Bever or Beaver (Latin bibere, through the old French beivre), an obsolete English word for a snack or luncheon, especially one taken in the afternoon between mid-day dinner and supper. Hence, a term applied to a frugal repast of bread and beer served out on summer afternoons in Eton, Winchester, and Westminster Colleges till a very recent period.

"

"It may be interesting for all old Etonians, and for old Collegers in particular, to read the news that Bever' is abolished." Such are the words that begin an obituary notice of this institution in the last number of the Eton College Chronicle. Though the tone of the article is, on the whole, regretful, yet we would fain have seen another expression substituted for that word "interesting.' It is as if one should write, "It may be interesting to you to know that your mother has lost an arm.' It is not that tone of the lover to his mistress that the good Conservative and the good Etonian should adopt. For four hundred and fifty years Collegers have partaken of that humble meal of bread and beer, have sought the cool shades of Henry's noble dining-hall for that mild refreshment, and have been proud to entertain oppidan friends who disdain not the Spartan fare. If only that the word "Bever" itself might not become a nominis umbra the remorseless authorities might have paused. Indeed, it was cruelly done. But when some five or six years ago grace-cup was found to be out of keeping with the teetotal spirit of the age, and boiled salmon was substituted in its place, we should have known what to expect. The prophet's eye might have seen that the days of "Bever" also were numbered, that the "little systems" of the pious founder had "had their day," and therefore had better" cease to be." Bever" is gone, and we believe the authorities in substitution intend to allow each Colleger a mug of toast-and-water on Sundays throughout the year. It is the day of the faddist, and a vegetarian dinner in Hall and compulsory Dr. Jaeger's underclothing are looming like nightmares through the mists of the future.-Saturday Review, June 28, 1890.

Bible statistics. The following facts in regard to the Authorized Version of the Bible are given by the indefatigable Dr. Horne in his "Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures." Their compilation is said to have occupied more than three years of the doctor's life:

Old
Testament.

New
Testament.

Total.

Books, 14; chapters, 183; verses, 6031; words, 125,185; letters, 1,063,876.

But the good doctor's work is entirely cast into the shade by the statistical exploit of some religious enthusiast (possibly a myth), who, as the result of several years' incarceration for conscience' sake, produced this astonishing monument of misapplied industry :

The Bible contains 66 books, 1189 chapters, 33,173 verses, 773,692 words, and 3,586,489 letters. The word "and" occurs 46,227 times, the word "Lord" 1855 times, "reverend" but once, "girl" but once, in third chapter and third verse of Joel; the words "everlasting fire" but twice, and "everlasting punishment" but once. The middle line is Second Chronicles iv. 16. The middle chapter and the shortest is Psalm cxvii. The middle verse is the eighth verse of Psalm cxviii. The twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of Ezra contains all the letters in the alphabet, except the letter "J." The finest chapter to read is the twenty-sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The nineteenth chapter of Second Kings and the thirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah are alike. The longest verse is the ninth verse of the eighth chapter of Esther. The shortest is the thirty-fifth verse of the eleventh chapter of St. John, viz.: "Jesus wept. The eighth, fifteenth, twenty-first, and thirty-first verses of the 107th Psalm are alike. Each verse of the 136th Psalm ends alike. There are no words of more than six syllables.

It is evident enough that each of these tables is the result of independent labor, as they do not agree with each other as to the number of words and letters in the Bible. Probably we shall have to wait until another enthusiast is jugged before the figures are verified.

Bibles, Curious, a general term given to certain editions of the Scriptures which are distinguished by peculiar errors of the printers, or some

strange choice of words by the translators. The most famous of these, arranged in chronological order, are as follows:

THE BREECHES BIBLE.

"Then the eies of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed figge tree leaves together and made themselves breeches."-Gen. iii. 7. Printed in 1560. In the Authorized Version, published in 1611, this picturesque attire has been changed to "aprons."

THE BUG BIBLE.

"So that thou shalt not nede to be afraid for any bugges by nighte, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day."-Ps. xci. 5. Printed in 1561. Bug was originally identical with bogie, and has substantially the same meaning as 66 terror," the word substituted in the Authorized Version.

THE PLACE-MAKERS' BIBLE.

"Blessed are the place-makers; for they shall be called the children of God.”—Matt. v. 9. Printed in 1561-2. A version that should be in great request with practical politicians of all parties.

22.

22.

THE TREACLE BIBLE.

"Is there not treacle at Gilead? Is there no physician there?"-Fer. viii. Printed in 1568.

THE ROSIN BIBLE.

"Is there no rosin in Gilead? Is there no physician there?"-Jer. viii. A Douay version, printed in 1609.

THE WICKED BIBLE.

This extraordinary name has been given to an edition of the Authorized Bible, printed in London by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas in 1631. The negative was left out of the seventh commandment, and William Kilburne, writing in 1659, says that, owing to the zeal of Dr. Usher, the printer was fined £2000 or £3000.

The same title has been given to the Bible which its publishers called the "Pearl Bible," from the size of the type used, which was published in 1653, and contained the following among other errata:

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness [for unrighteousness] unto sin.-Rom. vi. 13.

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit [for shall not inherit] the kingdom of God? - Cor. vi. 9.

These errata made the Wicked Bibles very popular among the libertines of the period, who urged the texts as "pleas of justification" against the reproofs of the divines.

THE VINEGAR BIBLE.

The Parable of the Vinegar," instead of "The Parable of the Vineyard," appears in the chapter-heading to Luke xx. in an Oxford edition of the Authorized Version which was published in 1717.

THE MURDERERS' BIBLE.

This ghastly name has been won by an edition published in 1801, from an error in the sixteenth verse of the Epistle of Jude, where the word "murmurers" is rendered "murderers."

TO-REMAIN BIBLE.

"Persecuted him that was born after the spirit to remain, even so it is now." -Gal. iv. 29. This typographical error, which was perpetuated in the first 8vo Bible printed for the Bible Society, takes its chief importance from the curious circumstances under which it arose. A 12m0 Bible was being printed at Cambridge in 1805, and the proof-reader, being in doubt as to whether or not he should remove a comma, applied to his superior, and the reply, pencilled on the margin, "to remain," was transferred to the body of the text, and was repeated in the Bible Society's 8vo edition of 1805-6, and also in another 12mo edition of 1819.

THE DISCHARGE BIBLE.

"I discharge thee before God."—1 Tim. v. 21. Printed in 1806.

THE STANDING-FISHES BIBLE.

"And it shall come to pass that the fishes will stand upon it," etc.—Ezek. xlvii. 10. Printed in 1806.

THE EARS-TO-EAR BIBLE

"Who hath ears to ear, let him hear."-Matt. xiii. 43. Printed in 1810.

THE WIFE-HATER BIBLE.

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, . . wife also," etc.—Luke xiv. 26. Printed in 1810.

it was

REBEKAH'S-CAMELS BIBLE.

yea, and his own

"And Rebekah arose, and her camels."-Gen. xxiv. 61. Printed in 1823. Though not technically ranked among “Curious Bibles," the most extraordinary bit of Biblical eccentricity is a New Testament issued by the Rev. Edward Harwood, D.D., an eighteenth-century divine, whose happy thought 'to clothe the genuine ideas and doctrines of the apostles with that propriety and perspicuity in which they themselves, I apprehend, would have exhibited them, had they now lived and written in our language." The good doctor, though pained that "the bald and barbarous language of the old vulgar version" had from long usage "acquired a venerable sacredness," was not without a hope that an attempt to diffuse over the sacred page the elegance of modern English" might allure "men of cultivated and improved minds" to a book "now, alas, too generally neglected."

66

Dr. Harwood, therefore, proceeded to make the New Testament an eminently genteel book. Every word that had dropped out of vogue in polite circles was plucked away, the very plain-spoken warning to the Laodicean Church assuming in his version this form: "Since, therefore, you are now in a state of lukewarmness, a disagreeable medium between the two extremes, I will, in no long time, eject you from my heart with fastidious contempt.' sentence is certainly delicious; but when we remember who the speaker is, The we find we are laughing at something like blasphemy. We may, however, laugh with a clear conscience at the description of Nicodemus as "this gentleman," of St. Paul's Athenian convert Damaris as "a lady of distinction," and of the daughter of Herodias as "a young lady who danced with inimitable grace and elegance." "Young lady, rise," are the words addressed to the daughter of Jairus. The father of the Prodigal is "a gentleman of splendid family:" St. Peter, on the Mount of Transfiguration, exclaims, "Oh, sir! what a delectable residence we might fix here," and St. Paul is raised to the standard of Bristolian respectability by having a "portmanteau" conferred

upon him in place of the mere cloak mentioned by himself as having been left by him at Troas. The apostolic statement, "We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed," appears thus: "We shall not all pay the common debt of nature, but we shall, by a soft transition, be changed from mortality to immortality."

Even after reading these prodigious translations we are hardly prepared for a meddling with the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. But Dr. Harwood's passion for elegance stuck at nothing, and the "men of cultivated and improved minds" must have Harwoodian versions of the two great hymns of Christendom. Here are the openings of both :

"My soul with reverence adores my Creator, and all my faculties with transport join in celebrating the goodness of God, my Saviour, who hath in so signal a manner condescended to regard my poor and humble station. Transcendent goodness! every future age will now conjoin in celebrating my happiness."

"O God! thy promise to me is amply fulfilled! I now quit the post of human life with satisfaction and joy, since thou hast indulged mine eyes with so divine a spectacle as the great Messiah."

To use Dr. Harwood's own words, this edition of the New Testament leaves the most exacting velleity without ground for quiritation.

Biblioklept, a modern euphemism which softens the ugly word book-thief by shrouding it in the mystery of the Greek language. So the French say, not voleur, but chipeur de livres. The true bibliomaniac cannot help feeling a tenderness for his pet fad, even when carried to regrettable excesses. Perhaps he has often felt his own fingers tingle in view of a rare de Grolier, a unique Elzevir, he knows the strength of the temptation, he estimates rightly his own weakness; perhaps, if he carries self-analysis to the unflattering point which it rarely reaches, save in the sincerest and finest spirits, he recognizes that his power of resistance is supplied not by virtue, but by fear,-fear of the police and of Mrs. Grundy. In his inner soul he admires the daring which risks all for the sake of a great passion. When a famous book-collector was exhibiting his treasures to the Duke of Sussex, Queen Victoria's uncle, he apologized to his royal highness for having to unlock each case. "Oh, quite right, quite right," was the reassuring reply: "to tell the truth, I'm a terrible thief." There are not many of us who are so honest. Nevertheless, the epidemic form which bibliokleptomania has assumed is recognized in the motto which school-boys affix to their books, warning honest friends not to steal them. "Honest" may, of course, be a fine bit of sarcasm. But one prefers to look upon it as indicating a subtle juvenile prescience that the most honest and the most friendly will steal books, as the most honest will cheat their dearest friends in a matter of horseflesh.

The roll of book-thieves, if it included all those who have prigged without detection or who have borrowed without returning, would doubtless include the most illustrious men of all ages. But strike from the list those whose thefts have been active and not passive, and admitting perforce only that probably small proportion whose active thieving has been discovered and proclaimed, a splendid array of names will still remain. It will include learned men, wise men, good men,-the highest dignitaries of church and state, even a pope. And that pope was no less a man than Innocent X. To be sure, he was not pope, but plain Monsignor Pamphilio, when he stole a book from Du Moustier, the painter,-his one detected crime. But who shall say it was his only crime? To be sure, again, Du Moustier was something of a thief himself: he used to brag how he had prigged a book of which he had long been in search from a stall on the Pont-Neuf. Nevertheless, he strenuously objected to be stolen from. When, therefore, Monsignor Pamphilio, in

the train of Cardinal Barberini, paid a visit to the painter's studio in Paris and quietly slipped into his soutane a copy of "L'Histoire du Concile de Trente," M. Du Moustier, catching him in the act, furiously told the cardinal that a holy man should not bring thieves and robbers in his train. With these and other words of a like libellous nature he recovered the History of the Council of Trent, and kicked out the future pontiff. Historians date from this incident that hatred to the crown and the people of France which distinguished the pontifical reign of Innocent X.

Among royal personages, the Ptolemies were book-thieves on a large scale. An entire department in the Alexandrian Library, significantly called “ Books from the Ships," consisted of rare volumes taken from sea-voyagers who touched at the port. True, the Ptolemies had a conscience. They were careful to have fair transcripts made of these valuable manuscripts, which they presented to the visitors; but, as Aristotle says, and, indeed, as is evident enough to minds of far inferior compass, the exchange, being involuntary, could not readily be differentiated from robbery. Brantôme tells us that Catherine de Médicis, when Marshal Strozzi died, seized upon his very valuable library, promising some day to pay the value to his son, but the promise was never kept.

Perhaps the greatest of biblioklepts was Don Vincente, a friar of that Poblat convent whose library was plundered and dispersed at the pillage of the monasteries during the regency of Queen Christina in 1834. Coming to Barcelona, he established himself in a gloomy den in the book-selling quarter of the town. Here he set up as a dealer, but fell so in love with his accumulated purchases that only want tempted him to sell them. Once at an auction he was outbid for a copy of the "Ordinacions per los Gloriosos Reys de Arago," a great rarity, perhaps a unique. Three days later the house of the successful rival was burned to the ground, and his blackened body, pipe in hand, was found in the ruins. He had set the house on fire with his pipe,that was the general verdict. A mysterious succession of murders followed. One bibliophile after another was found in the streets or the river, with a dagger in his heart. The shop of Don Vincente was searched. The "Ordinacions" was discovered. How had it escaped the flames that had burned down the purchaser's house? Then the Don confessed not only that murder but others. Most of his victims were customers who had purchased from him books he could not bear to part with. At the trial, counsel for the defence tried to discredit the confession, and when it was objected that the "Ordinacions" was a unique copy, they proved there was another in the Louvre, that, therefore, there might be still more, and that the defendant's might have been honestly procured. At this, Don Vincente, hitherto callous and silent, uttered a low cry. "Aha!" said the alcade, “you are beginning to realize the enormity of your offence!" "Yes," sobbed the penitent thief, "the copy was not a unique, after all."

A worthy successor to this good friar was Count Guglielmi Libri Carucci, known by his penultimate name Libri, which, curiously enough, means books. He was a member of the French Institute, a professor in the College of France, a valued contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes, and an inspector-general of French libraries under Louis Philippe. Yet he succeeded in getting away with a large number of valuable books and manuscripts belonging to the libraries he "inspected." His thefts were first brought to the notice of the Paris librarians by anonymous letters, and then by articles in the Moniteur and the National. In 1848 he was prosecuted and condemned by default to ten years' imprisonment; but even then his friends did not desert him. Prosper Méri. mée, who defended him before the Senate, refused to believe in his guilt. When he fled to London, Sir Antonio Panizzi received him with open arms,