That is fierce and fiery, and in very earnest. A MS. of the Bodleian bears this other inscription, to the same import:
"Liber Sanctæ Mariæ de Ponte Roberti. Qui eum abstulerit aut vendiderit ... aut quamlibet ejus partem absciderit, sit anathema maranatha."
Canisius, in his Antiquæ Lectiones (I. ii. p. 3. 320.), transcribes another comminatory distich, copied from a MS. of the Saint Gall library:
"Auferat hunc librum nullus hinc, omne per ævum,
Cum Gallo partem quisquis habere cupit!"
Such recommendations are now no longer in use, and seem rather excessive. But whoever has witnessed the extreme carelessness, not to say improbity, of some of the readers admitted into the public continental libraries, who scruple not to soil, spoil, and even purloin the most precious and rare volumes, feels easily reconciled to the anathema maranatha of the ninth and tenth centuries.
P.S.—Excuse my French-English.
Philarète Chasles, Mazarinæus.
Paris, Palais de l'Institut.