Without quarrelling with the name book-plate,--as applied to the marks of ownership pasted into books,--and without wasting time with discussion of suggestions for a better one, it may be admitted that the word is not altogether happily chosen. It perhaps suggests to the mind of the 'uninitiated' an illustration in a book rather than a mark of possession. But then at the present day there are not many 'uninitiated' amongst either buyers or sellers of books and prints, so that the inappropriateness of the name need not concern us. As to its antiquity, that is doubtful; but probably one of the earliest instances of its use, in print, occurs in 1791, when John Ireland published the first two volumes of his _Hogarth Illustrated_. In this work he says that the works of Callot were probably Hogarth's first models, and 'shop bills and _book-plates_ his first performances.' Again, in 1798, Ireland refers to the 'book-plate' for Lambert the herald-painter, which Hogarth had executed. In 1823, a certain 'C. S. B.,' writing in the pages of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, refers to what 'are generally called' book-plates. His letter was suggested by an article--a review of Thomas Moule's _Bibliotheca Heraldica_--in the previous number of the magazine, the writer of which was evidently not familiar with the term book-plate as we now apply it, for he calls book-plates 'plates of arms.' We shall see, later on, that this is quite an inappropriate name; some of the most interesting and the most beautiful book-plates have nothing armorial about them. On the Continent, the term _ex libris_ is generally applied to book-plates. This is, perhaps, even less appropriate than book-plate. It is taken from the two first words of the inscription on a great many book-plates, when the inscription is written in Latin--_e.g._ 'ex libris Johannis Stearne, S.T.P. Episcopi Clogherensis.' A moment's reflection will show that this inscription is not intended as a declaration by the book-plate (should it ever become severed from the book in which it was fastened) that it came out of a book belonging to Bishop Stearne; but that it is a declaration by the _book_ in which the book-plate is found pasted, that that particular book is from amongst the books of a particular library, and ought to be restored to it. It would be as rational to call book-plates '_libri_,' because the inscription on them often begins--as in a very famous German book-plate--'_Liber Bilibaldi Pirckheimer_.' It may, indeed, be laid down as a general rule, that whatever the sentiment expressed on a book-plate, it is clearly intended to be uttered by the book in which the book-plate is fixed, not by the book-plate itself.