ENGRAVERS OF ENGLISH BOOK

PLATES.

FIRST PERIOD. (1660-1760.)

IT has been found desirable to divide the English engravers of ex-libris into two periods. It seemed incongruous to place side by side, in one and the same section, an escutcheon of William Marshall, and a fishing vignette of Thomas Bewick. The first period, therefore, will reach from the Restoration to the accession of the third George, and will comprize exactly one hundred years. Our second epoch includes the long reign of that monarch and the briefer one of his successor; it falls short of a century by some thirty years. We do not propose to take any cognizance in this essay of book-plates in date more recent than 1830, the year of George the fourth's death. For the purposes of this work such ex-libris are considered as modern, and are excluded from our consideration.

In an artistic point of view this our first period will be found to contain the lion's share of the finest book-plates in our national series. It includes all the ex-libris designed under the Jacobean influence. It embraces, moreover, all the purest and most graceful examples of that later and succeeding decorative fashion, which we have designated as the Chippendale. It is true, that, during the first decade of George the third's reign, Chippendale book-plates were still current; yet these specimens unmistakeably convince

M

us that this vogue was already past its best. In their art, as in their designs, they bear undoubted symptoms of decadence and efflorescence. By 1780, Chippendalism had become on book-plates practically a thing of the past.

When do engravers' names first begin to appear on exlibris in England? This question will suggest itself on the very threshold of the present chapter; and we may at once confess that our materials are, at present, far too imperfect to enable us to answer it with anything like precision. We can only speak as far as we know.

The earliest English book-plate carrying an engraver's signature, which has as yet come to hand, is one of a cadet of the family of Lyttelton, by the well-known William Marshall. We ascertain by his signed frontispieces that Marshall was still extensively employed down to 1650; but how long he lived after that date, I have been hitherto unable to determine. It is impossible to date a purely heraldic book-plate with any great exactness; but I believe the Lyttelton ex-libris is, at latest, of a period soon after the Restoration. It resembles in artistic details the dated plate of Nicholson of Balrath, in 1669; but the resemblance is that of an original to its copy, not of a copy to its original. The Lyttelton book-plate seems in fect some six or eight years older than the Nicholson one. Let us date it approximately in 1662.† The ex-libris itself may be thus described :-Anonymous. Arms-Quarterly, first, ar. a chev. betw. three escallops sa., differenced with a crescent on a mullet;* second, ar. a bend cotised sa. within a bordure engr. az., charged with ten plates; (and fifteen other quarterings). Crest-A moor's head in profile, couped at the shoulders, ppr. wreathed about the temples, ar. and sa. Motto-Ung Dieu, ung Roy. Shield quite plain without

*For a second son of the third house.

+ In 1659 George Tooke published the Belides Eulogie of John, Lord Harrington, Lond., 1659, 4to, with a frontispiece by Marshall.

any bordering, surmounted by a closed damascened helmet. The mantling is of fine early leaf-work, simple and unusually curved. It ends at each side in a tassel. The motto is on a detached scroll below. In left corner, Will. Marshall sculpsit. For the folio, 7 by 5 in. W.

At what ever epoch designed, this is unquestionably a fine bold example of the heraldic book-plate pure and simple.

The long gap, which intervenes before our next dated example, infers plainly enough the incompleteness of our materials. The striking example, signed by James Sartor, has been already described at p. 20, and figured in plate 5. This is not much earlier apparently than 1710. But the plate bears no date, and may possibly be older. It seems, next to Marshall's example, our most ancient book-plate with an engraver's name. Who James Sartor was, and whether domiciled in London, or only settled there for a season, I am unable to determine. There is one Jacob Christopher Sartorius, a Nuremberg engraver, whose engravings are dated between 1674 and 1737, a limit which fits exactly the probable execution of this book-plate; but I have met with no record as yet of his ever having resided in London.*

The firm ground of an engraved date, associated with an engraver's signature, is for the first time found soon after the accession of the first George, an epoch singularly late, as contrasted with the signed and dated specimens of the continent. We allude to John Pine's allegoric ex-libris, described at p. 38, and reproduced in plate 4, reading Munificentia Regia. 1715. J. Pine sc.

In the next year Michael Vandergucht appears to have executed a library label for a Westmorland Baronet, as follows:-The Paternal Arms of Sir William Fleming of

* But Bernigeroth may be cited as engraving both German and English ex-libris.