et us briefly examine a few of Mr.
Delepierre's "difficulties." And first, because simplest, we will take
the case of the Alexandrian Library.

Every one has heard how Amrou, after his conquest of Egypt, sent to
Caliph Omar to know what should be done with the Alexandrian Library.
"If the books agree with the Koran," said the Caliph, "they are
superfluous; if they contradict it, they are damnable; in either case,
destroy them." So the books were taken and used to light the fires which
heated water for the baths; and so vast was the number that, used in
this way, they lasted six months! All this happened because John the
Grammarian was over-anxious enough to request that the books might be
preserved, and thus drew Amrou's attention to them. Great has been the
obloquy poured upon Omar for this piece of vandalism, and loud has
been the mourning over the treasures of ancient science and literature
supposed to have been irrecoverably lost in this ignominious
conflagration Theologians, Catholic and Protestant, have been fond of
quoting it as an instance of the hostility of Mahometanism to knowledge,
and we have even heard an edifying sermon preached about it. On seeing
the story put to such uses, one feels sometimes like using the ad
hominem argument, and quoting the wholesale destruction of pagan
libraries under Valens, the burning of books by the Latin stormers of
Constantinople, the alleged annihilation of 100,000 volumes by Genoese
crusaders at Tripoli, the book-burning exploits of Torquemada, the
bonfire of 80,000 valuable Arabic manuscripts, lighted up in the square
of Granada by order of Cardinal Ximenes, and the irreparable cremation
of Aztec writings by the first Christian bishops of Mexico. These
examples, with perhaps others which do not now occur to us, might be
applied in just though ungentle retort by Mahometan doctors. Yet the
most direct rejoinder would probably not occur to them: the Alexandrian
Library was NOT destroyed by the orders of Omar, and the whole story is
a figment!

The very pithiness of it, so characteristic of the excellent but bigoted
Omar, is enough to cast suspicion upon it. De Quincey tells us that "if
a saying has a proverbial fame, the probability is that it was never
said." How many amusing stories stand a chance of going down
to posterity as the inventions of President Lincoln, of which,
nevertheless, he is doubtless wholly innocent! How characteristic was
Caesar's reply to the frighte