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Thus perished, by fanatical madness, the inestimable Alexandrian library, which is said to have contained at that time upwards of five hundred thousand volumes; and from this period barbarity and ignorance prevailed for several centuries. In Italy, and all over the west of Europe, learning was in a manner extinguished, except some small remains which were preserved in Constantinople.

"In this city, the emperor Constantine had deposited a considerable library, which was soon after enriched by his successor Julian, who placed the following inscription at the entrance:

Alii quidem equos amant, alii aves, alii feras; mihi vero à puerulo,

"The ravages committed by the Turks who plundered Constantinople, in the year 1453, are related by Philelphus, who was a man of learning, and was tutor to Eneas Sylvius (afterwards pope, under the name of Piusthe Second), and was an eye-witness to what passed at that time. This author says, that the persons of quality, especially the women, still preserved the Greek language uncorrupted. He observes, that though the city had been taken before, it never suffered so much as at that time; and adds, that, till that period, the remembrance of ancient wisdom remained at Constantinople, and that no one among the Latins was deemed sufficiently

Mirum acquirendi et possidendi libros in- learned, who had not studied for

sedit desiderium.'

"Theodosius the younger was very assiduous in augmenting this library, by whom, in the latter end of the fourth century, it was enlarged to one hundred thousand volumes; above one half of which were burnt in the fifth century by the emperor Leo the First, so famous for his hatred to images.

"The inhabitants of Constantinople had not lost their taste for literature in the beginning of the thirteenth century, when that city was sacked by the crusaders, in the year 1205: the depredations then committed are related in Mr. Harris's posthumous works, vol. ii. p. 301, from Nicetas the Choniate, who was present at the sacking of this place. His account of the statues, bustos, bronzes, manuscripts, paintings, and other exquisite remains of antiquity, which then perished, cannot be read by any lover of arts and learning

without emotion.

some time at that place, he expressed his fear that all the works of the ancients would be destroyed.

"Still, however, there are the remains of three libraries at Constantinople; the first is called that of Constantine the Great; the second is for all ranks of people without distinction; the third is in the palace, and is called the Ottoman library, but a fire happened in 1665, which consumed a great part of the palace, and almost the whole library, when, as is supposed, Livy, and a great many valuable works of the ancients, perished. Father Possevius has given an account of the libraries at Constantinople, and in other parts of the Turkish dominions, in his excellent work intituled, Apparatus Sacer.

"Many other losses of the writings of the ancients have been attributed to the zeal of the Christians, who, at different periods, made great havock amongst the heathen authors. Not a single

copy

copy of the famous work of Celsus is now to be found, and what we know of that work is from Origen, his opponent. The venerable fathers, who employed themselves in erasing the best works of the most eminent Greek or Latin authors, in order to transcribe the lives of saints or legendary tales upon the obliterated vellum, possibly mistook these lamentable depredations for works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by Mr. Bruns, in the Vatican, in 1772, was much defaced by the pious labours of some well-intentioned divine. The monks made war on books as the Goths had done before them. Great numbers of manuscripts have also been destroyed in this kingdom by its invaders, the pagan Danes, and the Normans, by the civil commotions raised by the barons, by the bloody contests between the houses of York and Lancaster, and especially by the general plunder and devastation of monasteries and religious houses in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by the ravages committed in the civil war in the time of Charles the First, and by the fire that happened in the Cottonian library, October 23, 1731.

"In all this period of time, many others may be supposed to have perished by that Helluo librorum, tempus edax rerum.

"Thus it appears, that more of the works of the ancients have perished than have reached us. To enumerate such as are known to have been destroyed, or lost, in the various branches of science and polite literature, would form a catalogue of considerable bulk; but the most irreparable and deplorable losses which mankind have sustained, are in the branch

of history, and therefore it may be proper to lay before our readers some particulars concerning the works of, ancient historians, many of which are so mutilated that the fragments which remain, serve only to increase our regret for what have been lost or de stroyed.

"The History of Phenicia, by Sanconiatho, who was contempo rary with Solomon, would have been entirely lost to us, had it not been for the valuable fragments preserved by Eusebius, which are mentioned in the following sheets. Manetho's History of Egypt, and the History of Chaldea, by Berosus, have nearly met with the same fate.

"The general History of Polybius originally contained forty books; but the first five only, with some extracts, or fragments, are transmitted to us.

"The historical library of Diodorus Siculus consisted likewise of forty books, but only fifteen are now extant; that is, five between the fifth and the eleventh, and the last ten, with some fragments col lected out of Photius and others.

"Dionysius Halicarnassensis wrote twenty books of Roman an tiquities, extending from the siege of Troy, to the first Punic war, A. U. C. 488, but only eleven of them are now remaining, which reach no further than the year of Rome 312.

"Appian is said to have written the Roman History in twenty-four books, but the greatest part of the works of that author are lost.

"Dion Cassius wrote eighty books of history, but only twentyfive are remaining, with some fragments, and an epitome of the last twenty by, Xiphilinus.

"Many of the works of the K 2

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most ancient Latin historians have either perished, or are come down to us mutilated and imperfect. "Sallust wrote a Roman His tory, but there are only some fragments of it preserved.

"Livy's Roman History consisted of one hundred and forty, or, as some authors say, of one hundred and forty-two books; of this excellent work one hundred and seven books must have perished, as only thirty-five remain. Though we have an epitome of one hundred and forty books, yet this is so short, that it only serves to give us a general idea of the subject, and to impress us with a more lively sense of our loss.

"The elegant compendium of the Roman History, by Velleius Paterculus, is very imperfectly transmitted to us, great part of that work having perished.

"The first and second books of Q. Curtius are entirely lost, and there are several chasms in some of those which are preserved.

"The emperor Tacitus ordered ten copies of the works of his relation the historian to be made every year, which he sent into the different provinces of the empire; and yet, notwithstanding his endeavours to perpetuate these inestimable works, they were buried in oblivion for many centuries. Since the restoration of learning, an ancient MS. was discovered in a monastery in Westphalia, which contained the most valuable part of his Annals; but in this unique manuscript, part of the fifth, se venth, ninth, and tenth books are deficient, as are part of the eleventh, and the latter part of the sixteenth. This MS. was procured by that great restorer of learning pope Leo X. under whose

patronage it was printed at Rome, in 1515; he afterwards deposited it in the Vatican library, where it is still preserved. Thus posterity is probably indebted to the above magnificent pontiff for the most valuable part of the works of this inimitable historian.

"The epitome of Trogus Pompeius, by Justin, may be deemed only a mere shadow of Trogus.

"Ammianus Marcellinus wrote thirty-one books, extending from the accession of Nerva to the death of Valens; but the first thirteen are wanting.

"Many other losses are recorded in two excellent tracts, De Historicis Græcis et Latinis,' by the celebrated Gerard Vossius. To these might be added a great number of works in different branches of science and polite arts.

"The Justinian Code had been in a manner unknown from the sixth till the twelfth century, when Amalfi, a city of Calabria, being taken by the Pisans, an original MS. was discovered there by ac cident.

"Varro, who is styled the most learned of all the Romans, and who excelled in grammar, history, and philosophy, is said to have written near five hundred volumes, amongst which were the lives of seven hundred illustrious Romans, enriched with their portraits.

"Atticus, the great friend of Cicero, who was one of the most honourable, hospitable, and friendly men of the times in which he lived, wrote many pieces in Latin and Greek, which last language he cultivated much after his retirement to Athens. The loss of his work on the actions of the great men amongst the Romans, which he ornamented with their por traits, is much to be deplored, as

he

he had a great taste for the polite arts; and we may conceive that both the portraits in Varro's work, as well as those we are now speaking of, were well executed, because we cannot doubt but those great men would employ the best artists; and that there were artists capable of producing the most excellent workmanship, appears from the Roman coins of that age, still extant, which must have been drawn before they were engraven on metals. So much the more therefore it is to be lamented that these last works are irrecoverably lost.

"It is now time to change the painful task of recording the successive disasters which have befallen the commonwealth of letters, for the pleasing office of relating the events and circumstances which have contributed to the revival and restoration of learning.

"The Arabians or Saracens, whose wild and barbarous enthusiasm had destroyed the Alexandrian library in the seventh century, were the first people who were captivated with the learning and arts of Greece; the Arabian writers translated into their own language many Greek authors, and from them the first rays of science and philosophy began to enlighten the western hemisphere, and in time dispelled the thick cloud of ignorance which for some ages had eclipsed literature.

"The caliph Almanzur was a lover of letters and learned men, and science of every kind was cultivated under his patronage. His grandson, Almamun, ob, tained from the Greek emperors copies of their best books, employed the ablest scholars to trans fate them, and took great pleasure in literary conversations. Under

the patronage of the calphs, the works of the most valuable Greek authors, in different branches of science, were translated into Ara. bic. In philosophy, those of Plato and Aristotle. In mathematics, those of Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Diophantus, and others. In medicine, Hippocrates, Galen, and the best professors in this branch of science. In astronomy, Ptolemy, and other authors. The Arabian literati not only translated the works of the Greeks, but several of them composed original pieces; as, Abulfeda, Abulpharagius, Bohadin, and others. For an account of the Arabian writers and literature, see Mr. Harris's posthumous works, vol. ii. chaps. vi. vii. and viii.

"It will hereafter appear that it was from the Arabians that these western parts became first acquainted with the Greek philosophy; and from them several branches of science were introduced into Europe as early as the ninth century, and even into Britain before the end of the eleventh, in which, and in the three succeeding centu ries, several Englishmen travelled into Arabia and Spain, in search of knowledge; amongst others, Adelard, a monk of Bath; Robert, a monk of Reading; Retinensis, Shelly, Morley, and others, of whom mention is made in the seventh chapter of this work.

"Several foreigners also travelled in search of science; amongst others, Gerbert, a native of France, who enriched these western parts with the knowledge which he had obtained from learned Arabians. The abilities of this great man raised him to the archiepiscopal see of Rheims, then to that of Ravenna, and at length to the pa

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pal chair, which he filled from the year 998 to 1008: but such was the bigotry and superstition of those times, that these great luminaries of science, though most of them ecclesiastics, were accused of magic by the ignorant herd of their brethren. Even pope Gerbert himself, as bishop Otho gravely relates of him, obtained the pontificate by wicked means; for the bishop assures us that he had given himself up wholly to the devil, on condition he might obtain what he desired; and that it was to this circumstance, and not to the patronage of the emperor Othe III., who had been his pupil, nor to that of Robert, the French king, his great benefactor, that he owed his election. A cardinal Benno also accuses this great man of holding an intercourse with demons. Nor did superstition and bigotry cease to persecute science and genius till the end of the seventeenth century.

"Our Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk, who flourished in the thirteenth century, was accused of magic, and was cast into a French prison, where he remained for many years.

"Franciscus Petrarch was suspected of magic; and John Faust, who was either the inventor, or amongst the first practisers of the art of printing, was obliged to reveal his art, to clear himself from the accusation of having had recourse to diabolical assistance.

But the great Galileo met with the hardest fate, for he was not only imprisoned by the inqui sition, but was also under the necessity of publicly denying those philosophical truths which he had investigated; and what is worse for posterity, superstition and igno

rance persecuted his fame be yond the grave; for the confessor of his widow, taking advantage of her piety, obtained leave to peruse his manuscripts, of which he destroyed such as in his judgement were not fit to be allowed.

"This short digression will in some measure account for the slow progress towards the restoration of science, and therefore we must not expect to find that many libra ries were formed during the dark ages of Christianity: some few manuscripts, however, escaped the general plunder of the Roman libraries by the Goths.

"Cassiodorus, the favourite minister to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was a lover of learning; he collected a library, and wrote a book on orthography. Pope Hilary placed a collection of books in the church of St. Hilary at Rome, about the year of Christ 465.

"Some few learned men existed in different parts of Europe, throughout these times of ignorance; our countryman Bede, who was born about 661, and died in 724, was well versed both in sacred and prophane history, as his numerous works testify.

"St. Egbert, archbishop of York, was a disciple of venerable Bede; he was a man of great learning, and founded a noble library at York about 735, which was casually burnt in the reign of king Stephen, with the cathedral, the monastery of St. Mary's, and several other religious houses.

Alcuin, called also Albinus Flaccus, was born in Northum berland; he was the disciple of archbishop Egbert, whom he succeeded in the charge of the famous school which that prelate

had

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