[ 154 ] [FEB. 



THE GREEK FIRE. 



THE late circumstances of Constantinople have attracted attention to the 

 possibility of our recovering some of the secrets of art and literature, which 

 have been so long supposed to be among the buried treasures of the capital 

 of the Constantines. That Constantinople once contained great libraries, 

 and that those libraries were rich in classics, there can be but little doubt. 

 It was in the various flights of the Greek scholars from the city, on the 

 successive approaches of the Saracens and Turks, that the Greek classics 

 were introduced into Italy, and that taste for the learning of antiquity 

 revived, which revived the European mind. Yet the researches of 

 our literary tourists have hitherto been in vain. 



The seraglio library contains but a number of handsomely written and 

 showily bound copies of the Koran, Turkish law, and the regulations of 

 the palace and the government. The libraries of the Ulema and other 

 public bodies are equally barren ; and the search at the shops of the 

 dealers in MSS. has produced little more than copies of Antar, and the 

 Arabian Nights. Professor Carlyle, who, a few years ago, went on an 

 express mission to purchase all valuable MSS., and peculiarly those of the 

 classics, returned with nothing much more original than some copies of 

 Arabic verses, of which he gave a translation in English, of the usual 

 value of professorial poetry. It was pretty, perfectly feeble, and passed 

 away into rapid oblivion. 



Dr. Clarke followed, with equal zeal and equal ill luck ; and both the 

 investigators were not unnaturally inclined to think, that where they 

 failed, success was not to be awarded to the sons of man. But neither of 

 the men was fitted for a service which will never be performed by an 

 Englishman, a giaour, a professor of Arabic, who could not hold five 

 minutes' dialogue with Turk, Jew, or Arab or a professor of every thing 

 in the world, the depth of whose knowledge was, as the mathematicians 

 say, in the inverse of its superficies, and whose grand purpose was, in the 

 Indian phrase, " to walk, talk, and make book/' 



Von Hammer, the Austrian Oriental Secretary, a true scholar, and 

 resident for many years in the east, is of a totally different opinion ; and 

 he thinks that the vaults of the seraglio, and other places of deposit in the 

 Turkish capital, actually contain very considerable quantities of MSS. in 

 chests, probably undisturbed since the capture; and, of course, that 

 instead of stealing into the library above ground, we ought to plunge 

 into the subterranean, and there revel in the lost books of Tacitus and 

 the complete Decads of Livy. 



It is notorious, that there still remain in the seraglio trophies of the 

 Greek empire, even so minute as arms and armour ; it seems to be esta- 

 blished, that in the vaults there are chests, unopened for ages ; and Von 

 Hammer's conclusion ought to stimulate our government to try its credit 

 with the Sultan, if it have any remaining, and obtain permission to search 

 those munimenta. 



It is not unlikely, that among the books of ancient literature, we might 

 discover some of those treatises on the ancient arts, dyeing, enamelling, 

 gilding, the fabrication of steel, the cutting of precious stones, the manu- 

 facture of imperishable colours, and that multitude of various inventions, 

 which to this day astonish us in their ruins ; which are in almost every 

 instance the parents or predecessors of our most useful arts ; and whose 



