Show LOST TREASURES OF LITERATURE Exchange Many of tha Iii greatest treasures of the worlds literature jl have totally dis disappeared appeared I Even n n so late as 1562 a copy of Canterbury Tales lales valued it Is said at was as used to light the fir in a London church Tl TIa t last ix books of Faerie were lost by one ot of the poets servants During the French re lutIon an valuable cOPY of The Gol Golden en Legend was used to light a t librarians fire Many of the valuable It letters of Lally Mary Montagu were de destroyed destroyed by her n relatives lest Lady literary honors might be gained at tIme the co cost t of disgrace to the family name After the leath of f Pierse there was f found un ill Iii his apartments a 8 huge chest filled with letters from the most em 1 scholars of the time The collection collection tion ws or f immense literary and his historical historical value His niece Instead of complying with requests to have them published Vi fuel in order orter to of In the great fire of London In 1663 many manuscriPts of the Elizabethan era were vere lost FirE in the Cotto lan library It at Ashburnham house hOUfe West Vest in li l 8 out of 9 og volumes all of which had fallen Into private alter after the thedis dis dissolutIon or of the ries halt half a century before The burning of the library during durin th war do de many valuable works among may bt be mentioned the records of the leg legal l In the cOntro controversy versy between Gut Gutenberg nb rS and his as associates as to whether or not lie he In invented vented the art of printing In Gaurino a learned Italian tran traveled led h Greece In search earch of lost manuscripts His labora were ro re rewarded warded by the acquisition of a valuable valuable able collection On his return itO to his native land a storm overtook the Yes sel and the captain ordered the entire cargo to e thrown overboard Such was his anguish at th loss that it is said his hair turned white in a single nl ht htA A similar fate befell jy In 1689 a wealthy or of Middleburgh named Prompt rd by literary curiosity II e himself to China dIsguised as s II a mandarin For thirty I rs hr hi through the des his hiI fortune to the of manuscripts Returning to Europe he was shipwrecked and all hi his trea ures were lost The great library consid considered considered ered at the time one of the largest and most valuable in tIre the world was pur cha ed in 1600 after the death of it pos possessor by a London bookseller ho chartered red three vessels to convey comey it to London He was pursued by Corsairs who captured one vessel and finding that it carried a cargo of books book and manuscripts destroyed all b by casting castin thorn them Into the sea the others escaped l Perhaps the largest and most valuable valuable able of literary treasures vas the Al Alexandrian Alexandrian library This collection the most remarkable of the ancient world is said to have contained In its most flourishing period or accord according according ing to others other mall It royal founder collected na nations tione their ther choicest composition We Ve are arc told that one of his successors went weilt so fat far as to refuse to supply the Athenians with wheat until they had given him the original manuscripts of Sophocles and Euripides When Julius Caesar laid siege to the ity tv th geer this ls library O tro d by fire fiTe It was later re replaced replaced placed by the collection pros to Queen b by Mark Antony Anton But it was not destined to endure long When hen the Emperor the Great In A P D ordered the de destruction of all heathen temples with within in the Roman empire the Christians led by the Archbishop did not spart that of Jupiter in which Were ere k pt the literary From this general destruction n about 1000 manuscripts escaped onlY to be burned In by Saracens under hinder the Caliph Omar |