Examples of the more unusual designs in Bewick's book-plates, i.e. those in which scenery is not depicted, are found in the book-plates of 'John Anderson, St. Petersburgh'—a sportsman on horseback, which was afterwards utilised as a vignette in British Birds; 'Mr. Bigges'—a figure of liberty; 'Alexr Doeg, shipbuilder'—a just-completed ship, still standing on the stocks; and several others, which simply show the shield of arms and owner's name.
One reason why Bewick was so successful as an engraver of book-plates lay in the fact that his ability was most conspicuous in a small design. The work of such men as Hogarth or Bartolozzi seems cramped when it appears on the small scale which alone a book-plate can admit; but with Bewick, the smaller the size of the scene he desired to represent, the greater was his skill in introducing into it both originality and beauty.
CHAPTER VI
GERMAN BOOK-PLATES
I have said that the use of book-plates, whether as commemorative of gifts or as marks of ownership, originated in Germany. Here, well before the close of the fifteenth century, we find at least three undoubted book-plates, examples of which have survived until the present day, and have recently been discovered fulfilling the function for which they were originally intended.
Fastened to the cover of an old Latin vocabulary was discovered the most ancient of these book-plates. It is printed from a wood-block, and is rough in execution. It shows us a hedgehog carrying a flower in its mouth, trampling over fallen leaves; above is the inscription, 'Hans Igler, das dich ein igel kuss.'
