n its sides what were described in the Ashburnham Catalogue
as "richly gilt raindrops." Among flowers we most frequently meet with
the rose, the daisy, the lily, and the tulip.

Many varieties of form in connection with the gift of books to friends
or patrons formerly subsisted, apart from the autograph note inside
the volume. We have adverted to the Grolier group of bindings and
certain other allied types perhaps borrowed from Grolier, and the
practice was followed, though on a very limited scale, in England,
where the token in all cases was mainly confined to the title or
fly-leaf, and consequently enters into a distinct category. A very
unusual example of presentation occurs in a copy printed on vellum of
Voerthusius' _Consecrationis Augustae Liber Unus_, printed at Antwerp
in 1563, where the centres of either side of the volume are occupied
by an inscription in gold letters to the Archbishop-Elector of
Cologne.

Of the Grolier examples which have descended to us--and possibly the
greater part has done so--we possess two or three types as regards the
mode of registering the proprietorship; the books occur with and
without the autograph: "Jo. Grolierij Lugdunensis: et Amicorum," which
generally occurs at the end, and with variant mottoes: "Portio mea
Domine sit in Terra Viventium," "Spes mea Dominus et verbo ejus fidem
habeo," and "AEque difficilior." He was a noble patron of learning, and
on the title of a volume on Music, printed in 1518, dedicated to him,
appear his arms and the motto, "Joannes Grolierius Musarum Cultor."

To the same school belongs the equally well-known Maioli, with the
similar method of establishing his claim: "Tho. Maioli et Amicorum;"
Cristoforo Beneo of Milan ("Questo libro e de Christophore Beneo de
Milano e soi Amize"); Antonio Maldonado, of whom a volume of Petrarch
has on the upper cover the name of the poet, and on the reverse, "D.
Antonio Maldonado," with a shield enclosing five fleurs-de-lis; and
Penelope Coleona, with flowering vases heightened in silver, and her
initials at the foot of the book.

This is, of course, a most fascinating and covetable class of
possession, and the difficulty of procuring genuine specimens of the
Henry Deux and Diane de Poitiers bindings, and of all the other
sumptuous and artistic productions of a like character belonging to
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, has naturally suggested to
certain ingenious persons the desirability of counterfeiting