BOOK PLATES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1073, 11 March 1911, Page 9

BOOK PLATES.

Such a title as "Fragrance among old Volumes" (says the "Manchester Guardian'') is calculated to awaken pleasant associations in the mind of anyone who ;s in the way of doing research work in libraries, and the book which Air. Basil Andcrton has so christened contains many things pleasing to lovers of books, including a paper on Bewick's Book Plates. Bewick, it is known, in addition to the great mass of other work which he produced r.s an engraver, would occasionally, at the solicitation of a friend. produce a design for a book plate, and instances are known to exist to the number of between seventy and eighty. The seven examples which Mr. Andcrton has reproducer! from tho Pease Collection in the Public Library .it Newcastle-on-Tyne are, no doubt, favourable specimens: at any rate, the glimpses they give of old towers and of trees overhanging Norman gateways, of backgrounds with boats at sea wr windmills bickering along tho hills, are very pleasing, and show how much artistic charm Bewick could put into work which he sccins to have thrown olf verv light!,*.

That ho very highly of the clients who from time to time applied to him for a book plate—although Horace Walpolc and Southey were among them —is not to be believed. He speaks of them as "the book-mad gentry." And, indeed, in addition .to their valuo a? a certificate that a parti-iular volume

has como from somo historic collodion, the chief use of book plates is to marl; ownership 111 rare volumes. When such a volume passes into new hands tho old plato can lio easily soaked olf, and whatever mark has been left on the board can be covered with the new book plate. Beyond that they aro merely interesting and ornamental. The extent to which book plates are used for purposes of ornament was one of the things brought out by tho publication m ltlOO of a quarterly magazine, "Tho Book of Book Plates," which, when three years later it extended its scopo and took tho new title of "Hooks and Book Plates," received a new lease of life. It contained many artistic examples of ex-libris which were used by readers simply that liieir ownership in their books might be marked bv a beautiful design. It is an innocent ambition enough; nevertheless to the ordinary reader who looks upon his boons not without affection but yet with a matter-of-fact eye book plates are somewhat of a vanity. Such a reader has not only 110 compunction in registering his namo upon the spare loaf of a book, but sometimes considers whether or not it may be expedient to add other marks which from time to time lie may hear suggested. Pcnn advised a friend to mark also the prico he paid for each book, although as a nilo if a reader finds himself solvent after tho purchase he s content to forget the price. Others are for marking tho date of purchase, which is a useful practice for those who are interested in tho history of the growth of their collcction. Others still would mark tho dato of reading. Such practices aro in tho ?yes .of the book plato purist mero barbarism, but tho average man is content with lv ping his title-page clear. There js one, however, which even the average man should eschew. It is that of marking tho date when lie, began to read and tho dat-c when lie completed his reading. This calling attention to the time a person has taken to finish a hook puts a reader upon his mettle to make tho timo as short as possible, and turns out tho lightning reader of the sort who boasts that lie read Bacon's "ftjsa.vs" in a Sunday afternoon, and only took four days to Lotze's "Microcosmus." Nor must Maeaulay's example bo invoked to justify the practice. Macaulay is no model for the ordinary reader. Consider this quotation from a letter of him. "During tho last thirteen months I have read /Eschylus twice: Sophoclcs twice, Euripides once, Pindnr twice, Caliimaehus, Anollonius llhcdius, Q.uintus Calaber, Theocritus twice, ' Herodotus, Tlmcydides, almost all Xenophon's works, almost all Plato, Aristotle's 'Polities' and a good deal of his 'Organon,' besides dinning elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch's Lives, about half of Lueian, two or three books of Athenaeus. Plautus twice, Terence twice, Lucretius twice, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Lucnn, Statius, Silius, Italicus, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Sallust, Caesar, and, lastly, Cicero." Ye gnds! and incidentally he was governing India.