it he might have become a most skilful forger. All these things
are noted by Suetonius in his Lives of the XII. Caesars.


CHAPTER XVII

OF SHOWING DUE PROPRIETY IN THE CUSTODY OF BOOKS

We are not only rendering service to God in preparing volumes of
new books, but also exercising an office of sacred piety when we
treat books carefully, and again when we restore them to their
proper places and commend them to inviolable custody; that they
may rejoice in purity while we have them in our hands, and rest
securely when they are put back in their repositories. And
surely next to the vestments and vessels dedicated to the Lord's
body, holy books deserve to be rightly treated by the clergy, to
which great injury is done so often as they are touched by
unclean hands. Wherefore we deem it expedient to warn our
students of various negligences, which might always be easily
avoided and do wonderful harm to books.

And in the first place as to the opening and closing of books,
let there be due moderation, that they be not unclasped in
precipitate haste, nor when we have finished our inspection be
put away without being duly closed. For it behoves us to guard a
book much more carefully than a boot.

But the race of scholars is commonly badly brought up, and unless
they are bridled in by the rules of their elders they indulge in
infinite puerilities. They behave with petulance, and are puffed