ENEMIES OF BOOKS.

Mr. Blades regards as “Enemies of Books” fire, water, gas, heat, dust and neglect, ignorance and bigotry, the worm, beetles, bugs and rats, book-binders, collectors, servants and children He does not include women, borrowers, or thieves. Perhaps he considers them rather as enemies of the book-owners The worm is not always to be considered an enemy to authors, although he may be to books. James Payn, in speaking of the recent discovery, in the British Museum, of a copy on papyrus of the humorous poems of the obscure Greek poet, Herodles, says: “The humorous poems of Herodles possess, however, the immense advantage of being ‘seriously mutilated by worms’; wherever therefore an hiatus occurs, the charitable and cultured mind will be enabled to conclude that (as in the case of a second descent upon a ball supper) the ‘best things’ have been already devoured.” It was doubtless to guard against thieves that the ancient books were chained up in the monasteries, but the practice was effectual also against borrowers. De Bury, in his “Philobiblon” has a chapter entitled “A Provident Arrangement by which his Books may be lent to Strangers,” in which the utmost leniency is to lend duplicate books upon ample security. Not to adopt the harsh judgment of an ancient author, who says, “to lend a book is to lose it, and borrowing but a hypocritical pretense for stealing,” we may conclude, in a word, that to lend a book is like the Presidency of the United States, to be neither desired nor refused. Collectors are not so much exposed to the ravages of thieves as book-sellers are, and a book-thief ought to be regarded with leniency for his good taste and his reliance on the existence of culture in others. After all, it is one’s own fault if he lends a book One should as soon think of lending one of his children, unless he has duplicate or triplicate daughters. It would be difficult to foretell what would happen to a man who should propose to borrow a rare book. Perhaps death by freezing would be the safest prediction. Although Grolier stamped “et amicorum” on his books, that did not mean that he would lend them, but only that his friends were free of them at his house. It is amusing to note, in Mr. Castle’s monograph on Book-Plates, how many of them indicate a stern purpose not to lend books. Mr. Gosse regards book-plates as a precaution not only against thieves, but against borrowers. He observes of the man who does not adopt a book-plate: “Such a man is liable to great temptations. He is brought face to face with that enemy of his species, the borrower, and does not speak with him in the gate. If he had a book-plate he would say, ‘Oh! certainly I will lend you this volume, if it has not my book-plate in it; of course one makes it a rule never to lend a book that has.’ He would say this and feign to look inside the volume, knowing right well that this safeguard against the borrower is there already.” One may make a gift of a book to a friend, but there is as much difference between giving a book and lending one as there is between indorsing a note and giving the money. I have considerable respect for and sympathy with a good honest book-thief. He holds out no false hopes and makes no false pretences. But the borrower who does not return adds hypocrisy and false pretences to other crime. He ought to be committed to the State prison for life, and put at keeping the books of the institution. In a buried temple in Cnidos, in 1857, Mr. Newton found rolls of lead hung up, on which were inscribed spells devoting enemies to the infernal gods for sundry specified offenses, among which was the failure to return a borrowed garment On which Agnes Repplier says: “Would that it were given to me now to inscribe, and by inscribing doom, all those who have borrowed and failed to return our books; would that by scribbling some strong language on a piece of lead we could avenge the lamentable gaps on our shelves, and send the ghosts of the wrong-doers howling dismally into the eternal shades of Tartarus.”

I have spoken of a certain amount of sympathy as due from a magnanimous book-owner toward a pilferer of such wares. This is always on the condition that he steals to add to his own hoard and not for mere pecuniary gain. The following is suggested as a Christian mode of dealing with

It greatly rejoices me to observe that Mr. Blades does not include tobacco among the enemies of books. In one sense tobacco may be ranked as a book-enemy, for self-denial in this regard may furnish a man with a good library in a few years. I have known a very pretty collection made out of the ordinary smoke-offerings of twenty years. Undoubtedly there are libraries so fine that smoking in them would be discountenanced, but mine is not impervious to the pipe or cigar, and I entertain the pleasing fancy that tobacco-smoke is good for books, disinfects them, and keeps them free from the destroying worm. As I do not myself smoke, I like to see my friends taking their ease in my book-room, with the “smoke of their torment ascending” above my modest volumes. I know how they feel, without incurring the expense, and so to them I indite and dedicate

In the early history of New England, when the town of Deerfield was burned by the Indians, Captain Dunstan, who was the father of a large family, deeming discretion the better part of valor, made up his mind to run for it and to take one child (as a sample, probably), that being all he could safely carry on his horse But on looking about him, he could not determine which child to take, and so observing to his wife, “All or none,” he set her and the baby on the horse, and brought up the rear on foot with his gun, and fended off the redskins and brought the whole family into safety. Such is the tale, and in the old primer there was a picture of the scene—although I do not understand that it was taken from the life, and the story reflects small credit on the character of the aborigines for enterprise.

I have often conjectured which of my books I would save in case of fire in my library, and whether I should care to rescue any if I could not bring off all. Perhaps the problem would work itself out as follows:

It has been hereinbefore intimated that women may be classed among the enemies of books. There is at least one time of the year when every Book-Worm thinks so, and that is the dread period of house-cleaning—sometimes in the spring, sometimes in the autumn, and sometimes, in the case of excessively finical housewives, in both That is the time looked forward to by him with apprehension and looked back upon with horror, because the poor fellow knows what comes of

Such are my reflections when I consider a fire in my own little library. But when I regard the great and growing mass of books with which the earth groans, and reflect how few of them are necessary or original, and how little the greater part of them would be missed, I sometimes am led to believe that a general conflagration of them might in the long run be a blessing to mankind, by the stimulation of thought and the deliverance of authors from the influence of tradition and the habit of imitation. When I am in this mood I incline to think that much is