American Book-Plates. Allen Charles Dexter

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СКАЧАТЬ its close, when Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were active in publishing books, the engraver found work more plenty, and very many who were employed upon the plates for the illustration of books also produced book-plates.

      Nathaniel Hurd was the principal engraver of book-plates in the North before the war, though Thomas Johnson, who was born before him and who also died before he did, made some plates, while Turner and Paul Revere were also working at this period.

      Henry Dawkins, in Philadelphia, came over from England, and so did the elder Maverick, who made so many plates for the New Yorkers.

      The literary plates are smaller in number than we could wish, and they do not show a wide range of ideas either. Very probably some of the designs were borrowed from English plates, and were produced over again for different customers, or were freely copied by other engravers who liked, or who found customers who liked, the design of others. The plate used by George Goodwin is one of four of this same design. The shelf of books is also seen in the plate of G. C. M. Roberts, M.D., Thomas Robbins, and the

      Elijah F. Reed, which is a direct reproduction of the Robbins. Piles of books, but not the regulation “Book-pile,” are seen in the Brown and Lewis plates, while the only real library interiors are the Tayloe plate, the Moral Library and the Village Library (Farmington, Conn.). John Allan, the old-book lover of New York, used a plate with an open book against an anchor, and the plate of Edmund Penn shows a love for books in the dainty volumes disposed about the frame.

      The patriotism of our book-lovers is shown in very many designs, which use the American flag or the eagle. The thirteen stars also, the motto of the United States, and various private mottoes of a very patriotic nature, are frequently used.

      It is noticeable that as compared with the Southern plates there are but few of the Northern examples which give the address or residence of the owner; that is, speaking of the armorial plates, the printed name labels give these particulars quite often.

      The Jared Ingersoll plate gives New Haven as the residence of the owner, while Rhode Island follows the name on the plate of Samuel Elam. Other Northern plates which are so engraved are the Colonel Eustace of New York, Comptroller Elliston also of New York, Lenox of Philadelphia, Atlee of Lancaster, John Franklin, Boston, New England, and Robert Hale of Beverly. Of the Southern plates, Wormeley, Waller, Tuberville, Tazewell, Skelton, Randolph, and Ludwell

      give Virginia as their residence; Drayton names South Carolina, the Dr. Cabell plate names Richmond, and the John Walters Gibbs names Charleston, S.C. The plates used in the West Indies also show the residence quite often. There, too, as well as in the Southern colonies, the profession or position of the owner, as well as the London law school in which he was educated, are often given. Thus we have William Blanc, Middle Temple, Dominica; Chas. Pinfold, LL.D., Governor of Barbadoes; Peyton Randolph of the Middle Temple, London; Francis Page of the Inner Temple Esqr.; William Assheton of Gray’s Inn. In the Northern examples we find John Gardiner of the Inner Temple, and Jonathan Belcher, E Societate Medij Templi.

      We note also in running through the List that the occupations most often noted on the book-plates are those of the medical and the legal profession. Barristers, lawyers, and attorneys are often so named, and the initials M.D., or the full word Doctor, are seen.

      The abbreviations of other degrees are found also, and the plates of clergymen are not uncommon.

      Several plates remain unnoticed in the following pages, which are probably American, but which, for lack of positive information, it is thought best not to include. Among these is an early Dutch plate which, if it could be accurately traced to its original owner, might prove to be one of the earliest plates used in America.

      It seems that a word is needed in defence of the perfectly legitimate and gentle pursuit of collecting book-plates. A great deal of sarcasm and indignation have found their way into the columns of periodical literature, particularly in England, the especial purpose of which is to trouble the humble collector, and to discredit him in the eyes of the world. He is pointed out as a destroyer of valuable books, as an animal so greedy in the pursuit of his insignificant prey as to ruin elegant bindings that he may secure worthless bits of paper, and as actually so devoid of good sense as to remove such of these as are interesting – for it is reluctantly admitted that some interest does attach to the plates used by certain men of fame in historical annals – from their rightful place within the covers of the very books read and handled by these illustrious owners.

      Let it be remembered that but a small part of the many books published have a permanent value, and that a book once eagerly sought may outlive its usefulness, and come to have a commercial value of so much a pound as old paper, instead of so much a copy in different styles of binding. Surely, no one can quarrel with the collector who removes the book-plate, found within it, from such a worn-out specimen, even if the removal necessitates the ruin of the cover. But to remove a book-plate does not necessarily mean to ruin the cover; it requires some skill and considerable patience to remove a valuable plate without injury to either itself or the cover upon which it was pasted, but it is done daily. Surely no one can find fault with this – a skilful operation resulting satisfactorily to the plate-collector and to the book-owner.

      Again, no intelligent book-plate collector will separate the plate of a famous man from the book which has been its home for years, and which was once handled and read by its famous owner. Even a worthless book will thus be saved by the collector, which was fit but for the fire or the ash-heap, and which would have gone thither, plate and all, save for his discriminating eye, while a valuable book no one would think of despoiling. Would an intelligent collector, having a book from the library of George Washington, with his plate upon the cover and his autograph in its accustomed place, think of soaking off the plate and cutting out the signature? Not at all; no matter how worthless the book might chance to be, the fact that it was Washington’s is sufficient to insure it from any harm, while the presence of the autograph and the book-plate but adds to the value as establishing beyond peradventure the original ownership.

      The book-plate collector is naturally a book-lover. He must not be accused or suspected of crimes against his own kith and kin. He is a harmless and useful specimen of the genus collector, who with assiduity, perseverance, and intelligence seeks to preserve these memorials of past days, which in the rage for indiscriminate collecting were overlooked, and are but now beginning to receive the attention they are worthy of.

      It is, however, to be admitted that at first glance, the general reader who has not developed a special liking for the things of the past in history, art, or biography, may see no especial interest in book-plates. But let him examine a collection of good plates with their intelligent owner, who can point out to him the facts worthy of note; let him once understand that celebrated artists like Albrecht Durer, Jost Amman, William Hogarth, William Marshall, George Vertue, Bewick, Bartolozzi, and even Raphael Morghen were willing to devote time and taste to the designing or engraving of the book-plate; let him handle some of their work, and reflect upon the effort the master considered so small a design worthy of; let him see the plates of some of the noted names in history, art, letters, medicine, the sciences, and the professions; let him take in his hands the plates of William Penn, the friend of the Indian and benefactor of his race, of Laurence Sterne, of David Garrick, of Horace Walpole, of Samuel Rogers, of Charles Dickens, or of George Washington, of John Adams, and Charles Carroll, signers of the Declaration; let him see a plate engraved by Paul Revere whose services in the Revolution he has known of from his schooldays; – let him see these and scores more of similar interest, and he cannot fail to respond to the enthusiasm of their owner. But indeed it is a pursuit, the delights of which are discernible to those only who bring to it the capacity for such pleasures.

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