About Spanish book-plates not much is yet known, and it seems likely that the majority of examples usually classed as Spanish were designed and executed in Flanders. The family of Bouttats—the original Bouttats had, says Walpole, twenty sons, of whom twelve became engravers—executed some of these book-plates. Amongst their work is one which Lord De Tabley styles 'a gloomy yet striking heraldic study'; it is signed 'P. B. Bouttats, sculp.,' and was probably engraved about the middle of the seventeenth century. It shows us the arms of a bishop surmounted by a plumed helmet, above which again is a bishop's hat, with pendent ropes and tassels; beneath is the motto: 'Por la Leÿ Bezerra ÿ por el Rëy.' A particularly fine example of Flemish heraldic art is furnished by the book-plate engraved and signed by J. Harrewyn, of Brussels, and dated 1723; the inscription gives us quite a biographical sketch: 'Messire Charles Bonaventure, Comte vander Noot, Baron de Schoonhoven et de Mares &ca; Conseiller de sa Mate Imple et Cathe au souverain Conseil de Brabant par patante du 9 Mars 1713, Reçu aux Etats nobles de Brabant, fils de Messire Rogier Wouthier, en son vivant Baron de Carloo &ca; et deputez ordinaire au dit corps de la noblesse des Etats de Brabant, et de Dame Anne Louÿse vander Gracht, née Baronne de Vrempde et d'Olmen, &ca.'
Our knowledge of Russian or Polish book-plates is chiefly derived from the illustrations shown in Monsieur S. J. Siennicki's work, entitled Les Elzevirs de la Bibliothèque de L'Université Impériale de Varsovie. Here we have some examples of the book-plates both of distinguished laymen and ecclesiastics. The probability is that none are of an early date, and they are certainly not conspicuous as works of art. The Russian style is perhaps the more distinct, though in many respects resembling the French, especially that shown in the more pronounced examples of the Louis XV. epoch.
CHAPTER VIII
AMERICAN BOOK-PLATES
WHATEVER an American collects, he collects well: he works with a will and energy that loosens his purse-strings in a manner which makes the acquisition of valuable specimens a comparatively easy matter. It is well, therefore, that book-plate collecting has found its way over the Atlantic, and that there is now a goodly body of American book-plate collectors who are giving the requisite amount of attention to American examples, and who are not keeping to themselves the result of their labours. In the first edition of this book I wrote: 'No doubt, ten years hence, we shall know a great deal more about American book-plates'; and already the appearance of Mr. Charles Dexter Allen's[11] interesting and carefully composed account of them has enabled me materially to improve this chapter, which I have devoted to them.
The majority of book-plates which bear upon them American addresses, especially those belonging to the Southern States, many of which appear with the opening of the eighteenth century, are, without doubt, the work of engravers in the then mother-country.[12] The library owners of Virginia sent to England for these book-plates, or their sons ordered them there, whilst paying the orthodox visit to one of the universities, and brought them home, either for their own use or for the use of their fathers. The northern book-plates, though much later, are mostly the work of artists born and bred, or at least settled, in America.
Foremost in interest and earliest in date of these American address-plates is that of William Penn, on which he styles himself 'Proprietor of Pensylvania.' This is designed in the ordinary 'Simple Armorial' style then common in England, and is dated in 1702. It is therefore subsequent to Penn's last visit to his 'plantation,' and cannot have been the work of an engraver on that side of the Atlantic. After his death, the inscription on this book-plate was altered, for his son's use, to 'Thomas Penn of Stoke Pogeis, in the county of Bucks, first proprietor of Pensilvania (sic).' The expression 'first' must here be evidently read as 'chief' or 'principal.' The fact of this alteration is important for collectors to note, as copies of William Penn's book-plate are frequently offered for sale, which—they are palpably recent impressions—are said to be struck from the original plate; a statement which, from the fact mentioned, may be at once discredited.[13]
Next in point of date is a much more ornate book-plate, the inscription on which reads: 'William Byrd of Westover, in Virginia, Esquire.' It is an elaborate piece of work, excellently engraved in the style of the majority of English book-plates of 1720 or thereabouts, 'Simple Armorial,' but with indications of Jacobean decoration. William Byrd was born in Virginia, 28th March 1694; he was sent to England to be educated, and returned to his native country, having his mind 'stored with useful information to adorn its annals, his manners cultivated in royal Courts,' and with this book-plate, as a mark of his devotion to literature.