ed to the great Gustavus of Sweden to destroy the
palace of the Dukes of Bavaria, that hero nobly refused; observing, "Let
us not copy the example of our unlettered ancestors, who, by waging war
against every production of genius, have rendered the name of GOTH
universally proverbial of the rudest state of barbarity."

Even the civilisation of the eighteenth century could not preserve from
the destructive fury of an infuriated mob, in the most polished city of
Europe, the valuable MSS. of the great Earl of Mansfield, which were
madly consigned to the flames during the riots of 1780; as those of Dr.
Priestley were consumed by the mob at Birmingham.

In the year 1599, the Hall of the Stationers underwent as great a
purgation as was carried on in Don Quixote's library. Warton gives a
list of the best writers who were ordered for immediate conflagration by
the prelates Whitgift and Bancroft, urged by the Puritanical and
Calvinistic factions. Like thieves and outlaws, they were ordered _to be
taken wheresoever they may be found_.--"It was also decreed that no
satires or epigrams should be printed for the future. No plays were to
be printed without the inspection and permission of the archbishop of
Canterbury and the bishop of London; nor any _English historyes_, I
suppose novels and romances, without the sanction of the privy council.
Any pieces of this nature, unlicensed, or now at large and wandering
abroad, were to be diligently sought, recalled, and delivered over to
the ecclesiastical arm at London-house."

At a later period, and by an opposite party, among other extravagant
motions made in parliament, one was to destroy the Records in the Tower,
and to settle the nation on a new foundation! The very same principle
was attempted to be acted on in the French Revolution by the "true
sans-culottes." With us Sir Matthew Hale showed the weakness of the
project, and while he drew on his side "all sober persons, stopped even
the mouths of the frantic people themselves."

To descend to the losses incurred by individuals, whose names ought to
have served as an amulet to charm away the demons of literary
destruction. One of the most interesting is the fate of Aristotle's
library; he who by a Greek term was first saluted as a collector of
books! His works have come down to us accidentally, but not without
irreparable injuries, and with no slight suspicion respecting their
authenticity. The story is told by Strabo, in his thirte