Book Plates Part 2

Another early instance of the expression of the metals and tinctures occurs in the book-plate of Lord-Keeper Lyttelton, a plate which derives additional interest from the fact of its being the work of William Marshall, the famous frontispiece engraver. Sir Edward Lyttelton, the owner of the book-plate, was made Lord-Keeper in 1641, under the t.i.tle of Baron Lyttelton of Mounslow. This book-plate, which shows us the arms of Lyttelton of Frankley, was evidently engraved before Sir Edward's elevation to the peerage. The book-plate, which is the earliest English example bearing an engraver's signature, may be dated about 1640.

We know from the arms on dedication plates, and the like, that the expression of colours on s.h.i.+elds did not become at all general for many years after 1640. Take, for instance, Hollar's cuts of arms in the ill.u.s.trations to Dugdale's _Monasticon_, or his _History of St. Paul's_.

Thus, we must not date every book-plate we find, on which the colours are not shown in the new fas.h.i.+on, as before 1640. The small and unpretentious book-plate of John Marsham of Whom's Place, near Cuxton, in Kent, is an ill.u.s.tration of this. A representation of it is given by Mr. Griggs in his _Facsimiles_. Marsham was made a baronet in 1663; so the plate is earlier than that, but as it is exactly in the style of the dedicatory plates in the works just noticed, we may place it somewhere about 1655. It is perhaps by Hollar. Likely enough, other examples will come to light.

After the Restoration, the number of English book-plates perceptibly increases, though we must remember that the active supporters of Cromwell did not object to a little heraldic display--there was a fair amount of heraldic work one way and another, executed both with pen and pencil, during the twelve years that the king was kept off his throne.

Two of the earliest post-Restoration book-plates are those of Sir Edward Bysshe and his brother-in-law, John Greene. Sir Edward Bysshe became Garter King-at-Arms, and John Greene was of Navestock, Ess.e.x. Both are curious oblong plates, having fancifully shaped s.h.i.+elds surrounded by palm branches, and held up by ribbons. There is no crest shown in either. They are evidently by the same artist, which, as Bysshe and Greene were brothers-in-law, is perhaps natural. A somewhat similar, though plainer, form of ornamentation surrounds the s.h.i.+elds on two other anonymous book-plates, one bearing the arms of Southwell, and the other those of Eynes or Haynes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF THOMAS GORE BY MICHAEL BURGHERS.]

Thomas Gore of Alderton, Wilts, the author of _Catalogus de Re Heraldica_, is a man who might be expected to use a book-plate, and he did. Three varieties are known. The first, which dates about 1660, though a more elaborate piece of work than those last described, is somewhat similar in style, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say dissimilar to the style in which other book-plates prior to the Restoration were designed. Whoever engraved this plate for Gore also engraved the arms of Edward Waterhouse--most probably the engraving was intended for Waterhouse's book-plate--which appear as a frontispiece to his _Discourse and Defence of Arms and Armory_, 1660. In his second book-plate Gore called to his aid the foreigner's art, employing Michael Burghers, a Dutch artist, who had recently come from Holland and settled at Oxford. Michael produced the book-plate figured opposite, which introduces some rather wild allegory, singularly plain cupids seated on the backs of flying eagles. Perhaps Gore did not care for this allegory,--allegory seems never to have been popular with English book-plate owners (see Chapter IV.),--and for his third plate went to an Englishman, and to a no less eminent one than William Faithorne. The famous portrait-engraver produced as beautiful and bold a book-plate in the Simple Armorial style as could well be: the peculiar 'depth' of his touch is apparent here and in his other book-plates, of which there are several.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE MARRIOTT FAMILY BY FAITHORNE]

It is interesting to note that Faithorne reverts to the pre-Restoration style, and improves upon it. The mantling is much richer than that shown in earlier examples in the same style, and it more completely surrounds the s.h.i.+eld. To Faithorne may be a.s.signed two other magnificent book-plates, that of Sir George Hungerford of Cadenham (anonymous), and the one here reproduced of a member of the family of Marriott of Whitchurch, Warwicks.h.i.+re, and Alscot and Preston, Gloucesters.h.i.+re.[4]

The Hungerford book-plate is noteworthy. The name of Sir George Hungerford, its possessor, does not occur in any list of baronets, yet he evidently considered himself to possess that dignity, as the 'b.l.o.o.d.y hand of Ulster' figures on his arms. Dugdale, too, in speaking of Sir George's marriage, refers to him as 'baronet.' Faithorne also produced a book-plate to commemorate a gift of books made by Bishop Hacket, who died in 1670--it is particularly curious as showing us the Bishop's portrait. I shall speak of it later on, under the heading 'Portrait Book-Plates' (pp. 216-220); such plates are comparatively few in number.

Dated, and most probably engraved, in the following year, 1671, is another 'gift' book-plate, prepared to place in books presented by the then Countess-Dowager of Bath. The inscription reads: 'Ex dono Rachel Comitissae Bathon: Dotariae An: Dom. MDCLXXI.' This lady was born in 1613; she was a daughter of Francis Fane, first Earl of Westmoreland, and became the wife of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Bath, who died in 1654; and soon afterwards of Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middles.e.x, who died in 1674; she herself dying in 1680. There is no reason to doubt the date on this book-plate, 1671, though, at first sight, it may look a little suspicious. True, she had become the wife of the Earl of Middles.e.x (a t.i.tle only dating from 1622) in 1654, and was still his wife in 1671; but she had apparently little reason to be proud of him or his t.i.tle, for he left her and made hay of her fortune, spending it to use the words of a contemporary letter,[5] 'in play and rioting.' We cannot, therefore, feel much surprised at her desire to pa.s.s by her former t.i.tle which would give her rank at court as the widow of an Earl whose creation was hard on a century earlier. 'Our cousin, Lady Bath,' writes Lady Newport, in April 1661, 'hath got her place of being Lady Bath again; it cost her 1,200_l_ ... her Lord is very angry at her changing her t.i.tle; he says it is an affront to him.' That is why she calls herself, on the book-plate under notice, Countess-Dowager of Bath in 1671. A curious feature about the book-plate is, that it does not seem to have been prepared to place in books included in one particular gift to a particular person or inst.i.tution, but rather to have been the outcome of my lady's fancy to place such a remembrance of herself in any volume she gave away at that or at any subsequent date. The Countess also used a book-stamp of the same design as the _ex libris_, but without the inscription.

Whilst speaking on the subject of gift book-plates, reference may appropriately be made to a curious woodcut used as a book-plate by the St. Albans Grammar School, which is figured opposite the next page. It is a quaint bit of, no doubt, local work, and, as pointed out to me by the Rev. F. Willc.o.x, the headmaster, during a long and dusty hunt, occurs only in the volumes given to the school by Sir Samuel Grimston.

The plate shows us a combination of the arms of the city of St. Albans and the motto of the Bacon family, adopted by the Grimstons.

I have no doubt that, if a thorough investigation of the too often neglected libraries of our old foundation grammar schools were made, other early and curious book-plates might be discovered.

Between 1670 and 1680 quite a number of book-plates were designed, evidently by the same man. The work is feeble, but it is very distinct.

The most interesting of these book-plates, from its possessor, is that of Samuel Pepys. Altogether, I know of eight examples: Charles Pitfield, Sir Robert Southwell, William Wharton, Sir Henry Hunloke, Samuel Pepys, Justinian Pagit, Walter Chetwynd, and Randolph Egerton.

A point of interest about them all is that, as well as expressing heraldically the blazon of the different s.h.i.+elds, they also indicate with an initial letter the colour intended to be shown: 'a' for argent, 'g' for gules, and so on. The initial of the heraldic term is used in every case except that of 'azure,' when 'b' for blue is used; 'a,' as we have seen, standing for argent.

Though they differ in the arrangement of the mantling, there can be little doubt that all these book-plates are by the same hand, and that whoever engraved the plates in Blome's _Gwilim_, engraved these also.

The book-plate of 'Fettiplace Nott,' which bears the date 1694, is a fair type of the book-plate that was in use in England for the next twenty years; indeed, these might all be the work of half a dozen artists.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE ST. ALBANS GRAMMAR SCHOOL, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]

I have not yet mentioned a very numerous and very uninteresting cla.s.s of early English book-plates--I mean those which are nothing more than 'name-tickets'--the owner's name and date printed within a border more or less ornate. These occur quite early in the seventeenth century, and run all through it. Of course, it may be that the owner is an interesting person, and then his or her name-ticket becomes interesting by reflection, but in themselves these tickets are merely dull. Of English Armorial plates, I have referred in detail to the majority of those bearing an engraved date--when that date is not obviously misleading--prior to the year 1698. I have also spoken of several, though by no means all, of the undated examples, which have been proved to belong to the seventeenth century. To this second list a patient working out of the internal evidence on early-looking, but undated, book-plates would, no doubt, add very considerably; and the ill.u.s.trations, verbal and otherwise, that I have given may, I hope, be sufficient to indicate the kind of book-plates that are worth such investigation.

I have used the date 1698 as a stopping-point, because from that year we have dated examples of English book-plates, yearly, down to the commencement of the present century. Here let me say a word on the subject of dated book-plates generally. The date is certainly an advantage, especially when it clearly refers to the date of the engraving, and not, as we have seen it sometimes does, to an event in the owner's career; but I cannot understand why the 'market value' of a book-plate should be enhanced to such an extent as it is by the presence on that book-plate of an engraved date. There are probably few book-plates which do not bear some mark by which an approximate date can be safely affixed to them, and the study of these marks is a very desirable undertaking. The great value of a printed date on a book-plate is that one can see from it the style of decoration in vogue at a particular period, and thus obtain the means for arranging, chronologically, undated examples. For there were during certain years certain marked styles of decoration adopted by book-plate engravers; but of these I propose to speak later on under the heading of 'Styles.'

Let me also mention _misleading_ dates on book-plates, and for this purpose it will be sufficient if I take princ.i.p.ally the examples cited by Mr. J. Paul Rylands, F.S.A., in his Notes on Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re examples. The date on Sir William St. Quintin's book-plate, 1641, is that at which the baronetcy was created; the book-plate was engraved in the last century. Sir Francis Fust's book-plate, one remarkable for its size and ugliness, is inscribed 'S^{r} Francis Fust of Hill Court in the county of Gloucester, Baronet, created 21st August 1662, the 14 year of King Charles 2d.' Now this plate cannot be earlier than 1728, the year in which the first 'Sir Francis' succeeded to the baronetcy. Here, however, the context of words, 'created 21st August 1662,' renders the inscription less likely to mislead people into supposing that 1662 was the year in which the plate was executed. In other instances we have not this help.

The date 1669, on the book-plate of Gilbert Nicholson of Balrath, merely refers to the date at which Gilbert acquired his Irish estates; the example itself must be later than 1722, as the same copper was employed for it as that on which the book-plate of Thomas Carter, dated in that year, had been engraved. Again, some collectors hold, and have maintained in print, that the book-plate of Sir Robert Clayton, of which we must speak again hereafter, was not really engraved in 1679--the date which appears upon it. 1679 is the year in which Sir Robert was Lord Mayor of London, and it is thought probable that the book-plate was engraved later--perhaps in the early years of the eighteenth century, when, as we have seen, the fas.h.i.+on of having a book-plate was so prevalent--and that Sir Robert placed the date 1679 upon it in order to commemorate the date of his mayoralty. For my part, I see no particular reason for holding this view; the style in which the plate is executed does not seem to me contradictory to the date upon it. Still, as the doubt exists, it is better to mention it.

Attention has been called to a book-plate of 'David Paynter of Dale Castle, Pembrokes.h.i.+re, 1679,' which is probably nearly a century later.

The book-plate of 'William Twemlow of Hatherton, Ches.h.i.+re, Esquire, 1686,' was engraved for a Mr. William Twemlow, who died in 1843.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On the other hand, there are certain book-plates which were engraved earlier than the dates which appear upon some impressions of them. The book-plate of the statesman Charles James Fox (see opposite) is one instance of this. It is inscribed 'The Hon^{ble} Charles James Fox,' and was used by the great statesman, but the plate was engraved in 1702--as its style suggests--for his half-uncle, and the inscription, before its alteration, read:--'Charles Fox of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Esq., 1702.'

There is a large book-plate, shown by its style to have been engraved in the early years of the eighteenth century, but which is inscribed 'Martin Stapylton, Esq. of Myton, in the county of York, A.D. 1817.' The book-plate was evidently engraved for Sir Bryan Stapylton, who died in 1727. The Martin Stapylton who altered and used it was one Martin Bree--nephew of the last baronet, who died in 1817--who succeeded to his uncle's property, but not to his baronetcy; hence he was not justified in leaving the helmet of a knight or baronet upon it; he removed the 'b.l.o.o.d.y hand of Ulster' from the s.h.i.+eld, but the mistake in the helmet does not seem to have struck him. On a small variety of this book-plate, the inscription on which is similarly altered, the 'b.l.o.o.d.y hand'

remains.

Again, the book-plate of 'S^{r} Will^{m} Robinson, Baronett, of Newby, in the county of York, 1702,' was altered--by turning the '0' into a '6'--into 1762, and was used by his grandson; that inscribed 'John Peachey, 1782,' designed in the Chippendale style, is quite twenty years earlier; and that of 'Fr. d.i.c.kens Armig. 1795,' was certainly engraved half a century before.

During the ten or twelve years immediately following the year 1698, the number of English dated book-plates is exceedingly large. Taking the list printed for private distribution by Sir Wollaston Franks in 1887, we find sixteen examples in 1698; seven in 1699; fifteen in 1700; sixteen in 1701; forty-four in 1702; fifty-eight in 1703; twenty-seven in 1704; and many, but not so many, in the succeeding years.

Something--what, I have failed to discover--must have given a stimulus to the fas.h.i.+on of using book-plates just at the close of the seventeenth and opening of the eighteenth century; and not only to using them, but also to putting a date on those used. It is a fact that it is more rare to find book-plates engraved in this particular style without dates than with them.

The fas.h.i.+on of 'dating,' as a rule, went out about the year 1714, about the time at which, as we shall see, a new 'style' in book-plates became generally adopted. Anonymous book-plates are rare after this date, though, both in England and on the Continent, they were, in early times, certainly common--a fact which bears silent testimony to the much greater intimacy which people in the good old days had with their neighbours' armorial bearings. The coat of arms of a man of position was almost as well known to those dwelling about him as were the features of his face; and if a volume, having within it an Armorial book-plate, happened to be found in wrongful custody, the finder might recognise the heraldry of the owner, even if he could not read the inscription recording that owners.h.i.+p.

So much for the early use of book-plates in England. In the next chapter I propose to say something about the leading styles of decoration employed by their designers.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] There are two sizes of this book-plate.

[5] Report by the Historical MSS. Commission on the papers of the Duke of Rutland.

CHAPTER III

'STYLES' IN ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES

LORD DE TABLEY has given us names for nearly all the styles met with in English book-plates, and it is perhaps better to accept these descriptions in the present work, adding to them another--'Simple Armorial'--for the earliest plates, and, indeed, for the great majority of those anterior to 1720.

It is not only in book-plates that we see this style adopted: it is used in almost every representation of s.h.i.+elds of arms in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, be it on a memorial bra.s.s, in sculpture, or on a stained gla.s.s window. The style is simple and effective. The s.h.i.+eld, nearly always symmetrical, is surmounted by a helmet, on which is the wreath and crest. From the helmet is outspread more or less voluminous mantling. In the earlier examples this terminates, generally in ta.s.sels, before reaching the base of the s.h.i.+eld. In later examples its heavy folds descend quite to the base, and often ascend upwards from the helmet to the level of the top of the crest. Below the s.h.i.+eld is a narrow scroll for the motto, which is not always given, and at the bottom of all is a bracket (on which the owner's name is inscribed), having indented edges. Occasionally, but not often, the mantling, instead of being foliated, hangs from the helmet in stiff folds at the back of the s.h.i.+eld, its upper corners being tied up and ta.s.selled. The book-plate of Thomas Knatchbull, dated in 1702 (shown on p. 51), is a very fair, though not a very early, example of this style. In some instances the s.h.i.+eld is placed on one side--its right hand upper corner being thus brought to the centre of the helmet. The Simple Armorial style was, roughly speaking, not much used after 1720.

Besides the book-plates described in the foregoing chapter, nearly all of which belong to the 'Armorial' style, there are sundry others worthy of particular observation, should the reader meet with them. There is, for instance, the book-plate of 'The Right Hon^{ble} James, Earl of Derby, Lord of Man and ye Isles, 1702'; the grandson of _the_ James, seventh Earl, who suffered for his loyalty, and of the gallant Charlotte Tremouille. This is a large and very striking book-plate in every way; its size makes possible the introduction of some fine bold work, which is rendered even more effective by the fact that the arms portrayed are simply those of Stanley; so that there is no crowding in of quarterings.

The decoration is that common to the book-plates of peers, or of other persons ent.i.tled to use supporters at the time: the mantling spreads from the helmet, and terminates at the heads of the supporters; these stand upon the motto-scroll. There is a smaller variety of this book-plate--one of the ordinary size--which is not so pleasing. When Earl James died, in 1736, the Earldom of Derby devolved on his kinsman, Sir Edward Stanley, Bart., whose book-plate, larger and finer than that just described, is really a very beautiful piece of work in the Jacobean style; the arms are Stanley impaling Hesketh, and the size of the book-plate is 6-5/8 5-1/4 in.

Similar examples of large-sized book-plates are furnished by those of 'The Honourable Iames Brydges of Wilton Castle, in Hereford Shere'

(where the effect is somewhat marred by the number of quarterings displayed); 'Sir William Brownlowe of Belton, in the County of Lincoln, Baronet, 1698,' and his wife 'Dame Alice Brownlowe;' Lord Roos and his wife, Lady Roos; 'Paul Jodrell of Duffield, in y^{e} County of Derby, Esq^{r}, Clerk of y^{e} Hon^{ble} House of Commons'--a particularly bold piece of work; and 'S^{r} John Wentworth of North Elmeshall, in the West Rideing of Yorks.h.i.+re, Baronet.' It is probable that all these, and other large-sized English book-plates, also exist, or existed, in the ordinary size (see pp. 18, 19). The largest English book-plate, and one which, from its unusual size, is certain to attract attention, is that of 'Simon Scroope of Danby-super-Yore, in com. Ebor., Esq., 1698'; here, too, much of the good effect is lost by the number of quarterings (no less than twenty-seven) introduced upon the s.h.i.+eld.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I referred, at the close of the previous chapter, to the large number of English book-plates engraved during the last two years of the seventeenth century and first ten of the eighteenth. The great majority of these book-plates are in the 'Simple Armorial' style, and there is upon these a very great similarity in the way in which that style is represented; indeed, they may well have been, all of them, the work of less than a dozen artists. Any distinctive feature that exists is to be found in the treatment of the mantling. For instance: it is finely cut on the book-plates of Nicholas Penny, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Roos, and 'John Sayer of Hounslow, in the County of Midd., Esq^{r},' all dated in 1700; on the Sayer plate the inscription is enclosed in a Jacobean scroll; it is heavy, and stiffly cut in the book-plates of James Bengough, Richard Newdigate, Sir William Hustler, and John G.o.dfrey, all dated in 1702; it is leaflike and graceful on the book-plates of William Thompson and Francis Columbine, dated in 1708, and of Thomas Rowney, dated in 1713, whilst the book-plate of 'Gostlet Harington of Marshfield, in the Coun. of Glocester, Gent., 1706,' is unique, the mantling being cut like strawberry leaves. There is a peculiar effect produced by the way in which this example is printed, and the lettering of the inscription is also unusual.

There is one of these book-plates which the reader should notice from the peculiar arrangement of the decorative accessories, occasioned by the fact that the owner was both a spiritual and temporal peer. I refer to that of 'Nathanael Crewe, Lord Bishop of Durham and Baron Crewe of Stene, 1703.' Here the mantling springs from the helmet, rises to the level of the crest, and terminates at the heads of the supporters; a baron's coronet appears instead of a mitre, and behind the s.h.i.+eld are a crozier and sword in saltire, the decoration of the head of the crozier being so like the form of the mantling that it seems, at first sight, to be part of it.

The 'Jacobean' style is far more ornate than that last mentioned, and the book-plate of 'John Reilly of the Middle Temple, Esqr.,' is a fair example of the best kind of Jacobean work. The escutcheon is raised on an elaborate and richly-carved Jacobean sideboard; mantling is still there, but it is curtailed, and seems almost resting on the top of the sideboard, on either side of which are columns, given in high relief; on each is carved a perpendicular festoon of leaves. Below the s.h.i.+eld, crouched on the ledge of the sideboard, are two eagles with expanded wings; each holds in its beak one end of the ribbon which ties into a bunch the corners of a fringed cloth bearing the inscription already quoted; below the eagles, inverted cornucopiae pour out books upon the floor on which the sideboard stands.

This plate may probably be dated very early in the eighteenth century, or even late in the seventeenth, since it is recorded that John Reilly's signature, with the date '1679,' occurs in a book in which it is fastened. To whichever date it belongs, the Simple Armorial style was then in general use,--that is to say, so far as the book-plates of private individuals are concerned. These, as we have just seen, nearly all bear a helmet, varying according to the owner's social rank, and from that falls the mantling, more or less elaborate. But if we look at the book-plates, dated in or about the year 1700, of certain colleges at Oxford or Cambridge, at ladies' book-plates of the same period,--none of which, of course, display a helmet,--and at some others in which the arms are given in an oval, we see that the blank on either side of the s.h.i.+eld (consequent upon the absence of the helmet from which the mantling would fall) is supplied by work distinctly Jacobean. Lord De Tabley, whose descriptions in justification of the names he has bestowed upon the several styles we shall not hesitate to quote in this chapter, thus describes this work:--

'To supply this void in decoration, a distinct frame was placed round the escutcheons, and this framework was ornamented with ribbons, palm branches, or festoons.

'The prominent or high-relief portions of this frame were not set close to the edges of the escutcheons, but between it and them; an interval of flat-patterned surface nearly always intervened, in which, as upon a wall, the actual s.h.i.+eld was embedded. This we shall call the lining of the armorial frame; and we shall find this lining is usually imbricated with a pattern of fish-scales, one upon another, or diapered into lattice-work. The scale-covered or latticed interval of lining is the characteristic of the style... . Another step in the external decoration was to add a bracket, distinct from the frame, upon which the s.h.i.+eld, in its frame, was supposed to rest. This bracket naturally initiated the decorative art and surface arrangement of the s.h.i.+eld-frame.'