LIBRARY

(Lat. liber, book.) The name given either to a collection of books, or to the apartment or edifice which they are kept. The oldest public library of antiquity, of vrtiich we have any credible account, is that founded Pis i stratus at Athens, which was carried by Xerxes Persia, and recovered by Seleucus Nicanor. Whether was the same library which Sylla (according to Plutarch) carried to Rome, and which was again restored by Hadrian, is not clear; nor is its ultimate destiny known. According:o a well-known tradition, the Goths, when masters Athens, refused to burn the public libraries, which tributedtothe effeminacy of its citizens. The library Alexandria was the most famous of antiquity. Its history has been written by Bonamy (Mem. tie VJlc. des Inscr., fit), Reinhard (Gotting., 1792), and many-others. It was Returns, 1S36. Panizzi, Vols. [s. 678]