invasion under Cambyses. There was also, according to Eustathius and other ancient authors, a fine library at Memphis, deposited in the Temple of Phtha, from which Homer has been accused of having stolen both the "Illiad" and the "Odyssey," and afterwards published them as his own. From this charge, however, the bard has been vindicated by various writers, and by different arguments. But the most superb library of Egypt, perhaps of the ancient world, was that of Alexandria. About the year 290 B. C., Ptolemy Soter, a learned prince, founded an academy at Alexandria called the Museum, where there assembled a society of learned men, devoted to the study of philosophy and the sciences, and for whose use he formed a collection of books, the number of which has been variously computed-by Epiphanius at 54,000 and by Josephus at 200,000. His son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, an equally liberal and enlightened prince, collected great numbers of books in the Temple of Serapis, in addition to those accumulated by his father, and at his death left in it upwards of 100,000 volumes. He had agents in every part of Asia and of Greece, commissioned to search out and purchase the rarest and most valuable writings; and among those he procured were the works of Aristotle, and the Septuagint version of the Jewish Scriptures, which was undertaken at the suggestion of Demetrius Phalerius, his first librarian. The measures adopted by this monarch for augmenting the Alexandrian Library were pursued by his successor, Ptolemy Euergetes, with unscrupulous vigor. He caused all books imported into Egypt by Greeks or other foreigners to be seized and sent to the Museum, where they were transscribed by persons employed for the purpose; and when this was done, the copies were delivered to the proprie tors, and the original deposited in the library. He refused to supply the famished Athenians with corn until they presented him with the original manuscripts of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and in returning elegant copies of these autographs, he allowed the owners to retain the fifteen talents (more than £3000 sterling) which he had pledged with them as a princely security. As the Museum, where the library was originally founded, stood near the royal palace, in that quarter of the city called Brucheion, all writings were at first deposited there; but when this building had been completely occupied with books, to the number of 400,000, a supplemental library was erected within the Scrapeion, or Temple of Serapis, and this gradually increased till it contained about 300,000 volumes-making in both libraries a grand total of 700,000 volumes.

The Alexandrian Library continued in all its splendor until the first Alexandrian war, when, during the plunder of the city, the Brucheion portion of the collection was accidentally destroyed by fire, owing to the recklessness in the auxiliary troops. But the library of the Serapeion still remained, and was augmented by subsequent donations, particularly by that of the Pergamean Li

brary of 200,000 volumes,* presented by Mark Antony to Cleopatra, so that it soon equalled the former, both in the number and in the value of its contents. At length, after various revolutions under the Roman Emperors, during which the collection was sometimes plundered and sometimes re-established, it was utterly destroyed by the Saracens at the command of the Caliph Omar, when they acquired possession of Alexandria in A. D. 642, Amrou, the victorious general, was himself inclined to spare this inestimable treasury of ancient science and learning, but the ignorant and fanatical caliph, to whom he applied for instructions, ordered it to be destroyed. "If," said he, "these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed." The sentence of destruction was executed with blind obedience. The volumes of parchment or papyrus were distributed as fuel among the five thousand baths of the city; but such was their incredible number, that it took six months to consume them. This act of barbarism, recorded by Abulpharagius, is considered somewhat doubtful by Gibbon, in consequence of its not being mentioned by Eutychius and Almacin, two of the most ancient chroniclers. It seems inconsistent, too, with the character of Amrou, as a poet and a man of superior intelligence; but that the Alexandrian Library was thus destroyed is a fact generally credited, and deeply deplored by historians. Amrou, as a man of genius and learning, may have grieved at the order of the caliph, while, as a loyal subject and faithful soldier, he felt bound to obey.

Among the Greeks, as among other nations, the first library consisted merely of archives, deposited, for the sake of preservation, in the temples of the gods. Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, was the first who established a public library in his native city, which, we need not say, always took the lead in every thing relating to science and literature in Greece. Here he deposited the works. of Homer, which he had collected together with great difficulty and at a very considerable expense; and the Athenians themselves were at much pains to increase the collection. The fortunes of this library were various and singular. It was transported to Persia by Xerxes, brought back by Seleucus Nicator, plundered by Sylla, and at last restored by the Emperor Hadrian. On the invasion of the Roman Empire by the Goths, Greece was ravaged; and on the sack of Athens, they had collected all the libraries, and were upon the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of ancient learning, when one of their chiefs interposed, and dissuaded them from

The Library of Pergamos was founded by King Eumenes, and enlarged by his successor Attalus. It soon became so extensive that the Ptolemies, afraid that it would speedily rival their own collection at Alexandria, issued an edict forbidding the exportation of papyrus; but this prohibition, so far from attaining the unworthy object for which it was destined, proved rather beneficial; for the Pergamians, having exhausted their stock of papyrus, set their wits to work, and invented parchment (charta Pergamena) as a substitute.

their design, observing, at the same time, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to that of arms.

The first library established at Rome was that founded by Paulus Emilius, in the year B. C. 167. Having subdued Perses, king of Macedonia, he enriched the city of Rome with the library of the conquered monarch, which was subsequently augmented by Sylla. On his return from Asia, where he had successfully terminated the first war against Mithridates, Sylla visited Athens, whence he took with him the library of Apellicon the Teian, in which were the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Lucullus, another conqueror of Mithridates, was not less distinguished by his taste for books. The number of volumes in his library was immense, and they were written in the most distinct and elegant manner. But the use which he made of his collection was still more honorable to that princely Roman than the acquisition or possession of it. "It was a library," says Plutarch, "whose walls, galleries, and cabinets were open to all visitors and the ingenious Greeks, when at leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses, to hold literary conversations, in which Lucullus himself loved to join." But although both Sylla and Lucullus liberally gave public access to their literary treasures, still their libraries can, in strictness, be considered as only private collections. Among the various projects which Julius Cæsar had formed for the embellishment of Rome, was that of a public library, which should contain the largest possible collection of Greek and Latin works; and he had assigned to Varro the duty of selecting and arranging them. But this design was frustrated by the assassination of the dictator, and the establishment of public libraries did not take place in Rome until the reign of Augustus.

The honor of having first established these valuable institutions is ascribed by the elder Pliny to Asinius Pollio, who erected a public library in the Court of Liberty, on the Aventine Hill. The credit which he gained thereby was so great that the emperors became ambitous to illustrate their reigns by the foundation of libraries, many of which they called after their own names. Augustus was himself an author, and in one of those sumptuous buildings called Therma, ornamented with porticoes, galleries, and statues, with shady walks and refreshing baths, he testified his love of literature by adding a magnificent library, which he fondly called by the name of his sister Octavia. The Palatine Library, formed by the same emperor, in the Temble of Apollo, became the haunt of the poets, as Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus have commemorated. There were deposited the corrected books of the Sibyls; and from two ancient inscriptions, quoted by Lipsius and Pitiscus, it would seem that it consisted of two distinct collections-one Greek, and the other Latin. This library having survived the various revolutions of the Roman Empire, existed until the time of Gregory the

Great, whose mistaken zeal led him to order all the writings of the ancients to be destroyed. The successors of Augustus, though they did not equally encourage learning, were not altogether neglectful of its interests. Suetonius informs us that Tiberius founded a library in the new Temple of Apollo; and we learn from some incidental notices that he instituted another, called the Tiberian, in his own house, consisting chiefly of works relating to the empire and the acts of its sovereigns. Vespasian, following the example of his predecessors, established a library in the Temple of Peace, which he erected after the burning of the city by order of Nero; and even Domitian, in the commencement of his reign, restored at great expense the libraries which had been destroyed by the conflagration, collecting copies of books from every quarter, and sending persons to Alexandria to transcribe volumes in that celebrated collection, or to correct copies which had been made elsewhere. But the most magnificent of all the libraries founded by the sovereigns of imperial Rome was that of the Emperor Ulpius Trajanus, from whom it was denominated the Ulpian Library. It was erected in Trajan's Forum, but afterwards removed to the Viminal Hill, to ornament the baths of Diocletian. In this library were deposited the elephantine books, written upon tablets of ivory, wherein were recorded the transactions of the emperors, the proceedings of the senate and Roman magistrates, and the affairs of the provinces. It has been conjectured that the Ulpian Library consisted of both Greek and Latin works; and some authors affirm, that Trajan commanded that all the books found in the cities he had conquered should be immediately conveyed to Rome, in order to increase his collection. The library of Domitian having been consumed by lightning in the reign of Commodus, was not restored until the time of Gordian, who rebuilt the edifice, and founded a new library, adding thereto the collection of books bequeathed to him by Quintus Serenus Samonicus, the physician, and amounting, it is said, to no fewer than 72,000 volumes.

In addition to the imperial libraries, there were others to which the public had access in the principal cities and colonies of the empire. Pliny mentions one which he had founded for the use of his countrymen; and Vopiscus informs us that the Emperor Tacitus caused the historical writings of his illustrious namesake to be deposited in the libraries. The number of calcined volumes which have been excavated from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii would also seem to indicate that collections of books were common in those cities. But the irruptions of the barbarians, who overran and desolated the Western Empire, proved more destructive to the interests of literature than either volcanoes or earthquakes, and soon caused the disappearance of those libraries which, during several centuries, had been multiplied in Italy. Those of the East, however, escaped this devastating torrent; and both Alexandria and Constantinople preserved their literary treasures, until their

capture by the Saracens and Turks, who finally subverted the Eastern Empire.

When Constantine the Great made Byzantium the seat of his empire, he decorated that city with splendid edifices; and called it after his own name. Desirous to make reparation to the Christians for the injuries they had suffered during the reign of his predecessor, he commanded the most diligent search to be made after those books which Diocletian had doomed to destruction; he caused transcripts to be made of such as had escaped the fury of the pagan persecutor; and, having collected others from various quarters, he formed the whole into a library at Constantinople. At the death of Constantine, however, the number of books in the imperial library was only 6900; but it was successively enlarged by the Emperors Julian and Theodosius the younger, who augmented it to 120,000 volumes. Of these more than half were burned during the seventh century, by command of the Emperor Leo III., who thus sought to destroy all the monuments that might be quoted in proof respecting his opposition to the worship of images. In this library was deposited the only authentic copy of the proceedings at the Council at Nice; and it is also said to have contained the poems of Homer written in gold letters, together with a magnificent copy of the Four Gospels, bound in plates of gold, enriched with precious stones, all of which perished in the conflagration. The convulsions which distracted the lower empire were by no means favorable to the interests of literature. In the eleventh century learning flourished for a short time during the reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetus; and this emperor is said to have employed many learned Greeks in collecting books, and forming a library. the arrangement of which he himself superintended. But the final subversion of the Eastern Empire, and the capture of Constantinople in 1453, dispersed the literati of Greece over western Europe, and placed the literary remains of that capital at the mercy of the conqueror. The imperial library, however, was preserved by the express command of Mohammed, and continued, it is said, to be kept in some apartments of the seraglio; but whether it was sacrificed in a fit of devotion by Amurath IV., as is commonly supposed, or whether it was suffered to fall into decay from ignorance and neglect, it is now certain that the library of the sultan contains only Turkish and Arabic writings, and not a single Greek or Latin manuscript of any importance.

MODERN LIBRARIES IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.

On Mr. Edward's map of Europe we find the smaller German states to be represented with the lightest lines, indicating the highest rank, and Great Britain with the darkest or lowest. He states the provision of books in libraries publicly accessible, as compared with the population, to be as follows:-In Saxony, for every 100 inhabitants there are 417 books; in Denmark, 412; in Bavaria, 339: in Tuscany, 261; in Prussia, 200; in Austria, 167; in