That the heraldry on some of these American book-plates should be startling, is only to be expected. Take, for instance, the very interesting book-plate of Robert Dinwiddie, Deputy-Governor of Virginia from 1751-58, which was probably engraved a few years before the earlier date. Here we have the shield divided fesse-fashion, and in the upper and lower divisions landscapes,--the first introducing an Indian archer shooting at a stag, and the lower a fort or castle with a ship at sea sailing towards it. Dinwiddie was a good servant to the English Crown both in Barbadoes and Virginia, and is said, like most successful people of his day, to be descended from an ancient family, though his immediate ancestors were Glasgow merchants. We are, however, not asked to believe, and we should not, if we were, that the arms are more ancient than Governor Dinwiddie himself, or that they _originated_ elsewhere than in his mercantile brain, though they may have been legally _granted_ by the Scotch College of Arms. The plate looks 'Scotch'--it is 'Chippendale,' and, I suspect, was engraved in the mother-country by a Scotch engraver. We may date it about 1750. There are, of course, some American book-plates specially interesting from their possessors, and foremost amongst them is that of George Washington. For its description I cannot do better than quote Mr. Allen: 'The arms are displayed upon a shield of the usual shell-like form, and the sprays and rose-branches of this style [Chippendale] are used in the ornamentation of the sides of the escutcheon. The motto, _Exitus acta probat_, is given upon its ribbon at the base of the shield, and the name is engraved, in script, on the bracket at the bottom of the design. In general appearance the plate is like scores of Chippendale plates of the period.' I am sorry to take, somewhat, from the interest which attaches to this book-plate, by saying that, as I look more closely into it and study the details of its ornamentation and its execution, I am convinced it was engraved in England and not in America; it must therefore be of an earlier date than that attributed to it. I do not think it is subsequent to 1760. Of course there is a forgery of this plate, though it was prepared, not because of the value of the book-plate, but to sell a number of books which were said to have belonged to George Washington himself, and to have been captured in Virginia. The fraud was, however, discovered. No doubt these forgeries are now palmed off as the great man's book-plate. Mr. Lichtenstein's words about the real book-plate and the sham are therefore important:--