One of the most useful works which has yet appeared in the journal of the Ex Libris Society—a society intended to promote the study of book-plates—is a compilation by Mr. H. W. Fincham and Mr. J. Roberts Brown, A Bibliography of Book-Plates, arranged chronologically. A glance at this compilation emphasises the truth of the statement, just made, as to the scantiness of recorded information on book-plates prior to the year 1880; it also shows what a great deal about them has been written since.

Writing to Notes and Queries in 1877, Dr. Jackson Howard, whose collection is now one of the largest in England, says that he began collecting forty years before that date, and that the nucleus of his own collection was one made by a Miss Jenkins at Bath in 1820. It is probably, therefore, to this lady that we should attribute the honour of being the first collector of book-plates, for their own sake. No doubt the collector of engravings admitted into his portfolios book-plates worthy a place there as interesting engravings, for stray examples are often found in such collections as that formed in the seventeenth century by John Bagford, the biblioclast, which is now in the British Museum. No doubt, too, heraldic painters or plate engravers collected book-plates as specimens of heraldry, but this was not collecting them as book-plates—viz. as illustrations of the custom of placing marks of ownership in books, which, I take it, was evidently Miss Jenkins's object.[1]

Still, though little was written on the subject of book-plates prior to 1880, it by no means follows that for some years before that date there had not been a considerable number of persons who took an interest in the subject. The fact is, that the book-plate collector of earlier days was wiser in his generation than are those of his kind to-day. He kept his 'hobby' to himself, and was thus enabled to indulge it economically. My father had a small collection; and I can well remember how, as a boy, I used to help him to add to it. We used to go to a shop in a dingy street, leading off Oxford Street, and there select from a large clothes-basket as many book-plates as were new to our collection. The price was one penny a piece,—new or old, dated or undated, English or foreign, that of Bishop Burnet, or David Garrick, or Mr. Jones, or Mr. Brown,—all alike, a penny a piece; and I have no doubt, though I do not remember the fact, there was the usual 'reduction on taking a quantity.' I think this shop was almost the only one in London where you could buy book-plates at all. Well, those days are past now; and, whilst we regret them, because book-plate collecting is no longer an economical pursuit, we cannot allow our regret to be unmingled with satisfaction. The would-be collector of to-day can, if he pleases, know something about the collection he is undertaking; he can tell when he meets with a good specimen; he knows the points which render any particular book-plate interesting; and he can, at least approximately, affix a date to each example he obtains.

As to the morality of book-plate collecting, I suppose something ought to be said here. There is but one objection to it, but that is, undoubtedly, a serious one: taking a book-plate out of a book means the possible disfigurement and injury of the volume from which it is taken; yet, for the purpose of study and comparison, the removal is a distinct advantage. To confess this seems, at first sight, to bring collecting at all under a sweeping condemnation; and such, indeed, would be the case, were it not for the fact that damage to, or even the actual destruction of, very many books is really a matter of no consequence whatever. Book-plates are found quite as often in the worthless literary productions of our ancestors as in the worthy; and it is puerile to cavil over the removal of a book-plate from a binding which holds together material by the destruction of which the world would certainly not be the poorer. So much for the book-plates in valueless books. As regards those in valuable or interesting ones, it is certainly unwise to remove them at all. This is a golden rule which cannot be too forcibly impressed upon collectors and booksellers. The case does not occur very often; and when it does, the book itself, with the book-plate in it, can be easily fetched and placed beside the 'collection' when needed for comparison. It may happen that the book-plate in this valuable book is interesting from the fact that it belonged to some man of note, or that it is unique; if so, we have only a further reason against taking it out of the volume. The value of a very early book-plate, when preserved in the volume in which it is discovered, is lessened almost to a vanishing point if separated from that volume. Pasted into a book as a mark of ownership, it is an undoubted book-plate; whereas, if taken out and fastened into a collection of book-plates, it at once loses the proof of its original use, so essential to its value and so material to the student of book-plates.

On the other hand, as I have said, there is no harm in removing, from some uninteresting and valueless volume, the book-plate of a famous man. Everybody knows that Bishop Burnet or David Garrick had plenty of what they themselves regarded as 'rubbish' in their libraries; so that Burnet's book-plate in an actually valueless volume does not prove that the Bishop's shrewd eye ever scanned its pages, or that his episcopal hand ever held it. Besides, I know as a fact that it is a not uncommon trick for the possessor of the book-plate of some famous man to affix that book-plate in a worthless volume, and then offer the whole for sale at a price much higher than would be asked or obtained for the book-plate itself, though the value of the book may be nil!

Without quarrelling with the name book-plate,—as applied to the marks of ownership pasted into books,—and without wasting time with discussion of suggestions for a better one, it may be admitted that the word is not altogether happily chosen. It perhaps suggests to the mind of the 'uninitiated' an illustration in a book rather than a mark of possession. But then at the present day there are not many 'uninitiated' amongst either buyers or sellers of books and prints, so that the inappropriateness of the name need not concern us.

As to its antiquity, that is doubtful; but probably one of the earliest instances of its use, in print, occurs in 1791, when John Ireland published the first two volumes of his Hogarth Illustrated. In this work he says that the works of Callot were probably Hogarth's first models, and 'shop bills and book-plates his first performances.' Again, in 1798, Ireland refers to the 'book-plate' for Lambert the herald-painter, which Hogarth had executed. In 1823, a certain 'C. S. B.,' writing in the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine, refers to what 'are generally called' book-plates. His letter was suggested by an article—a review of Thomas Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica—in the previous number of the magazine, the writer of which was evidently not familiar with the term book-plate as we now apply it, for he calls book-plates 'plates of arms.' We shall see, later on, that this is quite an inappropriate name; some of the most interesting and the most beautiful book-plates have nothing armorial about them.

On the Continent, the term ex libris is generally applied to book-plates. This is, perhaps, even less appropriate than book-plate. It is taken from the two first words of the inscription on a great many book-plates, when the inscription is written in Latin—e.g. 'ex libris Johannis Stearne, S.T.P. Episcopi Clogherensis.' A moment's reflection will show that this inscription is not intended as a declaration by the book-plate (should it ever become severed from the book in which it was fastened) that it came out of a book belonging to Bishop Stearne; but that it is a declaration by the book in which the book-plate is found pasted, that that particular book is from amongst the books of a particular library, and ought to be restored to it. It would be as rational to call book-plates 'libri,' because the inscription on them often begins—as in a very famous German book-plate—'Liber Bilibaldi Pirckheimer.' It may, indeed, be laid down as a general rule, that whatever the sentiment expressed on a book-plate, it is clearly intended to be uttered by the book in which the book-plate is fixed, not by the book-plate itself.

There are but two instances, quoted by Lord De Tabley, of the inscription directly referring to the book-plate. Both are foreign, and date about the middle of the last century. One is Symbolum BibliothecÆ of John Bernard Nack, a citizen and merchant of Frankfort;[2] and the other, Insigne Librorum, etc., quoted from the work of M. Poulet Malassis. Lord De Tabley thinks that the Symbolum of Herr Nack is simply a trade card; but he founds this conclusion on the supposition that Herr Nack was a book-dealer, and that the scene depicted on his book-plate was, in fact, his shop. In my opinion, we have in this book-plate a representation of a portion of Herr Nack's library, in which Minerva(?) is seated, using the books thereof. A gentleman in eighteenth century dress, who may, likely enough, be Herr Nack himself, addresses himself to the goddess, and explains—as he points to the outer scene, which shows us ships and merchandise—that, whilst following his trade as a merchant, he still has time to devote some attention to literature. In any case, these and the few other instances there may be of the inscription referring to the book-plate and not to the book, seem hardly sufficient to make ex libris a good name for book-plates in general.

Our ancestors, of degrees more remote than grandfather, do not appear to have referred to book-plates at all, so we are unable to learn by what name they would have called them. Pepys, in 1668, speaks of going to his 'plate-maker's,' and there spending 'an hour about contriving' his 'little plate' for his books. This 'little plate' still exists, and is a characteristic one; it shows us the initials 'S. P.,' with two anchors and ropes entwined. But we shall speak again of this, and Sam's other book-plates, later on.

David Loggan, a German born, and an engraver of some note, has, in writing to Sir Thomas Isham in 1676, a no more concise name for Isham's book-plate than 'a print of your cote of arms.' Loggan, as a return for many favours, had sent Sir Thomas a book-plate designed and executed by himself. 'Sir,' he says, in the covering letter, 'I send you hier a Print of your Cote of Armes. I have printed 200 wich I will send with the plate by the next return, and bege the favor of your keind excepttans of it as a small Niew yaers Gift or a aknowledgment in part for all your favors. If anything in it be amies, I shall be glade to mend it. I have taken the Heralds painter's derection in it; it is very much used amongst persons of Quality to past ther Cotes of Armes befor ther bookes instade of wreithing ther Names.'

The 'Heralds painter' was, unfortunately, wrong in his treatment of the Isham 'coat,' and so Loggan's work, artistic as it might be, could not be acceptable to Sir Thomas, to whom a mistake in the family escutcheon was no light matter. This he evidently told David, who, a few days after, writes to him again:—

'I ame sorry that the Cote is wronge; I have taken the herald's derection in it, but the Foole did give it wrong.... The altering of the plate will be very trubelsom, and therfor you will be presented with a newe one, wich shall be don without falt, and that very sudenly. And if you plase, Sir, to give thies plate and the prints to your Brothers, it will serve for them.'

These Isham book-plates are really very beautiful pieces of work. A reproduction of one of them may be seen on the foregoing page. This is evidently the one first executed, the omission of the mark of baronetcy—the 'bloody hand of Ulster'—and the helmet of an esquire instead of a knight or baronet clearly constituting the blunder into which Loggan had fallen. By the kindness of Sir Charles Isham, the present baronet, I have been enabled to see a copy of the corrected design sent by Loggan, which is in all respects accurate. This was doing duty as a book-plate in a volume in which it had evidently been placed at the time it was received by Sir Thomas.

Nicholas Carew, afterwards Sir Nicholas Carew, Baronet, records in his accounts, on the 19th February 1707, a payment for his book-plate, which is dated in that year, as follows:—'For coat of arms impressing, 1l. 1s. 6d.;' and a few months later is a payment 'For 300 armes, 7s. 6d.'

'The mark of my books,' is the phrase which Andrew Lumisden applies to the book-plate engraved for him by his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Strange, about the year 1746. The plate is an interesting one, and by an interesting man, of whom we shall speak later on. Lumisden thought well of it, and thus refers to the work in a letter written from Rouen, in June 1748:—'I am very anxious to know if my brother continues his resolution of coming to this country. If he does, I can luckily be of use to him in the way of his business, from the acquaintance I have of a very ingenious person, professor of the Academy of Design here ... I show'd him, a few days ago, the mark of my books, from which he entertains a high notion of Robie's abilities.'

There is a curious advertisement, quoted by Thomas Moule in his Bibliotheca Heraldica, of a certain Joseph Barber, a Newcastle-on-Tyne 'bookseller, music and copper-plate publisher,' who, in 1742, resided in 'Humble's Buildings.' In that year he engraved the 'Equestrian Statue of King James [II.],' which once stood in the Sandhill Market. If a moment's digression be allowed, the history of this statue is worth telling. On 16th March 1685, the Town Council voted £800 for the erection of 'a figure of His Majesty in a Roman habit, on a capering horse, in copper, as big as the figure of His Majesty, King Charles I., at Charing Crosse, on a pedestal of black marble.' A certain Mr. William Larson executed it; Sir Christopher Wren expressed his approval, and everybody was very pleased, for a year or two. But popular feeling soon changed in Newcastle, as elsewhere, and the prevalence of sentiments which threw the king off his throne threw his metal representation into the Tyne, where it rested till fished out to be melted down and used to make a set of church bells. The drawing of the luckless statue was safe in the keeping of Sir Hans Sloane; and from this, Barber made his engraving, which he sold for 5s. The fact that in 1742, three years before the second Scotch rebellion, this Newcastle printseller found it worth while to issue the engraving at all, is not without political significance. With his engraving, Barber issued two large plates of the arms of all the subscribers to it, each coat of arms being 1¾ inches in length, and 1¼ inches in breadth; and a few years later, it seems to have occurred to him that he might turn an honest penny by cutting up these large sheets of the subscribers' arms, so that each coat of arms became a separate plate. Having done this, he issued an advertisement to the subscribers, in which he sets forth that he is 'the sole proprietor of each of their plates,' and is willing to part with it, to the lady or gentleman whose arms are engraved thereon, 'together with one hundred prints of it on a good paper,' for the modest sum of half-a-crown. These plates, suggests Mr. Barber, might be advantageously used as what we now call book-plates, and he continues: 'The design of this proposal is a useful and necessary embellishment, and a remedy against losing books by lending, or having them stolen; by pasting one print on the inside of the cover of each book, you have the owner's name, coat of arms, and place of abode; a thing so useful and the charge so easy, 'tis hoped will meet with encouragement. To have a plate engraved will cost 10s. 6d.'

From all which it may be inferred that Mr. Joseph Barber thought—or wanted other people to think—that the idea of using a book-plate was his own. Newcastle people, in 1743, must have been very unobservant of the habits of their neighbours if they believed Mr. Barber; for the fashion of using a book-plate—which in England came in some forty years before—was by that time general throughout the country. That some of the subscribers accepted the offer, and got their 'hundred plates on a good paper' for half-a-crown, is demonstrated by the existence of copies of the plates published with the 'equestrian statue,' being still found in books, doing duty as book-plates. Very poor productions they are, reflecting but slight credit on the designer or engraver. But what Joseph lacked in art, he atoned for in enterprise; we see this in his ingenious way of getting rid of his old copper-plates, and the postscript to his advertisement demonstrates the fact even more plainly, for on a day near at hand, the advertisement tells us, was to be fought, at a neighbouring cock-pit, 'a Welsh main,' and the prize was to be nothing less than one of the advertiser's engravings, 'a pretty piece of work, worthy the observation of the curious.' If the term book-plate had been known in Barber's day, it would probably have found its way into his advertisement, which is clumsy from the want of a word to express the very thing he is advertising.

William Stephens, who engraved a good many book-plates in his time, could find no better expression than 'print of your arms' to describe the 800 book-plates which, for half-a-guinea, he sent to Dr. Samuel Kerrich, the Shakespearian student, in 1754.

Horace Walpole, again, would, I think, have used the phrase 'book-plate' had he known it. In his Catalogue of Engravers—the edition of 1771—he speaks of George Vertue having engraved 'a plate to put in Lady Oxford's books'; and in his Anecdotes of Painting, he refers to the 'plate' which Hogarth 'used for his books.' One of his own book-plates—that engraved soon after 1791—Walpole describes as his 'seal': Sigillum Horatii Comitis de Orford; but this phrase is, I think, used simply because the book-plate itself is the representation of a mediÆval seal. Bartolozzi—giving, in 1796, a receipt for a book-plate which he had just completed—refers to it as a 'ticket-plate' (see p. 94); but he was a foreigner, and may not have known the English name for such things, for we have seen that, some five years before, Ireland refers to Hogarth's 'book-plate.' Charles James Fox, in a note, dated at Leicester on 2nd August 1801, speaks of the 'book-plate' of his great-great-grandfather, Sir Stephen Fox.

But, though the phrase 'book-plate' may have been occasionally used at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present, it was then by no means widely used; and although the writer quoted on page 6 refers in 1823 to what are 'generally called' book-plates, William Wadd, in 1827, can find no direct term by which to refer to these marks of ownership. Speaking in Mems., Maxims, and Memoirs, he says: 'In the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons, there are many volumes, formerly the property of the celebrated Douglas, having his arms embellished with various kinds of surgical instruments, which was by no means an uncommon practice, as in the Library of the College of Physicians there are many examples of volumes where the former possessor has not only blazoned his own arms, but borrowed the arms of the college and super-added supporters, as Apollo, Mercury, Æsculapius, and his daughter Hygeia.'

Lord Byron, too, did not, I fancy, know the word 'book-plate' in its now-used sense; writing to a fair admirer, who had apparently designed one of these for him, he says: 'I received the arms, my dear Miss ——, and am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken. It is impossible I should have any fault to find with them. The sight of the drawing gives me great pleasure for a double reason: in the first place they will ornament my books, and in the next they convince me that you have not entirely forgot me.'[3]

So the term book-plate is only a century old, and the fashion of collecting book-plates much more modern still; but the use of book-plates is really of respectable antiquity, and is a matter on which we may now appropriately speak. Whether, in the first instance, the use of book-plates was suggested by a desire to commemorate a gift, or as a mark of ownership, seems to be a matter on which a variety of opinions exist. Some of the earliest mechanically produced book-plates are certainly commemorative of gifts (see p. 114); but I think we must accept as book-plates, to all intents and purposes, the six fourteenth century examples mentioned by Herr Warnecke in his Die Deutschen BÜcherzeichen, an excellent work on German book-plates. These are heraldic coloured drawings on the parchment leaves of Italian manuscripts, which also bear an inscription of possession by the particular individuals whose arms are represented.

But, of course, the real necessity for book-plates, whatever may have been their original use, began when the printing-press gave to the world not two nor three, but a hundred or more copies of a particular book. Then it was that the different owners needed to distinguish their respective copies of a work; for the professional book-borrower, who would gladly have retained the manuscript volume lent to him by an unsuspecting friend, could he have done so without his crime being detected, doubtless saw in the multitude of copies a greater opportunity of carrying out his nefarious designs. The existence of book-plates is, therefore, largely due to the literary enthusiast who amasses a library by retaining volumes received on loan; the inscriptions on some of the earlier book-plates prove this to be so.

The earliest printed book-plates are certainly German, and there is little doubt that some of these are nearly contemporary with the very early printed books on the oak covers of which they may still be found pasted. By the commencement of the sixteenth century book-plates were frequently fine examples of the wood-engraver's art. Albert DÜrer himself designed book-plates; and of these, one of the most elaborate and the best known is that of his friend Bilibald Pirckheimer, the Nuremberg jurist, whose portrait he engraved on copper in 1524. The book-plate is still earlier.

England can now—thanks to recent investigations—claim the second place in the chronological sequence of countries in which book-plates have been used. Cardinal Wolsey's book-plate (see p. 24) is probably not later in date than 1525. France can boast of a book-plate dated in 1574; Sweden of one dated in the following year, and Switzerland of one in 1607; Italy in 1623: in other European countries, dated examples do not appear, nor does the practice of using book-plates seem to have been adopted until considerably later.

In concluding this opening chapter, let me say a word about the position in a book in which a book-plate should be looked for. The usual place was certainly on the front cover of a volume; sometimes another copy of the same plate was fastened to the back cover; and sometimes—as in Pirckheimer's case, just noticed, and in that of Samuel Pepys (see p. 216)—the same person would use a different book-plate at the back of the volume to that used at the front. Another plan, less frequent, but by no means uncommon, was to insert the book-plate on the title-page, often on the back of it; and another, to fasten the book-plate into the volume, by pasting its right-hand margin about a quarter of an inch on to the title-page, so that the book-plate would fold over and face it. This is a plan that leads to a book-plate being most easily overlooked.

Collectors should also note that, in many instances, book-plates are found in a variety of sizes; this should certainly be borne in mind when setting aside any particular specimen as a duplicate. In the present day, most people are content to have a book-plate small enough to go into a volume of any size; its dwarfed appearance on the cover of a full-sized folio is no eyesore to them, or, if it is, the pleasure of economy makes them bear with it. But in days gone by it was—especially in Germany—certainly otherwise. The possession of a large library would necessitate, in the owner's mind, the possession of a number of differently sized book-plates, in order to get one which would neither look too small in the largest volume, nor be too large for the smallest! Some of the most noble foreign examples, rich in detail and bold in general effect, are those that belonged to men who liked to have for their folios a book-plate of proportionate size. There are no very large English book-plates, but plenty of library owners in this country had two or three different sized book-plates, and the late Sir William Stirling-Maxwell boasted of over a hundred varieties!