The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1891-05-28
Lost Treasures of Literature.

William Shepard has a very interesting
article under the above caption in the May
number of Lippincott's Magazine, from
which we take the liberty of making few
extracts. Mr.. Shepard says: Mature is
spendthrift. undoubtedly. but has she ever
wasted her energies in creating mute in
glorious Milton? Gray affirms that she has:
Carlyle denies it. A man who can speak
must speak, says the latter. Between two
such authorities, who shall decide? At all
events, it is idle to waste tears on what
might have been. 1t may be equally idle,
but nevertheless it is only human, to de-
plore the loss of what has been. The lost
treasures of literature have caused heart.
ache to many a scholar and bibliOmaniac.
A large portion OF classic literature has
vanished from the sight of men. The
greatest lyric pOeteSS of all times was Sap
pho. Only two Odes and a few fragmentary
lines are left to tantalize us with a sense of
our loss. From Pindar we have some Odes,
indeed, but not the hymns and dirges and
dithyrambS which the ancient critics con-
sidered his real masterpieces. And where
are the songs of Alc@us and lbycus-not
W uCuClOh any lCSoCI udluCS-SOISS WHICH
once thrilled the most cultured nation of
antiquity? Perished all. perished utterly
from the face OF the earth, with the excep-
ton of few mutilated stanZas In Roman
literature we have Jared somewhat better,
but even here there are sad gaps. EnniuS,
the father of Roman poetry. Ennius, of
whom complete copy is said to have eX-
listed as late as the thirteenth century, sur
wives only in few fragments. Perished
utterly also is that splendid ballad literature
which preceded the historic age. the litera-
ture whose loss Macaulay sought to snp
ply in his Lays of Ancient Rome" The
Poets Lucilius. Bassus. Pontcus, Valgius,
Accius. and Pacuvius, the historians Celius
Antipater and Cornelius Sisenna, the ora
tors Calvus and HOrtensius and Cassius
Severus, names to conjure with in ancient
days, are names and nothing more to our
modern ears.
"a dozen words are all that remain of
the ''Thyestes" of Varius, which according
to Quintilian, rivalled all the tragedies of
the Greeks; and two lines represent all the
vestige of Ovids tragedy of ''Medea." Livy,
himself, has come down to us in mutt
lated state.
''Many of these treasures perished in the
invasiOns of the GOths and Vandals, many
were destroyed by the ignorant or the su-
poTStiGlOuS Ill tHo DarK Ages, many were
consumed by fire in the successive incen-
diarisms at Alexandria. The library of
four hundred thousand manuscripts col
lected by the PtOlemys was burned during
the siege of Alexandria by Julius Caesar.
The famous library in the same city known
as the Serapeum, which had been enriched
by PergamOn and given to Cleopatra by
Mark Antony. was partly burned. partly
dispersed. at the storming of the temple of
Jupiter by the Christians during the reign
of Theodosius the Great. A new library
sprang up in Alexandria. and in A. D. $40
was said to have contained seven hundred
thousand volumes. That was the year in
which the city was captured by the Sara
Gems under Caliph Omar. The Caliph de-
creed that IF these writings of the Greeks