The following lines probably refer to the allegorical drawing:—
“The youth who Led by Wisdom’s guiding Hand
Seeks Virtue’s Temple, and her Law Reveres:
He, he alone in Honour’s Dome shall stand,
Crown’d with Rewards, and rais’d above his Peers.”
At the foot of the plate is “M. Bull’s and T. Lee’s sculp.” This said Martin Bull was an interesting village character. For thirty-nine years he held the post of clerk of probate, and for eight years was town treasurer. He also worked as a goldsmith, manufactured saltpetre for the army, and conducted the church choir! This interesting local library was founded in 1795, and then was called “The Library in the First Society in Farmington.” In 1801 it acquired the name engraved over the bookplate.
CHAPTER XII
INSCRIPTIONS IN BOOKS
John Collet of Little Gidding—A book that was in the Battle of Corunna—Henry Howard—Sir Percivall Hart—John Crane and the Battle of Naseby.
IN a work treating of bookplates some space devoted to the subject of inscriptions in books can hardly be out of place. In the view of the real book-lover—and no others are asked to look at this volume—a book, until actually destroyed, is a very living reality. As he takes it carefully into his hands he thinks of the wondrous thoughts and deeds that may be unfolded between its covers. He also thinks, if it be an old book, of the host of scenes of other days through which the book has passed. Bookplates in it of former owners are of interest; but so, too, in a very striking manner, are any manuscript names and notes of former owners.
After these few words, the following few notes will probably speak for themselves.
The following curious inscription is at the beginning of a precious Little Gidding large folio volume in the British Museum. The pressmark is l 23. e 2:—
“Johannes Collet,
Filius
Thomæ Collet,
Pater
Thomæ Gulielmi Johannis,
Omnium superstes,
Natus
Quarto Junii 1633,
Denasciturus,
Quando Deo visum fuerit,
Interim hujus proprietarius.
————
John Collet.”
The armorial bookplate of Robert Chambers is of interest, as I have it in a copy of the Bible which has passed through terrible experiences, as related in The Times, 23rd October, 1902, and given more fully below:—