Burlington Weekly Free Press

Is there any reason to suppose that all the ancient manuscripts of famous classical books have been discovered? Of course every one must hope that there are discoveries still to be made. The lost books of Livy we confess the world can suffer to be lost. A very great deal of Livy still survives, quite enough for all purposes. Menander is a far more cruel loss, for not only was Menander by general consent the greatest poet of comedy, as we consider comedy, but in him would probably be found the earliest literary form of plots which have been used by Plautus, Terence, Moliere, and their followers. If it be true that "all the stories have been told" they must have been told very long ago, for we can scarcely go so far back in Egyptian or Chinese literature, but we find the old stories, obviously with a great past behind them even then. Most of us are Philistine enough to be more interested in the early history of our own and the Jewish sacred books than in the minor Latin poets. And people who learn with disappointment that the recent discovery of the ark is not free from suspicion may congratulate themselves that Mr. Shapira has discovered a new (that is, an excessively old) codex of the Book of Deuteronomy. A number of learned Orientalists have examined the precious fragments, though apparently they have arrived at no very definite conclusion. Things from Moab do not always turn out as well as could be wished. The Moabite stone is generally respected, but the Moabite pottery appears to have been made in Staffordshire. Some years ago a scholar, an Oriental scholar at Oxford, was known as "The Bad Samaritan." A Samaritan manuscript of much interest had been brought to his notice, and he was, according to legend, quite pleased with this ancient treasure. But the manuscript turned out to be a work of the nineteenth century A. D. Therefore, we must not accept all Oriental manuscripts as genuine without thorough examination.