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difpel the vapours; books of travels as Cathartics to procure a motion; memoirs and novels will operate as Provocatives, politics as Corrofives, and panegyrics as Emetics. Two compartments fhould be kept apart and specially distinguished, viz. the facred writings under the title of Reftoratives, and the works of the infidels under the denominations of deadly Poifans: The former will be fovereign in all gallaping confumptions of diffipation, and the latter will be reforted to by none but fuicides and defperadoes.

I fhould now difmifs the fubject, but that I had forgotten to fpeak of the Effayifts, who from their miscellaneous properties certainly come under the class of Compounds, and cannot therefore be fo precifely fpecified; as they are applicable to chronic difeafes rather than acute ones, they may very well ftand in the lift of Correctors, which taken in a regular courfe and under proper regimen are found very efficaciousin all cafes, where the conftitution is impaired by excefs and bad habits of living: They seem moft to resemble thofe medicinal springs, which are impregnated with a variety of properties, and, when critically analyzed, are found to contain falt, nitre, fteel, fulphur, chalk and other calcarcous particles: When the more refpect

able

able names of Bath, Spa, Pyrmont, Seltzer, and others, are difpofed of, I am not without hopes these humbler effays, which my candid readers are now in the courfe of taking, may be found to have the wholefome properties of Tunbridge Waters.

It is supposed that this library of the venerable Ofymanduas defcended to the Ptolemies, augmented probably by the intermediate monarchs, and ultimately brought to perfection by the learned and munificent Philadelphus, fon of Ptolemy Lagus, fo well known for his Greek tranflation of the Hebrew Septuagint.

Little attention was paid to literature by the Romans in the early and more martial ages: I read of no collections antecedent to those made by Æmilius Paulus and Lucullus, the latter of whom, being a man of great magnificence, allowed the learned men of his time to have free access to his library, but neither in his life time, nor at his death, made it public property. Cornelius Sylla before his dictatorship plun dered Athens of a great collection of books, which had been accumulating from the time of the tyranny, and thefe he brought to Rome, but did not build or endow any library for public ufe. This was at laft undertaken by Julius Cæfar upon an imperial fcale not long VOL. III

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before his death, and the learned M. Varro was employed to collect and arrange the books for the foundation of an ample library; its completion, which was interrupted by the death of Julius and the civil wars fubfequent thereto, was left for Auguftus, who affigned a fund out of the Dalmatian booty for this purpose, which he put into the hands of the celebrated Afinius Pollio, who therewith founded a temple to Liberty on Mount Aventine, and with the help of Sylla's and Varro's collections in addition to his own purchafes, opened the first public library in Rome in an apartment annexed to the temple above mentioned. Two others were afterwards inftituted by the fame emperor, which he called the Octavian and Palatine Libraries; the firft, fo named in honour of his fifter, was placed in the temple of Juno; the latter, as its title fpecifies, was in the imperial palace: These libraries were royally endowed with eftablishments of Greek and Latin librarians, of which C. Julius Hyginus the grammarian

was one.

The emperor Tiberius added another library to the palace, and attached his new building to that front which looked towards the Via facra, in which quarter he himself refided. Vefpafian endowed a public library in the temple

of

of peace. Trajan founded the famous Ulpian. Library in his new forum, from whence it was at laft removed to the Collis Viminalis to furnish the baths of Dioclefian. The Capitoline Library is supposed to have been founded by Domitian, and was confumed, together with the noble edifice to which it was attached, by a ftroke of lightning in the time of Commodus. The emperor Hadrian enriched his favourite villa with a fuperb collection of books, and lodged them in a temple dedicated to Hercules. These were in fucceeding times fo multiplied. by the munificence and emulation of the feveral emperors, that in the reign of Conftantine, Rome contained no less than twenty-nine public libraries, of which the principal were the Palatine and Ulpian,

Though books were then collected at an immenfe expence, feveral private citizens of fortune made confiderable libraries. Tyrannio the grammarian even in the time of Sylla was poffeffed of three thoufand volumes; Epaphroditus, a grammarian alfo, had in later times collected thirty thousand of the most select and valuable books; but Sammonicus Serenus bequeathed to the emperor Gordian a library containing no lefs than fixty-two thoufand volumes. It was not always a love of literature that tempted people

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people to these expences, for Seneca complains of the vanity of the age in furnishing their banquetting rooms with books; not for use, but for fhew, and in a mere fpirit of profufion. Their baths, both hot and cold, were always fupplied with books to fill up an idle hour amongst the other recreations of the place; in like manner their country houfes and even public offices were provided for the use and amufement of their guefts or clients.

The Roman libraries in point of difpofition much resembled the present fashion obferved in our public ones, for the books were not placed against the walls, but brought into the area of the room in feparate cells and compartments, where they were lodged in preffes: The intervals between thefe compartments were richly ornamented with inlaid plates of glass and ivory, and marble baffo-relievos. In thefe compartments, which were furnished with defks and couches for the accommodation of readers, it was usual to place the ftatues of learned men, one in each; and this we may obferve is one of the few elegancies, which Rome was not indebted to Greece for, the first idea having been started by the accomplished Pollio, who in his library on Mount Aventine fet up the ftatue of his illuftrious contemporary Varro,

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