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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vii. MARCH 10, 1907.

BOOK-STEALING : DEGREES OF BLACK- I NESS (10 S. vi. 305, 353). On a sheet of j decorated end-paper ruthlessly torn, by a snatcher of ex-libris, from its home in some folio volume, I find pasted an armorial book plate : "Ex Bibliotheca Illris Ducis Thomse Vargas Macciucca." Beneath it is a printed list of laws for book-borrowers, so compre- hensive and so quaint as to appear to deserve transference to the columns of ' N. & Q.' It runs as follows :

Leges, Volumina ex Bibliotheca nostra commodato aooepta, lecturis, Secundum auspicia lata Lictor Lege agito in Legirupionem. Mas vel Ftemina fuas, hac tibi lege, Codieis istius usum, non interdicimus.

I. Hunc ne Mancipium ducito. Liber est : ne igitur notis compugito.

II. Ne caesim punctimve ferito : hostis non est.

III. Lineplis, intus, forisve, quaquaversum, du- cendis abstineto.

IV. Folium ne subigito, ne complicate, neve in rugas cogito.

V. Ad oram conscribillare caveto.

VI. Atramentum ultra primum exesto ; mori niavult quani fcedari.

VII. Puras tantum papyri philuram interserito.

VIII. Alteri clanculum palamve ne commodato.

IX. Murem, tineani, blattam, muscam, furun- culum abstineto.

X. Ab aqua, oleo, igne, situ, illuvie arceto.

XI. Eodeni utitor, non abutitor.

XII. Legere, et quaevis excerpere fas esto.

XIII. Perlectum, apud te perennare ne sinito.

XIV. Sartum tectumq. , prout tollis, reddito.

XV. Qui faxis, vel ignotus Amicorum albo ad- scribitor : qui secus, vel notus eradetor.

Has sibi, has aliis preescribit leges in re sua, Ordinis Hyeresolimitani Eques Dux Thomas Vargas Macciucca. Quoi placeas aniiue, quoi minus, quid tibi nostra tactio est ? Facesse.

The inditer of this rather turgid and pedantic code may have been the son of Francis Vargas-Macciucca, Marquis of Vatolla (1699-1785), celebrated for his classical and linguistic attainments.

J. ELIOT HODGKIN.

On the fly-leaf of an old Latin Bible I find the following couplet :

Steal not this Book, my Friend, Least [we] Tyburn be thy Latter End.

W. R. H.

The following variant of the rime recorded by MB. RATCLIFFE was copied from The Daily News into Church Bells of 17 Jan., 1902 : Black is the raven, black is the rook, But blacker is the blackguard who steals this book. Another variant will be found at 9 S. iv. 153.

To those interested in this subject I submit the following references to book rimes : 1 S. x. 309 ; 7 S. hi. 206 ; iv 66 viii. 505 ; 8 S. iii. 385 ; iv. 486 ; v 39 94 vii. 143, 255 ; 9 S. i. 366, 512 ; ii. 115, 376 :

iv. 153, 249, 316, 484 ; xii. 167 ; 10 S. iL 348 ; iii. 187 ; vi. 128. Some of these are indexed under other subjects. I do not imagine the list is exhaustive, and shall be glad if other readers can add to it.

JOHN T. PAGE.

A discussion was raised a few years age- in an evening paper from which it would seem that the quotations of your corre- spondents require a slight amendment.

It was contended that the following was the correct version of the lines : Black is the crou~, Black is the rook,

But blacker still the little boy who stole this book. CECIL CLARKE.

Junior Athenaeum Club.

[Some lines sent by MR. H. C. ANDREWS are, like the variant mentioned by MR. PACE, printed, with a large number of others, at 9 S. iv. 153. The lines sent by MR. C. WATSON were printed at 9 S. i. 512 in a reply by MR. JOHN MURRAY. As is evident from the long list of references supplied by MR. PAGE, the subject has been well discussed in ' N. & Q.,' and it is not desired to reprint lines that have already appeared in its pages ; but room will be found for additional references to complete the list. MR. PAGE has missed a fifteenth-century French curse on the book thief noted at 9 S. i. 86 by the late F. ADAMS ; and an original composition by a Belgian recorded at 9 S. xi. 297.]

TOWNS UNLUCKY FOB KINGS (10 S. vii. 29, 74). The statement that " the Saxon name for Lincoln was pronounced Linceul " is to me as new as it is interesting. A valuable article on the superstition appeared at 5 S. xii. 489, and there it was noted, on the authority of Rishanger via Canon Perry ('The Life of St. Hugh of Avalon,' p. 97), that Oxford and Leicester shared the un- fortunate reputation of Lincoln.

ST. SWITHIN.

CHARLES LAMB : WAS HE or JEWISH EXTRACTION ? (10 S. vii. 121.) The sup- position that Charles Lamb was of Jewish extraction is not a new one. The first writer to mention it is, I believe, William Maginn in his ' Gallery of Literary Characters ' in Fraser's Magazine for February, 1835, a little less than two months after Lamb's death, who writes as follows : " He was, we believe, of Jewish family, and his real name was Lomb." Three years afterwards, in his review of Talfourd's ' Final Memorials,' we find De Quincey writing that " some people have supposed that Lamb had Jewish blood in his veins, which seemed to account for his gleaming eyes." After referring to Lamb's imperfect sympathy with the Jews, he goes on :