to perform this funereal office. These
are instances of what may be called the heroism of authors.

The republic of letters has suffered irreparable losses by shipwrecks.
Guarino Veronese, one of those learned Italians who travelled through
Greece for the recovery of MSS., had his perseverance repaid by the
acquisition of many valuable works. On his return to Italy he was
shipwrecked, and lost his treasures! So poignant was his grief on this
occasion that, according to the relation of one of his countrymen, his
hair turned suddenly white.

About the year 1700, Hudde, an opulent burgomaster of Middleburgh,
animated solely by literary curiosity, went to China to instruct himself
in the language, and in whatever was remarkable in this singular people.
He acquired the skill of a mandarine in that difficult language; nor did
the form of his Dutch face undeceive the physiognomists of China. He
succeeded to the dignity of a mandarine; he travelled through the
provinces under this character, and returned to Europe with a collection
of observations, the cherished labour of thirty years, and all these
were sunk in the bottomless sea.

The great Pinellian library, after the death of its illustrious
possessor, filled three vessels to be conveyed to Naples. Pursued by
corsairs, one of the vessels was taken; but the pirates finding nothing
on board but books, they threw them all into the sea: such was the fate
of a great portion of this famous library.[26] National libraries have
often perished at sea, from the circumstance of conquerors transporting
them into their own kingdoms.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: Henry gave a commission to the famous antiquary, John
Leland, to examine the libraries of the suppressed religious houses, and
preserve such as concerned history. Though Leland, after his search,
told the king he had "conserved many good authors, the which otherwyse
had bene lyke to have peryshed, to the no smal incommodite of good
letters," he owns to the ruthless destruction of all such as were
connected with the "doctryne of a rowt of Romayne bysshopps." Strype
consequently notes with great sorrow that many "ancient manuscripts and
writings of learned British and Saxon authors were lost. Libraries were
sold by mercenary men for anything they could get, in that confusion and
devastation of religious houses. Bale, the antiquary, makes mention of a
merchant that bought two noble libraries about these times for forty
shilli