scription of the establishment. 'Your house and
library,' says the dedication, 'are a firmament wherein the stars of
learning shine: the desks are lit with star-light and the books are in
constellations: and you sit like the sun in the midst, embracing and
giving light to them all.' Peiresc was anxious to circulate the book,
which contained a rare treatise by Hesychius; but he took care to compose
another dedication, which was printed and inserted without comment.

Notwithstanding his profuse purchases he did not leave a large collection
at his death. His friends complained that he lent 'a world of books' that
were never returned, and that he was especially lavish of any works that
could be replaced by purchase. 'About ten years after his death,' says
his friend Lemontey, 'his relations brought his books to Paris, where I
saw them in 1647; they formed a great company of volumes, most curiously
bound. They ought to have been sold _en bloc_, but as the Genius of the
library had fled, the Fates ordained that they should be torn asunder.'
Most of the books were purchased for the College de Navarre. A great
number of the MSS. were destroyed, though there are still a few volumes
in the public library at Carpentras. These were purchased from Louis
Thomassin, a member of Peiresc's family, by Don Malachi d'Inguimbert,
librarian to Pope Clement XII., who founded the collection of Carpentras
when he became Bishop of the diocese. There is a tradition that Peiresc's
correspondence, containing many thousands of documents, was destroyed by
his grand-niece, 'a kind of female Omar,' who insisted in using the
papers for lighting fires and making trays for her silk-worms.

Peiresc employed some of the most learned men of his time to collect for
him in Italy. Jacques Gaffarel, who had been engaged in similar work for
Richelieu, was his principal agent in Rome. At Padua he was so fortunate
as to secure the services of the archaeologist Tomasini. But his
correspondence shows that the prince of librarians, Gabriel Naude, was at
once his agent, his adviser, and his friend; and it is from Naude that we
take the words of grief which remain as the scholar's memorial. 'Oh cruel
Fate and bitter Death, thrust into the midst of our jollity! Was there
ever a man, I pray you, more skilled in history and philology, more ready
to assist the student, more endowed with wit and wealth and worth, the
equipment of any man who, like Peiresc, is to hold the worl