Atkins, Sarah: Relics of antiquity, exhibited in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum: with an account of the destruction and recovery of those celebrated cities (London: St. Harris, St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1825)

MANUSCRIPTS. 63
but this will be described more particularly here-
after.
As, comparatively speaking, but a small part of
Herculaneum has been hitherto explored, it ap-
pears highly probable that, if a general excavation
were made, ten times the number of manuscripts
above mentioned might be discovered; and among
them, perhaps, or rather very likely, some of the
first works of antiquity, the loss of which has been
so long deplored. The destruction of the town
and palace of Portici would, without doubt, be
abundantly compensated by the recovery of the
Decads of Titus Livius, of the dramatic pieces of
Menander and Philemon, or of the treatise of
Cicero, De Gloria, or of his dialogues, De Repub-
lican that grand repository of all the political wis-
dom of the ancients. But here is room for end-
less conjecture; for, among the supposed collec-
tion, how many great works may there be, of
vzhich even the names are now unknown ! How
many unbroken volumes, w’hose very fragments,
preserved in the writings of the ancient scholiasts,
might convey to the people of these “ degenerate
days” moral improvement, information, and de-
light !
The first manuscripts that were unfolded were
Greek; and as Herculaneum was knowm to be a
g 2