"What a great stir hath been heretofore, about the eminency of the library of Heidelberg, but what use was made of it? It was engrossed into the hands of a few, till it became a prey unto the enemies of the truth. If the library keeper had been a man that would have traded with it for the increase of true learning, it might have been preserved unto this day in all the rareties thereof, not so much by the shuttings up of the multitude of books, and the rareness thereof for antiquity, as by the understandings of men and their proficiency to improve and dilate knowledge upon the grounds which he might have suggested unto others of parts, and so the library rareties would not only have been preserved in the spirits of men, but have fructified abundantly therein unto this day, whereas they are now lost, because they were but a talent digged in the ground." Well said! and it may be added that one good reason for printing the catalogue of a great library is that, in the event of its destruction, it may at least be known what it contained. The greatest library in the world was within an ace of destruction under the Paris Commune: had it perished, the very memory of a large part of its contents would have been lost. Respecting Heidelberg, it should be remarked that the destruction was not quite so irreparable as would appear from Dury's passionate outburst. The books and manuscripts to a considerable extent went not to the Devil but to the Pope, though Dury probably could see little difference. But even the Pope did not ultimately retain them. No fewer than eight hundred and ninety MSS. were subsequently carried off by Napoleon, and being thus at Paris at the entry of the allies, were reclaimed by the Bavarian Government, and restored to the University of Heidelberg, with the sanction of the Pope, at the special instance of the King of Prussia.[188:1] Appended to the tract is a short Latin account, also by Dury, of the Duke of Brunswick's library at Wolfenbuttel, famous on many grounds, and especially for having had Lessing as its librarian. It appears that on May 21, 1649, it was estimated to contain 60,000 treatises by 37,000 authors, bound in 20,000 volumes, all collected since 1604. It must therefore have been administered with an energy corresponding to the demands of Dury, who concludes his enthusiastic account with an aspiration which every librarian will echo on behalf of the institution with which he is himself connected:— "Faxit Deus, ut Thesaurus hic rerum divinarum æternarum sit et ipse æternus, neque prius quam mundi machina laboret aut intercidat."