My little Libellum.'
And here is another:
'Qui ce livre volera,
Pro suis criminibus
Au gibet il dansera,
Pedibus pendentibus.'
A curious and interesting chapter in the history of book-stealing is furnished us by Mr. F. S. Ellis. 'Some thirty years since I was talking with Mr. Hunt, for many years Town Clerk of Ipswich, who was an ardent book-collector, and in the course of conversation he lamented how some ten years previously he had missed an opportunity of buying a first edition of "Paradise Lost" under the following circumstances. There was a sale in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, in which a number of books were included. These were all tied in bundles and catalogued simply as so many books in one lot. Going over one of these bundles, what was his surprise to find a first edition of "Paradise Lost," with the first title-page, and in the original sheepskin binding! He said nothing, but went round to the auctioneer's house and asked him if he would be willing to sell him a particular book out of the collection previous to auction. "Oh, by all means," said the auctioneer; "just point me out the volume and say what you are willing to give me for it, and you can take it out at once." What was Mr. Hunt's chagrin and disappointment, on again taking up the bundle, to find that the number of books was all right according to the catalogue, but Milton's "Paradise Lost" had disappeared. Someone with as keen an eye as the Town Clerk had also discovered the jewel, and had put in practice the theory that exchange is no robbery, and had substituted some other volume for the Milton without going through the formality of a consultation with the auctioneer. Not long after this, a "Paradise Lost," which I have every reason to believe was the "Paradise Lost" described above, in the original sheepskin binding, and having the "first" title-page, was offered for sale to Mr. Simpson, who carried on an old-book business for Mr. Skeat, in King William Street, Strand. He purchased it for what in those days was considered a high price; but how much it was below what is now esteemed its value is witnessed by the fact that he offered it to the late Mr. Crossley, of Manchester, and after much haggling sold it to him for £12 12s. When Mr. Crossley had secured it, he quietly remarked, "And now let me tell you that if you find a dozen more copies in similar condition, I will give you the same price for every one." It remained in Mr. Crossley's library for many years, and at the sale of his books in 1884 realized what was considered the very high price of £25. Eight years after it had advanced to £120.'
The book-borrower is, perhaps, a greater curse than the thief, for he simulates a virtue to which the latter makes no pretension. The book-plate of a certain French collector bore this text from the parable of the Ten Virgins: 'Go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.' 'Sir,' said a man of wit to an acquaintance who lamented the difficulty which he found in persuading his friends to return the volumes that he had lent them, 'Sir, your acquaintances find, I suppose, that it is much more easy to retain the books themselves than what is contained in them.' A certain wise physician took a gentle way of reminding the borrower who dog-eared or tore the pages of his books: pasted on the fly-leaf of each of his books is a printed tag, bearing this legend: 'Library of Galen, M.D. "And if a man borrow aught of his neighbour and it be hurt, he shall surely make it good," Exodus xxii. 14.' A much more effective plan is that described some time ago in the Graphic by Mr. Ashby Sterry. In all the books of a certain cunning bibliophile he had the price written in plain figures; when anyone asked him for the loan of a book he invariably replied, 'Yes, with pleasure,' and, looking in the volume, further added, 'I see the price of this work is £2 17s. 6d.'—or whatever the value might happen to be—'you may take it at this figure, which will, of course, be refunded when the volume is returned.' If a person really wished to read the volume he would of course be glad to leave this deposit; and if he did not return it he would not be altogether an unmitigated thief. Mr. John Ashton relates, in his volume on the 'Wit, Humour, and Satire of the Seventeenth Century,' a curious anecdote which may be here quoted: 'Master Mason, of Trinity Colledge, sent his pupil to another of the Fellows to borrow a Book of him, who told him, I am loathe to lend my books out of my chamber, but if it please thy Tutor to come and read upon it in my chamber, he shall as long as he will.'
When Harrison Ainsworth was a youth and living at Manchester, he contracted an enthusiastic admiration for Elia, to whom he sent some curious books on loan. One of these was a black-letter volume entitled 'Syrinx or a sevenfold History, handled with a variety of pleasant and profitable both comical and tragical Arguments,' etc., by W. Warner, 1597. Lamb replied, December 9, 1823: 'I do not mean to keep the book, for I suspect you are forming a curious collection, and I do not pretend to anything of the kind. I have not a black-letter book among mine, old Chaucer excepted, and am not bibliomanist enough to like black-letter. It is painful to read; therefore I must insist on returning it, at opportunity, not from contumacy and reluctance to be obliged, but because it must suit you better than me.' The copy of Warner's 'Syrinx' Ainsworth had borrowed from Dr. Hibbert-Wade, and therefore it was not the future novelist's book to give. Ignoring, however, his expressed determination to return it, Elia lent the book to another friend, who shortly after went to New York, and may have taken the Warner with him, much to Dr. Hibbert-Wade's annoyance, of which he did not, it is said, fail to let Harrison Ainsworth know. It appears, however, to have returned again—indeed, it is probable that the book never left England—for it is now in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington, with 'Mr. Charles Lamb' written on one of the fly-leaves, and Dyce's note, 'This rare book was given to me by Mr. Moxon after Lamb's death.'
The ranks of London book-borrowers, as those of book-thieves, have included a number of men eminent or distinguished in some particular way. The Duke of Lauderdale was one of these. Evelyn tells us that he was a dangerous borrower of other men's books, as the diarist knew to his cost. Coleridge was a wholesale book-borrower, and the manner in which he annotated the books of his friends caused much strong and deep lamentation at the time. These 'annotated' books have now acquired a very distinct commercial and literary value.