THE LOST BOOKS OF LIVY.

[It is well known that all the books of the Middle Ages were written by monks, and preserved in manuscript; printing being then an unknown art. These patient scribes had plenty of leisure, and not unfrequently an eye for artistic beauty, especially in the gorgeous style. Hence many monastic manuscripts were richly illuminated, as the phrase is, with Initial Letters of silver or gold, often surrounded with quaint devices, painted in glowing tints of blue, crimson, and purple. Paper was not then invented, and parchment was scarce. Monks generally held Greeks and Romans in contempt, as heathen, and therefore did not scruple to supply themselves with writing material by erasing the productions of classic authors. Early in the nineteenth century it was announced that Signor Maio, an Italian librarian, had discovered valuable Greek and Latin fragments concealed under monkish manuscripts, and that, by chemical processes, he could remove the later writing and bring the ancient to the surface. In this way, "The Republic," of Cicero, deemed one of his finest works, was brought out from under a Commentary of St. Augustine on the Psalms of David. Such parchments are called Palimpsests; from two Greek words, which signify erased and re-written. The discovery was very exciting to the scholastic world, and many learned men entered into it with absorbing interest. Several of the books of Livy's lively and picturesque History of Rome are lost; and it was a cherished hope among scholars that they might be discovered by this new process. This explanation is

necessary to help some readers to a right understanding of the following story, which is abridged and slightly varied from an English book, entitled, "Stories by an Archeologist."]

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Y dear friend, Dubois d'Erville, whose talents might have rendered him remarkable in any walk of literature, allowed the whole of his faculties to be absorbed in days, nights, years of research, upon one special point of literary interest. school, he had become imbued with a love for classic authors, which, with regard to his favorite Livy, kindled into a passion. He sought eagerly for accounts of discoveries of lost works in palimpsest manuscripts. Finally, he relinquished all other objects of pursuit, and spent many years traversing Europe and Asia, visiting the public libraries and old monasteries, in search of ancient manuscripts. After a long time, when he was forgotten by family, friends, and acquaintances, he returned to Paris. Little was known of his wanderings; but there was a rumor that he formed a romantic marriage, and that his devoted wife had travelled with him among the monasteries of Asia Minor, encountering many hardships and dangers. No one but himself knew where she died.

When he returned to Paris, he brought with him an only child, a girl of nineteen. She had memorable beauty, and great intelligence; but these were less noticed than her simple manners, and tender devotion to her father, whom she almost

adored. He took a suite of apartments in the third story of a house, which, before the Revolution, had been the hotel of a nobleman, and surrounded by extensive gardens. It was in the old and solitary Rue Cassette. The gardens had been let out to cow-keepers; but within the enclosure of the house remained some noble trees and flowering shrubs. These apartments had been selected by his daughter Marcelline, on account of the graceful branches of the old lime-trees, which reached close to the windows, and furnished a pleasant shade in summer, when birds chirped gayly among the green foliage. Even in winter, a robin would sometimes sing snatches of song, among the naked branches, as if in return for the crumbs which his pretty patroness never failed to place on the window-sill.

Beyond Marcelline's chamber was a little sittingroom, and then came a rather large apartment, where Dubois pursued his studies, surrounded with piles of old vellum, and dusty and wormeaten manuscripts of all descriptions. The floor was thus littered in all directions, except in a small semicircle near one of the windows, where an open space was preserved for a few chairs and a table.

They had but one servant, an old woman, who had been cook in Dubois's family in the days of his boyhood, and whom he accidentally met when he returned to Paris. Old Madeleine formed a pleasant link between the present and the past. Often,

when she passed through his study, he would remind her of some prank he had played in early days, and ask her if she remembered it, with such a frank, good-natured smile, that the old servant would smile too; though there was always a tinge of melancholy in her recollections of his boyish roguery. Often, when she left the room, she would shake her head, and mutter to herself, "Ah, young Monsieur Armand was so good, so kind, so gentle! Only to think that he should leave all his family and friends, and pass his life nobody knows where ! Ah! it is very mysterious. And the bright, curly hair, that I used to pat with such fondness, to think that I should never see him again, till all that is left of it is a few silver locks about his temples!" She tried to gain from Marcelline some particulars about her mother; but the young girl had only a vague recollection of a form that used to press her to her heart, during journeys through strange countries, and who had long disappeared. She remembered something of a time when her father's tall, upright figure suddenly bent under the weight of some great sorrow, from which it never rose erect again. Then, when she grew older, they lived for years in Italian cities, where there were great libraries; whence they came to Paris.

Nothing could be more delightful than the affectionate congeniality between father and daughter. Their favorite pursuits, though different, had a kind of affinity which rendered their quiet ex

istence very pleasant. Marcelline had a taste for painting; and her father's mania for old manuscripts furnished her with many opportunities for examining the exquisite miniatures and ornamental illuminations, with which monkish manuscripts were frequently enriched. When new manuscripts arrived, which they did almost daily, her first impulse was to examine whether they contained any illuminations worthy of note; and if so, to copy them with the utmost care and accuracy. She had thus formed a very beautiful collection, in which she felt an interest almost as enthusiastic as that of her father in his long pursuit of a treasure, which, like the horizon, seemed always in sight, but was never reached.

In the midst of the charming, harmonious routine of this little household, slight contentions would sometimes arise; but they were sure to end, like the quarrels of lovers, in a renewal of love. Sometimes a manuscript arrived which contained exquisite illuminations; but Dubois, thinking it might be a palimpsest, regarded the ornaments as so many abominations, concealing some treasure of classic literature. So the mediæval romance, with its matchless miniatures, and intricate borderings, glowing with gilding, purple, and crimson, would soon disappear beneath the sponge, soap, and acids of the indefatigable seeker after The Lost Books of Livy. These occasions were sad trials for Marcelline. She would beg for a