The Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1822-1829, 1823-07-22

I
the very poem Of Hamer which has ELECTED
taese remarks. has itely been discovered
n the enseloping folds OF mummy and
| who shall say tA1t re may mol hereafter
! unrayel the verses ofsOme memphian bard.
who has been taking nap Of two or three
/ thousand years in the catacombs OF Luxor
| II Demon maintains that almost all the
leaning, and nearly all the arts Of modern
/ Europe, were known TO the ancient Egyp-
i tlans aud as a partial confirmation of this
] theory, | may here mebtop, that on the
Z interior case OF Il mummy chest there was
/ lately found plate OF etyst1tiiStd metal
resembling tin, although that art has on,
/ been recently and accidentally discovered
! IN England. So true is ii that there is no
i thing new, which has not once been old.
What laborous days, what watehngs by
the midnight lamp, what rachings OF the
BRAIN, what hopes aud fears, what hong
+ lives of laborlous study, are here sablmi-
zed into print, and condensed into the mar
row compass OF these surrounding shelves?
4 What an epitome of the past world, and
how capriCious the fate by which some of
them have been preserved, while others
of greater value have persisted The
maads OF the middle ages being the great
medium OF conversation, & outraged nature
! netting them to ayenge the modification
! afIhe body by The pruriousnes. ofthe mind,
] ihealnatory poets have not only come down
! tan5 tn'erahIy entire, bat they" have added
I iaifollUiluns oi their own, passing oil their
iaseivous elegies as the production of Cor
neIius Gailus, or anonymously sending
| H.. L
and gross erotics. Some of the richest
treasures of antiquity have been redeemed
from the dust and cubwebs of mOnastlcal
libraries, lumber rooms, sacristies and eel
lars others have been eXeavated in iron
chests, or diSnterred from beneath ponde-
rnus tones Ofcontfos ersal divinity, or CO.
pied from the hacfs ar H,aiG,s and SER
mons, with whiep, in the scarcity of parch-
ment, they had been 90. .uls - ii some
of your multtudnous writers would com
pile a Clrcnmstantial account of the re,ur-
rectlon of every classical author, aud a
minute narrative of the discovery OF
very celebrated piece of ancient sculpture,
what an interesting volume might be form
! ed
Numerous as thcya are, what are the books
|
have lost The dead races of mankind
scarcely outnumber the existing generation
more prodigiously than do the books that
have persisted exceed those that remain To
us. Men are naturally scrlbalers, aud
there has probably prevailed, ii all ages
since the invention Of letters, Il much more
extensive literature than is dreamt of III our
philosophy. Osymdndias, the ancient
King Of Egypt if lIerodotus may be ere
dited, bnlt a library in his palace, over
the door Of which was the well known
inscription, Physic Of the Soul" job
wishes that his adversary had written book,
probably for the consolation ofcutting it up
ia some Quarterly ORD Jerusalem Review; the
expression, at all events, Indicates greater
activity in the Row" than we are apt TO
ascribe to those primitive times. AIluslon
is also made in the scriptures TO the libra
~ of the Kings Of Persia, as we'll rs 10 one
built by Nehemiah. Ptolemy Philadel-
ahns Ill "a. r. Il IN nha -.-i-'"'e
destroyed by CGsar's soldiers; aud the Al
eNandrian Library, burnt by the Caliph
Omer, contained 100000 manuscripts
What a combustion of congrcgated brains
The quintessenoe ofdSes--the wisdom of
smoke and ashes This, as Cowlry
would have said, is to put out the fire Of
genius by that of the loren to cXtngui5h
the light of reason in that of IFS own tune.
raj pyre TO make matter once more tr
umph over mind. Possibly however, our
loss is rather imaginary than real, greater
IN quantity than in quality. Mems intel
Iects, Ike their frames, continue pretty
much the same in all ages, all the human
| faculty, limited in It's sphere of action, and
| operating ,lways upon the same materials,
soon arrives at an impossible acme which
leaves us nothing to do but ring the chan
6es ofantiquity. Half our epic poems are
notifications of Homer, though none are
equal 10 that primitive model; our Owl
dian ctegles, our Pindarics, and our Ana
| creon,es, all reasonable their first parents
IN features as well as in name. IertllIZing
our minds with the brains of our predeces-
sors, We raise new crops of the old grain,
and pass away TO manure the intellectual
field fof future harvests ofihe same descrlp
ton. Destruction aud reproduction is the
system of the moral as well as the physical
world
An anonymous book loses half its inte-
rests ii is the voice of the invisible, an echo
from the clouds, the shadow OF AN unknown
substance, an abstraction devoid of all hu
manity. One likes TO hunt out an author,
if ne be dead, in obituaries and bographl-
cal dictionaries To chase him from his
| birth to be IN at his death, and learn what
other offspring of his brain survive him
Even an assumed name is better than none;
though it is clearly nominal fraud, de-
sertion from our own to enlist into another
identity. II may he doubted whether we
have anyinatura right thus leap down the
throat,as ii We're, ofan imaginary personaSe,
and pass OLA counterfeit ofomoWn creation
for genuine coinage. But the strongests Sc
! = L.