The first discovery of Greek papyri was made at Herculaneum in 1752. They consist of above eighteen hundred charred rolls, which were enclosed in a wooden cabinet, and doubtless formed a portion of the library of one Lucius Piso Cæsonius, in the ruins of whose villa they were found. The condition of the papyri made the unrolling and decipherment of them a very tedious operation, and the work is not even yet completed. "They are written in small uncial letters, and possess little beyond palæographic value, comprising worthless treatises on physics, music, rhetoric, and kindred subjects by Philodemus and other third-rate philosophers of the Epicurean school." A quarter of a century later some rolls of papyrus were found in Egypt, probably in the Fayum. Of these only one, containing a list of peasants employed in the corvée, survived destruction by the natives, and it was not till 1820 that the discovery of a number of rolls on the site of the Serapeum at Memphis supplied the key to knowledge of Greek writing of the second century B.C. Since then, at varying intervals, the finds have increased in number and importance. The earliest known examples, dating from the third century B.C., were discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie in 1889 in a number of mummy cases at Gurob. Most of these papyri were non-literary--wills, petitions, and such-like documents--but two valuable relics came to light in fragments of Plato's _Phædo_ and the lost _Antiope_ of Euripides. Then followed the discovery of another lost work, Aristotle's Αθηναίων Πολιτεία; of the _Mimes_ of Herodas--an almost unknown writer of the Alexandrian age--part of another oration of Hyperides; a long medical treatise, and fragments of Homer, Demosthenes, and Isocrates. The _Mimes_, two thousand years old, are as young as yesterday. "Though," Mr. Whibley remarks in a charming paper upon these recovered treasures, "they have survived the searching test of time, they have been unseen of mortal eyes for countless centuries. The emotions which Herodas delineates are not Greek, but human, and no preliminary cramming in archæology is necessary for their appreciation. As the world was never young, so it will never grow old. The archæologist devotes years of research to compiling a picture of Greek life, and the result is _Charicles_--a cold and unrelieved mass of 'local colour.' There is no proportion, no atmosphere, no background; all is false save the details, and they merely overload the canvas. Herodas presents not a picture, but an impression, and one mime reveals more of life as it was lived two thousand years ago, than the complete works of Becker, Ebers, and the archæologists." (_Nineteenth Century_, Nov. 1891, p. 748.) Here is one scene by which Mr. Whibley justifies his appreciation. The _dramatis personæ_ are Metriche, a grass-widow; Threissa, her maid; and Gyllis, an old lady. _Metriche._ Threissa, there is a knock at the door; go and see if it is a visitor from the country.