Excerpt
A WORD TO THE LITERARY MEN OF ENGLAND.
"Twenty scholars in seven years might retrieve the worst losses we experience from the bigotry of popes and califs. I do not intend to assert that every Herculanean manuscript might, within that period, be unfolded; but the three first legible sentences might be; which is quite sufficient to inform the intelligent reader whether a farther attempt on the scroll would repay his trouble. There are fewer than thirty Greek authors worth inquiring for; they exist, beyond doubt, and beyond doubt they may, by attention, patience, and skill, be brought to light. * * With a smaller sum than is annually expended on the appointment of some silly and impertinent young envoy, we might restore all, or nearly all those writers of immortal name, whose disappearance has been the regret of genius for four entire centuries. In my opinion, a few thousand pounds, laid out on such an undertaking, would be laid out as creditably as on a Persian carpet or a Turkish tent."—Landor's Imaginary Conversations—Southey and Porson—Works, vol. i. p. 20.
I call upon the literary men of England, upon the English government, and upon the public, to set the example in a glorious expedition, which, even in this age of wonders, is one of no little importance and magnitude. I conjure them to bear in mind the words I have placed at the head of this article,—the opinion of one of our best and most delightful authors. This opinion Mr. Landor, veiled under the eidolon of Porson, I feel assured, does not hold alone; I believe it to be engraven on the "red-leaved tablets" of the hearts of many more learned and more distinguished scholars than myself, who am but as the trumpet which is to rouse the friends of classical literature to action; as the bell which awakens the reaper to his abundant harvest: but I will sustain, that on none of them is it cut more deeply or more inextinguishably than on mine.
I propose that the friends of Classical, Scandinavian, and Oriental literature form themselves into an Association for the Rescue of the many ancient MSS. in the Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, Zend, Sanscrit, Hebrew, Abyssinian, Ethiopian, Hindostanee, Persian, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Turkish, and Chinese languages:—that application be made to government for the pecuniary furtherance of this enterprise;—and that the active co-operation of all foreign literary men be secured.
Thus a careful and untiring search may be entered upon in all the regions of the earth where any MSS. are likely to be found, and the recovery or loss of the many inestimable authors of antiquity be made certain. Let the libraries of Europe be examined strictly and inquisitorially (and this will not be a heavy expense), and the new accessions to classical literature printed, the MSS. which present themselves of already known authors carefully examined, and the variations to the received text marked. How much this is wanted we experience in the corruptions of Sophocles, Æschylus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristoteles!...