Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/333

* BOOK-LICE. 295 BOOK-PLATE. BOOK-LICE. Small, pale, wingless insects of the famil}- Psocidoe. To the casual observer they closely resemble plant-lice. Some of them are very destructive of books and insect collec- tions, while other forms live in the open on lichens, maple and willow trunks, etc. One of the commonest of the book-eaters is Atropos diviiiitoria. The minute pseudoscorpions (Cheli- fer) sometimes found in old books are called 'book-scorpions.' See Bookworm. BOOK OF COMMON ORDER, The. The name of the Church uf Soothmd service, evi- dently suggested by the familiar Anglican title. Its source was that used by the Genevan English Church, and, tentatively used in 1562, it be- came general throughout Scotland in 1564. BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. See Pk.web-Book. BOOK OF MARTYRS, The. One of the most famous books in religious history. Writ- ten in Latin, by John Foxe, in 1559, it appeared in his o«-n English translation, under the title of Actes and Mnnumeiits. in 1563. though from the first popularly called the Book of Martyrs. It relates the history of persecution down to about the end of Mary"s reign. BOOK OF MORMON. A book issued in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who professed to have been led to its discovery by an angel. The gold plates inscribed with Egyptian characters, and accom- panied by magic spectacles to assist in their in- terpretation, disappeared, but Smith published a professed translation, which became the sacred book of the Latter Day Saints. The work was, in reality, simply an adaptation of the manu- script work of ISOO by a Presbyterian clergyman, Spalding, who in it attempted to identify the American Indians with the Lost Tribes. In style the book is an imitation of the Bible, from which it has borrowed many passages. It is di- vided into sixteen sections, supposed to have been written at various times, and giving a history of America from the days of the confusion of tongues at Babel until the time of Jloroni, the last survivor of his race. who. in 420 A.D., buried the plates in the hill where Smith found them. While a small colony had settled in America, according to the Book of Mormon, after the dispersion at Babel, the important immigra- tion took place in the reign of Zedekiah. about B.C. COO. In obedience to a divine command a company of sixteen people, led by Lehi. reached America. Preserving their ancient religion in its purity, they received Christianity from Christ himself, who spent the forty days after his res- urrection among them. In 384 this Cliristian nation was destroyed after a long series of wars. BOOK OF SAINT ALBANS. The title of a rhymed book on certain sports, wholly or partly written or translated by Dame •Juliana Berners, and first printed in 1486. It consisted of four parts: "Hawking," "Hunting," "Lynoge of Coate .Armiris," and "Blasying of Armys." Consult Blades. lulroduction to the Boke of .Saint Alhans (London, 1881). BOOK OF SENTENCES. A theological treatise belonging to the Twelfth Century, dis- cussing various questions relating to God, Christ, the universe, and the virtuous conduct of life. Its author was Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, later known as Magister Sententiarum, on ac- count of this work. BOOK OF SNOBS. Under this title ap. pcared in 1848 The .Snob Papers, by Thackeray, a collection of papers contributed to Punch (184:i). BOOK OF SPORTS. See Spobts, Book of. BOOK OF THE DEAD. See Dead, Book of lllE. BOOK OF THE DUCHESS. The title of a poem by Chaucer, written to console John of Gaunt for the loss of his Duchess in 136!). It is conventional, artificial, imitative, and is drawn from JIachauIt's Dit du lion and Dit de la fontainc amoureusc. BOOK-PLATE. A typographical or picto- rial label, used to denote the ownership of a book. Book-plates are considered to have had their origin in Germany; though an unsu|)ported claim has been made that they were used in Japan in the Tenth Century, and certain small clay tablets are believed to liave performed in Babylonia and Assyria an office similar to that of the book-plate of to-day. The earliest printed book-plate we know to-day was used about 1480. It is a hand-colored heraldic design, and recorded a gift of books and manuscripts to the Car- thusian monastery of Buxheim in Swabia. Until Albreeht Diirer gave his attention to the design- ing and engraving of book-plates, they were rude wood-cuts utterly lacking artistic form. Durer is sometimes called 'the father of book-plates,' because under his hand they became works of art. Several undoubted book-plates of his work- manship are known. The earliest of these bear- ing a date (1516) was the property of Hierony- mus Ebner of Xuremberg. Diirer made a book- plate for Bilibald Pirckheimer of the same city which is believed to be earlier than 1503. Among the famous early German artists who engraved book-plates on wood or copper were Lucas Cranach, Hans Holbein, Jost Amman, and Virgil Soils. In the Eighteenth Century Daniel Chodo- wieeki engraved several very charming designs. Ever since Diirer put his impress upon them, the ornamentation of book-plates has been an im- portant feature, and while their first purpose is to indicate the ownership of the book in which they are pasted or bound, they may, by perfection of design and execution, give pleasure as works of art. Allegory, quotations from the classics, the name of the owner, and his coat of arms are the prominent and customary features. From Germany the use of the book-plate spread to France, and finally to all Continental coun- tries. There is considerable similarity between the early book-plates of Germany and France, but the former are more numerous. Tho I'^rench engravers, as time went on, tended to over- ornament their designs, and the later examples sutler a great loss of dignity for which the deli- cacy and exquisiteness of their workmanship is no compensation. There are a few very charming bits by such artists as Collin, Durand, and Eisen. England was apparently a little slow in adopt- ing the book-plate, as her first ones seem to have been made toward the end of the Sixteenth Cen- tury; but once fairly started, the idea spread rapidly, with the result of making English book- plates outnumber those of all other countries. Up to the l)eginning of the Eighteenth Century most English book-plates are in tho style known, by the universally accepted nomenclature of War- ren, as early armorial. This shows the coat of