The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-11-21
BELLEVUE, La THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21 1889.

unconscious OF tho immense treasure
he had had in his keeping. There is
nothing here, sahib," he said, ''but a
bit of glass" Thus, through the in
difference of native servant. what
might have been serious loss was
turned into happy recovery.
In an interesting article on the ro-
nance of literary discovery writer in
an English periodical names number
of notable book recoveries in ancient
times. Among these is Homer's
Odyssey" 800 lines Of which were
found grasped in the hands of a mummy
at Monfalot; one of Cicero's most i'm
teresting treatises, which was found
amid heap of refuse near Milan, by
bishop OF Lodi early in the fifteenth
century, and the we'll known instance
OF the recovery of the original manu-
script of Magma Charta from the hands
OF tailor who was cutting it up for
patterns. An equally singular recovery
was that of a small portion of what
was supposed to be one of the lost
books of Livy. The tutor OF French
noblemen in the fifteenth century was
playing tennis when he CHANGED to no.
tice that his racquet bat was made of
parchment covered with writing. As
he was good scholar he succeeded in
deciphering it, and found that it was a
piece of historical Latin prose, in very
much the style of Livy. He instantly
hurried to the racquet-maker; but in
vain. The man could only tell him
that he had fallen in with a mass of
parchment and that it had long since
been used up in the making of racquet
bats.
More fortunate than the tutor was a
scholar named Musso, who chanced
one afternoon to enter bookbinder's 8
shop in Paris. Noticing that the man
was about to cut up a mass of manu-
script, he begged leave to examine it.
To his surprise he found that he had
hit upon the works of Agobard, a
learned prelate of the ninth century.
Seeing its value Musso purchased the
manuscript, and thus preserved a
volume which contained many valuable
details of those early days.
The recovery of the "Ethiopica" OF
Heliodorus, Christian bishop of the
fourth century, is cited as little short
OF miraculous. During the sack of
Ofen, in 1926, a common soldier saw
a manuscript lying in the streets, be-
grimed with dirt and trampled under
foot by his comrades, who were intent
on plundering the houses. Noticing
that it was richly bound he picked it
up and conveyed it to Germany, where
it was shortly after printed and became
one of the most popular romances of
the times.
Still more remarkable was the dis
covery of Martin Luther's liable
Talk" In the year 1926 a German
gentleman named Carbarus Won Sparr
was engaged in building new house.
In the course of their excavations the
workmen came upon small square
package wrapped in strong linen cloth
which had been carefully plastered all
over with beeswax. On opening and
examining the parcel volume was
discovered. This volume was Luther's s
work, the only copy in existence. It
had evidently been buried by Won
Sparr's grandfather to escape the PEN
atty of an edict issued by Rudolph IL,
at the instigation of Pope Gregory
Kill, making it death for any one to
possess the work. The loss of this
book would have been a great misfor-
tune, for without it we never should
have understood the character of the
great reformer-n never have known
what he was when surrounded BY his
family and his friends.