Much skill was shown in the partial restoration of these books, charred almost beyond recognition; they were carefully separated leaf by leaf, soaked in a chemical solution, and then pressed flat between sheets of transparent paper.

A curious heap of scorched leaves, previous to any treatment, and looking like a monster wasps' nest, may be seen in a glass case in the MS.

department of the British Museum, showing the condition to which many other volumes had been reduced.
Just a hundred years ago the mob, in the "Birmingham Riots," burnt the valuable library of Dr.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.