fourth century B.C., Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great,
who left it under the rule of the Ptolemies. The next century after the
Alexandrian age the philosophy and literature of Athens was transferred
to Alexandria. The Alexandrian library, completed by Ptolemy
Philadelphus, in the third century before Christ, was formed for the
most part of Greek books and it also had Greek librarians; so that in
the learning and philosophy of Alexandria at this time, the Eastern and
Western systems were combined. During the first century of the
Christian era Egypt passed from the control of the Greek Kings to that
of the Roman Emperors, under whom it continued to flourish. In the
seventh century the country was conquered by the Saracens, who burned
the great Alexandrian library. Following them came the Arabian Princes,
who protected literature, and revived the Alexandrian schools,
establishing also other seats of learning. But in the thirteenth
century the Turks conquered Egypt, and all its literary glory
henceforth departed. It has had no further development, and no
influence in shaping the literature of foreign nations. What it might
have been if the literary treasures of Egypt had not been destroyed by
Cambyses and the Saracens, we can only guess. Great literary monuments
must have been lost, which would shed more light on the civilization of
the ancient world.

GREEK.

A modern writer says of the Greeks:

"All that could beautify the meagre, harmonize the incongruous, enliven
the dull, or convert the crude material of metaphysics into an elegant
department of literature, belongs to the Greeks themselves, for they
are preeminently the 'nation of beauty.' Endowed with profound
sensibility and a lively imagination, surrounded by all the
circumstances that could aid in perfecting the physical and
intellectual powers, the Greeks early acquired that essential literary
and artistic character which produced their art and literature."

Whatever the Greeks learned or borrowed from others, by the skill with
which they improved, and the purposes to which they applied it, became
henceforth altogether their own. If they were under any obligation to
those who had lived before them for some few ideas and hints, the great
whole of their intellectual refinement was undoubtedly the work of
their own genius; for the Greeks are the only people who may be said in
almost every instance to have given birth to their own literature.
Their