T

HE story of lost manuscripts is the story of a lost literary heritage, of things that have been but which are no more. It presents so many points of interest and instruction that anything like completeness is impossible within the limits of a magazine article.

There is no people whose history does not contain records of irrecoverable literary losses. Ever since man began to embody his ideas in writing, time has not ceased to consign to utter forgetfulness many pages once thought to have been immortal. Ignorance, barbarism, carelessness, accident and even malice, have contributed to the destruction of manuscript treasures. In wars, particularly those arising out of religious differences, the fanaticism of the victor, not content with destroying men and cities, very frequently invaded the sanctuary of letters and reduced to ashes the literary treasures of the vanquished.

Thus, we read in ancient history how religious hatred prompted the Persians to burn the writings of the Phoenicians and Egyptians, which, as Eusebius tells us, when they had been collected formed a pile of no small dimensions. The Romans destroyed the writings of the Jews and Christians, the Christians in turn those of the Jews and pagans.

The fanaticism of the Saracen has left us little of the ancient literary lore of Persia. When, in the third century of the Mohammedan Era, Abdoolah, the governor of Khorasan, was at Nishapur, he was shown a manuscript. Learning, on inquiry, that it was the story of Warnick and Oozra, composed

by the great poet Noshirwan, he observed that the Koran contained all that was necessary to know and to believe; and not only did he order its immediate destruction, but also issued a proclamation commanding all Persian manuscripts found within his jurisdiction to be burnt.

Again, in the Acts of the Apostles, xix, 19, St. Luke tells us that the Ephesians "many of whom had followed curious arts, brought together their books and burnt them before all; and counting the price of them they found the money to be fifty thousand pieces of silver."

Perhaps the largest and most valuable of literary treasures the world has lost, was the Alexandrian library. This collection, the most remarkable of the ancient world, is said to have contained in the most flourishing period of its existence 400,000, or according to others, 700,000 manuscripts. Its royal founder collected from all nations their choicest compositions. We are told that one of his successors went so far as to refuse to supply the Athenians with wheat until they had given him the original manuscripts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. When Julius Caesar laid siege to the city the greater portion of this library was destroyed by fire. It was later replaced by the collection presented to Queen Cleopatra by Mark Anthony. But it was not destined to endure long. When the Emperor Theodosius the Great, in 391 A. D. ordered the destruction of all heathen temples within the Roman Empire, the Christians, led by the Archbishop Theophilus,

did not spare that of Jupiter, in which were kept the literary treasures. From this general destruction about four thousand manuscripts escaped, only to be burnt in 640 by the Saracens under the Caliph Omar. Verily, this was "desolatio desolationum."

The old libraries of Greece and the private collections of such Romans as Caesar, Cicero, Crassus, Lucullus, Emelinus, Paulus and others, contained many rare and valuable manuscripts. Only a few have escaped the general wreckage occasioned by the downfall. first of the Western and subsequently of the Eastern Empire.

Coming down to times nearer home, the ninth and tenth centuries of our era witnessed the destruction of thousands of literary monuments. The tracks of the Saracen, Hun, Norman and Vandal were lit up by the flames of burning monasteries whose libraries had cost years of persevering labor to collect. Fontanelles, with its valuable library, was burnt by the Normans in 851. Two years later the monastery of Marmontier was destroyed, together with its large accumulation of literary treasures. 854 were burnt the famous libraries of St. Martin of Tours, of the abbeys of Liege, Stavelo, Corby, Prom and Malmedy. The abbey of Nomentula in Italy was pillaged seven times. burning of Hamburg by the Saracens involved the total destruction of the famous monastery erected by St. Anscharius, which numbered among its literary treasures six thousand manuscripts.

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With justice, then, does Ordericus Vitalis (1075-1142) in his "Historia Ecclesiastica" speak in mournful tones of the irreparable literary loss sustained by the world in the destruction of the monastic libraries, which supplied the materials for a history of those turbulent times.

Again, the concealment of manuscripts underground was an expedient frequently resorted to on the approach of the plunderer. This was particularly the custom in Italian convents; and the curious tourist may still see in the library of Florence several manuscripts whose pages bear unmistakable evidence. of this practice. In the light of the many discoveries made in aftertimes, it seems safe to assert that many works of genius still continue a sepulchral existence.

The dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII saw the destruction of more than one hundred libraries, the contents of which were either burnt, sent abroad to foreign bookbinders or sold as waste-paper; so that when Sir Thomas Bodley took up his residence at Oxford, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth, he tells us that he found the libraries "in every part wasted and ruined." It is worthy of note, also, that Sir Thomas, in restoring the library originally established at Oxford by Duke Humphrey, began that work by a collection of such fragments as had accidentally escaped the rapacity of the plunderers.

The invasion and subsequent persecution of Ireland resulted in the almost total annihilation of her ancient literature; so that few nations, if any, can be compared to her in the extent of manuscript loss, and certainly no people feels more keenly this loss than the sensitive, high-spirited and much persecuted Irish.

The Jewish Talmud has come down to us only through the heroic efforts of the Jews themselves and the intrepid service of John Reuchlin. Its reading was condemned by various edicts of emperors and kings; its circulation was prohibited by Popes and theologians; it was inveighed against generally on the plea that it contained superstitions, impieties and unjust reflections on the character of Jesus

Christ and His apostles. Twelve thousand copies of this monumental work, were burned at Cremona, in 1569, and a similar fate befell five thousand copies of the Koran by order of Cardinal Ximines, on the taking of Granada.

In the great fire of London, in 1666, many manuscripts of the Elizabethan era were lost. Fire in the Cottonian library at Ashburnham House, Westminster, in 1731, destroyed two hundred twenty-eight out of nine hundred fiftyeight manuscript volumes, all of which had fallen into private hands after the dissolution of the monasteries half a century before. The burning of the Strasburg library during the Franco-Prussian war destroyed many valuable works, among which may be mentioned the records of the legal proceedings in the controversy between Gutenberg and his associates, as to whether or not he invented the art of printing.

In 1388, Gaurino, a learned Italian, travelled through Greece in search of lost manuscripts. His labors were rewarded by the acquisition of a valuable collection. But on his return to his native land a storm overtook the vessel, and the captain ordered the entire cargo to be thrown overboard. Such was his anguish at the loss that, it is said, his hair turned white in a single night. A similar fate befell, in 1698, a wealthy burgomaster of Middleburgh, named Hudde. Prompted by literary curiosity, he betook himself to China, disguised as a mandarin, to study the language and the chief literary characteristics of these people. For thirty years he travelled through the Celestial Empire, devoting his fortune to the collection of manuscripts. Returning to Europe he was shipwrecked and all his treasures were lost.

The great Pinellian library, considered at the time one of the largest and most valuable in the world, was pur

chased in 1600, after the death of its possessor, by a London bookseller, who chartered three vessels to convey it to London. He was pursued by corsairs who captured one vessel, and finding that it carried a cargo of books and manuscripts destroyed all by casting them into the sea; the other two escaped uninjured.

But let us turn to the losses incurred

by individuals. Beginning with the ancient classics, we find that their struggles for existence have in most cases proved unsuccessful. Many have perished; many of those that have come down to us are but fragments, and the number of the former far exceeds that of the latter. During the lifetime of Aristophanes, the greatest of Greek comedians, about two thousand dramas had been composed; only forty-three have come down to us. Of the one hundred works of Sophocles, only seven are extant; and the same number has been preserved of the seventy, or according to Suidas, ninety, tragedies, written by Aeschylus. The wit and wisdom of Menander, the most distinguished Greek poet of the "New Comedy" and the author of more than one hundred plays, live only in a few fragments. These, however, and the material assistance and the inspiration which his works furnished to 1erence, give us such unmistakable proofs of his genius that genius that Goethe would gladly have exchanged half of the existing Roman poetry for a single comedy of Menander. Of the seventy-five, or according to others, ninety-two, tragic plays of Euripides, only eighteen have survived. Sappho, the sweetest of Greece's singers, composed nine books of lyric poetry; only two odes and a few fragments remain. Pindar, the author of a large number of lyric poems, survives in only a few fragmentary lines. Similarly, a few lines are all

that remain of the ten books of odes composed by Alcaeus; and of the beautiful songs of Ibycus, time has preserved for us only a few fragments.

The work of Ennius, the Father of Roman poetry, is almost entirely lost, though there existed a copy of his poetry at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The "Thyestes" of Varius survives only in a few lines; and the and the "Medea" of Ovid tells its story in a dozen words. Plautus, the comic poet Plautus, the comic poet of Rome, composed upwards of one hundred and thirty works, of which we inherit only twenty-one.

Only those conversant with the early history of Greece and Rome know the extent of the literary loss the world has sustained in the province of history. Polybius wrote the history of Greece in forty books; only five are extant. Of the forty books of Diodorus Siculus' history of the world, we possess only fifteen; and a few fragments preserved for us by Eusebius are all that is left of Sanchoniathan's history of Phoenicia. Manetho's history of Egypt and Berosus' history of Chaldea, exist only in fragment.

What a treasure has been lost in the one hundred and forty-two books of Livy; only thirty have come down to us. Varro, the "most learned of the Romans" in every department of contemporary literature, wrote four hundred and ninety books; two only have survived. The valuable "Annales" of Atticus, containing the genealogical histories of the old Roman families, are all lost. Tacitus wrote his great history in thirty books; four only have been preserved. Of the eighty books of Dion Cassius' history of Rome, we inherit only eighteen, and thirteen are all that remain of the thirty-one books of Ammianus Marcellinus' "History of the Early Roman Empire."

Nor is this wholesale loss of literature to be wondered at, when we consider

the slow and tedious process involved in the multiplication of a single copy previous to the invention of the art of printing. Of many works there existed only a single copy, namely, the original manuscript, and if in due time duplicates. were not made, it is easy to understand that in many cases the original was either lost, through carelessness or accident, or perished in the general destruction of libraries. If in modern times the loss of literary work is of less frequent occurrence, it is owing to the convenient means we possess of a rapid and easy multiplication. But in spite of this, manuscripts in modern times are in no less danger of destruction than they were of old. One would think that civilization would have taught people the literary value of old manuscripts and books, but experience shows that the very contrary is the case.

After the death of the learned Pierese, there was found in his apartments a huge chest filled with letters. Coming, as they did, from the most eminent scholars of the time, who were wont to appeal to him for counsel in their difficulties, they were of paramount literary and historical value. His niece, however, instead of complying with the repeated requests of friends to have them published, preferred to use them as fuel, to diminish the expense of fire-wood. Many of the valuable letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague were destroyed by her own relatives, lest the addition of literary honors should disgrace the family name. During the French Revolution a valuable copy of the "Golden Legend," by the Dominican, James Varagine, was used to light a librarian's fire. The last six books of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" were lost by one of his servants. About 1862, a copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" valued, it is said, at $2,500, was used to light the fire in one of London's churches. Of the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci,

In 1802, we are told, a servant of Warburton used several of the celebrated dramas of Chapman, Greene and Massinger to clean shoes and light fires. John Bagford, of London, spent his life and fortune in collecting title-pages, for the purpose, he said, of writing a history of the art of printing. The history never

Such is the story, in brief, of literary destruction and vandalism. It is a sorrowful chapter, and a sad commentary withal, on individual and national ignorance, stupidity and malice as exhibited through the ages.

UT in the cool shade of the veranda Katharine lay dreamily watching the distant mountains-darkly blue against the clear pale-blue of the sky. She had grown tired of reading long ago, and the book had slipped from her unheeding fingers and fallen half open on the floor. The sensitive, tragic face wore an expression of detachment, as if her spirit had left the frail body and was winging its flight to some far land beyond that blue rim of mountains. She had grown tired of watching for the boy, too; he had gone out soon after breakfast to sail boats on the little stream that came rushing down from the hills to murmur placidly here in the valley beneath. Suddenly into her dreams broke a shrill, childish whistle. She lifted herself on her elbow and, looking towards the hedge, soon caught sight of a shining yellow head. Then the gate opened and he came running up the walk-a sturdy boy of seven, with laughing blue eyes and a frank, merry face.

"Oh, mama!" he called out to her, "I sailed my boat, and there was a gentleman, and he made me this one-see? -he was so jolly and we had such fun!"

"Did you, dear? I'm very glad," and she held out her hand to him. He came up to her chair and threw his arms around her neck, giving her a hearty boyish kiss.

"Have you been nice and comfy and haven't missed me too much?" His childish treble took a tender note. She held him close, her eyes misty and shining, but she laughed as she answered: "Oh, I've had a jolly time, too; such a good book to read, you know."

"Mama, wouldn't it be just-just—” he hesitated for a word-"just heavenliest if you could go with me and wade in the brook and sail boats?" Then, seeing a shadow cross her face, he hurried on: "But it's nice to know you are waiting for me-so comfy to think every time I come in you'll be here."

She kissed the little brown hand she held. "Now go get your book and read some to me," she said.

He ran into the house and in a moment was back again with a book; drawing his chair near where she could glance over his shoulder, he began to read. It was a book of "Tales of Gods and Heroes," and he read slowly, running a chubby forefinger along each line to