Again, no intelligent book-plate collector will separate the plate of a famous man from the book which has been its home for years, and which was once handled and read by its famous owner. Even a worthless book will thus be saved by the collector, which was fit but for the fire or the ash-heap, and which would have gone thither, plate and all, save for his discriminating eye, while a valuable book no one would think of despoiling. Would an intelligent collector, having a book from the library of George Washington, with his plate upon the cover and his autograph in its accustomed place, think of soaking off the plate and cutting out the signature? Not at all; no matter how worthless the book might chance to be, the fact that it was Washington’s is sufficient to insure it from any harm, while the presence of the autograph and the book-plate but adds to the value as establishing beyond peradventure the original ownership.
The book-plate collector is naturally a book-lover. He must not be accused or suspected of crimes against his own kith and kin. He is a harmless and useful specimen of the genus collector, who with assiduity, perseverance, and intelligence seeks to preserve these memorials of past days, which in the rage for indiscriminate collecting were overlooked, and are but now beginning to receive the attention they are worthy of.
It is, however, to be admitted that at first glance, the general reader who has not developed a special liking for the things of the past in history, art, or biography, may see no especial interest in book-plates. But let him examine a collection of good plates with their intelligent owner, who can point out to him the facts worthy of note; let him once understand that celebrated artists like Albrecht Durer, Jost Amman, William Hogarth, William Marshall, George Vertue, Bewick, Bartolozzi, and even Raphael Morghen were willing to devote time and taste to the designing or engraving of the book-plate; let him handle some of their work, and reflect upon the effort the master considered so small a design worthy of; let him see the plates of some of the noted names in history, art, letters, medicine, the sciences, and the professions; let him take in his hands the plates of William Penn, the friend of the Indian and benefactor of his race, of Laurence Sterne, of David Garrick, of Horace Walpole, of Samuel Rogers, of Charles Dickens, or of George Washington, of John Adams, and Charles Carroll, signers of the Declaration; let him see a plate engraved by Paul Revere whose services in the Revolution he has known of from his schooldays;—let him see these and scores more of similar interest, and he cannot fail to respond to the enthusiasm of their owner. But indeed it is a pursuit, the delights of which are discernible to those only who bring to it the capacity for such pleasures.
NAME-LABELS AND MOTTOES.
