PREFACE. ^yjj 



fessor Carlyle was requested by Mr. Pitt and the Bishop of Lincoln 

 to direct his attention particularly, during his residence at Constanti- 

 nople, towards obtaining some satisfactory information on this subject; 

 and one of his letters contains a very detailed and valuable statement, 

 the result of his researches and personal enquiries. 



The accuracy of the account given by Mr. Carlyle, has been 

 strongly confirmed by the publication of some part of the journals of 

 M. Girardin, who was ambassador from France at the Porte, in the 

 year 1685. It appears from the enquiries that were then made, that 

 the Greek MSS. and books in the library amounted to about !200. 

 A renegado Italian, in the service of the Selictar, the chief officer of the 

 Seraglio, brought away* from it many of the works at successive times; 

 and fifteen of these volumes, written partly on vellum, partly on paper, 

 were selected by Besnier, the Jesuit, and purchased by him for the 

 ambassador. The remainder of the Greek works were sold at Peraj 

 Us ont ete vendus sur le pied de 100 livres cliacun : ainsi il n'en reste 

 plus de cette langue dans le serail. This account f , (with which 

 Mr. Carlyle was entirely unacquainted,) corresponds with the state- 

 ment given by him to the Bishop of Lincoln. He found in the 

 library many works in the Oriental dialects ; but none written in 

 Greek. X 



* The plunder of the library had already commenced in 1638, as we learn from a leUer 

 of Greaves: " I have procured, among other works, Ptolemy's Almagest, the fairest book 

 that I have seen ; stolen by a Spahy, as I am informed, out of the King's library in the 

 Seraglio." Vol. ii. p. 437. 



f It was not published in the life-time of Professor Carlyle. See " Notice des MSS. du 

 Roi." T. viii. 



X An Arabic translation of a lost work of Aristotle, ■noXnelui -rroKnov, existed at Constan- 

 tinople so late as the 1 089th year of the Hegira ; and is quoted by Hadjee Kalfa, who lived 

 at that time, in his Bib. Orient. See Villoison, in Ac. des Inscr. xlvii. 322. The dis- 

 covery of this MS. would be a literary acquisition of some value. 



b 



