Laurentius Valla, was a native of Placenza, where he was born in 1415; he revived the Latin language from gothic barbarity, but he was a rigorous critic. He fell under the displeasure of the Church of Rome, for the freedom with which he hazarded his opinions respecting some of its doctrines, and he was condemned to be burnt, but was saved by Alphonsus, king of Naples. Pope Nicholas the fifth, who was himself one of the greatest encouragers of learning of his time, and who highly respected the talents of Valla, invited him to Rome, and gave him a pension.—This Pope, whose pursuits were in direct association with our present subject, from a plebeian origin, raised himself by his virtue and his learning to the highest honours of the Church. The character of the man prevailed over the interest of the Pontiff, and he sharpened those weapons which were soon pointed against the religion of Rome. He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age, and after his elevation to the chair of St. Peter, he became their patron. Under Pope Nicholas, the influence of the Holy See pervaded Christendom, and he exerted that influence in the search, not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and whenever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican was daily replenished with precious furniture, and such was his industry, that in a reign of eight years, he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo’s Geography, of the Iliad, of the more valuable works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and Theophrastus, and of the Fathers of the Greek Church. Footnote 16: For an account of the following Manuscript Libraries in England, see Savage’s Librarian, 3 vols. London, 1808-1810—namely, that of the British Museum, in vol. 1. p. 26; of the Royal Society, p. 71; of the Heralds Office, p. 73; of the Society of Antiquaries, p. 129; of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s at Lambeth Palace, p. 133; of Lincoln’s Inn, p. 183, 225; of the Middle Temple, p. 273; of the Inner Temple, vol. 2. p. 131; of the Lansdown Collection of Manuscripts, vol. 1. p. 34, and vol. 3. p. 27, and of the Cottonian Manuscripts, vol. 3. p. 31. The curious reader who is interested in the history of the public records of his country, will find in the same volumes, the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the State of the Records, in vol. 1. p. 17, &c.—an account of the Records in the Tower of London, vol. 2. p. 34, &c. of those in the Rolls Chapel, ibid. p. 185, &c. and of those in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, vol. 3. p. 41, &c.