e shall surely make it good," Exodus xxii.
14.' A much more effective plan is that described some time ago in the
_Graphic_ by Mr. Ashby Sterry. In all the books of a certain cunning
bibliophile he had the price written in plain figures; when anyone asked
him for the loan of a book he invariably replied, 'Yes, with pleasure,'
and, looking in the volume, further added, 'I see the price of this work
is L2 17s. 6d.'--or whatever the value might happen to be--'you may take
it at this figure, which will, of course, be refunded when the volume is
returned.' If a person really wished to read the volume he would of
course be glad to leave this deposit; and if he did not return it he
would not be altogether an unmitigated thief. Mr. John Ashton relates,
in his volume on the 'Wit, Humour, and Satire of the Seventeenth
Century,' a curious anecdote which may be here quoted: 'Master Mason, of
Trinity Colledge, sent his pupil to another of the Fellows to borrow a
Book of him, who told him, _I am loathe to lend my books out of my
chamber, but if it please thy Tutor to come and read upon it in my
chamber, he shall as long as he will._'

When Harrison Ainsworth was a youth and living at Manchester, he
contracted an enthusiastic admiration for Elia, to whom he sent some
curious books on loan. One of these was a black-letter volume entitled
'Syrinx or a sevenfold History, handled with a variety of pleasant and
profitable both comical and tragical Arguments,' etc., by W. Warner,
1597. Lamb replied, December 9, 1823: 'I do not mean to keep the book,
for I suspect you are forming a curious collection, and I do not
pretend to anything of the kind. I have not a black-letter book among
mine, old Chaucer excepted, and am not bibliomanist enough to like
black-letter. It is painful to read; therefore I must insist on
returning it, at opportunity, not from contumacy and reluctance to be
obliged, but because it must suit you better than me.' The copy of
Warner's 'Syrinx' Ainsworth had borrowed from Dr. Hibbert-Wade, and
therefore it was not the future novelist's book to give. Ignoring,
however, his expressed determination to return it, Elia lent the book to
another friend, who shortly after went to New York, and may have taken
the Warner with him, much to Dr. Hibbert-Wade's annoyance, of which he
did not, it is said, fail to let Harrison Ainsworth know. It appears,
however, to have returned again--indeed, it is probable that the book
never left Engl