Mr. Daniel Parsons, who may be properly called the father of book-plate literature,—his contribution, in 1837, to 'The Third Annual Report of the Oxford University Archæological and Heraldic Society,' was certainly the first paper on the subject that ever appeared,—commented on this hope of mine in the number of the same magazine issued in the following January, and was despondent as to evidence being forthcoming to prove the early use of book-plates in England.
Well, in that I expressed the belief that investigation would bring to light a number of sixteenth and seventeenth century dated book-plates, I was perhaps wrong—early English dated book-plates have not been found in anything approaching plenty; but I was also wrong in suggesting that proof of the early use of book-plates in this country could only be proved by dated examples; the existence of examples which, from internal evidence, are proved to be of early date is really equally valuable; and as these have certainly come to light in considerable numbers, I think a good case has been made out on behalf of our fellow-countrymen.
I do not pretend that early English book-plates are so plentiful as those of Germany. Some individual specimens are known to exist; but there are very few that are recorded as existing in more than a few collections, and some are unique. From some cause or other, early English book-plates are a rarity; and I propose, therefore, to speak individually of the majority of them,—that is to say, of those executed prior to the close of the seventeenth century.
But before doing this, let me say a word as to the date at which the colours intended to be shown on the shield of arms were first represented by lines or points. For instance, perpendicular lines from the top to the bottom of the shield, thus:
to express gules—red.
A number of small dots or points, thus:
to express or—gold; and so on.
To whom may be attached the credit of inventing this useful system, matters little; what we are now interested in—for the purpose of considering the approximate dates of book-plates—is the time at which it was first employed in heraldic engravings. Mr. Walter Hamilton, in the pages of the Ex Libris Journal, realises the importance of the subject. He speaks of the work by Father Silvester Petra-Sancta, published at Rome in 1638, in which the proposal is advocated, and refers to M. Henri Bouchot's allusion to a work by Vulsson de la Colombière, written in 1639, which advocates the system.