Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1908-05-26
THE BoUK BuKKUwEK.
How Collectors Have circumvented a
Wicked Type.

Wicked type.
The book borrower is the sworn foe
of the book collector. and many stories
are told of the plans adopted by the
latter to defend his treasures from the
assaults of the borrower. Especially Is
the collector opposed to the unfeeling
wretch who borrows one volume out
of series and forgets to return 1t.
This was one of Coleridge's weakness
es and was so pronounced that Lamb
described him as "a maker of odd vol
umes." The late ]. Whitefoord Mac
Kenzie, we'll known collector. once
told the present writer that when any
one asked him for the loan of single,
volume out of set he always replied
that he would rather lend him the
whole ten, fifteen or twenty volumes
of the series than have them left as
odd volumes on his hands. William
Roberts, the renowned bibliophile, tells
in 1.-THE Book Hunter In London" that
the bookpate of a certain French col |
lector bore this text from the parable
of the ten virgins: $50 rather to them
that sell and buy for yourselves"
"Sir," said man of wit to an ac-
quaintance who lamented the difficulty
which he found in persuadipG his
friends to return tho volumes that he
had lent them-"sir, your acquaintance
find, suppose, that it is much more
easy to retain the books themselves
than what is contained in Them"
| An ingenious plan to limit book Dor.
rowing is told by J. Ashby Sterry. In
all the books of certain cunning book
collector he had the price written In
plain figures. When any one asked
him for the loan of book he inyaria.
bly, replied, eyes, with pleasure" and,
), looking in the volume, further added,
II see the price Of this work is f2 It's.
CD Tor whatever it might happen to
beg. you may take it at this figure,
which will, Of course, be refunded
when the volume is returned" Sir Wal,
ter SCOTS plan was ingenious. When
he lent a book from his library he put
in its place wooden block bearing
the name of the borrower and the date
of the loan. Many were the anathemas
leveled by collectors against those who
would borrow or steal their volumes.
j Sometimes these were macaroniG
rhymes written by students-as, for ex.
ample, the following, which was in.
scribed upon a Latin book used in Ah
erdeen university:
81 quisquis furetur
This little Libellum
Per Phoebem, per Jovem
I'll kill him, I'll fell him;
In ventrem ills
I'll stick my scalpelum
And teach him to steal
My little Libellum.
In the library of famous Glasgow
collector there was recently the copy
of Scott's "Alinstrelsy of the Scottish
Border which belonged at one time
to William Motherwell and in which
the poet had inscribed the following
verse:
William Motherwell says the work Is his
WHO shall gainsay him?
He that dares do II
May tho meikle dell fay him!
Even more violent denunciations
were written against the book stealeI
In the sixteenth century, when books
We're more precious than now. Yet
even the modern poet finds it needful
to anathematize politely:
To the lost books my fancy clings;
Ger them my memory groyels.
/ swear in spirit when see
The gaps among the novels.
The Thackeray loved and lost.
! mourn with sorrow tender.
Whoever has it also has
| The curses Of the lender.
Fhe lady Bessie Craigmyle) who
wrote these lines expresses her graft
tude for the fact that mo one boz
rows poets" though that is not the
opinion of Charles Saylc, who thus
threatens the possible thief of "The
Marriage of Cupid and Psyche
cursed be he who robs me of this book.
With all his race. Let it be desolate
| And brought allow if so be it was great,
| For that he wickedly, impiously took
, That was another's. Let great serpent
look
AT him a=slcepng, with dull eyes of hate
And let him. waking, pc compelled of fat
) To cast his corse within the ncares
T. brook
This is as comprehensive a curse a
that which overlook the fated Jack
, daw of Rheims and as Intellectual
, Dundee Advertiser.