The two most distinguished names in the annals of Dutch and Flemish printing are unquestionably Plantin and the Elzevirs. A full description of the various Marks used by Christophe Plantin alone would fill a small volume, as the number is not only very great, but the varieties somewhat conflicting in their resemblance to one another; all of them, however, are distinctly traceable to three common types. Some are engraved by Godefroid Ballain, Pierre Huys, and other distinguished craftsmen. His first Mark appeared in the second book which he printed, the “Flores de L. Anneo Seneca,” 1555. His second Mark was first used in the following year, and bears the monogram of Arnaud Nicolaï. Of each of these examples we give reproductions, as also of the fine example designed for Plantin’s successors either by Rubens or by Erasme Quellin, and engraved by Jean Christophe Jegher, 1639, Plantin having died in 1589. The most famous of all Plantin’s Marks is of course that with the compass and the motto “Labor et Constantia,” which he first used in 1557. Plantin explains in the preface to his Polyglot Bible the signification of this Mark, and states that the compass is a symbolical representation of his device: the point of the compass turning round signifies work, and the stationary point constancy. One of the most curious combinations of Printers’ Marks may be here alluded to: in 1573, Plantin, Steels and Nutius projected an edition of the “Decretals,” and the Mark on this is made up of the three used by these printers, and was designed by Pierre Van der Borcht. [Illustration: C. PLANTIN. (First Mark.) EXERCE IMPERIA ET RAMOS COMPESCE FLVENTES] [Illustration: C. PLANTIN. (Second Mark.) CHRISTVS VERA VITIS] [Illustration: C. PLANTIN. LABORE ET CONSTANTIA I. C. I.] Nearly every volume admittedly printed by the Elzevir family possessed a Mark, of which this family, from Louis, in 1583, to Daniel, 1680, used four distinct examples. The founder of the dynasty, Louis (1583-1617), adopted as his sign or mark an Eagle on a cippus with a bundle of arrows, accompanied with the motto, “Concordia res parvæ crescunt”--the emblem of the device of the Batavian Republic--and as the year 1595 occurs on the primitive type of this Mark, it might be concluded to date from that period. But Willems points out that no book published by Louis in the years 1595 and 1596 carries this Mark, which (he says) figures for the first time on the Meursius, “Ad Theocriti idyllia Spicelegium,” 1597. In 1612 Louis Elzevir reduced this Mark, and suppressed the date above mentioned. For some time Isaac continued the use of the sign of his grandfather, and even after 1620, when he adopted a new Mark--that of the Sage or Hermit--he did not completely repudiate it. Bonaventure and Abraham scarcely ever used it except for their catalogues. [Illustration: THE SAGE. NON SOLUS]