Of quite modern plates a good specimen is that of a well-known New York collector, Mr. Eduard Hale Bierstadt. The style is allegorical; a piping shepherd, naked, but for a sergeant’s sash! Books and flowers, with the motto: “nunc mihi mox aliis.”
A very pleasing, particularly because unpretending, plate is that of “Melvin H. Hapgood. Hartford, Conn. U.S.A.” It is but little more than a very finely ornamented label including a very small shield-of-arms.
“Thomas Bailey Aldrich His Mark” is the inscription on the frame bordering a rectangular modern bookplate. Inside is a bird over a mask, and, failing more serious emblems, the idea of the bird as a young rook is not inappropriate to the familiar expression “his mark.”
A more pretentious plate, and well illustrated by Mr. Hewins, is that of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Henry Dubbs, professor in Franklin and Marshall College. In the middle is a shield-of-arms fastened in front of a spreading oak tree. The several inscriptions are: “1880 Joseph Henry Dubbs D:D:—ex recto decus—” and the migrations of the family noted as follows: “Styria 1446; Helvetia 1531; America 1732.”
Of modern American library interior ex libris may be mentioned James Phinney Baxter’s, with an easy-chair, a table, an old clock, and rows of books. Louis J. Haber’s plate bespeaks ease and comfort. Here, as usual, are the rows of books, and the old motto: “My silent but faithful friends are they.”
Albert C. Bates’s bookplate reproduces an early woodcut of a Leyden University old library, with its chained books.
A beautiful plate, mentioned by Mr. Hewins, is the coloured ex libris of Gerald E. Hart, of Montreal, representing the interior of a cell in some medieval monastery, with a tonsured monk sitting on his stone bench, illuminating a manuscript. The Gothic window admits light through its highly coloured design, and rows of vellum lie beside the desk of the old monk.
Leaving library interiors, we note, amongst scores of other good literary bookplates, that of the Rev. Wm. R. Huntington, Rector of Grace Church, New York City, a design adapted from a frontispiece by Walter Crane for the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and in which a curly-locked youth is, with a huge key in hand, opening the door of a house. Upon the roof are seen two cupids, making pleasant sounds with lyre and voice. With this plate is the charming motto: “In veritate victoria.”
Many pleasing American ex libris are not personal at all. The bookplate of the Grolier Club is in itself a beautiful object, befitting a society which, although only founded in New York less than twenty years ago, occupies such a unique position in literary circles.
Of a far different style is the allegorical plate inscribed: “This Book belongs to the Monthly Library in Farmington. Laws. 1. Two pence per day for retaining a Book more than one Month. 2. One penny for folding down a Leaf. 3. 3 shillings for lending a book to a Nonproprietor. Other Damages apprais’d by a Committee. 5. No Person allowed a Book while indebted for a Fine.”