LITERARY LARCENY.

Nor long ago, an expeditious rascal stole a transcript of the De Consolatione of Boethius, 'the last of the classics,' from the Vatican, and within a few hours sold it to another library in Rome. This rapid act of theft and barter was not the work of an ordinary thief, we may be sure. No one ever heard of a burglar ransacking a library; its treasures are not fish for his accommodating net. There are indeed petty rogues who lighten the railway book-stalls, and for whom the dealer in second-hand books lies in wait behind the

open shelves within reach of every street-lounger's to the professional thief and the 'fence,' but for fingers; but, as a rule, books are caviare alike whom his occupation would be gone.

Nothing comes amiss to the soldier when looting is the order of the day. In the general scramble for plunder, he takes anything ready to his hand, as heedless of its worth or worthlessness as Bardolph, when he stole a lute-case, bore it twelve leagues and sold it for three-halfpence. One of the few surviving relics of the ancient library of Peterborough Cathedral is the Chronicle of Hugo Candidus, rescued from the clutches of a marauding soldier of the Commonwealth, who, giving up his prize on the payment of ten

shillings for its ransom, wrote on the fly-leaf: 'I pray you let this Scripture Book alone, for he hath paid me for it; therefore, I would desire you to let it alone. By me, Henry Topclyffe, souldier under Captain Cromwell; therefore, I pray let it alone, HENRY TOPCLYFFE.'

Better aware of the value of such things was Captain Silas Taylor, who 'garbled' the library of Worcester Cathedral; that is, culled from it whatever he had a mind to appropriate. Among the treasures he carried away was the original grant of King Edgar; which he afterwards offered to sell to King Charles II. for a hundred and twenty pounds; but His Majesty not being inclined to pay the price, the precious document remained in the Captain's possession until, evil days coming upon him, his belongings were seized by his creditors. Then Aubrey tried hard to persuade the prebends of the cathedral to purchase it back; but, says he, they cared not for such things; and I believe it hath wrapt herrings by this time.'

During the first hubbub of the Restoration, certain persons made a turbulent entry into the office of the Commissioners of Lands, in Lambeth Palace, and ransacked the records kept there, nct a little to their diminution. Half a century Later, Archbishop Parker's De Antiquitate Britanaica Ecclesia disappeared from the shelves of the Palace Library, finding its way home again in 1757, as a gift from the Bishop of Durham; an honester acquisition to the archiepiscopal collection than certain manuscripts brought from the collegiate house of the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, under the pretence of examining and collating them, but never returned to their proper abiding-place.

habit of cutting illuminations out of manuscripts, to sell to visitors. This practice was also in vogue at the Leicester Free Library, where a valuable Arabic manuscript, a manuscript Latin Bible, and a copy of Purchas's Voyages were bartered away piecemeal.

'What matter a few dirty black-letter leaves picked out of a volume of miscellaneous trashleaves which the owner never knew he had, and cannot miss-which he would not know the value of, had you told him of them?' is the consciencesalving question the author of The Book-hunter ascribes to mutilating biblioklepts; as though they confined their operations to robbing ignorant and non-appreciative book-owners, which is by no means the case. Aymon cut fifteen leaves out of Charles the Bold's famous Bible of St Denis, two of which were afterwards recovered, the other thirteen figuring among the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum. Vespasiano, librarian to Duke Frederick of Urbino, was not providing against imaginary dangers in laying it down that a librarian 'must preserve the books from damp and vermin, as well as from the hands of trifling, ignorant, dirty, and tasteless persons. To those of authority and learning, he ought himself to exhibit the books with all facility; courteously explaining their beauty and remarkable characteristics, the handwriting and miniatures, but observant that such abstract no leaves.'

Men of learning might well come under the Italian librarian's suspicion, or bibliomaniacs have been terribly belied. Aubrey accuses Dr Thorndyke of filching Camden's Autobiography from him as he lay dying. Pinelli was credited with obtaining many of his most valued literary curiosities by the skilful use of his fingers. If the cathedral libraries have suffered much Monsignor Pamphilio was detected by Du Monsfrom depredators, it is principally by reason of tier slipping that collector's cherished copy of the carelessness or dishonesty of their official the London edition of L'Histoire du Concile de Custodians. Concerning that of Lincoln, biblio- Trente under his robe; whereupon the angry Taphically famous for the books it does not painter seizing hold of the thief, shook him until the stolen book fell at his feet, to be picked up possess, Edwards writes: "The chief spoliator by its owner, ere he showed the future pope was so proud of his booty, that he took pains his way out in a very summary and ignoble to commemorate the transaction as well as to fashion. More, Bishop of Ely, was charged with turn it to profit. Among the choice volumes enriching his collection of books by plundering enumerated in "The Lincoln Nosegay, beynge a the libraries of the clergy of his diocese, paying trefe table of certain bokes in the posession of some with more modern works, some with serMaister Thomas Frognell Dibdin, Clerke, which mons, and some in no way at all. bokes be to be sold to him who shal give the friend of the prelate who, being caught by a Loste for the same," are Caxton's Dictes and Say- lock and key, explained that the Bishop of Ely visitor in the act of putting a rare volume under inges of Philosophres, his Chronicles of England, his was coming to dine with him that day. Cathon, Pynson's New Cronycles of England and Sir Robert South wrote to Sir Robert Cotton of France, the Edinburgh Bible of 1579, and a to appoint a meeting between him and the curious series of Tracts in early-English printing founder of Oxford's famous library, he thought -all part of the collection of Michael Honey- it necessary to caution his friend not to leave wood, Dean of Lincoln in the middle of the seven- any valuable books of portable dimensions lying teenth century, the great restorer of the cathedral library. The depletion of the library was commenced before Master Dibdin's day, the Dean and Chapter having disposed of numbers of old books to raise the wherewithal to purchase more modern while the vergers had long been in the

works;

It was a

When

about within Sir Thomas Bodley's reach. Under the pretext of verifying certain statements of Camden, Cotton got possession of sundry public papers, and then successfully resisted all the efforts of their proper custodians to obtain their return. Remembering this, when Agarde, the keeper of the Exchequer Records, died somewhat suddenly,

the keeper of His Majesty's Papers and Records wrote Sir Ralph Winwood that Cotton would be sure to seize upon all the dead official's papers, if not anticipated by a prohibitory warrant.

know them well deposes: Some collectors have a propensity to obtain articles without value given for them-a culmination of a sort of lax morality apt to grow out of the habits and traditions of Cotton's aptitude for appropriating state docu- the class. Your true collector considers himself ments was shared by many a man of note and a finder, a discoverer, rather than a purchaser; name. In James I.'s reign, Lord Carew borrowed and it is the essence of his skill to find value four books of Irish records from the State Paper in those things which in the eye of the ordinary Office, and returned but three; and Lord Suffolk possessor are really worthless. From estimating held fast to two boxes full of important docu- them at little value, paying little for them, the ments. Milton not only helped himself to the steps are rather too short to estimating them records at Whitehall, but allowed Bradshaw, at nothing, and paying nothing for them.' Thurloe, and others to do the same so freely, Possibly, it is only scandal after all. If it be that upon Raymond entering upon his duties a true bill, the over-fond lovers of rarities of at the Restoration, he reported that many books, the press have been lucky in not being brought papers, treatises, and records were missing, while to book for their knaveries. Don Vincente, the none of the state papers of the Commonwealth Barcelonese priest, did indeed pay the penalty; were to be found. Sir Samuel Morland informed but he was a man of many murders, as well a certain great minister that John Thurloe had as a man of many books; it being his way to four great chests full of papers in his possession; sell a rare volume, and regain it again by but the minister delayed issuing an order for putting a dagger in the purchaser's heart. their seizure, 'for reasons to be judged; and then Outbidden in a competition for a copy of Thurloe had time to burn them that would have Ordinacions per los Gloriosos Reys de Aragon, he hanged a great many, it is thought, if they had strangled the buyer in his own shop three days been suffered to speak; and he did certainly afterwards, and by adding arson to murder, preburn them all except some principal ones culled vented his crime being even suspected. It had out by himself.' A warrant was issued when been plain to the authorities for some time that too late, giving Raymond authority to seize any the dagger-slain men whose bodies were found state papers wherever he could find them. Lord in river, street, and ditch, had not come to Gerard's Life-guards brought some to light when they attached Bradshaw's goods; but the greater portion of the lost property was beyond recovery. In later days, Lord Shelburne, Lord Egremont, and General Conway, plundered the State Paper Office of various volumes, foreign papers, and the records of Frobisher's Voyages; and Henry VIII.'s papers were appropriated by Lords Cherbury and St Albans.

An essayist of the last century did not scruple to aver that if the libraries and cabinets of collectors were stripped of their borrowed ornaments, many of them would have nothing to show but empty drawers and bare shelves. He professed to know a literary virtuoso who piqued himself upon his collection of scarce editions and original manuscripts, most of which he had purloined from the libraries of others. He was always borrowing books of acquaintances with a resolution never to return them; sending in a great hurry for a particular edition, which he wanted to consult for a moment; but when its return was solicited, he was not at home; or he had lent the book to somebody else; or he could not lay his hand upon it just then; or he had lost it; or he had himself already delivered it to the owner. Sometimes he contented himself with stealing one volume of a set, knowing where to procure the rest for a trifle. After his death, his library was sold by auction, and many of his defrauded friends had the pleasure of buying their own property back again at an exorbitant price.

A little later on, a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine commenting on Gough's insinuations against the honesty of Rawlinson and Umfreville, says: "One might point out enough light-fingered antiquarians of the present age to render such a charge extremely probable against earlier ones.' We would hope that the bibliophiles of our own time are not equally oblivious of the distinction between mine and thine; but one who should

their deaths accidentally; hence, after this additional case of strangling, the police set about searching every house in the city, and when they lighted upon the Ordinacions in Don Vincente's possession, their quest was ended. He at once confessed everything, and was duly arrested and arraigned. At the trial, his counsel argued that the confession was false, and that his client had got his books honestly; meeting the objection that one of them, printed in 1482 by Lambert Palmart, being unique, must have been stolen from a certain library, by proving that there was a copy in the Louvre; whereupon the accused exclaimed that he was a miserable man. 'It is never too late to repent,' said the Alcalde, thinking the priest had come to a proper sense of his crime; a belief quickly dispelled by the incorrigible bibliomaniac's reply:"Ah, Signor Alcalde, my error was great indeed; my copy was not unique!'

The powers that be are privileged to despoil private individuals in the public interest; so we must not say the Ptolemies practised book-stealing by wholesale, when they compelled passengers on board vessels touching at Alexandria, to surrender their literary belongings for the enrichment of that city's library. At anyrate, their intentions were more honourable than those of the Spanish and Italian monks who overran Bohemia after the Thirty Years' War, and who were commissioned to enter the houses of heretics and carry away every Hussite book they could find; a commission so thoroughly executed, that one of them was able to boast that he had seized and destroyed sixty thousand volumes. How many priceless examples of Bohemia's ancient literature thus perished, none can tell. The destruction then wrought made any relic of it so precious, that the directors of the National Museum at Prague were much elated by the receipt, in 1813, of a manuscript of four pages, with a note from the anonymous

donor, stating that it had been discovered by to be a remarkable career from being cut him in the archives of the house he served; short on the threshold by an unexpected and and knowing it would be destroyed if its owner carelessly-driven van. The incident was over became aware of its existence, he had sent it in a few seconds, and the boy was restored to to the Museum, to secure its preservation. It the arms of the housekeeper, who promptly proved to be The Judgment of Libussa, a poem spanked him, and drove him sobbing up-stairs, of the eighth century, and the most ancient relic and then turned to thank me. That was how of Slavonic literature extant. It was afterwards I came to know my housekeeper. ascertained that the patriotic sender was Hovar, steward to Count Colloredo Mansfeld, at Zelena Hora, who deserves to be remembered as the perpetrator of a most praiseworthy theft.

The little boy-the one who nearly fell a victim to the van was standing on the great square doorstep of a house consisting entirely of chamers. He was going off to school, as the slate under his arm bore evidence; and an elderly female was on her knees adjusting his comforter round his neck, and rubbing his face with a The last-named object of the housekeeper's whity-brown handkerchief. The operation over, interest was frequently alluded to by her in a the elderly female gave the boy a good loud half-contemptuous way as that man.' He was smacking kiss on the cheek and a pat on the described as being 'no good whatever, and cerback, and so started him off; and a moment tainly no ornament.' He was said to be 'past after, I had seized him, and, as I have inti- work,' and a great sufferer from wind round mated above, prevented what perhaps may prove the 'art;' but whenever Mr Wentletrap's physical