In this entry he is called Chevalier, which accounts for the _De_ on the book-plate. This is an instance of the difficulties a collector has to contend with in deciding the period of undated plates, especially where the artist has not signed his work. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF THOMAS GUEULETTE.] Mons. Gueulette was a French novelist and dramatist, who enjoyed considerable fame in the first half of the last century. He died in December, 1766, at the ripe old age of eighty-three years, and his writings have since sunk into undeserved oblivion, although, it is true, Messrs. Nichols published a translation of his “Contes Tartares” (an imitation of the “Arabian Nights”) in 1893, but of this only a small edition was printed. His book-plate, signed _H. Becat_, is inscribed “Ex libris Thomae Gueulette et Amicorum.” It represents the Gueulette arms, with two supporters on each side, namely, an Italian Arlequin, a Tartar, a Chinese Mandarin, and a Cyclops holding an infant in his arms. Each of these figures has some reference to the works of the owner of the plate; thus, the Arlequin is in allusion to the numberless farces he wrote for the Théâtre Italien and the Théâtre des Boulevards; the other works alluded to are his “Contes Tartares” and “Les Aventures du Mandarin Fum Hoam.” The design is surmounted by a graceful little Cupid bearing aloft a scroll, on which is inscribed the epicurean motto “Dulce est desipere in loco,” which has been thus happily translated by a distinguished member of the Sette of Odd Volumes: “_Dulce_--Delightful, says the poet, _Est_--is it, and right well we know it, _Desipere_--to play the fool _In loco_--when we’re out of school.” M. Gueulette was a worthy disciple of Horace, for more than eighty years he enjoyed the work, the pleasures, and the success of life; he accumulated a large and valuable library, and his books were probably the first to be decorated with a book-plate bearing not only the arms of their owner, but also allegorical allusions to his tastes and literary labours. M. Gueulette had a second and smaller plate, signed Bellanger; this was similar in its general features, but different in many of its details to the above.