American Book-Plates. Allen Charles Dexter

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СКАЧАТЬ and wood-carving on furniture and mantels, and even on outside cornices, a certain form of garland or festoon tied with ribbon which we call “Colonial”; in a general way this resembles the decoration features of the Ribbon and Wreath book-plate. From wall-pins with fancy oval or round heads, festoons of flowers depend above the shield; branches of holly and palm, often tied with a ribbon whose fluttering ends bear a motto or the name, are crossed beneath the shield, and their graceful sprays extend up either side. Some of the festoons are rich with blossoms, others, more slender, are of leaves only, while a few are made of cloth; the full garlands are usually hung from above the shield, while the thinner style is draped in any place and manner acceptable to the designer, and with more or less of gracefulness, as his skill permitted. This style of plate calls for nothing more than its legitimate features to render it effective and satisfactory, and in general the plates are in the pure style; but in some of the New York plates, there are books, writing materials, and bits of landscape introduced under the shield.

      The Thomas Johnston plate by Maverick is a fine example of this style. Maverick was the most prolific worker in the Ribbon and Wreath, while Callender and Rollinson also used it very largely. The Prosper Wetmore plate by Maverick, the John Sullivan by Callender, and the Horatio Shepherd Moat by Rollinson, are all excellent examples.

      PICTORIAL AND ALLEGORICAL BOOK-PLATES, AND PLATES OF COLLEGES LIBRARIES, AND SOCIETIES.,

      DESIGNS which are wholly pictorial or which are meant to convey meaning by their symbolism are not very numerous with us. This style of design is no better suited to the plates of public libraries, schools, and societies, than to those of individuals, but nearly all of our early examples of this style are found to belong to the former class.

      One of the early personal plates of this kind is that of James Parker, who was a collector of curios, medals, and books. He was a conductor on the old Western Railroad, and ran the first train between Worcester and Springfield. This plate is fully described in the List.

      Of an entirely different style is the plate engraved by Harris for Henry Andrews. This is pictorial, introducing classical features, but hardly rising to the height of allegory. The plate of Bloomfield McIlvaine is also pictorial, and probably allegorical, as the figure seems to represent History. In the Samuel Parker plate we have

      allegory with a label to identify it; for the bank on which the muse of History reclines is labelled Clio. A very peculiar pictorial plate is that of Edward Pennington, which seems to represent an overflowing reservoir.

      The plates of McMurtrie, Kip, Mann, Russell, Swett and Hooper are good examples of the class. Examples could be given at greater length, but as all are carefully described in the List, the reader is referred to it.

      The most interesting of the old society and

      library plates are the three of the New York Society Library, the two of the libraries in Farmington, Conn., and that of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

      In the plates of the Society Library allegory is rampant. Minerva appears in all of them, and in the two by Maverick is the principal figure. In both of these she appears to an American Indian, whose attitude shows his deep appreciation of the benefits of education as offered by the resplendent goddess. In one case she is represented as having just arrived from Olympus, and is still encircled by clouds; in the other, she seems quite at home in the alcove of the library, and has taken a suitable volume from the shelf for the use of the savage. In the plate by Gallaudet for this library the allegory is extended, and other prominent inhabitants of the abode of the celestials are present. The arts and sciences which the books of the library treat of are represented by implements and symbols easily recognized.

      The plate of the Monthly Library in Farmington also uses allegory. The designer and engraver of this plate was Martin Bull, an old deacon in the village, who was quite an interesting man. He was a goldsmith, a maker of silver buttons, and spoons; a manufacturer of saltpetre when needed by the army, a conductor of church music, town treasurer for eight years, clerk of probate for thirty-nine years, a strong patriot, and a writer of long and appallingly solemn letters to the youth of the village when

      at college. The library was founded in 1795, – about as soon as our soldier-citizens could settle down into reading stay-at-homes, – and was conducted upon the plan of monthly exchanges. On the first Sabbath of the month all members would assemble in the evening and pass in their books and receive others, the choice being auctioned off. Two dollars and a half a month was thus realized, and the meeting was the event of the month to the sturdy inhabitants of the quiet town, to say nothing of the younger folk, to whom it must have afforded coveted opportunities for pleasant meetings, and quiet walks along the lanes. On the first day of the new century, January, 1801, the library changed its name to that which appears upon the book-plate, and on which the good deacon exhibited a specimen of his highest art. Previously to this date it had gone under the name of “The Library in the First Society in Farmington,” and its first book-plate, probably engraved by the good deacon, had the simple name with no pictorial accessories.

      Contemporaneously with this, another library called the Village Library, was in operation, and continued until 1826, when it was merged with a third. This library also had a book-plate, but it was undoubtedly beyond the powers of the engraver of its forerunners. In this we see the interior of a room, in which a young lady patron of the library is storing her mind with those choice axioms which, if put in practice, far exceed the attractiveness of mere personal beauty; so says the couplet beneath the picture.

      Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll:

      Charms strike the sense, but merit wins the soul.

      The plate of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts is also pictorial, and represents a ship of the Society, with its missionary, approaching the shore of savage America: this plate is dated 1704, and is very curious and interesting. The society grew from the efforts of one Rev. Thomas Bray, who established thirty-nine parochial libraries in the American Colonies for the purpose of propagating the doctrines

      of the Church. In 1698, King’s Chapel, Boston, received some two hundred books from this society, which were described as “an arsenal of sound theological, ecclesiastical, and political doctrines for the Ministers of His Majesty’s Chapel.” For the prevention of loss or embezzlement, and that they might be known wherever

      found, “in every book, on the inside cover shall be these words, ‘Sub auspiciis Wilhelmi III,’ and also the Library to which they belong, thus ‘E Bibliotheca Bostoniana.’ ” This must have been in addition to the plate we are considering, as no words descriptive of particular ownership are given: possibly this plate was used in all the books belonging to the society, and the supplementary one was for use in each individual library.

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      College plates are as a general thing very plain, but the plates used by the societies supported by the students and the alumni, are often very elaborate. The early societies in Harvard and in Yale had curious and very interesting examples of the allegorical and symbolic plate.

      The Hasty Pudding Society and the Porcellian Club of Harvard College, the Linonian Society and the Brothers in Unity of Yale College, are examples. In Dartmouth College, the Social Friends Society, and in the smaller colleges numerous other fraternities and societies, used plates of simpler style.

      The books of the Library of Harvard College were marked with plates by Hurd and Bowen, as noted in the list; on these plates, the gifts of various benefactors are recorded, with the class to which they belonged, conditions regarding the gift of the books, or a statement of the fund from whose income the money for the books is derived.

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