SOME SPECIMENS INSERTED IN A BOOK KEPT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM FOR THAT
PURPOSE
Some bookplates kindly lent by Mr. G. F. Barwick--Wrest Park plates--Sir
John Lubbock.
The following are all in a small collection of _ex libris_ in a book
kept for the purpose in the British Museum. The press mark is C 66 f3:--
“Frhr. v. Barckhaus Wiesenhütten Bibliotheck” is the inscription on the
ornamental bracket of an elaborate armorial plate, with two most
amiable-looking young lions holding up the shield.
On the same page in the same collection is a plate of somewhere near the
same date, and hardly armorial. The form of the plate is, for the most
part, a representation of carved stonework. In the middle is a sort of
oval shield, and within that a shield with a figure of a man with a
child on one shoulder. Along the base of the structure are the words:
“Ex libr Chro TheopChristoff Ulme.” A few books are standing on the
ground against the stonework, and, as oftens happens in looking at such
plates, one hopes they are not rare books or in interesting bindings, as
one would like to take more care of them.
In the same collection is a remarkable plate giving a view of a library
interior, enclosed in a richly decorated oval frame. At foot the
inscription: “Ex libris d. zach: conr: at uffenbach, m.f.”, and above:
“non omnibus idem est quod placet petron fragm.” At the very bottom, in
tiniest letters, is “J U Kraus sculp.”
Johann Ulrich Kraus was born at Augsburg in 1645, and died there in
1719. He was a pupil of Melchior Küsel; he imitated the manner of
Sebastien Le Clerc and did a large amount of engraving for the
booksellers.
A handsome plate is that “Ex Bibliotheca J. S. Ochs, at Ochsentein.” It
is a plate with heavy mantling to the shield. An ox is, of course,
prominent in arms and crest. “P Feber sc” is in the corner. There is
another very much smaller, but almost identical plate.
From the same collection, and of rather uncertain date, is a plate
subscribed: “Ex bibliotheca rosenbergiana.” A rose tree is appropriately
prominent in arms and crest.
Another example is simply a Chippendale fancy shell frame enclosing the
words: “Ex supellectile libraria Bened: Guil: Zahnii.”
A bookplate very roughly engraved, and with some very curious-looking
heraldry, is that subscribed “malmendier. = de malmedye,” and “solum
forti patria est.”
There is a circular plate with a Library view, and the library itself is
evidently circular, the plate being engraved “Bibliotheca regia
parmensis.” Apollo, looking very cold, stands on a pedestal in the
middle, holding his garment instead of putting it on, and sitting down
quietly to read the books. Round the upper part is inscribed “Apollini
palatino sacram.”
An armorial plate with fine mantling, then a helmet: on that a crown,
and over that, for crest, a man girdled, holding in right hand a mallet,
and in left a flag. Under the shield is the name engraved: “A. W.
Schlegel von Gottleben.”
Pasted on to the same page is a plain small _ex libris_--arms, a
fleur-de-lis; name, “Franz Salmon Wüss.”
Here is a plate which appears to be round. In the middle is placed what
seems to be meant for a tomb, with a book placed open at the words:
“vita lux hominum Joh I v 4.” Near, and on the vault is engraved: “adhuc
stat terminus.” Round the outside circle of the plate is engraved: “lex
est non poena mort.”
Other plates of interest in this collection are those of Christian
Gottlieb Joher, on page 5, Godefrid J. F. Thomas, on page 23, and on
page 27 a plate dated 1757.
Mr. Barwick’s plate of a Baron Bunsen is, he assures me, not that of the
Baron Bunsen so familiar to, and appreciated by, cultivated English
readers, not a generation ago. The plate is nice, as any approach to
simplicity is always pleasing. The shield, hung from the coronet by the
ribband of some order, is not loaded with charges. Dexter, a lion
between two fleur-de-lis, sinister, three heads of barleycorn. The
motto, too, is reverential and in keeping: “In spe et silentio.” Below
all is the legend, “ex libris christiani caroli bunsen. Uratislaviæ ad
eadem S. Elis Ecclesiastes.” J. B. Stracchusky Sc Urat.
Uratislavia spells Breslau, but very curiously the name Uratislavia
seems to have some fitness on a bookplate; as in Zedler’s wonderful
_Lexicon_, of some sixty-six volumes, it is recorded of Jacob de
Uratislavia, a Benedictine monk who died in 1480, that his literary
labours were so vast that seven powerful steeds could scarce drag his
load of books.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Mr. G. F. Barwick has lent me three quite different Wrest Park
bookplates. In an ornamental frame, which forms the lower part of one,
is engraved “Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey, Wrest Park.” Two
fearful-looking dragons support the shield, or rather seem bent on
devouring the shield and then each other. Above is an earl’s coronet,
and below the motto, “Foy est tout.”
Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey, was born in 1781, and was the elder son of
Thomas Robinson, second Baron Grantham, and his wife the second daughter
of Philip York, second Earl of Hardwicke. He was therefore a descendant
of Henry Grey, ninth Earl of Kent. In 1833 his maternal aunt, Amabel
Hume Campbell, Countess de Grey of Wrest, in Bedfordshire, dying, he
became second Earl de Grey and Baron Lucas of Crudwell, Wiltshire. From
1841 to 1844 he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and achieved great
success in his administration there. In 1844 he was made a Knight of the
Garter.
The second of these plates consists of two crests, a dragon and a stag,
encircled by the garter. Above is the earl’s coronet, and over that the
inscription “Wrest Park.” Neither of the other plates has the garter.
In what, for distinction, may be called the third plate, the outspread
and double-headed black eagle holding the shield-of-arms is the most
prominent object, and in each beak it holds what, as argent, no doubt is
a silver coin, but looks rather like an Osborne biscuit.
Mr. Barwick has also two bookplates of “Sir John William Lubbock. Bart.”
Below the shield is the happy motto: “Auctor pretiosa facit.” John
William Lubbock was born in 1803, and in 1840 succeeded his father in
the baronetcy. He died in 1865. His scientific tastes and cultivated
habits were just such as his own son, Sir John Lubbock, has pursued
happily for so many years, in the knowledge of many now living. The
other plate is evidently what he used for his books in his earlier
years. The bloody hand of Ulster is absent from the shield, and below
the shield is simply the monogram “J. W. L.”
The Sir John Frederick, Bart., plate of Mr. Barwick’s is quite a change
from the customary conventions. The shield fills a very small part of an
oblong oval frame. The arms are by Burke, or on a chief azure, three
doves argent. Crest on a chapeau azure turned-up ermine, a dove, within
the beak an olive branch.
Mr. Barwick has two _ex libris_ of Thomas
[Illustration]
James Tatham, Esq., a gentleman of Bedford Place, Russell Square,
London, and a third which has belonged to some near kindred. It agrees
with that which has merely the crest, but has engraved underneath: “T.
D. F. Tatham.” His chief plate has dexter, argent a chevron gules
between three swan’s necks, coupled sable. Sinister are presumably his
wife’s arms. Crest on a trumpet or, a swan’s wings displayed sable.
Mr. Carruthers has, with great kindness, contributed the following in
reference to his interesting bookplate:--
“The notion of the plate was to introduce two plants named by botanists
after me. Many genera of plants have received their names in this way.
“The outside plant was called _Carruthersia scandius Seem._ by Dr.
Seemann in his _Flora Vitiensis_, London, 1865-73. I described the ferns
in this work (pp. 331-378), and otherwise had given assistance. The
plant is described on pp. 155, 156, and figured on Table XXX. Appended
to the description of the genus is this note: ‘I have named this new
genus in honour of my esteemed friend William Carruthers, Esq., F.Z.S.,
of the Botanical Department, British Museum, to whom I am indebted for
much kind assistance in working up the South Sea flora.’
“The inner flower was named by Otto Kunze _Carruthia Capensis, O.K._ It
was originally called _Aitonia Capensis_ by Linnæus the younger, but a
different plant had been previously named _Aitonia_. Botanists do not
allow the same name to be applied to different plants that are widely
separated. O. Kunze wished to associate the plant with my name, and,
following an example set by Linnæus, he cut off the last syllable and
formed a generic name which could not be confounded with Seemann’s
generic name. This arose from a curious accident. O. Kunze called on me
at the Natural History Museum, and asked me to let him see the specimens
of _Aitonia_. I inquired which _Aitonia_, and, showing him a seal I was
wearing which belonged to Aiton, who had engraved on it the Cape plant
named after him, I asked if that was the plant. He exclaimed ‘How
strange! that is the plant.’ I showed him the specimen that the younger
Linnæus had named, which was in the Herbarium. When Kunze published the
results of his work on these plants he gave it the name _Carruthia
Capensis_. The seal was oval, and the drawing in the
[Illustration]
centre is taken from the seal. I used for separation of the two plants
an ornamental border of an early Edinburgh printer, I believe, for I got
it in the binding of an old Edinburgh book. And the motto belongs to the
section of the Carruthers tribe to which we belong.
“The drawing was made by W. G. Smith, F.Z.S., a good botanist and an
excellent draughtsman.”