About Spanish book-plates not much is yet known, and it seems likely that the majority of examples usually classed as Spanish were designed and executed in Flanders. The family of Bouttats--the original Bouttats had, says Walpole, twenty sons, of whom twelve became engravers--executed some of these book-plates. Amongst their work is one which Lord De Tabley styles 'a gloomy yet striking heraldic study'; it is signed 'P. B. Bouttats, sculp.,' and was probably engraved about the middle of the seventeenth century. It shows us the arms of a bishop surmounted by a plumed helmet, above which again is a bishop's hat, with pendent ropes and tassels; beneath is the motto: 'Por la Leÿ Bezerra ÿ por el Rëy.' A particularly fine example of Flemish heraldic art is furnished by the book-plate engraved and signed by J. Harrewyn, of Brussels, and dated 1723; the inscription gives us quite a biographical sketch: 'Messire Charles Bonaventure, Comte vander Noot, Baron de Schoonhoven et de Mares &c^{a}; Conseiller de sa Ma^{te} Imp^{le} et Cath^{e} au souverain Conseil de Brabant par patante du 9 Mars 1713, Reçu aux Etats nobles de Brabant, fils de Messire Rogier Wouthier, en son vivant Baron de Carloo &c^{a}; et deputez ordinaire au dit corps de la noblesse des Etats de Brabant, et de Dame Anne Louÿse vander Gracht, née Baronne de Vrempde et d'Olmen, &c^{a}.' Our knowledge of Russian or Polish book-plates is chiefly derived from the illustrations shown in Monsieur S. J. Siennicki's work, entitled _Les Elzevirs de la Bibliothèque de L'Université Impériale de Varsovie_. Here we have some examples of the book-plates both of distinguished laymen and ecclesiastics. The probability is that none are of an early date, and they are certainly not conspicuous as works of art. The Russian style is perhaps the more distinct, though in many respects resembling the French, especially that shown in the more pronounced examples of the Louis XV. epoch. FOOTNOTES: [9] _Svenska Bibliotek och Ex Libris antecknigar af C. M. Carlander, med 84 illustrationer._ Stockholm, 1889, and Supplement, 1891. [10] Sixth series, vol. i. p. 2. CHAPTER VIII AMERICAN BOOK-PLATES WHATEVER an American collects, he collects well: he works with a will and energy that loosens his purse-strings in a manner which makes the acquisition of valuable specimens a comparatively easy matter. It is well, therefore, that book-plate collecting has found its way over the Atlantic, and that there is now a goodly body of American book-plate collectors who are giving the requisite amount of attention to American examples, and who are not keeping to themselves the result of their labours. In the first edition of this book I wrote: 'No doubt, ten years hence, we shall know a great deal more about American book-plates'; and already the appearance of Mr. Charles Dexter Allen's[11] interesting and carefully composed account of them has enabled me materially to improve this chapter, which I have devoted to them.