IGNORANCE OF THE EARLY AGES. 23 



could not at least read,- and, in the time of Alfred, there were 

 few priests, south of the H umber, who could translate the 

 Latin service;* indeed, had not divine service been continued 

 to be performed in Latin, the language would probably have 

 been forgotten, and the works of the ancients have been irre- 

 coverably lost to posterity.f Kings and other great men at 

 that time could only make their mark; Charlemagne was 

 unable to sign his own name, and never made any progress 

 in literature until the age of forty-five. 



FREDERICK. 



But how was it, aunt, that books had become so scarce, 

 for the ancients had very large libraries'? In the Philadel- 

 phian, at Alexandria, for instance, there were said to be 700,- 

 000 volumes. 



MRS. F. 



Because, in the various wars which have devastated the 

 earth, conquerors have not been content with destroying the 

 vanquished, but have extended their vengeance even to their 

 books. The Romans, Jews, and Christians, mutually burnt 

 the books of each other, the Spaniards those of the Moors, 

 the Puritans those of the papists, and even Cromwell, in his 

 fanatic zeal, set fire to the library at Oxford, one of the most 

 curious in Europe. The Florentines burnt the books of the 

 Medici; and the sack of Rome, by the Constable Bourbon, 

 was fatal to the treasures of the Vatican. The same year^: 

 the Turks destroyed the beautiful library at Buda of Mathias 

 Corvinus, who had collected 50,000 volumes. The library 

 of the Electors was part of the spoils of the Palatinate, but 

 fortunately, instead of being burnt, it was transferred by 

 Maximilian of Bavaria to the Vatican. 



HENRIETTA. 



And then there is the burning of the Alexandrian library, 

 by the Caliph Omar. 



* " In Wessex, Alfred says, there was not one." 

 t Schmidt, Histoire des Allemands, vol. i. p. 329. 

 J A. D. 1527. A. D. 640. 



