proceedings should be made
public, set their seal upon his collection of manuscripts, and took away
more than two hundred volumes which related in some degree to its
affairs. The rest of the books were packed to go to Naples, where his
heirs resided. The printed books are stated to have filled one hundred
and sixteen chests, and the manuscripts were contained in fourteen
others. Three ships were freighted with them. One fell into the hands of
corsairs, and the contents were destroyed, as stated in the text; some
of the books, scattered on the beach at Fermo, were purchased by the
Bishop there. The other ship-loads were ultimately obtained by Cardinal
Borromeo, and added to his library.]

SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS.

Although it is the opinion of some critics that our literary losses do
not amount to the extent which others imagine, they are however much
greater than they allow. Our severest losses are felt in the historical
province, and particularly in the earliest records, which might not have
been the least interesting to philosophical curiosity.

The history of Phoenicia by Sanchoniathon, supposed to be a contemporary
with Solomon, now consists of only a few valuable fragments preserved by
Eusebius. The same ill fortune attends Manetho's history of Egypt, and
Berosu's history of Chaldea. The histories of these most ancient
nations, however veiled in fables, would have presented to the
philosopher singular objects of contemplation.

Of the history of Polybios, which once contained forty books, we have
now only five; of the historical library of Diodorus Siculus fifteen
books only remain out of forty; and half of the Roman antiquities of
Dionysius Helicarnassensis has perished. Of the eighty books of the
history of Dion Cassius, twenty-five only remain. The present opening
book of Ammianus Marcellinus is entitled the fourteenth. Livy's history
consisted of one hundred and forty books, and we only possess
thirty-five of that pleasing historian. What a treasure has been lost in
the thirty books of Tacitus! little more than four remain. Murphy
elegantly observes, that "the reign of Titus, the delight of human kind,
is totally lost, and Domitian has escaped the vengeance of the
historian's pen." Yet Tacitus in fragments is still the colossal torso
of history. Velleius Paterculas, of whom a fragment only has reached
us, we owe to a single copy: no other having ever been discovered, and
which has occasioned the