It may be of advantage to take a rapid survey of all these literatures in succession, with a view of ascertaining what large collections of them have been formed, either on their own soil or in the great libraries of Europe, and more especially in that of England.
The three dead languages which have been the great objects of study had, till the recent revival of the separate kingdom of Greece, no particular spot where they might claim in modern times a "local habitation and a name." The literature of the Hebrew lane age has been, like the Hebrew nation, scattered over the world. which has been dead since the, Babylonian captivity, which had long ceased to be spoken when the New Testament was written, is cultivated with sufficient energy in the 19th century to supply materials for a modern bibliographical periodical, published at 13erlin—tbe ' I iebriiisehe Bibliographic. The first book printed in Portugal, and the first book printed in Turkey, was a Hebrew Pentateuch, and it was probably also the first printed in several Mohammedan countries, where the art was permitted for the reproduction of the Bible, though forbidden for the reproduction of the Koran. Jewish literature is not, however, confined to conunents on the Bible, and is of far more extent than has often been supposed. Mr. Wilson Croker, on his examination before the royal com missioners on the British Museum, expressed his belief that there were no books iii print exclusively Hebrew without a Latin explanation of some sort. There were at the time more than 4000 of that description in the British Museum, comprising not only editions of the Bible and commentaries, but Jewish plays and Jewish epics. The fate of Jewish libraries has been singular. The two largest now in existence are said to be those formed by Rabbi David Oppenheimer in the 17th century, and by Mr. Michael of Hamburg in the 19th, of which the first and largest is now in the Bodleian library, and the second in the British Museum. Formed in Germany, and both preserved at Hamburg, they have both been transferred to England,end Oxford is now become in par ticular the place of pilgrimage to Jewish bibliographers. The collection
at the Museum is being constantly augmented with accessions from quarters from which no other accessions come—from presses in the Crimea, among the Kamites, from obscure villages in Russian Poland, from Africa, and from Turkey. The number of volumes in the Museum collection was stated by its librarian, Mr. Zedner, in the Iiebriiische Bibliographic' for 1859, to be 7430.
Still more full of life than the Hebrew is the Greek literature, tracing its illustrious course through the long ages from the foundation of the first public library in Europe by Pisistmtus at Athens, before the war with Xerxes, to the foundation of the library of the university of Athens in our own time, after the rescue of Greece from the Turkish yoke. Till the 19th century few Greek books could be printed on the soil of Greece, and those few were in the modern Greek—a Language into which the Iliad' itself had been translated before the fall of Constantinople. Of tho books printed in ancient Greek in different parts of Europe in the four previous centuries, there are many good collections extant. These books were always esteemed of value; they were eagerly sought after for great libraries at an early period; in the 18th century they brought high prices from scholars and biblicenaniaes, and were looked upon as the choicest of the early productions of the art of printing. There is an excellent collection of them in the British Museum. There is in the samo library a collection, less valuable and more rare, of books in modern Greek, brought together by Lord Guild ford, the warm friend of the Greeks and founder of the university of Corfu. When his library was sold, at his death, this collection was acquired in a mass by the Museum ; and though it is by no means complete, it contains perhaps more than any other of the works described in the bibliography of lken and Papadopuloa. These books are curious for tracing the history of the backward stages of the modern language, which has been becoming every year more and more ancient.