mr. Astor’s door-plate stay on his front door, and let the energetic Mrs. Toodles content herself in buying something less invididual and more adaptable.

A book-plate really is of no value except to the owner, as the man says of papers which he has lost. It cannot be utilized to mark the possessions of another. In this respect it is of inferior value to the door-plate, for possibly another Mr. Astor might arise, to whom the orignal door-plate might be sold. A Boston newspaper tells of a peddler of door-plates who contracted to sell a Salem widow a door-plate; and when she gave him her name to be engraved on it, gave only her surname, objecting to any first name or initials, observing: “I might get married again, and if my initials or first name were on the plate, it would be of no use. If they are left off, the plate could be used by my son.”

Thus much about collecting book-plates. One word may be tolerated about the character of one’s own book-plate. To my taste, mere coats-of-arms with mottoes are not the best form. They simply denote ownership. They might well answer some further purpose, as for example to typify the peculiar tastes of the proprietor in respect to his books. A portrait of the owner is not objectionable, indeed is quite welcome in connection with some device or motto pertaining to books and not to mere family descent. But why, although a collector may have a favorite author, like Hawthorne or Thackeray, for example, should he insert his portrait in his book-plate, as is often done? Mr. Howells would writhe in his grave if he knew that somebody had stuck Thackeray’s portrait or Scott’s in “Silas Lapham,” and those Calvinists who think that the “Scarlet Letter” is wicked, would pronounce damnation on the man who should put the gentle Hawthorne’s portrait in a religious book To be sure, one might have a variety of book-plates, with portraits appropriate to different kinds of books—Napoleon’s for military, Calvin for religious, Walton’s for angling and a composite portrait of Howells-James for fiction of the photographic school; but this would involve expense and destroy the intrinsic unity desirable in the book-plate. So let the portrait, if any, be either that of the proprietor or a conventional image. If I were to relax and allow a single exception it would be in favor of dear Charles Lamb’s portrait in “Fraser’s,” representing him as reading a book by candle light. (For the moment this idea pleases me so much that I feel half inclined to eat all my foregoing words on this point, and adopt it for myself. At any rate, I hereby preempt the privilege.)

I have referred to Mr. Lang’s antipathy to book-plate collectors, and while, as I have observed, he goes to extravagant lengths in condemning their pursuit, still it may be of interest to my readers to know just what he says about them, and so I reproduce below a ballad on the subject, with (the material for) which he kindly supplied me when I solicited his mild expression of opinion on the subject:

THE SNATCHERS.

The Romans snatched the Sabine wives;
The crime had some extenuation,
For they were leading lonely lives
And driven to reckless desperation.
Lord Elgin stripped the Grecian frieze
Of all its marbles celebrated,
So our art-students now with ease
Consult the figures overrated.
Napoleon stole the southern pictures
And hung them up to grace the Louvre;
And though he could not make them fixtures,
They answered as an art-improver.
Bold men ransack an Egyptian tomb,
And with the mummies there make free;
Such intermeddling with Time’s womb
May aid in archeology.
So Cruncher dug up graves in haste,
To sell the corpses to the doctors;
This trade was not against his taste,
Though Misses “flopped,” and vowed it shocked hers.

The modern snatcher sponges leaves
And boards of books to crib their labels;
Most petty, trivial of thieves,
Surpassing all we read in fables.
He pastes them in a big, blank book
To show them to some rival fool,
And I pronounce him, when I look,
An almost idiotic ghoul.