'This book was bought by us, Dr. John Faber, Bishop of Vienna, and assistant in the Government of the New State, both as councillor and confessor to the most glorious, clement, and pious Ferdinand, King of the Romans, Hungary, and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria. And since, indeed, that money (which purchased this volume) did not arise from the revenues and properties of our diocese, but from our own most honest labours in other directions. And therefore it is free to us to give or bequeath the book to whomsoever we please. We accordingly present it to our College of St. Nicholas. And we ordain that this volume shall remain there for ever for the use of the students, according to our order and decree. Done in our Episcopal Court at Vienna, on the first day of September in the year of Grace 1540.'
Dr. Faber was famous for his orthodoxy and his fervour in enforcing it; so much so, that he earned for himself the title Malleus hereticorum. He does not trust himself to express his opinion of the too eager student who should take to himself a volume from amongst these books; which is perhaps well.
More polite than the English verses of 1540, and therefore not half so serviceable, are those printed on an actual book-plate, by which Andrew Hedio, a Königsberg professor of philosophy, who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century, sought to insure the safe return to his library of any volume which was out on loan. The arms of Hedio—the head and shoulders of an old bearded man in a fish-tailed nightcap—appear on the book-plate, and below, supposed to be spoken by the volume, are Latin verses, which in free translation may be rendered:—
'By him who bought me for his own,
I'm lent for reading leaf by leaf;
If honest, you'll return the loan,
If you retain me, you're a thief.'
If you turn back to [p. 123] and look at the book-plate of Speratus, you will see that he had expressed very much this sentiment more than a century before.
It is not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that we find any decided expression of possession on an English book-plate. Then it occurs on that of John Reilly (described on [p. 53]). At the very bottom of the design is printed: 'Clamabunt omnes te, liber, esse meum.' Here you see it is John Reilly himself and not his book that speaks. It is a mild and decidedly gentlemanly way of expressing ownership, free from threats for not returning the volume; indeed, hardly contemplating the possibility of so dishonest an act.