the new religion, were well known, and it is not surprising that Wilson should be in doubt on such a point. Sadoleto's letter, which is preserved, is a beautiful one-kindly and encouraging, it need hardly be said-and urges him to keep fast the ancient faith, and to consecrate to it all his learning and genius. Alas for such anticipations ! Florence had only reached the ancient town of Viennes, in Dauphiny, when he was seized with sickness and died. The beautiful epitaph of George Buchanan has already been referred to "Hic Musis, Volusene, jacis carrissime, ripam It is idle now to dream of the work which a man like this might have done had he lived. It is idle to regret so fine and true a spirit as his taken early from a world that stood, just then, so much in need of the quiet thought and quiet courage with which he was so greatly gifted. But surely it is not an idle task to piece together the short and sad story of one who should not be forgotten, of one who, "fortunae adversae et novercantis injuria exercitatissimus," has yet left within us a feeling of pride that he was our countryman. с BOOKS AND BOOK-HUNTING O many wise and witty things have been said about books, that it would be a hopeless task S° to endeavour to find a new phrase expressive of the extraordinary value and intellectual preciousness of written and printed literature. The invention of writing was one of primæval man's peculiarly happy thoughts, and the enormous mechanical advance which printing introduced has changed the whole aspect of human life more than any other discovery since history began. Like all great discoveries, this last looks so simple and obvious a thing that we marvel less at the genius that hit upon it, than at the unaccountable obtuseness of the generations to whose minds it never occurred before. I am not going to re-tell the often told story, or to discuss the probabilities of Coster or Gutenberg having been the really first inventor. I intend to speak mainly of Books-books as we know them-not of hieroglyphics or papyrus leaves, Assyrian blocks, or even of monkish manuscripts. A very few words, however, are perhaps necessary as to ancient books; for whatever their form may have been, we must needs remember that the love of them was as pronounced in olden times as in our own, that the veneration for, and care of them (perhaps from their greater individual value) was infinitely greater. In Greece the boys at school were taught to write on waxen tablets; and the Greek book, written on parchment, was in the form of a roll, with a little label called the sillubos at the end. A learned man's study in Greece must have somewhat resembled a paper-hanger's shop of our own day,-shelves or cases filled with these tightly rolled and ticketed manuscripts. The Roman book was something of the same kind. In the days of the early Empire, the book trade is said to have been enormous, scarcely inferior to what it is in our own day, the place of the printing press being taken by large companies of slaves, who were solely employed in the copying of manuscripts. There were book-shops, too, in large numbers in ancient Rome; and besides these, there was a system of public recitation by which authors unburdened themselves of unpublished works to a more or less appreciative audience. However much we may deplore the excessive production of books in our own day, we may, I think, congratulate ourselves on being spared this form of literary infliction. Greece and Rome have passed away, and much of their interest (save to the classical scholar), has passed with them into historical oblivion. "Now the Forum roars no longer," and the book-hunting of which I will speak applies more to the books of the revival of learning and modern times than to the pursuit of such higher game as original texts. In these days of cheap editions it is indeed doubtful whether the rather old-fashioned form of madness, known as Bibliomania, will long survive. Books are daily becoming more accessible, more diffused, and less attractive to the mere collector. But it would be folly to complain of this. It is indeed in many ways a great blessing, as it brings within the reach of those who could not otherwise hope to possess them, the greatest results of literary genius. But as it is not of ancient MSS. that I am going to speak, so, I may premise, it is not of purely modern books or reprints. I have introduced the word bookhunting, which is not, in its inner and deeper meaning, at all to be confounded with mere book-buying. Bookhunting is a sport-a taste-a vocation-a mania-a mission-or a hobby. It is not everybody who can, as it is not everybody who will, become a book-hunter. Book-hunters are born-not made-but, just as a "mute inglorious Milton" may continue digging the village potatoes until a flash of self-consciousness reveals his true destiny, so many of us may have lived hitherto without knowing the great possibilities of intellectual and æsthetic accomplishment of which we might be capable as book-hunters. In any event, whether you are inclined to join the hunt or not, you may not be uninterested to hear some of its charms, and especially of the noble game which forms its object. Nor am I going to begin by quoting the Scriptural phrase about the making of many books, because I am bound to assume that you all know it; but I may, before beginning to deal with books, properly speaking, hazard the remark that more books have been lost than most of us have any idea of. We know that some animals have become extinct, and no one now goes out to fish for ichthyosauri or to shoot the wary dodo; but nothing is beyond the fine frenzy of the book-hunter's rolling eye,and few but he knows how far beyond the limits of known and existing literature the boundaries of his happy hunting grounds extend. Let us first then speak for a moment of Lost Books. Of the earlier lyric poets of Greece, we possess only fragments. Indeed, the whole literature of Greece known to us may be considered, in contrast with what it might have been, as only a magnificent "torso." Magnificent in conception, exquisite in execution, it is still only a fragment of the glorious inheritance which we might have found therein. Eschylus wrote 70 tragedies, and we possess only 7. Sophocles wrote 106 dramas, and we have only 7 of them. Euripides wrote over 100 plays, and only 18 remain. Aristophanes wrote 54 plays, and we have only a dozen left. Then in Latin literature, 107 books of Livy's history are lost, and 13 books of Tacitus, besides innumerable other works. It is curious to think of all this lost literature, buried thought, vanished art;-to think that somewhere, even still, there may be, lying concealed or neglected, some decaying tablet or soiled and tattered parchment that, if brought to light, would charm, enlighten, or instruct the entire civilized world. It is curious to speculate how much better, or wiser, or more cultivated the world of |