(Vol. viii., pp. 64. 153.)
Many inscriptions, comminatory or exhortatory, written in books and
directed to readers, have been commemorated in "N. & Q." Towards the
beginning of the present century, the most common epigram of the kind in
the French public schools was the following elegant motto, with its
accompanying illustration:
"Aspice _Pierrot_ pendu,
Quota librum n'a pas rendu!"
Poor Pierrot is exhibited in a state of suspension, as hanging from the
inverted letter L ([Gamma]), which symbolises the fatal tree. Comminatory
and exhortatory cautions not to soil, spoil, or tear books and MSS. occur
so frequently in the records of monastic libraries, that a whole album
could easily be filled with them. The coquettish bishop, Venantius
Fortunatus, has a distich on the subject. Another learned Goth, Theud-wulf,
or Theodulfus, Charlemagne's _Missus dominicus_, {473} recommends readers a
proper ablution of their hands before turning the consecrated leaves:
"Utere me, lector, mentisque in sede locato;
Cumque librum petis hinc, sit tibi _lota_ manus!"--_Saith Library._
Less lenient are the imprecations commemorated by Don Martenne and Wanley.
The one inscribed on the blank leaf of a Sacramentary of the ninth century
is to the following effect:
"Si quis eum (librum) de monasterio aliquo ingenio non redditurus,
abstraxerit, cum Juda proditore, Anna et Caipha, portionem aeternae
damnationis accipiat. Amen! Amen! Fiat! fiat!"--_Voyage Litteraire_, p.
67.
That is fierce and fiery, and in very earnest. A MS. of the Bodleian bears
this other inscription, to the same import:
"Liber Sanctae Mariae de Ponte Roberti. Qui eum abstulerit aut vendiderit
... aut quamlibet ejus partem absciderit, sit anathema maranatha."
Canisius, in his _Antiquae Lectiones_ (I. ii. p. 3. 320.), transcribes
another comminatory distich, copied from a MS. of the Saint Gall library:
"Auferat hunc librum _nullus hinc_, omne per aevum,
Cum Gallo partem quisquis habere cupit!"
Such recommendations are now no longer in use, and seem rather excessive.
But whoever has witnessed the extreme carelessness, not to say improbity,
of some of the readers admitted into the public continental libraries, who
scruple not to soil, spoil, and even purloin the most precious and rare
volumes, feels easily reconciled to the _anathema maranatha_ of the ninth
and tenth centuries.
P.S.--Excuse my French-English.
PHILARETE CHASLES, Mazarinaeus.
Paris, Palais de l'Institut.
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