consideration brings us to these great foes of books, the borrowers
and robbers. The lending of books, and of other property, has been
defended by some great authorities; thus Panurge himself says, "it
would prove much more easy in nature to have fish entertained in the
air, and bullocks fed in the bottom of the ocean, than to support or
tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend."
Pirckheimer, too, for whom Albert Durer designed a book-plate, was a
lender, and took for his device Sibi et Amicis; and Jo. Grolierii et
amicorum, was the motto of the renowned Grolier, whom mistaken
writers vainly but frequently report to have been a bookbinder. But
as Mr. Leicester Warren says, in his "Study of Book-plates"
(Pearson, 1880), "Christian Charles de Savigny leaves all the rest
behind, exclaiming non mihi sed aliis." But the majority of
amateurs have chosen wiser, though more churlish devices, as "the
ungodly borroweth and payeth not again," or "go to them that sell,
and buy for yourselves." David Garrick engraved on his book-plate,
beside a bust of Shakspeare, these words of Menage, "La premiere
chose qu'on doit faire, quand on a emprunte' un livre, c'est de le
lire, afin de pouvoir le rendre plutot." But the borrower is so
minded that the last thing he thinks of is to read a borrowed book,
and the penultimate subject of his reflections is its restoration.
Menage (Menagiana, Paris, 1729, vol. i. p. 265), mentions, as if it
were a notable misdeed, this of Angelo Politian's, "he borrowed a
'Lucretius' from Pomponius Laetus, and kept it for four years."
Four years! in the sight of the borrower it is but a moment. Menage
reports that a friend kept his "Pausanias" for three years, whereas
four months was long enough.


"At quarto saltem mense redire decet."