Less elaborate, yet very beautifully engraved, are the book-plates used in the Electoral Library of the Dukes of Bavaria at Munich. On one, dated in 1618, the largest variety of which is 7 inches high and 5-1/2 broad, we have the arms of the Duchy enclosed by the collar of the Golden Fleece. Winged Caryatides support the Electoral crown, whilst below is an arabesqued platform, on which is the inscription: _Ex Bibliotheca Serenissimorum Utriusque Bavariæ Ducum_, 1618. A smaller variety of this plate is figured opposite. Some twenty years later, a still larger and more ornate book-plate (10 × 7 inches) was designed for use in the same library. Here the arms are in an oval frame, surrounded by the Golden Fleece; on the right and left are inverted cornucopiæ, and the crown is held aloft by four cherubs. All the book-plates of this library exist in a great variety of design, and nearly all the varieties are found in different sizes. [Illustration] These examples are typical of many other German book-plates; the conception of the design is excellent, and its working out is equally good. In later times, the work on book-plates perhaps deteriorated, because it fell, to a large extent, into inferior hands. Yet Germany can show several very creditable examples in the eighteenth century. Some of those which give the view of a library interior are decidedly pleasing; they appear soon after the commencement of the century. The libraries represented have usually one or more mythological inmates; but, in one instance, the owner is in possession, and is seen hard at work amongst his volumes. In concluding this chapter, it may be noted that examples of name-tickets are found in Germany as in other countries. Perhaps the earliest is one (first noticed, I believe, by Mr. Weale) in a copy at the Bodleian Library of a German Psalter printed at Augsburg in 1498. This reads, 'Sum Magistri Georgii Mayrii Monacencis' [_i.e._ of Munich], with the motto, 'Melius est pro veritate pati supplicium, quam pro adulatione consequi beneficium.' The same inscription has been written in ink on the title-page, with the added date 1513, and afterwards--no doubt a few years later when the label was printed and placed in the book--crossed through. The most complete work on German book-plates that has yet made its appearance is Herr Warnecke's _Die Deutschen Bücherzeichen_, Berlin, 1890; but a work properly classifying the different styles of German book-plates, and affixing to these styles covering dates, has yet to be written. CHAPTER VII THE BOOK-PLATES OF FRANCE AND OTHER COUNTRIES