29 AUGUST 1896, Page 25

Ladies' Book Plates. By Horne Labouchere. (G. Bell and Sons.)—The

earliest specimen of a " label " is one that bears the name of Elizabeth Pinder and the date of 1608; the first "armorial ladies' plate" that of the Dowager Countess of Bath, in 1671. Miss Labouchere gives a chronological list of names, including, we see, the plates affixed to prizes of schools. Thus a certain Miss Wrightson comes down to posterity for her "excellent answering in all the tables and notations of arithmetic" in 1791. Many more things the curious may learn from Miss Labouchere's laborious pages ; there are modern examples of no little elegance which they may be tempted to appropriate.