literary productions in advance, and probably very far in advance, of the discovery or evolution of literary characters, and also long after the use of script by authors, the greater portion of the public in all ancient lands received their literature, not through their eyes, but through their ears,--not by reading the text, but by listening to reciters, story-tellers, and 'rhapsodists.'" (P. xiv.) We quote the following from Mr. E. C. Richardson: "The Vedas were, it is alleged, handed down for centuries by a rigidly trained body of memorizers. The memorizing of Confucian books by Chinese students and of the Koran by Moslem students is very exact."[7] "The office of reading," says Professor Dobschütz, "was esteemed so highly that it was regarded as based on a special spiritual gift.... The reader had to know his text almost entirely by heart to do it well. From the 'Shepherd of Hermes,' a very interesting book written by a Roman layman about 140 A. D., we learn that some people gathered often, probably daily, for the special purpose of common reading and learning. But even granted that the memory of these men was not spoiled by too much reading, as is ours, so that by hearing they were able to learn by heart (it is said of some rabbis that they did not lose one word of all their master had told them, and, in fact, the Talmudic literature was transmitted orally for centuries), nevertheless, we must assume that these Christians had their private copies of the Bible at home."[8] Prescott says of the pre-historic Mexico: "Besides the hieroglyphic maps, the traditions of the country were embodied in songs and hymns.... These were various, embracing the mystic legends of a heroic age, the warlike achievements of their own, or the softer tales of love and pleasure."[9] Of the early times of English literature, D'Israeli states that "before the people had national books they had national songs," and that "these songs and these fables, these proverbs and these tales,--all these were a library without books."[10] And an anonymous author, recently traveling in a remote portion of northern Albania, records it that "the wild, inaccessible country is under various independent tribes, ruled by a chieftain according to unwritten laws handed down orally from remote ages." He also states that "the country has no written language and no literature."[11]