Society_, which gives that of Ginery Twichell; and the _Massachusetts
Historical Society_, which has a plate giving a portrait of James
Savage.
The public libraries of to-day do not usually use elaborate plates in
their book-covers; simple labels, with perhaps a city or corporation
seal, are the common kind.
[Illustration: Sam. Hill]
[Illustration: ·GEORGE·ALEXANDER·MACBETH· ·PITTSBURGH·PA·]
BOOK-PLATES OF SPECIAL INTEREST.
[Illustration: S]everal reasons can be given for the fact that
collectors regard some book-plates as of more value than others. With
book-plates, as in other lines of collecting, rarity is a desirable
feature, and is a prominent element in deciding values.
All of our early American plates can fairly be called scarce when
compared with the foreign examples of the same period, for they
outnumber ours, fifty to one; but many among ours are rarer than others.
The _John Franklin_, brother of Benjamin, signed by Turner, is an
exceeding rare plate; the _Thomas Dering_, signed by Hurd, is very rare.
The plates of _Stephen Cleveland_, _Samuel Chase_, _Francis Kinloch_,
_Edward Augustus Holyoke_, _John Vassal_, _Lewis De Blois_, _Lenthal_,
_Apthorp_, the _John Pintard_, by Anderson, and many others are not seen
in many collections. The plate of _George Washington_ is the most
valuable probably of our plates; and while we know the location of a
good many of his books that have the plate within the covers, they are
in no way obtainable: this plate is not very common, but more copies of
it are owned than of some others.
[Illustration: Stephen Cleveland]
The libraries of our early days, while of respectable size, were not so
large as to require the printing of thousands of book-plates; fire and
mob violence have destroyed many books of those old collections and
their plates with them. Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, and Princeton
[Illustration: Columbia College Library]
have all suffered the loss of books by fire, while many smaller private
libraries have been thus devastated. Mr. John Pintard used to say that
he had seen the British soldiers carrying away books from the library of
Columbia College to barter for grog, and a similar fate from similar
hands overtook many of the books stored in the belfry-chamber of the Old
South Church, Boston, while later in our history, worse depredations
were committed in the Southern cities by soldiers, who took the liberty
which war accords to contestants, to despoil many a building, both
public and private, ruining books, records, paintings, and other
property of antiquarian and historical value. So that the early American
plates, at the first not so very numerous, have been reduced at times by
wholesale measures.
A second item of interest to the collector is the signature of the
engraver of the plate. Signed plates have a value over those which are
not signed. The identification of a plate, or the determination of its
age, may be considerably strengthened if the engraver’s name appears
upon the copper. Then, too, the name of a famous engraver lends much
additional interest to a plate. A book-plate signed by Paul Revere
arrests the attention of any observer at once, and establishes a value
to the same. Likewise a plate signed by Hurd, Doolittle, Dawkins,
Anderson, Maverick, Callender, or Turner is worth much more to the
collector than one of equal age but of unknown workmanship.
Dated plates also rank among the more valuable examples. A glance at the
chronological list will show how small a number of these we can boast:
many of those appearing in the list, too, are simply printed
name-labels, which do not rank as high as the more pretentious
specimens. Our very earliest dated example is the label of the _Rev.
John Williams_, 1679, the first minister in Deerfield, Mass., and who
with his wife and children was carried into captivity by the Indians in
1704. Coming next are the plates of _Francis Page_, 1703, and _William
Penn_, 1703, but they are both of English make. The plate of _Thomas_
[Illustration: Isaiah Thomas]
_Prince_, who was for forty years the pastor of the Old South Society in
Boston, is a simple label dated 1704. The plate of _Thomas Dering_,
signed by Hurd, and dated 1749, is the first American plate by an
American engraver that is both signed and dated. The _John Burnet_, by
Dawkins, dated 1754, is next in order; then comes the _Greene_ plate, by
Hurd, 1757, the _Albany Society Library_, 1759, concerning which very
little is known, and every few years an example until we come to the
opening of the century.
[Illustration: Albany Society Library]
Naturally the artistic quality of a book-plate influences its value; the
more elaborate designs are preferred to the plain armorials or the
printed labels. Pictorial plates, introducing bits of landscape,
interiors of libraries, or allegorical subjects, are sought for, as are
plates which are accepted as particularly good types of the different
styles. In addition to these technical reasons for valuing one plate
more highly than another may be given others which will appear more
reasonable perhaps to the general reader. All articles belonging to the
noted men of the past have a certain antiquarian value greater than
attaches to the kindred belongings of their contemporaries of lesser or
no fame. So with book-plates.
A glance at the list will show a goodly number of names which we
remember with pride and interest; the names of patriots, orators,
lawyers, statesmen, officers of the army, officers of the state and
nation, members of Congress, signers of the Declaration, governors,
old-time merchants, authors, divines, physicians, and not a few of that
plucky number who stood by the King in trying times--the American
Loyalists. Quakers, too, as well as royal office-holders, and titled
Americans are among those whose book-plates have come down to us.
Of our early Presidents, the plates of George Washington, John Adams,
John Quincy Adams, and John Tyler are known to us. All of these except
the last, which is a plain printed label, are armorial.
Members of the Boston Tea Party, of the Constitutional Convention, and
of the early Assemblies are among those whose plates we know.
[Illustration: John Quincy Adams.]
Of royal officers we have: Craven, one of the Lords Proprietors of South
Carolina; Elliston, Collector of His Majesty’s Customs at New York; Sir
William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania; John Tabor Kempe,
Attorney-General under the Crown at New York; and William Penn,
Proprietor and Governor of the colony which bore his name.
Owners of large estates, employers of numbers of slaves, merchants whose
vessels carried on a trade with remote and prosperous shores, and who
established names that have endured, used book-plates which are still
known to us. Among these are the plates from the following families,
well-known in New England: Ames, Bowdoin, Cabot, Chandler, Chauncey,
Coffin, Lodge, Lowell, Minot, Quincy, Sears, Winthrop, Barrell, Greene,
Perkins, Swan, Vassall, and Vaughan.
[Illustration: Josiah Quincy]
Of those well-known in and about New York may be mentioned, Clinton,
Colden, Constable, Cutting, De Peyster, Duer, Ellery, Goelet, Hoffman,
Ogden, Paulding, Phillipse, Pintard, Van Cortlandt, and Van Rensselaer.
To these should be added the Livingstons, which family had the largest
number of book-plates of any we know.
In Philadelphia were the Logans, Morgans, Powels, Banckers, and
Hamiltons; while further South, the Lees, Lightfoots, Tayloes,
Wormeleys, Pages, Cabels, Tubervilles, Armisteads, Byrds, Blands,
Bollings, Dinwiddies, Fitzhughs, Hubards, Magills, and Randolphs used
plates and were families of prominence and distinction.
[Illustration: Livius.]
Among the prominent Loyalists are Chalmers, Cooper, Hallowell, Hamilton,
Livius, Lloyd, Oliver, and Robinson. Of titled Americans the following
used book-plates: Fairfax, Gardiner, Murray of Dunmore, and the
Pepperrell families.
Of the early authors we can mention Alsop, Antill, Bozman, Byrd, Dana,
Key, Stith, and Abercrombie; of physicians, Assheton, Bond, Beatty,
Holyoke, Middleton, and Jeffries; of the statesmen, Bayard, Carmichael,
Dana, Duane, Gallatin, Jay, Lewis, Marshall, Norris, and Randolph.
[Illustration: D^{r}. John Jeffries]
Among the early clergymen can be named Apthorp, Boucher, Williams,
Jarvis, and Provoost.
Allen and Thomas, early printers; Aitkin, who made the first American
edition of the Holy Bible; and Bartram, the great botanist, used plates,
which are described in the list.
Bloomfield, Brearly, Banister, Chester, Eustace, Hale, Mercer, Schuyler,
Sullivan, and Varick are among the soldiers of the Revolutionary army;
and of the orators we have Otis and Randolph.
Coming now to the signers of the Declaration, we find that we know thus
far the plates of eleven of them: John Adams, Charles Carroll, Samuel
Chase, Thomas Hayward, William Hooper, Francis Hopkinson, Benjamin Rush,
Richard Stockton, George Taylor, Oliver Wolcott, and George Wythe.
Surely the book-plates of all these men whose mention stirs patriotic
feeling, are of exceeding interest, and worthy to rank with any in point
of value and appreciation.
No book-plate, however, is of greater interest to the American collector
than that of _George Washington_, not alone by reason of the prominence
of that eminent man, but because of the scarcity of the plate, the high
price it brings, and the interesting fact that it is the only American
plate which has been deemed worthy of counterfeiting.
A genuine contemporary print of this plate is readily recognized by the
connoisseur. The plate has no striking features, but is a regular design
in the pure Chippendale style. The arms are displayed upon a shield of
the usual shell-like form, and the sprays and rose branches of this
style 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
[Illustration: Edward Hale Bierstadt]
the bracket at the bottom of the design. In general appearance the plate
is like scores of Chippendale plates of the period.
[Illustration: George Washington]
The interesting question of the probable engraver of the plate has
arisen, and in a most readable article from the pen of Mr. R. C.
Lichtenstein, in the “Curio,” on the Library of Washington, the
following opinion is advanced: “It was his [Washington’s] habit as a
general rule to write his name on the right-hand corner of the
title-page and place inside his book-plate. It has been a matter of
uncertainty as to whether that book-plate was engraved in England or in
this country. Washington, like other Virginia gentlemen before the
Revolution, was in the habit of ordering goods every year from London;
but we have searched the various orders to his agents in London, and
examined as far as practicable the items of his household expenses,
without finding any such item. The strongest argument that can be said
in its favor proving it to be American work is the poor heraldry
displayed in its coat-of-arms, general make-up, and drawing. It will be
noticed that the engraver has placed a wreath under the crown (an
absolute heresy), and this, with the faulty drawing of the raven, makes
the whole plate a very slovenly piece of work. No engraver with any
knowledge of the fundamental laws of heraldry would be guilty of drawing
such a coat-of-arms as this. The arms of Washington engraved on his seal
and ring, undoubtedly cut in England, are correctly done. It seems more
than probable, if the plate had been done in England that the engraver
would not have been guilty of making such blunders. We have seen a great
many English plates, but have never noticed one bearing these
peculiarities. From its general appearance we should say that the plate
was made in America somewhere between the years 1777 and 1781.”
Collectors are divided in their opinions upon this question, and
although not ready to hazard a guess at the engraver, the present writer
believes the plate was engraved in England, and would place the date
nearly a decade earlier. As the friend of the Fairfax family,
Washington might have had the plate made upon the occasion of their
ordering work of the same kind from England, or, indeed, it might have
been a gift to him from them, or from some admiring friend. As he was a
methodical man, the fact that no entry of an expense for such an article
is found in his records may lend color to the presentation theory. As to
the errors in heraldry, there is a plate of one Richard Washington,
which has all the peculiarities of this plate, and this is signed by
Bickham, who was an English engraver of some note. He was a trifle early
perhaps to have been the engraver of the _George Washington_ plate, but
he may have made the plate which served as a copy for it. But whether
the plate was of domestic or foreign make, we know that the copper was
in this country, and that impressions were made from it not so very many
years ago. The late Mr. Mauran of Newport knew the man who owned this,
and it seems that having printed what he deemed a sufficient number of
re-strikes from it, this man, fearing lest others would in time get it
and make more prints, cut the copper into pieces and going out on a
bridge over the Schuylkill River, threw them in! There they may be
looked for by any who choose.
The counterfeit of this plate appeared in an auction sale of books, in
the city of Washington, about the year 1863. The late Dr. W. F. Poole
with Dr. J. M. Toner was present at the sale. The plate was placed in
these books for the purpose of getting a higher price for them than
could
[Illustration: George Washington]
otherwise have been obtained. These gentlemen detected the fraudulent
plate, and denounced it as such in the auction-room, and the books
brought only their actual value as books. Copies of this plate turn up
now and then, and the unsuspecting are still deceived by it. It is
readily detected if one is forewarned. The work is manifestly inferior
to the good plate, the alignment of the name is poor, the quality and
appearance of the paper belie its professed age, and the printing is of
decidedly different appearance, being bold and strong in the genuine,
and weak and thin in the forgery. A further difference is noted in the
crest, which is tinctured _gules_ in the forgery and _sable_ in the
genuine. These plates are sometimes claimed to be genuine and to be an
early and unsatisfactory piece of work, which Washington rejected, and
which was replaced with the other and accepted plate. This idea is
plausible perhaps to some, but to any who had information from Dr. Poole
it is an impossible theory. Another source of confusion is in the
reproductions of the plate which have been made from time to time to
illustrate works on the life of Washington, some of these being quite
faithful duplicates of the genuine plate with its trifling flaws; but
the paper and the printing are usually conclusive proof of the age of
the print. It is safe to say that there is but one genuine Washington
plate. It is true that the re-strikes of the original copper are about,
but these, too, are readily distinguishable by the printing and paper.
The plate of _Bushrod Washington_, nephew of George, is also of much
interest, and the manifest similarity of its design to some of the
plates by Dawkins has led to the suggestion that he made this plate. But
to the mind of the writer, Dawkins was not a man of originality, and was
a regular copyist when it came to book-plates; the similarity of the
plate of _James Samuels_ to this plate is rather to his mind a further
evidence of the clever adoption of a reasonably good design by Dawkins,
than of his having been chosen by Judge Washington to engrave his
book-plate. The design of this plate is more spirited than any of the
authenticated work of Dawkins; indeed, it surpasses the plate of the
General in that respect.
[Illustration: Bushrod Washington.]
The arms are the same in these two Washington plates. In his “Barons of
the Potomac and the Rappahannock” (published by the Grolier Club, 1892),
Mr. Moncure Daniel Conway has referred to the older form of the arms as
used by earlier members of the family. The earliest shields held “_Gules
on a barre argent 3 Cinquefoiles of ye first._” The second step was made
by changing to the following, “_Gules on a fesse sable 3 mullets._” The
last and present form is, “_Argent, two bars gules: in chief three
mullets of the second._” These last, it is claimed, suggested our
national flag.
The plate of _Elizabeth Graeme_ of Philadelphia should be noted here, as
it is the only example of an heraldic plate used by a lady of colonial
times. It is fully described in the list.
Leaving now these older plates of special interest to be discovered in
the Lists, we turn to a few modern plates which are worthy of particular
attention.
[Illustration: Dan Webster]
The plate of _Daniel Webster_ is a plain armorial with the motto, _Vera
pro gratis_, on the ribbon below the shield.
The etched plate of the late _James Eddy Mauran_, the early collector of
American and other book-plates, was an armorial of very handsome
appearance. The shield is surrounded with the style of decoration used
on the Chippendale examples, oak leaves being used in lieu of mantling.
An earlier plate in two sizes shows some differences in the design.
The plate of the late _George W. Childs_ seems wholly in keeping with
the career of its distinguished owner. The sword, broken into pieces by
the quill, is depicted within an oval garter which bears the motto,
_Nihil sine labore_. The words from Lytton’s Richelieu, _The pen is
mightier than the sword_, are also given just within the frame.
Coming now to mention a few plates of our well-known men of letters, we
naturally accept the plate of _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ as worthy of the
chiefest place. In this the motto, _Per ampliora ad altiora_, is given
on a ribbon beneath a beautiful representation of the “Chambered
Nautilus,” the
Ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purple wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
“If you will look into Roget’s ‘Bridgewater Treatise,’” said the
Autocrat one morning, “you
[Illustration: Oliver Wendell Holmes.]
will find a figure of one of these shells and a section of it. The last
will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in
by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening
spiral. Can you find no lesson in this?
“‘Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea.’”
[Illustration: JBM]
A plain armorial plate with the motto, _Vitam impendere vero_, and the
name in fac-simile of his autograph, was used by _J. G. Holland_.
The plate of _Brander Matthews_, designed by Edwin A. Abbey, represents
the discovery of a mask of the old Greek comedy by an American Indian.
With feathers stuck in his scanty hair, and his tomahawk laid on the
ground beside him, he appears to deliberate upon the possible use of the
enormous face which grins at him from his knee. On a circular frame
surrounding this picture the following words from Molière are given,
_Que pensez vous de cette comedie_. The appropriateness of the design is
apparent for one who is a collector of the literature of the French
drama, and the author of several books relating to the stage both in
America and France.
[Illustration: STEDMAN]
In the plate of _Edmund Clarence Stedman_, the author of “The Poets of
America,” we see Pan piping in the sylvan glades; the shepherd and the
nymph are charmed by the music, and the god is apparently at the height
of his effort. The frame surrounding the design bears the words, _Le
Cœur au Metier_, which were suggested by the address of Matthew Arnold
to the Authors’ Club in 1883. This plate is made in three sizes.
The plate of _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ presents within a square frame a
picture of a black bird resting upon a comic mask; the heavy panelled
frame bears the owner’s name and the words, _His Mark_. In his essay on
American Book-plates, Mr. Laurence Hutton questions whether this black
bird is representative of the Daw, and symbolic of Margery of that name.
In the plate of _Eugene Field_ we have a beautiful example of the plain
armorial, unaccompanied by motto or ornamentation of any kind.
Of similar character is the plate of _Richard Grant White_. This is
armorial, but the motto, _The right and sleep_, is given, and the shield
is decorated in a conventional manner, with mantling and scrolls.
A pleasing library interior is used by _Arlo Bates_. This represents an
Oriental interior; a youth in scull-cap and flowing hair is reading a
large book; a lily stem rises from a vase of striped Tyrian glass at his
side; rows of books are seen at his back; and out of the arched window
the distant fields are seen, with the palm and cypress trees on the
hillside. This plate is produced in a new manner, being a gelatine print
or half-tone direct from the pencil sketch. It preserves a very soft and
pleasant effect; indeed, one feels sure it will smirch if rubbed.
_Laurence Hutton_ in his plate places a full-length statue of Thackeray
within a canopy, which seems to be a niche within a book-case. Volumes
flank both sides, and the amiable face of the drastic writer looks
directly at the beholder. The name of the owner is given on a ribbon at
the bottom of the design.
[Illustration: LAURENCE HUTTON]
The books of the lamented actors, _Edwin Booth_ and _Lawrence Barrett_,
were marked with book-plates, the former using a plain armorial with no
name engraved upon it, and the latter showing the mask of Tragedy upon
an open volume, with the motto, _Esto quod esse videris_.
The reading monk, with the nimbus and star over his head, is seen in the
plate of _Edward Eggleston_. The sentiment, _Flie fro’ the presse and
dwell with sothfastnesse_, is given in old English letters.
_Mr. Rossiter Johnson_ uses a very plain but effective label bearing the
initials _R. J._ printed within a plain ruled border: all in red ink.
The patriotic motto of _General Winfield Scott_ is the family motto of
the Scots of Whitislaid, Scotland, and well did the character of the man
who used the book-plate depicted below coincide with its meaning.
It would be interesting to extend this list of plates used by men well
known throughout the length and breadth of our land, but, unfortunately,
many whose names will occur to the reader do not use a book-plate.
[Illustration: Winfield Scott.]
EARLY AMERICAN BOOK-PLATE ENGRAVERS.
[Illustration: N]athaniel Hurd, who was born in Boston, Feb. 13, 1730,
and who died in 1777, was the best of our early engravers of
book-plates. Very little is now known of him, the principal source of
information being an article in the third volume of “The New England
Magazine,” published in Boston in 1832 by J. T. and E. Buckingham. The
only known portrait of Hurd, which is copied from an original painting
of him by Copley, and which in 1832 was owned by a descendant of Hurd in
Medford, Mass., also accompanies this article, and shows him as a young
man with smooth face, very pleasing and intelligent features, and
wearing a cap, white neck-cloth, and clothes of a pattern which give him
a decidedly clerical appearance.
The only book-plate work mentioned in this article is the large plate
for Harvard College. It is said that the prints done in red ink were for
use in the highly valuable books which the students were not allowed to
take from the library. Several brilliant caricatures, a portrait of the
Rev.
[Illustration: W. F. HOPSON]