A Guide to the Study of Book-plates (ex-libris)

Dr. William King died in 1729, so that if Kane O'Hara etched his portrait from life, he may have well executed this ex-libris.

A very exceptional book-plate is signed F. June, 1745. A brief notice of this engraver occurs in Bryan, who dates him in 1760. The ex-libris would certainly pass at first sight for a foreign one. The frame-work of the shield is the foreign analogue of Chippendale, which may be called Rococo. The landscape accessories, a birch tree on the right, a cypress on the left, with a brook flowing out from underneath the escutcheon frame, are at this period on the English book-plate most unusual. A single cupid is seated as a quasi-supporter on the right of the shield. The plate is anonymous, but belongs to the Herbert family. ArmsPer pale az. and gu. three lions ramp. ar. Crest-A wyvern, wings elevated, vert, holding in the mouth a sinister hand, couped at the wrist, gu.

R. Mountaine appeared as a very prolific engraver of book-plates about 1745 or 1750. He was a neat artist in the early and hardly developed Chippendale style, and in a curious arabesque fashion of his own. He did not date his ex-libris, some fourteen of which are here catalogued. The collector will do well to endeavour to complete the list of his works. I know of no particulars respecting Mountaine's life.

William Hogarth engraved about 1720, quite at the beginning of his career, two book-plates at least. One of John Holland, heraldic artist, and another of George Lambert, the scene painter. Both are in the allegoric style.*

Certain ex-libris in our list of the names of Jones, Jolliffe, Collyer, and Russell, are signed W. H., and have been erroneously attributed to Hogarth. These plates

*See p. 44. His other small plates, such as Ellis Gamble's, &c., are trade-cards, tickets, impressions from tankards, &c., and do not come into the category of ex-libris.

are none of them earlier than 1745, at which time Hogarth was better employed than on such small work as this. They must be assigned to one William Hibbart, whom Bryan mentions as residing at Bath in 1750 and etching portraits in the manner of Worlidge. This W.

Hibbart, moreover, signs his name in full with this very date, 1750, on the book-plate of Deburgh, Earl of Clanricarde.

Of Thomas Worlidge, an eminent name, incidentally mentioned above, I have only as yet seen the book-plate of the Hon. Henrietta Knight, in the Jacobean style, of about 1735. Worlidge signs the ex-libris in full.

There is a pictorial ex-libris of Andrew Lumisden, signed by that eminent engraver Sir Robert Strange, which dates about 1750, early in that artist's career.*

Notices will also be found in Bryan's Dictionary of the following occurrent names :-J. Cole, G. Terry, W. H. Toms, John Wood, &c. It may be noted that, as compared with our list of foreign engravers, few designers' names occur on the English book-plates of this period. I can only name three -Gravelot, Ross, Hains.

In the list itself, which now follows, the first column presents the engraver's name, just as it appears on the exlibris itself; at times with the fore-name omitted, at times merely in initials. The second column gives the technical term, usually abbreviated, by which the artist's execution of the special book-plate is recorded. The third column declares the name of the owner of the ex-libris; or, where this is anonymous, some motto, heraldry, or initials, whereby it may be identified. The fourth column is a rough at ́tempt to indicate the style or subject of the ex-libris. The

*See, to explain this association, Memoirs of Sir Robt. Strange, engraver, and of his brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden, private secretary to the Stuart Princes, &c., by James Dennistoun, (with plates), 2 vols, 8vo, 1855.

descriptive terms, used in the column for this purpose, are—Armorial; Jacobean; Chippendale; Allegoric; Pictorial; or book-plates bearing various picturesque adjuncts, which are not classible either as landscapes or allegories; Landscape; Transitional, that is to say, the Jacobean style passing into the Chippendale. Flowers, Festoons, Chinese; and a few others. When this column is left blank, the style or subject were not noted at the time of the book-plate's inspection. In both lists of English engravers I am greatly indebted to the valuable assistance and cooperation of the Rev. T. W. Carson, whose fine collection supplies no inconsiderable quota of the names.

TABULATED LIST OF ENGLISH ENGRAVERS.