FIFTH CKNTURY.
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to eanmerate the variety of its riches and beauty; and I shall content myself with obsemng that it contains 400U palaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres or places of amasement, 12,000 shops for the sale of vegetable food, and 40,000 tri- batsiy Jews. It is well known that the second Alexandrian library (established by Cleopatra) was then destroyed to feed the baths. That col- lection consistea of the treasures in the Serapion of3U0,000 Tolumes, and those 200,000 rolls brought by Marc Anthony from Pergamus, with the accumulation of seven centuries. The first ms priacipally formed by the two Ptolemies and contained at the period of the fire in Ceesar's time 700,000 volumes. The temple of Serapis escaped.
Amri, who was fond of literature, became acquainted with Philoponos, whose conversation plrased him much. One day, Philoponus said to him, " You have examined the public repo- sitories in Alexandria, and put your seal upon til the effects you found in them. With respect to such things as may be useful to you, I pre- aune to say nothing; but among those which yoa think of no value, there may be some, perii^>s, very serviceable to me." " And what," aaswetMl Amri, " are the things that you want V " The philosophical books," replied Fbilopoons, " that are preserved in the public libraries." " This," returned Amri, " is a leqoest upon which I cannot decide, till I have received orders from the Caliph Omar, the com- nanderof the Faithful." He wrote immediately to Omar, to lay before him the requeA of Philo- pcAus; and the Caliph returned this answer : " If there be nothing in the books, concerning whidi you write, contrary to the book of God (meaning the Koran), they are utterly aseless, the book of God being sufficient fur our instruc- tioo. Bat if they contain anything repugnant to that book, they ought to be suppr^sed. I command you, therefore, to destroy them all." Amri distributed all the books immediately, among the baths of Alexandria, that they might be employed in heating them; and by this melliod, in the space of six months, they were aU consomed. Such was then the triumph of ignorance and fanaticism over learning and philosopliy.
Ahont the time of the first publication of the £aiaa in Arabia, some Persian romances were introduced into that country by a travelling mer- chant, and the inhabitants openly professed that they found them considerably more amusing than the moral lessons of Mahomet. To oppose this feeling, a portion of a chapter was imme- diately written, in which the merchant was con- demned, and his tales treated as the most per- nicious fables, hateful to God and liis propbet, whilst the Caliph Omar, acting upon the same principle, commanded all foreign books to be destroyed, and made it one plea for burning the Alexandrian library.
Thelitenuy treasures of antiauity have suffered (torn the mahce of men, as well as that of time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment
of victory, or in the unsparing devastation of their rage, have not been satisfied with destroying »i«n, but have even carried their vengeance to books. The Persians, from hatred of the religion of the Phoenicians and the Egyptians, destroyed their books, of which Eusebius notices a great number. A Grecian library at Gnidus was burnt by the sect of Hippocrates, because theGnidians refused to follow the doctrines of their master. The Romans burnt the books of the Jews, of the Christians, and the philosophers; the Jews burnt the books of the Christians and the Pagans; and the Christians, burnt the books of the Pagans and the Jews. The greater part of the books of Origin and other writers, were continually burnt by 3ie orthodox party. Gibbon pathetically describes the empty library of Alexandria, after the Chris- tians had destroyed it. Conquerors at first destroy with the lashest zeal the national records of the cSjnquered people; hence it is that we have to deplore the irreparable losses of the most ancient national memonals. It must be confessed, how- , eiver, that before the Christian era, and even among barbarians, the veneration for distinguish- ed philosophers and poets, was such, that in cases of war, they were generally exempted from the common fate of the vanquished. Alexander spared the house of Pindar, though he razed the city of Thebes to the ground. Marcellus, though re- peatedly bafiled and repulsed by Archimedes, y«t commanded his soldiers to save him unhurt at the final conquest of Syracuse. In our own times, the same homage has been paid to genius. The French have received the same generous treat- • ment from the English, and the English from the French.
642, Sept. 27. Died Sigebert King of East Anglia. The times of the Heptarchy produced a number of sovereigns that were dLstinguished as warriors, as politicians, and devotees; there are only two, who desene to be mentioned as patrons of literature, and even these two would scarcely deserve to be mentioned, if they had lived in more enlightened ages. The first is Sigebert, who, in consequenceofhis having been an exilein France, had acquired an understanding and taste superior to his cotemporaries. Accordingly, when he was settled on the throne, he did not merely endea- vour, to convert his subjects to Christianity, but instituted seminaries, for instruction in the lan- guages, and such other literature as was then known. Hehassometiraesbeen considered, though without sufficient rea.son,as the founder of the uni- versity of Cambridge. The schools appointed by him were erected in several places, but can by no means be regarded as the establishment of an university. His knowledge was not so enlarged as to preserve him from the superstitious weak- ness of the times; for we read that he closed his reign by retiring into a monastery.
670. The famous Wilford, among other donations for decorating the church at Ripon, ordered a copy of the Four Gospels to be written for it, in letters of the purest gold, upon leaves of parchment,;)urpM in the ground, ana coloured variously upon the surface : but that such copies
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