GILBERT BURNET,
Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, founder of the Harleian Society and collector of that vast accumulation of literary treasure which was purchased by Parliament and now under the name of the Harleian Collection may be seen in the British Museum, used a book-plate of the highest style of the art as developed in his day, in which his arms are shown along with nineteen other quarterings.
The plate dates somewhere about 1695, and is not readily obtained to-day.
It will be remembered that when Dean Swift used to take his exercise about the park in order to reduce his growing girth there often accompanied him, for the purpose of adding to his sparseness, that "thin, hollow looked" man, Matthew Prior,
the wit, politician, and diplomatist, of whom Swift wrote: " If his poetry be generally considered, his praise will be that of correctness and industry rather than of compass of comprehension, or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention." Rather lukewarm praise this for one who aspired to some fame as a maker of verse and who had a fine wit which surely must have brought him some measure of "invention." Anyway, Prior had a bookplate in which he called down Mars and Apollo and an angel blowing on the trumpet of fame to sit about his shield of arms, and this plate in good Jacobean style is one of considerable rarity and consequently of considerable value to the collector. John Bagford, it must be admitted, has rather an odious memory even among those who allow the followers of Granger some little claim to distinction as lovers and collectors of literary memorabilia. This man, who began life as an apprentice to a shoemaker, developed a desire for knowledge which took him from so humble a calling and sent him off on a tour through Germany and the Low Countries in search of material for a book on printing, which, however, he never wrote. The name " biblioclast" has been angrily bestowed upon him, and there seems to have been good reason for it; for not less than twenty thousand volumes passed through his hands, from which he tore title-pages, frontispieces, wood-cuts, portraits, and ornamental letters, wholly destroying some volumes and mutilating, to an extent which was actual destruction, a great many others. When one thinks of the rare books that were thus put beyond the reach of the preserving hand of the collector, of the bindings which were executed for the great bibliophiles of the past, and of the engravings of the masters now wholly gone, this destruction makes the blood boil. Among the collections of this book-killer was found the earliest known specimen of a book-plate used by an English lady. This is the plate of Elizabeth Pindar, which dates about 1608. The motto she chose was, God's Providence is mine inheritance.
There is a book-plate bearing the inscription William Cowper, Clerk of the Parliaments, which is sometimes erroneously attributed to the poet, him of Olney, the William of a greater fame. The way in which the office of clerk fell to this William Cowper, who was an uncle of the poet, is rather curious and interesting. When George I. ascended the throne, the office was held by a certain Mr. Johnson. One of the despicable creatures of the court was a man named Robethon, who succeeded in getting the office promised to him in futuro. No sooner was he possessed of this grant in certainty, than he sold the right for $9000! Upon the death of said Johnson the actual grant was made out, and the name to be placed upon it was " anybody that Robethon should name." The price named was paid by Spencer Cowper, as may be certified in the diary of his sister- in-law (Lady Mary Cowper, wife of the Chancellor, and Lady of the Bedchamber to Princess Caroline), where the transaction is entered under date of Dec. 25, 1714. Spencer Cowper gave the post to his eldest son, who held it until 1740, in which year he died. The book-plate is one of real interest in itself, being well engraved, and in the pure Jacobean style.
All lovers of books will recall the witty lines by Dr. Trapp, and the even more witty rejoinder they brought forth from Sir William Browne, the founder of the prizes for odes and epigrams at Cambridge, upon the occasion of the gift in November, 1715, from King George I. to the University of Cambridge, of some books, and the sending at the same time of a troop of horse to Oxford. Dr. Trapp wrote as follows: -
"The King, observing with judicious eyes The state of both his universities, To one he sent a regiment: for why? That learned body wanted loyalty. To th' other he sent books, as well discerning How much that loyal body wanted learning." To which Sir William made answer: -
"The King to Oxford sent his troop of horse, For Tories own no argument but force; With equal care to Cambridge books he sent, For Whigs allow no force but argument."
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