Whilst speaking on the subject of gift book-plates, reference may appropriately be made to a curious woodcut used as a book-plate by the St. Albans Grammar School, which is figured opposite the next page. It is a quaint bit of, no doubt, local work, and, as pointed out to me by the Rev. F. Willcox, the headmaster, during a long and dusty hunt, occurs only in the volumes given to the school by Sir Samuel Grimston. The plate shows us a combination of the arms of the city of St. Albans and the motto of the Bacon family, adopted by the Grimstons.
I have no doubt that, if a thorough investigation of the too often neglected libraries of our old foundation grammar schools were made, other early and curious book-plates might be discovered.
Between 1670 and 1680 quite a number of book-plates were designed, evidently by the same man. The work is feeble, but it is very distinct. The most interesting of these book-plates, from its possessor, is that of Samuel Pepys. Altogether, I know of eight examples: Charles Pitfield, Sir Robert Southwell, William Wharton, Sir Henry Hunloke, Samuel Pepys, Justinian Pagit, Walter Chetwynd, and Randolph Egerton.
A point of interest about them all is that, as well as expressing heraldically the blazon of the different shields, they also indicate with an initial letter the colour intended to be shown: 'a' for argent, 'g' for gules, and so on. The initial of the heraldic term is used in every case except that of 'azure,' when 'b' for blue is used; 'a,' as we have seen, standing for argent.
Though they differ in the arrangement of the mantling, there can be little doubt that all these book-plates are by the same hand, and that whoever engraved the plates in Blome's Gwilim, engraved these also.
The book-plate of 'Fettiplace Nott,' which bears the date 1694, is a fair type of the book-plate that was in use in England for the next twenty years; indeed, these might all be the work of half a dozen artists.
BOOK-PLATE OF THE ST. ALBANS GRAMMAR SCHOOL, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
I have not yet mentioned a very numerous and very uninteresting class of early English book-plates—I mean those which are nothing more than 'name-tickets'—the owner's name and date printed within a border more or less ornate. These occur quite early in the seventeenth century, and run all through it. Of course, it may be that the owner is an interesting person, and then his or her name-ticket becomes interesting by reflection, but in themselves these tickets are merely dull. Of English Armorial plates, I have referred in detail to the majority of those bearing an engraved date—when that date is not obviously misleading—prior to the year 1698. I have also spoken of several, though by no means all, of the undated examples, which have been proved to belong to the seventeenth century. To this second list a patient working out of the internal evidence on early-looking, but undated, book-plates would, no doubt, add very considerably; and the illustrations, verbal and otherwise, that I have given may, I hope, be sufficient to indicate the kind of book-plates that are worth such investigation.