Printed books supply many shields from the end of the fifteenth
century, showing the artistic taste in such matters which prevailed
from that date to the present. Printers' marks begin still earlier,
and are often contained in shields; but these usually show a spirit of
exaggeration, and convey the impression that such would not be found
elsewhere, and hence they are not of much use to us in our present
purpose of laying down exact dates.
Grants of arms and book-plates come in to continue our information,
giving shapes and the decorations surrounding them. Book-plates are
usually efforts of art and taste at the dates when they were executed,
and these two occur just at the time when other evidences fall short,
and so they are peculiarly valuable.
In the following remarks I shall gladly avail myself of the new system
of nomenclature devised and introduced by my friend, Mr. J. Paul
Rylands, F.S.A. I welcome it as a most valuable desideratum, by means
of which I hope to make my subject intelligible. Without such a system
a still greater number of illustrations would have been required, and I
should like to bear my small testimony to its very great and, I expect,
increasing usefulness. It is not everyone who has the ready hand to
dash off the correct outline when seeking to communicate the style of a
shield, or a book-plate, and here we have a simple alphabet of shapes
which can be read and understanded of all men, and which will certainly
be found so convenient that it will come into general use.