England can now—thanks to recent investigations—claim the second place in the chronological sequence of countries in which book-plates have been used. Cardinal Wolsey's book-plate (see [p. 24]) is probably not later in date than 1525. France can boast of a book-plate dated in 1574; Sweden of one dated in the following year, and Switzerland of one in 1607; Italy in 1623: in other European countries, dated examples do not appear, nor does the practice of using book-plates seem to have been adopted until considerably later.
In concluding this opening chapter, let me say a word about the position in a book in which a book-plate should be looked for. The usual place was certainly on the front cover of a volume; sometimes another copy of the same plate was fastened to the back cover; and sometimes—as in Pirckheimer's case, just noticed, and in that of Samuel Pepys (see [p. 216])—the same person would use a different book-plate at the back of the volume to that used at the front. Another plan, less frequent, but by no means uncommon, was to insert the book-plate on the title-page, often on the back of it; and another, to fasten the book-plate into the volume, by pasting its right-hand margin about a quarter of an inch on to the title-page, so that the book-plate would fold over and face it. This is a plan that leads to a book-plate being most easily overlooked.
Collectors should also note that, in many instances, book-plates are found in a variety of sizes; this should certainly be borne in mind when setting aside any particular specimen as a duplicate. In the present day, most people are content to have a book-plate small enough to go into a volume of any size; its dwarfed appearance on the cover of a full-sized folio is no eyesore to them, or, if it is, the pleasure of economy makes them bear with it. But in days gone by it was—especially in Germany—certainly otherwise. The possession of a large library would necessitate, in the owner's mind, the possession of a number of differently sized book-plates, in order to get one which would neither look too small in the largest volume, nor be too large for the smallest! Some of the most noble foreign examples, rich in detail and bold in general effect, are those that belonged to men who liked to have for their folios a book-plate of proportionate size. There are no very large English book-plates, but plenty of library owners in this country had two or three different sized book-plates, and the late Sir William Stirling-Maxwell boasted of over a hundred varieties!
CHAPTER II
THE EARLY USE OF BOOK-PLATES IN ENGLAND
In a short paper, which in 1882 I contributed to the Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer, I wrote this passage:—'It is difficult to believe that the general use of book-plates should have been a hundred and fifty years in reaching this country from the Continent; and yet there is rather more difference than that between the date on the earliest-known German example (1516) and the time when English-dated specimens appear at all plentifully. Surely the many English men of letters who amassed large libraries in the sixteenth century, and the first half of the seventeenth, must have possessed book-plates; and yet, where are their book-plates now?
'Many, no doubt, have perished with the bindings to which they were fastened, but some are doubtless still extant; and we may yet hope that, when the interest in these labels becomes more widely diffused, more than one or two specimens will be brought to light, bearing an engraved date sufficiently early to dispel the idea that this country was a century and a half behind its German neighbours in the general practice of using book-plates.'