Priestley, and in the "Gordon Riots" were burnt
the literary and other collections of Lord Mansfield, the celebrated judge,
he who had the courage first to decide that the Slave who reached the
English shore was thenceforward a free man. The loss of the latter library
drew from the poet Cowper two short and weak poems. The poet first deplores
the destruction of the valuable printed books, and then the irretrievable
loss to history by the burning of his Lordship's many personal manuscripts
and contemporary documents.
"Their pages mangled, burnt and torn,
The loss was his alone;
But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own."
The second poem commences with the following doggerel:--
"When Wit and Genius meet their doom
In all-devouring Flame,
They tell us of the Fate of Rome
And bid us fear the same."
The much finer and more extensive library of Dr. Priestley was left
unnoticed and unlamented by the orthodox poet, who probably felt
a complacent satisfaction at the destruction of heterodox books,
the owner being an Unitarian Minister.
The magnificent library of Strasbourg was burnt by the shells
of the German Army in 1870. Then disappeared for ever,
together with other unique documents, the original records of
the famous law-suits between Gutenberg, one of the first Printers,
and his partners, upon the right understanding of which depends
the claim of Gutenberg to the invention of the Art.
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