refused
an enormous sum subscribed for the rescue of the books. The janissaries
tore off the metal coverings from the rarer MSS., and tossed the others
aside; the only known copy of Heliodorus, from which all our editions of
the tale of Chariclea are derived, was found in an open gutter. Some
books were burned and others hacked and maimed, or trodden under foot;
many were carried away into the neighbouring villages. About four hundred
were piled up in a deserted tower, and were protected against all
intrusion by the seal of the Grand Vizier. There were adventures still in
store for the captives. Through the scattered villages Dr. Sambucus went
up and down, recovering the strayed Corvinian books for the Emperor
Rodolph, a strange Quixotic figure always riding alone, with swinging
saddle-bags, and a great mastiff running on either side. Many a
disappointed wayfarer was turned away from the lonely tower. At last
Busbec the great traveller, because he was an ambassador from the
Emperor, was allowed to enter a kind of charnel-house, and to see what
had been the lovely gaily-painted vellums lying squalidly piled in heaps.
To see them was a high favour; the visitor was not permitted to touch the
remains; and it was not until 1686 that about forty of the maltreated
volumes were rescued by force of arms and set in a a place of safety
among the Emperor's books at Vienna.

It has always been a favourite exercise to track the Corvinian MSS. into
their scattered hiding-places. Some are in the Vatican, others at
Ferrara, and some in their birth-place at Florence. It is said that some
of them have never left their home in Hungary. Venice possesses a
'History of the House of Corvinus,' and Jena has a work by Guarini with
the King's insignia 'most delicately painted on the title.' The portraits
of the King and Queen are on one of the examples secured by Augustus of
Brunswick for his library at Wolfenbuettel. Mary of Austria, the widow of
King Louis, presented two of the Corvinian books to the _Librairie de
Bourgogne_ at Brussels; one was the Missal, full of Attavante's work, on
which the Sovereigns of Brabant were sworn; the other was the 'Golden
Gospels,' long the pride of the Escorial, but now restored to Belgium.

Other scattered volumes from the library of Corvinus have been traced to
various cities in France and Germany. There has been much controversy on
the question whether any of them are to be found in England. Some think
tha