Book-plates / [William John Hardy].

  • Hardy, William John, 1857-1919.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Book-plates / [William John Hardy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    203/274 (page 125)
    Dr. Faber was famous for his orthodoxy and his fervour in enforcing it; so much so, that he earned for himself the title Malleus hereticorum. He does not trust himself to express his opinion of a too eager student who happened to take to himself a volume from amongst these books, which is perhaps well. More polite than the English verses of 1540, and therefore not half so serviceable, are those printed on an actual book-plate, by which Andrew Hedio, a Konigsberg professor of philosophy, who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century, sought to insure the safe return to his library of any volume which was out on loan. The arms of Hedio—the head and shoulders of an old bearded man in a fish- tailed nightcap—appear on the book-plate, and below, supposed to be spoken by the volume, are Latin verses, which in free translation may be rendered :— ‘ By him who bought me for his own, I’m lent for reading leaf by leaf; If honest, you’ll return the loan, If you retain me, you’re a thief.’ If you turn back to p. 90, and look at the book-plate of Speratus, you will see that he had expressed very much this sentiment more than a century before. It is not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that we find any decided expression of pos- session on an English book-plate. Then it occurs on that of John Reilly (described on p. 42). At the very bottom of the design is printed : ‘ Clamabunt omnes te liber esse meum.’ Here you see it is John