But it was in his gorgeous palace at Nineveh that he had the joy of his life--that which was to perpetuate his name to the end of time. This was his library--the largest and most valuable collection of documents that the world had yet seen. Composed of myriads of inscribed tablets, they were fortunately made of a material--baked and unbaked clay--which, for more than two millennia, successfully withstood all the ravages of war and the elements. They treated of mathematics, astronomy, history, poetry, grammar, lexicography, law, religion--in a word, of the entire circle of the sciences of the ancient world. Asurbanipal--an Assyrian Mæcenas--was not only the patron of scholars, whom he encouraged to produce new books on every branch of science and literature, but was also, as a collector, the worthy forerunner and rival of the bibliophilous rulers of Pergamum and Alexandria. He had his scribes visit all the libraries of Babylonia--the earliest home of science and letters--and had them make copies of all works of value which did not exist in his own library. So indefatigable, indeed, was the King as a collector that it is probably true--as has been stated--that he had in his extensive library a copy of all the books that existed in the numerous libraries of Assyria and Babylonia. The discovery of Asurbanipal’s library surpassed in importance any that had ever been made in either the valley of the Tigris or of the Euphrates. But every tablet in this immense collection was absolutely a sealed book, for there was not anyone living then who was able to decipher a single sentence of those mysterious documents which had thus so unexpectedly been brought to day. When Layard, in the course of his exploration of the vast palace of Asurbanipal, first beheld the priceless contents of the royal halls of records, his emotions must have been like those of Shelley’s Alastor in the temples of Egypt, for _Among the ruined temples there,_ _Stupendous columns and wild images_ _Of more than man, where marble demons watch_ _The zodiac’s brazen mystery, and dead men_ _Have their mute thoughts on the mute walls around._ _He lingered, pouring on memorials_ _Of the world’s youth; nor when the moon_ _Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades_ _Suspended he that task, but ever gazed_ _And gazed_ on precious monuments before him which he knew full well contained _The thrilling secrets of the birth of time_.[365]