al may perhaps be
attributed to the first successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance,
the conflagration would have speedily expired in the deficiency of
materials. I should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian
library, the involuntary flame that was kindled by Caesar in his own
defence, [119] or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who studied
to destroy the monuments of idolatry. [120] But if we gradually descend
from the age of the Antonines to that of Theodosius, we shall learn from
a chain of contemporary witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple
of Serapis no longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand
volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and magnificence of
the Ptolemies. [121] Perhaps the church and seat of the patriarchs might
be enriched with a repository of books; but if the ponderous mass of
Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public
baths, [122] a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was
ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind. I sincerely regret the
more valuable libraries which have been involved in the ruin of the
Roman empire; but when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste
of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our
losses, are the objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting
facts are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have
been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived
of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry
of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember, that the mischances of
time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage
of antiquity [123] had adjudged the first place of genius and glory:
the teachers of ancient knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and
compared the writings of their predecessors; [124] nor can it fairly
be presumed that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or
nature, has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

[Footnote 115: Many treatises of this lover of labor are still extant,
but for readers of the present age, the printed and unpublished are
nearly in the same predicament. Moses and Aristotle are the chief
objects of his verbose commentaries, one of which is dated as early as
May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A
modern, (John Le Clerc,) who sometimes assumed the same name was