e end of six hundred
years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the silence of two
annalist of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt,
and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply
described the conquest of Alexandria. The rigid sentence of Omar is
repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists
they expressly declare, that the religious books of the Jews and
Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never
be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane science,
historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied
to the use of the faithful. A more destructive zeal may perhaps be
attributed to the first successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance,
the conflagration would have speedily expired in the deficiency of
materials. I should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian
library, the involuntary flame that was kindled by Caesar in his own
defence, or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who studied to
destroy the monuments of idolatry. But if we gradually descend from the
age of the Antonines to that of Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain
of contemporary witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple of
Serapis no longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand
volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and magnificence of
the Ptolemies. Perhaps the church and seat of the patriarchs might be
enriched with a repository of books; but if the ponderous mass of Arian
and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths, a
philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to
the benefit of mankind. I sincerely regret the more valuable libraries
which have been involved in the ruin of the Roman empire; but when I
seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and the
calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are the
objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts are buried
in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have been transmitted
to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived of many pleasing
compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry of the Greeks.
Yet we should gratefully remember, that the mischances of time and
accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage of
antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius and glory: the teachers
of ancient knowledge