A G1JIDE TO THE STUDY OF BOOK-PLATES.* "Ix France alone,"

says the author of this book, "has the his- tory of the book-plate, from its origin to the present time, been adequately investigated." "And in France," he adds, "the

rage for collecting ex.iibris has expanded to a fall maturity ; while in Britain, such collectors are as yet a puny folk, little

more esteemed than the juvenile hoarders of postage-stamps." We hope Mr. Warren means to draw no invidious distinction between " collectors " and "hoarders," for if it is permissible to

read as much geography into or out of a postage-stamp as he clearly thinks it is to read biography into or out of an ex.libris

or book-plate, the " juveniles " would have a good deal to say for themselves. One may smile or sneer at " collectors " and " hoarders " able, but they stand or fall together. As a matter of fact, they stand, and these gentle enthusiasts may toil in their vocation contentedly. An old. Greek hexameter defends them both. To insolent sneer and haughty smile, both may reply,—

" psaitra $cuoicri xd,ots Ocuoials, drnki"."

And the moralist—but we are going too fast, as well as too far, and the indignant reader may fairly say, Never mind the moralist! What is a book-plate ?' Mr. Warren shall tell him :—

" Having," be says, "selected a volume from one of those mysterious receptacles of drift literature which stand at booksellers' doors, with the intimation, All in this box, threepence,' on a dirty piece of cardboard poised on a ragged fragment of stick, the book- bunter at home will presently inspect his new acquisition. The book is opened, and displays, pasted inside the cover, a paper label. It reads, in a plain border, William Downing, his book, 1744.' Now, in England we call such a ticket as this William Downing's book-plate, as abroad it would be called his ex-libris. In either case, the meaning is that this special volume was in 1744 William Downing's property, and no other man's ; that the book was one from among his books, an item in his library, a unit in his collection. The convenience of such s label of proprietorship, printed or engraved, led to its adoption soon -after the appearance of printed books. Books have been lost, bor- rowed, or stolen ever since type began, and a mere manuscript name is inconspicuous and easily effaced. But why make a collection of such tickets as that ?' Well, if all book-plates were as plain as William Downing's—and Lord Macaulay's was plainer, for he did not add the date—there would be no answering that question."

'But between the simplicity of "Thomas Babington Macau- lay" and the elaborate ornamentation of the Pirckeimer library plate, which faces Mr. Warren's title-page, and was designed, but siot engraved, by Albert Diirer, there is obviously room for an infinite variety of book-plates. Heraldry, as was natural, was first called into requisition as a ready mode of declaring the pro- prietorship of a book; and "upon heraldry was soon engrafted

a mass of extraneous ornamentation, usually, however, supposed in some degree to be connected with the central escutcheon." We must, however, refer the reader to the book itself—which we

may here take the opportunity of saying is admirably printed and illustrated—for all that concerns this portion of the subject. A verbal description of the quaint designs of the playful book- plate inventor, apart from the designs themselves, would be intolerably tedious and scarcely intelligible. It is sufficient to say, perhaps, that on the whole they remind us of General Cranford, who, when his men took to wearing their busbies aslant, began the general order in which he forbade the practice, "All men have fancy, few taste."

Book-plates, however, allow a man to show other qualities as well as taste or fancy. Where there is room for a motto, there is room for anything, and there is obviously room for a motto on a bookplate. Here the owner can show his liberality—"Sibi et Amicis," is the motto on the Albert Diirer book-plate which we have referred to; or his niggardliness, as in, "Go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves ; " or his strong good. sense, as in the Spaniard's, " Libros y amicos, pogos y beams." But the best subject for a book-plate motto is the borrower, and • A Guido to the Study of Book-Plates (Ex-ignia). By the Ron. J. Leicester Warren, M.A. London: John Pearson.

the most amusing chapter in this book is the one headed "Mottoes Directed against Borrowers" :—

" Next to an umbrella," says Mr. Warren, "there is no item of personal property concerning the appropriation of which such lax ideas of morality are current as a book. If you neglect to return a horse, a great-coat, or a pocket-handkerchief, some social stigma will probably attach to yon, should the depredation become generally known. In the case of the book-borrowers, there is no such Nemesis. They flourish like green bay trees, and command universal respect. The broken sets which they have caused give them no twinge of con- science. The gaps, which they have left in innocent homes, break- not their sleep at nights. Their tables groan with a holocaust of odd volumes, filled with any one's ex-libris but their own."

"The ex-libris," he goes on to say, with sententious gravity, "is the mature art of book preservation ; and to engrave thereon some fulmination against the borrower is a virtuous

and commendable proceeding." From the specimens he gives of these fulminations we select two. The first is .a Latin

sapphic stanza, and if it lacks the Latinity of Horace, it does not lack the venom which the Venusian could show, at a pinch:—

" Si qnis hunc librum rapiat scelestus, Atque furtivis manibus prehendat, Pergat ad tetras Acherontis undas, Non rediturns."

The second is terse, neat, and to the point, and the best, per- haps, of the batch :—" The ungodly borroweth and payeth not again." But if this chapter is the most amusing in the book, the next, headed "Book-Plates of Historic Interest," is by far the most instructive. Yet we imagine that the process by which Mr. Warren makes it so is not quite legitimate. How can one gather from the book-plate of Matthew Prior, Esq., that this was the "thin, hollow-looked man," who used to pace round the park with Swift to make himself fat, while the Doctor walked for the opposite reason,—namely, to keep himself down.

Or how, from that of "Mr. Horatio Walpole," that this was the man who was nearly sure, a priori, to have a book-

plate—we grant indeed that he was—and whose apprecia- tion of all that was curious, abnormal, or exaggerated "piled Strawberry Hill from basement to attic with armour, painted glass, miniatures, engravings, chimney-glasses, snuff boxes, medals, intaglios, rings, a Norman suit of armour, Anne Boleyn's cluck, Sic." Doubtless, Mr. 'Warren means that, when we know who Prior and Walpole were, it is interesting to have their bookplates. But he should say so. A book-plate of historic interest, and the book-plate of a person of historic in-

terest, are not convertible terms. There are, however, in these chapters at least two book-plates of distinctly historic interest, that of " William, Penn, Esq., Proprietor of Pennsylvania, and that of Thomas Penn, of Stoke Pogeis, in the County of Bucks, First" (i.e., chief) "Proprietor of Pensilvania."

If we ask ourselves now what chance the science of Ex-libris,

as Mr. Warren with pardonable enthusiasm ealls it, has of being popular in England, we can find no answer. It has one thing in its favour. Fancy bookplates have entirely gone out of fashion. At the present day, men either follow Macaulay's example, or use their crest or coat-of-arms. Mr. Warren declines to notice any book-plates invented since George the Fourth was King. We wonder whether any book-plate has been invented at all since George the Fourth's niece has filled her

uncle's throne. It is needless to say that if our conjecture is correct, this gives the science of Ex-libris a good chance. Old

china had to be obsolete china, in order to generate a tea-pot "to be lived up to."

We do not seriously advise any one to become a collector of book-plates ; but we do most seriously and strenuously advise

every genuine lover of books to put this charming volume on his shelves. He will find his account in doing so. If we have spoken rather lightly of ex-libris themselves, we must guard ourselves against seeming to depreciate this guide to them. It

is a solid, trustworthy, and conscientious book, and worthy of all commendation.