A very striking plate is used by the _University Club of Washington_. A wall of rough-faced stone is pierced by a small quatrefoil window in which [Illustration: Phœnix Society] a book is laid; the date 1891 is stamped upon the side of the book. Below this, Ionic columns support the wall; between them, in a smooth space, is carved the name and city of the club. The plate is signed _Hy. Sandham_. [Illustration: S. Hopkins] In the _Boston Public Library_ a large number of different plates is used for the volumes coming from different legacies or funds, and in very many cases these plates give a portrait of the donor. Thus we find these portraits on the plate used in the books from the Ticknor Fund, the Phillips Fund, and the Franklin Club Fund. The books remaining from the library of Thomas Prince are also marked with a plate which gives his portrait and a picture of the old meeting-house, in which he preached, and in which the books were stored at one time. Portraits also appear upon the book-plates of the _American Antiquarian Society_, which gives that of Ginery Twichell; and the _Massachusetts Historical Society_, which has a plate giving a portrait of James Savage. The public libraries of to-day do not usually use elaborate plates in their book-covers; simple labels, with perhaps a city or corporation seal, are the common kind. [Illustration: Sam. Hill] [Illustration: ·GEORGE·ALEXANDER·MACBETH· ·PITTSBURGH·PA·] BOOK-PLATES OF SPECIAL INTEREST. [Illustration: S]everal reasons can be given for the fact that collectors regard some book-plates as of more value than others. With book-plates, as in other lines of collecting, rarity is a desirable feature, and is a prominent element in deciding values. All of our early American plates can fairly be called scarce when compared with the foreign examples of the same period, for they outnumber ours, fifty to one; but many among ours are rarer than others. The _John Franklin_, brother of Benjamin, signed by Turner, is an exceeding rare plate; the _Thomas Dering_, signed by Hurd, is very rare. The plates of _Stephen Cleveland_, _Samuel Chase_, _Francis Kinloch_, _Edward Augustus Holyoke_, _John Vassal_, _Lewis De Blois_, _Lenthal_, _Apthorp_, the _John Pintard_, by Anderson, and many others are not seen in many collections. The plate of _George Washington_ is the most valuable probably of our plates; and while we know the location of a good many of his books that have the plate within the covers, they are in no way obtainable: this plate is not very common, but more copies of it are owned than of some others. [Illustration: Stephen Cleveland] The libraries of our early days, while of respectable size, were not so large as to require the printing of thousands of book-plates; fire and mob violence have destroyed many books of those old collections and their plates with them. Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, and Princeton [Illustration: Columbia College Library]