The Princeton union., 1879-02-19


forgotten the kindIing.-Souh Bend
Tribune.
Lost Literature.
A fire accidentally breaking out Q752)
In the chambers of Hon. Charles Yorke,,
in Lincoln's Inn, robbed the world of an
Invaluable collection of manuscripts and
pamphlets which had been gathered to-
gether with immense pains by Lord Chan
cellor Somers; and Davies Notes ON
Cicero's De 06lciis perished by similar
calamity in the Strand, about the middle
of the eighteenth centary. The destruc-
ton of Lord Mansfeld's library in 1880
involved also the loss of untold man
uscript treasures, and AHglo-Saxon liter
ature has been manned for all time by
the fire which ravaged the Cottonian
Library in October, 1871. Scholars will
curse forever theconfagration of Moscow,
for there, among other literary treasures,
were consumed the manuscript collection
of one of the greatest of Aristotelian
commentators, job. Gottl Buhle, Reams
| of Oldys' inestimable antiquarian collec-
tions have been wantonly DESTROYED, and
the place where eight octave volumes of
lurking is still secret. But perhaps the
most vexatious and mysterious depriva-
| ton which prose literature has suffered
occurred in the fourteenth century. On
the 4th of July, B. G. A, Cicero had
written and dedicated to his friend Atti-
Gus treatise, in two books, on glory
De Gloria. This treatise was once in
the possession of Petrarch, and
had been bequeathed to him bv
Raimondo Soranzo. He lent the manu-
script to an old friend, who was anxious
to peruse it. This friend, however,
omitted to return it, and after repeated
evasicns confessed that, being hard
pressed for a sum of money, he had
pawned the sacred deposit. For some
inexplicable reason he refused to say
where he had pawned it, and dying not
long atterward, the secret perished with
him, and the manuscript has never been
heard of from that day to this. Paulus
Manntius asserted some years afterWard
that Petrus Alcyonius had stolen it, and.
after transcrlbing some of the best pass
ages from 1t into treatise of his own
"on Exile" had afterward made away
with the manuscrit, that his base plagiar-
ism might not be detected. What woe
full catalogue might be made of the
literary treasures which have perished at
sea! A whole shi p-load of classical man
uscr:pts went down when Guarino
Veronese was on his return from Constan-
tinople, in the early Part of the fifteenth
century, and though Guarino survived his
freight, his grief for the loss of it is said
to have turned his hair white in few
hours. The magnificent collections of
Vincentio Pinelli afford another melan-
choly item in these marine calamities,
at his death in 1900, his library was
packed, filling three ships, to be trans
ferred to Naples. One of these ships, how
ever, fell into the hands of some pirates.
who boarded it and flung most of the
books and manuscripts into the ea,among
them some very valuable ANTIQUARIAN
treatises; the rest of them were scattered
up and down the neighboring shore and
used, says Tiraboschi, who tells the tale,
either for stuf1ing up the holes in boats,
J or to patch up broken windows. Had it
not been for another casualty at sea.
Europe might long ago have been in pos
session of writings which would probbab
ly have anticipated by $50 years the re-
searches of modern Chinese scholars. Tn
1898 a Butch merchant named Hudde.
having made his fortune, resolved to de.
vote the rest OF his life to STUDYING Chi
nese, and being still young man, sailed
to China for the purpose of Intimately ac-
quainting himself with the details of Chi
nese government, as we'll as its history
and literature. He was so fortunate as to
have passed himself off for Chinese.
was raised to the dignity of mandarin
and was thus enabled to master every de-
tail of the difficult task he had undertak-
en-. He had embodied the labor of 30
years In prodigious mass of manuscripts.
and on his return to Europe he was ship
J wrecked and all his cherished treasures
l went to the bottom of the sea.
t'Ibi omnis
;. ,... Efusus labor" -.
? Fracastor, ,one OF the most eminent schol
| ars or the sixteenth century, had written
in Latin an elaborate history of Venice,
which all who saw the manuscript praised
t in the highest terms. But the unfortunate
author got up in a paroxysm of a fever, and
committed the manuscript to the flames,
. and thus deprived scholars of work
- (which need have feared no comparison
:. with that of Livy." Longolius' conduct
:, was still more extraordinary, especially
as he could plead no such delirium as an
excuse. He became SO infatuated with
. = the style of Cicero that he not only de.
1 termined to initiate his composition 70,
the rest of bis days, but to destroy every.
: thing he had written before he became
6 acquainted with the writings of the great
Roman stylist. Accordingly he DESTROYED
{ not only valuable comn,entarvSlon
Pliny, but considerable mass of mann.
script matter as well; and as he died
shortly after his irjudicious act, he left
scarcely anything behind him.-Tempz.
p Bar. s5GEz7 &s& 10
when Leltch Richie was travelling in
ireland, he passed y man who was a ps;n.