The Springdale news., 1909-07-23
THE BOOK BORROWER.
How Collectors Have Circunvented a
 Wicked Type.

Wicked Type.
 The book borrower is the sworn fee 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 unfeelins wretch who borrows one volume out of series and forgets 10 return it. 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 J Whitefoord Mac kenzie, q well known collector, once told the present writer that when any one asked him for the loan of single volume out of a 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 "fhe Book Hunter In London" that the hookplate of q certain French col iector bore this text from tue parable of the ten virgins "Go rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves. sir said man of wit to III ae- quaiRtanee who lamented the difficulty which he found in persuading his friends to return the volumes that lie had lent them-"sir. your acquaintances find, l suppose, that it is much more fa ba fpSalVps than what is contained in them"
 An ingenious plan to limit book bor- rowing is told by J. Ashby Sterry. h all the books of a certain cunning book collector he had the price written i'll plain figures. When any one asked him for the loan of a book he invaria- bly, replied Yes, with pleasure. and. looking in the volume, further added, 'I see the price of this work is F 17s. Gd,' tor whatever it might happen to hel. You may take it at this figure. which will. of course. be refunded when the volume Is returned Sir Wal ter Scotts plan was ingenious. When he lent 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. Sometimes these were macaronic rhymes written by students-as. for ex- ample, the following, which was in scribed upon Latin book used in Ab erdeen university:
 S quisquis furetur
 This little Libellum
 Per Phoeben, per Jovem
 III kill him. I'll fell him;
 In Nentrem His
 I'll stick my scalpellum
 And teach him 10 steal
 My little Libellum.
 h the library of famous Glasgow collector there was recently the CODY of Scott's "Minstrelsy of t1t, Seottish Border" which belonged at one time to William Motherwell and in which the poet had inscribed the following verse
 William Motherwe1l says the work is his Who shall gainsay him?
 He that dares do il
 May the meikle deil fay him
 Even more violent denunciations were written against the book stealer in the sixteenth century, when books were more precious than now. Yet even the modern poet finds 1t needful to anathematize politely:
 To the lost books my fancy clings.
 Ger them my memory grovels l swear in spirit when ] see The gaps among the novels.
 The Fhackeray ''loved and lost"
 l mourn with sorrow tender Whoever has IL also has
 The curses of the lender.
 The lady Bessie Craigmyle) who wrote these lines expresses her grati- tude for the fact that mo one Dor rows poets, though that is not the opinion of Charles Sayle. who thus threatens the possible thief of The l Marriage of Cupid and Psyche" l Cursed he he who robs me of this book.
 With all his race. Let ii be desolate l And brought allow if SC be it was great, For that he wickedly impiously took l That was another $. Let great serpents look
 l At him a-sieeping. with dull eyes of hate. 1 And let him. waking. be compelled of fate l To cast his corse within the nearest
 brock
 This is as comprehensive curse as that which overlook the fated Jack | Jaw of Rheims''-and as ineffectual.- Dundee Advertiser. l Read The Snringdale News