THE FIRST 11OMANCE. 439 



Treasures of art and literature, which even the ignorant Turks 

 had respected, were now doomed to be rifled and destroyed by still 

 more ignorant Christians, if that name could be justly applied to the 

 rude and infuriated soldiery, who were making havoc of every thing 

 in the palace. It had been the pride of its builder to import from 

 Italy for its decoration, not only the most precious statues, vases, and 

 antiques, but the rarest books and manuscripts for the formation of 

 an extensive library. In the confusion of indiscriminate pillage, 

 many of the former were overthrown and broken, but the ravagers had 

 not yet made their way to the library, which was detached from the 

 main building, and approached by a corridor. Along this, Leopold 

 was the first to pass. It was terminated by a closed door, which, 

 with the assistance of his sword he wrenched open, hoping that he 

 had stumbled upon the treasury of the palace. Not less to his dis- 

 appointment than surprise, he found himself in a spacious apartment 

 stored from the floor to the ceiling with books and manuscripts, 

 surmounted by busts, vases, and paterae. Lifting up his torch, he 

 made a hasty survey of the library, which he was about to quit, as 

 containing nothing of sufficient value to tempt his cupidity, when 

 the light flashed upon the cover of a book richly decorated, em- 

 blazoned with gold, and fastened with clasps of the same costly 

 metal. Our soldier could not read, nor would his scholarship have 

 availed him in this instance, even had he received the rudiments of 

 education, for the work was a Greek manuscript. Estimating its 

 value by its costly exterior, he thrust it into his half armour, and 

 hastened to the other rooms of the .palace in search of further and 

 more attractive plunder. How far he succeeded in this object we 

 have no means of ascertaining, but it appears, that shortly after the 

 capture of the city he sold his manuscript to Vincent Obsopaeus, of 

 Basle, who published it in 1534, and in his dedication to the senate 

 of Nuremberg, briefly related the foregoing circumstances. 



The work thus singularly rescued from destruction, proved to be 

 a romance, composed by Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca, in the fourth 

 century, of whom Nicophorus relates, that a synod having given him 

 his choice either to burn his " love story" or to renounce his bishop- 

 rick, the paternal regard of the author for the offspring of his brain, 

 prevailed so far over his sense of episcopal duty, that he chose 

 rather to lose his mitre than to throw his romance into the fire. It 

 bore the title of Ai'SWtxa, or the Ethiopics, and contained " the 

 adventures and amours of Theagenes and Chariclea," by which latter 

 title it is generally known to modern readers. 



Many writers doubt the fact of Heliodorus having sacrificed his 

 bishopric rather than his book. Whether or not their suspicions be 

 well founded, we may conclude that, at the decline of literature, 

 when the Greek language fell into desuetude, and controversial theo- 

 logy superseded every other reading, the work in question was con- 

 signed to a long oblivion on the dusty shelves of some monastery, 

 where it slept all through the dark ages, until, in the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, it was rescued from oblivion by some agent of the Hungarian 

 king, Matthias Corvinus, who, it is known, despatched emissaries 



