books of devotion, some of which seemed to him well worthy of a place even in a royal library. Of the whole number he selected two, one a Coptic and Arabic dictionary and grammar, valued by the monks at thirty crowns, and the other a ritual of the ceremonies of the Coptic church, very carefully transcribed. These he was anxious to obtain; but failed because the monks could not alienate them without incurring the risk of excommunication by the patriarch; and further, which perhaps was the strongest reason, because he was himself but ill furnished with funds.

Six or seven years later the monks of Nitria were visited by our own countryman, Robert Huntington, then chaplain at Aleppo, and afterwards successively provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and bishop of Raphoe, whose fine collection of Oriental manuscripts now forms part of the priceless treasures in the Bodleian. During his residence of eleven years in the East he had availed himself of every opportunity to enrich his stock; but the book which of all others he was most anxious to procure, as appears from his letters, published by Dr. Thomas Smith in the year 1704, was the Syriac version of the epistles of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch. The Ignatian controversy was then at its height. The immortal work of Bishop Pearson was published about two years after Huntington had left England, and much interest was felt for the discovery of the Syriac version; to the existence of which Archbishop Usher had drawn attention in the preface to his edition of the Epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius. It was principally from his anxiety for this Syriac version that he undertook his journey into Egypt in the year 1678 or 1679, and proceeded across the desert to the Natron Lakes. He seems to have entertained considerable expectations of finding the epistles of Ignatius here; but in this hope he was disappointed: although the Syriac version of three of these epistles, and two copies of that to Polycarp, existed at that time in the Syrian monastery of St. Mary Deipara, as will be seen in the sequel. The Syrian monks doubtless did not admit Huntington into their library, as the only book which he mentions was an Old Testament in the Estrangelo character. In the convent of St. Macarius he states that he saw a large volume of St. Chrysostom in Coptic, on vellum, an immense volume containing his commentary on St. Matthew in Arabic, and a Coptic Lectionary for the whole year in four large volumes. In the monastery called El-Baramous, which at that time was inhabited by twenty-five monks and a superior, he makes mention of no other books than a copy of the New Testament in Coptic and Arabic. He does not speak of any manuscripts in the con

vent of Amba Bishoi, which he says was at that time in a less ruinous condition than either of the other three; he speaks, however, of the still famous tamarind-tree. The tradition is that St. Ephraem, out of pious anxiety to see St. Pisoes, or Pisaus, now corrupted into Bishoi, the fame of whose sanctity had travelled as far as Edessa, undertook the long and weary journey from the confines of Armenia to the desert of Nitria. This zeal was rewarded by a miracle. Upon his arrival he hastened to the cell of St. Pisoes and stuck his staff in the sand before the door as he entered. The staff immediately struck root and sprouted, and eventually grew up into that fine and beautiful tamarind-tree which the monks then showed, and we believe still show, as a living record of the visit of St. Ephraem. Huntington was informed that the number of convents had once amounted to three hundred and sixty-six. How many books he found is not mentioned; but we find that he sent to England, to Dr. Marshall, who was then preparing an edition of the New Testament in Coptic, a copy of the Evangelists in that language, which he ob

tained from one of these monasteries.

The next of whose visit any account has reached us is Gabriel Eva, a monk of the order of St. Anthony, and abbot of St. Maura in Mount Lebanon. After a journey through Egypt, he had been sent on a mission to Rome by Stephen, the Maronite patriarch of Antioch; and the account he gave of the Nitrian convents was received with much interest by Clement XI. The Pope was anxious to transfer from the desert to the Vatican a collection of manuscripts rendered precious and venerable by their extreme antiquity, and probably containing an unexplored mine of theological learning. It happened that Elias Assemani, the cousin of the famous Joseph Simon Assemani, had been sent by Stephen of Antioch, upon business to Rome, and having already accomplished the object of his journey, was at that moment on the point of returning to Syria. No person could be better qualified to undertake the mission to the desert of Nitria, and Gabriel Eva accordingly recommended him to the Pope. Furnished with letters to the Coptic patriarch, he left Rome in the spring of 1707, and was graciously received at Cairo. He arrived at the monastery of the Syrians about the end of June; the introduction of the patriarch procuring for him a good reception. The urbanity of his manners, his perfect knowledge of their habits and language, soon gained him the good-will of the monks, and at length they admitted him into their library: this he found a sort of cave or cellar, filled with Arabic, Syriac, and Coptic manuscripts, heaped together in the greatest disorder, and falling to pieces through age and want of atten

tion. A little examination satisfied him of their value, and he began to entertain great hopes of being able to persuade the good monks to part with books which they were utterly unable to read. But frightened, perhaps, by the anathemas, denounced in almost every volume by its donor, against all those who should be in any way instrumental in alienating it—suspicious by nature, and ready to suppose that what a stranger was eager to get hold of must contain some treasure-they turned a deaf ear to his request for the sale of the whole collection, and only with very great difficulty were they induced to part with about forty manuscripts. These being transported across the desert to the Nile, Elias Assemani set out, accompanied by one of the monks, to return in a boat to Cairo. On their way a gust of wind upset the boat. The monk was drowned, but another boat, passing by, picked up Assemani; and in the midst of a tumult of feelings, his energy did not abandon him. He immediately hired several watermen to fish up the manuscripts; and, having with much care wiped away the slime, he dried and restored them as well as he was able. The manuscripts, in number thirty-four, were deposited in the Vatican about Christmas, 1707.

Their obvious importance was a powerful stimulus. The Pope therefore determined to send again into Egypt, and selected J. S. Assemani, who set out in June, 1715. The head of the Coptic church received him kindly; and he left Cairo to proceed on his journey to Scete about the middle of August, accompanied by Philotheus, a monk of the convent of St. Macarius, as his guide. Having arrived at Etris, a small village on the western branch of the Nile, they turned across into the desert and came first to the convent of St. Macarius. Here he obtained some excellent Coptic manuscripts, of which he has given a catalogue in his Bibliotheca Orientalis' (vol. i. p. 617); and these, he says, were all they possessed of any consequence. His next visit was to St. Mary Deipara: here he found upwards of two hundred Syriac manuscripts, all of which he carefully examined, and selected about one hundred, hoping that he might be able to purchase them. But upon this, as upon the former occasion, if Assemani's own account be correct, the monks continued most obstinate; nor could he prevail upon them by argument, bribe, or entreaty to give up to him more than a very few volumes.

In the interval between the journeys of Elias Assemani and that of his cousin the convents of Nitria had also been visited (December, 1712) by the Jesuit Claude Sicard. The once flourishing monastery of St. Macarius at that period had only

four

four inhabitants-the superior, two deacons, and a porter. Having passed one day in this convent he proceeded to that of the Syrians, which he describes as being in the best condition of them all, having a very agreeable garden, watered by a well, in which were many trees of various kinds. The number of monks was not above twelve or fifteen. Having remained here two days, during which time he made a short visit to the convent of Amba Bishoi, only a few paces distant, and inhabited by but four monks, he set out at sunrise on the morning of the 11th, and arrived at the monastery of the Holy Virgin of El-Baramous, or of the Greeks, about noon. The number of monks here was also about twelve or fifteen. Sicard states that in the immediate neighbourhood of this convent were the ruins of ten or twelve other buildings, and that he could distinctly trace through the valley the ruins of upwards of fifty monasteries; and that the superior of St. Macarius informed him that they were formerly equal in number to the days of the year. Sicard does not upon this occasion make any particular mention of the books in either of these convents, but merely states that in the tower of each there was a library, which consisted of three or four chests filled with books and ancient manuscripts, covered with dust and in a neglected condition. This Jesuit revisited Nitria with J. S. Assemani, and afterwards accompanied him, upon his return to Egypt in the next year, 1716, in his expedition across the desert of the Thebaid to the convents of St. Anthony and St. Paul near the coast of the Red Sea. Sicard, in describing their visit to the monastery of St. Anthony, says,—

"He [Synodius, the superior of the convent] was more tractable when Assemani begged him to show us the tower which is shut against all strangers; for, making him some trifling presents of hardware (the good monk was a great studier of astrology and alchemy, and the transmutation of metals), we persuaded him to conduct us thither. Our only curiosity was to see the manuscripts. We found three chests-full, being all that had escaped the ravages which at different periods had befallen the monastery. We examined them all. For the most part they consisted of prayers and homilies in Coptic and Arabic. The Abbé Assemani only found three or four manuscripts worthy of the Vatican. These he purchased secretly from the Superior, without the knowledge of the monks, who, had they known, would have opposed the sale, although the manuscripts are quite valueless to themselves, and they make no use of them whatever.'

Assemani, although he mentions that Sicard accompanied him in his expedition to the Thebaid, is altogether silent respecting his attending him to the desert of Macarius. Neither does his account of obtaining so few manuscripts there, and those with so much difficulty, quite coincide with that of Sicard, who says that

VOL. LXXVII. NO. CLIII.

E

he

he took those which suited him. This silence certainly gives ground for suspicion that there was something in the transaction which Assemani did not wish to transpire, and of which the mention of Sicard's accompanying him might have led to the disclosure. His secret and indeed fraudulent dealing with the Superior, who had no right to dispose of any property without the consent of the community, would make but a sorry figure in his account of the manner in which various valuable accessions had been made to the collections of the Vatican.

rant.

In the month of August, in the year 1730, the Sieur Granger made a journey to the Natron Lakes. He tells us that he was well received by the monks, whom he describes as poor and ignoThose belonging to the convents of Macarius and St. Mary of the Syrians were deaf to all his entreaties to be allowed to see their libraries. He says that the buildings at that time were falling into decay, and the dust destroying the books and manuscripts, of which the monks made no use whatever. Their own patriarch had represented to them that the sum which the books would produce would be sufficient to enable them to restore their churches and rebuild their cells; but they declared that they would rather be buried in the ruins.

In 1778, C. S. Sonnini visited the valley. He remained five days in the monastery of El-Baramous. He makes no mention of books or manuscripts, but complains bitterly of the avarice and extortion of the monks, who wished to exact from him five or six hundred sequins upon his leaving them. He is the only traveller who has spoken in harsh terms of these poor monks.

In May, 1792, W. G. Browne, an Englishman, was here. He says

'During my stay near the lakes I visited two of the Coptic conventsthat called the Syrian, and that of St. George-where I could observe no traces of any European travellers but Baron Thunis, whom the Empress of Russia had sent to negotiate a defection on the part of the Beys, but who having exhibited less prudence than courage in the promotion of the designs of his mistress, had been privately put to death at Cairo by order of the Beys, to avoid delivering him to the Porte, as had been requested of them. These convents contain each of them several Religious, who retain all the simplicity of the primitive ages. They drink water, and eat coarse bread and vegetables, very seldom touching meat, wine, or coffee. They are ignorant indeed, but strangers to vice; and although their time is employed to no useful purpose, so neither is their application of it prejudicial to any. They have each a small garden, which supplies common vegetables, and a breed of tame fowls, together with a well of water within the walls. The rest of the necessaries of life are provided them by the voluntary contributions of the Christians of their own persuasion; and as the business of artificers

and