Page:A Brief Outline of the Histories of Libraries.djvu/91

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Of Libraries
85

over, these other and later libraries were preserved through the enlightened interest of the princes of their day, for if this had not been so, how could there have been so many libraries at the time of P. Victor, that is, in the reign of Constantine? Victor says that he noted, among other remarkable things in Rome, twenty-nine public libraries; two of which were especially noteworthy, the Palatine and the Ulpian.

Alas, of how many of these have we no record whatsoever! Out of all the twenty-nine we discovered, for all our diligence, traces of seven only, and of these have rescued from oblivion hardly more than their names.