literature. In any case, these and the few other instances there may be of the inscription referring to the book-plate and not to the book, seem hardly sufficient to make ex libris a good name for book-plates in general.

Our ancestors, of degrees more remote than grandfather, do not appear to have referred to book-plates at all, so we are unable to learn by what name they would have called them. Pepys, in 1668, speaks of going to his 'plate-maker's,' and there spending 'an hour about contriving' his 'little plate' for his books. This 'little plate' still exists, and is a characteristic one; it shows us the initials 'S. P.,' with two anchors and ropes entwined. But we shall speak again of this, and Sam's other book-plates, later on.

SIR THOMAS ISHAM'S BOOK-PLATE, BY DAVID LOGGAN.

David Loggan, a German born, and an engraver of some note, has, in writing to Sir Thomas Isham in 1676, a no more concise name for Isham's book-plate than 'a print of your cote of arms.' Loggan, as a return for many favours, had sent Sir Thomas a book-plate designed and executed by himself. 'Sir,' he says, in the covering letter, 'I send you hier a Print of your Cote of Armes. I have printed 200 wich I will send with the plate by the next return, and bege the favor of your keind excepttans of it as a small Niew yaers Gift or a aknowledgment in part for all your favors. If anything in it be amies, I shall be glade to mend it. I have taken the Heralds painter's derection in it; it is very much used amongst persons of Quality to past ther Cotes of Armes befor ther bookes instade of wreithing ther Names.'

The 'Heralds painter' was, unfortunately, wrong in his treatment of the Isham 'coat,' and so Loggan's work, artistic as it might be, could not be acceptable to Sir Thomas, to whom a mistake in the family escutcheon was no light matter. This he evidently told David, who, a few days after, writes to him again:—

'I ame sorry that the Cote is wronge; I have taken the herald's derection in it, but the Foole did give it wrong.... The altering of the plate will be very trubelsom, and therfor you will be presented with a newe one, wich shall be don without falt, and that very sudenly. And if you plase, Sir, to give thies plate and the prints to your Brothers, it will serve for them.'

These Isham book-plates are really very beautiful pieces of work. A reproduction of one of them may be seen on the foregoing page. This is evidently the one first executed, the omission of the mark of baronetcy—the 'bloody hand of Ulster'—and the helmet of an esquire instead of a knight or baronet clearly constituting the blunder into which Loggan had fallen. By the kindness of Sir Charles Isham, the present baronet, I have been enabled to see a copy of the corrected design sent by Loggan, which is in all respects accurate. This was doing duty as a book-plate in a volume in which it had evidently been placed at the time it was received by Sir Thomas.

Nicholas Carew, afterwards Sir Nicholas Carew, Baronet, records in his accounts, on the 19th February 1707, a payment for his book-plate, which is dated in that year, as follows:—'For coat of arms impressing, 1l. 1s. 6d.;' and a few months later is a payment 'For 300 armes, 7s. 6d.'

'The mark of my books,' is the phrase which Andrew Lumisden applies to the book-plate engraved for him by his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Strange, about the year 1746. The plate is an interesting one, and by an interesting man, of whom we shall speak later on. Lumisden thought well of it, and thus refers to the work in a letter written from Rouen, in June 1748:—'I am very anxious to know if my brother continues his resolution of coming to this country. If he does, I can luckily be of use to him in the way of his business, from the acquaintance I have of a very ingenious person, professor of the Academy of Design here ... I show'd him, a few days ago, the mark of my books, from which he entertains a high notion of Robie's abilities.'

There is a curious advertisement, quoted by Thomas Moule in his Bibliotheca Heraldica, of a certain Joseph Barber, a Newcastle-on-Tyne 'bookseller, music and copper-plate publisher,' who, in 1742, resided in 'Humble's Buildings.' In that year he engraved the 'Equestrian Statue of King James [II.],' which once stood in the Sandhill Market. If a moment's digression be allowed, the history of this statue is worth telling. On 16th March 1685, the Town Council voted £800 for the erection of 'a figure of His Majesty in a Roman habit, on a capering horse, in copper, as big as the figure of His Majesty, King Charles I., at Charing Crosse, on a pedestal of black marble.' A certain Mr. William Larson executed it; Sir Christopher Wren expressed his approval, and everybody was very pleased, for a year or two. But popular feeling soon changed in Newcastle, as elsewhere, and the prevalence of sentiments which threw the king off his throne threw his metal representation into the Tyne, where it rested till fished out to be melted down and used to make a set of church bells. The drawing of the luckless statue was safe in the keeping of Sir Hans Sloane; and from this, Barber made his engraving, which he sold for 5s. The fact that in 1742, three years before the second Scotch rebellion, this Newcastle printseller found it worth while to issue the engraving at all, is not without political significance. With his engraving, Barber issued two large plates of the arms of all the subscribers to it, each coat of arms being 1¾ inches in length, and 1¼ inches in breadth; and a few years later, it seems to have occurred to him that he might turn an honest penny by cutting up these large sheets of the subscribers' arms, so that each coat of arms became a separate plate. Having done this, he issued an advertisement to the subscribers, in which he sets forth that he is 'the sole proprietor of each of their plates,' and is willing to part with it, to the lady or gentleman whose arms are engraved thereon, 'together with one hundred prints of it on a good paper,' for the modest sum of half-a-crown. These plates, suggests Mr. Barber, might be advantageously used as what we now call book-plates, and he continues: 'The design of this proposal is a useful and necessary embellishment, and a remedy against losing books by lending, or having them stolen; by pasting one print on the inside of the cover of each book, you have the owner's name, coat of arms, and place of abode; a thing so useful and the charge so easy, 'tis hoped will meet with encouragement. To have a plate engraved will cost 10s. 6d.'

From all which it may be inferred that Mr. Joseph Barber thought—or wanted other people to think—that the idea of using a book-plate was his own. Newcastle people, in 1743, must have been very unobservant of the habits of their neighbours if they believed Mr. Barber; for the fashion of using a book-plate—which in England came in some forty years before—was by that time general throughout the country. That some of the subscribers accepted the offer, and got their 'hundred plates on a good paper' for half-a-crown, is demonstrated by the existence of copies of the plates published with the 'equestrian statue,' being still found in books, doing duty as book-plates. Very poor productions they are, reflecting but slight credit on the designer or engraver. But what Joseph lacked in art, he atoned for in enterprise; we see this in his ingenious way of getting rid of his old copper-plates, and the postscript to his