of Mexico, continually laments this affecting loss. Everything
in that country had been painted, and painters abounded there as scribes
in Europe. The first missionaries, suspicious that superstition was
mixed with all their paintings, attacked the chief school of these
artists, and collecting, in the market-place, a little mountain of these
precious records, they set fire to it, and buried in the ashes the
memory of many interesting events. Afterwards, sensible of their error,
they tried to collect information from the mouths of the Indians; but
the Indians were indignantly silent: when they attempted to collect the
remains of these painted histories, the patriotic Mexican usually buried
in concealment the fragmentary records of his country.

The story of the Caliph Omar proclaiming throughout the kingdom, at the
taking of Alexandria, that the Koran contained everything which was
useful to believe and to know, and therefore he commanded that all the
books in the Alexandrian library should be distributed to the masters of
the baths, amounting to 4000, to be used in heating their stoves during
a period of six months, modern paradox would attempt to deny. But the
tale would not be singular even were it true: it perfectly suits the
character of a bigot, a barbarian, and a blockhead. A similar event
happened in Persia. When Abdoolah, who in the third century of the
Mohammedan aera governed Khorassan, was presented at Nishapoor with a MS.
which was shown as a literary curiosity, he asked the title of it--it
was the tale of Wamick and Oozra, composed by the great poet Noshirwan.
On this Abdoolah observed, that those of his country and faith had
nothing to do with any other book than the Koran; and all Persian MSS.
found within the circle of his government, as the works of idolaters,
were to be burnt. Much of the most ancient poetry of the Persians
perished by this fanatical edict.

When Buda was taken by the Turks, a Cardinal offered a vast sum to
redeem the great library founded by Matthew Corvini, a literary monarch
of Hungary: it was rich in Greek and Hebrew lore, and the classics of
antiquity. Thirty amanuenses had been employed in copying MSS. and
illuminating them by the finest art. The barbarians destroyed most of
the books in tearing away their splendid covers and their silver bosses;
an Hungarian soldier picked up a book as a prize: it proved to be the
Ethiopics of Heliodorus, from which the first edition was printed