Before closing this chapter, I ought, perhaps, to say a word about Scotch and Irish book-plates. It cannot be said that in these there was ever a style distinctively national. The style fashionable in England at a particular time was also fashionable in Scotland and in Ireland; yet there is a perceptible difference in the way in which its details were carried out, especially in Scotland. In Edinburgh there were several book-plate engravers, and their work possesses a characteristic touch;[6] the 'Simple Armorial' style is rendered much more stiffly, and the shield is often round. 'Jacobean' book-plates are very uncommon, but the 'Chippendales' are an odd mixture of that style as we know it in England and the 'Jacobean.' The presence of a helmet and mantling in a 'Chippendale' book-plate engraved in Scotland is not unusual, and the shield is always very soberly placed. I do not know of a 'Library Interior' plate that hails from north of the Tweed; but, if one ever be discovered, depend upon it no Cupids will frolic there. A few Scotch book-plates are, perhaps, emblematic; that is, display emblems of the possessor's art or trade. Dr. John Bosworth's, in which are figured the staff of Æsculapius, a cock, a serpent, and an owl, is an instance of this; but allegory is almost unknown. No mythological figures sit among the floral decorations of Scotch Chippendale book-plates, as they do so frequently in later Chippendale work in England. The only instance that I can call to mind of the introduction of figures at all into the decoration of a Scotch book-plate, is that of 'Birnie of Broomhill' (_circa_ 1715), reproduced opposite, and in this the figures are sombre enough,--two ministers of 'the kirk' kneeling at their desks. Irish book-plates have even less individuality than Scotch, and are chiefly recognisable by the coarseness of their work, and their dark printing. [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [6] A list of some Scottish book-plate engravers, compiled by Mr. J. Orr, is printed in the _Ex Libris Journal_, ii. p. 41. CHAPTER IV ALLEGORY IN ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES IN the last chapter I spoke of the leading styles followed in designing English book-plates, in, as far as possible, chronological sequence, though the reader will have noticed that such styles overlapped each other, often by a considerable number of years. Concurrently with these distinct styles, or with nearly all of them, there are to be found many English book-plates which may be appropriately called 'picture' book-plates, and which may themselves be divided into two classes: those which, quite apart from the heraldry upon them, show things unreal, or combinations of things real and unreal; and those which, apart from the heraldry, show things wholly real. Let us speak, first, of the former of these divisions--'Allegoric' book-plates we will call them.