CHAPTER IV
ALLEGORY IN ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES
In the last chapter I spoke of the leading styles followed in designing English book-plates, in, as far as possible, chronological sequence, though the reader will have noticed that such styles overlapped each other, often by a considerable number of years. Concurrently with these distinct styles, or with nearly all of them, there are to be found many English book-plates which may be appropriately called 'picture' book-plates, and which may themselves be divided into two classes: those which, quite apart from the heraldry upon them, show things unreal, or combinations of things real and unreal; and those which, apart from the heraldry, show things wholly real. Let us speak, first, of the former of these divisions—'Allegoric' book-plates we will call them.
The collector will soon discover that in England allegory formed at no period, except, perhaps, in the days of Bartolozzi and Sherwin, a really national style in book-plates, but rather an occasional fancy indulged in by a particular individual here and there. Whilst in France book-plates on which was displayed allegory, and the wildest allegory, were actually abundant, in England they are decidedly rare; and it is indeed interesting to see how our English artists set to work when called upon to design them.
So far as I am aware, the earliest example of an English Allegoric book-plate as yet brought to light, is that of Thomas Gore of Alderton, which is fully described on [p. 34]. This may be dated somewhere about 1675, and was, as the signature shows us, the work of a Dutch artist, Michael Burghers; so that we may, perhaps, regard the allegory upon it rather as the outcome of Michael's brain than the carrying out of instructions given him by a Wiltshire squire!
The date of the next English book-plate I have noticed, in which allegory is introduced, is also the work of a foreigner,—a Frenchman,—Louis du Guernier, who, at the age of thirty, came over from Paris in 1708, and who died here in 1716. Soon after his arrival he executed a book-plate, decidedly foreign in appearance, for Lady Cairnes, wife of Sir Alexander Cairnes of Monaghan. The Cairnes arms, impaling Gould, are on a round shield in a scaly frame; this is placed on steps, at the back of which is classical masonry. The shield is kept from falling by three cupids,—two seated and one standing,—whilst two flying ones hold aloft a ribbon bearing the owner's name, thus: 'Lady Elizabeth Cairnes.' She was a sister of Sir Nathaniel Gould, so that her description on the book-plate as 'Lady' is clearly wrong; she should have been called 'Dame.' The error arose, most likely, from the engraver's imperfect knowledge of English titles,—a very general stumbling-block to foreigners. The book-plate is an exceedingly pretty piece of work. There is some of the Jacobean scale work used in it which English engravers were beginning to introduce into their designs; but the employment of allegory is certainly the most striking feature it possesses. I do not know of any other book-plates executed by Louis du Guernier while in England, and probably the people of this country were not yet quite prepared to confide—as Lord De Tabley puts it—their family escutcheons 'to the care of Minerva or the Delian Phœbus himself.'
But though Michael Burghers's somewhat unbeautiful allegory may not have pleased Thomas Gore or his other English clients in 1675, nor the prettier allegory of Louis du Guernier have generally commended itself to people in this country in 1710, allegory, if not in the work of these artists, was bound sooner or later to come into fashion on English book-plates, seeing that it was, and for long had been, fashionable across the Channel. There have been few outbreaks of disease on the Continent that have not infected this country,—at all events, slightly. The foreigners whom the foreign king, on his arrival in England in 1688, brought with him engendered foreign ways and foreign fashions at Court, and these ways and fashions were in turn adopted by people who did not go to Court, and that is how allegory crept into the book-plates of the rank and file of Englishmen.