a book is laid; the date 1891 is stamped upon the side of the book. Below this, Ionic columns support the wall; between them, in a smooth space, is carved the name and city of the club. The plate is signed Hy. Sandham.
In the Boston Public Library a large number of different plates is used for the volumes coming from different legacies or funds, and in very many cases these plates give a portrait of the donor. Thus we find these portraits on the plate used in the books from the Ticknor Fund, the Phillips Fund, and the Franklin Club Fund. The books remaining from the library of Thomas Prince are also marked with a plate which gives his portrait and a picture of the old meeting-house, in which he preached, and in which the books were stored at one time.
Portraits also appear upon the book-plates of the American Antiquarian Society, which gives that of Ginery Twichell; and the Massachusetts Historical Society, which has a plate giving a portrait of James Savage.
The public libraries of to-day do not usually use elaborate plates in their book-covers; simple labels, with perhaps a city or corporation seal, are the common kind.