intercourse, Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion, contemptible in that of the Barbarians-the royal library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had not been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror. Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the gramınarian, but his rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. "If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be de stroyed." The sentence was executed with blind obedience: the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible multitude, that six months were barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of Abulpharagius have been given to the world in a Latin version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences.* The fact is indeed marvellous. "Read and wonder!" says the historian himself: and

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was equal to old Philoponus in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real knowledge.

116 Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock. Audi quid factum sit et mirare. It would be endless to enumerate the moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish with honor the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex. Patriarch, p. 170:) his toria ... habet aliquid rarov ut Arabibus familiare est.

Since this period several new Mahometan authorities have been ad duced to support the authority of Abulpharagius. That of, I. Abdollatiph, by Professor White: II. Of Makrizi; I have seen a MS. extract from this writer: III. Of Ibn Chaledun: and after them Hadschi Chalfa. See Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 17. Reinhard, in a German Dis sertation, printed at Göttingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin Encyclop tom. iv. p. 433,) have examined the question. Among Oriental scholars, Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer. and Silv. de Sacy, consider the fact of the burning the library, by the command of Omar, beyond ques tion Compare St. Martin's note. vol. xi. p. 296. A Mahometan writer brings a similar charge against the Crusaders. The library of Tripoli is said to have contained the incredible number of three millions of volumes. On the capt re of the city. Count Bert am of St. Giles, entering the first room, which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the whole to be burnt, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia. See Wilken Gesch der Kreuz rüge, vol. ii. p. 211.-M.

the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the silence of two annalists of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conques of Alexandria."1 The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnan to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists they expressly declare, that the religious books of the Jews and Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane science, historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of the faithful.118 A more destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance, the conflagration would have speedily expired in the deficiency of materials. I should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame that was kindled by Cæsar in his own defence,' or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry.' But if we gradually descend from the age of the Antonines to that of Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain of contemporary witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple of Serapis no longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and magnificence of the Ptolemies. Perhaps the church and

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117 This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the annals of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin. The silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature.

118 See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in his iiid volume of Dissertations, p. 37. The reason for not burning the religious books of the Jews or Christians, is derived from the respect that is due to the name of God.

119 Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement. Livian, c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had styled the Alexandrian library, elegantiæ regum curæque egregium opus; a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occa sion, deviates into nonsense.

120 See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.

12. Aulus Gellius. (Noctes Atticæ, vi. 17,) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (1. vi. c. 15.) They all speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably strong: fuerunt Bibliothecæ innumerabiles; et loquitur monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.

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seat of the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books; but if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths, a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind. I sincerely regret the more valuable libraries which have been involved in the ruin of the Roman empire; but when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are the objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember, that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage of antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius and glory: the teachers of ancient knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and compared the writings of their predecessors nor can it fairly be presumed that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature, has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

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123

In the administration of Egypt,125 Amrou balanced the demands of justice and policy; the interest of the people of the law, who were defended by God; and of the people of the alliance, who were protected by man. In the recent tumult of conquest and deliverance, the tongue of the Copts

122 Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible, Hexapla, Catena Patrum, Commentaries, &c., (p. 170.) Our Alexandrian MS., if it came from Egypt, and not from Constantinople or Mount Athos, (Wetstein, Prolegom. ad N. T. p. 8, &c.,) might possibly be among

them.

123 I have often perused with pleasure a chapter of Quintilian, (Institut. Orator. x. i.,) in which that judicious critic enumerates and appreciates the series of Greek and Latin classics.

124 Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this subject Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 85-95) argues, with solid sense, against the lively exotic fancies of Sir William Tem ple. The contempt of the Greeks for Barbaric science would scarcely admit the Indian or Æthiopic books into the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that philosophy has sustained any real less from their exclusion.

125 This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi (p. 284--289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or by the self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History.

and the swor. of the Arabs were most adverse to the tran quillity of the province. To the former, Amrou declared that faction and falsehood would be doubly chastised; by the punishment of the accusers, whom he should detest as his personal enemies, and by the promotion of their innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to injure and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion and honor to ustain the dignity of their character, to endear themselves by a modest and temperate conduct to God and the caliph, t spare and protect a people who had trusted to their faith, and to content themselves with the legitimate and splendid rewards of their victory. In the management of the revenue, he disapproved the simple but oppressive mode of a capitation, and preferred with reason a proportion of taxes deducted on every branch from the clear profits of agriculture and commerce. A third part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual repairs of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare. Under his administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the dearth of Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and provisions, covered almost without an interval the long road from Memphis to Medina.126 But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Cæsars; and a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile to the Red Sea. This inland navigation, which would have joined the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to

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p. 35.

Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen.

Many learned men have doubted the existence of a communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the ancients. Diodorus Siculus (1. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the most distinct manner as existing in his time. So, also, Strabo, (1. xvii. p. 805.) Pliny (vol. vi. p. 29) says that the canal which united the two seas was navigable, (alveus navigabilis.) The indications furnished by Ptolemy and by the Arabic historian. Makrisi, show that works were executed a ider the reign of Hadrian to repair the canal and extend the navigation; it then received the name of the River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis, p. 44,) says that he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the Red Sea. Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that the communication was not interrupted at that ime. See the French translation of Strabc, vol. v. p 382. St. Martin vol. xi p. 299.-M.

Damascus, and the Grecian fleets might have explored a pas Bage to the holy cities of Arabia.127

Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge from the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested that his lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of Pharaoh and the Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou exhibits a lively and not unfaithful picture of that singular country.128 "O commander of the faithful Egypt is a compound of black earth and green plants, between a pulverized mountain and a red sand. The distance from Syene to the sea is a month's journey for a horseman. Along the valley descends a river, on which the blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening and morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of the sun and moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks the springs and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls his swelling and sounding waters through the realm of Egypt: the fields are overspread by the salutary flood; and the villages communicate with each other in their painted barks. The retreat of the inundation deposits a fertilizing mud for the reception of the various seeds: the crowds of husbandmen who blacken the land may be compared to a swarm of industrious ants; and their native indolence is quickened by the lash of the task-master, and the promise of the flowers and fruits of a plentiful increase. Their hope is seldom deceived; but the riches which they extract from the wheat, the barley, and the rice, the legumes, the fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally shared between those who labor and those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden harvest." 129 Yet this ben

127 On these obscure canals, the reader may try to satisfy himself from D'Anville, (Mem. sur l'Egypte, p. 108-110, 124, 132,) and a learned thesis, maintained and printed at Strasburg in the year 1770, (Jungendorum marium fluviorumque molimina, p. 39-47, 68-—70.) Even the supine Turks have agitated the old project of joining the two eas, (Mémoires du Baron de Tott, tom. iv.)

128 A small volume, des Merveilles, &c., de l'Egypte, composed in the xiiith century by Murtadi of Cairo, and translated from an Arabic MS. of Cardinal Mazarin, was published by Pierre Vatier, Paris, 1666 The antiquities of Egypt are wild and legendary; but the writer de serves credit and esteem for his account of the conquest and grog raphy of his native country, (see the correspondence of Amrou and Omar, p. 279-289.)

In a twenty years' residence at Cairo, the consul Maillet bạc