John Adams and John Quincy Adams used book-plates, and James Monroe and John Tyler each had a plain name-label. These are all of our presidents known to have used them, except General Garfield, who had a printed book-plate of simple design, with the motto "inter folia fructus." Eleven of the signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to have had these signs of gentle birth—for in the early years of the American Colonies, it was only the families of aristocratic connection and scholarly tastes who indulged in what may be termed a superfluous luxury.
The plates used among the Southern settlers were generally ordered from England, and not at all American. The Northern plates were more frequently of native design and execution, and therefore of much greater value and interest, though far inferior in style of workmanship and elaboration of ornament to the best European ones.
The ordinary library label is also a book-plate, and some of the early libraries and small collections have elaborate designs. The early Harvard College library plate was a large and fine piece of engraving by Hurd. The Harvard Library had some few of this fine engraved label printed in red ink, and placed in the rarer books of the library—as a reminder that the works containing the rubricated book-plates were not to be drawn out by students.
The learned bibliophile and librarian of Florence, Magliabecchi, who died in 1714, devised for his library of thirty thousand volumes, which he bequeathed to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, a book-plate representing his own profile on a medal surrounded with books and oak boughs, with the inscription—"Antonius Magliabecchius Florentinus."
Some book-plates embody designs of great beauty. The late George Bancroft's, engraved on copper, represented a winged cherub (from Raphael) gazing sun-ward, holding a tablet with the inscription "Eis phaos," toward the light.
Some French book-plates aim at humor or caricature. One familiar example represents an old book-worm mounted on a tall ladder in a library, profoundly absorbed in reading, and utterly unconscious that the room beneath him is on fire.
To those who ask of what possible utility it can be to cultivate so unfruitful a pursuit as the devising or the collecting of book-plates, it may be pertinent to state the claim made in behalf of the amateurs of this art, by a connoisseur, namely, "Book-plates foster the study of art, history, genealogy, and human character." On this theory, we may add, the coat of arms or family crest teaches heraldry; the mottoes or inscriptions chosen cultivate the taste for language and sententious literature; the engraving appeals to the sense of the artistic; the names of early or ancient families who are often thus commemorated teach biography, history, or genealogy; while the great variety of sentiments selected for the plates illustrate the character and taste of those selecting them.
On the other hand, it must be said that the coat of arms fails to indicate individual taste or genius, and might better be supplanted by original and characteristic designs, especially such as relate to books, libraries, and learning.
