thirteenth century the Turks conquered Egypt, and all its
literary glory henceforth departed. It has had no further
development, and no influence in shaping the literature of
foreign nations. What it might have been if the literary
treasures of Egypt had not been destroyed by Cambyses and the
Saracens, we can only guess. Great literary monuments must have
been lost, which would shed more light on the civilization of the
ancient world.


GREEK.

A modern writer says of the Greeks:

"All that could beautify the meagre, harmonize the incongruous,
enliven the dull, or convert the crude material of metaphysics
into an elegant department of literature, belongs to the Greeks
themselves, for they are preeminently the 'nation of beauty.'
Endowed with profound sensibility and a lively imagination,
surrounded by all the circumstances that could aid in perfecting
the physical and intellectual powers, the Greeks early acquired
that essential literary and artistic character which produced
their art and literature."

Whatever the Greeks learned or borrowed from others, by the skill
with which they improved, and the purposes to which they applied
it, became henceforth altogether their own. If they were under
any obligation to those who had lived before them for some few
ideas and hints, the great whole of their intellectual refinement
was undoubtedly the work of their own genius; for the Greeks are