In concluding this list of mottoes two from the Welsh can be instanced, one on the plate of a New York collector of Welshiana, which is _Cared Doeth Yr Encilic_, meaning, “_The learned love the things of the past_.” The other is on a Washington plate, and reads thus, _A fynno Dwy y Fydd_, meaning, “_What God wills, will be_.” In the list of languages used on book-plates, we must now include the Volapük, for we have the first instance of its use already in a New York plate; the motto reading, _Menad bal pukbal_, and meaning, “_One humanity, one language_.” [Illustration: Edward Penington.] [Illustration: Eugene Field.] ARMORIAL BOOK-PLATES. [Illustration: B]ook-plates admit of many kinds of extraneous ornamentation, and wholly apart from the special function of recording the ownership of books, they serve as expressions of artistic taste; they lend themselves readily to many forms of design, and have passed through several changes or “styles” in the three hundred years of their existence; they can be dignified or flippant, serious or punning, of artistic beauty or positive deformity; they can express the owner’s choice of reading and can preserve lines from his favorite authors; can convey warning or invitation, and can, in short, be made a very personal affair. The first book-plates were heraldic. In those early and, in some senses, good old days, before the schoolmaster was abroad in the land, when learning was the possession of the aristocrats and the churchmen only, and consequently when handwriting was not in use among the people, families were distinguished by emblems which were known of all. These heraldic devices were painted on their shields, carved upon their walls, engraved upon their breast-plates, woven upon their banners and their tapestries, displayed upon their own persons, upon those of their dependents, and even upon their animals and the furniture and books of their homes; even the purely ornamental and ephemeral luxuries came to be adorned with the family coat-of-arms. [Illustration: Gabriel Jones, Attorney at Law, in Virginia.] The armorial bearings, stamped upon the back or sides of a book, or printed upon paper and pasted within the cover, were sufficient, without a name, to identify the family to which it belonged. Libraries descended from father to son, and were kept intact for generations; and the family arms and motto were the most appropriate label possible.