them, and no one takes them out, first distend the book from its wonted closing, and at length, being carelessly abandoned to oblivion, go to decay. He does not fear to eat fruit or cheese over an open book, or 5 carelessly to carry a cup to and from his mouth; and because he has no wallet at hand he drops into books the fragments that are left. Continually chattering, he is never

the leaves from the ends, inserted for the protection of the book, for various uses and abuses a kind of sacrilege which should be prohibited by the threat of anathema.

Again, it is part of the decency of scholars that whenever they return from meals to their study, washing should invariably precede reading, and that no grease-stained finger should unfasten the clasps, or turn the

weary of disputing with his companions, and 10 leaves of a book. Nor let a crying child

admire the pictures in the capital letters, lest he soil the parchment with wet fingers; for a child instantly touches whatever he sees. Moreover, the laity, who look at a book

in the right way, are utterly unworthy of any communion with books. Let the clerk take care also that the smutty scullion reeking from his stewpots does not touch the

while he alleges a crowd of senseless arguments, he wets the book lying half open in his lap with sputtering showers. Aye, and then hastily folding his arms he leans forward on the book, and by a brief spell of study in- 15 turned upside down just as if it were open vites a prolonged nap; and then, by way of mending the wrinkles, he folds back the margin of the leaves, to the no small injury of the book. Now the rain is over and gone, and the flowers have appeared in our land. 20 lily leaves of books, all unwashed, but he Then the scholar we are speaking of, a neglecter rather than an inspecter of books, will stuff his volume with violets, and primroses, with roses and quatrefoil. Then he will use his wet and perspiring hands to 25 were not that the itch and pimples are

who walketh without blemish shall minister to the precious volumes. And, again, the cleanliness of decent hands would be of great benefit to books as well as scholars, if it

characteristic of the clergy.

Whenever defects are noticed in books, they should be promptly repaired, since nothing spreads more quickly then a tear

turn over the volumes; then he will thump the white vellum with gloves covered with all kinds of dust, and with his finger clad in long-used leather will hunt line by line through the page; then at the sting of the 30 and a rent which is neglected at the time will biting flea the sacred book is flung aside, and is hardly shut for another month, until it is so full of the dust that has found its way within, that it resists the effort to close it.

have to be repaired afterwards with usury. Moses, the gentlest of men, teaches us to make bookcases most neatly, wherein they may be protected from any injury:

But the handling of books is specially to 35 Take, he says, this book of the law, and put

be forbidden to those shameless youths, who
as soon as they have learned to form the
shapes of letters, straightway, if they have
the opportunity, become unhappy commen-
tators, and wherever they find an extra 40
margin about the text, furnish it with mon-
strous alphabets, or if any other frivolity
strikes their fancy, at once their pen begins
to write it. There the Latinist and sophister
and every unlearned writer tries the fitness 45
of his pen, a practice that we have fre-
quently seen injuring the usefulness and
value of the most beautiful books.

it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God. O fitting place and appropriate for a library, which was made of imperishable shittim-wood, and was all covered within and without with gold! But the Saviour also has warned us by His example against all unbecoming carelessness in the handling of books, as we read in S. Luke. For when He had read the scriptural prophecy of Himself in the book that was delivered to Him, He did not give it again to the minister, until He had closed it with his own most sacred hands. By which stuAgain, there is a class of thieves shame- dents are most clearly taught that in the fully mutilating books, who cut away the 50 care of books the merest trifles ought not margins from the sides to use as material for letters, leaving only the text, or employ

to be neglected.

ca. 1345

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN

KNIGHT*
I

Rome (and gave to the city his own name, which it bears even to this day); and Ticius turned him to Tuscany; and Langobard raised him up dwellings in Lombardy; and 5 Felix Brutus sailed far over the French flood, and founded the kingdom of Britain, wherein have been war and waste and wonder, and bliss and bale, ofttimes since. And in that kingdom of Britain have Thus Romulus built 10 been wrought more gallant deeds than in

After the siege and the assault of Troy, when that burg was destroyed and burnt to ashes, and the traitor tried for his treason, the noble Æneas and his kin sailed forth to become princes and patrons of well-nigh all the Western Isles.

* Translation by Jessie L. Weston, David Nutt, 1903. By permission of Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, &

' leaving

Company.