Note EE — 1819
Reading edition
In 1752, during the excavations at Herculaneum, the villa of an Epicurean philosopher was discovered, in which were 1800 rolls of papyri, containing fragments of Epicurus' work On Nature. Only about 350 of these charred MSS. have as yet been unwound. When the discovery was first made that a library of ancient literature had been unearthed, European scholars everywhere anticipated
a bursting forth Of genius from the dust.
Hence Wordsworth's allusion to the possible discovery of the long buried fragments of classical antiquity, such as the poems of Simonides, or the lost books of Livy and Tacitus, for which others longed.—Ed.