The famous Westover mansion, which may to-day be viewed from the James River, two hours' sail below Richmond, was for long the viceregal Court of Virginia. It was erected about the year 1678, by William Byrd, who left England when very young, and was father to his namesake, whose book-plate has just been described, the author of the famous Westover Manuscripts, compiled in 1732-33.
Some five years before the probable date of the Byrd book-plate, we have note of that belonging to 'Robert Elliston, gent., Comptrolr of His Majestie's Customs of New York in America MDCCXXV.' This book-plate is quite 'Jacobean' in style, and was no doubt executed in England, and sent out to the colony. It is too fine a piece of work to be the production of any colonial engraver of that date.
But the interest attaching to book-plates bearing upon them American addresses, and used by residents in America, is obviously not so great as that awakened by examples which were also actually produced in America,—examples which at once give us an insight into the state of the engraver's art, and of the artistic feeling then existing there.
The earliest of these is the book-plate of the 'Rev. John Williams,' first minister of Deerfield, Mass., dated in 1679. The next, in 1704, that of Thomas Prince, an American born and bred, who graduated from Harvard College in 1707, and paid his first visit to England in 1709, so that his book-plate may be taken as genuinely American. In design it resembles dozens of English examples,—a rough woodcut border of national emblems, within which is the inscription, 'Thomæ Prince Liber, Anno Domini, 1704'; the sequence of the words in the inscription, the reader will notice, being somewhat unusual. The Prince Library was bequeathed to a Society, which became known as 'the New England Library,' and which itself had a similar label prepared recording the gift. A part of the collection is now in the Boston Public Library.
But these two examples stand by themselves; it is not until the middle of the eighteenth century that any number of book-plates of American execution are found; after that, there are a really considerable quantity. Their style is not particularly distinctive; it is at first either Jacobean or 'Chippendale,' or a combination of the two styles; later, the 'wreath and ribbon,' and landscape and pictorial styles are introduced and treated much as in England. In execution, American book-plates are perhaps a trifle coarse. The more prominent of their engravers seem to have been—Hurd, Dawkins, Anderson, Johnson, Callendar, Doolittle, the Mavericks, Revere, and Turner. Revere is the best known; he was a picture engraver of some merit; but for the most part the names quoted are those of men of little artistic reputation. Nathaniel Hurd was probably the earliest of these engravers, and not the worst. He was born at Boston in 1729, the son of an American, who was a goldsmith in that town. Nathaniel was his father's apprentice; he devoted himself to working on copper, and so naturally would turn his attention to book-plates. Probably the earliest example, signed by him as 'N. H.,' and dated in 1749, was designed for Thomas Dering. This is the earliest signed and dated American book-plate yet brought to light; Hurd was barely twenty when he produced it. As a seal and book-plate engraver he worked hard and well; he died in 1777. One of his most original book-plates is that of Harvard College. A curiously short and wide shield, bearing the college arms, is encircled by a band bearing the inscription, 'Sigill. Coll. Harvard. Cantab. Nov. Angl. 1650.' Outside this circle are two leaf sprays, tied at the base and nearly meeting at the top. Both in conception and execution this is a very peculiar book-plate. The Dering plate, on the other hand, is interesting as showing how exactly the style of the mother-country at that period was copied in America. Here we have a pure 'Chippendale' book-plate of an unpronounced type.
Henry Dawkins (who began life by designing metal buttons) had been for a long time resident in America, when, in 1754, he engraved the book-plate of 'John Burnet of New York.' Like the Dering plate, Burnet's is interesting, and for the same reason; it is 'Chippendale,' but distinctly later Chippendale, with cupids and other figures introduced. Dawkins was found guilty of counterfeiting, and begged to be hanged rather than suffer the imprisonment to which he had been condemned. Whether or not his request was granted we do not know.
That the heraldry on some of these American book-plates should be startling, is only to be expected. Take, for instance, the very interesting book-plate of Robert Dinwiddie, Deputy-Governor of Virginia from 1751-58, which was probably engraved a few years before the earlier date. Here we have the shield divided fesse-fashion, and in the upper and lower divisions landscapes,—the first introducing an Indian archer shooting at a stag, and the lower a fort or castle with a ship at sea sailing towards it. Dinwiddie was a good servant to the English Crown both in Barbadoes and Virginia, and is said, like most successful people of his day, to be descended from an ancient family, though his immediate ancestors were Glasgow merchants. We are, however, not asked to believe, and we should not, if we were, that the arms are more ancient than Governor Dinwiddie himself, or that they originated elsewhere than in his mercantile brain, though they may have been legally granted by the Scotch College of Arms. The plate looks 'Scotch'—it is 'Chippendale,' and, I suspect, was engraved in the mother-country by a Scotch engraver. We may date it about 1750.
There are, of course, some American book-plates specially interesting from their possessors, and foremost amongst them is that of George Washington. For its description I cannot do better than quote Mr. Allen: 'The arms are displayed upon a shield of the usual shell-like form, and the sprays and rose-branches of this style [Chippendale] are used in the ornamentation of the sides of the escutcheon. The motto, Exitus acta probat, is given upon its ribbon at the base of the shield, and the name is engraved, in script, on the bracket at the bottom of the design. In general appearance the plate is like scores of Chippendale plates of the period.' I am sorry to take, somewhat, from the interest which attaches to this book-plate, by saying that, as I look more closely into it and study the details of its ornamentation and its execution, I am convinced it was engraved in England and not in America; it must therefore be of an earlier date than that attributed to it. I do not think it is subsequent to 1760. Of course there is a forgery of this plate, though it was prepared, not because of the value of the book-plate, but to sell a number of books which were said to have belonged to George Washington himself, and to have been captured in Virginia. The fraud was, however, discovered. No doubt these forgeries are now palmed off as the great man's book-plate. Mr. Lichtenstein's words about the real book-plate and the sham are therefore important:—
'Original examples are noticeable for their sharp black impressions on dampened plate paper of a buff colour mellowed by age. Those of the imitation are printed from a plate which has the appearance of having seen considerable wear; besides being printed on a dry paper of a thin quality, and a bluish colour; by its modern appearance it is easily recognised, the engraving of the name being poorly done.'
I do not know if a series of 'Presidents'' book-plates could be shown to exist, but Washington's successor, John Adams, certainly used one, introducing into it a certain number of national emblems. The American eagle with outspread wings overshadows the whole design.