Minor Notes.
_Book-keepers._--There is a class of persons who fall under this
denomination, and to whom the following lines may give a useful hint.
Doubtless some of your correspondents, who are furnished with valuable
libraries and works of reference, have suffered materially from a
neglect of the rules herein laid down.
_Lines for the beginning of a Book._
1.
"If thou art borrowed by a friend,
Right welcome shall he be,
To read, to study, not to lend,
But to return to me.
2.
"Not that imparted knowledge doth
Diminish learning's store;
But books I find, if often lent,
Return to me no more.
3.
"Read slowly, pause frequently,
Think seriously, return duly,
With the corners of the leaves not turned down."
[+.]
_The Substitution of the Letter "I" for "J" in the Names of "John,
James, Jane," &c._--Will you permit me to ask the reason of the absurd,
and sometimes inconvenient, custom of substituting _I_ for _J_ in MS.
spelling of the names John, James, Jane, &c.? If it be correct in MS.,
why is it not equally correct in print? Let us, then, just see how the
names would read in print with such spelling: _Iohn_, _Iames_, _Iane_,
&c.! Besides, if it be correct to put _I_ for _J_ in John, it must, of
course, be equally correct to put _J_ for _I_ in _Isaac_, and to turn it
into _Jsaac_. Indeed, if you happen in a subscription list, or a letter,
or anything else intended for the press, to write in the MS. the letter
_I_ (which _rightly_ stands as the initial in _that_ case), as the
initial of some person named _Isaac_, it is ten to one but the
compositor substitutes _J_ in its place in print. I have found Sir _I._
Newton in my MS. thus metamorphosed into Sir _J._ Newton in print. I see
in "The Clergy List" more than one name which ought to be _I_, turned
into a _J_. Now, Sir, it is folly to pretend that _I_ and _J_ are
synonymous letters, or that they express the same meaning, unless we are
prepared to allow _Isaac_ to be spelt with a _J_ or _I_, according to
the writer's pleasure or caprice. May I, then, be permitted to ask
whether it is not high time for every one to _write_ _I_ when he _means_
_I_, and to _write_ _J_ when he _means_ _J_? If compositors would always
_print_ MSS. _as they are written in this particular_, the palpable
absurdity of putting _I_ for _J_ would, I am sure, soon be evident to
all, and soon shame people out of the fashion. What if _U_ and _V_ were
treated with as little ceremony as _I_ and _J_? So it once was. Thus T.
Rogers, in his work on the Thirty-nine Articles, A.D. 1586, will furnish
an example. In it we read: "Such is the estate principally of infants
elected _v_nto life, and sal_u_ation, and increasing in yeers." But this
old-fashioned mode of spelling has long become obsolete: may the
substitution of _I_ for _J_ soon become the same.