FLY-LEAF INSCRIPTIONS IN BOOKS.
The following lines, formerly popular among youthful scholars, may still be found in school-books:—
This book is mine
By right divine;
And if it go astray,
I’ll call you kind
My desk to find
And put it safe away.
This book is mine,—that you may know,
By letters two I will you show:
The first is J, a letter bright;
The next is S in all men’s sight.
But if you still my name should miss,
Look underneath, and here it is:—
John Smith.
Whoe’er this book, if lost, doth find,
I hope will have a generous mind,
And bring it to the owner,—me,
Whose name they’ll see page fifty-three.
The curious warning subjoined—paradoxical in view of the improbability of any honest friend pilfering—has descended to our times from the days of black-letter printing:—
Steal not this book, my honest friend,
For fear the gallows be your end;
For if you do, the Lord will say,
Where is that book you stole away?
Another often met with is this:—
Hic liber est meus,
Testis et est Deus;
Si quis me quærit,
Hic nomen erit.
The two following admonitions are full of salutary advice to book-borrowers:—
Neither blemish this book, or the leaves double down,
Nor lend it to each idle friend in the town;
Return it when read; or, if lost, please supply
Another as good to the mind and the eye.
With right and with reason you need but be friends,
And each book in my study your pleasure attends.
If thou art borrowed by a friend,
Right welcome shall he be,
To read, to study, not to lend,
But to return to me.
Not that imparted knowledge doth
Diminish learning’s store;
But books, I find, if often lent,
Return to me no more.
☞ Read slowly, pause frequently, think seriously, keep clean, RETURN DULY, with the corners of the leaves not turned down.
Of the warning and menacing kind are the following:—
This book is one thing,
My fist is another;
Touch this one thing,
You’ll sure feel the other.
Si quisquis furetur
This little libellum,
Per Bacchum per Jovem!
I’ll kill him, I’ll fell him,
In ventum illius
I’ll stick my scalpellum,
And teach him to steal
My little libellum.
Ne me prend pas;
On te pendra.
Gideon Snooks,
Ejus liber.
Si quis furetur;
Per collum pendetur,
Similis huic pauperi animali.
Here follows a figure of an unfortunate individual suspended “in malam crucem.”
Small is the wren,
Black is the rook;
Great is the sinner
That steals this book.
This is Thomas Jones’s book—
You may just within it look;
But you’d better not do more,
For the Devil’s at the door,
And will snatch at fingering hands;
Look behind you—there he stands!
The following macaronic is taken from a copy of the Companion to the Festivals and Fasts, 1717:—
To the Borrower of this Book.
Hic Liber est meus,
Deny it who can,
Samuel Showell, Jr.,
An honest man.
In vico corvino [locale appended]
I am to be found,
Si non mortuus sum,
And laid in the ground.
At si non vivens,
You will find an heir
Qui librum recipiet;
You need not to fear.
Ergo cum lectus est
Restore it, and then
Ut quando mutuaris
I may lend again.
At si detineas,
So let it be lost,
Expectabo Argentum,
As much as it cost (viz.: 5s.)
To the Finder.
If I this lose, and you it find,
Restore it me, be not unkind;
For if not so, you’re much to blame,
While as below you see my name.—[Name appended.]
Taken from an old copy-book:
All you, my friends, who now expect to see
A piece of writing, here performed by me,
Cast but a smile on this my mean endeavor,
I’ll strive to mend, and be obedient ever.
On the fly-leaf of a Bible may sometimes be seen:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To tell the love of God alone
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
The two following are very common in village schools:—
This is Giles Wilkinson, his book;
God give him grace therein to look;
Nor yet to look, but understand
That learning’s better than house and land;
For when both house and land are spent,
Then learning is most excellent.
John Smith is my name,
England is my nation,
London is my dwelling-place,
And Christ is my salvation,
And when I’m dead and in the grave,
And all my bones are rotten,
When this you see, remember me,
Though I am long forgotten.
This pretty presentation-verse is sometimes met with:—
Take it,—’tis a gift of love
That seeks thy good alone;
Keep it for the giver’s sake,
And read it for thy own.
The early conductors of the press were in the habit of affixing to the end of the volumes they printed some device or couplet concerning the book, with the names of the printer and proof-reader added. The following example is from Andrew Bocard’s edition of The Pragmatic Sanction, Paris, 1507:—
Stet liber, hic donec fluctus formica marinos
Ebibat; et totum testudo perambulet orbem
(May this volume continue in motion,
And its pages each day be unfurled;
Till an ant to the dregs drink the ocean,
Or a tortoise has crawled round the world.)
On the title-page of a book called Gentlemen, Look about You, is the following curious request:—
Read this over if you’re wise,
If you’re not, then read it twice:
If a fool, and in the gall
Of bitterness, read not at all.