"STEAL NOT THIS BOOK I"

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIV, Issue 295, 16 December 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

"STEAL NOT THIS BOOK I"

A. late number of Notes and Queries publishes one of the best collections we have seen of " Rhyming warnings for book borrowers" — forwarded m this instance by a Viotorian correspondent. These things show quite a remarkable variety of execution npon the same theme. The leaßt interesting, perhaps, is a precise and amiable formula, which strikes one as hailing from a girls' schoolroom :— " lbs book Is mine By tight divine, And should it go BBtrcy, I'll call yon kind, My desk to find, And put it safe away " A much more aggressive style is that of the boy : — "This book is n» thing, My fi.t b another ; Tooob but the one thing. Yoa'll soon feel the other." Oldest of all, having been traced, m its many variants, to the days of black: letter printing, is the wellknown adjuration : — " 8 e*l noi this book, m n < hooeit friend La t the gallows shonld ba your end ; ' For if you do* the Lord will aay, Where is iha,t book yo i Btole away ?" Instructive remarks upon gener&l topics are sometimes introduced, but more often the tone is denunciatory, and the gallows, or a worse place hereafter, are very frequently invoked by defrauded owners. The Thomas: Jones incantation even calls up the evil one at once : — ■ : 11 Tbis is Thomas Jones's book *, Yon my just witbia it look, $at you'd better not do more, 1 : Far the Devi's at the door And will p»atbb at fingering hands ; . Look behind you— here lie atandd !" ' "AmongsT brief verselets, thisTias i a taking cadence : — " Small is the wren, Blaok is the rook ; ftreat ia the pinner Thsrt steajs thia book " , MaoaroniC; Verses ? show wit and scholarship, liutare mostly too long to quote. „ 11 Aspioe Pierrot pendnC ■' , . Pato qae librutn non arenda" is the maoaronio French and Latin whioh sohoolboys writd under a sketoh representing the offender expiating his crime. But a true lover of books and, like many suob, a patient sufferer from his friends; must have framed the verse that gives m five g od rules the whole duty of borrowers j-rr > ... , , " Neither blemish this b >ok, nor the learei doable down, Nor lend it to eaoh idle frieddin the town ; fietnrnit when read; or, if.lojt. plea:e supply • Another as good to the mM as the eye. With right and with reason you need bat be friends, And eaoh book m my Bttady your pleasure attends." •' Sibi et amiois" has been the motto of several illustrious arnateiirs, but there is good reason id a book-plate of the last century with Ira pertinent reminder from the Psalms, " It is the' wicked that borroweth and payeth not again." - •