CHAPTER IV.

ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHEOLOGISTS AND
EXPLORERS. THE SPOILS OF XANTHUS,
OF BABYLON, OF NINEVEH, OF HALICAR-
NASSUS, AND OF CARTHAGE.

The Libraries of the East.—The Monasteries o
Desert, and their Explorers-Willia
his Labours on the MSS. of N
Departments of Oriental Literat
in the Levant of Sir Charles F
and of Mr. Charles N
Anguentors of the Collect

We have now to tu and exploration, from tiquities has derived

double, within twen

Chap. IV.

ARCH BOLO

GISTS AND

EXPLORERS

literary value to the Public. In this chapter we have Book III, to tell of not a little romantic adventure; of remote ANOTHER and perilous explorations and excavations; sometimes, of GROUP OF sharp conflicts between English pertinacity and Oriental cunning; often, of great endurance of hardship and privation in the endeavour at once to promote learning-the world over-and to add some new and not unworthy entries on the long roll of British achievement.

LIBRARIES

OF

Two distinct groups of explorers have now to be recorded. The labours of both groups carry us to the Levant. What has been done of late years by the searchers after manuscripts, in their effort to recover some of the lost treasures THE of the old Libraries of the East, will be most fairly appre- or THE EAST, ciated by the reader, if, before telling of the researches and the studies of Curzon, Tattam, CURETON, and their fellowworkers in Eastern prefatory notice be same field

script archæology, some brief

f the earlier labours, in the BROWNE, and other traveleighteenth centuries. Menof the explorations of SONNINI

GTON, afterwards THE
s of the Nitrian

arch for the Syriac

RESEARCHES

or ROBERT

OF

HUNTING

TON IN THE

of the existence of NITRIAN

MONAS

belief amongst the TERIES; shop USSHER. But his it is now well known, a epistles did really exist in HUNTINGTON visited. The were chary of showing their e care they took of them. The

only manuscripts mentioned by HUNTINGTON, in recording his visits to three of the principal communities-St. Mary Deipara, St. Macarius, and El Baramous-are an Old Testament in the Estrangelo character; two volumes of Chrysostom in Coptic and Arabic; a Coptic Lectionary in four volumes; and a New Testament in Coptic and Arabic.

Towards the close of the following century, these monasteries received the successive visits of SONNINI, of William George BROWNE, and of General Count ANDRÉOSSI. SONNINI says nothing of books. BROWNE saw but few-among them an Arabo-Coptic Lexicon, the works of St. Gregory, and the Old and New Testaments in Arabicalthough he was told by the superior that they had nearly eight hundred volumes, with none of which they would part. General ANDRÉOSSI, on the other hand, speaks slightingly of the books as merely ascetic works, some in Arabic, and some in Coptic, with an Arabic translation in the margin;' but adds, We brought away some of the latter class, which appear to have a date of six centuries.' This was in 1799. BROWNE died in 1814; SONNINI DE MANONCOURT, in 1812; Count ANDRÉOSSI survived until 1828.

In the year 1827, the late Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND (then Lord PRUDHOE) made more elaborate researches. His immediate object was a philological one, his Lordship desiring to further Mr. TATTAM's labours on a Coptic and Arabic Dictionary. Hearing that 'Libraries were said to be preserved, both at the Baramous and Syrian convents,' hoe's Narra- he proceeded to El Baramous, accompanied by Mr. LINART, and encamped outside the walls. "The monks in this convent,' says the Duke, 'about twelve in number, appeared poor and ignorant. They looked on us with

Lord Prud

tive, &c., as

abridged in Quarterly Review,

vol. lxxvii, pp. 45, seq.

Chap. IV.

ANOTHER

GROUP OF
ARCHEOLO-

GISTS AND

EXPLORERS.

great jealousy, and denied having any books, except those BOOK III, in the church, which they showed us.' But having been judiciously mollified by some little seductive present, on the next day, in a moment of good humour, they agreed to show us their Library. From it I selected a certain number of Manuscripts, which, with the Lexicon (Selim) already mentioned, were carried into the monk's room. A long deliberation ensued, as to my offer to purchase them. Only one could write, and at last it it was agreed that he should copy the Selim, which copy and the MSS. I had collected were to be mine, in exchange for a fixed sum of dollars, to which I added a present of rice, coffee, tobacco, and such other articles as I had to offer.' After narrating the acquisition of a few other MSS. at the Syrian convent, or Convent of St. Mary Deipara, his Lordship proceeds: These manuscripts I presented to Mr. TATTAM, and gave him some account of the small room with its trap-door, through which I descended, candle in hand, to examine the manuscripts, where books, and parts of books, and scattered leaves, in Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic, were lying in a mass, on which I stood. In appearance, it seemed as if, on some sudden emergency, the whole Library had been thrown down this trapdoor, and they had remained undisturbed, in their dust and neglect, for some centuries.'

THE

RESEARCHES

IN THE

MONASTE

Ten years later, Mr. TATTAM himself continued these researches. But in the interval they had been taken up by the energetic and accomplished traveller Mr. Robert LEVANTINE CURZON, to whose charming Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant it is mainly owing that a curious aspect of monastic life, which theretofore had only interested a few scholars, has become familiar to thousands of readers of all classes.

Mr. CURZON'S researches were much more thorough

RIES OF MR.
CURZON.

BOOK III,
Chap. IV.
ANOTHER

GROUP OF
ARCHEOLO-

GISTS AND

EXPLORERs.

than those of any of his predecessors. He was felicitous
in his endeavours to win the good graces of the monks, and
seems often to have made his visits as pleasant to his hosts
as afterwards to his readers. But, how attractive soever,
only one of them has to be noticed in connexion with our
present topic-that, namely, to the Convent of the Syrians
mentioned already. 'I found,' says Mr. CURZON, 'several
Coptic MSS. lying on the floor, but some were placed in
niches in the stone wall. They were all on paper, except
three or four; one of them was a superb MS. of the
Gospels, with a commentary by one of the early fathers.
Two others were doing duty as coverings to large open pots
or jars, which had contained preserves, long since evapo-
rated. On the floor I found a fine Coptic and Arabic
Dictionary, with which they refused to part.' After a most
graphic account of a conversation with the Father Abbot—
the talk being enlivened with many cups of rosoglio-he
proceeds to recount his visit to a small closet, vaulted with
stone, which was filled to the depth of two feet or more
with loose leaves of Syriac MSS., which now form one of
the chief treasures of the British Museum.' The collection
thus preserved' was that of the Coptic monks; the same
monastery contained another which was that of the
Abyssinian monks. The disposition of the manuscripts
in the Library,' continues Mr. CURZON, 'was very origi-
nal.
The room was about twenty-six feet long,
twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high; the roof was
formed of the trunks of palm-trees. A wooden shelf was
carried, in the Egyptian style, around the walls, at the
height of the top of the door, . . underneath the shelf

on

various long wooden pegs projected from the wall, . . . . which hung the Abyssinian MSS., of which this curious Library was entirely composed. The books of Abyssinia