Book-Plates

by William John Hardy

Writing to Notes and Queries in 1877, Dr. Jackson Howard, whose collection is now one of the largest in England, says that he began collecting forty years before that date, and that the nucleus of his own collection was one made by a Miss Jenkins at Bath in 1820. It is probably, therefore, to this lady that we should attribute the honour of being the first collector of book-plates, for their own sake. No doubt the collector of engravings admitted into his portfolios book-plates worthy a place there as interesting engravings, for stray examples are often found in such collections as that formed in the seventeenth century by John Bagford, the biblioclast, which is now in the British Museum. No doubt, too, heraldic painters or plate engravers collected book-plates as specimens of heraldry, but this was not collecting them as book-plates—viz. as illustrations of the custom of placing marks of ownership in books, which, I take it, was evidently Miss Jenkins's object.[1]

Still, though little was written on the subject of book-plates prior to 1880, it by no means follows that for some years before that date there had not been a considerable number of persons who took an interest in the subject. The fact is, that the book-plate collector of earlier days was wiser in his generation than are those of his kind to-day. He kept his 'hobby' to himself, and was thus enabled to indulge it economically. My father had a small collection; and I can well remember how, as a boy, I used to help him to add to it. We used to go to a shop in a dingy street, leading off Oxford Street, and there select from a large clothes-basket as many book-plates as were new to our collection. The price was one penny a piece,—new or old, dated or undated, English or foreign, that of Bishop Burnet, or David Garrick, or Mr. Jones, or Mr. Brown,—all alike, a penny a piece; and I have no doubt, though I do not remember the fact, there was the usual 'reduction on taking a quantity.' I think this shop was almost the only one in London where you could buy book-plates at all. Well, those days are past now; and, whilst we regret them, because book-plate collecting is no longer an economical pursuit, we cannot allow our regret to be unmingled with satisfaction. The would-be collector of to-day can, if he pleases, know something about the collection he is undertaking; he can tell when he meets with a good specimen; he knows the points which render any particular book-plate interesting; and he can, at least approximately, affix a date to each example he obtains.

As to the morality of book-plate collecting, I suppose something ought to be said here. There is but one objection to it, but that is, undoubtedly, a serious one: taking a book-plate out of a book means the possible disfigurement and injury of the volume from which it is taken; yet, for the purpose of study and comparison, the removal is a distinct advantage. To confess this seems, at first sight, to bring collecting at all under a sweeping condemnation; and such, indeed, would be the case, were it not for the fact that damage to, or even the actual destruction of, very many books is really a matter of no consequence whatever. Book-plates are found quite as often in the worthless literary productions of our ancestors as in the worthy; and it is puerile to cavil over the removal of a book-plate from a binding which holds together material by the destruction of which the world would certainly not be the poorer. So much for the book-plates in valueless books. As regards those in valuable or interesting ones, it is certainly unwise to remove them at all. This is a golden rule which cannot be too forcibly impressed upon collectors and booksellers. The case does not occur very often; and when it does, the book itself, with the book-plate in it, can be easily fetched and placed beside the 'collection' when needed for comparison. It may happen that the book-plate in this valuable book is interesting from the fact that it belonged to some man of note, or that it is unique; if so, we have only a further reason against taking it out of the volume. The value of a very early book-plate, when preserved in the volume in which it is discovered, is lessened almost to a vanishing point if separated from that volume. Pasted into a book as a mark of ownership, it is an undoubted book-plate; whereas, if taken out and fastened into a collection of book-plates, it at once loses the proof of its original use, so essential to its value and so material to the student of book-plates.

On the other hand, as I have said, there is no harm in removing, from some uninteresting and valueless volume, the book-plate of a famous man. Everybody knows that Bishop Burnet or David Garrick had plenty of what they themselves regarded as 'rubbish' in their libraries; so that Burnet's book-plate in an actually valueless volume does not prove that the Bishop's shrewd eye ever scanned its pages, or that his episcopal hand ever held it. Besides, I know as a fact that it is a not uncommon trick for the possessor of the book-plate of some famous man to affix that book-plate in a worthless volume, and then offer the whole for sale at a price much higher than would be asked or obtained for the book-plate itself, though the value of the book may be nil!

Without quarrelling with the name book-plate,—as applied to the marks of ownership pasted into books,—and without wasting time with discussion of suggestions for a better one, it may be admitted that the word is not altogether happily chosen. It perhaps suggests to the mind of the 'uninitiated' an illustration in a book rather than a mark of possession. But then at the present day there are not many 'uninitiated' amongst either buyers or sellers of books and prints, so that the inappropriateness of the name need not concern us.

As to its antiquity, that is doubtful; but probably one of the earliest instances of its use, in print, occurs in 1791, when John Ireland published the first two volumes of his Hogarth Illustrated. In this work he says that the works of Callot were probably Hogarth's first models, and 'shop bills and book-plates his first performances.' Again, in 1798, Ireland refers to the 'book-plate' for Lambert the herald-painter, which Hogarth had executed. In 1823, a certain 'C. S. B.,' writing in the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine, refers to what 'are generally called' book-plates. His letter was suggested by an article—a review of Thomas Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica—in the previous number of the magazine, the writer of which was evidently not familiar with the term book-plate as we now apply it, for he calls book-plates 'plates of arms.' We shall see, later on, that this is quite an inappropriate name; some of the most interesting and the most beautiful book-plates have nothing armorial about them.

On the Continent, the term ex libris is generally applied to book-plates. This is, perhaps, even less appropriate than book-plate. It is taken from the two first words of the inscription on a great many book-plates, when the inscription is written in Latin—e.g. 'ex libris Johannis Stearne, S.T.P. Episcopi Clogherensis.' A moment's reflection will show that this inscription is not intended as a declaration by the book-plate (should it ever become severed from the book in which it was fastened) that it came out of a book belonging to Bishop Stearne; but that it is a declaration by the book in which the book-plate is found pasted, that that particular book is from amongst the books of a particular library, and ought to be restored to it. It would be as rational to call book-plates 'libri,' because the inscription on them often begins—as in a very famous German book-plate—'Liber Bilibaldi Pirckheimer.' It may, indeed, be laid down as a general rule, that whatever the sentiment expressed on a book-plate, it is clearly intended to be uttered by the book in which the book-plate is fixed, not by the book-plate itself.

There are but two instances, quoted by Lord De Tabley, of the inscription directly referring to the book-plate. Both are foreign, and date about the middle of the last century. One is Symbolum Bibliothecæ of John Bernard Nack, a citizen and merchant of Frankfort;[2] and the other, Insigne Librorum, etc., quoted from the work of M. Poulet Malassis. Lord De Tabley thinks that the Symbolum of Herr Nack is simply a trade card; but he founds this conclusion on the supposition that Herr Nack was a book-dealer, and that the scene depicted on his book-plate was, in fact, his shop. In my opinion, we have in this book-plate a representation of a portion of Herr Nack's library, in which Minerva(?) is seated, using the books thereof. A gentleman in eighteenth century dress, who may, likely enough, be Herr Nack himself, addresses himself to the goddess, and explains—as he points to the outer scene, which shows us ships and merchandise—that, whilst following his trade as a merchant, he still has time to devote some attention to literature. In any case, these and the few other instances there may be of the inscription referring to the book-plate and not to the book, seem hardly sufficient to make ex libris a good name for book-plates in general.

Our ancestors, of degrees more remote than grandfather, do not appear to have referred to book-plates at all, so we are unable to learn by what name they would have called them. Pepys, in 1668, speaks of going to his 'plate-maker's,' and there spending 'an hour about contriving' his 'little plate' for his books. This 'little plate' still exists, and is a characteristic one; it shows us the initials 'S. P.,' with two anchors and ropes entwined. But we shall speak again of this, and Sam's other book-plates, later on.