'My Master's name above you se, Take heede therefore you steale not mee; For if you doe, without delay Your necke . . . for me shall pay. Looke doune below and you shal see The picture of the gallowstree; Take heede therefore of thys in time, Lest on this tree you highly clime.' [Drawing of the gallows.] So the school-boy's doggerel is at least founded on an ancient model, which we have quoted, though not actually appearing on a book-plate, because it was clearly intended to do duty as one. Of exactly the same date is a very pompous declaration, on a German book-plate, of a donor's intention that certain volumes given by him should remain for ever in the library to which they are presented. The owner of the book-plate was John Faber, Bishop of Vienna, who died in 1541, and who, in the previous year, presented his books to the College of St. Nicholas in that city. Here is a translation given by Lord De Tabley, in which mark how in kingly fashion the bishop refers to himself as 'we':-- 'This book was bought by us, Dr. John Faber, Bishop of Vienna, and assistant in the Government of the New State, both as councillor and confessor to the most glorious, clement, and pious Ferdinand, King of the Romans, Hungary, and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria. And since, indeed, that money (which purchased this volume) did not arise from the revenues and properties of our diocese, but from our own most honest labours in other directions. And therefore it is free to us to give or bequeath the book to whomsoever we please. We accordingly present it to our College of St. Nicholas. And we ordain that this volume shall remain there for ever for the use of the students, according to our order and decree. Done in our Episcopal Court at Vienna, on the first day of September in the year of Grace 1540.' [Illustration] 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 the too eager student who should 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 Königsberg 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.'