have been attributed to the zeal of the Christians,
who at different periods made great havock
amongst the Heathen authors. Not a single copy
of the work of Celsus is now to be found, and
what we know of that work is from Origen, his
opponent. The venerable fathers, who employed
themselves in erasing the best works of the most
eminent Greek or Latin authors, in order to transcribe
the lives of saints or legendary tales upon the
obliterated vellum, possible mistook these lamentable
depredations for works of piety. The ancient
fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by
Mr. Bruns, in the Vatican, in 1772, was much defaced
by the pious labours of some well-intentioned
divine. The Monks made war on books as the
Goths had done before them. Great numbers of
manuscripts have also been destroyed in this kingdom
(Great Britain) by its invaders, the Pagan
Danes, and the Normans, by the civil commotions
raised by the barons, by the bloody contests between
the houses of York and Lancaster, and especially
by the general plunder and devastations of monasteries
and religious houses in the reign of Henry
the Eighth; by the ravages committed in the civil
war in the time of Charles the First, and by the
fire that happened in the Cottonian library, October
23, 1731."

Mr. Astle's comments on the volumes or remnants
of volumes which remain to us, becomes most interesting