The plate of Mrs. Susan Denison Gallaudet of Washington, D.C., which represents an old doorknocker, also refers to a matter of personal history which is of interest. Colonel George Denison, an ancestor in the eighth generation, the builder of a fort at Stonington, Conn., the purpose of which to supply a place of refuge for his family and his neighbors in case of hostilities on the part of the Indians, Some fifty years after the fort was built, a house was erected upon its site, and on its western side shingles were placed which had been previously used on the demolished fort. The old house is standing to-day, or at least it was a dozen years and on its front door is a curious old iron knocker, whose antique appearance caught Mrs. Gallaudet's attention upon the occasion of a visit to this interesting locality. From the sketch which she then made, several reproductions in brass were formed, which adorn the homes of various members of the family. It occurred to Mrs. Gallaudet that this old knocker would make a fitting emblem for a bookplate, not only on account of its historical and family associations, but also because the knocker at the door of the book makes quite a happy device, and an uncommon one. The plate is etched by Mr. Howard Sill, of the Washington Book-plate Society.
Mr. John H. Buck of New York City, an authority on old plate and stained glass, and the author of a valuable work entitled Old Plate (New York, 1888), uses a book-plate of charming design, which needs a word of explanation to bring out its • historic interest. Mr. Buck is by birth a Devonshire man, and his father was, at the time of his birth, the second master of the old school founded by Peter Blundell, and within whose venerable walls, John Ridd, as all who have read Lorna Doone will remember, learned the rudiments.
In his bookplate, Mr. Buck, who is familiar with all the legends of the school and its vicinity, has had pictured the present appearance of this noted school. One who looks for them will find the spot in the walk where the founder's initials are sunk in big cobblestones, and the triangle upon which John Ridd put up so brave a fight. It will be interesting also to relate that the author of Lorna Doone attended this school at the time when the owner of the plate was born, and that he, with the other scholars, was granted a half-holiday in honor of the occasion. The tall cupola which is seen in the plate once crashed through the roof into the rooms below, narrowly missing putting an end to the little life so famously inder its insecure foundations. The letters P. B. stand for the founder of the school, and the date 1604 records the date of the founding; while in other parts of the frame are disposed the arms of Blundell, the seal of old Tiverton, the arms of the state of New York, and those of the owner. The design has been most successfully engraved by Mr. J. Gill of New York City.
Some book-lovers consider with good reason that the book-plate should record their own personal likes and bents, their own interesting bits of personal history, or even their own features for future, as well as present-day, collectors to prize. Indeed, the portrait plate is altogether too uncommon. Public libraries sometimes commemorate the donor of an alcove by using his features on the book-plate, and now and then one comes across an individual owner who uses a portrait plate. It is a custom that should be encouraged; for as the book-plate is seen to reach its highest type when made to convey some meaning, it surely is fully permissible to have the face and autograph of the bookman on his own plate, which is to mark his own books. Mr. William H. Gaylord, President of that flourishing association of book-lovers, the Rowfant Club of Cleveland, Ohio, uses a plate which not only shows his features, but indicates in no uncertain way his favorite habit of reading in bed. It was the late Eugene Field, in his delightful Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, who said, " I piled at least twenty chosen volumes on the table at the head of my bed, and I dare say it was daylight when I fell asleep," which he did, with a copy of Villamaria's fairy stories in his hands. Going on to enlarge upon the delights of reading in bed, the author says : —
"... observation has convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I fully believe with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated until it has been slept with, and dreamed over."
He goes on to show that Cicero (not Kikero) was a great bed-reader, and he deduces the fact from a quotation in which occurs the word pernoctant.
Mr. Gaylord, in casting about for a subject, decided upon testifying to his personal endorsement of the views of Field and Cicero, and he has shown in his exceedingly interesting plate the attitude beloved of Field and himself, and the words of Cicero by Field believed to prove the attraction this habit of reading in bed had for that worthy orator. Field pictures him unrolling scroll after scroll of his favorite literature, as, propped up on his couch, he only stops to mutter maledictions upon the slave who has let the lamp run low, or has neglected to trim the wick. In his plate, Mr. Gaylord shows that he is his own torch-bearer, and, as one glances about the little nook, its unmistakable snugness and cosiness cannot fail to be apparent. The books of his choice are within reach, the fragrant weed offers its solace, and the black night stays outside the leaded window, peeping through at the flickering flame of the dip.
In the plate of Dr. J. M. Thompson of Boston, Mass., the observer will at once note those accessories which plainly denote the student of medicine, the man devoted to science. Here again is an example of a design which carries with it some indication of the owner's bent of mind, which is a pleasing thing to do upon the book-plate. This is engraved by Richard Cathie.
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