"The Lengdon Inn, kept by M. Vuller.
Gentlemen walk in and sit at your aise,
Pay for what you call for, and call for what you plaise;
As tristing of late has been to my sorrow,
Pay me to-day and I'll tristee to-morrow."

J. D.

Launceston.

Not far from Kilpeck, Herefordshire, I have seen a wayside public-house,
exhibiting the sign of the "Oak," under which is the following couplet:

"I am an oak, and not a yew,
So drink a cup with good John Pugh."

{569} As "good John Pugh" sold excellent cider, I did not repent complying
with the injunction.

W. J. BERNHARD SMITH.

Temple.

This is at a roadside public-house near Maidenhead, known by the sign of
the "Gate." It is thus:

"This gate hangs high,
It hinders none;
Drink hearty, boys,
And travel on."

I remember a sign near Marlborough of the "Red Cow," and the landlord,
being also a milkman, had inscribed under the rude drawing of a cow these
lines:

"The Red Cow
Gives good milk now."

NEWBURIENSIS.

* * * * *

HOMO UNIUS LIBRI.

(Vol. viii., p. 440.)

I have not verified in the works of St. Thomas this saying ascribed to him,
but I subjoin a passage from Bishop Taylor, where it is quoted:

"A river cut into many rivulets divides also its strength, and grows
contemptible and apt to be forded by a lamb and drunk up by a summer
sun; so is the spirit of man busied in variety, and divided in itself;
it abates its fervour, cools into indifferency, and becomes trifling by
its dispersion and inadvertency. Aquinas was once asked, with what
compendium a man might best become learned? He answered, _By reading of
one book_; meaning that an understanding entertained with several
objects is intent upon neither, and profits not." --_Life of Christ_,
part ii. s. xii. 16.

He also quotes Ecclus (xi. 10.), St. Gregory, St. Bernard, Seneca,
Quintillian, and Juvenal to the same purpose.

Southey quotes part of this passage from Bishop Taylor (in the _Doctor_)
and adds:

"Lord Holland's poet, the prolific Lope de Vega, tells us to the same
purport. The _Homo Unius Libri_ is indeed proverbially formidable to
all conversational figurantes: like your sharpshooter, he knows his
piece, and is sure of his shot."

The truth of this dictum of St. Thomas cannot be too much insisted on in
this age of many books, which affords such incentives to litera