第9章

These losses, apparently, did not interfere with the progress of the art in more western countries. Professor Rollin in his "Ancient History," 1823, remarks:

"Ptolemy Soter, King of Egypt B. C. 285, had been careful to improve himself in public literature, as was evident by his compiling the life of Alexander, which was greatly esteemed by the ancients, but is now entirely lost. In order to encourage the cultivation of the sciences, which he much admired, he founded an academy at Alexandria, called the Museum, where a society of learned men devoted themselves to philosophic studies, and the improvement of all other sciences, almost in the same manner as those of London and Paris. For this purpose, he began by giving them a library, which was prodigiously increased by his successors.

"His son Philadelphus left a hundred thousand volumes in it at the time of his death, and the succeeding princes of that race enlarged it still more, till at last it consisted of seven hundred thousand volumes.

"This library was formed by the following method: All the Greek and other books that were brought into Egypt were seized, and sent to the Museum, where they were transcribed by persons employed for that purpose. The copies were then delivered to the proprietors, and the originals were deposited in the library.

"As the Museum was at first in that quarter of the city which was called Bruchion, and near the royal palace, the library was founded in the same place, and it soon drew vast numbers thither; but when it was so much augmented, as to contain four hundred thousand volumes, they began to deposit the additional books in the Serapion. This last library was a supplement to the former, for which reason it received the appellation of its Daughter, and in process of time had in it three hundred thousand volumes.

"In Caesar's war with the inhabitants of Alexandria, a fire, occasioned by those hostilities, consumed the library of Bruchion, with its four hundred thousand volumes. Seneca seems to me to be out of humour, when, speaking of the conflagration, he bestows his censures both on the library itself, and the eulogium made on it by Livy, who styles it an illustrious monument of the opulence of the Egyptian kings, and of their judicious attention to the improvement of the sciences. Seneca, instead of allowing it to be such, would have it considered only as a work resulting from the pride and vanity of those monarchs, who had amassed such a number of books, not for their own use, but merely for pomp and ostentation. This reflection, however, seems to discover very little sagacity; for is it not evident beyond contradiction, that none but kings are capable of founding these magnificent libraries, which become a necessary treasure to the learned, and do infinite honour to those states in which they are established?