24 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 



MRS. F. 



Yes, as the story is told, 4000 baths of the city were 

 heated for six months with this precious fuel ; but the fact 

 has always remained a subject of much doubt. 



FREDERICK. 



Why? 



MRS. F. 



On account of the silence of two early Christian authors, 

 one of whom* describes the taking of Alexandria, and could 

 hardly have suffered so important a circumstance to pass 

 unnoticed. f The first mention of the fact is by Abulphara- 

 gius, an historian who wrote 600 years after the event ; but, 

 on the whole, I should say that modern historians are gene- 

 rally disposed to admit the act, which seems, however, so 

 contrary to the general character of either Omar or Amrou, 

 that we must look upon it as an action demanded by the bar- 

 barous superstition of their age, rather than to any wish or 

 impulse of their own. 



HENRIETTA. 



When was it that the learned began to occupy themselves 

 in the recovery of books'? 



MRS. F. 



In the 15th century, and monasteries were then diligently 

 searched for manuscripts. The Pandects of Justinian were 

 discovered at Amain, Tacitus in a convent at Westphalia, 

 and Petrarch was the fortunate discoverer of a portion of 

 Cicero's Letters in the library of the chapter of Verona. 



HENRIETTA. 



I should like to see the MS. discovered by Petrarch. 



MRS. F. 

 It is in the Laurentian library at Florence, as well as the 



* Eutychius. 



t Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. li. 



