m TEE WORKS Of SENRY HALL AM. INTRODUCTION LITERATURE OF EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH, AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. HENEY HALLAM, F.B.A.S., COHHESrONDlNG MEMBEU OF THE ACADEMY OF MOKAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES IN THE FRENCH INSTITUTE VOLUME I. WARD, LOCK & CO., LONDON-: WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, B.C. NEW YORK: BOND STREET. College Library TN 701 v, I CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. . ON THE GENERAL STATE OF LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE END OF THB FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Retrospect of Learning in Middle Ages Necessary ..... 1 Loss of learning in Fall of Roman Empire 1 Boethius his Consolation of Philosophy 1 Rapid Decline of Learning in Sixth Cen- tury ...... 2 A Portion remains in the Church . . 2 Prejudices of the Clergy against Profane Learning ..... 2 Their Uselessness in preserving it . .3 First Appearances of reviving Learning in Ireland and England . . .3 Few Schools before the Age of Charlemagne 3 Beneficial Effects of those Established by him ...... 4 The Tenth Century more progressive than usually supposed ... .4 Want of Genius in the Dark Ages . . 5 Prevalence of bad Taste . . .5 Deficiency of poetical Talent . . 6 Imperfect State of Language may account for this ..... 6 Improvement at beginning of Twelfth Cen- tury ...... 6 Leading Circumstances in Progress of Learning ..... Origin of the University of Paris . Modes of treating the Science of Theology 6 Scholastic Philosophy its Origin . . 7 Roscelin ..... 7 Progress of Scholasticism; Increase of University of Paris . . .8 Universities founded . . .8 Oxford ..... 8 Collegiate Foundations not derived from the Saracens .... 9 Scholastic Philosophy promoted by Mendi- cant Friars . . . . .9 Character of this Philosophy . . 10 It prevails least in Italy . . .10 Literature in Modern Languages . . 10 Origin of the French,. Spanish, and Italian Languages . . . . .10 Corruption of colloquial Latin in the Lower Empire . . . .11 Continuance of Latin in Seventh Century 12 I Glossatum It is changed to a new Language in Eighth and Ninth ... . . . Early Specimens of French . ' . . Poem on Boethius . . . . ProvemjalGrammar . . . . Latin retained in use longer in Italy . French of Eleventh Century . . Metres of Modern Languages . . Origin of Rhyme in Latin . . . Provencal and French Poetry . . Metrical Romances Havelok the Dane . Diffusion of French Language . . German Poetry of Swabian Period . . Decline of German Poetry . . . Poetry of France and Spain . . Early Italian Language . . . Dante and Petrarch . . . . Change of Anglo-Saxon to English . Layamon . . . . . Progress of English Language . . English of the Fourteenth Century Chau cer, Gower . . . . . General Disuse of French in England . State of European Languages about 1400 Ignorance of Reading and Writing in 6 1 darker Ages . . 6 Reasons for supposing this to have dimin- ished after 1100 . . . . Increased Knowledge of Writing in Four- teenth Century . . . . Average State of Knowledge in England . Invention of Paper . . . . Linen Paper when first used . . Cotton Paper . . . ' . . Linen Paper as old as 1100 . . . Known to Peter of Clugni . ' . . And in Twelfth and Thirteenth Century . Paper of mixed Materials . . . Invention of Paper placed by some too low Not at first very important . . Importance of Legal Studies . . Roman Laws never wholly unknown . Irnerius his first Successors . . Their Glosses . . . . . Abridgements of Law Accursius's Corpus Page 12 13 13 14 14 14 15 16 16 18 19 19 20 21 22 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 27 27 28 28 28 28 29 29 29 29 30 30 31 31 31 31 Contents. Page Character of early Jurists . . .82 Decline of Jurists after Accursius . . 32 Respect paid to him at Bologna . . 33 Scholastic Jurists Bartolus . . 33 Inferiority of Jurists in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries . . . C4 Classical Literature and Taste in dark Ages . . . . : 34 Improvement in Tenth and Eleventh Cen- turies . . . . : 34 Lanfranc and his Schools . . .35 Italy Vocabulary of Papias . . 36 Influence of Italy upon Europe . . 36 Increased copying of Manuscripts . . 36 John of Salisbury . - .36 Improvement of Classical Taste in Twelfth Century 37 Page Influence of increased Number of Clergy 38 Decline of Classical Literature in Thir- teenth Century . . . .38 Relapse into Barbarism . . .38 No Improvement in Fourteenth Century Richard of Bury . . . .89 Library formed by Charles V. at Paris . 39 Some Improvement in Italy during Thir- teenth Century . . . .40 Catholicon of Balbi . . . ; 40 Imperfection of early Dictionaries . . 40 Restoration of Letters due to Petrarch . 40 Character of his Style . . .41 His Latin Poetry . . . .41 John of Ravenna . . . 41 Gasparin of Barziza . . . : 42 CHAPTER II. ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1400 TO 1440. Zeal for Classical Literature in Italy Poggio Btacciolini .... Latin Style of that Age indifferent Gasparin of Barziza ... Merits of his Style .... Victorin of Feltre . Leonard Aretin .... Revival of Greek Language in Italy Early Greek Scholars of Europe Under Charlemagne and his Successors . In the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries In the Twelfth .... In the Thirteenth .... Little Appearance of it In the Fourteenth Century ..... Some Traces of Greek in Italy Corruption of Greek Language itself Character of Byzantine Literature Petrarch and Boccace learn Greek Few acquainted with the Language in their Time ..... It is taught by Chrysoloras about 1395 . His Disciples ..... Translations from Greek into Latin Public Encouragement delayed But fully accorded before 1440 Emigration of learned Greeks to Italy Causes of Enthusiasm for Antiquity in Italy Advanced State of Society . Exclusive Study of Antiquity . . Classical Learning in France low . Much more so in England . Library of Duke of Gloucester . . Gerard Groot's College at Deventer Physical Sciences in Middle Ages . Arabian Numerals and Method Proofs of them in Thirteenth Century Mathematical Treatises Roger Bacon ..... Ilia Resemblance to Lord Bacon . English Mathematician* of Fourteenth Century ..... Astronomy ..... Alchemy ..... 42 ] Medicine 44 Anatomy ..... Encyclopaedic Works of Middle Ages Vincent of Beauvais Berchorius ..... Spanish Ballads .... Metres of Spanish Poetry . Consonant and assonant Rhymes . . Nature of the Glosa .... The Cancionero General Bouterwek's Character of Spanish Songs . John II. ... Poets of his Court .... Charles, Duke of Orleans . English Poetry . . . Lydgate . . ... * James I. of Scotland . Restoration of Classical Learning due to Italy ..... Character of Classical Poetry lost in Middle Ages .... New School of Criticism in Modern Lan- guages . . . . . Effect of Chivalry on Poetry . , . Effect of Gallantry towards Women Its probable Origin . ... It is shown in old Teutonic Poetry ; but appears in the Stories of Arthur . Romances of Chivalry of two Kinds Effect of Difference of Religion upon Poetry ..... General Tone of Romance . Popular Moral Fictions . . t Exclusion of Politics from Literature 55 I Religious Opinions . 56 i Attacks on the Church Three Lines of Religious Opinions in Fif- teenth Century .... Treatise de Imitatione Christ! Scepticism Defences of Christianity Raimond de Sebonde His Views misunderstood . 68 i His real Object 58 Nature of his Arguments 58 58 58 68 69 69 60 60 61 61 61 62 62 62 62 63 63 63 64 64 64 64 64 65 65 06 M 67 or- 67 67 M 01 I,'.* 01 70 70 Contents, CHAPTER III. ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1440 TO THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. The year 1440 not chosen as an Epoch Continual Progress of Learning Nicolas V. . . . . Justice due to his Character . Poggio on the Ruins of Rome Account of the East, by Conti Laurentius Valla . . . His Attack on the Court of Rome . His Treatise on the Latin Language Its Defects .... Heeren's Praise of it . Valla's Annotations on the New Testa- ment .... Fresh Arrival of Greeks in Italy . Platonists and Aristotelians . Their Controversy . . . Marsilius Ficinus . . . Invention of Printing . . Block Books .... Gutenberg and Costar's Claims . Progress of the Invention . . First printed Bible : Beauty of the Book . . . Early printed Sheets Psalter of 1547 Other early Books Bible of Pfister Greek first taught at Paris . Leave unwillingly granted . Purbach his Mathematical Discoveries Other Mathematicians Progress of Printing in Germany . Introduced into France Caxton's first Works Printing exercised in Italy . Lorenzo de' Medici . Italian Poetry of Fifteenth Century Italian Prose of same Age . Giostra of Politian . Paul II. persecutes the Learned . Mathias Corvinus His Library .... Slight Signs of Literature in England Paston Letters Low Condition of Public Libraries Rowley .... Clotilde de Sarville . Number of Books printed in Italy First Greek printed . : . Study of Antiquities . . Works on that Subject . . Publications in Germany . . In France . . . In England, by Caxton . . In Spain .... Translations of Scripture . . Revival of Literature in Spain . Character of Labrixa . . Library of Lorenzo . Classics corrected and explained . Character of Lorenzo Prospect from his Villa at Fiesole Platonic Academy . Page Page 71 Disputationes Camaldulenses of Landino 88 71 Philosophical Dialogues 89 71 Paulus Cortesius . . . . 89 72 Schools in Germany . 89 72 Study of Greek at Paris 91 72 Controversy of Realists and Nominalists 91 72 Scotus . 91 72 Ockham . . . 92 73 Nominalists in University of Paris : 92 73 Low State of Learning in England 92 73 Mathematics . 93 Regiomontanus . . . 93 73 Arts of Delineation . . . 93 74 Maps ...... 94 74 Geography . . . . . 94 74 Greek printed in Italy . . 94 75 Hebrew printed . . . . 95 75 Miscellanies of Politian . . . 95 75 Their Character, by Heeren . . 95 75 His Version of Herodian . . 96 76 Cornucopia of Perotti . . 96 76 Latin Poetry of Politian . . 96 77 Italian Poetry of Lorenzo . . . 97 77 Pulci ...... 97 77 Character of Morgante Maggiore . 97 77 Platonic Theology of Ficinus 98 78 Doctrine of Averroes on the Soul . 98 78 Opposed by Kicinus . 99 78 Desire of Man to explore Mysteries 99 78 Various Methods employed . . 99 79 Reason and Inspiration . . , 99 79 Extended Inferences from Sacred Books . 99 79 Confidence in Traditions . . . 100 79 Confidence in Individuals as inspired 100 80 Jewish Cabbala *. 100 80 Picus of Mirandola .... 101 80 His Credulity in the Cabbala 101 80 His Literary Performances . . . 102 81 State of Learning in Germany . 102 81 Agricola . . 103 81 Renish Academy . 103 81 Reuchlin . 104 82 French Language and Poetry . 104 83 European Drama .... 104 83 Latin ...... 104 83 Orfeo of Politian . 105 83 Origin of Dramatic Mysteries . . 105 84 Their early Stage . 105 84 Extant English Mysteries . 105 84 First French Theatre 106 85 Theatrical Machinery . . 107 85 Italian Religious Dramas . . 107 85 | Moralities . . . . . 107 85 Farces . . 107 85 Mathematical Works . . 107 86 Leo Baptista Alberti . . 108 86 Lionardo da Vinci .... 108 87 Aldine Greek Editions . . 109 87 Decline of Learning in Italy . 110 87 Hermolaus Barbarus . . 111 87 Mantuan . 111 88 . Pontauus ..... 111 Contents. Page Neapolitan Academy . . . 112 Boiardo 112 Francesco Bello . . . .113 Italian Poetry near the End of the Century 113 Progress of Learning in France and Ger- many ..... 113 Erasmus his Diligence . . . 114 Budseus his early Studies . . . 114 Latin not well written in France . . 115 Dawn of Greek Learning in England ; 115 Erasmus comes to England . . . 116 He publishes his Adages . . . 116 IJoin.-i nt ic Ballads of Spain . . .110 Pastoral Romances .... 117 Portuguese Lyric Poetry . . .117 German popular Books . . . 117 Historical Works . 118 Page Philip de Comines . . . .118 Algebra 118 Events from 1490 to 1500 . : .119 Close of Fifteenth Century . . .119 Its Literature nearly neglected . : 119 Summary of its Acquisitions . . 119 Their Imperfection . . . .120 Number of Books printed . . .120 Advantages already reaped from Printing 120 Trade of Bookselling . . . .- 121 Books sold by Printers . . .121 Price of Books . . . .122 Form of Books . . . .122 Exclusive Privileges . . . .122 Power of Universities over Bookselling . 123 Restraints on Sale of Printed Books . 124 Effect of Printing on the Reformation . 124 CHAPTER IV. ON THE LITERATURE OP EUROPE FROM 1500 TO 1520. Decline of Learning in Italy Press of Aldus His Academy .... Dictionary of Calepio . . Books printed in Germany . . First Greek Press at Paris . Early Studies of Melanchthon . Learning in England Erasmus and Budaeus . . Study of Eastern Languages Dramatic Works . . Calisto and Meliboea . Its Character .... Juan de la Enzlna . . . Arcadia of Sanazzaro . . Asolani of Bembo . . . Dunbar . . . . Anatomy of Zerbi . . . Voyages of Cadamosto . ,. Leo X., his Patronage of Letters . Roman Gymnasium . . Latin Poetry . . . Italian Tragedy Sophonisba of Trissino . . Rosmunda of Rucellai Comedies of Ariosto . . . Books printed in Italy . (Vlius Rhodiginus . . . Greek printed in France and Germany Greek Scholars in these Countries . College at Alcala and Louvain Latin Style in France . . Greek Scholars in England . . Mode of Teaching in Schools Few Classical Works printed here . State of Learning in Scotland Utopia of More Inconsistency in his Opinions 125 Learning restored in France . 138 125 Jealousy of Erasmus and Budseus . . 138 126 Character of Erasmus . . . 139 126 His Adages severe on Kings . . 139 126 Instances in illustration . . . 140 126 His Greek Testament . 142 127 Patrons of Letters in Germany . . 142 127 Resistance to Learning . . . 143 128 Unpopularity of the Monks . . 145 128 The Book excites Odium . . 145 128 Erasmus attacks the Monks . 145 128 Their Contention with Reuchlin . . 145 129 Origin of the Reformation . . . 146 129 Popularity of Luther . . . 147 129 Simultaneous Reform by Zwingle . . 147 180 Reformation prepared beforehand . . 147 130 Dangerous Tenets of Luther . . . 148 ISO Real Explanation of them . . 149 130 Orlando Furioso . 150 131 Its Popularity . . 150 131 Want of Seriousness . . . . 150 132 A Continuation of Boiardo . . . 150 132 In some Points inferior . . . 151 132 Beauties of its Style . . 151 132 Accompanied with Faults . . . 151 132 Its Place as a Poem . . 152 133 Amadis de Gaul . 152 133 Gringore .... . 152 133 Hans Sachs .... . 152 134 Stephen Hawes . . . 153 134 Change in English Language . . 153 135 Skelton .... . 154 135 Oriental Languages . . . . 154 136 Pomponatius .... . 155 137 Raymond Lully . . . . 155 137 His Method .... . 155 137 Peter Martyr's Epistles . . . 156 ua CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. Superiority of Italy in Taste Admiration of Antiquity Sadolet ^ Bembo 157 I Ciceronian us of Erasmus 158 ' Scaliger's Invective against it 158 i Editions of Cicero . 159 Alexander ab Alexandra 159 160 160 100 Contents. Page Works on Roman Antiquities . . 161 Greek less Studied in Italy . . .161 Schools of Classical Learning . . 161 Budaeus his Commentaries on Greek . 161 Their Character . . . .162 Greek Grammars and Lexicons . . 162 Editions of Greek Authors . . . 163 Latin Thesaurus of R. Stephens . . 163 Progress of Learning in France . . 164 Learning in Spain .... 165 Effects of Reformation on Learning . 165 Sturm's Account of German Schools . 165 Learning in Germany . . . 166 In England Linacre . . . 166 | Lectures in the Universities Greek perhaps Taught to Boys Teaching of Smith at Cambridge . Succeeded by Cheke . Ascham's Character of Cambridge . Wood's Account of Oxford . Education of Edward and his Sisters The Progress of Learning is still slow Want of Books and Public Libraries Destruction of Monasteries no Injury Learning .... Ravisius Textor ... Conrad Gesner . CHAPTER VI. HISTORY OP THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. Progress of the Reformation . . 171 Interference of Civil Power . . 171 Excitement of Revolutionary Spirit . 172 Growth of Fanaticism . . . 172 Differences of Luther and Zwingle . 172 Confession of Augsburg . . . 173 Conduct of Erasmus . ... . 173 Estimate of it -. . . . 174 His Controversy with Luther . . 174 Character of his Epistles . . . 176 His Alienation from the Reformers increases 176 Appeal of the Reformers to the Ignorant . 176 Parallel of those Times with the Present . 177 Calvin . . . . .177 His Institutes . . . .177 Increased Differences among Reformers . 178 Reformed Tenets spread in England . 178 In Italy . . . ... 178 Italian Heterodoxy .... 179 Its Progress in the Literary Classes . 180 Servetus ... .180 Arianism in Italy .... 181 Protestants in Spain and Low Countries . 181 Order of Jesuits . . . . . 181 Their Popularity . . . .181 Council of Trent . . . .182 Its Chief Difficulties . ; .182 Character of Luther . . . .182 Theological Writings Erasmus . . 183 Melanchthon Romish Writers . .183 This Literature nearly forgotten . . .184 Sermons ..... 184 Spirit of the Reformation . . . 184 Limits of Private Judgment . . 185 Passions instrumental in Reformation . 185 Establishment of new Dogmatism . . 18(1 Editions of Scripture . . . 186 Translations of Scripture . . . 136 In English 187 In Italy and Low Countries . . 187 Latin Translations .... 187 French Translations .... 188 CHAPTER VII. HISTORY OP SPECULATIVE, MORAL, AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, AND OP JURISPRUDENCE, IN EUROPE, PROM 1520 TO 1560. Logic included under this head . . 188 Slow Defeat of Scholastic Philosophy . 188 It is sustained by the Universities and Regulars ..... 188 Commentators on Aristotle . . . 188 Attack of Vives on Scholastics . . 189 Contempt of them in England . . 189 Veneration for Aristotle . . 189 Melanchthon countenances him . . 189 His own Philosophical Treatises . . 190 Aristotelians of Italy . . . 190 University of Paris .... 190 New Logic of Ramus . . . 190 It meets with unfair treatment . . 191 Its llerits and Character . . .191 Buhle's account of it . . . 191 Paracelsus ..... 191 His Impostures .... 192 And Extravagancies .... 192 Cornelius Agrippa .... 192 His pretended Philosophy . , His Sceptical Treatise . . Cardan . . ' . Influence of Moral Writers . . Cortegiano of Castiglione . . Marco Aurelio of Guevara . . His Menosprecio di Corte . Perez d'Oliva ; Ethical Writings of Erasmus and anchthon . .- Sir T. Elyot's Governor Severity of Education . , He seems to avoid Politics Nicholas Machiavel . . . His motives in writing the Prince . Some of his Rules not immoral But many dangerous Its only Palliation . . His Discourses on Livy . Their leading Principles Mel- 193 193 193 194 194 194 194 195 195 195 106 197 197 197 198 198 198 Contents. Their Use and Influence . . His History of Florence . ' . Treatises on Venetian Government Calvin's Political Principles Jurisprudence confined to Roman Law The Laws not well arranged . Page j Page . 199 j Adoption of the entire System . . 200 . 199 Utility of General Learning to Lawyers . 200 . 199 Alciati his Reform of Law . . 201 . 199 j Opposition to him . . . .201 . 200 j Agustino . . . . .201 . 200! CHAPTER VIII: HISTORT OF THE LITERATURE OF TASTE IN EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. Poetry of Bembo . . . .201 Its Beauties and Defects . . .202 Character of Italian Poetry . . .202 Alamanni . . . . .202 Vittoria Colonna .... 202 Satires of Ariosto and Alamanni . . 203 Alamanni : 203 Rucellai . . . . .203 Trissino . . . . .203 Berni 203 Spanish Poets . . . .204 Boscan and Garcilasso ... 204 Mendoza ..... 204 Saa di Miranda .... 205 Ribeyro . . . . .205 French Poetry . . . .205 Marot 206 Its Metrical Structure . . .206 German Poetry .... 206 Hans Sachs ..... 206 German Hymn .... 206 Theuerdanks of Pflntzing . . .206 English Poetry Lyndsay . . . 207 Wyatt and Surrey . . . .207 Dr. Nott's Character of them . . 207 Perhaps rather exaggerated . . 203 Surrey improves our versification . . 208 Introduces Blank Verse . . . 208 Dr. Nott's Hypothesis as to his Metre . 208 It seems too extensive . . . 209 Politeness of Wyatt and Surrey . . 209 Latin Poetry 210 Sannazarius ..... 210 Vida .210 Fracastorlus . . . . . 210 Latin Verse not to be disdained . . 210 Other Latin Poets in Italy . . .211 In Germany ..... 211 Italian Comedy .... 211 Machiavol 211 Aretin 211 Tragedy 212 Sperone . ... . . 212 Cinthio . . . . .212 Spanish Drama .... 212 Torres Naharro .... 212 Lope de Rueda .... 212 Gil Vicente 213 Mysteries and Moralities in France . 213 German Theatre Hans Sachs . . 213 Moralities and Similar Plays in England . 214 They are turned to religious Satire . 214 Latin Plays . . . . .214 First English Comedy . . .215 Romances of Chivalry . . . 215 Novels ..... 215 Rabelais . . . . .218 Contest of Latin and Italian Languages . 216 Influence of Bembo in this . . . 217 Apology for Latinists . . . 217 Character of the Controversy . . 217 Life of Bembo . . .217 Character of Italian and Spanish Style . 218 English Writers . . . .218 More ...... 213 Ascham ..... 218 Italian Criticism .... 218 Bembo ..... 218 Granamarians and Critics in France . 219 Orthography of Meigret . . . . 219 ' Cox's Art of Rhetoric . . . 219 CHAPTER IX. ON THE SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. Geometrical Treatises . . Fernel Rhoeticus Cardan and Tartaglia . . Cubic Equations Beauty of the Discovery Cardan's other Discoveries . Imperfections of Algebraic Language Copernicus .... Revival of Greek Medicine . Linacre and other Physicians Medical Innovators . Paracelsus .... Anatomy ... Berenger .... Vesalius 220 Portal's Account of him . 226 220 His Human Dissections . . . 225 220| Fate of Vesalius . 225 220 j Other Anatomists . . . . 225 221 | Imperfection of the Science . . 225 221 1 Botany Botanical Gardens . . 226 222 1 Ruel . 226 222 j Fuch ..... . 226 223 1 Matthioll .... . 226 223 j Low State of Zoology . 226 224 I Agricola .... . 227 224J Hebrew .... . 227 224! Elias Levita Pellican . 227 224, Arabic and Oriental Literature . 227 224 Geography of Grynaeus . 228 Contents. Apianus Munster Voyages Oviedo Historical Works Italian Page . ^23 Their fondness for Petrarch . They become numerous . . Their Distinctions . . . Evils connected with them . . They succeed less in Germany . Page . 230 . 229 . 230 . 230 . 230 , 230 . . 228 . 228 >rks . . . rd to the Language . . 228 . 228 . 229 . 229 CHAPTER X. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1550 TO 1600. Progress of Philology . . . 231 First Editions of Classics . . .231 Change in Character of Learning . . 232 Cultivation of Greek . . .232 Principal Scholars Turnebus . . 232 Petrus Victorius . . . .233 Muretus : . . . .233 Gruter's Thesaurus Criticus . . 234 Editions of Greek and Latin Authors . 2S5 Tacitus of Lipsius .... 235 Horace of Lambinus . . . 235 OfCruquius 236 Henry Stephens . . . .236 Lexicon of Constantin . . . 237 Thesaurus of Stephens . . . 237 Abridged by Scapula . . .233 Hellenismus of Caninius . . . 239 Vergara's Grammar .... 239 Grammars of Ramus and Sylburgius . 239 Camerarius Canter Robortellus . . 240 Editions by Sylburgius . . . 241 Neander ..... 241 Gesner . . : . .241 Decline of Taste in Germany . . 242 German Learning .... 242 Greek Verses of Rhodomanu . . 242 Learning Declines : 243 Except in Catholic Germany . . 243 Philological Works of Stephens . . 243 Style of Lipsius . . . .244 Minerva of Sanctius .... 244 Orations of Muretus . . . 244 Panegyric of Ruhnkenius . . . 244 Defects of his Style . . . .245 Epistles of Manutius . . . 245 Care of the Italian Latinists . . 245 Perpinianus Osorius Maphceus . . 246 Buchanan Haddon .... 246 Sigonius, De Consolatione . . . 246 Decline of Taste and Learning in Italy . 247 Joseph Scaliger .... 247 Isaac Casaubon .... 248 General Result . . . .249 Learning in England under Edward and Mary . . . . .249 Revival under Elizabeth . . . 249 Greek Lectures at Cambridge . . 250 Few Greek Editions in England . . 250 School Books enumerated . . . 250 Greek taught in Schools . . .251 Greek better known after 1580 . . 251 Editions of Greek . . . .252 And of Latin Classics . . . 252 Learning lower than in Spain . . 252 Improvement at the End of the Century . 253 Learning in Scotland . . . 253 Latin little used in Writing . 253 Early Works on Antiquities . . 254 P. Manutius on Roman Laws . . 254 Manutius, De Civitate . . .254 Panvinius Sigonius . . . 255 Gruchius . ... . .255 Sigonius on Athenian Polity . . 256 Patrizzi and Lipsius on Roman Militia . 256 Lipsius and other Antiquaries . . 256 Saville on Roman Militia . . . 257 Numismatics ..... 257 Mythology ..... 257 Scaliger's Chronology . , . 258 Julian Period .... 258 CHAPTER XL HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1550 TO 1600. Diet of Augsburg in 1555 . . .259 Progress of Protestantism . . . 259 Its Causes ..... 260 Wavering of Catholic Princes . . 260 Extinguished in Italy and Spain . . 260 Re-action of Catholicity . . .260 Especially in Germany ... 261 Discipline of the Clergy . . .261 Influence of Jesuits ; 2(il Their Progress . . . .262 Their Colleges .... 262 Jesuit Seminary at Rome . . . 262 Patronage of Gregory XIII. . . 262 Conversions in Germany and France . 263 Causes of this Re-action . . . 2t>3 A rigid Party in the Church . . 264 Its Efforts at Trent . . 264 No Compromise in Doctrine Consultation of Cassander . Bigotry of Protestant Churches Tenets of Melanchthon A Party hostile to him Form of Concord, 1576 Controversy raised by Baius Treatise of Molina on Free-will Protestant Tenets Trinitarian Controversy Religious Intolerance Castalio Answered by Beza . Aconcio . . . Minus Celsus, Koornhert . Decline of Protestantism Desertion of Lipsius 265 265 266 266 267 267 267 268 268 268 270 270 271 271 271 272 272 Contents. Page Jewell's Apology . . . .272 English Theologians . . . 272 Bellarmin 273 Topics of Controversy changed . 273 It turns on Papal Power . . . 274 This upheld by the Jesuits . . . 274 | Claim to depose Princes . . . 271 ! Bull against Elizabeth . . .274 And Henry IV 275 j Deposing Power owned in Spain . . 275 j Asserted by Bellarmin . . . 275 ; Methods of Theological Doctrine . .275 Loci Communes . . . 275 Page In the Protestant and Catholic Church 276 Catharin . . . . .276 Critical and Expository Writings . . 276 Ecclesiastical Historians . . . 277 Le Clerc's Character of them . . 277 Deistical Writers . . . ' . 277 Wierus, De Prpestigiis . . .278 Scot on AVitchcraft . . . .278 Authenticity of Vulgate . . .278 Latin Versions and Editions by Catholics 278 By Protestants . . . .279 Versions into Modern Languages . . 279 CHAPTER XII. HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1550 TO 1COO. Predominance of Aristotelian Philosophy Scholastic and genuine Aristotelians The former class little remembered The others not much better known Schools of Pisa and Padua . . . Cesalpini ..... Sketch of his System Cremonini ..... Opponents of Aristotle . . Patrizzi ...... System of Telesio .... 279 ! Jordano Bruno 280 His Italian Works Cena de li Ceneri 280 Delia Causa, Principio ed Uno Pantheism of Bruno . Bruno's other Writings General Character of his Philosophy Sceptical Theory of Sanchez Logic of Aconcio 280 280 280 281 281 ! Nizolius on the Principles of Philosophy 281 | Margarita Antoniana of Pereira 2S1 Log c of Kanius its Success 282 282 282 283 284 285 286 286 286 287 288 CHAPTER XIII. HI.'TORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE FROM 1550 TO 1600. Soto, De Justitia . . '. . . Hooker . 11 is Theory of Natural Law Doubts felt by others Essays of Montaigne . . Their Characteristics . . Writers on Morals in Italy . . In England . Bacon's Essays Number of Political Writers . . Oppression of Governments . . And Spirit generated by it . . Derived from Classic History . . From their own and the Jewish . Franco Gallia of Hossoman . Vindicise of Languet Contr' Un of Boetie . Buchanan, De Jure Fegni . Poynet, on Politique Power . Its liberal Theory .... Argues for Tyrannicide The Tenets of Parties swayed by Circum- stances ..... Similar Tenets among the Leaguers Rose on the Authority of Christian States over Kings ..... Treatise of Boucher in the same Spirit Answered by Barclay The Jesuits adopt these Tenets Mariana, De Rege .... Popular Theories in England Hooker ..... Political Memoirs , La Noue ..... Lipsius . . 289 Botero . . .''.', 290 His Remarks on Population 290 Paruta . 290 Bodin 290 Analysis of his Treatise called the Re- 290 public . . . 293 Authority of Heads of Families . 293 Domestic Servitude . 293 Origin of Commonwealths . . 294 Privileges of Citizens 294 Nature of Sovereign Power . 294 Forms of Government . . 294 Despotism and Monarchy . 294 Aristocracy . . . . 295 Senates and Councils of State . 295 Duties of Magistrates 295 Corporations . 296 Slaves, part of the State 296 Rise and Fall of States 2% Causes of Revolution . . 297 Astrological Fancies of Bodin Danger of sudden Changes . . 297 Judicial Power of the Sovereign . 298 Toleration of Religions Influence of Climate on Government 298 Means of obviating Inequality 299 ! Confiscations Rewards 299 I Fortresses ...... 299 j Necessity of Good Faith . 299 j Census of Property .... 300 Public Revenues Taxation Adulteration of Coin 301 , Superiority of Monarchy 301 i Conclusion of the Work 301 301 302 302 302 302 303 303 303 304 304 304 305 305 305 305 30) 300 306 36 307 307 307 307 308 308 309 809 310 310 310 Contents. Bodin compared with Aristotle and Mac- hiavel . . . . .310 And with Montesquieu . . . 310 Golden Age of Jurisprudence . . 311 Cujacius . . . . .311 Eulogies bestowed upon him . . 311 Cujacius, an Interpreter of Law rather than a Lawyer .... 312 French Lawyers below Cujacius Govca and others ..... 312 Opponents of the Roman Law . . 313 Faber of Savoy Anti-Tribonianus of Hottoman Civil Law not countenanced in France Turamini .... Cau Law .... Law of Nations ; its early Ctate Francis a Victoria His Opinions on Public Law Ayala, on the Rights of War Albericus Gentilis on Embassies . His Treatise on the Rights of War Page . 313 . 313 , 314 . 314 . 314 . 314 . 314 . 315 , 315 316 . 317 CHAPTER XIV. HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1550 TO 1600. General Character of Italian Poets in this Age . . ' ' r - . .318 Their usual Faults . . . .318 Their Beauties . .' . 318 Character given by Muratori . . 318 Poetry of Casa . . ... 318 Of Costanzo . . . .319 Baldi 319 Caro . . . . .319 Odes of Celio Magus . . .319 Coldness of the Amatory Sonnets . . 320 Studied Imitation of Petrarch . . 320 Their Fondness for Description . . 320 Judgment of Italian Critics . . 320 Bernardino Rota .... 320 Gaspara Stauipa ; her Love for Collalto . 321 Is ill-requited . . . .322 Her Second Love .... 322 Style of Gaspara Stampa . . .322 La Nautica of Baldi . . .322 Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso . . 323 Satirical and burlesque Poetry ; Aretin . 323 Other burlesque Writers . . .324 Attempts at Latin Metres . . . 324 Poetical Translations . . .324 Torquato Tasso . . . .324 The Jerusalem excellent in Choice of Sub- ject 324 Superior to Homer and Virgil in some Points . . . . .324 Its Characters .... 325 Excellence of its Style . . .325 Some Faults in it . . . . 325 Defects of the Poem . . . .326 It indicates the peculiar Genius of Tasso . 326 Tasso compared to Virgil . . . 326 ToAriosto . . . . .326 To the Bolognese Painters . . 327 Poetry Cultivated under Charles and Philip 327 Luis de Leon .... 328 Herrera . . . . .328 General Tone of Castilian Poetry . . 329 Castillejo . . . . .329 Araucana of Ercilla .... 329 Many epic Poems in Spain . . . 329 Camoens . . . . .330 Defects of the Lusiad . . .330 Its Excellencies .... 330 Mickle's Translation . . . 330 Celebrated Passage in the Lusiad . . 331 Minor Poems of Camoens . . . 331 j Ferreira . . . . 331 j Spanish Ballads . . . . 331 1 French Poets numerous . . . 332 Change in the Tone of French Poetry . 333 Ronsard . . . . . 333 Other French Poets . * - . " ' . 334 Du Bartas ..... 334 Pibrac ; Desportes . . . .335 French Metre and Versification . . 335 General character of French Poetry . 335 German Poetry . ' . . . . 336 Paradise of Dainty Devices . . 336 Character of this Collection . . 336 Sackville's Induction . . . 336 Inferiority of I'oets in early years of Eliza- beth . . . . .337 Gascoyne ..... 337 Spenser's Shepherd's Kalendar . . 337 Sydney's Character of Contemporary Poets 338 Improvement soon after this Time . 338 Relaxation of Moral Austerity . . 339 Serious Poetry .... 339 Poetry of Sydney . . . .339 Epithalanium of Spenser . . . 340 Poems of Shakspeare . . . 340 Daniel and Drayton .... 340 Nosce Teipsum of Davies . . . 340 Satires of Hall, Marston, and Donne . 341 Modulation of English Verse . . 341 Translations of Homer by Chapman . 341 Of Tasso by Fairfax .... 342 Employment of Ancient Measures . 342 Number of Poets in this Age . . 342 Scots and English Ballads . . . 343 The Faery Queen .... 343 Superiority of the First Book . . 343 The succee-iing Books . . 344 Spenser's Sense of Beauty . . . 344 Compared to Ariosto . . . 344 Style of Spenser .... 345 Inferiority of the latter Books . . 345 Allegories of the Faery Queen . . 346 Blemishes in the Diction . . . 346 Admiration of the Faery Queen . . 346 General Parallel of Italian and English Poetry ..... 347 Decline of Latin Poetry in Italy . . 347 Compensated in other Countries . . 347 Lotichius . . . . .347 Collections of Latin Poetry by Gruler . 348 Characters of some Gallo-Latin I'oets . 348 Sammarthanus . . . 349 Belgic Poets . . . . .349 Scots Poets Buchanan . . . 349 10 Contents. CHAPTER xv. HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1550 TO 1660. Page Italian Tragedy . . 3i>0 Pastoral Drama .... 351 Aminta of Tasso .... 351 Pastor Fido of Guarini . . .362 Italian Opera . . . . . 352 The National Taste revives in the Spanish Drama ..... 353 Lope de Vega .... 353 His Extraordinary Fertility . . 353 His Versification . . . .354 His Popularity . . . .354 Character of his Comedies . . . 354 Tragedy of Don Sancho Ortiz . . 355 His Spiritual Plays . . . .350 Numancia of Cervantes . . . 356 French Theatre JodeUe . . .357 Gamier ..... 357 Comedies of Larivey . . . 358 Theatres in Paris . . . .358 English Stage .... 359 Gammar Gurton's Needle . . . 359 Gorboduc of Sackville . . . 359 Preference given to the Irregular Form . 359 First Theatres . . . .360 Plays of Whetstone and Others . . 360 Marlowe and his Contemporaries . . 360 Tamburlaine . . 361 Page Blank Verse of Marlowe . . . 301 Marlowe's Jew of Malta . . . 361 And Faustus . . . . . a61 His Edward II. .... 361 Plays whence Henry VI. was taken . 361 Peele 362 Greene . . . . .362 Other Writers of this Age . . .363 Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness . 363 William Shakspeare .... 364 His First Writings for the Stage . . 364 Comedy of Errors .... 365 Love's Labour Lost .... 365 Taming of the Shrew ' . . .365 Midsummer Night's Dream . . 365 Its Machinery . . . .366 Its Language . . . .366 Romeo and Juliet . . . .366 Its Plot 367 Its Beauties and Blemishes . . 367 The Characters . . . .367 The Language . . . . 367 Second Period of Shakspeare . . 368 The Historical Plays . . .368 Merchant of Venice . . " . .3(58 As You Like It . . . .869 Jonson s Every Man in his Humour . 369 CHAPTER XVI. HISTORY OF POLITB LITERATURE IN PROBE FROM 1550 TO 1600. Italian Writers . . . .869 Casa ....'.. 369 Tasso . . . . . .370 Firenzuola . . . . .370 Character of Italian Prose . . .370 Italian Letter Writers . . .370 Davanzati's Tacitus .... 371 Jordano Bruno .... 371 French Writers Amyot . . .371 Montaigne; Du Vair . . .371 Satire Menippee . . . .372 English Writers . . . .372 Ascliam . . . . .372 Euphues of Lilly . . . .373 Its Popularity . . . .373 Sydney's Arcadia . . . .374 His Defence of Poesie . . .374 Hooker . . . . .374 Character of Elizabethan Writers . . 374 State of Criticism . . . .375 Scaliger's Poetics . . . .375 His Preference of Virgil to Homer . 375 His Critique on Modern Latin Poets . 376 Critical Influence of the Academics . 376 Dispute of Caro and Castelvetro . . 377 Castelvetro on Aristotle's Poetics . . 377 Severity of Castelvetro's Criticism 377 Ercolano of Varchi . . . .378 Controversy about Dante . . . 378 Academy of Florence . . . 378 Salviati's Attack on Tasso . . .379 Pinciano's Art of Poetry . . .379 French Treatises of Criticism . . 379 Wilson's Art of Rhetorique . . 379 Gascoyne ; Webbe . . . .380 Puttenham's Art of Poesie . . 380 Sydney's Defence of Poesy . . . 380 Novels of Bandello . . . .380 OfCinthio ... .381 Of the Queen of Navarre . . . 881 Spanish Romances of Chivalry . . 881 Diana of Monte-Mayor . . . 382 Novels in the Picaresque Style . . 882 Guzman d'Alfarache . . . 332 Las Guerras de Granada . . . 388 Sydney's Arcadia .... 383 Its diameter . . . .388 Inferiority of other English Fictions . 384 Contents. 11 CHAPTER XVII. HISTORY OF PHYSICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE FROM 1500 TO 1600. Page Tartaglia and Cardan . . . 385 Algebra of Pelletier . . .385 Record's Whetstone of Wit . . 385 Vieta . . . . . .385 His Discoveries .... 386 Geometers of this Period . . . 388 Joachim Rhoeticus .... 388 Copernican Theory .... 388 Tycho Brahe .... 389 His System ..... 389 Gregorian Calendar .... 390 Optics 390 Mechanics ..... 390 Statics of Stevinus ' . . . .391 Hydrostatics ..... 392 Gilbert on the Magnet . . . 392 Gesner's Zoology .... 392 Its Character by Cuvier . . . 392 Gesner's Arrangement . . . 393 His Additions to known Quadrupeds . 393 Belon . . . . . .394 Salviani and Rondelet's Ichthyology . 394 Aldrovandus ..... 394 Botany Turner .... 395 Maranta Botanical Gardens . . 395 Gesner ..... 396 Dodoens . . . . .396 Lobel 396 Clusius . . . . .396 Caesalpin ... . . .396 Dalechamps Bauhin . . . 397 Gerard's Herbal .... 397 Anatomy Fallopius . . . 397 Eustachius ..... 397 Page Coiter .398 Columbus ..... 393 Circulation of the Blood . . .398 Medicinal Science .... 398 Syriac Verson of New Testament . . 399 Hebrew Critics . 399 Its Study in England . 399 Arabic begins to be Studied . 399 Collection of Voyages by Ramusio 100 Curiosity they awakened . . . 400 Other Voyages .... 401 Accounts of China .... 401 India and Russia .... 401 English Discoveries in the Northern Seas 401 Geographical Books Ortelius . . 401 Guicciardini ..... 402 French Memoirs .... 403 Universities in Italy . . . 403 In other Countries .... 403 Libraries . .... 403 Collections of Antiquities in Italy . 404 Pinelli ... . . .404 Italian Academies .... 405 Society of Antiquaries in England . 405 New Books and Catalogues of them . 406 Literary Correspondence . . . 406 Bibliographical Works . . .406 Restraints on the Press . . . 407 Index Expurgatorius . . . 407 Its Effects 407 Restrictions in Fngland . . . 407 Latin more employed on this account . 408 Influence of Literature . 408 CHAPTER XVIII. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1600 TO 1650. Learning of 17th Century less Philolo- gical . . . . 409 Popularity of Comenius . . . 409 Decline of Greek Learning . . . 410 Casaubon ..... 410 Viger de Idiotismis .... 411 Weller's Greek Grammar . . . 411 Labbe and Others . . . .411 Salmasius de Lingua Hellenistica . . 412 Greek Editions Savile's Chrysostom . 412 Greek Learning in England . . 413 Latin Editions Torrentius . . 413 Gruter . . . . .413 Heinsius ..... 413 Grotius . . . . .414 Rutgersius Reinesius Barthius . .414 Other Critics English . . .414 Salmasius . .415 Good Writers of Latin . . .415 Scioppius ..... 416 His Philosophical Grammar . . 416 His Infamia Famiani . . . 419 Judicium de Stylo Historico . . 416 Gerard Vossius, de Vitiis Sermonis . 417 His Aristarchus .... 417 Progress of Latin Style . . .418 Gruter's Collection of Inscriptions . 418 Assisted by Scaliger .... 419 Works on Roman Antiquity . . 419 Geography of Cluversius . . . 420 Meursius ..... 420 Ubbo Emmius . . . .420 Chronology of Lydiat Calvisius . . 420 Petavius ..... 421 Character of this Work . 421 12 Contents. CHAPTER XIX. HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1600 TO 1G50. Page Temporal Supremacy of Rome . . 422 Contest with Venice . . .423 Father Paul SarpI . . . .423 History of Council of Trent . . 424 Galilean Liberties- -Richter . . 424 Perron . . . . .425 Decline of Papal Power . . . 425 Unpopularity of the Jesuits . . 426 Richelieu's Care of Gallican Liberties . 426 Controversy of Catholics and Protestants 426 Increased respect for the Fathers . . 426 Especially in England Laud . . 427 Defections to the Catholic Church . 427 Wavering of Casaubon . . . 428 And of Grotius . . . .429 Calixtus 434 His Attempts at Concord . . . 434 High Church Party in England . . 435 Daill<$ on the Right Use of the Fathers . 435 Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants . 436 Character of this Work . . .436 Hales on Schism . . . .438 Controversies on Grace and Freewill Augustinian Scheme . . . 438 Semi-pelagian Hypothesis . . . 439 Tenets of the Reformers . . . 439 Rise of Arminianism . . Episcopius .... His Writings .... Their Spirit and Tendency . . Great Latitude allowed by them . Progress of Arminianism . . Cameron .... Rise of Jansenism . . . Socinus Volkelius . . . .442 Crellius Ruarus .... 442 Erastianism maintained by Hooker . 443 Pane And Grotius . . . . .444 His Treatise on Ecclesiastical Power of the State . . . . .444 Remark upon this Theory . . . 446 Toleration of Religious Tenets . . 416 Claimed by the Arminians . . . 446 By the Independents . . . 447 And by Jeremy Taylor . . .447 His Liberty of Prophesying . . 447 Boldness of his Doctrines . . . 447 His Notions of Uncertainty in Theological Tenets . . . . .448 His low Opinion of the Fathers . . 448 Difficulty of Finding out Truth . . 449 Grounds of Toleration . . .449 Inconsistency of One Chapter . . 450 His General Defence of Toleration . 450 Effect of this Treatise . . .451 Its Defects . . . . .451 Great Erudition of this Period . . 462 Usher Petavius . . . .452 Sacred Criticism .... 452 Grotius Coccejus .... 452 English Commentators . . . 453 Style of Preaching . . . .453 English Sermons .... 453 440 1 Of Donne . . .. . .454 440 1 Of Jeremy Taylor . . . . .454 440 j Devotional Writings of Taylor and Hall . 454 440 I In the Roman . ... . 455 441 i And Lutheran Church . . .455 441 j Infidelity of some Writers Charron 441 | Vaninl . ... . .455 441 ' Lord Herbert of Cherbury . . .456 Grotius de Veritate . : . 457 English Translation of the Bible . . 457 Its Style . . . . .457 CHAPTER XX. BISTORT OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1600 TO 1650. Subjects of this Chapter . . .458 Aristotelians and Ramists . . . 458 No improvement till near the End of the Century . . . . .459 Methods of the Universities . .459 Scholastic Writers . . . .45? Treatises on Logic . . . .460 Campanella . . . . .460 His Theory taken from Telesio . . 460 Notion of Universal Sensibility . . 461 His Imagination and Eloquence . . 461 His Works Published by Admai . . 462 Basson . . . . .463 Berigard . . . . .463 Magnen . . . . .463 Paracelsists . . . . .463 And Theosophists . . . .463 Flndd 464 Jacob Behmen . . 464 i Lord Herbert de Veritate . . . 464 His Axioms . . . . .465 Conditions of Truth . . . .465 Instinctive Truths . . . .466 Internal Perceptions . . . 466 Five Notions of Natural Religion . . 466 Remarks of Gassendi on Herbert . . 467 Gassendi's Defence of Epicurus . . 468 His chief Works after 1650 . . .468 Preparation for the Philosophy of Lord Bacon . . . . .468 His Plan of Philosophy . . .468 Time of its Conception . . . 469 Instauratio Magna .... 470 First Part Partitiones Scientiarum . 470 Second Part Novum Organum . . 470 Third Part Natural History . .470 Fourth Part Scala Intellects . . 471 Fifth Part Anticipations Philosophise . 471 Contents. 13 Page Sixth Part Philosophia Secunda . . 471 Course of studying Lord Bacon . . 472 Nature of the Baconian Induction . 172 His Dislike of Aristotle . . .474 His Method much required . . . 474 Its Objects . . . . .474 Sketch of the Treatise De Augmentia . 474 History . . . . .474 Poetry . . . . .475 Fine Passage on Poetry . . . 475 Natural Theology and Metaphysics . 475 Form of Bodies might sometimes be in- quired into .... 475 Final Causes too much slighted . . 476 Man not included by him in Physics . 476 Man in Body and Mind . ... 476 Logic . . . . . .476 Extent given it by Bacon . . . 476 Grammar and Rhetoric . . . 477 Ethics 477 Politics 477 Theology . . . . .478 Desiderata enumerated by him . . 478 Noviim Organum First Book . . 478 Fallacies Idola .... 478 Confounded with Idols . . . 478 Second Book of Novum Organum . . 479 Confidence of Bacon . . , 479 Almost justified of late . . .480 But should be kept within Bounds . 481 Limits to our Knowledge by Sense . 481 Inductive Logic whether confined to Physics . . . . .481 Baconian Philosophy built on Observation and Experiment .... 482 Advantages of the latter . . . 482 Sometimes applicable to Philosophy of Human Mind .... 483 Less so to Politics and Morals . . 483 Induction less conclusive on these Sub- jects . . . . .483 Reasons for this Difference . . . 484 Considerations on the other Side . . 484 Result of the whole .... 485 Bacon's Aptitude for Moral Subjects . 486 Comparison of Bacon and Galileo . . 487 His Prejudice against Mathematics . 488 Bacon's Excess of Wit . . . 488 Fame of Bacon on the Continent . . 489 Early Life of Descartes . . . 491 His beginning to philosophise . . 491 He retires to Holland . . . 491 His Publications . . . .492 He begins by doubting all . . . 492 His First Step in Knowledge . . 492 His Mind not Sceptical . . . 493 He arrives at more Certainty . . 493 His Proof of a Deity . . .493 Page Another Proof of it . . . . 494 His Deductions from this . . . 494 Primary and Secondary Qualities . . 495 Objections made to his Meditations . 495 Theory of Memory and Imagination . 496 Seat of Soul in Pineal Gland . . 497 Gassendi's Attacks on the Meditations . 497 Superiority of Descartes . . .497 Stewart's Remarks on Descartes . . 498 Paradoxes of Descartes . . . . 499 His Just Notions and Definitions . . 500 His Notion of Substances . . . 501 Not Quite Correct .... 501 His Notions of Intuitive Truth . . 501 Treatise on Art of Logio . . 502 Merits of his Writings . . .502 His Notions of Freewill . . . 502 Fame of his System, and Attacks upon it 503 Controversy with Voet . . . 503 Charges of Plagiarism . . . 504 Recent Increase of his Fame . . 505 Metaphysical Treatises of Hobbes . . 505 His Theory of Sensation . . . 606 Coincident with Descartes . . . 506 Imagination and Memory . . . 506 Discourse or Train of Imagination . 507 Experience ..... 507 Unconceivableness of Jnfinity . . 507 Origin of Language .... 508 His Political Theory interferes . . 508 Necessity of Speech exaggerated . . 5C9 Use of Names .... 509 Names Universal not Eealities . . 509 How imposed .... 510 The Subject continued . . . 510 Names differently imposed . . . 511 Knowledge ..... 511 Reasoning ..... 512 False Reasoning .... 512 Its frequency .... 613 Knowledge of Fact not derived from Reasoning ..... 514 Belief . . . . . .514 Chart of Science .... 515 Analysis of Passions . . . 515 Good and Evil relative Terms . . 515 His Paradoxes .... 515 His Notion of Love . . . .516 Curiosity ..... 516 Difference of Intellectual Capacities . 516 Wit and Fancy . . . .517 Differences in the Passions . . 517 Madness ..... 517 Unmeaning Language . . . 517 Manners ..... 517 Ignorances and Prejudice . . . 518 His Theory of Religion . . . 518 Its supposed Sources . . . 518 CHAPTER XXI. HISTORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE FROM 1COO TO 1650. Casuistical Writers . . . 521 j Difficulties of Casuistry . . .522 . 523 521 Importance of Confession . Necessity of Rules for the Confessor . 521 Increase of Casuistical Literature . . 521 Distinction of subjective and objective Morality . . . . .522 Directory Office of the Confessor . . 522 Strict and Lax Schemes of it Convenience of the latter . . . 523 Favoured by the Jesuits . . . 523 The Causes of this . . . .523 Extravagance of the strict Casuists . 524 Opposite Faults of Jesuits . . 524 14 Contents. Page Saurez, De Legibus . . . .624 Titles of bis Ten Books . . .624 Heads of the Second Book . . .525 Character of such Scholastic Treatises . 625 Quotations of Suarez . . . 526 His Definition of Eternal Law . . 526 Whether God is a Legislator . . 526 Whether God could permit or commend wrong Actions .... 527 English Casuists Perkins Hall . .527 Selden, De Jure Natural! Juxta Hebrreos 528 Jewish Theory of Natural Law . . 528 Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah . 528 Character of Selden's Work . . 528 Grotius and Hobbes . . . .528 Charron on Wisdom . . .529 La Mothe le Vayer his Dialogues . 529 Bacon's Essays .... 529 Their Excellence . . . .530 Feltham's Resolves . . . .630 Browne's Religio Medici . . .531 Selden's Table Talk . . . .632 Osborn's Advice to his Son . . . 532 John Valentine Andrax . . . 532 Abandonment of Anti - Monarchical Theories . . . . .533 Political Literature becomes historical . 533 J'.dleuden De Statu ... . .634 Campanella's Politics . . . 634 La Mothe le Vayer . . . .534 Naude's Coups d'Etat . . . 534 Patriarchal Theory of Government . 634 Refuted by Suarez . . . 535 His Opinion of Law .... 535 Bacon . . . . ... 536 Political Economy . . . .536 Serra on the Means of obtaining Money without Mines .... 537 His Causes of Wealth . . .537 His Praise of Venice . . .537 Low Rate of Exchange not essential to wealth . . . . .537 Hobbes. His Political Works . . 533 Analysis of his Three Treatises . . 538 Civil Jurists of this period . . .643 Suarez on Laws ' 544 Grotius De Jure Belli et Facia . . 544 Success of this Work . . . 644 IU Originality . . . .545 Its Motive and Object . . . 545 His Authorities .... 545 Foundation of Natural Law . . 543 Positive Law ..... 540 Perfect and Imperfect Rights . . 546 Lawful Cases of War . . . 543 Resistance by Subjects unlawful . . 647 All Men naturally have Right of War . 647 Right of Self-Defence . . .648 Its Origin and Limitations . . . 543 Right of Occupancy . . Relinquishment of it . . Right over Persons By Generation By Consent . . . . In Marriage . . In Commonwealths . Right of Alienating Subjects Alienation by Testament . Rights of Property by Positive Law Extinction of Rights Some Casuistical Questions . Promises . Contracts . Considered ethically Promissory Oaths . Engagments of Kings towards Subjects . Public Treaties . Their Interpretation Obligation to repair Injury . . Rights by Law of Nations . . Those of Ambassadors . . . Right of Sepulture . Punishments . . Their Responsibility . . Insufficient Causes of War . Duty of avoiding it . And Expediency War for the sake of other Subjects Allies Strangers .... None to Serve in an Unjust War . Rights in War . Use of Deceit . . .. , Rules and Customs of Nations . Reprisals .... Declarations of War . . Rights by law of nations over Enemies , Prisoners become Slaves . . Rights of Postliminium Moral Limitation of Rights in War Moderation required as to spoil And as to Prisoners . Also in Conquest . And in Restitution to right Owners Promises to Enemies and Pirates . Treaties concluded by competent Autho- rity ..... Matters relating to them Truces and Conventions Those of Private persons Objections to Grotius made by Paley un reasonable . Reply of Mackintosh Censures of Stewart . . . , Answer to them : . . Grotius vindicated against Rousseau His Arrangement His Defects . . . . CHAPTER XXII. HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1600 TO 1C50. Low Estimation of the Seicentisti . . 566 ; And Popularity Not quite so great as formerly . ; 666 j Secchia Rapita of Tassonl Praise of them by Rubbi Also by Sain . Adone of Marinl Its Character . 666 566 Chiabrera His Followers 567 The Styles of Spanish Poetry 56r The Romances Page 549 549 649 549 549 549 549 550 550 550 550 550 651 551 512 552 552 553 553 654 554 554 554 555 556 656 556 656 556 556 556 557 , 557 557 , 557 , 557 558 , 553 , 558 , 558 , 559 , 559 , 559 659 , 559 , 560 , 5C1 . 561 , 561 561 . 661 662 , 662 565 , 665 665 567 568 569 569 570 570 Contents. 15 Page The Brothers Argensola . . . 570 Villegas 671 Quevedo ..... 571 Defects of Taste in Spanish Verse . . 571 Pedantry and far-fetched Allusions . 672 Gongora . . . . 572 The Schools formed by him . . 573 Malherbe . . . . .573 Criticisms upon his Poetry . . . 574 Satires of Regnier . . . .574 Racan Maynard .... 574 Voiture ..... 574 Sarrasin . . . . .575 Low state of German Literature . . 575 Literary Societies .... 675 Opitz . . . . . .575 His Followers . . . .576 Dutch Poetry .... 676 Spiegel '576 Hooft-Cats-Vondel . . . .577 Danish Poetry .... 677 English Poets numerous in this age . 577 Phineas Fletcher . . . .577 Giles Fletcher . . . .578 Philosophical Poetry . . .578 Lord Brooke 578 Denham's Cooper's Hill . . . 579 Poets called Metaphysical . . . 679 Donne . ... . . 680 Crashaw ..... 580 Cowley . . . . .580 Johnson's Character of him . . . 580 Narrative Poets Daniel . . . 580 Drayton's Polyolbion . . . 581 Browne's Britannia's Pastorals Sir John Beaumont . . Davenant's Gondibert . . Sonnets of Shakspeare . . The person whom they address Sonnets of Drummond and others . . Carew ...... Ben Jonson . . Wither ' Habington . . Earl of Pembroke . . . . Suckling . . Lovelace . . . Herrick . . . Milton . . . His Comus . Lycidas . . Allegro and Penseroso . . Ode on the Nativity . . . . His Sonnets . . Anonymous Poetry . . Latin Poets of France . . In Germany and Italy . . In Holland Heinsius . . Casimir Sarbievius . Barlseus . . . Balde Greek Poems of Heinsius . Latin Poets of Scotland Jonston'i Psalms .... Owen's Epigrams . . . Alabaster's Roxana . . . May's Supplement to Lucan Milton's Latin Poems . . CHAPTER XXIII. HISTORY OP DRAMATIC Decline of the Italian Theatre Filli de Sciro .... Translations of Spanish Dramas . Extemporaneous Comedy . Spanish Stage .... Calderon Number of his Pieces . His Comedies .... La Vida es Sueno .... A Secreto agravio secreta venganc.a Style of Calderon .... His Merits sometimes over-rated . Plays of Hardy .... TheCid Style of Corneille . Les Horaces ..... Cimia ...... Polyeucte . . Rodogune . . . Pompey . . . Heraclius . Nicomede . Faults and Beauties of Corneille . . Le Menteur . Other French Tragedies "Wenceslas of Rotron . . . Popularity of the Stage under Elizabeth . Number of Theatres .... Encouraged by James General Taste for the Stage Theatres dosed by the Parliament . Shakspeare's Twelfth Night LITERATURE FROM 1600 TO 1650. 591 Merry Wives of Windsor . 592 Measure for Measure 592 Lear ..... 593 Timon of Athens 593 Pericles .... 593 His Roman Tragedies Julius Caesar 693 Antony and Cleopatra 594 Coriolanus .... 595 His Retirement and Death . . 695 Greatness of his Genius . . , 596 His Judgment . . . 596 His Obscurity . . 697 His Popularity ... 698 Critics on Shakspeare . . 598 Ben Jonson .... 598 The Alchemist 699 Volpone, or The Fox . . 699 The Silent Woman . 599 Sad Shepherd 599 Beaumont and Fletcher . . 600 Corrupt State of their Text . . 600 The Maid's Tragedy . 600 Philaster .... 600 King and no King . . . 600 The Elder Brother . 601 The Spanish Curate . . . 601 The Custom of the Country . 601 The Loyal Subject . 601 Beggar's Bush 602 The Scornful Lady . 602 Valentinian .... 581 682 582 582 683 584 581 585 585 585 586 586 586 686 587 587 588 588 588 588 588 589 589 589 590 690 590 590 590 591 603 604 604 604 605 606 606 606 607 607 607 608 608 609 609 609 610 610 611 611 611 611 612 613 613 613 613 613 614 614 614 16 Contents. Page The Two Noble Kinsmen . . .615 The Faithful Shepherdess . . . 615 Rule a Wife, and have a Wife . . 616 Some other Plays .... 616 Origin of Fletcher's Plays . . .616 Defects of their plots . . .616 Their Sentiments and Style Dramatic . 617 Their Characters . . . .617 Their Tragedies . . . .617 Inferior to their Comedies . . .618 Their Female Characters . . .618 Massinger Nature of his Dramas . 619 Page His Delineations of Character 619 His Subjects . . . . .619 Beauty of His Style . . . .620 Inferiority of his Comic Powers . . 620 Some of his Tragedies particularized . 620 And of his other Plays . . .620 Ford 621 Shirley . . 621 Heywood . . . . .622 Webster .... 622 His Duchess of Malfy . . 622 Vittoria Corombona . . C22 CHAPTER XXIV. HISTORY OF POLITE LITERATUEE IN PROSE FROM 1600 TO 1650. Decline of Taste in Italy . . .623 Style of Galileo . 624 Bentivoglio . . . . .624 Boccalini's News from Parnassus . . 624 His Pietra del Paragone . . .625 Terrante Pallavicino . . .625 Dictionary Delia Crusca . . .625 Grammatical Works Buonmattei Bar- toll 626 Tassoni's Remarks on Petrarch . . 626 Galileo's Remarks on Tasso . . 626 Sforza Pallavicino . . . .626 And other Critical Writers . . .626 Prolusiones of Strada . . .627 Spanish Prose Grecian . . . 627 French Prose Du Vair . . .627 Balzac C2S Character of his Writings . . .628 His Letters .628 Voiture Hotel Rambouillet . . 629 Establishment of French Academy . 630 Its objects and Constitution . . 630 It publishes a Critique on the Cid . . 631 Vaugelas's Remarks on the French Lan- guage .631 La Mothe le Vayer . . . .632 Legal Speeches of Patru . . .632 And of Le Maistre . . . .632 Improvement in English Style . . 633 Earl of Essex . . . . .633 Knolles's History of the Turks . . 634 Ralefgh's History of the World . . 6.'-S Daniel's History of England . . 6S5 Bacon . . . . . .635 Milton ese Clarendon ..... 636 The Icon Basilice . . . .636 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy . . 637 Earle's Characters '. . . 637 Overbury's Characters . . 637 Jonson's Discoveries . . . 637 Publication of Don Quixote . . 638 Its Reputation . . . .638 New Views of its Design . . . 188 Probably erroneous . . ^ . . 638 Difference between the two Parts . . 639 Excellence of this Romance . . 639 Minor Novels of Cervantes . . . 639 Other Novels Spanish . . .639 And Italian 639 French Romances Astree . . . 639 Heroic Romances Goiuberville . . 640 Calprenede ..... 640 Scuderi . . . . .641 Argenis of Barclay . . . . 641 His Euphormis .... 643 Campanella's City of the Sun . . 643 Few Books of Fiction in England . . 643 Mundus Alter et Idem of Hall . . 644 Godwin's Journey to the Moon . . 644 Howell's Dodona's Grove . . . 644 Adventures of Baron de Faenesle . 644 CHAPTER XXV. HISTORY OF MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE FROM 1600 TO 1650. State of Science in 16th Century . . 645 Tediousness of Calculations . . 645 Kapler's Invention of Logarithms . . 645 Their Nature . . . . .645 Property of Numbers discovered by Stife liua 645 Extended to Magnitudes . . .646 By Napier . . 646 Tables of Napier and Bulggs . . 646 Kepler's New Geometry . . . 647 Its Difference from the Ancient . . 647 Adopted by Galileo . . . .648 Extended by Cavalieri . . 648 Applied to the Ratios of Solids . . 648 Problem of the Cycloid . . .648 Progress of Algebra . . 649 Briggs Girard . . . .649 Harriott . . . . .649 Descartes ..... 650 His Application of Algebra to Curves . 650 Suspected Plagiarism from Harriot . r>50 Fermat . . . . .051 Algebraic Geometry not successful at first 652 Astronomy Kepler . . 652 Conjectures as to Comets . . . 652 Galileo's Discovery of Jupiter's Satellites 653 Other Discoveries by him . . . 668 Spots of the Sun discovered . . 653 Copernican System held by Galileo . 654 His Dialogues, and Persecution . .651 Descartes alarmed by this . . . 655 Progress of Copernican System . . 655 Contents. 17 Descartes denies General Gravitation Cartesian Theory of the World Transits of Mercury and Venus . Laws of Mechanics . Statics of Galileo . . . His Dynamics Mechanics of Descartes Law of Motion laid down by Descartes Also those of Compound Forces Other Discoveries in Mechanics Page; . ess : . 655; . 656 i . 658' . 657 I . 657 | . 6581 . 658 ] . 659 | . 659' Page 659 660 660 660 In Hydrostatics and Pneumatics . Optics Discoveries of Kepler Invention of the Telescope . Of the Microscope . Antonio de Dominis Dioptrics of Descartes Law of Refraction 661 Disputed by Fermat . . . .661 Curves of Descartes .... 661 Theory of the Rainbow . . - 661 CHAPTER XXVI. HISTORY OF SOME OTHER PROVINCES OF LITERATURE FROM 1600 TO 1650. Aldrovandus . . . . .662 Chaldee and Syriac . . 671 671 ..... UU4 Rio and Marcgraf . 662 671 Jonston ..... 662 Golius .... . 671 Fabricius on the Language of Brutes . 603 j Other Eastern Languages . . 672 Botany Columna .... 664 Purchas's Pilgrim . . 672 John and Gaspar Bauhin . . .664 Olearius and Pietro della Valle . . 672 Parkinson ..... 664 Lexicon of Ferrari . . 672 Valves of the Veins discovered . . 665 Maps of Blaew . 672 Theory of the Blood's Circulation . . 665 Davila and Bentivoglio . . . 673 Sometimes ascribed to Servetus . . 665 Mendoza's Wars of Granada . 673 To Columbus : 666 Mezeray .... . 673 And to Cwsalpin . . . .666 English Historians . . . . 673 Generally unknown before Harvey . 667 English Histories . . . . 673 His Discovery .... 6U7 Universities . . . ; . 673 Unjustly doubted to be Original . . 667 Bodleian Library founded . . . 674 Harvey's Treatise on Generation . . 668 Casaubon's Account of Oxford . . 674 Lacteals discovered by Asellius . . 668 Catalogue of Bodleian Library . 674 Optical Discoveries of Scheiner . . 669 Continental Libraries . 675 Medicine Van Helmont . . . 669 Italian Academies . . . . 675 Diffusion of Hebrew . . . 669 The Lincei .... . 675 Language not studied in the best method 669 Prejudice for Antiquity diminished . 676 The Buxtorfs . . . .670 Browne's Vulgar Errors . . . 677 Vowel Points rejected by Cappel . . 670 Life and Character of Peirese . 677 Hebrew Scholars . . .671 CHAPTER XXVII. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1650 TO 1700. James Frederic Gronovius . . . 678 , Greek not much studied . 681 James Gronovius .... 679 Gataker's Cinnus and Antoninus . . 681 Graevius . . . . .679 Stanley's jEschylus . . 682 Isaac Vossius . . . .679 Other English Philologers . . 682 Decline of German Learning . . 679 Bentley .... . 682 Spanheim . . . . .679 His Epistle to Mill . . 682 Jesuit Colleges in France . . . 679 Dissertation on Phalaris . 682 Port-Royal Writers Lancelot . . 679 Disadvantages of Scholars in that Age . 683 Latin Writers Perizonius . . .680 Thesauri of Graevius and of Gronovius . 683 Delphin Editions . . . . 680 i Fabretti .... . 684 Le Fevre and the Daciers . . . 680 1 Numismatics, Spanheim Vaillant . 684 Henry Valois Complaints of Decay of Chronology Usher . . 684 Learning . . ... 680 Pezron .... . 685 English Learning Duport . . . 681 ! Marsham .... . 685 CHAPTER XXVIII. HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE FROM 1650 TO 1700. Decline of Papal Influence . . . 685 His Dissertations . 687 Dispute of Louis XIV. with Innocent XI. 686 j Protestant Controversy in France . . 088 Four Articles of 1682 . . . 686 i Bossuet's Exposition of Catholic Faith . 638 Dupin on the ancient Discipline . . 686 i His Conference with Claude . CSS Dupin's Ecclesiastical Library . . 687 Correspondence with Molanus and Leib- Fleury's Ecclesiastical History . . 687 nitz ...... b 680 18 Contents. Page His Variations of Protestant Churches . 690 Anglican Writings against Popery . . 690 Taylor's Dissuasive .... 690 Barrow Stillingfleet . . 690 Jansenius ... . 691 Condemnation of his Augustinus in France . . . . .691 And at Rome . . . .691 The Jansenists take a Distinction . 692 And are Persecuted .... 692 Progress of Armiuianism . . . 692 Courcelles . . . 693 Limborch ..... 693 LeClerc 693 Bancroft's Fur Prnedestinatus . . 693 Arminianism in England . . . 694 Bull's Harmonla Apostolica . . 694 Hammond Locke Wilkins . . 694 Socinians in England . . . 695 Bull's Defensio Fidei Xicense . . 695 Not Satisfactory to all . . . 695 Page Mystics . . . . .696 Fenelon . . . . .696 Change in the Character of Theological Literature . . . , . 606 Freedom of many Writings , . 696 Thoughts of Pascal ... 697 Vindications of Christianity . 699 Progress of Tolerant Principles . . 700 Bayle's Philosophical Commentary . 700 Locke's Letter on Toleration . 700 French Sermons .... 701 Bourdaloue . . . . .701 Compared with Bossuet . . . 702 Funeral Discourses of Bossuet . . 702 Flechier . . . . .703 English Sermons Barrow . . .703 South . 704 Tillotson 704 Expository Theology . . .704 Pearson on the Creed . . .704 Simon's Critical Histories . . 70E CHAPTER XXIX. HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1650 TO 1700. Aristotelian Metaphysics . Their Decline. Thomas White . Logic ...... Stanley's History of Philosophy . Gale's Court of Gentiles Cudworth's Intellectual System . Its object ."''. Sketch of it . His plastic nature .... His account of old Philosophy His Arguments against Atheism . More ...... Gassendi ..... His Logic His Theory of Ideas .... And of the Nature of the Soul Distinguishes Ideas of Reflection . Also Intellect from Imagination . His Philosophy misunderstood by Stewart Bernier's Epitome of Gassendi Process of Cartesian Philosophy . La Forge Regis .... Huet's Censure of Cartesianism Port-Royal Logic .... Malebranche . . . ... His Style .... Sketch of his Theory 705 Character of Malebranche 706 ( Compared with Pascal Arnauld on True and False ideas . Norris . Pascal 707 j Spinosa's Ethics 708 Its general Originality View of his Metaphysical Theory . Spinosa's Theory of action and Passion 708 Tos 70!) 700 710 710 710 710 711 711 ru ru ru ru 710 717 717 717 Character of Spinosism Glanvil's Scepsis Scientiflca . His Plus Ultra Dalgarno Wilkins Locke on Human Understanding . Its merits Its Defects . Origin of Ideas according to Locke Vague Use of the Word Idea An Error as to Geometrical Figure His Notions as to the Soul And its Immateriality His Love of Truth and Originality Defended in two cases His View of Lunatic Ideas . General Praise Locke's Conduct of Understanding . 724 . 724 . 725 . 725 . 725 . 726 . 726 . 727 . 731 . 732 i 733 . 734 . 735 736 . 736 . 736 . 737 . 737 . 738 . 739 . 740 . 740 . 741 . 742 . 742 . 743 . 743 CHAPTER XXX. HISTORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE FROM 1660 TO 1700 Casuistry of the Jesuits . . 744 Pascal's Provincial Letters . . .744 Their Truth questioned by some . . 744 Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium . . 745 Ito Character and Defects . . . 745 Cudworth's immutable Morality . . 745 Nicole La Placette . . . .746 Other Writers . . . .746 Moral System of Spinosa . . . 746 Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae . . 747 Analysis of Prolegomena . . . 743 HU Theory expanded afterwards . . 749 Remarks on Cumberland's Theory . 762 Puffendorf s Law of Nature and Nations . 753 Analysis of this Work . . .754 Puffendorf and Paley compared . 757 Rochefoucault .... 757 LaBruyere .... 768 Education Milton's Tractrate . . 768 Locke on Education Its merits . . 759 And Defects . . . . .759 Fenelon on Female Education . . 761 Puffendorf s Theory of Politics . . 762 Politics of Spinosa . .764 Contents. 19 His Theory of a Monarchy . Amelot de la Houssaye Harrington's Oceana Patriarcha of Filmer Sydney's Discourses on Government Locke on Government Observations on this Treatise Avis aux RefugieX perhaps by Bayle Political Economist's Improved Tone of Italian Poetry . Filicaja Guidi . Menzini Salvator Rosa Redi Other Poets . Christina's Patronage of Letters Society of Arcadians La Fontaine . Character of his Fables Boileau : His Epistles His Art of Poetry Comparison with Horace The Lutrin . General Character of his Poetry Lyric Poetry lighter than before Benserade Chaulieu Pastoral Poetry Segrais . . DeshoulieVes . Fontenelle . . Bad Epic Poems German Poetry Waller . Butler's Hudibras Paradise Lost Choice of Subject . Open to some Difficulties Its Arrangement Characters of Adam and Eve Page Page . . 766 Mun on Foreign Trade . . 773 . 766 Child on Trade .... 773 . 766 Locke on the Coin .... 773 . 767 Statistical Tracts .... 774 rernment . 767 Works of Leibnitz on Roman Law 775 . 763 Civil Jurists Godefroy Domat . 775 se . 771 Noodt of Usury .... 776 by Bayle . 772 Law of Nations Puff endorf 776 . 772 i CHAPTER XXXI. HISTORY OT POETRY FROM 1050 TO 1700. oetry . . 776 He owes less to Homer than the Tra- . 777 gedians . . . 784 . 777 Compared with Dante . . 784 . . 778 Elevation of his Style . 785 . . 778 His Blindness .... 786 . 788 His Passion for Music . 786 tters . . 778 Faults in Paradise Lost . . 786 . 778 Its Progress to Fame . . 786 . . 779 Paradise Regained .... 787 . . 779 Samson Agonistes .... 787 . . 780 Dryden His earlier Poems . 787 . . 780 Absalom and Achitophel . . 788 . . 780 Mac Flecknoe . . . ' 788 , . . 780 The Hind and Panther 789 etry . . 7SO Its Singular Fable .... 789 ifore . . 781 Its Reasoning .... 789 . . 781 The Fables . . 789 . . 781 His Odes Alexander's Feast 700 . . 781 His Translation of Virgil . 790 . . 781 Decline of Poetry from the Restoration . 790 . 781 Some Minor Poets enumerated 790 , . . 782 Latin Poets of Italy ... 791 . 782 Ceva ...... 791 . 782 Sergardi ..... 791 . . 782 Of France Quillet .... 791 . . 783 Menage ..... 792 ibject . . 783 Rapin on Gardens .... 792 . 783 Santeul ..... 793 . 783 Latin Poetry in England , 793 e . 784 CHAPTER XXXII. HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1650 TO 1700. Italian and Spanish Drama Racine's first Tragedies Andromaque . . . Britannicus . Berenice . . . Bajazet . . . Mithridate . Iphig^nie . . . Phedre Esther Athalie Racine's Female Characters Racine compared with Corneille Beauty of his Style . Thomas Corneille His Ariane Manlius of La Fosse Moliere L'Avare L'Ecole des Femmes 793 Le Misanthrope . 793 Les Femmes Savantes 794 Tartuffe . . . . . 795 Bourgeois Gentilhomme George Dandin 795 Character of Moliere 795 Les Plaideurs of Racine 796 | Regnard Le Joueur 796 | His Other Plays .... 797. i Quinault Boursault 797 ! Dancourt ..... 797 I Brueys ..... 798 | Operas of Quinault .... 798 j Revival of the English Theatre 798 i Change of Public Taste Its Causes Heroic Tragedies of Dryden 799 799 799 I His later Tragedies 799 j Don Sebastian 800 i Spanish Friar 800 801 801 801 802 802 802 803 803 803 804 804 804 804 805 805 805 806 806 20 Contents. Page Page Otway. . . . . .806 Improvement after the Revolution . 80i Southern . . . . .807 Congreve .... . 808 Lee 807 Love for Love ... . SOS Congreve ..... 807 His other Comedies . . . 808 Comedies of Charles II.'s Reign . . 807 Farquhar Vanbrugh . 809 Wycherley . . . . .80S CHAPTER XXXIII. HISTOBY OP POLITE LITERATURE IK PROSE FROM 1650 TO 1700. Low State of Literature in Italy . . 809 The Ana .... . 820 Crescimbeni . . . . .810 English Style in this Period . 820 Age of Louis XIV. in France . . 810 Hobbes .... . 821 Fontenelle his Character . . .810 Cowley .... . 821 His Dialogues of the Dead . . .811 Evelyn . . . 821 Those of Fenelon . . . .811 Dryden . . '. . . 821 Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds . . 811 His Essay on Dramatic Poesy . 822 His History of Oracles . . .811 Improvements in his Style . . 823 St. Evremond . . . .812 His Critical Character . . . 823 Madame de Sevigne' . . .812 Rymer on Tragedy . . 823 The French Academy . \ .812 Sir William Temple's Essays . 824 French Grammars .... 813 Style of Locke . 824 Bouhour's Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugene 813 Sir George Mackenzie's Essays . 824 Attacked by Barbier d'Ancour . . 811 Andrew Fletcher . 824 La Maniere de Bien Penser . . 815 Walton's Complete Angler . . 824 Rapin's Reflections on Eloquence and Wilkins' New World . 824 Poetry . . :, 815 Antiquity defended by Temple . 825 His Parallel's of Great Men . .815 Wotton's Reflection's . 825 Bossu on Epic Poetry . . .816 Quevedo's Visions . . 825 Fontenelle's Critical Writings . . 816 French Heroic Romances . . 826 Preference of French Language to Latin . 816 Novels of Madame La Fayette . 826 General Superiority of Ancients disputed 816 Scarron's Roman Comique . . 826 Charles Perrault . . . .816 Cyrano de Bergerac . . 827 Fontenelle . ... 817 Segrais .... . 827 Boileau's Defence of Antiquity . . 817 Perrault .... . 827 First Reviews Journal des Sgavans . 817 Hamilton . 827 Reviews Established by Bayle . . 818 Tel^maque of Fenelon . 827 Reviews Established by Le Clerc . . 818 Deficiency of English Romances . . 828 Leipsic Acts . . . . .819 Pilgrim's Progress . . 828 Bayle's Thoughts on the Comet . . 819 Turkish Spy .... . 829 His Dictionary . . . .819 Chiefly of English Origin . . 830 Baillet Morhof . . . .820 Swift's Tale of a Tub. . 831 CHAPTER XXXIV. HISTORY OF PHYSICAL AND OTHEB LITERATURE FROM 1650 TO 1700. Reasons for omitting Mathematics . 831 i Botany . 837 Academy del Cimento ... 831 837 Royal Society .... 832 Morison . 837 Academy of Sciences at Paris . . 832 Ray 837 State of Chemistry . . . .832 Rivinus . 838 Becker . . 833 838 Boyle 833 Vegetable Physiology . 839 Hia Metaphysical Works . . .833 Grew ..... . 839 Extract from one of them . . . 833 His Anatomy of Plants . 840 His Merits in Physics and Chemistry . 834 He discovers the Sexual System . 840 General Character of Boyle . . 831 Camerarius confirms this . . 840 Of Hooke and Others . . 834 Predecessors of Grew . . 840 Lemery ..... 835 Malpighi .... . 840 Slow Progress of Zoology . . .835 Early Notions of Geology . 840 Before Ray 835 Burnet's Theory of Earth . 840 His Synopsis of Quadrupeds . . 835 Other Geologists 841 Merits of this Work . . .835 Protogwa of Leibnitz . 8*1 Red! 836 Circulation of Blood Established . . 842 Swammerdam .... 836 Willis Vieussens . . 842 Lister. . . . . .836 Malpighi .... . 842 Comparative Anatomy . . . 836 Other Anatomists . , 842 Medical Theories . . Polyglott of Walton. Hottinger . . . Spencer . . Bochart . Pococke . D'Herbelot . Hyde . . . . Maps of the Sansons De Lisle's Map of the World Contents. 21 Page Page 843 i Voyages and Travels . . . 845 843 | Historians .... . 845 844 DeSolis .... . 845 844 Memoirs of De Retz . 845 844 Bossuet on Universal History . . 846 844 English Historical Works . . . 848 844 l Burnet 844 i General Character of 17th Century . 846 845| PKEFACE. THE advantages of such a synoptical view of literature as displays its various de- partments in their simultaneous condition through an extensive period, and in their mutual dependency, seem too manifest to be disputed. And, as we possess little of this kind in our own language, I have been induced to undertake that to which I am in some respects, at least, very unequal, but which no more capable person, as far as I could judge, was likely to perform. In offering to the public this in- troduction to the literary history of three centuries for I cannot venture to give it a title of more pretension it is convenient to state my general secondary sources of information, exclusive of the acquaintance I possess with original writers ; and, at the same time, by showing what has already been done, and what is left undone, to furnish a justification of my own undertaking. The history of literature belongs to modern, and chiefly to almost recent times. The nearest approach to it that the ancients have left us is contained in a single chapter of Quintilian, the first of the tenth book, wherein he passes rapidly over the names and characters of the poets, orators, and historians of Greece and Rome. This, however, is but a sketch ; and the valuable work of Diogenes Laertius pre- serves too little of chronological order to pass for a history of ancient philosophy, though it has supplied much of the materials for all that has been written on the subject. In the sixteenth century, the great increase of publications, and the devotion to learning which distinguished that period, might suggest the scheme of a uni- versal literary history. Conrad Gesner, than whom no one, by extent and variety of erudition, was more fitted for the labour, appears to have framed a plan of this kind. What he has published, the Bibliotheca Universalis, and the Pandectse Universales, are, taken together, the materials that might have been thrown into an historical form ; the one being an alphabetical catalogue of authors and their writings ; the other a digested and minute index to all departments of knowledge, in twenty-one books, each divided into titles, with short references to the texts of works on every head in his comprehensive classification. The order of time is therefore altogether disregarded. Possevin, an Italian Jesuit, made somewhat a nearer approach to this in his Bibliotheca Selecta, published at Rome in 1593. Though his partitions are rather encyclopedic than historical, and his method, especially in the first volume, is chiefly argumentative, he gives under each chapter a nearly chronological catalogue of authors, and sometimes a short account of their works. Lord Bacon, in the second book De Augmentis Scientiarum, might justly deny, notwithstanding these defective works of the preceding century, that any real 24 Preface. history of letters had been written ; and he compares that of the world, wanting this, to a statue of Polypheme deprived of his single eye. He traces the method of supplying this deficiency in one of those luminous and comprehensive passages which bear the stamp of his vast mind : the origin and antiquities of every science, the methods by which it has been taught, the sects and controversies it has occasioned, the colleges and academies in which it has been cultivated, its relation to civil government and common society, the physical or temporary causes which have influenced its condition, form, in his plan, as essential a part of such a his- tory, as the lives of famous authors, and the books they have produced. No one has presumed to fill up the outline which Bacon himself could but sketch ; and most part of the seventeenth century passed away with few efforts on the part of the learned to do justice to their own occupation ; for we can hardly make an exception for the Prodromus Historise Literariae (Hamburg, 1659) of Lambecius, a very learned German, who, having framed a magnificent scheme of a universal history of letters, was able to carry it no farther than the times of Mosea and Cadmus. But, in 1688, Daniel Morhof, professor at Kiel in Holstein, published his well-known Polyhistor, which received considerable additions in the next age at the hands of Fabricius, and is still found in every considerable library. Morhof appears to have had the method of Possevin in some measure before his eyes ; but the lapse of a century, so rich in erudition as the seventeenth, had prodigiously enlarged the sphere of literary history. The precise object, how- ever, of the Polyhistor, as the word imports, is to direct, on the most ample plan, the studies of a single scholar. Several chapters, that seem digressive in an his- torical light, are to be defended by this consideration. In his review of books in every province of literature, Morhof adopts a sufficiently chronological order ; his judgments are short, but usually judicious ; his erudition so copious, that later writers have freely borrowed from, and, in many parts, added little to the enumeration of the Polyhistor. But he is far more conversant with writers in Latin than the modern languages ; and, in particular, shows a scanty acquaint- ance with English literature. Another century had elapsed, when the honour of first accomplishing a compre- hensive synopsis of literary history in a more regular form than Morhof, was the reward of Andres, a Spanish Jesuit, who, after the dissolution of his order, passed the remainder of his life in Italy. He published at Parma, in different years, from 1782 to 1799, his Origine Progresso e Stato attuale d' ogni Littera- tura. The first edition is in five volumes quarto ; but I have made use of that printed at Prato, 1806, in twenty octavo volumes. Andr6s, though a Jesuit, or perhaps because a Jesuit, accommodated himself in some measure to the tone of the age wherein his book appeared, and is always temperate, and often candid. His learning is very extensive in surface, and sometimes minute and curious, but not, generally speaking, profound ; his style is flowing, but diffuse and indefinite ; his characters of books have a vagueness unpleasant to those who seek for precise notions ; his taste is correct, but frigid ; his general views are not injudicious, but display a moderate degree of luminousness or philosophy. This work is, however, an extraordinary performance, embracing both ancient and modern literature in its full extent, and, in many parts, with little assistance from any Preface. ^ former publication of the kind. It is far better known on the Continent than in England, where I have not frequently seen it quoted ; nor do I believe it is com- mon in our private libraries. A few years after the appearance of the first volumes of Andres, some of the most eminent among the learned of Germany projected a universal history of modern arts and sciences on a much larger scale. Each single province, out of eleven, was deemed sufficient for the labours of one man, if they were to be minute and exhaustive of the subject : among others, Bouterwek undertook poetry and polite letters ; Buhle speculative philosophy ; Kastner the mathema- tical sciences ; Sprengel anatomy and medicine ; Heeren classical philology. The general survey of the whole seems to have been assigned to Eichhorn. So vast a scheme was not fully executed ; but we owe to it some standard works, to which I have been considerably indebted. Eichhorn published, in 1796 and 1799, two volumes, intended as the beginning of a General History of the Cultivation and Literature of modern Europe, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. But he did not confine himself within the remoter limit ; and his second volume, especially, expatiates on the dark ages that succeeded the fall of the Roman em- pire. In consequence, perhaps, of this diffuseness, and also of the abandonment, for some reason with which I am unacquainted, of a large portion of the original undertaking, Eichhorn prosecuted this work no farther in its original form. But, altering slightly its title, he published, some years afterwards, an independent universal "History of Literature" from the earliest ages to his own. This is comprised in six volumes, the first having appeared in 1805, the last in 1811. The execution of these volumes is very unequal. Eichhorn was conversant with oriental, with theological literature, especially of his own country, and in general with that contained in the Latin language. But he seems to have been slightly acquainted with that of the modern languages, and with most branches of science. He is more specific, more chronological, more methodical in his dis- tribution than Andres : his reach of knowledge, on the other hand, is less com- prehensive ; and though I could praise neither highly for eloquence, for taste, or for philosophy, I should incline to give the preference in all these to the Spanish Jesuit. But the qualities above mentioned render Eichhorn, on the whole, more satisfactory to the student. These are the only works, as far as I know, which deserve the name of general histories of literature, embracing all subjects, all ages, and all nations. If there are others, they must, I conceive, be too superficial to demand attention. But in one country of Europe, and only in one, we find a national history so comprehen- sive as to leave uncommemorated no part of its literary labour. This was first executed by Tiraboschi, a Jesuit born at Bergamo, and, in his later years, librarian of the Duke of Modena, in twelve volumes quarto : I have used the edition pub- lished at Rome in 1785. It descends to the close of the seventeenth century. In full and clear exposition, in minute and exact investigation of facts, Tiraboschi has few superiors ; and such is his good sense in criticism, that we must regret the sparing use he has made of it. But the principal object of Tiraboschi was biography. A writer of inferior reputation, Corniani, in his Secoli della littera- tura Italiana dopo il suo risorgimento (Brescia, 9 vols., 1804 1813), has gone more closely to an appreciation of the numerous writers whom he passes in review 26 Preface. before our eyes. Though his method is biographical, he pursues sufficiently the order of chronology to coine into the class of literary historians. Corniani is not much esteemed by some of his countrymen, and does not rise to a very elevated point of philosophy ; but his erudition appears to me considerable, his judgments generally reasonable ; and his frequent analyses of books gives him one superiority over Tiraboschi. The Histoire Litt6raire de 1'Italie, by Gingue"ne", is well known : he had the ad- vantage of following Tiraboschi ; and could not so well, without his aid, have gone over a portion of the ground, including in his scheme, as he did, the Latin learning of Italy ; but he was very conversant with the native literature of the language, and has, not a little prolixly, doubtless, but very usefully, rendered much of easy access to Europe, which must have been sought in scarce volumes, and was, in fact, known by name to a small part of the world. The Italians are ungrateful if they deny their obligations to Gingue'ne'. France has, I believe, no work of any sort, even an indifferent one, on the uni- versal history of her own literature ; nor can we claim for ourselves a single at- tempt of the most superficial kind. Warton's History of Poetry contains much that bears on our general learning ; but it leaves us about the accession of Elizabeth. Far more has been accomplished in the history of particular departments of literature. In the general history of philosophy, omitting a few older writers, Brucker deserves to lead the way. There has been, of late years, some disposition to depreciate his laborious performance, as not sufficiently imbued with a meta- physical spirit, and as not rendering, with clearness and truth, the tenets of the philosophers whom he exhibits. But the Germany of 1744 was not the Germany of Kant and Fichte ; and possibly Brucker may not have proved the worse historian for having known little of recent theories. The latter objection is more material ; in some instances he seems to me not quite equal to his subject. But, upon the whole, he is of eminent usefulness ; copious in his extracts, impartial and candid in his judgments. In the next age after Brucker, the great fondness of the German, learned both for historical and philosophical investigation produced more works of this class than I know by name, and many more than I have read. The most celebrated, perhaps, is that of Tennemann ; but of which I only know the abridgment, trans- lated into French by M. Victor Cousin, with the title Manuel de 1'Histoire de Philosophie. Buhle, one of the society above mentioned, whose focus was at Gottingen, contributed his share to their scheme in a History of Philosophy from the revival of letters. This I have employed through the French translation in six volumes. Buhle, like Tennemann, has very evident obligations to Brucker ; but his own erudition was extensive, and his philosophical acuteness not incon- siderable. The history of poetry and eloquence, or fine writing, was published by Bouter- wek, in twelve volumes octavo. Those parts which relate to his own country, and to Spain and Portugal, have been of more use to me than the rest. Many of my readers must be acquainted with the Litte"rature du Midi, by M. Sismondi ; a work written in that flowing and graceful style which distinguishes the author, and succeeding in all that it seeks to give a pleasing and popular, yet not super- Preface. 27 ficial or unsatisfactory, account of the best authors in the southern languages. We have nothing historical as to our own poetry but the prolix volumes of Warton. They have obtained, in my opinion, full as much credit as they de- serve. Without depreciating a book in which so much may be found and which has been so great a favourite with the literary part of the public, it may be ob- served that its errors as to fact, especially in names and dates, are extraordinarily frequent, and that the criticism, in points of taste, is not of a very superior kind. Heeren undertook the history of classical literature a great desideratum, which no one had attempted to supply. But, unfortunately, he has only given an introduction, carrying us down to the close of the fourteenth century, and a history of the fifteenth. These are so good, that we must much lament the want of the rest ; especially as I am aware of nothing to fill up the vacuity. Eichhorn, how- ever, is here of considerable use. In the history of mathematical science, I have had recourse chiefly toMontucla and, as far as he conducts us, to Kastner, whose catalogue and analysis of mathe- matical works is far more complete, but his own observations less perspicuous and philosophical. Portal's History of Anatomy, and some other books, to which I have always referred, and which it might be tedious to enumerate, have enabled me to fill a few pages with what I could not be expected to give from any original research. But several branches of literature, using the word, as I generally do, in the most general sense for the knowledge imparted through books, are as yet deficient in anything that approaches to a real history of their progress. The materials of literary history must always be derived in great measure from biographical collections, those especially which intermix a certain portion ol criticism with mere facts. There are some, indeed, which are almost entirely of this description. Adrian Baillet, in his Jugemens des S9avans, published in 1685, endeavoured to collect the suffrages of former critics on the merits of all past authors. His design was only executed in a small part, and hardly extends be- yond grammarians, translators, and poets ; the latter but imperfectly. Baillet gives his quotations in French, and sometimes mingles enough of his own to raise him above a mere compiler, and to have drawn down the animosity of some con- temporaries. Sir Thomas Pope Blount is a perfectly unambitious writer of the same class. His Censura Celebriorum Autorum, published in 1690, contains nothing of his own, except a few short dates of each author's life, but diligently brings together the testimonies of preceding critics. Blount omits no class, nor any age ; his arrangement is nearly chronological, and leads the reader from the earliest records of literature to his own time. The polite writers of modern Europe, and the men of science, do not receive their full share of attention ; but this volume, though not, I think, much in request at present, is a very con- venient accession to any scholar's library. Bayle's Dictionary, published in 1697, seems at first sight an inexhaustible magazine of literary history. Those who are conversant with it know that it fre- quently disappoints their curiosity ; names of great eminence are sought in vain, or are very slightly treated ; the reader is lost in episodical notes, perpetually frivolous, and disgusted with an author who turns away at every moment from what is truly interesting to some idle dispute of his own time, or some contemp- tible indecency. Yet the numerous quotations contained in Bayle, the miscellan- 28 Preface. eons copiousness of his erudition, as well as the good sense and acuteness he can always display when it is his inclination to do so, render his Dictionary of great value, though, I think, chiefly to those who have made a tolerable progress in general literature The title of a later work by Pere Niceron, Me'moires Pour Servir a 1'Histoire des Hommes Illustres dela Re"publiqxie des Lettres, avec un Catalogue Raisonne" de leurs Ouvrages, in forty -three volumes 12mo, published at Paris from 1727 to 1745, an- nounces something rather different from what it contains. The number of " illus- trious men " recorded by Niceron is about 1600, chiefly of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The names, as may be anticipated, are frequently very insignificant ; and, in return, not a few of real eminence, especially when Pro- testant, and, above all, English, are overlooked, or erroneously mentioned. No kind of arrangement is observed ; it is utterly impossible to conjecture in what volume of Niceron any article will be discovered. A succinct biography, though fuller than the mere dates of Blount, is followed by short judgments on the author's works, and by a catalogue of them far more copious, at least, than had been given by any preceding bibliographer. It is a work of much utility ; but the more valuable parts have been transfused into later publications. The English Biographical Dictionary was first published in 1761. I speak of this edition with some regard from its having been the companion of many youth- ful hours ; but it is rather careless in its general execution. It is sometimes ascribed to Birch ; but I suspect that Heathcote had more to do with it. After several successive enlargements, an edition of this Dictionary was published in thirty-two volumes from 1812 to 1817, by Alexander Chalmers, whose name it now commonly bears. Chalmers was a man of very slender powers, relatively to the magnitude of such a work ; but his life had been passed in collecting small matters of fact, and he has added much of this kind to British biography. He inserts, beyond any one else, the most insignificant names, and quotes the most wretched authorities. But as the faults of excess, in such collections, are more pardonable than those of omission, we cannot deny the value of his Biographical Dictionary, especially as to our own country, which has not fared well at the hands of foreigners. Coincident nearly in order of time with Chalmers, but more distinguished in merit, is the Biographic Universelle. The eminent names appended to a large proportion of the articles contained in its fifty-two volumes, are vouchers for the ability and erudition it displays. There is, doubtless, much inequality in the per- formance ; and we are sometimes disappointed by a superficial notice where we had a right to expect most. English literature, though more amply treated than had been usual on the Continent, and with the benefit of Chalmer's contempo- raneous volumes, is still not fully appreciated : our chief theological writers, especially, are passed over almost in silence. There seems, on the other hand, a redundancy of modern French names ; those, above all, who have, even ob- scurely and insignificantly been connected with the history of the Revolution : a fault, if it be one, which is evidently gaining ground in the supplementary volumes. But I must speak respectfully of a work to which I owe so much, and without which, probably, I should never have undertaken the present. I will not here characterise several works of more limited biography ; among Preface. 29 which are the Bibliotheca Hispana Nova of Antonio, the Biographia Britannica, the Bibliotheque Francaise of Goujet ; still less is there time to enumerate par- ticular lives, or those histories which relate to short periods, among the sources of literary knowledge. It will be presumed, and will appear by my references, that I have employed such of them as came within my reach. But I am sensible that, in the great multiplicity of books of this kind, and especially in their pro- digious increase on the Continent of late years, many have been overlooked from which I might have improved these volumes. The press is indeed so active, that no year passes without accessions to our knowledge, even historically considered upon some of the multifarious subjects which the present volumes embrace. An author who waits till all requisite materials are accumulated to his hands, is but watching the stream that will run on for ever ; and though I am fully sensible that I could have much improved what is now offered to the public by keeping it back for a longer time, I should but then have had to lament the impossibility of exhausting my subject. Epoiei, the modest phrase of the Grecian sculptors, but expresses the imperfection that attaches to every work of literary industry or of philosophical investigation. But I have other warnings to bind up my sheaves while I may my own advancing years, and the gathering in the heavens. I have quoted, to my recollection, no passage which I have not seen in its own place ; though I may possibly have transcribed in some instances, for the sake of convenience, from a secondary authority. Without censuring those who suppress the immediate source of their quotations, I may justly say that in nothing I have given to the public has it been practised by myself. But I have now and then inserted in the text characters of books that I have not read, on the faith of my guides ; and it may be the case that intimation of this has not been always given to the reader. It is very likely that omissions, not, I trust, of great consequence, will be de- tected ; I might in fact say that I am already aware of them ; but perhaps these will be candidly ascribed to the numerous ramifications of the subject, and the necessity of writing in a different order from that in which the pages are printed. And I must add that some omissions have been intentional : an accumulation of petty facts, and especially of names to which little is attached, fatigues unprofit- ably the attention ; and as this is very frequent in works that necessarily de- mand condensation, and cannot altogether be avoided, it was desirable to make some sacrifice in order to palliate the inconvenience. This will be found, among many other instances, in the account of the Italian learned of the fifteenth cen- tury where I might easily have doubled the enumeration, but with little satis- faction to the reader. But, independently of such slight omissions, it will appear that a good deal is wanting in these volumes which some might expect in a history of literature. Such a history has often contained so large a proportion of biography, that a work in which it appears very scantily, or hardly at all, may seem deficient in neces- sary information. It might be replied, that the limits to which I have confined myself, and beyond which it is not easy perhaps in the present age to obtain readers, would not admit to this extension ; but I may add, that any biography of the authors of these centuries, which is not servilely compiled from a few known books of that class, must be far too immense an undertaking for one man, cO Preface. and besides its extent and difficulty, would have been particularly irksome to myself, from the waste of time, as I deem it, which an inquiry into trifling facts entails. I have more scruple about the omission of extracts from some of the poets and best writers in prose, without which they can be judged verv unsatis- factorily : but in this also I have been influenced by an unwillingness to multiply my pages beyond a reasonable limit. But I have, in some instances, at least in the later periods, gone more largely into analysis of considerable works than has hitherto been usual. These are not designed to serve as complete abstracts, or to supersede, instead of exciting, the reader's industry ; but I have felt th t some books of traditional reputation are less fully known than they deserve. Some departments of literature are passed over, or partially touched. Among the former are books relating to particular arts, as agriculture or painting, or to subjects of merely local interest, as those of English law. Among the latter is the great and extensive portion of every library, the historical. Unless where history has been written with peculiar beauty of language, or philosophical spirit, I have generally omitted all mention of it : in our researches after truth of fact, the number of books that possess some value is exceedingly great, and would occupy a disproportionate space in such a general view of literature as the present. For a similar reason, I have not given its numerical share to theology. It were an impertinence to anticipate, for the sake of obviating, the possible criticism of the public which has a right to judge, and for those judgments I have had so much cause to be grateful, nor less so to dictate how it should read what it is not bound to read at all ; but perhaps I may be allowed to say, that I do not wish this to be considered as a book of reference on particular topics, in which point of view it must often appear to disadvantage ; and that, if it proves of any value, it will be as an entire and synoptical work. INTEODUCTION LITERATURE OF EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH, AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. CHAPTER I. ON THE GENERAL STATE OF LITERATURE IX THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE END Of THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Loss of Ancient Learning in the Fall of the Roman Empire First Symptoms of its Revival Improvement in the Twelfth Century Universities and Scholastic Philo- sophy Origin of Modern Languages Early Poetry Provencal, French, Ger- man, and Spanish English Language and Literature. Increase of Elementary Knowledge Invention of Paper Roman Jurisprudence Cultivation of Classical Literature Its Decline after the Twelfth Century Less visible in Italy Petrarch. 1. ALTHOUGH the subject of these volumes Retrospect of does not comprehend the li- learning in terary history of Europe, an- middie ageg terior to the commencement sary " of the fifteenth century, a period as nearly coinciding as can be ex- pected in any arbitrary division of time, with what is usually denominated the re- vival of letters, it appears necessary to pre- fix such a general retrospect of the state of knowledge for some preceding ages, as will illustrate its subsequent progress. In this, however, the reader is not to expect a regular history of mediaeval literature, which would be nothing less than the ex- tension of a scheme already, perhaps, too much beyond my powers of execution. 1 2. Every one is well aware, that the LOIS of learning establishment of the barba- in fail of Roman rian nations on the ruins of empire. the Ro man empire in the "West, was accompanied or followed by an 1 The subject of the following chapter has been already treated by me in another work, the History of Europe during the Middle Ages. I have not thought it necessary to repeat all that is there said : the reader, if he is acquainted with those volumes, may consider the ensuing pages partly as supplemental, and partly as cor- recting the former where they contain anything inconsistent. almost universal loss of that learning which had been accumulated in the Latin and Greek languages, and which we call an- cient or classical ; a revolution long pre- pared by the decline of taste and knowledge for several preceding ages, but accelerated by public calamities in the fifth century with overwhelming rapidity. The last of the ancients, and one who forme a link be- tween the classical period of literature and that of the Middle Ages, in which he was a favourite author, is Boe- Boethiua-his thius, a man of fine genius, Consolation of and interesting both from rmaoyhy. his character and his death. It is well known, that, after filling the dignities of Consul and Senator in the court of Theo- doric, he fell a victim to the jealousy of a sovereign, from whose memory, in many respects glorious, the stain of that blood has never been effaced. The Consolation of Philosophy, the chief work of Boethius, was written in his prison. Few books are more striking from the circumstances of their production. Last of the classic writers, in style not impure, though dis- playing too lavishly that poetic exuberance which had distinguished the two or three preceding centuries, in elevation of senti- ment equal to any of the philosophers, and Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. mingling a Christian sanctity with their lessons, he speaks from his prison in the swan-like tones of dying eloquence. The philosophy that consoled him in bonds, was soon required in the sufferings of a cruel death. Quenched in his blood, the lamp he had trimmed with a skilful hand gave no more light ; the language of Tully and Virgil soon ceased to be spoken ; and many ages were to pass away, before learned diligence restored its purity, and the union of genius with imitation taught a few modern writers to surpass in elo- quence the latinity of Boethius. 3. The downfall of learning and elo- Rapid decline of quence, after the death of learning in sixth Boethius in 524, was incon- century. ceivably rapid. His con- temporary Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, and Martianus Capella, the earliest, but worst, of the three, by very indifferent compilations, and that encyclopedic method which Heeren observes to be an usual con- comitant of declining literaturj, super- seded the use of the great ancient writers, with whom, indeed, in the opinion of Meiners, they were themselves acquainted only through similar productions of the fourth and fifth centuries. Isidore speaks of the rhetorical works of Cicero and Quintilian as too diffuse to be read. 1 The authorities upon which they founded their scanty course of grammar, logic, and rhe- toric were chiefly obscure writers, no longer extant. But themselves became the oracles of the succeeding period, wherein the trivium and quadrivium, a course of seven sciences, introduced in the sixth century, were taught from their jejune treatises. 2 1 Meiners, Vergleichung der sitten, &c., des mittelalters mit denen unsers Jahrhunderts, 3 volg. Hanover, 1793. VoL ii. p. 333. Eich- horn, Allgemeine Geschichte der Cultur und Litteratur, vol. ii. p. 29. Heeren, Geschichte des studium der classischen Litteratur. Got- tingen, 1797. These three books, with the Histoire Litteraire de la France, Brucker's History of Philosophy, Turner's and Henry's Histories of England, Muratori's 43d Disser- tation, Tiraboschi, and some few others, who will appear in the notes, are my chief authori- ties for the dark ages. But none, in a very short compass, is equal to the third discourse of Fleury, in the 13th volume of the 12mo edition of his Ecclesiastical History. 2 The trivium contained grammar, logic, and rhetoric ; the quadrivium, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, as in these two lines, framed to assist the memory : "GRAMM. loquitur; DIA. vera docet ; RHET. verba colorat ; Mrs. canit ; An. numerat ; GEO. ponderat ; AST. colit astra." But most of these sciences, as such, were 4. This state of general ignorance lasted, with no very sensible differ- A portlon . ence, on a superficial view, main* in the for about five centuries, cimrcb. during which every sort of knowledge was almost wholly confined to the ecclesiastical order. But among them, though instances of gross ignorance were exceedingly fre- quent, the necessity of preserving the Latin language, in which the Script\ires, the canons, and other authorities of the church, and the regular liturgies, were written, and in which alone the correspondence of their well organised hierarchy could be conduct- ed, kept flowing, in the worst seasons, a slender but living stream; and though, as has been observed, no great difference may appear, on a superficial view, between the seventh and eleventh centuries, it would easily be shown that, after the first pros- tration of learning, it was not long in giv- ing signs of germinating afresh, and that a very slow and gradual improvement might be dated farther back than is generally believed. 1 5. Literature was assailed in its down- fall by enemies from within prejudices of as well as from without. A ** clergy against prepossession against secular P rofane learnln - learning had taken hold of those ecclesias- tics who gave the tone to the rest ; it was inculcated in the most extravagant degree- by Gregory I., the founder, in a great mea- sure, of the papal supremacy, and the chief hardly taught at all. The arithmetic, for in- stance, of Cassiodorus or Capella is nothing but a few definitions mingled with superstitious absurdities about the virtues of certain num- bers and figures. Meiners, ii. 339. Kastner, Geschichte der Mathematik, p. 8. The arithmetic of Cassiodorus occupies little more than two folio pages, and does not con- tain one word of the common rules. Th geometry is much the same ; in two pages we have some definitions and axioms, but nothing farther. His logic is longer and better, extend- ing to sixteen folio pages. The grammar is very short and trifling, the rhetoric the same. 1 M. Guizot confirms me in a conclusion to which I had previously come, that the seventh century is the nadir of the human mind in Europe, and that its movement in advance began before the end of the next, or, in other words, with Charlemagne. Hist, de la Civilisa- tion en France, ii. 345. A notion probably is current in England, on the authority of the older writers, such as Cave or Robertson, that the greatest darkness was later ; which is true as to England itself. It was in the seventh century that the barbarians were first tempted! to enter the church, and obtain bishoprics, which had, in the first age after their invasion, been reserved to Romans. Fleury, p. 18. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. authority in the dark ages j 1 it is even found in Alcuin, to whom so much is due, and it gave way very gradually in the re- vival of literature. In some of the monas- tic foundations, especially in that of Isidore, though himself a man of consider- able learning, the perusal of heathen authors was prohibited. Fortunately Benedict, whose order became the most widely diffused, while he enjoined his brethren to read, copy, and collect books, was silent as to their nature, concluding, probably, that they would be wholly re- ligious. This, in course of time, became the means of preserving and multiplying classi- cal manuscripts. 2 6. If, however, the prejudices of the Their usefulness clergy stood in the way of in preserving it. w h a t we more esteem than they did, the study of philological litera- ture, it is never to be forgotten, that but for them the records of that very literature would have perished. If they had been less tenacious of their Latin liturgy, of the vulgate translation of Scripture, and of the authority of the fathers, it is very doubtful whether less superstition would have grown up, but we cannot hesitate to pronounce, that all grammatical learning would have been laid aside. The influence of the church upon learning, partly favourable, partly the reverse, forms the subject of Eichhorn's second volume ; whose compre- hensive views and well directed erudition, as well as his position in a great protestant university, give much weight to his testi- mony. But we should remember also, that it is, as it were, by striking a balance that we come to this result ; and that, in many respects, the clergy counteracted that progress of improvement which, in others, may be ascribed to their exertions. 7. It is not unjust to claim for these First appear- islands the honour of having ances of reviving first withstood the dominant learning In Ire. . land and Eng- ignorance, and even led the land. way in the restoration of knowledge. As early as the sixth century, a little glimmer of light was perceptible in the Irish monasteries : and in the next, 1 Gregory has been often charged, on the au- thority of a passage in John of Salisbury, with having burned a library of heathen authors. He has been warmly defended by Tiraboschi, iii. 102. Even if the assertion of our country- man were more positive, he is of too late an age to demand much credit. Eichhorn, however, produces vehement expressions of Gregory's dis- regard for learning, and even for the observance of grammatical rules, ii. 443. 2 Heeren, p. 59. Eichhorn, ii. 11, 12, 40, 49, 60. when France and Italy had sunk in deeper ignorance, they stood, not quite where na- tional prejudice has sometimes placed them, but certainly in a very respectable position. 1 That island both drew students from the Continent, and sent forth men of comparative eminence into its schools and churches. I do not find, however, that they contributed much to the advance of secular, and especially of grammatical learning. This is rather due to England, and to the happy influence of Theodore, our first primate, an Asiatic Greek by birth, sent hither by the pope in 668, through whom and his companion Adrian, some knowledge of the Latin and even Greek languages was propagated in the Anglo-Saxon church. The Venerable Bede, as he was afterwards styled, early in the eighth century, surpasses every other name of our ancient literary annals ; and, though little more than a diligent compiler from older writers, may perhaps be reckoned superior to any man the world (so low had the east sunk like the west) then possessed. A desire of knowledge grew up ; the school of York, somewhat later, became respectable, before any liberal education had been established in France ; and from this came Alcuin, a man fully equal to Bede in ability, though not, pro- bably, in erudition. 2 By his assistance, and that of one or two Italians, Charlemagne laid in his vast dominions the foundations of learning, according to the standard of that age, which dispelled, at least for a time, some part of the gross ignorance wherein his empire had been enveloped. 3 8. The praise of having originally estab- lished schools belongs to Few schools be- some bishops and abbots of fore the age of the sixth century. They <**"' *magne. came in place of the imperial schools over- thrown by the barbarians. 4 In the down- fall of that temporal dominion, a spiritual 1 Eichhorn, ii. 176, 188. See also the first volume of Moore's History of Ireland, where the claims of his country are stated favourably, and with much learning and industry, but not with extravagant partiality. 2 Eichhorn, ii. 188, 207, 263. Hist. Litt. de la France, vols. iii. and iv. Henry's History of England, vol. iv. Turner's History of Anglo- Saxons. No one, however, has spoken so highly or so fully of Alcuin's merits as M. Guizot in his Histoire de la Civilisation en France, vol. ii. p. 344385. 3 Besides the above authors, see, for the merits of Charlemagne as a restorer of letters, his Life by Gaillard, and Andres, Origine, &c., della Litteratura, i. 1C5. 4 Eichhorn, ii. 5, 45. Guizot (vol. ii. p. 116) Literature of Europe in the Middle aristocracy was providentially raised up, to save from extinction the remains of learning, and religion itself. Some of those schools seem to have been preserved in tke south of Italj , though merey, per- haps, for elementary instruction. But in France the barbarism of the later Merovin- gian period was so complete, that, before the reign of Charlemagne, all liberal studies had come to an end. 1 Nor was Italy in a much better state at his accession, though he called two or three scholars from thence to his literary councils : the libraries were destroyed, the schools chiefly closed ; wherever the Lombard dominion extended, illiteracy was its companion. 2 9. The cathedral and conventual schools, Beneficial effect* created or restored by Char- of tbou eta- lemagne, became the means biinhed by him. of pre8er vmg that small por- tion of learning which continued to exist. They flourished most, having had time to produce their fruits, under his successors, Louis the Debonair, Lothaire, and Charles the Bald. 3 It was, doubtless, a fortunate circumstance, that the revolution of lan- guage had now gone far enough to render Latin unintelligible without grammatical instruction. Alcuin and others who, like him, endeavoured to keep ignorance out of the church, were anxious, we are told, to restore orthography ; or, in other words, to prevent the written Latin from following the corruptions of speech. They brought back, also, some knowledge of better clas- sical authors than had been in use. Al- cuin's own poems could at least not have been written by one unacquainted with Virgil : 4 the faults are numerous, but the give* a list of the episcopal schools in France before Charlemagne. 1 Ante ipsum Carolnm regem in Gallia nullum fuerat stadium liberalium artium. Monnchus Engoliraensis, apud Launoy de Scholis cele- brioribus. 2 Tiraboschi. Eichhorn. Heeren. 3 The reader may find more of the history of these schools in a little treatise by Launoy, De Scholis celebrioribus a Car. Mag. et post Car. Mag. insUuratis ; also in Hist. Litt. de la France, vols. iii. and iv.; Crevier, Hist, de rUniversite 1 de Paris, vol. i.; Brucker'g Hist. Phil, iii.; Muratori, Dissert, xliii.; Tiraboschi, 111. 158; Eichhorn, 2(51, 295; Heeren, and Fleury. 4 A poem by Alcuin, De Pontificibus Eccle- Rise Eboracensis, is published in Gale's xv. Scriptores, voL iii. Henry quotes a passage from this, describing the books at York, in which we read this line- Acer Aiistoteies, rhetor atqut Tullins ingens. Such a veise could not have come from Alcuin ; though he errs in the quantity of syllables, BU P- poed. style is not always inelegant ; and from this time, though quotations from the Latin poets, especially Ovid and Virgil, and some- times from Cicero, are not very frequent, they occur sufficiently to show that manu- scripts had been brought to this side of the Alps. They were, however, very rare : Italy was still, as might be expected, the chief depository of ancient writings ; and Gerbert speaks of the facility of obtaining them in that country. 1 10. The tenth century used to be reck- oned by mediaeval historians ., , , . , . . The tenth cen- the darkest part of this in- tury mor , pro . tellectual night. It was the gressive than iron age, which they vie with ., . , .,. one another in descnbing as lost in the most consummate ignorance. This, however, is much rather applicable to Italy and England, than to France and Germany. The former were both in a de- plorable state of barbarism. And there are, doubtless, abundant proofs of ignor- ance in every part of Europe. But, com- pared with the seventh and eighth cen- turies, the tenth was an age of illumination in France. And Meiners, who judged the middle ages somewhat, perhaps, too se- verely, but with a penetrating and compre- hensive observation, of which there had been few instances, has gone so far as to say, that "in no age, perhaps, did Ger- many possess more learned and virtuous churchmen of the episcopal order, than in the hitter half of the tenth, and beginning of the eleventh century." 2 Eichhorn points out indications of a more extensive acquaintance with ancient writers in seve- ral French and German ecclesiastics of this period. 3 In the eleventh century, this continued to increase ; and, towards its close, we find more vigorous and extensive attempts at throwing off the yoke of bar- barous ignorance, and either retrieving what had been lost of ancient learning, or supplying its place by the original powers of the mind. 11. It is the most striking circumstance in the literary annals of the dark ages, where memory alone could set him right, he was not ignorant of common rules. It is found in Gale: Rhetor quoi]ite Tullius ingens. 1 Nosti quot scriptores in urbibus ant in agris Italia; passim habeantur. Gerbert, Epist. 130, apud Heeren, p. 100. 2 Vergleichung der Ritten, ii. 334. The eleventh century he holds far more advanced in learning than the sixth. Books were read in the latter which no one looked at in the earlier. P. 399. 3 Allg. Gesch. ii. 835, 398. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 5 that they seem to us still more deficient Want of genius in native, than in acquired in the dark ages, ability. The mere ignorance of letters has sometimes been a little exag- gerated, and admits of certain qualifica- tions; but a tameness and mediocrity, a servile habit of merely compiling from others, runs through the writers of these centuries. It is not only that much was lost, but that there was nothing to com- pensate for it ; nothing of original genius in the province of imagination ; and but two extraordinary men, Scotus Erigena and Gerbert, may be said to stand out from the crowd in literature and philo- sophy. It must be added, as to the former, that his writings contain, at least in such extracts as I have seen, unintelligible rhap- sodies of mysticism, in which, perhaps, he should not even have the credit of origin- ality. Eichhorn, however, bestows great praise on Scotus ; and the modern histor- ians of philosophy treat Mm with respect. 1 12. It would be a strange hypothesis, Prevalence of that no man endowed with bad taste. superior gifts of nature lived in so many ages. Though the pauses of her fertility in these high endowments are more considerable, I am disposed to think, that any previous calculation of probabil- ities would lead us to anticipate, we could not embrace so extreme a paradox. Of military skill, indeed, and civil prudence, we are not now speaking. But, though no man appeared of genius sufficient to burst the fetters imposed by ignorance and bad taste, some there must have been, who, in a happier condition of literature, would have been its legitimate pride. "We per- ceive, therefore, in the deficiencies of these writers, the effect which an oblivion oj good models, and the prevalence of a false standard of merit, may produce in repress- ing the natural vigour of the mind. Their style, where they aim at eloquence, is in flated and redundant, formed upon the model of the later fathers, whom they chiefly read ; a feeble imitation of tha' 1 Extracts from John Scotus Erigena will be found in Brucker, Hist. Philosophise, vol. iii. p 619 ; in Meiners, ii. 373 ; or more fully, in Tur ner's History of England, vol. i. 447, and Guizot Hist, de la Civilisation en France, iii. 137, 178 The reader may consult also Buhle, Tennemann and the article on Thomas Aquinas in th Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, ascribed to Dr Hampden. But, perhaps, Mr. Turner is tb only one of them who has seen, or at least rea( the metaphysical treatise of John Scotus, en titled De Divisione Naturse, in which alone w find his philosophy. It is very rare out o England. vicious rhetoric which had long overspread he latinity of the empire. 1 13. It might naturally be asked, whether ancy and feeling were ex- Deficiency of inct among the people, poetical talent, hough a false taste might reign in the Fleury, 1. xlv. 19, and Troisieme Discours in vol. xiii.), p. 6. Turner's History of Eng- and, iv. 137, and History of Anglo-Saxons, iii. 03. It is suificient to look at any extracts rom these writers of the dark ages to see the ustice of this censure. Fleury, at the conclu- ion of his excellent third discourse, justly and andidly apologises for these five ages, as not wholly destitute of learning, and far less of vir- ue. They have been, he says, outrageously lepreciated by the humanists of the sixteenth entury, who thought good Latin superior to every thing else ; and by protestant writers, who laid the corruptions of the church on its gnorance. Yet there is an opposite extreme nto which those who are disgusted with the commonplaces of superficial writers sometimes run ; an estimation of men by their relative iuperiority above their own times, so as to for- get their position in comparison with a fixed standard. An eminent living writer, who has carried the jhilosophy of history, perhaps, as far as any other, has lately endeavoured, at considerable .ength, to vindicate in some measure the intel- lectual character of this period. (Guizot, vol. ii. p. 123 224.) It is with reluctance that I ever differ from M. Guizot ; but the passages adduced by him, (especially if we exclude those of the fifth century, the poems of Avitus, and the homilies of Cresarius,) do not appear ade- quate to redeem the age by any signs of genius they display. It must always be a question of degree ; for no one is absurd enough to deny the existence of a relative superiority of talent, or the power of expressing moral emotions, as well as relating facts, with some warmth and energy. The legends of saints, an extensive though quite neglected portion of the literature of the dark ages, to which M. Guizot has had the merit of directing our attention, may prob- ably contain many passages, like those he has quoted, which will be read with interest ; and it is no more than justice, that he has given them in French, rather than in that half-barba- rous Latin, which, though not essential to the author's mind, never fails, like an unbecoming dress, to show the gifts of nature at a disadvan- tage. But the questions still recur : Is this in itself excellent? Would it indicate, wherever we should meet with it, powers of a high order? Do we not make a tacit allowance in reading it, and that very largely, for the mean condition in which we know the human mind to have been placed at the period ? Does it instruct us, or give us pleasure? In what M. Guizot has said of the moral in- fluence of these legends, in harmonising a law- less barbarian race (p. 157), I should be sorry not to concur : it is a striking instance of that candid and catholic spirit with which he has always treated the mediseval church. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. cloister. Yet it is here that we find the most remarkable deficiency, and could ap- peal scarce to the vaguest tradition, or the most doubtful fragment, in witness of any poetical talent worthy of notice, except a very little in the Teutonic languages. The Anglo-Saxon poetry has occasionally a wild spirit, rather impressive, though it is often turgid and always rude. The Scandina- vian, such as the well-known song of Eeg- ner Lodbrog, if that be as old as the period before us, which is now denied, displays a still more poetical character. Some of the earliest German poetry, the song on the victory of Louis III. over the Normans in 883, and, still more, the poem in praise of Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, who died in 1075, are warmly extolled by Herder and Bouterwek. 1 In the Latin verse of these centuries, we find, at best, a few lines among many, which show the author to have caught something of a classical style : the far greater portion is very bad. 2 14. The very imperfect state of language, Imperfect itate as an instrument of refined of language may thought, in the transition of account for this. j^^ to the Frenchj Cas . tilian, and Italian tongues, seems the best means of accounting in any satisfactory manner for this stagnation of the poetical faculties. The delicacy that distinguishes in words the shades of sentiment, the grace that brings them to the soul of the reader with the charm of novelty united to clear- ness, could not be attainable in a coloquial jargon, the offspring of ignorance, and in- determinate possibly in its forms, which 1 Herder, Zerstreute Blatter, vol. v. p. 169, 184. Helnsius, Lehrbnch der Deutschen Sprach- wlssenschaft, iv. 29. Bouterwek Geschichte der Poesie nad Beredsamkeit, vol. ix. p. 78, 82. The author is unknown ; aber dem unbekannten sichert sein werk die unsterblichkeit, says the latter critic. One might raise a question as to the capacity of an anonymous author to possess immortal fame. Nothing equal to this poem, he says occurs in the earlier German poetry : it is an outpouring of genius, not without faults, but full of power and feeling : the dialect is still Prankish, but approaches to Swabian. Herder calls it "a truly Pindaric song." He has given large extracts from it in the volume above quoted, which glows with his own fine sense of beauty. 2 Tiraboschi supposes Latin versifiers to have been common in Italy. Le Citta al pari che le campagne risonavan di versi. iii. 207. The specimens he afterwards produces, p. 219, are miserable. Hroswitha, abbess of Gander- sheim, has, perhaps, the greatest reputation among these Latin poets. She wrote, in the tenth century, sacred comedies in imitation of Terence, which I have not seen, and other poetry which I saw many years since, and thought very bad. Alcuin has now and then a Virgilian cadence. those who possessed any superiority of education would endeavour to avoid. We shall soon have occasion to advert again to this subject. 15. At the beginning of the twelfth cen- tury, we enter upon a new 1^*^ at division in the literary his- beginning of tory of Europe. From this tweWth century, time we may deduce a line of men, con- spicuous, according to the standard of their times, in different walks of intel- lectual pursuit, and the commencement of an interesting period, the later Middle Ages; in which, though ignorance was. very far from being cleared away, the natural powers of the mind were developed in con- siderable activity. We shall point out separately the most important circum- stances of this progress; not Leading clrcum- all of them concurrent in tance in pro- efficacy with each other, for ***** of learnln s- they were sometimes opposed, but all tend- ing to arouse Europe from indolence, and to fix its attention on literature. These are, 1st. The institution of universities, and the methods pursued in them : 2d. The cultivation of the modern languages, followed by the multiplication of books, and the extension of the art of writing : 3d. The investigation of the Koman law : And lastly, the return to the study of the Latin language in its ancient models of purity. We shall thus come down to the fifteenth century, and judge better of what is meant by the revival of letters, when we appre- hend with more exactness their previous condition. 16. Among the Carlovingian schools it is doubtful whether we can origin of the reckon one at Paris ; and university of though there are some traces Paris. of public instruction in that city about the end of the ninth century, it is not certain that we can assume it to be more ancient. For two hundred years more, indeed, it can only be said, that some persons appear to have come to Paris for the purposes of study. 1 The commencement of this famous university, like that of Oxford, has no re- cord. But it owes its first reputation to the sudden spread of what is usually called the scholastic philosophy. 17. There had been hitherto two meth- ods of treating theological M ode of treat- subjects : one that of the ing the science fathers, who built them on of ">oiogy. scripture, illustrated and interpreted by their own ingenuity, and in some measure also on the traditions and decisions of the church ; the other, which is said by the i Crevier, i. 1375. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. Benedictines of St. Maur to have grown up about the eighth century (though Mosheim seems to refer it to the sixth), using the fathers themselves, that is the chief writers of the first six hundred years, who appear now to have acquired that distinctive title of honour, as authority, conjointly with scripture and ecclesiastical determinations, by means of extracts or compends of their writings. Hence about this time we find more frequent instances of a practice which had begun before that of publish- ing Loci communes or Cateruz patrum, being only digested extracts from the .authorities under systematic heads. 1 Both these methods were usually called positive theology. 18. The scholastic theology was a third Scholastic philo- method ; it was in its sophy ; its origin, general principle, an alli- ance between faith and reason ; an endeav- our to arrange the orthodox system of the church, such as authority had made it, ac- cording to the rules and methods of the Aristotelian dialectics, and sometimes upon premises supplied by metaphysical reason- ing. Lanfranc and Anselm made much use of this method in the controversy with Berenger as to transubstantiation ; though they did not carry it so far as their suc- cessors in the next century. 2 The schol- astic philosophy seems chiefly to be distinguised from this theology by a larger infusion of metaphysical reasoning, or by its occasional inquiries into subjects not 1 Fleury, 3me discours. p. 48. (Hist. Eccles. vol. xiii. 12mo ed.) Hist. Litt. de la France, vii. 147. Mosheim, in Cent. vi. et post. Muraiori, Antichita Italiane, dissert, xliii. p. 610. In this dissertation, it may be observed by the way, Muratori gives the important fragment of Caius, a Roman presbyter before the end of the second century, on the canon of the New Testament, which has not been quoted, as far as I know, by any English writer, nor, which is more re- markable, by Michaelis. It will be found in Eichhorn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, iv. 35. The Latinity is very indifferent for the second century; yet it cannot be much later, and may possibly be suspected of being a trans- lation from a Greek original. Upon this great change in the theology of the church, which consisted principally in establish- ing the authority of the fathers, the reader may see M. Guizot, Hist, de la Civilisation, iii. 121. There seem to be but two causes for this : the one, a consciousness of ignorance and inferiority to men of so much talent as Augustin and a few others ; the other, a constantly growing jealousy of the free exercise of reason, and a determina- tion to keep up unity of doctrine. - Hist. Litt. de la France, ubi supra. Tenne- mann, Manuel de 1'Hist. de la Philosophie, i. 332. Crevier, i. 100. Andres, ii. 15. immediately related to revealed ar tides of faith. 1 The origin of this philosophy, fixed by Buhle and Tennemann in the ninth cen- tury, or the age of Scotus Erigena, has been brought down by Tiedemann, Mein- ers, and Hampden, 2 so low as the thir- teenth. But Eoscelin of r\ IM.J.I v. c Eoscelin. Compiegne, a little before 1100, may be accounted so far the founder of the schoolmen, that the great celebrity of their disputations, and the rapid in- crease of students, is to be traced to the influence of his theories, though we have no proof that he ever taught at Paris. 1 A Jesuit of the sixteenth century thus shortly and clearly distinguishes the positive from the scholastic, and both from natural or metaphysical theology. At nos theologiam scholasticam dicimus quse certiori methodo et rationibus imprimis ex divina scriptura ac tra- ditionibus seu decretis patrum in conciliis definitis veritatem eruit, ac discutiendo com- probat. Quod cum in scholis praecipue argu- mentando comparetur, id nomen sortita est. Quamobrem differt a positiva theologia, non re sed modo, quemadmodum item alia ratione non est eadem cum natural! theologia, quo nomine philosophi metaphysicen nominarunt. Positiva igitur non ita res disputandas proponit, sed paene sententiam ratam et flrmam ponit, praecipue in pietatem incumbens. Versatur autem et ipsa in explicatione Scripturse sacrae, traditionum, conciliorum et sanctorum patrum. Naturalis porro tneologia Dei naturam per naturaj argu- menta et rationes inquirit, cum supernaturalis, quam scholasticam dicimus, Dei ejusdem natu- ram, vim, proprietates, caeterasque res divinas per ea principia vestigat, quse sunt hominibus revelata divinitas. Possevin, Bibliotheca Se- lecta, 1. 3. c. i. Both positive and scholastic theology were much indebted to Peter Lombard, whose Liber Sententiarum is a digest of propositions ex- tracted from the fathers, with no attempt to reconcile them. It was therefore a prodigious magazine of arms for disputation. 2 The first of these, according to Tennemarm, begins the list of schoolmen with Hales ; the two latter agree in conferring that honour on Albertus Magnus. Brucker inclines to Roscelin, and has been followed by others. It may be added, that Tennemann divides the scholastic philosophy into four periods, which Roscelin, Hales, Ockham, and the sixteenth century terminate ; and Buhle into three, ending with Roscelin, Albertus Magnus, and the sixteenth century. It is evident, however, that, by be- ginning the scholastic series with Roscelin, we exclude Lanfranc and even Anselm ; the latter of whom was certainly a deep metaphysician ; since to him we owe the subtle argument for the existence of a Deity, which Des Cartes after- wards revived. Buhle. 679. This argument wag answered at the time by one Gaunelo ; so that metaphysical reasonings were not unknown in the eleventh century. Tennemann, 344; s Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. Koscelin also, having been the first to re- vive the famous question as to the reality of universal ideas, marks, on every hy- pothesis, a new era in the history of that philosophy. * The principle of the school- men in their investigations was the expand- ing, developing, and if possible illustrating and clearing from objection, the doctrines of natural and revealed religion in a dia- lectical method and by dint of the subtlest reasoning. The questions which we deem altogether metaphysical, such as that con- cerning universal ideas, became theological in their hands. 1 19. Next in order of time to Roscelin came Progrea of scho- Wffliani of Champeaux, who lasticism ; in- opened a school of logic at crease of unl- p aris ^ 1109 . an( j the uni . versity of Paris. .. . , , , versity can only deduce the regular succession of its teachers from that time. 2 But his reputation was soon eclipsed, and his hearers drawn away by a more potent magician, Peter Abelard, who taught in the schools of Paris in the second decade of the twelfth century. Wherever Abelard retired, his fame and his disciples followed him ; in the solitary walls of the Paraclete, as in the thronged streets of the capital. 3 And the impulse given was so powerful, the fascination of a science which now appears arid and unproductive was so intense, that from this time for many generations it continued to engage the most intelligent and active minds. Paris, about the middle of the twelfth century, in the words of the Benedictines of St. 1 Brucker, though he contains some useful extracts, and tolerable general views, was not well versed in the scholastic writers. Meiners fin his Comparison of the Middle Ages) is rather superficial as to their philosophy, but presents a lively picture of the schoolmen in relation to literature and manners. He has also, in the Transactions of the Gottingen Academy, vol. xii. pp. 26-47, given a succinct, but valuable, sketch of the Nominalist and Realist Contro- versy. Tenneman, with whose Manuel de la Philosophie alone I am conversant, is supposed to have gone very deeply into the subject in his larger history of philosophy. Buhle appears superficial. Dr. Hampden, in his Life of Thomas Aquinas, and view of the scholastic philosophy, published in the Encyclopaedia Mt-tropolitana. has the merit of having been the only Englishman, past or present, so far as I know, since the revival of letters, who has penetrated far into the wilderness of scholasti- cism. Mr. Sharon Turner has given some extracts in the fourth volume of his History of England. 2 Crevier, 1. 3. a Hist. Litt. de la France, voL xii. Brucker, lii. 700. Maur, to whom we owe the Histoire Lit- te'raire de la France, was another Athens ; the number of students (hyperbolically speaking, as we must presume) exceeding that of the citizens. This influx of scholars induced Philip Augustus, some time after- wards, to enlarge the boundaries of the city ; and this again brought a fresh har- vest of students, for whom, in the former limits, it had been difficult to find lodgings. Paris was called, as Rome had been, the' country of all the inhabitants of the world, and we may add, as, for very different reasons, it still claims to be. 1 20. Colleges with endowments for poor scholars were founded in the universities beginning of the thirteenth founded, century, or even before, at Paris and Bologna, as they were afterwards at Oxford and Cambridge, by muni- ficent patrons of letters ; charters incorporating the graduates and students collectively under the name of universities were granted by sovereigns, with privileges perhaps too extensive, but such as indicated the dignity of learning, and the countenance it received.* It ought, however, to be remembered, that these foundations were not the cause, but the effect of that increasing thirst for knowledge, or the semblance of knowledge, which had anticipated the encouragement of the great. The schools of Charlemagne were designed to lay the basis of a learned education, for which there was at that time no sufficient desire. 8 But in the twelfth century, the impetuosity with which men rushed to that source of what they deemed wisdom, the great university of Paris, did not depend upon academical privileges or eleemosynary stipends, which came afterwards, though these were un- doubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. The university created patrons, and was. not created by them. And this may be said also of Oxford and Cambridge in their 1 Hist. Litt. de la France, Ix. 78. Crevier, i. 274. 2 Fleury, xvii. 13, 17. Crevier, Tiraboschi, &,c. A University, universitas doctorum et scholarium, was so called either from its incor- poration, or from its professing to teach alt subjects, as some have thought. Meiners, it. 405. Fleury, xvii. 15. This excellent discourse of Fleury, the fifth, relates to the ecclesiastical literature of the later middle ages. 3 These schools, established by the Carlovin- trian princes in convents and cathedrals, de- clined, as it was natural to expect, with the rise of the universities. Meiners, ii. 4. Those of Paris, Oxford, and Bologna contained many thousand student. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. incorporate character, whatever the former may have owed, if in fact it owed any- thing, to the prophetic munificence of Alfred. Oxford was a school of great re- sort in the reign of Henry II., though its first charter was only granted by Henry III. Its earlier history is but obscure, and depends chiefly on a suspicious passage in Ingulfus, against which we must set the absolute silence of other writers. 1 It be- came in the thirteenth century second only to Paris in the multitude of its students, and the celebrity of its scholastic disputa- tions. England indeed, and especially through Oxford, could show more names of the first class in this line than any other country. 2 21. Andres is inclined to derive the in- Collegiate foun- stitution of collegiate foun- dations not de- dations in universities from rived from the ^ Saracens. He finds no Saracens. - trace o f these among the ancients ; while in several cities of Spain, as Cordova, Granada, Malaga, colleges for learned education both existed and obtained great renown. These were sometimes un- connected with each other, though in the same city, nor had they, of course, those 1 Giraldus Cambrensis, about 1180, seems the first unequivocal witness to the resort of students to Oxford, as an established seat of instruction. But it is certain that Vacarius read there on the civil law in 1149, which affords a presump- tion that it was already assuming the character of a university. John of Salisbury, I think, does not mention it. In a former work, I gave more credence to its foundation by Alfred than I am now inclined to do. Bologna, as well as Paris, was full of English students about 1200. Meiners, ii. 428. - Wood expatiates on what he thought the glorious age of the university. " What uni- versity, I pray, can produce an invincible Hales, an admirable Bacon, an excellent well- grounded Middleton, a subtle Scotus, an ap- proved Burley. a resolute Baconthorpe, a singular Ockham, a solid and industrious Holcot, and a profound Bradwardin ? all which persons flour ished within the compass of one century. I doubt that neither Paris, Bologna, or Rome, that grand mistress of the Christian world, or any place else, can do what the renowned Bel- losite (Oxford) hath done. And without doubt all impartial men may receive it for an unde- niable truth, that the most subtle arguing in school divinity did take its beginning in Eng- land and from Englishmen ; and that also from thence it went to Paris, and other parts ol France, and at length into Italy, Spain, and other nations, as is by one observed. So that though Italy boasteth that Britain takes her Christianity first from Rome, England may truly maintain that from her (immediately by France) Italy first received her school divinity." Vol. i. p. 159, A.D. 11(58. rivileges which were conferred in Christ- endom. They were therefore more like ordinary schools of gymnasia than uni- versities ; and it is difficult to perceive that ;hey suggested anything peculiarly char- acteristic of the latter institutions, which are much more reasonably considered aa the development of a native germ, planted by a few generous men, above all by Char- lemagne, in that inclement season which was passing away. 1 22. The institution of the Mendicant orders of friars, soon after scholastic the beginning of the thir- philosophy pro- teenth century, caused a moted by Mendi- cant Friars, fresh accession, in enormous numbers, to the ecclesiastical state, and gave encouragement to the scholastic philo- sophy. Less acquainted, generally, with grammatical literature than the Benedic- tine monks, less accustomed to collect and transcribe books, the disciples of Francis and Dominic betook themselves to dispu- tation, and found a substitute for learning in their own ingenuity and expertuess. 2 The greatest of the schoolmen were the Dominican Thomas Aquinas, and the Fran- ciscan Duns Scotus. They were founders- of rival sects, which wrangled with each other for two or three centuries. But the authority of their writings, which were incredibly voluminous, especially those of the former, 3 impeded, in some measure, the growth of new men ; and we find, after the middle of the fourteenth century, a diminution of eminent names in the series of the schoolmen, the last of whom, that i much remembered in modern times, was William Ockham. 4 He revived the sect of 1 Andres, ii. 129. 2 Meiners, ii. 615, 629. 3 The works of Thomas Aquinas are pub- lished in seventeen volumes folio ; Home, 1570 : those of Duns Scotus in twelve ; Lyon, 1639. It is presumed that much was taken down from their oral lectures ; some part of these volumes is of doubtful authenticity. Meiners, ii. 718. Biogr. Univ. 4 " In them (Scotus and Ockham), and in the later schoolmen generally, down to the period of the reformation, there is more of the parade of logic, a more formal examination of argu- ments, a more burthensome importunity of syllogising, with less of the philosophical power of arrangement and distribution of the subject discussed. The dryness again irreparable from the scholastic method is carried to excess in the later writers, and perspicuity of style is alto- gether neglected." Encyclopaedia Metropol. part xxxvii. p. 805. The introduction of this excess of logical subtlety, carried to the roost trifling sophistry, is ascribed by Meiners to Petrus Kispanus, 10 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. the Nominalists, formerly instituted by Roscelin, and, with some important vari- ances of opinion, brought into credit by Abelard, but afterwards overpowered by the great weight of leading schoolmen on the opposite side, that of the Realists. The disciples of Ockham, as well as him- self, being politically connected with the party in Germany unfavourable to the high pretensions of the Court of Rome, though they became very numerous in the univer- sities, passed for innovators in ecclesiasti- cal, as well as philosophical principles. Nominalism itself indeed was reckoned by the adverse sect cognate to heresy. No decline however seems to have been as yet perceptible in the spirit of disputation, which probably, at the end of the four- teenth century, went on as eagerly at Paris, Oxford, and Salamanca, the great scenes of that warfare, as before ; and which, in that age, gained much ground in Germany, through the establishment of several uni- versities. 23. Tenneman has fairly stated the good Character of this and bad of the scholastic philosophy, philosophy. It gave rise to a great display of address, subtlety, and sagacity in the explanation and distinction of abstract ideas, but at the same time to many trifling and minute speculations, to a contempt of positive and particular know- ledge, and to much unnecessary refine- ment. 1 Fleury well observes, that the dry technical style of the schoolmen, affecting a geometrical method and closeness, is in fact more prolix and tedious, than one more natural, from its formality in multi- plying objections and answers. 2 And as their reasonings commonly rest on disput- able postulates, the accuracy they affect is of no sort of value. But their chief offences were the interposing obstacles to the re- vival of polite literature, and to the free afterwards Pope John XXI., who died in 1271, ii. 705. Several curious specimens of scholastic folly are given by him in this place. They brought a discredit upon the name, which has adhered to it, and involved men of fine genius, such as Aquinas himself, in the common re- proach. The barbarism of style, which amounted al- most to a new language, became more intolerable in Scotus and his followers than it had been in the older schoolmen. Meiners, 722. It may be .alleged, in excuse of this, that words are meant to express precise ideas ; and that it was as im- possible to write metaphysics in good Latin, as the modern naturalists have found it to describe plants and animals. 1 Manuel de la Philosophic, i. 337. Eichhorn, Ii. 396. - See 5me discours, xvii. 3060. xpansion of the mind. Italy was the land where the schoolmen had it prevails least least influence ; many of * it^y- the Italians who had a turn for those dis- ussions repaired to Paris, 1 and it was ac- iordingly from Italy that the light of philological learning spread over Europe. Public schools of theology were not opened in Italy till after 1360.2 Yet we find the disciples of Averroes numerous in the uni- versity of Padua about that time. 24. II. The universities were chiefly em- ployed upon this scholastic Literature theology and metaphysics, in modem with the exception of Bol- 1 n s~- ogna, which dedicated its attention to the civil law, and of Montpelier, already famous as a school of medicine. The laity in general might have remained in as gross barbarity as before, while topics so re- moved from common utility were treated in an unknown tongue. We must there- fore look to the rise of a truly native literature in the several languages of western Europe, as a more essential cause of its intellectual improvement ; and this will render it necessary to give a sketch of the origin and early progress of those languages and that new literature. 25. No one can require to be informed, that the Italian, Spanish, o^^ and French languages are French, Spanish, the principal of many dia and Italian lects deviating from each Un ua 8 es - other in the gradual corruption of the Latin, once universally spoken by the sub- jects of Rome in her western provinces. They have undergone this process of change in various degrees, but always from similar causes ; partly from the retention of bar- barous words belonging to their aboriginal languages, or the introduction of others through the settlement of the northern nations in the empire ; but in a far greater proportion, from ignorance of grammatical rules, or from vicious pronunciation and orthography. It has been the labour of many distinguished writers to trace the source and channels of these streams which have supplied both the literature and the common speech of the south of Europe ; and perhaps not much will be hereafter added to researches which, in the scarcity of extant documents, can never be min- utely successful. Du Cange, who led the way in the admirable preface to his Glos- sary ; Le Bosuf, and Bonamy, in several memoirs among the transactions of the 1 Tiraboschi, v. 115. 2 Id. 137, 160. De Sade, Vie de Petrarque, lit 757 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 11 Academy of Inscriptions about the middle of the last century ; Muratory, in his 32d, 33d, and 40th dissertation on Italian antiquities ; and, with more copious evi- dence and successful industry than any other, M. Raynouard, in the first and sixth volume of his Choix des Poesies des Trou- badours, have collected as full a history of the formation of these languages as we could justly require. 26. The pure Latin language, as we read corruption of i<; in the best ancient au- coiioquiai Latin thors, possesses a compli- in the lower em- ca ted syntax, and many elliptical modes of expres- sion which give vigour and elegance to style, but are not likely to be readily caught by the people. If, however, the citizens of Rome had spoken it with entire purity, it is to be remembered, that Latin, in the later times of the republic, or under the empire, was not like the Greek of Athens, or the Tuscan of Florence, the idiom of a single city, but a language spread over countries in which it was not origin- ally vernacular, and imposed by conquest xipon many parts of Italy, as it was after- wards upon Spain and Gaul. Thus we find even early proofs, that solecisms of grammar, as well as barbarous phrases, or words unauthorised by use of polite writers, were very common in Rome itself ; and in every succeeding generation, for the first centuries after the Christian aera, these be- came more frequent and inevitable. A vulgar Roman dialect, called quotidianus by Quintilian, pedestris by Vegetius, usu- alis by Sidonius, is recognised as dis- tinguishable from the pure Latinity to which we give the name of classical. But the more ordinary appellation of this in- ferior Latin was rusticus ; it was the coun- try language or patois, corrupted in every manner, and from the popular want of education, incapable of being restored, be- cause it was not perceived to be errone- ous. 1 Whatever may have been the case 1 Da Cange, preface, pp. 13, 29. Eusticum igitur sennonem nou humiliorem paulo dun- taxat, et qui sublimi opponitur, appellabant ; sed eum etiam, qui magis reperet, barbarismis solsQcismisque scateret, quam apposite Sidonius squamam sermonis Celtici, &c., vocat. Eusti- cum, qui nullis vel grammaticfe vel ortho- graphife legibus astringitur. This is nearly a definition of the early Eomance language ; it was Latin without grammar or othography. The squama sermonis Celtici, mentioned by Sidonius, has led Gray, in his valuable remarks on rhyme, vol. ii. p. 53, as it has some others, into the erroneous notion that a real Celtic dia- lect, such as Caesar found in Gaul, was still spoken. But this is incompatible with the before the fall of the Western Empire, we have reason to believe that in the sixth century the colloquial Latin had under- gone, at least in France, a considerable change even with the superior class of ecclesiastics. Gregory of Tours confesses that he was habitually falling into that sort of error, the misplacing inflexions and prepositions, which constituted the chief original difference of the rustic tongue from pure Latinity. In the opinion, in- deed, of Raynouard, if we take his expres- sions in their natural meaning, the Romance language, or that which afterwards was generally called Provencal, is as old as the establishment of the Franks in Gaul. But this is, perhaps, not reconcileable with the proofs we have of a longer continuanoe of Latin. In Italy, it seems probable that the change advanced more slowly. Gregory the Great, however, who has been reckoned as inveterate an enemy of learning as ever lived, speaks with superlative contempt of a regard to grammatical purity in writing. It was a crime in his eyes for a clergyman to teach grammar ; yet the number of lay- men who were competent or willing to do so had become very small. 27. It may render this more clear, if we mention a few of the growing corrup- tions, which have in fact transformed the Latin into French and the sister tongues. The prepositions were used with no re- gard to the proper inflexions of nouns and verbs. These were known so inaccurately, and so constantly put one for another, that it was necessary to have recourse to pre- positions instead of them. Thus de and ad were made to express the genitive and dative cases, which is common in charters from the sixth to the tenth century. It is a. real fault in the Latin language, that it wants both the definite and indefinite art- icle ; ille and unus, especially the former, were called in to help this deficiency. In the forms of Marculfus, published towards the end of the seventh century, ille con- known history of the French language ; and Sidonius is one of those loose declamatory writers, whose words are never to be construed in their proper meaning ; the common fault of Latin authors from the third century. C'elticus sermo was the patois of Gaul, which, having once been Gallia Celtica, he still called such. That a few proper names, or similar words in French are Celtic, is well known. Quintilian has said, that a vicious ortho- graphy must bring on a vicious pronunciation. Quod male scribitur, male etiam dici necesse est. But the converse of this is still more true, and was in fact the great cause of giving the new Eomance language its visible form. 12 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. tinually occurs as an article ; and it appears to have been sometimes used in the sixth. This of course, by an easy abbreviation, furnished the articles in French and Italian. The people came soon to establish more uniformity of case in the noun, either by rejecting inflexions, or by diminishing their number. Raynouard gives a long list of old French nouns formed from the Lathi accusative by suppressing em or am. 1 The active auxiliary verb, than which nothing is more distinctive of the modern languages from the Latin, came in from the same cause, the disuse, through ignorance, of several inflexions of the tenses; to which we must add, that here also the Latin language is singularly deficient, possessing no means of distinguishing the second per- fect from the first, or ' I have seen ' from ' I saw.' The auxiliary verb was early applied, in France and Italy, to supply this defect ; and some have produced what they think occasional instances of its employ- ment even in the best classical authors. 28. It seems impossible to determine the Continuance of progress of these changes, Latin in seventh the degrees of variation be- centnry. tween the polite an( j popu . lar, the written and spoken Latin, in the best ages of Rome, in the decline of the empire, and in the kingdoms founded upon its ruins ; or finally, the exact epoch when the grammatical language ceased to be generally intelligible. There remains, therefore, some room still for hypothesis and difference of opinion. The clergy preached in Lathi early in the seventh cen- tury, and we have a popular song of the same age on the victory obtained by Clo- 1 See a passage of Quintilian, 1. 9, c. 4, quoted in Hallam's Middle Ages, iii. 316. In the grammar of Cassiodorus, a mere com- pilation from old writers, and in this instance from one Cornutus, we find another remarkable passage, which I do not remember to have seen quoted, though doubtless it has been so, on the pronunciation of the letter M. To utter this final consonant, he says, before a word be- ginning with a vowel, is wrong, durum ac barbarum sonat ; but it is an equal fault to omit it before one beginning with a consonant ; par enim atque idem est vitium, Ha cum vocali sicut cum consonant! Af lite-ram, exprimere. Cassiodorus, De orthographia, cap. 1. Tims we perceive that there was a nicety as to the pro- nunciation of this letter, which uneducated persons would naturally not regard. Hence in the inscriptions of a low age, we frequently find this letter omitted; as in one quoted by Muratori, Ego L. Contius me bibo [vivo] archa [archam] feci, and it is very easy to multiply instances. Thus the neuter and the accusative terminations were lost. taire II. in 622 over the Saxons. 1 This has been surmised by some to be a translation, merely because the Latin is better than they suppose to have been spoken. But, though the words are probably not given quite correctly, they seem reducible, with a little emendation, to short verses of ai usual rythmical cadence. 8 29. But in the middle of the eighth cen- tury, we find the rustic B changed ^ language mentioned as dis- a new language tinct from Latin ; 3 and in ** e j g ntn a nd the council of Tours held in *>**& 813 it is ordered that homilies shall be ex- plained to the people in their own tongue, whether rustic Roman or Frankish. In 842 we find the earliest written evidence of its existence, in the celebrated oaths taken by Louis of Germany and his brother Charles the Bald, as well as by their vassals, the former in Frankish or early German, the latter in their own current dialect. This, though with somewhat of a closer resemblance to Latin, is accounted by the best judges a specimen of the lan- guage spoken south of the Loire ; after- wards variously called the Langue d'oc, Provencal, or Limousin, and essentially the same with the dialects of Catalonia and Valencia. 4 It is decidedly the opinion of 1 Le Boeuf, in Me"m. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. vol. xvii. 2 Turner, in Archseologia, vol. xiv. 173. Hal- lam's Middle Ages, iii. 326. Bouterwek, Gesch. der Franzosen Poesie, p. 18, observes, that there are many fragments of popular Latin songs pre- served. I have not found any quoted, except one, which he gives from La Ravaillere, which is simple and rather pretty; but I know not whence it is taken. It seems the song of a female slave, and is perhaps nearly as old as the destruction of the empire. At quid jubes, pusiole, Quare mandas, flliole. Carmen dulce me cantare Cum sim longe exul valde Intra mare, O cur jubes canere ? Intra seems put for trans. The metre is rhymed trochaic ; but that is consistent with antiquity. It is, however, more pleasing than most of the Latin verse of this period, and is more in the tone of the modern languages. As it is not at all a hackneyed passage, I have thought it worthy of quotation. 3 Acad. des. Inscript. xvii. 713. 4 Du Cange, p. 35. Raynouard, passim. M. de la Rue has called it. "un Latin expirant." Recherches sur les Bardes d'Armorique. Be- tween this and "un Francais naissant" there may be only a verbal distinction ; but, in accu- racy of definition, I should think M. Raynouard much more correct. The language of this oath cannot be called Latin without a violent stretch of words : no Latin scholar, as such, would un- Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 13 M. Raynouard, as it was of earlier in- quirers, that the general language of France in the ninth century was the southern dialect, rather than that of the north, to which we now give the exclusive name of French, and which they conceive to have deviated from it afterwards. 1 And lie has employed great labour to prove, that, both in Spain and Italy, this language was generally spoken with hardly as much difference from that of France, as consti- tutes even a variation of dialect ; the Articles, pronouns, and auxiliaries being nearly identical ; most probably not with so much difference as would render the native of one country by any means unin- telligible in another. 2 30. Thus, in the eighth and ninth cen- Eariy specimens turies, if not before, France of French. h a( i acquired a language unquestionably nothing else than a cor- ruption of Latin, (for the Celtic or Teu- a f ree version of the history lately pubished by Geoffrey of Monmouth ; the other, a narrative of the Battle of Hastings and Conquest of En- gland. Many other romances followed. Much has been disputed for some years oncerning them, and the lays and fabliaux of the northern trouveurs ; it is sufficient here to observe, that they afforded a copious source of amusement and interest to those who read or listened, as far as the French language was diffused ; and this was far beyond the boundaries of France. Not only was it the common spoken tongue of what is called the court, or generally of the superior ranks, in England, but in Italy and in Germany, at least throughout the thirteenth century. Bru- netto Latini wrote his philosophical com- pilation, called Le Tresor, in French, "because," as he says, "the language was more agreeable and usual than any other." Italian, in fact, was hardly employed in prose at that time. But for those whose education had not gone so far, the ro- mances and tales of France began to be have rendered this hypothesis of early Armori- an romance popular ; but I cannot believe that so baseless a fabric will endure much longer. Is it credible that tales of aristocratic splendour and courtesy sprung up in so poor and uncivil- ised a country as Bretagne ? Traditional stories they might, no doubt, possess, and some of these may be found in the lais de Marie, and other early poems ; but not romances of chivalry. I do not recollect, though speaking without con- fidence, that any proof has been given of Ar- morican traditions about Arthur, earlier than the history of Geoffrey : for it seems too much to interpret the word Britones of them rather than of the Welsh. Mr. Turner, I observe, without absolutely recanting, has much receded from his opinion of the Armorican prototype of Geoffrey of Monmouth. i The romance of Havelok was printed by Sir Frederick Madden in 1829 ; but not for sale. His Introduction is of considerable value. The story of Havelok is that of Curan and Argentile, in Warner's Albion's England, upon which Mason founded a drama. Sir F. Madden refers the English translation to some time between 1270 and 1290. The manuscript is in the Bodleian Library. The French original has since been reprinted in France, as I learn from Brunet's Supplement au Manuel du Libraire. Both this and its abridgment, by Geoffrey Gaimar, are in the British Museum. rendered into German, as early as the latter part of the twelfth century, as they were long afterwards into English, becom- ing the basis of those popular songs, which illustrate the period of the Swabian em- perors, the great house of Hohenstauffen, Frederic Barbarossa, Henry VI., and Frederic II. 41. The poets of Germany, during this period of extraordinary f er- German poetry tility in versification, were of Swabian not less numerous than those period, of France and Provence. 1 From Henry of Veldek to the last of the lyric poets, soon after the beginning of the four- teenth century, not less than two hun- dred are known by name. A collec- tion made in that age by Rudiger von Manasse of Zurich contains the produc- tions of one hundred and forty ; and modern editors have much enlarged the list. 2 Henry of Veldek is placed by Eich- horn about 1170, and by Bouterwek twenty years later ; so that at the utmost we cannot reckon the period of their dura- tion more than a century and a half. But the great difference perceptible between the poetry of Henry and that of the old German songs proves him not to have been the earliest of the Swabian school : he is as polished in language and versification as any of his successors ; and though a northern, he wrote in the dialect of the house of Hohenstauffen. "Wolfram von Eschenbach, in the first years of the next century, is, perhaps, the most eminent name of the Minne-singers, as the lyric poets were denominated, and is also the translator of several romances. The golden age of German poetry was before the fall of the Swabian dynasty, at the death of Conrad IV., in 1254. Love, as the word denotes, was the peculiar theme of the Minne-singers ; but it was chiefly from the northern or southern dialects of France, especially the latter, that they borrowed their amorous strains. 3 In the latter part 1 Bouterwek, p. 95. 2 Id. p. 98. This collection was published in 1758, by Bodiner. 3 Herder, Zerstreute Blatter, vol. v. p. 206. Eichhorn, Allg. Geschichte der Cultur. vol. i. p. 226. Heinsius, Teut, Oder Lehrbuch der Deutschen. Sprachwissenschaft, vol. iv. pp. 32 80. Weber's Illustrations of Northern Anti- quities, 1814. This work contains the earliest analysis, I believe, of the Nibelungen Lied. But above all, I have been indebted to the ex- cellent account of German poetry by Bouterwek, in the ninth volume of his great work, the History of Poetry and Eloquence since the thirteenth century. In this volume the mediae- val poetry of Germany occupies nearly four 20 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. of the thirteenth century, we find less of feeling and invention, but a more didactic and moral tone, sometimes veiled in JEsopic fables, sometimes openly satirical. Conrad of Wurtzburg is the chief of the latter school ; but he had to lament the decline of taste and manners in his own age. 42. No poetry, however, of the Swabian period is so national as the epic romances, which drew their subjects from the highest antiquity, if they did not even adopt the language of primaeval bards, which, per- haps, though it has been surmised, is not compatible with their style. In the two most celebrated productions of this kind, the Helden Buch, or Book of Heroes, and the Nibelungen Lied, the Lay of the Nibelungen, a fabulous people, we find the recollections of an heroic age, wherein the lames of Attila and Theodoric stand out as witnesses of traditional history, clouded by error and coloured by fancy. The Nibelungen Lied, in its present form, is by an uncertain author, perhaps, about the year 1200 j 1 but it comes, and as far as we hundred closely printed pages. I have since met with a pleasing little volume, on the Lays of the Minne-singers, by Mr. Edgar Taylor. It contains an account of the chief of those poets, with translations, perhaps in too modern a style, though it may be true th.it no other would suit our modern taste. A species of love-song, peculiar, according to Weber (p. 9), to the Minne-singers. are called Watchmen's Songs. These consist in a dialogue between a lover and the sentinel who guards his mistress. The latter is persuaded to imitate "Sir Pandarus of Troy;" and when morning breaks, summons the lover to quit his lady ; who, in her turn, maintains that "it is the nightingale, and not the lark," with almost the pertinacity of Juliet. Mr. Taylor remarks, that the German poets do not go so far in their idolatry of the fair as the Provencals, p. 127. I do not concur alto- gether in his reasons ; but as the Minne-singers imitated the Provencals, this deviation is re- markable. I should rather ascribe it to the hyperbolical tone which the Troubadours had borrowed from the Arabians, or to the suscepti- bility of their temperament. 1 Weber says, "I have no doubt whatever that the romance itself is of very high anti- quity, at least of the eleventh century, though, certainly, the present copy has been consider- ably modernised." Illustrations of Northern Romances, p. 26. But Bouterwek does not seem to think it of so ancient a date ; and I believe it is commonly referred to about the year 1200. Schlegel ascribes it to Henry von Offerdingen. Heinsius, iv. 52. It is highly probable that the " babara et antiquissima carmina," which, according to Eginhard, Charlemagne caused to be reduced can judge, with little or no interpolation of circumstances, from an age anterior to Christianity, to civilisation, and to the more refined forms of chivalry. We can- not well think the stories later than the sixth or seventh centuries. The German critics admire the rude grandeur of this old epic : and its fables, marked with a character of barbarous simplicity wholly unlike that of later romance, are become, in some degree, familiar to ourselves. 43. The loss of some accomplished princes, and of a near inter- Decline of course with the south of German poetry. France and with Italy, the augmented in- dependence of the German nobility, to be maintained by unceasing warfare, rendered their manners, from the latter part of the thirteenth century, more rude than before. They ceased to cultivate poetry, or to think it honourable in their rank. Meantime a new race of poets, chiefly burghers of towns, sprung up about the reign of Eo- dolph of Hapsburgh, before the lays of the Minne-singers had yet ceased to resound. These prudent, though not inspired, vota- ries of the muse, chose the didactic and moral style as more salutary than the love songs, and more reasonable than the romances. They became known in the fourteenth century, by the name of Meister- singers, but are traced to the institutions of the twelfth century, called Singing- schools, for the promotion of popular music, the favourite recreation of Germany. What they may have done for music I am to writing, were no other than the legends of the Nibelungen Lied, and similar traditions of the Gothic and Burgundian time. Weber, p. 6. I will here mention, as I believe it is little known in England, a curious Latin epic poem on the wars of Attila, published by Fischer in 1780. He conceives it to be of the sixth cen- tury ; but others have referred it to the eighth. The heroes are Franks ; but the whole is fabulous, except the name of Attila and his Huns. I do not know whether this has any connection with a French poem on Attila, by a writer named Casola, existing in manuscript at Modena. A translation into Italian was pub- lished by Rossi at Ferrara in 1508 : it is one of the scarcest books in the world. Weber's Il- lustrations, p. 23. Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch. ii. 178. Galvani, Osservazioni sulla poesia de' trovatori, p. 16. The Nibelungen Lied seems to have been less popular in the middle ages than other ro- mances ; evidently because it relates to a differ- ent state of manners. Bouterwek, p. 141. Hein- sius observes that we must consider this poem as the most valuable record of German anti- quity, but that to over-rate its merit, as some have been inclined to do, can be of no advan- tage. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 21 unable to say : it was in an evil hour for the art of poetry that they extended their jurisdiction over her. They regulated verse by the most pedantic and minute laws, such as a society with no idea of excellence but conformity to rule would be sure to adopt ; though nobler institutions have often done the same, and the Master- burghers were but prototypes of the Italian academicians. The poetry was always moral and serious, but flat. These Meister- singers are said to have originated at Mentz, from which they spread to Augsburg, Stras- burg, and other cities, and in none were more renowned than Nuremberg. Charles IV., in 1378, incorporated them by the name of Meistergenoss-schaft, with arm- orial bearings and peculiar privileges. They became, however, more conspicuous in the sixteenth century ; scarce any names of Meister-singers before that age are re- corded ; nor does it seem that much of their earlier poetry is extant. 1 44. The French versifiers had by this Poetry of France time, perhaps, become less and Spain, numerous, though several names in the same style of amatory song do some credit to their age. But the ro- mances of chivalry began now to be written in prose ; while a very celebrated poem, the Roman de la Rose, had introduced an unfortunate taste for allegory into verse, from which France did not extricate her- self for several generations. Meanwhile, the Proven9al poets, who, down to the close of the thirteenth century, had flourished in the south, and whose language many Lombards adopted, came to an end ; after the re-union of the fief of Toulouse to the crown, and the possession of Provence by a northern line of princes, their ancient and renowned tongue passed for a dialect, a patois of the people. It had never been much employed in prose, save in the king- dom of Aragoii, where, under the name of Valencian, it continued for two centuries to be a legitimate language, till political circumstances of the same kind reduced it, as in southern France, to a provincial dialect. The Castilian language, which, though it has been traced higher in written fragments, may be considered to have be- gun, in a literary sense, with the poem of the Cid, not later than the middle of the twelfth century, was employed by a few extant poets in the next two ages, and in the fourteenth was as much the established 1 Bouterwek, ix. 271291. Heinsius, iv. 85 98. See also the Biographic Universelle, art. Folez ; and a good article in the Retrospective Review, vol. x. p. 113. vehicle of many kinds of literature in Spain as the French was on the other side of the mountains. 1 The names of Portuguese poets not less early than any in Castile are recorded ; fragments are mentioned by Bouterwek as old as the twelfth century, and there exists a collection of lyric poetry in the style of the Troubadours, which is referred to no late part of the next age. a 1 Sanchez, Collection de poesias Castellanas anteriores al siglo 15mo. Velasquez, Historia della poesia Espailol ; which I only know by the German translation of Dieze, (Gottingen, 1769,) who has added many notes. Andres, Origine d'ogni litteratura, ii. 158. Bouterwek's History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature. I shall quote the English translation of this work, which, I am sorry to say, is sold by the booksellers at scarce a third of its original price. It is a strange thing, that while we multiply encyclo- paedias and indifferent compilations of our own, there is no demand for translations from the most learned productions of Germany that will indemnify a publisher. 2 This very curious fact in literary history has been brought to light by Lord Stuart of Roth- say, who printed at Paris, in 1823, twenty-five copies of a collection of ancient Portuguese songs, from a manuscript in the library of the College of Nobles at Lisbon. An account of this book by M. Raynouard, will be found in the Journal des Savans for August, 1825 ; and I have been favoured by my noble friend the editor with the loan of a copy ; though my ignorance of the language prevented me from forming an exact judgment of its contents. In the preface the following circumstances are stated. It consists of seventy-five folios, the first part having been torn off, and the manuscript attached to a work of a wholly different nature. The writing ap- pears to be of the fourteenth century, and in some places older. The idiom seems older than the writing ; it may be called, if I understand the meaning of the preface, as old as the begin- ning of the thirteenth century, and certainly older than the reign of Denis, pode appellidarse coevo do seculo xiii., e de certo he anterior ao reynado de D. Deniz. Denis king of Portugal reigned from 1279 to 1325. It is regular in gram- mar, and for the most part in orthography ; but contains some gallicisms, which show either a connection between France and Portugal in that age, or a common origin in the southern tongues of Europe ; since certain idioms found in this manuscript are preserved in Spanish, Italian, and Provencal, yet are omitted in Portuguese dictionaries. A few poems are translated from Provencal, but the greater part are strictly Por- tuguese, as the mention of places, names, and manners shows. M. Raynouard, however, ob- serves, that the thoughts and forms of versifica- tion are similar to those of the Troubadours. The metres employed are usually of seven, eight, and ten syllables, the accent falling on the last ; but some lines occur of seven, eight, or eleven syllables accented on the penultimate, and these are sometimes interwoven, at regular intervals, with the others. 22 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. Nothing has been published in the Castilian language of this amatory style older than 1400. 45. Italy came last of those countries Early Italian where Latin had been spoken language. t o tjj e possession of an inde- pendent language and literature. No in- dustry has hitherto retrieved so much as a few lines of real Italian till near the end of the twelfth century j 1 and there is not much before the middle of the next. Several poets, however, whose versification is not wholly rude, appeared soon after- wards. The Divine Comedy of Dante seems to have been commenced before his exile from Florence in 1304. The Italian language was much used in prose, during the times of Dante and Petrarch, though very little before. 46. Dante and Petrarch are, as it were, Dante and the morning stars of our Petrarch. modern literature. I shall say nothing more of the former in this place : he does not stand in such close con- nection as Petrarch with the fifteenth century ; nor had he such influence over the taste of his age. In this respect Pe- trarch has as much the advantage over Dante, as he was his inferior in depth of thought and creative power. He formed a school of poetry, which, though no disciple comparable to himself came out of it, gave a The songs, as far as I was able to judge, are chiefly, if net wholly, amatory : they generally consist of stanzas, the first of which is written (and printed) with intervals for musical notes, nd in the form of prose, though really in metre. Each stanza has frequently a burden of two lines. The plan appeared to be something like that of the Castilian glosas of the fifteenth century, the subject of the first stanza being repeated, and sometimes erpanded, in the rest. I do not know that this is found in any Provencal poetry. The language, according to Kaynouard, resembles Provencal more than the modern Portuguese does. It is a very remarkable circumstance, that we have no evidence, at least from the letter of the Marquis of Santillana early in the fifteenth cen- tury, that the Castilians had any of these love- songs till long after the date of this Cancioneiro ; and that we may rather collect from it, that the Spanish amatory poets chose the Galician or Portuguese dialect in preference to their own. Though the very ancient collection to which this note refers seems to have been unknown, I find mention of one by Don Pedro, Count of Barcelos, natural son of King Denis, in Dieze's notes on Velasquez. Gesch. der Span. Dicht- kunst, p. 70. This must have been in the first part of the fourteenth century. 1 Tiraboschi, iii. 323, doubts the authenticity of some inscriptions referred to the twelfth cen- tury. The earliest genuine Italian seems to be a few lines by Ciullo d'Alcamo, a Sicilian, be- tween 1187 and 1193, vol. iv. p. 340. character to the taste of his country. He did not invent the sonnet ; but he, per- haps, was the cause that it lias continued in fashion for so many ages. 1 He gave purity, elegance, and even stability to the Italian language, which has been incom- parably less changed during near five cen- turies since his time, than it was in one between the age of Guido Guinizzeli and his own. And none have denied him the honour of having restored a true feeling of classical antiquity in Italy, and conse- quently in Europe. 47. Nothing can be more difficult, except by an arbitrary line, than to change of Anglo- determine the commence- Saxon to ment of the English Ian- Englfch. guage ; not so much, as in those of the con- tinent, because we are in want of materials, but rather from an opposite reason, the possibility of tracing a very gradual suc- cession of verbal changes that ended in a change of denomination. We should pro- bably experience a similar difficulty, if we knew equally well the current idiom of France or Italy in the seventh and eighth centuries. For when we compare the earliest English of the thirteenth century with the Anglo-Saxon of the twelfth, it seems hard to pronounce, why it should pass for a separate language, rather than a modification or simplification of the former. "We must conform, however, to usage, and say that the Anglo-Saxon was converted into English : 1. by contracting or other- wise modifying the pronunciation and orthography of words ; 2. by omitting many inflections, especially of the noun, and consequently making more use of articles and auxiliaries; 3. by the intro- duction of French derivatives ; 4. by using less inversion and ellipsis, especially in poetry. Of these the second alone, I think, can be considered as sufficient to- describe a new form of language ; and this was brought about so gradually, that we are not relieved from much of our diffi- culty, whether some compositions shall pass for the latest offspring of the mother, or the earliest fruits of the daughter's, fertility.* 1 Crescimbeni (Storia della vulgar poesia, vol. ii. p. 269) asserts the claim of Guiton d'Arezzo- to the invention of the regular sonnet, or at least the perfection of that in use among the Pro- vencals. 2 It is a proof of this difficulty that the best masters of our ancient language have lately in- troduced the word semi-Saxon, which is to- cover everything from 1150 to 1250. See- Thorpe's preface to Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, and many other recent books. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 23 48. The Anglo-Norman language is a phrase not quite so unobjectionable as the Anglo-Norman constitution; and as it is sure to deceive, we might better lay it aside altogether. 1 In the one instance, there was a real fusion of laws and govern- ment, to which we can find but a remote analogy, or rather none at all, in the other. It is probable, indeed, that the converse of foreigners might have something to do with those simplifications of the Anglo- Saxon grammar, which appear about the reign of Henry II., more than a century after the Conquest ; though it is also true, that languages of a very artificial structure, like that of England before that revolu- tion, often became less complex in their forms, without any such violent process as an amalgamation of two different races. 2 What is commonly called the Saxon Chronicle is continued to the death of Stephen, in 1154, and in the same lan- guage, though with some loss of its purity. Besides the neglect of several grammatical rules, French words now and then obtrude themselves, but not very frequently, in the latter pages of this Chronicle. Peter- borough, however, was quite an English monastery ; its endowments, its abbots, were Saxon; and the political spirit the Chronicle breathes, in some passages, is that of the indignant subjects, servi ancor frementi, of the Norman usurpers. If its last compilers, therefore, gave way to some innovations of language, we may presume that these prevailed more extensively in places less secluded, and especially in London. 49. We find evidence of a greater change 1 A popular and pleasing writer has drawn a little upon his imagination in the following account of the language of our forefathers after the Conquest :" The language of the church was Latin ; that of the king and nobles, Nor- man ; that of the people, Anglo-Saxon ; the Anglo-Norman jargon was only employed in the commercial intercourse between the conquerors and the conquered." Ellis's Specimens of Early English Poets, vol. i. p. 17. What was this jar- gon ? and where do we find a proof of its exist- ence ? and what was the commercial intercourse hinted at ? I suspect Ellis only meant, what has often been remarked, that the animals which bear a Saxon name in the fields acquire a French one In the shambles. But even this is more in- genious than just; for muttons, beeves, and porkers are good old words for the living quad- rupeds. 2 "Every branch of the low German stock from whence the Anglo-Saxon sprung, displays the same simplification of its grammar." Price's Preface to Warton, p. 110. He there- fore ascribes little influence to the Norman con- quest or to French connections. in Layamon, a translator of Wace's ro- mance of Brut from the T . Layamon. French. Layamons age is uncertain ; it must have been after 1155, when the original poem was completed, and can hardly be placed below 1200. His language is accounted rather Anglo-Saxon than English ; it retains most of the dis- tinguishing inflections of the mother- tongue, yet evidently differs considerably from that older than the Conquest by the introduction, or at least more frequent em- ployment, of some new auxiliary forms, and displays very little of the character- istics of the ancient poetry, its periphrases, its ellipses, or its inversions. But though translation was the means by which words of French origin were afterwards most copiously introduced, very few occur in the extracts from Layamon hitherto published ; for we have not yet the ex- pected edition of the entire work. He is not a mere translator, but improves much on Wace. The adoption of the plain and almost creeping style of the metrical'' French romance, instead of the impetuous dithyrambics of Saxon song, gives Laya- mon at first sight a greater affinity to the new English language than in mere gram- matical structure he appears to bear. 1 50. Layamon wrote in a monastery on the Severn; and ib is agree- progress of Eng- able to experience, that an **** laus^*- obsolete structure of language should be retained in a distant province, while it has undergone some change among the less rugged inhabitants of a capital. The dis- use of Saxon forms crept on by degrees ; some metrical lives of saints, apparently written not far from the year 1250, 2 may 1 See a long extract from Layamon in Ellis's Specimens. This writer observes, that, "it contains no word which we are under the ne- cessity of referring to a French root." Duke and Castle seem exceptions : but the latter word occurs in the Saxon Chronicle before the Con- quest, A.D. 1052. 2 Ritson's Dissertat. on Romance. Madden's Introduction to Havelok. Notes of Price, in his edition of Warton. Warton himself is of no authority in this matter. Price inclines to put most of the poems quoted by Warton near the close of the thirteenth century. It should here be observed, that the language underwent its metamorphosis into English by much less rapid gradations in some parts of the kingdom than in others. Not only the popular dialect of many counties, especially in the north, retained long, and still retains, a larger proportion of the Anglo-Saxon peculiarities, but we have evidence that they were not every- where disused in writing. A manuscript in the Kentish dialect, if that phrase is correct, bear- ing the date of 1340, is more Anglo-Saxon than 24 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. be deemed English ; but the first specimen of it that bears a precise date is a proclama- tion of Henry III., addressed to the people of Huntingdonshire in 1258, but doubtless circular throughout England. 1 A triumph- ant song, composed probably in London, on the victory obtained at Lewes by the con- federate barons in 1264, and the capture of Richard Earl of Cornwall, is rather less obsolete in its style than this proclamation, as might naturally be expected. It could not have been written later than that year, because in the next the tables were turned on those who now exulted, by the complete discomfiture of their party in the battle of Evesham. Several pieces of poetry, un- certain as to their precise date, must be re- ferred to the latter part of this century. Kobert of Gloucester, after the year 1297, since he alludes to the canonisation of St. Louis, 2 turned the chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth into English verse; and on comparing him with Layamon, a native of the same county, and a writer on the same subject, it will appear that a great quantity of French had flowed into the language since the loss of Normandy. The Anglo- Saxon inflections, terminations, and ortho- graphy, had also undergone a very con- siderable change. That the intermixture of French words was very slightly owing to the Norman conquest will appear pro- bable, by observing at least as frequent an use of them in the earliest specimens of the Scottish dialect, especially a song on the death of Alexander III. in 1285. There is a good deal of French in this, not borrowed, probably, from England, but directly from the original sources of imita- tion. 51. The fourteenth century was not un- productive of men, both English and Scots, gifted with the powers of poetry. Lau- rence Minot, an author unknown to War- any of the poems ascribed to the thirteenth century, which we read In Warton, such as the legends of saints or the Ormulum. This very curious fact was first made known to the public by Mr. Thorpe, in his translation of Csedmon, preface, p. xii. ; and an account of the manu- script itself, rather fuller than that of Mr. T., has since been given in the catalogue of the Arundel MSS. in the British Museum. 1 Henry's Hist, of Britain, vol. viii., appen- dix. "Between 1244 and 1258," says Sir F. Madden, " we know, was written the versifica- tion of part of a meditation of St. Augustine, as proved by the age of the prior, who gave the manuscript to the Durham library," p, 49. This, therefore, will be strictly the oldest piece of English, to the date of which we can ap- proach by more than conjecture. 2 Madden's Havelock, p. 52. ton, but whose poems on the wars of Edward III. are referred by English of the their publisher Eitson to fourteenth ceu- 1352, is perhaps the first ori- chancer. ginal poet in our language Gower. that has survived ; since such of his prede- cessors as are now known appear to have been merely translators, or at best amplifiers of a French or Latin original. The earliest historical or epic narrative is due to John, Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen, whose long poem in the Scots dialect, The Bruce, commemorating the deliverance of his country, seems to have been completed in 1373. But our greatest poet of the middle ages, beyond comparison, was Geoffrey Chaucer; and I do not know that any other country, except Italy, produced one of equal variety in invention, acuteness in observation, or felicity of expression. A vast interval must be made between Chaucer and any other English poet ; yet Gower, his contemporary, though not, like, him, a poet of nature's growth, had some effect in rendering the language less rude, and exciting a taste for verse ; if he never rises, he never sinks low; he is always sensible, polished, perspicuous, and not prosaic in the worst sense of the word. Longlands, the supposed author of Piers Plowman's Vision, with far more imagina- tive vigour, has a more obsolete and unre- fined diction. 52. The French language was spoken by the superior classes of so- o^erai ,^,,8 of ciety in England from the French in conquest to the reign of Engim*- Edward III. ; though it seems probable that they were generally acquainted with English, at least in the latter part of that period. But all letters, even of a private nature, were written in Latin till the be- ginning of the reign of Edward I., soon after 1270, when a sudden change brought in the use of French. 1 In grammar schools boys were made to construe their Latin into French ; and in the statutes of Oriel Col- lege, Oxford, we find, in a regulation so late as 1328, that the students shall con- verse together, if not in Latin, at least in French. 2 The minutes of the corporation of London, recorded in the Town Clerk's office, were in French, as well as the pro- ceedings in parliament, and in the courts 1 I am indebted for this fact, which I have ventured to generalise, to the communication of Mr. Stevenson, sub-commissioner of public records. 2 Si qua inter se proferant, colloquio Latino vel saltern Gallico perfruantur. Warton, I. 6. In Merton College statutes, given in 1271, Latin alone is prescribed. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 25 of justice ; and oral discussions were per- haps carried on in the same language, though this is not a necessary conse- quence. Hence the English was seldom written, and hardly employed in prose till after the middle of the fourteenth century. Sir John Mandeville's travels were written in 1356. This is our earliest English book. Wicliffe's translation of the Bible, a great work that enriched the language, is re- ferred to 1383, Trevisa's version of the Polychronicon of Higden was in 1385, and the Astrolabe of Chaucer in 1392. A few public instruments were drawn up in English under Richard II. ; and about the same time, probably, it began to be em- ployed in epistolary correspondence of a private nature. Trevisa informs us, that, when he wrote (1385), even gentlemen had much left off to have their children taught French, and names the schoolmaster (John Cornwall) who soon after 1350 brought in so great an innovation as the making his boys read Latin into English. 1 This change from the common use of French in the upper ranks seems to have taken place as rapidly as a similar revolution has lately done in Germany. By a statute of 1362, (36 E. 3, c. 15,) all pleas in courts of justice are directed to be pleaded and judged in English, on account of French being so much unknown. But the laws, and, gene- rally speaking, the records of parliament, continued to be in the latter language for many years ; and we learn from Sir John Fortescue, a hundred years afterwards, that this statute itself was but partially en- forced. 2 The French language, if we take his words literally, even in the reign of Edward IV., was spoken in affairs of mer- cantile account, and in many games, the vocabulary of both being chiefly derived from it. 3 53. Thus by the year 1400, we find a State of Euro- national literature subsist- pean languages ing in seven European lan- about 1400. guages, three spoken in the Spanish peninsula, the French, the Italian, the German, and the English; from which last, the Scots dialect need not be distin- guished. Of these the Italian was the most polished, and had to boast of the 1 The passage maybe found quoted in Warton, ubi supra, or in many other books. 2 "In the courts of justice they formerly used to plead in French, till, in pursuance of a law to that purpose, that custom was somewhat re- strained, but not hitherto quite disused, de Laudibus Legnm Anglise, c. xlviii." I. quote from Waterhouse's translation ; but the Latin runs quam plurimum restrictus est. 3 Ibid. greatest writers ; the French excelled in their number and variety. Our own tongue, though it had latterly acquired much copiousness in the hands of Chaucer and Wicliffe, both of whom lavishly sup- plied it with words of French and Latin derivation, was but just growmg into a literary existence. The German, as well as that of Valencia, seemed to decline. The former became more precise, more abstract, more intellectual, (geistig), and less sen- sible (sinnlich), (to use the words of Eich- horn), and of consequence less fit for poetry ; it fell into the hands of lawyers and mysti- cal theologians. The earliest German prose, a few very ancient fragments excepted, is the collection of Saxon laws (Sachsen- spiegel), about the middle of the thirteenth century ; the next the Swabian collection (Schwabenspiegel), about 1282. 1 . But these forming hardly a part of literature, though Bouterwek praises passages of the latter for religious eloquence, we may deem John Tauler, a Dominican friar of Strasburg, whose influence in propagating what was called the mystical theology, gave a new tone to his country, to be the first German writer in prose. " Tauler," says a modern historian of literature, "in his German sermons, mingled many expressions in- vented by himself, which were the first attempt at a philosophical language, and displayed surprising eloquence for the age wherein he lived. It may be justly said of him, that he first gave to prose that direction in which Luther afterwards ad- vanced so far." 2 Tauler died in 1361. Meantime, as has been said before, the nobility abandoned their love of verse, which the burghers took up diligently, but with little spirit or genius ; the common language became barbarous and neglected, of which the strange fashion of writing half Latin, half German, verses, is a proof. 3 This had been common in the darker ages : we have several instances of it in Anglo-Saxon ; but it was late to adopt it in the fourteenth century. 54. The Latin writers of the middle ages were chiefly ecclesiastics, ^r^of But of these in the living reading and tongues a large proportion writing in i mt i darker ages. were laymen. They knew, therefore, how to commit their thoughts to writing ; and hence the ignorance charac- teristic of the darker ages must seem to be 1 Bouterwek, p. 163. There are some novels at the end of the thirteenth, or beginning of the fourteenth century. Ibid. 2 Heinsius, iv. 76. 3 Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch., i. 240. 26 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. passing away. This, however, is a very difficult, though interesting question, when we come to look nearly at the gradual pro- gress of rudimentary knowledge. I can offer but an outline, which those who turn more of their attention towards the sub- ject will be enabled to correct and supply. Before the end of the eleventh century, and especially after the ninth, it was rare to find laymen in France who could read and write. 1 The case was probably not better anywhere else, except in Italy. I should incline to except Italy, on the authority of a passage in "Wippo, a German writer soon after the year 1000, who ex- horts the Emperor Henry II. to cause the sons of the nobility to be instructed in let- ters, using the example of the Italians, with whom, according to him, it was a uni- versal practice. 2 The word clerks or clergy- men became in this and other countries synonymous with one who could write or even read ; we all know the original mean- ing of benefit of clergy, and the test by which it was claimed. Yet from about the end of the eleventh, or at least of the twelfth century, many circumstances may lead us to believe that it was less and less a conclusive test, and that the laity came more and more into possession of the simple elements of literature. 55. I. It will of course be admitted that Beasons for rap- aU who administered or be- posingthisto longed to the Roman law have diminiahed were mas t er8 o f reading and after 1100. .... ., , writing, though we do not find that they were generally ecclesiastics, even in the lowest sense of the word, by receiving the tonsure. Some indeed were such. In countries where the feudal law 1 Hist. Litt. de la France, vii. 2. Some nobles sent their children to be educated in the schools of Charlemagne, especially those of Germany, under Raban, Notker, Bruno, and other distin- guished abbots. But they were generally des- tined for the church. Meiners, li. 377. The signatures of laymen are often found to deeds of the eighth century, and sometimes of the ninth. Nouv. Traitc de la Diplomatique, li. 422. The ignorance of the laity, according to this authority, was not strictly parallel to that of the church. 2 Tune fac edictum per terram Teutonicorum Quilibet ut dives sibi natos instruat omnes Litterulis, legemque suam persuadeat illis, Ut cum principibos placitandi venerit usus, Quisqne suis libris exemplum proferat illis. Horibus his dudum vivebat Roma decenter, His studiis tantos potuit vincere tyrannos. Hoc servant Itali post prima crepundia cunctl. I am indebted for this quotation to Meiners, ii. 344. had passed from unwritten custom to re- cord and precedent, and had grown into as much subtlety by diffuseness as the Roman, which was the case of England from the time of Henry II., the lawyers, though laymen, were unquestionably clerks or learned. II. The convenience of such ele- mentary knowledge to merchants, who, both in the Mediterranean and in these parts of Europe, carried on a good deal of foreign commerce, and indeed to all traders, may render it probable that they were not destitute of it ; though it must be con- fessed that the word clerk rather seems to denote that their deficiency was supplied by those employed under them. I do not, however, conceive that the clerks of citizens were ecclesiastics. 1 III. If we could rely on a passage in Ingulfus, the practice in grammar schools of construing Latin into French was as old as the reign of the Conqueror ; 2 and it seems unlikely that this should have been confined to children educated for the English church. IV. The poets of the north and south of France were often men of princely or noble birth, some- tunes ladies ; their versification is far too artificial to be deemed the rude product of an illiterate mind ; and to these, whose capacity of holding the pen few will dis- pute, we must surely add a numerous class of readers, for whom their poetry was designed. It may be surmised, that the itinerant minstrels answered this end, and supplied the ignorance of the nobility. But many ditties of the troubadours were not so well adapted to the minstrels, who seem to have dealt more with metrical romances. Nor do I doubt that these also were read in many a castle of France and Germany. I will not dwell on the story of Francesca of Rimini, because no one, per- haps, is likely to dispute that a Romagnol lady in the age of Dante would be able to read the tale of Lancelot. But that ro- mance had long been written ; and other ladies doubtless had read it, and possibly had left off reading it in similar circum- stances, and as little to their advantage. The fourteenth century abounded with books in French prose ; the extant copies of some are not very few; but no argument against their circulation could be urged 1 The earliest recorded bills of exchange, ac- cording to Beckmann, Hist, of Inventions, iii. 430, are in a passage of the jurist Baldus, and bear date 1328. But they were by no means in common use till the next century. I do not mention this as bearing much on the subject of the text. 2 Et pueris etiam in scholis principia litera- rum Galilee et non Anglice traderentur. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 27 from their scarcity in the present day. It is not of course pretended that they were diffused as extensively as printed books have been. V. The fashion of writing private letters in French instead of Latin, which, as has been mentioned, came in among us soon after 1270, affords perhaps a presumption that they were written in a language intelligible to the correspondent, because he had no longer occasion for as- sistance in reading them; though they were still generally from the hand of a secretary. But at what time this disuse of Latin began on the Continent I cannot exactly determine. The French and Cas- tilians, I believe, made general use of their own languages in the latter half of the thirteenth century. 56. The art of reading does not imply Increased know- that f *ting ; * seems ledge of writing likely that the one prevailed in fourteenth before the other. The latter tury ' was difficult to acquire, in consequence of the regularity of characters preserved by the clerks, and their complex system of abbreviations, which rendered the cursive handwriting, introduced about the end of the eleventh century, almost as operose to those who had not much experi- ence of it as the more stiff characters of older manuscripts. It certainly appears that even autograph signatures are not found till a late period. Philip the Bold, who ascended the French throne in 1272, could not write, though this is not the case with any of his successors. I do not know that equal ignorance is recorded of any English sovereign, though we have I think only a series of autographs beginning with Richard II. It is said by the authors of Nouveau Traite de la Diplomatique, Bene- dictines of laborious and exact erudition, that the art of writing had become rather common among the laity of France before the end of the thirteenth century : out of eight witnesses to a testament in 1277 five could write their names ; at the beginning of that age, it is probable, they think, that not one could have done so. 1 Signatures to deeds of private persons, however, do not begin to appear till the fourteenth, and were not in established use in France till about the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury. 2 Indorsements upon English deeds, as well as mere signatures, by laymen of rank, bearing date in the reign of Edward II., are in existence; and there is an English letter from the lady of Sir John Pelham to her husband in 1399, which is 1 Vol. ii, p. 423. 2 Ibid. p. 434, et post. probably one of the earliest instances of female penmanship. By the badness of the grammar we may presume it to be her own. 1 57. Laymen, among whom Chaucer and Grower are illustrious ex- Average state amples, received occasion- of knowledge in ally a learned education; England, and indeed the great number of gentle- men who studied in the inns of court is a conclusive proof that they were not gener- ally illiterate. The common law required some knowledge of two languages. Upon the whole we may be inclined to think, 1 I am indebted for a knowledge of this letter to the Rev. Joseph Hunter, who recol- lected to have seen it in an old edition of Collins's Peerage. Later editions have omitted it as an unimportant redundancy though in- teresting even for its contents, independently of the value it acquires from the language. On account of its scarcity, being only found in old editions now not in request, I shall insert it here ; and till anything else shall prefer a claim, it may pass for the oldest private letter in the English language. I have not kept the ortho- graphy, but have left several incoherent and ungrammatical phrases as they stand. It was- copied by Collins from the archives of the New- castle family. My dear Lord, I recommend me to your high lordship with heart and body and all my poor might, and with all this I thank you as my dear lord dearest and best beloved of all earthly lords I say for me, and thank you my dear lord with all this that I say before of your comfortable letter that ye sent me from Pontefract that come to me on Mary Magdalene day ; for by my troth I was never so glad as when I heard by your letter that ye were strong enough with the grace of God for to keep you from the malice of your enemies. And dear lord if it like to your high lordship that as soon as ye might that I might hear of your gracious speed ; which as God Almighty continue and increase. And my dear lord if it like you for to know of my fare, I am here by laid in manner of a siege with the county of Sussex, Surrey, and a great parcel of Kent, so that I may nought out no none victuals get me but with much hard. Where- fore my dear if it like you by the advice of your wise counsel for to get remedy of the salvation of your castle and withstand the malice of the shires aforesaid. And also that ye be fully in- formed of their great malice workers in these shires which that haves so despitefully wrought to you, and to your castle, to your men, and to your tenants for this country have yai [sic] wasted for a great while. Farewell my dear lord, the Holy Trinity you keep from your enemies, and ever send me good tidings of you. Written at Penvensey in the castle on St. Jacob day last past, By your own poor J. PELHAM. To my true Lord. 28 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. that in the year 1400, or at the accession of Henry IV., the average instruction of an English gentleman of the first class would comprehend common reading and writing, a tolerable familiarity with French, and a slight tincture of Latin ; the latter retained or not, according to his circum- stances and character, as school learning is at present. This may be rather a favour- able statement ; but after another genera- tion it might be assumed, as we shall see, with more confidence as a fair one. 1 58. A demand for instruction in the art invention of of writing would increase paper. with the frequency of epis- tolary correspondence, which, where of a private or secret nature, no one would gladly conduct by the intervention of a secretary. Better education, more refined manners, a closer intercourse of social life, were the primary causes of this increase in private correspondence. But it was greatly facilitated by the invention, or, rather, ex- tended use, of paper as the vehicle of writing instead of parchment ; a revolu- tion, as it may be called, of high import- ance, without which both the art of writing would have been much less practised, and the invention of printing less serviceable to mankind. After the subjugation of Egypt by the Saracens, the importation of the papyrus, previously in general use, came in no long time to an end ; so that, though down to the end of the seventh century all instruments in France were written upon it, we find its place after- wards supplied by parchment ; and under the house of Charlemagne, there is hardly an in- strument upon any other material. 2 Parch- ment, however, a much more durable and useful vehicle than papyrus, 3 was expen- 1 It might be inferred from a passage in Richard of Bury, about 1343, that none but ecclesiastics could read at all. He deprecates the putting of books into the hands of laid, who do not know one side from another. And In several places it seems that he thought they were meant for "the tonsured" alone. But a great change took place in the ensuing half century ; and I do not believe he can be con- strued strictly even as to his own time. 2 Montfaucon, in Acad. des Inscript., vol. vi. But Muratori says that the papyrus was little used in the seventh century, though writings on it may be found as late as the tenth, Dissert, xliii. This dissertation relates to the condition of letters in Italy as far as the year 1100 ; as the xlivth does to their subsequent history. 3 Heeren justly remarks (I do not know that others have done the same), of how great im- portance the introduction of parchment, to which, and afterwards to paper, the old perish- able papyraceous manuscripts were transferred, has been to the preservation of literature. P. 74. Cotton paper. sive, and its cost not only excluded the necessary waste which a free use of writing requires, but gave rise to the unfortunate practice of erasing manuscripts in order to replace them with some new matter. This was carried to a great extent, and has oc- casioned the loss of precious monuments of antiquity, as is now demonstrated by in- stances of their restoration. 59. The date of the invention of our present paper,manufactured Linen paper, from linen rags, or of its in- wnen *** U8ed - troduction into Europe, has long been the subject of controversy. That paper made from cotton was in use sooner, is admitted on all sides. Some charters written upon that kind not later than the tenth century were seen by Montfaucon ; and it is even said to be found in papal bulls of the ninth. 1 The Greeks, however, from whom the west of Europe is conceived to have borrowed this sort of paper, did not much employ it in manuscript books, according to Montfaucon, till the twelfth century, from which time it came into frequent use among them. Muratori had seen no writ- ing upon this material older than 1100, though, in deference to Montfaucon, he admits its employment earlier. 2 It cer- tainly was not greatly used in Italy before the thirteenth century. Among the Sara- cens of Spain, on the other hand, as well as those of the East, it was of much greater antiquity. The Greeks called it charta Damascena, having been manufactured or sold in the city of Damascus. And Casiri, in his catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the Escurial, desires us to understand that they are written on paper of cotton or linen, but generally the latter, unless the contrary be expressed. 3 Many in this catalogue were written before the thir- teenth, or even the twelfth century. 60. This will lead us to the more dis- puted question as to the Linen paper u antiquity of linen paper, oidaiiioo. The earliest distinct instance I have found, and which I believe has hitherto been overlooked, is an Arabic version of the aph- orisms of Hippocrates, the manuscript bearing the date of 1100. This Casiri ob- serves to be on linen paper, not as in itself remarkable, but as accounting for its injury 1 Mem. de 1' Acad. des Inscriptions, vi. 604. Nouveau Traite" de Diplomatique, i. 617. Savigny, Gesch. des Komischen Rechts, ill. 531. 2 Dissert, xliii. s Materife, nisi membraneus sit codex, nulla mentio : cseteros bombycinos, ac, in ax imam partem, chartaceos esse colligas. Prsefatio, p. 7. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 29 by wet. It does not appear whether it were written in Spain, or, like many in that catalogue, brought from Egypt or the East.i 61. The authority of Casiri must con- Known to Peter firm beyond doubt a passage ofcingni. in Peter Abbot of Clugni, which has perplexed those who place the invention of linen paper very low. In a treatise against the Jews, he speaks of books, ex pellibus arietum, hircorum, vel vitulorum, sive ex biblis vel juncis Orien- talium paludum, aut ex rasuris veterum pannorum, seu ex alia qualibet, forte vili- ore materia compactos. A late English writer contends that nothing can be meant by the last words, " unless that all sorts of inferior substances capable of being so applied, among them, perhaps, hemp and the remains of cordage, were used at this period in the manufacture of paper. "2 It certainly at least seems reasonable to in- terpret the words "ex rasuris veterum pannorum," of linen rags; and when I add that Peter Cluniacensis passed a consider- able time in Spain about 1141, there can remain, it seems, no rational doubt that the Saracens of the peninsula were ac- quainted with that species of paper, though perhaps it was as yet unknown in every other country. 62. Andres asserts, on the authority of And in izth and the Memoirs of the Academy 13th centuries. O f Barcelona, that a treaty between the kings of Arragon and Castile, bearing the date of 1178, and written upon linen paper, is extant in the archives of that city. 3 He alleges several other in- stances in the next age; when Mabillon, who denies that paper of linen was then used in charters, which, indeed, no one is likely to maintain, mentions, as the earliest specimen he had seeu in France, a letter of Joinville to St. Louis, which must be older than 1270. Andres refers the invention to the Saracens of Spain, using the fine flax of Valencia and Murcia; and conjectures that it was brought into use among the Spaniards themselves by Alfonso of Castile. 4 1 Casiri, N. 787. Codex anno Christi 1100, chartaceus, &c. 2 See a memoir on an ancient manuscript of Aratus, by Mr. Ottley, in Archseologia, vol. xxvi. 3 Vol. ii. p. 73. Andres has gone much at length into this subject, and has collected several important passages which do not appear in my text. The letter of Joinville has been supposed to be addressed to Louis Hutin in 1314, but this seems inconsistent with the writer's age. 4 Id. p. 84. He cannot mean that it 63. In the opinion of the English writer to whom we have Paper of mixed above referred, paper, from materials. a very early period, was manufactured of mixed materials, which have sometimes been erroneously taken for pure cotton. "VVe have in the Tower of London a letter addressed to Henry III. by Raymond, son of Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, and consequently between 1216 and 1222, when the latter died, upon very strong paper, and certainly made, in Mr. Ottley's judg- ment, of mixed materials ; while in several of the time of Edward I., written upon genuine cotton paper of no great thickness, the fibres of cotton present themselves everywhere at the backs of the letters so distinctly that they seem as if they might even now be spun into thread. 1 64. Notwithstanding this last statement, which I must confirm by my invention of own observation, and of paper placed by which no one can doubt who some to has looked at the letters themselves, several writers of high authority, such as Tiraboschi and Savigny, persist not only in fixing the invention of linen paper very low, even after the middle of the fourteenth century, but in maintaining that it is undistinguishable from that made of cotton, except by the eye of a manufac- turer. 2 Were this indeed true, it would be sufficient for the purpose we have here in view, which is not to trace the origin of a particular discovery, but the employment of a useful vehicle of writing. If it be true that cotton paper was fabricated in Italy of so good a texture that it cannot be dis- cerned from linen, it must be considered as of equal utility. It is not the case with never employed before Alfonso's time, of which he has already given instances. 1 Archseologia, ibid. I may however observe, that a gentleman as experienced as Mr. Ottley himself, inclines to think the letter of Raymond written on paper wholly made of cotton, though of better manufacture than usual. 2 Tiraboschi, v. 85. Savigny, Gesch. des Rb'm- ischen Eechts, iii. 534. He relies on a book I have not seen, Wehrs vom Papier. Hall, 17S9. This writer, it is said, contends that the words of Peter of Clugny, ex rasuris veterum pannorum , mean cotton paper. Heeren, p. 208. Lambinet, on the other hand, translates them, without hesitation, "chiffons de linge," Hist, de 1'Origine de I'lmprimerie, i. 93. Andres has pointed out, p. 70, that Maffei merely says he has seen no paper of linen earlier than 1300, and no instrument on that material older than one of 1367, which he found among his own family deeds. Tiraboschi, overlooking this distinction, quotes Maffei for his own opinion as to the lateness of the invention. 30 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. the letters on cotton paper in our English repositories ; most, if not all, of which were written in France or Spain. But I have seen in the Chapter House at West- minster a letter written from Gascony about 1315, to Hugh Despencer, upon thin paper, to all appearance made like that now in use, and with a water mark. Several others of a similar appearance, in the same repository, are of rather later time. There is also one in the King's Remembrancer's Office of the llth of Edward III. (1337 or 1338), containing the accounts of the King's ambassadors to the court of Holland and probably written in that country. This paper has a water mark, and if it is not of linen, is at least not easily distinguishable. Bullet declares that he saw at Besanson a deed of 1302 on linen paper : several are alleged to exist in Germany before the middle of the century ; and Lambinet mentions, though but on the authority of a periodical publication, a register of expenses from 1323 to 1354, found in a church at Caen, written on two hundred and eight sheets of that sub- stance. 1 One of the Cottonian manuscripts (Galba, B. I.) is called Codex Chartaceus in the catalogue. It contains a long series of public letters, chiefly written in the Nether- lands, from an early part of the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry IV. But upon examination I find the title not quite accurate ; several letters, and especially the earliest, are written on parchment, and paper does not appear at soonest till near the end of Edward's reign. 2 Sir Henry Ellis has said that " very few instances indeed occur before the fifteenth century of letters written upon paper." 3 The use of cotton paper was by no means general, or even, I believe, frequent, except in Spain and Italy, perhaps also in the south of France. Nor was it much employed even in Italy for books. Savigny tells us there are few manuscripts of law books among the multitude that exist which are not written on parchment. 65. It will be manifest from what has Hot at flrtt very been said how greatly Ro- important. bertson has been mistaken in his position, that " in the eleventh cen- tury the art of making paper, in the man- ner now become universal, was invented, 1 Lambinet, ubi supra. 2 Andres, p. 68, mentions a note written in 1342, in the Cotton library, as the earliest En- glish specimen of linen paper. I do not know to what this refers ; in the above-mentioned Codex Chartaceus is a letter of 1341, but it is on parchment. 3 Ellis's Original Letters, i. 1. by means of which not only the number of manuscripts increased but the study of the sciences was wonderfully facilitated." * Even Gingune, better informed on such subjects than Robertson, has intimated something of the same kind. But paper, whenever, or wherever invented, was very sparingly used, and especially in manu- script books, among the French, Germans, or English, or linen paper, even among the Italians, till near the close of the period which this chapter comprehends. Upon the " study of the sciences " it could as yet have had very little effect. The vast im- portance of the invention was just begin- ning to be discovered. It is to be added, as a remarkable circumstance, that the earliest linen paper was of very good manufacture, strong and handsome, though perhaps too much like card for general convenience ; and every one is aware that the first printed books are frequently beautiful in the quality of their paper. 66. HI. The application of general prin- ciples of justice to the infi- Importance of nitely various circumstances ^B* 1 tdie. which may arise in the disputes of men with each other is in itself an admirable discipline of the moral and intellectual faculties. Even where the primary rules of right and policy have been obscured in some measure by a technical and arbitrary system, which is apt to grow up, perhaps inevitably, in the course of civilisation, the mind gains in precision and acuteness, though at the expense of some important qualities ; and a people wherein an arti- ficial jurisprudence is cultivated, requiring both a regard to written authority, and the constant exercise of a discriminating judg- ment upon words, must be deemed to be emerging from ignorance. Such was the condition of Europe in the twelfth century. The feudal customs, long unwritten, though latterly become more steady by tradition, were in some countries reduced into treatises : we have our own Glanvil in the reign of Henry II., and in the next century much was written upon the national laws in various parts of Europe. Upon these it is not my intention to dwell ; but the importance of the civil law in its con- nection with ancient learning, as well as with moral and political science, renders it deserving of a place in any general ac- count either of mediaeval or modern litera- ture. 67. That the Roman laws, such as they subsisted in the western empire at the ] Hist, of Charles V. vol. i. note 10. Heeren inclines to the same opinion, p. 200. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 31 time of its dismemberment in the fifth Roman laws century, were received in never wholly the new kingdoms of the unknown. G otn ic, Lombard, and Car- lovingian dynasties, as the rule of those who by birth and choice submitted to them, was shown by Muratori and other writers of the last century. This subject has re- eived additional illustration from the acute and laborious Savigny, who has succeeded in tracing sufficient evidence of what had been, in fact, stated by Muratori, that not only an abridgment of the Theo- dosian code, but that of Justinian, and even the Pandects, were known in different parts of Europe long before the epoch for- merly assigned for the restoration of that jurisprudence. 1 The popular story, already much discredited, that the famous copy of the Pandects, now in the Lauren tian library at Florence, was brought to Pisa from Amain, after the capture of that city by Roger king of Sicily with the aid of a Pisan fleet in 1135, and became the means of diffusing an acquaintance with that por- tion of the law through Italy, is shown by him not only to rest on very slight evi- dence, but to be unquestionably, in the latter and more important circumstance, destitute of all foundation. 2 It is still in- deed an undetermined question whether other existing manuscripts of the Pandects are not derived from this illustrious copy, which alone contains the entire fifty books, and which has been preserved with a tra- ditional veneration indicating some superi- ority ; but Savigny has shown, that Peter of Valence, a jurist of the eleventh century, made use of an independent manuscript ; and it is certain that the Pandects were the subject of legal studies before the siege of Amalfi. 68. Irnerius, by universal testimony, was Irnerius, his first the founder of all learned TOcccesor. investigation into the laws of Justinian. He gave lectures upon them at Bologna his native city, not long, in Savigny's opinion, after the commencement of the century. 3 And besides this oral in- struction, he began the practice of making glosses, or short marginal explanations, on the law books, with the whole of which he was acquainted. We owe also to him, ac- 1 It can be no disparagement to Savigny, who does not claim perfect originality, to say that Muratori, in his 44th dissertation, gives several instances of quotations from the Pandects in writers older than the capture of Amalfi. 2 Savigny, Geschichte des Komischen Eechts in mittel alter, iii. 83. 3 Vol. iv. p. 16. Some have erroneously thought Irnerius a German. cording to ancient opinion, though much controverted in later times, an epitome, called the Authentica, of what Gravina calls the prolix and difficult (salebrosis atque garrulis) Novels of Justinian, ar- ranged according to the titles of the Code. The most eminent successors of this re- storer of the Roman law during the same century were Martinus Gosias, Bulgarus, and Placentinus. They were, however, but a few among many interpreters, whose glosses have been partly, though very im- perfectly preserved. The love of equal liberty and just laws in the Italian cities rendered the profession of jurisprudence exceedingly honourable ; the doctors of Bologna and other universities were fre- quently called to the office of podesta, or criminal judge, in these small republics ; in Bologna itself they were officially members of the smaller or secret council ; and their opinions, which they did not render gra- tuitously, were sought with the respect that had been shown at Rome to -their ancient masters of the age of Severus. 69. A gloss, yXoxraa, properly meant a word from a foreign lan- v i . Their glosses, guage, or an obsolete or poetical word, or whatever requires inter- pretation. It was afterwards used for the interpretation itself ; and this sense, which is not strictly classical, may be found in Isidore, though some have imagined Irnerius himself to have first employed it. 1 In the twelfth century, it was extended from a single word to an entire expository sentence. The first glosses were interlinear ; they were afterwards placed in the margin, and extended finally in some instances to a sort of running commentary on an entire book. These were called an Apparatus. 2 70. Besides these glosses on obscure passages, some lawyers at- Abrldgments of tempted to abridge the body laws. of the law. Placentinus Accursius's Cor- i- .. i pus Glossatum. wrote a summary of the Code and Institutes. But this was held inferior to that of Azo, which appeared before 1220. Hugolinus gave a similar abridgment of the Pandects. About the same time, or a little after, a scholar of Azo, AccUrsius of Florence, undertook his celebrated work, a collection of the glosses, which, in the century that had elapsed since the time of Irnerius, had grown to an enormous extent, and were of course not always consistent. He has inserted little, 1 Alcuim defines glossa, " unius verbi vel nominis interpretatio. Ducange, prsefat. in Glossar., p. 38. 2 Savigny, iii. 519. 32 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. probably, of his own, but exercised a judg- ment, not perhaps a very enlightened one, in the selection of his authorities. Thus was compiled his Corpus Juris Glossatum, commonly called Glossa, or Glossa Ordi- naria : a work, says Eichhorn, as remark- able for its barbarous style and gross mistakes in history as for the solidity of its judgments and practical distinctions. Gravina, after extolling the conciseness, acuteness, skill, and diligence in comparing remote passages, and in reconciling appar- ent inconsistencies, which distinguished Accursius, remarks the injustice of some moderns, who reproach his work with the ignorance inevitable in his age, and seem to think the chance of birth which has thrown them into more enlightened times, a part of their personal merit. 1 71. Savigny has taken still higher ground Character of in his admiration, as we may eariyjurisu. call jt, o f the early jurists, those from the appearance of Irnerius to the publication of the Accursian body of glosses. For the execution of this work indeed he testifies no very high respect ; Accursius did not sufficient justice to his predecessors ; and many of the most valu- able glosses are still buried in the dust of unpublished manuscripts. 2 But the men themselves deserve our highest praise. The school of Irnerius rose suddenly ; for in earlier writers we find no intelligent use, or critical interpretation, of the passages they cite. To reflect upon every text, to compare it with every clause or word that might illustrate its meaning in the some- what chaotic mass of the Pandects and Code, was reserved for these acute and diligent investigators. " Interpretation," says Savigny, " was considered the first and most important object of glossers, as it was of oral instructors. By an uninter- /nitting use of the original law-books, they obtained that full and lively acquaintance with their contents, which enabled them to compare different passages with the ut- most acuteness, and with much success. It may be reckoned a characteristic merit of many glossers, that they keep the atten- tion always fixed on the immediate subject of explanation, and, in the richest display of comparisons with other passages of the law, never deviate from their point into anything too indefinite and general ; su- perior often in this to the most learned interpreters of the French and Dutch schools, and capable of giving a lesson even to ourselves. Nor did the glossers by 1 Origines Juris, p. 184. VoL v. pp. 25S.-267. any means slight the importance of laying a sound critical basis for interpretation, but on the contrary, laboured earnestly in the recension and correction of the text." 1 72. These warm eulogies afford us an in- stance, to which there are many parallels, of such vicissitudes in literary reputation, that the wheel of fame, like that of for- tune, seems never to be at rest. For a long time, it had been the fashion to speak in slighting terms of these early jurists ; and the passage above quoted from Graviua is in a much more candid tone than was usual in his age. Their trifling verbal ex- planations of etsi by quamvis, or admodum by valde; their strange ignorance in deriv- ing the name of the Tiber from the Emperor Tiberius, in supposing that Ulpian and Justinian lived before Christ, in asserting that Papinian was put to death by Mark Antony, and even in interpreting pontifex by papa or episcopus, were the topics of ridicule to those whom Gravina has so well reproved. 2 Savigny, who makes a similar remark, that we learn, without perceiving it, and without any personal merit, a mul- titude of things which it was impossible to know in the twelfth century, defends his favourite glossers in the best manner he can, by laying part of the blame on the bad selection of Accursius, and by ex- tolling the mental vigour which struggled through so many difficulties. 3 Yet he has the candour to own, that this rather en- hances the respect due to the men, than the value of their writings ; and, without much acquaintance with the ancient glossers, one may presume to think, that in explaining the Pandects, a book requir- ing, beyond any other that has descended to us, an extensive knowledge of the lan- guage and antiquities of Rome, their deficiencies, if to be measured by the in- stances we have given, or by the general character of their age, must require a per- petual exercise of our lenity and patience. 73. This great compilation of Accursius made an epoch in the annals Decline of jurist* of jurisprudence. It put an ' ACCUHU. end in great measure to the oral explana- tions of lecturers which had prevailed before. It restrained at the same time the ingenuity of interpretation. The glossers 1 VoL v. pp. 199211. 2 Gennari, author of Respublica Jurisconsul- torum, a work of the last century, who under colour of a fiction, gives rather an entertaining account of the principal jurists, exhibits some curious specimens of the ignorance of the Ac- cursian interpreters, such as those in the text. See too the article Accursius in Bayle. 3 r. 213. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 33 became the sole authorities so that it grew into a maxim, No one can go wrong who follows a gloss : and some said, a gloss was worth a hundred texts. 1 In fact, the origi- nal was continually unintelligible to a student. But this was accompanied, ac- cording to the distinguished historian of mediaeval jurisprudence, by a decline of the science. The jurists in the latter part of the thirteenth century are far inferior to the school of Irnerius. It might be pos- sible to seek a general cause, as men are now always prone to do, in the loss of self- government in many of the Italian re- publics. But Savigny, superior to this affectation of philosophy, admits that this is neither 'a cause adequate in itself, nor chronologically parallel to the decline of jurisprudence. "We must therefore look upon it as one of those revolutions, so ordinary and so unaccountable, in the his- tory of literature, where, after a period fertile in men of great talents, there en- sues, perhaps with no unfavourable change in the diffusion of knowledge, a pause in that natural fecundity, without which all our endeavours to check a retrogade move- ment of the human mind will be of no avail. The successors of Accursius in the thirteenth century contented themselves with an implicit deference to the glosses ; but this is rather a proof of their inferior- ity than its cause. 2 74. It has been the peculiar fortune of Respect^aid to Accursius, that his name has him at Bologna. a l wavs stood in a representa- tive capacity, to engross the praise, or sustain the blame, of the great body of glossers from whom he compiled. One of those proofs of national gratitude and veneration was paid to his memory, which it is the more pleasing to recount, that, from the fickleness and insensibility of man- kind, they do not very frequently occur. The city of Bologna was divided into the factions of Lambertazzi and Gieremei. The former, who were Ghibelins, having been wholly overthrown, and excluded, accord- ing to the practice of Italian republics, from all civil power, a law was made in 1306, that the family of Accursius, who had been on the vanquished side, should enjoy all the privileges of the victorious Guelf party, in regard to the memory of one "by whose means the city had been frequented by students, and its fame had been spread through the whole world. 3 1 Bayle, ubi supra. Eichhorn, Gesch. der Litteratur, ii. 461. Savigny, v. 268. 2 Savigny, v. 320. 3 Ib. v. 268. 75. In the next century a new race of lawyers arose, who, by a Scholastic Jurists, different species of talent, Bwtoins. almost eclipsed the greatest of their pre- decessors. These have been called the scholastic jurists, the glory of the school- men having excited an emulous desire to apply their dialectic methods in jurispru- dence. 1 Of these the most conspicuous were Bartolus and Baldus, especially the former, whose authority became still higher than that of the Accursian glossers. Yet Bartolus, if we may believe Eichhom, content with the glosses, did not trouble himself about the text, which he was too ignorant of Roman antiquity, and even of the Latin language, unless he is much be- lied, to expound. 2 " He is so fond of dis- tinctions," says Gravina, " that he does not divide his subject, but breaks it to pieces, so that the fragments are, as it were, dis- persed by the wind. But, whatever harm he might do to the just interpretation of the Roman law as a positive code, he was highly useful to the practical lawyer by the number of cases his fertile mind antici- pated; for though many of these were un- likely to occur, yet his copiousness and subtlety of distinction is such that he sel- dom leaves those who consult him quite at a loss." 3 Savigny, who rates Bartolus much below the older lawyers, gives him credit for original thoughts, to which his acquaintance with the practical exercise of justice gave rise. The older jurists were chiefly professors of legal science, rather than conversant with forensic causes ; and this has produced an opposition between theory and practice in the Roman law, to which we have not much analogous in our own, but the remains of which are said to be still discernible in the continental juris- prudence. 4 i The employment of logical forms in law is. not new ; instances of it may be found in the earlier jurists. Savigny, v. 330 ; vi. 6. - Gesch. der Litteratur, ii. 449. Bartolus even said, de verbibus non curat jurisconsultus. Eichhorn gives no authority for this, but Meiners, from whom perhaps he took it, quotes Comnenus, Historia Archigymnasii Patavini. Vergleichung der Sitten, ii. 646. It seems, however, incredible. 3 Origines Juris, p. 191. 4 Savigny, vi. 138 ; v. 201. Of Bartolus and his school it is said by Grotius, Temporum suorum infelicitas impedimento ssepe fuit, quo minus recte leges illas intelligerent ; satis solertes alioqui ad indagandam aequi bonique naturam ; quo factum ut saepe optimi sint con- dendi juris auctores, etiam tune cum conditi juris mali sunt interpretes. Prolegomena in Jus Belli et Pacis. C 34 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 76. The later expositors of law, those Inferiority of ** the a e of ^ccursius, jurit in four- are reproached with a tedi- teenth and nf- ous prolixity, which the teenth centuries. g^Q^y,, refinements of dis- putation were apt to produce. They were little more conversant with philological and historical literature than their prede- cessors, and had less diligence in that com- parison of texts, by which an acute understanding might compensate the want of subsidiary learning. In the use of lan- guage, the jurists, with hardly any excep- tions, are uncouth and barbarous. The great school of Bologna sent out all the earlier glossers. In the fourteenth century this famous university fell rather into de- cline ; the jealousy of neighbouring states subjected its graduates to some disadvan- tage ; and while the study of jurisprudence was less efficacious, it was more diffused. Italy alone had produced great masters of the science ; the professors in France and Germany during the middle ages have left no great reputation. 1 77. IV. The universities, however, with Classical utera- their metaphysics derived ture and taste in from Aristotle through the dark ages. medium of Arabian inter- preters who did not understand him, and with the commentaries of Arabian philo- sophers who perverted him, 2 the develop- ment of the modern languages with their native poetry, much more the glosses of the civil lawyers, are not what is commonly 1 In this slight sketch of the early lawyers, I have been chiefly guided, as the reader will have perceived, by Gravina and Savigny, and also by a very neat and succinct sketch in Eich- horn, Gesch. der Litteratur, ii. 448-464. The Origines Juris of the first have enjoyed a con- siderable reputation. But Savigny says with severity, that Gravina has thought so much more of his style than his subject, that all he says of the old jurists is perfectly worthless through its emptiness and want of criticism. iii. 72. Of Terrasson's Histoire de la Jurispru- dence Romaine he speaks in still lower terms. 2 It has been a subject of controversy, whether the physical and metaphysical writings of Aris- totle were made known to Europe at the begin- ning of the thirteenth century, through Con- stantinople, or through Arabic translations. The former supposition rests certainly on what seems good authority, that of Rigord, a con- temporary historian. But the latter is now more generally received, and is said to be proved in a dissertation which I have not seen, by M. Jourdain. Tennemann, Manuel de 1'IIist. de la Philos., i. 355. These Arabic translations were themselves not made directly from the Greek, but from the Syriac. It is thought by Bnhle that the logic of Aristotle was known in Europe sooner. meant by the revival of learning. In this we principally consider the increased study of the Latin and Greek languages, and in general of what we call classical antiquity. In the earliest of the dark ages, as far back as the sixth century, the course of liberal instruction was divided into the trivium and the quadrivium ; the former compris- ing grammar, logic, and rhetoric ; the latter music, arithmetic, geometry, and astron- omy. But these sciences, which seem tolerably comprehensive, were in reality taught most superficially, or not at all. The Latin grammar, in its merest rudi- ments, from a little treatise ascribed to Donatus and extracts of Priscian, 1 formed the only necessary part of the trivium in ecclesiastical schools. Even this seems to have been introduced afresh by Bede and the writers of the eighth century, who much excel their immediate predecessors in avoid- ing gross solecisms of grammar. 2 It was natural that in England, where Latin had never been a living tongue, it should be taught better than in countries which still affected to speak it. From the time of Charlemagne it was lost on the continent in common use, and preserved only through glossaries, of which there were many. The style of Latin in the dark period, inde- pendently of its want of verbal purity, is hi very bad taste ; and none seem to have been more inflated and empty than the English. 3 The distinction between the ornaments adapted to poetry and to prose had long been lost, and still more the just sense of moderation in their use. It can- not be wondered at that a vicious rhetoric should have overspread the writings of the seventh and eighth centuries, when there is so much of it in the third and fourth. 78. Eichhorn fixes upon the latter part of the tenth century, as an ImproTeilieilt ln epoch from which we are to tenth and deduce, in its beginnings, the restoration ef classical taste ; it was then that the scholars left the meagre introductions to rhetoric for- 1 Fleury, xvii. 18. Andres, ix. 284. 2 Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch. ii. 73. The reader is requested to distinguish, at least if he cares about references, Eichhorn's Allgemeine Ges- chichte der Cultur, from his Geschichte der Litteratur, with which, in future, we shall have more concern. 3 Fleury, xvii. 23. Ducange, preface to Glos- sary, p. 10. The Anglo-Saxon charters are dis- tinguished for their pompous absurdity; and it is the general character of our early historians. One Ethelwerd is the worst ; but William of Malmsbury himself, perhaps in some measure by transcribing passages from others, sins greatly in this respect. eleventh centuries. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 35 merly used for the works of Cicero and Quintilian. 1 In the school of Paderborn, not long after 1000, Sallust and Statius, as well as Virgil and Horace, appear to have been read. 2 Several writers, chiefly his- torical, about this period, such as Lambert of Aschaffenburg, Ditmar, "VVittikind, are tolerably exempt from the false taste of preceding times, and, if they want a truly classical tone, express themselves with some spirit. 3 Gerbert, who by an un- common quickness of parts shone in very different provinces of learning, and was beyond question the most accomplished man of the dark ages, displays in his epistles a thorough acquaintance with the best Latin authors and a taste for their excellencies. 4 He writes with the feelings of Petrarch, but in a less auspicious period. Even in England, if we may quote again the famous passage of Ingulfus, the rhetorical works of Cicero, as well as some book which he calls Aristotle, were read at Oxford under Edward the Confessor. But we have no indisputable name in the eleventh century, not even that of John de Garlandia, whose Floretus long con- tinued to be a text-book in schools. This is a poor collection of extracts from Latin authors. It is uncertain whether or not the compiler were an Englishman. 5 79. It is admitted on all hands, that Lanfranc, and a remarkable improvement his school*, both in style and in the knowledge of Latin antiquity was per- ceptible towards the close of the eleventh century. The testimony of contempo- raries attributes an extensively beneficial influence to Lanfranc. This distinguished 1 Allg. Gesch., ii. 79. 2 Viguit Horatius magnus atque Virgilius, Crispus et Sallustius, et Urbanus Statius, lu- dusque fuit omnibus insudare versibus et dic- taminibus jucundisque cantibus. Vita Mein- werci in Leibnitz Script. Brunsvic. apud Eich- horn, ii. 399. 3 Eichhorn, Gesch. der Litteratur, i. 807. Heeren, p. 157. 4 Heeren, p. 165. It appears that Cicero de republica was extant in his time. 5 Hist. Litt. de la France, viii. 84. They give very inconclusive reasons for robbing England of this writer, who certainly taught here under William the Conqueror, if not before, but it is possible enough that he came over from France. They say there is no such sirname in England as Garland, which happens to be a mistake; but the native Euglish did not often bear sir- names in that age. The Anglo-Saxon clergy were inconceivably ignorant, ut creteris esset stupori qui gramma- ticam didicisset. Will. Malmsbury, p. 101. This leads us to doubt the Aristotle and Cicero of Ingulfus. person, born at Pavia in 1005, and early known as a scholar in Italy, passed into France about 1042 to preside over a school at Bee in Normandy. It became conspicu- ous under his care for the studies of the age, dialectics and theology. It is hardly necessary to add, that Lanfranc was raised by the Conqueror to the primacy of Eng- land, and thus belongs to our own history. Anselm, his successor both in the monastery of Bee and the see of Canterbury, far more renowned than Lanfranc for metaphysical acuteness, has shared with him the honour of having diffused a better taste for philo- logical literature over the schools of France. It has, however, been denied by a writer of high authority, that either any know- ledge, or any love of classical literature, can be traced in the works of the two archbishops. They are in this respect, he says, much inferior to those of Lupus, Ger- bert, and others of the preceding ages. 1 His contemporaries, who extol the learning of Lanfranc in hyperbolical terms, do so in very indifferent Latin of their own ;' but it appears indeed more than doubtful whether the earliest of them meant to praise him for this peculiar species of literature. 2 The Benedictines of St. Maur cannot find much to say for him in this re- spect. They allege that he and Anselm wrote better than was then usual ; a very moderate compliment. Yet they ascribe a great influence to their public lectures, and to the schools which were formed on the model of Bee. 3 And perhaps we could 1 Heeren, p. 185. There seems certainly nothing above the common in Lanfranc's epistles. 2 Milo Crispinus, Abbot of Westminster, in his life of Lanfranc says of him, "Fuit quidam vir magnus Italia oriundus, quern Latinitas in antiquum sciential statum ab eo restituta tola supremum debito cum amore et honore agnoscit magistrum, nomine Lanfrancus. This passage, which is frequently quoted, surely refers to his eminence in dialectics. The words of William of Malmsbury go farther. "Is literatura perinsignis liberales artes quae jam- duduni sorduerant, a Latio in Callias vocans acumine suo expolivit." 3 Hist. Litt. de la France, vii. 17, 107 ; viii. 304. The seventh volume of this long and labo- rious work begins with an exsellent account of the literary condition of France in the eleventh century. At the beginning of the ninth volume we have a similar view of the twelfth. The continuation, of which four volumes have al- ready been published at Paris, I have not seen. It has but begun to break ground, if I may so say, in the thirteenth century, as I find from the Journal des Savans. The laboriousness of the French, as well as the encouragement they receive from their government, are above all 36 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. not without injustice deprive Lanfranc of the credit he has obtained for the promo- tion of polite letters. There is at least sufficient evidence that they had begun to revive in France not long after his time. 80. The signs of gradual improvement in Italy Italy during the eleventh Vocabulary of century are very perceptible ; Papias. several schools, among which those of Milan and the convent of Monte Cassino are most eminent, were established ; and some writers such as Peter Damiani and Humbert, have obtained praise for rather more elegance and polish of style than had belonged to their predecessors. 1 The latin vocabulary of Papias was finished in 1053. This is a compilation from the grammars and glossaries of the sixth and seventh centuries ; but though many of his words are of very low Latinity, and his etymo- logies, which are those of his masters, ab- surd, he both shows a competent degree of learning, and a regard to profane literature, unusual in the darker ages, and sympto- matic of a more liberal taste. 2 81. It may be said with some truth, that Influence of Italy Italy supplied the fire, from upon Europe, which other nations in this first, as afterwards in the second sera of the revival of letters, lighted their own torches. Lanfranc, Anselm, Peter Lombard, the founder of systematic theology in the twelfth century, Irnerius, the restorer of jurisprudence, Gratian, the author of the first compilation of canon law, the school praise, and should be our own shame ; but their prolixity now and then defeats the object. The magnificent work, the Ordonnances des Rois de France, is a proof of tliis ; time gains a march on the successive volumes, and the laws of four years are published at the end of five. 1 Bettinelli, Risorgimento d'ltalia dopo il mille. Tiraboschl, iii. 248. 2 The date of the vocabulary of Papias had been placed by Scaliger, who says he has as many errors as words, in the thirteenth century. But Caspar Barthius, in his Adversaria, c. i., after calling him, "veterura Glossographorum compactor non semper futilis," observes, that Papias mentions an Emperor, Henry II., as then living, and thence fixes the sera of his book in the early part of the eleventh century, in which he is followed by Bayle, art. Balbi. It is rather singular that neither of those writers recollected the usage of the Italians to reckon as Henry II. the prince whom the Germans call Henry III., Henry the Fowler not being included by them in the imperial list : and Bayle himself quotes a writer, unpublished in the age of Barthius, who places Papias in the year 1053. This date I believe is given by Papias himself. Tira- boschl, ili. 300. A pretty full account of the Latin glossaries before and after Papias will be found in the preface to Ducange, p. 38. of Salerno, that guided medical art in .all countries, the first dictionaries of the Latin tongue, the first treatise of algebra, the first great work that makes an epoch in anatomy, are as truly and exclusively the boast of Italy, as the restoration of Greek literarfcure and of classical taste in the fif- teenth century. 1 But if she were the first to propagate an impulse towards intel- lectual excellence in the rest of Europe, it must be owned, that France and England, in this dawn of literature and science, went in many points of view far beyond her. 82. Three religious orders, all scions from the great Benedictine stock, increased copy- that of Clugni, which dates ing of manu- from the first part of the tenth century, the Carthusians, founded in 1084, and the Cistercians, in 1098, contri- buted to propagate classical learning. 2 The monks of these foundations exercised them- selves in copying manuscripts ; the arts of calligraphy, and, not long afterwards, of illumination, became their pride ; a more cursive handwriting and a more convenient system of abbreviations were introduced ; and thus from the twelfth century we find a great increase of manuscripts, though transcribed mechanically, as a monastic duty, and often with much incorrectness. The abbey of Clugni had a rich library of Greek and Latin authors. But few monasteries of the Benedictine rule were destitute of one ; it was their pride to collect, and their business to transcribe, books. 3 These were, in a vast proportion* such as we do not highly value at the present day ; yet almost all we do possess of Latin classical literature, with the ex- ception of a small number of more ancient manuscripts, is owing to the industry of these monks. In that age, there was per- haps less zeal for literature in Italy, and less practice in copying, than in France. 4 This shifting of intellectual exertion from one country to another is not peculiar to the middle ages ; but, in regard to them, it has not always been heeded by those who, using the trivial metaphor of light and dark- ness, which it is not easy to avoid, have too much considered Europe as a single point under a receding or advancing illumination. 83. France and England were the only countries where any revival John of of classical taste was per- Salisbury, ceived. In Germany no sensible improve- ment in philological literature can be 1 Bettinelli, Risorgimento d'ltalia, p. 71. 2 Fleury. Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 113. 3 Ibid. Ir. 139. 4 Heeren, p. 197. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages, 37 traced, according to Eichliorn and Heeren, before the invention of printing, though I think this must be understood with ex- ceptions; and that Otho of Frisingen, Saxo Grammaticus, and Gunther, author of the poem entitled Ligurinus (who be- longs to the first years of the thirteenth century), might stand on equal terms with any of their contemporaries. But, in the schools which are supposed to have bor- rowed light from Lanfranc and Anselm, a more keen perception of the beauties of the Latin language, as well as an exacter know- ledge of its idiom, was imparted. John of Salisbury, himself one of their most con- spicuous ornaments, praises the method of instruction pursued by Bernard of Chartres about the end of the eleventh century, who seems indeed to have exercised his pupils vigorously in the rules of grammar and rhetoric. After the first gramma- tical instruction out of Donatus and Priscian, they were led forward to the poets, orators, and historians of Rome; the precepts of Cicero and Quintilian were studied, and sometimes observed with affectation. 1 An admiration of the great classical writers, an excessive love of philology, and disdain of the studies that drew men from it, shine out in the two curious treatises of John of Salisbury. He is perpetually citing the poets, espe- cially Horace, and had read most of Cicero. Such at least is the opinion of Heeren, who bestows also a good deal of praise upon his Latinity. 2 Eichhorn places him at the head of all his con- temporaries. But no one has admired his style so much as Meiners, who declares that he has no equal in the writers of the third, fourth, or fifth centuries, except Lactantius and Jerome. 3 In this I can- not but think there is some exaggeration ; the style of John of Salisbury, far from being equal to that of Augustin, Eutropius, and a few more of those early ages, does not appear to me by any means elegant ; sometimes he falls upon a good expression, but the general tone is not very classical. The reader may judge from the passage in the note. 4 1 Hist. Litt. de la France, vii. 16. 2 P. 203. Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 47. Peter of Blois also possessed a very respectable stock of classical literature. 3 Vergleichung der Sitten, ii. 586. He says nearly as much of Saxo Grammaticus and Wil- liam of Malmsbury. If my recollection of the former does not deceive me, he is a better writer than our monk of Malmsbury. 4 One of the most interesting passages in John Of Salisbury is that above cited, in which he 84. It is generally acknowledged that in the twelfth century we find improvement of several writers, Abelard, classical taste in Eloisa, Bernard of Clair- twelfth century, vaux, Saxo Grammaticus, "William of Malmsbury, Peter of Blois, whose style, though never correct, which, in the absence of all better dictionaries than that of Papias, was impossible, and sometimes affected, sometimes too florid and diffuse, is not wholly destitute of spirit, and even of elegance ; 1 the Latin poetry, instead of Leonine rhymes, or attempts at regular hexameters almost equally bad, becomes, in the hands of Gunther, Gualterus de Insulis, Gulielmus Brito, and Joseph Iscanus, to whom a considerable number of names might be added, always toler- able, sometimes truly spirited ; 2 and amidst all that still demands the most liberal in- dulgence, we cannot but perceive the real progress of classical knowledge, and the development of a finer taste in Europe. 3 gives an account of the method of instruction pursued by Bernard of Chartres, whom he calls exundantissimus modernis temporibus fons literarum in Gallia. John himself was taught by some who trod in the steps of this eminent preceptor. Ad hujus magistri formam prsecep- tores mei in grammatics*, Gulielmus de Conchis, et Eichardus cognomento Episcopus, offlcio nunc archidiaconus Constantiensis, vita et con- versatione vir bonus, suos discipulos aliquando informaverunt. Sed postmodum ex quo opinio veritati prasjudicium fecit, et homines videri quam esse philosophi maluerunt, prof essoresque artium se totam philosophiam brevius quam triennio aut quadriennio transfusuros auditori- bus pollicebantur, impetu multitudinis im- peritae victi cesserunt. Exinde autem minus temporis et diligentiae in grammaticse studio impensum est. Ex quo contigit ut qui omnes artes, tarn liberates quam mechanicas profiten- tur, nee pi-imam noverint, sine qua frustra quis progredietur ad reliquas. Licet autem et alise disciplinae ad literaturam proficiant, hanc tamen privilegio singulari facere dicitur literatum. Metalog., lib. i. c. 24. 1 Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 146. The Benedic- tines are scarcely fair towards Abelard (xii. 147), whose style, as far as I have seen, which is not much, seems equal to that of his contemporaries. 2 Warton has done some justice to the Anglo Latin poets of this century, who have lately been published at Paris. The Trojan War and Antiocheis of Joseph Iscanus, he calls " a miracle in this age of classical composition." The style, he says, is a mixture of Ovid, Statius, and Claudian. Vol. i. p. 163. The extracts Warton gives seem to me a close imitation of the second. The Philippis of William Brito must be of the thirteenth century, and Warton refers the Ligurinus of Gunther to 1206. 3 Hist. Litt. de la France, vol. ix. Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch. der Cultur, ii. 30, 62. Heeren. Meiners. 38 Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 85. The vast Increase of religious houses influence ofin- in the twelfth century ren- creased number dered necessary more at- of clergy. tention to the rudiments of literature. 1 Every monk, as well as every secular priest, required a certain portion of Latin. In the ruder and darker ages many illiterate persons had been ordained ; there were even kingdoms, as, for example, Eng- land, where this is said to have been al- most general. But the canons of the church demanded of course such a degree of instruction as the continual use of a dead language made indispensable ; and in this first dawn of learning there can be, I presume, no doubt that none received the higher orders, or became professed in a monastery, for which the order of priest- hood was necessary, without some degree of grammatical knowledge. Hence this kind of education in the rudiments of the Latin was imparted to a greater number of individuals than at present. 86. The German writers to whom we Decline of do*- principally refer, have ex- sicai literature patiated upon the decline of in thirteenth literature after the middle tnry ' of the twelfth century, un- expectedly disappointing the bright pro- mise of that age, so that for almost two hundred years we find Europe fallen back in learning where we might have expected her progress. 2 This, however, is hardly true, in the most limited sense, of the latter part of the twelfth century, when that purity of classical taste, which Eich- horn and others seem chiefly to have had in their minds, was displayed in better Latin poetry than had been written before. In a general view, the thirteenth century was an age of activity and ardour, though not in every respect the best directed. The fertility of the modern languages in versification, the creation, we may almost say, of Italian and English in this period, the great concourse of students to the universities, the acute, and sometimes pro- found, reasonings of the scholastic philo- sophy, which was now in its most palmy state, the accumulation of knowledge, whether derived from original research, or from Arabian sources of information, which we find in the geometers, the physicians, the natural philosophers of Europe, are sufficient to repel the charge of having fallen back, or even remained altogether 1 Hist. I.itt. de la Francc.ix. 11. 2 Meiners, ii. 605. Heeren, p. 228. Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch. der Lltteratur, ii. 63118. The running title of Eichhorn'g section, Die Wissenschaften verfallen in Barbarey, seems much too generally expressed. stationary, in comparison with the preced- ing century. But in politeness of Latin style, it is admitted that we find an aston- ishing and permanent decline both in France and England. Such complaints are usual in the most progressive times; and we might not rely on John of Salis- bury when he laments the decline of taste in his own age. 1 But in fact it would have been rather singular, if a classical purity had kept its ground. A stronger party, and one hostile to polite letters, as well as ignorant of them, that of the theologians and dialecticians, carried with it the popular voice in the church and the universities. The time allotted by these to philological literature was curtailed, that the professors of logic and philosophy might detain their pupils longer. Gram- mar continued to be taught in the univer- sity of Paris ; but rhetoric, another part of the trivium, was given up ; by which it is to be understood, as I conceive, that no classical authors were read, or, if at all, for the sole purpose of verbal explana- tion. 2 The thirteenth century, says Heeren, was one of the most unfruitful for the study of ancient literature. 3 He does not seem to except Italy, though there, as we shall soon see, the remark is hardly just. But in Germany the tenth century, Leibnitz declares, was a golden age of learn- ing, compared with the thirteenth ; 4 and France itself is but a barren waste in this period. The relaxation of manners among the monastic orders, which, generally speaking, is the increasing theme of com- plaint from the eleventh century, and the swarms of worse vermin, the Mendicant Friars, who filled Europe with stupid superstition, are assigned by Meiners and Heeren as the leading causes of the return of ignorance. 5 87. The writers of the thirteenth cen- tury display an incredible Relapse into ignorance, not only of pure barbarism, idiom, but of the common grammatical 1 Metalogicus, 1. 1. C. 24. This passage has been frequently quoted. He was very inimical to the dialecticians, as philologers generally are. 2 Crevier, ii. 376. 3 P. 237. 4 Introductio in Script. Brunwic., lxiii., apud Heeren, et Meiners, ii. 631. No one has dwelt more fully than this last writer on the decline of literaturein the thirteenth century, out of his cor- dial antipathy to the schoolmen. P. 589. et post. Wood, who has no prejudices against popery, ascribes the low state of learning in England under Edward III. and Richard II. to the mis- conduct of the mendicant friars, and to the papal provisions that impoverished the church. 5 Meiners, ii. 615. Heeren, 235. Literature of Europe in the Middle Ages. 39 rules. Those who attempted to write verse have lost all prosody, and relapse into Leonine rhymes and barbarous acrostics. The historians use a hybrid jargon inter- mixed with modern words. The scholastic philosophers wholly neglected their style, and thought it no wrong to enrich the Latin, as in some degree a living language, with terms that seemed to express their meaning. In the writings of Albertus Magnus, of whom Fleury says that he can see nothing great in him but his volumes, the grossest errors of syntax frequently occur, and vie with his ignorance of history and science. Through the sinister example of this man, according to Meiners, the notion that Latin should be written with regard to ancient models, was lost in the universities for three hundred years ; an evil, however, slight in comparison with what he inflicted on Europe by the credit he gave to astrology, alchemy, and magic. 1 Duns Scotus and his disciples, in the next cen- tury, carried this much farther, and intro- duced a most barbarous and unintelligible terminology, by which the school meta- physics were rendered ridiculous in the re- vival of literature. 2 Even the jurists, who more required an accurate knowledge of the language, were hardly less barbarous. Roger Bacon, who is not a good writer, stands at the head in this century. 3 For- tunately, as has been said, the transcribing ancient authors had become a mechanical habit in some monasteries. But it was done in an ignorant and slovenly manner. The manuscripts of these latter ages, before the invention of printing, are by far the most numerous, but they are also the most incorrect, and generally of little value in the eyes of critics. 4 88. The fourteenth century was not in No improvement the ^test degree superior in fourteenth cen- to the preceding age. France, tury. Richard England, and Germany were Bury ' wholly destitute of good Latin scholars in this period. The age of Petrarch and Boccaccio, the age before the close of which classical learning truly re- vived in Italy, gave no sign whatever of animation throughout the rest of Europe ; the genius it produced, and in this it was ot wholly deficient, displayed itself in other walks of literature. 5 We may justly praise Richard of Bury for his zeal in col- lecting books, and still more for his munifi- 1 Meiners, ii. 692. Fleury, 5me discours, in Hist. Eccles., xvii. 44. Buhle, i. 702. a Meiners, ii. 721. s Heeren, p. 245. 4 Id. p. 304. s Heeren, p. 300. Andres, iii. 10. cence in giving his library to th: university of Oxford, with special injunctions that they should be lent to scholars. J ft his erudition appears crude and uncritical, his style indifferent, and his thoughts sup ^ ficial. 1 Yet I am not aware that he had any equal in England during this century. 89. The patronage of letters, or collec- tion of books, are not reck- Library formed oned among the glories of by Charles V. Edward III. ; though, if any at Paril! - respect had been attached to learning in his age and country, they might well have suited his magnificent disposition. His adversaries, John, and especially Charles V., of France, have more claims upon the remembrance of a literary histo- rian. Several Latin authors were trans- lated into French by their directions ; 2 and Charles, who himself was not ignorant of Latin, began to form the Royal Library of the Louvre. We may judge from this of the condition of literature in his time. The number of volumes was about 900. Many of these, especially the missals and psalters, were richly bound and illuminated. Books of devotion formed the larger portion of the library. The profane authors, except some relating to French history, were in general of little value in our sight. Very few classical works are in the list, and no poets except Ovid and Lucan. 3 This library came, during the subsequent Eng- lish wars, into the possession of the duke of Bedford; and Charles VII. laid the foundations of that which still exists. 4 90. This retrograde condition, however, of classical literature, was only perceptible in Cisalpine Europe. By one of those 1 The philobiblon of Eichard Aungerville.of ten called Richard of Bury, Chancellor of Edward III., is worthy of being read, as containing some curious illustrations of the state of literature. He quotes a wretched poem de Vetula as Ovid's, and shows little learning, though he had a great esteem for it. See a note of Warton, History of English Poetry, i. 146, on Aungerville. 2 Crevier, ii. 424. Warton has amassed a great deal of information, not always very ac- curate, upon the subject of early French trans- lations. These form a considerable portion of the literature of that country in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Hist, of English Poe- try, ii. 414430. See also de Sade, Vie de Petrarque, iii. 548; and Crevier, Hist, de 1'Univ. de Paris, ii. 424. 3 Warton adds Cicero to the classical list ; and I am sorry to say that, in my History of the Middle Ages, I have been led wrong by him. Bouvin, his only authority, expressly says, pas un seuil manuscrit de Ciceron. M^m. de 1' Acad. des Inscrip. , ii. C93. 4 Id. 701. 40 Literature of Europe in 4he Middle Ages. shiftings of literary illumination to which Som. Improve- We haVC Uuded, Italy, far ment in Italy lower in classical taste than during thirteenth France in the twelfth cen- ILcy ' tury, deserved a higher place in. the next. Tiraboschi says that the pro- gress in 'polite letters was slow, but still that some was made; more good books were transcribed, there were more readers, and of these some took on them to imitate what they read; so that gradually the darkness which overspread the land began to be dispersed. Thus we find that those who wrote at the end of the thirteenth century were less rude in style than their predecessors at its commencement. 1 A more elaborate account of the state of learning in the thirteenth century will be found in the life of Ambrogio Traversari, by Mehus ; and several names are there mentioned, among whom that of Brunette Latini is the most celebrated. Latini translated some of the rhetorical treatises of Cicero. 2 And we may perhaps consider as a witness to some degree of progressive learning in Italy at this time, the Catholi- con of John Balbi, a Genoese monk, more Cathoiicon of frequently styled Januensis. Baibi. This book is chiefly now heard of, because the first edition, printed by Gutenberg in 1460, is a book of un- common rarity and price. It is, however, deserving of some notice in the annals of literature. It consists of a Latin grammar, followed by a dictionary, both perhaps superior to what we should expect from the general character of the times. They are at least copious ; the Cathoiicon is a volume of great bulk. Balbi quotes abun- dantly from the Latin classics, and appears not wholly unacquainted with Greek ; though I must own that Tiraboschi and Eichhorn have thought otherwise. The Cathoiicon, as far as I can judge from a slight inspection of it, deserves rather more credit than it has in modern times obtained. In the grammar, besides a familiarity with the terminology of the old grammarians, he will be found to have stated some questions as to the proper use of words, with dubitari solet, multum qucerilur ; which, though they are superficial enough, indicate that a certain attention was beginning to be paid to correctness in writing. From the great size of the Cathoiicon, its circulation must have been very limited. 3 1 iv. 420. The Latin versifiers of the thirteenth century were numerous, but . generally very indifferent. Id. 378: 2 Mehns, p. 157. Tiraboschi, p. 418. 3 Libellum hone (says Balbi at the conclusion) ad honorem Dei et gloriosee Virginia Marie, et 91. In the dictionary however of John of Genoa, as in those -of imperfection of Papias and the other glos- early diction- sarists, we find little dis- ariM - tinction made between the different grada- tions of Latinity. The Latin tongue was to them, except so far as the ancient gram- marians whom they copied might indicate some to be obsolete, a single body of words ; and, ecclesiastics as they were, they could not understand that Ambrose and Hilary were to be proscribed in the vocabulary of a language which was chiefly learned for the sake of reading their works. Nor had they the means of pronouncing, what it has cost the labour of succeeding centuries to do, that there is no adequate classical authority for innumerable words and idioms in common use. Their knowledge of syntax also was very limited. The pre- judice of the church against profane authors had by no means wholly worn away : much less had they an exclusive possession of the grammar-schools, most of the books taught in which were modern. Papias, Uguccio, and other indifferent lexicographers, were of much authority. 1 The general ignor- ance in Italy was still very great. In the middle of the fourteenth century we read of a man, supposed to be learned, who took Plato and Cicero for poets, and thought Ennius a contemporary of Statius. 2 92. The first real restorer of polite letters was Petrarch. His fine taste Restoration of taught him to relish the letters due to beautiesof Virgil and Cicero, Petrar <*- and his ardent praises of them inspired his compatriots with a desire for classical know- ledge. A generous disposition to encourage letters began to show itself among the Italian princes. Robert, king of Naples, in the early part of this century, one of the beati Domini patris nostri et omnium sanctorum electornm, necnon ad utilitatem meam et ec- clesise sanctse Dei, ex diversis majorum meorum dictis multo labore et diligent! studio compilavi. Operis quippe ac studii mei est et fuit multos libros legere et ex plurimis diversos carpere flores. Eichhorn speaks severely, and, I am disposed to think, unjustly, of the Cathoiicon, as without order and plan, or any knowledge of Greek, as the author himself confesses (Gesch. der Litter- atur, ii. 238). The order and plan are alpha- betical, as usual in a dictionary ; and though Balbi does not lay claim to much Greek, I do not think he professes entire ignorance of it. Hoc difficile est scire et minime mini non bene scienti linguam Grsecam : apud Gradenigo, Lit- teratura Greco-Italianna, p. 104. I have ob- served that Balbi calls himself philocdlus, which indeed is no evidence of much Greek erudition. 1 Mehus. Muratori, Dissert. 44. 2 Mehus, p. 211. Tiraboschi, v. 82. Literature of Euwpe in the Middle Ages. 41 first patrons of Petrarch, and several of the great families of Lombardy, gave this proof of the humanising effects of peace and pro- sperity. 1 It has been thought by some, that but for his appearance and influence at that period", the manuscripts themselves would have perished, as several had done in no long time before ; so forgotten and abandoned to dust and vermin were those precious records in the dungeons of monas- teries. 2 He was the first who brought in that almost deification of the great ancient writers, which, though carried in following ages to an absurd extent, was the anima- ting sentiment of solitary study ; that through which its fatigues were patiently endured, and its obstacles surmounted. Petrarch tells us himself, that while his comrades at school were reading ^Esop's Fables, or a book of one Prosper, a writer of the fifth century, his time was given to the study of Cicero, which delighted his ear long before he could understand the sense. 3 It was much at his heart to acquire Character of his a good style in Latin. And, style. relatively to his predecessors of the mediaeval period, we may say that he was successful. Passages full of elegance and feeling, in which we are at least not much offended by incorrectness of style, are frequent in his writings. But the fastidious scholars of later times contemned these imperfect endeavours at purity. ' ' He wants," says Erasmus, "full acquaint- ance with the language, and his whole dic- tion shows the rudeness of the preced- ing age." 4 An Italian writer, somewhat earlier, speaks still more unfavourably. ' ' His style is harsh, and scarcely bears the character of Latinity. His writings are indeed full of thought, but defective in expression, and display the marks of labour without the polish of elegance." 5 I in- cline to agree with Meinersin ratingthe style of Petrarch somewhat more highly. 6 Of 1 Tiraboschi, v. 20, et post. Ten universities were founded in Italy during the fourteenth century, some of which did not last long. Rome and Fermo in 1303 ; Perugia in 1307 ; Treviso about 1320; Pisa in 1339 ; Pavia not long after ; Florence in 1348 ; Siena in 1357 ; Lucca in 1369, and Ferrara in 1391. 2 Heeren, 270. 3 Et ilia quidem aetate nihil intelligere pote- ram, sola me verborum dulcedo quaedam et sonoritas detinebat ut quicquid aliud vel legerem vel audirem, raucum mihi dissonumque videic- tur. Epist. Seniles, lib. xv., apud de Sade, i. 36. 4 Ciceronianus. s Paulus Cortesius de hominibus doctis. I take the translations from Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, c. vii. 6 Vergleichung der Sitten, iii. 126. Meiners His Latin poetry. Boccace the writer above quoted gives even a worse character. "Licentious and in- accurate in his diction, he has no idea of selection. All his Latin writings are hasty, crude, and unformed. He labours with thought, and struggles to give it utterance ; but his sentiments find no adequate vehicle) and the lustre of his native talents is ob- scured by the depraved taste of the times." Yet his own mother tongue owes its earliest model of grace and refinement to his pen. 93. Petrarch was more proud of his Latin poem called Africa, the subject of which is the termination of the second Punic war, than of the sonnets and odes, which have made his name immortal, though they were not the chief sources of his immediate renown. It is indeed written with elaborate elegance, and perhaps superior to any preceding speci- men of Latin versification in the middle ages, unless we should think Joseph Isca- nus his equal. But it is more to be praised for taste than correctness ; and though in the Basle edition of 1554, which I have used, the printer has been excessively ne- gligent, there can be no dovibt that the Latin poetry of Petrarch abounds with faults of metre. His eclogues, many of which are covert satires on the court of Avignon, appear to me more poetical than the Africa, and are sometimes very beauti- fully expressed. The eclogues of Boc- caccio, though by no means indifferent, do not equal those of Petrarch. 94. Mehus, whom Tiraboschi avowedly copies, has diligently col- John of lected the names, though Ravenna, little more than the names, of Latin teachers at Florence in the fourteenth century. 1 But among the earlier of these there was no good method of instruction, no elegance of language. The first who re- vealed the mysteries of a pure and grace- ful style, was John Malpaghino, commonly called John of Eavenna, one whom in his youth Petrarch had loved as a son, and who not very long before the end of the century taught Latin at Padua and Florence. 2 The best scholars of the en- has expatiated for fifty pages, pp. 94147, on the merits of Petrarch in the restoration of classical literature ; he seems unable to leave the subject. Heeren, though less diffuse, is not less panegyrical. De Sade's three quartos are certainly a little tedious. 1 Vita Traversari, p. 348. 2 A life of John Malpaghino of Ravenna is the first in Meiner's Lebensbeschreibungen beriihmter manner, 3 vols. , Zurich, 1795, but it is wholly taken from Petrarch's Letters, and from Mehus's Life of Traversari, p. 348. See also Tiraboschi, v. 554. 42 Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. suing age were his disciples, and among them was Gasparin of Barziza, or, as Ouparin of generally called of Bergamo, Barziza. justly characterised by Eich- horn as the father of a pure and elegant Latinity. 1 The distinction between the genuine Latin language and that of the lower empire was from this generally recog- nised ; and the writers who had been re- garded as standards were thrown away with contempt. This is the proper sera of the revival of letters, and nearly coincides with the beginning of the fifteenth century. 95. A few subjects, affording less ex- tensive observation, we have postponed to the next chapter, which will contain the literature of Europe in the first part of the fifteenth century. Notwithstanding our wish to preserve in general a strict regard to chronology, it has been impossible to avoid some interruptions of it without in- troducing a multiplicity of transitions in- compatible with any comprehensive views ; and which, even as it must inevitably exist in a work of this nature, is likely to diminish the pleasure, and perhaps the advantage, that the reader might derive from it. CHAPTER II. ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1400 TO 1440. Cultivation of Latin in Italy Revival of Greek Literature Vestiges of it during the Middle Ages It is taught by Chrysoloras his Disciples and by learned Greeks State of Classical Learning in other Parts of Europe Physical Sciences Mathematics Medicine and Anatomy Poetry in Spain, France, and Eng- land formation of New Laws of Taste in Middle Ages Their Principles Romances Religious Opinions. 1. GINGUENK has well observed, that the Zeal lor clawdcal fourteenth century left Italy literature In in the possession of the writ- Italy. mgg O f th]. ee great masters, of a language formed and polished by them, and of a strong relish for classical learn- ing. But this soon became the absorbing passion, fortunately, no doubt, in the re- sult, as the same author has elsewhere said, since all the exertions of an age were required to explore the rich mine of anti- quity, and fix the standard of taste and purity for succeeding generations. The ardour for classical studies grew stronger every day. To write Latin correctly, to understand the allusions of the best authors, to learn the rudiments at least of Greek, were the objects of every culti- vated mind. 2. The first half of the fifteenth century, poggioBrac- has been sometimes called cioiini. the age of Poggio Brac- ciolini, which it expresses not very inac- curately as to his literary life, since he was born in 1381, and died in 1459 ; but it seems to involve too high a compliment. The chief merit of Poggio was his diligence, aided by good fortune, in recovering lost works of Eoman literature, that lay mouldering in the repositories of convents. 1 Geschichte der Litteratur, ii. 241. Hence we owe to this one man eight ora- tions of Cicero, a complete Quintilian, Columella, part of Lucretius, three books of Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, Am- mianus Marcellinus, Tertullian, and seve- ral less important writers : twelve comedies of Plautus were also recovered in Germany through his directions. 1 Poggio besides this was undoubtedly a man of considerable learning for his time, and still greater sense and spirit as a writer, though he never reached a very correct or elegant style. 2 And this applies to all those who 1 Shepherd's Life of Poggio. Tiraboschi. Corniani. Koscoe's Lorenzo, ch. i. Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Latina mediae et inflmsu aetatis, gives a list not quite the same ; but Poggio's own authority must be the best. The work first above quoted is for the literary his- tory of Italy in the earlier half of the fifteenth century, what Roscoe's Lorenzo is for the latter, cingntind has not added much to what these English authors and Tiraboschi had furnished. 2 Mr. Shepherd has judged Poggio a little favourably, as became a biographer, but with sense and discrimination. His Italian transla- tor, the Awocato Tonelli (Firenze, 1825), goes much beyond the mark in extolling Poggio above all his contemporaries, and praising his " vastissima erudizione " in the strain of hyper- bole too familiar to Italians. This vast learning, even for that time, Poggio did not possess ; we have no reason to believe him equal to Guarino, Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. 43 wrote before the year 1440, with the single exception of Gasparin ; to Coluccio Salu- tato, Guarino of Verona, and even Leonard Latin style of Aretin.i Nor is this any that age indif- disparagement to their abili- ferent. ^j es an( j industry. They had neither grammars nor dictionaries, in which the purest Latinity was distinguishable from the worst; they had to unlearn a barbarous jargon, made up with scraps of the Vulgate, and of ecclesiastical writers, which pervades the Latin of the middle ages ; they had great difficulty in resorting to purer models, from the scarcity and high price of manuscripts, as well as from their general incorrectness, which it re- quired much attention to set right. Gas- parin of Barziza took the right course, by incessantly turning over the pages of Cicero ; and thus by long habit gained an Filetfo, or Traversari, much less to Valla. Eras- mus, however, was led by his partiality to Valla into some injustice towards Poggio, whom he calls rabula adeo indoctus, ut etiamsi vacaret obscoenitate, tamen indignus esset qui legeretur, adeo autem obscoenus ut etiamsi doctissimus esset, tamen esset a viris bonis rejiciendus. Epist. ciii. This is said too hastily ; but in his Ciceronianus, where we have his deliberate judgment, he appreciates Poggio more exactly. After one of the interlocutors has called him, vividse cujusdam eloquentise virum, the other replies : Naturae satis erat, artis et eruditionis non multum ; interim impuro sermonis fluxu, si Laurentio Valise credimus. Bebel, a German of some learning, rather older than Erasmus, in a letter quoted by Blount (Censura Auctorum, in Poggio), praises Poggio very highly for his style, and prefers him to Valla. Paulus Cortesius seems not much to differ from Erasmus about Poggio, though he is more severe on Valla. It should be added, that Tonelli's notes on the life of Poggio are useful ; among other things he points out that Poggio did not learn Greek of Emanuel Chrysoloras, as all writers on this part of literary history had hitherto sup- posed, but about 1423, when he was turned of forty. 1 Coluccio Salutato belongs to the fourteenth century, and was deemed one of its greatest ornaments in learning. Ma a dir vero, says Tiraboschi, who admits his extensive erudition, relatively to his age, benche lo stil di Coluccio abbia non rare volte energia e forza maggiore che quello della maggior parti degli altri scrit- tori di quest! tempi, e certo pero, che tanto e diverse da quello di Cicerone nella prosa, e ne' versi da quel di Virgilio, quanto appunto 6 di- versa una scimia da un uomo, v. 537. Cortesius, in the dialogue quoted above, says of Leonard Aretin : Hie primus inconditam scribendi consuetudinem ad numerosum quen- dam sonum inflexit, et attulit hominibus nos- tris aliquid certe splendidius. . . Et ego video hunc nondum satis esse limatum, nee delicatiori fastidio tolerabilem. Atqui dialog! Joannis Ka- instinctive sense of propriety in the use of language, which no secondary means at that time could have given him. 3. This writer, often called Gasparin of Bergamo, his own birth- Gasparin of place being in the neigh- Barziza. bourhood of that city, was born about 1370, and began to teach before the close of the century. He was transferred to Padua by the Senate of Venice, in 1407 ; and in 1410 accepted the invitation of Filippo Maria Visconti to Milan, where he remained till his death, in 1431. Gasparin had here the good fortune to find Cicero de Oratore, and to restore Quintilian by the help of the manuscript brought from St. Gall by Poggio, and another found in Italy by Leonard Aretin. His fame as a writer was acquired at Padua, and founded on his diligent study of Cicero. 4. It is impossible to read a page of Gas- parin without perceiving Merits of that he is quite of another his style, order of scholars from his predecessors. He is truly Ciceronian in his turn of phrases and structure of sentences, which never end awkwardly, or with a wrong arrange- ment of words, as is habitual with his con- temporaries. Inexact expressions may of course be found, but they do not seem gross or numerous. Among his works are several orations which probably were actually de- livered : they are the earliest models of that classical declamation which became so usual afterwards, and are elegant, if not very forcible. His Epistolse ad Exercita- tionem accommodate was the first book printed at Paris. It contains a series of exercises for his pupils, probably for the sake of double translation, and merely designed to exemplify Latin idioms. 1 vennatis vix semel leguntur, et Coluccii Epis- tolse, quse turn in honore erant, non apparent ; sed Boccacii Genealogiam legimus, utilem illam quidem, sed non tamen cum Petrarchse ingenio conferendam. At non videtis quantum his om- nibus desit? p. 12. Of Guarino he says after- wards : Genus tamen dicendi inconcinnum admodum est et salebrosum ; utitur plerumque imprudens verbis poeticis, quod est maxima vitiosum; sed magis est in eo succus, quam color laudandus. Memoria teneo, quendam familiarem meum solitum dicere, nielius Gua rinum famse suae consuluisse, si nihil unquam scripsisset, p. 14. 1 Morhof, who says, primus in Italia aliquid balbutire coepit Gasparinus, had probably never seen his writings, which are a great deal better, in point of language, than his own. Cortesius, however, blames Gasparin for too elaborate a style ; nimia cura attenuabat orationem. He once uses a Greek word in his letters ; what he knew of the language does not otherwise ap- pear ; but he might have heard Guarino at Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. 5. If Gasparin was the best writer of this victoria of generation, the most accorc- Feitre. plished instructor was Vic- torin of Feltre, to whom the marquis of Mantua entrusted the education of his own children. Many of the Italian nobility, and some distinguished scholars were brought up under the care of Victoria in that city ; and, in a very corrupt age, he was still more zealous for their moral than their literary improvement. A pleasing account of his method of discipline will be found in Tiraboschi, or more fully in Cor- niani, from a life written by one of Vic- torin's pupils, named Prendilacqua. 1 " It could hardly be believed," says Tiraboschi, ' ' that in an age of such rude manners, a model of such perfect education could be found : if all to whom the care of youth is entrusted would make it theirs, what ample and rich fruits they would derive from their labours." The learning of Victorin was ex- tensive; he possessed a moderate library, and rigidly demanding a minute exactness from his pupils in their interpretation of ancient authors, as well as in their own compositions, laid the foundations of a propriety in style, which the next age was to display. Traversari visited the school of Victorin, for whom he entertained a great regard, in 1433 ; it had then been for some years established. 2 No writings of Victorin have been preserved. 6. Among the writers of these forty years, after Gasparin of Bergamo, we may probably assign the highest place in politeness of style to Leonardo Bruni, more commonly called Aretino, from his birth-place, Arezzo. " He was the first," says Paulus Cortesius, "who replaced the rude struc- ture of periods by some degree of rhythm, and introduced our countrymen to some- thing more brilliant than they had known before ; though even he is not quite as polished as a fastidious delicacy would require." Aretin's history of the Goths, which, though he is silent on the obliga- tion, is chiefly translated from Procopius, Venice. He had not seen Pliny's Natural His- tory) nor did he possess a Livy, but was in treaty for one. Epist. p. 200, A.D. 1415: 1 Tiraboschi, vii. 306. Corniani, ii. 68. Heeren, p. 235. He is also mentioned, with much praise for his mode of education, by his friend Ambrogio Traversari, a passage from whose Hodopsericon will be found in Heeren, p. 237. Victorin died in 1447, and was buried at the public expense, his liberality in giving gratuitous instruction to the poor having left him so. 2 Menus, p. 421. Leonard Aretin. passes for his best work. In the constella- tion of scholars who enjoyed the sunshine cf favour in the palace of Cosmo de' Me- dici, Leonard Aretin was one of the oldest and most prominent. He died at an ad- vanced age in 1444, and is one of the six illustrious dead who repose in the church of Santa Croce. 1 7. We come now to a rery important event in literary history, the resusci- tation of the Study of the Revival of Oreek Greek language in Italy, language in During the whole course of Italy ' the middle ages we find scattered instances of scholars in the west of Early Greek Europe, who had acquired scholars of some knowledge of Greek; Europe, to what extent it is often a difficult ques- tion to determine. In the earlier and darker period, we begin with a remarkable circumstance, already mentioned, of our own ecclesiastical history. The infant Anglo-Saxon churches, desirous to give a national form to their hierarchy, solicited the Pope Vitalian to place an archbishop at their head. He made choice of Theo- dore, who not only brought to England a store of Greek manuscripts, but, through the means of his followers, imparted a knowledge of it to some of our country- men. Bede half a century afterwards, tells us, of course very hyperbolically, that there were still surviving disciples of Theodore and Adrian, who understood the Greek and Latin languages as well as their own. 2 From these he derived, no doubt, 1 Madame de Stael unfortunately confounded this respectable scholar, in her Corinne, with Pietro Aretino ; I remember well that Ugo Foscolo could never contain his wrath against her for this mistake. 2 Hist. Eccles. 1. v. c. 2. Usque hodie super- sunt ex eorum discipulis, qui Latinam Grwcam- que linguam seque ac propriam in qua nati sunt, norunt. Bede's own knowledge of Greek is attested by his biographer Cuthbert : pra- ter Latinam etiam Grsecam comparaverat. He once, and possibly more often, uses a Greek word ; but we must suspect his knowledge of it to have been trifling. A manuscript in the British Museum (Cotton, Galba, i. 18,) is of some importance in relation to this, if it be truly referred to the eighth cen- tury. It contains the Lord's prayer in Greek, written in Anglo-Saxon characters, and appears to have belonged to king Athelstan. Mr. Turner (Hist, of Angl.-Sax., vol. iii. p. 396) has taken notice of this manuscript, but with- out mentioning its antiquity. The manner in which the words are divided shows a perfect ignorance of Greek in the writer ; but the Saxon is curious in another respect, as it proves the pronunciation of Greek in the eighth century Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. 45 his own knowledge, which may not have been extensive ; but we cannot expect more, in such very unfavourable circum- stances, than a superficial progress in so difficult a study. It is probable that the lessons of Theodore's disciples were not forgotten in the British and Irish monas- teries. Alcuin has had credit, with no small likelihood, if not on positive author ity, for an acquaintance with Greek ; x and as he, and perhaps others from these islands, were active in aiding the efforts of Charlemagne for the restoration of letters, the slight tincture of Greek that we Under charie- find m the schools founded magne and his by that emperor, may have >ors> been derived from their in- struction. It is, however, an equally pro- bable hypothesis, that it was communi- cated by Greek teachers, whom it was easy to procure. Charlemagne himself, accord- ing to Eginhard, could read, though he could not speak, the Greek language. Thegan reports the very same, in nearly the same words, of Louis the Debo- nair. 2 The former certainly intended, that it should be taught in some of his schools ; 3 and the Benedictines of St. Maur, in their long and laborious Histoire Litteraire de la France, have enumerated as many as seventeen persons within France, or at least the dominions of the Carlovingian house, to whom they ascribe, on the authority of contemporaries, a portion of this learning. 4 These were all to have been modern or Romaic, and not what we hold to be ancient. 1 C'e'tait un homme habile dans le Grec comme dans le Latin. Hist. Litt. de la Fr. iv. 8. 2 The passages will be found in Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch. ii. 265 and 290. That concerning Charlemagne is quoted in many other books. Eginhard says in the same place, that Charles prayed in Latin as readily as in his own lan- guage ; and Thegan, that Louis could speak Latin perfectly. 3 Osnabrug has generally been named as the place, where Charlemagne peculiarly designed that Greek should be cultivated. It seems however, on considering the passage in the Capitularies usually quoted (Baluze, ii. 419) to have been only one out of many. Eichhorn thinks that the existence of a Greek school at Osnabrug is doubtful, but that there is more evidence in favour of Saltsburg and Ratisbon. Allg. Gesch. der Cultur, ii. 383. The words of the Capitulary are, Graecas et Latinas Scholas in perpetuum manere ordinavimus. 4 Hist. Litt. de la France, vol. v. Launoy had commenced this enumeration in his excel- lent treatise on the schools of Charlemagne ; but he has not carried it quite so far. See, too, Eichhorn, Allg. Gesch. ii. 420 ; and Gesch. der Litt. i. 824. Meiners thinks that Greek was better known in the ninth century, through educated in the schools of Charlemagne except the most eminent in the list, John Scotus Erigena, for whom Scotland and Ireland contend, the latter probably on the best grounds. It is not necessary by any means to suppose that he had acquired by travel the Greek tongue, which he pos- sessed sufficiently to translate, though very indifferently, the works attributed in that age to Dionysius the Areopagite. 1 Most writers of the ninth century, according to the Benedictines, make use of some Greek words. It appears by a letter of the famous Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, who cen- sures his nephew Hincmar of Laon for do- ing this affectedly, that glossaries, from which they picked those exotic flowers, were already in use. Such a glossary in Greek and Latin, compiled, under Charles the Bald, for the use of the church of Laon, was, at the date of the publication of this Benedictine History, near the middle of the last century, in the library of St. Germain des Pres. 2 "We may thus perceive the means of giving the air of more learning than was actually possessed ; and are not to infer from these sprinklings of Greek in mediaeval writings, whether in their proper characters, or latinised, which is rather more frequent, that the poets and profane, or even ecclesiastical, writers were accessible in a French or English monas- tery. Neither of the Hincmars seems to have understood it. Tiraboschi admits that he cannot assert any Italian writer of the ninth century to be acquainted with Greek.3 8. The tenth century furnishes not quite so many proofs of Greek in the tenth and scholarship. It was, ho w- el venth centuries, ever, studied by some brethren in the ab- bey of St. Gall, a celebrated seat of learn- ing for those times, and the library of which still bears witness, in its copious col- lection of manuscripts, to the early inter- course between the scholars of Ireland and those of the continent. Baldric, bishop of Utrecht, 4 Bruno of Cologne, and Gerbert, besides a few more whom the historians of St. Maur record, possessed a tolerable acquaintance with the Greek language. Charlemagne's exertions, than for five hundred years afterwards, ii. 367. 1 Eichhorn, ii. 227. Brucker. Guizot. 2 Hist. Litt. de la France, vol. iv. Duncange, proef. in Glossar. p. 40. 3 iii. 206. 4 Baldric lived under Henry the Fowler ; his biographer says : Nullum fnit studiorum liber- alium genus in omni Gracca et Latina eloquen- tia quod ingenio sui vivacitatem aufugeret Lauuoy, p. 117. Hist Litt. vi. 50. 46 Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. They mention a fact that throws light on the means by which it might occasionally be learned. Some natives of that country, doubtless expatriated catholics, took re- fuge in the diocese of Toul, under the pro- tection of the bishop, not long before 1000. They formed separate societies, performing divine service in their own language, and with their own rites. 1 It is probable, the Benedictines observe, that Humbert, after- wards a cardinal, acquired from them that knowledge of the language by which he distinguished himself in controversy with their countrymen. 2 This great schism of the church, which the Latins deeply felt, might induce some to study a language, from which alone they could derive au- thorities in disputation with these antago- nists. But it had also the more unequivocal effect of drawing to the west some of those Greeks who maintained their communion with the church of Rome. The emigration of these in the diocese of Toul is not a single fact of the kind ; and it is probably recorded from the remarkable circumstance of their living in community. We find from a passage in Heric, a prelate in the reign 'of Charles the Bald, that this had already begun ; at the commencement, in fact, of the great schism. 3 Greek bishops and Greek monks are mentioned as settlers in France during the early part of the elev- enth century. This was especially in Nor- mandy, under the protection of Richard II., who died in 1028. Even monks from Mount Sinai came to Rouen to share in his liberality. 4 The Benedictines ascribe the preservation of some taste for the Greek and oriental tongues to these strangers. The list, however, of the learned in them is very short, considering the erudition of these fathers, and their disposition to make the most of all they met with. Greek books are mentioned in the few libraries of which we read in the eleventh century. 8 9. The number of Greek scholars seems not much more considerable in the twelfth century, not- withstanding the general improvement of In the twelfth. 1 Vol. vi. p. 67. 2 Vol. vil. p. 528. :t Ducange, prsefat. in Glossar. p. 41. 4 Hist. Litt. dela France, vil. 69,124. et alibi. A Greek manuscript in the royal library at Paris, containing the liturgy, according to the Greek ritual, was written in 1022, by a monk named Helle, (they do not give the Latin name,) who seems to have lived in Normandy. If this stands for Elias, he was probably a Greek by birth. 5 Id. p. 48. that age. The Benedictines reckon about ten names, among which we do not find that of St. Bernard. 1 They are inclined also to deny the pretensions of Abelard ; 2 but, as that great man finds a very hostile tri- bunal in these fathers, we may pause about this, especially as they acknowledge Eloise to have understood both the Greek and Hebrew languages. She established a Greek mass for "Whitsunday in the Para- clete convent, which was sung as late as the fifteenth century ; and a Greek missal in Latin characters was still preserved there. 3 Heeren speaks more favourably of Abelard's learning, who translated passages from Plato. 4 The pretensions of John of Salisbury are slighter ; he seems proud of his Greek, but betrays gross ignorance in etymology. 5 10. The thirteenth century was a more inauspicious period for learn- in the ing ; yet here we can boast, thirteenth, not only of John Basing, archdeacon of St. Albans, who returned from Athens about 1240, laden, if we are bound to believe this literally, with Greek books, but of Roger Bacon and Robert Grostete, bishop of Lin- coln. It is admitted that Bacon had some acquaintance with Greek; and it appears by a passage in Matthew Paris, that a Greek priest, who had obtained a benefice at St. Albans, gave such assistance to Grostete as enabled him to translate the testament of the twelve patriarchs into Latin.6 This is a confirmation of what has 1 Hist. Litt. de la France, pp. 94, 151. Ma- carius, abbot of St. Fleuri, is said to have com- piled a Greek Lexicon, which has been several times printed under the name of Beatus Bene- dictus. 2 Id. xii. 147. > Id. xii. 642. 4 P. 204. His Greek was no doubt rather scanty, and not sufficient to give him an insight into ancient philosophy ; in fact, if his learning had been greater, he could only read such manu- scripts as fell into his hands ; and there were hardly any then in France. 5 Ibid. John derives analytica from ava and Aeif. 6 Matt. Par. p. 620. See also Turner's History of England, iv. 180. It is said in some books that Grostete made a translation of Suidas. But this is to be understood merely of a legendary story found in that writer's Lexicon. Pegge's Life of Grostete, p. 291. The entire work he certainly could not have translated, nor is it at all credible that he had a copy of it. With respect to the doubt I have hinted in the text as to the great number of manuscripts said to be brought to England by John Basing, it is founded on their subsequent disappearance. We find very few, if any, Greek manuscripts in England at the end of the fifteenth century. Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. 47 been suggested above, as the probable means by which a knowledge of that language, in the total deficiency of scholastic education, was occasionally imparted to persons of unusual zeal for learning. And it leads us to another reflection, that by a know- ledge of Greek, when we find it asserted of a mediaeval theologian like Grostete, we are not to understand an acquaintance with the great classical authors, who were latent in eastern monasteries, but the power of reading some petty treatise of the fathers, or, as in this instance, an apocry- phal legend, or at best, perhaps, some of the later commentators on Aristotle. Grostete was a man of considerable merit, bvit has had his share of applause. 11. The titles of mediaeval works are not Little appear- unfr e 1 uellt ly taken from the ance of it in Greek language, as the Poly- tne fourteenth crab'ciis and Metalogicus of century. Jo}m Qf Salisbury) or the Philobiblon of Richard Aungerville of Bury. In this little volume, written about 1343, 1 have counted five instances of single Greek words. And, what is more im- portant, Aungerville declares that he had caused Greek and Hebrew grammars to be drawn up for students. 1 But we have no other record of such grammars. It would be natural to infer from this passage, that some persons, either in France or England, were occupied in the study of the Greek language. And yet we find nothing to cor- roborate this presumption ; all ancient learning was neglected in the fourteenth century ; nor do I know that one man on this side of the Alps, except Aungerville himself, is reputed to have been versed in Greek during that period. I cannot speak positively as to Berchoeur, the most learned man in France. The council of Vienne, indeed, in 1311, had ordered the establish- ment of professors in the Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic languages, at Avig- non, and in the universities of Paris, Ox- ford, Bologna, and Salamanca. But this decree remained a dead letter. 12. If we now turn to Italy, we shall some traces of find, as is not wonderful, Greek in Italy. ra ther more frequent in- stances of acquaintance with a living lan- guage, in common use with a great neigh- bouring people. Gradenigo, in an essay on this subject, 2 has endeavoured to refute Michael Scot, "the wizard of dreaded fame," pretended to translate Aristotle ; but is charged with having appropriated the labours of one Andrew, a Jew, \s his own. Mciners, ii. 664. 1 C. x. 2 Ragionamento istorico-critico opra la lit- teratura Greco-Italiana. Brescia, 1759. what he supposes to be the universal opi- nion, that the Greek tongue was first taught in Italy by Chrysoloras and Guarino at the end of the fourteenth century, con- tending that, from the eleventh inclusive, there are numerous instances of persons conversant with it ; besides the evidence afforded by inscriptions in Greek characters found in some churches, by the use of Greek psalters and other liturgical offices, by the employment of Greek painters in churches, and by the frequent intercourse between the two countries. The latter presumptions have in fact considerable weight ; and those who should contend for an absolute ignorance of the Greek lan- guage, oral as well as written, in Italy, would go too far. The particular instances brought forward by Gradenigo are about thirty. Of these, the first is Papias, who has quoted five lines of Hesiod. 1 Lanfranc had also a considerable acquaintance with the language. 2 Peter Lombard, in his Liber Sententiarum, the systematic basis of scholastic theology, introduces many Greek words, and explains them rightly. 3 But this list is not very long ; and when we find the surname Bifarius given to one Ambrose of Bergamo in the eleventh century, on account of his capacity of speaking both languages, it may be con- ceived that the accomplishment was some- what rare. Mehus, in his very learned life of Traversari, has mentioned two or three names, among whom is the Emperor Frederic II. (not indeed strictly an Italian), that do not appear in Gradenigo. 4 But Tiraboschi conceives, on the other hand, that the latter has inserted some on insuf- ficient grounds. Christine of Pisa is men- tioned, I think, by neither ; she was the daughter of an Italian astronomer, but lived at the court of Charles V. of France, and was the most accomplished literary lady of that age. 5 13. The intercourse between Greece and the west of Europe, occa- corruption of sioned by commerce and by Greek language the crusades, had little or no influence upon literature. For, besides 1 P. 37. These are very corruptly given, through the fault of a transcriber ; for Papias has translated them into tolerable Latin verse. 2 Hist. Litt. de la France, vii. 144. 3 Meiners, iii. 11. 4 Pp. 155, 217, &c. Add to these authorities, Muratori, dissert. 44; Brucker, iii. 644, 647; Tiraboschi, v. 393. 5 Tiraboschi, v. 388, vouches for Christine's knowledge of Greek. She was a good poetess in French, and altogether a very remarkable person. Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. the general indifference to it in those classes of society which were thus brought into some degree of contact with the East- ern Empire, we must remember that, al- though Greek, even to the capture of Con- stantinople by Mahomet II., was a living language in that city, spoken by the su- perior ranks of both sexes with tolerable purity, it had degenerated among the com- mon people, and almost universally among the inhabitants of the provinces and islands, into that corrupt form, or rather new lan- guage, which we call Romaic. 1 The pro- gress of this innovation went on by steps very similar to those by which the Latin was transformed in the West, though it was not so rapid or complete. A manu- script of the twelfth century, quoted by Du Cange from the royal library at Paris, appears to be the oldest written specimen of the modern Greek that has been pro- duced ; but the oral change had been gradu- ally going forward for several preceding centuries. 2 14. The Byzantine literature was chiefly Character of valuable by illustrating, or Byzantine preserving in fragments, the literature. historians,philosophers, and, in some measure, the poets of antiquity. Constantinople and her empire produced abundantly men of erudition, but few of genius or of taste. But this erudition was now rapidly on the decline. No one was left in Greece, according to Petrarch, after the death of Leontius Pilatus, who under- stood Homer ; words not, perhaps, to be literally taken, but expressive of what he conceived to be their general indifference to the poet : and it seems very probable that some ancient authors, whom we should 1 Filelfo says, in one of his epistles, dated 1441, that the language spoken in Peloponnesus "ad eo est depravata, ut nihil omnino sapiat priscaa ilius et eloquentissimo Grsecise." At Constantinople the case was better ; " viri eruditi sunt nonnulli, et culti mores, et sermo etiara nitidus." In a letter of Coluccio Salu- tato, near the end of the fourteenth century, he says that Plutarch had been translated de Greece in Graecum vulgare. Menus, p. 294. This seems to have been done at Rhodes. I quote this to remove any difficulty others may feel, for I be- lieve the Romaic Greek is much older. The progress of corruption in Greek is sketched in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii., probably by the pen of the Bishop of London. Its symptoms were very similar to those of Latin in the West ; abbreviation of words, and indifference to right inflexions. See also Col. Leake's Researches in the Morea. Eustathius has many Romaic words ; yet no one in the twelfth century had more learning. 2 Du Cange, pnefatio in Glossariuni media; et infimse Graecitatis. most desire to recover, especially the lyric poets of the Doric and ^Eolic dialects, have perished, because they had become unin- telligible to the transcribers of the lower empire ; though this has also been ascribed to the scrupulousness of the clergy. An absorbing fondness for theological subtle- ties, far more trifling among the Greeks than in the schools of the west, conspired to produce a neglect of studies so remote as heathen poetry. Aurispa tells Ambrogio Traversari, that he found they cared little about profane literature. Nor had the Greek learning ever recovered the blow that the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204, and the establishment for sixty years of a Latin and illiterate dynasty, inflicted upon it. 1 We trace many classical authors to that period, of whom we know nothing later, and the com- pilations of ancient history by industrious Byzantines came to an end. Meantime the language, where best preserved, had long lost the delicacy and precision of its syntax; the true meaning of the tenses, moods, and voices of the verb was overlooked or guessed at ; a kind of latinism, or something at least not ancient in structure and rhythm, shows itself in their poetry; and this im- perfect knowledge of their once beautiful language is unfortunately coo manifest in the grammars of the Greek exiles of the fifteenth century, which have so long been the groundwork of classical education in Europe. 15. We now come to the proper period of the restoration of Greek p e trarch and learning. In the year 1339, Boccace learn Barlaam, a Calabrian by birth, but long resident in Greece, and deemed one of the most learned men of that age, was entrusted by the emperor Cantacuzenus with a mission to Italy. 2 Pe- trarch, in 1342, as Tiraboschi fixes the time, endeavoured to learn Greek from him, but found the task too arduous, or rather, had not sufficient opportunity to go on with it. 8 Boccaccio, some years afterwards, 1 An enumeration, and it is a long one, of the Greek books not wholly lost till this time will be found in Heeren, p. 125 ; and also in his Essai sur les Croisades. 2 Mehus. Tiraboschi, v. 398. De Sade, i. 406. Biog. Univ., Barlaam. 3 Incubueram alacri spe magnoque desiderio, sed peregrinsf) linguae novitas et festina prsecep- toris absentia prseciderunt propositum meum. It has been said, and probably with some truth, that Greek, or at least a sort of Greek, was preserved as a living language in Calabria ; not because Geeek colonies had once been settled in some cities, but because that part of Italy was not lost to the Byzantine empire till about Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. succeeded better with the help of Leontius Hiatus, a Calabrian also by birth, 1 who made a prose translation of Homer for his xise, and for whom he is said to have pro- cured a public appointment as teacher of the Greek language at Florence, in 13(31. He remained here about three years ; but we read nothing of any other disciples ; and the man himself was of too unsocial and forbidding a temper to conciliate them. 2 16. According to a passage in one of Few acquainted Petrarch's letters, fancifully with the language addressed to Homer, there in their time. were at that time not above ten persons in Italy who knew how to value the old father of the poets ; five at the most in Florence, one in Bologna, two in Verona, one in Mantua, one in Perugia, but none at Kome. 3 Some pains have been thrown away in attempting to retrieve the names of those to whom he alludes : the letter shows at least, that there was very little pretension to Greek learning in Ids age ; for I am not convinced that he meant all these ten persons, among whom he seems to reckon himself, to be con- sidered as skilled in that tongue. And we must not be led away by the instances par- tially collected by Gradenigo out of the whole mass of extant records, to lose sight of the great general fact, that Greek litera- ture was lost in Italy for 700 years, in the words of Leonard Aretin, before the ar- rival of Chrysoloras. The language is one thing, and the learning contained in it is another. For all the purposes of taste and erudition, there was no Greek in western Europe during the middle ages : if we look only at the knowledge of bare words, we have seen there was a very slender portion. 17. The true epoch of the revival of it is taught by Greek literature in Italy, Chrysoloras these attempts of Petrarch about 1395. and Boccace having pro- duced no immediate effect, though they three centuries before the time of Barlaam and Pilatus. They, however, had gone to a better source ; and I should have great doubts as to the goodness of Calabrian Greek in the four- teenth century, which of course are not removed by the circumstance that in some places the church service was performed in that language. Heeren, I find, is of the same opinion, p. 287. 1 Many have taken Pilatus for a native of Thessalonica : even Hody has fallen into this mistake, but Petrarch's letters show the con- trary. 2 Hody. De Grsecis Illustribus, p. 2. Mehus, 273. I)e Sade, i. 625. Gibbon has erroneously supposed this translation to have been made by Boccace himself. 3 De Sade, iii. 627. Tiraboschi, v. 371, 400. Heeren, 294. evidently must have excited a desire for learning, cannot be placed before the year 1395, l when Emanuel Chrysoloras, pre- viously known as an ambassador from Constantinople to the western powers, in order to solicit assistance against the Turks, was induced to return to Florence as public teacher of Greek. He passed from thence to various Italian universities, and became the preceptor of several early Hellenists. 2 The first, and perhaps the most eminent and useful of these, was Guarino Guarini of Verona, born in 1370. He acquired ] his knowledge of Greek under Chrysoloras at Constantinople, before the arrival of the latter in Italy. Gaurino, upon his return, became professor of rhetoric, first at Venice and other cities of Lombardy, then at Flo- rence, and ultimately at Ferrara, where he closed a long life of unremitting and useful labour in 1460. John Aurispa of Sicily came to the field rather later, but his la- bours were not less profitable. He brought back to Italy 238 manuscripts from Greece about 1423, and thus put his country in possession of authors hardly known to her by name. Among these were Plato, Ploti- uus, Diodorus, Arrian, Dio Cassius, Strabo, 1 This is the date fixed by Tiraboschi ; others refer it to 1391, 1396, 1397, or 1399. 2 Liter* per hujus belli intercapedines mira- bile quantum per Italiam increvere ; accedente tune primum cognitione literarum Grsecarum qua septingentis jam annis apud nostros homi- nes desierant esse in usu. Retulit autem Grae- cam disciplinam ad nos Chrysoloras Byzantinus, vir domi nobilis ac literarum Grascarum peri- tissimus. Leonard Aretin apud Hody, p. 28. See also an extract from Manetti's Life of Boc- cace, in Hody, p. 61. Satis constat Chrysoloram Byzantinum trans- marinam illain disciplinam in Italiam ad- vexisse ; quo doctore adhibito primum nostri homines totius exercitationis atque artis ignari, cognitis Grsecis literis, vehementer sese ad elo- quentiae studia excitaverunt. P. Cortesius, De Hominibus Doctis, p. 6. The first visit of Chrysoloras had produced an inclination towards the study of Greek. Co- luccio Salutato, in a letter to Demetrius Cydon- ius, who had accompanied Chrysoloras, says, Multorum animos ad linguam Helladum accen- disti, ut jam videre videar multos fore Gras- carum literarum post paucorum annorum curri- cula non tepide studiosos. Mehus, p. 056. The Erotemata of Chysoloras, an introduc- tion to Greek grammar, was the first, and long the only, channel to a knowledge of that lan- guage, save oral instruction. It was several times printed, even after the grammars of Gaza and Lascaris had come more into use. An abridgment by Guarino of Verona, with some additions of his own, was printed at Ferrara in 1509. Ginguene, iii. 283. 50 Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. Pindar, Callimachus, Appian. After teach- ing Greek at Bologna and Florence, Au- rispa also ended a length of days under the patronage of the house of Este, at Ferrara. To these may be added, in the list of public instructors in Greek before 1440, Filelfo, a man still more known by his virulent dis- putes with his contemporaries than by his learning ; who, returning from Greece in 1427, laden with manuscripts, was not long afterwards appointed to the chair of rhe- toric, that is, of Latin and Greek philology, at Florence ; and, according to his own ac- count, excited the admiration of the whole city. 1 But his vanity was excessive, and his contempt of others not less so. Poggio was one of his enemies ; and their language towards each other is a noble specimen of the decency with which literary and per- sonal quarrels were carried on. 2 It has been observed, that Gianozzo Manetti, a contemporary scholar, is less known than others, chiefly because the mildness of his character spared him the altercations to which they owe a part of their celebrity. 3 1 Universa In me civitas conversa est ; omnes me diligunt, honorant omnes, ac sumrnis lau- dibus in c'elum efferunt. Meum nomen in ore est omnibus. Nee primarii cives modo, cum per urbem incedo, sed nobilissimae foeminse honorandi mei gratia loco cedunt, tantumque mihi deferunt, ut me pudeat tanti cultus; Au- ditores sunt quotidie ad quadringentos, vel fortassis et amplius ; et hi quidem magna in parte viri grandiores et ex ordine senatorio. Phililph. Epist. ad ann. 1428. 2 Shepherd's Life of Poggio, ch. vi. and viii. a Hody was perhaps the first who threw mucli light on the early studies of Greek in Italy ; and his book, De Grsecis Illustribus, Linguie Grsecse Instauratoribus, will be read with pleasure and advantage by every lover of literature ; though Mehus, who came with more exuberant erudi- tion to the subject, has pointed out a few errors. But more is to be found as to its native cultiva- tors, Hody being chiefly concerned with the Greek refugees, in Bayle, Fabricius, Niceron, Mehus. Zeno, Tiraboschi, Meiners, Roscoe, Heeren, Shepherd, Corniani, Ginguene', and the Biographie Universelle, whom I name in chrono- logical order. As it is impossible to dwell on the subject within the limits of these pages, I will refer the reader to the most useful of the above writings, some of which, being merely biographical col- lections, do not give the connected information he would require. The lives of Poggio and of Lorenzo de' Medici will make him familiar with the literary history of Italy for the whole fifteenth century, in combination with public events, as it is best learned. I need not say that Tiraboschi is a source of vast knowledge to those who can encounter two quarto volumes. Gingue'ne"s third volume is chiefly borrowed from these, and may be read with great advan- tage. Finally, a clear, full, and accurate account 18. Many of these cultivators of the Greek language devoted their lei- Transiatiom sure to translating the manu - from Greek into scripts brought into Italy. LaUn ' The earliest of these were Peter Paul Vergerio (commonly called the elder, to distinguish him from a more celebrated man of the same names in the sixteenth century), a scholar of Chrysoloras, but not till he was rather advanced in years. He made, by order of the emperor Sigismund, and, therefore, not earlier than 1410, a translation of Arrian, which is said to exist in the Vatican library ; but we know little of its merits. 1 A more renowned person was Ambrogio Traversari, a Floren- tine monk of the order of Camaldoli, who employed many years in this useful labour. No one of that age has left a more re- spectable name for private worth ; his. epistles breathe a spirit of virtue, of kind- ness to his friends, and of zeal for learning. In the opinion of his contemporaries, he- was placed, not quite justly, on a level with Leonard Aretin for his knowledge of Latin, and he surpassed him in Greek. 2 Yet neither his translations, nor those of his contemporaries, Guarino of Verona, Pog- gio, Leonardo Aretino, Filelfo, who with several others, rather before 1440, or not long afterwards, rendered the historians and philosophers of Greece familiar to Italy, can be extolled as correct, or as dis- playing what is truly to be called a know- ledge of either language. Vossius, Casau- bon, and Huet speak with much dispraise of most of these early translations from Greek into Latin. The Italians knew not enough of the original, and the Greeks were not masters enough of Latin. Gaza, upon the whole, than whom no one is more successful, says Erasmus, whether he ren- of those times will be found in Heeren. It will be understood that all these works relate to the revival of Latin as well as Greek. J Biogr. Univ., Vergerio. He seems to have written very good Latin, if we may judge by the extracts in Corniani, II. 61. 2 The Hodopoericon of Traversari, though not of importance as a literary work, serves to- prove, according to Bayle (Camaldoli, note I)), that the author was an honest man, and that he lived in a very corrupt age. It is an account of the visitation of some convents belonging to his order. The life of Ambrogio Traversari has been written by Mehus very copiously, and with abundant knowledge of the times : it is a great source of the literary history of Italy. There is a pretty good account of him in Niceron, vol. xix., and a short one in Roscoe ; but the fullest biography of the man himself will be found in Meiners, Lebenbeschreibungen beruhmter Man- ner, vol. ii. pp. 222307. Literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. 51 ders Greek into Latin, or Latin into Greek, is reckoned the most elegant, and Argyro- pulus the most exact. But George of Trebizond, Filelfo, Leonard Aretin, Pog- gio, Valla, Perotti, are rather severely dealt with by the sharp critics of later times. 1 For this reproach does not fall only on the scholars of the first generation, but on their successors, except Politian, down nearly to the close of the fifteenth century. Yet, though it is necessary to point out the deficiencies of classical erudi- tion at this time, lest the reader should hastily conclude, that the praises bestowed upon it are less relative to the previous state of ignorance, and the difficulties with which that generation had to labour, than they really are, this cannot affect our ad- miration and gratitude towards men who, by their diligence and ardour in acquiring and communicating knowledge, excited that thirst for improvement, and laid those foundations of it, which rendered the en- suing age so glorious in the annals of litera- ture. 19. They did not uniformly find any Public enccror- great public encouragement agement delayed. m the early stages of their teaching. On the contrary, Avirispa met with some opposition to philological litera- ture at Bologna. 2 The civilians and philo- sophers were pleased to treat the innova- tors as men who wanted to set showy against solid learning. Nor was the state of Italy and of the papacy, during the long schism, very favourable to their object. Ginguene remarks, that patronage was more indispensable in the fifteenth century i Baillet, Jugemens des Savans, ii. 376, &c. Blount, Censura Auctorum, in nominibus nun- cupatis. Hody, ssepies. Niceron, vol. ix. in Perotti. See also a letter of Erasmus in Jortin's Life, ii. 425. Filelfo tells us of a perplexity into which Ambrogio Traversari and Carlo Marsuppini, perhaps the two principal Greek scholars in Italy after himself and Guarino, were thrown by this line of Homer : BouXo/> eo) \uoi> tam in creaturis, et extrahere ipsam ab illis, et ponere in anima, et videre signiflcationem creaturarum. Et sic comparando ad aliam et conjungere sicut dic- tionem dictioni, et ex tali conjunctione resultat sententia et signiftcatio vera, dum tamen scia homo intelligere et cognoscere. Literature of Etirope from 1440 to 1500. 71 , (Thomas of Sarzana), who "became Pope in 1447 ; nor has any later occupant of that chair, without excepting Leo X., deserved equal praise as an en' courager of learning. Nicolas founded the "Vatican library, and left it, at his death in 1455, enriched with 5000 volumes ; a trea- sure far exceeding that of any other col- lection in Europe. Every scholar who tieeJed maintenance, which was of course the common case, found it at the court of Rome ; innumerable benefices, all over Christendom, which had fallen into the grasp of the holy see, and frequently re- quired of their incumbents, as is well known, neither residence, nor even the priestly character, affording the means of generosity, which have seldom been so laudably applied. Several Greek authors were 'translated into Latin by direction of Nicolas V., among which are the history of Diodorus Siculus, and Xenophon's Cyro- psedia, by Poggio, 1 who still enjoyed the office of apostolical secretary, as he had under Eugenius IV., and with still more abundant munificence on the part of the pope ; Herodotus and Thucydides by Valla, Polybius by Peroti, Appian by Decembrio, Strabo by Gregory of Tif erno and Guarino of Verona, Theophrastus by Gaza, Plato de Legibus, Ptolemy's Almagest, and the Prseparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, by George of Trebizond. 2 These transla- 1 This translation of Diodorus has been as- cribed by some of our writers, even since the error has been pointed out, to John Free, an Englishman, who had heard the lectures of the younger Guarini in Italy. Quod opus, Leland observes, Itali Poggio vanissime attribuunt Florentine. De Scriptor. Britann. p. 462. But it bears the name of Poggio in the two editions printed in 1472 and 1493 ; and Leland seems to have been deceived by some one who had put Free's name on a manuscript of the translation. Poggio, indeed, in his preface, declares that he undertook it by command of Nicolas V. See Niceron, ix. 158 ; Zeno, Dis- sertazioni Vossiane, i. 41 ; Gingudne, iii. 2J5. Pits follows Leland in ascribing a translation of Diodorus to Free, and quotes the first words : thus, if it still should be suggested that this may be a different work, there are the means of proving it. 2 Heeren, p. 72. 72 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. tions, it has been already observed, will not bear a very severe criticism, but cer- tainly there was an extraordinary cluster of learning round the chair of this excel- lent pope. 3. Corniani remarks, that if Nicolas V., justice due to like some popes, had raised a his character, distinguished family, many pens would have been employed to im- mortalise him ; but not having surrounded himself with relations, his fame has been much below his merits. Gibbon, one of the first to do full justice to Nicolas, has made a similar observation. How striking the contrast between this pope and his famous predecessor Gregory I., who, if he did not burn and destroy heathen authors, was at least anxious to discourage the read- ing of them ! These eminent men, like Michael Angelo's figures of Night and Morning, seem to stand at the two gates of the middle ages, emblems and heralds of the mind's long sleep, and of its awakening. 4. Several little treatises by Poggio, Foggioontha rather in a moral than ruins of Rome, political strain, display an observing and intelligent mind. Such are those on nobility, and on the unhappiness of princes. For these, which were written before 1440, the reader may have recourse to Shepherd, Corniani, or Ginguen6. A later essay, if we may so call it, on the vicissitudes of fortune, begins with rather an interesting description of the ruins of Rome. It is an enumeration of the more conspicuous remains of the ancient city ; and we may infer from it that no great devastation or injury has taken place since the fifteenth century. Gibbon has given an account of this little tract, which is not, as he shows, the earliest description of the ruins of Eome. Poggio, I will add, seems not to 'have known some things with which we are familiar ; as the Cloaca Maxima, the fragments of the Servian wall, the Mamertine prison, the temple of Nerva, the Giano Quadrifonte ; and, by some odd misinformation, believes that the tomb of Cecilia Metclla, which he had seen entire, was afterwards destroyed. 1 This leads to a conjecture that the treatise was not finished during his residence at Eome, and consequently not within the present de- cennium. 5. In the fourth book of this treatise, De Account of the Varietate Fortunse, Poggio Eat, by ContL J ia8 introduced a remarkable narration of travels by a Venetian, Nicolo di Conti, who, in 1419, had set off from his i Art calccra postea majore ex parte exter- nimatimi. country, and after passing many years in Persia and India, returned home in 1444. His account of those regions, in some re- spects the earliest on which reliance could be placed, will be found rendered into Italian from a Portuguese version of Pog- gio, in the first volume of Ramusio. That editor seems not to have known that the original was in print. 6. A far more considerable work by Laurentius Valla, on the Laurentius graces of the Latin Ian- VaUa - guage, is rightly, I believe, placed within this period; but it is often difficult to determine the dates of books published before the invention of printing. Valla, like Poggio, had long earned the favour of Alfonso, but, unlike him, had forfeited that of the court of Rome. His character was very irascible and overbearing ; a fault too general with the learned of the fifteenth century; but he may, perhaps, be placed at the head of the literary republic at this time ; for, if inferior to Poggio, as pro- bably he was, in vivacity and variety of genius, he was undoubtedly above him in what was then most valued and most use- ful, grammatical erudition. 7. Valla began with an attack on the court of Rome, in his de- His attack on the clamation against the dona- eonrt t Rome, tion of Constantine. Some have in conse- quence reckoned him among the precursor* of Protestantism ; while others have im- puted to the Roman see, that he was pursued with its hostility for questioning that pretended title to sovereignty. But neither of these representations is just. Valla confines himself altogether to the temporal principality of the pope ; but in this his language must be admitted to have been so abusive as to render the resent- ment of the court of Rome not unreason- able.i 1 A few lines will suffice as a specimen. O Roman! pontiflces, exemplum facinorum om- nium cseteris pontiflcibus, et improbissimi scribae et pharissei, qui sedetis super cathedram Moysi, et opera Datlian et Abyron facitis, itane vestimenta apparatus, pompa equitatus, omnis. denique vita Caesaris, vicarium Christ! decebit ? The whole tone is more like Luther's violence, than what we should expect from an Italian of the fifteenth century. But it is with the am- bitious spirit of aggrandisement as temporal princes, that he reproaches the pontiffs ; nor can it be denied, that Martin and Eugenius had given provocation for his invective. Nee am- plius horrenda vox auiliatur, partes contra ecclesiam ; ecclesia contra Perusinos pugnat, contra Bononienses. Non contra Christianos pugnat ecclesia, sed papa. Of the papal claim- to temporal sovereignty by prescription, Vail* Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. b. The more famous work of Valla, De His treatise on Elegantiis La time Linguae, the Latin lan- begins with too arrogant an g1lage ' assumption. "These books," he says, "will contain nothing that has been said by any one else. For many ages past, not only no man has been able to speak Latin, but none have understood the Latin they read : the studious of philosophy have had no comprehension of the philo- sophers, the advocates of the orators, the lawyers of the jurists, the general scholar of any writers of antiquity. " Valla, however, did at least incomparably more than any one who had preceded him ; and it would probably appear, that a great part of the distinctions in Latin syntax, inflec- tion, and synonymy, which our best gram- mars contain, may be traced to his work. It is to be observed, that he made free use of the ancient grammarians, so that his vaunt of originality must be referred to later times. Valla is very copious as to synonyms, on which the delicate, and even necessary understanding of a language mainly depends. If those have done most for any science who have carried it furthest from the point whence they set out, philology seems to owe quite as much to Valla as to any one who has come since. The treatise was received with enthusiastic admiration, continually reprinted, honour- ed with a paraphrase by Erasmus, com- rrtented, abridged, extracted, and even turned into verse. 1 9. Valla, however, self-confident and of no good temper, in censur- BCt3 ' ing the language of others, fell not unfrequently into mistakes of his own. Vives and Budseus, coming in the next century, and in a riper age of philo- logy, blame the hypercritical disposition of one who had not the means of pronounc- ing negatively on Latin words and phrases, from his want of sufficient dictionaries : his fastidiousness became what they call superstition, imposing captious scruples and unnecessary observances on himself and the world. 2 And of this species of writes indignantly. Praescripsit Romana ec- clesia ; o imperiti, o divini juris ignari. Nullus quantumvis annorum numerus verum abolere titulum potest. Praescripsit Romana ecclesia. Tace, nefaria lingua. Praescriptionem quae fit rte rebus mutis atque irrationalibus, ad hominem transfers; cujus quo diuturnior in servitute possessio, eo detestabilior. 1 Corniani, ii. 221. The editions of Valla de Elegantiis, recorded by Panzer, are twenty-eight in the fifteenth century, beginning in 1471, and thirty -one in the first thirty-six years of the next. 2 Vives, De Tradendis Disciplinis, i. 478. superstition there has been much since his time in philology. 10. Heeren, one of the few who have, in modern times, spoken of this Heeren's praise work from personal know- of it- ledge, and with sufficient learning, gives it a high character. " Valla was, without doubt, the best acquainted with Latin of any man in his age ; yet, no pedantic- Ciceronian, he had studied in all the clas- sical writers of Rome. His Elegantiae are a work on grammar ; they contain an ex- planation of refined turns of expression f especially where they are peculiar to Latin. They display not only an exact knowledge of that tongue, but often also a really philosophical study of language in general. In an age when nothing was so much valued as a good Latin style, yet when the helps, of which we now possess so many, were all wanting, such a work must obtain. a great success, since it relieved a necessity which every one felt." 1 11. We have to give this conspicuous scholar a place in another vaiia'a annota- line of criticism, that on the tions on the New text and interpretation of Testament - the New Testament. His annotations are- the earliest specimen of explanations founded on the original language. In the course of these, he treats the Vulgate with some severity. But Valla is said to have had but a slight knowledge of Greek ; 2 and Budaeus observes : Ego Laurentium Vallensem, egregii spiritus virum, existimo saeculi sui im- peritia offensum primum Latine loquendi con- suetudinem constituere summa religione in- stitisse ; deinde judicii cerimonia singular!, cum profectus quoque diligentiam asquasset, in earn superstitionem sensim delapsum esse, ut et sese ipse et alios captiosis observationibus scribendique legibus obligaret. Commentar. in Ling. Graec. p. 26. (1529). But sometimes, perhaps, Valla is right, and Budaeus wrong in censuring him ; as, where he disputes the former's rule, that two epithets, not being placed as predicates, cannot be joined in Latin prose to a substantive without a copula, on no better grounds than such an usage of the pro- noun suus, or a phrase like privata res maritima in Cicero, where res maritima is in the nature of a single word, like res publica. The rule is certainly a good one, even if a few better excep- tions can be found. 1 P. 220. 2 Annis abhinc ducentis Herodotum et Thucy- didem Latinis literis exponebat Laurentius Valla, in ea bene et eleganter dicendi copia, quam totis voluminibus explicavit, inelegans tamen, et paene barbarus, Graecis ad hoc literis leviter tinctus, ad auctorum sententias paruiu attentus, oscitans saepe, et alias res agens, fidem apud eruditos decoxit. Huet de Claris intei- pretibus, apud Blount. Daunou, however, in the Biographic Universelle, art. Thucydides r 74 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. it nmst also be owned, that with all his merit as a Latin critic, he wrote indif- ferently, and with less classical spirit than his adversary Poggio. The invectives of these against each other do little honour to their memory, and are not worth recording in this volume, though they could not be omitted in a legitimate history of the Italian scholars. SECT. II. 14501460. Greeks in Italy Invention of Printing. 12. The capture of Constantinople in 1453 drove a few learned Greeks, who had lingered to the last amidst the crash of their ruined empire, to the hospitable Freih arrival of and admiring Italy. Among Greeks in Italy, these have been reckoned Argyropulus and Chalcondyles, sucessively teachers of their own language, Andronicus < 'allist us. who is said to have followed the same profession both there and at Rome, and Cons tan tine Lascaris, of an imperial family, whose lessons were given for sev- eral years at Milan, and afterwards at Messina. It seems, however, to be proved that Argyropulus had been already for sev- eral years in Italy. 1 13. The cultivation of Greek literature piatonists and gave rise about this time Aristotelians, fa a vehement controversy, which had some influence on philosophical opinions in Italy. Gemistus Pletho, a native of the Morea, and one of those who attended the council of Florence in 1439, being an enthusiastic votary of the Platonic theories in metaphysics and natural the- ology communicated to Cosmo de' Medici part of his own zeal ; and from that time the citizen of Florence formed a scheme of establishing an academy of learned men, to discuss and propagate the Platonic system. 'This seems to have been carried into effect arly in the present decennial period. 14. Meantime, a treatise by Pletho, Their con- wherein he not only ex- trowsy. tolled the pi aton i c piuio. sophy, which he mingled, as was then usual, with that of the Alexandrian school, and of the spurious writings attributed to .Zoroaster and Hermes, but inveighed with- out measure against Aristotle and his dis- ciples, had aroused the Aristotelians of Greece, where, as in western Europe, their master's authority had long prevailed. It seems not improbable that the Platouists asserts that Valla's translation of that historian is generally faithful. This would show no in- considerable knowledge of Greek for that age. 1 Hody. Tiraboschi. Roscoe. were obnoxious to the orthodox party, for sacrificing their own church to that of Rome ; and there is also strong ground for ascribing a rejection of Christianity to Pletho. The dispute, at least, began in Greece, where Pletho's treatise met with an angry opponent in Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople. 1 It soon spread to Italy ; Theodore Gaza embracing the cause of Aristotle with temper and moderation, 2 and George of Trebizond, a far inferior man, with invectives against the Platonic philosophy and its founder. Others re- plied in the same tone ; and whether from ignorance or from rudeness, this contro- versy appears to have been managed as much with abuse of the lives and charac- ters of two philosophers, dead nearly two thousand years, as with any rational dis- cussion of their tenets. Both sides, how- ever, strove to make out, what in fact was the ultimate object, that the doctrine they maintained was more consonant to the Christian religion than that of their ad- versaries. Cardinal Bessarion, a man of solid and elegant learning, replied to George of Trebizond in a book entitled Adversus Calumniatorem Platonis ; one of the first books that appeared from the Roman press, in 1470. This dispute may possibly have originated, at least in Greece, before 1450 ; and it was certainly continued beyond 1460, the writings both of George and Bessariou appearing to be rather of later date. 3 15. Bessarion himself was so far from being as unjust towards Aristotle as his op- ponent was towards Plato, that he trans- 1 Pletho's death, in an extreme old age, is fixed by Brucker, on the authority of George of Trebizond, before the capture of Constantinople. A letter, indeed, of Bessarion, in 1462 (Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. vol. ii.), seems to imply that he was then li ving ; but this cannot have been the case. Gennadius, his enemy, abdi- cated the patriarchate of Constantinople in 1458, having been raised to it in 1453. The public burning of Pletho's book was in the in- termediate time ; and it is agreed that this was done after his death. 2 Hody, p. 79, doubts whether Gaza's vindi- cation of Aristotle were not merely verbal, in conversation with Bessarion ; which is however implicitly contradicted by Boivin and Tira- boschi, who assert him to have written against Pletho. The comparison of Plato and Aristotle by George of Trebizond was published at Venice in 1523. as Heeren says, on the authority of Fabricius. 3 The best account, and that from which later writers have freely borrowed, of this philoso- phical controversy, is by Boivin, in the second volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of In- scriptions, p. 15. Brucker, iv. 40, Buhle, ii. 107, and Tiraboschi, vi. 303, are my other authorities. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 75 lated his metaphysics. That philosopher, though almost the idol of the schoolmen, lay still in some measure under the ban of the church, which had very gradually re- moved the prohibition she laid on his writ- ings in the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury. Nicholas V. first permitted them to be read without restriction in the uni- versities. 1 16. Cosmo de' Medici selected Marsilius Marsiiiua Ficinus, as a youth of great Ficinus. promise, to be educated in the mysteries of Platonism, that he might become the chief and preceptor of the new academy ; nor did the devotion of the young philosopher fall short of the patron's hope. Ficinus declares himself to have profited as much by the conversation of Cosmo as by the writings of Plato ; but this is said in a dedication to Lorenzo, and the author has not, on other occasions, escaped the reproach of flattery. He be- gan as early as 1456, at the age of twenty- three, to write on the Platonic philosophy ; but being as yet ignorant of Greek, pru- dently gave way to the advice of Cosmo and Landino, that he should acquire more knowledge before he imparted it to the world. 2 17. The great glory of this decennial invention of period is the invention of printing. printing, or at least, as all must allow, its application to the purposes of useful learning. The reader will not expect a minute discussion of so long and unsettled a controversy as that which the origin of this art has furnished. For those who are little conversant with the subject, a very few particulars may be thought necessary. 18. About the end of the fourteenth cen- tury we find a practice of Block-books. , , . taking impressions from en- graved blocks of wood, sometimes for play- ing cards, which came into use not long before that time ; sometimes for rude cuts of saints. 3 The latter were frequently ac- companied by a few lines of letters cut in the block. Gradually entire pages were impressed in this manner ; and thus began what are called block books, printed in fixed characters, but never exceeding a very few leaves. Of these there exist nine or 1 Launoy, De Varia Aristotelis Fortuna in Academia Parisiensi, p. 44. 2 Brucker, iv. 50. Koscoe. 3 Heinekke and others have proved that play- ing cards were known in Germany as early as 1299 ; but these were probably painted. Lam- binet, Origines de 1'Imprimerie. Singer's His- tory of Playing Cards. The earliest cards were on parchment. ten, often reprinted, as it is generally thought, between 1400 and 1440. 1 In using the word printed, it is of course not intended to prejudice the question as to the real art of printing. These block books seem to have been all executed in the Low Countries. They are said to have been followed by several editions of the short grammar of Donatus in wooden stereo- type. 2 These also were printed in Holland. This mode of printing from blocks of wood has been practised in China from time im- memorial. 19. The invention of printing, in the modern sense, from move- Gutenberg and able letters, has been re- Costar'a claims, ferred by most to Gutenberg, a native of Mentz, but settled at Strasburg. He is supposed to have conceived the idea before 1440, and to have spent the next ten years in making attempts at carrying it into effect, which some assert him to have done in short fugitive pieces, actually printed from his moveable wooden characters be- fore 1450. But of the existence of these there seems to be no evidence. 3 Guten- berg's priority is disputed by those who deem Lawrence Costar, of Haarlem, the real inventor of the art. According to a tradition, which seems not to be traced be- yond the middle of the sixteenth century, but resting afterwards upon sufficient testi- mony to prove its local reception, Costar substituted moveable for fixed letters as early as 1430 ; and some have believed that a book called Speculum Human* Salva- tionis, of very rude wooden characters, pro- ceeded from the Haarlem press before any other that is generally recognised. 4 The tradition adds, that an unfaithful servant having fled with the secret, set up for him- self at Strasburg, or Mentz ; and this treachery was originally ascribed to Guten- berg or Fust, but seems, since they have been manifestly cleared of it, to have been laid on one Gensfleisch, reputed to be the brother of Gutenberg. 5 The evidence, how- 1 Lambinet, Singer, Ottley, Dibdin, &c. 2 Lambinet. 3 Memoires de 1'Acad. des Inscript. xvii. 7C2. Lambinet, p. 113. 4 In Mr. Ottley's History of Engraving, the claims of Costar are strongly maintained, though chiefly on the authority of Meerman's proofs, which go to establish the local tradition. But the evidence of Ludovico Guicciardini is an answer to those who treat it as a forgery of Hadrian Junius. Santander, Lambinet, and most recent investigators are for Mentz against Haarlem. 5 Gensfleisch seems to have been the name of that branch of the Gutenberg family to which the inventor of printing belonged. Biogr. Univ., art. Gutenberg. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. ever, as to this, is highly precarious ; and even if we were to admit the claims of Costar, there seems no fair reason to dis- pute that Gutenberg might also have struck out an idea, that surely did not require any extraordinary ingenuity, and which left the most important difficulties to be surmounted, as they undeniably were, by himself and his coadjutors. 1 20. It is agreed by all, that about 1450, Progress of the Gutenberg, having gone to invention. Mentz, entered into partner- ship with Fust, a rich merchant of that city, for the purpose of carrying the inven- tion into effect, and that Fust supplied him with considerable sums of money. The subsequent steps are obscure. Accord- ing to a passage in the Annales Hirsargi- enses of Trithemius, written sixty years afterwards, but on the authority of a grandson of Peter Schaeffer, their assistant in the work, it was about 1452 that the latter brought the art to perfection, by de- vising an easier mode of casting types. 2 This passage has been interpreted, according to a lax construction, to mean, that Schseffer invented the method of casting types in a matrix ; but seems more strictly to mean, that we owe to him the great improvement in letter-casting, namely, the punches of engraved steel, by which the matrices or moulds are struck, and without which, in- dependent of the economy of labour, there could be no perfect uniformity of shape. Upon the former supposition, Schaeffer may be reckoned the main inventor of the art of printing ; for moveable wooden letters, though small books may possibly have been printed by means of them, are so inconvenient, and letters of cut metal so expensive, that few great works were likely to have passed through the press, till cast types were employed. Van Praet, however, believes the psalter of 1457 to have been printed from wooden characters ; and some have conceived letters of cat metal to have been employed both in that and in the first Bible. Lambinet, who thinks " the essence of the art of printing is in the engraved punch," naturally gives the chief credit to Schseffer ; 3 but this is not the more usual opinion. 1 Lambinet, p. 315. 2 Petrus Opilio de Oernsheim, tune famulus inventoris primi Joannis Fust, homo ingeniosus et jirurtens, faciliorem modum fundendi charac- teras excogitavit, et artem, ut nunc est, com- plevit. Lambinet, i. 101. See Daunou contra. Id. 417. 3 ii. 213. In another place, he divides the praise better : Gloire done a Gutenberg, qul, le premier, congut 1'id^e de la typographic, en 21. The earliest book, properly so called, is now generally believed to pa-st printed be the Latin Bible, com- "> le - monly called the Mazarin Bible, a copy hav- ing been found, about the middle of the last century, in Cardinal Mazarin's library at Paris. 1 It is remarkable, that its exis- tence was unknown before ; for it can. hardly be called a book of very extraordin- ary scarcity, nearly twenty copies being in different libraries, half of them in those of private persons in England. 2 No date ap- pears in this Bible, and some have referred its publication to 1452, or even to 1450, which few perhaps would at present main- tain ; while others have thought the year 1455 rather more probable. 3 In a copy be- longing to the royal library at Paris, an entry is made, importing that it was com- pleted in binding and illuminating at Mentz, on the feast of the Assumption (Aug. 15), 1456. But Trithemius, in the passage above quoted, seems to intimate that no book had been printed in 1452 ; and, considering the lapse of time that would naturally be employed in auch an undertaking during the infancy of the art, and that we have no other printed book of the least importance to fill up the interval till 1457, and also that the binding and illuminating the above-mentioned copy is likely to have followed the publication at no great length of time, we may not err in placing its appearance in the year 14-35, which will secure its hitherto unimpeached priority in the records of bibliography. 4 imaginant la mobilitd des caractires, qui en obt 1'ame ; gloire a Fust, qui en fit usage avec lui, et sans lequel nous ne jouirions peut-etre pas ile ce bienfait ; gloire a Schseffer, a qui nou^ do- vons tout le mecanisme, et toutes les mervunlcs de 1' art. i. 119. 1 The Cologne chronicle says : Anno Domini 1450, qui jubilaaus erat, coeptum est imprimi, primusque liber, qui excudebatur, biblia fuere Latin a. 2 Bibliotheca Sussexiana, i. 2P3. (1827.) The number there enumerated is eighteen ; nine in public, and nine in private libraries ; three of the former, and all the latter, English. 3 Lambinet thinks it was probably not begun before 1453, nor published till the end of 1455. i. 130. See, on this ftible, an article by Dr. Dibdin, in Valpy's Classical Journal, No. 8 ; which collects thetestimoniesof his predecessors. 4 It is very difficult to pronounce on the means employed in the earliest books, which are almost all controverted. This bible is thought by Fournier, himself a letter founder, to be printed from wooden types ; by Meennan, from types cut in metal ; by Heinekke and Daunou from cast types, which is most probable. Lam- binet, i. 417. Daunou does not believe that any book was printed with types cut either in wood Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 77 22. It is a very striking circumstance, Beauty of that the high-minded inven- thebook. ^ors of this great art tried at the very outset so bold a flight as the printing an entire Bible, and executed it with astonishing success. It was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine strength and radiant armour, ready at the moment of her nativity to subdue and destroy her enemies. The Mazarin Bible is printed, some copies on vellum, some on paper of choice quality, with strong, black, and tolerably handsome characters, but with some want of uniformity, which has led, perhaps unreasonably, to a doubt whether they were cast in a matrix. We may see in imagination this venerable and splendid volume leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were, a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first fruits to the service of Heayen. 23. A metrical exhortation, in the Ger- Eariy printed man language, to take arms sheet*, against the Turks, dated in 1454, has been retrieved in the present century. If this date unequivocally refers to the time of printing, which does not seem a necessary consequence, it is the earliest loose sheet that is known to be ex- tant. It is said to be in the type of what is called the Bamberg Bible, which we shall soon have to mention. Two editions of Letters of Indulgence from Nicolas V., bear- ing the date of 1454, are extant in single printed sheets, and two more editions of 1455 j 1 but it has justly been observed, that, even if published before the Mazarin Bible, the printing of that great volume must have commenced long before. An almanac for the year 1457 has also been detected ; and as fugitive sheets of this kind arc seldom preserved, we may justly conclude that the art of printing was not dormant, so far as these light productions are concerned. A Donatus, with Schaeffer's name, but no date, may or may not be older than a psalter published in 1457 by Fust and Schseffer (the partnership with or metal ; and that, after block books, there were none but with cast letters like those now in use, invented by Gutenberg, perfected by Schseffer, and first employed by them and Fust in the Mazarin Bible. Id. p. 423. 1 Brunet, Supplement au Manuel du Libraire. It was not known till lately that more than one edition out of these four was in existence, San- tander thinks their publication was after 1460. Diet. Bibliographique du 15me Siecle, i. 92. But this seems improbable, from the transitory character of the subject. He argues from a re- semblance in the letters to those used by Fust and Schseffer in the Durandi Rationale of 1459. Gutenberg having been dissolved in No- vember, 1455, and having led to a dispute and litigation), with a colophon, or notice, subjoined in the last page, in these words : Psalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus, rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus, adinventione artificiosa impri- mendi ac caracterizandi, absque calami ulla exaratione sic effigiatus, et ad eusebiam Dei industrie est summatus. Per Johan- nem Fust, civem Moguntinum, et Petrum Schseffer de Gernsheim, anno Domini mil- lesimo cccclvii. In vigilia Assumptionis. 1 A colophon, substantially similar, is sub- joined to several of the Fustine editions. And this seems hard to reconcile with the story that Fust sold his impressions at Paris, as late as 1463, for manuscripts. 24. Another psalter was printed by Fust and Schaeffer with similar palter of i9. characters in 1459 ; and in Other early the same year, Durandi books. Rationale, a treatise on the liturgical offices of the church ; of which Van Praet says, that it is perhaps the earliest with cast types to which Fust and Schseffer have given their name and a date. 3 The two psalters he conceives to have been printed from wood. But this would be disputed by other eminent judges. 3 In 14GO, a work of' considerable size, the Catholicon of Balbi, came out from an opposition press, estab- lished at Mentz by Gutenberg. The Clem- entine Constitutions, part of the canon law, were also printed by him in the same year. 25. These are the only monuments of early typography acknow- ledged to come within the present decennium. A Bible without a date, supposed by some to have been printed by Pfister at Bamberg, though ascribed by others to Gutenberg liimself, is reckoned by good judges certainly prior to 1462, and perhaps as early as 1460. Daunou and others refer it to 1461. The antiquities of typography, after all the pains bestowed upon them, are not unlikely to receive still further elucidation in the course of time. 1 Dibdin's Bibliotheca Spenceriana. Biogr. Univ., Gutenberg, &c. In the Donatus above mentioned, the method of printing is also men- tioned : Explicit Donatus artenovaimprimendi seu caracterizandi per Petrum de Gernsheim in urbe Moguntina effigiatus. Lambinet considers this and the Bible to be the first specimens of typography, for he doubts the Liter Indulgen- tiarum, though probably with no cause. 2 Lambinet, i. 154. a Lambinet, Dibdin. The former thinks the inequality of letters observed in the psalter of 1457 may proceed from their being cast in a matrix of plaster or clay, instead of metal. Bible of Pfister. 78 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 26. On the 19th of January, 1458, as Greek first Crevier, with a minuteness taught at Park, becoming the subject, in- forms us, the university of Paris received a petition from Gregory, a native of Tiferno, in the kingdom of Naples, to be appointed teacher of Greek. His request was granted, and a salary of one hundred crowns assigned to him, on condition that lie should teach gratuitously, and deliver two lectures every day, one on the Greek language, and the other on the art of rhetoric. 1 From this auspicious circumstance Crevier deduces the restoration of ancient literature in the university of Paris, and consequently in the kingdom of France. For above two hundred years, the scholastic logic and philosophy had crushed polite letters. No mention is made of rhetoric, that is, of the art that instructs in the ornaments of style, in any statute or record of the university since the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury. If the Greek language, as Crevier supposes, had not been wholly neglected, it was, at least, so little studied, that en- tire neglect would have been practically the same. 27. This concession was, perhaps, un- Leave unwillingly willingly made, and, as f re- granted, quently happens in estab- lished institutions, it left the prejudices of the ruling party rather stronger than before. The teachers of Greek and rhetoric were specially excluded from the privileges of regency by the faculty of arts. These branches of knowledge were looked upon as unessential appendages to a good educa- tion, very much as the modern languages are treated in our English schools and uni- versities at this day. A bigoted adherence to old systems, and a lurking reluctance that the rising youth should become su- perior in knowledge to ourselves, were no peculiar evil spirits that haunted the uni- versity of Paris, though none ever stood more in need of a thorough exorcism. For many years after this time, the Greek and Latin languages were thus taught by per- mission, and with very indifferent success. 28. Purbach, or Peurbach, native of a Purbach ; hi small Austrian town of that mathematical name, has been called the "coverie.. first restorer of mathemati- cal science in Europe. Ignorant of Greek, and possessing only a bad translation of Ptolemy, lately made by George of Tre- bizond, 2 he yet was able to explain the 1 Crevier, Hist, de 1'Univ. de Paris, iv. 243. 2 Montucla, Biogr. Univ. It is however cer- tain, and is admitted by Delambre, the author of this article in the Biog. Univ., that Purbach rules of physical astronomy and the theory of the planetary motions far better than his predecessors. But his chief merit was in the construction of trigonometrical tables. The Greeks had introduced the sexagesimal division, not only of the circle, but of the radius, and calculated chords according to this scale. The Arabians, who, about the ninth century, first substi- tuted the sine, or half chord of the double arch, in their tables, preserved the same graduation. Purbach made one step to- wards a decimal scale, which the new nota- tion by Arabic numerals rendered highly convenient, by dividing the radius, or siijus totus, as it was then often called, into 600,000 parts, and gave rules for computing the sines of arcs ; which he himself also calculated, for every minute of the quad- rant, as Delambre and Kiistner think, or for every ten minutes, according to Gas- sendi and Hutton, in parts of this radius. The tables of Alba ten the Arabian geo- meter, the inventor, as far as appears, of sines, had extended only to quarters of a degree. 1 29. Purbach died young, in 1461, when, by the advice of Cardinal other mathema- Bessarion, he was on the ticians. point of setting out for Italy, in order to learn Greek. His mantle descended on Regiomontanus, a disciple, who went be- yond his master, though he has sometimes borne away his due credit. A mathema- tician rather earlier than Purbach, was Nicolas Cusanus, raised to the dignity of cardinal in 1448. He was by birth a German, and obtained a considerable repu- tation for several kinds of knowledge. 2 But he was chiefly distinguished for the tenet of the earth's motion, which, however, ac- cording to Montucla, he proposed only as an ingenious hypothesis. Fioravanti, of Bologna, is said, on contemporary author- made considerable progress in abridging and explaining the text of this translation, which, if ignorant of the original, he must have done by his mathematical knowledge. Kastner, ii. 521. 1 Montucla, Hist, des Math^matiques, i. 539. Hutton 's Mathematical Dictionary, and his In- troduction to Logarithms. Gassendi, Vita Pur- bachii. Biogr. Univ. Peurbach (by Delambre). Kastner, Geschichte der Mathematik, i. 529 543,572; ii. 319. Gassendi twice gives 6,000,000 for the parts of Purbach's radius. None of these writers seem comparable in accuracy to Kastner. 2 A work upon statics, or rather upon the weight of bodies in water, by Cusanus, seems chiefly remarkable, as it shows both a disposi- tion to ascertain physical truths by experiment, and an extraordinary misapprehension of the results. See Kastner, ii. 122. It is published in an edition of Vitruvius, Strasburg, 1550. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. ity, to have removed, in 1455, a tower with its foundation, to a distance of several feet, and to have restored to the perpendicular one at Cento seventy-five feet high, which had swerved five feet. 1 SECT. III. 14601470. Progress of Art of Printing Learning in Italy and rest of Europe. 30. The progress of that most important Progress of invention, which illustrated printing in the preceding ten years, is Germany. ^ & cn j e f su bj ec t; of our con- sideration in the present. Many books, it is to be observed, even of the superior class, were printed, especially in the first thirty years after the invention of the art, with- out date of time or place ; and this was, of course, more frequently the case with smaller or fugitive pieces. A catalogue, therefore, of books that can be certainly referred to any particular period must always be very defective. A collection of fables in German was printed at Bamberg in 1461, and another book in 1462, by Pfister, at the same place. 2 The Bible which bears his name has been already mentioned. In 1462 Fust published a Bible, commonly called the Mentz Bible, and which passed for the earliest till that in the Mazarin library came to light. But in the same year, the city having been taken by Adolphus count of Nassau, the press of Fust was broken up, and his work- men, whom he had bound by an oath to secrecy, dispersed themselves into different quarters. Released thus, as they seem to have thought, from their obligation, they exercised their skill in other places. It is certain, that the art of printing, soon after this, spread into the towns near the Rhine ; not only Bamberg, as before mentioned, hut Cologne, Strasburg, Augsburg, and one or two more places, sent forth books before the conclusion of these ten years. Nor was Mentz altogether idle, after the confusion occasioned by political events had abated. Yet the whole number of books printed with dates of time and place, in the German empire, from 1461 to 1470, ac- cording to Panzer, was only twenty -four ; of which five were Latin, and two German, Bibles. The only known classical works are two editions of Cicero de Officiis, at Mentz, in 1465 and 1466, and another about the latter year at Cologne, by Ulric Zell ; perhaps also the treatise de Finibus, and that de Senectute, at the same place. J Tiraboschi. Montucla. Biogr. Univ. - Lambinet. There is also reason to suspect that a Virgil, a Valerius Maximus, and a Terence, printed by Mentelin at Strasburg, without a date, are as old as 1470 ; and the same has been thought of one or two editions of Ovid de Arte Amandi, by Zell of Cologne. One book, Joannis de Turrecremata Ex- planatio in Psalterium, was printed by Zainer, at Cracow, in 1465. This is re- markable, as we have no evidence of the Polish press from that time till 1500. Several copies of this book are said to exist in Poland ; yet doubts of its authenticity have been entertained. Zainer settled soon afterwards at Augsburg. 1 31. It was in '1469 that Ulric Gering, with two more, who had been employed as pressmen by Fust at Mentz, were induced by Fitchet and Lapierre, introduced rectors of the Sorbonne, to tato France, come to Paris, where several books were printed in 1470 and 1471. The epistles of Gasparin of Barziza appear, by some verses subjoined, to have been the earliest among these. 2 Panzer has increased to eighteen the list of books printed before the close of 1472. 32. But there seem to be unquestionable proofs that a still earlier caxton's first specimen of typography is works, due to an English printer, the famous Caxon. His Recueil des Histoires de Troye appears to have been printed during the life of Philip duke of Burgundy, and consequently before June 15, 1467. The place of publication, certainly within the duke's dominions, has not been conjec- tured. It is, therefore, by several years the earliest printed book in the French language. A Latin speech by Russell, ambassador of Edward IV. to Charles of Burgundy, in 1469, is the next publication of Caxtoii. This was also printed in the Low Countries. 4 33. A more splendid scene was revealed in Italy. Sweynheim and Printing ex- Pannartz, two workmen of ercised in Italy. Fust, set up a press, doubtless with en- couragement and patronage, at the mon- astery of Subiaco in the Apennines, a place 1 Panzer, Annales Typographic!. Biographic Universelle, Zainer. 2 The last four of these lines are the following : Primes ecce libros quos haec industria flnxit, Francorum in terris, aedibus atque tuis. Michael, Udalricus, Martinusque magistri Hos impresserunt, et facient alios. 3 See Greswell's Early Parisian Press. 4 Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities. This is not noticed in the Biographie Universelle, nor in Brunei ; an omission hardly excusable. 80 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. chosen either on account of the numerous manuscripts it contained, or because the monks were of the German nation; and hence an edition of Lactantius issued in October, 1465, which one, no longer ex- tant, of Donatus's little grammar is said to have preceded. An edition of Cicero 0, in order to become disciples of the younger Guarini at Ferrara: Robert Fleming, William Gray, bishop of Ely, John Free, John Gunthorpe, and a very accomplished nobleman, John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester. It is but fairness to give credit to these men for their love of learning, and to ob- serve, that they preceded any whom we could mention on sure grounds either in France or Germany. We trace, however, no distinct fruits from their acquisitions. But, though very few had the means of attaining that on which we set a high value in literature, the mere rudiments of gram- matical learning were communicated to many. Nor were munificent patrons, tes- tators, in the words of Burke, to a poster- ity which they embraced as their own, wanting in this latter period of the middle ages. William of Wykeham, chancellor of England under Richard II. and bishop of Winchester, founded a school in that city, and a college at Oxford in connection with it, in 1373. * Henry VI. , in imitation of him, became the founder of Eton school, and of King's College, Cambridge, about 1442. 2 In each of these schools seventy boys, and in each college seventy fellows and scholars, are maintained by these princely endowments. It is unnecessary to observe, that they are still the amplest, as they are much the earliest, foundations for the support of grammatical learning in England. What could be taught in these, or any other schools at this time, the reader has been enabled to judge ; it must have been the Latin language, through indiffer- ent books of grammar, and with the perusal of very few heathen writers of antiquity. In the curious and unique collection of the Paston letters we find one from a boy at Eton in 1408, wherein he gives two Latin verses, not very good, of his own composi- tion. 3 I am sensible that the mention of kept up in the university under the superinten- dence of masters of arts. A. D. 1442. The sta- tutes of Magdalen College, founded in the reign of Edward, provide for a certain degree of learning. Chandler's Life of Waynflete, p. 200. 1 Lowth's Life of Wykeham. He permits in his statutes a limited number of sons of gentle- men (gentilium) to be educated in his school. Chandler's Life of Waynflete, p. 5. 2 Waynflete became the first head master of Eton in 1442. Chandler, p. 26. 3 Vol. I., p. 301. Of William Paston, author of these lines, it is said, some years before, that he had "gone to school to a Lombard called Paston letters. sucli ft circumstance may appear trifling, especially to foreigners : but it is not A trifle to illustrate by any fact the gradual progress of knowledge among the laity; first in the mere elements of reading and writing, as we did in a former chapter ; and now, in the fifteenth century, in such grammatical instruction as could be im- parted. This boy of the Paston family was well born, and came from a distance ; nor was he in training for the church, since he seems by this letter to have had mar- riage in contemplation. 41. But the Paston letters are, in other respects, an important testi- mony to the progressive con- dition of society ; and come in as a precious link in the chain of the moral history of England, which they alone in this period supply. They stand indeed singly, as far as I know, in Europe; for though it is highly probable that in the archives of Italian families, if not in France or Ger- many, a series of merely private letters equally ancient may be concealed, I do not recollect that any have been published. They are all written in the reigns of Henry VI., and Edward IV., except a few, that extend as far as Henry VII., by different members of a wealthy and respectable, but not noble, family ; and are, therefore, pictures of the life of the English gentry in that age. 1 We are merely concerned with their evidence as to the state of litera- ture. And this, upon the whole, is more favourable than, from the want of author- ship in those reigns, we should be led to anticipate. It is plain that several mem- bers of the family, male and female, wrote not only grammatically, but with a fluency and facility, an epistolary expertness, which implies the habitual use of the pen. Their expression is much less formal and quaint than that of modern novelists, when they endeavour to feign the familiar style of ages much later than the fifteenth century. Some of them mix Latin with their En- glish, very bad, and probably for the sake Karol Giles, to learn and to be read in poetry, or else in French. He said, that he would be as glad and as fain of a good book of French or of poetry as my master Falstaff would be to pur- chase a fair manor," p. 173. (1459). 1 This collection is in five quarto volumes, and has become scarce. The length has been doubled by an injudicious proceeding of the editor, in printing the original orthography and abbreviations of the letters on each left-hand page, and a more legible modern form on the right. As orthography is of little importance, and abbreviations of none at all, it would have been sufficient to have given a single specimen. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 83 of concealment; and Ovid is once men- tioned as a book to be sent from one to another. 1 It appears highly probable, that such a series of letters, with so much viva- city and pertinence, would not have been written by any family of English gentry in the reign of Richard II., and much less before. It is hard to judge from a single case ; but the letter of Lady Pelham, quoted in the first chapter, is ungrammati- cal and unintelligible. The seed, therefore, was now rapidly germinating beneath the ground ; and thus we may perceive that the publication of books is not the sole test of the intellectual advance of a people. I may add, that although the middle of the fifteenth century was the period in which the fewest books were written, a greater number, in the opinion of experienced judges, were transcribed in that than in any former age. 42. It may be observed here, with re- Low condition ference to the state of learn- of public li- ing generally in England Caries. down to the age immedi- ately preceding the Reformation, that Leland, in the fourth volume of his Collec- tanea, has given several lists of books in colleges and monasteries, which do not by any means warrant the supposition of a tolerable acquaintance with ancient litera- ture. "We find, however, some of the xecent translations made in Italy from Greek authors. The clergy, in fact, were now retrograding, while the laity were advancing ; and when this was the case, the ascendency of the former was near its end. 43. I have said that there was not a new book written within these Rowley. _ , , - ten years. In the days of 'Our fathers, it would have been necessary at least to mention as a forgery the cele- brated poems attributed to Thomas Rowley. But, probably, no one person living believes in their authenticity ; nor should I have alluded to so palpable a fabrication at all, but for the curious circumstance that a very similar trial of literary credulity has not long since been essayed in France. A gentleman of the name of Surville published a collection of poems, alleged to have been written by Clotilde de Surville, a 1 " As to Ovid de Arte Amandi, I shall send him you next week, for I have him not now ready." iv. 175. This was between 1463 and 1469, according to the editor. We do not know positively of any edition of Ovid de Arte Aman- di so early ; but Zell of Cologne is supposed to have printed one before 1470, as has been men- tioned above. Whether the book to be sent were in print, or manuscript, must be left to the sagacity of critics. poetess of the fifteenth century. The muse of the Ardeche warbled her caotiMe de notes during a longer life Bnrvttle. than the monk of Bristow ; and having sung the relief of Orleans by the Maid of Arc in 1429, lived to pour her swan-like chant on the battle of Fornova in 1495. Love, how- ever, as much as war, is her theme ; and it was a remarkable felicity that she rendered an ode of her prototype Sappho into French verse, many years before any one else in France could have seen it. But having, like Rowley, anticipated too much the style and sentiments of a later period, she has, like him, fallen into the numerous ranks of the dead who never were alive. 1 SECT. IV. 14711480. The same Subjects continued Lorenzo de' Medici Physical Controversy Mathe- matical Sciences. 44. The booksprinted inltaly during these ten years amount, according Number of to Panzer, to 1297 ; of which books printed 234 are editions of ancient to Itajy - classical authors. Books without date are of course not included ; and the list must not be reckoned complete as to others. 45. A press was established at Florence by Lorenzo, in which Cennini, a goldsmith, was employed ; the first printer, except Caxton and Jenson, who was not a German. Virgil was published in 1471. Several other Italian cities began to print in this period. The first edition of Dante issued from Foligno in 1472 ; it has been impro- bably, as well as erroneously, referred to Mentz. Petrarch had been published in i Auguis, Recueil des Poetes, vol. ii. Biogr. Univ., Surville. Villemain, Cours de Littera- ture, vol. ii. Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, xiii. 593. The forgery is by no means so gross as that of Chatterton ; but, as M. Sismondi says, " We have only to compare Clotilde with th"? Duke of Orleans, or Villon." The following lines, quoted by him. will give the reader a fair specimen : Suivons 1'amour, tel en soit le danger ; Cy nous attend sur lits charmans de mousse. A des rigueurs ; qui voudroit s'en venger? Qui (meme alors que tout desir s'emousse) Au prix fatal de ne plus y songer ? Regne sur moi, cher tyran, dont les armes Ne me sauroient porter coups trop puissans ! Pour m'epargner n'en crois one a mes larmes ; Sont de plaisir, tant plus auront de charmes Tes dards aigus, que seront plus cuisans. It has been justly remarked, that the extracts from Clotilde in the Recueil des Anciens Poetes occupy too much space, while the genuine writers of the fifteenth century appear in very scanty specimens. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 1470, and Boccace in 1471. They were re- printed several times before the close of this decade. 46. No one had attempted to cast Greek first Greek types in sufficient number printed. f or an entire book ; though a few occur in the early publications by Sweynheim and Pannartz ;* while in those printed afterwards at Venice, Greek words are inserted by the pen ; till, in 1476, Zarot of Milan had the honour of giving the Greek grammar of Constantino Lascaris to the world. 2 This was followed in 1480 by Craston's lexicon, a very imperfect vocabu- lary ; but which for many years continued to be the only assistance of the kind to which a student could have recourse. The author was an Italian. 47. Ancient learning is to be divided into Study of two great departments ; the antiquities, knowledge of what is con- tained in the works of Greek and Roman authors, and that of the materiel, if I may use the word, which has been preserved in a bodily shape, and is sometimes known by the name of antiquities. Such are buildings, monuments, inscriptions, coins, medals, vases, instruments, which by gradual ac- cumulation have thrown a powerful light upon ancient history and literature. The abundant riches of Italy in these remains could not be overlooked as soon as the spirit of admiration for all that was Roman began to be kindled. Petrarch himself formed a IRtle collection of coins ; and his contemporary Pastrengo was the first who copied inscriptions ; but in the early part of the fifteenth century, her scholars and her patrons of letters began to collect the scattered relics, which almost every region presented to them. 3 Niccolo Niccoll, ac- cording to the funeral oration of Poggio, 1 Greek types first appear in a treatise of Jerome, printed at Rome in 1468. Heeren, from Panzer. - Lascaris Grammatica Gneca, Mediolani ex recognition Demetrii Cretensis per Dionysium Paravisinum, 4to. The characters in this rare volume are elegant and of a moderate size. The earliest specimens of Greek printing consist of detached passages and citations, found in a very few of the first printed copies of Latin authors, such as the Lactantius of 1465, the Aulus Gel- lius and Apuleius of Sweynheim and Pannartz, 1409, and some works of Bessarion about the same time. In all these it is remarkable that the Greek typography is legibly and creditably executed, whereas the Greek introduced into the Officia et Paradoxa of Cicero, Milan, 1474, by Zarot, is so deformed as to be scarcely legible. I am indebted for the whole of this note to Gres- well's Early Parisian Greek Press, 1. 1. 3 Tirabosehi, vols. v. and vl. Andres, ix. 190. possessed a series of medals, and even wrote a treatise in Italian, correcting the com mon orthography of Latin words, on the authority of inscriptions and coins. The love of collections increased from this time ; the Medici and other rich patrons of letters spared no expense in accumulating these treasures of the antiquary. Ciriacus of Ancona, about 1440, travelled into the East in order to copy inscriptions ; but he was naturally exposed to deceive himself and t be deceived ; nor has he escaped the sus- picion of imposture, or at least of excessive credulity. 1 48. The first who made his researches of this kind collectively known works on to the world, was Biondo tnatsutyect. Flavio, or Flavio Biondo, for the names may be found in a different order, but more correctly in the first,' 2 secretary to Eugenius IV., and to his successors. His long residence at Rome inspired him with the desire, and gave him the opportunity, of describing her imperial ruins. In a work, dedicated to Eugenius IV., who died in 1447, but not printed till 1471, entitled, Romse Instauratse libri tres, he describes, examines, and explains by the testimonies of ancient authors, the numerous monu- ments of Rome. In another, Romse Tri- umphantis libri decem, printed about 1472, he treats of the government, laws, religion, ceremonies, military discipline, and other antiquities of the republic. A third work, compiled at the request of Alfonso, king of Naples, and printed in 1474, called Italia Illustrate, contains a description of all Italy, divided into its ancient fourteen re- gions. Though Biondo Flavio was almost the first to hew his way into the rock, which should cause his memory to be re- spected, it has naturally happened, that, his works being imperfect and faulty, in comparison with those of the great anti- quaries of the sixteenth century, they have not found a place in the collection of Graevius, and are hardly remembered by name. 8 1 Tiraboschi. Andres, ix. 199. Cirlaco has not wanted advocates ; some of the inscriptions he was accused of having forged have turned out to be authentic ; and it is presumed in his favour, that others which do not appear may have per- ished since his time. Biogr. Univ., Cyriaque. One that rests on his authority is that which is supposed to record the persecution of the Chris- tians in Spain under Nero. See Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. i., who, though by no means a credulous critic, inclines to its genuineness. 2 Zeno, Dissertazioni Vossiane, i. 229. 3 A superior treatise of the same age on the Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 85 49. In Germany and the Low Countries Publications in the art of printing began to Germany. be exercised at Deventer, "Utrecht, Louvain, Basle, Ulm, and other places, and in Hungary at Buda. We find, however, very few ancient writers ; the whole list of what can pass for classics being about thirteen. One or two editions of parts of Aristotle in Latin, from trans- lations lately made in Italy, may be added. Yet it was not the length of manuscripts that discouraged the German printers ; for besides their editions of the Scriptures, Mentelin of Strasburg published, in 1473, the great encyclopaedia of Vincent of Beauvais, in ten volumes folio, generally bound in four ; and, in 1474, a similar work of Berchorius, or Berchoeur, in three other folios. The contrast between these labours and those of his Italian contem- poraries is very striking. 50. Floras and Sallust were printed at Paris early in this decade, llnFrance. , , , ... and twelve more classical authors at the same place before its ter- mination. An edition of Cicero ad Heren- nium appeared at Angers in 1476, and one of Horace at Caen, in 1480. The press of Lyons also sent forth several works, but none of them classical. It has been said by French writers, that the first book printed in their language is Le Jardin de Devotion, by Colard Mansion of Bruges, in 1473. This date has been questioned in England ; but it is of the less importance, as we have already seen that Caxtdn's Becueil des Histoires de Troye has the clear priority. Le Roman de Baudouin comte de Flandres, Lyon, 1474, seems to betheearliest French book printed in France. In 147G, Les Grands Chroniques de St. Denis, an import- ant and bulky volume, appeared at Paris. 51. We come now to our own Caxton, in England, by who finished a translation carton- into English of his Recueil des Histoires de Troye, by order of Mar- garet, duchess of Burgundy, at Cologne, in September 1471. It was probably printed there the next year. 1 But soon afterwards antiquities of the Roman city is by Bernard Rucellai (de Urbe Roma, in Rer. Ital. Scrip. Florent, vol. ii.). But it was not published be- fore the eighteenth century. Rucellai wrote some historical works in a very good Latin style, and was distinguished also in the political re- volutions of Florence. After the death of Lorenzo, he became the protector of the Flor- entine academy, for the members of which he built a palace with gardens. Corniani, iii. 143. Biogr. Univ., Rucellai. i This book at the Duke of Roxburgh's famous sale brought 1060?. he came to England with the instruments of his art ; and in 1474, his Game of Chess, a slight and short performance, is supposed to have been the first specimen of English typography, i In almost every year from this time to his death in 1483, Caxton con- tinued to publish those volumes which are the delight of our collectors. The earliest of his editions bearing a date in England, is the " Dictes and Sayings," a translation by Lord Rivers from a Latin compilation, and published in 1477. In a literary his- tory it should be observed, that the Caxton publications are more adapted to the general than the learned reader, and indi- cate, upon the whole, but a low state of knowledge in England. A Latin transla- tion, however, of Aristotle's ethics was printed at Oxford in 1479. 52. The first book printed in Spain was on the very subject we might expect to precede all others, the Conception of the Virgin. It should be a very curious volume, being a poetical contest, on that sublime theme, by thirty- six poets, four of whom had written in Spanish, one in Italian, and the rest in Provencal or Valencian. It appeared at Valencia in 1474. A little book on gram- mar followed in 1475, and Sallust was printed the same year. In that year print- ing was also introduced at Barcelona and Saragossa, in 1476 at Seville, in 1480 at Salamanca and Burgos. 53. A translation of the Bible by Malerbi, a Venetian, was published Translations of in 1471, and two other edi- Scripture, tions of that, or a different version, the same year. Eleven editions are enu- merated by Panzer in the fifteenth cen- tury. The German translation has already been mentioned ; it was several times re- printed in this decade ; one in Dutch ap- peared in 1477, one in the Valencian lan- guage, at that city, in 1478 ; 2 the New 1 The Expositio Sancti Hieronymi, of which a copy, in the public library at Cambridge, bears the date of Oxford 1468 on the title-page, is now generally given up. It has been success- fully contended by Middleton, and lately by Mr. Singer, that this date should be 1478 ; the numeral letter x having been casually omitted. Several similar instances occur, in which a pre- tended early book has not stood the keen eye of criticism : as the Decor Puellarum ascribed to Nicolas Jenson of Venice in 1461, for which we should read 1471 ; a cosmography of Ptolemy with the date of 1462 ; a book appearing to have been printed at Tours in 1467, &c. 2 This edition was suppressed or destroyed ; no copy is known to exist ; but there is pre- served a final leaf containing the names of the translator and printer. M'Crie's Reformation 86 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. Testament was printed in Bohemian, 1475, and in French, 1477 ; the earliest French translation of the Old Testament seems to be about the same date. The reader will of course understand, that all these trans- lations were made from the Vulgate Latin. It may naturally seem remarkable, that not only at this period, but down to the Reformation, no attempt was made to ren- der any part of the Scriptures public in English. But, in fact, the ground was thought too dangerous by those in power. The translation of "Wicliffe had taught the people some comparisons between the worldly condition of the first preachers of Christianity and their successors, as well as some other contrasts, which it was more expedient to avoid. Long before the in- vention of printing it was enacted, in 1408, by a constitution of Archbishop Arundel, in convocation, that no one should there- after "translate any text of Holy Scrip- ture into English, by way of a book, or little book or tract ; and that no book should be read that was composed lately in the time of John Wicliffe, or since his death." Scarcely any of Caxton's publica- tions are of a religious nature. 54. It would have been utrange if Spain, Revival of litera- placed on the genial shores tore in Spain. o f t h e Mediterranean, and intimately connected through the Aragon- ese kings with Italy, had not received some light from that which began to shine so brightly. Her progress, however, in letters was but slow. Not but that several in- dividuals are named by compilers of literary biography in the first part of the fifteenth century, as well as earlier, who are re- puted to have possessed a knowledge of languages, and to have stood at least far above their contemporaries. Alfonsus Tostatus passes for the most considerable ; his writings are chiefly theological, but Andres praises his commentary on the Chronicle of Eusebius, at least as a bold essay. 1 He contends that learning was not deficient in Spain during the fifteenth cen- tury, though admitting that the rapid im- provements made at its close, and about the beginning of the next age, were due to Lebrixa's public instructions at Seville and Salamanca. Several translations were made from Latin authors into Spanish, which, however, is not of itself any great proof of Peninsular learning. The men to whom Spain chiefly owes the advancement in Spain, p. 192. Andrta aays (xix. 154), that this translation was made early in the fifteenth century, with the approbation of divines. tx. 151. of useful learning, and who should not be defrauded of their glory, were Arias Bar- bosa, a scholar of Politian, and the more renowned, though not more learned or more early propagator of Grecian literature, Antonio of Lebrixa, whose name was latin ised into Nebrissensis, by which he is com- monly known. Of Arias, who unaccount- ably has no place in the Biographie Universelle, Nicolas Antonio gives a very high character. 1 He taught the Greek language at Salamanca probably about this time. But his writings are not at all numerous. For Lebrixa, instead of com- piling from other sources, I shall transcribe what Dr. M'Crie has said with his usual perspicuous brevity. 55. " Lebrixa, usually styled Nebrissen- sis, became to Spain what Character of Valk was to Italy, Erasmus Lebrixa. to Germany, or Budseus to France. After a residence of ten years in Italy, during which he had stored his mind with various kinds of knowledge, he returned home, in 1473, by the advice of the younger Phil- elphus and Hermolaus Barbarus, witli the view of promoting classical literature in his native country. Hitherto the revival of letters in Spain was confined to a few inquisitive individuals, and had not reached the schools and universities, whose teachers continued to teach a barbarous jargon under the name of Latin, into which they initiated the youth by means of a rude systenr of grammar, rendered unintelligible, in some instances, by a preposterous intermixture of the most abstruse questions in meta- physics. By the lectiires which he read in the universities of Seville, Salamanca, and Alcala, and by the institutes which he published on Castilian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew grammar, Lebrixa contributed in a wonderful degree to expel barbarism from the seats of education, and to diffuse a taste for elegant and useful studies among his countrymen. His improve- ments were warmly opposed by the monks, who had engrossed the art of teaching, 1 In quo Antonium Nebrissensem socium habuit, qui tanien quicquid usquam Graecarum literaruru apud Hispanos esset, ab uno Aria emanasse in pnefatione suarum Introduction um Gramniaticaruin ingeuufi affirmavit. His duo- bu.<> amplissimuin illud gymnasium, indeque Hispania tota debet barbariei, quw longo apud nos bellorum dominatu in immensum creverat, extirpationem, bonarumque omnium disciplin- arum divitiaa. Quas Arias noster ex antiquita- tis penu per vicennium integrum auditoribu* suis larga et locuplete vena communicavit, in poetica facilitate Graecanicaque doctrina Nebris- sense melior, a quo tamen in varia mnlttpliciyue I doctrina auperabatur. Bibl. Vetus. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500 87 and who, unable to bear the light them selves, wished to prevent all others from seeing it ; but, enjoying the support of persons of high authority, he disregarded their selfish and ignorant outcries. Lebrixa continued to an advanced age to support the literary reputation of his native country." l 56. This was the brilliant sera of Flor- Libraryof ence, under the supremacy Lorenzo. o f Lorenzo de' Medici. The reader is probably well acquainted with this eminent character, by means of a work of extensive and merited reputation. The Laurentian library, still consisting wholly of manuscripts, though formed by Cosmo, and enlarged by his son Pietro, owed not only its name, but an ample in- crease of its treasures, to Lorenzo, who swept the monasteries of Greece through his learned agent, John Lascaris. With that true love of letters which scorns the monopolising spirit of possession, Lorenzo permitted his manuscripts to be freely copied for the use of other parts of Europe. .57. It was an important labour of the Classics learned at Florence to cor- corrected and rect, as well as elucidate, explained. ^e text of their manu- scripts, written generally by ignorant and careless monks, or trading copyists (though the latter probably had not much concern with ancient writers), and become almost wholly unintelligible through the blunders of these transcribers. 2 Landino, Merula, Calderino, and Politian were the most in- defatigable in this line of criticism during the age of Lorenzo. Before the use of printing fixed the text of a whole edition one of the most important of its conse- quences the critical amendments of these scholars could only be made useful through their oral lectures. And these appear fre- quently to have been the foundation of the valuable, though rather prolix, commen- taries we find in the old editions. Thus those of Landino accompany many editions of Horace and Virgil, forming, in some measure, the basis of all interpretative annotations on those poets. Landino in these seldom touches on verbal criticism ; but his explanations display a considerable reach of knowledge. They are founded, as Heeren is convinced, on his lectures, and consequently give us some notion of the 1 M'Crie's Hist, of Reformation in Spain, p. 61. It is probable that Lebrixa's exertions were not very effectual in the present decennium, nor perhaps in the next, but his Institutiones Grammatics, a very scarce, book were printed at Seville in 1481. 2 Meiners, Vergleich. der Sitten, iii. 108. Heeren, p. 293. tone of instruction. In explaining the poets, two methods were pursued, the grammatical and the moral, the latter of which consisted in resolving the whole sense into allegory. Dante had given credit to a doctrine, orthodox in this age, and long afterwards, that every great poem must have a hidden meaning. 1 58. The notes of Calderino, a scholar of high fame, but infected with character of the common vice of arro- Lorenzo. gance, are found with those of Landino in the early editions of Virgil and Horace. Regio commented upon Ovid, Omnibonus Leonicenus upon Lucan, both these upon Quintilian, many upon Cicero. 2 It may be observed, for the sake of chronological ex- actness, that these labours are by no means confined, even principally, to this decennial period. They are mentioned in connection with the name of Lorenzo de' Medici, whose influence over literature extended from 1470 to his death in 1492. Nor was mere philology the sole, or the leading, pursuit to which so truly noble a mind accorded its encouragement. He sought in ancient learning something more ele- vated than the narrow, though necessary, researches of criticism. In a villa over- hanging the towers of Florence, on the steep slope of that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient Fiesole, in gardens which Tully might have envied, with Ficino, Landino, and Politian at his side, he delighted his hours of leisure with the beautiful visions of Platonic philosophy, for which the summer stillness of an Italian sky appears the most congenial accompani- ment. 59. Never could the sympathies of the soul with outward nature be prospect from his more finely touched ; never "^^ at Fiesole. could more striking suggestions be pre- sented to the philosopher and the states- man. Florence lay beneath them; not with all the magnificence that the later Medici have given her, but, thanks to the piety of former times, presenting almost as varied an outline to the sky. One man, the wonder of Cosmo's age, Brunelleschi, had crowned the beautiful city with the vast dome of its cathedral ; a structure un- thought of in Italy before, and rarely since surpassed. It seemed, amidst clustering towers of inferior churches, an emblem of the Catholic hierarchy under its supreme head; like Eome itself, imposing, un- broken, unchangeable, radiating in equal expansion to every part of the earth, and 1 Heeren, pp. 241, 287. 2 Id. 297. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. directing its convergent curves to heaven. Round this were numbered, at unequal heights, the Baptistery, with its gates worthy of Paradise; the tall and richly decorated belfry of Giotto ; the church of the Carmine, with the frescos of Masaccio ; those of Santa Maria Novella, beautiful as a bride, of Santa Croce, second only in magnificence to the cathedral, and of St. Mark; the San Spirito, another great monument of the genius of Brunelleschi ; Hie numerous convents that rose within the walls of Florence, or were scattered immediately about them. From these the eye might turn to the trophies of a re- publican government that was rapidly giv- ing way before the citizen-prince who now surveyed them ; the Palazzo Vecchio, in which the signiory of Florence held their councils, raised by the Guelf aristocracy, the exclusive, but not tyrannous faction that long swayed the city ; or the new and unfinished palace which Brunelleschi had designed for one of the Pitti family, before they fell, as others had already done, in the fruitless struggle against the bouse of Medici ; itself destined to become the abode of the victorious race, and to perpetuate, by retaining its name, the re- volutions that had raised them to power. 60. The prospect, from an elevation, of a great city in its silence, is one of the most impressive, as well as beautiful, we ever behold. But far more must it have brought home thoughts of seriousness to the mind of one who, by the force of events, and the generous ambition of his family, and his own, was involved in the dangerous neces- sity of governing without the right, and, as far as might be, without the semblance of power ; one who knew the vindictive and unscrupulous hostility which, at home and abroad, he had to encounter. If thoughts like these could bring a cloud over the brow of Lorenzo, unfit for the object he sought in that retreat, he might restore its serenity by other scenes which his garden commanded. Mountains bright with various hues, and clothed with wood, bounded the horizon, and, on most sides, at no great distance ; but embosomed in these were other villas and domains of his own ; while the level country bore witness to his agricultural improvements, the clas- sic diversion of a statesman's cares. The same curious spirit which led him to fill his garden at Careggi with exotic flowers of the east, the first instance of a botanical collection in Europe, had introduced a new animal from the same regions. Herds of buffaloes, since naturalised in Italy, whose dingy hide, bent neck, curved horns, and lowering aspect, contrasted with the grey- ish hue and full mild eye of the Tuscan oxen, pastured in the valley, down which the yellow Arno steals silently through its long reaches to the sea. 1 61. The Platonic academy, which Cosmo had planned, came to matu- Platonic rity under Lorenzo. The academy, academicians were divided into three classes: the patro~ns (mecenati), includ- ing the Medici; the hearers (ascoltatori, probably from the Greek word aKpoarai) : and the novices, or disciples, formed of young aspirants to philosophy. Ficino presided over the whole. Their great festival was the 13th of November, being the anniversary of the birth and death of Plato. Much of absurd mysticism, much of frivolous and mischievous superstition, was mingled with their speculations. 2 62. The Disputationes Camaldulenses of Landino were published dur- Di sput ationea ing this period, though, per- Camaldulenseg of haps, written a little sooner. i*ndino. They belong to a class prominent in the 1 Talia Faesuleo lentus meditabar in antro, llure suburbano Medicum, qua inons sacer urbem Maeoniam, longique volumina despicit Arni : Qua bonus hospitium felix placidamque qui- etem Indulget Laurens. Politiani Rusticus. And let us from the top of Fiesole, Whence Galileo's glass by night observed The phases of the moon, look round below On Arno's vale, where the dove-coloured steer Is ploughing up and down among the vines, While many a careless note is sung aloud, Filling the air with sweetness and on thee, Beautiful Florence, all within thy walls, Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers, Drawn to our feet. It is hardly necessary to say that these lines are taken from my friend Mr. Eogers's Italy, a poem full of moral and descriptive sweetness, and written in the chastened tone of fine taste. With respect to the buffaloes, I have no other authority than these lines of Politian, in his poem of Ambra, on the farm of Lorenzo at Poggio Cajano. Atque aliud nigris missum, quis credat? ab Indis, Tluminat insuetas armentum discolor herbas. But I must own, that Buffon tells us, though without quoting any authority, that the buffalo was introduced into Italy as early as the seventli century. I did not take the trouble of consult- ing Aldrovandus, who would perhaps have con- firmed him especially as I have a better opinion of my readers than to suppose they would care about the matter. 2 Hoscoe. Corniani. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 89 literature of Italy in this and the succeed- ing century ; disquisitions on philosophy in the form of dialogue, with more solicitude to present a graceful delineation of virtue, and to kindle a generous sympathy for moral beauty, than to explore the laby- rinths of theory, or even to lay down clear and distinct principles of ethics. The writ- ings of Plato and Cicero, in this manner, had shown a track, in which their idola- tors, with distant and hesitating steps, and more of reverence than emulation, de- lighted to tread. These Disputations of Landino, in which, according to the beauti- ful patterns of ancient dialogue, the most honoured names of the age appear Lorenzo and his brother Julian ; Alberti, whose al- most universal genius is now best known by his architecture ; Ficino, and Landino himself turn upon a comparison between the active and contemplative life of man, to the latter of which it seems designed to give the advantage, and are saturated with the thoughtful spirit of Platonism. 1 63. Landino was not, by any means, Philosophical the first who had tried the dialogues. theories of ancient philo- sophy through the feigned warfare of dialogue. Valla, intrepid and fond of paradox, had vindicated the Epicurean ethics from the calumnious or exaggerated censure frequently thrown upon them, contrasting the true methods by which pleasure should be sought with the gross notions of the vulgar. Several other writ- ings of the same description, either in dialogue or regular dissertation, belong to the fifteenth century, though not always published so early, such as Franciscus Bar- baras, De Re Uxoria, 2 Platina, De Falso ct Vero Bono, the Vita Civile of Palmieri, the moral treatises of Poggio, Alberti, Pon- tano, and Matteo Bosso, concerning some of which little more than the names are to be learned from literary history, and which it would not, perhaps, be worth while to 1 Corniani and Roscoe have given this account of the Disputationes Camaldulenses. I have no direct acquaintance with the book. 2 This, which has been already mentioned, may be considered as much the earliest, having been published about 1417. Shepherd's Poggio, c. 3. Barbaro was a noble Venetian, who had learned Latin under Gasparin of Earziza He was af tenvards chiefly employed in public life. This treatise Ue Re Uxoria, of which some account may be found in Corniani (ii. 137) made a con- siderable impression at that early time. Corni- ani thinks it the only work of moral philosophy in the fifteenth century, which is not a servile copy of some ancient system. The more cele- brated Hermolaus was grandson of this Francis Barbaras. mention, except as collectively indicating a predilection for this style, which the Italians long continued to display. 1 64. Some of these related to general criticism, or to that of single Paulas authors. My knowledge of Cortesius. them is chiefly limited to the dialogue of Paulus Cortesius, De Hominibus Doctis, written, I conceive, about 1490 ; no un- successful imitation of Cicero, De Claris Oratoribus, from which indeed modern Latin writers have always been accustomed to collect the discriminating phrases of criticism. Cortesius, who was young at the time of writing this dialogue, uses an elegant, if not always a correct Latinity; characterising agreeably, and with apparent taste, the authors of the fifteenth century. It maybe read in conjunction with the Cice- ronianus of Erasmus, who, with no know- ledge, perhaps, of Cortesius has gone over the same ground in rather inferior language. 65. It was about the beginning of this decade that a few Germans Schools in and Netherlander, trained Germany. in the college of Deventer; or that of Zwoll, or of St. Edward's near Groningen, were roused to acquire that extensive knowledge of the ancient languages which Italy as yet exclusively possessed. Their names should never be omitted in any re- membrance of the revival of letters ; for great was their influence upon the subse- quent times. "VVessel of Groningen, one of those who contributed most steadily towards the purification of religion, and to whom the Greek and Hebrew languages are said, but probably on no solid grounds, to have been known, may be reckoned in this class. But others were more directly engaged in the advancement of literature. Three schools, from which issued the most conspicuous ornaments of the next genera- tion, rose under masters, learned for that time, and zealous in the good cause of instruction. Alexander Hegius became, about 1475, rector of that at Deventer, where Erasmus received his early educa- tion. 2 Hegius was not wholly ignorant of 1 Corniani is much fuller than Tiraboschi on these treatises. Eoscoe seems to have read the ethical writing of Matteo Bosso (Life of Leo X., c. xx.), but hardly adverts to any of the rest I have named. Some of them are very scarce. 2 Heeren, p. 149, says that Hegius began to preside over the school of Deventer in 1480 ; but I think the date in the text is more probable, as Erasmus left it at the age of fourteen, and was certainly born in 1465. Though Hegius is said to have known but little Greek, I find in Panzer the title of a book by him, printed at Deventer in 1501, De Utilitate Lingua Gneca?. 90 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. Greek, and imparted the rudiments of it to his illustrious pupil. I am inclined to ascribe the publication of a very rare and curious book, the first endeavour to print (Jreek on this side of the Alps, to no other person than Hegius. 1 Louis Dringeberg founded, not perhaps before 1480, a still more distinguished seminary atSchelstadt in Alsace. Here the luminaries of Ger- many in a more advanced stage of learning, Conrad Celtes, Bebel, Khenanus, "Wiin- The life of Hegius in Melchior Adam is in- teresting. Primus hie in Belgio literas excitavit, says Revius, in Daventria Illustrata, p. 130. Milii. says Erasmus, admodum adhuc puero contigit uti praeceptore hujus discipulo Alex- andra Hegio Westphalo, qui ludum aliquando celebrem oppidi Daventriensis moderabatur, in quo nos oliiu admodum pueri utriusque linguae prima didicimus elementa. Adag. Chil. 1, cent. iv. 39. In another place he says of Hegius, ne hie quidem Graecarum literarum omnino ignarus est. Epist. 411, in Appendice. Erasmus left Deventer at the age of fourteen ; consequently in 1479 or 1480, as he tells us in an epistle, dated 17th Apr. 1519. i This very rare book, unnoticed by most bibliographers, is of some importance in the history of literature. It is a small quarto tract, entitled, Conjugations verborum Grsecse, Daventriaa noviter extreme labore et im- pressae. No date or printer's name appears. A copy is in the British Museum, and an- other in Lord Spencer's library. It contains nothing but the word TVTTTO) in all its voices and tenses, with Latin explanations in Gothic letters. The Greek types are very rude, and the characters sometimes misplaced. It must, I should presume, seem probable to every one who considers this book, that it isof the fifteenth cen- tury, and consequently older than any known Greek on this side of the Alps ; which of itself should render it interesting in the eyes of bibliographers and of every one else. But fully disclaiming all such acquaintance with the technical science of typographical antiquity, as to venture any judgment founded on the ap- pearance of a particular book, or on a compari- son of it with others, I would, on other grounds, suggest the probability that this little attempt at Greek Grammar issued from the Deventer press about 1480. It appears clear that who- ever "collected with extreme labour" these forms of the verb TVTTTO), had never been pos- sessed of a Greek and Latin grammar. For would it not be absurd to use such expressions about a simple transcription? Besides which, the word is not only given in an arrangement different from any I have ever seen, but with a nonexistent form of participle.re Tv^ap.evos for Tv\ff(ifj.(vos, which could not surely have been found in any prior grammar. Now the gram- mar of Lascaris was published with a Latin translation by era-ton in 1480. It is indeed highly probable that this book would not reach Deventer immediately after its impression ; but it does seem as if there could not long have pheling Pirckheimcr, Simler, are said to have imbibed their knowledge.! The third school was at Munster; and over this been any extreme difficulty in obtaining a cor- rect synopsis of the verb TVTTTU. We have seen that Erasmus, about 1477, ac- quired a very slight tincture of Greek under Alexander Hegius at Deventer. And here, as he tells us, he saw Agricola. returning probably from Italy to Groningen. Quern mihl puero, ferme duodecim annos nato, Daventria; videre contigit, nee aliud contigit. (Jortin, ii. 416.) No one could be so likely as Hegius to attempt a Greek grammar ; nor do we find that his successors in that college were men as distin- guished for learning as himself. But in fact at a later time it could not have been so extra- ordinarily imperfect. We might perhaps con- jecture that he took down these Greek tenses from the mouth of Agricola, since we must pur- sume oral communication rather than the use of books. Agricola, repeating from memory, and not thoroughly conversant with the language, might have given the false tense TeTvtyap.fvos. The tract was probably printed by Pafroet, some of whose editions bear as early a date as 1477. It has long been extremely scarce ; for Revius does not include it in the list of Pafroet's pub- lications he has given in Deventria Illustrata, nor will it be found in Panzer. Beloe was the first to mention it in his Anecdotes of scarce books ; and it is referred by him to the fifteenth century ; but apparently without his being aware there was anything remarkable in that antiquity. Dr. Dibdin, in Bibliotheca Spen- ceriana, has given a fuller account ; and from him Brunet has inserted it in the Manuel du Libraire. Neither Beloe nor Dibdin seems to have known that there is a copy in the Museum ; they speak only of that belonging to Lord Spencer. If it were true that Reuchlin, during his residence at Orleans, had published, as well as compiled, a Greek grammar, we should not need to have recourse to the hypothesis of this note, in order to give the antiquity of the present decade to Greek typography. Such a grammar is asserted by Meiners, in his Life of Reuchlin, to have been printed at Poitiers : and Eichhorn positively says, without refer- ence to the place of publication, that Keuchlin. was the first German who published a Greek grammar. (Gesch. der Litt. iii. 275.) Meiners, however, in a subsequent volume (iii. 10), re- tracts this assertion, and says it has been proved that the Greek grammar of Keuchlin was never printed. Yet I find in the Bibliotheca Uni- versalis of Gesner : Job. Capnio [ReuchlinJ scripsit de diversitate quatuor idiomatuiu Gnecse linguae, lib. i. No such book appears in the list of Reuchlin's works in Niceron, vol. xxv., nor in any of the bibliographies. ' If it ever existed, we may place it with more probability at the very close of this century, or at the be- ginning of the next. i Eichhorn, iii. 231. Meiners, 11. 369. Eich- horn carelessly follows a bad authority in count- ing Reuchlin among these pupils of the Schelstadt school. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 91 Rodolph Langius presided, a man not any way inferior to the other two, and of more reputation as a Latin writer, especially as a poet. The school of Munster did not come under the care of Langius till 1483, or perhaps rather later ; and his strenuous exer- tions in the cause of useful and polite literature against monkish barbarians ex- tended into the next century. But his life was long : the first, or nearly such, to awaken his countrymen, he was permitted to behold the full establisment of learning, and to exult in the dawn of the Refor- mation. In company with a young man of rank, and equal zeal, Maurice, count of Spiegelberg, who himself became the provost of a school at Emmerich, Langius visited Italy, and, as Meiners supposes, though, I think, upon uncertain grounds, before 1460. But not long afterwards, a more distinguished person than any we have mentioned, Rodolph Agricola of Groningen, sought in that more genial land the taste and correctness which no cisalpine nation could supply. Agricola passed several years of this decade in Italy. We shall find the effects of his example in the next. 1 66. Meantime a slight impulse seems to Study of Greek have been given to the uni- at Paris. ver sity of Paris by the les- sons of George Tifernas; for from some disciples of his Reuchlin, a young German of great talents and celebrity, acquired, probably about the year 1470, the first ele- ments of the Greek language. This know- ledge he improved by the lessons of a native Greek. Andronicus Cartoblacas, at Basle. In that city he had the good fortune, rare on this side of the Alps, to find a collection of Greek manuscripts, left there at the time of the council by a car- dinal Nicolas of Ragusa. By the advice of Cartoblacas, he taught Greek himself at Basle. After the lapse of some years, Reuchlin went again to Paris, and found a new teacher, George Hermonymus of Sparta, who had settled there about 1472. From Paris he removed to Orleans and Poitiers ; he is said to have taught, per- haps not the Greek language, in the former city, and to have written a Greek grammar in the second. It seems, however, now to he ascertained, that this grammar was never printed. 2 1 See Meiners, vol. ii., Eiclihorn, and Heeren, for the revival of learning in Germany ; or something may be found in Brucker. 2 Meiners, i. 4G. Besides Meiners, Brucker, iv. 353, as well as Heeren, have given pretty full account.? of Reuchlin ; and a good life of him 67. The classical literature which de- lighted Reuchlin and Agri- Controveri y O f cola was disregarded as friv- Bealizt* and olous by the wise of that day Nominalirts. in the university of Paris ; but they were much more keenly opposed to innovation and heterodoxy in their own peculiar line, the scholastic metaphysics. Most have heard of the long controversies between the Realists and Nominalists concerning the nature of universals, or the genera and species of things. The first, with Plato and Aristotle, maintained their objective or external reality ; either, as it was called, ante rem, as eternal archetypes in the Divine Intelligence, or in re, as forms inherent in matter ; the second, with Zeno, gave them only a subjective existence as ideas conceived by the mind, and have hence in later times acquired the name of Conceptualists. 1 Roscelin, the first of the modern Nominalists, went farther than this, and denied, as Hobbes and Berkeley, with many others, have since done, all universality except to words and proposi- tions. Abelard, who inveighs against the doctrine of Roscelin as false logic and false theology, and endeavours to confound it with the denial of any objective reality even in singular things, 2 may be esteemed the restorer of the Conceptualist school. We do not know his doctrines, however, by his own writings, but by the testimony of John of Salisbury, who seems not well to have understood the subject. The words Realist and Nominalist came into use about the end of the twelfth century. , But in the next, the latter party by degrees disap- peared ; and the great schoolmen, Aquinas and Scotus, in whatever else they might disagree, were united on the Realist side. In the fourteenth century William Ock- ham revived the opposite hypothesis with considerable success. Scotus and his disciples were the great maintainers of Realism. If there will be found in the 25th volume of Niceron : but the Epistolse ad Eeuchlinum throw still more light on the man and his contemporaries. 1 I am chiefly indebted for the facts in the following paragraphs to a dissertation by Meiners, in the transactions of the Gottingen Academy, vol. xii. 2 Hie sicut pseudo-dialecticus, ita pseudo- christianus ut eo loco quo dicitur Dominus partem piscis assi comedisse, partem hujus vocis, quae est piscis assi, non partem rei intel- ligere cogatur. Meiners, p. 27. This may serve to show the cavilling tone of scholastic disputes ; and Meiners may well say : Quicquid Eoscelinus peccavit, non adeo tamen insanisse pronun- tiandum est, ut Abelardus ilium fecisse in- vidiose fingere sustinuit. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. were no substantial forms, he argued, that is, nothing real, which determines the mode of being in each individual, men and brutes would be of the same substance ; for they do not differ as to matter, nor can extrinsic accidents make a substantive difference. There must be a substantial form of a horse, another of a lion, another of a man. He seems to have held the immateriality of the soul, that is, the sub- stantial form of man. But no other form, he maintained, can exist without matter naturally, though it may, supernaturally, by the power of God. Socrates and Plato agree more than Socrates and an ass. They have, therefore, something in com- mon, which an ass has not. But this is not numerically the same ; it must, there- fore, be something universal, namely, human nature. 1 68. These reasonings, which are surely no unfavourable specimen of the " subtle philosopher," as Scotus was called, were met by Ockham with others which some- times appear more refined and obscure. He confined reality to objective things, denying it to the host of abstract entities brought forward by Scotus. He defines a universal to be "a particular intention (meaning probably idea or conception) of the mind itself, capable of being predicated of many things, not for what it probably is itself, but for what those things are ; so that, in so far as it has this capacity, it is called universal, but inasmuch as it is one form really existing in the mind, it is called singular." 2 I have not examined the writ- ings of Ockham, and am unable to deter- mine whether his Nominalism extends be- yond that of Berkeley or Stewart, which is generally asserted by the modern inquirers into scholastic philosophy ; that is, whether it amounts to Conceptualism ; the forego- ing definition, as far as I can judge, might have been given by them. 69. The later Nominalists of the scho- Nomlnaiirt* in lastic period, Buridan, Biel, university of and several others mentioned ****** by the historians of philo- sophy, took all their reasonings from the storehouse of Ockham. His doctrine was prohibited at Paris by pope John XXII., whose theological opinions, as well as secu- lar encroachments, he had opposed. All 1 Id. p. 39. 2 ITnam i ntentionem singularem ipsius an i mas, natam praadicari de pluribus, non prose, sed pro ipsis rebus ; ita quod per hoc, quod ipsa nata est praedicari de pluribns, non pro se sed pro illis pluribus, ilia dicitur universalis ; propter hoc autem, quod est una forma ex is tens realitcr in intellectu, dicitur singulare. P. 42. masters of arts were bound by oath never to teach Ockhamism. But after the pope's death the university condemned a tenet of the Realists, that many truths are eternal, which are not God ; and went so far towards the Nominalist theory, as to determine that our knowledge of things is through the medium of words. 1 Peter d'Ailly, Gerson, and other principal men of their age were Nominalists ; the sect was very powerful in Germany, and may be considered, on the whole, as prevalent in this century. The Realists, however, by some management gained the ear of Louis XI., who, by an ordinance in 1473, explicitly approves the doctrines of the great Realist philosophers, condemns that of Ockham and his disciples, and forbids it to be taught, enjoining the books of the Nominalists to be locked up from public perusal, and all present as well as future graduates in the university to swear to the observation of this ordinance. The prohibition, nevertheless, was repealed in 1481 ; the guilty books 'set free from their chains, and the hypothesis of the Nominalists virtually permitted to be held, amidst the acclamations of the university, and especially one of its four nations, that of Germany. Some of their party had, during this persecution, taken refuge in that empire and in England, both friendly to their cause ; and this metaphysical con- tention of the fifteenth century suggests and typifies the great religious convulsion of the next. The weight of ability, during this later and less flourishing period of scholastic philosophy, was on the Nomin- alist side ; and though the political circum- stances to which we have alluded were not immediately connected with their principle, this metaphysical sect facilitated in some measure the success of the Reformation. 70. We should still look in vain to Eng- land for either learning or Lowrtateof native genius. The reign of learning in EdwardlV.maybereckoned England, one of the lowest points in our literary annals. The universities had fallen in re- putation and in frequency of students > where there had been thousands, according to Wood, there was not now one ; which must be understood as an hyperbolical way of speaking. But the decline of the uni- versities, frequented as they had been by indigent vagabonds withdrawn from useful labour, and wretched as their pretended instruction liad been, was so far from an evil in itself, that it left clear the path for the approaching introduction of real learn- 1 Id. p. 45, scientiam habemus de rebus, sed mediantibus terminis. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 93 ing. Several colleges were about this time founded at Oxford and Cambridge, which, in the design of their munificent founders, were to become, as they have done, the instruments of a better discipline than the barbarous schoolmen afforded. We have already observed, that England was like seed fermenting in the ground through the fifteenth century. The language was be- coming more vigorous, and more capable of giving utterance to good thoughts, as some translations from Caxton's press show, such as the Diets of Philosophers, by Lord Rivers. And perhaps the best exercise for a schoolboy people is that of schoolboys. The poetry of two Scotsmen, Henryson and Mercer, which is not without merit, may be nearly referred to the present decade. 1 71. The progress of mathematical science was regular, though not tic3 ' rapid. We might have men- tioned before the gnomon erected by Tos- canelli in the cathedral at Florence, whiph is referred to , 1468 ; a work, it has been said, which, considering the times, has done as much honour to his genius as that so much renowned to Bologna at Cassini. 2 The greatest mathematician of the fifteenth century, Muller, or Regio- Kegiomontanus. ,. , T - montanus, a native of Ko- nigsberg, or Konigshoven, a s all town in Franconia, whence he derived his latinised appellation, died prematurely, like his master Pnrbach, in 1476. He had begun at the age of fifteen to assist the latter in astronomical observations ; and having, after Purbach's death, acquired a know- ledge of Greek in Italy, and devoted him- self to the ancient geometers, after some years spent with distinction in that country, and at the court of Mathias Corvinus, he 1 Campbell's Specimens of British Poets, vol. i. 2 This gnomon is by much the loftiest in Europe. It would be no slight addition to the glory of Toscanelli if we should suppose him to have suggested the discovery of a passage west- ward to the Indies in a letter to Columbus, as his article in the Biographic Universelle seems to imply. But the more accurate expressions of Tiraboschi, referring to the correspondence be- tween these great men, leave Columbus in pos- session of the original idea, at least concurrently with the Florentine astronomer, though the latter gave him strong encouragement to per- severe in his undertaking. Toscanelli, however, had, on the authority of Marco Polo, imbibed an exaggerated notion of the distance eastward to China ; and consequently believed, as Colum- bus himself did, that the voyage by the west to that country would be far shorter than, if the continent of America did not intervene, it could have been. Tiraboschi, vi 189, 207. Roscoe's Leo X., ch. 20. settled finally at Nuremberg ; where a rich citizen, Bernard Walther, both supplied the means of accurate observations, and became the associate of his labours.* Regio- montanus died at Rome, whither he had been called to assist in rectifying the cal- endar. Several of his works were printed in this decade, and among others his ephe- merides, or calculations of the places of the sun and moon, for the ensuing thirty years ; the best, though not strictly the first, that had been made in Europe. 2 His more ex- tensive productions did not appear till afterwards ; and the treatise on triangles, the most celebrated, not till 1533. The solution of the more difficult cases, both in plane and spherical trigonometry, is found in this work ; and with the exception of what the science owes to Napier, it may be said, that it advanced little for more than two centuries after the age of Regio- montanus. 3 Purbach had computed a table of sines to a radius of 600,000 parts. Re- giomontanus, ignorant, as has been thought, which appears very strange, of his master's labours, calculated them to 6,000,000 parts. But perceiving the advantages of a decimal scale, he has given a second table, wherein the ratio of the sines is computed to a radius of 10,000,000 parts, or, as we should say, taking the latter as tinity, to seven places of decimals. He subjoined what he calls Canon Fsecundus, or a table of tangents, calculating them, however, only for entire degrees to a radius of 100,000 parts. 4 It has been said, that Regio- montanus was inclined to the theory of the earth's motion, which indeed Nicolas Cusanus had already espoused. 72. Though the arts of delineation do not properly come within the Arts of deiinea- scope of this volume, yet, so tion - far as they are directly instrumental to science, they ought not to pass unregarded. 1 Walther was more than a patron of science, honourable as that name was. lie made astro- nomical observations, worthy of esteem rela- tively to the age. Montucla, i. 545. It is to be regretted that AValther should have diminished the credit due to his name by withholding from the public the manuscripts of Regiomontanus, which he purchased after the latter's death ; so that some were lost by the negligence of his own heirs, and the rest remained unpublished till 1533. 2 Gassendi, Vita Regiomontani. He speaks of them himself, as quas vulgo vocant almanach ; and Gassendi says, that some were extant in manuscript at Paris, from 1442 to 1472. Those of Regiomontanus contained eclipses, and other matters not in former almanacs. 3 Hutton's Logarithms, Introduction, p. 3. 4 Kastner, i. 557. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. Without the tool that presents figures to the eye, not the press itself could have dif- fused an adequate knowledge either of anatomy or of natural history. As figures cut in wooden blocks gave the first idea of letter-printing, and were for some time associated with it, an obvious invention, when the latter art became improved, was to arrange such blocks together with types in the same page. We find, accordingly, about this time, many books adorned or illustrated in this manner ; generally with representations of saints, or other orna- mental delineations not of much import- ance ; but in a few instances with figures of plants and animals, or of human anatomy. The Dyalogus creatiirarum moralizatus, of which the first edition was published at Gouda, 1480, seems to be nearly, if not altogether, the earliest of these. It con- tains a series of fables with rude wood-cuts, in little more than outline. A second edition, printed at Antwerp in I486, re- peats the same cuts, with the addition of one representing a church, which is really elaborate. 1 73. The art of engraving figures on plates of copper was nearly coeval with that of printing, and is due either to Thomas Finiguerra about 1460, or to some German about the same time. It was not a difficult Geography. , ,,. . ,. step to apply this invention to the representation of geographical maps ; and this we owe to Arnold Buckinck, an associate of the printer Sweynheim. His edition of Ptolemy's geography appeared at Rome in 1478. These maps are traced from those of Agathodsemon in the fifth century ; and it has been thought that Buckinck profited by the hints of Donis, a German monk, who himself gave two edi- tions of Ptolemy not long afterwards at Ulm.2 The fifteenth century had already witnessed an increasing attention to geo- graphical delineations. The libraries of Italy contain several unpublished maps, of 1 Both these editions are in the British Museum. In the same library is a copy of the exceedingly scarce work, Ortus Sanitatis. Mogunt. 1491. The colophon, which may be read in De Bure (Sciences, Xo. 1554), takes much credit for the carefulness of the delinea- tions. The wooden cuts of the plants, es- pecially, are as good as we usually find in the sixteenth century ; tha form of the leaves and character of the plant are generally well pre- served. The animals are also tolerably figured, though with many exceptions, and, on the whole, fall short of the plants. The work itself is a compilation from the old naturalists, ar- ranged alphabetically. - Biogr. Univ. Buckinck, Donis. which that by Fra Mauro, a monk of the order of Camaldoli, in the convent of Murano, near Venice, is the most cele- brated. It is still preserved there, and is said to attest the cosmographical science of its delineator, such as he could derive from Ptolemy, and from the astronomy of his own age. 1 Two causes, besides the increase of commerce, and the gradual ac- cumulation of knowledge, had principally turned the thoughts of many towards the figure of the earth on which they trod. Two translations, one of them by Emanuel Chrysoloras, had been made early in the century, from the cosmography of Ptolemy ; and from his maps the geographers of Italy had learned the use of parallels and me- ridians, which might a little, though inade- quately, restrain their arbitrary admeasure- ments of different countries. 2 But the real discoveries of the Portuguese on the coast of Africa, under the patronage of Don Henry, were of far greater importance in stimulating and directing enterprise. In the academy founded by that illustrious prince, nautical charts were first delineated in a method more useful to the pilot, by projecting the meridians in parallel right lines, 3 instead of curves on the surface of the sphere. This first step in hydro- graphical science entitles Don Henry to the name of its founder. And though these early maps and charts of the fifteenth century are to us but a chaos of error and confusion, it was on them that the patient eye of Columbus had rested through long hours of meditation, while strenuous hope and unsubdued doubt were struggling in his soul. SECT. V. 14801490. Great Progress of Learning in Italy Italian Poetry Pulci Metaphysical Theology Ficinus Picus of Mirandola Learning in Germany Early Euro- pean Drama Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci. 74. The press of Italy was less occupied with Greek for several years Greek printed in than might have been ex- Italy. pected. But the number of scholars was still not sufficient to repay the expenses of impression. The Psalter was published in Greek twice at Milan in 1481, once at Venice in 1486. Craston's Lexicon was also once printed, and the Grammar of Lascaris several times. The first classical 1 Andres, ix. 88. 2 Andres, 86. 3 Id. 83. Cornlani, iii. 162 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 95 work the printers ventured upon, was Homer's Battle of Frogs and Mice, pub- lished at Venice in I486, or, according to some, at Milan in 1485 ; the priority of the two editions being disputed. But in 1488, under the munificent patronage of Lorenzo, and by the care of Demetrius of Crete, a complete edition of Homer issued from the press of Florence. This splendid work closes our catalogue for the present. 1 75. The first Hebrew book, Jarchi's com- mentary on the Pentateuch, Hebrew printed, j^ been printed by gome Jews at Reggio in Calabria, as early as 1475. In this period a press was estab- lished at Soncino, where the Pentateuch was published in 1482, the greater prophets in 1480, and the whole Bible in 1488. But this was intended for themselves alone. What little instruction in Hebrew had any- where hitherto been imparted to Christian scholars, was only oral. The commence- ment of Hebrew learning, properly so called, was not till about the end of the century, in the Franciscan monasteries of Tubingen and Basle. Their first teacher, however, was an Italian, by name Rai- mondi. 2 76. To enumerate every publication that Miscellanies of might scatter a gleam of Pohtian. light on the progress of letters in Italy, or to mention every scholar who deserves a place in biographical collec- tions, or in an extended history of litera- ture, would crowd these pages with too many names. AVe must limit ourselves to those best deserving to be had in remem- brance. In 1480, according to Meiners, or, as Heereii says, in 1483, Politian was placed in the chair of Greek and Latin eloquence at Florence ; a station perhaps the most conspicuous and the most honour- able which any scholar could occupy. It is beyond controversy, that he stands at the head of that class in the fifteenth century. The envy of some of his con- temporaries attested his superiority. In 1489, he published his once celebrated Miscellanea, consisting of one hundred ob- servations illustrating passages of Latin authors, in the desultory manner of Aulus Gellius, which is certainly the easiest, and perhaps the most agreeable method of con- veying information. They are sometime* grammatical; but more frequently relate to obscure (at that time) customs or mythological allusions. Greek quotations occur not seldom, and the author's com- 1 See Maittaire's character of this edition quoted in Roscoe's Leo X., ch. 21. 2 Eichhorn, ii. 562. mand of classical literature seems con- siderable. Thus he explains, for instance, the crambe repetita of Juvenal by a pro- verb mentioned in Suidas, Sis xpa/i/3>; duvaros : ^pa/^/3>; being a kind of cab- bage, which, when boiled a second time, was of course not very palatable. This may serve to show the extent of learning which some Italian scholars had reached through the assistance of the manuscripts collected by Lorenzo. It is not improbable that no one in England at that time had heard the name of Suidas. Yet the im- perfect knowledge of Greek which these early writers possessed, Is shown when they attempt to write it. Politian has some verses in his Miscellanea, but very bald, and full of false quantities. This remark we may have occasion to repeat ; for it is applicable to much greater names in philology than his. 1 77. The Miscellanies, Heeren says, were then considered an immortal Their character, work ; it was deemed an b ? Heeren. honour to be mentioned in them, and those who missed this made it a matter of com- plaint. If we look at them now, we are astonished at the different measure of glory in the present age. This book probably sprung out of Politian's lectures. He had cleared up in these some difficult passages, which had led him on to further inquiries. Some of his explanations might probably have arisen out of the walks and rides he was accustomed to take with Lorenzo, who had advised the publication of the Miscel- lanies. The manner in which these ex- planations are given, the light, yet solid mode of handling the subjects, and their ; great variety, give in fact a charm to the Miscellanies of Politian which few anti- quarian works possess. Their success is not wonderful. They were fragments, and chosen fragments, from the lectures of the most celebrated teacher of that age, whom many had heard, but still more had wished to hear. Scarcely had a work appeared in the whole fifteenth century, of which so vast expectations had been entertained, and which was received with such curi- osity. 2 The very fault of Politian's style, 1 Meiners has praised Politian's Greek verses, but with very little skill in such matters, p. 214. The compliments he quotes from con- temporary Greeks, non esse tarn Atticas Athenas ipsas, may not have been very sincere, unless they meant esse to be taken in the pre- sent tense. These Greeks, besides, knew but little of their metrical language. 2 Heeren, p. 263. Meiners, Lebensbeschrei- bungen, &c., has written the life of Politian, ii. 111220, more copiously than any one I have 96 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. as it was that of Hermolaus Barbaras, his affected intermixture of obsolete words, for which it is necessary in almost every lge of his Miscellanies to consult the dictionary, would, in an age of pedantry, increase the admiration of his readers. 1 78. Politian was the first that wrote the His version of Latin language with much Herodian. elegance; and while every other early translator from the Greek has incurred more or less of censure at the hands of judges whom better learning had made fastidious, it is agreed by them that his Herodian has all the spirit of his original, and frequently excels it. 2 Thus we perceive that the age of Poggio, Filelfo, and Valla was already left far behind by a new generation : these had been well em- ployed as the pioneers of ancient literature ; but for real erudition and taste we must descend to Politian, Christopher Landino, and Hermolaus Barbaras. 3 79. The Cornucopia sive Linguae Latinee Cornucopia of Commentarii, by Nicolas Perotti. Perotti, bishop of Siponti, suggests rather more by its title than the work itself seems to warrant. It is a copi- ous commentary upon part of Martial ; in which he takes occasion to explain a vast many Latin words, and has been highly ex- tolled by Morhof, and by writers quoted in Baillet and Blount. To this commentary is appended an alphabetical index of words, which rendered it a sort of dictionary for the learned reader. Perotti lived a little before this time ; but the first edition seems to have been in 1489. He also wrote a small Latin grammar, frequently reprinted in the fifteenth century, and was an indifferent translator of Polybius. 4 read. His character of the Miscellanies is in p. 138. 1 Meiners, pp. 155, 209. In the latter passage Meiners censures with apparent justice the af- fected words of Politian, some of which he did not scruple to take from such writers as Apuleius and Tertullian, with an inexcusable display of erudition at the expense of good taste. 2 Huet. apud Blount in Politiano. 3 Meiners, Roscoe, Corniani, Heeren, and Greswell's Memoirs of early Italian scholars, are the best authorities to whom the reader can have recourse for the character of Politian, be- sides his own works. I think, however, that Heeren has hardly done justice to Politian's poetry. Tiraboschi is unsatisfactory. Blount, as usual, collects the suffrages of the sixteenth century. 4 Heeren, 272, Morhof, i. 821, who calls Per- otti the first compiler of good Latin, from whom those who followed have principally borrowed. See also Baillet and Blount for testimonies to Perotti. 80. We have not thought it worth while to mention the Latin poets Latin poetry of the fourteenth and fif- of Politian. teenth centuries. They are numerous, and somewhat rude, from Petrarch and Boccace to Maphaeus Vegius, the continua- tor of the ^Eneid in a thirteenth book, first printed in 1471, and very frequently after- wards. This is, probably, the best versifi- cation before Politian. But his Latin poems display considerable powers of de- scription, and a strong feeling of the beauties of Roman poetry. The style is imbued with these, not too ambitiously chosen, nor in the manner called Centon- ism, but so as to give a general elegance to the composition, and to call up pleasing associations in the reader of taste. This, indeed, is the common praise of good versifiers in modem Latin, and not pecu- liarly appropriate to Politian, who is in- ferior to some who followed, though to none, as I apprehend, that preceded in that numerous fraternity. His ear is good, and his rhythm, with a few exceptions, musical and Virgilian. Some defects are nevertheless worthy of notice. He is often too exuberant, and apt to accumulate details of description. His words, un- authorised by any legitimate example, are very numerous ; a fault in some measure excusable by the want of tolerable diction- aries; so that the memory was the only test of classical precedent. Nor can we deny that Politian's Latin poetry is some- times blemished by affected and effeminate expressions, by a too studious use of re- petitions, and by a love of diminutives, according to the fashion of his native lan- guage, carried beyond all bounds that correct Augustan latinity could possibly have endured. This last fault, and to a man of good taste it is an unpleasing one, belongs to a great part of the lyrical and even elegiac writers in modern Latin. The example of Catullus would probably have been urged in excuse ; but perhaps Catullus went farther than the best judges ap- proved ; and nothing in his poems can justify the excessive abuse of that effem- inate grace, what the stern Persius would have called, "summa delumbe saliva," which pervades the poetry both of Italian and Cisalpine Latinists for a long period. On the whole, Politian, like many of his followers, is calculated to delight and mis- lead a schoolboy, but may be read with pleasure by a man.* i The extracts from Politian, and other Latin poets of Italy, by Pope, in the two little volumes, entitled Poemata Italorum, are ex- Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 97 81. Amidst all the ardour for the restora- Italian poetry ti n of classical literature of Lorenzo, jn Italy, there might seem reason to apprehend that native originality would not meet its due reward, and even that the discouraging notion of a degeneracy in the powers of the human mind might come to prevail. Those who annex an ex- aggerated value to correcting an unim- portant passage in an ancient author, or, which is much the same, interpreting some worthless inscription, can hardly escape the imputation of pedantry ; and doubtless this reproach might justly fall on many of the learned in that age, as, with less ex- cuse, it has often done upon their suc- cessors. We have already seen that, for a hundred years, it was thought unworthy a man of letters, even though a poet, to write in Italian ; and Politian, with his great patron Lorenzo, deserves no small honour for having disdained the false vanity of the philologers. Lorenzo stands at the head of the Italian poets of the fifteenth century in the sonnet as well as in the light lyrical composition. His predecessors, indeed, were not likely to remove the prejudice against vernacular poetry. Several of his sonnets appear, both for elevation and ele- gance of style, worthy of comparison with those of the next age. But perhaps his most original claim to the title of a poet is founded upon the Canti Carnascialeschi, or carnival songs, composed for the popular shows on festivals. Some of these, which are collected in a volume printed in 1558, are by Lorenzo, and display a union of classical grace and imitation with the native raciness of Florentine gaiety. 1 82. But at this time appeared a poet of a truly modern school, in Puici. i T .... one of Lorenzo s intimate society, Luigi Pulci. The first edition of his Morgante Maggiore, containing twenty- three cantos, to which five were subse- quently added, was published at Venice in 1481. The taste of the Italians has always been strongly inclined to extravagant com- binations of fancy, caprices rapid and spor- tive as the animal from which they take their name. The susceptible and versatile imaginations of that people, and their habitual cheerfulness, enable them to ren- der the serious and terrible instrumental to tremely well chosen, and give a just measure of most of them. 1 Corniani. Roscoe. Crescimbeni (della vol- gar poesia, ii. 324) strongly asserts Lorenzo to be the restorer of poetry, which had never been more barbarous than in his youth. But cer- tainly the Giostra of Politian was written while Lorenzo was very young. the ridiculous, without becoming, like some modern fictions, merely hideous and absurd. 83. The Morgante Maggiore was evi- dently suggested by some character of longromanceswrittenwithin Morgante the preceding century in the Maggire. octave stanza, for which the fabulous chronicle of Turpin, and other fictions wherein the same real and imaginary per- sonages had been introduced, furnished the materials. Under pretence of ridiculing the intermixture of sacred allusions with the romantic legends, Pulci carried it to an excess ; which, combined with some sceptical insinuations of his own, seems clearly to display an intention of exposing religion to contempt. 1 As to the heroes of his romance, there can be, as it seems, no sort of doubt that he designed them for nothing else than the butts of his fancy ; that the reader might scoff at those whom duller poets had held up to admiration. It has been a question among Italian critics, whether the poem of Pulci is to be reckoned burlesque. 2 This may seem to turn on the 1 The story of Meridiana, in the eighth canto, is sufficient to prove Pulci's irony to have been exercised on religion. It is well known to the readers of the Morgante. It has been alleged in the Biographic tlniverselle, that ke meant only to turn into ridicule " ces muses mendiantes du 14me siecle," the authors of la Spagna or Buovo d'Antona, who were in the habit of beginning their songs with scraps of the liturgy, and even of introducing theological doctrines in the most absurd and misplaced style. Pulci has given us much of the latter, wherein some have imagined that he had the assistance of Ficinus. 2 This seems to have been an old problem in Italy. Corniani, ii. 302 ; and the gravity of Pulci has been maintained of late by such re- spectable authorities as Foscolo and Panizzi. Ginguene, who does not go this length, thinks the death of Orlando, and his last prayer, both pathetic and sublime. I can see nothing in it but the systematic spirit of parody which we find in Pulci. Bnit the lines on the death of Forisena, in the fourth canto, are really graceful and serious. The following remarks on Pulci's style come from a more competent judge than myself. "There is something harsh in Pulci's manner, owing to his abrupt transition from one idea to another, and to his carelessness of grammatical rules. He was a poet by nature, and wrote with ease, but he never cared for sacrificing syntax to meaning ; he did not mind saying anything incorrectly, if he were but sure that his meaning would be guessed. The rhyme very often compels him to employ expressions, words, and even lines which frequently render the sense obscure and the passage crooked, without pro- ducing any other effect than that of destroying a fine stanza. He has no similes of any par- ticular merit, nor does he stand eminent in description. His verses almost invariably make G 98 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. definition, though I do not see what defini- tion could be given, consistently with the use of language, that would exclude it ; it is intended as a caricature of the poetical romances, and might even seem by antici- pation a satirical, though not ill-natured, parody on the Orlando Furioso. That he meant to excite any other emotion than laughter cannot, as it seems, be maintained ; and a very few stanzas of a more serious character, which may rarely be found, are not enough to make an exception to his general design. The Morgante was to the poetical romances of chivalry, what Don Quixote was to their brethren in prose. 84. A foreigner must admire the vivacity of the narrative, the humorous gaiety of the characters, the adroitness of the satire. But the Italians, and especially the Tus- cans, delight in the raciness of Pulci's Florentine idiom, which we cannot equally relish. He has not been without influence on men of more celebrity than himself. In several passages of Ariosto, especially the visit of Astolfo to the moon, we trace a re- semblance not wholly fortuitous. Voltaire, in one of his most popular poems, took the dry archness of Pulci, and exaggerated the profaneness, superadding the obscenity from his own stores. But Mr. Frere, with none of these two ingredients in his ad- mirable vein of humour, has come, in the War of the Giants, much closer to the Morgante Maggiore than any one else. 85. The Platonic academy, in which the Platonic theology chief of the Medici took so ofRcinu. mucn delight, did not fail to reward his care. Marsilius Ficinus, in his Theologica Platonica (1482), developed a system chiefly borrowed from the later Platonists of the Alexandrian school, full of delight to the credulous imagination, though little appealing to the reason, which, as it seemed remarkably to coin- cide in some respects with tl|e received tenets of the church, was connived at in a few reveries, which could not so well bear the test of an orthodox standard. He supported his philosophy by a translation of Plato into Latin, executed at the direc- tion of Lorenzo, and printed before 1490. sense taken singly, and convey distinct and separate ideas. Hence he wants that richness, fulness, and smooth flow of diction, which is indispensable to an epic poet, and to a noble description or comparison. Occasionally, when the subject admits of a powerful sketch which may be presented with vigour and spirit by a few strokes boldly drawn, Pulci appears to a great advantage." Panizzi on romantic poetry of Italians, in the first volume of his Orlando Innamorato, p. 298. Of this translation Buhle has said, that it has been very unjustly reproached with want of correctness ; it is, on the contrary, perfectly conformable to the original, and has even, in some passages, enabled us to restore the text ; the manuscripts used by Ficinus, I presume, not being in our hands. It has also the rare merit of being at once literal, perspicuous, and in good Latin.i 86. But the Platonism of Ficinus was not wholly that of the Doctrine of Aver- master. It was based on roes on the soul, the emanation of the human soul from God, and its capacity of re-union by an ascetic and contemplative life ; a theory perpetually reproduced in various modi- fications of meaning, and far more of words. The nature and immortality of the soul, the functions and distinguishing characters of angels, the being and attributes of God, engaged the thoughtful mind of Ficinus. In the course of his high speculations he assailed a doctrine, which, though rejected by Scotus and most of the schoolmen, had gained much ground among the Aristote- lians, as they deemed themselves, of Italy; a doctrine first held by Averroes ; that there is one common intelligence, active, immortal, indivisible, unconnected with matter, the soul of human kind, which is not in any one man, because it has no material form, but which yet assists in the rational operations of each man's personal soul, and from those operations which are all conversant with particulars, derives its own knowledge of universals. Thus, if I understand what is meant, which is rather subtle, it might be said, that as in the common theory particular sensations fur- nish means to the soul of forming general ideas, so, in that of Averroes, the ideas and judgments of separate human souls furnish collectively the means of that knowledge of universals, which the one great soul of mankind alone can embrace. This was a theory built, as some have said, on the bad Arabic version of Aristotle which Averroes used. But, whatever might have fii-st suggested it to the philo- sopher of Cordova, it seems little else than an expansion of the Realist hypothesis, urged to a degree of apparent paradox. For if the human soul, as an universal, 1 Hist, de la Philosophic, vol. ii. The fullest account of the philosophy of Ficinus has been given by Buhle. Those who seek less minute information may have recourse to Brucker or Corniani ; or, if they are content with still less, to Tiraboschl, Roscoe, Heeren, or the Biographie Universelle. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 99 possess an objective reality, it must surely be intelligent ; and, being such, it may seem no extravagant hypothesis, though -one incapable of that demonstration we now require in philosophy, to suppose that it acts upon the subordinate intelligences of the same species, and receives impres- sions from them. By this also they would reconcile the knowledge we were supposed to possess of the reality of universals, with the acknowledged impossibility, at least in many cases, of representing them to the mind. 87. Ficinus is the more prompt to refute Opposed by the Averroists, that they all Picinus. maintained the mortality of the particular soul, while it was his en- deavour, by every argiiment that erudition and ingenuity could supply, to prove the contrary. The whole of his Platonic Theo- logy appears a beautiful, but too visionary .and hypothetical, system of theism, the groundworks of which lay deep in the meditations of ancient oriental sages. His own treatise, of which a very copious ac- count will be found in Buhle, soon fell into oblivion ; but it belongs to a class of literature, which, in all its extension, has, full as much as any other, engaged the human mind. 88. The thirst for hidden knowledge, by Desire of man to which man is distinguished explore from brutes, and the supe- mysteries. r j or races o f men f rom sav . age tribes, burns generally with more iutenseness in proportion as the subject is less definitely comprehensible, and the means of certainty less attainable. Even our own interest in things beyond the sensible world does not appear to be the primary or chief source of the desire we feel to be acquainted with them ; it is the pleasure of belief itself, of associating the conviction of reality with ideas not pre- sented by sense ; it is sometimes the neces- sity of satisfying a restless spirit, that first excites our endeavour to withdraw the veil that conceals the mystery of their being. The few great truths in religion that reason discovers, or that an explicit revelation deigns to communicate, suffi- cient as they may be for our practical good, have proved to fall very short of the ambi- tious curiosity of man. They leave so much imperfectly known, so much wholly unexplored, that in all ages he has never been content without trying some method of filling up the void. These methods have often led him to folly, and weakness, and crime. Yet as those who want the human passions, in their excess the great fountains of evil, seem to us maimed in their nature, so an indifference to this knowledge of invisible things, or a prema- ture despair of attaining it, may be ac- counted an indication of some moral or intellectual deficiency, some scantness of due proportion in the mind. 89. The means to which recourse has been had to enlarge the various methods boundaries of human know- employed, ledge in matters relating to the Deity, or to such of his intelligent creatures as do not present themselves in ordinary objec- tiveness to our senses, have been various, and may be distributed into several classes. Reason itself, as the most Reason and valuable, though not the inspiration, most frequent in use, may be reckoned the first. Whatever deductions have sug- gested themselves to the acute, or analogies to the observant mind, whatever has seemed the probable interpretation of revealed testimony, is the legitimate province of a sound and rational theology. But so fal- lible appears the reason of each man to others, and often so dubious are its infer- ences to himself, so limited is the span of our faculties, so incapable are they of giv- ing more than a vague and conjectural probability, where we demand most of de- finiteness and certainty, that few, com- paratively speaking, have been content to acquiesce even in their own hypothesis upon no other grounds than argument has supplied. The uneasiness that is apt to attend suspense of belief has required, in general, a more powerful remedy. Next to those who have solely employed their rational facilities in theology, we may place those who have relied on a super- natural illumination. These have nomin- ally been many ; but the imagination, like the reason, bends under the incomprehensi- bility of spiritual things ; a few excepted, who have become founders of sects, and lawgivers to the rest, the mystics fell into a beaten track, and grew mechanical even in their enthusiasm. 90. No solitary and unconnected medita- tions, however, either of the Extended infer- philosopher or the mystic, nce * from could furnish a sufficiently sacred books - extensive stock of theological faith for the multitude, who, by their temper and capacities, were more prone to take it at the hands of others than choose any tenets for themselves. They looked, therefore, for some aiithority upon which to repose ; and instead of builders, became as it were occupants of mansions prepared for them by more active minds. Among those who 100 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. acknowledged a code of revealed truths, the Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, this authority has been soxight in largely ex- pansive interpretations of their sacred books ; either of positive obligation, as the decisions of general councils were held to be, or at least of such weight as a private man's reason, unless he were of great name himself, was not permitted to contravene. These expositions, in the Christian Church, as well as among the Jews, were frequently allegorical; a hidden stream of esoteric truth was supposed to flow beneath all the surface of Scripture ; and every text germi- nated, in the hands of the preacher, into meanings far from obvious, but which were presumed to be not undesigned. This scheme of allegorical interpretation began among the earliest fathers, and spread with perpetual expansion throxigh the middle ages. 1 The Reformation swept most of it away ; but it has frequently revived in a more partial manner. "NVe mention it here only as one great means of enabling men to believe more than they had done, of com- municating to them what was to be re- ceived as divine truths, not additional to Scripture, because they were concealed in it, but such as the church could only have learned through its teachers. 91. Another large class of religious opin- Confldence in ions stood on a somewhat traditions. different footing. They were in a proper sense, according to the notions of those times, revealed from God ; though not in the sacred writings which were the chief depositories of his word. Such were the received traditions in each of the three great religions, sometimes, absolutely in- fallible, sometimes, as in the former case of interpretations, resting upon such a basis of authority, that no one was held at liberty to withhold his assent. The Jewish traditions were of this kind ; and the Mahometans have trod in the same path, we may add to these the legends of saints : none, perhaps, were positively enforced as of faith ; but a Franciscan was not to doubt the inspiration and miraculous gifts of his founder. Nor was there any dis- position in the people to doubt of them ; they filled up with abundant measure the cravings of the heart and fancy, till, having absolutely palled both by excess, they brought about a kind of reaction, which has taken off much of their efficacy. 92. Francis of Assist may naturally lead us to the last mode in which the spirit of theological belief manifested itself ; the i Fleury (5me discount), xvii. 37. Mosheim, passim. confidence in a particular man, as the organ of a special divine illu- confidence ln in- mination. But though this dividuaisas was fully assented to by Inspired, the order he instituted, and probaby by most others, it cannot be said that Francis pre- tended to set up any new tenets, or en- large, except by his visions and miracles, the limits of spiritual knowledge. Nor would this, in general, have been a safe proceeding in the middle ages. Those who made a claim to such light from heaven aa could irradiate what the church had left dark seldom failed to provoke her jealousy. It is, therefore, in later times, and under more tolerant governments, that we shall find the fanatics, or impostors, whom the multitude has taken for witnesses of divine truth, or at least as interpreters of the mysteries of the invisible world. 93. In the class of traditional theology, or what might be called complemental revelation, we JewUh Cabbala - must place the Jewish Cabbala. This con- sisted in a very specific and complex sys- tem, concerning the nature of the Supreme being, the emanation of various orders of spirits in successive links from his essence, their properties and characters. It is evi- dently one modification of the oriental philosophy, borrowing little from the Scrip- tures, at least through any natural inter- pretation of them, and the offspring of the Alexandrian Jews, not far from the be- ginning of the Christian aera. They re- ferred it to a tradition from Esdras, or some other eminent person, on whom they fixed as the depositary of an esoteric theo- logy communicated by divine authority. The Cabbala was received by the Jewish doctors in the first centuries after the fall of their state ; and after a period of long duration, as remarkable for the neglect of learning in that people as in the Christian world, it revived again in that more genial season, the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the brilliancy of many kinds of literature among the Saracens of Spain excited their Jewish subjects to- emulation. Many conspicuous men illus- trate the Hebrew learning of those and the succeeding ages. It was not till now, about the middle of the fifteenth century, that they came into contact with the Christians in theological philosophy. The Platonism of Ficinus, derived, in great measure, from that of Plotinus and the Alexandrian school, was easily connected, by means es- pecially of the writings of Philo, with the Jewish orientalism, sisters as they were of the same family. Several forgeries in cele- Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 101 brated names, easy to affect and sure to deceive, had been committed in the first ages of Christianity by the active propa- gators of this philosophy. Hermes Trisme- gi.stus, and Zoroaster, were counterfeited in books which most were prone to take for genuine, and which it was not then easy to refute on critical grounds. These alto- gether formed a huge mass of imposture, or, at best, of arbitrary hypothesis, which, for more than a hundred years after this time, obtained an undue credence, and consequently retarded the course of real philosophy in Europe. 1 94. They never gained over a more dis- Plcua of tinguished proselyte, or one Mirandoia. whose credulity was more to be regretted, than a young man who ap- peared at Florence in 1485, John Picus of Mirandoia. He was then twenty -two years old, the younger son of an illustrious family, which held that little principality as an imperial fief. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Bologna, that he might study the canon law, with a view to the ecclesiastical profession ; but after two years he felt an inexhaustible desire for more elevated though less profitable sci- ences. He devoted the next six years to the philosophy of the schools, in the chief \iniversities of Italy and France : whatever disputable subtilties the metaphysics and theology of that age could supply, became familiar to his mind ; but to these he added a knowledge of the Hebrew and other eastern languages, a power of writing Latin with grace, and of amusing his leisure with the composition of Italian poetry. The natural genius of Picus is well shown, though in a partial manner, by a letter which will be found among those of Politian, in answer to Hermolaus Barbaras. His correspondent had spoken with the scorn, and almost bitterness, usual with philologers, of the Transalpine writers, meaning chiefly the schoolmen, for the badness of their Latin. The young scho- lastic answered, that he had been at first disheartened by the reflection that he had lost six years' labour ; but considered afterwards, that the barbarians might say something for themselves, and puts a very good defence in their mouths ; a defence which wants nothing but the truth of what lie is forced to assume, that they had been employing their intellects upon things in- stead of words. Hermolaus found, how- ever, nothing better to reply than the compliment, that Picus would be dis- i Brucker, vol. ii. Buhle, ii. 316. Meiners, Vergl. der Sitten, iii. 277. avowed by the schoolmen for defending them in so eloquent a style. 1 95. He learned Greek very rapidly, pro- bably after his coming to Hl credulity in Florence. And having been t* 16 Cabbala, led, through Ficinus, to the study of Plato, he seems to have given up his Aristotelian philosophy for theories more congenial to his susceptible and credulous temper. These led him onwards to wilder fancies. Ardent in the desire of knowledge, incapa- ble, in the infancy of criticism, to discern au- thentic from spurious writings, and perhaps disqualified, by his inconceivable rapidity in apprehending the opinions of others from judging acutely of their reasonableness, Picus of Mirandoia fell an easy victim to his own enthusiasm and the- snares of fraud. An impostor persuaded him to purchase fifty Hebrew manuscripts, as having been composed by Esdras, and con- taining the most secret mysteries of the Cabbala. From this time, says Corniani, he imbibed more and more such idle fables, and wasted in dreams a genius formed to reach the most elevated and remote truths. In these spurioiis books of Esdras, he was astonished to find, as he says, more of Christianity than Judaism, and trusted them the more confidently for the very reason that demonstrates their falsity. 2 1 The letter of Hermolaus is dated Apr. 1485. He there says, after many compliments to Picus himself : Nee enini inter autores Latinaa lingua* numero Germanos istos et Teutonas qui ne viventes quidem vivebant, nedum ut extincti vivant, aut si vivunt, vivunt in poenani et con- tumeliam. The answer of Picus is dated in June. A few lines from his pleading for the schoolmen will exhibit his ingenuity and elegance. Ad- mirenture nos sagaces in inquirendo, circuni- spectors in explorando, subfiles in contemplando, in judicando graves, implicitos in vinciendo, fa- cilesin enodando. Admirentur in nobis brevita- tem styli, foetam rerum inultarum atque mag- narum, sub expositis verbis remotissimas sen- tentias, plenas qusestionum, plenas solutionum, quam apti sumus, quam bene instruct! ambi- guitates tollere, scrupos diluere, involuta evolvere, flexanimis syllogismis et inftrmare falso et vera connrmare. Viximus celebres, o Hermolae, et posthac vivemus, non in scholis grammaticorum et paedagogiis, sed in philo- sophorum coronis, in conventibus sapientuui, ubi non de matre Andromaches, non de Niobes filiis, atque id genus levibus nugis, sed de humanarum divinarumque rerurn rationibus agitur et disputatur. In quibus meditaudis, inquirendis et enodandis, ita subtiles acuti acresque fuimus, ut anxii quandoque nimiuui et morosi fuisse forte videamur, si niodo esse morosus quispiam aut curiosus nimio plus in indagando veritate potest. Polit. Epist. lib. 9. 2 Corniani, iii. 03. Meiners, Lebensbeschrei- 102 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 96. Picus, about the end of 1486, repaired Hi literary per- to Rome, and with permis- fonnancea. 8 i on o f Innocent VIII., pro- pounded his famous nine hundred theses, or questions, logical, ethical, mathematical, physical, metaphysical, theological, mag- ical, and cabbalistical ; upon every one of which he offered to dispute with any op- ponent. Four hundred of these proposi- tions were from philosophers of Greece or Arabia, from the schoolmen, or from the Jewish doctors; the rest were announced as his own opinions, which, saving the authority of the church, he was willing to defend. 1 There was some need of this reservation ; for several of his theses were ill-sounding, as it was called, in the ears of the orthodox. They raised a good deal of clamour against him ; and the high rank, brilliant reputation, and obedient- de- meanour of Picus were all required to save him from public censure or more serious animadversions. He was compelled, how- ever, to swear that he would adopt such an exposition of his theses as the pope should set forth. But as this was not done, he published an apology, especially vindicating his employment of cabbalistical and magical learning. This excited fresh attacks, which in some measure continued to harass him, till, on the accession of Alexander VI. to the papal chair, he was finally pronounced free from blameable in- tention. He had meantime, as we may infer from his later writings, receded from some of the bolder opinions of his youth. His mind became more devout, and more fearful of deviating from the church. On his first appearance at Florence, uniting rare beauty with high birth and unequalled renown, he had been much sought by women, and returned their love. But at the age of twenty-five he withdrew himself from all worldly distraction, destroying, as it is said, his own amatory poems, to the regret of his friends. 2 He now pub- lished several works, of which the Hep- taplus is a cabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Genesis. It is remarkable that, with his excessive tendency to belief, he rejected altogether, and confuted in a dis- tinct treatise, the popular science of as- trology, in which men so much more con- spicuous in philosophy have trusted. But he had projected many other undertakings of vast extent ; an allegorical exposition of the New Testament, a defence of the Vul- bungen beriihmter Manner ii. 21. Tiraboschi, vii. 325. 1 Meiners, p. 14. 2 Meiners, p. 10. gate and Septuagint against the Jews, a vindication of Christianity against every species of infidelity and heresy; and finally, a harmony of philosophy, reconciling the apparent inconsistencies of all writers, ancient and modern, who deserved the name of wise, as he had already attempted by Plato and Aristotle. In these arduous labours he was cut off by a fever at the age of thirty-one, in 1494, on the very day that Charles VIII. made his entry into Florence. A man, so justly called the phumix of his age, and so extraordinarily gifted by nature, ought not to be slightly passed over, though he may have left nothing which we could read with advantage. If we talk of the admirable Crichton, who is little better than a shadow, and lives but in panegyric, so much superior and more wonderful a person as John Picua of Mirandola should not be forgotten. 1 97. If, leaving the genial city of Florence, we are to judge of the state state of learning of knowledge in our Cisal- in Germany, pine regions, and look at the books it wa thought worth while to publish, which seems no bad criterion, we shall rate but lowly their proficiency in the classical literature so much valued in Italy. Four editions, and those chiefly of short works, were printed at Deventer, one at Cologne, one at Louvain, five perhaps at Paris, two at Lyons. 2 But a few undated books might, probably, be added. Either, there- fore, the love of ancient learning had grown colder, which was certainly not the case, or it had never been strong enough to reward the labour of the too sanguine printers. Yet it was now striking root in Germany. The excellent schools of Munster and Schelstadt were established in some part of this decade ; they trained those who were themselves to become instructors ; and the liberal zeal of Langius extending beyond his immediate disciples, scarce any Latin author was published in Germany in which he did not correct the text. 3 The op- 1 The long biography of Picus in Meiners is in. great measure taken from a life written by his nephew, John Francis Picus, count of Mirandola, himself a man of great literary and philosophical reputation in the next century. Meiners has made more use of this than any one else ; but much will be found concerning Picus, from this source, and from his own works, in Brucker, Buhle, Corniani, and Tiraboschi. The epitaph on Picus by Hercules Strozza is, I believe, in the church of St. Mark : Joannes jacet hie Mirandola ; caetera norunt Et Tagus et Ganges ; forsan et Antipodes. 2 Panzer. 3 Meiners, Lebensbesch. ii. 328. EicLhorn, iii. 231-239. Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. 103 portunities he had of doing so were not, as has been just seen, so numerous in this period as they became in the next. He had to withstand a potent and obstinate faction. The mendicant friars of Cologne, the head-quarters of barbarous supersti- tion, clamoured against his rejection of the old school-books, and the entire reform of education. But Agricola addresses his friend in sanguine language : Agricola - "I entertain the greatest hope from your exertions, that we shall one day wrest from this insolent Italy her vaunted glory of pre-eminent eloquence ; and redeeming ourselves from the op- probrium of ignorance, barbarism, and in- capacity of expression which she is ever casting upon us, may show our Germany so deeply learned, that Latium itself shall not be more Latin than she will appear." 1 About 1482, Agricola was invited to the court of the elector palatine at Heidelberg. He seems not to have been engaged in public instruction, but passed the re- mainder of his life, unfortunately too short, for he died in 1485, in diffusing and pro- moting a taste for literature among his con- temporaries. No German Avrote in so pure a style, or possessed so large a portion of classical learning. Vives places him in dignity and grace of language even above Politian and Hermolaus. 2 The praises of 1 Unum hoc tibi afflrmo, ingentem de te con- cipio flduciam, summamque in spem adducor, fore aliquando, ut priscam insolent! Italise, et propemodum occupatam bene dicendi gloriam extorqueamus ; vindicemusque nos, et ab ig- navia, qua nos barbaros, indoctosque et elingues, et si quid est his incultius, esse nos jactitant, exsolvamus, futuramque tarn doctam et litera- tam Germaniam nostram, ut non Latinius vel 'psum sit Latium. This is quoted by Heeren, p. 154, and Meiners, ii. 329. 2 Vix et hac nostra et patrum memoria fuit unus atque alter dignior, qui multum legeretur, multumque in manibus haberetur, quam Eadul- phus Agricola Frisius ; tantum est in ejus operibus ingenii, artis, gravitatis, dulcedinis, eloquentias, eruditionis ; at is paucissimis nos- citur, vir non minus, qui ab hominibus cognos- ceretur, dignus quam Politianus, vel Hermolaus Barbaras, quos mea quidem sententia, et rna- jestate et suavitate dictionis non sequat modo, sed etiam vincit. Vives, Comment, in Augustin. (apud Blount, Censura Auctorum, sub nomine Agricola.) Agnosco virum divini pectoris, eruditionis re- conditw, stylo minime vulgari, solidum, ner- vosum elaboratum, compositum. In Italia summus esse poterat, nisi Germanium prsetulis- set. Erasmus in Ciceroniano. He speaks as strongly in many other places. Testimonies to the merits of Agricola from Huet, Vossius, and others, are collected by Bayle, Blount, Baillet, and Niceron. Meiners has written his life, ii. Erasmus, as well as of the later critics, if not so marked, are very freely bestowed. His letters are frequently written in Greek ; a fashion of those who could ; and as far as I have attended to them, seem equal in correctness to some from men of higher name in the next age. 98. The immediate patron of Agricola, through whom he was in- Ehenish vited to Heidelberg, was academy. John Camerarius, of the house of Dalberg, bishop of "Worms, and chancellor of the Palatinate. He contributed much himself to the cause of letters in Germany ; es- pecially if he is to be deemed the founder, as probably he should be, of an early academy, the Ehenish Society, which, we are told, devoted its time to Latin, Greek, and Hebrew criticism, astronomy, music, and poetry ; not scorning to relax their minds with dances and feasts, nor forget- ting the ancient German attachment to the flowing cup. 1 The chief seat of the Ehenish Society was at Heidelberg ; but it had associate branches in other parts of Germany, and obtained imperial privileges. No member of this academy was more con- spicuous than Conrad Celtes, who has some- times been reckoned its founder, which, from his youth, is hardly probable, and was, at least, the chief instrument of its subse- quent extension. He was indefatigable in the vineyard of literature, and, travelling to different parts of Germany, exerted a more general influence than Agricola him- self. Celtes was the first from whom Saxony derived some taste for learning. His Latin poetry was far superior to any that had been produced in the empire ; and for this, in 1487, he received the laurel crown from Frederic III. 2 99. Eeuchlin, in 1482, accompanied the duke of Wirtemberg on a visit to Eome. pp. 332-363 ; and several of his letters will be found among those addressed to Eeuchlin, Epistolse ad Eeuchlinum ; a collection of great importance for this portion of literary history, 1 Studebant eximia hsec ingenia Latinorum, Grsecorum, Ebrseorumque scriptorum lectioni, cumprimis criticse; astronomlam et artem musi- cam excolebant. Poesin atque jurisprudentiain sibi habebant commendatam ; imo et interdum gaudia curis interponebant. Nocturne nimirum tempore, defessi laboribus, ludere solebant, saltare, jocari cum rnulierculis, epulari, ac more Germanorum inveterate strenue potare. Jugler, Hist. Litteraria, p. 1993 (vol. iii.) The passage seems to be taken from Euprecht, Oratio de Societate Litteraria Ehenana, Jense, 1752, which I have not seen. 2 Jugler, ubi supra. Eichhorn.ii. 557. Heeren, p. 100. Biogr. Universelle, art. Celtes, Dalberg, Trithemius. 104 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. He thus became acquainted with the illustrious men of Italy, and convinced them of his own pretensions to the name of a scholar. The old Constantinopolitan Argyropulus, on hearing him translate a passage of Thucydides, exclaimed, "Our banished Greece has now flown beyond the Alps." Yet Reuchlin, though from some other circumstances of his life a more celebrated, was not probably so learned or so accom- plished a man as Agricola ; he was with- drawn from public tuition by the favour of several princes, in who&e courts he filled honourable offices ; and after some years more, he fell unfortunately into the same seducing error as Picus of Mirandola, and sacrificed his classical pursuits for the Cab- balistic philosophy. 100. Though France contributed little French language to the philologer, several and poetry, books were now published in French. In the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, I486, a slight improvement in polish of language is said to be discernible. 1 The poems of Villon are rather of more import- ance. They were first published in 1489 ; but many of them had been written thirty years before. Boileau has given Villon credit for being the first who cleared his style from the rudeness and redundancy of the old romancers. 2 But this praise, as some have observed, is more justly due to the duke of Orleans, a man of full as much talent as Villon, with a finer taste. The poetry of the latter, as might be expected from a life of dissoluteness and roguery, is often low and coarse ; but he seems by no means incapable of a moral strain, not des- titute of terseness and spirit. Martial d'Auvergne, in his Vigiles de la Mort de Charles VII., which, from its subject, must have been written soon after 1460, though not printed till 1490, displays, to judge from the extracts in Goujet, some compass of imagination. 3 The French poetry of this age was still full of allegorical morali ty, and had lost a part of its original raciness. Those who desire an acquaintance with it may have recourse to the author just mentioned, or to Bouterwek ; and extracts, though not so copious as the title promises, will be found in the Recueil des Anciens Podtes Francais. 1 Essai du C. Francois de Neuf -chateau sur les meilleurs ouvrages en prose ; prefixed to But there was often a different sort of interference by the civil power with the press. The destruction of books, and the prohibition of their sale, had not been unknown to' antiquity ; in- stances of it occur in the free republics of Athens and Rome ; but it was naturally more frequent under suspicious despotisms, especially when to the jealousy of the state was superadded that of the church, and novelty, even in speculation, became a crime. 2 Ignorance came on with the fall of the empire, and it was unnecessary to guard against the abuse of an art which very few possessed at all. "With the first revival of letters in the eleventh and twelfth centuries sprang up the reviving shoots of heretical freedom ; but with Berenger and Abelard came also the jealousy of the church, and the usual ex- ertion of the right of the strongest. Abe- lard was censured by the council of Sois- sons in 1121, for suffering copies of his book to be taken withmit the approbation of his superiors, and the delinquent volumes were given to the flames. It does not ap- pear, however, that any regulation on this subject had been made. 3 But when the sale of books became the occupation of a class of traders, it was deemed necessary to place them under restraint. Those of Paris and Bologna, the cities, doubtless, where the greatest business of this kind was carried on, came altogether into the power of the universities. It is proved by various statutes of the university of Paris, some more decisive authority than this passage, but cannot find it. 1 Beckniann's Hist, of Inventions, iii. 109. 2 Id. 3 Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 28. originating, no doubt, in some authority conferred by the crown, and bearing date from the year 1275 to 1403,, that booksellers were appointed by the university, and con- sidered as its officers, probably matriculated by entry on her roll ; that they took an oath, renewable at her pleasure, to observe her statutes and regulations ; that they were admitted upon security, and testi- monials to their moral conduct ; that no one could sell books in Paris without this permission ; and that they could expose no bookto sale without communication with the university, and without its approbation ; that the university fixed the prices, accord- ing to the tariff of four sworn booksellers, at which books should be sold, or lent to the scholars ; that a fine might be imposed for incorrect copies ; that the sellers were bound to fix up in their shops a priced cata- logue of their books, besides other regula- tions of less importance. Books, deemed by the university unfit for perusal were some- times burned by its order. 1 Chevillier gives several prices for lending books (pro exemplari concesso scholaribus) fixed about 1303. The books mentioned are all of divinity, philosophy, or canon law ; on an average, the charge for about twenty pages was a sol. The university of Toulouse exercised the same authority ; and Albert III., archduke of Austria, founding the university of Vienna about 1384, copied the statutes of Paris in this control over bookselling as well as in other respects.- The stationarii of Bologna were also bound by oath, and gave sureties, to fulfil their duties towards the university ; one of these was, to keep by them copies of books to the number of one hundred and seventeen, for the hire of which a price was fixed. 8 By degrees, however, a class of booksellers grew up at Paris, who took no oath to the university, and were consequently not admitted to its privileges, being usually poor scholars, who were tolerated in selling books at a low price. These were of no importance, till the privileged, or sworn traders, having been reduced by a royal ordinance of 1488 to twenty-four, this lower class silently increased, at length the practice of taking an oath to the university fell into disuse. 4 150. The vast and sudden extension of the means of communicating and influenc- ing opinion which the discovery of printing afforded, did not long remain unnoticed. 1 Chevillier, Origines de 1'Imprimerie de Paris, p. 302, et seq. Crevier, ii. 66. 2 Chevillier, ibid. 3 Savigny, iii. 540. 4 Chevillier, 334-351 124 Literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. Few have temper and comprehensive views Restraints on enough not to desire the pre- saie of printed vention by force of that which books - they reckon detrimental to truth and right. Hermolaus Barbarus, in a letter to Merula, recommends that, on account of the many trifling publications which took men off from reading the best authors, nothing should be printed without the approbation of competent judges. 1 The governments of Europe cared little for what seemed an evil to Hermolaus. But they perceived that, especially in Germany, a country where the principles that were to burst out in the Reformation were evi- dently germinating in this century, where a deep sense of the corruptions of the church pervaded every class, that incred- ible host of popular religious tracts, which the Rhine and Neckar poured forth like their waters, were of no slight danger to the two powers, or at least the union of the two, whom the people had so long obeyed. We find, therefore, an instance, in 1480, of a book called Nosce Teipsum, printed at Heidelberg with the approving testimonies of four persons, who may be presumed, though it is not stated, to have been appointed censors on that occasion. 2 Two others, one of which is a Bible, have been found printed at Cologne in 1479 ; in the subscription to which, the language of public approbation by the university is more express. The first known instance, however, of the regular appointment of a censor on books is in the mandate of Bert- hold, archbishop of Mentz, in 1486. " Not- withstanding,"he begins, "the facilitygiven to the acquisition of science by the divine art of printing, it has been found that some abuse this invention, and convert that which was designed for the instruction of mankind to their injury. For books on the duties and doctrines of religion are translated from Latin into German, and circulated among the people, to the dis- grace of religion itself; and some have even had the rashness to make faulty ver- sions of the canons of the church into the vulgar tongue, which belong to a science so difficult, that it is enough to occupy the life of the wisest man. Can such men assert, that our German language is capable of expressing what great authors have written in Greek and Latin on the high mysteries of the Christian faith, and on general science ? Certainly it is not ; and hence they either invent new words, or 1 Beckmann, iii. 98. 2 Beckmann, 99. use old ones in erroneous sensci ; a thing especially dangerous in sacred Scripture. For who will admit that men without learning, or women, into whose hands these translations may fall, can find the true sense of the gospels, or of the epistles of St. Paul? much less can they enter OH questions which, even among catholic writers, are open to subtle discussion. But since this art was first discovered in this city of Mentz, and we may truly say by divine aid, and is to be maintained by us in all its honour, we strictly forbid all per- sons to translate, or circulate when trans- lated, any books upon any subject whatever from the Greek, Latin, or any other tongue, into German, until, before printing, and again before their sale, such translations shall be approved by four doctors herein named, under penalty of excommunica- tion, and of forfeiture of the books, and of one hundred golden florins to the use of our exchequer." 1 151. I have given the substance of this mandate rather at length, Effect of printing because it has a considerable n *& Reforma- bearing on the preliminary history of the Reformation, and yet has never, to my knowledge, been produced with that view. For it is obvious that it was on account of religious translations, and especially those of the Scripture, which had been very early printed in Germany, that this alarm was taken by the worthy archbishop. A bull of Alexander VI., in 1501, reciting that many pernicious books had been printed in various parts of the world, and especially in the provinces of Cologne, Mentz, Treves, and Magdeburg, forbids all printers in these provinces to publish any books without the licence of the archbishops or their officials. 2 We here perceive the distinction made between these parts of Germany and the rest of Europe, and can understand their ripeness for the ensuing revolution. We perceive, also, the vast influence of the art of print- ing upon the Reformation. Among those who have been sometimes enumerated as its precursors, a place should be left for Schoeffer and Gutenberg ; nor has this al- ways been forgotten. 3 1 Beckmann, 101, from the .fourth volume of Guden's Codex Diplomaticus. The Latin will be found in Beckmann. 2 Id. 106. 3 Gerdes, in his Hist. Evangel. Befonnati, who has gone very laboriously into this subject, justly dwells on the influence of the art of printing. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. 125 CHAPTER IV. ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1500 TO 15-0. SECT. I. 15011510. Classical Learning of Italy in this Period Of France, Germany, and England Works of Polite Literature in Languages of Italy, Spain, and England. 1. THE new century did not begin very Decline of learn- auspiciously for the literary ing in Italy, credit of Italy. We may, indeed, consider ihe whole period between the death of Lorenzo in 1492, and the pon- tificate of his son in 1513, as less brilliant than the two ages which we connect with their names. But when measured by the labours of the press, the last ten years of the fifteenth century were considerably more productive than any which had gone before. In the present decade a striking decline was perceptible. Thus, in com- paring the numbers of books printed in the chief towns of Italy, we find 14911500 Florence 179 Rome 460 Milan 228 Venice 1491 15011510 47 41 99 5361 Such were the fruits of the ambition of Ferdinand and of Lo'ois XII., and the first interference of strangers with the liberties of Italy. "Wars so protracted within the bosom of a country, if they do not prevent the growth of original genius, must yet be unfavourable to that secondary, but more diffused excellence, which is nourished by the wealth of patrons and the tranquillity of universities. Thus the gymnasium of Eome, founded by Eugenius IV., but lately endowed and regulated by Alexander VI. , who had established it in a handsome edi- fice on the Quirinal hill, was despoiled of its revenues by Julius II. , who, with some liberality towards painters, had no regard for learning ; and this will greatly account for the remarkable decline in the typo- graphy of Rome. Thus, too, the Platonic school at Florence soon went to decay after the fall of the Medici, who had fostered it ; and even the rival philosophy which rose upon its ruins, and was taught at the be- ginning of this century with much success at Padua by Pomponatius, according to the original principles of Aristotle, and by two other professors of great eminence in their time', Nifo and Achillini, according i Panzer. Press of Aldus. to the system of Averroes, could not resist the calamities of war : the students of that university were dispersed in 1509, after the unfortunate defeat of Ghiaradadda. 2. Aldus himself left Venice in 1506, his effects in the territory hav- ing been plundered, and did not open his press again till 1512, when he entered into partnership with his father-in- law, Andrew Asola. He had been actively employed during the first years of the century. He published Sophocles, Hero- dotus, and Thucydides hi 1502, Euripides and Herodian in 1503, Demosthenes in 1504. These were important accessions to Greek learning, though so much remained behind. A circumstance may be here mentioned, which had so much influence in facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, that it renders the year 1501 a sort of epoch in literary history. He that year not only introduced a new Italic character, called Aldine, more easily read perhaps than his Roman letters, which are somewhat rude ; but, what was of more importance, began to print in a small octavo or duodecimo form, instead of the cumbrous and ex- pensive folios that had been principally in use. Whatever the great of ages past might seem to lose by this indignity, was more than compensated in the diffused love and admiration of their writings. "With what pleasure," says M. Renouard, "must the studious man, the lover of letters, have beheld these benevolent oc- tavos, these Virgils and Horaces contained in one little volume, which he might carry in his pocket while travelling or in a walk ; which besides cost him hardly more than two of our francs, so that he could get a dozen of them for the price of one of those folios, that had hitherto been the sole fur- niture of his library. The appearance of these correct and well printed octavos ought to be as much remarked as the sub- stitution of printed books for manuscripts itself." 1 We have seen above, that not only quartos, nearly as portable perhaps as octavos, but the latter form also, had been coming into use towards the close of the fifteenth century, though, I believe, it was sparingly employed for classical authors. 3. It was about 1500, that Aldus drew together a few scholars into-a literary asso- i Renouard, Hist, de I'Imprimerie des Aides' Eoscoe's Leo. X. ch. ii. 126 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. ciation, called Aldi Xeacademia. Not only amicable discussions, but lemy ' the choice of books to be printed, of manuscripts and various read- ings, occupied their time, so that they may be considered as literary partners of the noble-minded printer. This academy was dispersed by the retirement of Aldus from Venice, and never met again. 1 4. The first edition of Calepio's Latin Dictionary of Dictionary, which, though Caiepio. f ar better than one or two obscure books that preceded it, and en- riched by plundering the stores of Valla and Perotti, was very defective, appeared at Reggio in 1502. 2 It was so greatly augmented by subsequent improvers, that calepin has become a name in French for any voluminous compilation. This dic- tionary was not only of Latin and Italian, but several other languages ; and these were extended in the Basle edition of 1581 to eleven. It is still, if not the best, the most complete polyglott lexicon for the European languages. Caiepio, however moderate might be his erudition, has just claim to be esteemed one of the most effective instruments in the restoration of the Latin language in its purity to general use ; for though some had by great acute- ness and diligence attained a good style in the fifteenth century, that age was looked upon in Italy itself as far below the subse- quent period. 8 1 Tiraboschi. Roscoe. Renouard. ScipioFor- teguerra, who latinized his name into Cartero- inachus, was secretary to this society, and among its most distinguished members. He was cele- brated in his time for a discourse, De Laudibus Literarum Graecarum, reprinted by Henry Stephens in his Thesaurus. Biogr. Univ., For- teguerra. 2 Brunet. Tiraboschi (x. 383) gives some reason to suspect that there may have been an earlier edition. s Caiepio is said by Morhof and Baillet to have copied Perotti's Cornucopia almost entire. Sir John Elyot long before had remarked : " Calepin nothing amended, but rather appaired that which Perottus had studiously gathered." But the Cornucopia was not a complete dic- tionary. It is generally agreed, that Caiepio was an indifferent scholar, and that the first editions of his dictionary are of no great value. Nor have those who have enlarged it done so with exactness, or with selection of good latinity. Even Passerat, the most learned of them, has not extirpated the unauthorised words of Caiepio. Baillet, Jugemens des Savans, ii. 44. Several bad dictionaries, abridged from the Catholicon, appeared near the end of the fifteenth century, and at the beginning of the next. Du Cange, pnefat. in Glossar, p. 47. 5. "We may read in Panzer the titles of 325 books printed during Book* printed these ten years at Leipsic, in Germany. 60 of which are classical, but chiefly, as before, small school-books ; 14 out of 214 at Cologne ; 10 out of 208 at Strasburg ; 1 out of 84 at Basle ; but scarcely any books whatever appear at Louvain. One printed at Erfurt in 1501 deserves some attention. The title runs "EionycoyTj Trpos TO>V ypafj.fj.ara>v E\Xr7i>o>i>, Elementale Intro- ductorium in idioma Grsecanicum," with some more words. Panzer observes : "This Greek grammar, published by some un- known person, is undoubtedly the first which was published in Germany since the invention of printing." In this, however, as has already been shown, he is mistaken ; unless we deny to the book printed at Deventer the name of a grammar. But Panzer was not acquainted with it. This seems to be the only attempt at Greek that occurs in Germany during this decade ; and it is unnecessary to comment on the ignor- ance, which the gross solecism in the title displays. 1 6. Paris contributed in ten years 430 edi- tions, thirty-two being of pint Greek Latin classics. And in 1507 P ress at Parls - Giles Gourmont, a printer of that city, assisted by the purse of Francis Tissard, had the honour of introducing the Greek language on this side, as we may say, of the Alps ; for the trifling exceptions we have mentioned scarcely affect his priority. Greek types had been used in a few words by Badius Asccnsius, a learned and meri- torious Parisian printer, whose publications began about 1498. They occur in his edi- tion (1505) of Villa's Annotations on the Greek Testament. 2 Four little books, 1 Panzer, vi. 494. We find, however, a tract by Hegius, De Utilitate Linguae Graecae, printed at Deventer in 1501 ; but whether it contains Greek characters or not, must be left to con- jecture. Lambinet says, that Martens, a Flemish printer, employed Greek types in quotations as early as 1501 or 1502. 2 Chevillier.Originesdel'Iniprimeriede Paris, p. 246. Greswell's View of early Parisian Greek Press, i. 15. Panzer, according to Mr. Greswell, has recorded nearly 400 editions from the press of Badius. They include almost every Latin classic, usually with notes. He also printed a few Greek authors. See also Bayle and Biogr. Univ. The latter refers the first works from the Parisian press of Uadius to 1511, but probably by misprint. Badius had learned Greek at Ferrara. If Bayle is correct, he taught it at Lyons before he set up his press at Paris, which is worthy of notice ; but he gives no authority, except for the fact of his teaching in the former city, which might not be the Greek language. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. 127 namely, a small miscellaneous volume pre- ceded by an alphabet, the Works and Days of Hesiod, the Frogs and Mice of Homer, and the Erotemata or Greek grammar of Ohrysoloras, to which four a late writer has added an edition of Musaeus, were the first fruits of Gourmont's press. Aleander, a learned Italian, who played afterwards no inconsiderable part in the earlier period of the Reformation, came to Paris in 1508, and received a pension from Louis XII. 1 He taught Greek there, and perhaps Hebrew. Through his care, besides a Hebrew and Greek alphabet in 1508, Gourmont printed some of the moral works of Plutarch in 1509. 7. "We learn from a writer of the most Early studies of respectable authority, Ca- Meianchthon. me rarius, that the elements of Greek were already taught to some boys in parts of Germany. 2 About 1508, It is said, however, that he came to Paris in order to give instruction in Greek about 1499. Bayle, art. Badius, note H. It is said in the Biographic Universelle, that Denys le Fevre taught Greek at Paris in 1504, when only sixteen years old ; but the story seems apocryphal. 1 Aleander was no favourite with Erasmus, and Luther utters many invectives against him. He was a strenuous supporter of all things as they were in the church, and would have pre- sided in the council of Trent, as legate of Paul III., who had given him a cardinal's hat, if he had not been prevented by death. His epitaph on himself may be mentioned, as the best Greek verses by a Frank that I remember to have read before the middle of the eighteenth century, though the reader may not think much of them. Kardavov OVK deKiav, on Tra.vcrop.ai &>v fnifidprvs TroXAcoi/, eritia. 3 Cox's Life of Melanchthon, p. 19. Melanch- thon wrote Greek verse indifferently and in- correctly, but Latin with spirit and elegance : specimens of both are given in Dr. Cox's valu- able biography. > The lives and characters of Khenanus, Pirckheimer, and Mosellanus, will be found in Blount, Niceron, and the Biographic Univer- selle ; also in Gerdes's Historia Evangel. Renov., Melchior Adam, and other less common books. to Leipsic in 1514, with the petty salary of 15 guilders, but with the privilege of receiving other remuneration from his scholars, and had the signal honour of first imbuing the students of northern Germany with a knowledge of that language. 1 One or two trifling works on Greek grammar were published by Croke during this de- cennium. Ceratinus, who took his name, in the fanciful style of the times, from his birthplace, Horn in Holland, was now pro- fessor of Greek at Louvain ; and in 1525, on the recommendation of Erasmus, be- came the successor of Mosellanus at Leip- sic. 2 William Cop, a native of Basle, and physician to Francis I., published in this period some translations from Hippocrates and Galen. 28. Cardinal Ximenes, about the begin- ning of the century, founded colleges at Alcala a college at Alcala, his fa- and Louvain. vourite university, for the three learned languages. This example was followed by Jerome Busleiden, who by his last testa- ment, in 1516 or 1517, established a similar foundation at Louvain. 3 From this source proceeded many men of conspicuous erudi- tion and ability ; and Louvain, through its 1 Crocus regnat in Academia Lipsiensi, pub- licitus Grsecas docens litteras. Erasm. Epist. clvii. 5th June 1514. Eichhorn says, that Conrad Celtes and others had taught Latin only, iii. 272. Camerarius, who studied for three years under Croke, gives him a very high char- acter ; qui primus putabatur ita docuisse Grwcam linguam in Germania, ut plane perdisci illam posse, et quid momenti ad omnem doctrimv eruditionem atque cultum hujus cognitio alla- tura esse videretur, nostri homines sese in- telligere arbitrarentur. Vita Melanchthonis, p. 27 ; and Vita Eobani Hessi, p. 4. He wa& received at Leipsic ' ' like a heavenly messenger : " every one was proud of knowing him, of paying whatever he demanded, of attending him at any hour of the day or night. Melanchthon apud Meiners, i. 165. A pretty good life of Croke is in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, Bayle does not mention him. Croke was edu- cated at King's College, Cambridge, to which he went from Eton in 1506 and is said to have learned Greek at Oxford from Grocyn, while still a scholar of King's. 2 Erasmus gives a very high character of Ceratinus. Gneoae lingua) peritia superat vel tres Mosellanos, nee inferior ut arbitror, Ro- manae lingua; facundia. Epist. Dccxxxvii. Ceratinus Graecanicse literature tarn exacte callens, ut vix unum aut alterum habeat Italia quicum dubitem hanc committere. Magnse doctrinas erat Mosellanus, spei majoris, et ama- bam unice hominis ingenium, nee falso dicunt odiosas esse comparationes ; sed hoc ipsa causa me compellit dicere, longe alia res est. Epist. Dccxxxviii. 3 Bayle, Busleiden. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. 135 Collegium trilingue, became in a still higher degree than Deventer had been in the fif- teenth century not only the chief seat of Belgian learning, but the means of diffus- ing it over parts of Germany. Its insti- tution was resisted by the monks and theologians, unyielding though beaten ad- versaries of literature. 1 29. It cannot be said, that many yet on Latin style in this side of the Alps wrote France. Latin well. Budseus is harsh and unpolished ; Erasmus fluent, spirited, and never at a loss to express his meaning ; nor is his style much defaced by barbarous words, though by no means exempt from them ; yet it seldom reaches a point of classical elegance. Francis Sylvius (pro- bably Dubois), brother of a celebrated phy- sician, endeavoured to inspire a taste for purity of style in the university of Paris. He had, however, acquired it himself late, for some of his writings are barbarous. The favourable influence of Sylvius was hardly earlier than 1520. 2 The writer most solicitous about his diction was Lon- golius (Christopher de Longueil), a native of Malines, the only true Ciceronian out of Italy; in which country, however, he passed so much time, that he is hardly to be accounted a m?re cisalpine. Like others of that denomination, he was more ambi- tious of saying common things well, than of producing what was well worthy of be- ing remembered. 30. We have the imposing testimony of Erasmus himself, that neither France nor Germany stood so high about this period as England. That country, he says, Greek scholars so distant from Italy, stands in England. nex t t o ft fa ^ e es teem of the learned. This, however, is written in 1524. About the end of the present decennial period we can produce a not very small number of persons possessing a competent acquaintance with the Greek tongue, more, perhaps, than could be traced in France, though all together might not weigh as heavy as Budaeus alone. Such were Grocyn, the patriarch of En- glish- learning, who died in 1519 ; Linacre, whose translation of Galen, first printed in 1521, is one of the few in that age that escape censure for inelegance or incorrect- ness ; Latimer, beloved and admired by his friends, but of whom we have no me- morial in any writings of his own ; More, known as a scholar by Greek epigrams of some merit ; 3 Lilly, master of St. Paul's 1 Von 'der Hardt, Hist. Litt. Eeformat. 2 Bayle, art. Sylvius. 3 The Greek verses of More and Lilly, Pro- school, who had acquired Greek at Rhodes, but whose reputation is better preserved by the grammars that bear his name ; Lup- sett, who is said to have learned from Lilly, and who taught some time at Oxford ; Richard Croke, already named ; Gerard Lister, a physician, to whom Erasmus gives credit for skill in the three languages ; Pace and Tunstall, both men well known in the history of those times ; Lee and Stokesley, afterwards bishops, the former of whom published Annotations on the Greek Testa- ment of Erasmus at Basle in 1520 ; : and probably Gardiner ; Clement, one of "Wol- sey's first lecturers at Oxford ; 2 Brian, Wakefield, Bullock, and a few more, whose gymnasmata Mori et Lilii, were published at Basle, 1518. It is in this volume that the dis- tich, about which some curiosity has been shown, is found: Inveni portum, spes et for- tuna valete, &c. But it is a translation from the Greek. Quid tandem non praestitisset admirabilis ista naturae felicitas, si hoc ingenium instituisset Italia ? si totum Musarum sacris vacasset ? si ad justam frugem ac velut autumnum suum matu- ruisset ? Epigrammata lusit adolescens admo- dum, ac pleraque puer ; Britanniam suam nunquam egressus est, nisi semel atque iterum principis sui nomine legatione functus apud Flandros. Prseter rem uxoriam, prater curas domesticas, prseter publici muneris functionem et causarum undas, tot tantisque re'gni negotiis distrahitur, ut mireris esse otium vel cogitandi de libris. Epist. clxix. Aug. 1517. In the Ciceronianus he speaks of More with more dis- criminating praise, and the passage is illustra- tive of that just quoted. 1 Erasmus does not spare Lee. Epist. ccxlviii. Quo uno nihil unquam adhuc terra produxit, nee arrogantius, nee virulentius, nee stultius. This was the tone of the age towards any ad- versary, who was not absolutely out of reach of such epithets. In another place, he speaks of Lee as nuper Grsecse linguae rudimentis initia- tus. Ep. cccclxxxxi. 2 Knight says (apud Jortin, i. 45) that Clement was the first lecturer at Oxford in Greek after Linacre, and that he was succeeded by Lupsett. And this seems, as to the fact that they did successively teach, to be confirmed by More. Jortin, ii. 396. But the Biographia Britannica, art. Wolsey, asserts that they were appointed to the chair of rhetoric or humanity ; and that Calpurnius, a native of Greece, was the first professor of the language. No authority is quoted by the editors ; but I have found it con- firmed by Caius in a little treatise De Pronunti- atione Graecaa et Latinse Linguae. Novit, he says, Oxoniensis schola, quemadmodum ipsa Greecia pronuntiavit. ex Matthaeo Calpurnio Grseco, quern ex Grsecia Oxoniam Graascarum literarum gratia perduxerat Thomas Wolseus, de bonis literis optime meritus cardinalis, cum non alia ratione pronuntiant illi, quam qua nos jam profitemur. Caius de Pronunt. Gnec. et Lat. Linguae, edit Jebb, p. 228. 136 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. names appear in Pits and Wood, or even who are not recorded ; for we could not without presumption attempt to enume- rate every person who at this time was not wholly unacquainted with the Greek lan- guage. Yet it would be an error, on the other hand, to make a large allowance for omissions; much less to conclude that every man who might enjoy some reputa- tion in a learned profession could in a later generation have passed for a scholar. Colet, for example, and Fisher, men as distinguished as almost any of that age, were unacquainted with the Greek tongue, and both made some efforts to attain it at an advanced age. 1 It was not till the year 1517 that the first Greek lecture was established at Oxford by Fox, bishop of Hereford, in his new foundation of Corpus Christi College. Wolsey, in 1519, endowed a regular professorship in the university. It was about the same year that Fisher, chancellor of the university of Cambridge, sent down Richard Croke, lately returned from Leipsic, to tread in the footsteps of Erasmus as teacher of Greek. 2 But this was in advance of our neighbours ; for no public instruction in that language was yet given in France. 31. By the statutes of St. Paul's school, Mode of teach- dated in 1518, the master is ing in schools. to be " lerned in good and clene Latin literature, and also in Greke, iff such may be gotten." Of the boys he says, " I wolde they were taught always in 1 Nunc dolor me tenet, says Colet in 1516, quod non didicerim Graecum sermonem, sine cujus peritia nihil sumus. From a later epistle of Erasmus, where he says, Coletus strenue Gnccatur, it seems likely that he actually made some progress ; but at his age it would not be very considerable. Latimer dissuaded Fisher from the attempt, unless he could procure a master from Italy, which Erasmus thought needless. Epist. ccclxiii. In an edition of his Adages, he says, Joannes Fischerus tres linguas netate jam vergente non vulgar! studio amplecti- tur, ChiL iv. Cent. v. 1. 'i Greek had not been neglected at Cambridge during the interval, according to a letter of Bullock (in Latin Bovillua) to Erasmus in 1516 from thence. Hie acriter incumbunt literis Graecis, optanque non mediocritur tuum ad- ventum, et hi magnopere favent tu:o huic in Novum Testamentum edition!. It is probable that Cranmer was a pupil of Croke : for in the deposition of the latter before Mary's commis- sioners in 1555, he says that he had known the archbishop thirty -six years, which brings us to his own first lectures at Cambridge. Todd's Life of Cranmer, ii. 449. But Cranmer may have known something of the language before, and is, not improbably, one of those to whom Bullock alludes. good literature both Latin and Greke." But it does not follow from hence that Greek was actually taught ; and consider- ing the want of lexicons and grammars, none of which, as we shall see, were pub- lished in England for many years after- wards, we shall be apt to think that little instruction could have been given. 1 This, however, is not conclusive, and would lead us to bring down the date of philological learning in our public seminaries much too low. The process of learning without books was tedious and difficult, but not impracticable for the diligent. The teacher provided himself with a lexicon which was in common use among his pupils, and with one of the grammars published on the Con- tinent, from which he gave oral lectures, and portions of which were transcribed by each student. The books read in the lecture-room were probably copied out in the same manner, the abbreviations giving some facility to a cursive hand ; and thus the deficiency of impressions was in some degree supplied, just as before the inven- tion of printing. The labour of acquiring knowledge strengthened, as it always does, the memory ; it excited an industry which surmounted every obstacle, and yielded to no fatigue ; and we may thus account for that copiousness of verbal learning which sometimes astonishes us in the scholars of the sixteenth century, and in which they 1 In a letter of Erasmus on the death of Colet in 1522, Epist. ccccxxxv (and in Jortin's App., ii. 315), though he describes the course of edu- cation at St. Paul's school rather diffusely, and in a strain of high panegyric, there is not a syllable of allusion to the study of Greek. Pits, however, in an account of one William Hor- man, tells us, that he was ad collegium Etonense studiorum causa missus, ubi avide haustis lit- teris humanioribus, perceptisque Grcecce lingucc mdimentis, dignus habitus est qui Cantabrigiam ad altiores disciplinas destinaretur. Honnau became Graecae linguae peritissimus, and re- turned, as head master, to Eton : quo tempore in litteris humanioribus scholares illic insigniter erudivit. He wrote several works, partly gram- matical, of which Pits gives the titles, and died, plenus dierum, in 1535. If we could depend on the accuracy of all this, we must suppose that Greek was taught at Eton so early, that one who acquired the rudiments of it in that school might die at an advanced age in 1535. But this is not to be re- ceived on Pits's authority. And I find, in Har- wood's Alumni Etonenses, that Horman became head master as early as 1485 : no one will readily believe, that he could have learned Greek while at school : and the fact is, that he was not educated at Eton, but at Winchester. The Latin grammar which bears the name of Lilly was compiled partly by Colet, partly by Erasmus. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. 137 seem to surpass the more exact philologers of later ages. 32. It is to be observed, that we rather Few classical exto1 a small number of men works printed who have struggled against here - difficulties, than put in a claim for any diffusion of literature in England, which would be very far from the truth. No classical works were printed except four editions of Virgil's Bucolics, a small treatise of Seneca, the first book of Cicero's Epistles (the latter at Oxford in 1519), all merely of course for learners. We do not reckon Latin grammars. And as yet no Greek types had been employed. In the spirit of truth, we cannot quite take to ourselves the compliment of Erasmus ; there must evidently have been a far greater diffusion of sound learning in Germany; where professors of Greek had for some time been established in all the universities, and where a long list of men .ardent in the cultivation of letters could be adduced. 1 Erasmus had a panegyrical humour towards his friends, of whom there were many in England. 33. Scotland had, as might naturally be state of learning expected, partaken still less in Scotland. o f Italian light than the south of Britain. But the reigning king, contemporary with Henry VII., gave proofs of greater good- will towards letters. A statute of James IV., in 1496, enacts that gentlemen's sons should be sent to school in order to learn Latin. Such provisions were too indefinite for execution, even if the royal authority had been greater than it was ; but it serves to display the temper of the sovereign. His natural son, Alex- ander, on whom, at a very early age, he conferred the archbishopric of St. Andrews, was the pupil of Erasmus in the Greek language. The latter speaks very highly of this promising scion of the house of Stuart in one of his adages. 2 But, at the age of twenty, he perished with his royal father on the disastrous day of Flodden Field. Learning had made no sensible progress in Scotland; and the untoward circumstances of the next twenty years were far from giving it encouragement. The translation of the .^Eneid by Gawin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld, though we ;are not at present on the subject of poetry, may be here mentioned in connection with Scottish literature. It was completed 1 Such a list is given by Meiners, i. 154, of the supporters of Keuchlin ; who comprised all the .real scholars of Germany : he enumerates sixty- seven, which might doubtless be enlarged. 2 Chil. ii. cent. v. 1. Utopia of More. about 1513, though the earliest edition is not till 1553. "This translation," says Warton, "is executed with equal spirit and fidelity ; and is a proof that the Low- land Scotch and English languages were now nearly the same. I mean the style of composition, more especially in the glaring affectation of anglicising Latin words. The several books are introduced with metrical prologues, which are often highly poetical, and show that Douglas's proper walk was original poetry." Warton did well to ex- plain his rather startling expression, that the Lowland Scotch and English languages were then nearly the same : for I will ven- ture to say, that no Englishman, without guessing at every other word, could under- stand the long passage he proceeds to quote from Gawin Douglas. It is true that the differences consisted mainly in pronuncia- tion, and consequently in orthography ; but this is the great cause of diversity in dialect. The character of Douglas's ori- ginal poetry seems to be that of the middle ages in general, prolix, though sometimes animated, description of sensible objects. 1 34. We must not leave England without mention of the only work of genius that she can boast in this age; the Utopia. 2 of Sir Thomas More. Perhaps we scarcely appreciate highly enough the spirit and originality of this fiction, which ought to be considered with regard to the barbarism of the times, and the meagreness of preceding inventions. The republic of Plato no doubt furnished More with the germ of his perfect society ; but it wouldbe unreasonable to deny him the merit of having struck out the fiction of its real existence from his own fertile imagin- ation ; and it is manifest, that some of his most distinguished successors in the same walk of romance, especially Swift, were largely indebted to his reasoning, as well as inventive talents. Those who read the Utopia in Burnet's translation, may believe that they are in Brobdignag ; so similar is the vein of satirical humour and easy language. If false and impracticable theo- ries are found in the Utopia (and perhaps he knew them to be such), this is in a much greater degree true of the Platonic republic; and they are more than compensated by the sense of justice and humanity that pervades it, and his bold censures on the vices of power. These are remarkable in a courtier of Henry VIII.; but, in the first year of 1 Warton, iii 111. 2 Utopia is named from a King Utopus. I mention this, because some have shown their learning by changing the word to Eutopia. 138 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. Nero, the voice of Seneca was heard with- out resentment. Nor had Henry much to take to himself in the reprehension of par- simonious accumulation of wealth, which was meant for his father's course of govern- ment. 35. It is possible that some passages in His inconsistency the Utopia, which are neither with his opinions, philosophical nor reconcil- able with just principles of morals, were thrown out as mere paradoxes of a playful mind ; nor is it easy to reconcile his langu- age as to the free toleration of religious wor- ship with those acts of persecution which have raised the only dark cloud on the me- mory of this great man. He positively in- deed declares for punishing those who in- sult the religion of others, which might be an excuse for his severity towards the early reformers. But his latitude as to the acceptability of all religions with God, as to their identity in essential principles, and as to the union of all sects in a common wor- ship, could no more be made compatible with his later writings or conduct, than his sharp satire against the court of Rome for breach of faith, or against the monks and friars for laziness and beggary. Such changes, however, are very common, as we may have abundantly observed, in all sea- sons of revolutionary commotions. Men provoke these, sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts with little design, sometimes with more deliberate intention, but without calculation of the entire consequences, or of their own courage to encounter them. And when such men, like More, are of very quick parts, and, what is the usual attend- ant of quick parts, not very retentive of their opinions, they have little difficulty in abandoning any speculative notion, especi- ally when, like those in the Utopia, it can never have had the least influence upon their behaviour. "We may acknowledge, after all, that the Utopia gives us the im- pression of its having proceeded rather from a very ingenious than a profound mind; and this apparently, is what we ought to think of Sir Thomas More. The Utopia is said to have been first printed at Louvain in 1516 ; 1 it certainly appeared at the close of 1 Of an undated edition, to which Panzer gives the name of editio princeps, there is a copy in the British Museum, and another was in Mr. Heber's library. Dibdin's Utopia, 1808, preface, cxi. It appears from a letter of Montjoy to Erasmus, dated 4th Jan. 1516, that he had re- ceived the Utopia, which must therefore have been printed in 1515 ; and it was reprinted once at least in 1516 or 1517. Erasm. Epist. cciii. ccv. Append. Ep. xliv. Ixxix. ccli. et alibi. Panzer mentions one at Louvain in December the preceding year ; but the edition of Basle in 1518, under the care of Erasmus, is the earliest that bears a date. It was greatly admired on the Continent ; indeed there had been little or nothing of equal spirit and originality in Latin since the re- vival of letters. 36. The French themselves give Francis I. the credit of having been Learning re- the father of learning in stored in that country. Galland, in France - a funeral panegyric on that prince, asks if at his accession (in 1513) any one man in France could read Greek or write Latin? Now this is an absurd question, when we recollect the names of Budseus, Longolius, and Faber Stapulensis ; yet it shows that there could have been very slender preten- sions to classical learning in the kingdom. Erasmus, in his Ciceronianus, enumerates among French scholars, not only Budseus, Faber, and the eminent printer, Jodocus Badius (a Fleming by birth), whom, in point of style, he seems to put above Budseus, but John Pin, Nicolas Berald, Francis Deloin, Lazarus Baif, and Euel. This was however in 1529, and the list assuredly is not long. But as his object was to show that few men of letters were worthy of being reckoned fine writers, he does not mention Longueil, who was one ; or whom, perhaps, he might omit, as being then dead. 37. Budseus and Erasmus were now at the head of the literary world ; and as the friends of each behaved rather too much like partizans, a kind jealousy of of rivalry in public reputa- Erasmus and tion began, which soon ex- tended to themselves, and lessened their friendship. Erasmus seems to have been, in a certain degree, the aggressor ; at least, some of his letters to Budseus indicate an irritability, which the other, as far as ap- pears, had not provoked. Budseus had published in 1514 an excellent treatise, De Asse, the first which explained the de nominations and values of Roman money in all periods of history. 1 Erasmus some- times alludes to this with covert jealousy. It was set up by a party against his Adages, 1516. This volume by Dr. Dibdin is a reprint of Robinson's early and almost contemporary translation. That by Burnet, 1685, is more known, and I think it good. Burnet, and I be lieve some of the Latin editions, omit a speci- men of the Utopian language, and some Utopian poetry ; which probably was thought too puerile. 1 Quod opus ejus, says Vives, in a letter to Erasmus (Ep. DCX.), Hermolaos omnes, Picos, Politianos, Oazas, Yallas, cunctam Italiam pudefecit. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. which he justly considered more full of original thoughts and extensive learning. But Budaeus understood Greek better ; he had learned it with prodigious labour, and probably about the same time with Eras- mus, so that the comparison between them was not unnatural. The name of one is at present only retained by scholars, and that of the other by all mankind ; so different is contemporary and posthumous reputa- tion. It is just to add that, although Erasmus had written to Budseus in far too sarcastic a tone, 1 under the smart of that literary sensitiveness which was very strong in his temper, yet when the other began to take serious offence, and to threaten a discontinuance of their correspondence, he made amends by an affectionate letter, which ought to have restored their good understanding. Budseus, however, who seems to have kept his resentments longer than his quick-minded rival, continued to write peevish letters ; and fresh circum- stances arose afterwards to keep up his jealousy. 2 1 Epist. cc. I quote the numeration of the Leyden edition. 2 Erasmi Epistolaa, passim. The publication of his Ciceronianus in 1528, renewed the irrita- tion ; in this he gave a sort of preference to Badius over Budseus, in respect to style alone ; observing that the latter had great excellences of another kind. The French scholars made this a national quarrel, pretending that Erasmus was prejudiced against their country. He de- fends himself in his epistles so prolixly and elaborately, as to confirm the suspicion, not of this absurdly imputed dislike to the French, but of some little desire to pique Budseus. Epigrams in Greek were written at Paris against him by Lascaris and Toussain ; and thus Eras- mus, by an unlucky inability to restrain his pen from sly sarcasm, multiplied the enemies, whom an opposite part of his character, its spirit of temporising and timidity, was always raising up. Erasm. Epist. Mvxi. et alibi. This rather unpleasing correspondence be- tween two great men, professing friendship, yet covertly jealous of each other, is not ill de- scribed by Von der Hardt, in the Historia Lit- teraria Eeformationis. Mirum dictu, qui undi- que aculei, sub mellitissima oratione, inter blandimenta continua. Genius utriusque ar- gutissimus, qui vellendo et acerbe pungendo nullibi videretur referre sanguinem aut vulnus inferre. Possint profecto ha) literse Budaeum inter et Erasmum illustre esse et incomparabile exemplar delicatissimas sed et perquam aculeatse concertationis, quae videretur suavissimo ab- solvi risu et velut familiarissimo palpo. De alterutrius integritate neuter visus dubitare ; uterque tamen semper anceps, tot annis com- mercio f requentissimo. Dissimulandi artiflcium inexplicabile, quod attenti lectoris admira- tionem vehat, eumque prae dissertationum dul- cedine subamara in stuporem vertat. p. 46. 38. Erasmus diffuses a lustre over his age which no other name character of among the learned supplies. Erasmui. The qualities which gave him this supe- riority were his quickness of apprehension, united with much industry, his liveliness- of fancy, his wit and good sense. He is not a very profound thinker, but an acute observer : and the age for original think- ing was hardly come. "What there was of it in More produced little fruit. In extent of learning, no one perhaps was altogether his equal. Budseus, with more accurate scholarship, knew little of theology, and might be less ready perhaps in general litera- ture than Erasmus. Longolius, Sadolet, and several others, wrote Latin far more elegantly ; but they were of comparatively superficial erudition, and had neither his keen wit, nor his vigour of intellect. As to theological learning, the great Lutheran divines must have been, at least his equals in respect of scriptural knowledge, and some of them possessed an acquaintance with Hebrew, of which Erasmus knew nothing ; but he had probably the ad- vantage in the study of the fathers. It is to be observed, that by far the greater part of his writings are theological. The rest either belong to philology and ancient learning, as the Adages, the Ciceronianus, and the various grammatical treatises, or may be reckoned effusions of his wit, as- the Colloquies and the Encomium Morise. 39. Erasmus, about 1517, published a very enlarged edition of his His Adages Adages, which had already severe on kings, grown with the growth of his own erudi- tion. It is impossible to distinguish the progressive accessions they received with- out a comparison of editions ; and some probably belong to a later period than the present. The Adages, as we read them, display a surprising extent of intimacy with Greek and Roman literature. 1 Far the greater portion is illustrative; but Eras- mus not unfrequently sprinkles his ex- planations of ancient phrase with moral or literary remarks of some poignancy. The most remarkable, in every sense, are those which reflect with excessive bitterness and freedom on kings and priests. Jortin has slightly alluded to some of these; but they 1 In one passage, under the proverb, Her- culei labores, he expatiates on the immense labour with which this work, his Adages, had been compiled ; mentioning, among other diffi- culties, the prodigious corruption of the text in all Latin and Greek manuscripts, so that it scarce ever happened that a passage could be quoted from them, without a certainty or sus- picion of some erroneous reading. uo Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. may deserve more particular notice, as dis- playing the character of the man, and per- haps the secret opinions of his age. 40. Upon the adage, Frons occipitio instances in prior, meaning, that every illustration. one should do his own busi- ness, Erasmus takes the opportunity to observe, that no one requires more atten- tion to this than a prince, if he will act as a real prince, and not as a robber. But at present our kings and bishops are only the hands, eyes, and ears of others, careless of the state, and of everything but their own pleasure. 1 This, however, is a trifle. In another proverb, he bursts out : " Let any one turn over the pages of ancient or mo- dern history, scarcely in several generations will you find one or two princes, whose folly has not inflicted the greatest misery on mankind." And after much more of the same kind : "I know not whether much of this is not to be imputed to our- selves. We trust the rudder of a vessel, "where a few sailors and some goods alone are in jeopardy, to none but skilful pilots ; but the state, wherein the safety of so many thousands is concerned, we put into any hands. A charioteer must learn, re- flect upon, and practise his art ; a prince need only be born. Yet government, as it is the most honourable, so is it the most difficult of all sciences. And shall we choose the master of a ship, and not choose him, who is to have the care of many cities, and so many souls ? But the usage is too long established for us to subvert. Do we not see that noble cities are erected by the people ; that they are destroyed by princes? that the community grows rich by the industry of its citizens, is plundered by the rapacity of its princes? that good laws are enacted by popular magistrates, are violated by these princes ? that the people love peace ; that princes excite war? "2 1 Chil. i. cent. ii. 19. 2 Quin omnes et veterum et neotericorum annales evolve, nimirum ita comperies, vix saeculis aliquot uuum aut alterum extitisse principem, qui non insigni stultitia maximam perniciem invexerit rebus humanis. . . Et baud scio, an nonnulla hujus mali pars nobia ipsis sit imputanda. Clavum navis non conunittimus nisi ejus rei perito, quod quatuor vectorum aut paucarum mercium sit periculum ; et rein publi- c-am, in qua tot hominum inillia periclitantur, cuivis committimus. Ut auriga flat aliquis discit artem, exercet, meditatur ; at ut princeps sit aliquis, satis esse putamus natum esse. Atqui recte gerere principatum, ut est munus omnium longe pulcherrimnm, ita est omnium etiam multo difficillimuin. Deligis, cui navem com- mittas, non deligis cui tot urbes, tot hominum 41. "It is the aim of the guardians of a prince," he exclaims in another passage, " that he may never become a man. The nobility, who fatten on public calamity, endeavour to plunge him into pleasures, that he may never learn what is his duty. Towns are burned, lands are wasted, tem- ples are plundered, innocent citizens are slaughtered, while the prince is playing at dice, or dancing, or amusing himself with puppets, or hunting, or drinking. O race of the Bruti, long since extinct ! O blind and Wanted thunderbolts of Jupiter ! "We know indeed that those corrupters of princes will render account to Heaven, but not easily to us." He passes soon after- wards to bitter invective against the clergy, especially the regular orders.i 42. In explaining the adage, Sileni Alci- biadis, referring to things which, appearing mean and trifling, are really precious, he has many good remarks on persons and things, of which the secret worth is not understood at first sight. But thence pass- ing over to what he calls inversi Sileni, those who seem great to the vulgar, and are really despicable, he expatiates on kings and priests, whom he seems to hate with the fury of a modern philosopher. It must be owned he is very prolix and declamatory. He here attacks the temporal power of the church with much plainness ; we cannot wonder that his Adages required mutilation at Rome. 43. But by much the most amusing and singular of the Adages is Scarabaeus aquilam quserit ; the meaning of which, in allusion to a fable that the beetle, in revenge for an injury, destroyed the eggs of the eagle, is explained to be, that the most powerful may be liable to the resentment of the capita credas ? Sed istud receptius est, quam ut convelli possit. An non videmus egregia oppida a populo condi, a principibus subvert!? rempublicam civium industria ditescere, principum rapacitate spoliari? bonas leges ferri a plebeiis magistral! - bus, a principibus violari? populum studere paci, principes excitare bellum ? 1 Miro studio curant tutores, ne unquam vir sit princeps. Adnituntur optimates, ii qui publicis malis saginantur, ut voluptatibus sit quam effseminatissimus, ne quid eorum sciat, quse maxime decet scire principem. Exuruntur vici, vastantur agri, diripiuntur templa, truci- dantur immeriti cives, sacra profanaque mis- centur, dum princeps interim otiosus ludit aleam, dum saltit, dum oblectat se morioni- bus, dum venatur, dum amat, dum potat. O Brutorum genus jam olim extinctum ! o fulmen Jovis aut caecum aut obtusum ! Neque dubium est, quin isti principum corruptores pcenas Deo daturi sint, sed sero nobis. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. 141 weakest. Erasmus here returns to the at- tack upon kings still more bitterly and pointed than before. There is nothing in the Centre un of La Boetie, nothing, we may say, in the most seditious libel of our own time, more indignant and cutting against regal government than this long declamation: "Let any physiognomist, not a blunderer in his trade, consider the look and features of an eagle, those rapa- cious and wicked eyes, that threatening curve of the beak, those cruel cheeks, that stern front, will he not at once recognise the image of a king, a magnificent and majestic king? Add to these a dark, ill- omened colour, an unpleasing, dreadful, ap- palling voice, and that threatening scream, at which every kind of animal trembles. Every one will acknowledge this type, who has learned how terrible are the threats of princes, even uttered in jest. At this scream of the eagle the people tremble, the senate shrinks, the nobility cringes, the judges concur, the divines are dumb, the lawyers assent, the laws and constitutions give way ; neither right nor religion, neither justice nor humanity avail. And thus, while there are so many birds of sweet and melo- dious song, the unpleasant and unmusical scream of the eagle alone has more power than all the rest." 1 44. Erasmus now gives the rein still more to his fancy. He imagines different animals, emblematic no doubt of mankind, in relation to his eagle. "There is no agreement between the eagle and the fox, 1 Age si quis mihi physiognomon non omnino malus vultum ipsum et os aquilae diligentius contempletur, oculos avidos atque improbos, rictum minacem, genas truculentas, frontem torvam, denique illud, quod Cyrum Persarum regem tantopere delectavit in principe ypvrrbv, nonne plane regium quoddam simulacrum ag- noscet, magnificum et majestatis plenum ? Ac- cedit hue et color ipse funestus, teter et inaus- picatus, fusco squalore nigricans. Unde etiam quod fuscum est et subnigrum, aquilum voca- mus. Turn vox inamoena, terribilis, exanimatrix, ac minax ille querulusque clangor, quern nullum animantium genus non expavescit. Jam hoc symbolum protinus agnoscit, qui modo peri- culum fecerit, aut viderit certe, quam sint formidandse principum minae, vel joco prolataa. . . Ad hanc, inquam, aquilse stridorem illico pavitat omne vulgus, contrahit sese senatus, observit nobilitas, obsecundant judices, silent theologi, assentantur jurisconsulti, cedunt leges, cedunt instituta ; nihil valet fas nee pietas, nee sequitas nee humanitas. Cumque tarn multae sint aves non ineloquentes, tarn mult canorae, tamque varies sint voces ac modulatus qui vel saxa possint flectere, plus tamen omnibus valet insuavis ille et minime musicus unius aquilse stridor. not without great disadvantage to the vul- pine race ; in which however they are per- haps worthy of their fate, for having refused aid to the hares when they sought an alliance against the eagle, as is related in the Annals of Quadrupeds, from which Homer borrowed his Battle of the Frogs and Mice." 1 I suppose that the foxes mean the nobility, and the hares the people. Some allusions to animals that follow I do not well understand. Another is more pleasing : " It is not surprising," he says, " that the eagle agrees ill with the swans, those poetic birds ; we may wonder more, that so warlike an animal is often overcome by them." He sums up all thus : ' ' Of all birds the eagle alone has seemed to wise men the apt type of royalty ; not beautiful, not musical, not fit for food ; but carnivorous, greedy, plundering, de- stroying, combating, solitary, hateful to all, the curse of all, and with its great powers of doing harm, surpassing them in its desire of doing it." 2 45. But the eagle is only one of the animals in the proverb. After all this bile against those the royal bird represents, he does not forget the beetles. These of course are the monks, whose picture he draws with equal bitterness and more con- tempt. Here, however, it becomes difficult to follow the analogy, as he runs a little wildly into mythological tales of the Scara- bseus, not easily reduced to his purpose. This he discloses at length : " There are a wretched class of men, of low degree, yet full of malice; not less dingy, nor less filthy, nor less vile than beetles ; who nevertheless by a certain obstinate malig- nity of disposition, though they can never do good to any mortal, become frequently troublesome to the great. They frighten by their ugliness, they molest by their noise, they offend by their stench ; they buzz round us, they cling to us, they lie in 1 Nihil omnino convenit inter aquilam et vulpem, quanquam id sane non mediocri vul- pinas gentis malo ; quo tamen baud scio an dignse videri debeant, quae quondam leporibus lished in 1516, a treatise full two hundred years older, by Raymond Lully, a native of Majorca ; one of those innovators in philosophy, who, by much boasting of their original discoveries in the secrets of truth, are taken by many at their word, and gain credit for systems of science, which those who believe in them seldom trouble them- selves to examine, or even understand. Lully's principal treatise is his Ars Magna, being, as it professes, a new method of reasoning on all subjects. But this method appears to be only an arti- ^ i T -j.- j-i i- His method, ncial disposition, readily ob- vious to the eye, of subjects and predicables, according to certain distinctions ; which, if it were meant for anything more than a topical arrangement, such as the ancient orators employed to aid their invention, could only be compared to the similar scheme of using machinery instead of men- tal labour, devised by the philosophers of Laputa. Leibnitz is of opinion that the method might be convenient in extem- porary speaking ; which is the utmost limit that can be assigned to its usefulness. Lord Bacon has truly said of this, and of such idle or fraudulent attempts to sub- stitute trick for science, that they are "not a lawful method, but a method of impos- ture, which is to deliver knowledges in such manner, as men may speedily come to make a show of learning, who have it not ; " and that they are "nothing but a mass of words of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms might be thought to understand them." 80. The writings of Lully are admitted' to be very obscure ; and those of his com- mentators and admirers, among whom the meteors of philosophy, Cornelius Agrippa and Jordano Bruno, were enrolled, are hardly less so. But, as is usual with such empiric medicines, it obtained a great deal of celebrity, and much ungrounded praise, not only for the two centuries which in- tervened between the author's age and that The two last of these are more favourable than the rest to the intentions of the Paduan philo- sopher. Pomponatius, or Peretto, as he was sometimes called, on account of his diminutive stature, which he had in common with his predecessor in philosophy, Marsilius Ficinus, was ignorant of Greek, though he read lectures on Aristotle. In one of Sperone's dialogues (p. 120 edit. IMHi) he is made to argue, that if all books were read in translations, the time now consumed in learn- ing languages might be better employed. 156 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. of its appearance from the press, but for a considerable time afterwards, till the Car- tesian philosophy drove that to which the art of Lully was accommodated from the field ; and even Morhof , near the end of the seventeenth century, avows that, though he had been led to reckon it a frivolous method, he had very much changed his opinion on fuller examination. 1 The few pages which Brucker has given to Lully do not render his art very intelligible; 2 but they seem sufficient to show its uselessuess for the discovery of truth. It is utterly impossible, even for those who have taken much pains to comprehend this method, which is not the case with me, to give a precise notion of it in a few words, even with the help of diagrams, which are in- dispensably required. 3 81. The only geographical publication ptriartyr' which occurs in this period eputiu. i s> an account of the recent discoveries in America, by Peter Martyr of Angheria, a Milanese, who passed great 1 Morhof, Polyhistor. 1. ii. c. 6. But if I un- derstand the ground on which Morhof rests his favourable opinion of Lully's art, it is merely for its usefulness in suggesting middle terms to a syllogistic disputant. '- Brucker, iv. 9-21. Ginguene, who observes that Bracket's analysis, a sa maniere accou- tumee, may be understood by those who have learned Lully's method, but must be very con- fused to others, has made the matter a great deal more unintelligible by his own attempt to explain it. Hist. Litt. de 1'Italie, vii. 497. I have found a better development of the method in Alstedius, Clavis Artis Lullianaa (Argentor. 1633), a staunch admirer of Lully. But his praise of the art, when examined, is merely as an aid to the memory, and to disputation, de quavis quwstione utramque in partern dis- putandi. This is rather an evil than a good ; and though mnemonical contrivances are not without utility, it is probable that much better could be found than that of Lully. 3 Buhle has observed that the favourable re- ception of Lully's method is not surprising, since it really is useful in the association of ideas, like all other topical contrivances, and may be ap- plied to any subject, though often not very ap- propriately, suggesting materials in extemporary speaking, and notwithstanding its shortness, professing to be a complete system of topics ; but whosoever should try it must be convinced of its inefficacy in reasoning. Hence he thinks that such men as Agrippa and Bruno kept only the general principle of Lully's scheme, enlarging it by new contrivances of their own. Hist de Philos. ii. 612. See also an article on Lully in the Biographic Universelle. Tennemann calls the Ars Magna a logical machine to let men reason about everything without study or re- flection. Manuel de la Philos. i. 3SO. But this seems to have been much what Lully reckoned its merit part of his life in the court of Madrid. The title is, De Rebus Oceanicis Decades tres ; but it is, in fact, a series of epistles, thirty in number, written, or feigned to be written, at different times as fresh informa- tion was received ; the first bearing date a few days only after the departure of Col- umbus in 1403 ; while tlie two last decades are addressed to Leo X. An edition is said to have appeared in 1510, which is certainly the date of the author's dedica- tion to Charles V. ; yet this edition seems not to have been seen by bibliographers. Though Peter Martyr's own account has been implicitly believed by Robertson and many others, there seems strong internal persumption, or rather irresistible demon- stration, against the authenticity of these epistles in the character they assume. It appears to me evident that he threw the intelligence obtained into that form many years after the time. Whoever will take the trouble of comparing the two first letters in the decades of Peter Martyr with any authentic history, will perceive that they are a negligent and palpable imposture, every date being falsified, even that of the year in which Columbus made his great discovery. It is a strange instance of oversight in Robertson that he has uni- formly quoted them as written at the time, for the least attention must have shown him the contrary. And it may here be mentioned, that a similar suspicion has been very reasonably entertained with re- spect to another collection of epistles by the same anther, rather better known than the present. There is a folio volume with which those who have much attended to the history of the sixteenth century are well acquainted, purporting to be a series of letters from Anghiera to various friends between the years 1488 and 1522. They are full of interesting facts, and would be still more valuable than they are, could we put our trust in their genuineness as strictly contemporary documents. But, though Robertson has almost wholly relied upon them in his account of the Castilian insurrection, and even in the Biographic Universelle no doubt is raised as to their being written at their several dates, yet La Monnoye (if I remember right, certainly some one) long since charged the author with imposture, on the ground that the letters, into which he wove the history of his times, are so full of anachronisms as to render it evident that they were fabri- cated afterwards. It is several years since I read these epistles ; but I was certainly struck with some palpable errors in chron- Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 1-37 ology, which led me to suspect that several of them were wrongly dated, the solution of their being feigned not occurring to my mind, as the book i of considerable repu- tation. 1 A ground of suspicion hardly lew striking is, that the letters of Peter Martyr are too exact for verisimilitude; he announces events with just the im- portance they ought to have, predicts nothing but what comes to pass, and must in fact be either an impostor (in an in- nocent sense of the word), or one of the most sagacious men of his time. But, if not exactly what they profess to be, both these works of Anghiera are valuable as contemporary history ; and the first men- tioned in particular, De Rebus Oceanicis, is the earliest account we possess of the settle- ment of the Spaniards in Darien, and of the whole period between Columbus and Cortes. 82. It would be embarrassing to the reader were we to pursue any longer that rigidly chronological division by short decennial periods, which has hitherto ! serred to display the regular progress of { European literature, and especially of ' classical learning. Many other provinces i were now cultivated, and the history of : each is to be traced separately from the rest, though frequently with mutual refer- ence, and with regard, as far as possible, to their common unity. In the period immediately before us, that unity was chiefly preserved by the diligent study of the Latin and Greek languages ; it was to the writers in those languages that the theologian, the civil lawyer, the physician, the geometer and philosopher, even the . poet, for the most part, and dramatist, i repaired for the materials of their know- ledge, and the nourishment of their minds. "We shall begin, therefore, by following the further advances of philological literature ; and some readers must here, as in other places, pardon what they will think unne- cessary minuteness in so general a work as the present, for the sake of others who set a value on precise information. CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF ASCIEXT LITERATURE Ef ET7ROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. Classical Taste of the Italians Ciceronians Erasmus attacks them Writings on Roman Antiquity Learning in France Commentaries of Hudceus Progress of Learning in Spain, Germany, England State of Cambridge and Oxford Ad- vance of Learning still slow Encyclopaedic Worts. 1. ITALY, the genial soil where the litera- I Superiority of ture of antiquity had been | luiyintarte. first cultivated, still re- tained her superiority in the fine percep- tion of its beauties, and in the power of retracing them by spirited imitation. It i The following are specimens of anachronism, which seem fatal to the genuineness of these epistles, and are only selected from others. In the year 1489 he writes to a friend : In pecn- liarem te nostrae tempestatis morbum, qoi appellations Hispana Eubarum dicitur, ab Italia mortras Oallicus, medicorum Elephantiam alii, alii aliter appellant, incidisse pnecipitem, libero ad me scribis pede. Epist. 68. Now if we should even believe that this disease was known some years before the discovery of America and the siege of Naples, is it probable that it could have obtained the name of morbus Gallicus before the latter sera? In February 1511, he communicates the absolution of the Venetians by Julius II. , which took place in February 1510. Epist. 451. In a letter dated at Brussels, 31st Aug. 1520, (Epist. 689) he mentions the burning of the canon law at "Wittenberg by Luther, which is well known to have happened in the ensuing November. was the land of taste and sensibility ; never surely more so than in the age of Eaffaelle as well as Ariosto. Far from the clownish ignorance so long predominant in the transalpine aristocracy, the nobles of Italy, accustomed to a city life, and to social festivity, more than to war or the chase, were always conspicuous for their patronage, and, what is more important than mere patronage, their critical skill in matters of art and elegant learning. Among the ecclesiastical order this was naturally still more frequent. If the suc- cessors of Leo X. did not attain so splendid a name, they were perhaps, after the short reign of Adrian VI., which, if we may believe the Italian writers, seemed to threaten an absolute return of barbarism, x i Valerianus, in his treatise De Infelicitate Litteratorum, a melancholy series of unfor- tunate authors, in the manner, though not quite with the spirit and interest, of M. D'Israeli, speaks of Adrian VI. as of another Paul II. in hatred of literature. Ecce adest musarum et eloquentiae, totiusqne nitons hostis acerrimns, qui literatis omnibus inimicitias 158 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. not less munificent or sedulous in encourag- ing polite and useful letters. The first part indeed of this period of thirty years was very adverse to the progress of learn- ing ; especially in that disastrous hour when the lawless mercenaries of Bourbon's army were led on to the sack of Rome. In this, and in other calamities of the same kind, it happened that universities and literary academies were broken up, that libraries were destroyed or dispersed. That of Sadolet, having been wi'th difficulty saved in the pillage of Rome, was dis- persed, in consequence of shipwreck dur- ing its transport to France. 1 A better sera commenced with the pacification of Italy in 1531. The subsequent wars were either transient, or partial in their effects. The very extinction of all hope for civil freedom, which characterised the new period, turned the intellectual energies of an acute and ardent people towards those tranquil pursuits, which their rulers would both permit and encourage. 2. The real excellence of the ancients in literature as well as art gave rise to an en- minitatur, quoniam, ut ipse dictitabat, Teren- tiani essent, quos cum odisse atque etiam perse- repa dicta, cum non videantquo pertineant, nimium amant. Epist. p. 445. (edit. 1647.) I am not convinced that this apology for Luther is sufficient. Words are of course to be explained, when ambiguous, by the context and scope of the argument. But when single detached aphorisms, or even complete sentences in a paragraph, bear one obvious sense, I do not see that we can hold the writer absolved from the imputation of that meaning, because he may somewhere else have used a language inconsistent with it. If the Colloquia Mensalia are to be fully relied upon, Luther continued to talk in the same antinomian strain as before, though he grew sometimes more cautious in writing. See chap. xii. of that work ; and compare with the passages quoted by Milner, v. 517, from the second edition (in 1530) of his Commentary on the Galatians. It would be well to know if these occur in that of 1519. But Luther had not gone greater lengths than Melanchthon himself. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 173 but especially in the article of the real pre- sence, asserted by the Germans as vigor- ously as in the Church of Rome, though with a modification sufficient, in the spirit of uncompromising orthodoxy, to separate them entirely from her communion, but altogether denied by the Swiss and Bel- gian reformers. The attempts made to disguise this division of opinion, and to produce a nominal unanimity by ambigu- ous and incoherent jargon, belong to eccle- siastical history, of which they form a tedious and not very profitable portion. 6. The Lutheran princes, who the year Confession of before had acquired the Augsburg. name of Protestants, by their protest against the resolutions of the majority in the diet of Spire, presented in 1530 to that held at Augsburg the celebrated confession, which embodies their religious creed. It has been said that there are material changes in subsequent editions, but this is denied by the Lutherans. Their denial can only be as to the materiality, for the fact is clear. 1 7. Meantime, it was not all the former Conduct of Eras- opponents of abuses in the mus. church who now served un- der the banner of either Luther or Zwingle. Some few, like Sir Thomas More, went violently back to the extreme of maintain- ing the whole fabric of superstition ; a greater number, without abandoning their own private sentiments, shrunk, for various reasons, from an avowed separation from the church. Such we may reckon Faber Stapulensis, the most learned Frenchman of that age after Budaeus ; such perhaps was Budseus himself ; 2 and such were Bi- libaldus Pirckheimer, 3 Petrus Mosellanus, Beatus Rhenanus, and Wimpfeling, all men of just renown in their time. Such, above all, was Erasmus himself, the pre- cursor of bolder prophets than himself, 1 Bossuet, Variations des Eglises Protestantes, vol. i. Seckendorf, p. 170. Clement, Biblio- thfeque Curieuse, vol. ii. In the editions of 1531 we read : De ccena Domini decent, quod corpus et sanguis Christi vere adsint, et distri- buantur vescentibus in ccena Domini, et im- probant secus docentes. In those of 1540, it runs thus : De ccena Domini decent, quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi vescentibus in ccena Domini. 2 Budseus was suspected of Protestantism, and disapproved many things in his own church; but the passages quoted from him by Gerdes, i. 186, prove that he did not mean to take the leap. 3 Gerdes, vol. i. 66-83. We have seen above the moderation of Pirckheimer in some respects. I am not sure, however, that he did not comply with the Reformation after it was established at Nuremberg. who, in all his later years, stood in a very- unenviable state, exposed to the shafts of" two parties who forgave no man that moderation which was a reproach to them- selves. At the beginning of this period, he had certainly an esteem for Melanch- thon, CEcolampadius, and other reformers ; and though already shocked by the violence of Luther, which he expected to ruin the cause altogether, had not begun to speak of him with disapprobation. i In several points of opinion, he professed to coincide with the German reformers ; but his own temper was not decisive ; he was capable of viewing a subject in various lights ; his learning, as well as natural disposition, kept him irresolute ; and it might not be easy to determine accurately the tenets of so voluminous a theologian. One thing was manifest, that he had greatly contri- buted to the success of the Reformation. It was said, that Erasmus had laid the egg, and Luther had hatched it. Erasmus afterwards, when more alienated from the new party, observed, that he had laid a hen's egg, but Luther had hatched a crow's. 2 Whatever was the bird, it pecked still at the church. In 1522, came out the Colloquies of Erasmus, a book even now much read, and deserving to be so. It was professedly designed for the instruc- tion and amusement of youth ; but both are conveyed at the expense of the preva- lent usages in religion. The monkish party could not be blind to its effect. The faculty of theology at Paris, in 1526, led by one Beda, a most bigoted enemy of Erasmus, censured the Colloquies for slight- ing the fasts of the church, virginity, monkery, pilgrimages, and other estab- lished parts of the religious system. They incurred of course the displeasure of Rome, and have several times been forbidden to- 1 Male metuo misero Luthero ; sic undique fervet conjuratio; sic undique irritantur in ilium principes, ac prrecipue Leo pontifex. Utinam Lutherus meum secutus consilium, ab odiosis illis ac seditiosis abstinuisset. Plus erat fructus et minus invidise. Parum esset unum hominem perire ; si res hsec illis succedit, nemo feret illorum insolentiam. Non conquiescent donee linguas ac bonas literas omnes subverte- rint. Epist. Dxxviii Sept. 1520. Lutherus, quod negari non potest, optimam fabulam susceperat, et Christi pene aboliti ne- gotium summo cum orbis applausu cceperat agere. Sed utinam rem tantam gravioribus ac sedatioribus egisset consiliis, majoreque cum animi calamique moderatione ; atque utinam in scriptis illius non essent tarn multa bona, aut sua bona non vitiasset malis baud ferendis. Epist. DCXXXV. 3d Sept. 1521. 2 Epist. DCCXIX. Dec. 1524. 174 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. Estimate of it. 'be read in schools. Erasmus pretended that in his \\dvoayia he only turned into ridicule the abuse of fasting, and not the ordinances of the church. It would be difficult, however, to find out this distinc- tion in the dialogue, or, indeed, anything favourable to the ecclesiastical cause in the whole book of Colloquies. The clergy are everywhere represented as idle and cor- rupt. No one who desired to render esta- blished institutions odious could set about it in a shorter or surer way ; and it would be strange if Erasmus had not done the church more harm by such publications than he could compensate by a few sneers at the reformers in his private letters. In the single year 1527, Colinseus printed 24,000 copies of the Colloquies, all of which were sold. 8. But about the time of this very pub- lication we find Erasmus growing by degrees more averse to the radical innovations of Luther. He has been severely blamed for this by most Protestants ; and doubtless, so far as an undue apprehension of giving offence to the powerful, or losing his pensions from the emperor and king of England might influence him, no one can undertake his defence. But it is to be remembered, that he did not by any means espouse all the opinions either of Luther or Zwingle ; that he was disgusted at the virulent language too common among the reformers, and at the outrages committed by the populace ; that he anticipated great evils from the presumptuousness of ignorant men in judg- ing for themselves in religion ; that he probably was sincere in what he always maintained as to the necessity of preserv- ing the communion of the Catholic church, which he thought consistent with much latitude of private faith ; and that, if he had gone among the reformers, he must either have concealed his real opinions more than he had hitherto done, or lived, as Melanchthon did afterwards, the victim of calumny and oppression. He had also to allege, that the fruits of the Reforma- tion had by no means shown themselves in a more virtuous conduct ; and that many heated enthusiasts were depreciating both all profane studies, and all assistance of learning in theology. 1 i The letters of Erasmus, written under the spur of immediate feelings, are a perpetual com- mentary on the mischiefs with which the Re- formation, in his opinion, was accompanied. Civitates aliquot Germanise implentur erroribus, desertoribus monasteriorum, sacerdotibus con- jugatis, plerisque famelicis ac nudis. Nee aliud quam saltatur, editur, bibitur ac subatur ; nee 9. In 1524, Erasmus, at the instigation of those who Were resolved His controveray to dislodge him from a neu- "^ L t >""'- tral station his timidity rather affected, published his diatribe, De Libero Arbitrio, selecting a topic upon which Luther, in the decent nee discunt ; nulla vitro sobrietas, nulla sinceritas. Ubicunque sunt, ibi jacent omnes bonsa disciplines cum pietate(1527)Epist. Dccccii. Satis jam diu audivimus, Evangelium, Evan- gelium, Evangelium; mores Evangelicos de- sideramus. Epist. Dccccxlvi. Duo tantum quae- runt, censum et uxorem. Caetera proestat illis Evangelium, hoc est, potestatem vivendi ut volunt. Epist. Mvi. Tales vidi mores (Basileae) ut etiamsi minus displicuissent dogmata, non placuisset tamen cum hujusmodi [sic] foedus inlre. Epist. Mlxvi. Both these last are ad- dressed to Pirckheimer, who was rather more a protestant than Erasmus ; so that there is no fair suspicion of temporising. The reader may also look at the 788th and 793d Epistle, on the wild doctrines of the Anabaptists and other reformers, and at the 731st, on the effects of Farel's first preaching at Basle in 1526. See also Bayle, Farel, note B. It is become very much the practice with our English writers to censure Erasmus for his con- duct at this time. Milner rarely does justice to any one who did not servilely follow Luther. And Dr. Cox, in his life of Melanchthon, p. 35, speaks of a third party, "at the head of which the learned, witty, vacillating, avaricious, and artful Erasmus is unquestionably to be placed." I do not deny his claim to this place ; but why the last three epithets ? Can Erasmus be shown to have vacillated in his tenets? If he had done so, it might be no great reproach ; but his re- ligious creed was nearly that of the moderate members of the church of Borne, nor have I observed any proof of a change in it. But vacillation may be imputed to his conduct. I hardly think this word is applicable ; though he acted from particular impulses, which might make him seem a little inconsistent in spirit ; and certainly wrote letters not always in the same tone, according to his own temper at the moment, or that of his correspondent. Nor was he avaricious ; at least I know no proof of it ; and as to the epithet artful, it ill applies to a man who was perpetually involving himself by an unguarded and imprudent behaviour. Dr. Cox proceeds to charge Erasmus with seeking a cardinal's hat. But of this there is neither proof nor probability ; he always declared his reluct- ance to accept that honour, and I cannot think that in any part of his life he went the right way to obtain it. Those who arraign Erasmus so severely (and I am not undertaking the defence of every pas- sage in his voluminous Epistles), must proceed either on the assumption that no man of his learning and ability could honestly remain in the communion of the church of Rome, which is the height of bigotr> and ignorance ; or that, according to his own religious opinions, it was impossible for him to do so. This is somewhat more tenable, inasmuch as it can only be an- Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 175 -opinion of most reasonable men, was very open to attack. Luther answered in a treatise, De Servo Arbitrio, flinching not, as suited his character, from any tenet because it seemed paradoxical, or revolting to general prejudice. The controversy ended with a reply of Erasmus, entitled Hyperaspistes. 1 It is not to be under- swered by a good deal of attention to his writ- ings. But from various passages in them, it may be inferred, that, though his mind was not made up on several points, and perhaps for that reason, he thought it right to follow, in assent .as well as conformity, the catholic tradition of the church, and above all, not to separate from her communion. The reader may consult, for Erasmus's opinions on some chief points of con- troversy, his Epistles, ccccxxiii., Dcccclxxvii. (which Jortin has a little misunderstood), MXXXV., Mliii., Mxciii. And see Jortin's own fair statement of the case, i. 274. Melanchthon had doubtless a sweeter temper and a larger measure of human charities than Erasmus, nor would I wish to vindicate one great man at the expense of another. But I cannot refrain from saying, that no passage in the letters of Erasmus is read with so much pain as that in which Melanchthon, after Luther's death, and writing to one not very friendly, says of his connection with the founder of the Re- formation, Tuli servitutem poene deformen, &c. Epist. Melanchthon, p. 21 (edit. 1647). But the characters of literary men are cruelly tried by their correspondence, especially in an age when more conventional dissimulation was authorised by usage than at present. i Seckendorf took hold of a few words in a letter of Erasmus, to insinuate that he had taken a side against his conscience in writing his treatise, De Libero Arbitrio. Jortin, acute as he was, seems to have understood the passage the same way, and endeavours to explain away the sense, as if he meant only that he had under- taken the task unwillingly. Milner of course repeats the imputation ; though it must be owned that, perceiving the absurdity of making Erasmus deny what in all his writings appears to have been his real opinion, he adopts Jortin's solution. I am persuaded that they are all mistaken, and that Erasmus was no more re- ferring to his treatise against Luther, than to the Trojan war. The words occur in an answer to a letter of Vives, written from London, wherein he had blamed some passages in the Colloquies on the usual grounds of their free- dom as to ecclesiastical practices. Erasmus, rather piqued at this, after replying to the ob- servations, insinuates to Vives, that the latter had not written of his own free will, but at the instigation of some superior. Verum, ut in- genue dicam, perdidimus liberum arbitrium. Illic mild aliud dictabat animus, aliud scribebat calamus. By a figure of speech far from un- usual, he delicately suggests his own suspicion as Vives's apology. And the next letter of Vives leaves no room for doubt: Liberum ar- bitrium non perdidimus, quod tu asserueris, words, that could have no possible meaning stood, from the titles of these tracts, that the question of free will was discussed between Luther and Erasmus in a philo- sophical sense ; though Melanchthon, in his Loci Communes, like the modern Calvinists, had combined the theological position of the spiritual inability of man with the metaphysical tenet of general necessity. Luther on most occasions, though not uniformly, acknowledged the freedom of the will as to indifferent actions, and also as to what they called the works of the law. But he maintained that, even when regenerated and sanctified by faith and the Spirit, man had no spiritual free will ; and as before that time he could do no good, so after it, he had no power to do ill ; nor, indeed, could he, in a strict sense, do either good or ill, God always working in him, so that all his acts were properly the acts of God, though, man's will being of course the proximate cause, they might, in a secondary sense, be ascribed to him. It was this that Erasmus denied, in con- formity with the doctrine afterwards held by the council of Trent, by the church of England, and, if we may depend on the statements of writers of authority, by Melanchthon and most of the later Lu- therans. From the time of this controversy Luther seems to have always spoken of Eras- mus with extreme ill-will ; and if the other was a little more measured in his expres- sions, he fell not a jot behind in dislike. 1 10. The epistles of Erasmus, which oc- cupy, two folio volumes in the best edi- tion of his works, are a vast treasure for upon the hypothesis of Seckendorf. There is nothing in the context that can justify it ; and it is equally difficult to maintain the interpreta- tion Jortin gives of the phrase, aliud dictabat animus, aliud scribebat calamus, which can mean nothing but that he wrote what he did not think. The letters are Dcccxxix. Dccclxxi. Dccclxxvi. in Erasmus's Epistles ; or the reader may turn to Jortin, i. 413. 1 M any of Luther's strokes at Erasmus occur in the Colloquia Mensalia, which I quote from the translation. " Erasmus can do nothing but cavil and flout, he cannot confute." " I charge you in my will and testament, that you hate and loath Erasmus, that viper." ch. xliv. "He called Erasmus an epicure and ungodly creature, for thinking that if God dealed with men here on earth as they deserved, it would not go so ill with the good, or so well with the wicked." ch. vii. Lutherus, says the other, sic respondit (diatribae De Libero Arbitrio), ut antehac in neminem virulentius ; et homo suavis post editum librum per literas dejerat se in me esse animo candidissimo, ac propemodum postulat, ut ipsi gratias agam, quod me tarn civiliter tractavit, longe aliter scripturus si cum hoste fuisset res. Ep. Dcccxxxvi. 176 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. the ecclesiastical and liteiary history of Character of his times. Morhof advises hu epiatiea. ^he student to common- place them ; a task which, even in his age, few would have spared leisure to perform, and which the good index of the Leyden edition renders less important. Few men carry on so long and extensive a corre- spondence without affording some vulner- able points to the criticism of posterity. The failings of Erasmus have been already adverted to ; it is from his own letters that we derive our chief knowledge of them. An extreme sensibility to blame in his own person, with little regard to that of others ; a genuine warmth of friendship towards some, but an artificial pretence of it too frequently assumed ; an inconsistency of profession both as to persons and opinions, partly arising from the different character of his correspondents, but in a great degree from the varying impulses of his ardent mind, tend to abate that respect which the name of Erasmus at first excites, and which, on a candid estimate of his whole life, and the tenor even of this corre- spondence, it ought to retain. He was the first conspicuous enemy of ignorance and superstition, the first restorer of Christian morality on a scriptural foundation, and, notwithstanding the ridiculous assertion of some moderns that he wanted theological learning, the first who possessed it in its proper sense, and applied it to its proper end. 11. In every succeeding year the letters Hi alienation of Erasmus betray increasing from the re- animosity against the refor- formemtncreaae.. merg He had 1(mg been Qn good terms with Zwingle and CEcolampa- dius, but became so estranged by these party differences, that he speaks of their death with a sort of triumph. 1 He still 1 Bene habet, quod duo Coryphaei perierint, Zuinglius in acie, CEcolampadius paulo post febri et aposteinate. Quod si illis favisset ei/uaXtop, actum fuisset de nobia. Epiat. HCCV. It is of course to be regretted, that Erasmus allowed this passage to escape him, even in a letter. With CEcolampadius he had long carried on a correspondence. In some book the latter had said, Magnus Erasmus noster. This was at a time when much suspicion was entertained of Erasmus, who writes rather amusingly, in Feb. 1525, to complain, telling CEcolampadius that it was best neither to be praised nor blamed by his party ; but if they must speak of him, he would prefer their censure to being styled noster. Epist. nccxxviii. Milner quotes this, leaving poor Eras- mus to his reader's indignation for what he would insinuate to be a piece of the greatest baseness. But in good truth, what right had (Ecolampadius to use the word noster, if it could be interpreted as claiming Erasmus to his own however kept up some intercourse with Melanchthon. The latter years of Eras- mus could not have been happy ; he lived in a perpetual irritation from the attacks of adversaries on every side ; his avowed dislike of the reformers by no means as- suaging the virulence of his original foes iu the church, or removing the suspicion of lukewarmness in the orthodox cause. Part of this should fairly be ascribed to the real independence of his mind in the forma- tion of his opinions, though not always in their expression.andtotheir incompatibility with the extreme doctrines of either side. But an habitual indiscretion, the besetting sin of literary men, who seldom restrain their wit, rendered this hostility far more general than it need have been, and, accom- panied as it was with a real timidity of character, exposed him to the charge of insincerity, which he could better palliate by the example of others than deny to have some foundation. Erasmus died in 1536, having returned to Basle, which, on pre- tence of the alterations in religion, he had quitted for Friburg in Brisgau a few years before. No differences of opinion had abated the pride of the citizens of Basle in their illustrious visitor. Erasmus lies in- terred in their cathedral, the earliest, ex- cept CEcolampadius, in the long list of the literary dead, which has rendered that cemetery conspicuous in Europe. 12. The most striking effect of the first preaching of the Reformation was that it ap- pealed to the ignorant ; and Appeal of the though political liberty, in reformers to the the sense we use the word, ignorant, cannot be reckoned the aim of those who introduced it, yet there predominated that revoluntionary spirit which loves to witness destruction for its own sake, and that in- toxicated self-confidence which renders folly mischievous. Women took an active part in religious dispute ; and though in many respects the Roman catholic religion is very congenial to the female sex, we cannot be surprised that many ladies might be good protestants against the right of any to judge better than themselves. The translation of the New Testament by Luther in 1522, and of the Old a few years later, gave weapons side ? He was not theirs as CEcolampadius well knew, in exterior profession nor theirs in the course they had seen fit to pursue. It is just towards Erasmus to mention, that he never dissembled his affection for Lewis Berquin, the first martyr to protestantism in France, who was burned in 1528, even in the time of his dan- ger. Epist. Dcccclxxvi. Erasmus had no more inveterate enemies than in the university of Paris. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 177 to all disputants ; it was common to hold conferences before the burgomasters of German and Swiss towns, who settled the points in controversy, one way or other, per- haps as well as the learned would have done. 13. "We cannot give any attention to the Parallel of those story of the Reformation, times with the without being struck by the present. extraordinary analogy it bears to that of the last fifty years. He who would study the spirit of this mighty iige may see it reflected as in a mirror from the days of Luther and Erasmus. Man, who, speaking of him collectively, has never reasoned for himself, is the puppet of im- pulses and prejudices, be they for good or for evil. These are, in the usual course of things, traditional notions and sentiments, strengthened by repetition, and running into habitual trains of thought. Nothing is more difficult, in general, than to make a nation perceive any thing as true, or seek its own interest in any manner, but as its forefathers have opined or acted. Change in these respects has been, even in Europe, where there is most of flexibility, very gradual ; the work, not of argument or in- struction, but of exterior circumstances slowly operating through a long lapse of time. There have been, however, some re- markable exceptions to this law of uni- formity, or, if I may use the term, of secular variation. The introduction of Christianity seems to have produced a very rapid subversion of ancient prejudices, a very conspicuous alteration of the whole channel through which moral sentiments flow, in nations that have at once received it. This has also not unfrequently happened through the influence of Mohammedism in the East. Next to these great revolutions in extent and degree, stand the two periods we have begun by comparing ; that of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, and that of political innovation wherein we have long lived. In each, the characteristic features are a contempt for antiquity, a shifting of prejudices, an inward sense of self-esteem leading to an assertion of pri- vate judgment in the most uninformed, a sanguine confidence in the amelioration of human affairs, a fixing of the heart on great ends with a comparative disregard of all things intermediate. In each there has been so much of alloy in the motives, and, still more, so much of danger and suffering in the means, that the cautious and mo- derate have shrunk back, and sometimes retraced then- own steps, rather than en- counter evils which at a distance they had not seen in their full magnitude. Hence His Institutes. we may pronounce with certainty what Luther, Hutten, Carlostadt, what again More, Erasmus, Melanchthon, Cassander, would have been in the nineteenth century, and what our own contemporaries would have been in their times. But we are too apt to judge others, not as the individual- ities of personal character and the varying aspects of circumstances rendered them, and would have rendered us, but according to our opinion of the consequences, which, even if estimated by us rightly, were such as they could not determinately have foreseen. 14. In 1531, Zwingle lost his life on the field of battle. It was the custom of the Swiss that their pastors should attend the citizens in war to exhort the combatants, and console the dying. But the reformers soon ac- quired a new chief in a young man superior in learning and probably in genius, John Calvin, a native of Noyon in Picardy. His Institu- tions, published in 1536, became the text- book of a powerful body, who deviated in some few points from the Helvetic school of Zwingle. They are dedicated to Francis I., in language, good, though not perhaps as choice as would have been written in Italy, temperate, judicious, and likely to prevail upon the general reader, if not upon the king. This treatise was the most systematic and extensive defence and exposition of the protestant doctrine which had appeared. Without the over-strained phrases and wilful paradoxes of Luther's earlier writings, the Institutes of Calvin seem to contain most of his predecessor's theological doctrine, except as to the cor- poral presence. He adopted a middle course as to this, and endeavoured to dis- tinguish himself from the Helvetic divines. It is well known that he brought forward the predestinarian tenets of Augustin more fully than Luther, who seems however to have maintained them with equal con- fidence. They appeared to Calvin, as doubtless they are, clearly deducible from their common doctrine as to the sinfulness of all natural actions, and the arbitrary ir- resistible conversion of the passive soul by the power of God. The city of Geneva, throwing off subjection to its bishop, and embracing the reformed religion in 1530, invited Calvin to an asylum, where he soon became the guide and legislator, though never the ostensible magistrate, of the new republic. 15. The Helvetian reformers at Zurich and Bern were now more and more sepa- rated from the Lutherans ; and in spite M 173 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. of frequent endeavours to reconcile their increased dif- differences, each party, but ferences among especially the latter, became reformer* &g exc l U8 i ve an( J near ly as intolerant as the church which they had quitted. Among the Lutherans them- selves, those who rigidly adhered to the spirit of their founder's doctrine, grew estranged, not externally, but in language and affection, from the followers of Me- lanchthon. 1 Luther himself, who never 1 Amsdorflus Luthero scripsit, viperam eum in sinu alere, me signiflcans, omitto alia mul- ta. Epist. Melanchthon, p. 450 (edit. 1647). Luther's temper seems to have grown more im- practicable as he advanced in life. Melanch- thon threatened to leave him. Amsdorf and that class of men flattered his pride. See the following letters. In one, written about 1549, he says : Tuli etiam antea servitutem paene de- formem, cum saepe Lutherus magis suae naturae, in qua (ptXovfiKia erat baud exigua, quam vel personas suae, vel utilitati communi serviret, p. 21. This letter is too apologetical and tempor- ising. Nee movi has controversias quae distrax- erunt rempublicam ; sed incidi in motas, quas cum et multae essent et inexplicatee, quodam simplici studio quaerendae veritatis, pnesertim cum multi docti et sapientes initio applauder- ent, considerare eas coepi. Et quamquam materias quasdam horridiores autor initio mis- cuerat, tamen alia vera et necessaria non putavi rej icienda esse. Haec cum excerpta amplecterer, paulatim aliquas absurdas opiniones vel sustuli vel lenii. Melanchthon should have remem- bered, that no one had laid down these opinions with more unreserve, or in a more " horrid " way of disputation than himself in the first edition of his Loci Communes. In these and other passages, he endeavours to strike at Luther for faults which were equally his own, though doubtless not so long persisted in. Melanchthon, in the first edition of the Loci Communes, which will scarcely be found except in Von der Hardt, sums up the free-will question thus: Si ad praedestinationem referas humanum voluntatem, nee in externis, nee in internis operibus nlla est libertas, sed eveniunt omnia juxta destinationem divinam. Si ad opera externa referas voluntatem, quse- dam videtur esse, judicio natursu, libertas. Si ad affectus referas voluntatem, nulla plane libertas est, etiam natune judicio. This proves what I have said in another place, that Melanch- thon held the doctrine of strict philosophical necessity. Luther does the same, in express words, once at least in the treatise De Servo Arbitrio, vol. ii. fol. 429 (edit. Wittenberg, 1554). In an epistle often quoted, Melanchthon wrote : Nimis horridse fuerunt apud nostros disputationes de fato, et discipline nocuerunt. But a more thoroughly ingenuous man might have said nostrcc for apud nostros. Certain it is, however, that he had changed his opinions considerably before 1' 40, when he published his Moralis Philosophise Epitome, which contains evidence of his holding the synergism , or activity withdrew his friendship from the latter, seems to have been alternately under his influence, and that of inferior men. The Anabaptists, in their well-known occupa- tion of Munster, gave such proof of the tremendous consequences of fanaticism, generated, in great measure, by the Lu- theran tenet of assurance, that the para- mount necessity of maintaining human society tended more to silence these theo- logical subtilties, than any arguments of the same class. And from this time that sect, if it did not lose all its enthusiasm, learned how to regulate it in subordination to legal and moral duties. 16. England, which had long contained the remnants of Wicliffe's Reformed tenetll followers, could not remain spread in a stranger to this revolution. England. Tyndale's New Testament was printed at Antwerp in 1526; the first translation that had been made into English. The cause of this delay has been already explained ; and great pains were taken to suppress the cir- culation of Tyndale's version. But Eng- land was then inclined to take its religion from the nod of a capricious tyrant. Per- secution would have long repressed the spirit of free judgment, and the king, for Henry's life at least, have retained his claim to the papal honour conferred on him as defender of the faith, if " Gospel light," as Gray has rather affectedly ex- pressed it, had not " flashed from Boleyn's eyes." But we shall not dwell on so trite a subject. It is less familiar to every one, that in Italy the seeds of the Reformation were early and widely sown. A translation of Melanch- thon's Loci Communes under the name of Ippofilo da Terra Nigra, was printed at Venice in 1521, the very year of its ap- pearance at Wittenberg ; the works of Luther, Zwingle, and Bucer, were also cir- culated under false names. 1 The Italian translations of Scripture made in the fifteenth century were continually re- printed ; and in 1530 a new version was published at Venice by Brucioli, with a preface written in a protestant tone. 2 The and co-operation with divine grace, of the human will. See p. 39. The animosity excited in the violent Luther- ans by Melanchthon's moderation in drawing up the confession of Augsburg is shown in Camer- arius, Vita Melanchthon, p. 124 (edit. 1696). From this time it continued to harass him till his death. 1 M'Crie's Hist, of Reformation in Italy. Epi- grams were written in favour of Luther as early as 1521 (p. 32). 2 Id. p. 53, 55. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 179 great intercourse of Italy with the cis- alpine nations, through war and commerce, and the partiality of Renee of France, duchess of Ferrara, to the new doctrines, whose disciples she encouraged at her court, under the pretext of literature, con- tributed to spread an active spirit of in- quiry. In almost every considerable city, between 1525 and 1540, we find proofs of a small band of protestants, not in general abandoning the outward profession of the church, but coinciding in most respects with Luther or Zwingle. It has lately been proved that a very early proselyte to the Reformation, and one whom we should least expect to find in that number, was Berni, before the completion, if not the commencement, of his labour on the Or- lando Innamorato ; which he attempted to render in some places the vehicle of his disapprobation of the church. This may account for the freedom from indecency which distinguishes that poem, and con- trasts with the great licentiousness of Berni's lighter and earlier productions. 1 i This curious and unexpected fact was brought to light by Mr. Panizzi, who found a .short pamphlet of extreme scarcity, and un- noticed, I believe, by Zeno or any other biblio- grapher (except Niceron, xxxviii. 76), in the library of Mr. Grenville. It is written by Peter Paul Vergerio, and printed at Basle in 1554. This contains eighteen stanzas, intended to have been prefixed by Berni to the twentieth canto of the Orlando Innamorato. They are of a de- cidedly protestant character. For these stanzas others are substituted in the printed editions, much inferior, and, what is remarkable, almost the only indecent passage in the whole poem. Mr. Panizzi is of opinion, that great liberties have been taken with the Orlando Innamorato, which is a posthumous publication, the earliest edition being at Venice, 1541, five years after the author's death. Vergerio, in this tract, the whole of which has been reprinted by Mr. P. in iii. 361 of his Boiardo, says of Berni: Costui quasi agli ultimi suoi anni non fu altro che carne e mondo; di che ci fanno ampia fede .alcuni suoi capitoli e poesie, delle quali egli niolti fogli imbratto. Ma perch6 il nome suo era scritto nel libro della vita, ne era possibile ch' egli potesse fuggire delle mani del celeste padre, &c. Veggendo egli che questo gran tiranno non permittea onde alcuno potesse comporre all' aperta di quei libri, per li quali altri possa penetrare nella cognizione del vero, andando attorno per le man d' ognuno un certo libro profano chiamato innamoramento d' Or- lando, che era inetto e mal composto, il Berna .[sic] s 1 immagino di fare un bel trattato ; e ci6 fit ch' egli si pose a racconciare le rime e le altre parti di quel libro, di che esso n' era ottimo artefice, e poi aggiungendovi di suo alcune stanze, penso di entrare con questa occasione e con quel mezzo (insin che d' altro migliore ne =avesse potuto avere) ad insegnare la verita dell' 17. The Italians are an imaginative, but not essentially a super- Italian hetero- stitious people, or liable, doxy, nationally speaking, to the gloomy pre- judices that master the reason. Among the classes, whose better education had strengthened and developed the acuteness and intelligence so general in Italy, a silent disbelief of the popular religion was far more usual than in any other country. In the majority, this has always taken the turn of a complete rejection of all positive faith ; but, at the aera of the Re- formation especially, the substitution of Protestant for Romish Christianity was an alternative to be embraced by men of more serious temperaments. Certain it is, that we find traces of this aberration from ortho- doxy, in one or the other form, through much of the literature of Italy, sometimes displaying itself only in censures of the vices of the clergy ; censures, from which, though in other ages they had been almost universal, the rigidly Catholic party began now to abstain. We have already men- tioned Pontanus and Mantuan. Trissino, in his Italia Liberata, introduces a sharp invective against the church of Rome. 1 The Zodiacus Vitse of Manzolli, whose assumed Latin name, by which he is better known, was Palingenius Stellatus, teems with in- vectives against the monks, and certainly springs from a protestant source. 2 The Evangelic, &c. Whether Vergerio is wholly to be trusted in all this account, more of which will be found on reference to 1'anizzi's edition of the Orlando Innamorato, I must leave to the competent reader. The following expressions of Mr. P., though, I think, rather strong, will show the opinion of one conversant with the literature and history of those times. " The more we reflect on the state of Italy at that time, the more have we reason to suspect that the reforming tenets were as popular among the higher classes in Italy in those days, as liberal notions in ours." P. 361. 1 This passage, which is in the sixteenth canto, will be found in Eoscoe's Leo X., Append. No. 164 ; but the reader would be mistaken in sup- posing, as Roscoe's language seems to imply, that it is only contained in the first edition of 1548. The fact is that Trissino cancelled these lines in the unsold copies of that edition, so that very few are found to contain them ; but they are restored in the edition of the Italia Liberata, printed at Verona in 1729. 2 The Zodiacus Vitae is a long moral poem, the books of which are named from the signs of the zodiac. It is not very poetical, but by no means without strong passages of sense and spirit in a lax Horatian metre. The author has said more than enough to incur the suspicion of Lutheranism. I have observed several proofs of this ; the following will suffice : 180 Literature of Europ: from 1520 to 1550. first edition is of 1537, at Basle. But no one writer is more indignantly severe than Alamanni. 1 18. This rapid, though rather secret pro- it* progrew in g 1688 of heresy among the th literary more educated Italians, cU " M - could not fail to alarm their jealous church. They had not won over the populace to their side ; for, though censures on the superior clergy were lis- tened to with approbation in every country, there was little probability that the Italians would generally abjure modes of faith so congenial to their national temper as to have been devised, or retained from hea- then times, in compliance with it. Even of those who had associated with the re- formers, and have been in consequence reckoned among them, some were far from intending to break off from a church which had been identified with all their prejudices and pursuits. Such was Flaminio, one of the most elegant of poets and best of men ; and such was the accomplished and admir- able Vittoria Colonna. 2 But those who had drunk deeper of the cup of free thought had no other resource, when their private assemblies had been detected, and their names proscribed, than to fly beyond the Alps. Bernard Ochino, a Capuchin preacher of great eminence, being summoned to Rome, and finding his death resolved upon, fled to Geneva. His apostacy struck his admirers with astonishment, and possibly Sed tua praesertim non intret litnina quis- quam Frater, nee monachus, vel quavis lege sacerdos. Hos fuge ; pestis enim nulla hac immanior ; hi sunt F;ex hominum, fons stultitiie, sentina malo- rum, Agnorum sub pelli lupi, mercede colentes, Non pietate Deum ; falsa sub imagine vecti Decipiunt stolidos, ac religionis in umbra Mille actus vetitos, et mille piacula condunt, &c. Leo Gib. 5). I could find, probably, more decisive Luther- anism in searching through the poem, but have omitted to make notes in reading it. 1 Ahi cieca gente, che 1' hai troppo 'n pregio ; Tu credi ben, che questa ria semen za Habbian piu yet not unintelligible, appellation metaphysics, but those theories upon the nature of things, which, resting chiefly upon assumed dogmas, could not justly be reduced to the division of physical science. The distinction may sometimes be open to cavil ; but every man of a reflect- ing mind will acknowledge the impossibility of a rigorous classification of books. The science of logic, not only for the sake of avoiding too many partitions, but on ac- count of its peculiar connection, in this period of literature, with speculative philo- sophy, will be comprised in the same de- partment. 2. It might be supposed that the old Slow defeat o/ scholastic philosophy, the scholastic phi- barbarous and unprofitable losophy. disputations which occupied the universities of Europe for some hun- dred years, would not have endured much longer against the contempt of a more en- lightened generation. Wit and reason, learning and religion, combined their forces to overthrow the idols of the schools. They had no advocates able enough to say much in their favour ; but established possession, and that inert force which ancient prejudices retain, even in a revo- lutionary age, especially when united with civil and ecclesiastical authority, rendered the victory of good sense and real philo- sophy very slow. 3. The defenders of scholastic disputa- tion availed themselves of the common- i Simon, Hist. Crit. du V. T. Biogr. Univ. Kichhorn, v. 565, et post. Andres, six. 165. place plea, that its abuses furnished no conclusion against its use. , It is sustained The barbarousness of its ter- by the universi- minology might be in some " and regu- measure discarded; the ques- tions which had excited ridicule might be abandoned to their fate ; but it was still contended that too much of theology was involved in the schemes of school philo- sophy erected by the great doctors of the church to be sacrificed for heathen or heretical innovations. The universities adhered to their established exercises ; and though these, except in Spain, grew less active, and provoked less emulation, they at least prevented the introduction of any more liberal course of study. But the chief supporters of scholastic philosophy, which became, in reality or in show, more nearly allied to the genuine authority of Aristotle, than it could have been, while his writings were unknown or ill translated, were found, after the revival of letters, among the Dominican or Franciscan orders ; to whom the Jesuits, inferior to none in acuteness, lent, in process of time, their own very powerful aid. 2 Spain was, above all coun- tries, and that for a very long time, the asylum of the schoolmen ; and this seems to have been one among many causes, which have excluded, as we may say, the writers of that kingdom, with but few exceptions, from the catholic communion of European literature. 4. These men, or many of them, at least towards the middle of the commentators century, were acquainted on Aristotle, with the writings of Aristotle. But com- menting upon the Greek text, they divided 1 Idem. 2 Brucker, iv. 117, et post. Buhle has drawn copiously from his predecessor, ii. 448. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. it into the smallest fragments, gave each a syllogistic form, and converted every pro- position into a complex series of reasonings, till they ended, says Buhle, in an endless and insupportable verbosity. "In my own labours upon Aristotle," he proceeds, " I have sometimes had recourse, in a difficult passage, to these scholastic commentators, but never gained anything else by my trouble than an unpleasant confusion of ideas ; the little there is of value being scattered and buried in a chaos of endless words." 1 5. The scholastic method had the re- Attack of Vires formers both of religion and on scholastics, literature against it. One of the most strenuous of the latter was Ludovic Vives, in his great work, De cor- ruptis Artibus et tradendis Disciplinis. Though the main object of this is the re- storation of what were called the studies of humanity (humaniores li terse), which were ever found incompatible with the old meta- physics, he does not fail to lash the school- men directly in parts of this long treatise, so that no one, according to Brucker, has seen better their weak points or struck them with more effect. Vives was a native of Valencia, and at one time preceptor to the princess Mary in England. 2 6. In the report of the visitation of Ox- Contempt of ford > ordered by Henry them in VIII. in 1535, contempt for England: tne scholastic philosophy is displayed in the triumphant tone of con- querors. Henry himself had been an ad- mirer of Thomas Aquinas. But the recent breach with the see of Rome made it almost necessary to declare against the schoolmen, its steadiest adherents. And the lovers of ancient learning, as well as the favourers of the Reformation, were gaming ground in the English government. 3 7. But while the subtle, though unpro- Veneration for fltable, ingenuity of the AriBtotie. Thomists and Scotists was giving way, the ancient philosophy, of which that of the scholastic doctors was a corruption, restored in its genuine linea- ments, kept possession of the field with 1 ii. 417. 2 Brucker, iv. 87. Meiners (Vergleich. der Sitten, ii. 730-755), has several extracts from Vives as to the scholasticism of the begin- ning of this century. He was placed by some of his contemporaries in a triumvirate with Erasmus and Budaeus. 3 Wood's Hist, of University of Oxford. The passage wherein Antony Wood deplores the "setting Duns in Bocardo" has been often quoted by those who make merry with the lamentations of ignorance. almost redoubled honour. What the doc- tors of the middle ages had been in the- ology, that was Aristotle in all physical and speculative science ; and the church admitted him into an alliance of depend- ency for her own service. The Platonic philosophy, to which the patronage of the Medici and the writings of Ficinus had given countenance in the last century, was- much fallen, nor had, at this particular time, any known supporters in Europe. Those who turned their minds to physical knowledge, while they found little to their purpose in Plato, were furnished by the rival school with many confident theories and some useful truth. Nor was Aristotle without adherents among the conspicuous cultivators of polite literature; who wil- lingly paid that deference to a sage of Greece, they blushed to show for a bar- barian dialectician of the thirteenth cen- tury. To them at least he was indebted for appearing in a purer text, and in more accurate versions ; nor was the criticism of the sixteenth century more employed on any other writer. By the help of philology, as her bounden handmaid, philosophy trimmed afresh her lamp. The true peri- patetic system, according to so competent a judge as Buhle, was first made known, to the rest of Europe in the sixteenth cen- tury ; and the new disciples of Aristotle, endeavoxuing to possess themselves of the spirit, as well as literal sense of his posi- tions, prepared the way for a more advanced generation to poise their weight in the scale of reason. 1 8. The name of Aristotle was sovereign in the continental universities ; Me unchthon and the union between his countenances philosophy, or what bore that title, and the church, appeared so long established, that they must stand or fall together. Luther accordingly, in the com- mencement of the Reformation, inveighed against the Aristotelian logic and meta- physics, or rather against those sciences themselves ; nor was Melanchthon at that time much behind him. But time ripened in this, as it did in theology, the disciple's excellent understanding ; and he even ob- tained influence enough over the master to make him retract some of that invective against philosophy, which at first threatened to bear down all human reason. Melanch- thon became a strenuous advocate of Aris- totle, in opposition to all other ancient philosophy. He introduced into the uni- versity of Wittenberg, to which all pro- testant Germany looked up, a scheme of 1 Buhle, ii. 462. 190 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. dialectics and physics, founded upon the peripatetic school, but improved, as Buhle tells us, by his own acuteness and know- ledge. Thus in his books logic is taught with a constant reference to rhetoric ; and the physical science of antiquity is enlarged by all that had been added in astronomy and physiology. It need hardly be said, that the authority of Scripture was always resorted to as controlling a philosophy, which had been considered unfavourable to natural religion.* 9. I will not contend, after a very cursory His own phiioso- inspection of this work of phical treatise*. Melanchthon, against the elaborate panegyric of Buhle ; but I cannot think the Initia Doctrinae Physicse much calculated to advance the physical sciences. He insists very fully on the influence of the stars in producing events which we call fortuitous, and even in moulding the human character; a prejudice under which this eminent man is well known to have la- boured. Melanchthon argues sometimes from the dogmas of Aristotle, sometimes from a literal interpretation of Scripture, so as to arrive at strange conclusions. Another treatise, entitled De Anima, which I have not seen, is extolled by Buhle as comprehending not only the psychology but the physiology also of man, and as having rendered great service in the age for which it was written. This universality of talents, and we have not yet adverted to the ethics and dialectics of Melanchthon, enhanced his high reputation ; nor is it surprising, that the influence of so great a name should have secured the preponder- ance of the Aristotelian philosophy in the protestant schools of Germany for more than a century. 10. The treatise of the most celebrated Aristotelian* Aristotelian of his age, Pom- of Italy. ponatius, on the immortality of the soul, has been already mentioned. In 1525 he published two books, one on in- cantations, the other on fate and free-will. They are extremely scarce, but, according to the analysis of Brucker, indicate a scheme of philosophy by no means friendly to re- ligion. 2 I do not find any other of the Aristotelian school who falls within the present thirty years, of sufficient celebrity to deserve mention in this place. Bat the Italian Aristotelians were divided into two classes ; one to which Pomponatius be- longed, following the interpretation of the ancient Greek scholiasts, especially Alex- ander of Aphrodisea ; the other, that of the famous Spanish philosopher of the J Buhle, ii. 427. 2 Brucker, iv. 166. twelfth century, Averroes, who may rather be considered an heresiarch in the peri- patetic church, than a genuine disciple of its founder. The leading tenet of Aver- rhoism was the numerical unity of the soul of mankind, notwithstanding its partition among millions of living individuals. 1 This proposition, which it may seem difficult to comprehend, and which Buhle deems a misapprehension of a passage in Aristotle, natural enough to one who read him in a bad Arabic version, is so far worthy of notice, that it contains the germ of an atheistical philosophy, which spread far, as we shall hereafter see, in the hitter part of this century, and in the seventeenth. 11. Meantime the most formidable op- position to the authority of university Aristotle sprung up in the of P* 1 **. very centre of his dominions ; a conspiracy against the sovereign in his court itself. For, as no university had been equal in re- nown for scholastic acuteness to that of Paris, there was none so tenacious of its ancient discipline. The very study of Greek and Hebrew was a dangerous innova- tion in the eyes of its rulers, which they sought to restrain by the intervention of the civil magistrate. Yet here, in their own schools, the ancient routine of dia- lectics was suddenly disturbed by an au- dacious hand. 12. Peter Puimus (Ramee) a man of great natural acuteness, an in- New logic trepid, though too arrogant of Kanmi. a spirit, and a sincere lover of truth, having acquired a considerable knowledge of languages as well as philosophy in the uni- versity, where he originally filled, it is said, a menial office in one of the colleges, began publicly to attack the Aristotelian method of logic, by endeavouring to sub- stitute a new system of his own. He had been led to ask himself, he tells us, after three years passed in the study of logic, whether it had rendered him more conver- sant with facts, more fluent in speech, more quick in poetry, wiser, in short, any way than it had found him ; and being compelled to answer all this in the negative, he was put on considering, whether the fault were in himself, or in his course of study. Before he could be quite satisfied as to this question, he fell accidentally upon reading some dialogues of Plato ; in which, to his infinite satisfaction, he found a species of logic very unlike the Aristotelian, and far more apt, as it appeared, to the 1 See Bayle, Averroes, note E, to which I omitted to refer on a former mention of tha subject, p. 98. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 191 confirmation of truth. From the writings of Plato, and from his own ingenious mind, Ramus framed a scheme of dialectics, which immediately shook the citadel of the Stagyrite ; and, though in itself it did not replace the old philosophy, contributed very powerfully to its ultimate decline. The Institutiones Dialectics of Eamus were published in 1543. 13. In the first instance, however, he met it meets with un- with the strenuous opposi- fair treatment. tj on w bich awaits such inno- vators. The university laid their complaint before the parliament of Paris ; the king took it out of the hands of the parliament, -and a singular trial was awarded as to the merits of the rival systems of logic, two judges being nominated by Goveanus, the prominent accuser of Ramus, two by him- self, and a fifth by the king. Francis, it seems, though favourable to the classical scholars, whose wishes might generally go against the established dialectics, yet, perhaps, from connecting this innovation with those in religion, took the side of the university ; and after a regular hearing, though, as is alleged, a very partial one, the majority of the judges pronouncing an unfavourable decision, Ramus was pro- hibited from teaching, and his book was suppressed. This prohibition, however, was taken off a few years afterwards, and his popularity as a lecturer in rhetoric gave umbrage to the university. It was not till some time afterwards that his system spread over part of the continent. 1 14. Ramus has been once mentioned by its merits and Lord Bacon, certainly no character. bigot to Aristotle, with much contempt, and another time with limited praise. 2 It is however generally 1 Launoy de Varia Aristot. Fortuna in Acad. Paris. The sixth stage of Aristotle's fortune, Launoy reckons to be the Ramean controversy, and the victory of the Greek philosopher. He quotes a passage from Omer Talon, which shows that the trial was conducted with much unfair- ness and violence, p. 112. See also Brucker, v. 548-583, for a copious account of Kamus ; and Buhle, ii. 579-602 ; also Bayle. 2 Hooker also says with severe irony : " In the poverty of that other new-devised aid, two things there are notwithstanding singular. Of marvellous quick despatch it is, and doth show them that have it as much almost in three days, as if it had dwelt threescore years with them," &c. Again : " Because the curiosity of man's wit doth many times with peril wade farther in the search of things, than were convenient, the same is hereby restrained into such generalities, as everywhere offering themselves, are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be : so as following the rules and precepts thereof, -we may find it to be an art, which teacheth the admitted by critical historians of philo- sophy, that he conferred material obliga- tions on science, by decrying the barbarous logic of the schoolmen. What are the merits of his own method, is a different question. It seems evidently to have been more popular and convenient than that in use. He treated logic as merely the art of arguing to others, ars disserendi ; and, not unnaturally from this definition, com- prehended in it much that the ancients had placed in the province of rhetoric, the in- vention and disposition of proofs in dis- course. 15. " If we compare," says Buhle, " the logic of Ramus with that Buhle's account which was previously in use, of lt; - it is impossible not to recognise its superi- ority. If we judge of it by comparison with the extent of the science itself and the degree of perfection it has attained in the hands of modern writers, we shall find but an imperfect and faulty attempt." Ramus neglected, he proceeds to say, the relation of the reason to other faculties of the mind, the sources of error, and the best means of obviating them, the precau- tions necessary in forming and examining our judgments. His rules display the pedantry of system as much as those of the Aristotelians. 1 16. As the logic of Ramus appears to be of no more direct utility than that of Aristotle in assisting us to determine the absolute truth of propositions, and conse- qently could not satisfy Lord Bacon, so perhaps it does not interfere with the proper use of syllogisms, which indeed, on a less extended scale than in Aristotle, form part of the Ramean dialectics. Like all those who assailed the authority of Aristotle, he kept no bounds in depreci- ating his works ; aware perhaps that the public, and especially younger students, will pass more readily from admiration to contempt, than to a qualified estimation, of any famous man. 17. While Ramus was assaulting the stronghold of Aristotelian j t_: j.i. it x- Paracelsus. despotism, the syllogistic method of argumentation, another province of that extensive empire, itsphysical theory, was invaded by a still more audacious, and we must add, a much more unworthy in- novator, Theophrastus Paracelsus. Though few of this extraordinary person's writings were published before the middle of the way of speedy discourse, and restraineth the mind of man, that it may not wax over-wise." Eccles. Pol. i. 6. 1 Buhle, ii. 593, 595. 192 Literature of Europe from 1520 t 1550. century, yet as he died in 1541, and his disciples began very early to promulgate his theories, we may introduce his name more appropriately in this than in any later period. The system, if so it may be called, of Paracelsus had a primary regard to medicine, which he practised with the bold- ness of a wandering empiric. It was not unusual in Germany to carry on this pro- fession ; and Paracelsus employed his youth in casting nativities, practising chiromancy, and exhibiting chemical tricks. He knew very little Latin, and his writings are as unintelligible from their style as their sub- stance. Yet he was not without acuteness in his own profession ; and his knowledge of pharmaceutic chemistry was far beyond chat of his age. Upon this real advantage he founded those extravagant theories, which attracted many ardent minds in the sixteenth century, and were afterwards woven into new schemes of fanciful philoso- phy. His own models were the oriental re- veries of the Cabbala, and the theosophy of the mystics. He seized hold of a notion which easily seduces the imagination of those who do not ask for rational proof, that there is a constant analogy between the macrocosm, as they called it, of exter- nal nature, and the microcosm of man. This harmony and parallelism of all things, he maintains, can only be made known to us by Divine revelation ; and hence all heathen philosophy has been erroneous. The key to the knowledge of nature is in the Scrip- tures only, studied by means of the Spirit of God communicating an interior light to the contemplative soul. So great an ob- scurity reigns over the writings of Para- celsus, which, in Latin at least, are not originally his own, for he had but a scanty acquaintance with that language, that it is difficult to pronounce upon his opinions, especially as he affects to use words in senses imposed by himself ; the develop- ment of his physical system consisted in an accumulation of chemical theorems, none of which are conformable to sound philosophy. 1 18. A mixture of fanaticism and impos- ture is very palpable in Para- *" celsus, as in what he calls his Gabalistic art, which produces by imagina- tion and natural faith, " per fidem natur- alem ingenitam," all magical operations, 1 Brucker,iv. 646-684, has copiously descanted on the theosophy of Paracelsus ; and a still more enlarged account of it will be found in the third volume of Sprengel's Geschiehte der Arzney- kunste, which I use in the French translation. Buhle is very brief in this instance, though he has a general partiality to mystical rhapsodies. and counterfeits by these means whatever we see in the external world. Man has a sidereal as well as material body, an astral element, which all do not partake in equal degrees ; and therefore the power of magic which is in fact the power of astral pro- perties, or of producing those effects which the stars naturally produce, is not equally attainable by all. This astral element of the body survives for a time after death, and explains the apparition of dead persons ; but in this state it is subject to those who possess the art of magic, which is then called necromancy. 19. Paracelsus maintained the animation of everything ; all minerals And extra- both feed and render their vagandes. food. And besides this life of every part of nature, it is peopled with spiritual beings> inhabitants of the four elements, subject to disease and death like man. These are the silvains (sylphs), undines, or nymphs, gnomes, and salamanders. It is thus ob- servable that he first gave these names, which rendered afterwards the Rosicrucian fables so celebrated. These live with man, and sometimes, except the salamanders, bear children to him ; they know future events and reveal them to us ; they are also guardians of hidden treasures, which may be obtained by their means. 1 I may per- haps have said too much about paradoxes so absurd and mendacious ; but literature is a garden of weeds as well as flowers ; and Paracelsus forms a link in the history of opinion, which should not be overlooked. 20. The sixteenth century was fertile in men, like Paracelsus, full of Cornelius arrogant pretensions, and Agrippa. eager to substitute their own dogmatism for that they endeavour to overthrow. They are, compared with Aristotle, like the ephemeral demagogues who start up to a power they abuse as well as usurp on the overthrow of some ancient tyranny. One of these was Cornelius Agrippa, chiefly re- membered by the legends of his magical skill. Agrippa had drunk deep at the tur- bid streams of cabbalistic philosophy, which had already intoxicated two men of far greater merit, and born for greater pur- poses, Picus of Mirandola and Reuchlin. The treatise of Agrippa on occult philoso- phy is a rhapsody of wild theory and jug- gling falsehood. It links, however, the theosophy of Paracelsus and the later sect of Behmenists with an oriental lore, vener- able in some measure for its antiquity, and full of those aspirations of the soul to break her limits, and withdraw herself from the- i Sprengel, iii. 305. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 193 dominion of sense, which soothed, in old time, the reflecting hours of many a soli- tary sage on the Ganges and the Oxus. The Jewish doctors had borrowed much from this eastern source, and especially the leading principle of their Cabbala, the emanation of all finite being from the in- finite. But this philosophy was in all its successive stages mingled with arbitrary, if not absurd, notions as to angelic and de- moniacal intelligences, till it reached a climax in the sixteenth century. 21. Agrippa, evidently the precursor of His pretended Paracelsus, builds his pre- phiiosophy. tended philosophy on the four elements, by whose varying forces the phaenomena of the world are chiefly pro- duced ; yet not altogether, since there are occult forces of greater efficacy than the elementary, and which are derived from the soul of the world, and from the in- fluence of the stars. The mundane spirit actuates every being, but in different de- grees, and gives life and form to each ; form being derived from the ideas which the Deity has empowered his intelligent ministers, as it were by the use of his seal, to impress. A scale of being, that funda- mental theorem of the emanative philoso- phy, connects the higher and lower orders of things ; and hence arises the power of magic ; for all things have, by their conca- tenation, a sympathy \vith those above and below them, as sound is propagated along a string. But besides these natural re- lations, which the occult philosophy brings to light, it teaches us also how to propitiate and influence the intelligences, mundane, angelic, or demoniacal, which people the universe. This is best done by fumigations with ingredients corresponding to their re- spective properties. They may even thus be subdued, and rendered subject to man. The demons are clothed with a material body, and attached to the different ele- ments ; they always speak Hebrew, as the oldest tongue. 1 It would be trifling to give one moment's consideration to this gib- berish, were it not evidently connected with superstitious absurdities, that en- chained the mind of Europe for some generations. We see the credence in witchcraft and spectral appearances, in astrology and magical charms, in demoni- acal posesssions, those fruitful springs of infatuation, wretchedness, and crime, sus- tained by an impudent parade of metaphy- sical philosophy. The system of Agrippa is the mere creed of magical imposture, on 1 Brucker, iv. 410. , Sprengel, iii. 220. Buhle, ii. S6s. which Paracelsus, and still more Jacob Behmen, grafted a sort of religious mysti- cism. But in their general influence these theories were still more pernicious than the technical pedantry of the schools. A Venetian monk, Francis Georgius, pub- lished a scheme of blended Cabbalistic and Platonic, or Neo-platonic, philosophy, in 1525 ; but having no collateral pretensions to fame, like some other worshippers of the same phantom, he can only be found in the historians of obsolete paradoxes. 1 22. Agrippa has left, among other for- gotten productions, a trea- His sceptical tise on the uncertainty of treatiae. the sciences, which served in some measure to promote a sceptical school of philosophy ; no very unnatural result of such theories as he had proposed. It is directed against the imperfections sufficiently obvious in most departments of science, but contains nothing which has not been said more ably since that time. It is remarkable that he contradicts much that he had advanced in favour of the occult philosophy, and of the art of Raymond Lully. 2 23. A man far superior to both Agrippa and Paracelsus was Jerome _. , ,. . Cardan. Cardan ; his genius was quick, versatile, fertile, and almost pro- found ; yet no man can read the strange book on his own life, wherein he describes, or pretends to describe, his extraordinary character, without suspecting a portion of insanity ; a suspicion which the hypothesis of wilful falsehood would, considering what the book contains, rather augment than diminish. Cardan's writingsare extremely voluminous ; the chief that relate to general philosophy are those entitled De Subtilitate et Varietate Rerum. Brucker praises these for their vast erudition, sup- ported by innumerable experiments and observations on nature, which furnish no trifling collection of facts to readers of judgment ; while his incoherence of ideas, his extravagance of fancy, and confused method, have rendered him of little service to philosophy. Cardan professed himself a staunch enemy of Aristotle. 3 1 Brucker, iv. 374-386. Buhle, ii. 367. 2 Brucker, Buhle. 3 Brucker v. 85. Cardan had much of the same kind of superstition as Paracelsus and Agrippa. He admits as the basis of his phy- sical philosophy a sympathy between the heavenly bodies and our own ; not only general, but distributive : the sun being in harmony with the heart, the moon with the animal juices. All organised bodies he held to be ani- mated, so that there is no principle which may not be called nature All is ruled by the pro- N 194 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. SECT. H. 1520-1560. On Moral and Political Philosophy, 24. By moral philosophy, we are to un- induenceof derstand not only systems moral wrlten. o f ethics, and exhortations to virtue, hut that survey of the nature or customs of mankind, which men of reflect- ing minds are apt to take, and by which they become qualified to guide and advise their fellows. The influence of such men, through the popularity of their writings, is not the same in all periods of society ; it has sensibly abated in modern times, and is chiefly exercised through fiction, or at least a more amusing style than was found sufficient for our forefathers; and from this change of fashion, as well as from the advance of real knowledge, and the greater precision of language, many books, once famous, have scarcely retained a place in our libraries, and never lie on our tables. 25. In this class of literature, good writ- ing, such at least as at the time appears to Cortegtano of be good, has always been the cartigiione. condition of public esteem. They form a large portion of the classi- cal prose in every language. And it is chiefly in this point of view that several of the most distinguished can deserve any mention at present. None was more re- nowned in Italy than the Cortegiano of Castiglione, whose first edition is in 1528. We here find both the gracefulness of the language in this, perhaps its best age, and the rules of polished life in an Italian court. These, indeed, are rather favour- ably represented, if we compare them with all we know of the state of manners from other sources ; but it can be no reproach to the author that he raised the standard of honourable character above the level of practice. The precepts however are some- what trivial, and the expression diffuse ; faults not a little characteristic of his contemporaries. A book that is serious, without depth of thought or warmth of feel- ing, cannot be read through with pleasure. 26. At some distance below Castiglione in merit, and equally in reputation, we may place the dialogues of Sperone Speroni, a writer whose long life embraced two ages of Italian literature. These dialogues be- long to the first, and were published in 1544. Such of them as relate to moral sub- pert'.es of numbers. Heat and moisture are the only real qualities in nature ; the first being the formal, the second the material cause of all things. Sprengel, HI. 278. jects, which he treats more theoretically than Castiglione, are solemn and dry ; they contain good sense in good language ; but the one has no originality, and the other no spirit. 27. A Spanish prelate in the court of Charles obtained an extra- Marco Aurello of ordinary reputation in Eu- ovr. rope by a treatise so utterly forgotten at present, that Bouterwek has even omitted his name. This was Guevara, author of Marco Aurelio con el Eelox de Principes, as the title-page awkwardly runs. It con- tains several feigned letters of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, which probably in a credulous age passed for genuine, and gave vogue to the book. It was continually re- printed in different languages for more than a century ; scarce any book except the Bible, says Casaubon, has been so much translated, or so frequently printed. 1 It must be owned that Guevara is dull ; but he wrote in the infancy of Spanish litera- ture. The first part of this book is pro- perly entitled Marco Aurelio, and is filled with the counterfeited letters ; the second, Relox de Principes, the Watch or Dial of Princes, is but a farago of trite moral and religious reflections, with an intermixture of classical quotations. It is fair to ob- serve, that Guevara seems uniformly a friend to good and just government, and that he probably employs Roman stories as a screen to his satire on the abuses of his time. Antonio and Bayle censure this as a literary forgery more severely than is quite reasonable. Andres extols the style very highly. 2 28. Guevara wrote better, or more pleas- ingly, in some other moral His Menoiprecio essays. One of them Me- ** Corte. nosprecio di Corte y Alabanza d'Aldea, in- differently translated into English by Thomas Tymme in 1575, contains some eloquent passages ; and being dictated ap- parently by his own feelings, instead of the spirit of book-making, is far superior to the more renowned Marco Aurelio. An- tonio blames Guevara for affectation of antithesis, and too studious desire to say everything well. But this sententious and 1 Bayle speaks of Guevara's Marco Aurelio with great contempt ; its reputation had doubt- less much declined before that time. a vii. 148. In 1541, Sir Thomas Elyot pub- lished " The Image of Government, compiled of the Acts and Sentences of Alexander Seve- rus," as the work of Encolpius, an imaginary secretary to that emperor. Some have thought this genuine, or at least no forgery of Elyot's ; but I see little reason to doubt that he imitated Guevara. Fabric. Bibl. Lat. and Herbert. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 195 antithetical style of the Spanish writers is worthy of our attention ; for it was imi- tated by their English admirers, and formed a style much in vogue in the reigns of Eli- zabeth and James. Thus, to take a very short specimen from Tymme's translation : "In the court," says Guevara, "it profits little to be wise, forasmuch as good service is soon forgotten, friends soon fail and enemies augment, the nobility doth forget itself, science is forgotten, humility de- spised, truth cloaked and hid, and good counsel refused." This elaborately con- densed antithetical manner cannot have been borrowed from the Italians, of whom it is by no means a distinguishing feature. 29. Bouterwek has taken notice of a moral writer contemporary Perez d'Oliva. ... ., V with Guevara, though not so successful in his own age, Perez d'Oliva. Of him, Andres says, that the slight speci- men he has left in his dialogue on the dignity of man, displays the elegance, politeness, and vigour of his style. It is written, says Bouterwek, in a natural and easy manner ; the ideas are for the most part clearly and accurately developed, and the oratorical language, particularly where it is appropriately introduced, is powerful and picturesque. 1 30. The writings of Erasmus are very Ethical writings much dedicated to the incul- of Erasmus and cation of Christian ethics. mchthon. The Enchiridion Militis Christiani, the Lingua, and, above all, the Colloquies, which have this primary object in view, may be distinguished from the rest. The Colloquies are, from their na- ture, the most sportive and amusing of his works ; the language of Erasmus has no prudery ; nor his moral code, though strict, any austerity ; it is needless to add, that his piety has no superstition. The dialogue is short and pointed, the characters dis- play themselves naturally, the ridicule falls, in general, with skill and delicacy ; the moral is not forced, yet always in view ; the manners of the age, in some of the Colloquies, as in the German Inn, are humorously and agreeably represented. Erasmus, perhaps, in later times, would have been successful as a comic writer. The works of Vives breathe an equally pure spirit of morality. But it is unneces- sary to specify works of this class, which, valuable as they are in their tendency, form too much the staple literature of every generation to be enumerated in its history. The treatise of Melanchthon, Moralis Philosophise Epitome, stands on 1 Bouterwek, p. 309. Andres, vii. 149. different grounds. It is a compendious system of ethics, built in great measure on that of Aristotle, but with such variation as the principles of Christianity, or his own judgment, led him to introduce. Hence, though he exhorts young students, as the result of his own long reflection on the subject, to embrace the Peripatetic theory of morals, in preference of those of the Stoic or Epicurean school, 1 and con- tends for the utility of moral philosophy, as part of the law of God, and the exposi- tion of that of nature, he admits that the reason is too weak to discern the necessity of perfect obedience, or the sinfulness of natural appetite. 2 In this epitome, which is far from servilely following the Aristote- lian dogmas,hedeclareswhoUyagainstu8ury, less wise in this than Calvin, and asserts the magistrate's right to punish heretics. 31. Sir Thomas Elyot's Governor, pub- lished in 1531, though it SirT. Elyofi might also find a place in Governor. the history of political philosophy, or of classical literature, seems best to fall under this head ; education of youth being cer- tainly no insignificant province of moral science. The author was a gentleman of good family, and had been employed by the 1 Ego vero qui has sectarum controversias diu multumque agitavi, avo> Kal Karo) crrpfffxav, ut Plato facere praecipit, valde adhortor adole- scentulos, ut repudiatis Stoicis et Epicureis, amplectantur Peripatetica. Praefat. ad. Mor. Philos. Epist. (1549). 2 Id. p. 4. The following passage, taken nearly at random, may serve as a fair specimen of Melanchthon's style : Primum cum necesse sit legem Dei, item magistratuum leges nosse, ut disciplinam tenca- mus ad coercendas cupiditates, facile intelligi potest, hanc philosophiam etiam prodesse, quse est quaedam domestica disciplina, qua? cum demonstrat fontes et causas virtutum, accendit animos ad earum amorem ; abeunt enim studia in mores, atque hoc magis invitantur aninii, quia quo propius aspicimus res bonas, eo magis ipsas et admiramur et amamus. Hie autem perfecta notitia virtutis quseritur. Neque vero dubium est, quin, ut Plato ait, sapientia, si quod ejus simulacrum manifestum in oculos incurreret, acerrimos amores excitaret. Nulla autem flngi effigies potest, quae propius ex- primat virtutem et clarius ob oculos ponat spectantibus, quam haec doctrina. Quare ejus tractatio magnam vim habet ad excitandos animos, ad amorem rerum honestarum, prae- sertim in bonis ac mediocribus ingeniis, p. 6. He tacitly retracts in this treatise aU he had said against free-will in the first edition of the Loci Communes; in hac qusestione moderatio adhibenda est, ne quas amplectamur opiniones immoderatas in utramque partem, qu:e aut moribus officiant, aut beneficia Christi ob- scurent, p. 34. 196 Ltteratutt of Europe from 1520 to 1550. king in several embassies. The Biographia Britannica pronounces him " an excellent grammarian, poet, rhetorician, philoso- pher, physician, cosmographer, and his- torian." For some part of this sweeping eulogy we have no evidence ; but it is a high praise to have been one of our earliest English writers of worth, and though much inferior in genius to Sir Thomas More, equal perhaps in learning and sagacity to any scholar of the age of Henry VIII. The plan of Sir Thomas Elyot in his Governor, as kid down in his dedication to the king, is bold enough. It is "to describe in our vulgar tongue the form of a just public weal, which matter I have gathered as well of the sayings of most noble authors, Greek and Latin, as by mine own experience, I being continually pained in some daily affairs of the public weal of this most noble realm almost from my childhood." But it is far from an- swering to this promise. After a few pages on the superiority of regal over every other government, he passes to the subject of education, not of a prince only, but any gentleman's son, with which he fills up the rest of his first book. 32. This contains several things worthy Severity of of observation. He advises ducation. that children be used to speak Latin from their infancy, and either learn Latin and Greek together, or begin with Greek. Elyot deprecates " cruel and yrou-s schoolmasters, by whom the wits of children be dulled, whereof we need no better author to witness, than daily ex- perience." 1 All testimonies concur to this savage ill-treatment of boys in the schools of this period. The fierceness of the Tudor government, the religious intolerance, the polemical brutality, the rigorous justice, when justice it was, of our laws, seem to have engendered a hardness of character, which displayed itself in severity of dis- cipline, when it did not even reach the point of arbitrary or malignant cruelty. Every one knows the behaviour of Lady Jane Grey's parents towards their accom- plished and admirable child ; the slave of their temper in her brief life, the victim of their ambition in death. The story told by Erasmus of Colet is also a little too trite for repetition. The general fact is indubitable ; and I think we may ascribe much of the hypocrisy and disingenuous- ness, which became almost national char- acteristics in this and the first part of the next century, to the rigid scheme of domestic discipline so frequently adopted ; i Chap. x. though I will not say but that we owe some part of the firmness and power of self-command, which were equally manifest in the English character, to the same cause. 33. Elyot dwells much and justly on the importance of elegant arts, He seems to such as music, drawing, and avold politics, carving, by which he means sculpture, and of manly exercises, in liberal education ; and objects with reason to the usual practice of turning mere boys at fifteen to the study of the laws. 1 In the second book he seems to come back to his original subject, by proposing to consider what qualities a governor ought to possess. But this soon turns to long common-place ethics, copiously illustrated out of ancient history, but perhaps, in general, little more applicable to kings than to private men, at least those of superior station. It is plain that Elyot did not venture to handle the political part of his subject as he wished to do. He seems worthy, upon the whole, on account of the solidity of his reflections, to hold a higher place than Ascham, to whom, in some respects, he bears a good deal of resemblance. 34. Political philosophy was not yet a common theme with the Nicholas writers of Europe, unless so MachiaveL far as the moral duties of princes may have been vaguely touched by Guevara or Elyot, or their faults strongly, but incidentally adverted to by Erasmus and More. One great luminary, however, appeared at this time, though, as he has been usually deemed, rather a sinister meteor than a benignant star. It is easy to anticipate the name of Nicolas MachiaveL His writings are post- humous, and were first published at Rome early in 1532, with an approbation of the pope. It is certain, however, that the treatise called The Prince was written in 1513, and the Discourses on Livy about the same time. 2 Few are ignorant that Ma- chiavel filled for nearly fifteen years the post of secretary to that government of Florence which was established between the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 and their return in 1512. This was in fact the remnant of the ancient oligarchy, which had yielded to the ability and popular in- fluence of Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici. Machiavel, having served this party, over which the gonfalonier Pietro Soderini lat- terly presided, with great talents and 1 Chap. xiv. 2 There are mutual references in each of these books to the other, from which Gingudne' hag reasonably inferred that they were in progress at the same time. Hist. Litt. de 1'Italie, viii. 4G Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 197 activity, was naturally involved in their ruin ; and having undergone imprisonment and torture on a charge of conspiracy against the new government, was living in retired poverty when he set himself down to the composition of his two political treatises. The strange theories, that have been brought forward to account for The Prince of Machiavel, could never be revived after the publication of Ginguene's history of Italian literature, and the article on Ma- chiavel in the Biographie Universelle, if men had not sometimes a perverse pleasure in seeking refinements, after the simple truth has been laid before them. 1 His own language may assure us of what surely is not very improbable, that his object was to be employed in the service of Julian de' Medici, who was at the head of the state in Florence, almost in the situation of a prince, though without the title ; and that he wrote this treatise to recommend himself in his eyes. He had been faithful to the late powers ; but these powers were dis- solved ; and in a republic, a dissolved go- verment, itself the recent creature of force and accident, being destitute of the pre- judice in favour of legitimacy, could have little chance of reviving again. It is pro- bable, from the general tenor of Machiavel's writings, that he would rather have lived under a republic than under a prince ; but the choice was not left ; and it was better, in his judgment, to serve a master usefully for the state, than to waste his life in poverty and insignificance. 35. We may also in candour give Ma- His motives in chiavel credit for sincerity in writing that animated exhortation to Julian which concludes the last chapter of The Prince, where he calls him forth to the noble enterprise of rescuing Italy from the barbarians. Twenty years that beautiful land had been the victim of foreign armies, before whom in suc- cession every native state had been humili- ated or overthrown. His acute mind easily perceived that no republican institution would possess stability or concert enough to cast off this yoke. He formed therefore the idea of a prince ; one raised newly to power, for Italy furnished no hereditary line ; one sustained by a native army, for he deprecates the employment of merce- naries ; one loved, but feared also, by the many ; one to whom, in so magnanimous 1 Ginguen^ has taken great pains with his ac count of Machiavel, and I do not know that there is a better. The Biographie Universelle has a good anonymous article. Tiraboschi had treated the subject in a most slovenly manner. an undertaking as the liberation of Italy, all her cities would render a willing obedi- ence. It might be, in part, a strain of flattery, in which he points out to Julian of Medici a prospect so disproportionate, as we know historically, to his opportunities and his character ; yet it was one also perhaps of sanguine fancy and unfeigned hope. 36. None of the explanations assigned for the motives of Machiavel g ome O f jj, in The Prince is more ground- rules not im- less than one very early sug- J gested, that by putting the house of Medici on schemes of tyranny, he was artfully lur- ing them to their ruin. Whether this could be reckoned an excuse, may be left to the reader ; but we may confidently affirm that it contradicts the whole tenor of that treatise. And, without palliating the worst passages, it may be said that few books have been more misrepresented. It is very far from true, that he advises a tyrannical administration of government, or one likely to excite general resistance, even to those whom he thought, or rather knew from experience, to be placed in the most difficult position for retaining power, by having recently been exalted to it. The Prince, he repeatedly says, must avoid all that will render him despicable or odious, especially injury to the property of citizens, or to their honour. 1 This will leave him nothing to guard against but the ambition of a few. Conspiracies, which are of little importance while the people are well affected, become unspeakably dangerous as soon as they are hostile. 2 Their love, therefore, or at least the absence of their hatred, is the basis of the governor's secur- ity, and far better than any fortresses.3 A wise prince will honour the nobility, at the same time that he gives content to the people. 4 If the observance of these maxims is likely to subvert a ruler's power, he may be presumed to have designed the ruin of the Medici. The first duke in the new dynasty of that house, Cosmo I., lived forty years in the practice of all Machiavel would have advised, for evil as well as good ; and his reign was not insecure. 37. But much of a darker taint is found in The Prince. Good faith, But many justice, clemency, religion, dangerous, should be ever in the mouth of the ideal ruler ; but he must learn not to fear the discredit of any actions which he finds necessary to preserve his power. 5 In a new 1 c. xvii. and xix. 2 c. xix. 3 c. xx. la miglior f ortezza che sia h non essere odiato de' popoli. < c. xix. 6 c. xvi. xviii. 198 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. government, it is impossible to avoid the charge of cruelty ; for new states are al- ways exposed to dangers. Such cruelties perpetrated at the outset and from neces- sity, " if we may be permitted to speak well of what is evil," may be useful ; though when they become habitual and unnecessary, they are incompatible with the continuance of this species,of power. 1 It is best to be both loved and feared ; but if a choice must be made, it should be of the latter. For men are naturally ungrateful, fickle, dissembling, cowardly, and will promise much to a bene- factor, but desert him in his need, and will break the bonds of love much sooner than those of fear. But fear does not imply hatred ; nor need a prince apprehend that, while he abstains from the properties and the wives of his subjects. Occasions to take the property of others never cease, while those of shedding blood are rare; andbesides, a man will sooner forgive the death of his father, than the loss of his inheritance. 2 38. The eighteenth chapter, on the man- iti only ner in which princes should palliation. observe faith, might pass for a satire on their usual violations of it, if the author did not too seriously manifest his approbation of them. The best palliation of this, and of what else has been justly censured in Machiavel, is to be derived from his life and times. These led him to consider every petty government as in a continual state of self-defence against treachery and violence, from its ill-affected citizens, as well as from its ambitious neigh- bours. It is very difficult to draw the straight line of natural right in such cir- cumstances ; and neither perhaps the cool reader of a remote age, nor the secure sub- ject of a well-organised community, is alto- gether a fair arbiter of what has been done or counselled in days of peril and necessity; relatively, I mean, to the persons, not to the objective character of actions. There is certainly a steadiness of moral principle and Christian endurance, which tells us that it is better not to exist at all, than to exist at the price of virtue ; but few indeed of the countrymen and contemporaries of Machiavel had any claim to the practice, whatever they might have to the profession, of such integrity. His crime, in the eyes of the world, and it was truly a crime, was to have cast away the veil of hypocrisy, the pro- fession of a religious adherence to maxims which at the same moment were violated. 3 i c. rUL 2 c. xvii. 3 Morhof has observed that all the arts of tyranny which we read in Machiavel, had been unfolded by Aristotle ; and Ginguen^ has shown 39. The Discourses of Machiavel upon the first books of Livy , jm discounts on though not more celebrated Uv 7- than The Prince, have been better es- teemed. Far from being exempt from the same bias in favour of unscrupulous politics, they abound with similar maxims, es- pecially in the third book ; but they con- tain more sound and deep thinking on the spirit of small republics, than could be found in any preceding writer that has de- scended to us ; more probably, in a prac- tical sense, than the Politics of Aristotle, though they are not so comprehensive. In reasoning upon the Roman government, he is naturally sometimes misled by confidence in Livy ; but his own acquaintance with modern Italy was in some measure the corrective that secured him from the errors of ordinary antiquaries. 40. These discourses are divided into three books, and contain 143 chapters with no great regard to ar- Their leading rangement ; written proba- principles, bly as reflections occasionally presented themselves to the author's mind. They are built upon one predominant idea ; that the political and military annals of early Rome having had their counterparts in a great variety of parallel instances which the re- cent history of Italy furnished, it is safe to draw experimental principles from them, and to expect the recurrence of similar consequences in the same circumstances. This reasoning, founded upon a single re- petition of the event, though it may easily mislead us, from an imperfect estimate of the conditions, and does not give a high probability to our anticipations, is such as those intrusted with the safety of common- wealths ought not to neglect. But Machiavel sprinkles these discourses with thoughts of a more general cast, and often applies a comprehensive knowledge of his- tory, and a long experience of mankind. 41. Permanence, according to Machiavel, is the great aim of government. 1 In this very common sentiment among writers ac- customed to republican forms, although experience of the mischiefs generally at- tending upon change might lead to it, there is, no doubt, a little of Machiavel's original taint, the reference of political this in some measure from the eleventh chapter of the fifth book of the latter' s politics. He might also have quoted the (Economics ; the second book, however, of which, full of th* stratagems and frauds of Dionysius, though nearly of his age, is not genuine. Mitford, with his usual partiality to tyrants (chap. zxxL sect. 8), seems to think them all laudable. 1 L i. c. 2. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 199 ends to the benefit of the rulers rather than that of the community. But the polity which he seems for the most part to prefer, though he does not speak explicitly, nor always perhaps consistently, is one wherein the people should at least have great weight. In one passage he recom- mends, like Cicero and Tacitus, the triple form, which endeavours to conciliate the power of a prince with that of a nobility and a popular assembly ; as the best means of preventing that cycle of revolutions through which, as he supposes, the simpler institutions would naturally, if not neces- sarily, pass ; from monarchy to aristocracy, from that to democracy, and finally to monarchy again ; though, as he observes, it rarely happens that there is time given to complete this cycle, which requires along course of ages, the community itself, as an independent state, being generally de- stroyed before the close of the period. * But, with his predilection for a republican polity, he yet saw its essential weakness in difficult circumstances ; and hence observes that there is no surer way to ruin a demo- cracy than to set it on bold undertakings, which it is sure to misconduct. 2 He has made also the profound and important re- mark, that states are rarely either formed, or reformed, except by one man. 3 42. Few political treatises can even now Their use and be read with more advan- influence. tage than the Discourses of Machiavel ; and in proportion as the course of civil society tends farther towards de- mocracy, and especially if it should lead to what seems the inevitable consequence of democracy, a considerable subdivision of independent states, they may acquire an additional value. The absence of all pas- sion, the continual reference of every pub- lic measure to a distinct end, the disregard of vulgar associations with names or per- sons, render him, though too cold of heart for a very generous reader, a sagacious and useful monitor for any one who can em- ploy the necessary methods of correcting his theorems. He formed a school of sub- tle reasoners upon political history, which, both in Italy and France, was in vogue for two centuries ; and, whatever might be its errors, has hardly been superseded for the better by the loose declamation that some dignify with the name of philosophical politics, and in which we continually find 1 c. 2 and 6. 2 c . 53. 3 c. 9. Corniani, iv. 70, has attempted to reduce into system the Discourses of Machiavel, which have no regular arrangement, so that nearly the same thoughts recur in different chapters. a more flagitious and undisguised abandon- ment of moral rules for the sake of some idol of a general principle, than can be im- puted to The Prince of Machiavel. 43. Besides these two works, the History of Florence is enough to im- His History of mortalise the name of norenc*. Nicolas Machiavel. Seldom has a more giant stride been made in any department of literature, than by this judicious, clear, and elegant history : for the preceding historical works, whether in Italy or out of it, had no claims to the praise of classical composition, while this has ranked among the greatest of that order. Machiavel was the first who gave at once a general and a luminous development of great events hi their causes and connections, such as we find in the first book of his History of Florence. That view of the formation of European societies, both civil and ecclesias- tical, on the ruins of the Ilomaii empire, though it may seem now to contain only what is familiar, had never been attempted before, and is still, for its conciseness and truth, as good as any that can be read. 44. The little treatises of Giannotti and Contarini on the republic of Venice, being chiefly descriptive of actual institutions, though the former, a Florentine by birth, sometimes reasons upon and Treatises on even censures them, would Venetian govern- not deserve notice, except ment. as they display an attention to the work, ings of a most complicated, and at the same time a most successful machine. The wonderful permanency, tranquillity, and prosperity of Venice became the ad- miration of Europe, and especially, as was most natural, of Italy ; where she stood alone, without internal usurpation or foreign interference, strong in wisdom more than in arms, the survivor of many lines of petty princes, and many revolutions of turbulent democracy, which had, on either side of the Apennine, run their race of guilt and sorrow for several preceding cen- turies. 1 45. Calvin alone, of the reformers in this period, has touched caivin o political upon political government principles. as a theme of rational discussion ; though he admits that it is needless to dispute which is the best form of polity, since private men have not the right of altering that under which they live. The change from monarchy to despotism, he says, is easy ; nor, is that from aristocracy to the dominion of a few much more difficult ; but 1 These are both published in Graevius, The- saur. Antiq. Italiie. See too Gingue'ne', viii. 186. 200 Literature of Europe from 1520/0 1550. nothing is so apt to follow as sedition from a popular regimen. But upon the whole he considers an aristocratic form to be far better than the other two, on account of the vices and infirmity of human nature. 1 SECT. III. 15011510. Jurisprudence. 46. Under the name of jurisprudence, Jurisprudence we are not y et * 8eek f r confined to writings on that high de- Romaniaw. partment of moral philoso- phy, which treats of the rules of universal justice, by which positive legislation and the courts of judicature ought to be directed, Whatever of this kind may appear in works of this period, arises incidentally out of their subject, and does not constitute their essence. According to the primary and established sense of the word, especially on the Continent, jurisprudence is the science of the Roman law, and is seldom applied to any other positive system, but least of all to the law of nature. Yet the applica- tion of this study has been too extensive in Europe, and the renown of its chief writers too high, to admit of our passing wholly over this department of literature, as we do some technical and professional subjects. 47. The civil or Roman law is compre- The laws not hended in four leading di- weU arranged, visions (besides some later than the time of Justinian), very unequal in length, but altogether forming that multifarious collection usually styled the Corpus Juris Civilis. As this has some- times been published in a single, though a vast and closely printed volume, it may seem extraordinary, that by means of ar- ranged indexes, marginal references, and similar resources, it was not, soon after it came into use as a standard authority, or, at least, soon after the invention of print- ing, reduced into a less disorderly state than its present disposition exhibits. But the labours of the oldest jurists, in ac- cumulating glosses or short marginal in- terpretations, were more calculated to multiply than to disentangle the intricacies of the Pandects. 48. It is at first sight more wonderful, Adoption of the that many nations of Europe, entire system, instead of selecting the most valuable portion of the civil law, as direct- ory to their own tribunals, should have bestowed decisive authority on that entire unwieldy body which bore the name of Justinian ; laws, which they could not un- derstand, and which, in great measure, 1 Calv. Inst. 1. iv. c. 20, 8. must, if understood, have been perceived to clash with the new order of human society. But the homage paid to the Ro- man name, the previous reception of the Theodosian code in the same countries, the vague notion of the Italians, artfully en- couraged by one party, that the Conrads and Frederics were really successors of the Theodosii and Justinians, the frequent clearness, acuteness, and reasonableness of the decisions of the old lawyers which fill the Pandects, the immense difficulty of separating the less useful portion, and of obtaining public authority for a new sys- tem, the deference, above all, to great names, which cramped every effort of the human mind in the middle ages, will suffi- ciently account for the adoption of a juris- prudence so complicated, uncertain, unin- telligible, and ill-fitted to the times. 49. The portentous ignorance of the earlier jurists in everything rtiiityof- that could aid their textual general learning explanations has been no- t law y e - ticed in the first chapter of this volume. This could not hold out long after the revival of learning. Budseus, in his Ob- servations on the Pandects, was the first to furnish better verbal interpretations ; but his philological erudition was not sus- tained by that knowledge of the laws them- selves which nothing but long labour could impart. 1 Such a knowledge of the Latin language as even after the revival of letters was given in the schools, or we may add, as is now obtained by those who are counted learned among us, serves but little towards the understanding those Roman lawyers, whose short decisions, or, as we should call them, opinions, occupy the fifty books of the Pandects. They had not only a tech- nical terminology, as is perhaps necessary in professional usage, but many words and phrases not merely technical occur, as to the names and notions of things, which the classical authors, especially such as are commonly read, do not contain. Yet these writers of antiquity, when diligently pur- sued, throw much light upon jurisprudence ; they assist conjecture, if they do not afford proof, as to the meaning of words; they explain allusions, they connect the laws with their temporary causes or general principles; and if they seem a little to lead us astray from the great object of jurisprudence, the adjudication of right, it was still highly important, in the condi- tions that Europe had imposed upon her- self, to ascertain what it was that she had chosen to obey. 1 Gravina, Origines Jur. Civ. p. 211. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 201 50. Ulric Zasius, a professor at Friburg, Alctati; his re- and Garcia d'Erzilla, whose form of law. commentaries were printed in 1515, should have the credit, according to Andres, of leading the way to a more elegant jurisprudence. 1 The former of these is known, in some measure, as a scholar and a correspondent of Erasmus ; for the latter I have to depend on the testi- mony of his countrymen. But the general voice of Europe has always named Andrew Alciati of Milan as the restorer of the Roman law. He taught, from the year 1518 to his death in 1550, in the universities of Avignon, Milan, Bourges, Paris, and Bologna. Literature became with him the handmaid of law ; the historians of Rome, her antiquaries, her orators and poets, were called upon to elucidate the obsolete words and obscure allusions of the Pandects ; to which, the earlier as well as the most valuable and extensive portion of the civil law, this method of classical interpretation is chiefly applicable. Alciati had another advantage, denied to his predecessors of the middle ages, in the possession of the Byzantine jurists, with whom, says Gra- vina, the learning of Roman law had been preserved in a more perfect state amidst other vestiges of the empire, and while almost extinguished in Italy by the bar- barians, had been in daily usage at Con- stantinople down to its capture. Alciati was the first who taught the lawyers to write with purity and elegance. Erasmus has applied to him the eulogy of Cicero on Sccevola, that he was the most jurisprudent of orators, and the most eloquent of law- yers. But he deserved also the higher praise of sweeping away the rubbish of conflicting glosses, which had so confounded the students by their contrary subtilties, that it had become a practice to count, in- stead of weighing, their authorities. It has been regretted that he made little use of phi- losophy in the exposition of law ; but this could not have been attempted in the six- teenth century without the utmost danger of misleading the interpreter. 1 51. The practical lawyers, whose pre- judices were nourished by their inte- rests, conspired with the professors of the old school to clamour against Opposition to the introduction of litera- & 1 - ture into jurisprudence. Alciati was driven sometimes from one university to another by their opposition ; but more frequently his restless disposition and his notorious desire of gain were the causes of his migra- tions. They were the means of diffusing a more liberal course of studies in France as well as Italy, and especially in the great legal university of Bourges. He stood not however alone in scattering the flowers of polite literature over the thorny brakes of jurisprudence. An eminent Spaniard, An- tonio Agustino, might per- haps be placed almost on a level with him. The first work of Agus- tino, Emendationes Juris Civilis, was pub- lished in 1544. Andres, seldom deficient in praising his compatriots, pronounces such an eulogy on the writings of Agustino, as to find no one but Cujacius worthy of being accounted his equal, if indeed he does not give the preference in genius and learning to the older writer. 2 Gravina is less dif- fusely panegyrical ; and in fact it is cer- tain that Agustino, though a lawyer of great erudition and intelligence, has been eclipsed by those for whom he prepared the way. CHAPTER VIII. HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE OF TASTE TS EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. SECT. I. 15201550. Poetry in Italy In Spain and Portugal In France and Germany In England Wyatt and Surrey Latin Poetry. 1. THE singular grace of Ariosto's poem Poetry of had not less distinguished it Bembo. than his fertility of inven- tion and brilliancy of language. For the i Andr&s, xvi. 143. Savigny agrees with An- drts as to the merits of Zasius, and observes that the revival of the study of the laws in their original sources, instead of the commentators, Italian poetry, since the days of Petrarch, with the exception of Lorenzo and Politian, the boasts of Florence, had been very deficient in elegance ; the sonnets and odes of the fifteenth century, even those written had been announced by several signs before the sixteenth century. Ambrogio Traversari had recommended this, and Lebrixa wrote against the errors of Accursius, though in a superficial manner. Gesch. des Romischen Rechts, vi. 364. 1 Bayle, art. Alciati. Gravina, p. 206. Tira- boschi, ix. 115. Corniani, v. 57. 2 Vol. xvi. p. 148. 202 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. near its close, by Tibaldeo, Serafino d' Aquila, Benivieni, and other now obscure names, though the list of poets in Crescim- beni will be found very long, are hardly mentioned by the generality of critics but for the purpose of censure ; while Boiardo, who deserved most praise for bold and happy inventions, lost much of it through an unpolished and inharmonious style. In the succeeding period, the faults of the Italian school were entirely opposite; in Bembo, and those who, by their studious and servile imitation of one great master, were called Petrarchists, there was an elaborate sweetness, a fastidious delicacy, a harmony of sound, which frequently served as an excuse for coldness of imagina- tion and poverty of thought. " As the too careful imitation of Cicero," says Tira- boschi, "caused Bembo to fall into an affected elegance in his Latin style, so in his Italian poetry, while he labours to re- store the manner of Petrarch, he displays more of art than of natural genius. Yet, by banishing the rudeness of former poetry, and pointing out the right path, he was of no small advantage to those who knew how to imitate his excellencies and avoid his faults."i 2. The chief care of Bembo was to avoid It beauties the unpolished lines which and defect* deformed the poetry of the fifteenth century in the eyes of one so ex- quisitely sensible to the charms of diction. It is from him that the historians of Italian literature date the revival of the Petrarchan elegance ; of which a foreigner, unless con- versant with the language in all its vari- eties, can hardly judge, though he may perceive the want of original conception, and the monotony of conventional phrases, which is too frequently characteristic of the Italian sonnet. Tet the sonnets of Bembo on the death of his Morosina, the mother of his children, display a real tenderness not unworthy of his master; and the canzone on that of his brother has obtained not less renown ; though Tassoni, a very fastidious critic, has ridiculed its centonism, or studious incorporation of lines from Petrarch ; a practice which the habit of writing Latin poetry, wherein it should be sparingly employed, but not wholly avoided, would naturally en- courage. 2 3. Thenumberof versifiers whom Italypro- character of duced in the sixteenth cen- itaiian poetry, tury -was immensely great. Crescimbeni gives a list of eighty earlier 1 VoL x. p. 3. 2 Tiraboschi, ibid. Corniani, iv. 102. than 1550, whom he selects from many hundred ever forgotten names. By far the larger proportion of these confined themselves to the sonnet and the canzone or ode ; and the theme is generally love, though they sometimes change it to re- ligion. A conventional phraseology, an in- terminable repetition of the beauties and coldness of perhaps an ideal, certainly to us an unknown mistress, run through these productions ; which so much resemble each other, as sometimes to suggest to any one who reads the Sceltas which bring together many extracts from these poets, no other parallel than that of the hooting of owls in concert : a sound melancholy and not un- pleasing to all ears in its way, but mono- tonous, unintellectual, and manifesting as little real sorrow or sentiment in the bird as these compositions do in the poet. 1 4. A few exceptions may certainly be made. Alamanni, though the sonnet is not his pe- culiar line of strength, and though he often follows the track of Petrarch with almost servile imitation, could not, with his powerful genius, but raise himself above the common level. His Lygura Pianta, a Genoese lady, the heroine of many sonnets, is the shadow of Laura ; but when he turns to the calamities of Italy and his own, that stern sound is heard again, that almost re- minds us of Dante and Alfieri. The Italian critics, to whom we must of course implicitly defer as to the grace and taste of their own writers, speak well of Molza, and some other of the smaller poets ; though they are seldom exempt from the general defects above mentioned. But none does Crescim- beni so much extol, as a poetess, in every respect the most eminent of vittoria. her sex in Italy, the widow Coionna. of the Marquis of Pescara, Vittoria Coionna, surnamed, he says, by the public voice, the divine. The rare virtues and consummate talents of this lady were the theme of all Italy, in that brilliant age of her literature ; and her name is familiar to the ordinary reader at this day. The canzone dedicated to the memory of her illustrious husband is worthy of both.' 2 1 Muratori himself observes the tantalising habit in which sonnetteers indulge themselves, of threatening to die for love, which never comes to anything; quella volgare smania che mostrano gl' amanti di voler morire, e che tante volte s' ode in bocca loro, ma non mai viene ad effetto. 2 Crescimbeni del la Volgar Poesia, vols. ii. and iii. For the character of Vittoria Coionna, see ii. 360. Roscoe (Leo X. iii. 314) thinks her canzone on her husband in no respect inferior Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 203 5. The satires of Ariosto, seven innumber, Batlreiof Arioito and composed in the Hora- and Aiamanni. tian manner, were published after his death in 1534. Tiraboschi places them at the head of that class of poetry. The reader will find an analysis of these satires, with some extracts, in GinguSne. 1 The twelve satires of Alamanni, one of the Florentine exiles, of which the first edition is dated in 1532, though of earlier publica- tion than those of Ariosto, indicate an ac- quaintance with them. They are to one another as Horace and Juvenal, and as their fortunes might lead us to expect ; one gay, easy, full of the best form of Epicurean philosophy, cheerfulness, and content in the simpler enjoyments of life ; the other ardent, scornful, unsparing, de- clamatory, a hater of vice, and no great lover of mankind, pouring forth his moral wrath in no feeble strain. "We have seen in another place his animadversions on the court of Rome ; nor does anything in Italy escape his resentment. 2 The other poems of Alamanni are of a very miscellaneous description ; eclogues, little else than close imitations of Theocritus and Virgil, elegies, odes, hymns, psalms, fables, tragedies, and what were called selve, a name for all un- classed poetry. 6. Alamanni's epic, or rather romantic poem, the Avarchide, is ad- mitted by all critics to be a work of old age, little worthy of his name. But his poem on agriculture, la Coltiva- zione, has been highly extolled. A certain degree of languor seems generally to hang to that of Bembo on his brother. It is rather by a stretch of chronology, that this writer reckons Vittoria, Berni, and several more, among the poets of Leo's age. 1 ii. 100-129. Corniani, iv. 55. In one passage of the second satire, Ariosto assumes a tone of higher dignity than Horace ever ven- tured, and inveighs against the Italian courts in the spirit of his rival Alamanni. 2 The following lines, which conclude the twelfth and last satire, may serve as a specimen of Alamanni's declamatory tone of invective, and his bitter attacks on Borne, whom he is ad- dressing. O chi vedesse il ver, vedrebbe come Piu disnor tu che '1 tuo Luther Martino Porti a te stessa, e piu gravose some ; Non la Germania, n6, ma 1' ocio, il vino, A varizia, ambition, lussuria e gola, Ti mena al fin, che gia veggiam vicino. Non pur questo dico io, non Prancia sola, Non pur la Spagna, tutta Italia ancora Che ti tien d' heresia, di vizi scuola. E che nol crede, ne dimandi ogn' ora Urbin, Ferrara, V Orso, e la Colonna, La Marca, il Romagnuol, ma piu che plora Per te servendo, che fu d' altri donna. on Italian blank verse ; and in didactic poetry it is not likely to be overcome. The Bees of Rucellai is a poem written with exquisite sweetness of style ; but the critics have sometimes forgotten to mention, that it is little else than a free translation from the fourth Georgic. 1 No one hastver pre- tended to rescue from the charge of dul- ness and insipidity the epic poem of the father of blank verse, Trissino, on the liberation of Italy from the Goths by Belisarius. It is, of all long poems that are remembered at all, the most unfortunate in its reputation. 7. A very different name is that of Berni, partly known by his ludi- crous poetry, which has given that style the appellation of Poesia Bernesca, rather on account of his excel- lence than originality, for nothing is so congenial to the Italians, 2 but far more by his ri-faccimento, or re-moulding of the poem of Boiardo. The Orlando Innamo- rato, an ill-written poem, especially to Tuscan ears, had been encumbered by the heavy continuation of Agostini. Yet if its own intrinsic beauties of invention would not have secured it from oblivion, the vast success of the Orlando Furioso, itself only a continuation, and borrowing most of its characters from Boiardo's poem, must have made it impossible for Italians of any curiosity to neglect the primary source of so much delight. Berni, there- fore, undertook the singular office of writ- ing over again the Orlando Innamorato, preserving the sense of almost every stanza, though every stanza was more or less al- tered, and inserting nothing but a few introductory passages, in the manner of Ariosto, to each canto. 3 The genius of Berni, playful, satirical, flexible, was ad- mirably fitted to perform this labour ; the rude Lombardisms of the lower Po gave way to the racy idiom of Florence ; and the Orlando Innamorato has descended to 1 Roscoe's Leo, iii. 351. Tiraboschi, x. 85. Algarotti, and Corniani (v. 116), who quotes him, do not esteem the poem of Bucellai highly. 2 Corniani, iv. 252. Roscoe, iii. 323. 3 The first edition of the Rifaccimento is in 1541, and the second in 1542. In that of 1545, the first eighty-two stanzas are very different from those that correspond in former editions ; some that follow are suspected not to be genu- ine. It seems that we have no edition on which we can wholly depend. No edition of Berni appeared from 1545 to 1725, though Domenichi was printed several times. This reformer of Boiardo did not alter the text nearly so much as Berni. Panizzi, vol. ii. 204 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. posterity as the work of two minds, re- markably combined in this instance ; the sole praise of invention, circumstance, de- scription, and very frequently that of poetical figure and sentiment, belonging to Boiardo : that of style, in the peculiar and limited use of the word, to Berni. The character of the poem, as thus adorned, has sometimes been misconceived. Though Berni is almost always sprightly, he is not, in this romance, a burlesque or buffoon poet. 1 I once heard Foscolo prefer him to Ariosto. A foreigner, not so familiar with the peculiarities of language, would probably think his style less brilliant and less pellucid ; and it is in execution alone that he claims to be considered as an ori- ginal poet. The Orlando Innamorato was also remoulded by Domenichi in 1545 ; but the excellence of Berni has caused this feeble production to be nearly passed over by the Italian critics. 2 1 Tiraboschi, vii. 195, censures Berni for " motti e racconti troppo liberi ed empi, che vi ha inseriti." Ginguene exclaims, as well he may, against this imputation. Berni has in- serted no stories ; and unless it were the few stanzas that remain at the head of the twen- tieth canto, it is hard to say what Tiraboschi meant by impieties. But though Tiraboschi must have read Berni, he has here chosen to copy Zeno, who talks of " il poema di Boiardo, rifatto dal Berni, e di serio trasformato in ridi- colo, e di onesto in iscandoloso, e pcro giusta- mente dannato dallo chiesa." (Fontanini, p. 273). Zeno, even more surely than Tiraboschi, was perfectly acquainted with Berni's poem : how could he give so false a character of it? Did he copy some older writer? and why? It seems hard not to think that some suspicion of Berni's bias towards protestanism had engen- dered a prejudice against his poem, which re- mained when the cause had been forgotten, as it certainly was in the days of Zeno and Tira- boschi. 2 "The ingenuity," says Mr. Panizzi, "with which Berni finds a resemblance between dis- tant objects, and the rapidity with which he suddenly connects the most remote ideas ; the solemn manner in which he either alludes to ludicrous events or utters an absurdity ; the air of innocence and naivete with which he pre- sents remarks full of shrewdness and knowledge of the world ; that peculiar bonhommie with which he seems to look kindly and at the same time unwillingly on human errors or wicked- ness ; the keen irony which he uses with so much appearance of simplicity and aversion to bitterness ; the seeming singleness of heart with which he appears anxious to excuse men and actions, at the very moment that he is most in- veterate in exposing them ; these are the chief elements of Berni's poetry. Add to this the style, the loftiness of the verse contrasting with the frivolity of the argument, the gravest con- ception expressed in the most homely manner ; 8. Spain now began to experience one of those revolutions in fashion- able taste, which await the ! political changes of nations. Her native poetry, whether Castilian or Valencian, had characteristics of its own, that placed it in a different region from the Italian. The short heroic, amatory, or devotional songs, which the Peninsular dialects were accustomed to exhibit, were too ardent, too hyperbolical for a taste which, if not correctly classical, was at least studious of a grace not easily compatible with extra- vagance. But the continual intercourse of the Spaniards with Italy, partly subject to their sovereign, and the scene of his wars, accustomed their nobles to relish the charms of a sister language, less energetic, but more polished than their Boscan. own. Two poets, Boscan GarcUawo. and Garcilasso de la Vega, brought from Italy the softer beauties of amorous poetry, embodied in the regular sonnet, which had hitherto been little employed in the Penin- sula. These poems seem not to have been printed till 1543, when both Boscan and Garcilasso were dead, and their new school had already met with both support and op- position at the court of Valladolid. The national character is not entirely lost in these poets; love still speaks with more impetuous ardour, with more plaintive sorrow, than in the contemporary Italians ; but the restraints of taste and reason are perceived to control his voice. An eclogue of Garcilasso, called Salicio and Nemoroso, is pronounced by the Spanish critics to be one of the finest works in their language. It is sadder than the lament of saddest nightingales. We judge of all such poetry differently in the progressive ages of life. 9. Diego Mendoza, one of the most re- markable men for variety of , -, . , Mendoza. talents whom Spain has pro- duced, ranks with Boscan and Garcilasso the seasonable use of strange metaphors and of similes sometimes sublime, and for this very reason the more laughable, when considered with relation to the subject which they are in- tended to illustrate, form the most remarkable features of his style." P. 120. " Any candid Italian scholar who will peruse the Rifaccimento of Berni with attention, will be compelled to admit that, although many parts of the poem of Boiardo have been im- proved in that work, such has not always been the case ; and will moreover be convinced that some parts of the Rifaccimento, besides those suspected in former times, are evidently either not written by Berni, or have not received from him, if they be his, such corrections as to be worthy of their author." P. HI. Mr. P. shows in several passages his grounds for this suspicion. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 205 as a reformer of Castilian poetry. His char- acter as a soldier, as the severe governor of Siena, as the haughty minister of Charles at the court of Rome and the council at Trent, is notorious in history. 1 His epis- tles, in an Horatian style, full of a mascu- line and elevated philosophy, though defi- cient in harmony and polish, are preferred to his sonnets ; a species of composition where these faults are more perceptible ; and for which, at least in the style then popular, the stern understanding of Men- doza seems to have been ill adapted. " Though he composed," says Bouterwek, " in the Italian manner with less facility than Boscan and Garcilasso, he felt more correctly than they or any other of his countrymen the difference between the Spanish and Italian languages, with re- spect to their capabilities for versification. The Spanish admits of none of those pleas- ing elisions, which, particularly when ter- minating vowels are omitted, render the mechanism of Italian versification so easy, and enable the poet to augment or diminish the number of syllables according to his pleasure; and this difference in the two languages renders the composition of a Spanish sonnet a difficult task. Still more does the Spanish language seem hostile to the soft termination of a succession of feminine rhymes, for the Spanish poet, who adopts this rule of the Italian sonnet, is compelled to banish from his rhymes all infinitives of verbs, together with a whole host of sonorous substantives and adjectives. Mendoza therefore availed himself of the use of masculine rhymes in his sonnets ; but this metrical licence was strongly censured by all partizans of the Italian style. Nevertheless, had he given to his sonnets more of the tenderness of Petrarch, it is probable that they would have found imitators. Some of them, in- deed, may be considered as successful pro- ductions, and throughout all the language is correct and noble." 2 10. The lyric poems of Mendoza, written in the old national style, tacitly improved and pol- ished, are preferred by the Spaniards to his other works. Many of them are printed in the Romancero General. Saa di Mir- anda, though a Portuguese, has written much in Castilian, as well as in his own i Sadolet, in one of his epistles dated 1532 (lib. vi. p. 309 edit. 1554), gives an interesting character of Mendoza, then young, who had visited him at Carpentras on his way to Rome ; a journey undertaken solely for the sake of learning. * P. 198. Saa di Miranda. language. Endowed by nature with the melancholy temperament akin to poetic sensibility, he fell readily into the pastoral strain, for which his own language is said to be peculiarly formed. The greater and better part of his eclogues, however, are in Castilian. He is said to have chosen the latter language for imagery, and his own for reflection. 1 Of this poet, as well as of his Castilian contemporaries, the reader will find a sufficient account in Bouterwek and Sismondi. 11. Portugal, however, produced one who did not abandon her own soft and voluptuous dialect, Ribeyro ; the first distinguished poet she could boast. His strains are chiefly pastoral, the favourite style of his country, and breathe that monotonous and excessive melancholy, with which it re- quires some congenial emotion of our own to sympathise. A romance of Ribeyro, Menina e Moa, is one of the earliest among the few specimens of noble prose which we find in that language. It is said to be full of obscure allusions to real events in the author's life, and cannot be read with much interest ; but some have thought that it is the prototype of the Diana of Montemayor, and the whole school of pastoral romance, which was afterwards admired in Europe for an entire century. We have however seen that the Arcadia of Sannazzaro has the priority ; and I am not aware that there is any specific distinction between that romance and this of Ribeyro. It should be here observed, that Ribeyro should perhaps have been mentioned be- fore ; his eclogues seem to have been written and possibly published, before the death of Emanuel in 1521. The romance however was a later production. 2 12. The French versifiers of the age of Francis I. are not few. It i _LI L _LI French poetry. does not appear that they rise above the level of the preceding reigns, Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII. ; some of them mistaking insipid allegory for the creations of fancy, some tamely describing the events of their age, others, with rather more spirit, satirising the vices of mankind, and especially of the clergy ; while many, in little songs, expressed their ideal love with more perhaps of conven- tional gallantry than passion or tender- ness, 3 yet with some of those light and 1 Bouterwek, p. 240. Sismondi. 2 Bouterwek, Hist, of Portuguese Liter, p. 24. Sismondi iv. 280. 3 Goujet, Bibliotheque Fran^aise vols. x. and xi. passim. Auguis, Eecueil des Anciens Poetes Franpais, vols. ii. and iii. 206 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. graceful touches which distinguish this style of French poetry. Clement Marot ranks far higher. The psalms of Marot, though famous in their day, are among his worst performances. His distinguishing excellence is a naivete, or pretended simplicity, of which it is the highest praise to say, that it was the model of La Fontaine. This style of humour, than which nothing is more sprightly or divert- ing, seems much less indigenous among our- selves,if we mayjudge by ourolder literature, than either among the French or Italians. 13. In the days of Marot, French poetry Their metric*! had not put on all its chains. tincture. He does not observe the re- gular alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, nor scruple the open vowel, the suppression of a mute e before a consonant in scanning the verse, the carrying on the sense, without a pause, to the middle of the next line. These blemishes, as later usage accounts them, are common to Marot with all his contemporaries. In return, they dealt much in artificial schemes of recur- ring words or lines, as the chant royal, where every stanza was to be in the same rhyme, and to conclude with the same verse ; or the rondeau, a very popular species of metre long afterwards, wherein two or three initial words were repeated at the refrain or close of every stanza. 1 14. The poetical and imaginative spirit of Germany, subdued as it had long been, was never so weak as in this century. Though we can- not say that this poverty of genius was owing to the Reformation, it is certain that the Reformation aggravated very much in this sense the national debasement. The controversies were so scholastic in their terms, so sectarian in their character, so incapable of alliance with any warmth of soul, that, so far as their influence extended, and that was to a large part of the edu- cated classes, they must have repressed every poet, had such appeared, by render- ing the public insensible to his superiority. The Meister-Singers were sufficiently pro- saic in their original constitution ; they neither produced, nor perhaps would have suffered to exhibit itself, any real excel- lence in poetry. But they became in the sixteenth century still more rigorous in their requisitions of a mechanical con- formity to rule ; while at the same time they prescribed a new code of law to the versifier, that of theological orthodoxy. 1 Goujet, Bibl. Francaise, xi. 36. Gaillard Vie de Francois I., vii. 20. Pasquier, Recher- ches de la France, 1. vii. c. 5. Auguis, vol iii. German poetry. Yet one man, of more brilliant fancy and powerful feeling than the rest, Hans Sachs, the shoemaker of Nurem- H&ns S&chs berg, stands out from the crowd of these artisans. Most conspicuous as a dramatic writer, his copious muse was silent in no line of verse. Heinsius ac- counts the bright period of Hans Sachs's literary labours to have been from 1530 to 1538 ; though he wrote much both sooner and after that time. His poems of all kinds are said to have exceeded six thousand ; but not more than one-fourth of them are in print. In this facility of com- position he is second only to Lope de Vega ; and it must be presumed that, uneducated, unread, accustomed to find his public in his own class, so wonderful a fluency was accompanied by no polish, and only oc- casionally by gleams of vigour and feeling. The German critics are divided concerning the genius of Hans Sachs : Wieland and Goethe gave him lustre at one time by their eulogies ; but these having been as ex- aggerated as the contempt of a former generation, the place of the honest and praiseworthy shoemaker seems not likely to be fixed very high ; and there has no been demand enough for his works, which are very scarce, to encourage their republica- tion. 1 15. The Germans, constitutionally a de- vout people, were never so much so as in this first age of protestantism. And this, in combina- tion with their musical temperament, dis- played itself in the peculiar line of hymns. No other nation has so much of this poetry. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of religious songs was reckoned at 33,000, and that of their authors at 500. Those of Luther have been more known than the rest ; they are hard and rude, but impressive and deep. But this poetry, essentially restrained in its flight, could not develop the creative powers of genius. 2 16. Among the few poems of this age none has been so celebrated Theuerdaniu of as the Theuerdanks of Mel- Ptotetag. chior Pfintzing, secretary to the emperor Maximilian ; a poem at one time attributed to the master, whose praises it records, in- stead of the servant. This singular work, published originally in 1517, with more ornament of printing and delineation than was usual, is an allegory, with scarce any spirit of invention or language ; wherein the knight Theuerdanks, and his adven- 1 Heinsius, iv. 150. Bouterwek, ix. 381. Re- trospective Review, vol. x. 2 Bouterwek. Heinsius. German hymns. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 207 tures in seeking the marriage of the princess Ehrreich, represent the memorable union of Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy. A small number of German poets are commemorated by Bouterwek and Heinsius, superior no doubt in ability to Pfintzing, but so obscure in our eyes, and so little extolled by their countrymen, that we need only refer to their pages. 17. In the earlier part of this period of English poetry, thirty years, we can find Lynday. -very little English poetry. Sir David Lyndsay, an accomplished gentle- man and scholar of Scotland, excels his contemporary Skelton in such qualities, if not in fertility of genius. Though inferior to Dunbar in vividness of imagination and in elegance of language, he shows a more reflecting and philosophical mind ; and cer- tainly his satire upon James V. and his court is more poignant than the other's panegyric upon the Thistle. But in the ordinary style of his versification he seems not to rise much above the prosaic and tedious rhymers of the fifteenth century. His descriptions are as circumstantial with- out selection as theirs ; and his language, partaking of a ruder dialect, is still more removed from our own. The poems of Lyndsay were printed in 1540, and are among the very first-fruits of the Scottish press ; but one of these, the Complaint of the Papingo, had appeared in London two years before. Lyndsay's poetry is said to have contributed to the Reformation in Scotland ; in which, however, he is but like many poets of his own and preceding times. The clergy were an inexhaustible theme of bitter reproof. 18. " In the latter end of king Henry Wyattand VHI.'s reign," says Putten- Bnrrey. nam jn hi s Art of Poesie, " sprung up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, and Henry, Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who, having travailed into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie, from that it had bene before, and for that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our English meeter and stile. In the same time or not long after was the Lord Nicolas Vaux, a man of much facilitie in vulgar makings. " : The poems of Sir John Wyatt, who died in 1544, and of the Earl of Surrey, executed in 1547, were published in 1557, with a 1 Puttenham, book i. ch. 31. few by other hands, in a scarce little book called Tottel's Miscellanies. They were, however, in all probability known before ; and it seems necessary to mention them in this period, as they mark an important epoch in English literature. 19. Wyatt and Surrey, for we may best name them in the order of time, rather than of civil or poetical rank, have had recently the good fortune to be recommended by an editor of extensive acquaintance with literature, and of still superior taste. It will be a gratification to read the following comparison of the two poets, which I ex- tract the more willingly that it is found in a publication somewhat bulky and ex- pensive for the mass of readers. 20. " They were men whose minds may be said to have been cast in Dr. Nott' char- the same mould; for they acterofthem. differ only in those minuter shades of character which always must exist in human nature ; shades of difference so in- finitely varied, that there never were and never will be two persons in all respects alike. In then* love of virtue and their instinctive hatred and contempt of vice, in their freedom from personal jealousy, in their thirst after knowledge and intel- lectual improvement, in nice observation of nature, promptitude to action, in- trepidity and fondness for romantic enter- prise, in magnificence and liberality, in generous support of others and high- spirited neglect of themselves, in constancy in friendship, and tender susceptibility of affections of a still warmer nature, and in everything connected with sentiment and principle, they were one and the same ; but when those qualities branch out into particulars, they will be found in some respects to differ. 21. " Wyatt had a deeper and more ac- curate penetration into the characters of men than Surrey had ; hence arises the difference in their satires. Surrey, in his satire against the citizens of London, deals only in reproach ; Wyatt, in his, abounds with irony, and those nice touches of ridicule which make us ashamed of our faults, and therefore often silently effect amendment. 1 Surrey's observation of 1 Wyatt's best poem, in this style, the Epistle to John Poins, is a very close imitation of the tenth satire of Alamanni ; it is abridged, but every thought and every verse in the English is taken from the Italian. Dr. Nott has been aware of this ; but it certainly detracts a leaf from the laurel of Wyatt, though he has trans- lated well. The lighter poems of Wyatt are more unequal than those of Surrey ; but his ode to his lute 208 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. nature was minute ; but he directed it to- wards the works of nature in general, and the movements of the passions, rather than to the foibles and characters of men ; hence it is that he excels in the description of rural objects, and is always tender and pathetic. In Wyatt's Complaint we hear a strain of manly grief which commands attention, and we listen to it with respect for the sake of him that suffers. Surrey's distress is painted in such natural terms, that we make it our own, and recognise in his sorrows emotions which we are conscious of having felt ourselves. 22. "In point of taste and perception of propriety in composition, Surrey is more accurate and just than Wyatt ; he there- fore seldom either offends with conceits, or wearies with repetition, and when he imi- tates other poets, he is original as well as pleasing. In his numerous translations from Petrarch, he is seldom inferior to his master ; and he seldom improves upon him. Wyatt is almost always below the Italian, and frequently degrades a good thought by expressing it so that it is hardly recogniz- able. Had Wyatt attempted a translation of Virgil, as Surrey did, he would have ex- posed himself to unavoidable failure." 1 23. To remarks so delicate in taste and Perhaps rather so founded in knowledge, I exaggerated, should not venture to add much of my own. Something, however, may generally be admitted to modify the ardent panegyrics of an editor. Those who, after reading this brilliant passage, should turn for the first time to the. poems either of Wyatt or of Surrey, might think the praise too unbounded, and, in some respects perhaps, not appropriate. It seems to be now ascertained, after sweep- ing away a host of foolish legends and traditionary prejudices, that the Geraldine of Surrey, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was a child of thirteen, for whom his passion, if such it is to be called, began several years after his own marriage. 2 But in fact does not seem inferior to any production of his noble competitor. The sonnet in which he intimates his secret passion for Anne Boleyn, whom he describes under the allegory of a doe, bearing on her collar Noli me tangere : I Caesar's am, is remarkable for more than the poetry, though that is pleasing. It may be doubtful whether Anne were yet queen : but in one of Wyatt's latest poems, he seems to allude penitentially to his passion for her. 1 Nott's edition of Wyatt and Surrey, ii. 156. a Surrey was born about 1518, married Lady Frances Vere 1535, fell in love, if so it was, in 1541, with Oeraldine, who was born in 1528. there is more of the conventional tone of amorous song, than of real emotion, in Surrey's poetry. The "Easy sighs, such as men draw in love," are not like the deep sorrows of Petrarch, or the fiery transports of the Castilians. 24. The taste of this accomplished man is more striking than his surrey improves poetical genius. He did our versification, much for his own country and his native language. The versification of Surrey differs very considerably from that of his predecessors. He introduced, as Dr. Nott says, a sort of involution into his style, which gives an air of dignity and remote- ness from common life. It was in fact borrowed from the licence of Italian poetry, which our own idiom has rejected. He avoids pedantic words, forcibly obtruded from the Latin, of which our earlier poets, both English and Scots, had been ridicu- lously fond. The absurd epithets of Hoc- cleve, Lydgate, Dunbar, and Douglas arc applied equally to the most different things, so as to show that they annexed no mean- ing to them. Surrey rarely lays an un- natural stress on final syllables, merely as such, which they would not receive in or- dinary pronunciation ; another usual trick of the school of Chaucer. His words are well chosen and well arranged. 25. Surrey is the first who introduced blank verse into our English introduces blank poetry. It has been doubted verse - whether it had been previously employed in Italian, save in tragedy ; for the poems of Alamanni and Eucellai were not pub- lished before many of our noble poet's com- positions had been written. Dr. Nott, however, admits that Boscan and other Spanish poets had used it. The transla- tion by Surrey of the second book of the ^Eneid, in blank verse, is among the chief of his productions. No one had, before his time, known how to translate or imi- tate with appropriate expression. But the structure of his verse is not very harmoni- ous, and the sense is rarely carried beyond the line . 20. If we could rely on a theory, ad- vanced and ably supported Dr. Nott's hypo- by his editor, Surrey de- thesis as to his serves the still more con- metre - spicuous praise of having brought about a great revolution in our poetical numbers. It had been supposed to be proved by Tyr- whitt, that Chaucer's lines are to be read metrically, in ten or eleven syllables, like the Italian, and, as I apprehend, the French of his time. For this purpose, it is neces- Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 209 sary to presume that many terminations, now mute, were syllabically pronounced; and where verses prove refractory after all our endeavours, Tyrwhitt has no scruple in declaring them corrupt. It may be added, that Gray, before the appearance of Tyr- wbitt's essay on the versification of Chau- cer, had adopted without hesitation the same hypothesis. 1 But, according to Dr. Nott, the verses of Chaucer, and of all his successors down to Surrey, are merely rhythmical, to be read by cadence, and admitting of considerable variety in the number of syllables, though ten may be the more frequent. In the manuscripts of Chaucer, the line is always broken by a caesura in the middle, which is pointed out by a virgule ; and this is preserved in the early editions down to that of 1532. They come near, therefore, to the short Saxon line, differing chiefly by the alternate rhyme, which converts two verses into one. He maintains that a great many lines of Chaucer cannot be read metrically, though harmonious as verses of cadence. This rhythmical measure he proceeds to show in Hoccleve, Lydgate, Hawes, Barclay, Skelton, and even Wyatt ; and thus con- cludes, that it was first abandoned by Surrey, in whom it very rarely occurs. 2 27. This hypothesis, it should be ob- served, derives some additional plausibility from a passage in Gascoyne's "Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse or Ehyme in English," printed in 1575. "Whosoever do peruse and well consider his (Chaucer's) works, he shall find that, although his lines are not always of one self-same number of syllables, yet being read by one that hath understanding, the longest verse, and that which hath most syllables in it, will fall (to the ear) corre- spondent unto that which hath fewest syllables ; and likewise that which hath fewest syllables shall be found yet to con- sist of words that have such natural sound, as may seem equal in length to a verse which hath many more syllables of lighter accents." 28. A theory so ingeniously maintained, But seems too and with so much induction extensive. o f examples, has naturally gained a good deal of credit. I cannot, however, by any means concur in the ex- tension given to it. Pages may be read in Chaucer, and still more in Dunbar, where every line is regularly and harmoniously decasyllabic ; and though the caesura may 1 Gray's Works (edit. Mathias), il. 1. 2 Nott's Dissertation, subjoined to second Tolumc of his Wyatt and Surrey. perhaps fall rather more uniformly than it does in modern verse, it would be very easy to find exceptions, which could not acquire a rhythmical cadence by any artifice of the reader. 1 The deviations from the normal type, or decasyllabic line, were they more numerous than, after allowance for the li- cence of pronunciation, as well as the pro- bable corruption of the text, they appear to be, would not, I conceive, justify us in concluding that it was disregarded. These aberrant lines are much more common in the dramatic blank ver&c of the seventeenth century. They are, doubtless, vestiges of the old rhythmical forms ; ' and we may readily allow that English versification had not, in the fifteenth or even sixteenth cen- turies, the numerical regularity of classical or Italian metre. In the 'ancient ballads, Scots and English, the substitution of the anapaest for the iambic foot is of perpetual recurrence, and gives them a remarkable elasticity and animation ; but we never fail to recognise a uniformity of measure, which the use of nearly equipollent feet cannot, on the strictest metrical principles, be thought to impair. 29. If we compare the poetry of Wyatt and Surrey with that of Bar- politeness of clay or Skelton , about thirty Wyatt and or forty years before, the Surrey, difference must appear wonderful. But we should not, with Dr. Nott, attribute this wholly to superiority of genius. It is to be remembered that the later poets wrote in a court, and in one which, besides the aristocratic manners of chivalry, had not only imbibed a great deal of refinement from France and Italy, but a considerable tinge of ancient literature. Their prede- cessors were less educated men, and they addressed a more vulgar class of readers. Nor was this polish of language peculiar to i Such as these, among multitudes more : A lover, and a lusty bachelor. Chaucer. But reason, with the shield of gold so shene. Dunbar. The rock, again the river resplendent. Id. Lydgate apologises for his own lines, Because I know the verse therein is wrong, As being some too short, and some too long, in Gray, ii. 4. This seems at once to exclude the rhythmical system, and to account for the imperfection of the metrical. Lydgate has per- haps on the whole more aberrations from the decasyllabic standard than Chaucer. Puttenham, in his Art of Poesie (1686), book 11. ch. 3, 4, though he admits the licentiousness of Chaucer, Lydgate, and other poets in occa- sionally disregarding the caesura, does not seem to doubt that they wrote by metrical rules ; which indeed is implied in the other. Dr. Nott's theory cannot allow a want of caesura. O 210 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. Sannazarim. Surrey and his friend. In the short poems of Lord Vaux, and of others about the same time, even in those of Nicolas Grimoald, a lecturer at Oxford, who was no courtier, but had acquired a classical taste, we find a rejection of obsolete and trivial phrases, and the beginnings of what we now call the style of our older poetry. 30. No period since the revival of letters has been so conspicuous for Latin poetry, j^^ p^ry as the present. Three names of great reputation adorn it, Sannazarius, Vida, Fracastorius. The first of these, Sannazarius, or San Nazaro, or Ac- tius Sincerus, was a Neapoli- tan, attached to the fortunes of the Aragoneseline of kings ; and following the last of their number Frederic, after his unjust spoliation, into France, remained there till his master's death. Much of his poetry was written under this reign, before 1 503 ; but his principal work, De Partu Vir- ginis, did not appear till 1522. This has in- curred notunjust blamefor the intermixture of classical mythology, at least in language, vrith the Gospel story ; nor is the latter very skilfully managed. But it would be difficult to find its equal for purity, ele- gance, and harmony of versification. The unauthorised word, the doubtful idiom, the nodern turn of thought, so common in Latin verse, scarce ever appear in Sanna- zarius ; a pure taste enabled him to diffuse a Virgilian hue over his language ; and a just ear, united with facility in command of words, rendered his versification melodi- ous and varied beyond any competitor. The Piscatory Eclogues of Sannazarius, which are perhaps better known, deserve at least equal praise ; they seem to breathe the beauty and sweetness of that fair bay they describe. His elegies are such as may compete with Tibullus. If Sannazarius does not affect sublimity, he never sinks below his aim ; the sense is sometimes in- ferior to the style, as he is not wholly free from conceits j 1 but it would probably be more difficult to find cold and prosaic passages in his works than in those of any other Latin poet in modern times. 31. Vida of Cremona is not by any means less celebrated than Sannazarius ; his poem on the Art of Poetry, and that on the Game 1 The following lines, on the constellation Taurus, are more puerile than any I have seen iu this elegant poet : Torva bovi facies ; sed qua non altera coelo Dignior, imbriferum quaa cornibus inchoet annum, Nee qua tarn Claris mugitibu* atlra lacessat. of Chess, were printed in 1527 ; the Chris- tiad, an epic poem, as perhaps it deserves to be called, in 1535 ; and that on silk- worms in 1537. Vida's precepts are clear and judicious, and we admire in his Game of Chess especially, and the poem on Silk- worms, the skill with which the dry rules of art, and descriptions the most apparently irreducible to poetical conditions, fall into his elegant and classical language. It has been observed, that he is the first who laid down rules for imitative harmony, illus- trating them by his own example. The Christiad shows not so much, I think, of Vida's great talents, at least in poetical lan- guage ; but the subject is better managed than by Sannazarius. Yet, notwithstand- ing some brilliant passages, among which the conclusion of the second book De Arte Poetica is prominent, Vida appears to me far inferior to the Neapolitan poet. His versification is often hard and spondaic, the elisions too frequent, and the caesura too much neglected. The language, even where the subject best admits of it, is not so elevated as we should desire. 32. Fracastorius has obtained his repu- tation by the Syphilis, published in 1530; and certainly, as he thought to make choice of the sub- Fracas( ject, there is no reader but must admire the beauty and variety of his digressions, the vigour and nobleness of his style. Once only has it been the praise of genius, to have delivered the rules of practical art in all the graces of the most delicious poetry, without inflation, without obscurity, without affectation, and generally perhaps with the precision of truth. Fracastorius, not emulous in this of the author of the Georgics, seems to have made Manilius rather, I think, than Lucretius, his model in the didactic portion of his poem. 33. Upon a fair comparison we should not err much, in my opinion, Latin verse not by deciding that Fracasto- to be drained, rius is the greater poet, and Sannazarius the better author of Latin verses. In the present age it is easy to anticipate the supercilious disdain of those who believe it ridiculous to write Latin poetry at all, be- cause it cannot, as they imagine, be written well. I must be content to answer, that those who do not know when such poetry is good, should be as slow to contradict those who do, as the ignorant in music to set themselves against competent judges. No one pretends that Sannazarius was equal to Ariosto. But it may be truly said, that his poetry, and a great deal more that has been written in Latin, beyond Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 211 comparison excels most of the contempo- rary Italian ; we may add, that its reputa- tion has been more extended and Eu- ropean. 34. After this famous triumvirate, we other Latin might reckon several in dif- poets in Italy, ferent degrees of merit. Bembo comes forward again in these lists. His Latin poems are not numerous ; that upon the lake Benacus is the best known. He shone more however in elegiac than hexameter verse. This is a common case in modern Latin, and might be naturally expected of Bembo, who had more of ele- gance than of vigour. Castiglione has left a few poems, among which the best is in the archaic lapidary style, on the statue of Cleopatra in the Vatican. Molza wrote much in Latin ; he is the author of the epistle to Henry VIII., in the name of Catherine, which has been ascribed to Joannes Secundus. It is very spirited and Ovidian. These poets were perhaps sur- passed by Naugerius and Flaminius ; both, but especially the latter, for sweetness and purity of style, to be placed in the first rank of lyric and elegiac poets in the Latin language. In their best passages, they fall n t by any means short of Tibullus or Catullus. Aonius Palearius, though his poem on the Immortality of the Soul is equalled by Sadolet himself to those of Vida and Sannazarius, seems not entitled to anything like such an eulogy. He be- came afterwards suspected of Lutheranism, and lost his life on the scaffold at Rome. We have in another place mentioned the Zodiacus Vitae of Palingenius Stellatus, whose true name was Manzolli. The De- licise Poetarum Italorum present a crowd of inferior imitations of classical models ; but I must epeat that the volumes selected by Pope, and entitled Poemata Italorum, are the best evidences of the beauties of these poets. 35. The cisalpine nations, though at a vast distance from Italy, cannotbereckoned destitute, in this age, of respectable Latin poets. Of these the best known, and perhaps upon the whole the best, is Joannes Secundus, who found the doves of Venus in the dab- chicks of Dutch marshes. The Basia, how- ever, are far from being superior to his elegies, many of which, though not correct, and often sinning by false quantity, a fault pretty general with these early Latin poets, especially on this side of the Alps, are gen- erally harmonious, spirited, and elegant. Among the Germans, Eobanus Hessus, Micyllus, professor at Heidelberg, and In Germany. Melanchthon, have obtained considerable praise. Italian comedy. SECT. H. 15201550. State of Dramatic Representation in Italy Spain and Portugal France Germany England. 36. We have already seen the beginnings of Italian comedy, founded in its style, and frequently in its subjects, upon Plautus. Two of Ariosto's comedies have been mentioned, and two more belong to this period. Some difference of opinion has existed with re- spect to their dramatic merit. But few have hesitated to place above them the Mandragola and Clitia of a great contem- porary genius, Machiavel. The Mandragola was probably written before , __ . . . . , . .-I Machiavel. 1520, but certainly in the fallen fortunes of its author, as he intimates in the prologue. Ginguene, therefore, for- got his chronology, when he supposes Leo X. to have been present, as cardinal, at its representation. 1 It seems however to have been acted before this pope at Rome. The story of the Mandragola which hardly V>ears to be told, though Ginguene has done it, is said to be founded on a real and recent event at Florence, one of its striking re- semblances to the Athenian comedy. It is admirable for its comic delineations of character, the management of the plot, and the liveliness of its idiomatic dialogue. Peter Aretin, with little of the former qualities, and inferior in all respects to Machiavel, has enough of humorous extravagance to amuse the reader. The licentiousness of the Italian stage in its contempt of morality, and even, in the comedies of Peter Aretin, its bold satire on the great, remind us rather of Athens than of Rome ; it is more the effrontery of Aristophanes than the pleasant freedom of Plautus. But the depravity which had long been increasing in Italy, gained in this first part of the six- teenth century a zenith which it could not surpass, and from which it has very gra- dually receded. These comedies are often very satirical on the clergy; the bold strokes of Machiavel surprise us at present ; but the Italian stage had something like the licence of a masquerade ; it was a tacit agreement that men should laugh at things sacred within those walls, but resume their veneration for them at the door. 8 1 Ginguene, vi. 222. 2 Besides the plays themselves, see Gingudne, vol. vi., who gives more than a hundred page* 212 Literature of Europe from 1520/0 1550. 37. Those who attempted the serious tone of tragedy were less happy in their model; Seneca generally represented to them the ancient buskin. The Canace of Sperone Speroni, sperone. the Tullia of Mortelli, and cinthio. the Orbecche of Giraldo Cinthio, esteemed the best of nine tragedies he has written, are within the present period. They are all works of genius. But Ginguene observes how little advantage the first of these plays afforded for dramatic effect, most of the action passing in narra- tion. It is true that he could hardly have avoided this without aggravating the cen- sures of those who, as Crescimbeni tells us, thought the subject itself unfit for tragedy. 1 The story of the Orbecche is taken by Cinthio from a novel of his own invention, and is remarkable for its san- guinary and disgusting circumstances. This became the characteristic of tragedy in the sixteenth century ; not by any means peculiarly in England, as some half-in- formed critics of the French school used to pretend. The Orbecche, notwithstanding its passages in the manner of Titus An- dronicus, is in many parts an impassioned and poetical tragedy. Riccoboni, though he censures the general poverty of style, prefers one scene in the third act to any thing on the stage: "If one scene were sufficient to decide the question, the Or- becche would be the finest play in the world." 2 Walker observes, that this is the first tragedy wherein the prologue is sepa- rated from the play, of which, as is very well known, it made a part on the ancient theatre. But in Cinthio, and in other tragic writers long afterwards, the prologue continued to explain and announce the tory. 8 38. Meantime, a people very celebrated in dramatic literature was Lm *' forming its national theatre. A few attempts were made in Spain to copy the classical model. But these seem not to have gone beyond translation, and liad little effect on the public taste. to the Calandra, and the comedies of Ariosto, Machiavel, and Aretin. Many of the old come, lies are reprinted in the great Milan collection of Classic! Italian!. Those of Machiavel and Ariosto are found in most editions of their works. i Delia volgar Poesia, ii. 391. Alfleri went (till farther than Sperone in his Mirra. Objec- tions of a somewhat similar kind were made to the Tullia of Martelli. 3 Hist, du Theatre Italien, vol. i. s Walker, Essay on Italian Tragedy. Gin- guene, ri. 61, 60. Torres Naharro. Others in imitation of the Celestina, which passed for a moral example, pro- duced tedious scenes, by way of mirrors, of vice and virtue, without reaching the fame of their original. But a third class was far more popular, and ultimately put an end to competition. The founders of this were Torres Naharro, in the first years of Charles, and Lope de Eueda, a little later. "There is very little doubt," says Bouterwek, "that Torres Naharro was the real inventor of the Spanish comedy. He not only wrote his eight comedies in redondillas in the romance style, but he also endeavoured to establish the dramatic interest solely on an ingenious combination of intrigues, without attach- ing much importance to the development of character, or the moral tendency of the story. It is besides probable, that he was the first who divided plays into three acts, which, being regarded as three days' labour in the dramatic field, were called jornadas. It must therefore be unre- servedly admitted, that these dramas, considered both with respect to their spirit and their form, deserve to be ranked as the first in the history of the Spanish national drama ; for in the same path which Torres Naharro first trod, the dra- matic genius of Spain advanced to the point attained by Calderon, and the nation tolerated no dramas except those which be- longed to the style which had thus been created." 1 39. Lope de Rueda, who is rather better known than his predecessor, was at the head of a com- Loped pany of players, and was limited in his in- ventions by the capacity of his troop and of the stage upon which they were to ap- pear. Cervantes calls him the great Lope de Rueda, even when a greater Lope was before the world. "He was not," to quote again from Bouterwek, " inattentive to general character, as is proved by his de- lineation of old men, clowns, &c., in which he was particularly successful. But his principal aim was to interweave in his dramas a succession of intrigues ; and as he seems to have been a stranger to the art of producing stage effect by striking situa- tions, he made complication the great object of his plots. Thus mistakes, arising from personal resemblances, exchanges of children, and such like common-place sub- jects of intrigue, form the ground-work of his stories, none of which are remarkable for ingenuity of invention. There is 1 P. 285. Andres thinks Naharro low, insipid, and unworthy of the praise of Cervantes, v. 130. Litej-ature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 213 usually a multitude of characters in his dramas, and jests and witticisms are freely introduced, but these in general consist of burlesque disputes in which some clown is engaged." 1 40. The Portuguese Gil Vicente may per- haps compete with Torres ote - Naharro for the honour of leading the dramatists of the peninsula. His Autos indeed, as has been observed, do not, so far as we can perceive, differ from the mysteries, the religious dramas of France and England. Bouterwek, strangely forgetful of these, seems to have assigned a character of originality, and given a precedence, to the Spanish and Portuguese Autos which they do not de- serve. The specimen of one of these by Oil Vicente in the History of Portuguese Literature, is far more extravagant and less theatrical than our John Parfre's con- temporary mystery of Candlemas Day. But a few comedies, or, as they are more justly styled, farces, remain ; one of which, mentioned by the same author, is superior in choice and management of the fable to most of the rude productions of that time. Its date is unknown: Gil Vicente's dra- matic compositions of various kinds were collectively published in 1562 ; he had died in 1557, at a very advanced age. 41. " These works," says Bouterwek of the dramatic productions of Gil Vicente in general, " display a true poetic spirit, which however accommodated itself en- tirely to the age of the poet, and which dis- dained cultivation. The dramatic genius of Gil Vicente is equally manifest from his power of invention, and from the natural turn and facility of his imitative talent. Even the rudest of these dramas is tinged with a certain degree of poetic feeling." 2 The want of complex intrigue, such as we find afterwards in the Castilian drama, ought not to surprise us in these early com- positions. 42. We have no record of any original Mysteries and dramatic composition be- moralitiesin longing to this age in France. France, with the exception of mysteries and moralities, which are very abundant. These were considered, and perhaps justly, as types of the regular drama. "The French morality," says an author of that age, "represents in some degree the tragedy of the Greeks and 1 P. 282. 2 Hist, of Portuguese Lit. p. 83-111. It would be vain to look elsewhere for so copious an ac- count of Gil Vicente, and very difficult pro- bably to find his works. See too Sismondi, Hist, do la Litt. du Midi, iv. 448. Romans ; particularly because it treats of serious and important subjects ; and if it were contrived in French that the con- clusion of the morality should be always unfortunate, it would become a tragedy. In the morality, we treat of noble and virtuous actions, either true, or at least probable ; and choose what makes for our instruction in life." 1 It is evident from this passage and the whole context, that neither tragedy nor comedy were yet known. The circumstance is rather re- markable, when we consider the genius of the nation, and the politeness of the court. But from about the year 1540 we find translations from Latin and Italian comedies into French. These probably were not represented. Les Amours d'Eros- trate, by Jacques Bourgeois, published in 1545, is taken from the Suppositi of Ariosto. Sibilet translated the Iphigenia of Euri- pedes in 1549, and Bouchetel the Hecuba in 1550; Lazarus Baif, two plays about the same time. But a great dramatic revolution was now prepared by the strong arm of the state. The first theatre had been established at Paris about 1400 by the Confrairie de la Passion de N. S., for the representation of scriptural mysteries. This was suppressed by the parliament in 1547, on account of the scandal which this devout buffoonery had begun to give. The company of actors purchased next year the Hotel de la Bourgogne, and were authorised by the parliament to represent profane sub- jects, " lawful and decent " (licites et hon- netes), but enjoined to abstain from " all mysteries of the passion, or other sacred mysteries." 2 43. In Germany, meantime, the pride of the meister-singers, Hans German theatre. Sachs, was alone sufficient Hans Sachs, to pour forth a plenteous stream for the stage. His works, collectively printed at Nuremberg in five folio volumes, 1578, and reprinted in five quartos at Kempten, 1606, contain 197 dramas among the rest. Many of his comedies in one act, called Sch wan- ken, are coarse satires on the times. In- vention, expression, and enthusiasm, if we may trust his admirers, are all united in Hans Sachs. 3 1 Sibilat, Art Poetique (1548), apud Beau- champs, Recherches sur le Theatre Fran?ais, i. 82 In the Jardin de Plaisance, an anonymous undated poem, printed at Lyons probably before the end of the fifteenth century, we have rules given for composing moralities. Beauchamps (p. 86) extracts some of these ; but they seem not worth copying. 2 Beauchamps, i. 91. 3 Hans Sachs has met with a very laudatory critic in the Retrospective Review, x. 113, who 214 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 44. The mysteries founded upon scrip Moralities and tural or legendary histories, imiiar plays in as well as the moralities, or En * Uni allegorical dramas, which, though there might be an intermixture of human character with abstract personifica- tion, did not aim at that illusion which a possible fable affords, continued to amuse the English public. Nor were they con- fined, as perhaps they were before, to churches and monasteries. We find a company of players in the establishment of Richard III. while Duke of Gloucester; and in the subsequent reigns, especially under Henry VIII., this seems to have been one of the luxuries of the great. The frugal Henry VII. maintained two distinct sets of players ; and his son was prodigally sumptuous in every sort of court-exhibi- tion, bearing the general name of revels, and superintended by a high priest of jol- lity, styled the abbot of misrule. The dramatic allegories, or moral plays, found a place among them. It may be presumed that from their occasionality, or want of merit, far the greater part have per- ished. 1 Three or four, which we may place before 1550, are published in Haw- kins's Ancient Drama, and Dodsley's Old Plays ; one is extant, written by Skelton, the earliest of a known author. 2 A late writer, whose diligence seems to have al- most exhausted our early dramatic history, has retrieved the names of a few more. The most ancient of these moral plays he traces to the reign of Henry VI. They be- came gradually more complicated, and ap- proached nearer to a regular form. It may be observed that a line is not easily denned between the scriptural mysteries and the legitimate drama ; the choice of the story, the succession of incidents, are those of tragedy ; even the intermixture of buffoonery belongs to all our ancient stage ; and it is only by the meanness of the senti- ments and diction that we exclude the Candlemas-Day, which is one of the most perfect of the mysteries, or even those of the fifteenth century, from our tragic series. 3 Nor were the moralities, such as even ventures to assert that Goethe has imitated the old shoemaker in Faust. The Germans had many plays in this age. Gesner says, in his Pandectae Universales : Ger- manica: fabulse mulUu extant. Fabula decem setatum et Fusio stultorum Colmariee actaa sunt. Fusio edita est 1537, chartis quatuor. Qui volet hoc loco plures ascribat in vulgaribus linguis, DOS ad alia festinamus. 1 Collier's Annals of the Stage, i. 34, &c. Warton, iii. 188. 3 Candlemas-Day, a mystery, on the murder we find them in the reign of Henry VIII., at a prodigious distance from the regular stage ; deviations from the original struc- ture of these, as BIr. Collier has well ob- served, " by the relinquishment of abstract for individual character, paved the way, by a natural and easy gradation, for tragedy and comedy, the representations of real life and manners, "i 45. The moralities were, in this age, dis- tinguished by the constant j^y , tumed introduction of a witty, to religion* mischievous, and profligate wUre. character, denominated the Vice. This seems originally to have been an allegorical representation of what the word denotes ; but the vice gradually acquired a human individuality, in which he came very near to our well-known Punch. The devil was generally introduced in company with the vice, and had to endure many blows from him. But the moralities had another striking characteristic in this period. They had always been religious, but they now became theological. In the crisis of that great revolution then in progress, the stage was found a ready and impartial instru- ment for the old or the new faith. Luther and his wife were satirised in a Latin morality represented at Gray's Inn in 1529. It was easy to turn the tablet) on the clergy. Sir David Lyndsay's satire of the Three Estatis, a direct attack upon them, was played before James V. and his queen at Linlithgow in 1539 ; 2 and in 1543 an En- glish statute was made, prohibiting all plays and interludes, which meddle with the interpretation of Scripture. In 1549, the council of Edward VI. put a stop by proclamation to all kinds of stage-plays. 8 46. Great indulgence, or a strong anti- quarian prejudice, is re- Latin Plays. quired to discover much genius in these moralities and mysteries. There was, however, a class of dramatic productions that appealed to a more in- structed audience. The custom of acting Latin plays prevailed in our universities at this time, as it did long afterwards. Whether it were older than the fifteenth century seems not to be proved ; and the presumption is certainly against it. " In an original draught," says Warton, " of the of the Innocents, is published in Hawkins's Early English Drama. It is by John Parffre, and may be referred to the first years of Henry VIII. 1 Hist, of English Dramatic Poetry, li. 260. Tliis I quote by its proper title ; but it is in fact the same work as the Annals of the Stage, so far as being incorporated, and sold together, renders it the. same. 2 Warton, iv. 23. * Collier, i. 144, Literature of Europe from 1520 io 1550. 215 tetutes of Trinity College at Cambridge, founded in 1456, one of the chapters is en- titled, "De Praefecto ludorum qui impera- tor dicitur," under whose direction and authority Latin comedies and tragedies are to be exhibited in the hall at Christ- mas." 1 It is probable that Christopher- son's tragedy of Jephthah, and another by Grimoald on John the Baptist, both older than the middle of the century, were written for academical representation. Nor was this confined to the universities. Nicolas Udal, head master of Eton, wrote several plays in Latin to be acted in the long nights of winter by his boys. 2 And if we had to stop here, it might seem an unnecessary minuteness to take notice of the diversions of school-boys, especially as the same is recorded of other teachers be- sides Udal. But there is something more in this. Udal has lately become known in First English a new and more brilliant comedy. Mght, as the father of En- glish comedy. It was mentioned by War- ton, but without any comment, that Nicolas Udal wrote some English plays to be repre- sented by his scholars, a passage from one of which is quoted by Wilson in his Art of Logic dedicated to Edward VI. 3 It might have been conjectured, by the help of this quotation, that these plays were neither of the class of moralities or mysteries, nor mere translations from Plautus and Ter- ence, as it would not have been unnatural at first to suppose. Within a few years, however, the comedy from which Wilson took his extract has been discovered. It was printed in 1565, but probably written not later than 1540. The title of this comedy is Ealph Roister Doister, a name uncouth enough, and from which we should expect a very barbarous farce. But Udal, an eminent scholar, knew how to preserve comic spirit and humour without degene- 1 Hist, of Engl. Poetry, iii. 205. 2 Udal was not the first, if we could trust Harwood's Alumni Etonenses, who established an Eton theatre. Of Rightwise, who succeeded Lily as master of St. Paul's, it is said by him, that he was "a most eminent grammarian, and wrote the tragedy of Dido from Virgil, which was acted before Cardinal Wolsey with great applause by himself and other scholars of Eton." But as Rightwise left Eton for King's College in 1508, this cannot be true, at least so far as "Wolsey is concerned. It is said after- wards in the same "book of one Hallewill, who went to Cambridge in 1532, that he wrote " the tragedy of Dido." Which should we believe, or were there two Didos? But Harwood's book is not reckoned of much authority beyond the mere records which he copied. 3 Hist, of Engl. Poetry, iii. 213. rating into licentious buffoonery. Ralph Roister Doister, in spite of its title, is a play of some merit, though the wit may seem designed for the purpose of natural merriment rather than critical glory. We find in it, what is of no slight value, the earliest lively picture of London manners among the gallants and citizens, who fur- nished so much for the stage down to the civil wars. And perhaps there is no strik- ing difference in this respect between the dramatic manners under Henry VIII. and James I. This comedy, for there seems no kind of reason why it should be refused that honourable name, is much superior to Gammar Gurton's Needle, written twenty years afterwards, from which it has wrested a long-established precedence in our dra- matic annals. 1 SECT. III. Romances and Novels Rabelais. 47. The popularity of Amadis de Gaul gave rise to a class of romances, the de- light of the multitude in the Romances of sixteenth century, though chivalry, since chiefly remembered by the ridicule and ignominy that has attached itself to their name, those of knight-errantry. Most of these belong to Spanish or Portu- guese literature. Palmerin of Oliva, one of the earliest, was published in 1525. Palmerin, less fortunate than his name- sake of England, did not escape the penal flame to which the barber and curate con- signed many also of his younger brethren. It has been observed by Bouterwek that every respectable Spanish writer, as well as Cervantes, resisted the contagion of bad taste which kept the prolix mediocrity of these romances in fashion. 2 48. A far better style was that of the short novel, which the Italian writers, especially Boccaccio, had rendered popular in Europe. But, though many of these were probably written within this period of thirty years, none of much distinction come within it, as the date of their earliest publication, except the celebrated Belphe- gor of Machiavel. 3 The amusing story of 1 See an analysis with extracts of Ralph Roister Doister, in Collier's Hist, of Dram. Poetry, ii. 445-460. 2 Hist, of Spanish Literature, p. 304. Dun- lop's Hist, of Fiction, vol. ii. 3 I cannot make another exception for II Pel- legrino by Caviceo of Parma, the first known edition of which, published at Venice in 1526, efidently alludes to one earlier ; diligentemente in lingua tosca corretto, e nuovamente stam- 216 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. Rabelais. Lazarillo de Tormes was certainly written by Mendoza in his youth. But it did not appear in print till 1586. This is the first known specimen in Spain of the picar- esque, or rogue style, in which the ad- ventures of the low and rather dishonest part of the community are made to furnish amusement for the great. The Italian novelists are by no means without earlier instances ; but it became the favourite, and almost peculiar class of novel with the Spanish writers about the end of the century. 49. But the most celebrated, and cer- tainly the most brilliant performance in the path of fiction, that belongs to this age, is that of Rabelais. Few books are less likely to ob- tain the praise of a rigorous critic ; but few have more the stamp of originality, or show a more redundant fertility, always of language, and sometimes of imagination. He bears a slight resemblance to Lucian, and a considerable one to Aristophanes. His reading is large, but always rendered subservient to ridicule ; he is never serious in a single page, and seems to have had little other aim, in his first two volumes, than to pour out the exuberance of his animal gaiety. In the latter part of Panta- gruel's history, that is, the fourth and fifth books, one published in 1552, the other, after the author's death, in 1561, a dislike to the church of Rome, which had been slightly perceived in the first volumes, is not at all disguised ; but the vein of mer- riment becomes gradually less fertile, and weariness anticipates the close of a work which had long amused while it disgusted us. Allusions to particular characters are frequent, and, in general, transparent enough with the aid of a little information pato et historiato. The editor speaks of the book as obsolete in orthography and style. It is probably, however, not older than the last years of the fifteenth century, being dedicated to Lucrezia Borgia. It Is a very prolix and tedious romance, in three books and two hundred and nineteen chapters, written in a semi-poetical diffuse style, and much in the usual manner of love stories. Ginguene and Tiraboschi do not mention it ; the Biographic Universelle does. Mr. Dunlop has given a short account of a French novel, entitled Leg Aventures de Ly- cidas et de C eorithe, which he considers as the earliest and best specimen of what he calls the spiritual romance, unmixed with chivalry or allugory, iii. 61. It was written in 1529, by Basire, archdeacon of Sens. I should suspect that there had been some of this class already in Germany ; they certainly became common in that country af terwards. about contemporaneous history, in several parts of Rabelais ; but much of what has been taken for political and religious satire cannot, as far as I perceive, be satisfactorily traced beyond the capricious imagination of the author. Those who have found Montluc, the famous bishop of Valence, in Panurge, or Antony of Bourbon, father of Henry IV., in Pantagruel, keep no measures with chronology. Panurge is so admirably conceived, that we may fairly reckon him original ; but the germ of the character is in the gracioso, or clown, of the extem- poraneous stage ; the roguish, selfish, cowardly, cunning attendant, who became Panurge in the plastic hands of Rabelais, and Sancho in those of Cervantes. The French critics have not in general done justice to Rabelais, whose manner was not that of the age of Louis XIV. The Tale of a Tub appears to me by far the closest imitation of it, and to be con- ceived altogether in a kindred spirit ; but in general those who have had reading enough to rival the copiousnesss of Ra- belais have wanted his invention and hu- mour, or the riotousness of his animal spirits. SECT. IV. ' Struggle between Latin and Italian Lan- guages Italian and Spanish polite Writers Criticism in Italy In France and England. 50. Among the polished writers of Italy, we meet on every side the contest of Latin name of Bembo ; great in an* Italian Italian as well as in Latin lane 8 *"- literature, in prose as in verse. It is now the fourth time that it occurs to us ; and in no instance has he merited more of his country. Since the fourteenth century, to repeat what has been said before, so ab- sorbing had become the love of ancient learning, that the natural language, beauti- ful and copious as it really was, and polished as it had been under the hands of Boccaccio, seemed to a very false-judging pedantry scarce worthy of the higher kinds of composition. Those too who with en- thusiastic diligence had acquired the power of writing Latin well, did not brook so much as the equality of their native lan- guage. In an oration delivered at Bologna in 1529 before the emperor and pope, by Romolo Amasco, one of the good writers of the sixteenth century, he not only pronounced a panegyric upon the Latin tongue, but contended that the Italian should be reserved for shops and markets, Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 217 and the conversation of the vulgar ;* nor was this doctrine, probably in rather a less degree, uncommon during that age. A dialogue of Sperone relates to this de- bated question, whether the Latin or Italian language should be preferred ; one of the interlocutors (probably Lazaro Buo- namici, an eminent scholar) disdaining the latter as a mere corruption. It is a very ingenious performance, well conducted on both sides, and may be read with pleasure. The Italians of that age are as clever in criticism as they are wearisome on the common-places of ethics. It purports to have been written the year after the oration of Romolo Amaseo, to which it alludes. 51. It is ail evidence of the more liberal influence of spirit that generally accom- Bembo in this, panies the greatest abilities, that Bembo, much superior to Amaseo in fame as a Latin writer, should have been among the first to retrieve the honour of his native language by infusing into it that elegance and selection of phrase which his taste had taught him in Latin, and for which the Italian is scarcely less adapted. In the dialogue of Sperone quoted above, it is said that " it was the general opinion no one would write Italian who could write Latin ; a prejudice in some measure lightened by the poem of Politian on the tournament of Julian de' Medici, but not taken away till Bembo, a Venetian gentle- man, as learned in the ancient languages as Politian, showed that he did not disdain his maternal tongue." 2 52. It is common in the present age to Apology for show as indiscriminating a Latinisu. disdain of those who wrote in Latin as they seem to have felt towards their own literature. But the taste and imagination of Bembo are not given to every one ; and we must remember, in justice to such men as Amaseo, who, though they imitate well, are yet but imi- tators in style, that there was really scarce a book in Italian prose written with any elegance, except the Decamerone of Boc- caccio ; the manner of which, as Tiraboschi justly observes, however suitable to those sportive fictions, was not very well adapted to serious eloquence. 3 Nor has the Italian language, we may add, in its very best models, attained so much energy and con- densation as will satisfy the ear or the un- derstanding of a good Latin scholar ; and there can be neither pedantry nor ab- surdity in saying, that it is an inferior i Tiraboschi, x. 389. a P. 430. (edit. 1596). Life of Bembo. organ of human thought. The most valid objection to the employment of Latin in public discourses or in moral treatises, is its exclusion of those whose advantage we are supposed to seek, and whose sympathy we ought to excite. But this objection, though not much less powerful in reality than at present, struck men less sensibly in that age, when long use of the ancient language, in which even the sermons of the clergy were frequently delivered, had taken away the sense of its impropriety. 1 53. This controversy points out some de- gree of change in public Character of the opinion, and the first stage controversy, of that struggle against the aristocracy of erudition, which lasted more or less for nearly two centuries, till, like other strug- gles of still more importance, it ended in the victory of the many. In the days of Poggio and Politian, the native Italian no more claimed an equality, than the ple- beians of Rome demanded the consulship in the first years of the republic. These are the revolutions of human opinion, bear- ing some analogy and parallelism to those of civil society, which it is the business of an historian of literature to indicate. 54. The life of Bembo was spent, after the loss of his great patron Leo X., in literary elegance at Padua. Here he formed an extensive library and collection of medals : and here he enjoyed the society of the learned, whom that university supplied, or who visited him from other parts of Italy and Europe. Far .below Sadolet in the solid virtues of his character, and not probably his superior in learning, he has certainly left a greater name, and contributed more to the literary progress of his native country. He died at an advanced age in 1547 ; having a few years before obtained a cardinal's hat on the recommendation of Sadolet. 2 55. The style of some other Italian and Spanish writers, Castiglione, Sperone, Ma- chiavel, Guevara, Oliva, has been already 1 Sadolet himself had rather discouraged Bembo from writing Italian, as appears from one of his epistles, thanking his friend for the present of a book, perhaps Le Prose. Sed tu fortasse conjicis ex eo, ilia mihi non placere, quod te avocare solebam ab illis literis. Faciebam ego id quidem, sed consilio, ut videbar, bono. Cum enim in Latinis major multo inesset dignitaa, tuque in ea facultate princeps mihi longe viderere, non tarn abstrahe- bam te illinc, quam hue vocabam. Nee studium reprehendebam in illis tuum, sed te majors quaedam spectare debere arbitrabar. Epist. lib. ii. p. 55. 2 Tiraboschi, ix. 296. Corniani, iv. 99. Sa- dolet. Epist. lib. xii. p. 555. 218 Literature of Europe from 1520/0 1550. adverted to when the subject of their writ- character of ing 3 W&B before us ; and it Italian and would be tedious to dwell pan ^ r *" upon them again in this point of view. The Italians have been accustomed to associate almost every kind of excellence with the word cinquecento. They extol the elegant style and fine taste of those writers. But Andres has re- marked with no injustice, that if we find purity, correctness, and elegance of ex- pression in the chief prose writers of this century, we cannot but also acknowledge an empty prolixity of periods, a harsh in- volution of words and clauses, a jejune and wearisome circuity of sentences, with a rtriking deficiency of thought. " Let us admit the graces of mere language in the famous authors of this period ; but we must own them to be far from models of elo- quence, so tedious and languid as they are." 1 The Spanish writers of the same century, he says afterwards, nourished as well as the Italian with the milk of anti- quity, transfused the spirit and vigour of these ancients into their own compositions, not with the servile imitation of the others, nor seeking to arrange their phrases and round their periods, the source of languor and emptiness, so that the best Spanish prose is more flowing and harmonious than the contemporary Italian. 2 56. The French do not claim, I believe, to have produced at the EnglUh writn. miMle of the sixteent h cen- tury any prose writer of a polished or vigorous style, Calvin excepted, the dedi- cation of whose Institutes to Francis I. is a model of purity and elegance for the age. 3 Sir Thomas More's Life of More ' Edward V., written about 1509, appears to me the first example of good English language ; pure and perspicu- ous, well-chosen, without vulgarisms or pedantry. 4 His polemical tracts are in- ferior, but not ill-written. We have seen that Sir Thomas Elyot had some vigour of style. Ascham, whose Toxophilus, or dia- logue on archery, came out in 1544, does uot excel him. But his works have been reprinted in modern times, and are consequently better known than those of Elyot. The early 1 Andres, vii. 68. 2 Id. 7-'. 3 Neufchatean, Essai sur les Meilleurs Ou- Trages dans la Dangue Franchise, p. 135. < This has been reprinted entire in Holing- shed's Chronicle ; and the reader may find a long extract in the preface to Todd'a edition of John- son's Dictionary. I should name the account of Jane Shore as a model of elegant narration. Italian criticism. English writers are seldom select enough in their phrases to bear such a critical judgment as the academicians of Italy were wont to exercise. 57. Next to the models of style, we may place those writings which are designed to form them. In all sorts of criticism, whether it confines itself to the idioms of a single language, or rises to something like a general principle of taste, the Italian writers had a decided priority in order of time as well as of merit. We have already mentioned the earliest work, that of Fortunio, on Italian gram- mar. Liburnio, at Venice, in 1521, fol- lowed with his Volgari Eleganzie. But this was speedily eclipsed by a work of Bembo, published in 1525, with the rather singular title, Le Prose. These observa- tions of the native language, commenced more than twenty years before, are written in dialogue, supposed to originate in the great controversy of that age, whether it were worthy of a man of letters to employ his mother-tongue instead of Latin. Bembo well defended the national , , . ,. . Bembo. cause ; and by judicious criticism on the language itself, and the best writers in it, put an end to the most specious argument under which the advo- cates of Latin sheltered themselves, that the Italian, being a mere congeries of in- dependent dialects, varying not only in pronunciation and orthography, but in their words and idioms, and having been written with unbounded irregularity and constant adoption of vulgar phrases, could afford no certain test of grammatical purity or grace- ful ornament. It was thought necessary by Bembo to meet this objection by the choice of a single dialect ; and though a Venetian, he had no hesitation to recognise the superiority of that spoken in Florence. The Tuscan writers of that century proudly make use of his testimony in aid of their pretensions to dictate the laws of Italian idiom. Varchi says, "The Italians cannot be sufficiently thankful to Bembo, for hav- ing not only purified their language from the rust of past ages, but given it such re- gularity and clearness, that it has become what we now see." This early work, how- ever, as might be expected, has not wholly escaped the censure of a school of subtle and fastidious critics, in whom Italy be- came fertile. 1 58. Several other treatises on the Italian language appeared even before the middle of the century ; though few comparatively with the more celebrated and elaborate 1 GInguene, vii. 390. Cornianl, iv. 111. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 219 labours of criticism in its latter portion. None seem to deserve mention, unless it be the Observations of Ludovico Dolce (Venice 1550), which were much improved in sub- sequent editions. Of the higher kind of criticism which endeavours to excite and guide our perceptions of literary excellence, we find few or no specimens, even in Italy, within this period, except so far as the dialogues of Bembo furnish instances. 59. France was not destitute of a few ob- Grammarianj scure treatises at this time, and critics in enough to lay the founda- Fiance. tions of her critical litera- ture. The complex rules of French metre were to be laid down ; and the language was irregular in pronunciation, accent, and orthography. These meaner, but necessary, elements of correctness occupied three or four writers, of whom Coujet has made brief mention ; Sylvius, or Du Bois, who seems to have been the earliest writer on grammar ; Stephen Dolet, better known by his unfortunate fato, than by his essay on French punctuation } and though Gou- jet does not name him, we may add an Englishman, Palsgrave, who published a French grammar in English as early as 1530. 2 An earlier production than any of these is the Art de Plaine Rhetorique, by Peter Fabry, 1521; in which, with the help of some knowledge of Cicero, he at- tempted, but with little correctness, and often in absurd expressions, to establish the principles of oratory. If his work is no better than Goujet represents it to be, its popularity must denote a low condition of literature in France. 3 The first who aspired to lay down anything like laws of taste in poetry, was Thomas Sibilet, whose Art PoStique appeared in 1548. This is in two books ; the former relating to the metrical rules of French verse, the latter giving precepts, short and judicious, for different kinds of composition. It is not, however, a work of much importance. 4 60. A more remarkable grammarian of Orthography of this time was Louis Meigret, Meigret. w ij O endeavoured to reform orthography by adapting it to pronuncia- tion. In a language where these had come to differ so prodigiously as they did in French, something of this kind would be silently effected by the printers ; but the bold scheme of Meigret went beyond their ideas of reformation ; and he complains that he could not prevail to have his words 1 Goujet, Bibliotheque Francaise, i. 42, 81. 2 Biogr. Univ., Palsgrave. 3 Goujet, i. 301. 4 Goujet, iii. 92. to the public in the form he pre- ferred. They were ultimately less rigid ; and the new orthography appears in some grammatical treatises of Meigret, published about 1550. It was not, as we know, very successful ; but he has credit given him for some improvements which have been re- tained in French printing. Meigret's French grammar, it has been said, is the first that contains any rational or proper principles of the language. It has been observed, I know not how correctly, that he was the first who denied the name of case to those modifications of sense in nouns which are not marked by inflexion ; and the writer to whom I am indebted for this adds, what is more worth attention, that this limited meaning of the word case, which the modern grammars generally adopt, is rather an arbitrary deviation from their predecessors. 1 61. It would have been strange, if we could exhibit a list of Eng- cox's Art of lish writers on the subject Ehetorlc. of our language in the reign of Henry VIII. , when it has, at all times, been the most neglected department of our literature. The English have ever been as indocile in acknowledging the rules of criticism, even those which determine the most ordinary questions of grammar, as the Italians and French have been voluntarily obedient. Nor had they as yet drunk deep enough of classical learning to discriminate, by any steady principle, the general beauties of composition. Yet among the scanty rivu- lets that the English press furnished, we find "The Art or Craft of Rhetoryke," dedicated by Leonard Cox to Hugh Far- ingdon, abbot of Reading. This book, which, though now very scarce, was trans- lated into Latin, and twice printed at Cra- cow in the year 1526, 2 is the work of a schoolmaster and man of reputed learning. The English edition has no date, but was probably published about 1524. Cox says : " I have partly translated out of a work of rhetoric written in the Latin tongue, and partly compiled of my own, and so made a little treatise in manner of an introduction into this aforesaid science, and that in the English tongue, remembering that every good thing, after the saying of the philo- sopher, the more common the better it is." His Art of Rhetoric follows the usual dis- tribution of the ancients, both as to the kinds of oration and their parts ; with ex- amples, chiefly from Roman history, to 1 Biogr. Univ., Meigret, a good article. Gou- jet, i. 83. 2 Panzer. 220 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. direct the choice of arguments. It is hard to say how much may be considered as his own. The book is in duodecimo, and con- tains but eighty-five pages ; it would of course be unworthy of notice in a later period. CHAPTER IX. OK THE SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE OP EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550. SECT. I. On Mathematical and Physical Science. 1. THE first translation of Euclid from Geometrical the Greek text was made by treatise*. Zamberti of Venice, and ap- peared in 1505. It was republished at Basle in 1537. The Spherics of Theodosius and the Conies of Apollonius were trans- lated by men, it is said, more conversant with Greek than with geometry. A higher praise is due to Werner of Nuremberg, the first who aspired to restore the geometrical analysis of the ancients. The treatise of Regiomontanus on triangles was first pub- lished in 1533. It may be presumed that its more important contents were already known to geometers. Montucla hints that the editor Schaener may have introduced some algebraic solutions which appear in this work ; but there seems no reason to doubt, that Regiomontanus was suffi- ciently acquainted with that science. The treatise of Vitello on optics, which belongs to the thirteenth century, was first printed in 1533.1 2. Oronce Finee, with some reputation in his own times, has, ac- cording to Montucla, no pre- tension to the name of a geometer; and another Frenchman, Fernel, better known as a physician, who published a Cosmo- theoria in 1527, though he first gave the length of a degree of the meridian, and came not far from the truth, arrived at it by so unscientific a method, being in fact no other than counting the revolutions of a wheel along the main road, that he cannot be reckoned much higher. 2 These are ob- scure names in comparison with Joachim, surnamed Rhceticus from his native country. After the publication of the work of Regiomon- tanus on trigonometry, he conceived the project of carrying those labours still farther ; and calculated the sines, tangents, and secants, the last of which he first re- duced to tables, for every minute of the 1 Montucla, Kastner. 2 Montucla, ii. 316. Kastner, ii. 329. Fernet quadrant, to a radius of unity followed by fifteen cyphers ; one of the most re- markable monuments, says Montucla, of human patience, or rather of a devotion to science, the more meritorious that it could not be attended with much glory. But this work was not published till 1594, and then not so complete as Rhceticus had left it.* 3. Jerome Cardan is, as it were, the founder of the higher alge- cardan and Tar- bra ; for, whatever he may tagiia. have borrowed from others, we derive the science from his Ars Magna, published in 1545. It contains many valuable dis- coveries ; but that which has been most celebrated is the rule for the solution of cubic equations, generally known by Car- dan's name, though he had vj. j -j. t c Cubic equation*. obtained it from a man of equal genius in algebraic science, Nicolas Tartaglia. The original inventor appears to have been Scipio Ferreo, who, about 1505, by some unknown process, discovered the solution of a single case ; that of x 3 +p x=q. Ferreo imparted the secret to one Fiore, or Floridus, who challenged Tartaglia to a public trial of skill, not un- usual in that age. Before he heard of this, Tartaglia, as he assures us himself, had found out the solution of two other forms of cubic equation ; a:' +p x 2 =q ; and x 3 -p x- q. When the day of trial arrived, Tartaglia was able not only to solve the problems offered by Fiore, but to baffle him entirely by others which re- sulted in the forms of equation, the solu- tion of which had been discovered by him- self. This was in 1535 ; and four years afterwards Cardan obtained the secret from Tartaglia under an oath of secrecy. In his Ars Magna, he did not hesitate to violate this engagement ; and though ho gave Tartaglia the credit of the discovery, revealed the process to the world. 2 He 1 Montucla, 1. 582. Biogr. Univ., art. Joachim Kastner, i. 561. 2 Playfair, in his second dissertation in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, though he cannot but condemn Cardan, seems to think Tartaglia Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 221 has said himself, that by the help of Fer- rari, a very good mathematician, he ex- tended his rule to some cases not compre- hended in that of Tartaglia ; but the best historian of early algebra seems not to allow this claim. 1 4. This writer, Cossali, has ingeniously Beauty of the attempted to trace the pro- discovery, cess by which Tartaglia ar- rived at this discovery ; 2 one which, when compared with the other leading rules of algebra, where the invention, however use- ful, has generally lain much nearer the sur- face, seems an astonishing effort of sagacity. Even Harriott's beautiful generalisation of the composition of equations was pre- pared by what Cardan and Vieta had done before, or might have been suggested by observation in the less complex cases. 3 rightly treated for having concealed his dis- covery ; and others have echoed this strain. Tartaglia himself says in a passage I have read in Cossali, that he meant to have divulged it ultimately ; but in that age money as well as credit was to be got by keeping the secret ; and those who censure him wholly forget, that the solution of cubic equations was, in the actual state of algebra, perfectly devoid of any utility to the world. 1 Cossali, Storia Critica d' Algebra (1797), ii. 96, &c. Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary Montucla, i. 591. Kastner, i. 152. 2 Ibid. p. 145. Tartaglia boasts of having discovered that the cube of p+q=p 3-fp2 q+p q2 +q 3. Such was the ignorance of literal algebra ; yet in this state of the science he solved cubic equations. s Cardan strongly expresses his sense of this recondite discovery. And as the passage in which he retraces the early progress of algebra is short, and is quoted from Cardan's works, which are scarce in England, by Kastner, who is himself not very commonly known here, I shall transcribe the whole passage, as a curiosity for our philomaths. Hsec ars olim a Mahomete Mosis Arabis fllio initium sumpsit. Etenim hujus rei locuples testis Leonardus Pisanus. Reliquit autem capitula quatuor, cum suis demonstrationibus quas nos locis suis ascri- bemus. Post multa vero temporum intervalla tria capitula derivativa addita illis sunt, incerto autore, qua; tamen cum principalibus a Luca Paciolo posita sunt. Demum etiam ex primis, alia tria derivativa, a quodam ignoto viro in- venta legi, haec tamen minime in lucem pro- dierant, cum essent aliis longe utiliora, nam cubi et numeri et cubi quadrati osslimationem docebant. Verum temporibus nostris Scipio Ferreus Bononiensis, capitulum cubi et rerum numero sequalium [x3 +p x=q] invenit, rem sane pulchram et admirabllem : cum omnem humanam subtilitatem, omnis innenii mortalis claritatem ars ha:c svperet, donum profecto cceleste, experiment-urn ?em virtutis animorum, atque adeo ttlustre, vt qui here attigerit nihil non inttlligere posse se credit. Hujus semulatione Kicolaus Tartalea Brixellensis, amicus noster, 5. Cardan, though not entitled to the honour of this discovery, cardan's other nor even equal, perhaps, in discoveries, mathematical genius to Tartaglia, made a great epoch in the science of algebra ; and, ac- cording to Cossali and Hutton, has a claim to much that Montucla has unfairly or carelessly attributed to his favourite Vieta. "It appears," says Dr. Hutton, "from this short chapter (lib. x. cap. 1. of the Ars Magna), that he had discovered most of the principal properties of the roots of equa- tions, and could point out the number and nature of the roots, partly from the signs of the terms, and partly from the magnitudes and relations of the co- efficients. " Cossali has given the larger part of a quarto volume to the algebra of Cardan; his object being to establish the priority of the Italian's claim to most of the discoveries ascribed by Montucla to others, and especially to Vieta. Cardan knew how to transform a complete cubic equation into one wanting the second term ; one of the flowers which Montucla has placed on the head of Vieta ; and this he explains so fully, that Cossali charges the French historian of mathematics with having never read the Ars Magna. l Leonard of Pisa had been aware that quadratic equations might have two posi- tive roots ; but Cardan first perceived, or at least first noticed, the negative roots, which he calls " fictse radices." 2 In this perhaps there is nothing extraordinary ; the algebraic language must early have been perceived by such acute men as ex- ercised themselves in problems to give a double solution of every quadratic equa- cum in certamen cum illius discipulo Antonio Maria Florido venisset, capitulum idem ne vin- ceretur invenit, qui mihi ipsum multis precibus exoratus tradidit. Deceptus enim ego verbis Lucas Pacioli, qui ultra sua capitula generale ullum aliud esse posse negat (quanquam tot jam antea rebus a me inventis sub manibus esset, desperabam) tamen [et ?] invenire q. quasrere non audebam. [sic, sed perperam non- nihil scribi liquet]. Inde autem illo habito demonstrationem venatus, intellexi complura alia posse haberi. Ac eo studio, auctaque jam confldentia, per me partim, ac etiam aliqua per Ludovicum Ferrarium, olim alumnum nostrum, inveni. Porroquse ab his inventa sunt, illorum nominibus decorabuntur, cxliii. Copernicus. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 223 that time attainable. He became possessed afterwards of an ecclesiastical benefice in his own country. It appears to have been about 1507, that after meditating on vari- ous schemes besides the Ptolemaic, he began to adopt and confirm in writing that of Pythagoras, as alone capable of explaining the planetary motions with that simplicity which gives a presumption of truth in the works of nature. 1 Many years of exact observation confirmed his mind in the persuasion that he had solved the grandest problem which can occupy the astronomer. He seems to have com- pleted his treatise about 1530 ; but perhaps dreaded the bigoted prejudices which afterwards oppressed Galileo. Hence he is careful to propound his theory as an hypothesis ; though it is sufficiently mani- fest that he did not doubt of its truth. It was first publicly announced by his dis- ciple Joachim Rhceticus, already mentioned for his trigonometry, in the Narratio de Revolutionibus Copernici, printed at Dant- zic, in 1540. The treatise of Copernicus himself, three years afterwards, is dedi- cated to the pope, Paul III., as if to shield himself under that sacred mantle. But he was better protected by the common safeguard against oppression. The book reached him on the day of his death ; and he just touched with his hands the great legacy he was to bequeath to mankind. But many years were to elapse before they availed themselves of the wisdom of Co- pernicus. The progress of his system, even n.mong astronomers, as we shall hereafter see, was exceedingly slow.2 We may just 1 This is the proper statement of the Coperni- can argument, as it then stood ; it rested on what we may call a metaphysical probability, founded upon its beauty and simplicity ; for it is to be remembered that the Ptolemaic hypo- thesis explained all the phenomena then known. Those which are only to be solved by the suppo- sition of the earth's motion were discovered long afterwards. This excuses the slow recep- tion of the new system, interfering as it did with so many prejudices, and incapable of that kind of proof which mankind generally demand. 2 Gassendi, Vita Coparnici. Biogr. Univ. Montuc'a. Kastner. Playfair. Gassendi, p. 14-22, gives a short analysis of the great work of Copernicus, de orbium Ccelestium llevolution- ibus, p. 22. The hypothesis is generally laid down in the first of the six books. One of the most remarkable passages in Copernicus is his conjecture that gravitation was not a central tendency, as had been supposed, but an attrac- tion common to matter, and probably extend- ing to the heavenly bodies, though it does not appear that he surmised their mutual influences in virtue of it : gravitatem esse affectionem non terrse totius, sed partium ejus propriam, qualem mention here, that no kind of progress was made in mechanical or optical science during the first part of the sixteenth century. SECT. II. On Medicine and Anatomy. 8. The revival of classical literature had an extensive influence where we might not immediately anticipate it, Revival of Greek on the science of medicine. medicine. Jurisprudence itself, though nominally and exclusively connected with the laws of Rome, was hardly more indebted to the restorers of ancient learning than the art of healing, which seems to own no mistress but nature, no code of laws but those which regulate the human system. But the Greeks, among their other vast su- periorities above the Arabians, who bor- rowed so much, and so much perverted what they borrowed, were not only the real founders, but the best teachers of medicine ; a science which in their hands seems, more than any other, to have an- ticipated the Baconian philosophy ; being founded on an induction proceeding by select experience, always observant, al- ways cautious, and ascending slowly to the generalities of theory. But instead of Hippocrates and Galen, the Arabians brought in physicians of their own, men doubtless of considerable, though inferior merit, and substituted arbitrary or empiri- cal precepts for the enlarged philosophy of the Greeks. The scholastic subtilty also obtruded itself even into medicine; and the writings of the middle ages on these subjects are alike barbarous in style and useless in substance. Pharmacy owes much to this oriental school, but it has retained no reputation in physiological or pathological science. 9. Nicolas Leonicenus, who became pro- fessor at Ferrara before Linacre and 1470, was the first restorer other physicians, of the Hippocratic method of practice. He lived to a very advanced age, and was the first translator of Galen from the Greek. 1 Our excellent countryman, Lin- acre, did almost as much for medicine. The College of Physicians, founded by Henry VIII. in 1518, venerates him as its original president. His primary object was to secure a learned profession, to rescue the art of healing from mischievous soli etiam et lunae caeterisque astris convenire credibile est. These are the words of Coper- nicus himself, quoted by Gassendi, p. 19. 1 Biogr. Univ. Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine (traduit par Jourdan), vol. ii. 224 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. ignorance, and to guide the industrious student in the path of real knowledge, which at that time lay far more through the regions of ancient learning than at present. It was important not for the mere dignity of the profession, but for its proper ends, to encourage the cultivation of the Greek language, or to supply its want by accurate versions of the chief medical writers. 1 Linacre himself, and several eminent physicians on the con- tinent, Cop, Ruel, Gonthier, Fuchs, by such labours in translation, restored the school of Hippocrates. That of the Ara- bians rapidly lost ground, though it pre- served through the sixteenth century an ascendancy in Spain ; and some traces of its influence, especially the precarious em- piricism of judging diseases by the renal secretion, without sight of the patient, which was very general in that age, con- tinued long afterwards in several parts of Europe. 3 10. The study of Hippocrates taught the Medical medical writers of this cen- innovators. tury to observe and describe like him. Their works, chiefly indeed after the period with which we are immedi- ately concerned, are very numerous, and some of them deserve much praise, though neither the theory of the science, nor the power of judiciously observing and describ- ing, was yet in a very advanced state. The besetting sin of all who should have la- boured for truth, an undue respect for authority, made Hippocrates and Galen, especially the former, as much the idols of the medical world, as Augustin and Aris- totle were of theology and metaphysics. This led to a pedantic erudition, and con- tempt of opposite experience, .which ren- dered the professors of medicine an inex- haustible theme of popular ridicule. Some, however, even at an early time, broke away from the trammels of implicit obedience to the Greek masters. Fernel, one of the first physicians in France, rejecting what he could not approve in their writings, gave an example of free inquiry. Ar- gentier of Turin tended to shake the in- fluence of Galen by founding a school which combated many of his leading the- ories. 3 But the most successful opponent of the orthodox creed was Paracelsus. Of 1 Johnson's Life of Linacre, p. 207, 279. Biogr. Britann. 2 Sprengel, vol. iii. passim. 3 Sprengel, lil. 204. " Argentier," he says, "was the first to lay down a novel and true principle, that the different faculties of the soul are not inherent in certain distinct parts of the brain." Berenger. his speculative philosophy, or rather the wild chimaeras which he bor- rowed or devised, enough has been said in former pages. His re- putation was originally founded on a sup- posed skill in medicine ; and it is probable that, independently of his real merit in the application of chemistry to medicine, and in the employment of very powerful agents, such as antimony, the fanaticism of his pretended philosophy would exercise that potency over the bodily frame, to which disease has, in recent experience, so often yielded. 1 11. The first important advances in anatomical knowledge since the time of Mundinus were made by Berenger of Carpi, in his com- mentary upon that author, printed at Bologna in 1521, which it was thought worth while to translate into English as late as 1664, and in his Isagogoe Breves in Anatomiam, Bologna, 1522. He followed the steps of Mundinus in human dissection, and thus gained an advantage over Galen. Hence we owe to him the knowledge of several specific differences between the human structure and that of quadrupeds. Be- renger is asserted to have discovered two of the small bones of the ear, though this is contested on behalf of Achillini. Portal observes, that though some have regarded Berenger as the restorer of the science of anatomy, it is hard to strip one so much superior to him as Vesalius of that hon- our.* 12. Every early anatomist was left far behind when Vesalius, a native of Brussels, who ac- quired in early youth an extraordinary re- putation on this side of the Alps, and in 1540 became professor of the science at Pavia, published at Basle, in 1543, his great work De Corporis Humani Fabrica. If Vesalius was not quite to anatomy what Copernicus was to astronomy, he has yet been said, a little hyperbolically, to have discovered a new world. A superstitious prejudice against human dissection had re- strained the ancient anatomists in general to pigs and apes, though Galen, according to Portal, had some experience in the 1 Sprengel, vol. iii. 2 Hist, de 1'Anatomie, i. 277. Portal remarks in his preface, p. xii, that many discoveries sup- posed to be modern may be detected in th old anatomists ; thus Berenger knew that the thorax is larger in man, and the pelvis in woman, which a living anatomist, he says, has assumed as his own. But the Greek sculptors surely knew this as well as Berenger or Portal. Vesaliag. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 225 former. Mundinus and Berenger, by oc- casionally dissecting the human body, had thrown much additional light on its struc- ture ; and the superficial muscles, those immediately under the integuments, had been studied by Da Vinci and others for the purposes of painting and sculpture. Vesalius first gave a complete description of the human body, with designs which, at the time, were ascribed to Titian. "We have here therefore a great step made in science; the precise estimation of Vesalius's discoveries mast be sought, of course, in anatomical history. 1 13. "Vesalius," says Portal, in the Portal's account rapturous strain of one de- ofhim. voted to his own science, "appears to me one of the greatest men who ever existed. Let the astronomers vaunt their Copernicus, the natural philo- sophers their Galileo and Torricelli, the mathematicians their Pascal, the geo- graphers their Columbus, I shall always place Vesalius above all their heroes. The first study for man is man. Vesalius has had this noble object in view, and has ad- mirably attained it, he has made on him- self and his fellows such discoveries as Columbus could only make by travelling to the extremity of the world. The dis- coveries of Vesalius are of direct impor- tance to man; by acquiring fresh know- ledge of his own structure, man seems to enlarge his existence ; while discoveries in geography or astronomy affect him but in a very indirect manner." He proceeds to compare him with "Winslow, in order to show how little had been done in the in- termediate time. Vesalius seems not to have known the osteology of the ear. His account of the teeth is not complete ; but he first clearly described the bones of the feet. He has given a full account of the muscles, but with some mistakes, and was ignorant of a very few. In his account of the sanguineous and nervous systems, the errors seem more numerous. He describes the intestines better than his predecessors, and the heart very well ; the organs of generation not better than they, and some- times omits their discoveries ; the brain admirably, little having since been added. 14. The zeal of Vesalius and his fellow- His human dts- students for anatomical sections. science led them to strange scenes of adventure. Those services, which have since been thrown on the refuse of mankind, they voluntarily undertook. Entire affection scorneth nicer hands. They prowled by night in charnel-houses, 1 Portal p. 394-433. Fate of Vesalius. Other anatomists. they dug up the dead from the grave, they climbed the gibbet, in fear and silence, to steal the mouldering carcase of the mur- derer ; the risk of ignominious punishment, and the secret stings of superstitious re- morse, exalting no doubt the delight of these useful, but not very enviable pur- suits. 1 15. It may be mentioned here, that Vesalius, after living for some years in the court of Charles and Philip as their phy- sician, met with a strange re- verse, characteristic enough of such a place. Being absurdly accused of having dissected a Spanish gentleman before he was dead, Vesalius only escaped capital punishment, at the instance of the inquisition, by undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, during which he was ship- wrecked, and died of famine in one of the Greek islands. 2 16. The best anatomists were found in Italy. But Francis I. in- vited one of these, Vidus Vidius, to his royal college at Paris ; and from that time France had several of re- spectable name. Such were Charles Eti- enne, one of the great typographical family, Sylvius, and Gonthier.3 A French writer about 1540, Levasseur, appears to have known, at least, the circulation of the blood through the lungs, as well as the valves of the arteries and veins, and their direction, and its purpose ; treading closely on an anticipation of Harvey. 4 Portal has erroneously supposed the celebrated passage of Servetus on the circulation of the blood to be contained in his book de Trinitatis Erroribus, published in 1531, 5 whereas it is really found in the Christi- anismi Eestitutio, which did not appear till 1553. This gives Levasseur a priority of some importance in anatomical history. 17. The practice of trusting to animal dissection, from which it imperfection of was difficult for anatomists *** science, to extricate themselves, led some men of real merit into errors. They seem also not to have profited sufficiently by the writings of their predecessors. Massa of Venice, one of the greatest of this age, is ignorant 1 Portal, p. 395, 2 Portal, Tiraboschi, ix. 34. Biogr. Univ. 3 Portal, i. 330 et post. 4 Portal p. 373,, quotes the passage, which seems to warrant this inference, but is rather obscurely worded. It contains, to my appre- hension, a much nearer approximation to the theory of a general circulation than the more famous passage in Servetus; in which I can only perceive an acquaintance with that through the lungs. 8 ** SOO- 226 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. of some things known to Berenger. Many proofs occur in Portal, how imperfectly the elder anatomists could yet demon- strate the more delicate parts of the human body. Botany. SECT. in. On Natural History. 18. The progress of natural history, in all its departments, was very slow, and should of course be estimated by the additions made to the valuable materials collected by Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny. The few botanical treatises that had appeared before this time were too meagre and im- perfect to require mention. Otto Brunf els of Strasburg was the first who published, in 1530, a superior work, Herbarum Vivce Eicones in three volumes folio, with 238 wooden cuts of plants. 1 Euricius Cordus of Marburg, in his Botanilogicon, or dia- logues on plants, displays, according to the Biographie Universelle, but little know- ledge of Greek, and still less observation of nature. Cordus has deserved more Botanical praise (though this seems gardem. better due to Lorenzo de' Medici), as the first who established a botanical garden. This was at Marburg, in 1530. 2 But the fortunes of private phy- sicians were hardly equal to the cost of an useful collection. The university of Pisa led the way by establishing a public garden in 1545, according to the date which Tira- boschi has determined. That of Padua had founded a professorship of botany in 1533.3 19. Kuel, a physician of Soissons, an ex- cellent Greek scholar, had become known by a transla- tion of Dioscorides in 1516, upon which Huet has bestowed high praise. His more celebrated treatise de Natura Stirpium ap- peared at Paris in 1536, and is one of the handsomest offsprings of that press. It is 1 Biogr. Univ. a Blogr. Univ. Andres, xiil. 80. Eichhorn, iii. 304. See too Roscoe's Leo. X., iv. 125, for some pleasing notices of the early studies in natural history. Pontanus was fond of it ; and his poem on the cultivation of the lemon, orange, and citron (de Hortis Hesperidum) shows an acquaintance with some of the operations of horticulture. The garden of Bembo was also celebrated. Theophrastus and Dioscorides were published in Latin before 1500. But it was not till about the middle of the sixteenth century that botany, through the commentaries of Mat- thioli on Dioscorides, began to assume a distinct form, and to be studied as a separate branch. 3 ix. 10. Fuchs. a compilation from the Greek and Latin authors on botany, made with taste and judgment. His knowledge, however, de- rived from experience, was not considerable, though he has sometimes given the French names of species described by the Greeks, so far as his limited means of observation and the difference of climate enabled him. Many later writers have borrowed from Ruel their general definitions and descrip- tions of plants, which he himself took from Theophrastus. 1 20. Ruel, however, seems to have been left far behind by Leonard Fuchs, professor of medicine in more than one German university, who has secured a verdant immortality in the well-known Fuchsia. Besides many works on his own art, esteemed in their time, he published at Basle in 1542 his Commen- taries on the History of Plants, containing above 500 figures, a botanical treatise fre- quently reprinted, and translated into most European languages. "Considered as a naturalist, and especially as a botanist, Fuchs holds a distinguished place, and he has thrown a strong light on that science. His chief object is to describe exactly the plants used in medicine ; and his prints, though mere outlines, are generally faith- ful. He shows that the plants and vege- table products mentioned by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Hippocrates, and Galen had hitherto been ill known." 2 21. Matthioli, an Italian physician, in a peaceful retreat near Trent, accomplished a laborious re- pertory of medical botany in his Commen- taries on Dioscorides, published originally, 1544, in Italian, but translated by himself into Latin, and frequently reprinted throughout Europe. Not withstanding a bad arrangement, and the author's proneness to credulity, it was of great service at a time when no good work on that subject was in existence in Italy ; and its reputa- tion seems to have been not only general, but of long duration. 3 22. It was not singular that much should have been published, imper- LOW state of feet as it might be, on the zoology, natural history of plants, while that of animal nature, as a matter of science, lay almost neglected. The importance of vegetable products in medicine was far more extensive and various ; while the an- cient treatises, which formed substantially 1 Biogr. Univ. (byM. du Petit Thouars.) 2 Biogr. Univ. (by M. Du Petit Thouare). 3 Tiraboschi, ix. 2. Andres, xiii. 85. Comi- ani, vi. 5. Matthioli. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 227 the chief knowledge of nature possessed in the sixteenth century, are more copious and minute on the botanical than the ani- mated kingdom. Hence we find an abso- lute dearth of books relating to zoology. P. Jovius de Piscibus Romania is rather the work of a philologer and a lover of good cheer than a naturalist, and treats only of the fish eaten at the Roman tables. 1 Gil- lius de Vi et Natura Animalium is little else than a compilation from JSlian and other ancient authors, though Niceron says that the author has interspersed some ob- servations of his own. 2 No work of the least importance, even for that time, can perhaps be traced in Europe on any part of zoology, before the Avium praecipuarum Historia of our countryman Turner, pub- lished at Cologne in 1548, though this is confined to species described by the an- cients. Gesner, in his Pandects, which bear date in the same year, several times refers to it with commendation. 3 23. Agricola, a native of Saxony, ac- quired a perfect knowledge Agricola. Q j ^ p rocesseg O f metal- lurgy from the miners of Chemnitz, and perceived the immense resources that might be drawn from the abysses of the earth. "He is the first mineralogist," says Cuvier, " who appeared after the re- vival of science in Europe. He was to mineralogy what Gesner was to zoology ; the chemical part of metallurgy, and especially what relates to assaying, is treated with great care, and has been little improved down to the end of the eighteenth century." It is plain that he was acquainted with the classics, the Greek alchemists, and many manuscripts. Yet he believed in the goblins, to whom miners ascribe the effects of mephitic ex- halations. 4 SECT. IV. On Oriental Literature. 24. The study of Hebrew was naturally one of those which flourished best under the influence of protestantism. It was 1 Andres, xiii. 143. Eoscoe's Leo X. ubi supra. 2 Vol. Mill. Biogr. Univ. Andres, xiii. 144. 3 Pandect. Univers., lib. 14. Gesner may be said to make great use of Turner ; a high compliment from so illustrious a naturalist. He quotes also a book on quadrupeds lately printed in German by Michael Herr. Turner, whom we shall find again as a naturalist, be- came afterwards dean of Wells, and was one of the early puritans. See Chalmers's Dictionary 4 Biogr. Univ. exclusively connected with scriptural inter- pretation ; and could neither suit the polished irreligion of the Italians, nor the bigotry of those who owned no other standard than the Vulgate translation. Sperone observes in one of his dialogues, that as much as Latin is prized in Italy, so much do the Germans value the Hebrew language. 1 We have anticipated in another place the transla- tions of the Old Testament by Luther, Pagninus, and other Hebraists of this age. Sebastian Munster published the first grammar and lexicon of the Chaldee dia- lect in 1527. His Hebrew grammar had preceded in 1525. The Hebrew lexicon of Pagninus appeared in 1529 ; and that of Munster himself in 1543. TIT T -x j.1. i j Ellas Levita. Elias Levita, the learned Jew who has been already mentioned, deserves to stand in this his natural de- partment above even Munster. Among several works that fall within this period we may notice the Masorah (Venice, 1538, and Basle, 1539), wherein he excited the attention of the world by denying the authority and antiquity of vowel points, and a lexicon of the Chaldee and Rabbini- cal dialects, in 1541. "Those," says Si- mon, "who would thoroughly understand Hebrew should read the treatises of Elias Levita, which are full of important ob- servations necessary for the i j.- c j.i- j Pellican. explanation of the sacred text." 2 Pellican, one of the first who em- braced the principles of the Zwinglian re- form, has merited a warm eulogy from Simon for his Commentarii Bibliorum, (Zurich, 1531-1536, five volumes in folio), especially for avoiding that display of rab- binical learning which the German Heb- braists used to affect. 3 25. Few endeavours were made in this period towards the cultiva- Arabic and tion of the other Oriental Oriental languages. Pagnino printed literature, an edition of the Koran at Venice in 1530 ; but it was immediately suppressed ; a precaution hardly required, while there was no one able to read it. But it may have been supposed, that the leaves of some books, like that recorded in the Arabian Nights, contain an active poison that does not wait for the slow process of understanding their contents. Two crude attempts at introducing the Eastern tongues were made soon afterwards. One of these was by William Postel, a man of some parts and more reading, but chiefly known, while he was remembered at all, 1 P. 102 (edit. 159C). 2 Biogr. Univ. 3 Id. 228 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. for mad reveries of fanaticism, and an idolatrous veneration for a saint of his own manufacture, la mere Jeanne, the Joanna Southcote of the sixteenth cen- tury. "We are only concerned at present with his collection of alphabets, twelve in number, published at Paris in 1538. The greater part of these are Oriental. An Arabic grammar followed the same year ; but the types are so very imperfect, that it would be difficult to read them. A ]x>lyglott alphabet on a much larger scale appeared at Pa via the next year, through the care of Teseo Ambrogio, containing forty languages. Ambrogio gave also an introduction to the Chaldee, Syriac, and Armenian ; but very defective, at least as to the two latter. Such rude and incor- rect publications hardly deserve the name of beginnings. According to Andres, Arabic was publicly taught at Paris by Giustiniani, and at Salamanca by Clen- ardus. The jEthiopic version of the New Testament was printed at Rome in 1548. SECT. V. On. Geography and History. 26. The curiosity natural to mankind Geography it had been gratified by various Qrynaui. publications since the inven- tion of printing, containing either the re- lations of ancient travellers, such as Marco Polo, or of those under the Spanish or Portuguese flags, who had laid open two new worlds to the European reader. These were for the first time collected, to the number of seventeen, by Simon Grynaeus, a learned professor at Basle, in Novus Or- bis Regionum et Insularum Veteribus in- cognitarum, printed at Paris in 1532. We find also in this collection, besides an in- troduction to cosmography by Sebastian Munster, a map of the world bearing the date 1531. The cosmography of Apianus, professor at Ingoldstadt, published in 1524, contains also a map of the four quarters of the world. In this of Grynseus's collection, a rude notion of the eastern regions of Asia appears. Sumatra is called Taprobane, and placed in the 150th meridian. A vague delineation of China and the adjacent sea is given ; but Catay is marked further north. The island of Gilolo, which seems to be Japan, is about 240 east longitude. This is so far remarkable, that no voyages had yet been made in that sea. South America is noted as Terra Australis re- center inventa, sed nondum plane cognita ; and there is as much of North America as Sebastian Cabot had discovered, a little Apianus. Munster. enlarged by lucky conjecture. Magellan, by circumnavigating the world, had solved a famous problem. "We find accordingly in this map an attempt to divide the globe by the 360 meridians of longitude. The best account of his voyage, that by Pigafetta, was not published till 1556 ; but the first, Maximilianus de Insulis Moluccis, appeared in 1523. 27. The Cosmography of Apianus, above mentioned, was reprinted with additions by Gemma Frisius in 1533 and 1550. It is however, as a work of mere geography, very brief and superficial ; though it may exhibit as much of the astronomical part of the science as the times permitted. That of Sebastian Munster, published in 1546, not- withstanding its title, ex- tends only to the German empire. 1 The Isolario of Bordone (Venice, 1528) contains a description of all the islands of the world, with maps. 2 28. A few voyages were printed before the middle of the century, which have, for the most v ys ei - part, found their way into the collection of Ramusio. The most considerable is the history of the Indies, that is, of the Spanish dominions in America, by Gonzalo Her- nandex, sometimes called Oviedo, by which name he is placed in the Biographic Universelle. The author had resided for some years in St. Domingo. He published a summary of the general and natural history of the Indies in 1526 ; and twenty books of this entire work in 1535. The remaining thirty did not appear till 1783. In the long list of geographical treatises given by Ortelius, a small number belong to this earlier period of the century. But it may be generally said, that the acquaintance of Europe with the rest of the world could as yet be only obtained orally from Spanish and Portu- guese sailors or adventurers, and was such as their falsehood and blundering would impart. 29. It is not my design to comprehend historical literature, except Historical as to the chief publications, works, in these volumes ; and it is hitherto but a barren field ; for though Guicciardini died in 1540, his great history did not appear till 1564. Some other valuable histories, those of Nardi, Segni, Varchi, were also kept back through political or other causes, till a comparatively late period. That of Paulus Jovius, which is not in very high estimation, appeared in 1550, and may be 1 Eichhorn, iii. 294. 2 Tiraboschi, ix. 179. Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. 229 reckoned, perhaps, after that of Machiavel, the best of this age. Upon this side of the Alps, several works of this class, to which the historical student has recourse, might easily be enumerated ; but none of a philo- sophical character, or remarkable for beauty of style. I should, however, wish to make an exception for the Memoirs of the Chev- alier Bayard, written by his secretary, and known by the title of Le Loyal Serviteur ; they are full of warmth and simplicity. A chronicle bearing the name of Carion, but really written by Melanchthon, and pub- lished in the German language, 1532, was afterwards translated into Latin, and be- came the popular manual of universal history. 1 But ancient and mediaeval his- tory was as yet very imperfectly made known to those who had no access to its original sources. Even in Italy little had yet been done with critical or even exten- sive erudition. 30. Italy in the sixteenth century was Italian remarkable for the number academies. of her literary academies ; institutions, which, though by no means peculiar to her, have in no other country been so general or so conspicuous. We have already taken notice of that estab- lished by Aldus Manutius at Venice early in this century, and of those of older dates which had enjoyed the patronage of princes at Florence and Naples, as well as of that which Pomponius Lsetus and his associates, with worse auspices, had endeavoured to form at Rome. The Roman academy, after a long season of persecution or neglect, revived in the genial reign of Leo X. " Those were happy days," says Sadolet in 1529, writing to Angelo Colocci, a Latin poet of some reputation, " when in your suburban gardens, or mine on the Quirinal, or in the Circus, or by the banks of the Tiber, we held those meetings of learned men, all recommended by their own virtues and by public reputation. Then it was that after a repast, which the wit of the guests rendered exquisite, we heard poems or orations recited to our great delight, productions of the ingenious Casanuova, the sublime Vida, the elegant and correct Beroaldo, and many others still living or now no more." 2 Corycius, a wealthy Ger- man, encouraged the good-humoured emu- lation of these Roman luminaries. 3 But the miserable reverse, that not long after 1 Bayle, art. Carion. Eichhorn, 111. 285. 2 Sadolet, Epist. p. 225 (edit. 1554). Eoscoe has quoted this interesting letter. 3 Eoscoe, iii. 480. the death of Leo befell Rome, put an end to this academy, which was afterwards re- placed by others of less fame. 31. The first academies of Italy had chiefly directed their atten- They pay regard tion to classical literature ; to "> language they compared manuscripts, they sug- gested new readings, or new interpreta- tions, they deciphered inscriptions and coins, they sat in judgment on a Latin ode, or debated the propriety of a phrase. Their own poetry had, perhaps, never been neglected ; but it was not till the writings of Bembo founded a new code of criticism in the Italian language, that they began to study it minutely, and judge of composi- tions vdth that fastidious scrupulousness they had been used to exercise upon mo- dern Latinity. Several academies were established with a view to this purpose, and became the self-appointed censors of their native literature. The reader will remember what has been already men- tioned, that there was a peculiar source of verbal criticism in Italy, from the want of a recognised standard of idiom. The very name of the language was long in dispute. Bembo maintained that Florentine was the proper appellation. Varchi and other natives of the city have adhered to this very restrictive monopoly. Several, with more plausibility, contended for the name Tus- can ; and this, in fact, was so long adopted, that it is hardly yet altogether out of use. The majority, however, were not Tuscans, and while it is generally agreed that the highest purity of their language is to be found in Tuscany, the word Italian has naturally prevailed as its denomination. 32. The academy of Florence was in- stituted in 1540 to illus- Their fondness trate and perfect the Tuscan for Petrarch, language, especially by a close attention to the poetry of Petrarch. Their admiration of Petrarch became an exclusive idolatry ; the critics of this age would acknowledge no defect in him, nor excellence in any different style. Dissertations and com- mentaries on Petrarch, in all the diffuse- ness characteristic of the age and the nation, crowd the Italian libraries. We are, however, anticipating a little in men- tioning them ; for few belong to so early a period as the present. But by dint of this superstitious accuracy in style, the language rapidly acquired a purity and beauty which has given the writers of the sixteenth century a value in the eyes of their countrymen, not always so easily admitted by those who, being less able to perceive the delicacy of expression, are at 230 Literature of Europe from 1520 to 1550. leisure to yawn over their frequent tedious- ness and inanity. 33. The Italian academies, which arose They become in the first half of the con- numerous, tury, and we shall meet with others hereafter, are too numerous to be reckoned in these pages. The most famous were the Intronati of Siena, founded in 1525, and devoted, like that of Florence, to the improvement of their language ; the Infiammati of Padua, founded by some men of high attainments in 1534 ; and that of Modena, which, after a short career of brilliancy, fell under such suspicions of heresy, and was subjected to such in- quisitorial jealousy about 1542, that it never again made any figure in literary history.* 34. Those academies have usually been Their dis- distinguished by little pe- tinctions. culiarities, which border sometimes on the ridiculous, but serve pro- bably, at least, in the beginning, to keep up the spirit of such societies. They took names humorously quaint; they adopted devices and distinctions, which made them conspicuous, and inspired a vain pleasure in belonging to them. The Italian nobility, living a good deal in cities, and restrained from political business, fell willingly into these literary associations. They have, perhaps, as a body, been better educated, or, at least, better acquainted with their own literature and with classical antiquity, than men of equal rank in other countries. This was more the case in the sixteenth century than at present. Genius and eru- dition have been always honoured in Italy ; and the more probably that they have not to stand the competition of overpowering wealth, or of political influence. 35. Academies of the Italian kind do not Evil* connected greatly favour the vigorous with them, advances in science, and much less the original bursts of genius, for which men of powerful minds are designed by nature. They form an oligarchy, pre- tending to guide the public taste, as they are guided themselves, by arbitrary maxims and close adherence to precedents. The spirit of criticism they foster is a salutary barrier against bad taste and folly, but is 1 Tiraboschl, viii. ch. 4, is my chief authority about the Italian academies of this period. too minute and scrupulous in repressing the individualities which characterise real talents, and ends by producing an un- blemished mediocrity, without the powers of delight or excitement, for which alone the literature of the imagination is de- sired. 36. In the beginning of this century several societies were set on They succeed foot in Germany, for the i ^ Germany promotion of ancient learning, besides that already mentioned of the Rhine, esta- blished by Camerarius of Dalberg, and Conrad Celtes, in the preceding age. "Wimpfeling presided over one at Strasburg in 1514, and we find another at Augsburg in 1518. It is probable that the religious animosities which followed stood in the way of similar institutions ; or they may have existed without obtaining much cele- brity.i 37. Italy was rich, far beyond any other country, in public and pri- vate libraries. The Vatican, first in dignity, in antiquity, and in num- ber of books, increased under almost every successive pope, except Julius II. , the least favourable to learning of them all. The Laurentian library, purchased by Leo X., before his accession to the papacy, from a monastery at Florence, which had ac- quired the collection after the fall of the Medici in 1494, was restored to that city by Clement VII. , and placed in the newly- erected building which still contains it. The public libraries of Venice and Ferrara were conspicuous; and even a private citizen of the former, the Cardinal Grimani, is said to have left one of 8000 volumes ; at that time, it appears, a remarkable number. a Those of Heidelberg and Vienna, com- menced in the fifteenth century, were still the most distinguished in Germany; and Cardinal Ximenes founded one at Alcala. 3 It is unlikely that many private libraries of great extent existed in the empire ; but the trade of bookselling, though not yet, in general, separated from that of printing, had become of considerable importance. 1 Jugler, in his Hist. Littcraria, mentions none between that of the Rhine, and one esta- blished at Weimar in 1617, p. 1994. 2 Tiraboschi, viii. 197-219. 3 Jugler, Hist. Litteraria, p. 20G et alibi. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 231 CHAPTER X. HISTOBT OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE, FROM 1550 TO 1600. SECT. I. Cicero Epistolaa FamiL 1467. ) _ Epistolaa ad Attic. 1469. \ Kome - Progress of classical learning Principal de Oratore 1465. Mentz and SuW- critical scholars Editions of ancient aco. authors Lexicons and Grammars Best writers of Latin Muretus Manutius Khetorica Orationes Opera Philo- 1490. Venice. 1471. Rome. 1469. > Decline of taste Scaliger Casaubon soph. 1471. f R01M - Classical learning in England under Claudian. Absque anno. Lrescia. Elizabeth. Demosthenes 1504. Venice. Diodorus, v. lib. 1539. Basle. 1. IN the first part of the sixteenth century xv. lib. 1559. Paris. Progress of we have seen that the Diogenes Laertius 1533. Basle. Philology. foundations of a solid struc- Dio Cassius 1548. Paris. ture of classical learning had been laid in Dionysius Halicarn. 1546. Paris. many parts of Europe ; the sxiperiority of Italy had generally become far less con- Epictetus Euripides Euclid 1528. Venice. 1513. Venice. 1533. Basle. spicuous, or might perhaps be wholly Floras 1470. Paris. denied; in all the German empire, in Herodian 1513. Venice. France, and partly in England, the study Herodotus 1502. Venice. of ancient literature had been almost uni- Hesiod. Op. et Dies 1493. Milan. formly progressive. But it was the subse- Op. omnia 1495. Venice. quent period of fifty years, which we now approach, that more eminently deserved Homer Horatius Isoc rates 1488. Florence. Absque anno. 1493. Milan. the title of an age of scholars, and filled Josephus 1544. Basle. our public libraries with immense fruits of Justin 1470. Venice. literary labour. In all matters of criticism Juvenal Absque anno. Rome. and philology, what was written before the Livius 1469. Rome. year 1550 is little in comparison with what Longinus 1584. Basle. the next age produced. 2. It may be useful in this place to lay Lucan Lucian Lucretius 1469. Rome. 1496. Florence. 1473. Brescia. First editions before the reader at one Lysias 1513. Venice. of classics, view the dates of the first Macrobius 1472. Venice. editions of Greek and Latin authors, omit- Manilius Ante 1474. Nuremburg. ting some of inconsiderable reputation or Oppian 1515. Florence. length. In this list I follow the authority Orpheus 1500. Florence. of Dr. Dibdin, to which no exception will Ovid 1471. Bologna. probably be taken : Pausanias 1516. Venice. Petronius 1476? -.Elian 1545. Rome. Pliaedrus 1596. Troyes. jEschylus 1518. Venice, Aldus. Photius 1601. Augsburg. Msop 1480? Milan. Pindar 1513. Venice. Ammianus 1474. Rome. Plato 1513. Venice. Anacreon 1554. Parts. Plautus 1472. Venice. Antoninus 1558. Zurich. Plinii, Nat. Hist. 1469. Venice. Apollonius Ehoclius 1496. Florence. Plinii Epist. 1471. Appianus 1551. Paris. Plutarch Op. Moral. 1509. Venice. Apuleius 1469. Rome. Vitas 1517. Venice. Aristophanes 1498. Venice. Polybius 1530. Haguenow. Aristoteles 1495-8. Venice. Quintilian 1470. Rome. Arrian 1535. Venice. Quintus Curtius Absque anno. Rome. Athenasus 1514. Venice. Sallust 1470. Paris. Aulus Gellius 1469. Rome. Seneca 1475. Naples. Ausonius 1472. Veni"e. Senecas Tragedies 1484. Ferrara. Boethius Absque anno. circ. 1470. Silius Italicus 1471. Rome. Caesar 1469. Rome. Sophocles 1512. Venice. Callimachus Absque anno. Florence. Statius 1472? Catullus 1472. Venice. Strabo 1516. Venice. Ciceronis Opera 1498. Milan. Suetonius 1470. Rome. Cicero de Offlciis 14G5. Mentz. Tacitus 1468? Venice. 232 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1GOO. Terence Theocritus Thucydides Valerius Flaccus Valerius Maximus Valleius Paterculus Virgil Xenophon Ante 1470? Straslurg. 1493. Milan. 1502. Venice. 1474. Rome. Ante 1470? Stratbwrg. 1520. Basle. 1469. Rome. 1516. Florence. 3. It will be perceived that even in the change in middle of this century, some character of f ar from uncommon writers dng> had not yet been given to the press. But moat of the rest had gone through several editions, which it would be tedious to enumerate ; and the means of acquiring an extensive, though not in all respects very exact, erudition might perhaps be nearly as copious as at present. In consequence, probably, among other reasons, of these augmented stores of classical literature, its character under- went a change. It became less polished and elegant, but more laborious and pro- found. The German or Cisalpine type, if I may use the word, prevailed over the Italian, the school of Budaeus over that of Bembo ; nor was Italy herself exempt from its ascendancy. This advance of erudition at the expense of taste was per- haps already perceptible in 1550, for we cannot accommodate our arbitrary divi- sions to the real changes of things ; yet it was not hitherto so evident in Italy, as it became in the latter part of the century. The writers of this age, between 1550 and 1600, distinguish themselves from their predecessors not only by a disregard for the graces of language, but by a more pro- digal accumulation of quotations, and more elaborate efforts to discriminate and to prove their positions. Aware of the cen- sors whom they may encounter in an in- creasing body of scholars, they seek to secure themselves in the event of con- troversy, or to sustain their own differ- ences from those who have gone already over the same ground. Thus books of critical as well as antiquarian learning often contain little of original disquisition, which is not interrupted at every sentence by quotation, and in some instances are hardly more than the adversaria, or com- mon-place books, in which the learned were accustomed to register their daily observations in study. A late German historian remarks the contrast between the Commentary of Paulus Cortesius on the scholastic philosophy, published in 1503, and the Mythologia of Natalis Comes, in 1551. The first, in spite of its subject, is classical in style, full of ani- mation and good sense ; the second is a tedious mass of quotations, the materials of a book rather than a book, without a notion of representing anything in its spirit and general result. 1 This is, in great measure, a characteristic of the age, and grew worse towards the end of the century. Such a book as the Annals of Baronius, the same writer says, so shape- less, so destitute of every trace of elo- quence, could not have appeared in the age of Leo. But it may be added, that, with all the defects of Baronius, no one, in the age of Leo, could have put the reader in the possession of so much knowledge. 4. "We may reckon among the chief causes of this diminution of cultivation elegance in style, the in- of Greek, creased culture of the Greek language ; not certainly that the great writers in Greek are inferior models to those in Latin, but because the practice of com- position was confined to the latter. Nor was the Greek really understood, in its proper structure and syntax, till a much later period. It was however a sufficiently laborious task, with the defective aids then in existence, to learn even the single words of that most copious tongue ; and in this some were eminently successful. Greek was not very much studied in Italy ; we may perhaps say, on the contrary, that no one native of that country, after the middle of the century, except Angelus Caninius and ^Emilius Portus, both of whom lived wholly on this side of the Alps, acquired any remarkable reputation in it ; for Petrus Victorius had been dis- tinguished in the earlier period. It is to France and Germany that we should look for those who made Grecian literature the domain of scholars. It is impossible to mention every name, but we must select the more eminent ; not however distin- guishing the labourers in the two vineyards of ancient learning, since they frequently lent their service alternately to each. 5. The university of Paris, thanks to the encouragement given Principal by Francis I., stood in the scholars: first rank for philological learning ; and as no other in France could pretend to vie with her, she attracted students from every part. Toussain, Danes, and Dorat were conspicuous pro- fessors of Greek. The last was also one of the celebrated pleiad of French poets, but far more distinguished in the dead tongues than in his own, But her chief boast was i Kanke, Die Papste des lOten und 17ten Jahrhunderts, i. 484. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 233 Turnebus, BO called by the gods, but by men Tournebceuf, and, as some have said, of a Scots family, who must have been denominated Turnbull. 1 Turnebus was one of those industrious scholars who did not scorn the useful labour of translating Greek authors into Latin, and is among the best of that class. But his reputation is chiefly founded on the Adversaria, the first part of which appeared in 1564, the second in 1565, the third, posthumously, in 1580. It is wholly miscellaneous, divided into chapters, merely as resting- places to the reader ; for the contents of each are mostly a collection of uncon- nected notes. Such books, truly adver- saria or common-places, were not unusual ; but can of course only be read in a de- sultory manner, or consulted upon oc- casion. The Adversaria of Turnebus con- tain several thousand explanations of Latin passages. They are eminent for conciseness, few remarks exceeding half a page, and the greater part being much shorter. He passes without notice from one subject to another the most remote, and has been so much too rapid for his editor, that the titles of each chapter, mul- tifarious as they are, afford frequently but imperfect notions of its contents. The phrases explained are generally difficult ; so that this miscellany gives a high notion of the erudition of Turnebus, and it has furnished abundant materials to later com- mentators. The best critics of that and the succeeding age, Gesner, Scaliger, Lip- sius, Barthius, are loud in his praises ; nor has he been blamed, except for his excess of brevity and rather too great proneness to amend the text of authors, wherein he is not remarkably successful. 2 Montaigne 1 Biogr. TJniv. The penultimate of Turnebus is made both short and long by the Latin poets of the age, but more commonly the latter, which seems contrary to what we should think right. Even Greek will not help us, for we find him called both rovpve@os and Tovpvrjftos. Maittaire, Vitas Stephanor, vol. iii. 2 Blount, Baillet. The latter begins his col- lection of these testimonies by saying that Turnebus has had as many admirers as readers, and is almost the only critic whom envy has not presumed to attack. Baillet, however, speaks of his correction of Greek and Latin passages. I have not observed any of the former in the Adversaria; the book, if I am not mistaken, relates wholly to Latin criticism. Muretus calls Turnebus, " Homo immensa qua- darn doctrinaa copia instructus, sed interdum nimis propere, et nimis cupide atnplexari solitus est ea qtue in mentem venerant." Variae Lectiones, 1. x. c. 18. Muretus, as usual with has taken notice of another merit in Turne- bus, that with more learning than any who had gone before for a thousand years, he was wholly exempt from the pedantry characteristic of scholars, and could con- verse upon topics remote from his own profession, as if he had lived continually in the world. 6. A work very similar in its nature to the Adversaria of Turnebus Petnu was the Varise Lectiones of victoriua. Petrus Victorius (Vettori), professor of Greek and Latin rhetoric at Florence dur- ing the greater part of a long life, which ended in 1585. Thuanus has said, with some hyperbole, that Victorius saw the revival and almost the extinction of learn- ing in Italy. 1 No one, perhaps, deserved more praise in the restoration of the text of Cicero ; no one, according to Huet, translated better from Greek ; no one was more accurate in observing the readings of manuscripts, or more cautious in his own corrections. But his Varise Lectiones, in 38 books, of which the first edition ap- peared in 1583, though generally extolled, has not escaped the severity of Scaliger, who says that there is less of valuable matter in the whole work than in one book of the Adversaria of Turnebus. 2 Scaliger, however, had previously spoken in high terms of Victorius : there had been after- wards, as he admits, some ill-will between them ; and the tongue or pen of this great scholar are never guided by candour to- wards an opponent. I am not acquainted with the Varise Lectiones of Victorius ex- cept through my authorities. 7. The same title was given to a similar miscellany by Marc Antony Muretus, a native of Lim- oges. Thefirstpartof this, containing eight books, was published in 1559, seven more books in 1586, the last four in 1600. This great classical scholar of the sixteenth cen- tury found in the eighteenth one well worthy to be his editor, Ruhnkenius of Leyden, who has called the Varise Lectiones of Muretus " a work worthy of Phidias ; an expression rather amusingly characteristic of the value which verbal critics set upon their labours. This book of Muretus contains only miscellaneous illustrations of passages which might seem obscure, in the manner of those we have already mentioned. Some- critics, vineta ccedit sua; the same charge might be brought against himself. 1 Petrus Victorius longaeva setate id conse- cutus est, ut literas in Italia renascentes et pasne extinctas viderit. Thuanus ad ann, 15S5, apud Blount. 2 Scaligerana Secunda. Muretus. 234 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. times he mingles conjectural criticisms ; and in many chapters only points out parallel passages, or relates incidentally some classical story. His emendations are frequently good and certain, though at other times we may justly think him too bold. 1 Muretus is read with far more plea- sure than Turnebus ; his illustrations relate more to the attractive parts of Latin criti- cism, and may be compared to the miscel- laneous remarks of Jortin. 2 But in depth 1 The following will serve as an instance. In the speech of Galgacus (Taciti vita Agricolae) instead of " libertatem non in prsesentia laturi," which indeed is unintelligible enough, he would read, " in libertatem, non in populi Romani servitium nati." Such a conjecture would not be endured in the present state of criticism. Muretus, however, settles it in the current style ; vulgus quid probet, quid non probet, nunquam laboravi. 2 The following titles of chapters, from the eighth book of the Varise Lectiones, will show the agreeable diversity of Muretus's illustra- tions : 1. Comparison of poets to bees, by Pindar, Horace, Lucretius. Line of Horace Necte meo Lamiae coronam ; illustrated by Euripides. 2. A passage in Aristotle's Rhetoric, lib. ii. explained differently from P. Victorius. 3. Comparison of a passage in the Phaedrus of Plato, with Cicero's translation. 4. Passage in the Apologia Socratis, corrected and explained. 5. Line in Virgil, shown to be imitated from Homer. 6. Slips of memory in P. Victorius, noticed. 7. Passage in Aristotle's Rhetoric explained from his Metaphysics. 8. Another passage in the same book ex- plained. 9. Passage in Cicero pro Rabirio, corrected. 10. Imitation of jEschines in two passages of Cicero's 3rd Catilinarian oration. 11. Imitation of ^Eschines and Demosthenes in two passages of Cicero's Declamation against Sallust. [Not genuine.] 12. Inflcetus is the right word, not infacetus. 13. Passage in 5th book of Aristotle's Ethics corrected. 14. The word 8ia^fv8f(r8ai, in the 2d book of Aristotle's Rhetoric, not rightly ex- plained by Victoriug. 15. The word asinus, in Catullus (Carm. 95) does not signify an ass, but a mill-stone. 16. Lines of Euripides, ill-translated by Cicero. 17. Passage in Cicero's Epistles misunderstood by Politian and Victorius. 18. Passage in the Phsedrus explained. 19. Difference between accusation and invec- tive, illustrated from Demosthenes and Cicero. 20. Imitation of JEschines by Cicero. Two passages of Livy amended. 21. Mulieres eruditas plerumque libidinosas ease, from Juvenal and Euripides. of erudition he is probably much below the Parisian professor. Muretus seems to take pleasure in censuring Victorius. 8. Turnebus, Victorius, Muretus, with two who have been men- oroter'sThe- tioned in the first volume, aurus Critic. Coelius Rhodiginus, and Alexander ab Alexandro, may be reckoned the chief con- tributors to this general work of literary criticism in the sixteenth century. But there were many more, and some of con- siderable merit, whom we must pass over. At the beginning of the next century, Gruter collected the labours of preceding critics in six very thick and closely printed volumes, to which Parseus, in 1623, added a seventh, entitled " Lampas, sive Fax Libe- ralium Artium," but more commonly called Thesaurus Criticus. A small por- tion of these belong to the fifteenth cen- tury, but none extend beyond the follow- ing. Most of the numerous treatises in this ample collection belong to the class of Adversaria, or miscellaneous remarks. Though not so studiously concise as those of Turnebus, each of these is generally contained in a page or two, and their mul- titude is consequently immense. Those who now by glancing at a note obtain the result of the patient diligence of these men, should feel some respect for their names, and some admiration for their acuteness and strength of memory. They had to collate the whole of antiquity, they plunged into depths which the indolence of modern philology, screening itself under the garb of fastidiousness, affects to deem unworthy to be explored, and thought themselves bound to become lawyers, phy- sicians, historians, artists, agriculturists, to elucidate the difficulties which ancient writers present. It may be doubted also, whether our more recent editions of the classics have preserved all the important materials which the indefatigable exertions of the men of the sixteenth century ac- cumulated. In the present state of philo- logy, there is incomparably more know- ledge of grammatical niceties, at least in the Greek language, than they possessed, and more critical acuteness perhaps in correction, though in this they were not always deficient ; but for the exegetical part of criticism the interpretation and illustration of passages, not corrupt, but 22. Nobleness of character displayed by Iphi- c rates. 23. That Hercules was a physician, who cured Alcestis when given over. 24. Cruelty of king Dejotarus, related from Plutarch. 25. Humane law of the Persians. Literature of Eurofe from 1550 to 1600. 235 obscure we may not be wrong in suspect- ing that more has been lost than added in the eighteenth and present centuries to the savans ^n us, as the French affect to call them, whom we find in the bulky and forgotten volumes of Gruter. 9. Another and more numerous class of Editions of those who devoted them- Greekand selves to the same labour, Latin authors. wcre th(J editorg of Greek and Roman authors. And here again it is impossible to do more than mention a few, who seem, in the judgment of the best scholars, to stand above their contempo- raries. The early translations of Greek, made in the fifteenth century, and generally very defective through the slight know- ledge of the language that even the bes t scholars then possessed, were replaced by others more exact ; the versions of Xeno- phon by Leunclavius, of Plutarch by Xylander, of Demosthenes by Wolf, of Euripides and Aristides by Canter, are greatly esteemed. Of the first, Huet says, that he omits or perverts nothing, his Latin often answering to the Greek, word for word, and preserving the construction and arrangement, so that we find the original author complete, yet with a purityof idiom, and a free and natural air not often met with. 1 Stephens however, according to Scaliger, did not highly esteem the learn- ing of Leunclavius. 2 France, Germany, and the Low Countries, besides Basle and Geneva, were the prolific parents of new editions, in many cases very copiously illustrated by erudite commentaries. 10. The Tacitus of Lipsius is his best Tacitu* of work, in the opinion of UpsiuB. Scaliger and in his own. So great a master was he of this favourite author, that he offered to repeat any passage with a dagger at his breast, to be used against him on a failure of memory. 3 Lipsius, after residing several years at Leyden in the profession of the reformed religion, went to Louvain, and discredited himself by writing in favour of the legend- ary miracles of that country, losing sight of all his critical sagaci ty . The Protestants treated his desertion and these later writ- ings with a contempt which has perhaps sometimes been extended to his produc- tions of a superior character. The article on Lipsius, in Bayle, betrays some of this spirit ; and it appears in other Protestants, especially Dutch critics. Hence they undervalue his Greek learning, as if he had 1 Baillet. Blount. Niceron, vol. 26. 2 Scaligerana Secunda. 3 Niceron, xxiv. 219. not been able to read the language, and impute plagiarism, when there seems to be little ground for the charge. Casaubon admits that Lipsius has translated Poly- bius better than his predecessors, though he does not rate his Greek knowledge very high.i 11. Acidalius, whose premature death robbed philological litera- Horace of ture of one from whom Lambinu*. much had been expected, 2 Paulus Manu- tius, and Petrus Victorius, are to be named with honour for the criticism of Latin authors, and the Lucretius of Giffen or Giphanius, published at Antwerp, 15G6, is still esteemed. 3 But we may select the Horace of Lambinus as a conspicuous testimony to the classical learning of this age. It appeared in 1561. In this he claims to have amended the text, by the help of ten manuscripts, most of them found by him in Italy, whither he had gone in the suite of Cardinal Tournon. He had previously made large collections for the illustration of Horace, from the Greek philosophers and poets, from Athenseus, Stobsus and Pausanias, and other sources with which the earlier interpreters had been less familiar. Those commentators, however, among whom Hermannus Figulus, Badius Ascensius, and Antonius Mancin- ellus, as well as some who had confined themselves to the Ars Poetica, Grisolius, Achilles Statius (in his real name Estaco, one of the few good scholars of Portugal), and Luisinius, are the most considerable, had not left unreaped a very abundant harvest of mere explanation. But Lam- binus contributed much to a more elegant criticism, by pointing out parallel passages, and by displaying the true spirit and feel- ing of his author. The text acquired a new aspect, we may almost say, in the hands of Lambinus, at least when we compare it with the edition of Landino in 1482 ; but some of the gross errors in this had been corrected by intermediate editors. It may be observed, that he had far less assistance from prior commentators in the Satires and Epistles than in the Odes. Lambinus, who became professor of Greek at Paris iu 1561, is known also by his editions of 1 Casaub. Epist. xxi. A long and elaborate critique on Lipsius will be found in Baillet, vol. ii. (4to edit.), art. 437. See also Blount, Bayle, and Niceron. 2 The notes of Acidalius (who died at the age of 28, in 1595),on Tacitus, Plautus.and other Latin authors, are much esteemed. He is a bold cor- rector of the text. The Biographie UniverseUe has a better article than that in the 34th volume of Niceron. 3 Biogr. Univ. 236 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Demosthenes, of Lucretius, and of Cicero. J That of Plautus is in less esteem. He has been reproached with a prolixity and tedi- ousness, which has naturalised the verb lamlriner in the French language. But this imputation u not in my opinion ap- plicable to his commentary upon Horace, which I should rather characterise as con- cise. It is always pertinent and full of matter. Another charge against Lambinus is for rashness in conjectural 2 emendation, no unusual failing of ingenious and spirited editors. 12. Cruquius (de Crusques) of Ypres, having the advantage of several new manuscripts of Horace, which he discovered in a convent at Ghent, published an edition with many notes of his own, besides an abundant com- mentary, collected from the glosses he found in his manuscripts, usually styled the Scholiast of Cruquius. The Odes ap- pear at Bruges, 1565 ; the Epodes at Antwerp, 1569 ; the Satires in 1575 ; the whole together was first published in 1578. But the Scholiast is found in no edition of Cruquius's Horace before 1595. 3 Cru- quius appears to me inferior as a critic to Lambinus ; and borrowing much from him as well as Turnebus, seldom names him except for censure. An edition of Horace at Basle, in 1580, sometimes called that of the forty commentators, including a very few before the extinction of letters, is interesting in 1 This edition by Lambinusis said to mark the beginning of one of the seven ages in which those of the great Roman orator have been arranged. The first comprehends the early editions of separate works. The second begins with the earliest entire edition, that of Milan in 1498. The third is dated from the first edition which contains copious notes, that of Venice, by Petrus Victorius, in 1534. The fourth, from the more extensive annotations given not long afterwards by Paulus Manutius. The fifth, as has just been said, from this edition by Lam- binus, in 1506, which has been thought too rash in correction of the text. A sixth epoch was made by Gruter, in 1618 ; and this period is reckoned to comprehend most editions of that and the succeeding century ; for the seventh and last age dates, it seems, only from the edition of Ernesti, in 1774. Biogr. Univ., art. Cicero. See Blount, for discrepant opinions expressed by the critics about the general merits of Lambinus. 2 Henry Stephens says, that no one had been so audacious in altering the text by conjecture as Lambinus. In Manutio non tantam quantam in Lambino audaciam, sed valcle tamen perf- culosam et citam. Maittaire, vitse Stephanorum, p. 401. It will be seen that Scaliger finds ex- actly the same fault with Stephens himself. 3 Biogr. Univ. philological history, by the light it throws on the state of criticism in the earlier part of the century, for it is remarkable that Lambinus is not included in the number, and it will, I think, confirm what has been said above in favour of those older critics. 13. Henry Stephens, thus better known among us than by his real surname Etienne, the most Henry Stephei illustrious (if indeed he surpassed his father) of a family of great printers, began his labours at Paris in 1554, with the princeps editio of Anacreon. 1 He had been educated in that city under Danes Toussain and Turnebus; 2 and, though equally learned in both languages, devoted himself to Greek, as being more neglected than Latin. 3 The press of Stephens might be called the central point of illumination . to Europe. In the year 1557 alone, he published, as Maittaire observes, more editions of ancient authors than would have been sufficient to make the reputa- tion of another author. His publications, as enumerated by Niceron (I have not counted them in Mattaire) amount to 103, of which by far the greater part are classical editions, more valuable than his original works. Baillet says of Henry Stephens, that he was second only to Budseus in Greek learning, though he seems to put Turnebus and Camerarius nearly on the same level. But perhaps the majority of scholars would think him superior on the whole to all the three ; and certainly Turnebus, whose Adversaria are confined to Latin interpretation, what- ever renown he might deserve by his oral lectures, has left nothing that could war- 1 An excellent life of Henry Stephens, as well as others of the rest of his family, was written by Mattaire, but which does not supersede those formerly published by Almeloveen. These to- gether are among the best illustrations of the philological history of the 16th century that we possess. They have been abridged, with some new matter, by Mr. Greswell, in his Early His- tory of the Parisian Greek Press. Almeloveen, Vitae Stephanorum, p. 60. Mattaire, p. 200. 2 Almeloveen, p. 70. His father made him learn Greek before he had acquired Latin. Mattaire, p. 193. 3 The life of Stephens in the 36th volume of Niceron is long and useful. That in the Bio- graphie Universelle is not bad, but enumerates few editions published by this most laborious scholar, and thus reduces the number of his works to twenty-six. Huet says (whom I quote from Blount), that Stephens may be called " The Translator par excellence ;" such is his diligence and accuracy, so happy his skill in giving the character of his author, so great his perspicuity and elegance. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 237 rant our assigning him an equal place. Scaliger, however, accuses Henry Stephens of spoiling all the authors he edited by wrong alterations of the text. 1 This charge is by no means unf requently brought against the critics of this age. 14. The year 1572 is an epoch in Greek Lexicon of literature, by the publica- constantin. tion of Stephens's Thesaurus. A lexicon had been published at Basle in 1562, by Eobert Constantin, who, though he made use of that famous press, lived at Caen, of which he was a native. Scaliger speaks in a disparaging tone both of Con- stantin and his lexicon. But its general reputation has been much higher. A modern critic observes, that " a very great proportion of the explanations and au- thorities in Stephens's Thesaurus are bor- rowed from it." 2 We must presume that this applies to the first edition ; for the second, enlarged by JEmilius Portus, which is more common, did not appear till 1591. 3 " The principal defects of Constantin," it is added, " are first the confused and ill- digested arrangement of the interpretation ot words, and secondly, the absence of all distinction between primitives and de- rivatives." It appears by a Greek letter of Constantin, prefixed to the first edition, that he had been assisted in his labours by Gesner, Henry Stephens, Turnebus, Camerarius, and other learned contem- poraries. He gives his authorities, if not so much as we should desire, very far more than the editors of the former Basle lexicon. This lexicon, as was mentioned 1 Omnes quotquot edidit, editve libros, etiam meos, suo arbitrio jam corrupit et deinceps cor- rumpet. Scalig. Prima, p. 96. Against this sharp, and perhaps rash, judgment, we may set that of ilaittaire, a competent scholar, though not like Scaliger, and without his arrogance and scorn of the world. Henrici editiones ideo miror, quod eas, quam posset accuratissime aut ipse aut per alios, quos complures noverat, viros eruditos, ad omnium turn manuscriptoruin turn impressorum codicum fidem, non sine maximo delectu et suo (quo maxim& in Grsecis prajsertim pollebat) aliorumque judicio elabora- vit. Vitse Stephanorum, t. ii. p. 284. No man perhaps ever published so many editions as Stephens ; nor was any other printer of so much use to letters ; for he knew much more than the Aldi or the Juntas. Yet he had planned many more publications, as Maittaire has col- lected from what he has dropped in various places, p. 469. 2 Quarterly Review, vol. xxvii. 3 The first edition of this Lexicon sometimes bears the name of Crespin, the printer at Basle ; and both Baillet and Bayle have fallen into the mistake of believing that there were two dif- ferent works. See Niceron, voL xxvii. in the first volume, is extremely defective and full of errors, though a letter of Grynseus, prefixed to the edition of 1539, is nothing but a strain of unqualified eulogy, little warranted by the suffrage of later scholars. I found, however, on a loose calculation, the number of words in this edition to be not much less than 50,000. * 15. Henry Stephens had devoted twelve years of his laborious life to Thesaurus of this immense work, large Stephens, materials for which had been collected by his father. In comprehensive and copious interpretation of words it not only left far behind every earlier dictionary, but is still the single Greek lexicon ; one which some have ventured to abridge or enlarge, but none have presumed to supersede. Its ar- rangement, as is perhaps scarce necessary to say, is not according to an alphabetical, but radical order; that is, the supposed 1 Henry Stephens in an epistle, De SUSB Typo- graphies statu ad quosdam amicos, gives an ac- count of his own labours on the Thesaurus. The following passage on the earlier lexicon., may be worth reading. lis quaa circumferuntur lexicis Grseco-Latinis primam imposuit manum monachus quidam, frater Johannes Crastonus, Placentinus, Carmelitanus ; sed cum is jejunis expositionibus, in quibus vernaculo etiam ser- mone interdum, id est Italico, utitur, contentus fuisset, perfunctorie item constructiones ver- borum indicasset, nullos autorum locos pro- ferens ex quibus ill pariter et significationes cognosci possent ; multi postea certatim multa hinc inde sine ullo delectu ac judicio excerpta inseruerunt. Donee tandem indoctis typogra- phis de augenda lexicorum mole inter se cer- tantibus, et prsemia iis qui id praestarent pro- ponentibus, quse jejunse, et, si ita loqui licet, macilentas antea erant expositiones, adeo pingues et crassae redditse sunt, ut in illis passim nihil aliud quam Bceoticam suem agnoscamus. Nam pauca ex Budaeo, aliisque idoneis autoribus, et ea quidem parum fldeliter descripta, utpote parum intellecta, multa contra ex Lapo Florentine, Leonardo Aretino, aliisque ejusdem farinas interpretibus, ut similes habent labra lactucas, in opus illud transtulerunt. Ex iis quidem certe locis in quorum interpretatione felix fuit Laurentius "Valla, paucissimos pro- tulerant ; sed pro perverso suo judicio, perver- sissimas quasque ejus interpretationes, quales prope innumeras a me annotatas in Latinis Herodoti et Thucydidis editionibus videbis, delegerunt egregii illi lexicorum seu consar- cinatores seu interpolatores, quibus, tanquam gemmis, ilia insignirent. Quod si non quam multa, sed duntaxat quam multorum generum errata ibi sint, commemorare velim, merito certe exclamabo, TI' rjpiroz/, TI 8' fVftra, TI 8' varartov KaTaAfa> ; vix enim ullurn vitii genus posse a nobis cogitari aut flngi existimo, cujus ibi aliquod exemplum non extat, p. 156. He produces afterwards some gross instances of error. 238 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. roots following each other alphabetically, every derivative or compound, of whatever initial letter, is placed after the primary word. This method is certainly not very convenient to the uninformed reader ; and perhaps, even with a view to the scientific knowledge of the language, it should have been deferred for a more advanced stage of etymological learning. The Thesaurus em- bodies the critical writings of Budseus and Camerarius, with whatever else had been contributed by the Greek exiles of the pre- ceding age, and by their learned disciples. Much, no doubt, has since been added to what we find in the Thesaurus of Stephens, as to the nicety of idiom and syntax, or to the principles of formation of words, but not, perhaps, in copiousness of explanation, which is the proper object of a dictionary. " The leading defects conspicuous in Ste- phens," it is said by the critic already quoted, "are inaccurate or falsified quota- tions, the deficiency of several thousand words, and a wrong classification both of primitives and derivatives. At the same time, we ought rather to be surprised that, under existing disadvantages, he accom- plished so much even in this last depart- ment, than that he left so much undone." 16. It has been questioned among biblio- Abridged by graphers, whether there are Scapula. two editions of the The- saurus ; the first in 1572, the second with- out a date, and probably after 1580. The affirmative seems to be sufficiently proved. 1 The sale, however, of so voluminous and expensive a work did not indemnify its author ; and it has often been complained of, that Scapula, who had been employed under Stephens, injured his superior by the publication of his" well-known abridgment in 1579. The fact, however, that Scapula had possessed this advantage, rests on little evidence, and his preface, if it were true, would be the highest degree of effrontery : it was natural that some one should abridge 1 Niceron (vol. xxvi.) contends that the sup- posed second edition differs only by a change in the title-page, wherein we find rather an un- happy attempt at wit, in the following distich aimed at Scapula : Quidam fTn.Tfp.iHav me capulo tenus abdidit ensem: /Eger eram a scapulis ; sanus at hue redeo. But it seems that Stephens, in his Palaestra de Lipsii Latinitate, mentions this second edition, which is said by those who have examined it, to have fewer typographical errors than the other, though it is admitted that the leaves might be intermixed without inconvenience, so close is the resemblance. Vid. Maittaire, p. 356-360. Brunei, Man. du Libr. Greswell, vol. ii. p. 289. so voluminous a lexicon. Literature, at least, owes an obligation to Scapula. 1 The temper of Henry Stephens, restless and uncertain, was not likely to retain riches ; he passed several years in wandering over Europe, and having wasted a considerable fortune amassed by his father, died in a public hospital at Lyons in 1598, "opibus," says his biographer, "atque etiam ingenio destitutus in nosocomio." 17. The Hellenismus of Angelus Cani- nius, a native of the Milanese, is merely 1 Maittaire says that Scapula's lexicon is as perfidious to the reader as its author was to his master, and that Dr. Busby would not suffer his boys to use it, p. 358. But this has hardly been the general opinion. See Quarterly Review, ubi suprd. 2 Casaubon writes frequently to Scaliger about the strange behaviour of his father-in-law, and complains that he had not even leave to look at the books in the latter's library, which he him- self scarce ever visited. N6sti hominem, n6sti mores, nQsti quid apud eum possim, hoc est, quam nihil possim, qui videtur in suam per- niciem conspirasse. Epist. 21. And, still more severely, Epist. 41. Nam noster, etsi vivens valensque, pridem numero hominum, certe doctorum, eximi meruit ; ea est illius inhumani- tas, et quod invitus dico, delirium ; qui libros quoslibet veteres, ut Indici gryphi aurum, aliis invidet, sibi perire sinit, sed quid ille habeat aut non, juxta scio ego cum ignavissimo. After Stephens's death, he wrote in kinder terms than he had done before : but regretting some pub- lications, by which the editor of Casaubbn's letters thinks he might mean the Apologie pour Herodote, and the Palaestra de Justi Lipsii Latinitate ; the former of which, a very well- known book, contains a spirited attack on the Romish priesthood, but with less regard either for truth or decorum in the selection of his stories than became the character of Ste- phens ; and the hitter is of little pertinence to its avowed subject. Henry Stephens had long been subject to a disorder natural enough to laborious men, quaedam actionum consuetaruin satietas et fastidium, Maittaire, p. 248. Robert Stephens had carried with him to Geneva in 1550, the punches of his types, made at the expense of Francis I., supposing, perhaps, that they were a gift of the king. On the death, however, of Henry Stephens, they were claimed by Henry IV., and the senate of Geneva restored them. They had been pledged for 400 crowns, and Casaubon complains as of a great injury, that the estate of Stephens was made answerable to the creditor, when the pledge was given up to the king of France. See Le Clerc's remarks on this in Bibliotheque Choisie, vol. six. p. 219. Also a vindication of Stephens by Maittaire from the charge of having stolen them (Vitas Stephanorum, i. 34), and again in Greswell's Parisian Press, i. 399. He seems above the sus- picion of theft ; but whether he had juat cause to think the punches were his own, it is now im- possible to decide. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 239 a grammar. Tanaquil Faber prefers it not Heiienismus of only to that of Clenardus, caninius. but t o a n which existed even in his own time. It was published at Paris in 1555. Those who do not express them- selves so strongly, place him above his pre- decessors. Caninius is much fuller than Clenardus ; the edition by Crenius (Ley- den, 1700), containing 380 pages. The syntax is very scanty ; but Caninius was well conversant with the mutations of words, and is diligent in noting the differ- ences of dialects, in which he has been thought to excel. He was acquainted with the digamma, and with its Latin form. I will take this opportunity of observing Vergara's that the Greek grammar of grammar. Vergara, mentioned in the first volume of this work (p. 488), and of which I now possess the Paris edition of 1557, printed by "William Morel (ad Com- plutensem editionem excusum et restitu- tum) appears superior to those of Clenardus or Varenius. This book is doubtless very scarce; it is plain that Tanaquil Faber, Baillet, Morhof, and, I should add, Ni- colas Antonio, had never seen it, 1 nor is it mentioned by Brunet or "Watts. 2 There is, however, a copy in the British Museum. Scaliger says that it is very good, and that Caninius has borrowed from it the best parts. 3 Vergara had, of course, profited by the commentaries of Budaeus, the great source of Greek philology in western Eu- rope ; but he displays, as far as I can judge by recollection more than comparison, an ampler knowledge of the rules of Greek than any of his other contemporaries. This grammar contains 438 pages, more than 100 of which are given to the syntax. A small grammar by Nunez, published at Valencia in 1555, seems chiefly borrowed from Clenardus or Vergara. 18. Peter Ramus, in 1557, gave a fresh proof of his acuteness and originality, by publishing a Greek grammar, with many important variances from his precursors. 1 Blount, Baillet. 2 Antonio says it was printed at Alcala, 1573; deinde Parisiis, 1550. The first is of course a false print ; if the second is not so likewise, he had never seen the book. 3 Scaligerana Secunda. F. Vergara, Espagnol, a compose une bonne grammaire Grecque, mais Caninius a pris tout le meilleur de tous, et a mis du sien aussi quelque chose dans son Hellenis- mus. This, as Bayle truly observes, reduces the eulogies Scaliger has elsewhere given Can - nius to very little. Scaliger's loose expressions are not of much value. Yet he who had seen Vergara's grammar, might better know what was original in ethers, than Tanaquil Faber, who had never seen it. Scaliger speaks of it with little respect ; but he is habitually contemptu- Grammars of ous towards all but his im- Ramus and mediate friends.^ Lancelot, By"""* 11 "- author of the Port Royal grammar, praises highly that of Ramus, though he reckons it too intricate. This grammar I have not seen in its original state, but Sylburgius published one in 1582, which he professes to have taken from the last edition of the Eamean grammar. It has been said that Laurence Rhodomann was the first who substituted the partition of the declensions of Greek nouns into three for that of Clenardus, who introduced or retained the prolix and unphilosophical division into ten. 2 But Ramus is clearly entitled to this credit. It would be doubted whether he is equally to be praised, as he certainly has not been equally followed, in making no distinction of conjugations, nor separating the verbs in \ii from those in a>, on the ground that their general flexion is 1 Scaligerana. Casaubon, it must be owned, who had more candour than Scaliger, speaks equally ill of the grammar of Ramus. Epist. 878. 2 Morhof, 1. iv. c. 6. Preface to translation of Matthias's Greek grammar. The learned author of this preface has not alluded to Ramus, and though he praises Sylburgius for his im- provements in the mode of treating grammar, seems unacquainted with that work which I mention in the text. Two editions of it are in the British Museum, 1582 and 1600 : but, upon comparison, I believe that there is no difference between them. The best of these grammars of the sixteenth century bear no sort of comparison with those which have been latterly published in Germany. And it seems strange at first sight, that the old scholars, such as Budseus, Erasmus, Camerarius, and many more, should have written Greek, which they were fond of doing, much better than from their great ignorance of many funda- mental rules of syntax we could have antici- pated. But reading continually, and thinking in Greek, they found comparative accuracy by a secret tact, and by continual imitation of what they read. Language is always a mosaic work, made up of associated fragments, not of separate molecules ; we repeat, not the simple words, but the phrases and even the sentences we have caught from others. Budsus wrote Greek without knowing its grammar, that is, without a distinct notion of moods or tenses, as men speak their own language tolerably well without having ever attended to a grammatical rule. Still many faults must be found in such writing on a close inspection. The case was partly the same in Latin during the Middle Ages, except that Latin was at that time better understood than Greek was in the sixteenth century ; not that so many words were known, but those who wrote it best had more correct notions of the grammar. 240 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. the same. Much has been added to this grammar by Sylburgius himself, a man in the first rank of Greek scholars ; " especi- ally," as he tells us, "in the latter books, so that it may be called rather a supple- ment than an abridgment of the grammar of Kamus." The syntax in this grammar is much better than in Clenardus, from whom some have erroneously supposed Sylburgius to have borrowed ; but I have not compared him with Vergara. 1 The Greek grammar of Sanctius is praised by Lancelot ; yet, from what he tells us of it, we may infer that Sanctius, though a great master of Latin, being comparatively unlearned in Greek, displayed such temer- ity in his hypotheses as to fall into very great errors. The first edition was printed at Antwerp in 1581. 19. A few more books of a grammatical Camerartus. n atu*e> falling within the Canter, Robor- present period, may be found ^to*- in Morhof, Baillet, and the bibliographical collections; but neither in number nor importance do they deserve much notice. 2 In a more miscellaneous phi- lology, the Commentaries of Camerarius, 1551, are superior to any publication of the kind since that of Budaeus in 1529. The Novae Lectiones of William Canter, though the work of a very young man, deserve to be mentioned as almost the first effort of an art which has done much for ancient literature that of restoring a corrupt text, through conjecture, not loose and empirical, but guided by a skilful sagacity, and upon principles which we may without impro- priety not only call scientific, but approxi- mating sometimes to the logic of the Novum Organum. The earlier critics, not always possessed of many manuscripts, had re- course, more indeed in Latin than in Greek, to conjectural emendation ; the prejudice against which, often carried too far by those who are not sufficiently aware of the enormous ignorance and carelessness which 1 Vossius says of the grammarians in general, ex quibus doctrinae et industries laudem maxinio mihi meruisse videntur Angelus Caninius et Fridericus Sylburgius. Aristarchus, p. 6. It is said that, in his own grammar, which is on the basis of Clenardus, Vossius added little to what he had taken from the two former. Bail- let, in Caninio. 2 In the British Museum is a book by one Guillon, of whom I find no account in biogra- phy, called Gnomon, on the quantity of Greek syllables. This seems to be the earliest work of the kind ; and he professes himself to write against those who think "quid vis licere in quan- titate syllabarum." It is printed at Paris, 1556 ; and it appears by Watts that there are other editions. ordinary manuscripts display, has also been heightened by the random and sometimes very improbable guesses of editors. Can- ter, besides the practice he showed in his Novae Lectiones, laid down the principles of his theory in a ' ' Syntagma de Ratione emendandi Groecos Auctores," reprinted in the second volume of Jebb's edition of Aristides. He here shows what letters are apt to be changed into others by error of transcription, or through a source not per- haps quite so obvious the uniform manner of pronouncing several vowels and diph- thongs among the later Greeks, which they were thus led to confound, especially when a copyist wrote from dictation. But be- sides these corruptions, it appears by the instances Cauter gives, that almost any letters are liable to be changed into almost any others. The abbreviations of copyists are also great causes of corruption, and re- quire to be known by those who would re- store the text. Canter, however, was not altogether the founder of this school of criticism. Kobortellus, whose vanity and rude contempt of one so much superior to himself as Sigonius, has perhaps caused his own real learning to be undervalued, had already written a treatise, entitled "De Arte sive Eatione corrigendi Antiquorum Libros Disputatio ; " in which he claims to be the first who devised this art, " nunc primum & me excogitata." It is not a bad work, though probably rather superficial, according to our present views. He points out the general characters of manuscripts, and the different styles of handwriting ; after which he proceeds to the rules of conjecture, making good remarks on the causes of corruption and consequent means of restoration. It is published in the second volume of Gruter's Thesaurus Cri- ticus. Robortellus, however, does not ad- vert to Greek manuscripts, a field upon which Canter first entered. The Novae Lectiones of William Canter are not to be confounded with the Variae Lectiones of his brother Theodore, a respectable but less eminent scholar. Canter, it may be added, was the first, according to Bois- sonade, who, in his edition of Euripides, restored some sort of order and measure to the choruses. 1 l Biogr. Univ. The Life of Canter in Mel- chior Adam is one of the best his collection con- tains ; it seems to be copied from one by Mirseus. Canter was a man of great moral as well as literary excellence ; the account of his studies and mode of life in this biography is very in- teresting. The author of it dwells justly on Canter's skill in exploring the text of manu- scripts, and in observing the variations of or- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 241 20. Sylburgius, whose grammar has been Editions by already praised, was of great syiburgiut. use to Stephens in compiling the Thesaurus ; it has even been said, but perhaps with German partiality, that the greater part of its value is due to him. 1 The editions of Sylburgius, especially those of Aristotle and Dionysius of Halicarnas- sus, are among the best of that age ; none, indeed, containing the entire works of the Stagyrite, is equally esteemed. 2 He had never risen above the station of a school- master in small German towns, till he re- linquished the employment for that of superintendent of classical editions in the press of Wechel, and afterwards in that of Commelia. But the death of this humble and laborious man, in 1596, was deplored by Casaubon as one of the heaviest blows that learning could have sustained. 21. Michael Neander, a disciple of Me- lanchthon and Camerarius, Neander. ^Q became rector of a nourishing school at Isfeld in Thuringia soon after 1550, and remained there till his death in 1595, was certainly much inferior to Sylburgius; yet to him Germany was chiefly indebted for keeping alive, in the general course of study, some little taste for Grecian literature, which towards the end of the century was rapidly declining. thography. See also Blount, Baillet, Niceron, vol. xxix. , and Chalmers. 1 Melchior Adam, p. 193. In the article of the Quarterly Review, several times already quoted, it is said that the Thesaurus " bears much plainer marks of the sagacity and erudi- tion of Sylburgius than of the desultory and hasty studies of his master, than whom he was more clear-sighted ; " a compliment at the ex- pense of Stephens, not perhaps easily reconcile- able with the eulogy a little before passed by the reviewer on the latter, as the greatest of Greek scholars except Casaubon. Stephens says of himself, quern habuit (Sylburgius), novo quo- dam more dominum simul ac praeceptorem, quod ille beneficium pro sua ingenuitate agnos- cit (apud Maittaire, p. 421). But it has been remarked that Stephens was not equally in- genuous, and never acknowledges any obligation to Sylburgius, p. 533. Scaliger says, Stephanus non solus fecit Thesaurum ; plusieurs y ont mis la main ; and in another place, Sylburgius a travaille au Tresor de H. Etienne. But it is impossible for us to apportion the disciple's share in this great work ; which might be more than Stephens owned, and less than the Ger- mans have claimed. Niceron, which is re- markable, has no life of Sylburgius. 2 The Aristotle of Sylburgius is properly a series of editions of that philosopher's separate works, published from 1584 'to 1036. It is in great request when found complete, which is rarely the case. It has no Latin translation. The "Erotemata Grsecae Linguae" of Ne- ander, according to Eichhorn, drove the earlier grammars out of use in the schools. 1 But the publications of Neander appear to be little more than such extracts from the Greek writers as ho thought would be use- ful in education. 3 Several of them are gnomologies, or collections of moral sen- tences from the poets ; a species of com- pilation not uncommon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but neither ex- hibiting much learning nor favourable to the acquisition of a true feeling for ancient poetry. The Thesaurus of Basilius Faber, another work of the same class, published in 1571, is reckoned by Eichhorn among the most valuable school-books of this period, and continued to be used and re- printed for two hundred years. 3 22. Conrad Gesner belongs almost equally to the earlier and later pe- j r J.L j. Gegnsr. nods of the sixteenth cen- tury. Endowed with unwearied dili- gence, and with a mind capacious of omni- farious erudition, he was probably the most comprehensive scholar of the age. Some of his writings have been mentioned in the first volume. His " Mithridates, sive de Differentiis Linguarum " is the earliest effort on a great scale to arrange the various languages of mankind by their origin and analogies. He was deeply versed in Greek literature, and especially in the medical and physical writers ; but he did not confine himself to that province. It may be noticed here, that in his Stobseus, published in 1543, Gesner first printed Greek and Latin in double columns. 4 He was followed by Turnebus, in an edition of Aristotle's Ethics (Paris, 1555), and the practice became gradually general, though some sturdy scholars, such as Stephens and Sylburgius, did not comply with it. Gesner seems to have had no expectation that the Greek text would be much read, and only recommends it as useful in con- junction with the Latin. 5 Scaliger, how- ever, deprecates so indolent a mode of study, and ascribes the decline of Greek learning to these unlucky double columns. 8 1 Geschichte der Cultur. iii. 277. 2 Niceron, vol. xxx. 3 Eichhorn, 274. 4 This I give only on the authority of Chevil- lier, Origine de I'lmprimerie de Paris. 5 Id. p. 240. 6 Sealig. Secunda. Accents on Latin words, it is observed by Scaliger (in the Scaligerana Prima), were introduced within hia memory ; and, as he says, which would be more import- ant, the points called comma and semi-colon, of which Paulus Manutius was the inventor. But in this there must be some mistake : for the 242 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1000. 23. In the beginning of the century, as Decline of taste has been shown in the in Germany, former volume, the pros- pects of classical literature in Germany seemed most auspicious. Schools and universities, the encouragement of liberal princes, the instruction of distinguished pro- fessors, the formation of public libraries, had given an- impulse, the progressive effects of which were manifest in every Protestant state of the empire. Nor was any diminution of this zeal and taste dis- cernible for a few years. But after the death of Melanchthon in 1560, and of Camerarius in 1574, a literary decline commenced, slow but uniform and per- manent, during which Germany had to lament a strange eclipse of that lustre which had distinguished the preceding age. This was first shown in an inferiority of style, and in a neglect of the best stan- dards of good writing. The admiration of Melanchthon himself led in some measure to this ; and to copy his manner (genus dicendi Philippicum, as it was called) was more the fashion than to have recourse to his masters, Cicero and Quintilian. 1 But this, which would have kept up a very tolerable style, gave way, not long after- wards, to a tasteless and barbarous turn of phrase, in which all feeling of propriety and elegance was lost. This has been called Apuleianismus, as if that indif- ferent writer of the third century had been set up for imitation, though probably it was the mere sympathy of bad taste and incorrect expression. The scholastic philosophy came back about the same time into the German universities, with all its technical jargon, and triumphed over the manes of Erasmus and Melanchthon. The disciples of Paracelsus spread their mys- tical rhapsodies far and wide, as much at the expense of classical taste as of sound reason. And when we add to these un- toward circumstances the dogmatic and polemical theology, studious of a phrase- ology certainly not belonging to the Au- gustan age, and the necessity of writing on many other subjects almost equally in- capable of being treated in good language, we cannot be much astonished that a bar- barous and slovenly Latinity should become characteristic of Germany, which, even in later ages, very few of its learned men have been able to discard. 2 comma is frequent in books much older than any edited by Manutius. Eichhorn, iii. 268. The Germans usually said Philippus for Melanchthon. 3 Melchior Adam, after highly praising Wolf's 24. In philological erudition we have seen that Germany lon<; German learn- maintained her rank, if not l"*- quite equal to France in this period, yet nearer to her than to any third nation. We have mentioned several of the most distinguished ; and to these we might add many names from Melchior Greek verses of Adam, the laborious bio- Bhodomann. grapher of his learned countrymen ; such as Oporinus, George Fabricius, Frischlin, Crusius, who first taught the Romaic Greek in Germany. One, rather more known than these, was Laurence Rhodo- mann. He was the editor of several authors ; but his chief claim to a niche in the temple seems to rest upon his Greek verses, which have generally been esteemed superior to any of his generation. The praise does not imply much positive ex- cellence ; for in Greek composition, and especially in verse, the best scholars of the sixteenth century make but an indifferent figure. Rhodomann's life of Luther is written in Greek hexameters. It is also a curious specimen of the bigotry of his church. He boasts that Luther predicted the deaths of Zuingle, Carlostadt, and GEcolampadius, as the punishment of their sacramentarian hypothesis. The lines will be found in a note, 1 and may serve as a translation of Demosthenes, proceeds to boast of the Greek learning of Germany, which, rather singularly, lie seems to ascribe to this transla- tion : Effecit ut ante ignotus plerisque Demos- thenes, nunc familiaritcr nobiscum versetur in scholis et acaderniis. ,Est sane quod gratulemur GermaniiB nostrse, quod per Wolflum tantorum fluminum eloquentiaa particeps facta est. Fa- tentur ipsi Graeci, qui reliqui sunt hodie Con- stantinopoli, prae caeteris eruditi, et Christianas religionis amantes, totum musarum choruni, relicto Helicone, in Germaniam transmigrasse. (Vitas Philosophurum.) Melchior Adam lived in the early part of the seventeenth century, when this high character was hardly applicable tp Germany ; but his panegyric must be taken as designed for the preceding age, in which the greater part of his eminent men flourished. Besides this, he is so much a compiler that this passage may not be his own. 1 Kcu ra p.(v p.(ra \povov, as yap c\if- rpiros 8rj Tort fjiiitpa, 6tov Kpvpa8ff *^ e Catholic univer- cathoiic sities, governed by men Germany. w liose prejudices were in- superable even by appealing to their selfish- ness, had kept still in the same track, edu- cating their students in the barbarous logic and literature of the Middle Ages, careless that every method was employed in Pro- testant education to develop and direct the talents of youth ; and this had given the manifest intellectual superiority, which taught the disciples and contemporaries of the first reformers a scorn for the stupidity and ignorance of the popish party, some- what exaggerated, of course, as such senti- ments generally are, but dangerous above measure to its influence. It was therefore one of the first great services which the Jesuits performed to get possession of the universities, or to found other seminaries for education. In these they discarded the barbarous school-books then in use, put the rudimentary study of the languages on a better footing, devoted themselves, for the sake of religion, to those accomplishments which religion had hitherto disdained ; and by giving a taste for elegant literature, f 8aKpvOfirros' Iva irpos nevrpov avaiSea rapvov taai. ouSf p.fv ou/iopovs KapoXooraStos (pvye iron/as, TOV 8e yap avTif3o\a>v Kpveptf ptra ou XP fOS TjfV. with as much solid and scientific philosophy as the knowledge of the times and the pre- judices of the church would allow, both wiped away the reproach of ignorance, and drew forth the native talents of their novices and scholars. They taught gra- tuitously, which threw, however unreason- ably, a sort of discredit upon salaried pro- fessors i 1 it was found that boys learned more from them in six months than in two years under other masters ; and, probably for both these reasons, even protestants sometimes withdrew their children from the ordinary gymnasia and placed them in Jesuit colleges. No one will deny that, in their classical kvwledge, particularly of the Latin language, s,nd in the elegance with which they wrote it, the order of Jesuits might stand in competition with any scholars of Europe. In this period of the sixteenth century, though not perhaps in Germany itself, they produced several of the best writers whom it could boast. 2 26. It is seldom that an ige of critical erudition is one also of fine philological writing; the two have not works of perhaps a natural incompa- tibility with each other, but the bond- woman too often usurps the place of the free-woman, and the auxiliary science of philology controls, instead of adorning and ministering to the taste and genius of original minds. As the study of the Latin language advanced, as better editions were published, as dictionaries and books of criticism were more carefully drawn up, we naturally expect to find it written with more correctness, but not with more force and truth. The expostulation of Henry Stephens de Latinitate Falso Suspecta, 1576, is a collection of classical authorities for words and idioms, which seem so like French, that the reader would not hesitate to condemn them. Some of these, how- ever, are so familiar to us as good Latin, that we can hardly suspect the dictionaries not to have contained them. I have not examined any earlier edition than that of Calepin's dictionary, as enlarged by Paulus 1 Mox, ubi paululum flrmitatis accessit, pueros sine mercede docendos et erudiendos susceperunt ; quo artiflcio non vulgarem vulgi favorem emeruere, criminandis pnesertlm aliis doctoribus, quorum doctrina venalis esset et schola; nulli sine mercede paterent, et interdum etiam doctrina peregrina personarent. Incredi- bile dictu est, quantum haac criminatio valuerit. Hospinian, Hist. Jesuitarum, 1. ii. c 1. fol 84. See also 1. i. fol. 59. 2 Ranke, ii. 32. Eichhorn, iii. 206. The latter scarcely does justice to the Jesuits as pro- moters of learning in their way. 144 .Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Manutius, of the date of 1579, rather after this publication by Henry Stephens, and certainly it does not appear to want these words, or to fail in sufficient authority for them. 27. In another short production by Stephens, De Latinitate Style of Lipsius. ....... lapsii Palaestra, ne turns into ridicule the affected style of that author, who ransacked all his stores of learning to perplex the reader. A much later writer, Scioppius, in his Judicium de Stylo Historico, points out several of the affected and erroneous expressions of Lipsius. But he was the founder of a school of bad writers, which lasted for some time, especially in Germany. Seneca and Tacitus were the authors of antiquity whom Lipsius strove to emulate. "Lip- sius," says Scaliger, "is the cause that men have now little respect for Cicero, whose style he esteems about as much as I d j his own. He once wrote well, but his third century of epistles is good for nothing." 1 But a style of point and affected concise- ness will always have its admirers, till the excess of vicious imitation disgusts the world. 2 28. Morhof, andseveralauthoritiesquoted Minerva of by Baillet, extol the Latin Sanctius. grammarofaSpaniard.Ema- nuel Alvarez, as the first in which the fancies of the ancient grammarians had been laid aside. Of this work I know nothing farther. But the Minerva of another rative of Spain, Sanchez, com- monly called banctius, the first edition of which appeared at Salamanca in 1587, far excelled any grammatical treatise that had 1 Scaligerana Secunda. 2 Miraeus, quoted in Melchior Adam's Life of Lipsius, praises his eloquence, with contempt of those who thought their own feeble and empty writing like Cicero's. See also Eichhorn, iii. 299 ; Baillet, who has a long article on the style of Lipsius and the school it formed (Jugemens des Savans, vol. ii. p. 102, 4to edition) ; and Blount ; also the note M. in Bayle's article on Lipsius. The following passage of Scioppius I transcribe from Blount : " In Justi Lipsii stylo, scriptoris setate nostra clarissimi, istae apparent dotes; acumen, venustas, delectus, ornatus vel nimius, cum viz quicquam proprie dictum ei placeat, turn schemata nullo numero, tandem verborum copia; desunt autem per- spicuitas, puritas, aequabilitas, collocatio, junc- tura et numerus oratorius. Itaque oratio ejus t- st obscura, non paucis barbarismis et soloecis- mia, pluribus vero archaismis et idiotismis, innumeria etiam neoterismis inquinata, com- prehensio obscura, compositio fracta et in par- ticulasconcisa, vocum similiumaut ambiguarum puerilis captatio." preceded it, especially as to the rules of syntax, which he has reduced to their natural principles, by explaining apparent anomalies. He is called the prince of grammarians, a divine man, the Mercury and Apollo of Spain, the father of the Latin language, the common teacher of the learned, in the panegyrical style of the Lipsii or Scioppii. 1 The Minerva, enlarged and corrected at different times by the most eminent scholars, Scioppius, Peri- zonius, and others more recent, still re- tains a leading place in philology. "Ne one among those," says its last editor Bauer, " who have written well upon grammar, has attained such reputation and even authority as the famous Spaniard whose work we now give to the press." But Sanctius has been charged with too great proneness to censure his predecessors, especially Valla, and with an excess of novelty in his theoretical speculations. 29. The writers, who in this second moiety of the sixteenth cen- oration* of tury appear to have been Muretua. most conspicuous for purity of style, were Muretus, Paulus Manutius Perpinianus, Osorius, Maphreus, to whom we may add our own Buchanan, and perhaps Haddon. The first of these is celebrated for his Orations, published by Aldus Manutius in 1576. Many of these were delivered a good deal earlier. Kuhnkenius, editor of the works of Muretus, says that panegyric of he at once eclipsed Bembo, Buhnkenius. Sadolet, and the whole host of Cicero nians ; expressing himself so perfectly in that author's style that we should fancy our- selves to be reading him, did not the sub- ject betray a modern hand. "In learn- ing," he says, "and in knowledge of the- Latin language, Manutius was not inferior to Muretus ; we may even say, that his zeal in imitating Cicero was still stronger, inasmuch as he seemed to have no other aim all his life than to bear a perfect re- semblance to that model. Yet he rather followed than overtook his master, and in this line of imitation cannot be compared with Muretus. The reason of this was that nature had bestowed on Muretus the same kind of genius that she had given to Cicero, while that of Manutius was very different. It was from this similarity of temperament that Muretus acquired such felicity of expression, such grace in narra- tion,. such wit in raillery, such perception of what would gratify the ear in the struc- ture and cadence of his sentences. The resemblance of natural disposition made it i Baillet. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. a spontaneous act of Muretus to fall into the footsteps of Cicero ; while, with all the efforts of Manutius, his dissimilar genius led him constantly away ; so that we should not wonder when the writings of one so delight us that we cannot lay them down, while we are soon wearied with those of the other, correct and polished as they are, on account of the painful desire of imitation which they betray. No one, since the revival of letters," Ruhnkenius proceeds, "has written Latin more cor- rectly than Muretus ; yet even in him a few inadvertencies may be discovered." 1 30. Notwithstanding the panegyric of so Defects of his excellent a scholar, I cannot tyie. feel this very close approxim- ation of Muretus to the Ciceronian standard ; and it even seems to me that I have not rarely met with modern Latin of a more thoroughly classical character. His style is too redundant and florid; his topics very trivial. Witness the whole oration on the battle of Lepanto, where the great- ness of his subject does not raise them above the level of a schoolboy's exercise. The celebrated eulogy on the St. Bar- tholomew Massacre, delivered before the Pope, will serve as a very fair specimen, to exemplify the Latinity of Muretus. 2 1 Mureti opera, cura Ruhnkenii, Lugd. 1789. 2 O noctem illam memorabilem et in fastis eximise alicujus notso adjectione signandam, Della Milizia Romana, 1583, of which a trans- lation will be found in the tenth volume of Grsevius. 2 It is divided into fifteen parts, which seem to comprehend the whole sub- ject : each of these again is divided into sections ; and each section explains a text from the sixth book of Polybius, or from Livy. But he comes down no lower in history than those writers extend, and is consequently not aware of, or but slightly alludes to, the great military changes that ensued in later times. On Polybius he comments sentence by sentence. He had been preceded by Robortellus, and by Francis, Duke of Urbino, in endeavouring 1 Nonnulla quidem variis locis attigit Meur- sius et alii, sed teretiore prorsus et rotunclo rnagis ore per omnia Sigonius. Thesaur. An- tiq. Graec. vol. v. 2 Primus Romanae rei militaris prnestantiam Polybium secutus detexit, cui quantum debeant qui post ilium in hoc argumento elaborarunt, non nescient viri docti qui Joseph! Scaligeri epistolas, aut Nicii Erythrsei Pinacothecam legerunt. Nonnulli quidem rectius et explica- tius aunt tradita de bac doctrina post Patricium a Juato Lipsio et aliis, qui in hoc stadio cucur- rerunt ; ut non dilHcultcr inventis aliquid additur aut in its cmendatur, sed praeclare tamen fractae glaciei laus Patricio est tribuenda. Graevius in praefat. ad lOmum volumen. This book has been confounded by Blount and Gin- guene with a later work of Patrizzi entitled Parallel! Militari, Rome, 1594, in which he com- pared the military art of the ancients with that of the moderns, exposing, according to Tira- boschi (viii. 494), his own ignorance of the subject. to explain the Roman castrametation from Polybius. Their plans differ a little from his own. 1 Lipsius, who some years after- wards wrote on the same subject, resembles Patrizzi in his method of a running com- mentary on Polybius. Scaliger, who dis- liked Lipsius very much, imputes to him plagiarism from the Italian antiquary. - But I do not perceive, on a comparison of the two treatises, much pretence for this insinuation. The text of Potybius was surely common ground, and I think it possible that the work of Patrizzi, which was written in Italian, might not be known to Lipsius. But whether this were so or not, he is much more full and satisfactory than his predecessor, who, I would venture to hint, may have been a little over-praised. Lipsius, however, seems to have fallen into the same error of supposing that the whole history of the Roman militia could be ex- plained from Polybius. 59. The works of Lipsius are full of ac- cessions to our knowledge up slnsand of Roman antiquity, and he other anti- may be said to have stood Caries, as conspicuous on this side of the Alps as Sigonius in Italy. His treatise on the amphitheatre, 1584, completed what Pan- vinius, De Ludis Circensibus, had begun. A later work, by Peter Fabre, president in the parliament of Toulouse, entitled " Agonisticon, sivedeRe Athletica," 1592, relates to the games of Greece as well as Rome, and has been highly praised by Gronovius. It will be found in the eighth volume of the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Grsecarum. Several antiquaries traced the history of Roman families and names ; such as Fulvius Ursinus, Sigonius, Panvinius, Pighius, Castalio, Golzius. 3 A Spaniard of immense erudition, Petrus Ciaconius (Chacon), besides many illustrations of ancient monuments of antiquities, espe- cially the rostral column of Duilius, has 1 All these writers err, in common, I believe, with every other before General Roy, in his Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain (1793), in placing the praBtorium, or tent of the general, near the front gate of the camp, called Porta Praetoria, instead of the opposite, Porta Decumana. Lipsius is so perplexed by Mie assumption of this hypothesis, that he struggles to alter the text of Polybius. 2 Scalig. Secunda. In one of Casr.ubon's epistles to Scaliger, he says : Franciscus 1'atri- tius solus mihi videtur digitum ad fontes in- tendisse, quern ad verbum alii, qui hoc studium tractarunt, cum sequuntur tamen ejus nomen ne semel quidem memorarunt. Quod equidem magis miratus sum in illis de quorum candore dubitare piaculum es.sso putassem. 3 Grsevius, vol. viL Liferature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 257 left a valuable treatise, De Triclinio Ro- mano, 1588. l He is not to be confounded with Alfonsus Ciaconius, a native also of Spain, but not of the same family, who wrote an account of the column of Trajan. Pancirollus, in his Notitia Dignitatum, or rather his commentary on a public docu- ment of the age of Constantine so entitled, threw light on that later period of imperial Rome. GO. The first contribution that England made to ancient literature in this line was saviiie on the " View of Certain Mili- Roman militia. t arv Matters, or Comment- aries concerning Roman Warfare," by Sir Henry Saville, in 1598. This was trans- lated into Latin, and printed at Heidelberg, as early as 1601. It contains much in- formation in small compass, extending only to about 130 duodecimo pages. Nor is it borrowed, as far as I could perceive, from Patrizzi or Lipsius, but displays an inde- pendent and extensive erudition. 61. It would encumber the reader's mem- ory were these pages to become a register of books. Both in this and the succeeding periods we can only select such as appear, by the permanence, or, at least, the imme- diate lustre of their reputation, to have deserved of the great republic of letters better than the rest. And in such a selec- tion it is to be expected that the grounds of preference or of exclusion will occa- sionally not be obvious to all readers, and possibly would not be deemed, on recon- sideration, conclusive to the author. In names of the second or third class there is often but a shadow of distinction. 62. The foundations were laid, soon after the middle of the century, Numismatics. - . , . of an extensive and inter- esting science that of ancient medals. Collections of these had been made from the time of Cosmo de Medici, and perhaps still earlier ; but the rules of arranging, comparing, and explaining them were as yet unknown, and could be derived only from close observation, directed by a pro- found erudition. Eneas Vico of Venice, in 1555, published "Discorsi sopra le Me- daglie degl' Antichi ; " " in which he justly boasts," says Tiraboschi, " that he was the first to write in Italian on such a subject; but he might have added that no one had yet written upon it in any language." 2 The learning of Vico was the more remarkable that he was by profession an engraver. He afterwards published a series of imperial 1 Blount, Niceron, vol. xxxvi. 2 Tiraboschi, ix. 206. GingU(5n<, vii. 292. Biogr. Univ. medals, aud another of the empresses ; adding to each a life of the person and ex- planation of the reverse. But in the latter he was excelled by Sebastian Erizzo, a noble Venetian, who four years after Vico published a work with nearly the same title. This is more fully comprehensive than that 'of Vico : medallic science was reduced in it to fixed principles, and it is particularly esteemed for the erudition shown by the author in explaining the re- verses. 1 Both Vico and Erizzo have been sometimes mistaken ; but what science is perfect in its commencement ? It has been observed that the latter, living at the same time in the same city, and engaged in the same pursuit, makes no mention of his pre- cursor ; a consequence, no doubt, of the jealous humour so apt to prevail with the professors of science, especially when they do not agree in their opinions. This was the case here ; Vico having thought ancient coins and medals identical, while Erizzo made a distinction between them, in which modern critics in numismatic learning have generally thought him in the wrong. The medallic collections, published by Hubert Golzius, a Flemish engraver, who had ex- amined most of the private cabinets in Europe, from 1557 to 1579, acquired great reputation, and were long reckoned the principal repertory of that science. But it seems that suspicions entertained by many of the learned have been confirmed, and that Golzius has published a great number of spurious and even of imaginary medals ; his own good faith being also much impli- cated in these forgeries. 2 63. The ancient mythology is too closely connected with all classical literature to have been ne- y ^ 8y ' glected so long as numismatic antiquity. The compilations of Rhodiginus and Ab Alexandro, besides several other works, and indeed all annotations on Greek and Latin authors, had illustrated it. But this was not done systematically ; and no sub- ject more demands a comparison of authori- ties, which will not always be found con- sistent or intelligible. Boccaccio had long before led the way, in his Genealogiae Deorum ; but the erudition of the four- teenth century could clear away but little of the cloud that still in some measure hangs over the religion of the ancient world. In the first decade of the present period we find a work of considerable merit for the times, by Lilio Gregorio GiraldL, one of the most eminent scholars of that Idem. 2 Biogr. TJniv. B 258 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. age, entitled Historia de Diis 'Gentium. It had been preceded by one of inferior reputation, the Mythologia of Natalia Comes. "Giraldi," says the 3iographie Universelle, " is the first who hs^s treated properly this subject, so difficult ou account of its extent and complexity. He made use not only of all Greek and Latin authors, but of ancient inscriptions, which he has explained with much sagacity. Sometimes the multiplicity of his quotations renders him obscure, and sometimes he fails in ac- curacy, through want of knowing what has since been brought to light. But the His- toria de Diis Gentium is still consulted." 64. We can place in no other chapter but Scaiiger'i the present a work, than Chronology. w hich none publi shed within this century is superior, and perhaps none is equal in originality, depth of erudition and vigorous encountering of difficulty, that of Joseph Scaliger, De Emendatione Temporum. The first edition of this ap- peared in 1583 ; the second, which is much enlarged and amended, in 1598 ; and a third, still better, in 1609. Chronology, as a science, was hitherto very much unknown ; all ancient history, indeed, had been written in a servile and uncritical spirit, copying dates, as it did everything else, from the authorities immediately under the com- piler's eye, with little or no endeavour to reconcile discrepancies, or to point out any principles of computation. Scaliger per- ceived that it would be necessary to in- vestigate the astronomical schemes of an- cient calendars, not always very clearly explained by the Greek and Roman writers, and requiring much attention and acute- ness, besides a multifarious erudition, oriental as well as classical, of which he alone in Europe could be reckoned mas- ter. This work, De Emendatione Tem- porum, is in the first edition divided into eight books. The first relates to the lesser equal year, as he denominates it, or that of 360 days, adopted by some eastern na- tions, and founded, as he supposes, on the natural lunar year, before the exact period of a lunation was fully understood ; the second book is on the true lunar year and some other divisions connected with it ; the third on the greater equal year, or that of 365 days ; and the fourth on the more accurate schemes of the solar period. In the fifth and sixth books he comes to par- ticular epochs, determining in both many important dates in profane and sacred his- tory. The seventh and eighth discuss the modes of computation, and the terminal epochs used in different nations, with mis- cellaneous remarks and critical emenda- tions of his own. In later editions these two books are thrown into one. The great intricacy of many of these questions, which cannot be solved by testimonies, often im- perfect and inconsistent, without much felicity of conjecture, serves to display the surprising vigour of Scaliger's mind, who grapples like a giant with every difficulty. Le Clerc has censured him for introducing so many conjectures, and drawing so many inferences from them, that great part of his chronology is rendered highly suspi- cious, i But, whatever maybe his merit in the determination of particular dates, he is certainly the first who laid the foundations of the science. He justly calls it "Materia intacta et a nobis nunc primum tentata." Scaliger in all this work is very clear, con- cise, and pertinent, and seems to manifest much knowledge of physical astronomy, though he was not a good mathematician, and did little credit to his impartiality, by absolutely rejecting the Gregorian calen- dar. 65. The chronology of Scaliger has become more celebrated through his invention of the Julian period ; a name given, in honour of his father, to a cycle of 7980 years, beginning 4713 before Christ, and consequently before the usual date of the creation of the world. He was very proud of this device ; " it is impossible to describe," he says, " its utility ; chronologers and astronomers can- not extol it too much." And what is more remarkable, it was adopted for many years afterwards, even by the opponents of Sca- liger's chronology, and is almost as much in favour with Petavius as with the in- ventor. 2 This Julian period is formed by multiplying together the years of three cycles once much in use the solar of twenty-eight, according to the old calen- dar, the lunar or Metonic of nineteen, and the indiction, an arbitrary and political division, introduced about the time of Con- stantine, and common both in the church and empire, consisting of fifteen years. Yet I confess myself unable to perceive the great advantage of this scheme. It affords, of course, a fixed terminus, from which all dates may be reckoned in progressive num- bers, better than the aera of the creation, on account of the uncertainty attending that epoch ; but the present method of reckon- 1 Parrhasiana, ii. 363. a Usus illius opinions major est in chronicis, qu ab orbe condito vel alio quovis initio ante seram Christianam inchoantur. Petav. liation- arlum Temporum, part ii. lib. i. c. 14. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 259 ing them in a retrograde series from the birth of Christ, which seems never to have occurred to Scaliger or Petavius, is not found to have much practical inconvenience. In other respects, the only real use that the Julian period appears to possess is, that dividing any year in it by the numbers 28, 19, or 15, the remainder above the quotient will give us the place such year holds in the cycle, by the proper number of which it has been divided. Thus, if we desire to know what place in the Metonic cycle the year of the Julian period 6402, answering to the year of our Lord 1689, held, or in other words, what was the Golden Number, as it was called, of that year, we must divide 6402 by 19, and we shall find in the quotient a remainder 18 ; whence we per- ceive that it was the eighteenth year of a lunar or Metonic cycle. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar, which has greatly protracted the solar cycle by the suppres- sion of one bissextile year in a century, as well as the virtual abandonment of the indiction, and even of the solar and lunar cycles, as divisions of time, have greatly diminished whatever utility this invention may have originally possessed. CHAPTER XI. HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE, FROM 1550 TO 1600. Progress of Protestantism Reaction of the Catholic Church The Jesuits Causes of the Recovery of Catholicism Bigotry of Lutherans Controversy on Free-will Trinitarian Controversy Writings on Toleration Theology in England Bettarmin Controversy on Papal Authority Theological Writers Ecclesiasti- cal Histories Translations of Scripture. 1. IN the arduous struggle between pre- Dietof Angsburg scriptive allegiance to the In 1855. Churchof Borne and rebellion against its authority, the balance continued for some time after the commencement of this period to be strongly swayed in favour of the reformers. A decree of the diet of Augsburg in 1555, confirming an agreement made by the emperor three years before, called the Pacification of Passau, gave the followers of the Lutheran confes- sion for the first time an established con- dition, and their rights became part of the public law in Germany. No one, by this decree, could be molested for following either the old or the new form of religion ; but those who dissented from that estab- lished by their ruler were only to have the liberty of quitting his territories, with time for the disposal of their effects. No toleration was extended to the Helvetic or Calvinistic, generally called the Reformed party ; and by the Ecclesiastical Reserva- tion, a part of the decree to which the Lutheran princes seem not to have as- sented, every Catholic prelate of the empire quitting his religion was declared to forfeit his dignity. 2. This treaty, though incapable of Progress of Pro- warding off the calamities testantism. o f a future generation, might justly pass, not only for a basis of religious concord, but for a signal triumph of the Protestant cause ; such as, a few years before, it would have required all their stedfast faith in the arm of Provi- dence to anticipate. Immediately after its enactment, the principles of the con- fession of Augsburg, which had been re- strained by fear of the imperial laws against heresy, spread rapidly to the shores of the Danube, the Drave, and the Vistula. Those half-barbarous nations, who might be expected, by a more general analogy, to remain longest in their ancient pre- judices, came more readily into the new religion than the civilised people of the south. In Germany itself the progress of the Reformation was still more rapid : most of the Franconian and Bavarian nobil- ity, and the citizens of every considerable town, though subjects of Catholic princes, became Protestant ; while in Austria it has been said that not more than one thirtieth part of the people continued firm in their original faith. This may probably be exaggerated ; but a Venetian ambassador in 1558 (and the reports of the envoys of that republic are remarkable for their judiciousness and accuracy) estimated the Catholics of the German empire at only one -tenth of the population. 1 The uni- versities produced no defenders of the ancient religion. For twenty years no student of the university of Vienna had i Eanke, vol. ii., p. 125, takes a general survey of the religious state of the empire about 1563. 2GO Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Its causes. become a priest. Even at Ingolstadt it was necessary so fill with laymen offices hitherto reserved for the clergy. The prospect was not much more encouraging in France. The Venetian ambassador in that country (Micheli, whom we know by his reports of England under Mary), de- clares that in 1561 the common people still frequented the churches, but all others, especially the nobility, had fallen off ; and this defection was greatest among the younger part. 3. This second burst of a revolutionary spirit in religion was as rapid, and perhaps more appalling to its opponents, than that under Luther and Zuingle about 1520. It was certainly prepared by long working in the minds of a part of the people ; but most of its operation was due to that generous sympathy which carries mankind along with any pretext of a common interest in the redress of wrong. A very few years were sufficient to make millions desert their altars, abjure their faith, loath, spurn, and insult their gods ; words hardly too strong, when we remember how the saints and the Virgin had been honoured in their images, and how they and those were now despised. It is to be observed, that the Protestant doctrines had made no sensible progress in the south 'of Germany before the Pacification of Passau in 1552, nor much in France before the death of Henry II. in!559. The spirit of reformation, supressed under his severe administration, burst forth when his weak and youthful son ascended the throne, with an im- petuosity that threatened for a time the subversion of that profligate despotism by which the house of Valois had replaced the feudal aristocracy. It is not for us here to discriminate the influences of ambition and oligarchical factiousness from those of high-minded and strenuous exertion in the cause of conscience. 4. It is not surprising that some Catholic Wavering of governments wavered for a catholic princes, time, and thought of yield- ing to a storm which might involve them in ruin. Even as early as 1556, the duke of Bavaria was compelled to make conces- sions which would have led to a full intro- duction of the Reformation. The emperor Ferdinand I. was tolerant in disposition, and anxious for some compromise that might extinguish the schism ; his successor, Maximilian II., displayed the same temper so much more strongly, that he incurred the suspicion of a secret leaning towards the reformed tenets. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, was probably at one time wavering which course to adopt ; and though he did not quit the church of Rome, his court and the Polish nobility became extensively Protestant ; so that, according to some, there was a very considerable majority at his death who professed that creed. Amongthe Austrian and Hungarian nobility, as well as the burghers in the chief cities, it was held by so preponderat- ing a body that they obtained a full tolera- tion and equality of privileges. England, after two or three violent convulsions, be- came firmly Protestant ; the religion of the court being soon followed with sincere good-will by the people. Scotland, more unanimously and impetuously, threw off the yoke of Rome. The Low Countries very early caught the flame, and sustained the full brunt of persecution at the hands of Charles and Philip. 5. Meantime the infant Protestantism of Italy had given some signs Extinguished of increasing strength, and in Italy, began more and more to number men of re- putation; but, unsupported by popular affec- tion, or the policy of princes, it was soon wholly crushed by the arm of power. The reformed church of Locarno was compelled in 1554 to emigrate in the midst of winter, and took refuge at Zurich. That of Lucca was finally dispersed about the same time. A fresh storm of persecution arose at Modena in 1556 ; many lost their lives for religion in the Venetian States before 1560 ; others were put to death at Rome. The Protestant countries were filled with Italian exiles, many of them highly gifted men, who, by their own eminence, and by the distinction which has in some instances awaited their posterity, may be compared with those whom the revocation of the edict of Nantes long afterwards dispersed over Europe. The tendency towards Pro- testantism in Spain was of the same kind,, but less extensive, and cer- tainly still less popular than in Italy. The Inquisition took it up, and applied its usual remedies with success. But this would lead us still further from literary history than we have already wan- dered. 6. This prodigious increase of the Pro- testant party in Europe Reaction of after the middle of the Catholicity; century did not continue more than a few years. It was checked and fell back, not quite so rapidly or so completely as it came on, but so as to leave the antagonist church in perfect security. Though we must not tread closely on the ground of Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 261 political history, nor discuss too minutely any revolutions of opinion which do not distinctly manifest themselves in literature, it seems not quite foreign from the general purpose of these volumes, or at least a pardonable digression, to dwell a lit tie on the leading causes of this retrograde movement of Protestantism ; a fact as deserving of ex- planation as the previous excitement of the Reformation itself, though, from its more negative nature, it has not drawn so much of the attention of mankind. Those who behold the outbreaking of great re- volutions in civil society or in religion, will not easily believe that the rush of waters can be stayed in its course, that a pause of indifference may come on, perhaps very suddenly, or a reaction bring back nearly the same prejudices and passions as those which men had renounced. Yet this has occurred not very rarely in the annals of mankind, and never on a larger scale than in the history of the Reformation. 7. The church of Rome, and the prince especially in whom it most strongly in- Germany. fl uen ced, Philip II., acted -on an unremitting uncompromising policy of subduing, instead of making terms with its enemies. In Spain and Italy the In- quisition soon extirpated the remains of heresy. The fluctuating policy of the French court, destitute of any strong re- ligious zeal, and therefore prone to ex- pedients, though always desirous of one end, is well known. It was, in fact, im- possible to conquer a party so prompt to resort to arms and so skilful in their use as the Huguenots. But in Bavaria Albert V. , with whom, about 1564, the reaction began, .in the Austrian dominions Rodolph II., in Poland Sigismund III., by shutting up .churches, and by discountenancing in all respects their Protestant subjects, con- trived to change a party once exceedingly powerful into an oppressed sect. The de- -crees of the council of Trent were re- ceived by the spiritual princes of the empire in 1566 ; "and from this moment," says ,the excellent historian who has thrown most light on this subject, "began anew life for the Catholic church in Germany." 1 The profession of faith was signed by all . orders of men ; no one could be admitted to a degree in the universities, nor keep a school without it. Protestants were in some places excluded from the court ; a penalty which tended much to bring about the reconversion of a poor and proud no- Ability. 8. The reaction could not, however, have 1 Ranke, ii. 46. been effected by any efforts of the princes against so preponderating a Discipline of the majority as the Protestant clergy, churches had obtained, if the principles that originally actuated them had retained their animating influence, or had not been opposed by more efficacious resistance. Every method was adopted to revive an attachment to the ancient religion, in- superable by the love of novelty or the force of argument. A stricter discipline and subordination was introduced among the clergy ; they were' early trained in seminaries apart from the sentiments and habits, the vices and virtues of the world. The monastic orders resumed their rigid observances. The Capuchins, not intro- duced into France before 1570, spread over the realm within a few years, and were most active in getting up processions and all that we call foolery, but which is not the less stimulating to the multitude for its folly. It is observed by Davila, that these became more frequent after the ac- cession of Henry III. in 1574. 9. But, far above all the rest, the Jesuits were the instruments of re- influence of gaining France and Ger- Jesuit*, many to the church they served. And we are the more closely concerned with them here, that they are in this age among the links between religious opinion and litera- ture. We have seen in the last chapter with what spirit they took the lead in polite letters and classical style, with what dexterity they made the brightest talents of the rising generation, which the church had once dreaded and checked, her most willing and effective instruments. The whole course of liberal studies, however deeply grounded in erudition or embellished by eloquence, took one direction, one per- petual aim the propagation of the Catholic faith. They availed themselves for this purpose of every resource which either human nature or prevalent opinion sup- plied. Did they find Latin versification highly prized? their pupils wrote sacred poems. Did they observe the natural taste of mankind for dramatic representa- tions, and the repute which that species of literature had obtained ? their walls re- sounded with sacred tragedies. Did they perceive an unjust prejudice against sti- pendiary instruction? they gave it gratu- itously. Their endowments left them in the decent poverty which their vows re- quired, without the offensive mendicancy of the friars. 10. In 1551 Ferdinand established a college of Jesuits at Vienna ; in 1556 they 262 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. obtained one, through the favour of the duke of Bavaria, at Ingolstadt, Their progress. , . issn IT u and in 1559 at Munich. They spread rapidly into other Catholic states of the empire, and some time later into Poland. In France their success was far more equivocal ; the Sorbonne declared against them as early as 1554, and they had always to encounter the opposition of the parliament of Paris. But they estab- lished themselves at Lyons in 1569, and afterwards at Bordeaux, Toulouse, and other cities. Their three duties were preaching, confession, and education ; the most powerful levers that religion could employ. Indefatigable and unscrupulous, as well as polite and learned, accustomed to consider veracity and candour, when they weakened an argument, in the light of treason against the cause (language which might seem harsh, were it not almost equally applicable to so many other partisans), they knew how to clear their reasonings from scholastic pedantry and tedious quotation for the simple and sincere understandings whom they ad- dressed ; yet, in the proper field of con- troversial theology, they wanted nothing of sophistical expertness or of erudition. The weak points of Protestanism they at- tacked with embarrassing ingenuity; and the reformed churches did not cease to give them abundant advantage by incon- sistency, extravagance, and passion. 1 11. At the death of Ignatius Loyola in 1556. the order he had Their colleges. , ", , ,. ., , . , founded was divided into thirteen provinces, besides the Roman ; most of which were in the Spanish penin- sula or its colonies. Ten colleges belonged to Castile, eight to Aragon, five to Anda- lusia. Spain was for some time the fruit- ful mother of the disciples, as she had been of the master. The Jesuits who came to Germany were called " Spanish priests." They took possession of the universities : "they conquered us," says Ranke, "on our own ground, in our own homes, and stripped us of a part of our country." This, the acute historian proceeds to say, sprung certainly from the want of under- standing among the Protestant theologians, and of sufficient enlargement of mind to I Hospinian, Hist. Jesuitarum. Ranke, vol. il. p. 32, et post. Tiraboschi, viii. 116. The first of these works is entirely on one side, and gives no credit to the Jesuits for their services to literature. The second is of a very different class, philosophical and profound, and yet with much more learning, that is, with a more ex- tensive range of knowledge than any writer of Hospinian's age could possess. tolerate unessential differences. The vio- lent opposition among each other left the way open to these cunning strangers, who taught a doctrine not open to dispute. 12. But though Spain for a time supplied the most active spirits in the order, its central point was always at Rome. It was there that the general Jesuit seminary to whom they had sworn re- at Rome, sided ; and from thence issued to the re- motest lands the voice, which, whatever secret councils might guide it, appeared that of a single, irresponsible, irresistible will. The Jesuits had three colleges at Rome ; one for their own novices, another for German, and a third for English stu- dents. Possevin has given us an account of the course of study in Jesuit seminaries, taking that of Rome as a model. It con- tained nearly 2000 scholars, of varioua descriptions. "No one," he says, "is ad- mitted without a foundation of grammati- cal knowledge. The abilities, the disposi- tions, the intentions for future life, are scrupulously investigated in each candi- date ; nor do we open our doors to any who do not come up in these respects to what so eminent a school of all virtue requires. They attend divine service daily ; they con- fess every month. The professors are numerous ; some teaching the exposition of Scripture, some scholastic theology, some the science of controversy with here- tics, some casuistry ; many instruct in logic and philosophy, in mathematics, or rhetoric, polite literature, and poetry ; the Hebrew and Greek, as well as Latin, tongues are taught. Three years are given to the course of philosophy, four to that of theology. But if any are found not so fit for deep studies, yet likely to be useful in the Lord's vineyard, they merely go through two years of practical, that is, casuistical theology. These seminaries are for youths advanced beyond the inferior classes or schools ; but in the latter also religious and grammatical learning go hand in hand." 1 13. The popes were not neglectful of such faithful servants. Under Patronage of Gregory XIII. , whose ponti- Gregory xm. ficate began in 1772, the Jesuit college at Rome had twenty lecture-rooms and 360' chambers for students ; a German college was restored, after a temporary suspension ; and an English one founded by his care ; perhaps there was not a Jesuit seminary in the world which was not indebted to his liberality. Gregory also established a Greek college (not of Jesuits), for the edu- 1 Possevin, Bibliotheca Selecta, lib. i. c. 39. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 2G3 cation of youths, who there learned to propagate the Catholic faith in their coun- try. 1 No earlier pope had been more alert and strenuous in vindicating his claims to universal allegiance ; nor, as we may judge from the well-known pictures of Vasari in the vestibule of the Sistine chapel, repre- senting the massacre of St. Bartholomew, more ready to sanction any crime that might be serviceable to the church. 14. The resistance made to this aggres- conversions in sive warfare was for some Germany and time considerable. Protest- France - antism, so late as 1578, might be deemed preponderant in all the Austrian dominions except the Tyrol. 2 In the Polish diets the dissidents, as they were called, met their opponents with vigour and success. The ecclesiastical principalities were full of Protestants ; and even in the chapters some of them might be found. But the contention was unequal, from the different character of the parties : religious zeal and devotion, which fifty years before had overthrown the ancient rites in northern Germany, were now more invigorating sentiments in those who rescued them from further in- novation. In religious struggles, where there is anything like an equality of forces, the question soon comes to be which party will make the greater sacrifice for its own faith. And while the Catholic self-devo- tion had grown far stronger, there was much more of secular cupidity, lukewarm- ness, and formality in the Lutheran church. In a very few years the effects of this were distinctly visible. The Protestants of the Catholic principalities went back into the bosom of Home. In the bishopric of Wurtzburg alone 62,000 converts are said to have been received in the year 1586. 3 The emperor Eodolph and his brother archdukes, by a long series of persecutions and banishment, finally, though not with- in this century, almost outrooted Pro- testantism from the hereditary provinces of Austria. It is true that these violent measures were the proximate cause of so many conversions; but if the reformed had been ardent and united, they were much too strong to have been thus sub- dued. In Bohemia, accordingly, and Hungary, where there was a more steady spirit, they kept their ground. The reac- tion was not less conspicuous in other 1 Eanke, i. 419, et post. Gingudnd, vii. 12. Tiraboschi, viii. 34. 2 Ranke, ii. 78. 3 Ranke, ii. 121. The number seems rather startling. countries. It is asserted that the Hugue- nots had already lost more than two-thirds of their number in 1580 ;* comparatively, I presume, with twenty years before ; and the change in their relative position is manifest from all the histories of this period. In the Netherlands, though the seven United Provinces were slowly win- ning their civil and religious liberties at the sword's point, yet West Flanders, once in great measure Protestant, became Catholic before the end of the century ; while the Walloon Provinces were kept from swerving by some bishops of great eloquence and excellent lives, as well as by the influence of the Jesuits planted at St. Omar and Douay. At the close of this period of fifty years the mischief done to the old church in its first decennium was very nearly repaired ; the proportions of the two religions in Germany coincided with those which had existed at the Pacifi- cation of Passau. The Jesuits, however, had begun to encroach a little on the proper domain of the Lutheran church ; besides private conversions, which, on ac- count of the rigour of the laws, not cer- tainly less intolerant than in their own communion, could not be very prominent, they had sometimes hopes of the Pro- testant princes, and had once, in 1578, ob- tained the promise of John king of Sweden to embrace openly the Romish faith, as he had already done in secret to Possevin, an emissary dispatched by the Pope on this important errand. But the symptoms of an opposition, very formidable in a coun- try which has never allowed its kings to trifle with it, made this wavering monarch retrace his steps. His successor, Sigis- mund, went farther, and fell a victim to his zeal, by being expelled from the king- dom. 15. This great reaction of the papal re- ligion after the shock it had causes of this sustained in the first part of reaction, the sixteenth century, ought for ever to restrain that temerity of prediction so fre- quent in our ears. As women sometimes believe the fashion of last year in dress to be wholly ridiculous, and incapable of be- ing ever again adopted by any one solicit- ous about her beauty, so those who affect to pronounce on future events are equally confident against the possibility of a resur- rection of opinions which the majority have for the time ceased to maintain. In the year 1560, every Protestant in Europe doubtless anticipated the overthrow of 1 Id. p. 147. 264 Literature of Europe from 1550/0 1600. popery ; the Catholics could have found little else to warrant hope than their trust in Heaven. The late rush of many nations towards democratical opinions has not been so rapid and so general as the change of re- ligion about that period. It is important and interesting to inquire what stemmed this current. We readily acknowledge the prudence, firmness, and unity of purpose, that for the most part distinguished the court of Rome, the obedience of its hier- archy, the severity of intolerant laws, and the searching rigour of the Inquisition, the resolute adherence of great princes to the Catholic faith, the influence of the Jesuits over education ; but these either existed before, or would at least not have been sufficient to withstand an overwhelming force of opinion. It must be acknowledged that there was a principle of vitality in that religion, independent of its external strength. By the side of its secular pomp, its relaxation of morality, there had always been an intense flame of zeal and devotion. Superstition it might be in the many, fa- naticism in a few ; but both of these imply the qualities which, while they subsist, render a religion indestructible. That re- vival of an ardent zeal, though which the Franciscans had, in the thirteenth century, with some good and much more evil effect, spread a popular enthusiasm over Europe, was once more displayed in counteraction of those new doctrines, that themselves had drawn their life from a similar develop- ment of moral emotion. 16. Even in the court of Leo X., soon A rigid party in after the bursting forth of the church, the Reformation in Saxony, a small body was formed by men of rigid piety, and strenuous for a different species of reform. Sadolet, Caraffa (afterwards Paul IV.), Cajetan, and Contareni, both the latter eminent in the annals of the church, were at the head of this party. 1 Without dwelling on what belongs strictly to eccle- siastical history, it is sufficient to say that they acquired much weight ; and while ad- hering generally to the doctrine of the church (though Contareni, held the Lutheran tenets on justification), aimed steadily at a restoration of moral discipline, and the abolition of every notorious abuse. Several of the regular orders were re- formed, while others were instituted, more active in sacerdotal duties than the rest. The Jesuits must be considered as the most perfect type of the rigid party. Whatever may be objected, perhaps not quite so early, to their system of casuistry, what- 1 Kanke, i. 133. ever want of scrupulousness may have been shown in their conduct, they were men who never swerved from the path of labour, and, it might be, suffering in the cause which they deemed that of God. All self- sacrifice in such circumstances, especially of the highly gifted and accomplished, though the bigot steels his heart and closes his eyes against it, excites the ad- miration of the unsophisticated part of mankind. 17. The council of Trent, especially in its later sessions, displayed the it efforts at antagonist parties in the Trent. Roman church, one struggling for lucra- tive abuses, one anxious to overthrow them. They may be called the Italian and Spanish parties ; the first headed by the Pope's legates, dreading above all things both the reforming spirit of Constance and Basle, and the independence either of princes or of national churches ; the other actuated by much of the spirit of those councils, and tending to confirm that independence. The French and German prelates usually sided with the Spanish ; and they were together strong enough to establish as a rule, that in every session, a decree for re- formation should accompany the declara- tion of doctrine. The Council, interrupted in 1547 by the measure that Paul III. found it necessary for his own defence against these reformers to adopt, the translation of its sittings to Bologna, with which the Imperial prelates refused to comply, was opened again by Julius III. in 1552 ; and having been once more suspended in the same year, resumed its labour for the last time under Pius IV. in 1562. It ter- minated in 1564, when the court of Rome, which, with the Italian prelates, had struggled hard to obstruct the redress of every grievance, compelled the more up- right members of the council to let it close, after having effected such a reformation of discipline as they could obtain. That court was certainly successful in the con- test, so far as it might be called one, of prerogative against liberty; and partially successful iri the preservation of its lesser interests and means of influence. Yet it seems impossible to deny that the effects of the council of Trent were on the whole highly favourable to the church, for whose benefit it was summoned. The Reforma- tion would never have roused the whole north of Europe, had the people seen nothing in it but the technical problems of theology. It was against ambition and cupidity, sluggish ignorance and haughty pomp, that they took up arms. Hence the Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 265 .abolition of many long established abuses by the honest zeal of the Spanish and Cisalpine fathers in that council took away much of the ground on which the prevalent disaffection rested. 18. We should be inclined to infer from No compromise the language of some con- in doctrine, temporaries, that the council might have proceeded farther with more advantage than danger to their church, by complying with the earnest and repeated solicitations of the Emperor, the Duke of Bavaria, and even the court of France, that the sacramental cup should be restored to the laity, and that the clergy should not Toe restrained from marriage. Upon this, however, it is not here for Us to dilate. The policy of both concessions, but especially of the latter, was always questionable, and has not been demonstrated by the event. In its determinations of doctrine, the council was generally cautious to avoid ex- tremes, and left, in many momentous ques- tions of the controversy, such as the in- vocation of saints, no small latitude for private opinion. It has been thought by some that they lost sight of this prudence in defining transubstantiation so rigidly as they did in 1551, and thus opposed an ob- stacle to the conversion of those who would have acquiesced in a more equivocal form of words. But, in truth, no alter- native was left upon this point. Transub- stantiation had been asserted by a prior council, the Fourth Lateran in 1215, so positively, that to recede would have sur- rendered the main principle of the Catholic church. And it is also to be remembered, when we judge of what might have been done, as we fancy, with more prudence, that, if there was a good deal of policy in the decisions of the council of Trent, there was no want also of conscientious sincerity; and that whatever we may think of this doctrine, it was one which seemed of fundamental importance to the serious and obedient sons of the church. 1 1 A strange notion has been started of late years in England, that the council of Trent made important innovations in the previously established doctrines of the Western Church ; an hypothesis so paradoxical in respect to pub- lic opinion, and, it must be added, so prodi- giously at variance with the known facts of ec- clesiastical history, that we cannot but admire the facility with which it has been taken up. It will appear, by reading the accounts of the sessions of the council either in Father Paul, or in any more favourable historian, that even in certain points, such as justification, which had not been clearly laid down before, the Tri- dentine decrees were mostly conformable with 19. There is some difficulty in proving for the council of Trent that Consultation of universality to which its ad- Cassander. herents attach an infallible authority. And this was not held to be a matter of course by the great European powers. Even in France the Tridentine decrees, in matters of faith, have not been formally received, though the Gallican church has never called any of them in question ; those relating to matters of discipline are dis- tinctly held not obligatory. The Emperor Ferdinand seems to have hesitated about acknowledging the decisions of a council, which had at least failed in the object for which it was professedly summoned the conciliation of all parties to the church. For we find that even after its close, he referred the chief points in controversy to George Cassander, a German theologian of very moderate sentiments and temper. Cassander wrote, at the emperor's request, the sense of the majority of those doctors who had obtained the highest reputation ; and that upon what are more usually reckoned the dis- tinctive characteristics of the Church of Rome, namely, transubstantiation, purgatory, and in- vocation of the saints and the Virgin, they assert nothing but what had been so ingrafted into the faith of this part of Europe, as to have been rejected by no one without suspicion or imputation of heresy. Perhaps Erasmus would npt have acquiesced with good-will in all the decrees of the council ; but was Erasmus deemed orthodox ? It is not impossible that the great hurry with which some controversies of considerable importance were dispatched in the last sessions, may have had as much to do with the short and vague phrases employed in respect to them, as the prudence I have attri- buted to the fathers ; but the facts will remain the same on either supposition. No general council ever contained so many persons of eminent learning and ability as that of Trent ; nor is there ground for believing that any other ever investigated the questions before it with so much patience, acuteness, temper, and desire of truth. The early councils, un- less they are greatly belied, would not bear comparison in these characteristics. Impar- tiality and freedom from prejudice no Protes- tant will attribute to the fathers of Trent ; but where will he produce these qualities in an ecclesiastical synod ? But it may be said that they had only one leading prejudice, that of determining theological faith according to the tradition of the Catholic church, as handed down to their own age. This one point of authority conceded, I am not aware that they can be proved to have decided wrong, or at least against all reasonable evidence. Let those who have imbibed a different opinion ask them- selves whether they have read Sarpi through with any attention, especially as to those sessions of the Tridentine council which pre- ceded its suspension in 1547. 266 Literature of Europe from 1550/0 1600. his famous Consultation, wherein he passes in review every article in the Confession of Augsburg, so as to give, if possible, an in- terpretation consonant to that of the Catholic church. Certain it is that, be- tween Melanchthon's desire of concord in drawing up the Confession, and that of Cassander in judging of it, no great num- ber of points seem to be left for dispute. In another treatise of Cassander, De Officio Pii Viri in hoc Dissidio Eeligionis (1561), he holds the same course that Erasmus had done before, blaming those who, on account of the stains in the church, would wholly subvert it, as well as those who erect the pope into a sort of deity, by setting up his authority as an infallible rule of faith. The rule of 'controversy laid down by Cas- sander is, Scripture explained by the tra- dition of the ancient church, which is best to be learned from the writings of those who lived from the age of Constantino to that of Gregory I., because, during that period, the principal articles of faith were most discussed. Dupin observes that the zeal of Cassander for the reunion and peace of the church made him yield too much to the Protestants, and advance some propositions that were too bold. But they were by no means satisfied with his con- cessions. This treatise was virulently at- tacked by Calvin, to whom Cassander re- plied. No one should hesitate to prefer the spirit of Cassander to that of Calvin ; but it must be owned that the practical consequence of his advice would have been to check the profession of the reformed re- ligion, leaving amendment to those who had little disposition to amend anything. Nor is it by any means unlikely that this conciliatory scheme, by extenuating dis- agreements, had a considerable influence in that cessation of the advance of Protestan- tism, or rather that reaction to which we have lately adverted, and of which more proofs were long afterwards given. 20. "We ought to reckon also among the Bigotry of principal causes of this Protestant change those perpetual dis- he *' putes, those irreconcileable animosities, that bigotry, above all, and persecuting spirit, which were exhibited in the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. Each began with a common principle the necessity of an orthodox faith. But this orthodoxy meant evidently nothing more than their own belief, as opposed to that of their adversaries ; a belief acknowledged to be fallible, yet maintained as certain, rejecting authority in one breath, and ap- pealing to it in the next, and claiming to rest on sure proofs of reason and Scrip- ture, which their opponents were ready with just as much confidence to invalidate. 21. The principle of several controversies which agitated the two great Tenets of divisions of the Protestant Meianchthon. name was still that of the real presence. The Calvinists, as far as their meaning could be divined through a dense mist of nonsense which they purposely collected, 1 were little, if at all, less removed from the Romish and Lutheran parties than the disciples of Zuingle himself, who spoke out more perspicuously. Nor did the or- thodox Lutherans fail to perceive this essential discrepancy. Meianchthon, in- contestably the most eminent man of their church after the death of Luther, had ob- tained a great influence over the younger students of theology. But his opinions, half concealed as they were, and perhaps unsettled, had long been tending to a very different line from those of Luther. The deference exacted by the latter, and never withheld, kept them from any open dis- sension. But some, whose admiration for the founder of their church was not checked by any scruples at his doctrine, soon began to inveigh against the sacrifice of his favourite tenets which Meianchthon seemed ready to make through timidity, as they believed, or false judgment. To the Romanists he was willing to concede the primacy of the Pope and the jurisdic- tion of bishops ; to the Helvetians he was suspected of leaning on the great con- troversy of the real presence ; while, on the still more important questions of faith and works, he not only rejected the Anti- nomian exaggerations of the high Luther- ans, but introduced a doctrine, said to be nearly similar to that called Semi-Pela- gian; according to which the grace com- municated to adult persons so as to draw them to God required a correspondent action of their own free-will in order to become effectual. Those who held this tenet were called Synergists. 2 It appears to be the same, or nearly so, as that adopted by the Arminians in the next cen- tury, but was not perhaps maintained by any of the schoolmen ; nor does it seem consonant to the decisions of the council of Trent, nor probably to the intention of those who compiled the Articles of the English Church. It is easy, however, to 1 See some of this in Bossuet, Variations des Eglises Protestantes, 1. ix. I do not much trust to Bossuet; but it would be too easy to find similar evidence from our own writers. 2 Moshelm. Bayle, art. Synergistes. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 267 be mistaken as to these theological subtle- ties, which those who write of them with most confidence do not really discriminate by any consistent or intelligible language. 22. There seems good reason to suspect A party hostile that the bitterness mani- to him. fested by the rigid Luther- ans against the new school was aggravated by some political events of this period ; the university of Wittenberg, in which Melanchthon long resided, being subject to the elector Maurice, whose desertion of the Protestant confederacy and unjust ac- quisition of the electorate at the expense of the best friends of the Reformation, though partly expiated by his subsequent conduct, could never be forgiven by the adherents and subjects of the Ernestine line. Those first protectors of the re- formed faith, now become the victims of his ambition, were reduced to the duchies of Weimar and Gotha, within the former of which the university of Jena, founded in 1559, was soon filled with the sternest zealots of Luther's school. Flacius Illyri- cus, most advantageously known as the chief compiler of the Centurise Magdebur- genses, was at the head of this university, and distinguished by his animosity against Melanchthon, whose gentle spirit was re- leased by death from the contentions he abhorred in 1560. Bossuet exaggerates the indecision of Melanchthon on many disput- able questions, which, as far as it existed, is rather perhaps a matter of praise ; but his want of firmness makes it not always easy to determine his real sentiments, especially in his letters, and somewhat impaired the dignity and sincerity of his mind. 23. After the death of Melanchthon, a Form of controversy, began by one Concord, 1B76. Bentius, relating to the ubiquity, as it was called, of Christ's body, proceeded with much heat. It is sufficient to mention that it led to what is denominated the Formula Concordiae, a declaration of faith on several matters of controversy, drawn up at Torgau in 1576, and subscribed by the Saxon and most other Lutheran churches of Germany, though not by those of Brunswick, or of the northern kingdoms. It was justly considered as a complete victory of the rigid over the moderate party. The strict enforcement of subscription to this creed gave rise to a good deal of persecution against those who were called Crypto- Calvinists, or suspected of a secret bias to- wards the proscribed doctrine. Peucer, son-in-law of Melanchthon and editor of his works, was kept for eleven years in prison. And a very narrow spirit of er- jhodoxy prevailed for a century and a half afterwards in Lutheran theology. But in consequence of this spirit, that theology las been almost entirely neglected and con- iemned in the rest of Europe, and scarce any of its books are remembered by name. 1 24. Though it may be reckoned doubtful whether the council of Trent controversy did not repel some wavering raised by Protestants by its unquali- fied re-enactment of the doctrine of tran- substantiation, it prevented, at least, those controversies on the real presence which agitated the Protestant communions. But in another more extensive and important province of theology, the decisions of the council, though cautiously drawn up, were far from precluding such differences of opinion as ultimately gave rise to a schism in the church of Rome, and have had no- small share in the decline of its power. It is said that some of the Dominican order, who could not but find in their most re- vered authority, Thomas Aquinas, a strong assertion of Augustin's scheme of divinity, were hardly content with some of the decrees at Trent, as leaving a door open to Semi-Pelagianism. 2 The controversy, however, was first raised by Baius, pro- fessor of divinity at Louvain, now chiefly remarkable as the precursor of Jansenius. Many propositions attributed to Baius were censured by the Sorbonne in 1560, and by a bull of Pius V. in 1567. He sub- mitted to the latter ; but his tenets, which are hardly distinguishable from those of Calvin, struck root, especially in the Low Countries, and seem to have passed from the disciples of Baius to the famous bishop of Ypres in the next century. The bull of Pius apparently goes much farther from the Calvinistic hypothesis than the council of Trent had done. The Jansenist party, in later times, maintained that it was not binding upon the church. 3 1 Hospinian, Concordia Discors, is my chief authority. He was a Swiss Calvinist, and of course very hostile to the Lutheran party. But Mosheim does not vindicate very strongly his own church. See also several articles in Bayle ; and Eichhorn, vi. part i. 234. 2 Du Chesne, Hi&toire du Baianisme, vol. i. p. 8. This opinion is ascribed to Peter Soto, confessor to Charles V. , who took a part in the re-conversion of England under Mary. He is not to be confounded with the more celebrated Dominic Soto. Both these divines were dis- tinguished ornaments of the Council of Trent. 3 Some of the tenets asserted in the Articles of the Church of England are condemned ia this bull, especially the 13th. Du Chesne, p. 268 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Molina on Freewill. 25. These disputes, after a few years, Treatise of were revived and inflamed by the treatise of Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, in 1588, on free-will. In this he was charged with swerving as much from the right line on one side as Baius had been supposed to do on the other. His tenets, indeed, as usu- ally represented, do not appear to differ from those maintained afterwards by the Arminians in Holland and England. But it has not been deemed orthodox in the Church of Rome to deviate ostensibly from the doctrine of Augustin in this con- troversy; and Thomas Aquinas, though not quite of equal authority in the church at large, was held almost infallible by the Dominicans, a powerful order, well stored with learning and logic, and already jeal- ous of the rising influence of the Jesuits. Some of the latter did not adhere to the Semi-Pelagian theories of Molina ; but the spirit of the order was roused, and they all exerted themselves successfully to screen his book from the condemnation which Clement VIII. was much inclined to pro- nounce upon it. They had before this time been accused of Pelagianism by the Thomists, and especially by the partisans of Baius, who procured from the universities of Louvain and Douay a censure of the tenets that some Jesuits had promulgated. 1 26. The Protestant theologians did not Protestant fail to entangle themselves tenets. j n y^g intricate wilderness. Melanchthon drew a large portion of the 78, et post. See Biogr. Univ. art. Baius and Bayle. Du Chesne is reckoned an unfair his- torian by those who favour Baius. 1 Du Chesne, Biogr. Univ., art. Molina. The controversy had begun before the publication of Molina's treatise ; and the faculty of Louvain censured thirty-one propositions of the Jesuits in 1587. Paris, however, refused to confirm the censure. Bellarmin, in 1588, drew up an abstract of the dispute by command of Sixtus V. In this he does not decide in favour of either side, but the Pope declared the Jesuit propositions to be same doctrinae articuli, p. 258. The appearance of Molina's book, which was thought to go much farther towards Pela- gianism, renewed the flame. Clement VIII. was very desirous to condemn Molina ; but Henry IV., who now favoured the Jesuits, in- terfered for their honour. Cardinal Perron took the same side, and told the Pope that a Protestant might subscribe the Dominican doc- trine. Ranke. ii. 295, et post. Paul V. was also rather inclined against the Jesuits ; but it would have been hard to mortify such good friends, and in 1607 he issued a declaration postponing the decision sine die. The Jesuits deemed themselves victorious, as in fact they were. Id. |>. 358. Lutherans into what was afterwards called Arminianism ; but the reformed churches, including the Helvetian, which, after the middle of the century, gave up many at least of those points of difference which had distinguished them from that of Geneva, held the doctrine of Augustin on absolute predestination, on total depravity, and arbitrary irresistible grace. 27. A third source of intestine disunion lay deep in recesses beyond Trinitarian con- the soundings of human troveray. reason. The doctrine of the Trinity, which theologians agree to call inscrutable, but which they do not fail to define and analyse with the most confident dog- matism, had already, as we have seen in a former passage, been investigated by some bold spirits with little regard to the established faith. They had soon however a terrible proof of the danger that still was to wait on such momentous aberra- tions from the proscribed line. Servetus having, in 1553, published at Vienne in Dauphine, a new treatise, called Chris- tianismi Bestitutio, and escaping from thence, as he vainly hoped, to the pro- testant city of Geneva, became a victim to the bigotry of the magistrates, instigated by Calvin, who had acquired an immense ascendancy over that republic. 1 He did 1 This book is among the scarcest in the world, ipsa raritate rarior, as it is called by Schelhorn. II est reconnu, says De Bure, pour le plus rare de tous les livres. It was long sup- posed that no copy existed except that belong- ing to Dr. Mead, afterwards to the Duke de la Valiere, and now in the royal library at Paris. But a second is said to be in the Imperial library at Vienna ; and Brunet observes, on connoit a peine trois exemplaires, which seems to hint that there may be a third. Allwoerden, in his Life of Servetus, published in 1727, did not know where any printed copy could be found, several libraries having been named by mistake. But there were at that time several manuscript copies, one of which he used him- self. It had belonged to Samuel Crellius, and afterwards to La Croze, from whom he had borrowed it, and was transcribed from a printed copy, belonging to an Unitarian minister in Transylvania, who had obtained it in England between 1600 and 1R70. This celebrated book is a collection of several treatises, with the general title, Christianismi Restitutio. But that of the first and most remarkable part has been differently given. According to a letter from the Abbe Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Valiere, to Dutens, which the latter has published in the second edition of his Origines des Decouvertes attri- buees aux Modernes, vol. ii. p. 359, all former writers on the subject have been incorrect. The difference, however, is but in one word. In San- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. not leave, as far as we know, any peculiar disciples. Many, however, among the Ger- man Anabaptists held tenets not unlike those of the ancient Arians. Several per- dius, Niceron, Allwoerden, and, Isuppose, others, the title runs : De Trinitate Divina, quod in ea non sit indivisibilium trium rerum illusio, sed vera substantise Dei manifestatio in verbo, et communicatio in apiritu, libri vii. The Aboe Rive gives the word invisibilium, and this I find also in the additions of Simler to the Bibliotheca Universalis of Gesner, to which M. Rive did not advert. In Allwoerden, however, a distinct heading is given to the 6th and 7th dialogues, wherein the same title is repeated, with the word invlsibilium instead of indivisibilium. It is remarked in a note, by Rive or Dutens, that it was a gross error to put indivisiblium, as it makes Servetus say the contrary of what his system requires. I am not entirely of this opinion ; and if I understand the system of Servetus at all, the word indivisibilium is very intelligible. De Bure, who seems to write from personal inspection of the same copy, which he supposed to be unique, gives the title with indivisibilium. The Christianismi Restitutio was reprinted at Nuremburg, about 1790, in the same foi i as the original edition, but I am not aware which vord is used in the title-page ; nor would the evidence of a modern reprint, pos- sibly not taken immediately from a printed copy, be conclusive. The life of Servetus by Allwoerden, Helm- stadt, 1727, is partly founded on materials .collected by Mosheim, who put them into the author's hands. Barbier is much mistaken in placing it among pseudonymous works, as if Alhvoerden had been a fictitious denomination of Mosheim. Dictionnaire des Anonymes (1824) iii. 555. The book contains, even in the title- page, all possible vouchers for its authenticity. Mosheim himself says in a letter to Allwoerden, non dubitavi negotium hoc tibi committere, atque Historian) Serveti concinnandam et apte construendem tradere. But it appears that Allwoerden added much from other sources, so that it cannot reasonably be called the work of any one else. The Biographie Universelle as- cribes to Mosheim a Latin history of Servetus, Helmstadt, 1737 ; but, as I believe, by con- fusion with the former. They also mention a German work by Mosheim on the same subject in 1748. See Biogr. Univ., arts. Mosheim and Servetus. The analysis of the Christianismi Restitutio given by Allwoerden is very meagre, but he promises a fuller account which never ap- peared. It is a far more extensive scheme of theology than was promulgated in his first treatises ; the most interesting of Servetus's opinions being, of course, those which brought him to the stake. Servetus distinctly held the divinity of Christ. Dialogus secundus modum generationes Christi docet, quod ipse non sit creatus nee finitae potential, sedvere adorandus, verusque Deus. Allwoerden, p. 214. He pro- bably ascribed this divinity to the presence of the Logos, as a manifestation of God by that sons, chiefly foreigners, were burned for such heresies in England, under Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James. These Ana- baptists were not very learned or con- spicuous advocates of their opinions ; but some of the Italian confessors of Pro- testantism were of more importance. Sev- eral of these were reputed to be Arians. None however became so celebrated as name, but denied its distinct personality in the sense of an intelligent being different from the Father. Many others may have said something of the same kind, but in more cautious lan- guage, and respecting more the conventional phraseology of theologians. Ille crucem, hie diadema. Servetus in fact was burned, not so much for his heresies, as for some personal offence he had several years before given to Calvin. The latter wrote to Bolsec in 1546, Servetus cupit hue venire, sed a me accersitus. Ego autem nunquam committam, ut fldem meam eatenus obstrictam habeat. Jam enim constitutum habeo, si veniat, nunquam pati ut salvus exeat. Allwoerden, p. 43. A similar letter to Farel differs in some phrases, and especially by the word vivus for salvus. The- latter was published by Witenbogart, in an ecclesiastical history written in Dutch. Ser- vetus had, in some printed letters, charged Calvin with many errors, which seems to have exasperated the great reformer's temper, so- as to make him resolve on what he afterwards executed. The death of Servetus has perhaps as many circumstances of aggravation as any execution for heresy that ever took place. One of these, and among the most striking is, that he was not the subject of Geneva, nor domiciled in the city, nor had the Christianismi Restitutio been pub- lished there, but at Vienne. According to our laws, and those, I believe, of most civilised nations, he was not amenable to the tribunals of the republic. The tenets of Servetus are not easily ascer- tained in all respects, nor very interesting to the reader. Some of them were considered infldel and even pantheistical ; but there can be little ground for such imputations, when we consider the tenor of his writings, and the fate which he might have escaped by a retractation. It should be said in justice to Calvin, that he declares himself to have endeavoured to obtain a commutation of the sentence for a milder kind of death. Genus mortis conati sumus mutare, sed frustra. Allwoerden, p. 100. But he has never recovered, in the eyes of posterity, the blow this gave to his moral reputation, which the Arminians, as well as Socinians, were always anxious to depreciate. De Serveto, says Grotius, ideo certi aliquid pronuntiare ausus non sum, quia causam ejus non bene didici ; neque Calvino ejus hosti capital! credere audeo, cum sciam quam inique et virulente idem ille Calvinus tractaverit viros multo se meliorcs, Cassandrum, Balduinum, Castellionem. Grot. Op. Theolog. iv. 639. Of Servetus and his opinions he says in another place very fairly, Est in illo negotio difncillimo facilis error, p. 655. 270 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Laelius Socinus, a young man of con- siderable ability, who is reckoned the proper founder of that sect which takes its name from his family. Prudently shun- ning the fate of Servetus, he neither pub- lished anything, nor permitted his tenets to be openly known. He was however in Poland not long after the commencement of this period ; and there seems reason to believe that he left writings, which, com- ing in to the hands of some persons in that country who had already adopted the Arian hypothesis, induced them to diverge still farther from the orthodox line. The Anti- Trinitarians became numerous among the Polish Protestants; and in 1565, having separated from the rest, they began to appear as a distinct society. Faustus, nephew of Laelius Socinus, joined them about 1578 ; and acquiring a great as- cendancy by his talents, gave a name to the sect, though their creed was already conformable to his own. An university, or rather academy, for it never obtained a legal foundation, established at Eacow, a small town belonging to a Polish noble- man of their persuasion, about 1570, sent forth men of considerable eminence and great zeal in the propagation of their tenets. These, indeed, chiefly belong to the ensuing century ; but, before the ter- mination of the present, they had begun to circulate books in Holland. 1 28. As this is a literary, rather than an ecclesiastical history, we shall neither ad- vert to the less learned sectaries, nor speak of controversies which had chiefly a local importance, such as those of the English Puritans with the established church. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity will claim Attention in a subsequent chapter. 29. Thus, in the second period of the Re- Reiigiooi formation, those ominous intolerance, symptoms which had ap- peared in its earlier stage, disunion, viru- lence, bigotry, intolerance, far from yield- ing to any benignant influence, grew more inveterate and incurable. Yet some there were, even in this century, who laid the foundations of a more charitable and ra- tional indulgence to diversities of judg- ment, which the principle of the Reforma- tion itself had in some measure sanctioned. It may be said that this tolerant spirit rose out of the ashes of Servetus. The right of civil magistrates to punish heresy with death had been already impugned by some Protestant theologians, as well as by Eras- 1 Lubienecius, Hist. Reformat. Polonicse. Kees, History of Racovian Catechism. Bayle, art. Socinus. Mosheim. Dupin. Eichhorn. mua. Luther had declared against it ; and though Zuingle, who had maintained the same principle as Luther, has been charged with having afterwards approved the drowning of some Anabaptists in the lake of Zurich, it does not appear that his lan- guage requires such an interpretation. The early Anabaptists, indeed, having been seditious and unmanageable to the greatest degree, it is not easy to show that they were put to death simply on account of their religion. But the execution of Ser- vetus, with circumstances of so much cruelty, and with no possible pretext but the error of his opinions, brought home to the minds of serious men the importance of considering, whether a mere persuasion of the truth of our own doctrines can justify the infliction of capital punishment on those who dissent from them ; and how far we can consistently reprobate the per- secutions of the church of Rome, while acting so closely after her example. But it was dangerous to withstand openly the rancour of the ecclesiastics domineering in the Protestant churches, or the usual bigotry of the multitude. Melanchthon himself, tolerant by nature, and knowing enough of the spirit of persecution which disturbed his peace, was yet unfortunately led by timidity to express, in a letter to Beza, his approbation of the death of Servetus, though he admits that some saw it in a different light. Calvin, early in 1554, published a dissertation to vindicate the magistrates of Geneva in their dealings with this heretic. But Sebastian Castalio, under the name of Martin Bellius, ventured to reply in a little tract, entitled " De Hereticis quomodo cum iis agendum sit variorum sententise." This is a collation of different passages from the fathers and modern anthors in favour of toleration, to which he prefixed a letter of his own to the Duke of Wirtemburg, more valuable than the rest of the work, and, though written in the cautious style required by the times, containing the pith of those arguments which have ultimately triumphed in almost every part of Europe. The impossibility of forcing belief, the obscurity and insigni- ficance of many disputed questions, the sympathy which the fortitude of heretics produced, and other leading topics are well touched in this very short tract, for the preface does not exceed twenty-eight pages in IGmo. 1 1 This little book has been attributed by some to Lselius Socinus ; I think Castalio more prob- able. Castalio entertained very different senti- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 271 Aconcio. 30. Beza answered Castalio, whom he Answered perfectly knew under the by Beza. mask of Bellius, in a much longer treatise, "De Haereticis a Civili Magistratu Punieudis." It is unnecessary to say, that his tone is that of a man who is sure of having the civil power on his side. As to capital punishments for heresy, he acknowledges that he has to contend, not only with such sceptics as Castalio, but with some pious and learned men. 1 He justifies their infliction, however, by the magnitude of the crime, and by the Mosaic law, as well as by precedents in Jewish and Christian history. Calvin, he positively asserts, used his influence that the death of Servetus might not be by fire, for the truth of which he appeals to the Senate ; but though most lenient in general, they had deemed no less expiation sufficient for such impiety. 2 31. A treatise written in a similar spirit to that of Castalio, by Aconcio, one of the numer- ous exiles from Italy, " De Stratagematibus Satanae, Basle, 1565," deserves some notice in the history of opinions, because it is, perhaps, the first wherein the limitation of fundamental articles of Christianity to a small number is laid down at considerable length. He instances, among doctrines which he does not reckon fundamental, those of the real presence and of the Trinity ; and, in general, such as are not either expressed in Scripture, or deducible from it by unequivocal reasoning. 3 Aconcio inveighs against capital punishments for heresy ; but his argument, like that of Cas- talio, is good against every minor penalty. "If the clergy," he says, "once get the upper hand, and carry this point, that, as soon as one opens his mouth, the execu- tioner shall be called in to cut all knots with his knife, what will become of the ments from those of Beza on some theological points, as appears by his dialogues on predesti- nation and free-will, which are opposed to the Augustinian system then generally prevalent. He seems also to have approximated to the Sabellian theories of Servetus on the Trinity. See p. 144, edit. 1613. 1 Non modo cum nostris academicis, sed etiam cum piis alioqui et eruditis hominibus mihi negotium fore prospicio, p. 208. Bayle has an excellent remark (Beza, note F.) on this con- troversy. 2 Sed tanta erat ejus hominis rabies, tarn execranda tamque horrenda impietas, ut Senatus alioqui clementissimus solis flammis expiari posse existimarit, p. 91. 3 The account given of this book in the Bio- graphie Universelle is not accurate ; a better will be found in Bayle. study of Scripture? They will think it very little worth while to trouble their heads with it ; and, if I may presume to say so, will set up every fancy of their own for truth. O unhappy times ! O wretched posterity ! if we abandon the arms, by which alone we can subdue our adversary." Aconcio was not improbably an Arian ; this may be surmised, not only because he was an Italian Protestant, and because he seems to intimate it in some passages of his treatise, but on the authority of Strype, who mentions him as reputed to be such, while belonging to a small congregation of refugees in London. 1 This book attracted a good deal of notice ; it was translated both into French and English ; and, in one language or another, went through several editions. In the next century it became of much authority with the Arminians of Holland. 32. Mino Celso, of Siena, and another of the same class of refugees, Min ceisus in a long and elaborate argu- Koornhert. ment against persecution, De Hereticis Capitali Supplicio non Afficiendis, quotes several authorities from writers of the six- teenth century in his favour. 2 "We should add to these advocates of toleration the name of Theodore Koornhert, who courage- ously stood up in Holland against one of the most encroaching and bigoted hier- archies of that age. Koornhert, averse in other points to the authority of Calvin and Beza, seems to have been a precursor of Arminius ; but he is chiefly known by a treatise against capital punishment for heresy, published in Latin after his death. It is extremely scarce, and I have met with no author, except Bayle and Brandt, who speaks of it from direct knowledge. 3 Thus, 1 Strype's Life of Grindal, p. 42 ; see also Bayle. Elizabeth gave him a pension for a book on fortification. 2 Celso was formerly supposed to be a ficti- tious person, but the contrary has been estab- lished. The book was published in 1584, but without date of place. He quotes Aconcio fre- quently. The following passage seems to refer to Servetus. Superioribus annis, ad hseretici cujusdam in flammis constantiam, ut ex fide dignis accepi, plures ex astantibus sanae doc- trinae viri, non posse id sine Dei spiritu fieri persuasum habentes, ac propterea hasreticum martyrem esse plane credentes, ejus haeresin pro veritate complexi, in fide naufragium fece- runt, fol. 109. 3 Bayle, Biogr. Univ. Brandt, Hist, de la Reformation des Provinces Unies, i. 435. Lip- sius had, in his Politica, inveighed against the toleration of more religions than one in a com- monwealth. Ure, seca, ut membrum potius aliquod, quam totum corpus intereat. Koorn- hert answered this, dedicating his answer to the 272 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. at the end of the sixteenth century, the simple proposition, that men for holding or declaring heterodox opinions in religion ought not to be burned alive, or otherwise put to death, was itself little else than a sort of heterodoxy ; and, though many privately must have been persuaded of its truth, the Protestant churches were as far from acknowledging it as that of Rome. No one had yet pretended to assert the general right of religious worship, which, in fact, was rarely or never conceded to the Romanists in a Protestant country, though the Huguenots shed oceans of blood to secure the same privilege for them- selves. 33. In the concluding part of the century, Decline of the Protestant cause, though Protestantism. no t politically unprosper ous , but rather manifesting some additional strength through the great energies put forth by England and Holland, was less and less victorious in the conflict of opinion. It might, perhaps, seem to a spectator, that it gained more in France by the dissolution of the League, and the establishment of a perfect toleration, sustained by extraordi- nary securities in the edict of Nantes, than it lost by the conformity of Henry IV. to the Catholic religion. But, if this is con- sidered more deeply, the advantage will appear far greater on the other side ; for this precedent, in the case of a man so con- spicuous, would easily serve all who might fancy they had any public interest to ex- cuse them, from which the transition would not be long to the care of their own. After this time, accordingly, we find more nu- merous conversions of the Huguenots, especially the nobler classes, than before. They were furnished with a pretext by an unlucky circumstance. In a public con- ference, held at Fontainebleau, in 1600, before Henry FV., from which great ex- pectation had been raised, Du Plessis Mornay, a man of the noblest character, but, though very learned as a gentleman, more fitted to maintain his religion in the field than in the schools, was signally worsted, having been supplied with forged or impertinent quotations from the fathers, which his antagonist, Perron, easily ex- posed. Casaubon, who was present, speaks with shame, but without reserve, of his de- feat ; and it was an additional mortification, magistrates of Leyden, who, however, thought fit to publish that they did not accept the dedi- cation, and requested that those who read Koornhert would read also the reply of Lipsius, ibid. This was in 1690, and Koornhert died the same year. that the king pretended ever afterwards to have been more thoroughly persuaded by this conference, that he had embraced the truth, as well as gained a crown, by aban- doning the Protestant side. 1 34. The men of letters had another ex- ample, about the same time, Desertion of in one of the most distin- Lipsius. guished of their fraternity, Justus Lipsius. He left Leyden on some pretence in 1 591 for the Spanish Low Countries, and soon' afterwards embraced the Romish faith. Lest his conversion should be suspected, Lipsius disgraced a name, great at least. in literature, by writing in favour of the local superstitions of those bigoted pro- vinces. It is true, however, that some, though the lesser, portion of his critical works were published after his change of religion. 35. The controversial divinity poured forth during this period is now little remembered. In JeweU ' s Apology ' England it may be thought necessary to mention Jewell's celebrated apology. This short book is written with spirit ; the style is terse, the arguments pointed, the au- thorities much to the purpose ; so that its effects are not surprising. This treatise is written in Latin ; his Defence of the Apology, a much more diffuse work, in- English. Upon the merits of the contro- versy of Jewell with the Jesuit Harding, which this defence embraces, I am not competent to give any opinion ; in length and learning it far surpasses our earlier polemical literature. 36. Notwithstanding the high reputation which Jewell obtained by English his surprising memory and theologians, indefatigable reading, it cannot be said that many English theologians of the reign of Elizabeth were eminent for that learn- ing which was required for ecclesiastical controversy. Their writings are neither numerous nor profound. Some exceptions ought to be made. Hooker was sufficiently 1 Scaliger, it must be observed, praises very highly the book of Du Plessis Mornay on the mass, and says, that no one after Calvin and Beza had written go well ; though he owns that he would have done better not to dispute about religion before the king. Scaligerana Secunda, p. 461. Du Plessis himself, in a publication after the conference of Fontainebleau, retali- ated the charge of falsified quotations on Perron. I shall quote what Casaubon has said on the subject in another chapter. See the article Mornay, in the Biographic Universelle, in which, though the signature seems to indicate a descendant or relation, the inaccuracy of the quotations is acknowledged. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 273 versed in the fathers, and he possessed also a far more extensive knowledge of the phi- losophical writers of antiquity than any others could pretend. The science of morals, according to Mosheim, or rather of casuistry, which Calvin had left in a rude and imperfect state, is confessed to have been first reduced into some kind of form, and explained with some accuracy and precision by Perkins, whose works, however, were not published before the next century. 1 Hugh Broughton was deep in Jewish erudition. Whitaker and Nowell ought also to be mentioned. It would not be difficult to extract a few more names from biographical collections, but names so obscure that we could not easily bring their merit as scholars to any sufficient test. Sandys's sermons may be called perhaps good, but certainly not very distinguished. The most eminently learned man of the queen's reign seems to have been Dr. John Rainolds ; and a foreign author of the last century, Colomies, places him among the first six in copiousness of erudi- tion whom the Protestant churches had produced. 2 Yet his works are, I presume, read by nobody, nor am I aware that they are ever quoted ; and Rainolds himself is chiefly known by the anecdote, that having been educated in the church of Rome, as his brother was in the Protestant communion, they mutually converted each other in the course of disputation. Rainolds was on the Puritan side, and took a part in the Hamp- ton Court conference. 37. As the century drew near its close, the church of Rome brought Bellarmln. - forward her most renowned and formidable champion, Bellarmin, a Jesuit, and afterwards a cardinal. No one had entered the field on that side with more acuteness, no one had displayed more skill in marshalling the various arguments 1 Mosheim, Chalmers. 2 Colomesiana. The other five are Usher, Gataker, Blondel, Petit, and Bochart. See also Blount, Baillet, and Chalmers, for testimonies to Rainolds, who died in 1 607. Scaliger regrets his death as a loss to all Protestant churches, as well as that of England. Wood admits that Rainolds was "a man of infinite reading, and of a vast memory : " but laments that, after he was chosen divinity lecturer at Oxford in 1580, the face of the university was much changed towards Puritanism. Hist, and Antiq. In the Athenaa, ii. 14, he gives a very high character of Rainolds, on the authority of Bishop Hall and others, and a long list of his works. But, as he wanted a biographer, he has become obscure in comparison with Jewell, who probably was not at all his superior. of controversial theology, so as to support each other and serve the grand purpose of church authority. " He does not often," says Dupin, " employ reasoning, but relies on the textual authority of Scripture, of the councils, the fathers, and the consent of the theologians ; seldom quitting his subject, or omitting any passage useful to his argument ; giving the objections fairly, and answering them in few words. His style is not so elegant as that of writers who have made it their object, but clear, neat, and brief, without dryness or bar- barism. He knew well the tenets of Pro- testants, and states them faithfully, avoiding the invective so common with controversial writers." It is nevertheless alleged by his opponets, and will not seem incredible to those who know what pole- mical theology has always been, that he attempts to deceive the reader, and argues only in the interests of his cause. 38. Bellarmin, if we may believe Du Perron, was not unlearned in Greek 5 1 but it is positively asserted on the other side that he could hardly read it, and he quotes the writers in that language only from translations. Nor has his critical judgment been much esteemed. But his abilities are best testified by Protestant theologians, not only in their terms of eulogy, but indirectly in the peculiar zeal with which they chose him as their worthiest adversary. More than half a dozen books in the next fifty years bear the title of Anti-Bellarminus : it seemed as if the victory must remain with those who should bear away the spolia opima of this hostile general. The Catholic writers, on the other hand, borrow everything, it has been said, from Bellar- min, as the poets do from Homer. 2 39. In the hands of Bellarmin, and other strenuous advocates of the Topics of contro- church, no point of contro- ve y changed, versy was neglected. But in a general view we may justly say that the heat of battle was not in the same part of the field as before. Luther and his immediate disciples held nothing so vital as the tenet of justification by faith alone ; while the arguments of Eckius and Cajetan were chiefly designed to maintain the modifica- tion of doctrine on that subject, which had been handed down to them by the fathers and schoolmen. The differences of the two parties, as to the mode of corporeal 1 Perroniana. 2 Dupin. Bayle. Blount. Eichhorn, vi. part ii. p. 30. Andres, xviii. 243 Niceron, vol. zxxi. 3 274 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. presence in the eucharist, though quite sufficient to keep them asunder, could hardly bear much controversy, inasmuch as the primitive writers, to whom it was usual to appeal, have not, as is universally agreed, drawn these metaphysical distinc- tions with much preciseness. But when the Helvetic churches, and those bearing the general name of Reformed, became, after the middle of the century, as prominent, to say the leasb, in theological litera- ture as the Lutheran, this controversy ac- quired much greater importance ; the persecutions in England and the Nether- lands were principally directed against this single heresy of denying the real presence, and the disputes of the press turned so generally upon no other topic. 40. In the last part of the century, it turns on through the influence of some Papal power, political circumstances, we find a new theme of polemical discussion, more peculiarly characteristic of the age. Before the appearance of the early re- formers, a republican or aristocratic spirit in ecclesiastical polity strengthened by the decrees of the councils of Constance and Basle, by thte co-operation, in some instances, of the national church with the state in redressing, or demanding the re- dress of abuses, and certainly also both by the vices of the court of Rome, and its diversion to local politics, had fully counter-balanced, or even in a great mea- sure silenced, the bold pretensions of the school of Hildebrand. In such a lax no- tion of papal authority, prevalent in Cis- alpine Europe, the Protestant Reforma- tion had found one source of its success. But for this cause the theory itself lost ground in the Catholic church. At the council of Trent the aristocratic or epis- copal party, though it seemed to display itself in great strength, comprising the representatives of the Spanish and Gallican churches, was for the most part foiled in questions that touched the limitations of papal supremacy. From this time the latter power became lord of the ascendant. " No Catholic," says Schmidt, " dared after the Reformation to say one hundredth part of what Gerson, Peter d'Ailly, and many others had openly preached." The same instinct of which we may observe the workings in the present day, then also taught the subjects of the church that it was no time to betray jealousy of their own government when the public enemy was at their gates. 41. In this resuscitation of the court of Borne, that is, of the papal authority, in contradistinction to the general doctrine and discipline of the Catho- IMS upheld by lie church, much, or rather the Jesuits, most, was due to the Jesuits. Obedience, not to that abstraction of theologians, the Catholic church, a shadow eluding the touch and vanishing into emptiness before the enquiring eye, but to its living acting centre, the one man, was their vow, their duty, their function. They maintained, therefore, if not quite for the first time, yet with little countenance from the great authorities of the schools, his personal in- fallibility in matters of faith. They as- serted his superiority to general councils, his prerogative of dispensing with all the canons of the church, on grounds of spiritual expediency, whereof he alone could judge. As they grew bolder, some went on to pronounce even the divine laws subject to this control ; but it cannot be said that a principle which seemed so paradoxical, though perhaps only a conse- quence from their assumptions, was gene- rally received. 42. But the most striking consequence of this novel position of the claim to depose papacy was the renewal of prince*. its claims to temporal power, or, in stricter language, to pronounce the forfeiture of it by lawful sovereigns for offences against religion. This pretension of the Holy See, though certainly not abandoned, had in a considerable degree lain dormant in that period of comparative weakness which followed the great schism. Paul III. deprived Henry VIII. of his dominions, as far as a bull could have that effect ; but the deposing power was not generally asserted with much spirit against the first princes who embraced the Reformation. In this second part of the century, however, the see of Rome was filled by men of stern zeal and intrepid ambition, aided by the Jesuits and other regulars with an energy unknown before, and favoured also by the political interests of the greatest monarch in Christendom. Two circumstances of the utmost importance gave them occasion to scour the rust away from their ancient weapons the final prostration of the Romish faith in England by Elizabeth, and the devolution of the French crown on a Protestant heir. Incensed by the former event, Pius V., the representative of the most rigid party in the church, issued in 1570 his famous bull, releasing English Catholics from their allegi- Bull against ance to the queen, and de- Elizabeth, priving her of all right and title to the throne. Elizabeth and her parliament re- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 275 -taliated, by augmented severities of law against these unfortunate subjects, who had little reason to thank the Jesuits for announcing maxims of rebellion it was not easy to carry into effect. Allen and Persons, secure at St. Omer and Douay, proclaimed the sacred duty of resisting a prince who should break his faith with God and the people, especially when the supreme governor of the church, whose function it is to watch over its welfare, and separate the leprous from the clean, has adjudged : the cause. 43. In the war of the League men be- came more familiar with this tenet. Those who fought under that banner did not ' all acknowledge, or at least And Henry IV. wou } d not ^ o t ner c ir. cumstances have admitted, the pope's deposing power ; but no faction will reject a false principle that adds strength to its side. Philip II., though ready enough to treat the See of Home as sharply and rudely as the Italians do their saints when refiactory, fo*und it his interest to en- courage a doctrine so dangerous to monarchy when it was directed against Elizabeth and Henry. For this reason we may read with less surprise in Balthazar Ayala, a layman, a lawyer, and judge- advocate in the armies of Spain, the most unambiguous and unlimited assertion of the deposing theory : " Kings abusing Deposing power th eir power may be variously owned in Spain, compelled," he says, "by the sovereign pontiff to act justly ; for he is the earthly vicegerent of God, from whom he has received both swords, temporal as well as spiritual, for the peace and preservation of the Christian common- wealth. Nor can he only control, if it is for the good of this commonwealth, but even depose kings, as God, whose delegate he is, deprived Saul of his kingdom, and as pope Zachary released the Franks from their allegiance to Childeric." 1 44. Bellarmin, the brilliant advocate of Asserted by whom we have already Bellarmin. spoken, amidst the other disputes of the protestant quarrel, did not hesitate to sustain the papal authority in its amplest extension. His treatise " De Summo Pontifice, Capite Totius Militantis Ecclesiae," forms a portion, and by no means the least important, of those en- titled " The Controversies of Bellarmin," and first appeared separately in 1586. The pope, he asserts, has no direct temporal authority in the dominions of Christian i Ayala, De Jure et Officiis Bellicis (Antwerp 1597), p. 32. princes; he cannot interfere with their merely civil affairs, unless they are his feudal vassals, but indirectly, that is, for the sake of some spiritual advantage, all things are submitted to his disposal. He cannot depose these princes, even for a just cause, as their immediate superior, unless they are feudally his vassals ; but he can take away and give to others their kingdoms, if the salvation of souls require it. 1 We shall observe hereafter how art- fully this papal scheme was combined with the more captivating tenets of popular sovereignty ; each designed for the special case, that of Henry IV. , whose legitimate rights, established by the constitution of France, it was expected by this joint effort to overthrow. 45. Two methods of delivering theologi- cal doctrine had prevailed Methods of theo- in the Catholic church for logical doctrine, many ages. The one, called positive, was dogmatic rather than argumentative, de- ducing its tenets from immediate authori- ties of scripture or of the fathers, which it interpreted and explained for its own purpose. It was a received principle, con- veniently for this system of interpretation, that most parts of scripture had a plurality of meaning ; and that the allegorical, or analogical senses were as much to be sought as the primary and literal. The scholastic theology, on the other hand, which ac- quired its name, because it was frequently heard in the schools of divinity and em- ployed the weapons of dialectics, was a scheme of inferences drawn, with all the subtlety of reasoning, from the same fundamental principles of authority, the scriptures, the fathers, the councils of the church. It must be evident upon reflec- tion, that where many thousand proposi- tions, or sentences easily convertable into them, had acquired the rank of indispu- table truths, it was not difficult, with a little ingenuity in the invention of middle terms, to raise a specious structure of con- nected syllogisms ; and hence the theology of the schools was a series of inferences from the acknowledged standards of orthodoxy, as their physics were from Aristotle, and their metaphysics from a mixture of the two. 46. The scholastic method, affecting a complete and scientific form, .. .... I Loci Communes. led to the compilation of theological systems, generally called Loci Communes. These were very common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both in the church of Rome, and, after 1 Eanke, ii. 182. 276 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. some time, in the two protestant com- munions. But Luther, though at first he bestowed immense praise upon the Loci Communes of Melanchthon, grew unfavour- able to all systematic theology. His own writings belong to that class we call positive. They deal with the interpretation of scripture, and the expansion of its literal meaning. Luther rejected, except in a very sparing application, the search after allegorical senses. Melanchthon also, and in general the divines of the Augsburg confession, adhered chiefly to the principle of single interpretation. 1 The Institutes of Calvin, which belong in the Pro- to the preceding part of the teatant, century, though not entitled Loci Communes, may be reckoned a full system of deductive theology. "Wolfgang Musculus published a treatise with the usual title. It should be observed that, in the Lutheran church, the ancient method of scholastic theology revived after the middle of this century, especially in the divines of Melanchthon's party, one of whose characteristics was a greater defer- ence to ecclesiastical usage and opinion, than the more rigid Lutherans would en- dure to pay. The Loci Theologici of Chem- nitz and those of Strigelius were, in their age, of great reputation ; the former, by one of the compilers of the Formula Con- cordiae, might be read without risk of find- ing those heterodoxies of Melanchthon, which the latter was supposed to ex- hibit.2 47. In the church of Rome the scholastic and Catholic theology retained an undis- Church. puted respect ; it was for the heretical protestants to dread a method of keen logic, by which their sophistry was cut through. The most remarkable book of this kind, whicli falls within the six- teenth century, is the Loci Theologici of Melchior Canus, published at Salamanca in 1563, three years after the death of the author, a Dominican, and professor in that university. It is of course the theology of the reign and country of Philip II. ; but Canus was a man acquainted with history, philosophy, and ancient literature. Eich- horn, after giving several pages to an ab- stract of this volume, pronounces it worthy to be still read. It may be seen by his analysis how Canus, after the manner of the schoolmen, incorporated philosophical with theological science. Dupin, whose abstract is rather different in substance, 1 Eichhorn, Gesch. der Cultur. vi. part L p. 175. Mosheim, cent. 16, sect. 3, part ii. ! Eichhorn, 230. Mosheim. calls this an excellent work, and written' with all the elegance we could desire. 1 48. Catharin, one of the theologians most prominent in the council of Trent, though he "* seems not to have incurred the charge of heresy, went farther from the doctrine of Augustin and Aquinas than was deemed strictly orthodox in the Catholic church. He framed a theory to reconcile predesti- nation with the universality of grace, which has since been known in this country by the name of Baxterianism, and is, I believe, adopted by many divines at this day. Du- pin, however, calls it a new invention, un- known to the ancient fathers, and never received in the schools. It has been fol- lowed, he adds, by nobody. 49. In the critical and expository depart- ment of theological litera- critical and - ture, much was written poBitory writ- during this period, forming in * s ' no small proportion of the great collection called Critici Sacri. In the Romish church, we may distinguish the Jesuit Maldonat, whose commentaries on the evangelists have been highly praised by theologians of the Protestant side ; and among these, we may name Calvin and Beza, who occupy the highest place,2 while below them are ranked Bullinger, Zanchius, Musculus, Chemnitz, and several more. But I believe that, even in the reviving appetite for obso- lete theology, few of these writers have yet attracted much attention. A polemical spirit, it is observed by Eichhorn, pene- trated all theological science, not only in. dogmatical writings, but in those of mere interpretation ; in catechisms, in sermons, in ecclesiastical history, we find the author armed for combat, and always standing in imagination before an enemy. 50. A regular and copious history of the 1 Eichhorn, p. 216-227. Dupin, cent. 16, book 5. 2 Literas sacras, says Scaliger of Calvin, trac- tavit ut tractandas sunt, vere inquam et pure ac simpHcitersineullis argutationibus scholasticis, et divino vir pneditus ingenio multa divinavit quae non nisi a linguae Hebraicae peritissimis (cujusmodi tamen ipse non erat), divinari possunt. Scaligerana Prima. A more detailed, and apparently a not uncandid statement of Calvin's character as a commentator on Scrip- ture, will be found in Simon, Hist. Critique du Vieux Testament. He sets him, in this respect, much above Luther. See also Blount, art. Cal- vin. Scaliger does not esteem much the learn- ing of Beza, and blames him for affecting to despise Erasmus as a commentator. I have named Beza in the text as superior to Zanchius and others, in deference to common reputation, for I am wholly ignorant of the writings of all. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 277 church, from the primitive ages to the Re- Ecciesiasticai formation itself, was first historians, given by the Lutherans under the title, Centuriae Magdeburgenses, from the name of the city where it was compiled. The principal among several authors con- cerned, usually called Centuriatores, was Placius Illyricus, a most inveterate enemy of Melanchthon. This work has been more than once reprinted, and is still, in point of truth and original research, the most considerable ecclesiastical history on the Protestant side. Mosheim, or his trans- lator, calls this an immortal work ; l and Eichhorn speaks of it in strong terms of admiration for the boldness of the enter- prise, the laboriousness of the execution, :the spirit with which it cleared away a mass of fable, and placed ecclesiastical history on an authentic basis. The faults, both those springing from the imperfect knowledge, and from the prejudices of the compilers, are equally conspicuous. 2 Nearly forty years afterwards, between the years 1588 and 1609, the celebrated Annals of Cardinal Baronius, in twelve volumes, appeared. These were brought down by him only to the end of the twelfth century ; their con- tinuation by Rainaldus, published from 1646 to 1663, goes down to 1566. It was the object of protestant learning in the seventeenth century, to repel the authority and impugn the allegations of Baronius. Those of his own communion, in a more advanced stage of criticism, have confessed his mistakes ; many of them arising from a want of acquaintance with the Greek lan- guage, indispensable, aswe should now just- ly think, for one who undertook a general history of the church, but not sufficiently universal in Italy, at the end of the six- teenth century, to deprive those who did not possess it of a high character for eru- dition. Eichhorn speaks far less favour- ably of Baronius than of the Centuriators. 3 But of these two voluminous histories, written with equal prejudice on opposite sides, an impartial and judicious scholar lias thus given his opinion. 51. " An ecclesiastical historian," Le Le cicrc's Clerc satirically observes, character of ' ' ought to adhere inviolably them- to this maxim, that what- ever can be favourable to heretics is false, and whatever can be said against them is true ; while, on the other hand, all that 1 Cent. 16, sect. 3, part ii. c. 9. This expres- sion is probably in the original ; but it is diffi- cult to quote Maclaine's translation with confl -dence, on account of the liberties which he took with the text. Vol. vi. part ii. p. 149. 3 Id. p. 180. does honour to the orthodox is unquestion- able, and everything that can do them discredit is surely a lie. He must suppress too with care, or at least extenuate, as far as possible, the errors and vices of those whom the orthodox are accustomed to re- spect, whether they know anything about them or no ; and must exaggerate, on the contrary, the mistakes and faults of the heterodox to the utmost of his power. He must remember that any orthodox writer is a competent witness against a heretic, and is to be trusted implicitly on his word ; while a heretic is never to be believed against the orthodox, and has honour enough done him, in allowing him to speak against his own side, or in favour of our own. It is thus that the Centuriators of Magdeburg, and thus that Cardinal Baronius have written ; each of their works having by this means acquired an immortal glory with its own party. But it must be owned that they are not the earliest, and that they have only imitated most of their predeces- sors in this plan of writing. For many ages, men had only sought in ecclesiastical anti- quity, not what was really to be found there, but what they conceived ought to be therefor the good of their own party." 3 52. But in the midst of so many dis- sentients from each other, some resting on the tranquil ' bosom of the church, some fighting the long battle of argument, some catching at gleams of supernatural light, the very truths of natural and revealed religion were called in question by a different party. The proofs of this before the middle of the sixteenth century are chiefly to be derived from Italy. Pomponatius has already been mentioned, and some other Aristotelian philosophers might be added. But these, whose scepticism ex- tended to natural theology, belong to the class of metaphysical writers, whose place is in the next chapter. If we limit our- selves to those who directed their attacks against Christianity, it must be presumed that, in an age when the tribunals of justice visited, even with the punishment of death, the denial of any fundamental doctrine, few books of an openly irreligious tendency could appear. 2 A short pamphlet 1 Parrhasiana, vol. i. p. 168. 2 The famous Cymbalum Mundi, by Bona- venture des Periers, published in 1538, which, while it continued extremely scarce, had the character of an irreligious work, has proved, since it was reprinted, in 1711, perfectly in- nocuous, though there are a few malicious glances at priests and nuns. It has always been the habit of the literary world, as much as at Deistical writers. 278 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. by one Vallee, cost him his life in 1574. Some others were clandestinely circulated in France before the end of the century ; and the list of men suspected of infidelity, if we could trust all private anecdotes of the time, would be by no means short. Bodin, Montaigne, Charron, have been reckoned among the rejecters of Chris- tianity. The first I conceive to have ac- knowledged no revelation but the Jewish ; the second is free, in my opinion, from all reasonable suspicion of infidelity ; the prin- cipal work of the third was not published till 1601. His former treatise, " Des Trois Verites," is an elaborate vindication of the Christian and Catholic religion. 1 53. I hardly know how to insert, in wierus, De any other chapter than the Proestigiis. present, the books that re- late to sorcery and demoniacal possessions, though they can only in a very lax sense be ranked with theological literature. The greater part are contemptible in any other light than as evidences of the state of human opinion. Those designed to rescue the innocent from sanguinary prejudices, and chase the real demon of superstition from the mind of man, deserve to be com- memorated. Two such works belong to this period. Wierus, a physician of the Netherlands, in a treatise, ' ' De Prsestigiis," Basle, 1564, combats the horrible prejudice by which those accused of witchcraft were thrown into the flames. He shows a good deal of credulity as to diabolical illusions, but takes these unfortunate persons for the devil's victims rather than his accom- plices. Upon the whole, Wierus destroys more superstition than he seriously in- tended to leave behind. 54. A far superior writer is our country- Scot on man, Reginald Scot, whose Witchcraft, object is the same, but whose views are incomparably more extensive and enlightened. He denies altogether to the devil any power of controlling the course of nature. It may be easily sup- posed that this solid and learned person, for such he was beyond almost all the English of that age, did not escape in his own time, or long afterwards, the censure present, to speak of books by hearsay. The Cymbalum Mundi is written in Dialogue, some- what in the manner of Lucian, and is rather more lively than books of that age generally were. 1 Des Trois Ve'rite's contra les Athens, Idol- atres, Juifs, Mahumetans, He're'tiques, et Schismatiques. Bourdeaux, 1593. Charron has not put his name to this book ; and it does not appear that he has taken anything from himself in his subsequent work, De la Sagesse. of those who adhered to superstition. Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft was pub- lished in 1584.1 Bodin, on the other hand, endeavoured to sustain the vulgar notions of Witchcraft in his Demonomanie des Sorciers. It is not easy to conceive a more wretched production ; besides his supersti- tious absurdities, he is guilty of exciting the magistrate against Wierus, by representing him as a real confederate of Satan. 55. We may conclude this chapter, by mentioning the principal Authenticity versions and editions of of Vulgate. Scripture. No edition of the Greek Testa- ment, worthy to be specified, appeared after that of Robert Stephens, whose text was invariably followed. The council of Trent declared the Vulgate translation of Scripture to be authentic, condemning all that should deny its authority. It has been a common-place with Protestants to inveigh against this decree, even while they have virtually maintained the prin- ciple upon which it is founded one by no means peculiar to the church of Rome being no other than that it is dangerous to unsettle the mind of the ignorant, or partially learned in religion ; a proposi- tion not easily disputable by any man of sense, but, when acted upon, as incompat- ible as any two contraries can be, with the free and general investigation of truth. 56. Notwithstanding this decision in. favour of the Vulgate, there Lat i n versions was room left for partial and editions by uncertainty. The council Catholics. of Trent, declaring the translation itself to be authentic, pronounced nothing in favour of any manuscript or edition ; and as it would be easier to put down learning altogether than absolutely to restrain the searching spirit of criticism, it was soon held that the council's decree went but to the general fidelity of the version, without warranting every passage. Many Catholic writers, accordingly, have put a very liberal interpretation on this decree, sug- gesting such emendations of particular texts as the original seemed to demand. They have even given new translations ; one by Arias Montanus is chiefly founded on that of Pagninus, and an edition of the Vulgate, by Isidore Clarius, is said to resemble a new translation, by his numer- ous corrections of the text from the Hebrew. 3 Sixtus V. determined to put 1 It appears by Scot's book that not only the common, but the more difficult tricks of con- jurers were practised in his time ; he shows how to perform some of them. 2 Andres, xix. 40. Simon, 358. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 279 a stop to a license which rendered the Tridentine provisions almost nugatory. He fulfilled the intentions of the council by causing to be published in 1590 the Sistine Bible ; an authoritative edition to be used in all churches. This was, how- ever, superseded by another, set forth only two years afterwards by Clement VIII., which is said to differ more than any other from that which his predecessor had published as authentic ; a circumstance not forgotten by Protestant polemics. The Sistine edition is now very scarce. The same pope had published a standard edition of the Septuagint in 1587. 1 57. The Latin translations made by Protestants in this period By Protestants. ,, , , a -L j.- were that by Sebastian Castalio, which, in search of more ele- gance of style, deviates from the simpli- city, as well as sense, of the original, and fails therefore of obtaining that praise at the hands of men of taste for which more essential requisites have been sacrificed ; 2 and that by Tremellius and Junius, pub- lished at Frankfort in 1575, and subse- quent years. It was retouched some time afterwards by Junius, after the death of his coadjutor. This translation was better esteemed in Protestant countries, especially at first, than by the Catholic critics. Simon speaks of it with little respect. It professedly adheres closely to the Hebrew idiom. Beza gave a Latin version of the New Testament. It is doubtful whether any of these translations have much im- proved upon the Vulgate. 58. The new translations of the Scrip- tures into modern languages versions into were naturally not so numer- modem ous as at an earlier period. languagei. Two in English are well known ; the Geneva Bible of 1560, published in that city by Coverdale, Whittingham, and other refugees, and the Bishop's Bible of 1568. Both of these, or at least the latter, were professedly founded upon the prior versions, but certainly not without a close comparison with the original text. The English Catholics published a translation of the New Testament from the Vulgate at Rheims in 1582. The Polish transla- tion, commonly ascribed to the Socinians, was printed under the patronage of Prince Eadzivil in 1563, before that sect could be said to exist, though Lismanin and Bland- rata, both of heterodox tenets, were con- cerned in it. 1 This edition is of the greatest rarity. The Spanish bible of Ferrara, 1553, and the Sclavonian of 1581, are also very scarce. The curious in bibliography are conversant with other versions and editions of the sixteenth century, chiefly of rare occurrence. 2 CHAPTER XII. HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1550 TO 1600. Aristotelian Philosophers Cesalpin Opposite Schools of Philosophy Telesio Jordano Bruno Sanchez Aconcio Nizolius Logic of Ramus. 1. THE authority of Aristotle, as the Predominance gre&i master of dogmatic of Aristotelian philosophy, continued gene- philoBophy. rally predominant through the sixteenth century. It has been already observed that, besides the strenuous sup- port of the Catholic clergy, and especially of the Sorbonne, who regarded all innova- tions with abhorrence, the Aristotelian philosophy had been, received, through the 1 Andres, xix, 44. Schelhorn, Amcenit. Lit- erar, vol. ii. 359, and vol. iv. 439. 2 Andres, xix. 166. Castalio, arcording to Simon (Hist. Critique du V. T., p. 363), affects politeness to an inconceivable degree of bad taste, especially in such phrases as these in his translation of the Canticles : Mea columbula, ostende mihi tuum vulticulum ; fac ut audiam tuam voculam, &c. He was, however, Simon influence of Melanchthon, in the Lutheran universities. The reader must be reminded that, under the name of speculative phi- losophy we comprehend not only the logic and what was called ontology of the schools, but those physical theories of ancient or modern date, which, appealing less to ex- perience than to assumed hypotheses, can- not be mingled, in a literary classification, with the researches of true science, such as we shall hereafter have to place under the head of natural philosophy. 2. Brucker has made a distinction be- tween the scholastic and the genuine Aristo- telians; the former being chiefly conver- says, tolerably acquainted with Hebrew, and spoke modestly of his own translation. 1 Bayle, art. KadziviL Brunei, &c. 280 Literature of Europ: from 1550 to 1600. sant with the doctors of the middle ages, Scholastic and adopting their terminology, genuine Aristo- their distinctions, their dog- t * Uan *' mas, and relying with im- plicit deference on Scotus or Aquinas, though, in the progress of learning, they might make some use of the original master ; while the latter, throwing off the yoke of the schoolmen, prided themselves on an equally complete submission to Aris- totle himself. These were chiefly philoso- phers and physicians, as the former were theologians ; and the difference of their object* suffices to account for the different lines in which they pursued them, and the lights by which they were guided. 1 3. Of the former class, or successors and The former class adherents of the old school- little remem- men, it might be far from irei1 ' easy, were it worth while, to furnish any distinct account. Their works are mostly of extreme scarcity ; and none of the historians of philosophy, ex- cept perhaps Morhof, profess much ac- quaintance with them. It is sufficient to repeat that, among the Dominicans, Fran- ciscans, and Jesuits, especially in Spain and Italy, the scholastic mode of argumen- tation was retained in their seminaries, and employed in prolix volumes, both upon theology and upon such parts of metaphysics and natural law as are allied to it. The reader may find some more in- formation in Brucker, whom Buhle, saying the same things in the same order, may be presumed to have silently copied." 2 4. The second class of Aristotelian philo- The othennot sophers.devotingthemselves much better to physical science, though known. investigating it with a very unhappy deference to mistaken dogmas, might seem to offer a better hope of ma- terials for history ; and in fact we meet here with a very few names of men once cele- brated and of some influence over the opi- nions of their age. But even here their writ- ings prove to be not only forgotten, but inca- pable as we may say, on account of their rare occurrence, and the improbability of their republication, of being ever again known. 5. The Italian schools, and especially School* of PUa those of Pisa and Padua, and Padua. ^,1 i ong b ee n celebrated for their adherence to Aristotelian principles, not always such as could justly be deduced from the writings of the Stagyrite himself, but opposing a bulwark against novel speculation, as well as against the revival of the Platonic, or any other ancient philo- 1 Brucker, Hist. Philos. iv. 117, et post. 2 Brucker, ibid. Buhle, ii. 448. sophy. Simon Porta of the former uni- versity, and Caesar Cremonini of the latter, stood at the head of the rigid Aristotelians ; the one near the commencement of this period, the other about its close. Both these philosophers have been reproached with the tendency to atheism, so common in the Italians of this period. A similar imputation has fallen on another professor of the university of Pisa, Cesalpini, who is said to have deviated from the strict system of Aristotle towards that of Averroes, though he did not altogether coincide even with the latter. The real merits of Cesalpin, in very different pursuits, it was reserved for a later age to admire. His "Quaestiones Peripateticae," published in 1575, is a trea- tise on metaphysics, or the first philosophy, founded professedly upon Aristotelian principles, but with considerable deviation. This work is so scarce that Brucker had never seen it, but Buhle has taken much pains to analyse its very obscure contents. Paradoxical and unintelligible as they now appear, Cesalpin obtained a high reputa- tion in his own age, and was denominated by excellence, the philosopher. Nicolas Taurellus, a professor at Altdorf, de- nounced the " Quaestiones Peripateticae " in a book to which, in allusion to his ad- versary's name, he gave the puerile title of Alpes Caesae. 6. The system of Cesalpin is one modifi- cation of that ancient hy- Sketch of Ui pothesis which, losing sight ystem. of all truth and experience in the love of abstraction, substitutes the barren unity of pantheism for religion, and a few incom- prehensible paradoxes for the variety of science. Nothing, according to him, was substance which was not animated ; but the particular souls which animate bodies are themselves only substances, because they are parts of the first substance, a sim- ple, speculative, but not active intelligence, perfect and immovable, which is God. The reasonable soul, however, in mankind is not numerically one ; for matter being the sole principle of plurality, and human intelligences being combined with matter, they are plural in number. He differed also from Averroes in maintaining the separate immortality of human souk ; and while the philosopher of Cordova distin- guished the one soul he ascribed to man- kind from the Deity, Cesalpin considered the individual soul as a portion, not of this common human intelligence, which he did not admit, but of the first substance, or Deity. His system was therefore more in- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 281 compatible with theism, in any proper sense, than that of Averroes himself, and ^anticipated in some measure that of Spinoza, who gave a greater extension to his one substance, by comprehending all matter as well as spirit within it. Cesalpin also denied, and in this he went far from his Aristotelian creed, any other than a logical difference between substances and accidents. I have no knowledge of the writings of Cesalpin except through Buhle ; for though I confess that the " Quaestiones Peripateticae " may be found in the British Museum, 1 it would scarce re- pay the labour to examine what is both erroneous and obscure. 7. The name of Cremonini, professor of philosophy for above forty ^ years at Padua, is better known than his writings. These have be- come of the greatest scarcity. Brucker tells us he had not been able to see any of them, and Buhle had met with but two or three. 2 Those at which I have looked are treatises on the Aristotelian physics ; they contain little of any interest ; nor did I perceive that they countenance, though they may not repel, the charge of atheism sometimes brought against Cremonini, but which, if at all well-founded, seems rather to rest on external evidence. Cremonini, according to Buhle, refutes the Averoistic notion of an universal human intelligence. Gabriel Naude, both in his letters, and in the records of his conversation called Naudaeana, speaks with great admiration of Cremonini. 3 He had himself passed some years at Padua, and was at that time a disciple of the Aristotelian school in physics, which he abandoned after his in- timacy with Gassendi. 8. Meantime the authority of Aristotle, Opponents of great in name and respected Aristotle. j^ fa e schools, began to lose more and more of its influence over specu- lative minds. Cesalpin, an Aristotelian by profession, had gone wide in some points from his master. But others waged an open war as philosophical reformers. Francis 1 Buhle, ii. 525. Brucker (iv. 222), laments that he had never seen this book. It seems that there were few good libraries in Germany in Brucker's age, or at least that he had no access to them, for it is surprising how often he makes the same complaint. He had, however, seen a copy of the Alpes Caesae of Taurellus, and gives rather a long account both of the man and of the book. Ibid, and p. 300. 2 Buhle, ii. 519. 3 Some passages in the Naudaeana tend to con- firm the suspicion of irreligion, both with respect to Cremonini and Naude himself. Patrizzi, in his " Discussiones Peripate- ticse " (1571 and 1581), ap- pealed to prejudice with the arms of calumny, raking up the most unwar- ranted aspersions against the private life of Aristotle, to prepare the way for assail- ing his philosophy ; a warfare not the less unworthy, that it is often successful. In the case of Patrizzi it was otherwise ; his book was little read ; and his own notions of philosophy, borrowed from the later Platonists, and that rabble of spurious writers who had misled Ficinus and Picus of Mirandola, dressed up by Patrizzi with a fantastic terminology, had little chance of subverting so well-established and acute a system as that of Aristotle. 1 9. Bernard Telesio, a native of Cosenza, had greater success, and at- System of tained a more celebrated Telesio. name. The first two books of his treatise, "De Natura Eerum juxta Propria Prin- cipia," appeared at Rome in 1565 ; the rest was published in 1586. These contain an hypothesis more intelligible than that of Patrizzi, and less destitute of a certain ap- parent correspondence with the phenomena of nature. Two active incorporeal prin- ciples, heat and cold, contend with per- petual opposition for the dominion over a third, which is passive matter. Of these three all nature consists. The region of pure heat is in the heavens, in the sun and stars, where it is united with the most subtle matter ; that of cold in the centre of the earth, where matter is most con- densed ; all between is their battle-field, in which they continually struggle, and alternately conquer. These principles are not only active, but intelligent, so far at least as to perceive their own acts and mutual impressions. Heat is the cause of motion ; cold is by nature immovable, and tends to keep all things in repose. 2 10. Telesio has been generally supposed to have borrowed this theory from that of Parmenides, in which the antagonist prin- ciples of heat and cold had been employed in a similar manner. Buhle denies the identity of the two systems, and considers that of Telesio as more nearly allied to the Aristotelian, except in substituting heat and cold for the more abstract notions of form and privation. Heat and cold, it might rather perhaps be said, seem to be merely ill-chosen names for the hypo- thetical causes of motion and rest ; and the real laws of nature, with respect to 1 Buhle, ii. 548. Brucker, iv. 422. 2 Brucker, iv. 449. Buhle, ii. 563. GingiuSne', vii. 501. 282 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Jordano Bruno. both of these, are as little discoverable in the Telesian as in the more established theory. Yet its author perceived that the one possessed an expansive, the other a condensing power ; and his principles of heat and cold bear a partial analogy to repulsion and attraction, the antagonist forces which modern philosophy employs. Lord Bacon was sufficiently struck with the system of Telesio to illustrate it in a separate fragment of the Instauratio Magna, though sensible of its inadequacy to solve the mysteries of nature ; and a man of eccentric genius, Campanella, to whom we shall come hereafter, adopted it as the basis of his own wilder speculations. Telesio seems to have ascribed a sort of intelligence to plants, which his last- mentioned disciple carried to a strange ex- cess of paradox. 11. The name of Telesio is perhaps hardly so well-known at present as that of Jordano Bruno. It was far otherwise formerly ; and we do not find that the philosophy of this singular and unfortunate man attracted much further notice than to cost him his life. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the Inquisition at Rome did not rather attend to his former profession of protestantism and invectives against the church, than to the latent atheism it pretended to detect in his writings, which are at least as innocent as those of Cesalpin. The self- conceit of Bruno, his contemptuous lan- guage about Aristotle and his followers, the paradoxical strain, the obscurity and confusion, in many places, of his writings, we may add, his poverty and frequent change of place, had rendered him of little estimation in the eyes of the world. But in the last century the fate of Bruno ex- cited some degree of interest about his opinions. Whether his hypotheses were truly atheistical became the subject of con- troversy ; his works, by which it should have been decided, were so scarce that few could speak with knowledge of their con- tents ; and Brucker, who inclines to think there was no sufficient ground for the im- putation, admits that he had only seen one of Bruno's minor treatises. The later Ger- man philosophers, however, have paid more attention to these obscure books, from a similarity they sometimes found in Bruno's theories to their own. Buhle has devoted above a hundred pages to this subject. 1 The Italian treatises have within a few years been reprinted in Germany, and it is not uncommon in modern books to find an i VoL li. p. 604-730. eulogy on the philosopher of Nola. I have not made myself acquainted with his Latin, writings, except through the means of Buhle, who has taken a great deal of pains with the subject. The prin- HlB Italljin cipal Italian treatises are works. entitled, La Cena de li Cenadeu Ceneri, Delia Causa, Prin- cipia ed Uno, and Pell' Infinite Universe. Each of these is in five dialogues. The Cena de li Ceneri contains a physical theory of the world, in which the author makes some show of geometrical diagrams, but deviates so often into rhapsodies of vanity and nonsense, that it is difficult to pronounce whether he had much knowledge of the science. Copernicus, to whose theory of the terrestrial motion Bruno entirely adheres, he praises as superior to any former astronomer ; but intimates that he did not go far beyond vulgar prejudices, being more of a mathematician than a philosopher. The gravity of bodies he treats as a most absurd hypothesis, all natural motion, as he fancies, being cir- cular. Yet he seems to have had some dim glimpse of what is meant by the com- position of motions, asserting that the earth has four simple motions, out of which one is compounded. 1 12. The second, and much more import- ant treatise, Delia Causa, Delia causa, Principio ed Uno, professes Mncipio ed Uno. to reveal the metaphysical philosophy of Bruno, a system which, at least in pretext, brought him to the stake at Rome, and the purport of which has been the theme of much controversy. The extreme scarcity of his writings has, no doubt, contributed to this variety of judgment; but though his style, strictly speaking, is not obscure, and he seems by no means inclined to con- ceal his meaning, I am not able to resolve with certainty the problem that Brucker and those whom he quotes have discussed. 2 But the system of Bruno, so far as I un- derstand it from what I have read of his writings, and from Buhle's analysis of them, may be said to contain a sort of double pantheism. The world is animated by an omnipresent intelligent soul, the first cause of every form that matter can assume, but not of matter itself. The soul of the uni- verse is the only physical agent, the in- terior artist that works in the vast whole, that calls out the plant from the seed and 1 Dial. v. p. 120 (1830). These dialogues were written, or purport to have been written, In. England. He extols Leicester, Walsingham, and especially Sidney. 2 Brucker, vol. v. 52. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 283 matures the fruit, that lives in all things, though they may not seem to live, and in fact do not, when unorganised, live separ- ately considered, though they all partake of the universal life, and in their com- ponent parts may be rendered living. A table as a table, a coat as a coat, are not alive, but inasmuch as they derive their substance from nature, they are composed of living particles. 1 There is nothing so small or so unimportant, but that a portion of spirit dwells in it, and this spiritual sub- stance requires but a proper subject to become a plant or an animal. Forms par- ticular are in constant change; but the first form, being the source of all others, as well as the first matter, are eternal. The soul of the world is the constituent principle of the universe and of all its parts. And thus we have an intrinsic, eternal, self-subsistent principle of form, far better than that which the sophists feigned, whose substances are compounded and corruptible, and, therefore, nothing else than accidents. 2 Forms in particular 1 Thus Buhle, or at least his French translator; but the original words are different. Dico dun- que che la tavola come tavola non e animata, ne la veste, n& il cuojo come cuojo, n6 il vetro come vetro, ma come cose naturali e composte hanno in se la materla e la forma. Sia pur cosa quanto piccola e minima si voglia, ha in se parte di sustanza spirituale, la quale, se trova il sog- getto disposto, si stende ad esser pianta, ad esser animale, e riceve membri de qual si voglia corpo, che comunemente si dice animate ; per che spirto si trova in tutte le cose, e non e minimo cor. pusculo, che non contegna cotal porzione in se, che non inanimi, p. 241. Buhle seems not to have understood the words in italics, which certainly are not remarkably plain, and to have substituted what he thought might pass for meaning. The recent theories of equivocal generation, held by some philosophers, more on the con- tinent than in England, according to which all matter, or at least all matter susceptible of or- ganisation by its elements, may become organ- ised and living under peculiar circumstances, seem not very dissimilar to this system of Bruno. 2 Or, quanto a la causa effectrice, dico 1 efficiente flsico universale esser 1' intelletto uni- versale, ch' 6 la prima e principial faculta dell' anima del mondo, la qual e forma universale di quello L' intelletto universale e 1'intima piu reale e propria faculta, e parte potenziale dell' anima del mondo. Questo e uno medesimo ch' empie il tutto, illumina 1' universe, e in- drizza la natura a produrre le sue specie, come si conviene, e cosi ha rispetto ii la produzione di cose naturali, come il nostro intelletto 6 la con- grua produzione di specie razionali. . . . Questo e nominato da Platonici fabbro del mondo, p. 235. Dunque abbiamo un principle intrinseco for- are the accidents of matter, and we should make a divinity of matter like some Ara- bian peripatetics, if we did not recur to the living fountain of form the eternal soul of the world. The first matter is neither corporeal nor sensible, it is eternal and un- changeable, the fruitful mother of forms and their grave. Form and matter, says Bruno, pursuing this fanciful analogy, may be compared to male and female. Form never errs, is never imperfect, but through its conjunction with matter ; it might adopt the words of the father of the human race : Mulier quam mini dedisti (la materia, la quale mi hai dato consorte), me decepit (lei d cagione d' ogni mio peccato). The speculations of Bruno now become more and more subtle, and he admits, that our understandings cannot grasp what he pretends to demonstrate the identity of a simply active and simply passive principle : but the question really is, whether we can see any meaning in his propositions. 13. We have said that the system of Bruno seems to involve a Pantheism of double pantheism. The first Bruno, is of a simple kind, the hylozoism, which has been exhibited in the preceding para- graph ; it excludes a creative deity, in the strict sense of creation, but leaving an ac- tive provident intelligence, does not seem by any means chargeable with positive atheism. But to this soul of the world Bruno appears not to have ascribed the name of divinity. 1 The first form, and the first matter, and all the forms generated by the two, make, in his theory, but one being, the infinite unchangeable universe, in which is everything, both in power and in act, and which, being all things col- lectively, is no one thing separately ; it is form and not form, matter and not matter, male eterno e sussistente incomparabilmente migliore di quello, che han flnto li sophisti, che versano circa gl' accidenti, ignoranti de la sustanza de le cose, e che vengono a ponere le sustanze corrottibili, per ch6 quello chiamano massimamente, primamente e principalmente sustanza, che risulta da la composizione ; il che non 6 altro, ch' uno accidente, che non contiene in se nulla stabilita e verita, e si risolve in nulla, p. 242. 1 Son tre sort! d' intelletto ; il divino, ch' * tutto ; questo mondano, che fa tutto ; gli altri particular!, che si fanno tutte . E v vera causa efficiente (T intelletto mondano) non tanto estrinseca, come anco intrinseca di tutte cose naturali. ... Mi par, che detrahano a la divina bonta eal' eccellenza di questo grande animale e simulacro del primo principle quelli, che non vogliano intendere, ne affirmare, il mondo con 11 suoi membri essere animate, p. 239. 284 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. eoul and not soul. He expands this mys- terious language much further, resolving the whole nature of the deity into an ab- stract, barren, all embracing unity. 1 14. These bold theories of Jordano Bruno Bmno's other are chiefly contained in the writings. treatise Delia Causa, Prin- cipio ed Uno. In another entitled Dell' Infinito Universe e Mondi, which, like the former, is written in dialogue, he asserts 1 E % dunque 1' universo uno, infinite, immo- bile. Uno dico k la possibility assoluta, uno 1' atto, una la forma o anima, una la materia o corpo, una la cosa, uno lo ente, uno il massimo e ottimo, il quale non deve posser essere com- preso, e per6 inflnibile e interminabile, e per tanto infinite e interminato, e per conseguenza immobile. Questo non si muove localmente ; per ch6 non ha cosa fuor di se, ove si trasporte, atteso che sia il tutto. Non si genera ; per ch6 non & altro essere, che lui possa desiderare o sspettare, atteso che abbia tutto lo essere. Non si corrompe ; perche non e altra cosa, in cui si cangi, atteso che lui sia ogni cosa. Non pu6 sminuire o crescere, otteso ch' e infinite, a cui come non si pu6 aggiungere, cosi e da cui non si pu6 sottrarre, per cio che lo infinite non ha parti proporzionali. Non k alterabile in altra disposizione, per che non ha esterno. da cui patisca, e per cui venga in qualche affezione. Oltre che per comprender tutte contrarietadi nell' esser sue, in unita e convenienza, e nessuna inclinazione posser avere ad altro e novo essere, o pur ad altro e altro modo d' essere, non pu6 esser soggetto di mutazione secundo qualita alcuna, ne puo aver contrario o diverse, che 1' alteri, per che in lui e ogni cosa Concorde. Non e materia, per che non 6 figurato, ne figurabile, non 6 terminate, ne terminabile. Non e forma, per che non informa, ne figura altro, atteso che & tutto, e massimo, uno, 6 universo. Non e misurabile, ne misura. Non si comprende ; per che non e maggior di se. Non si compreso ; perche non e minor di se. Non si agguaglia ; per che non e altro e altro, ma uno e medesimo. Essendo medesimo ed uno, non ha essere ed essere ; et per che non ha essere ed essere, non ha parti e parti ; e per ci6 che non ha parte e parte, non 6 composto. Questo e termini; di sorte, che non 6 termine ; 6 talmente forma, che non e forma ; 6 talmente materia, che non 6 materia ; 6 talmente anima, che non e anima ; per che e il tutto indifferentemente, e pero e uno, I 1 universo e uno, p. 280. Ecco, come non e possibile, ma necessario, che 1' ottimo, massimo incomprensibile e tutto, e par tutto, b In tutto, per ch6 come simplice ed in- divisibile pu6 esser tutto, esser per tutto, essere in tutto. E cosi non 6 stato vanamente detto, che Giove empie tutte le cose, inabita tutte le parti dell' universo, c centro di cio, che ha 1' essere uno in tutto, e per cui uno e tutto. II quale, essendo tutte le cose, e comprendendo tutto 1' essere in se, viene a far, che ogni cosa sia in ogni cosa. Ma mi direste, per che dunque le cose si cangiano, la materia particolare si forza ad altre forme ? vi rispondo, che non e mutazione, che cerca altro essere, ma altro modo di essere. E the infinity of the universe, and the plu- rality of worlds. That the stars are suns, shining by their own light, that each has its revolving planets, now become the familiar creed of children, were then among the enormous paradoxes and capital offences of Bruno. His strong assertion of the Copernican theory was, doubtless, not quite so singular, yet this liad but few proselytes in the sixteenth century. His other writings, of all which Buhle has fur- nished us with an account, are numerous ; some of them relate to the art of Raymond Lully, which Bruno professed to esteem very highly ; and in these mnemonical treatises he introduced much of his own theoretical philosophy. Others are more exclusively metaphysical, and designed to make his leading principles, as to unity, number, and form, more intelligible to the common reader. They are full, according to what we find in Brucker and Buhle, of strange and nonsensical propositions, such as men, unable to master their own crude fancies on subjects above their reach, are wont to put forth. None, however, of his productions, has been more often mentioned than the Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante, alleged by some to be full of his atheistical impieties, while others have taken it for a mere satire on the Roman church. This diversity was very natural in those who wrote of a book they had never seen. It now appears that this famous work is a general moral satire in an allegorical form, with little that could excite attention, and questa e la diflferenza tra 1' universo e le cose dell' universo ; per che nullo comprende tutto 1' essere e tutti modi di essere ; di queste ciascuna ha tutto 1' essere, ma non tutti i modi di essere, p. 282. The following sonnet by Bruno is character- istic of his mystical imagination ; but we must not confound the personification of an abstract idea with theism : Causa, Principio, ed Uno sempiterno, Onde 1' esser, la vita, il moto pende, E a lungo, a largo, e profondo si stende Quanto si dice in ciel, terra ed inferno ; Con senso, con ragion, con mente scerno Ch' atto, misura e conto non comprende, Quel vigor, mole e numero, che tende Oltre ogni inferior, mezzo e superno. Cieco error, tempo avaro, ria fortuna, Sorda invidia, vil rabbia, iniquo zelo, Crudo cor, empio ingegno, strano ardire, Non basteranno a farmi 1' aria bruna, Non mi porrann' avanti gl' occhi il velo, Non faran mai, ch' il mio bel Sol non mire. If I have quoted too much from Jordano Bruno it may be excused by the great rarity of his works, which has been the cause that some late writers have not fully seen the character of his speculations. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 285 less that could give such offence as to pro- voke the author's death. 1 15. Upon the whole, we may probably General charac- P^ce Bruno in this province terofius philo- of speculative philosophy, sophy. though not high, yet above Cesalpin, or any of the school of Averroes. He has fallen into great errors, but they seem to have perceived no truth. His doctrine was not original ; it came from the Eleatic philosophers, from Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, 2 and in some measure from Plato himself ; and it is ultimately, be- yond doubt, of oriental origin. "What seems most his own, and I must speak very doubtfully as to this, is the syncretism of the tenet of a pervading spirit, an Anima Mundi, which in itself is an imperfect theism, with the more pernicious hypo- thesis of an universal Monad, to which every distinct attribute, except unity, was to be denied. Yet it is just to observe that, in one passage already quoted in a note, Bruno expressly says, "there are three kinds of intelligence, the divine, which is everything ; the mundane, which does everything ; and the particular in- telligences which are all made by the second." The inconceivableness of as- cribing intelligence to Bruno's universe, and yet thus distinguishing it as he does from the mundane intelligence, may not perhaps be a sufficient reason for denying him a place among theistic philosophers. But it must be confessed, that the general tone of these dialogues conveys no other impression than that of a pantheism, in which every vestige of a supreme intelli- gence, beyond his soul of the world, is effaced, s 1 Gingue'ne', vol. vii., has given an analysis of the Spaccio della Bestia. 2 See a valuable analysis of the philosophy of Plotinus in Degerando's Histoire Comparee des Systemes, iii. 357 (edit. 1823). It will be found that his language with respect to the mystic supremacy of unity, is that of Bruno himself. Plotin, however, was not only theistic, but in- tensely religious, and if he had come a century later would, instead of a heathen philosopher, have been one of the first names among the saints of the church. It is probable that his in- fluence, as it is, has not been small in modelling the mystic theology. Scotus Erigena was of the same school, and his laugua.e about the first Monad is similar to that of Bruno. De- gerando, vol. iv. p. 372. 3 I can hardly agree with Mr. Whewell in supposing that Jordano Bruno "probably had a considerable share in intoducing the new opinions f .ot Copernicus) into England." Hist, of Inductive Sciences, i. 385. Very few in England seem to have embraced these opinions ; 16. The system, if so it may be called, of Bruno, was essentially sceptical theory dogmatic, reducing the most * Sanchez, subtle and incomprehensible mysteries into- positive aphorisms of science. Sanchez, a Portuguese physician, settled as a public instructor at Toulouse, took a different course ; the preface of his treatise, Quod Nihil Scitur, is dated from that city in 1576; but no edition is known to have existed before 1581. 1 This work is a mere tissue of sceptical fallacies, propounded, however, with a confident tone not unusual in that class of sophists. He begins ab- ruptly with these words : Nee unum hoc scio, me nihil scire, conjector tamen nee me nee alios. Haec mihi vexillum pro- positio sit, haec sequenda venit, Nihil Scitur. Hanc si probare scivero, merito concludam nihil sciri ; si nescivero, hoc ipso melius ; id enim asserebam. A good deal more follows in the same sophistical style of cavillation. Hoc unum semper maxime ab aliquo expetivi, quod modo facio, ut vere diceret an aliquid perfecte sciret ; nusquam tamen inveni, praeterquam in sapiente illo proboque viro Socrate (licet et Pyrrhonii, Academici et Sceptici vocati, cum Favorino id etiam assererent) quod hoc unum sciebat quod nihil sciret. Qua solo dicto mihi doctissimus indicatur ; quanquam nee adhuc omnino mihi exploit men tern ; cum et illud unum, sicut .alia, ignoraret. 2 17. Sanchez puts a few things well ; but his scepticism, as we perceive, is extrava- gant. After descanting on Montaigne's favourite topic, the various manners and opinions of mankind, he says, Xon finem faceremus si omnes omnium mores recen- sere vellemus. An tn his eandem rationem, quam nobis, omnino putes ? Mihi non verisimile videtur. Nihil tamen ambo scimus. Negabis forsan tales aliquos esse homines. Non contendam ; sic ab aliis accepi.3 Yet, notwithstanding his sweep- ing denunciation of all science in the boldest tone of Pyrrhonism, Sanchez comes at length to admit the possibility of a limited or probable knowledge of truth ; and, as might perhaps be expected, con- and those who did so, like Wright and Gilbert, were men who had somewhat better reasons than the ipse dixit of a wandering Italian. 1 Brucker, iv. 5il, with this fact before his eyes, strange y asserts Sanchez to have been born in 1562. Buhle and Cousin copy him. without hesitation. Antonio is ignorant of any edition of " Quod Nihil Scitur," except that of Rotterdam in 1649 ; and ignorant also that the book contains anything remarkable. 2 P. 10 3 P. 39. 286 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. that he had himself attained it. " There are two modes," he observes, " of discovering truth, by neither of which do men learn the real nature of things, but yet obtain some kind of insight into them. These are experiment and reason, neither being sufficient alone ; but experiments, however well conducted, do not show us the nature of things, and reason can only conjecture them. Hence there can be no such thing as perfect science ; and books have been employed to eke out the defi- cienciesof our own experience ; buttheir con- fusion, prolixity, multitude, and want of trust-worthiness prevents this resource from being of much value, nor is life long enough for so much study. Besides, this perfect knowledge requires a perfect re- cipient of it, and a right disposition of the subject of knowledge, which two I have never seen. Reader, if you have met with them, write me word." He concludes this treatise by promising another, "in which we shall explain the method of knowing truth, as far as human weakness will permit ; " and, as his self-complacency rises above his af- fected scepticism, adds, mihi in animo est firmam et facilem quantum possimscientiam fundare. 18. This treatise of Sanchez bears witness to a deep sense of the imperfections of the received systems in science and reasoning, and to a restless longing for truth, which strikes us in other writers of this latter period of the sixteenth century. Lord Bacon, I believe, has never alluded to Sanchez, and such paradoxical scepticism was likely to disgust his strong mind ; yet we may sometimes discern signs of a Baconian spirit in the attacks of our Spanish philosopher on the syllogistic logic, as being built on abstract, and not significant terms, and in his clear percep- tion of the difference between a knowledge of words and one of things. 19. What Sanchez promised and Bacon gave, a new method of reason- Logic of Aconcio. . , , . , , . , ... ing, by which truth might "be better determined than through the common dialectics, had been partially at- tempted already by Aconcio, mentioned in the last chapter as one of those highly- gifted Italians who fled for religion to a Protestant country. Without openly as- sailing the authority of Aristotle, he en- deavoured to frame a new discipline of the faculties for the discovery of truth. His treatise, De Methodo, sive Recta In- vestigandarum Tradendarumque Scien- tiarum Ratione, was published at Basle in 1558, and was several times reprinted, till later works, those especially of Bacon and Des Cartes, caused it to be forgotten. Aconcio defines logic, the right method of thinking and teaching, recta contemplandi docendique ratio. Of the importance of method, or right order in prosecuting our inquiries, he thinks so highly, that if thirty years were to be destined to intel- lectual labour, he would allot two-thirds of the time to acquiring dexterity in this art, which seems to imply that he did not consider it very easy. To know anything, he tells us, is to know what it is, or what are its causes and effects. All men have the germs of knowledge latent in them, as to matters cognizable by human faculties ; it is the business of logic to excite and develop them : Notiones illas seu scintillas sub cinere latentes detegere apteque ad res obscuras illustrandas applicare. 1 20. Aconcio next gives rules at length for constructing definitions, by attending to the genus and differentia. These rules are good , and might v ery properly find a place in a book of logic ; but whether they con- tain much that would vainly be sought in other writers, we do not determine. He comes afterwards to the methods of dis- tributing a subject. The analytic method is by all means to be preferred for the in- vestigation of truth, and, contrary to what Galen and others have advised, even for communicating it to others ; since a man can learn that of which he is ignorant, only by means of what is bettter known, whether he does this himself, or with help of a teacher ; the only process being, a notioribus ad minus nota. In this little treatise of Aconcio, there seem to be the elements of a sounder philosophy, and a more steady direction of the mind to dis- cover the reality of things than belonged to the logic of the age, whether as taught by the Aristotelians or by Ram us. It has not however been quoted by Lord Bacon, nor are we sure that he has profited by it. 21. A more celebrated work than this by Aconcio is one by the dis- Nlzoliuj on the tinguished scholar, Marius principles of Nizolius, " De Veris Princi- pwiopfcy. piis et Vera Ratione Philosophandi contra Pseudo-Philosophos." (Parma, 1553.) It owes, however, what reputation it possesses to Leibnitz, who reprinted it in 1670, with a very able preface, one of his first contri- butions to philosophy. The treatise it- self, he says, was almost strangled in the birth; and certainly the invectives of Nizolius against the logic and metaphysics of Aristotle could have had little chance of l P. 80. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 287 success in a country like Italy, where that authority was more undoubted and durable than in any other. The aim of Nizolius was to set up the best authors of Greece and Rome and the study of philology against the scholastic terminology. But certainly this polite literature was not sufficient for the discovery of truth : nor does the book keep up to the promise of its title, though, by endeavouring to eradi- cate barbarous sophistry, he may be said to have laboured in the interests of real philosophy. The preface of Leibnitz ani- madverts on what appeared to him some metaphysical errors of Nizolius, especially an excess of nominalism, which tended to undermine the foundations of certainty, and his presumptuous scorn of Aristotle. 1 His own object was rather to recommend the treatise as a model of philosophical language without barbarism, than to be- 1 Nizolius maintained that universal terms were only particulars collective sumpta. Leib- nitz replies, that they are particulars distri- butive sumpta; as, omnis homo est animal means, that every one man is an animal ; not that the genus man, taken collectively, is an animal. Nee vero Nizolii error hie levis est ; habet enim magnum aliquid in recessu. Nam si universalianihilaliudsunt quam singularium collectiones, sequitur, scientiam nullam haberi per demonstrationem, quod et infra colligit Nizolius. sed collectionem singularium seu in- ductionem. Sed ea ratione prorsus evertuntur scientiae, ac Sceptici vicere. Nam nunquam constitui possunt ea ratione propositiones per- fecte universales, quia inductione nunquam certus es, omnia individue a te tentata esse ; sed semper intra hanc propositionem subsistes ; omnia ilia quse expertus sum sunt talia ; cum vero non possit esse ulla ratio universalis, sem- per manebit possibile innumera quse tu non sis expertus esse diversa. Hinc jam patet induc- tionem per se nihil producere, ne certitudinem quidem moralem, sine adminiculo proposi- tionum non ab inductione, sed ratione univer- sal! prudentium ; nam si essent et adminicula ab inductione, indigerent novis adminiculis, nee haberetur certitude moralis in infini- tum. Sed certitudo moralis ab inductione sperari plane non potest, additis quibuscunque adminiculis, et propositionem hanc, totum magis esse sua parte, sola inductione nunquam perfects sciemus. Mox enim prodibit, qui ne- gabit ob peculiarem quondam rationem in aliis nondum tentatis veram esse, quemadmodum ex facto scimus Gregorium a Sancto Vincentio negasse totum esse majus sua parte, in angulis saltern contactus, alios in infinite ; et Thomam Hobbes (at quern virum !) coepisse dubitare de propositione ilia geometrica a Pythagora de- monstrata, et hecatomb* sacriflcio digna habita ; quod ego non sine stupore legi. This extract is not very much to the purpose of the text, but it may please some of those who take an interest in such speculations. stow much praise on its philosophy. Brucker has spoken of it rather slightingly, and Buhle with much contempt. I am not prepared by a sufficient study of its contents to pass any judgment ; but Buhle's censure has appeared to me some- what unfair. Dugald Stewart, who was not acquainted with what the latter has said, thinks Nizolius deserving of more commendation than Brucker has assigned to him. 1 He argues against all dialectics, and therefore differs from Ramus ; con- cluding with two propositions as the result of his whole book : That as many logicians and metaphysicians as are anywhere found, so many capital enemies of truth will then and there exist ; and that so long as Aristotle shall be supreme in the logic and metaphysics of the schools, so long will error and barbarism reign over the mind. There is nothing very deep or pointed in this summary of his reasoning. 22. The Margarita Antoniana, by Gomez Pereira,publishedat Medina Margarita del Campo in 1554, has been Antoniana or chiefly remembered as the p reira - ground of one of the many charges against Des Cartes, for appropriating unacknow- ledged opinions of his predecessors. The book is exceedingly scarce, which has been strangely ascribed to the efforts of Des Cartes to suppress it. 2 There is however a copy of the original edition in the British Museum, and it has been reprinted in Spain. It was an unhappy theft, if theft it were ; for what Pereira maintained was precisely the most untenable proposition of the great French philosopher the absence of sensa- tion in brutes. Pereira argues against this with an extraordinary disregard of common phenomena, on the assumption of certain maxims which cannot be true, if they con- tradict inferences from our observation far more convincing than themselves. We find him give a curious reason for denying that we can infer the sensibility of brutes from their outward actions ; namely, that this would prove too much, and lead us to believe them rational beings ; instancing among other stories, true or false, of ap- parent sagacity, the dog in pursuit of a hare, who, coming where two roads meet, i Dissertation on Progress of Philosophy, p. 38. a Biogr. Univ. Brunet, Manuel du Libraire. Bayle has a lone article on Pereira, but though he says the book had been shown to him, he wanted probably the opportunity to read much of it. According to Brunet, several copies have been sold in France, some of them at no great price. The later edition, of 1749, is of course cheaper. 288 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. if he traces no scent on the first, takes the other without trial. 1 Pereira is a rejecter of Aristotelian despotism ; and observes that in matters of speculation and not of faith, no authority is to be respected. 5 ' Notwithstanding this assertion of freedom, he seems to be wholly enchained by the metaphysics of the schools ; nor should I have thought the book worthy of notice, but for its scarcity and the circumstance above-mentioned about Des Cartes. 23. These are, as far as I know, the only works deserving of commemoration in the history of speculative philosophy. A few might easily be inserted from the cata- logues of libraries, or from biographical collections, as well as from the learned labours of Morhof, Brucker, Tennemann, and Buhle. It is also not to be doubted, that in treatises of a different character, theological, moral, or medical, very many passages, worthy of remembrance for their truth, their ingenuity, or originality.might be discovered, that bear upon the best methods of reasoning^ the philosophy of the human mind, the theory of natural religion, or the general system of the material world. 24. We should not however conclude Logic of Ramu; this chapter without ad- iti success, verting to the dialectical method of Ramus, whom we left at the middle of the century, struggling against all the arms of orthodox logic in the uni- versity of Paris. The reign of Henry II. was more propitious to him than that of Francis. In 1551, through the patronage of the Cardinal of Lorraine, Ramus became royal professor of rhetoric and philosophy ; and his new system which, as has been mentioned, comprehended much that was important in the art of rhetoric, began to make numerous proselytes. Omer Talon, known for a treatise on eloquence, was among the most ardent of these ; and to him we owe our most authentic account of the contest of Ramus with the Sorbonne. 1 Fol. 18. This is continually told of dogs ; but does any sensible sportsman confirm it by his own experience? I ask for information only. s FoL 4. The latter were not conciliated, of course, by the success of their adversary ; and Ramus having adhered to the Huguenot party in the civil feuds of France, it has been ascribed to the malignity of one of his philosophical opponents, that he perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He had however already, by personally travel- ling and teaching in Germany, spread the knowledge of his system over that country. It was received in some of the German universities with great favour, notwith- standing the influence which Melanchthon's name retained, and which had been en- tirely thrown into the scale of Aristotle. The Ramists and Anti-Ramists battled it in books of logic through the rest of this century, as well as afterwards ; but this was the principal period of Ramus's glory. In Italy he had few disciples ; but France, England, and still more Scotland and Ger- many were full of them. Andrew Melville introduced the logic of Ramus at Glasgow. It was resisted for some time at St. Andrew's, but ultimately became popular in all the Scottish universities. 1 Scarce any eminent public school, says Brucker, can be named, in which the Ramists were not teachers. They encountered an equally zealous militia under the Aristo- telian standard ; while some, with the spirit of compromise, which always takes possession of a few minds, though it is rarely very successful, endeavoured to unite the two methods, which in fact do not seem essentially exclusive of each other. It cannot be required of me to give an ac- count of books so totally forgotten, and so uninteresting in their subjects as these dialectical treatises on either side. The importance of Ramus in philosophical his- tory is not so much founded on his own deserts, as on the effect he produced in loosening the fetters of inveterate preju- dice, and thus preparing the way, like many others of his generation, for those who were to be the restorers of genuine philosophy. 3 1 M'Crie's Life of Melville, ii. 306. 8 Brucker, v 676. Buhle, ii. 601. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. CHAPTER XIII. HISTOKY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE, FROM 1550 TO 1600. SECT. I. ON MOEAL PHILOSOPHY. Soto Hookei Essays of Montaigne Their Influence on the Public Italian and English Moralists. 1. IT must naturally be supposed that by far the greater part of what was written on moral obligations in the sixteenth century will be found in the theological quarter of ancient libraries. The practice of auricular confession brought with it an entire science of casuistry, which had gradually been wrought into a complicated system. Many, once conspiciious writers in this province, belong to the present period ; but we shall defer the subject till we arrive at the next, when it had acquired a more prominent importance. 2. The first original work of any reputa- Soto, De tation in ethical philosophy Justitia. since the revival of letters, and which, being apparently designed in great measure for the chair of the confes- sional, serves as a sort of link between the class of mere casuistry and the philo- sophical systems of morals which were to follow, is by Dominic Soto, a Spanish Dominican, who played an eminent part in the deliberations of the council of Trent, in opposition both to the papal court and to the theologians of the Scotist, or, as it was then reckoned by its adversaries, the Semi-Pelagian school. This folio volume, entitled De Justitia et Jure, was first pub- lished, according to the Biographic Uni- verselle at Antwerp, in 1568. It appears to be founded on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, the polar star of every true Dominican. Every question is discussed with that remarkable observation of dis- tinctions, and that unremitting desire, both to comprehend and to distribute a subject, which is displayed in many of these forgotten folios, and ought to inspire us with reverence for the zealous energy of their authors, even when we find it im- possible, as must generally be the case, to read so much as a few pages consecutively, or when we light upon trifling and insuffi- cient arguments in the course of our casual glances over the volume. 3. Hooker's Ecclesiastieal Polity might seem more properly to fall under the head of theology ; but the first book of this work being by much the best, Hooker ought rather to be reckoned among those who have weighed the principles, and delineated the boundaries of moral and political science. I have on another occasion, 1 done full justice to the wisdom and eloquence of this earliest among the great writers of England, who, having drunk at the streams of ancient philosophy, has acquired from Plato and Tully somewhat of their redundancy and want of precision, with their comprehen- siveness of observation and their dignity of soul. The reasonings of Hooker, though he bore in the ensuing century the surname of judicious, are not always safe or satis- factory, nor, perhaps, can they be reckoned wholly clear or consistent ; his learning, though beyond that of most English writers in that age, is necessarily uncritical ; and his fundamental theory, the mutability of ecclesiastical government, has as little pleased those for whom he wrote as those whom he repelled by its means. But h& stood out at a vast height above his prede- cessors and contemporaries in the English church, and was, perhaps, the first of our writers who had any considerable acquaint- ance with the philosophers of Greece, not merely displayed in quotation, of which others may have sometimes set an example, but in a spirit of reflection and comprehen- siveness which the study of antiquity alone could have infused. The absence of mi- nute ramifications of argument, in which the schoolmen loved to spread out, dis- tinguishes Hooker from the writers who had been trained in those arid dialectics, such as Soto or Suarez : but, as I have hinted, considering the depth and difficulty of several questions that he deals with in the first book of the Polity, we might wish for a little less of the expanded palm of rhetoric, and somewhat of more dialectical precision in the reasoning. 2 1 Constitut. Hist. Engl. chap. iv. 2 It has been shown with irresistible proof by the last editor of Hooker, that the sixth book of the Ecclesiastical Polity has been lost ; that which we read as such being, with the exception of a few paragraphs at the beginning, altogether a different production, though bearing marks of the same author. This is proved, not only by its want of relation to the general object of the work, and to the subject announced in the title of this very book, but by the remarkable fact, that a series of remarks by two friends of Hooker T 290 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 4. Hooker, like most great moral writers Hi theory of both of antiquity and of natural law. modern ages, rests his posi- tions on one solid basis, the eternal obliga- tion of natural law. A small number had been inclined to maintain an arbitrary power of the Deity, even over the fun- damental principles of right and wrong ; but the sounder theologians seem to have held that, however the will of God may be the proper source of moral obligation in man- kind, concerning which they were not more agreed then than they have been since, it was impossible for him to deviate from his immutable rectitude and holiness. They were unanimous also in asserting the capa- city of the human faculties to discern right from wrong, little regarding what they deemed the prejudices or errors that had misled many nations, and more or less in- fluenced the majority of mankind. 5. Bat there had never been wanting Doubts felt by those who, struck by the others. diversity of moral judgments and behaviour among men, and especially under circumstances of climate, manners, or religion, different from our own, had found it hard to perceive how reason could be an unerring arbiter, when there was so much discrepancy in what she professed to have determined. The relations of tra- vellers, continually pressing upon the notice of Europe in the sixteenth century, and on the sixth book are extant, and published in the last edition, which were obviously designed for a totally different treatise from that which has always passed for the sixth book of the Ec- clesiastical Polity. This can only be explained by the confusion in which Hooker's maunscripts were left at his death, and upon which suspi- cions of interpolation have been founded. Such suspicions are not reasonable ; and notwithstand- ing the exaggerated language which has some- times been used, I think it very questionable whether any more perfect manuscript was ever in existence. The reasoning in the seventh and eighth books appears as elaborate, the proofs as full, the grammatical structure as perfect as in the earlier books ; and the absence of those passages of eloquence, which we occasionally find in the former, cannot afford even a pre- eumption that the latter were designed to be written over again. The eighth book is mani- festly incomplete, wanting some discussions which the author had announced ; but this seems rather advene to the hypothesis of a more ela- borate copy. The more probable inference is, that Hooker was interrupted by death before he had completed his plan. It is possible also that the conclusion of the eighth book has been lost like the sixth. All the stories on this subject in Walton's Life of Hooker, who seems to have been a man always too credulous of anecdote, are unsatisfactory to any one who exacts real proof. perhaps rather more exaggerated than at present, in describing barbarous tribes, afforded continual aliment to the suspicion. It was at least evident, without anything that could be called unreasonable scep- ticism, that these diversities ought to be well explained and sifted before we ac- quiesced in the pleasant conviction that we alone could be in the right. 6. The Essays of Montaigne, the first edition of which appeared at Essays of Bordeaux in 1580, 1 make in Montaigne, several respects an epoch in literature, less on account of their real importance, or the novel truths they contain, than of their influence upon the taste and the opinions of Europe. They are the first provocatio ad populum, the first appeal from the porch and the academy to the haunts of busy and of idle men, the first book that taught the unlearned reader to observe and reflect for himself on questions of moral philosophy. In an age when every topic of this nature was treated systemati- cally and in a didactic form, he *broke out without connection of chapters, with all the digressions that levity and garrulous egotism could suggest, with a very delight- ful, but at that time, most unusual rapid- ity of transition from seriousness to gaiety. It would be to anticipate much of what will demand attention in the ensuing cen- tury, were we to mention here the con- spicuous writers who, more or less directly, and with more or less of close imitation, may be classed in the school of Montaigne ; it embraces, in fact, a large proportion of French and English literature, and especi- ally of that which has borrowed his title of Essays. No prose writer of the six- teenth century has been so generally read, nor probably given so much delight. Whatever may be our estimate of Mon- taigne as a philosopher, a name which lie was far from arrogating, there will be but one opinion of the felicity and brightness of his genius. 7. It is a striking proof of these qualities, that we cannot help believ- Their ing him to have struck out characterises. all his thoughts by a spontaneous effort of his mind, and to have fallen afterwards upon his quotations and examples by happy accident. I have little doubt but that the process was different ; and that, either by dint of memory, though he absolutely dis- claims the possessing a good one, or by the usual method of common-placing, he had i This edition contains only the first and second books of the Essays ; the third was pub- lished in that of Paris, 1538. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 291 made his reading instrumental to excite his own ingenious and fearless understand- ing. His extent of learning was by no means great for that age, but the whole of it was brought to bear on his object ; and it is a proof of Montaigne's independence of mind that, while a vast mass of erudi- tion was the only regular passport to fame, he read no authors but such as were most fitted to his own habits of thinking. Hence he displays an unity, a self-exist- -ence, which we seldom find so complete in other writers. His quotations, though they perhaps make more than one half of his Essays, seem parts of himself, and are like limbs of his own mind, which could not be separated without laceration. But over all is spread a charm of a fascinating simplicity, and an apparent abandonment of the whole man to the easy inspiration of genius, combined with a good-nature, though rather too epicurean and destitute of moral energy, which, for that very reason, made him a favourite with men of similar dispositions, for whom courts, and camps, and country mansions were the proper soil. 8. Montaigne is superior to any of the ancients in liveliness, in that careless and .rapid style, where one thought springs naturally, but not consecutively, from another, by analogical rather than deduc- tive connection ; so that, while the reader seems to be following a train of arguments, he is imperceptibly hurried to a distance by some contingent association. This may be observed in half his essays, the titles of which often give us little insight into their general scope. Thus the apology for Kai- mond de Sebonde is soon forgotten in the long defence of moral Pyrrhonism, which occupies the twelfth chapter of the second book. He sometimes makes a show of coming back from his excursions ; but he has generally exhausted himself before he does so. This is what men love to practise (not advantageously for their severer stud- ies) in their own thoughts ; they love to follow the casual associations that lead them through pleasant labyrinths as one riding along the high road is glad to devi- ate a little into the woods, though it may sometimes happen that he will lose his way, and find himself far remote from his inn. And such is the conversational style of lively and eloquent old men. We con- verse with Montaigne, or rather hear him talk ; it is almost impossible to read his essays without thinking that he speaks to us ; we see his cheerful brow, his sparkling eye, his negligent, but gentlemanly de- meanour ; we picture him in his armchair, with his few books round the room, and Plutarch on the table. 9. The independence of his mind pro- duces great part of the charm of his writ- ing ; it redeems his vanity, without which it could not have been so fully displayed, or perhaps, so powerfully felt. In an age of literary servitude, when every province into which reflection could wander was occupied by some despot; when, to say nothing of theology, men found Aristotle, or Ulpian, or Hippocrates, at every turning to dictate their road, it was gratifying to fall in company with a simple gentleman who, with much more reading than gener- ally belonged to his class, had the spirit to ask a reason for every rule. 10. Montaigne has borrowed much, be- sides his quotations, from the few ancient authors he loved to study. In one passage he even says that his book is wholly com- piled from Plutarch and Seneca ; but this is evidently intended to throw the critics off their scent. " I purposely conceal the authors from whom I borrow," he says in another place, "to check the presumption of those who are apt to censure what they find in a modern. I am content that they should lash Seneca and Plutarch through my sides." 1 These were his two favourite authors; and in order to judge of the originality of Montaigne in any passage, it may often be necessary to have a con-, siderable acquaintance with their works. "When I write," he says, "I care not to have books about me ; but I can hardly be without a Plutarch." 2 He knew little Greek, but most editions at that time had a Latin translation : he needed not for Plutarch to go beyond his own language. Cicero he did not much admire, except the epistles to Atticus. He esteemed the moderns very slightly in comparison with antiquity, though praising Guicciardini and Philip de Comines. Dugald Stewart observes, that Montaigne cannot be sus- pected of affectation, and therefore must himself have believed what he says of the badness of his memory, forgetting, as he tells us, the names of the commonest things, and even of those he constantly saw. But his vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself ; and, as often hap- pens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own failings than of any foreign sub- ject. He could not have had a very de- fective memory so far as it had been exercised, though he might fall into the common mistake of confounding his inat- 1 L ii. c. 32. 2 L ii. c. 10. 292 Literature of Europe from 1550/0 1600. tention to ordinary objects with weakness of the faculty. 11. Montaigne seldom defines or dis- criminates ; his mind had great quickness, but little subtlety ; his carelessness and impatience of labour rendered his views practically one-sided; for though he was sufficiently free from prejudice to place the objects of consideration in different lights, he wanted the power, or did not use the diligence, to make that comparative appreciation of facts which is necessary to distinguish the truth. He appears to most advantage in matters requiring good sense and calm observation, as in the education of children. The twenty-fourth and twenty-eighth chapters of the first book, which relate to this subject, are among the best in the collection. His excellent temper made him an enemy to the harsh- ness and tyranny so frequent at that time in the management of children, as his clear understanding did to the pedantic methods of overloading and misdirecting their fa- culties. It required some courage to argue against the grammarians who had almost monopolised the admiration of the world. Of these men Montaigne observes, that though they have strong memories, their judgment is usually very shallow, making only an exception for Turnebus, who, though in his opinion, the greatest scholar that had existed for a thousand years, had nothing of the pedant about him but his dress. In all the remarks of Montaigne on human character and manners, we find a liveliness, simplicity, and truth. They are such as his ordinary opportunities of observation, or his reading suggested ; and though several writers have given proofs of deeper reflection or more watchful dis- cernment, few are so well calculated to fall in with the apprehension of the general reader. 12. The scepticism of Montaigne, con- cerning which so much has been said, is not displayed in religion, for he was a steady Catholic, though his faith seems to have been rather that of acquiescence than conviction, nor in such subtleties of meta- physical Pyrrhonism as we find in Sanchez, which had no attraction for his careless nature. But he had read much of Sextus Einpiricus, and might perhaps have de- rived something from his favourite Plu- tarch. He had also been forcibly struck by the recent narratives of travellers, which he sometimes received with a credulity as to evidence, not rarely combined with theoretical scepticism, and which is too much the fault of his age to bring censure on an individual. It was then assumed that all travellers were trustworthy, and still more that none of the Greek and Roman authors have recorded falsehoods. Hence he was at a loss to discover a general rule of moral law, as an implanted instinct, or necessary deduction of common reason, in the varying usages and opinions of man- kind. But his scepticism was less extrava- gant and unreasonable at that time than it would be now. Things then really doubt- ful have been proved, and positions, en- trenched by authority which he dared not to scruple, have been overthrown ; x truth, in retiring from her outposts, has become more unassailable in her citadel. 13. It may be deemed a symptom of wanting a thorough love of truth when a man overrates, as much as when he over- looks the difficulties he deals with. Mon- taigne is perhaps not exempt from this failing. Though sincere and candid in his general temper, he is sometimes more am- bitious of setting forth his own ingenuity than desirous to come to the bottom of his subject. Hence he is apt to run into the fallacy common to this class of writers, and which La Mothe le Vayer employed much more that of confounding the vari- ations of the customs of mankind in things morally indifferent with those which affect the principles of duty ; and hence the serious writers on philosophy in the next age, Pascal, Arnauld, Malebranche, ani- madvert with much severity on Montaigne. They considered him, not perhaps unjustly,- as an enemy to the candid and honest investigation of truth, both by his bias towards Pyrrhonism, and by the great indifference of his temperament ; scarcely acknowledging so much as was due the service he had done by chasing the servile pedantry of the schools, and preparing the way for closer reasoners than himself. But the very tone of their censures is sufficient to prove the vast influence he had exerted over the world. 14. Montaigne is the earliest classical writer in the French language, the first whom a gentleman is ashamed not to have read. So long as an unaffected style and an appearance of the utmost simplicity and good nature shall charm, so long as the lovers of desultory and cheerful con- versation shall be more numerous than those who prefer a lecture or a sermon, so long as reading is sought by the many as 1 Montaigne's scepticism was rightly exercised on witchcraft and other supernatural stories ; and he had probably some weight in discredit- ing those superstitions. See 1. iii. c. 11 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 293 an amusement in idleness, or a resource in pain, so long will Montaigne be among the favourite authors of mankind. I know not whether the greatest blemish of his Essays .has much impeded their popularity ; they led the way to the indecency so character- istic of French literature, but in no writer on serious topics, except Bayle, more habitual than in Montaigne. It may be observed, that a larger portion of this quality distinguishes the third book, pub- .lished after he had attained a reputation, than the two former. It is also more over- spread by egotism ; and it is not agreeable to perceive that the two leading faults of his disposition became more unrestrained .and absorbing as he advanced in life. 15. The Italians have a few moral trea- Writers on tises of this period, but Moraiain Italy.] chiefly scarce and little read. 'The Instituzioni Morali of Alexander Piccolomini, the Instituzioni di Tutta la 'Vita dell' Uomo Nato Nobile e in cittd, Libera, by the same author, the Latin treatise of Mazzoni de Triplici Vita, which, though we mention it here as partly ethical, seems to be rather an attempt to give a general survey of all science, are among the least obscure, though they have never been of much reputation in Europe. 1 But a more celebrated work, relating indeed to a minor department of ethics, the rules of police and decorous behaviour, is the Galateo of Casa, bishop of Benevento, and an elegant writer of considerable reputation. This little treatise is not only accounted superior in style to most Italian prose, but serves to illustrate the manners of society in the middle of the sixteenth century. Some of the improprieties which he censures are such as we should hardly have expected to find in Italy, and almost remind us of a strange but graphic poem of one Dedekind, on the manners of Germany in the six- teenth century, called Grobianus. But his own precepts in other places, though hardly striking us as novel, are more refined, and relate to the essential principles of social intercourse, rather than to its conventional forms. 2 Casa wrote also a little book on 1 For these books see Tiraboschi, Corniani. and Gingue'ne'. Niceron, vol. xxiii., observes of Piccolomini, that he was the first who employed the Italian language in moral philosophy. This must, however, be taken very strictly, for in a general sense of the word, we have seen earlier instances than his Instituzioni Morali in 1575. 2 Casa inveighs against the punctilious and troublesome ceremonies, introduced, as he sup- poses, from Spain, making distinctions in the jnode of addressing different ranks of nobility. the duties to be observed between friends of equal ranks. The inferior, he advises, should never permit himself to jest upon his patron ; but, if he is himself stung by any unpleasing wit or sharp word, ought to receive it with a smiling countenance, and to answer so as to conceal his resentment. It is probable that this art was understood in an Italian palace without the help of books. 16. There was never a generation in Eng- land which, for worldly pru- dence and wise observation of mankind, stood higher than the subjects of Elizabeth. Rich in men of strong mind, that age had given them a discipline un- known to ourselves ; the strictness of the Tudor government, the suspicious temper of the queen, the spirit not only of intoler- ance, but of inquisitiveness as to religious dissent, the uncertainties of the future, produced a caution rather foreign to the English character, accompanied by a closer attention to the workings of other men's minds, and their exterior signs. This, for similar reasons, had long distin- guished the Italians ; but it is chiefly dis- played, perhaps, in their political writings. We find it, in a larger and more philoso- phical sense, near the end of Elizabeth's reign, when our literature made its first strong shoot, prompting the short con- densed reflections of Burleigh and Raleigh, or saturating with moral observation the mighty soul of Shakspeare. 17. The first in time, and we may justly say, the first in excellence of English writings on moral Ba prudence are the Essays of Bacon. But these, as we now read them, though not very bulky, are greatly enlarged since their first publication in 1597. They then were but ten in number : entitled, 1. Of Studies ; 2. Of Discourse ; 3. Of Cere- monies and Respects ; 4. Of Followers and Friends ; 5. Of Suitors ; 6. Of Expense ; 7. Of Regimen of Health ; 8. Of Honour and Reputation ; 9. Of Faction ; 10. Of Negotiating. And even these few have been expanded in later editions to nearly double their extent. The rest were added chiefly in 1612, and the whole were enlarged in 1625. The pith indeed of these ten essays will be found in the edition of 1597 ; the editions being merely to explain, cor- rect, or illustrate. But, as a much greater number were incorporated with them in the next century, we shall say no more of Bacon's Essays for the present. One of these innovations was the use of the third person for the second in letters. 294 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. SECT. II. ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Freedom of Writing on Government at this Time Its Cawes Hottoman Languet La Boetie Buchanan Rose Maria- na The Jesuits Botero and Paruta Bodin Analysis of his Republic. 18. The present period, especially after Number of 1570, is far more fruitful than political writers. t ne preceding in the annals of political science. It produced several works both of temporary and permanent importance. Before we come to Bodin, who is its most conspicuous ornament, it may be fit to mention some less consider- able books, which, though belonging partly to the temporary class, have in several in- stances survived the occasion which drew them forth, and indicate a state of public opinion not unworthy of notice. 19. A constant progress towards abso- Oppressionof lute monarchy, sometimes Governments, silent, at other times at- tended with violence, had been observable in the principal kingdoms of Europe for the last hundred years. This had been brought about by various circumstances which belong to civil history ; but among others, by a more skilful management, and a more systematic attention to the maxims of state-craft, which had sometimes as- sumed a sort of scientific form, as in the Prince of Machiavel, but were more fre- quently inculcated in current rules familiar to the counsellors of kings. The conse- quence had been, not only many flagrant instances of violated public right, but in some countries, especially France, an habitual contempt for every moral as well as political restraint on the ruler's will. But oppression is always felt to be such, and the breach of known laws cannot be borne without resentment, though it may And spirit without resistance; and there generated by it. were several causes that tended to generate a spirit of indignation against the predominant despotism. Inde- pendent of those of a political nature, which varied according to the circumstances of kingdoms, there were three that belonged to the sixteenth century as a learned and reflecting age, which, if they did not all ex- ercise a great influence over the multitude, were sufficient to affect the complexion of literature, and to indicate a somewhat novel state of opinion in the public mind. 20. I. From the Greek and Roman poets, Derived from orators, or historians, the classic history, scholar derived the prin- ciples, not only of equal justice, but of equal privileges ; he learned to reverence- free republics, to abhor tyranny, to sym- pathise with a Timoleon or a Brutus. A late English historian, who carried to a morbid excess his jealousy of democratic prejudices, fancied that these are per- ceptible in the versions of Greek authors by the learned of the sixteenth century, and that Xylander or Rhodomann grati- fied their spite against the sovereigns of their own time, by mistranslating their text in order to throw odium on Philip or Alexander. This is probably unfounded ; but it may still be true that men, who had imbibed notions, perhaps as indefinite as exaggerated, of the blessings of freedom in ancient Rome and Greece, would draw no- advantageous contrast with the palpable outrages of arbitrary power before their eyes. We have seen, fifty years before, a striking proof of almost mutinous indig- nation in the Adages of Erasmus ; and I have little doubt that further evidence of it might be gleaned from the letters and writings of the learned. 21. II. In proportion as the antiquities of the existing European prom their own monarchies came to be *nd the Jewish, studied, it could not but appear that the royal authority had outgrown many limita- tions that primitive usage or established law had imposed upon it ; and the farther back these researches extended, the more they seemed, according to some inquirers, to favour a popular theory of constitutional polity. III. Neither of these considera- tions, which affected only the patient scholar, struck so powerfully on the public mind as the free spirit engendered by the Reformation, and especially the Judaizing turn of the early Protestants, those at least of the Calvinistic school, which, sought for precedents and models in the Old Testament, and delighted to recount how the tribes of Israel had fallen away from Rehoboam, how the Maccabees had repelled the Syrian, how Eglon had been smitten by the dagger of Ehud. For many years the Protestants of France had made choice of the sword, when their alternative was the stake ; and amidst defeat, treachery, and massacre, sustained an unequal combat with extraordinary heroism, and a constancy that only a per- suasion of acting according to conscience could impart. That persuasion it was the business of their ministers and scholars to encourage by argument. Each of these three principles of liberty was asserted by means of the press in the short period between 1570 and 1580. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 295 22. First in order of publication is the Franco-Gallia of Franco-Gallia of Francis Hottoman. Hottoman, one of the most eminent lawyers of that age. This is chiefly a collection of passages from the early French historians, to prove the share of the people in government, and especially their right of electing the kings of the first two races. No one, in such inquiries, would now have recourse to the Franco- Gallia, which has certainly the defect of great partiality, and an unwarrantable ex- tension of the author's hypothesis. But it is also true that Hottoman revealed some facts as to the ancient monarchy of France, which neither the later historians, flatterers of the court, nor the lawyers of the parliament of Paris, against whom he is prone to inveigh, had suffered to transpire. 23. An anonymous treatise, Vindiciae con- vindlcas of tra Tyrannos, Auctore Ste- Lan e uet - phano Junio Bruto Celta, 1579, commonly ascribed to Hubert Lan- guet, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney, breathes the stern spirit of Judaical Huguenotism. Kings, that lay waste the church of God, and support idolatry, kings, that trample upon their subjects' privi- leges, may be deposed by the states of their kingdom, who indeed are bound in duty to do so, though it is not lawful for private men to take up arms without authority. As kings derive their pre- eminence from the will of the people, they may be considered as feudally vassals of their subjects, so far that they may forfeit their crown by felony against them. Though Languet speaks honourably of ancient tyrannicides, it seems as if he could not mean to justify assassination, since he refuses the right of resistance to private men. 24. Hottoman and Languet were both Contr 1 Un of Protestants ; and the latter Boetie. especially may have been greatly influenced by the perilous fortunes of their religion. A short treatise, how- ever, came out in 1578, written probably near thirty years before, by Stephen de la Boetie, best known to posterity by the ardent praises of his friend Montaigne, and an adherent to the church. This is called Le Contr' Un, ou Discours de la Servitude Volontaire. It well deserves its title. Roused by the flagitious tyranny of many contemporary rulers, and none were worse than Henry II. , under whose reign it was probably written, La Boetie pours forth the vehement indignation of a youthful heart, full of the love of virtue and of the brilliant illusions which a superficial know- ledge of ancient history creates, against the voluntary abjectness of mankind, who submit as slaves to one no wiser, no braver, no stronger than any of themselves. "He who so plays the master over you has but two eyes, has but two hands, has but one body, has nothing more than the least among the vast number who dwell in our cities ; nothing has he better than you, save the advantage that you give him, that he may ruin you. Whence has he so many eyes to watch you, but that you give them to him ? How has he so many hands to strike you, but that he employs your own? How does he come by the feet which trample on your cities, but by your means? How can he have any power over you, but what you give him? How could he venture to persecute you, if he had not an under- standing with yourselves ? What harm could he do you, if you were not receivers of the robber that plunders you, accom- plices of the murderer who kills you, and traitors to your own selves ? You, you sow the fruits of the earth, that he may waste them ; you furnish your houses, that he may pillage them ; you rear your daughters, that they may glut his wanton- ness, and your sons, that he may lead them at the best to his wars, or that he may send them to execution, or make them the instruments of his concupiscence, the ministers of his revenge. Yoii exhaust your bodies with labour, that he may revel in luxury, or wallow in base and vile pleasures ; you weaken yourselves, that he may become more strong, and better able to hold you in check. And yet from so many indignities, that the beasts them- selves, could they be conscious of them, would not endure, you may deliver your- selves, if you but make an effort, not to deliver yourselves, but to show the will to do it. Once resolve to be no longer slaves, and you are already free. I do not say that you should assail him, or shake his seat ; merely support him no longer, and you will see that, like a great Colossus, whose basis has been removed from beneath him, he will fall by his own weight, and break to pieces." 1 25. These bursts of a noble patriotism, which no one who is in the least familiar with the history of that period will think inexcusable, are much unlike what we generally expect from the French writers. La Boetie, in fact, is almost a single in- stance of a thoroughly republican character till nearly the period of the Revolution. 1 Le Contr' Un of La Boetie is published at the end of some editions of Montaigne. 296 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Montaigne, the staunchest supporter of church and state, excuses his friend, " le plus grand homme, a mon avis, de notre siecle," assuring us that he was al- ways a loyal subject, though if he had been permitted his own choice, " he would rather have been born at Venice than at Sarlat. " La Boetie died young in 1561 ; and his Discourse was written some years before ; he might have lived to perceive how much more easy it is to inveigh against the abuses of government, than to bring about anything better by rebellion. 26. The three great sources of a free Buchanan, De spirit in politics, admira- JureBegni. tion of antiquity, zeal for religion, and persuasion of positive right, which separately had animated La Boetie, Languet, and Hottoman, united their streams to produce, in another country, the treatise of George Buchanan (De Jure Regni apud Scotos), a scholar, a protestant, and the subject of a very limited monarchy. This is a dialogue elegantly written, and designed first, to show the origin of royal government from popular election ; then, the right of putting tyrannical kings to death, according to Scripture, and the conditional allegiance due to the crown of Scotland, as proved by the coronation oath, which implies, that it is received in trust from the people. The following is a speci- men of Buchanan's reasoning, which goes very materially farther than Languet had presumed to do : " Is there then," says one of the interlocutors, "a mutual com- pact between the king and the people? M. Thus it seems. B. Does not he, who first violates the compact, and does any- thing against his own stipulations, break his agreement ? M. He does. B. If then, the bond which attached the king to the people is broken, all rights he derived from the agreement are forfeited. M. They are forfeited. B. And he who was mutually bound becomes as free as before the agree- ment? M. He has the same rights and the same freedom as he had before. B. But if a king bhould do things tending to the dissolution of human society, for the preservation of which he has been made, what name should we give him ? M. We should call him a tyrant. B. But a tyrant not only possesses no just authority over his people, but is their enemy ? M. He is surely their enemy. B. Is there not a just cause of war against an enemy who has in- flicted heavy and intolerable injuries upon us ? M. There is. B. What is the nature of a war against the enemy of all man- kind, that is, against a tyrant ? M. None can be more just. B. Is it not lawful in a war justly commenced, not only for the whole people, but for any single person to kill an enemy ? M. It must be confessed. B. What, then, shall we say of a tyrant, a public enemy, with whom all good men are in eternal warfare ? may not any one of all mankind inflict on him every penalty of war ? M. I observe that all nations have been of that opinion, for Theba is ex- tolled for having killed her husband, and Timoleon for his brother's, and Cassius for his son's, death." 1 27. We may include among political treatises of this class some Foynet, on published by the English Poiitique Power, and Scottish exiles during the persecution of their religion by the two Maries. They are, indeed, prompted by circumstances, and in some instances have too much of a temporary character to deserve a place in literary history. I will, however, give an account of one, more theoretical than the rest, and characteristic of the bold spirit of these early Protestants, especially as it is almost wholly unknown except by name. This is in the titlepage, " A Short Treatise of Politique Power, and of the true obedi- ence which subjects owe to kings and other civil governors, being an answer to seven questions : ' 1. Whereof politique power groweth, wherefore it was ordained, and the right use and duty of the same ? 3. Whether kings, princes, and other gov ernors have an absolute power and au thority over their subjects? 3. Whether kings, princes, and other politique gov ernors be subject to God's laws, or the positive laws of their countries ? 4. In what things and how far subjects are bound to obey their princes and governors? 5. Whether all the subject's goods be the emperor's or king's own, and that they may lawfully take them for their own? 6. Whether it be lawful to depose an evil governor and kill a tyrant ? 7. What con- fidence is to be given to princes and poten- tates?'" 28. The author of this treatise was John Poynet, or Ponnet, as it is its liberal spelled in the last edition, theory, bishop of Winchester under Edward VI., and who is said to have had a considerable share in the reformation. 2 It was first published in 1558, and reprinted in 1642, "to serve," says Strype, "the turn of those times." " This book," observes truly the same industrious person, "was not over favourable to princes." Poynet died very soon afterwards, so that we cannot 1 P. 90. 2 Chalmers. Strype's Memorials. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 297 determine whether he would have thought it expedient to speak as fiercely under the reign that was to come. The place of pub- lication of the first edition I do not know, but I presume it was at Geneva or Frank- fort. It is closely and vigorously written, deserving, in many parts, a high place among the English prose of that age, though not entirely free from the usual fault vulgar and ribaldrous invective. He determines all the questions stated in the titlepage on principles adverse to royal power, contending, in the sixth chapter, that "the manifold and continual ex- amples that have been, from time to time, of the deposing of kings and killing of tyrants, do most certainly confirm it to be most true, just, and consonant to God's judgment. The history of kings in the Old Testament is full of it ; and, as Cardinal Pole truly citeth, England lacketh not the practice and experience of the same ; for they deprived King Edward II., because, without law, he killed the subjects, spoiled them of their goods, and wasted the treasures of the realm. And upon what just causes Richard n. was thrust out, and Henry IV. put in his place, I refer it to their own judgment. Denmark also now, in our days, did nobly the like act, when they deprived Chris- tiern the tyrant, and committed him to 'perpetual prison. 29. " The reasons, arguments, and laws, Argues for that serve for the deposing tyrannicide. an( J displacing of an evil governor will do as much for the proof that it is lawful to kill a tyrant, if they may be indifferently heard. As God hath ordained magistrates to hear and deter- ,mine private men's matters, and to punish their vices, so also willeth he that the magistrates' doings be called to account and reckoning, and their vices corrected and punished by the body of the whole congregation or commonwealth ; as it is manifest by the memory of the ancient office of the High Constable of England, unto whose authority it pertained, not only to summon the king personally before the parliament, or other courts of judg- jnent, to answer and receive according to justice, but also upon just occasion to com- mit him unto ward. 1 Kings, princes, and governors have their authority of the people, as all laws, usages, and policies, do declare and testify. For in some places and countries they have more and greater authority; in some places, less; and in i It is scarcely necessary to observe that this is an impudent falsehood. some the people have not given this au- thority to any other, but retain and ex- ercise it themselves. And is any man so unreasonable to deny that the whole may do as much as they have permitted one member to do, or those that have ap- pointed an office upon trust have not au- thority upon just occasion (as the abuse of it) to take away what they gave ? All laws do agree, that men may revoke their proxies and letters of attorney when it pleaseth them, much more when they see their proctors and attorneys abuse it. 30. " But now, to prove the latter part of this question affirmatively, that it is lawful to kill a tyrant, there is no man can deny, but that the Ethnics, albeit they had not the right and perfect true knowledge of God, were endued with the knowledge of the law of nature for it is no private law to a few or certain people, but common to all not written in books, but grafted in the hearts of men, not made by men, but ordained of God, which we have not learned, received, or read, but have taken, sucked, and drawn it out of nature, where- unto we are not taught, but made, not in- structed, but seasoned j 1 and, as St. Paul saith, "Man's conscience bearing witness of it," &c. He proceeds in a strain of some eloquence (and this last passage is not ill- translated from Cicero), to extol the an- cient tyrannicides, accounting the first nobility to have beeen " those who had re- venged, and delivered the oppressed people out of the hands of their governors. Of this kind of nobility was Hercules, Theseus, and such like." 2 It must be owned, the worthy bishop is a bold man in assertions of fact. Instances from the Old Testa- ment, of course, follow, wherein Jezebel and Athalia are not forgotten, for the sake of our bloody queen. 31. If too much space has been allowed to so obscure a production, ^ ^^ of it must be excused on ac- parties swayed count of the illustration it bycircum- gives to our civil and ecclesi- stances, astical history, though of little importance in literature. It is also well to exhibit an additonal proof that the tenets of all parties, however general and speculative they may appear, are espoused on account of the position of those who hold them, and the momentary consequences that they may produce. In a few years time the Church of England, strong in the protec- tion of that royalty which Poynet thus assailed in his own exile, enacted the cele- 1 Sic. The Latin in Cic. pro Mil. is imbuti. 2 P. 49. 298 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. brated homily against rebellion, which de- nounces every pretext of resistance to governors. Churches, even the best, are but factions in the strife to retain or re- cover their ascendency; and, like other factions, will never weaken themselves by a scrupulous examination of the reasoning or the testimony which is to serve their pur- pose. Those have lived and read to little advantage who have not discovered this. 32. It might appear that there was some similar tenets peculiar association between among the these popular theories of re- Leaguers. sistance and tlie p ro testant faith. Perhaps, in truth, they had a degree of natural connection ; but circumstances, more than general principles, affect the opinions of mankind. The rebellion of the League against Henry III., their determin- ation not to acknowledge Henry IV., re- versed the state of parties, and displayed, in an opposite quarter, the republican notions of Languet and Buchanan as fierce and as unlimited as any Protestants had maintained them. Henry of Bourbon could only rely upon his legitimate descent, upon the indefeasible rights of inheritance. If France was to choose for herself, France demanded a Catholic king ; all the topics of democracy were thrown into that scale ; and, in fact, it is well known that Henry had no prospect whatever of success but by means of a conversion, which, though not bearing much semblance of sincerity, the nation thought fit to accept. But during that struggle of a few years we find, among other writings of less moment, one ascribed by some to Rose, bishop of Senlis, a strenu- ous partisan of the League, which may perhaps deserve to arrest our attention. 1 33. This bo6k, De Justa Reipublicse Rose on the Christianse in Reges Potest- Authority of ate, published in 1590, must Christian states have been partly written be- UB8B - fore the death of Henry III. in the preceding year. He begins with the 1 The author calls himself Rossaeus, and not, as has been asserted, bishop of Senlis. But Pitts attributes this book to Rainolds (brother of the more celebrated Dr. John Rainolds), who is said to have called himself Rossaeus. The Biographic Universelle (art. Rose) says this opinion has not gained ground; but it is cer- tainly favoured by M. Barbier in the Diction- naire des Anonymes, and some grounds for it are alleged. From internal evidence it seems rather the work of a Frenchman than a foreigner ; but I have not paid much attention to so unim- portant a question. Jugler, in his Historia Literaria, c. 9, does not even name Rose. By a passage in Schelhorn, viii. 465, the book seems to have been sometimes ascribed to Genebrard. origin of human society, which he treats- with some eloquence, and on the principle of an election of magistrates by the com- munity, that they might live peaceably, and in enjoyment of their possessions. The different forms and limitations of govern- ment have sprung from the choice of the people, except where they have been im- posed by conquest. He exhibits many in- stances of this variety : bat there are two dangers, one of limiting too much the power of kings, and letting the populace change the dynasty at their pleasure ; the other, that of ascribing a sort of divinity to kings, and taking from the nation all the- power of restraining them in whatever crimes they may commit. The Scottish Calvinists are an instance of the first error ; the modern advocates of the house of Valois of the other. The servile language of those who preach passive obedience has encouraged not only the worst Roman emperors, but such tyrants as Henry Till., Edward VI., and Elizabeth of England. 34. The author goes, in the second chap- ter, more fully into a refutation of this doctrine, as contrary to the practice of an- cient nations, who always deposed tyrants, to the principles of Christianity, and to the constitution of European communities, whose kings are admitted under an oath to keep the laws and to reign justly. The subject's oath of allegiance does not bind him, unless the king observe what is stipu- lated from him ; and this right of with- drawing obedience from wicked kings is at the bottom of all the public law of Europe. It is also sanctioned by the church. Still more has the nation a right to impose laws and limitations on kings, who have certainly no superiority to the law, so that they can transgress it at pleasure. 35. In the third chapter he inquires wha is a tyrant ; and, after a long discussion comes to this result, that a tyrant is one who despoils his subjects of their posses- sions, or offends public decency by immoral life, but above all, who assails the Christian faith, and uses his authority to render his subjects heretical. All these characters are found in Henry of Valois. He then urges, in the two following chapters, that all Protestantism is worse than Paganism, inasmuch ai it holds out less inducement to a virtuous life, but that Calvinism is much the worst form of the Protestant heresy. The Huguenots, he proceeds to prove, are neither parts of the French church nor commonwealth. He infers, in the seventh chapter, that the king of Navarre, being a heretic of this description, Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 299 is not fit to rule over Christians. The re- mainder of the book is designed to show that every king, being schismatic or hereti- cal, may be deposed by the pope, of which he brings many examples ; nor has any one deserved this sentence more than Henry of Navarre. It has always been held lawful that an heretical king should be warred upon by his own subjects and by all Chris- tian sovereigns ; and he maintains that a real tyrant, who, after being deposed by the wiser part of his subjects, attempts to preserve his power by force, may be put to death by any private person. He adds that Julian was probably killed by a Chris- tian soldier, and quotes several fathers and ecclesiastical historians who justify and commend the act. He concludes by ex- horting the nobility and other orders of France, since Henry is a relapsed heretic, who is not to be believed for any oaths he may make, to rally round their Catholic king, Charles of Bourbon. 36. The principles of Rose, if he were Treatise of truly the author, both as to Boucher in the rebellion and tyrannicide, same spirit. belonge( j na t ur ally to those who took up arms against Henry III., and who applauded his assassin. They were adopted, and perhaps extended, by Bou- cher, a leaguer still more furious, if pos- sible, than Rose himself, in a book pub- lished in 1589, De Justa Henrici III. Abdicatione a Francorum Regno. This book is written in the spirit of Languet, asserting the general right of the people to depose tyrants, rather than confining it to the case of heresy. The deposing power of the pope, consequently, does not come much into question. He was answered, as well as other writers of the same tenets, by a Scottish Catholic residing at Paris, Answered by William Barclay, father of Barclay. the more celebrated author of the Argenis, in a treatise " De Regno et Regali Potestate adversus Buchananum, Brutum, Boucherum et Reliquos Monarch- omachos," 1600. Barclay argues on the principles current in France, that the king has no superior in temporals ; that the people are bound in all cases to obey him ; that the laws owe their validity to his will. The settlement of France by the submis- sion of the League on the one hand, and by the edict of Nantes on the other, natu- rally put a stop to the discussion of ques- tions which, theoretical and universal as they might seem, would never have been brought forward but through the stimulat- ing influence of immediate circumstances. 37. But while the war was yet raging, and the fate of the Catholic religion seemed to hang upon its success, The Jesuits adopt many of the Jesuits had these tenet*, been strenuous advocates of the tyranni- cidal doctrine ; and the strong spirit of party attachment in that order renders it hardly uncandid to reckon among its general tenets whatever was taught by it most conspicuous members. The boldest and most celebrated assertion of these maxims was by Mariana, in Mariana, De a book, De Rege et Regis Re e - Institutione. The first edition of this re- markable book, and which is of considerable scarcity, was published at Toledo in 1599, dedicated to Philip III., and sanctioned with more than an approbation, with a warm eulogy by the censor (one of the same order, it may be observed), who by the king's authority had perused the manu- script. It is, however, not such as in an absolute monarchy we should expect to find countenance. Mariana, after inquir ing what is the best form of government, and deciding for hereditary monarchy, but only on condition that the prince shall call the best citizens to his councils, and ad- minister all affairs according to the advice of a senate, comes to show the difference between a king and a tyrant. His invec- tives against the latter prepare us for the sixth chapter, which is entitled, Whether it be lawful to overthrow a tyrant? He begins by a short sketch of the oppression of France under Henry III., which had provoked his assassination. Whether the act of James Clement, " the eternal glory of France, as most reckon him," 1 were in itself warrantable, he admits to be a con- troverted question, stating the arguments on both sides, but placing last those in favour of the murder, to which he evi- dently leans. All philosophers and theo- logians, he says, agree that an usurper may be put to death by any one. But in the case of a lawful king, governing to the great injury of the commonwealth or of religion (for we ought to endure his vices so long as they do not reach an intolerable height), he thinks that the states of the realm should admonish him, and on his neglect to reform his life, may take up arms, and put to death a prince whom they have declared to be a public enemy ; and any private man may do the same. He concludes, therefore, that it is only a question of fact who is a tyrant, but not 1 These words, seternum Gallilse decus, are omitted in the subsequent editions, but as far as I have compared them there is very little other alteration ; yet the first alone is in request. 300 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. one of right, whether a tyrant may be killed. Nor does this maxim give a license to attempts on the lives of good princes ; since it can never be applied till wise and experienced men have conspired with the public voice in declaring the prince's tyr- anny. "It is a wholesome thing," he proceeds, "that sovereigns should be con- vinced that, if they oppress the state, and become intolerable by their wickedness, their assassination will not only be lawful but glorious to the perpetrator." 1 This language, whatever indignation it might excite against Mariana and his order, is merely what we have seen in Buchanan. 38. Mariana discusses afterwards the question, whether the power of the king or of the commonwealth be the greater ; and after intimating the danger of giving of- fence, and the difficulty of removing the blemishes which have become inveterate by time (with allusion, doubtless, to the change of the Spanish constitution under Charles and Philip), declares in strong terms for limiting the royal power by laws. In Spain, he asserts, the king cannot im- pose taxes against the will of the people. "He may use his influence, he may offer rewards, sometimes he may threaten, he may solicit with promises and bribes (we will not say whether he may do this rightly), but if they refuse he must give way ; and it is the same with new laws, which require the sanction of the people. Nor could they preserve their right of de- posing and putting to death a tyrant, if they had not retained the superior power to themselves when they delegated a part to the king. It may be the case in some nations, who have no public assemblies of the states, that of necessity the royal pre- rogative must compel obedience a power too great, and approaching to tyranny but we speak (says Mariana) not of barba- rians, but of the monarchy which exists, and ought to exist among us, and of that form of polity which of itself is the best." Whether any nation has a right to sur- render its liberties to a king, he declines to inquire, observing only that it would act rashly in making such a surrender, and the king almost as much so in accepting it. 39. In the second book Mariana treats of the proper education of a prince ; and in the third on the due administration of his government, inveighing vehemently 1 Est salutaris cognitio, ut sit principibus persuasum, si rempublicam oppresserint, si vitiis et foeditate intolerandi erunt, ea condi- tions vivere, ut non jure tantum sed cum laude et gloria perire possint, p. 77. against excessive taxation, and against de basement of the coin, which he thinks ought to be the last remedy in a public crisis. The whole work, even in its re- prehensible exaggerations, breathes a spirit of liberty and regard to the common good. Nor does Mariana, though a Jesuit, lay any stress on the papal power to depose princes, which, I believe, he has never once intimated through the whole volume. It is absolutely on political principles that he reasons, unless we except that he considers impiety as one of the vices which constitute a tyrant. 1 40. Neither of the conflicting parties in Great Britain had neglected Popular theories the weapons of their con- in England, temporaries; the English Protestants un- der Mary, the Scots under her unfortunate namesake, the Jesuits and Catholic priests under Elizabeth, appealed to the natural rights of men, or to those of British citi- zens. Poynet, Goodman, Knox are of the first description ; Allen and Persons of the second. Yet this was not done, by the latter at least, so boldly and so nrach on broad principles as it was on the continent ; and Persons in his celebrated Conference, under the name of Doleman, tried the different and rather inconsistent path of hereditary right. The throne of Elizabeth seemed to stand in need of a strongly monarchical sentiment in the nation. Yet we find that the popular origin of govern- ment, and the necessity of popular consent to its due exercise, are laid down by Hooker in the first and eigthth books of the Eccle- siastical Polity, with a boldness not very usual in her reign, and, it must be owned, with a latitude of expression that leads us forward to the most unalloyed democracy. This theory of Hooker, which he endeav- oured in some places to qualify with little success or consistency, though it excited not much attention at the time, became the basis of Locke's more celebrated Essay on Government, and, through other stages, of the political creed which actuates at present, as a possessing spirit, the great mass of the civilised world. 2 1 Bayle, art. Mariana, notes G, II, and I, has expatiated upon this notable treatise, which did the Jesuits infinite mischief, though they took pains to disclaim any participation in the doctrine. 2 Bilson, afterwards bishop of Winchester, in his "Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion," published in 1585, argues against the Jesuits, that Christian sub- jects may not bear arms against their princes for any religious quarrel, but admits, "if a Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 301 41. The bold and sometimes passionate Political writers, who perhaps will memoirs. fc e thought to have detained us too long, may be contrasted with an- other class more cool and prudent, who sought rather to make the most of what they found established in civil polity, than to amend or subvert it. The condi- tion of France was such as to force men into thinking, where nature had given them the capacity of it. In some of the memoirs of the age, such as those of Castelnau or Tavannes, we find an habitual tendency to reflect, to observe the chain of causes, and to bring history to bear on the passing time. De Comines had set a precedent ; and the fashion of studying his writings and those of Machiavel conspired with the force of circumstances to make a thoughtful generation. The political and military discourses of La Noue, being thrown into the form of dis- oue ' sertation, come more closely to our purpose than merely historical works. They are full of good sense, in a high moral tone, without pedantry or pretension, and throw much light on the first period of the civil wars. The earliest edition is referred by the Biographic Uni- verselle to 1587, which I believe should be 1588 ; but the book seems to have been finished long before. 42. It would carry us beyond the due proportions of this chapter Lipsius. T . i were I to seek out every book belonging to the class of political philosophy, and we are yet far from its termination. The Politica of Justus Lipsius deserve little regard; they are chiefly a digest of Aristotle, Tacitus, and other ancient writers. Charron has incorporated or abridged the greater part of this work in his own. In one passage Lipsius gave great and just offence to the best of the Protestant party, whom he was about to desert, by recommending the extirpation of heresy by fire and sword. A political writer of the Jesuit school was Giovanni Botero, whose long treatise, ier0 ' Eagione di Stato, 1589, while deserving of considerable praise for acuteness, has been extolled by Ginguene, prince should go about to subject his kingdom to a foreign realm, or change the form of the commonwealth from impery to tyranny, or ne- glect the laws established by common consent of prince and people to execute his own plea- sure, in these and other cases which might be named, if the nobles and commons join together to defend their ancient and accustomed liberty, regiment, and laws, they may not well be counted rebels," p. 520. who had never read it, for some merits it ia far from possessing. 1 The tolerant spirit, the maxims of good faith, the enlarged philosophy, which on the credit of a Pied- montese panegyrist, he ascribes to Botero will be sought in vain. This Jesuit justi- fies the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all other atrocities of that age ; observing that the duke of Alba made a mistake in the public execution of Horn and Egmont, instead of getting rid of them privately. 2 Conservation is with him, as with Machiavel, the great end of government, which is to act so as neither to deserve nor permit opposition. The immediate punishment of the leaders of sedition, with as much silence and secrecy as possible, is the best remedy where the sovereign is sufficiently powerful. In cases of danger, it is necessary to conquer by giving way, and to wait for the cooling of men's tempers, and the disunion that will in- fallibly impair their force ; least of all should he absent himself, like Henry III., from the scene of tumult, and thus give courage to the seditious, whilehe diminishes their respect for himself. 43. Botero had thought and observed much; he is, in extent of His remarks on reading, second only to population. Bodin, and his views are sometimes lumin- ous. The most remarkable passage that has occurred to me is on the subject of population. No encouragement to matri- mony, he observes, will increase the numbers of the people without providing also the means of subsistence, and without due care for breeding children up. If this be wanting, they either die prematurely, or grow up of little service to their country. 3 Why else, he asks, did the human race reach, three thousand years ago, as great a population as exists at present ? Cities begin with a few in- habitants, increase to a certain point, but do not pass it, as we see at Rome, at Naples, and in other places. Even if all the monks and nuns were to marry, there 1 Vol. viii. p. 210. 2 Poteva contentarsi di sbrigarsene con dar morte quanto si pu6 segretamente fosse possi- bile. This is in another treatise by Botero, Relazioni Universal! de Capitani Illustri. 3 Concio sia cosa che se bene senza il con- giungimento dell' uomo e della donna non si pu6 il genere umano moltiplicarsi, non dimeno la moltitudine di congiungimenti non e sola causa della moltiplicazione ; si ricerca oltre di ci6, la cura d' allevarli, e la commodita di sustentarli ; senza la quale o muojono innanzi tempo, o riescono inutili, e di poco giovimento alia patria lib. viii. p. 284. 302 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. would not, he thinks, be more people in the world than there are ; two things being requisite for their increase generation and education (or what we should perhaps rather call rearing), and if the multiplica- tion of marriages may promote the one, it certainly hinders the other. 1 Botero must here have meant, though he does not fully express it, that the poverty attending upon improvident marriages is the great impedi- ment to rearing their progeny. 44. Paolo Paruta, in his Discorsi Politici, Venice, 1599, is Paruta. , , , perhaps less vigorous and acute than Botero ; yet he may be reckoned among judicious writers on general poli- tics. The first book of these discourses relates to Roman, the second chiefly to modern history. His turn of thinking is independent and unprejudiced by the current tide of opinion, as when he declares against the conduct of Hannibal in invad- ing Italy. Paruta generally states both sides of a political problem very fairly, as in one of the most remarkable of his dis- courses, where he puts the famous question on the usefulness of fortified towns. His final conclusion is favourable to them. He was a subject of Venice, and after holding considerable offices, was one of those historians employed by the Senate, whose writings form the series entitled Istorici Veneziani. 45. John Bodin, author of several other less valuable works, acquired so distinguished a reputa- tion by his Republic, published in French in 1577, and by himself in Latin, with many additions in 1586, 2 and has in fact i Ibid. Ricercandosi due cose per la propa- gazione de popoli, la generazione et 1' edu- cazione, se bene la moltitudine de matrimonj ajuta forte 1' una, impedisce pero del sicuro 1' altro. - This treatise, in its first edition, made so great an impression, that when Bodin came to England in the service of the Duke of Alencon, he found it explained by lecturers both in London and Cambridge, bnt not, as has some- times been said, in the public schools of the university. This put him upon translating it into Latin himself, to render its fame more European. See Bayle, who has a good article on Bodin. I am much inclined to believe that the perusal of Bodin had a great effect in England. He is not perhaps very often quoted, and yet he is named with honour by the chief writers of the next age ; but he furnished a store, both of arguments and of examples, which were not lost on the thoughtful minds of our countrymen. Grotius, who is not very favourable to Bodin, though of necessity he often quotes the Republic, imputes to him incorrectness as to Bodin. so far outstripped the political writers of his own period, that I shall endeavour to do justice to his memory by something like an analysis of this treatise, which is far more known by name than generally read. Many have borne testimony to his ex- traordinary reach of learning and reflec- tion. " I know of no political writer of the same period," says Stewart, "whose extensive, and various, and discriminating reading appear to me to have contributed more to facilitate and guide the researches of his successors, or whose references to ancient learning have been more frequently tran- scribed without acknowledgment. 1 46. What is the object of political so- ciety? Bodin begins by in- Analyst of hl quiring. The greatest good, treatise called he answers, of every citizen, The Re P blic - which is that of the whole state. And this he places in the exercise of the virtues proper to man, and in the knowledge of things natural, human, and divine. But as all have not agreed as to the chief good of a single man, nor whether the good of individuals be also that of the state, this has caused a variety of laws and customs according to the humours and passions of rulers. This first chapter is in a more metaphysical tone than we usually find in Bodin. He proceeds in the next to the rights of families (jus familiare), and to the distinction between a family and a commonwealth. A family is the right government of many persons Authority of under one head, as a com- heads of monwealth is that of many to" 111 '*- families. 2 Patriarchal authority he raises high, both marital and paternal, on eacli subject pouring out a vast stream of know- ledge : nothing that sacred and profane history, the accounts of travellers, or the Roman lawyers could supply, ever escapes facts, which in some cases raises a suspicion of ill-faith. Epist. cccliii. It would require a more close study of Bodin than I have made, to judge of the weight of this charge. 1 Dissertation on the Progress of Philosophy, p. 40. Stewart, however, thinks Bodin became so obscure that he makes an apology for the space he has allotted to the Republic, though not exceeding four pages. He was better known in the seventeenth century than at present. 2 Familia est plurium sub unias ac ejusdem patris familias imperium subditorum, earumque rerum quaa ipsius propria sunt, recta moderatio. He has an odd theory, that a family must con- sist of five persons, in which he seems to have been influenced by some notions of the jurists, that three families may constitute a republic, and that fifteen persons are also the minimum of a community. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 303 the comprehensive researches of Bodin. ] He intimates his opinion in favour of the right of repudiation, one of the many proofs that he paid more regard to the Jewish than the Christian law, 2 and vindicates the full extent of the paternal power in the Roman republic, deducing the decline of the empire from its relaxation. 47. The patriarchal government includes the relation of master to servant, and Domestic servi- leads to the question whe- tude. t ner slavery should be ad- mitted into a well-constituted common- wealth. Bodin, discussing this with many arguments on both sides, seems to think that the Jewish law, with its limitations as to time of servitude, ought to prevail, since the divine rules were not laid down for the boundaries of Palestine, but being so wise, so salutary, and of such authority, ought to be preferred above the constitutions of men. Slavery, therefore, is not to be per- manently established ; but where it already exists, it will be expedient that emanci- pations should be gradual. 3 48. These last are the rights of persons origin of in a state of nature, to be commonwealth*, regulated, but not created by the law. " Before there was either city or citizen, or any form of a commonwealth 1 Cap. iii. 34. Bodin here protests against the stipulation sometimes made before marriage, that the wife shall not be in the power of the husband; "agreements so contrary to divine and human laws, that they cannot be endured, nor are they to be observed even when ratified by oath, since no oath in such circumstances can be binding." 2 It has always been surmised that Bodin, though not a Jew by nativity, was such by con- viction. This is strongly confirmed by his Re- public, wherein he quotes the Old Testament continually, and with great deference, but sel- dom or never the New. Several passages might be alleged in proof, but I have not noted them all down. In one place, lib. i. c. 6, he says, Paulus, Christianorum sseculi sui facile princeps, which is at least a singular mode of expression. In another he mentions the test of true religion so as to exclude all but the Mosaic. An un- published work of Bodin, called the Hepta- plomeres, is said to exist in many manuscripts, both in France and Germany ; in which, after debating different religions in a series of dia- logues, he gives the advantage to Deism or Juda- ism, for those who have seen it seem not to have determined which. No one has thought it worth while to print this production. Jugler, Hist. Literaria, p. 1740. Biogr. Univ. Niceron, ivii. 264. A posthumous work of Bodin, published in 1596, Universae Naturae Theatrum, has been called by some a disguised Pantheism. This did not appear, from what I have read of it, to be th case. c. 5. amongst men (I make use in this place of Knolles's very good translation), every master of a family was master in his own house, having power of life and death over his wife and children ; but, after that force, violence, ambition, covetousness, and desire of revenge had armed one against another, the issues of wars and combats giving victory unto the one side, made the other to become unto them slaves ; and amongst them that overcame he that was chosen chief and cap- tain, under whose conduct and leading they had obtained the victory, kept them also in his power and command as his faithful and obedient servants, and theother as his slaves. Then that full and entire liberty by nature, given to every man to live as himself best pleased, was altogether taken from the vanquished, and in the vanquishers them- selves in some measure also diminished in regard of the conqueror ; for that now it concerned every man in private to yield his obedience unto his chief sovereign ; and he that would not abate anything of his liber- ty, to live under the laws and command- ments of another, lost all. So the words of lord and servant, of prince and subject, before unknown to the world, were first brought into use. Yea reason, and the very light of nature leadeth us to believe very force and violence to have given cause and beginning unto commonwealths." 1 49. Thus, then, the patriarchal simplicity of government was over- privileges of thrown by conquest, of citizens, which Nimrod seems to have been the earliest instance ; and now fathers of fami- lies, once sovereign, are become citizens. A citizen is a free man under the supreme government of another. 2 Those who enjoy more privileges than others are not citizens more than they. "It is the acknowledg- ment of the sovereign by his free subject, and the protection of the sovereign towards him that makes the citizen." This is one of the fundamental principles, it may be observed by us in passing, which distinguish a monarchical from a republican spirit in constitutional jurisprudence. Wherever mere subjection, or even mere nativity, are held to give a claim to citizenship, there is an abandonment of the republican principle. This, always reposing on a real or imaginary contract, distinguishes the nation, the suc- cessors of the first community, from alien settlers, and, above all, from those who are evidently of a different race. Length of time must, of course, ingraft many of 1 C. 6. 2 Est civis nihil aliud quam liber homo, qui summa alterius potestate obligatur 304 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1GOO. foreign origin upon the native tree ; but to throw open civil privileges at random to new-comers is to convert a people into a casual aggregation of men. In a monarchy the hereditary principle maintains an unity of the commonwealth ; which, though not entirely without danger, may better permit an equality of privileges among all its sub- jects. Thus under Caracalla, but in a period in which we should not look for good precedents, the great name, as once it had been, of Roman citizen was extended, eact and west, to all the provinces of the empire. 50. Bodin comes next to the relation be- Nature of tween patron and client, and sovereign power, to those alliances among states which bear an analogy to it. But he is careful to distinguish patronage or pro- tection from vassalage. Even in unequal alliances, the inferior is still sovereign ; and, if this be not reserved, the alliance must become subjection. 1 Sovereignty, of which he treats in the following chapter, he defines a supreme and perpetual power, absolute and subject to no law. 2 A limited prince, except so far as the limitation is con- fined to the laws of nature, is not sovereign. A sovereign cannot bind his successor, nor can he be bound by his own laws, unless confirmed by oath ; for we must not con- found the laws and contracts of princes, the former depend upon his will, but the latteroblige his conscience. It is convenient to call parliaments or meetings of states- general for advice and consent, but the king is not bound by them ; the contrary notion has done much harm. Even in England, where laws made in parliament cannot be repealed without its consent, the king, as he conceives, does not hesitate to dispose of them at his pleasure. 3 And though no taxes are imposed in England without consent of parliament, this is the case also in other countries, if necessity does not prevent the meeting of the states. He concludes, that the English parliament may have a certain authority, but that the sovereignty and legislative power is solely ic. 7. 2 Majestas est summa in cives ac subditos Jegibusque soluta postestas. 3 Hoc taraen singulare videri possit, quod, quse leges populi rogatione ac principis jussu feruntur, non aliter quam populi comitiis abrogarl possunt. Id enim Dellus Anglorum in Gallia legatus mihi conftrraavit ; idem tamen confitetur legem probari aut respui con- suevisse contra populi voluntatem utcunque principl placuerit. He is evidently perplexed by the case of England ; and having been in this country before the publication of his Latin edition, he might have satisfied himself on the subject. in the king. Whoever legislates is sove- reign, for this power includes all other. Whether a vassal or tributary prince is to be called sovereign, is a question that leads Bodin into a great quantity of feudal law and history ; he determines it according to his own theory. 1 51. The second book of the Republic treats of the different species Forms of of civil government. These, government, according to Bodin, are but three, no mixed form being possible, since sovereignty or the legislative power is indivisible. A democracy he defines to be a government where the majority of the citizens possess the sove- reignty. Rome he holds to have been a democratic republic, in which, however, he is not exactly right ; and he is certainly mistaken in his general theory, by arguing as if the separate definition of each of the three forms must be applicable after their combination. 2 In this chap- Despotism and ter on despotic monarchy, he monarchy, again denies thatgovernments were founded on original contract. The power of one man, in the origin of political society, was ab- solute ; and Aristotle was wrong in suppos- ing a fabulous golden age, in which kings were chosen by suffrage. 3 Despotism is distinguished from monarchy by the sub- jects being truly slaves, without a right over their properties ; but as the despot may use them well, even this is not neces- sarily a tyranny. 4 Monarchy, on the other hand, is the rule of one man according to- the law of nature, who maintains the liber- ties and properties of others as much as his own. 5 As this definition does not imply any other restraint than the will of the prince imposes on himself, Bodin labours under the same difficulty as Montesquieu. Every English reader of the Esprit des- Loix has been struck by the want of a pre- cise distinction between despotism and monarchy. Tyranny differs, Bodin says, from despotism, merely by the personal character of the prince ; but severity to- wards a seditious populace is not tyranny ; and here he censures the lax government of Henry II. Tyrannicide he justifies in respect of an usurper who has no title ex- 1 c. 9 and 10. 2 lib. il. c. 1. 3 In the beginning of states, quo societas hominum coalescere coepit, ac reipublicss forma qmedam constitui, unius imperio ac rtominatu omnia tenebantur. Fallit enim Aristoteles, qui aureum illud genus hominum fabulis poeticis quam reipsa illustrius, reges heroas suffragio creasse prodidit ; cum omnibus persuasum sit ac perspicuum monarchiam omnium primam in Assyria fuisse constitutam Nimrodo principe,. &C. 4 c. 2. 5 c. 3. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 305 cept force, but not as to lawful princes, or such as have become so by prescription. 1 52. An aristocracy he conceives always to exist where a smaller body Aristocracy. Q{ th)} citizeng gov e rlis the greater. 2 This definition, which has been adopted by some late writers, appears to lead to consequences hardly compatible with the common use of language. The electors of the House of Commons in Eng- land are not a majority of the people. Are they, therefore, an aristocratical body? The same is still more strongly the case in France, and in most representative govern- ments of Europe. We might better say, that the distinguishing characteristic of an aristocracy is the enjoyment of privileges, which are not communicable to other citizens simply by anything they can them- selves do to obtain them. Thus no govern- ment would be properly aristocratical where a pecuniary qualification is alone sufficient to confer political power ; nor did the ancients ever use the word in such a sense. Yet the question might be asked, under what category we would place the timocracy, or government of the rich. 53. Sovereignty resides in the supreme legislative authority ; but this requires the Senates and aid of other inferior and councils of state, delegated ministers, to the consideration of 'which the third book of Bodin is directed. A senate he defines, " a lawful assembly of counsellors of state, to give advice to them who have the sovereignty in every commonwealth ; we say, to give advice, that we may not ascribe any power of command to such a senate." A council is necessary in a monarchy ; for much knowledge is generally mischievous in a king. It is rarely united with a good disposition, and with a moral discipline of mind. None of the emperors were so il- literate as Trajan, none more learned than Nero. The counsellors should not be too numerous, and he advises that they should retain their offices for life. It would be dangerous as well as ridiculous, to choose young men for such a post, even if they could have wisdom and experience, since neither older persons, nor those of their own age, would place confidence in them. He then expatiates, in his usual manner, upon all the councils that have existed in ancient or modern states. 8 54. A magistrate is an officer of the sovereign, possessing public authority. * J c. 4. 2 Ego statum semper aristocraticum ease, judico, si minor pars civiuin cseteris imperat. 0.1. 3 C. 1. 4 C . 3. Bodin censures the usual definitions of magistracy, distinguishing Duties of magts- from magistrates both those trates. officers who possess no right of command, and such commissioners as have only a temporary delegation. In treating of the duty of magistrates towards the sovereign, he praises the rule of the law of France, that the judge is not to regard private letters of the king against the justice of a civil suit. 1 But after stating the doubt, whether this applies to matters affecting the public, he concludes that the judge must obey any direction he receives, unless contrary to the law of nature, in which case he is bound not to forfeit his integrity. It is however better, as far as we can, to obey all the commands of the sovereign, than to set a bad example of resistance to the people. This has probably a regard to the frequent opposition of the Parliament of Paris, to what it deemed the unjust or illegal ordinances of the court. Several questions, discussed in these chapters on magistracy, are rather subtle and verbal ; and, in general, the argumentative part of Bodin is almost drowned in his erudition. 55. A state cannot subsist without col- leges and corporations, for mutual affection and friend- Corp " ship is the necessary bond of human life. It is true that mischiefs have sprung from these institutions, and they are to be regu- lated by good laws ; but as a family is a community natural, so a college is a com- munity civil, and a commonwealth is but a community governed by a sovereign power ; and thus the word community is common unto all three. 2 In this chapter we have a full discussion of the subject ; and, adverting to the Spanish Cortes and English Commons as a sort of colleges in the state, he praises them as useful insti- tutions, observing, with somewhat more boldness than is ordinary to him, that in several provinces in France there had been assemblies of the states, which had been abolished by those who feared to see their own crimes and peculations brought to light. 56. In the last chapter of the third book, on the degrees and orders of slaves, part of citizens, Bodin seems to the state, think that slaves, being subjects, ought to be reckoned parts of the state. 3 This is, as i c. 4. 2 c . 7. 3 Si mihi tabellw ac jura suffragiorum in hac disputations tribuantur, servos seque ac liberos homines civitate donari cupiam. By this he may only mean that he would desire to emanci- pate them. U 306 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. has been intimated, in conformity with his monarchical notions. He then enters upon the different modes of acquiring nobility, and inveighs against making wealth a pass- port to it ; discussing also the derogation to nobility by plebeian occupation. The division into three orders is useful in every form of government. 57. Perhaps the best chapter in the Re- BiM and fall of public of Bodin is the first states. in the fourth book, on the rise, progress, stationary condition, revolu- tions, decline, and fall of states. A com- monwealth is said to be changed when its form of polity is altered ; for its identity is not to be determined by the long stand- ing of the city walls ; but when popular government becomes monarchy, or aristo- cracy is turned to democracy, the common- wealth is at an end, He thus uses the word respublica in the sense of polity or constitution, which is not, I think, correct, though sanctioned by some degree of usage, and leaves his proposition a tautological truism. The extinction of states may be natural or violent, but in one way or the other it must happen, since there is a de- terminate period to all things, and a na- tural season in which it seems desirable that they should come to an end. The best revolution is that which takes place by a voluntary cession of power. 58. As the forms of government are causes of revota- three, it follows that the tion. possible revolutions from one to another are six. For anarchy is the extinction of a government, not a re- volution in it. He proceeds to develop the causes of revolutions with great extent of historical learning and with judgment, if not with so much acuteness or so much vigour of style as Machiavel. Great mis- fortunes in war, he observes, have a ten- dency to change popular rule to aristocracy, and success has an opposite effect ; the same seems applicable to all public adver- sity and prosperity. Democracy, however, more commonly ends in monarchy, as monarchy does in democracy, especially when it has become tyrannical ; and such changes are usually accompanied by civil war or tumult. Nor can aristocracy, he thinks, be changed into democracy without violence, though the converse revolution sometimes happens quietly, as when the labouring classes and traders give up public affairs to look after their own ; in this manner Venice, Lucca, llagusa, and other cities have become aristocracies. The great danger for an aristocracy is, that some ambitious person, either of their own body or of the people, may arm the latter against them : and this is most likely to occur, when honours and magistracy are conferred on unworthy men, which affords the best topic to demagogues, especially where the plebeians are wholly excluded : which, though always grievous to them, is yet tolerable so long as power is intrusted to deserving persons ; but when bad men are promoted, it becomes easy to excite the minds of the people against the nobility, above all, if there are already factions among the latter, a condition dangerous to all states, but mostly to an aristocracy. Revolutions are more frequent in small .states, because a small number of citizens is easily split into parties ; hence we shall find in one age more revolutions among the cities of Greece or Italy than have taken place during many in the kingdoms of France or Spain. He thinks the ostracism of dangerous citizens itself dangerous, and recommends rather to put them to death, or to render them friends. Monarchy, he observes, has this peculiar to it, that if the king be a prisoner, the constitution is not lost ; whereas, if the seat of govern- ment in a republic be taken, it is at an end, the subordinate cities never making re- sistance. It is evident that this can only be applicable to the case, hitherto the more common one, of a republic, in which the capital city entirely predominates. ' ' There is no kingdom which shall not, in continu- ance of time, be changed, and at length also be overthrown. But it is best for them who least feel their changes by little and little made, whether from evil to good, or from good to evil." 59. If this is the best, the next is the worst chapter in Bodin. It Astrological prof essesto inquire, whether faciesof Bodin. the revolutions of states can be foreseen. Here he considers, whether the stars have such an influence on human affairs, that political changes can be foretold by their means, and declares entirely against it, with such expressions as would seem to in- dicate his disbelief in astrology. If it were true, he says, that the conditions of com- monwealths depended on the heavenly bodies, there could be yet no certain pre- diction of them ; since the astrologers lay down their observations with such incon- sistency, that one will place the same star in direct course at the moment that another makes it retrograde. It is obvious that any one who could employ this argu- ment, must have perceived that it destroys the whole science of astrology. But, after giving instances of the blunders and con- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 307 tradictions of thesepretended philosophers, he so far gives way as to admit that, if all the events from the beginning of the world could be duly compared with the planetary motions, some inferences might be deduced from them ; and thus giving up his better reason to the prejudices of his age, he acknowledges astrology as a theoretical truth. The hypothesis of Copernicus he mentions as too absurd to deserve refuta- tion ; since, being contrary to the tenets of all theologians and philosophers and to common sense, it subverts the foundations of every science. We now plunge deeper into nonsense ; Bodin proceeding to a long arithmetical disquisition, founded on a passage in Plato, ascribing the fall of states to want of proportion. 1 60. The next chapter, on the danger of Danger of rodden sudden revolutions in the changes. entire government, asserts that even the most determined astrologers agree in denying that a wise man is sub- jugated by the starry influences, though they may govern those who are led by passion like wild beasts. Therefore a wise ruler may foresee revolutions and provide remedies. It is doubtful whether an established law ought to be changed, though not good in itself, lest it should bring others into contempt, especially such as affect the form of polity. These, if possible, should be held immutable ; yet it is to be remembered, that laws are only made for the sake of the community, and public safety is the supreme law of laws. There is therefore no law so sacred that it may not be changed through neces- sity. But, as a general rule, whatever change is to be made should be effected gradually. 2 61. It is a disputed question whether Judicial power magistrates should be tem- of the sovereign, porary or perpetual. Bodin tmnks it essential that the council of state should be permanent, but high civil com- mands ought to be temporary. 3 It is in general important that magistrates shall accord in their opinions ; yet there are cir- cumstances in which their emulation or jealousy may be beneficial to a state. 4 Whether the sovereign ought to exercise judicial functions may seem, he says, no difficult question to those who are agreed that kings were established for the sake of doing justice. This, however, is not his theory of the origin of government ; and after giving all the reasons that can be urged in favour of a monarch-judge, in- cluding as usual all historical precedents, 1 C. 2. 2 C. 3. 3 C. 4. 4 C. 5. he decides that it is inexpedient for the ruler to pronounce the law himself. His reasons are sufficiently bold, and grounded on an intimate knowledge of the vices of courts, which he does not hesitate to pour out.i 62. In treating of the part to be taken by the prince, or by a good Toleration of citizen, in civil factions, after religion*. a long detail from history of conspiracies and seditions, he comes to disputes about religion, and contends against the permis- sion of reasonings on matters of faith. What can be more impious, he says, than to suffer the eternal laws of God, which ought to be implanted in men's minds with the utmost certainty, to be called in ques- tion by probable reasonings ? For there is nothing so demonstrable, which men will not undermine by argument. But the principles of religion do not depend on demonstrations and arguments, but on faith alone ; and whoever attempts to prove them by a train of reasoning, tends to sub- vert the foundations of the whole fabric. Bodin in this sophistry was undoubtedly insincere. He goes on, however, having pur- posely sacrificed this cock to ^Esculapius, to contend that, if several religions exist in a state, the prince should avoid violence and persecution ; the natural tendency of man being to give his assent voluntarily, but never by force. 2 63. The first chapter of the fifth book, on the adaptation of govern- influence of ment to the varieties of race climate on and climate, has excited B vernment - more attention than most others, from its being supposed to have given rise to a theory of Montesquieu. In fact, however, the general principle is more ancient ; but no one had developed it so fully as Bodin. Of this he seems to be aware. No one, he says, has hitherto treated on this important subject, which should always be kept in mind, lest we establish institutions not suitable to the people, forgetting that the laws of nature will not bend to the fancy of man. He then investigates the peculiar characteristics of the northern, middle, and southern nations, as to physical and moral qualities. Some positions he has laid down erroneously ; but, on the whole, he shows a penetrating judgment and comprehensive generalisation of views. He concludes that bodily strength prevails towards the poles, mental power towards the tropics ; and that the nations lying between partake in a mixed ratio of both. This is not very just ; but he argues from i c. 6 a c. 7. 308 Literature of Europe from 1550 ft 1600. the great armies that have come from the north, while arts and sciences have been derived from the south. There is cer- tainly a considerable resemblance to Mon- tesquieu in this chapter ; and like him, with better excuse, Bodin accumulates in- accurate stories. Force prevails most with the northerns, reason with the inhabitants of a temperate or middle climate, supersti- tion with the southerns ; thus astrology, magic, and all mysterious sciences have come from the Chaldeans and Egyptians. Mechanical arts and inventions, on the other hand, flourish best in northern coun- tries, and the southerns hardly know how to imitate them, their genius being wholly speculative, nor have they so much in- dustry, quickness in perceiving what is to be done, or worldly prudence. The stars appear to exert some influence over national peculiarities ; but even in the same latitudes great variety of character is found, which arises from a mountainous or level soil, and from other physical circumstances. We learn by experience, that the inhabitants of hilly countries and the northern nations generally love freedom, but having less intellect than strength, sabmit readily to the wisest among them. Even winds are not without some effect on national char- acter. But the barrenness or fertility of the soil is more important ; the latter pro- ducing indolence and effeminacy, while one effect of a barren soil is to drive the people into cities, and to the exercise of handi- crafts for the sake of commerce, as we see at Athens and Nuremburg, the former of wliich may be contrasted with Bceotia. 64. Bodin concludes, after a profusion of evidence drawn from the whole world, that it is necessary not only to consider the general character of the climate as affecting an entire region, but even the peculiarities of single districts, and to inquire what effects may be wrought on the dispositions of the inhabitants by the air, the water, the mountains and valleys, or prevalent winds, as well as those which depend on their religion, their customs, their educa- tion, their form of government ; for who- ever should conclude alike as to all who live in the same climate would be fre- quently deceived ; since, in the same parallel of latitude, we may find re- markable differences even of countenance and complexion. This chapter abounds with proofs of the comprehension as well as patient research which distinguishes Bodin from every political writer who had preceded him, 65. In the second chapter, which in- quires how we may avoid the revolutions- which an excessive inequal- Means of obviat- ity of possessions tends to ** inequality, produce, he inveighs against a partition of property, as inconsistent with civil society, and against an abolition of debts, because there can be no justice where contracts are not held inviolable ; and observes, that it is absurd to expect a division of all pos- sessions to bring about tranquillity. He objects also to any endeavour to limit the number of the citizens, except by colonisa- tion. In deference to the authority of the Mosaic law, he is friendly to a limited right of primogeniture, but disapproves the power of testamentary dispositions, as tending to inequality, and the admission of women to equal shares in the inher- itance, lest the same consequence should come through marriage. Usury he would absolutely abolish, to save the poorer classes from ruin. 66. Whether the property of condemned persons shall be confiscated confiscations- is a problem, as to which, reward*, having given the arguments on both sides, he inclines to a middle course, that the criminal's own acquisitions should be for- feited, but what has descended from his ancestors should pass to his posterity. He speaks with great freedom against unjust prosecutions, and points out the dangers of the law of forfeiture. 1 In the next, b,eing the fourth chapter of this book, he treats of rewards and punishments. All states depend on the due distribution of these ; but, while many books are full of the latter, few have discussed the former, to which he here confines himself. Triumphs, statues, public thanks, offices of trust and command, are the most honourable ; exemptions from service or tribute, privileges, and the like, the most beneficial. In a popular government, the former are more readily conceded than the latter ; in a monarchy, the reverse. The Koman triumph gave a splendour to the republic itself. In modern times the sale of nobility, and of public offices, renders them no longer so honourable as they should be. He is here again very free- spoken as to the conduct of the French, and of other governments. 2 67. The advantage of warlike habits to a nation, and the utility of . . ,v . , Fortresses, fortresses, are then investi- gated. Some have objected to the latter, as injurious to the courage of the people, and of little service against an invader ; and also, as furnishing opportunities t i c. 3. a c. 4. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 309 tyrants and usurpers, or occasionally to rebels. Bodin, however, inclines in their favour, especially as to those on the frontier, which may be granted as feudal benefices, but not in inheritance. The question of cultivating a military spirit in the people depends on the form of polity : in popular states it is necessary ; in an aristocracy, unsafe. In monarchies, the position of the state with respect to its neighbours is to be considered. The capital city ought to be strong in a re- public, because its occupation is apt to carry with it an entire change in the com- monwealth. But a citadel is dangerous in such a state. It is better not to suffer castles, or strongholds of private men, as is the policy of England ; unless when the custom is so established, that they cannot be dismantled without danger to the state. 1 68. Treaties of peace and alliance come Necessity of next under review. He good faith, points out with his usual prolixity the difference between equal and unequal compacts of this kind. Bodin contends strongly for the rigorous main- tenance of good faith, and reprobates the civilians and canonists who induced the council of Constance to break their pro- mise towards John HUBS. No one yet, he exclaims, has been so consummately im- pudent, as to assert the right of violating a fair promise ; but one alleges the deceit of the enemy ; another, his own mistake ; a third, the change of circumstances, which has rendered it impossible to keep his word ; a fourth, the ruin of the state which it would entail. But no excuse, ac- cording to Bodin, can be sufficient, save the unlawfulness of the promise, or the impossibility of fulfilling it. The most difficult terms to keep are between princes and their subjects, which generally require the guarantee of other states. Faith, how- ever, ought to be kept in sucn cases ; and he censures, though under an erroneous impression of the fact, as a breach of en- gagement, the execution of the Duke of York in the reign of Henry VI. ; adding, that he prefers to select foreign instances, rather than those at home, which he would wish to be buried in everlasting oblivion. In this he probably alludes to the day of St. Bartholomew. 2 69. The first chapter of the sixth book relates to a periodical census of property, ic. 5. 2 c. 6. Extensa libeutius quam domestica recorder, quaa utinam sempiterna oblivione .sepulta jacerent. Public revenues. which he recommends as too much ne- glected. The Eoman censor- cemruof ship of manners he extols, property, and thinks it peculiarly required, when all domestic coercion is come to an end. But he would give no coercive jurisdiction to his censors, and plainly intimates his dis- like to a similar authority in the church. 1 A more important disquisi- tion follows on public rev- enues. These may be derived from seven sources : namely, national domains ; con- fiscation of enemies' property ; gifts of friendly powers ; tributes from dependent allies; foreign trade carried on by the state ; tolls and customs on exports an \ imports; or, lastly, taxes directly levial on the people. The first of these is the most secure and honourable ; and here we have abundance of ancient and modern learning, while of course the French prin- ciple of inalienability is brought forward. The second source of revenue is justified by the rights of war and practice of nations; the third has sometimes oc- curred ; and the fourth is very frequent. It is dishonourable for a prince to be a merchant, and thus gain a revenue in the fifth mode, yet the kings of Portugal do not disdain this ; and the mischievous usage of selling offices in some other coun- tries seems to fall under this head. The different taxes on merchandise, or, in our language, of customs and excise, come in the sixth place. Here Bodin advises to lower the import duties on articles with which the people cannot well dispense, but to lay them heavily on manufactured goods, that they may learn to practise these arts themselves. 70. The last species of revenue, obtained from direct taxation, is never to be chosen but Taxation, from necessity ; and as taxes are apt to be kept up when the necessity is passed, it is better that the king should borrow money of subjects than impose taxes upon them. He then enters on the history of taxation in different countries, remarking it as peculiar to France, that the burthen is thrown on the people to the ease of the nobles and clergy, which is the case no- where except with the French, among whom, as Caesar truly wrote, nothing is more despised than the common people. Taxes on luxuries, which serve only to corrupt men, are the best of all ; those also are good which are imposed on pro- ceedings at law, so as to restrain unneces- sary litigation. Borrowing at interest, or i lib. vi. c. 1. 310 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. by way of annuity, as they do at Venice, is ruinous. It seems, therefore, that Bodin recommends loans without interest, which must be compulsory. In the remainder of this chapter he treats of the best mode of expending the public revenue, and advises that royal grants should be closely ex- amined, and, if excessive, be rescinded, at least after the death of the reigning king. 1 71. Every adulteration of coin, to which Adulteration of Bodin proceeds, and every coin. change in its value is danger- ous, as it affects the certainty of contracts, and renders every man's property insecure. The different modes of alloying coin are then explained according to practical met- allurgy, and, assuming the constant ratio of gold to silver as twelve to one, he ad- vises that coins of both metals should be of the same weight. The alloy should not be above one in twenty -four ; and the same standard should be used for plate. Many curious facts in monetary history will be found collected in this chapter. 2 72. Bodin next states fully and with Superiority of apparent fairness, the ad- monarchy, vantages and disadvantages both of democracy and aristocracy, and, admitting that some evils belong to mon- archy, contends that they are all much less than in the two other forms. It must be remembered, that he does not acknow- ledge the possibility of a mixed govern- ment ; a singular error, which, of course, vitiates his reasonings in this chapter. But it contains many excellent observa- tions on democratical violence and ignor- ance, which history had led him duly to appreciate. 3 The best form of polity, he holds to be a monarchy by agnatic succes- sion, such as, in contradiction to Hotto- man, he maintained to have been always established in France, pointing out also the mischiefs that have ensued in other countries for want of a Salic law. 4 73. In the concluding chapter of the conclusion of work, Bodin, with too much the work. parade of mathematical lan- guage, descants on what he calls arith- metical, geometrical, and harmonic pro- portions, as applied to political regimen. As the substance of all this appears only to be, that laws ought sometimes to be made according to the circumstances and conditions of different ranks in society, sometimes to be absolutely equal, it will probably be thought by most rather in- cumbered by this philosophy, which, how- ever, he borrowed from the ancients, and found conformable to the spirit of learned 1 C. 2. 2 c. 3. J c. 4. c. 6. men in his own time. Several interesting questions in the theory of jurisprudence are incidentally discussed in this chapter, such as that of the due limits of judicial discretion. 74. It must appear, even from this im- perfect analysis, in which Bodin compared much has been curtailed with Aristotle of its fair proportion, and "i Machiavei. many both curious and judicious observa- tions omitted, that Bodin possessed a highly philosophical mind, united with the most ample stores of history and juris- prudence. No former writer on political philosophy had been either so comprehen- sive in his scheme, or so copious in his knowledge ; none, perhaps, more original, more independent and fearless in his in- quiries. Two names alone, indeed, could be compared with his : Aristotle and Ma- chiavel. Without, however, pretending that Bodin was equal to the former in acuteness and sagacity, we may say that the experience of two thousand years, and the maxims of reason and justice, sug- gested or corrected by the gospel and its ministers, by the philosophers of Greece and Rome, and by the civil law, gave him advantages, of which his judgment and industry fully enabled him to avail him- self. Machiavel, again, has discussed so few, comparatively, of the important questions in political theory, and has seen many things so partially, according to. the narrow experience of Italian republics,, that, with all his superiority in genius, and still more in effective eloquence, we can hardly say that his Discourses on Livy are a more useful study than the Republic of Bodin. 75. It has been often alleged, as we have mentioned above, that Mon- And with tesquieu owed something, Montesquieu, and especially his theory of the influence of climate, to Bodin. But, though he had unquestionably read the Republic with that advantage which the most fertile minds derive from others, this ought not to detract in our eyes from his real origin- ality. The Republic, and the Spirit of Laws bear, however, a more close compari- son than any other political systems of celebrity. Bodin and Montesquieu are, in this province of political theory, the most philosophical of those who have read so deeply, the most learned of those who have thought so much. Both acute, in- genious, little respecting authority in matters of opinion, but deferring to it in established power, and hence apt to praise the fountain of waters whose bitterness Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 311 they exposed ; both in advance of their age, but one so much that his genius neither kindled a fire in the public mind, nor gained its own due praise, the other more fortunate in being the immediate herald of a generation which he stimulated, and which repaid him by its admiration ; both conversant with ancient and mediaeval history, and with the Roman as well as national law; both just, benevolent, and sensible of the great object of civil society, but displaying this with some variation ac- cording to their times ; both sometimes seduced by false analogies, but the one rather through respect to an erroneous philosophy, the other through personal thirst of praise and affectation of origin- ality ; both aware that the basis of the philosophy of man is to be laid in the re- cords of his past existence ; but the one prone to accumulate historical examples without sufficient discrimination, and to overwhelm, instead of convincing the reader by their redundancy, the other aiming at an induction from select experi- ence, but hence appearing sometimes to reason generally from particular premises, or dazzling the student by a proof that does not satisfy his reason. 1 SECT. III. ON JURISPRUDENCE. Golden Age of Jurisprudence Cujacius Other Civilians Anti-Tribonianus of Hottoman Law of Nations Franciscus a Victoria Balthazar Ayala Albericus Gentilis. 76. The latter part of the sixteenth century, denominated by Andres the golden age of jurisprudence, produced the men i This account of Bodin's Eepublic will be found too long by many readers ; and I ought, perhaps, to apologise for it on the score that M. Lerminier, in his brilliant and agreeable Intro- duction a 1'Histoire Generale du Droit (Paris, 1829), has pre-occupied the same ground. This, however, had escaped my recollection (though I was acquainted with the work of M. L.) when I made my own analysis, which has not been borrowed in a single line from his. The labours of M. Lerminier are not so commonly known in England as to" render it unnecessary to do justice to a great French writer of the sixteenth century. As I have mentioned M. Lerminier, I would ask whether the following is a fair translation of the Laiin of Bodin : Eo nos ipsa ratio deducit, imperia scilicet ac respublicas vi primum coal- uisse, etiam si ab historia deseramur ; quam- quam pleni sunt libri, plenae leges, plena anti- quitas. En etablissant la theorie de 1'origine des socieles, il declare qu'il y persiste, quand m&me les /aits iraient d I'mcontre. Hist, du Droit. P. 62 and 67 who completed what Alciat and Augus- tinus had begun in the Golden age of preceding generation, by Jurisprudence, elucidating and reducing to order the dark chaos which the Roman law, en- veloped in its own obscurities and those of its earlier commentators, had presented to the student. The most distinguished of these, Cu- jacius, became professor at Bourges, the chief scene of his renown, and the principal seminary of the Roman law in France, about the year 1555. His works, of which many had been separately published, were collected in 1577, and they make an epoch in the annals of jurisprudence. This greatest of all civil lawyers pursued the track that Alciat had so successfully opened, avoiding all scholastic subtleties of interpretation, for which he substituted a general erudition that rendered the science at once more intelligible and more attractive. Though his works are volumi- nous, Cujacius has not the reputation of diffuseness; on the contrary, the art of lucid explanation with brevity is said to have been one of his great characteristics. Thus, in the Paratitla on the Digest, a little book which Hottoman, his rival and enemy, advised his own son to carry con- stantly about with him, we find a brief exposition, in very good Latin, of every title in order, but with little additional matter. And it is said that he thought nothing requisite for the Institutes but short clear notes, which his thorough admirers afterwards contrasted with the celebrated but rather verbose commen- taries of Vinnius. 77. Notwithstanding this conciseness, his works extend to a for- Eulogies midable length. For the bestowed upon civil law itself is, for the most part, very concisely written, and stretches to such an extent, that his in- defatigable diligence in illustrating every portion of it could not be satisfied within narrow bounds. " Had Cujacius been born sooner," in the words of^ the most elegant of his successors, "he would have sufficed instead of every other interpreter. For neither does he permit us to remain ignorant of anything, nor to know any- thing which he has not taught. He alone instructs us on every subject, and what he teaches is always his own. Hence, though the learned style of jurisprudence began with Alciat, we shall call it Cu- jacian." 1 "Though the writings of Cu- jacius are so voluminous," says Heineccius, 1 Gravina, Origines, Juris Civilis, p. 219. 312 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. " that scarce any one seems likely to read them all, it is almost peculiar to him, that the longer any of his books is, the more it is esteemed. Nothing in them is trivial, nothing such as might be found in any other ; everything so well chosen that the reader can feel no satiety ; and the truth is seen of what he answered to his dis- ciples, when they asked for more diffuse commentaries, that his lectures were for the ignorant, his writings for the learned."' 1 A later writer, Gennari, has given a more fully elaborate character of this illustrious lawyer, who might seem to have united every excellence without a failing. 2 But without listening to the enemies whom his own eminence, or the polemical fierceness T>f some disputes in which he was engaged, created among the jurists of that age, it has since been observed, that in his writings may be detected some inconsistencies, of which whole books have been invidiously compiled, and that he was too prone to abuse his acuteness by conjectural emen- dations of the text ; a dangerous practice, as Bynkershoek truly remarks, when it may depend upon a single particle whether the claim of Titius or of Marius shall pre- vail.s 78. Such was the renown of Cujacius CujacHu, an In- that > in the Public schools terpreter of of Germany, when his name law rather than wag mentioned, every one 7er ' took off his hat.* The con- tinual bickerings of his contemporaries, not only of the old Accursian school, among whom Albericus Gentilis was prominent in disparaging him, but of those who had 1 Heineccii Opera xiv. 203. He prefers the Observations atque Emendationes of Cujacius to all his other works. These contain twenty- eight books, published, at intervals, from the year 1556. They were designed to extend to forty books. 2 Respublica Jurisconsultorum, p. 237. In- tactum in jurisprudent reliquit nihil, et quae scribit. non tarn ex aliis excerpta, quam a se inventa, sane fatentur omnes ; ita omnia suo loco posita, non nimis protracts, qu nauseam creant, non arete ac jejune tractata, quae expli- cationis paullo diffusions pariunt desiderium. Candida perspicuitatc brevis, elegans sub ama- bili simplicitate, caute eruditus, quantum pati- tur occasio, ubique docens, ne aliqua parte arguatur otiosus, tarn nihil habet inane, nihil inconditum, nihil curtum, nihil claudicans, nihil redundans, amcenus in Observationibus, subtilis in Tractatibus, uber ac planus In Com- mentariis, generosus in refellendis objectis, accuratus in confingendis notis, in Paratitlis brevis ac succi plenus, rectus prudensque in Congultationibus. 3 Heinecc. xiv. 209. Gennari, p. 199. 4 Gennari, p. 240. Biogr. Univ. been trained in the steps of Alciat like himself, did not affect this honest admira- tion of the general student. 1 But we must not consider Cujacius exactly in the light of what we now call a great lawyer. He rejected all modern forensic experience with scorn, declaring that he had misspent his youth in such studies. We have, in- deed, fifty of his consultations which ap- pear to be actual cases. But, in general, it is observed by Gravina that both he and the greatest of his disciples "are but ministers of ancient jurisprudence, hardly deigning to notice the emergent questions of modern practice. Hence, while the elder jurists of the school of Bartolus, deficient as they are in expounding the Roman laws, yet apply them judiciously to new cases, these excellent interpreters hardly regard anything modern, and leave to the others the whole honour of advising and deciding rightly." Therefore he re- commends that the student who has im- bibed the elements of Roman jurisprudence in all their purity from the school of Cu- jacius, should not neglect the interpreta- tions of Accursius in obscure passages ; and, above all, should have recourse to Bartolus and his disciples for the argu- ments, authorities, and illustrations which ordinary forensic questions will require. 2 79. At some distance below Cujacius, but in places of honour, we Trm*hi**y*n find among the great French below Cujacius; interpreters of the civil law Goveaand in this age, Duaren, as de- voted to ancient learning as Cujacius, but differing from him by inculcating the necessity of forensic practice to form a perfect lawyer ; 3 Govea, who, though a Portuguese, was always resident in France, whom some have set even above Cujacius for ability, and of whom it lias been said that he is the only jurist who ought to have written more ; 4 Brisson, a man of various learning, who became in the sedi- tions of Paris an unfortunate victim of his own weak ambition ; Balduin, a strenuous advocate for uniting the study of ancient history with that of law ; Godefroi, whoso 1 Heineccius, ibid. Gennari, p. 242. 2 Gravina, p. 222, 230. 3 Duarenus . . . sine forensis exercitationis prsesidio nee satis percipi, nee recte commo- deque doceri jus civile existimate. Gennari, p. 179. 4 Goveanus . . . vir, de quo uno desideretur, plura scripsisse, de caeteris vero, pauciora .... quia felix ingenio, naturae viribus tantum con- fideret, ut diligentiae laudem sibi non neces- sariam, minus etiam honorificam putare videa- tur. Gennari, p. 281. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 313 Corpus Juris Civilis makes an epoch, in jurisprudence, being the text-book uni- versally received ; and Connan, who is at least much quoted by the principal writers on the law of nature and nations. The boast of Germany was Gifanius. 80. These " ministers of ancient juris- opponents of prudence " seemed to have the Roman law. no other office than to dis- play the excellences of the old masters in their original purity. Ulpian and Papinian were to them what Aristotle and Aquinas were to another class of worshippers. But the jurists of the age of Severus have come down to us through a compilation in that of Justinian ; and Alciat himself had begun to discover the interpolations of Tribonian, and the corruption which, through ignor- ance or design, had penetrated the vast re- servoir of the Pandects. Augustinus, Cujacius, and other French lawyers of the school of Bourges followed in this track, and endeavoured not only to restore the text from errors introduced by the care- lessness of transcribers, a necessary and arduous labour, but from those springing out of the presumptuousness of the law- giver himself, or of those whom he had employed. This excited a vehement op- position, led by some of the chief lawyers of France, jealous of the fame of Cujacius. But while they pretended to rescue the orthodox vulgate from the innovations of its great interpreter, another sect rose up, far bolder than either, which assailed the law itself. Of these the most determined were Faber and Hottoman. 81. Antony Faber, or Fabre, a lawyer of Savoy, whobecame president Faber of Savoy. , ,, - _., , . . of the court of Chamberi in 1610, acquired his reputation in the six- teenth century. He waged war against the whole body of commentators, and even treated the civil law itself as so mutilated and corrupt, so inapplicable to modern times, that it would be better to lay it altogether aside. Gennari says, that he would have been the greatest of lawyers, if he had not been too desirous to appear such ;! his temerity and self-confidence diminished the effect of his ability. His mind was ardent and unappalled by diffi- culties ; no one had more enlarged views of jurisprudence, but in his interpretations he was prone to make the laws rather what they ought to have been than what they were. His love of paradox is hardly a greater fault than the perpetual carping at iis own master Cujacius, as if he thought i P. 97. the reform of jurisprudence should have been reserved for himself. 1 82. But the most celebrated production of this party^ is the Anti- Anti-TribonianTu Tribonianus of Hottoman. of Hottoman. This was written in 1567, and though not published in French till 1609, nor in the original till 1647, seems properly to belong to the sixteenth century. He begins by acknowledging the merit of the Romans in jurisprudence, but denies that the com- pilation of Justinian is to be confounded with the Roman law. He divides his in- quiry into two questions : first, whether the study of these laws is useful in France ; and secondly, what are their deficiencies. These laws, he observes by the way, contain very little instruction about Roman history or antiquities, so that in books on those subjects we rarely find them cited. He then adverts to particular branches of the civil law, and shows that numberless doc- trines are now obsolete, such as the state of servitude, the right of arrogation, the ceremonies of marriage, the peculiar law of guardianship, while for matters of daily occurrence they give us no assistance. He points out the useless distinctions between things mancipi and non mancipi, between the dominium quirilarlum and bonitarium; the modes of acquiring property by manci- pation, cessio in jure, uswapio, and the like, the unprofitable doctrines about fidei commissa and the jus accrescendi. He dwells on the folly of keeping up the old forms of stipulation in contracts, and those of legal process, from which no one can de- part a syllable without losing his suit. And on the whole he concludes, that not a twentieth part of the Roman law survives, and of that not one tenth can be of any utility. In the second part, Hottoman attacks Tribonian himself, for suppressing the genuine works of great lawyers, for barbarous language, for perpetually muti- lating, transposing and interpolating the passages which he inserts, so that no cohe- sion or consistency is to be found in these fragments of materials, nor is it possible to restore them. The evil has been increased by the herd of commentators and interpre- 1 Heineccius, p. 236. Fabre, says Ferriere, as quoted by Terrasson, Hist, de la Jurisprudence, est celui des jurisconsultes modernes qui a porte le plus loin lea idees sur le droit. C'etoit un espritvaste que ne se rebutoit par de plus grandes difficult^. Mais on 1' accuse avec raison d'avoir decid^ un peu trop hardiment centre les opinions communes, et de s'etre donne souvent trop da libert^ de retrancher ou d'ajouter dans les loix. See too the article Favre, in Biographic Uni- verselle. 314 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. ters since the twelfth century ; those who have lately appeared and applied more erudition rarely agreeing in their con- jectural emendations of the text, which yet frequently varies in different manu- scripts, so as to give rise to endless dis- putes. He ends by recommending that some jurisconsults and advocates should be called together, in order to compile a good code of laws ; taking whatever is valuable in the Roman system, and adding whatever from other sources may seem worthy of reception, drawing them up in plain lan- guage, without too much subtlety, and at- tending chiefly to the principles of equity. He thinks that a year or two would suffice for the instruction of students in such a code of laws, which would be completed afterwards, as was the case at Kome, by forensic practice. 83. These opinions of Hottoman, so civil law not reasonable in themselves, countenanced in as to the inapplicability of France - much of the Roman law to the actual state of society, were congenial to the prejudices of many lawyers in France. That law had in fact to struggle against a system already received, the feudal customs which had governed the greater part of the kingdom. And this party so much prevailed, that by the ordinance of Blois, in 1579, the university of Paris was forbidden to give lectures or degrees in civil law. This was not wholly regarded ; but it was not till a century afterwards, that public lectures in that science were re-established in the univer- sity, on account of the uncertainty, which the neglect of the civil law was alleged to have produced. 84. France now stood far pre-eminent in her lawyers. But Italy was Tnramlni. not wanting in men once conspicuous, whom we cannot afford time to mention. One of them, Turamini, pro- fessor at Ferrara, though his name is not found in Tiraboschi, or even in Gravina, seems to have had a more luminous con- ception of the relation which should sub- sist between positive laws and those of nature, as well as of their distinctive pro- vinces, than was common in the great jurists of that generation. His commen- tary on the title De Legibus, in the first book of the Pandects, gave, him an op- portunity for philosophical illustration. An account of his writings will be found in Corniani.* 85. The canon law, though by no means a province sterile in the quantity of its i Vol. vi. p. 197. produce, has not deserved to arrest our at- tention. It was studied con- jointly with that of Rome, from which it borrows many of its prin- ciples and rules of proceeding, though not servilely, nor without such variations as the independence of its tribunals and the different nature of its authorities might be expected to produce. Covarruvias and other Spaniards were the most eminent canonists ; Spain was distinguished in this line of jurisprudence. 86. But it is of more importance to ob- serve, that in this period we Law of nations. find a foundation laid for early state, the great science of international law, the determining authority in questions of right between independent states. Whatever had been delivered in books on this sub- ject, had rested too much on theological casuistry, or on the analogies of positive and local law, or on the loose practice of nations, and precedents rather of arms than of reason. The fecial law, or rights of ambassadors, was that which had been most respected. The customary code of Europe, in military and maritime ques- tions, as well as in some others, to which no state could apply its particular juris- prudence with any hope of reciprocity, grew up by degrees to be administered, if not upon solid principles, yet with some uniformity. The civil jurists, as being conversant with a system more widely diffused, and of which the equity was more generally recognised than any other, took into their hands the adjudication of all these cases. In the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries, the progress of interna- tional relations, and, we may add, the frequency of wars, though it did not at once create a common standard, showed how much it was required. "War itself, it was perceived, even for the advantage of the belligerents, had its rules ; an enemy had his rights ; the study of ancient history furnished precedents of magnanimity and justice, which put the more recent examples of Christendom to shame ; the spirit of the gospel could not be wholly suppressed, at least in theory ; the strictness of casuistry was applied to the duties of sovereigns; and perhaps the scandal given by the writings of Machiavel was not without its influence in dictating a nobler tone to the morality of international law. 87. Before we come to works strictly be- longing to this kind of juris- Francis a prudence, one may be men- Victoria, tioned which connects it with theological casuistry. The Relectiones Theologicse of Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 315 Francis a Victoria, a professor in Sala- manca, and one on whom Nicolas Antonio and many other Spanish writers bestow the highest eulogy, as the restorer of theo- logical studies in their country, is a book of remarkable scarcity, though it has been published at least in four editions. Gro- tius has been supposed to have made use of it in his own great work ; but some of those who since his time have mentioned Victoria's writings on this subject, lament that they are not to be met with. Dupin, however, has given a short account of the Eelectiones ; and there are at least two copies in England one in the Bodleian Library, and another in that of Dr. Williams in Redcross Street. The edition I have used is of Venice, 1626, being pro- bably the latest ; it was published first at Lyons in 1557, at Salamanca in 1565, and again at Lyons in 1587 ; but had become scarce before its republication at Venice. * It consists of thirteen relections, as Victo- ria calls them, or dissertations on different subjects, related in some measure to theo- logy, at least by the mode in which he treats them. The fifth, entitled De Indis, and the sixth, De Jure Belli, are the most important. 88. The third is entitled, De Potestate His opinions on Civili. In this he derives public law, government and monarchy from divine institution, and holds that, as the majority of a state may choose a king whom the minority are bound to obey, so the majority of Christians may bind the minority by the choice of an universal monarch. In the chapter concerning the Indians, he strongly asserts the natural right of those nations to dominion over their own property and to sovereignty, denying the allegations founded on their infidelity or vices. He treats this question methodically, in a scholastic manner, giv- ing the arguments on both sides. He denies that the emperor, or the pope, is lord of the whole world, or that the pope has any power over the barbarian Indians or other infidels. The right of sovereignty in the king of Spain over these people he i This is said on the authority of the Venetian edition. But Nicolas Antonio mentions an edition at Ingoldstadt in 1580, and another at Antwerp in 1604. He is silent about those of 1587 and 1626. He also says that the Relec- tiones are twelve in number. Perhaps he had never seen the book, but he does not advert to its scarcity. Morhof, who calls it Prailectiones, names the two editions of Lyons, and those of Ingoldstadt and Antwerp. Brunet, Watts, and the Biographic Universelle do not mention Victoria at all. rests on such grounds as he can find; namely, the refusal of permission to trade, which he holds to be a just cause of war, and the cessions made to him by allies among the native powers. In the sixth relection, on the right of war, he goes over most of the leading questions, discussed afterwards by Albericus Gentilis and Gro- tius. His dissertation is exceedingly con- densed, comprising sixty sections in twenty- eight pages ; wherein he treats of the general right of war, the difference between public war and reprisal, the just and unjust causes of war, its proper ends, the right of subjects to examine its grounds, and many more of a similar kind. He determines that a war cannot be just on both sides, except through ignorance ; and also that subjects ought not to serve their prince in a war which they reckon unjust. Grotius has adopted both these tenets. The whole relection, as well as that on the Indians, displays an intrepid spirit of justice and humanity, which seems to have been rather a general characteristic of the Spanish theo- logians. Dominic Soto, always inflexibly on the side of right, had already sustained by his authority the noble enthusiasm of Las Casas. 89. But the first book, so far as I am aware, that systematically Ayaia, -on the reduced the practice of na- rights of war. tions in the conduct of war to legitimate rules, is a treatise by Balthazar Ayala, judge-advocate (as we use the word), to the Spanish army in the Netherlands, under the Prince of Parma, to whom it is dedicated. The dedication bears date 1581, and the first edition is said to have appeared the next year. I have only seen that of" 1597, and I apprehend every edition to be very scarce. For this reason, and because it is the opening of a great subject, I shall give the titles of his chapters in a note. 1 It 1 Balth. Ayalae, J. C. et exercitus regii apud Belgas supremi juridici, de jure et offlciis belli- cis et disciplina militari, libri tres. Antw. 1597. 12mo. pp. 405. Lib. 1. c. 1. De Eatione Belli Indicendi, Aliisque Cseremoniis Bellicis. 2. De Bello Justo. 3. De Duello, sive Singular! Certamine. 4. De Pignerationibus, quas vulgo Repre- salias vocant. 5. De Bello Captis et Jure Postliminii. 6. De Fide Hosti Servanda. 7. De Foederibus et Induciis. 8. De Insidiis et Fraude Hostili. 9. De Jure Legatorum. Lib. ii. c. 1. De Officiis Bellicis. 2. De Imperatore vel Duce Exercitus. 316 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. will appear, that the second book of Ayala relates more to politics and to strategy than to international jurisprudence ; and that in the third he treats entirely of what we call martial law. But in the first he aspires to lay down great principles of pub- lic ethics ; and Grotius, who refers to Ayala with commendation, is surely mis- taken in saying that he has not touched the Xib. ii. c. 3. TJnum non Plures Exercitui Prsefici de- bere. 4. Utrum Lenitate et Benevolentia, an Severitate et Saavitia plus pronciet Imperator. 6. Temporum Rationem praicipue in Bello Habendam. 6. Contentiosas etLentas de Rebus Bellicis Deliberationes admodum Noxias esse. 7. Dum Res sunt Integra ne minimum quidem Regi vel Reipublicae de Ma- jestate sua Concedendum esse ; et errare eos qui Arrogantiam Hostiam Modestia et Fatientia vinci posse ex- is timant. 8. An pr.estet Bellum Domi excipere, an vero in Hostilem Agrum inferre. 9. An prsestet Initio Proelii Magno Cla. more et Concitato Cursu in Hostes pergere, an vero Loco manere. 10. Non esse Consilii invicem Infensos Civi- libus Dissensionibus Hostes Sola Dis. cordia Fretum invadere. 11. Necessitatern Pugnandi Magno Studio Imponendam esse Militibus et Hosti- bus Remittendam. 12. In Victoria potissimum de Pace Cogitan- dum . 13. Devictis Hostibua qua potissimum Ra - tione Perpetua Pace Quieti obtineri possint [sic.] Xib. iii. c. 1. De Disciplina Militari. 2. De Officio Legati et Aliorum qui Mili- tibus prsesunt. 3. De Metatoribus sive Mensoribus. 4. De Militibus, et qui Militare possunt. 5. De Sacramento Militari, 6. DeMissione. 7. De Privilegiis Militum. 8. De Judiciis Militaribus. 9. De PcBnis Militum. 10. De Contumacibus et Ducum Die to non ParentibuB. 11. De Emansoribus. 12. De Desertoribus. 13. De Transfugis et Proditoribus. 14. De Seditiosis. 15. De lis qui in Acie Loco cedunt aut Victi Se dedunt. 10. De lis qui Anna alienant vel araittunt. 17. De lis qui Excubias deserunt vel minus recte agunt. 18. De Eo qui Arcem vei Oppidum cujus Pnesidio impositus est, amittit vel Hostibus dedit. 19. De Furtis et Aliis Delictis Militaribus. 20. De Prwmiis Militum. grounds of justice and injustice in war. 1 His second chapter is on this subject, in thirty-four pages ; and though he neither sifts the matter so exactly, nor limits the right of hostility so much as Grotius, he deserves the praise of laying down the general principle without subtlety or chicanery. Ayala positively denies, with Victoria, the right of levying war against infidels, even by authority of the pope, on the mere ground of their religion ; for their infidelity does not deprive them of right of dominion ; nor was that sovereignty over the earth given originally to the faithful alone, but to every reasonable creature. And this, he says, has been shown by Covarruvias to be the sentiment of the majority of doctors. 2 Ayala deals abun- dantly in examples from ancient history, and in authorities from the jurists. 90. We find next in order of chronology a treatise by Albericus Gen- Aibertcm tills De Legationibus, pub- Oentuis, on Iishedinl583. Gentilis was Embaaies. an Italian Protestant who, through the Earl of Leicester, obtained the chair of civil law at Oxford in 1582. His writings on Ro- man jurisprudence are numerous, but not very highly esteemed. This work, on the law of Embassy, is dedicated to Sir Philip Sydney, the patron of so many distin- guished strangers. The first book con- tains an explanation of the different kinds of embassies, and of the ceremonies ancient- ly connected with them. His aim, as he professes, is to elevate the importance and sanctity of ambassadors, by showing the practice of former times. In the second book he enters more on their peculiar rights. The envoys of rebels and pirates are not protected. But difference of religion does not take away the right of sending ambassadors. He thinks that civil suits against public ministers may be brought before the ordinary tribunals. On the delicate problem as to the criminal juris- diction of these tribunals over ambassadors conspiring against the life of the sovereign, Gentilis holds, that they can only be sent out of the country, as the Spanish ambas- sador was by Elizabeth. The civil law, he 1 Causas unde bellum justum aut injustum dicitur Ayala non tetigit. De Jure B. and P. Prolegom. 38. 2 Bellum adversus infideles ex eo solum quod infideles sunt, ne quidem auctoritate impera- toris vel summi pontificis indici potest ; inlidel- itas enim non privat infideles dominio quod habent jure gentium ; nam non fidelibus tantum rerum dominia, sed omni rationabili creatuno data sunt . . . Et luvc sententia plerisque pro- batur, ut ostundit Covarruvias. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 317 maintains, is no conclusive authority in the case of ambassadors, who depend on that of nations, which in many respects is different from the other. This second book is the most interesting, for the third chiefly relates to the qualifications required in a good ambassador. His instances are more frequently taken from ancient than modern history. 91. A more remarkable work by Alberi- Hls treatise on cus Gentilis is his treatise, the Eights of De Jure Belli, first pub- War - lished at Lyons, 1589. Gro- tius acknowledges his obligations to Gen- tilis, as well as to Ayala, but in a greater degree to the former. And that this com- paratively obscure writer was of some use to the eminent founder, as he has been deemed, of international jurisprudence, were it only for mapping his subject, will be evident from the titles of his chapters, which run almost parallel to those of the first and third books of Grotius. 1 They 1 Lib. i. c. 1. De Jure Gentium Bellico. 2. Belli Definitio. 3. Principes Bellum gerunt. 4. Latrones Bellum non gerunt. 5. Bella juste geruntur. 6. Belluin juste geri utrinque. 7. De Caussis Bellorum. 8. De Caussis Divinis Belli Faciendi. 9. An Bellum Justum sit pro Religione. 10. Si Princeps Eeligionem Bello apud suos juste tuetur. 11. An Subditi bellent contra Principem ex Caussa Eeligionis. 12. TJtrum sint Caussse Naturales Belli Faciendi. 13. De Necessaria Defensione. 14. De Utili Defensione. 15. De Honesta Defensione. 16. De Subditis Alienis contra Dominum Defendendis. 17. Qui Bellum necessarie inferunt. 18. Qui utiliter Bellum inferunt. 19. De Naturalibus Caussis Belli inferendi 20. De Humanis Caussis Belli inferendi. 21. De Malefactis Privatorum. 22. De Vetustis Caussis non Excitandis. 23. De Regnorum Eversionibus. 24. Si in Posteros movetur Bellum. 25. De Honesta Caussa Belli inferendi. Lib. ii. a 1. De Bello Indicendo. 2. Si quando Bellum non indicitur. 8. De Dolo et Stratagematis. 4. De Dolo Verborum. 5. De Mendaciis. 6. De Veneflciis. 7. De Armis et Mentitis Armis. 8. De Scsevola, Juditha, et Similibus. 9. De Zopiro et Aliis Transfugis. 10. De Pactis Ducum. 11. De Pactis Militum. 12. Delnduciis. embrace, as the reader will perceive, the whole field of public faith, and of the rights both of war and victory. But I dou*bt whether the obligation has been so ex- tensive as has sometimes been insinuated. Grotius does not, as far as I have compared them, borrow many quotations from Gen- tilis, though he cannot but sometimes allege the same historical examples. It will also be found in almost every chapter, that he goes deeper into the subject, reasons much more from ethical principles, relies less on the authority of precedent, and is in fact a philosopher where the other is a compiler. 92. Much that bears on the subject of international law may probably be latent in the writings of the jurists, Baldus, Covarruvias, Vasquez, especially the two latter, who seem to have combined the science of casuistry with that of the civil law. Gentilis, and even Grotius, refer much to them ; and the former, who is no Lib. ii. c. 13. Quando contra Inducias flat. 14. De Salvo Conductu. 15. De Permutationibus et Liberationibus. 16. De Captivis, et non necandis. 17. De His qui se Hosti tradunt. 18. In Deditos, et Captos saeviri. 19. De Obsidibus. 20. De Supplicibus. 21. De Pueris et Foeminis. 22. De Agricolis, Mercatoribus, Peregrinis-, Aliis Similibus. 23. De Vastitate et Incendiis. 24. De Caesis sepeliendis. Lib. iii. c. 1. De Belli Fine et Pace. 2. De Ultione Victoris. 3. De Sumptibus et Damnis Belli. 4. Tributis et Agris multari Victos. 5. Victoris Acquisitio Universalis. 6. Victos Ornamentis Spoliari. 7. Tiroes diripi, dirui. 8. De Ducibus Hostium Captis. 9. De Servis. 10. De Statu Mutando. 11. De Religionis Aliarumque Rerum Muta tione. 12. Si Utile cum Honesto Pugnet. 13. De Pace Futura Constituenda. 14. De Jure Conveniendi. 15. De Quibus cavetur in Foederibus et in Duello. 16. De Legibus et Libertate. 17. De Agris et Postliminio. 18. De Amicitia et Societate. 19. Si Foedus recte contrahitur cum Diveraaa Eeligionis Hominibus. 20. De Armis et Classibus. 21. De Arcibus et Prsesidiis. 22. Si Successores Foederatorum tenentur. 23. De Ratihabitione, Privatis, Piratis, Exu- libus, Adhaerentibus. 24. Quando Foedus violatur. 318 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. great philosopher, appears to have borrowed from that source some of his general prin- ciples. It is honourable to these men, as we have already seen in Soto, Victoria, and Ayala, that they strenuously defended the maxims of political justice. CHAPTER XIV. HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1550 TO 1600. SECT. I. ON ITALIAN POETRY. Character of the Italian Poets of this Age Some of the best enumerated Bernardino JRota Gaspara Stampa Bernardo Tasso Gierusalemme Liberata of Torquato Tasso. 1. THE school of Petrarch, restored by onerai character Bembo, was prevalent in of Italian poeu in Italy at the beginning of thl * ftge - this period. It would de- mand the use of a library, formed peculiarly for this purpose, as well as a great ex- penditure of time, to read the original volumes which this immensely numerous class of poets, the Italians of the sixteenth century, filled with their sonnets. In the lists of Crescimbeni, they reach the num- ber of 661. "We must, therefore, judge of them chiefly through selections, which, though they may not always have done justice to every poet, cannot but present to us an adequate picture of the general style of poetry. The majority are feeble copyists Their unai of Petrarch. Even in most fauiu. o f those who have been pre- ferred to the rest, an affected intensity of passion, a monotonous repetition of custo- mary metaphors, of hyperboles reduced to commonplaces by familiarity, of mytho- logical allusions, pedantic without novelty, cannot be denied incessantly to recur. But, in observing how much they generally want of that which is essentially the best, we might be in danger of forgetting that there is a praise due to selection of words, to harmony of sound, and to skill in over- coming metrical impediments, which it is for natives alone to award. The authority of Italian critics should, therefore, be re- spected, though not without keeping in mind both their national prejudice, and that which the habit of admiring a very artificial style must always generate. 2. It is perhaps hardly fair to read a number of thesecompos i tion s Their beaatlei. . . _, in succession. Every sonnet has its own unity, and is not, it might be pleaded, to be charged with tediousness or monotony, because the same structure of verse, or even the same general sentiment, may recur in an equally independent pro- duction. Even collectively taken, the minor Italian poetry of the sixteenth cen- tury may be deemed a great repertory of beautiful language, of sentiments and images, that none but minds finely tuned by nature produce, and that will ever be dear to congenial readers, presented to us with exquisite felicity and grace, and some- times with an original and impressive vig- our. The sweetness of the Italian versifica- tion goes far towards their charm ; but are poets forbidden to avail themselves of this felicity of their native tongue, or do we invidiously detract, as we might on the same ground, from the praise of Theocritus and Bion ? 3. " The poets of this age," says one of their best critics, " had, in character general, a just taste, wrote 8in by with elegance, employed deep, noble, and natural sentiments, and filled their compositions with well-chosen ornaments. There may be observed, how- ever, some difference between the authors who lived before the middle of the century and those who followed them. The former were more attentive to imitate Petrarch, and unequal to reach the fertility and imagination of this great master, seemed rather dry, with the exception, always, of Casa and Costanzo, whom, in their style of composition, I greatly admire. The later writers, in order to gain more applause, deviated in some measure from the spirit of Petrarch, seeking ingenious thoughts, florid conceits, splendid ornaments, of which they became so fond, that they fell sometimes into the vicious extreme of saying too much." 1 4. Casa and Costanzo, whom Muratori seems to place in the earlier , , , , , i Poetry of Caaa. part of the century, belong, by the date of publication at least, to this latter period. The former was the first to quit the style of Petrarch, which Bembo had rendered so popular. Its smoothness evidently wanted vigour, and it was the aim i Mnratorl, della Perfetta Poesia, i. 22. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 319 of Casa to inspire a more masculine tone into the sonnet, at the expense of a harsher versification. He occasionally ventured to carry on the sense without pause from the first to the second tercet ; an innovation praised by many, but which, at that time, few attempted to imitate, though, in later ages, it has become common, not much perhaps to the advantage of the sonnet. The poetry of Casa speaks less to the imagination, the heart, or the ear, than to the understanding. 1 5. Angelo di Costanzo, a Neapolitan, and author of a well-known tanzo ' history of his country, is highly extolled by Crescimbeni and Mura- tori ; perhaps no one of these lyric poets of the sixteenth century is so much in favour with the critics. Costanzo is so regular in his versification, and so strict in adhering to the unity of subject, that the Society of Arcadians, when, towards the close of the seventeenth century, they en- deavoured to rescue Italian poetry from the school of Marini, selected him as the best model of imitation. He is ingenious, but perhaps a little too refined; and by no means free from that coldly hyperbolical tone in addressing his mistress, which most of these sonnetteers assume. Cos- tanzo is not to me, in general, a pleasing writer ; though sometimes he is very beautiful, as in the sonnet on Virgil, Quella cetra gentil, justly praised by Muratori, and which will be found in most collections ; remarkable, among higher merits, for being contained in a single sentence. Another, on the same subject, Cigni felici, is still better. The poetry of Camillo Pellegrini much resembles that of Costanzo. 2 The sonnets of Baldi, especi- ally a series on the ruins and antiquities of Rome, appear to me deserving of a high place among those of the age. They may be 1 Casa . . . per poco deviando dalla dolcezza del Petrarca, a un novello stile diede principle, col quale le sue rime compose, intendendo sopra il tutto alia gravita ; per conseguir la quale, si valse spezialmente del carattere aspro, e de' raggirati periodi e rotondi, insino a condurre uno stesso sentimento d' uno in altro quader- nario, e d' uno in altro terzetto ; cosa in prima da alcuno non pii tentata ; perloche somma lode ritrasse de chiunque coltiv6 in questi tempi la toscana poesia. Ma perche si fatto stile era proprio, e adattato all' ingengo del suo inven- tore, molto difficile riuscl il seguitarlo. Cres- cimbeni della volgar poesia, ii. 410. See also Gingue'ne', ix. 329. Tiraboschi, x. 22. Casa is generally, to my apprehension, very harsh and prosaic. 2 Crescimbeni, vol. iv. p. 25. read among his poems ; but few have found their way into the collections by Gobbi and Rubbi, which are not made with the best taste. Caro, says Crescimbeni, is less rough than Casa, and more original than Bembo. Sain extols the felicity of his style, and the harmony of his versification ; while he owns that his thoughts are often forced and obscure. 1 6. Among the canzoni of this period, one by Celio Magno on the Deity odes of Cello stands in the eyes of foreign- Magno. ers, and I believe of many Italians, pro- minent above the rest. It is certainly a noble ode. 2 Rubbi, editor of the Parnaso Italiano, says that he would call Celio the greatest lyric poet of his age, if he did not dread the clamour of the Petrarchists. The poetry of Celio Magno, more than one hundred pages extracted from which will be found in the thirty-second volume of that collection, is not in general amatory, and displays much of that sonorous rhythm and copious expression which afterwards made Chiabrera and Guidi famous. Some of his odes, like those of Pindar, seems to have been written for pay, and have some- what of that frigid exaggeration which such conditions produce. Crescimbeni thinks that Tansillo, in the ode, has no rival but Petrarch. 3 The poetry in general of Tansillo, especially La Balia, which contains good advice to mothers about nursing their infants very prosaically de- livered, seems deficient in spirit.4 7. The amatory sonnets of this age, f orm- 1 Crescimbeni, ii. 429. Gingue'ne' (continua- tion par Salfi), ix. 12. Caro's sonnets on Castelvetro, written during their quarrel, are full of furious abuse with no wit. They have the ridiculous particularity that the last line of each is repeated so as to begin the next. 2 This will be found in the Componitnenti Lirici of Mathias ; a collection good on the whole, yet not perhaps the best that might hare been made ; nor had the editor at that time so extensive an acquaintance with Italian poetry as he afterwards acquired. Crescimbeni reckons Celio the last of the good age in poetry ; he died in 1612. He praises also Scipio Gaetano (not the painter of that name) whose poems were published, but posthumously, in the same year. 3 Delia Volgar Poesia, ii. 436. 4 Eoscoe republished La Balia, which was very little worth while ; the following is an average specimen : Questo degenerar, ch' ognor si vede, Sendo voi caste, donne mie, vi dico, Che d' altro che dal latte non precede. L' altrui latte oscurar fa'l pregio antico Degli avi illustri e adulterar le razze, E s' infetta talor sangue pudico. 320 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. ing the greater number, are very frequently Coidneu of the cold and affected. This I amatory sonnet.. m i g ht possibly be ascribed in some measure to the state of manners in Italy, where, with abundant licentious- ness, there was still much of jealousy, and public sentiment applauded alike the successful lover and the vindictive husband. A respect for the honour of families, if not for virtue, would impose on the poet who felt or assumed a passion for any dis- tinguished lady, the conditions of Tasso's Olindo, to desire much, to hope for little, and to ask nothing. It is also at least very doubtful, whether much of the amorous sorrow af the sonnetteers were not purely ideal. 8. Lines and phrases from Petrarch are studied imitation as studiously introduced as or Petrarch. we g n( j those of classical writers in modern Latin poetry. It cannot be said that this is unpleasing ; and to the Italians, who knew every passage of their favourite poet, it must have seemed at once a grateful homage of respect, and an ingenious artifice to bespeak attention. They might well look up to him as their master, but could not hope that even a foreigner would ever mistake the hand through a single sonnet. He is to his disciples, especially those towards the latter part of the century, as Guido is to Frances- chini or Elisabetta Serena ; an effeminate and mannered touch enfeebles the beauty which still lingers round the pencil of the imitator. If they produce any effect upon us beyond sweetness of sound and delicacy of expression, it is from some natural feel- ing, some real sorrow, or from some occa- sional originality of thought, in which they cease for a moment to pace the banks of their favourite Sorga. It would be easy to point out not a few sonnets of this higher character, among those especially of Francesco Coppetta, of Claudio Tolomei, of Ludovico Paterno, or of Bernardo Tasso. 9. A school of poets, that has little Their fondness vigour of sentiment, falls for description, readily into description, as painters of history or portrait that want expression of character endeavour to please by their landscape. The Italians, especi- ally in this part of the sixteenth century, are profuse in the song of birds, the mur- mur of waters, the shade of woods ; and, as these images are always delightful, they shed a charm over much of their poetry, which only the critical reader, who knows its secret, is apt to resist, and that to his own loss of gratification. The pastoral character, which it became customary to assume, gives much opportunity for these secondary, yet very seducing beauties of style. They belong to the decline of the art, and have something of the voluptuous charm of evening. Unfortunately they generally presage a dull twilight, or a thick darkness of creative poetry. The Greeks had much of this in the Ptolemaic age, and again in that of the first Byzantine em- perors. It is conspicuous in Tansillo, Paterno, and both the Tassos. 10. The Italian critics, Crescimbeni, Muratori, and Quadrio, judgment of have given minute attention Italian critics, to the beauties of particular sonnets culled from the vast stores of the sixteenth cen- tury. But as the development of the thought, the management of the four con- stituent clauses of the sonnet, especially the last, the propriety of every line, for nothing digressive or merely ornamental should be admitted, constitute in their eyes the chief merit of these short composi- tions, they extol some which in our eyes are not so pleasing, as what a less regular taste might select. Without presuming to rely on my own judgment, -defective both as that of a foreigner, and of one not so ex- tensively acquainted with the minor poetry of this age, I will mention two writers, well-known indeed, but less prominent in the critical treatises than some others, as possessing a more natural sensibility and a greater truth of sorrow than most of their contemporaries, Bernardino Rota and Gaspara Stampa. 11. Bernardino Rota, a Neapolitan of ancient lineage and con- Bernardino siderable wealth, left poems Eota - in Latin as well as Italian ; and among the latter his eclogues are highly praised by his editor. But he is chiefly known by a series of sonnets intermixed with canzoni, upon a single subject, Portia Capece, his wife, whom, " what is unusual among our Tuscan poets (says his editor), he loved with an exclusive affection." But be it understood, lest the reader should be dis- couraged, that the poetry addressed to Portia Capece is all written before their marriage, or after her death. The earlier division of the series, "Rime in Vita" seems not to rise much above the level of amorous poetry. He wooed, was delayed ; complained, and won the natural history of an equal and reasonable love. Sixteen years intervened of that tranquil bliss which contents the heart without moving it, and seldom affords much to the poet in which the reader can find interest. Her death in 1559 gave rise to poetical sorrows, Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 321 as real and certainly full as rational as those of Petrarch, to whom some of his con- temporaries gave him the second place ; rather probably from the similarity of their subject, than from the graces of his lan- guage. Rota is by no means free from conceits, and uses sometimes affected and unpleasing expressions, as mia dolce guerra, speaking of his. wife, even after her death ; but his images are often striking ;* and, above all, he resembles Petrach, with whatever inferiority, in combining the ideality of a poetical mind with the naturalness of real grief. It has never again been given to man, nor will it pro- bably be given, to dip his pen in those streams of ethereal purity which have made the name of Laura immortal ; but a son- net of Rota may be not disadvantageously compared with one of Milton, which we justly admire for its general feeling, though it begins in pedantry and ends in conceit. 2 1 Muratori blames a line of Rota as too bold, and containing a false thought. Feano i begl' occhi a se medesmi giorno. It seems to me not beyond the limits of poetry, nor more hyperbolical than many others which have been much admired. It is, at least, Petrarchtsque in a high degree. 2 This sonnet is in Mathias, iii. 256. That of Milton will be rembered by most readers. In lieto e pien di riverenza aspetto, Con veste di color bianco e vermiglio, Di doppia luce serenato il ciglio, Mi viene in sonno il mio dolce diletto. lo me 1' inchino, e con cortese affetto Seco ragiono e seco mi consiglio, Com' abbia a governanni in quest' esiglio, E piango intanto, e la risposta aspetto. Ella m' ascolta fiso, e dice cose Veramente celesti, ed io l r apprendo, E serbo ancor nella memoria ascose. Mi lascia alfine e parte, e va spargendo Per 1' aria nel partir viole e rose ; Io le porgo la man ; poi mi reprendo. In one of Eota's sonnets we have the thought of Pope's epitaph on Gay. Qesto cor, questa mente e questo petto Sia '1 tuo sepolcro, e non la tomba o '1 sasso, Ch' io t' apparecchio qui doglioso e lasso ; Non si deve a te, donna, altro ricetto. He proceeds very beautifully : Eicca sia la memoria e 1' intelletto, Del ben per cui tutf altro a dietro io lasso ; E mentre questo mar di pianto passo, Vadami sempre innanzi il caro objetto. Alma gentil, dove bitar solei Donna e reina, in terren fascio awolta, Ivi regnar celeste immortal dei. Vantisi pur la morte averti tolta Al mondo, a me non gia ; ch' a pensier miei Una sempre sarai viva e sepolta. The poems of Rota are separately published For my own part, I would much rather read again the collection of Beta's sonnets than those of Costanzo. 12. The sorrows of Gaspara Stampa were of a different kind, but not Gaspara stampa. less genuine than those of Her love for Eota. She was a lady of CoUalt<) the Paduan territory, living near the small river Anaso, from which she adopted the poetical name of Anasilla. This stream bathes the foot of certain lofty hills, from which a distinguished family, the Counts of Collalto, took their appellation. The representative of this house, himself a poet as well as a soldier, and, if we believe his fond admirer, endowed with every virtue except constancy, was loved by Gaspara with enthusiastic passion. Unhappily she learned only by sad experience the want of generosity too common to man, and sacri- ficing, not the honour, but the pride of her sex, by submissive affection, and finally by querulous importunity, she estranged a heart never so susceptible as her own. Her sonnets, which seem arranged nearly in order, begin with the delirium of sanguine love ; they are extravagant effusions of admiration, mingled with joy and hope ; but soon the sense of Collalto's coldness glides in and overpowers her bliss. 1 After three years' expectation of seeing his pro- mise of. marriage fulfilled, and when he had already caused alarm by his indiffer- ence, she was compelled to endure the pangs of absence by his entering the ser- vice of France. This does not seem to have been of long continuance ; but his letters were infrequent, and her complaints, always vented in a sonnet, become more fretful. He returned, and Anasilla exults in two volumes. Naples, 1726. They contain a mixture of Latin. Whether Milton inten- tionally borrowed the sonnet on his wife's death, " Methought I saw my last espoused saint," from that above quoted, I cannot pretend to say ; certainly his resemblances to the Italian poets often seem more than accidental. Thus two lines in an indifferent writer, Girolamo Preti (Mathias, iii. 329) are exactly like one of the sublimest flights in the Paradise Lost. Tu per soffrir della cui luce i rai Si fan con 1* ale i seraflni un velo. Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear : Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. 1 In an early sonnet she already calls Col- lalto, "il Signer, ch' io amo, e ch' io pavento ;" an expression descriptive enough of the state in which poor Gaspara seems to have lived several years. X 322 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. I Ill-requited. Her second love. with tenderness, yet still timid in the midst of her joy. Osero io, con queste fide braccia, Cingerli il caro collo, ed accostare La mia tremante alia sua viva faccla ? But jealousy, not groundless, soon in- truded, and we find her doubly miserable. Collalto became more harsh, avowed his indiffer- nce, forbade her to importune him with her complaints ; and in a few months es- poused another woman. It is said by the historians of Italian literature, that the broken heart of Gaspara sunk very soon under these accumulated sorrows into the grave. 1 And such, no doubt, is what my readers expect, and (at least the gentler of them), wish to find. But inexorable truth, to whom I am the sworn vassal, compels me to say that the poems of the lady her- self contain unequivocal proof that she avenged herself better on Collalto, by falling in love again. We find the acknowledgment of another incipient passion, which speedily comes to maturity ; and, while declaring that her present flame is much stronger than the last, she dismisses her faithless lover with the handsome compliment, that it was her destiny always to fix her affec- tions on a noble object. The name of her second choice does not appear in her poems ; nor has any one hitherto, it would seem, nade the very easy discovery of his exist- ence. It is true that she died young; "but not of love." 2 1 She anticipated her epitaph, on this hypo- thesis of a broken heart, which did not occur. Per amar molto, ed esser poco amata "Visse e mori infelice ; ed or qul giace La piu fedel amante che sia stata. Pregale, viator, riposo e pace, Ed in i para de lei si mal trattata A non seguire un cor crudo e f ugace. 2 It Is impossible to dispute the evidence of Gaspara herself in several sonnets, so that Cor- nlani, and all the rest, must have read her very inattentively. What can we say to these lines ? Perchfe mi par vedere a certi segni Ch' ordisci (Amor) nuovi lacci e nuove faci, E di ritrarme al giogo tuo t' ingegnl. And afterwards more fully : Qual darai fine, Amor, alle mie pene, Se dal cinere estinto d' uno ardore Binasce 1' altro, tua merce, maggiore, E si vivace a con su mar mi viene? Qual nelle piu felici e calde arene Nel nido acceso sol di vario odore D' una fenice estinta esce poi fuore Un verme, che fenice altra diviene. In questo io debbo a tuol cortesl strali Che sempre 6 degno, ed onorato oggetto Quello, onde mi ferisci, onde m' assail. 13. The style of Gaspara Stampa is clear, simple, graceful ; the Italian style of critics find something to stampa. censure in the versification. In purity of taste, I should incline to set her above Bernardino Rota, though she has less vigour of imagination. Corniani has applied to her the well-known lines of Horace upon Sappho. 1 But the fires of guilt and shame, that glow along the strings of the JSolian lyre, ill resemble the pure sorrows of the tender Anasilla. Her passion for Collalto, ardent and undisguised, was ever virtuous; the sense of gentle birth, though so inferior to his, as perhaps to make a proud man fear disparagement, sustained her against dishonourable submission. E ben ver, che "1 desio, con che amo voi, E tutto d' onesta pieno, e d' amore ;2 Perche altrimente non convien tra noi.3 But not less in elevation of genius than in dignity of character, she is very far inferior to Vittoria Colonna, or even to Veronica Gambara, a poetess, who, without equal- ling Vittoria, had much of her nobleness and purity. We pity the Gasparas ; we should worship, if we could find them, the Vittorias. 14. Among the longer poems which Italy produced in this period two La Nantica, may be selected. The Art ofBaidi. of Navigation, La Nautica, published by Bernardino Baldi in 1590, is a didactic poem in blank verse, too minute sometimes and prosaic in its details, like most of that class, but neither low, nor turgid, nor ob- scure, as many others have been. The de- scriptions, though never very animated, Ed ora fe tale, e tanto, e si perfetto, Ha tante doti alia bellezza eguali, Ch' ardor per lui m' 6 sommo alto diletto. 1 ... spiral adhuc amor, Vivuntque commissi calores yEolite fldibus puellae. Corniani, v. 212, and Salfl in Ginguene", ix. 406, have done some justice to the poetry of Gaspara Stampa, though by no means more than it deserves. Boutenvek, ii. 150, observes only, viel Poesie zeigt sich nicht in diesen Sonetten ; which, I humbly conceive, shows, that either he had not read them, or was an indifferent judge ; and from his general taste I prefer the former hypothesis. 2 Sic. leg. onore ? 3 I quote these lines on the authority of Cor- niani, v. 215. But I must own that they do not appear in the two editions of the Kime della Gaspara Stampa which I have searched. I must also add that, willing as I am to believe all things in favour of a lady's honour, there is one very awkward sonnet among those of poor Gas- para, upon which it is by no means easy to put such a construction as we should wish. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 323 we sometimes poetical and pleasing. Baldi is diffuse ; and this conspires with the triteness of his matter to render the poem -somewhat uninteresting. He by no means wants the power to adorn his subject, but does not always trouble himself to exert it, and is tame where he might be spirited. Few poems bear more evident marks that their substance had been previously written -down in prose. 15. Bernardo Tasso, whose memory has Amadigi of Ber- almost been effaced with the nardo TOMO. majority of mankind by the splendour of his son, was not only the most conspicuous poet of the age wherein he lived, but was placed by its critics, in some points of view, above Ariosto himself. His minor poetry is of considerable merit. 1 But that to which he owed most of his reputa- tion is an heroic romance on the story of Amadis, written about 1540, and first pub- lished in 1560. L'Amadigi is of prodigious length, containing 100 cantos, and about 57,000 lines. The praise of facility, in the T>est sense, is fully due to Bernardo. His narration is fluent, rapid, and clear; his style not in general feeble or low, though I am not aware that many brilliant passages will be found. He followed Ariosto in bis tone of relating the story : his lines per- petually remind us of the Orlando ; and I believe it would appear on close examina- tion that much has been borrowed with slight change. My own acquaintance, how- ever, with the Amadigi is not sufficient to warrant more than a general judgment. Ginguene, who rates this poem very highly, praises the skill with which the disposition of the original romance has been altered and its canvas enriched by new insertions, the beauty of the images and sentiments, the variety of the descriptions, the sweet- ness, though not always free from languor, 1 "The character of his lyric poetry is a sweet- ness and abundance of expressions and images, by which he becomes more flowing and full (piu morbido e piu pastoso, metaphors not translat- able by single English words) than his contem- poraries of the school of Petrarch." Corniani, v. 127. A sonnet of Bernardo Tasso, so much admired at the time, that almost every one, it is said, of a refined taste had it by heart, will be found in Panizzi's edition of the Orlando Innamorato, vol. i. p. 376, with a translation by a lady well known for the skill with which she has trans- ferred the grace and feeling of Petrarch into our language. The sonnet, which begins, Poiche la parte men perfetta e bella, is not found in Gobbi or Mathias. It is distinguished from the com- mon crowd of Italian sonnets in the sixteenth century by a novelty, truth, and delicacy of sen- timent, which is comparatively rare in them. of the style, and finally recommends its perusal to all lovers of romantic poetry, and to all who would appreciate that of Italy. 1 It is evident, however, that the choice of a subject become frivolous in the eyes of mankind, not less than the extreme length of Bernardo Tasso's poem, must render it almost impossible to follow this advice. 16. The satires of Bentivoglio, it is agreed, fall short of those Satirical and bnr- by Ariosto, though some lesque poetry; have placed them above Cretin, those of Alamanni. 2 But all these are satires on the regular model, assuming at least a half -serious tone. A style more con- genial to the Italians was that of burlesque poetry, sometimes poignantly satirical, but as destitute of any grave aim, as it was light and familiar, even to popular vul- garity, in its expression, though capable of grace in the midst of its gaiety, and worthy to employ the best master of Tuscan language. 3 But it was disgraced by some of its cultivators, and by none more than Peter Aretin. The character of this profli- gate and impudent person is well known ; it appears extraordinary that, in an age so little scrupulous as to political or private revenge, some great princes, who had never spared a worthy adversary, thought it not unbecoming to purchase the silence of an odious libeller, who called himself their scourge. In a literary sense, the writings of Aretin are unequal ; the serious are for the most part reckoned wearisome and prosaic ; in his satires a poignancy and spirit, it is said, frequently breaks out ; and though his popularity, like that of most satirists, was chiefly founded on the ill-nature of mankind, he gratified this with a neatness and point of expression, which those who cared nothing for the satire might admire. 4 1 Vol. v. p. 61-108. Bouterwek (vol. ii. 159), speaks much less favourably of the Amadigi, and, as far as I can judge, in too disparaging a tone. Corniani, a great admirer of Bernardo, owns that his morbidezza and fertility have rendered him too frequently diffuse and flowery. See also Panizzi, p. 393, who observes that the Amadigi wants interest, but praises its imagina- tive descriptions as well as its delicacy and soft- ness. 2 Gingue'ne', ix. 193. Biogr. Univ. Tirabo- schi, x. 66. 3 A canzon by Coppetta on his cat, in the twenty-seventh volume of the Parnaso Italiano, is rather amusing. 4 Bouterwek, ii. 207. His authority does not seem sufficient ; and Gingue'ne', ix. 212, gives a worse character of the style of Aretin. But Muratori (della Perfetta Poesia, ii. 284), extols Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 17. Among the writers of satirical, bur- other burlesque lesque, or licentious poetry, writers, after Aretin, the most re- markable are Firenzuola, Casa (one of whose compositions passed so much all bounds as to have excluded him from the purple, and has become the subject of a sort of literary controversy, to which I can only allude), * Franco, and Grazzini, surnamed H Lasco. I must refer to the regular historians of Italian literature for accounts of these, as Attempts at well as for the styles of Latin metres, poetry called macaronica and pedantesca, which appear wholly con- temptible, and the attempts to introduce Latin metres, a folly with which every nation has been inoculated in its turn. - Claudio Tolomei, and Angelo Costanzo himself, by writing sapphics and hex- ameters, did more honour to so strange a pedantry than it deserved. 18. The translation of the Metamorpho- Poeticai ses of Ovid by Anguillara, translations. seems t o j^g acquired the highest name with the critics j 3 but that of the jEueid by Caro is certainly the best known in Europe. It ia not, however, very faithful, though written in blank verse, which leaves a translator no good excuse for deviating from his original ; the style is diffuse, and, upon the whole, it is better that those who read it should not remember Virgil. Many more Italian poets ought, possibly, to be commemorated; but we must hasten forward to the greatest of them all. one of his sonnets as deserving a very high place \n Italian poetry. 1 A more innocent and diverting capitolo of Casa turns on the ill luck of being named John. S' io avessi manco quindici o vent' anni, Messer Gandolfo, io ml sbattezzerei, Per non aver mai piu nome Giovanni. Perch' io non posso andar pe' fatti iniei, NV- partinni di qul per ir si presso Ch' io nol senta chiamar da cinque e sel. He ends by lamenting that no alteration mends the name. Mutalo, o sminuiscil, se tu sal, O Nanni, o Gianni, o Giannino, o Giannozzo, Come piu tu Io tocchi, peggio fai, Che gli e cattivo intero, e peggior mozzo 2 Macaronic verse was invented by one Fol- engo, In the first part of the century. This worthy had written an epic poem, which he thought superior to the JEneid. A friend, to whom he showed the manuscript, paid him the compliment, as he thought, of saying that he had equalled Virgil. Folengo, In a rage, threw his poem into the fire, and sat down for the rest of his life to write Macaronics. Journal des Savans, Dec. 1831. S Salfl (continuation de Ginguene), x. 180. Corniani, vi. 113. 19. The life of Tasso is excluded from- these pages by the rule I have adopted; but I cannot Torqiiat suppose any reader to be ignorant of one- of the most interesting and affecting stories that literary biography presents. It was in the first stages of a morbid melancholy, almost of intellectual derangement, that the Gierusalemme Liberata was finished; it was during a confinement, harsh in air" its circumstances, though perhaps neces- sary, that it was given to the world. Several portions had been clandestinely published, in consequence of the author's inability to protect his rights ; and even the first complete edition in 1581 seems to- have been without his previous consent. In the later editions of the same year he is- said to have been consulted ; but his dis- order was then at a height, from which it afterwards receded, leaving his genius un- diminished, and his reason somewhat more sound, though always unsteady. Tasso- died at Borne in 1595, already the ob- ject of the world's enthusiastic admiration, rather than of its kindness and sympathy. 20. The Jerusalem is the great epic- poem, in the strict sense, of T^ Jerusalem modern times. It was justly excellent in observed by Voltaire, that choice of " uWect - in the choice of his subject Tasso is superior to Homer. Whatever interest tradition- might have attached among the Greeks to- the wrath of Achilles and the death of Hector, was slight to those genuine recol- lections which were associated with the- first crusade. It was not the theme of a single people, but of Europe ; not a fluctu- ating tradition, but certain history ; yet history so far remote from the poet's time, as to adapt itself to his purpose with al- most the flexibility of fable. Nor could the subject have been chosen so well in- another age or country ; it was still the holy war, and the sympathies of his- readers were easily excited for religious chivalry ; but, in Italy, this was no longer an absorbing sentiment; and the stern tone of bigotry, which perhaps might still have been required from a Castilian poet, would have been dissonant amidst the soft notes that charmed the court of Ferrara. 21. In the variety of occurrences, the- change of scenes and images, superior to and of the trains of senti- Homer and Virgil ment connected with them to Bome polntl - in the reader's mind, we cannot place the Iliad on a level with the Jerusalem. And again, by the manifest unity of subject, and by the continuance of the crusading army before the walls of Jerusalem, the- Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 325 Its characters. poem of Tasso has a coherence and single- ness, which is wanting to that of Virgil. Every circumstance is in its place ; we ex- pect the victory of the Christians, but ac- knowledge the probability and adequacy of the events that delay it. The episodes, properly so to be called, are few and short; for the expedition of those who recall Bi- naldo from the arms of Armida, though occupying too large a portion of the poem, unlike the fifth and sixth, or even the second and third books of the .ZEneid, is an indispensable ]ink in the chain of its narrative. 22. In the delineation of character, at once natural, distinct, and original, Tasso must give way to Homer, perhaps to some other epic and romantic poets. There are some in- dications of the age in which he wrote, some want of that truth to nature, by which the poet, like the painter, must give reality to the conceptions of his fancy. Yet here also the sweetness and nobleness of his mind, and his fine sense of moral beauty are displayed. The female warrior had been an old invention, and few, except Homer, had missed the opportunity of di- versifying their battles with such a cha- racter. But it is of difficult management ; we know not how to draw the line between the savage virago, from whom the imagina- tion revolts, and the gentler fair one, whose feats in arms are ridiculously incongruous to her person and disposition. Virgil first threw a romantic charm over his Camilla ; but he did not render her the object of love. In modern poetry, this seemed the necessary compliment to every lady; but we hardly envy Rogero the possession of Bradamante, or Arthegal that of Brito- mart. Tasso alone, with little sacrifice of poetical probability, has made his readers sympathise with the enthusiastic devotion of Tancred for Clorinda. She L so bright an ideality, so heroic, and yet, by the en- chantment of verse, so lovely, that no one follows her through the combat without delight, or reads her death without sorrow. And how beautiful is the contrast of this character with the tender and modest Er- Tninia ! The heroes, as has been hinted, are drawn with less power. Godfrey is a noble example of calm and faultless virtue, but we find little distinctive character in Rinaldo. Tancred has seemed to some rather too much enfeebled by his passion, "but this may be justly considered as part of the moral of the poem. 23. The Jerusalem is read with pleasure in almost every canto. No poem, perhaps, if we except the JSneid, has so few weak or tedious pages ; the worst Excellence of passages are the speeches, ittyie. which are too diffuse. The native melan- choly of Tasso tinges all his poem; we meet with no lighter strain, no comic sally, no effort to relieve for an instant the tone of seriousness that pervades every stanza. But it is probable, that some become wearied by this uniformity which his metre serves to augment. The ottava rima has its inconveniences ; even its in- tricacy, when once mastered, renders it more monotonous, and the recurrence of marked rhymes, the breaking of the sense into equal divisions, while they communi- cate to it a regularity that secures the humblest verse from sinking to the level of prose, deprive it of that variety which the hexameter most eminently possesses. Ari- osto lessened this effect by the rapid flow of his language, and perhaps by its negli- gence and inequality; in Tasso, who is more sustained at a high pitch of elaborate expression than any great poet except Virgil, and in whom a prosaic or feeble stanza will rarely be found, the uniformity of cadence may conspire with the luscious- ness of style to produce a sense of satiety in the reader. This is said rather to ac- count for the injustice, as it seems to me, with which some speak of Tasso, than to express my own sentiments ; for there are few poems of great length which I so little wish to lay aside as the Jerusalem. 24. The diction of Tasso excites per- petual admiration; it is rarely turgid or harsh ; and though more figurative than that of Ariosto, it is so much less than that of most of our own or the ancient poets, that it appears simple in our eyes. Virgil to whom we most readily compare him, u far superior in energy, but not in grace. Yet his grace is often too artificial, and the marks of the file are too evident in the ex- quisiteness of his language. Lines of su- perior beauty occur in almost every stanza ; pages after pages may be found, in which, not pretending to weigh the style in the scales of the Florentine academy, I do not perceive one feeble verse or improper ex- pression. 25. The conceits so often censured in Tasso, though they bespeak XT. 1 i. si. Some faults in it. the false taste that had be- gun to prevail, do not seem quite so numer- ous as his critics have been apt to insinuate; but we find sometimes a trivial or affected phrase, or, according to the usage of the times, an idle allusion to mythology, when the verse or stanza requires to be filled up. 326 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. A striking instance may be given from the admirable passage where Tancred discovers Clorinda in the warrior on whom he has just inflicted a mortal blow La vide, e la conobbe ; e resW senza E moto e senso - The effect is here complete, and here he would have desired to stop. But the ne- cessity of the verse induced him to finish it with feebleness and affectation. Ahi vista! Ahi conoscenza/ Such difficult metres as the ottava rima demand these sacrifices too frequently. Ariosto has in- numerable lines of necessity. 26. It is easy to censure the faults of Defect* of the this admirable poem. The poem. supernatural machinery is perhaps somewhat in excess ; yet this had been characteristic of the romantic school of poetry, which had moulded the taste of Europe, and is seldom displeasing to the reader. A still more unequivocal blemish is the disproportionate influence of love upon the heroic crusaders, giving a tinge of effeminacy to the whole poem, and ex- citing something like contempt in the austere critics, who have no standard of excellence in epic song but what the ancients have erected for us. But while we must acknowledge that Tasso has in- dulged too far the inspirations of his own temperament, it may be candid to ask ourselves, whether a subject so grave, and by necessity so full of carnage, did not re- quire many of the softer touches which he has given it. . His battles are as spirited and picturesque as those of Ariosto, and perhaps more so than those of Virgil ; but to the taste of our times he has a little too much of promiscuous slaughter. The Iliad had here set an unfortunate precedent, which epio poets thought themselves bound to copy. If Erminia and Armida had not been introduced, the classical critic might have censured less in the Jerusalem; but it would have been far less also the delight of mankind. 27. Whatever may be the laws of criti- it indicates the cism, every poet will best pecuiur genius obey the dictates of his own agination of Tasso made him equal to de- scriptions of war ; but his heart was formed for that sort of pensive voluptuousness which most distinguishes his poetry, and which is very unlike the coarser sensuality of Ariosto. He lingers around the gardens of Armida, as though he had been him- self her thrall. The Florentine critics vehemently attacked her final reconcilia- tion with Rinaldo in the twentieth canto,. and the renewal of their loves; for the- reader is left with no other expectation. Nor was their censure unjust ; since it is a sacrifice of what should be the predomi- nant sentiment in the conclusion of the poem. But Tasso seems to have become fond of Armida, and could not endure to- leave in sorrow and despair the creature of his ethereal fancy, whom he had made so fair and so winning. It is probable that the majority of readers are pleased with this, passage, but it can never escape tiie con- demnation of severe judges. 28. Tasso, doubtless, bears a considerable- resemblance to Virgil. But, Tasso compared independently of the vast toVirgii; advantages which the Latin language possesses in majesty and vigour, and which render exact comparison difficult as well as unfair, it may be said that Virgil dis- plays more justness of taste, a more ex- tensive observation, and, if we may speak thus in the absence of so much poetry which he might have imitated, a more genuine originality. Tasso did not possess much of the self -springing invention which we find in a few great poets, and which, in this higher sense, I cannot concede to. Ariosto; he not only borrows freely, and perhaps studiously, from the ancients, but introduces frequent lines from earlier Italian poets, and especially from Petrarch. He has also some favourite turns of phrase, which serve to give a certain mannerism, to his stanzas. 29. The Jerusalem was no sooner pub- lished, than it was weighed against the Orlando Furioso, and neither Italy nor Europe have yet agreed which scale inclines. It is indeed one of those critical problems, that admit of no certain solution, whether we look to- the suffrage of those who feel acutely and justly, or to the general sense of mankind. "We cannot determine one poet to be superior to the other, without assuming premises which no one is bound to grant. Those who read for a stimulating variety of circumstances, and the enlivening of a leisure hour, must prefer Ariosto ; and he is probably, on this account, a poet of more universal popularity. It might be said perhaps by some, that he is more a favourite of men, and Tasso of women. And yet, in Italy, the sympathy with, tender and graceful poetry is so general, that the Jerusalem has hardly been less in favour with the people than its livelier rival ; and its fine stanzas may still be- heard by moonlight from the lips of a. to Ariosto ; Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 327 gondolier, floating along the calm bosom of the Giudecca. 1 30. Ariosto must be placed much more below Homer, than Tasso falls short of Virgil. The Orlando has not the impetu- osity of the Iliad; each is prodigiously rapid, but Homer has more momentum by his weight ; the one is a hunter, the other a war-horse. The finest stanzas in Ariosto are fully equal to any in Tasso, but the latter has by no means so many feeble lines. Yet his language, though never affectedly obscure, is not so pellucid, and has a certain refinement which makes us sometimes pause to perceive the meaning. Whoever reads Ariosto slowly, will pro- bably be offended by his negligence ; who- ever reads Tasso quickly, will lose some- thing of the elaborate finish of his style. 31. It is not easy to find a counterpart to the Bolognese among painters for Ariosto. painter.. His brilliancy and fertile invention might remind us of Tintoret ; but he is more natural, and less solicitous of effect. If indeed poetical diction be the correlative of colouring in our com- parison of the arts, none of the Venetian school can represent the simplicity and averseness to ornament of language which belong to the Orlando Furioso ; and it would be impossible, for other reasons, to look for a parallel in a Roman or Tuscan pencil. But with Tasso the case is dif- ferent : and though it would be an affected 1 The following passages may perhaps be naturally compared, both as being celebrated, and as descriptive of sound. Ariosto has how- ever much the advantage, and I do not think the lines in the Jerusalem, though very famous, are altogether what I should select as a speci- men of Tasso. Aspri concenti, orribile armonia D' alte querele, d' ululi, e di strida Delia misera gente, che peria Nel fondo per cagion clella sua guida, Istranamente concordar s'udia Col ficro suon clella fiamma omicida. Orland. Fur. c. 14. Chiama gli abitator dell' ombre eterne H rauco suon della tartarea tromba ; Treman le spaziose atre caverne, E 1' aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba. N6 si stridendo mai dalle superne Eegioni del cielo il folgor piomba ; N6 si scossa giammai trema la terra Quando i vapori in sen gravida serra. Gierus. Lib. c. 4. In the latter of these stanzas there is rather too studied an effort at imitative sound ; the lines are grand and nobly expressed, but they do not hurry along the reader like those of Ariosto. In his there is little attempt at vocal imitation, yet we seem to hear the cries of the suffering, and the crackling of the flames. expression to call him the founder of the Bolognese school, it is evident that he had a great influence on its chief painters, who came but a little after him. They imbued themselves with the spirit of a poem so congenial to their age, and so much ad- mired in it. No one, I think, can consider their works without perceiving both the analogy of the place each hold in their re- spective arts, and the traces of a feeling, caught directly from Tasso as their proto- type and model. "We recognise his spirit in the sylvan shades and voluptuous forms of Albano and Domenichino, in the pure beauty that radiates from the ideal heads of Guido, in the skilful composition, exact design, and noble expression of the Ca- racci. Yet the school of Bologna seems to furnish no parallel to the enchanting grace and diffused harmony of Tasso ; and we must, in this respect, look back to Correg- gio as his representative. SECT. II. ON SPANISH POETRY. Luis de Leon Herrera Er cilia Camoens Spanish Ballads. 32. The reigns of Charles and his SOD have long been reckoned the p oetrv cu iti- golden age of Spanish poetry ; vated under and if the art of verse was Charles and not cultivated in the lat- ter period by any quite so successful as Garcilasso and Mendoza, who belonged to the earlier part of the century, the vast number of names that have been collected by diligent inquiry show, at least, a na- tional taste which deserves some attention. The means of exhibiting a full account of even the most select names in this crowd are not readily at hand. In Spain itself, the poets of the age of Philip II. , like those who lived under his great enemy in Eng- land, were, with very few exceptions, little regarded till after the middle of the eighteenth century. The Parnaso Espanol of Sedano, the first volumes of which were published in 1768, made thembetter known; but Bouterwek observes, that it would have been easy to make a better collection, as we do not find several poems of the chief writers, with which the editor seems to have fancied the public to be sufficiently acquainted. An imperfect knowledge of the language, and a cursory view of these volumes, must disable me from speaking confidently of Castilian poetry ; so far as I feel myself competent to judge, the speci- mens chosen by Bouterwek do no injustice to the compilation. 1 1 " The merit of Spanish poems," says a critic 328 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 33. The best lyric poet of Spain in the opinion of many, with whom * I venture to concur, was Fra Luis Ponce de Leon, born in 1527, and whose poems were probably written not very long after the middle of the century. The greater part are translations, but his original productions are chiefly religious, and full of that soft mysticism which allies itself so well to the emotions of a poetical mind. One of his odes, De la Vida del Cielo, which will be found entire in Bouter- wek, is an exquisite piecce of lyric poetry, which, in its peculiar line of devout aspira- tion, has perhaps never been excelled. 1 But the warmth of his piety was tempered by a classical taste, which he had matured by the habitual imitation of Horace. " At an early age," says Bouterwek, " he be- came intimately acquainted with the odes of Horace, and the elegance and purity of style which distinguish those compositions made a deep impression on his imagination. Classical simplicity and dignity were the models constantly present to his creative fancy. He, however, appropriated to him- self the character of Horace's poetry too naturally ever to incur the danger of servile imitation. He discarded the prolix style of the canzone, and imitated the brevity of the strophes of Horace in romantic mea- sures of syllables and rhymes ; more just feeling for the imitation of the ancients was never evinced by any modern poet. His odes have, however, a character totally different from those of Horace, though the sententious air which marks the style of both authors imparts to them a deceptive resemblance. The religious austerity of Luis de Leon's life was not to be reconciled with the epicurism of the Latin poet ; but notwithstanding this very different dis- position of the mind, it is not surprising that they should have adopted the same form of poetic expression, for each possessed a fine imagination, subordinate to the con- trol of a sound understanding. Which of the two is the superior poet, in the most equally candid and well-informed, "Independ- ently of those intended for representation, con- gists chiefly in smoothness of versification and purity of language, and in facility rather than strength of imagination." Lord Holland's Lope de Vega, vol. i. p. 107. He had previously ob- served that these poets were generally vol- uminous : " it was not uncommon even for the nobility of Philip IV. 'a time (later of course than the period we are considering) to converse for some minutes in extemporaneous poetry; and in carelessness of metre, as well as in com- monplace images, the verses of that time often remind us of the improvisatori of Italy," p. 106. P. 248. extended sense of the word, it would be difficult to determine, as each formed his style by free imitation, and neither over- stepped the boundaries of a certain sphere of practical observation. Horace's odea exhibit a superior style of art ; and from the relationship between the thoughts and images, possess a degree of attraction which is wanting in those of Luis de Leon ; but, on the other hand, the latter are the more rich in that natural land of poetry, which may be regarded as the overflowing of a pure soul, elevated to the loftiest regions of moral and religious idealism." 1 Among the fruits of these Horatian studies of Luis de Leon, we must place an admirable ode suggested by the prophecy of Nereus, wherein the genius of the Tagus, rising from its waters to Rodrigo, the last of the Goths, as he lay encircled in the arms of Cava, denounces the ruin which their guilty loves were to entail upon Spain. 2 34. Next to Luis de Leon in merit, and perhaps above him in Euro- /. j TT Herrera. pean renown, we find Her- rera surnamed the divine. He died in 1578; and his poems seem to have been first col- lectively published in 1582. He was an in novator in poetical language, whose bold- ness was sustained by popularity, though it may have diminished his fame. " Her- rera was a poet," says Bouterwek, "of powerful talent, and one who evinced un- daunted resolution in pursuing the new path which he had struck out for himself. The noble style, however, which he wished to introduce into Spanish poetry, was not the result of a spontaneous essay, flowing from immediate inspiration, but was the- oretically constructed on artificial princi- ples. Thus, amidst traits of real beauty, his poetry everywhere presents marks of affectation. The great fault of his language is too much singularity ; and his expres- sion, where it ought tobe elevated, is merely far fetched." 3 Velasquez observes that, notwithstanding the genius and spirit of Herrera, his extreme care to polish his versification has rendered it sometimes un- pleasing to those who require harmony and ease. 4 1 P. 243. 2 This ode I first knew many yean, since by a translation in the poems of Russell, which are too little remembered, except by a few good judges. It has been surmised by some Spanish critics to have suggested the famous vision of the Spirit of the Cape to Camoens ; but the re- semblance is not sufficient, and the dates rather incompatible. 3 P. 229. 4 Geschichte der Spanischen Dichtkunst, p. 207. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 329 35. Of these defects in the style of Herrera I cannot judge ; his odes appear to possess a lyric elevation and richness of phrase, derived in some measure from the study of Pindar, or still more, perhaps, of the Old Testament, and worthy of compari- son with Chiabrera. Those on the battle of Lepanto are most celebrated ; they pour forth a torrent of resounding song, in those rich tones which the Castilian language so abundantly supplies. I cannot so thorough- ly admire the ode addressed to sleep, which Bouterwek as well as Sedano extol. The images are in themselves pleasing and ap- propriate, the lines steal with a graceful flow on the ear ; but we should desire to find something more raised above the com- monplaces of poetry. 36. The poets of this age belong generally, General tone more or less, to the Italian of Castilian school. Many of them were poetry. a jg O translators from Latin. In their odes, epistles, and sonnets, the re- semblance of style, as well as that of the languages, make us sometimes almost be- lieve that we are reading the Italian in- stead of the Spanish Parnaso. There seem however to be some shades of difference even in those who trod the same path. The Castilian amatory verse is more hyper- bolical, more full of extravagant meta- phors, but less subtle, less prone to ingenious trifling, less blemished by verbal conceits than the Italian. Such at least is what has struck me in the slight acquaintance I have with the former. The Spanish poets are also more redundant in descriptions of nature, and more sensible to her beauties. I dare not assert that they have less grace and less power of exciting emotion ; it may be my misfortune to have fallen rarely on such passages. 37. It is at least evident that the imita- tion of Italy> P^Pagated b 7 Boscan and his followers, was not the indigenous style of Castile. And of this some of her most distinguished poets were always sensible. In the Diana of Montemayor, a romance which, as such, we shall have to mention hereafter, the poetry, largely interspersed, bears partly the character of the new, partly that of the old or native school. The latter is esteemed superior. Castillejo endeavoured to re- store the gay rhythm of the redondilla, and turned into ridicule the imitators of Petrarch. Bouterwek speaks rather slight- ingly of his generally poetic powers ; though some of his canciones have a considerable share of elegance. His genius, playful and witty, rather than elegant, seemed not ill- cartiilejo fitted to revive the popular poetry. 1 But those who claimed the praise of superior talents did not cease to cultivate the polished style of Italy. The most con- spicuous, perhaps, before the end of the century were Gil Polo, Espinel, Lope de Vega, Barahona de Soto, and Figueroa. 2 Several other names, not without extracts, will be found in Bouterwek. 38. Voltaire, in his early and very de- fective essay on epic poetry, Araucana of made known to Europe the Ercilla. Araucana of Brcilla^ which has ever since enjoyed a certain share of reputation, though condemned by many critics as tedious and prosaic. Bouterwek depreci- ates it in rather more sweeping a manner than seems consistent with the admissions he afterwards makes. 3 A talent for lively description and for painting situations, a natural and correct diction, which he ascribes to Ercilla, if they do not consti- tute a claim to a high rank among poets, are at least as much as many have pos- sessed. An English writer of good taste has placed him in a triumvirate with Homer and Ariosto for power of narra- tion. 4 Haynouard observes, that Ercilla has taken Ariosto as his model, especially in the opening of his cantos. But the long digressions and episodes of the Araucana, which the poet has not had the art to con- nect with his subject, render it fatiguing. The first edition, in 1569, contains but fifteen books ; the second part was pub- lished in 1578, the whole together in 1590. 5 39. The Araucana is so far from standing alone in this class of poetry, Many epic poems that not less than twenty- ^ Spain, five epic poems appeared in Spain within little more than half a century. These will 1 P. 267. 2 Lord Holland has given a fuller account of the poetry of Lope de Vega than either Bouter- wek or Velasquez and Dieze ; and the extracts in his " Lives of Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro," will not, I believe, be found in the Parnaso Espanol, which is contrived on a happy plan of excluding what is best. Las Lagrimas de Angelica, by Barahona de Soto, Lord H. says, "has always been esteemed one of the best poems in the Spanish language," vol. i. p. 33. Bouterwek says he has never met with the book. It is praised by Cervantes in Don Quixote. The translation of Tasso's Aminta, by Jaure- gui, has been preferred by Menage as well as Cervantes to the original. But there is no ex- traordinary merit in turning Italian into Spanish, even with some improvement of the diction. 3 P. 407. * Pursuits of Literature. 5 Journal des Savans, Sept. 1824. 330 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 160U. Camoens. be found enumerated, and, as far as pos- sible, described and characterised, in Velasquez's History of Spanish Poetry, which I always quote in the German trans- lation with the valuable notes of Dieze. a Bouterwek mentions but a part of the num- ber, and a few of them may be conjectured by the titles not to be properly epic. It is denied by these writers, that Ercilla ex- celled all his contemporaries in heroic song. I find, however, a different sentence in a Spanish poet of that age, who names him as superior to the rest. ? 40. But in Portugal there had arisen a poet, in comparison of whose glory that of Ercilla is as nothing. The name of Camoens has truly an European reputation, but the Lusiad is written in a language not generally famil- iar. From Portuguese critics it would be unreasonable to demand want of prejudice in favour of a poet so illustrious, and of a poem so peculiarly national. The JSneid reflects the glory of Rome as from a mir- ror ; the Lusiad is directly and exclusively what its name "The Portuguese" (Os Lusiadas) denotes, the praise of the Lusi- tanian people. Their past history chimes in, by means of episodes, with the great event of Gama's voyage to India. The faults of Camoens, in the management of his fable and the choice of machinery, are sufficiently obvious ; it is, nevertheless, the first successful attempt in modern Europe to construct an epic poem on the ancient model ; for the Gierusalemme Liberata, though incomparably superior, was not written or published so soon. In conse- quence, perhaps, of this epic form, which, even when imperfectly delineated, long 1 P. 370-407. Bouterwek, p. 413. 2 Oyle el estilo grave, el blando acento, Y altos concentos del varon famoso Que en el heroyco verso fue el primero Que honro a su patria, y aim quiza el postrero. Del fuerte Arauco el pecho altivo espanta Don Alonso de Ercilla con el inano, Con ella lo derriba y lo levanta, "Vence y honra venciendo al Araucano ; C'alla sus hechos, los agenos canta, Con tal estilo que eclipso al Toscano : Virtud que el cielo para si reserva Que en el furor de Marte este" Minerva. La Casa de la Memoria, por Vicente Espinel, in 1'arnaso Espanol, viii. 352. Antonio, near the end of the seventeenth cen- tury, extols Ercilla very highly, but intimates that some did not relish his simple perspicuity. Ad hunc usque diem ob Us omnibus avidissime legitur, qui facile dicendi genus atque perspi- cuum admittere vim suam et nervos, nativaque suhlimitate quadam attolli posse, cothumatum- que ire non ignorant. Iti excellencies. obtained, from the general veneration for antiquity, a greater respect at the hands of critics than perhaps it deserved, the celebrity of Camoens has always been con- siderable. In point of fame he ranks among the poets of the south, immediately after the first names of Defect* of the Italy ; nor is the distinctive Lmiad. character that belongs to the poetry of the southern languages anywhere more fully perceived than in the Lusiad. In a general estimate of its merits it must appear rather feeble and prosaic ; the geographical and historical details are insipid and tedious ; a skilful use of poetical artifice is never ex- hibited ; we are little detained to admire an ornamented diction, or glowing thoughts, or brilliant imagery ; a certain negligence disappoints us in the most beautiful pas- sages ; and it is not till a second perusal, that their sweetness has time to glide into the heart. The celebrated stanzas on Inez De Castro are a proof of this. 41. These deficiencies, as a taste formed in the English school, or in that of classical antiquity, is apt to account them, are greatly com- pensated, and doubtless far more to a native than they can be to us, by a free- dom from all that offends, for he is never turgid, nor affected, nor obscure, by a per- fect ease and transparency of narration, by scenes and descriptions, possessing a certain charm of colouring, and perhaps, not less pleasing from the apparent negli- gence of the pencil, by a style kept up at a level just above common language, by a mellifluous versification, and, above all, by a kind of soft languor which tones, as it were, the whole poem, and brings perpetu- ally home to our minds the poetical cha- racter and interesting fortunes of ita author. As the mirror of a heart so full of love, courage, generosity, and patriot- ism, as that of Camoens, the Lusiad can never fail to please us, whatever place we may assign to it in the records of poetical genius. 1 42. The Lusiad is best known in England by the translation of Micklc, MicUe'i who has been thought to truncation, have done something more than justice to his author, both by the unmeasured eu- logies he bestows upon him, and by the more substantial service of excelling the 1 "In every language," says Mr. Southey, probably, in the Quarterly Review, xxvii. 38, " there is a magic of words as untranslatable as the Sesame in the Arabian tale, you may re- tain the meaning, but if the words be changed the spell is lost. The magic has its effect only Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 331 original in his unfaithful delineation. 1 The style of Mickle is certainly more poetical, according to our standard, than that of Camoens, that is, more figurative and em- phatic; but it seems to me replenished with commonplace phrases, and wanting in the facility and sweetness of the original; in which it is well known that he has interpolated a great deal without a pretence. 43. The most celebrated passage in the Celebrated pa- Lusiad is that wherein the sage in the Spirit of the Cape, rising in Lnsiad. ^e midst of his stormy seas, threatens the daring adventurer that vio- lates their unploughed waters. In order to judge fairly of this conception, we should endeavour to forget all that has been written in imitation of it. Nothing has become more commonplace in poetry than one of its highest nights, supernatural personification; and, as children draw notable monsters when they cannot come near the human form, so every poetaster, who knows not how to describe one object in nature, is quite at home with a goblin. Considered by itself, the idea is impressive and even sublime. Nor am I aware of any evidence to impeach its originality, in the only sense which originality of poetical in- vention can bear ; it is a combination which strikes us with the force of novelty, and which we cannot instantly resolve into any constituent elements. The prophecy of Nereus, to which we have lately alluded, is much removed in grandeur and appro- priateness of circumstance from this pas- sage of Camoens, though it may contain the germ of his conception. It is, however, one that seems much above the genius of its author. Mild, graceful, melancholy, he has never given in any other place signs of such vigorous imagination. And when we read these lines on the Spirit of the Cape, it is impossible not to perceive that, like Frankenstein, he is unable to deal with the monster he has created. The formidable Adamastor is rendered mean by particularity of description, descending even to yellow teeth. The speech put into his mouth is feeble and prolix ; and it is a serious objection to the whole, that the awful vision answers no purpose but that upon those to whom the language is as familiar as their mother tongue, hardly indeed upon any but those to whom it is really such. Camoens possesses it in perfection, it is his peculiar ex- cellence." 1 Several specimens of Mickle's infidelity in translation, which exceed all liberties ever taken in this way, are mentioned in the Quar- terly Keview. of ornament, and is impotent against the success and glory of the navigators. A spirit of whatever dimensions, that can neither overwhelm a ship, nor even raise a tempest, is incomparably less terrible than a real hurricane. 44. Camoens is still, in his shorter poems, esteemed the chief of Portu- , Minor poems guese poets in this age, and of Oamoens. possibly in every other; his countrymen deem him their model, and judge of later verse by comparison with his. In every kind of composition then used in Portugal, he has left proofs of excellence. " Most of his sonnets," says Bouterwek, "have love for their theme, and they are of very un- equal merit ; some are full of Petrarchic tenderness and grace, and moulded with classic correctness, others are impetuous and romantic, or disfigured by false learn- ing, or full of tedious pictures of the con- flicts of passion with reason. Upon the whole, however, no Portuguese poet has so correctly seized the character of the sonnet as Camoens. Without apparent effort, merely by the ingenious contrast of the first eight with the last six lines, he knew how to make these little effusions convey a poetic unity of ideas and impressions, after the model of the best Italian sonnets, in so natural a manner, that the first lines or quartets of the sonnet excite a soft ex- pectation, which is harmoniously fulfilled by the tercets or last six lines. 1 The same writer praises several other of the miscel- laneous compositions of Camoens. 45. But, though no Portuguese of the sixteenth century has come 11 -11 i Ferreira. near to this illustrious poet, Ferreira endeavoured with much good sense, if not with great elevation, to emu- late the didactic tone of Horace, both in lyric poems and epistles, of which the latter have been most esteemed. 2 The classical school formed by Ferreira pro- duced other poets in the sixteenth cen- tury ; but it seems to have been little in unison with the national character. The reader will find as full an account of these as, if he is unacquainted with the Portu- guese language, he is likely to desire, in the author on whom I have chiefly relied. 46. The Spanish ballads or romances are of very different ages. Some of them, as has been ob- ' served in another place, belong to the fif- teenth century ; and there seems sufficient ground for referring a small number to even an earlier date. But by far the greater por- 1 Hist, of Portuguese Literature, p. 187. 2 Id. p. 111. Spanish ballads. 332 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. tion is of the reign of Philip II., or even that of his successor. The Moorish ro- mances, in general, and all those on the Cid, are reckoned by Spanish critics among the most modern. Those published by Depping and Duran have rarely an air of the raciness and simplicity which usually distinguish the poetry of the people, and seem to have been written by poets of Valladolid or Madrid, the contemporaries of Cervantes, with a good deal of elegance, though not much vigour. The Moors of romance, the chivalrous gentlemen of Granada, were displayed by these Castilian poets in attractive colours; 1 and much more did the traditions of their own heroes, especially of the Cid, the bravest and most noble-minded of them all, furnish materials for their popular songs. Their character, it is observed by the latest editor, is unlike that of the older romances of chivalry, which had been preserved orally, as he conceives, down to the middle of the six- teenth century, when they were inserted in the Cancionero de Romances at Ant- werp, 1555. 2 I have been informed that 1 Bouterwek, Sismondi, and others, have quoted a romance, beginning Tanta Zayda y Adalifa, as the effusion of an orthodox zeal, which had taken offence at these encomiums on infidels. Whoever reads this little poem, which may be found in Depping's collection, will see that it is written more as a humorous ridicule on contemporary poets, than a serious reproof. It is much more lively thari the an- swer, which these modern critics also quote. Both these poems are of the end of the sixteenth century. Neither Bouterwek nor Sismondi have kept in mind the recent date of the Moor- ish ballads. - Duran in preface to his Romancero of 1832. These Spanish collections of songs and ballads, called Cancioneros and Romanceros, are very scarce, and there is some uncertainty among bibliographers as to their editions. According to Duran, this of Antwerp contains many ro- mances unpublished before and far older than those of the fifteenth century, collected in the Cancionero General of 1516. It does not appear, perhaps, that the number which can be referred with probability to a period anterior to 1400 is considerable, but they are very interesting. Among these are Los Fronterizos, or songs which the Castilians used in their incursions on the Moorish frontier. These were preserved orally, like other popular poetry. We find in these early pieces, he says, some traces of the Arabian style, rather in the melancholy of its tone than in any splendour of imagery, giving as an instance some lines quoted by Sismondi, beginning, " Fonte frida, fonte frida, Fonte frida y con amor," which are evidently very ancient. Sismondi says (Literature du Midi, ill. 240) that it is difficult to explain the charm of this little poem, but " by the tone of truth and the absence of all object ; " and Bouterwek an earlier edition printed in Spain has lately been discovered. In these there is a certain prolixity and hardness of style, a want of connection, a habit of repeating verses or entire passages from others. They have nothing of the marvellous, nor borrow anything from Arabian sources. In some others of the more ancient poetry there are traces of the oriental manner, and a peculiar tone of wild melancholy. The little poems scattered through the prose romance, entitled, Las Guerras de Granada, are rarely, as I should conceive, older than the reign of Philip II. These Spanish ballads are known to our public, but gene- rally with inconceivable advantage, by the very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lockhart. 1 SECT, in. ON FBENCH AND GEBMAN POETRY. French Poetry Eonsard His Followers German Poets. 47. This was an age of verse in France ; and perhaps in no subse- French poets quent period do we find so nnmeron*. long a catalogue of her poets. Goujet has recorded not merely the names, but the lives, in some measure, of nearly two hun- dred, whose works were published in this half century. Of this number scarcely more than five or six are much remembered in their own country. It is possible in- deed that the fastidiousness of French calls it very nonsensical. It seems to me that some real story is shadowed in it under images in themselves of very little meaning, which may account for the tone of truth and pathos it breathes. The older romances are usually in alternate verses of eight and seven syllables, and the rhymes are consonant, or real rhymes. The assonance is however older than Lord Holland supposes, who says (Life of Lope de Vega, vol. ii. p. 12), that it was not introduced till the end of the sixteenth century. It occurs in several that Duran reckons ancient. The romance of the Conde Alarcos is probably of the fifteenth century. This is written in octosyllable consonant rhymes, without division of strophes. The Moorish ballads, with a very few exceptions, belong to the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III., and those of the Cid, about which so much interest has been taken, are the latest, and among the least valuable'of all. All these are, I believe, written on the principle of assonances. 1 An admirable romance on a bull-fight, in Mr. Lockhart's volume, is faintly to be traced in one introduced in Las Guerras de Granada ; but I have since found it much more at length in another collection. It is still, however, far less poetical than the English imitation. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 333 criticism, or their idolatry of the age of Louis XIV., and of that of Voltaire, may have led to a little injustice in their estimate of these early versifiers. Our own prejudices are apt of late to take an opposite direction. 48. A change in the character of French Change in the poetry, about the corn- tone of French mencement of this period, poetry. j g re f err ibl e to the general revolution of literature. The allegorical personifications which, from the sera of the Roman de la Rose, had been the com- mon field of verse, became far less usual, and gave place to an inundation of mythology and classical allusion. The Desir and Reine d' Amour of the older school became Cupid with his arrows and Venus with her doves ; the theological and cardinal virtues, which had gained so many victories over Sensualit6 and Faux Semblant, vanished themselves from a poetry which had generally enlisted itself under the enemy's banner. This cutting off of an old resource rendered it necessary to explore other mines. All antiquity was ransacked for analogies ; and, where the images were not wearisomely commonplace, they were absurdly far-fetched. This re- volution was certainly not instantaneous ; but it followed the rapid steps of philo- logical learning, which had been nothing at the accession of Francis I., and was everything at his death. In his court, and in that of his son, if business or gallantry rendered learning impracticable, it was at least the mode to affect an esteem for it. Many names in the list of French poets are conspicuous for high rank, and a greater number are among the famous scholars of the age. These, accustomed to writing in Latin, sometimes in verse, and yielding a superstitious homage to the mighty dead of antiquity, thought they ennobled their native language by destroying her idiom- atic purity. 49. The prevalence however of this pedantry, was chiefly owing to one poet, of great though short-lived renown, Pierre "Ronsard. He was the first of seven contemporaries in song under Henry II., then denominated the French Pleiad ; the others were Jodelle, Bellay, Baif, Thyard, Dorat, and Belleau. Ronsard, well acquainted with the ancient languages, and full of the most presumptuous vanity, fancied that he was born to mould the speech of his fathers into new forms more adequate to his genius. Je fis des nouveaux mots, J'en condamnai les vleux.i 1 Goujet, Bibliotheque Franijaise xii. 199. His style, therefore, is as barbarous, if the continual adoption of Latin and Greek derivatives renders a modern language barbarous, as his allusions are pedantic. They are more ridiculously such in his amatory sonnets ; in his odes these faults are rather less intolerable, and there is a spirit anrl grandeur which show him to have p^oessed a poetical mind. 1 The popu 1 :lty of Ronsard was extensive ; and, though he sometimes complained of the neglect of the great, he wanted not the approbation of those whom poets are most ambitious to please. Charles IX. addressed some lines to Ronsard, which are really elegant, and at least do more honour to that prince than anything else recorded of him ; and the verses of this poet are said to have enlightened the weary hours of Mary Stuart's imprisonment. On his death in 1586 a funeral service was per- formed in Paris with the best music that the king could command ; it was at- tended by the Cardinal de Bourbon and an immense concourse ; eulogies in prose and verse were recited in the university ; and in those anxious moments, when the crown of France was almost in its agony, there was leisure to lament that Ronsard had been withdrawn. How differently attended was the grave of Spenser ! 2 50. Ronsard was capable of conceiving strongly, and bringing his conceptions in clear and forcible, though seldom in pure or well-chosen language before the mind. The poem, entitled Promesse, which will be found in Auguis's Recueil des Anciens Poe'tes, is a proof of this, and excels what little besides I have read of this poet. 3 Bouterwek, whose criticism on Ronsard appears fair and just, and who gives him, and those who belonged to his school, credit for perceiving the necessity of elevat- ing the tone of French verse above the creeping manner of the allegorical rhymers, observes that, even in his errors, we dis- cover a spirit striving upwards, disdaining what is trivial, and restless in the pursuit of excellence. 4 But such a spirit may produce very bad and tasteless poetry. La Harpe, who admits Ronsard's occasional beauties and his poetic fire, is repelled by his scheme of versification, full of enjam- bemens, as disgusting to a correct French ear as they are, in a moderate use, pleas- ing to our own. After the appearance of Malhcrbe, the poetry of Ronsard fell into contempt, and the pure correctness of i Id 216. 2 Id. 207. 8 Vol. iv. p. 135. 4 Geschichte der Poe'sie, v. 214. 334 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Louis XTV.'s age was not likely to endure his barbarous innovations and false taste. 1 Balzac not long afterwards turns his pedantry into ridicule, and admitting the abundance of the stream, adds that it was turbid. 2 In later times more justice has been done to the spirit and imagination of this poet, without repealing too sentence against his style. 3 51. The remaining stars of the Pleiad, other French except perhaps Bellay , some- P etl - times called the French Ovid, and whose "Regrets," or lamenta- tions for his absence from France during a residence at Rome, are almost as querul- ous, if not quite so reasonable, as those of his prototype on the Ister, 4 seem scarce worthy of particular notice ; for Jodelle, the founder of the stage in France, has deserved much less credit as a poet, and fell into the fashionable absurdity of mak- ing French out of Greek. Raynouard bestows some eulogy on Baif. 5 Those who came afterwards were sometimes imitators of Ronsard, and, like most imitators of a faulty manner, far more pedantic and far- fetched than himself. An unintelligible refinement, that every nation in Europe seems in succession to have admitted into its poetry, has consigned much then written in France to oblivion. As large a proportion of the French verse in this period seems to be amatory as of the Italian ; and the Italian style is sometimes followed. But a simpler and more lively turn of language, though without the naivete of Marot, often distinguishes these 1 Goujet, 245. Malherbe scratched out about half from his copy of Ronsard giving his reasons in the margin. Racan, one day looking over this, asked whether he approved what he had not effaced, Not a bit more, replied Mal- herbe, than the rest. 2 Encore aujourd'hui 11 est admire* par les trois quarts du parlement de Paris, et generale- ment paries antres parlemens de France. L'uni- versite et les Jesuites tiennent encore son part centre la cour, et contre l'acaddmie. . . . Ce n'est pas un poete bien entler, c'est le com- mencement et la matii're d'un poete. On voit, dans ses ceuvres, des parties naissantes, et a demi animees, d'un corps qui se forme, et qui se fait, mats qui n'a garde d'estre acheve. C'est une grande source, 11 faut 1'avouer ; mais c'este une source troubled et boueuse ; une source, ou non seulement 11 y a molns d'eau que de limon, mais oil 1'ordure empeche de couler 1'eau. (Euvres de Balzac, i. 670, and Goujet ubl supra. 3 La Harpe, Biogr. Univ. < Goujet, Tii. 128. AugU. 6 " Baif is one of the poets who, in my opinion, have happily contributed by their ex- ample to fix the rules of our versification." Journal des Savans, Feb. 1825. compositions. These pass the bounds of decency not seldom; a privilege which seems in Italy to have been reserved for certain Fescennine metres, and is not in- dulged to the solemnity of the sonnet or canzone. The Italian language is ill- adapted to the epigram, in which the French succeed so well. 1 52. A few may be selected from the nu- merous versifiers under the sons of Henry II. Amadis Jamyn, the pupil of Ronsard, was reckoned by his contemporaries almost a rival, and is more natural, less inflated and emphatic than his master. 2 This praise is by no means due to a more celebrated poet, Du Bartas. His productions, which are nu- merous, unlike those of his contemporaries, turn mostly upon sacred history ; but his poem on the Creation, called La Semaine, is that which obtained most reputation, and by which alone he is now known. The translation by Silvester has rendered it in some measure familiar to the readers of our old poetry ; and attempts have been made, not without success, to show that Milton had been diligent in picking jewels from this mass of bad taste and bad writing. Du Bartas, in his style, was a disciple of Ronsard ; he affects words derived from the ancient languages, or, if founded on analogy, yet without precedent, and has as little naturalness or dignity in his images as purity in his idiom. Bub his imagina- tion, though extravagant, is vigorous and original. 8 53. Pibrac, a magistrate of great integ- rity, obtained an extraordinary reputation 1 Goujet devotes three volumes, the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, of his Bibliotheque Franchise, to the poets of these fifty years. Bouterwek and La Harpe have touched only on a very few names. In the Recueil des Anciens Poe'tes, the extracts from them occupy about a volume and a half. 2 Goujet, xiil. 229. Biogr. TTniv. 3 Goujet, xiil. 304. The Semaine of Du Bar- tas was printed thirty times within six years, and translated into Latin, Italian, German, and Spanish, as well as English. Id. 312, on the authority of La Croix du Maine. Du Bartas, according to a French writer of the next century, used methods of exciting his imagination which I recommend to the atten- tion of young poets. L'on dit en France, que Du Bartas auparavant que de faire cette belle description de cheval ou il a si bien rencontre 1 , s'enfermoit quelquefois dans une chambre, et se mettant a quatre pattes, souffloit, hennissoit, gambade-it, tirolt des ruades, alloit 1'amble, le trot, le galop, & courbette, et tachoit par toutes sortes de moyens a bien contrefaire le cheval. Naude"'g Considerations sur les Coups d'Estat. p. 47. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 335 "by his quatrains ; a series of moral tetra- Plbrac; stichs in the style of Theo- Desportes. gnis. These first appeared in 1574, fifty in number, and were augmented to 126 in later editions. They were con- tinually republished in the seventeenth cen- tury, and translated into many European and even oriental languages. It cannot be wonderful that, in the change of taste and manners, they have ceased to be read. 1 An imitation of the sixth satire of Horace, by Nicolas Eapin, printed in the collection of Auguis is good and in very pure style. 2 Philippe Desportes somewhat later chose a better school than that of Ronsard ; he re- jected its pedantry and affectation, and by the study of Tibullus, as well as by bis natural genius, gave a tenderness and grace to the poetry of love which those pompous versifiers had never sought. He has been esteemed the precursor of a better sera ; and his versification is rather less lawless, 3 ac- cording to La Harpe, than that of his pre- decessors. 54. The rules of metre became gradually French metre established. Few writers *nd versification. of this per iod neglect the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes ; 4 but the open vowel will be found in several of the earlier. Du Bartas almost affects the enjambement, or continuation of the sense beyond the couplet ; and even Desportes does not avoid it. Their metres are various ; the Alexandrine, if so we may call it, or verse of twelve syllables, was oc- casionally adopted by Ronsard, and in time displaced the old verse of ten syllables, which became appropriated to the lighter style. The sonnets, as far as I have ob- served, are regular ; and this form, which had been very little known in France, after being introduced by Jodelle and Ronsard, became one of the most popular modes of composition. 5 Several attempts were made to naturalise the Latin metres ; but this pedantic innovation could not long have success. Specimens of it may be found in Pasquier. 6 1 Goujet, xii. 266. Biogr. TJniv. 2 Recueil des Poetes, v. 361. 3 Goujet, xiv. 63. La Harpe. Auguis, v. 343-377. 4 Grevin, about 1558, is an exception. Gou- jet, xii. 159. 5 Bouterwek, v. 212. 6 Kecherches de la France, 1. vii. c. 11. Baif has passed for the inventor of this foolish art in France, which was more common there than in England. But Prosper Marchand ascribes a translation of the Iliad and Odyssey into regular French hexameters to one Moysset, of whom nothing is known ; on no better authority, how- 55. It may be said, perhaps, of French poetry in general, but at oneral char- least in this period, that it acter of French deviates less from a certain P etl 7- standard than any other. It is not often low, as may be imputed to the earlier writers, because a peculiar style, removed from common speech, and supposed to be classical, was a condition of satisfying the critics ; it is not often obscure, at least in syntax, as the Italian sonnet is apt to be, because the genius of the language and the habits of society demanded perspicuity. But it seldom delights us by a natural sen- timent or unaffected grace of diction, be- cause both one and the other were fettered by conventional rules. The monotony of amorous song is more wearisome, if that be possible, than among the Italians. 56. The characteristics of German verse impressed upon it by the meister-singers still remain- O< ed, though the songs of those fraternities seem to have ceased. It was chiefly didac- tic or religious, often satirical, and employ- ing the veil of apologue. Luther, Hans Sachs, and other more obscure names are counted among the fabulists ; but the most successful was Burcard "Waldis, whose fables, partly from .^Esop, partly original, were first published in 1548. The Frosch- mauseler of Rollenhagen, in 1545, is in a similar style of political and moral apologue with some liveliness of description. Fis- chart is another of the moral satirists, but extravagant in style and humour, resem- bling Rabelais, of whose romance he gave a free translation. One of his poems, Die ever, than a vague passage of D'Aubigne", who "remembered to have seen such a book sixty years ago." Though Mousset may be imaginary, he furnishes an article to Marchand, who brings together a good deal of learning as to the La- tinized French metres of the sixteenth century. Dictionnaire Historique. Passerat, Ronsard, Nicolas Eapin, and Pas- quier, tried their hands in this style. Bapin improved upon it by rhyming in Sapphics. The following stanzas are from his ode on the death of Ronsard : Vous que les ruisseaux d'Helicon frequentez, Vous que les jardins solitaires bantez, Et le fonds des bois, curieux de choisir L'ombre et le loisir. Qui vivant bien loin de la fange et du bruit, Et de ces grandeurs que le peuple poursuit, Estimez les vers que la muse apres vous Trempe de miel doux. Notre grand Bonsard, de ce monde sorti, Les efforts derniers de la Parque a senti ; Ses faveurs n'ont pu le garantir enfln Centre le destin, Faer y Qeen. been trained to carp at his genius with minute cavilling ; no recent popularity, no traditional fame (for Chaucer was rather venerated than much in the hands of the reader) interfered with the immediate re- cognition of his supremacy. The Faery Queen became at once the delight of every accomplished gentleman, the model of every poet, the solace of every scholar. In the course of the next century, by the extinction of habits derived from chivalry, and the change both of taste and language, which came on with the civil wars and the restoration, Spenser lost something of his attraction, and much more of his influence over literature ; yet, in the most phleg- matic temper of the general reader, he seems to have been one of our most popular writers. Time, however, has gradually wrought its work ; and, notwithstanding the i Twining's Translation of Aristotle's Poetics, p. 14. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 347 more imaginative cast of poetry in the present century, it may be well doubted whether the Faery Queen is as much read or as highly esteemed as in the days of Anne. It is not perhaps very difficult to account for this : those who seek the de- light that mere fiction presents to the mind (and they are the great majority of readers), have been supplied to the utmost limit of their craving, by stores accommodated to every temper, and far more stimulant than the legends of Faeryland. But we must not fear to assert, with the best judges of this and of former ages, that Spenser is still the third name in the poetical litera- ture of our country, and that he has not been surpassed, except by Dante, in any other. 1 90. If we place Tasso and Spenser apart, General parallel the English poetry of Eliza- or Italian and beth's reign will certainly English poetry. Qot enter into compe tition with that of the corresponding period in Italy. It would require not only much na- tional prejudice, but a want of genuine cesthetic discernment to put them on a level. But it may still be said that our own muses had their charms ; and even that, at the end of the century, there was a better promise for the future than beyond the Alps. We might compare the poetry of one nation to a beauty of the court, with noble and regular features, a slender form, and grace in all her steps, but wanting a genuine simplicity of countenance, and with somewhat of sickliness in the delicacy 1 Mr. Campbell has given a character of Spenser, not so enthusiastic as that to which I have alluded, but so discriminating, and, in general sound, that I shall take the liberty of extracting it from his Specimens of the British Poets, i. 125. "His command of imagery is wide, easy, and luxuriant. He threw the soul of harmony into our verse, and made it more warmly, tenderly, and magnificently descriptive than it ever was before, or, with a few excep- tions, than it has ever been since. It must cer- tainly be owned that in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power, which characterise the very greatest poets ; but we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colours of lan- guage, than in this Rubens of English poetry. His fancy teems exuberantly in minuteness of circumstance, like a fertile soil sending bloom and verdure through the utmost extremities of the foliage which it nourishes. On a compre- hensive view of the whole work, we certainly miss the charm of strength, symmetry, and rapid, or interesting progress; for though the plan which the poet designed is not completed, it is easy to see that no additional cantos could have rendered it less perplexed." of her complexion, that seems to indicate the passing away of the first season of youth ; while that of the other would rather suggest a country maiden, newly mingling with polished-society, not of per- fect lineaments, but attracting beholders by the spirit, variety, and intelligence of her expression, and rapidly wearing off the traces of rusticity, which are still some- times visible in her demeanour. SECT. V. ON LATIN POETBT. In Italy Germany France Great Bri- tain. 91. The cultivation of poetry in modern languages did not as yet Decline of Latin thin the ranks of Latin ver- poetry in Italy, sifiers. They are, on the contrary, more numerous in this period than before. Italy, indeed, ceased to produce men equal to those who had flourished in the age of Leo and Clement. Some of considerable merit will be found in the great collection, "Car- mina Hlustrium Poetarum " (Florentise, 1719) ; one too, which rigorously excluding all voluptuous poetry, makes some sacri- fice of genius to scrupulous morality. The brothers Amaltei are perhaps the best of the later period. It is not always easy, at least without more pains than I have taken, to determine the chronology of these poems, which are printed in the alphabetical order of the authors' names. But a considerable number must be later than the middle of the century. It must be owned that most of these poets employ trivial images, and do not much vary their forms of expres- sion. They often please, but rarely make an impression on the memory. They are generally, I think, harmonious ; and per- haps metrical faults, though not uncom- mon, are less so than among the Cisalpine Latinists. There appears, on the whole, an evident decline since the preceding age. 92. This was tolerably well compensated in other parts of Europe, compensated in One of the most celebrated other countries, authors is a native of Ger- Lotichiu *- many, Lotichius, whose poems were first published in 1551, and with much amend- ment in 1561. They are written in a strain of luscious elegance, not rising far above the customary level of Ovidian poetry, and certainly not often falling below it. The versification is remarkably harmonious and flowing, but with a mannerism not suffi- ciently diversified ; the first foot of each verse is generally a dactyle, which adds to the grace, but somewhat impairs the strength. Lotichius is, however, a very 348 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. elegant and classical versifier; and perhaps equal in elegy to Joannes Secundus, or any Cisalpine writer of the sixteenth century. 1 One of his elegies, on the siege of Magde- burg, gave rise to a strange notion that he predicted, by a sort of divine enthusiasm, the calamities of that city in 1G31. Bayle has spun a long note out of this fancy of some Germans. 2 But those who take the trouble, which these critics seem to have spared themselves, of attending to the poem itself, will perceive that the author concludes it with prognostics of peace in- stead of capture. It was evidently written on the siege of Magdeburg by Maurice in 1550. George Sabinus, son-in-law of Me- lanchthon, ranks second in reputation to Lotichius among the Latin poets of Ger- many during this period. 93. But France and Holland, especially Collections of * ne former, became the more Latin poetry by favoured haunts of the Latin Grater. muse. A collection in three volumes by Gruter, under the fictitious name of Eanusius Gherus, Delicise Poeta- rum Gallorum, published in 1609, contains the principal writers of the former country, some entire, some in selection. In these volumes there are about 100,000 lines ; in the Deliciae Poetarum Belgarum, a similar publication by Gruter, I find about as many ; his third collection, Deliciae Poeta- rum Italoruin, seems not so long, but I have not seen more than one volume. These poets are disposed alphabetically ; few, comparatively speaking, of the Italians seem to belong to the latter half of the century, but very much the larger pro- portion of the French and Dutch. A fourth collection, Deliciae Poetarum Ger manorum, I have never seen. All these bear the fictitious name of Gherus. Ac- cording to a list in Baillet, the number of Italian poets selected by Gruter is 203; of French, 108 ; of Dutch or Belgic, 129 ; of German, 211. 94. Among the French poets, Beza, who characters of bears in Gruter's collection ome Gaiio- the name of Adeodatus Lawn poet* Seba> Deserves high praise, though some of his early pieces are rather licentious. 3 Bellay is also an amatory 1 Baillet calls him the best poet of Germany after Kobanus Hessus. 2 Morhof, 1. i. c. 19. Bayle, art. Lotichius, note G. This seems to have been agitated after the publication of Bayle ; for I find in the cata- logue of the British Museum a disquisition, by one Krusike, Utrum Petrus Lotichius secundam obsidionem urbis Magdeburgensis praedixerit; published as late as 1703. ; Baillet, n. 1366, thinks Beza an excellent poet ; in the opinion of Baillet he has not succeeded so well in Latin as in French. The poems of Muretus are perhaps superior. Joseph Scaliger seemed to me to write Latin verse tolerably well, but he is not rated highly by Baillet and the authors whom he quotes. 2 The epigrams of Henry Stephens are remarkably prosaic and heavy. Passerat is very elegant ; his lines breathe a classical spirit, and are full of those fragments of antiquity with which Latin poetry ought always to be inlaid, but in sense they are rather feeble. 1 The epistles, on the contrary, of the Chancellor de 1'Hospital, in an easy Horatian versifi- cation, are more interesting than such insipid effusions, whether of flattery or feigned passion, as the majority of modern Latinists present. They are unequal, and fall too often into a creeping style ; but sometimes we find a spirit and nervousness of strength and sentiment worthy of his name ; and though keeping in general to the level of Horatian satire, he rises at in- tervals to a higher pitch, and wants not the skill of descriptive poetry. 95. The best of Latin poets whom France Latin poet. The Juvenilia first appeared in 1548. The later editions omitted several poems. 1 Jugemens des Savans, n. 1295. One of Scaliger's poems celebrates that immortal flea, which, on a great festival at Poitiers, having appeared on the bosom of a learned, and doubt- less beautiful young lady, Mademoiselle des Koches, was the theme of all the wits and scholars of the age. Some of their lines and those of Joe Scaliger among the number, seem designed, by the freedom they take with the fair Pucelle, to beat the intruder himself in im- pudence. See CEuvres de Pasquier, ii. 950. 2 Among the epigrams of Passerat I have found one which Amaltheus seems to have shortened and improved, retaining the idea, in his famous lines on Aeon and Leonilla. I do net know whether this has been observed. Csetera formosi, dextro est orbatus ocello Frater, et est laevo lumine capta soror. Frontibus adversis ambo si jungitis ora, Bina quidem fades, vultus at unus erit. Sed tu, Carle, tuum lumen transmitte sorori, Continue ut vestrum flat uterque Deus. Plena base fulgebit fraterna luce Diana, Hujus frater eris tu quoque, caecus amor. This is very good, and Passerat ought to have credit for the invention ; but the other is better. Though most know the lines by heart, I will insert them here : Lumine Aeon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro, Et Potis est forma vincere uterque Deos. Blande puer, lumen quod habes, concede sorori, Sic tu caecus amor, sic erit ilia Venus. I have no ground for saying that this was writtten last, except that no one would have dreamed of improving it. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 349 could boast was Sammarthanus (Sainte Marthe), known also, but Sammarthanus , - i > less favourably, in his own language. They are more classically ele- gant than any others which met my eye in Gruter's collection ; and this, I believe, is the general suffrage of critics. 1 Few didactic poems, probably, are superior to his Paedotrophia, on the nurture of children; it is not a little better, which indeed is no high praise, than the Balia of Tansillo on the same subject. 2 "We may place Sammar- thanus, therefore, at the head of the list ; and not far from the bottom of it I should class Bonnefons, or Bonifonius, a French writer of Latin verse in the very worst taste, whom it would not be worth while to mention, but for a certain degree of repu- tation he has acquired. He might also be suspected of designing to turn into ridicule the effeminacy which some Italians had in- troduced into amorous poetry. Bonifonius has closely imitated Secundus, but is much inferior to him in everything but his faults. The Latinity is full of gross and obvious errors. 3 1 Baillet, n. 1401. Some did not scruple to set him above the best Italians, and one went so far as to say that Virgil would have been envious of the Paedotrophia. 2 The following lines are a specimen of the Paedotrophia, taken much at random. Ipsaa etiam Alpinis villosae in cautibus ursae, Ipsae etiam tigres, et quicquid ubique ferarum est, Debita servandis concedunt ubera natis. Tu, quam miti animo natura benigna creavit, Exuperes feritate feras ? nee te tua tangant Pignora, nee querulos puerili e gutture planctus, Nee lacrymas miserens, opemque injusta re- cuses, Quam prsestare tuum est, et quas te pendet ab una. Cujus onus teneris haerebit dulce lacertis Infelix puer, et molli se pectore sternet ? Dulcia quis primi captabit gaudia risfts, Et primas voces et blaesae murmura linguse ? Tune f ruenda alii potes ilia relinquere demens, Tantique esse putas teretis servare papillae Integrum decus, et juvenilem in pectore florem? Lib. i. (Gruter. iii. 266.) It is singular that Sammarthanus (Sainte Marthe), though a French poet (with less suc- cess than in Latin), and one of the most accom- plished men of l}is time, and also one of the best known in literary history, is omitted in the Biograpie Universelle. Such negligences must occur in a long work ; but the editors are rather too severe on a preceding collection of biography, the Dictionnaire Historique of Chaudon and De- landine, for similar faults. Lives will be found in this much shorter publication which have been overlooked in their own. s The following lines are not an unfair speci- men of Bonifonius : 96. The Deliciae Poetarum Belgarum ap- peared to me, on rather a cursory inspection, in- Be ' gic poetl1 ' ferior to the French. Secundus out- shines his successors. Those of the younger Dousa, whose premature death was lamented by all the learned, struck me as next in merit. Dominic Baudius is harmonious and elegant, but with little originality or vigour. These poets are loose and negligent in versification, ending too often a pentameter with a polysyllable, and with feeble effect ; they have also little idea of several other common rules of Latin composition. 97. The Scots, in consequence of receiv- ing, very frequently, a con- Scots poets; tinental education, cultiv- Buchanan, ated Latin poetry with ardour. It was the favourite amusement of Andrew Mel- ville, who is sometimes a mere scribbler, at others tolerably classical and spirited. His poem on the Creation, in Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum, is very respectable. One by Hercules Eollock, on the marriage of Anne of Denmark, is better, and equal, a few names withdrawn, to any of the con- temporaneous poetry of France. The Epis- tolse Heroidum of Alexander Bodius are also good. But the most distinguished among the Latin poets of Europe in this age was George Buchanan, of whom Joseph Scaliger and several other critics have spoken in such unqualified terms, that they seem to place him even above the Italians at the beginning of the sixteenth century, i If such were their meaning, I Nympha bellula, nympha mollicella, Cujus in roseis latent labellis Meae deliciae, meas salutes, &c. Salvete aureolas mese puellse Crines aureolique crispulique, Salvete et mini vos puellas ocelli, Ocelli improbuli protervulique ; Salvete et veneris pares papillis Papillae teretesque turgidaeque ; Salvete aemula purpurae labella ; Tola denique Pancharilla salve Nunc te possideo, alma Pancharilla, Turturilla mea et columbililla. Bonifonious has been thought worthy of several editions, and has met with more favour- able judges than myself. 1 Buchananus unus est in tota Europa omnes post se relinquens in Latina poesi. Scaligerana Prima. Henry Stephens, says Maittaire, was the first who placed Buchanan at the head of all the poets of his age, and all France, Italy, and Ger- many, have since subscribed to the same opinion, and conferred that title upon him. Vitaa Steph- anorum, ii. 258. I must confess that Sainte 350 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. should crave the liberty of hesitating. The best poem of Buchanan, in my judg- ment, is that on the Sphere, than which few philosophical subjects could afford better opportunities for ornamental digres- sion. He is not, I think, in hexameters inferior to Vida, and certainly far superior to Palearius. In this poem Buchanan descants on the absurdity of the Pytha- gorean system which supposes the motion of the earth. Many good passages occur in his elegies, though I cannot reckon him equal in this metre to several of the Italians. His celebrated translation of the Psalms I must also presume to think over-praised ; l it is difficult perhaps to find one, except the 137th, with which he has taken parti- cular pains, that can be called truly elegant or classical Latin poetry. Buchanan is now and then incorrect in the quantity of syllables, as indeed is common with his contemporaries. 98. England was far from strong, since she is not to claim Buchanan, in the Latin poetry of this age. A poem in ten books, ; De Republica Instauranda, by Sir Thomas i Chaloner, published in 1579, has not re- ceived so much attention as it deserves, though the author is more judicious than imaginative, and does not preserve a very good rhythm. It may be compared with the Zodiacus Vitze of Palingenius, rather than any other Latin poem I recollect, to which, however, it is certainly inferior. Some lines relating to the English con- stitution, which, though the title leads us to expect more, forms only the subject of the last book, the rest relating chiefly to private life, will serve as a specimen of Chaloner's powers, 1 and also display the principles of our government as an ex- perienced statesman understood them. The Anglorum Prcelia, by Ockland, which was directed by an order of the Privy Council to be read exclusively in schools, is an hexameter poem, versified from the chronicles, in a tame strain, not exceed- ingly bad, but still farther from good. I recollect no other Latin verse of the queen's 1 reign worthy of notice. CHAPTER XV. HISTORY OP DRAMATIC LITERATURE, FROM 1550 TO 1600: Italian Tragedy and Comedy Pastoral Drama Spanish Drama Lope De Vega, French Dramatists Early English Drama Second ^Era ; of Marlowe and his Contemporaries Shakspeare Character of several of his Plays written within this Period. 1. MANY Italian tragedies are extant, be- i through Ginguen6 and Walker, the latter longing to these fifty years, of whom has given a few extracts. The y ' though not very generally | Marianna and Didone of Lodovico Dolce, known, nor can I speak of them except the CEdipus of Anguillara, the Merope of Marthe appears to me not inferior to Buchanan. The latter is very unequal: if we frequently meet with a few lines of great elegance, they are compensated by others of a different de- scription. i Baillet thinks it impossible that those who wish for what is solid as well as what is agree- able in poetry, can prefer any other Latin verse of Buchanan to Ids Psalms. Jugemens des Savans, n. 132S. But Baillet and several others exclude much poetry of Buchanan on account of its reflecting on popery. Baillet and Blount produce abundant testimonies to the excellence of Buchanan's verses. Le Clerc calls his trans- lation of the Psalms incomparable, Bibl. Choisie, viil. 127, and prefers it much to that by Beza, which I am not prepared to question. He ex- tols also all his other poetry, except his tragedies and the poem of the Sphere, which I have praised above the rest. So different are the humours of critics ! But as I have fairly quoted those who do not quite agree with myself, and by both number and reputation ought to weigh more with the reader, he has no right to com- plain that I mislead his taste, i Nempe tribus simul ordinibus jus esse sacratas Condendi leges patrio pro more vetustas Longo usu sic docta tullt, modus iste rogandi Haud secus ac basis hanc nostram sic constituit rem, Ut si inconsultis reliquis pars ulla superbo Tmperio quicquam statuat, seu tollat, ad omnes Quod special, posthac quo nomine laesa vocetur Publica res nobis, nihil amplius ipse laboro. Plebs primum reges statult ; jus hoc quoque nostrum est Cunctorum, ut regi faveant popularia vota ; (Si quid id est, quod plebs respondet rite rogata) Nam neque ab invitis potuit vis unica multis Extorquere dates concordi munere fasces ; Quin populus reges in publica commoda quondam Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 351 Torelli, the Semiramis of Manfredi, are necessarily bounded, in the conduct of their fable, by what was received as truth. But others, as Cinthio had done, preferred to invent their story, in deviation from the practice of antiquity. The Hadriana of Groto, the Acripanda of Decio da Orto, and the Torrismond of Tasso are of this kind. In all these we find considerable beauties of language, a florid and poetic tone, but declamatory and not well adapted to the rapidity of action, in which we seem to perceive the germ of that change from common speech to recitative, which, fixing the attention of the hearer on the person of the actor rather than on his relation to the scene, destroyed in great measure the character of dramatic representation. The Italian tragedies are deeply imbued with horror ; murder and cruelty, with all at- tending circumstances of disgust, and every pollution of crime, besides a profuse em- ployment of spectral agency, seem the chief weapons of the poet's armoury to subdue the spectator. Even the gentleness of Tasso could not resist the contagion in his Torrismond. These tragedies still retain the chorus at the termination of every act. Of the Italian comedies little can be added to what has been said before ; no comic writer of this period is comparable in re- putation to Machiavel, Ariosto, or even Aretin. 1 They are rather less licentious ; and in fact, the profligacy of Italian manners began, in consequence probably of a better example in the prelates of the church, to put on some regard for exterior decency in the latter part of the century. 2. These regular .plays, though possibly deserving of more attention than they have obtained, are by no means the most important por- tion of the dramatic literature of Italy in this age. A very different style of com- position has, through two distinguished poets, contributed to spread the fame of Italian poetry, and the language itself, through Europe. The fifteenth and six- teenth centuries were abundantly produc- tive of pastoral verse ; a style pleasing to those who are not severe in admitting its Egregios certa sub conditione paravit, Non reges populum ; namque his antiquior ille est. Nee cupiens nova jura ferat, seu condita tollat, Non prius ordinibus regni de more vocatis, Ut procerum populique rato stent ordine vota, Omnibus et positum sciscat conjuncta voluntas. De Rep. Inst. 1. 10. 1 Ginguene", vol. vi. Pastoral drama. conventional fictions. The pastoral dia- logue had not much difficulty in expanding to the pastoral drama. In the Sicilian gossips of Theocritus, and in some other ancient eclogues, new interlocutors super- vene, which is the first germ of a regular action. Pastorals of this kind had been written, and possibly represented, in Spain, such as the Mingo Rebulgo, in the middle of the fifteenth century. 1 Gin- guene has traced the progress of similar representations, becoming more and more dramatic, in Italy. 2 But it is admitted that the honour of giving the first example of a true pastoral fable to the theatre was due to Agostino Beccari of Ferrara. This piece, named II Sagrifizio, was acted at that court in 1554. Its priority in a line which was to become famous appears to be its chief merit. In this, as in earlier and more simple attempts at pastoral dia- logue, the choruses were set to music. 3 3. This pleasing, though rather effemi- nate, species of poetry was carried, more than twenty Amlntaof 80 - years afterwards, one or two unimportant imitations of Beccari having intervened, to a point of excellence, which perhaps it has never surpassed, in the Aminta of Tasso. Its admirable author was then living at the court of Ferrara, yielding up his heart to those seductive illusions of finding happiness in the favour of the great, and even in ambitious and ill-as- sorted love, which his sounder judgment already saw through, the Aminta bearing witness to both states of mind. In the character of Tirsi he has drawn himself, and seems once (though with the proud consciousness of genius), to hint at that ec- centric melancholy, which soon increased so fatally for his peace. Ne gia cose scrivea degne di riso, Se ben cose facea degne di riso. The language of all the interlocutors in the Aminta is alike, nor is the satyr less ele- gant or recondite than the learned shep- herds. It is in general too diffuse and florid, too uniform and elaborate, for pas- sion ; especially if considered dramatically, in reference to the story and the speakers. But it is to be read as what it is, a beauti- ful poem ; the delicacy and gracefulness of many passages rendering them exponents of the hearer's or reader's feelings, though they may not convey much sympathy with the proper subject. The death of Aminta, however, falsely reported to Sylvia, leads to a truly pathetic scene. It is to be ob- 1 Bouterwek's Spanish Literature, i. 129. 2 vi. 327 et post. 3 Id. vi. 332. 352 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. served that Tasso was more formed by classical poetry, and more frequently an imitator of it, than any earlier Italian. The beauties of the Aminta are in great measure due to Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Anacreon, and Moschus. 4. The success of Tasso's Aminta pro- Pattor Fido of duced the Pastor Fido of Gnarini. Guarini, himself long in the service of the duke of Ferrara, where he had become acquainted with Tasso ; though in consequence of some dissatisfaction at that court, he sought the patronage of the duke of Savoy. The Pastor Fido was first represented at Turin in 1585, but seems not to have been printed for some years afterwards. It was received with general applause ; but the obvious resemblance to Tasso's pastoral drama could not fail to excite a contention between their respec- tive advocates, which long survived the mortal life of the two poets. Tasso, it has been said, on reading the Pastor Fido, was content to observe that, if his rival had not read the Aminta, he would not have ex- celled it. If his modesty induced him to say no more than this, very few would be induced to dispute his claim ; the char- acters, the sentiments are evidently imi- tated ; and in one celebrated instance a whole chorus is parodied with the preserva- tion of every rhyme. 1 But it is far more questionable whether the palm of superior merit, independent of originality, should be awarded to the later poet. More ele- gance and purity of taste belong to the Aminta, more animation and variety to the Pastor Fido. The advantage in point of morality, which some have ascribed to Tasso, is not very perceptible ; Guarini may transgress rather more in some pas- sages, but the tone of the Aminta, in strange opposition to the pure and pious life of its author, breathes nothing but the avowed laxity of an Italian court. The Pastor Fido may be considered, in a much greater degree than the Aminta, a proto- type of the Italian opera ; not that it was spoken in recitative; but the short and rapid expressions of passion, the broken dialogue, the frequent changes of person- ages and incidents, keep the effect of re- presentation and of musical accompaniment continually before the reader's imagination. Any one who glances over a few scenes of the Pastor Fido will, I think, perceive that it is the very style which Metastasio, and inferior coadjutors of musical expres- sion, have rendered familiar to our ears. 5. The great invention, which though 1 This is that beginning, O bella eta dell' oro. chiefly connected with the history of music and of society, was by no Italian ODera means without influence upon literature, the melodrame, usually called the Italian opera, belongs to the very last years of this century. Italy, long conspicuous for such musical science and skill as the Middle Ages possessed, had fallen, in the first part of the sixteenth century, very short of some other countries, and especially of the Netherlands, from which the courts of Europe, and even of the Italian princes, borrowed their per- formers and their instructors. A revolu- tion in church music, which had become particularly dry and pedantic, was brought about by the genius of Palestrina about 1560 ; and the art, in all its departments, was cultivated with an increased zeal for all the rest of the century. 1 In the splen- dour that environed the houses of Medici and Este, in the pageants they loved to exhibit, music, carried to a higher perfec- tion by foreign artists, and by the natives that now came forward to emulate them, became of indispensable importance; it had already been adapted to dramatic re- presentation in choruses ; interludes and pieces written for scenic display were now given with a perpetual accompaniment, partly to the songs, partly to the dance and pantomime which intervened between them. 2 Finally, Ottavio Rinuccini, a poet of considerable genius, but who is said to have known little of musical science, by meditating on what is found in ancient writers on the accompaniment to their dramatic dialogue, struck out the idea of recitative. This he first tried in the pastoral of Dafne, represented privately in 1594 ; and its success led him to the com- 1 Ranke, with the musical sentiment of a German, ascribes a wonderful influence in the revival of religion after the middle of the cen- tury to the compositions of Palestrina. Church music had become so pedantic and technical that the council of Trent had some doubts whether it should be retained. Pius IV. ap- pointed a commission to examine this question, who could arrive at no decision. The artists said it was impossible to achieve what the church required, a coincidence of expression between the words and the music. Palestrina appeared at this time, and composed the mass of Marcellus, which settled the dispute forever. Other works by himself and his disciples fol- lowed, which elevated sacred music to the high- est importance among the accessories of religious worship. Die Papste, vol. i. p. 498. But a large proportion of the performers, I apprehend, were Germans, especially hi theatrical music. 2 Gingue'ne, vol. vi., has traced the history of the melodrame with much pains Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 353 position of what he entitled a tragedy for music, on the story of Eurydice. This was represented at the festival on the marriage of Mary of Medicis in 1600. 'The most astonishing effects," says Gin- guene, "that the theatrical music of the greatest masters has produced, in the per- fection of the science, are not comparable to those of this representation, which ex- hibited to Italy the creation of a new art." 1 It is, however, a different question whether this immense enhancement of the powers of music, and consequently of its popularity, has been favourable to the de- velopment of poetical genius in this species of composition ; and in general it may be said that, if music has, on some occasions, been a serviceable handmaid, and even a judicious monitress, to poetry, she has been apt to prove but a tyrannical mistress. In the melodrame, Corniani well observes, poetry became her vassal, and has been ruled with a despotic sway. 6. The struggle that seemed arduous The national in the earlier ? art f thls taste revives in century between the clas- tne Spanish sical and national schools of drama - dramatic poetry in Spain, proved of no long duration. The latter became soon decisively superior ; and be- fore the end of the present period, that kingdom was in possession of a peculiar and extensive literature, which has at- tracted the notice of Europe, and has enriched both the French theatre and our own. The spirit of the Spanish drama is far different from that which animated the Italian writers; there is not much of Machiavel in their comedy, and still less of Cinthio in their tragedy. They aban- doned the Greek chorus, which still fet- tered their contemporaries, and even the division into five acts, which later poets, in other countries, have not ventured to renounce. They gave more complication to the fable, sought more unexpected changes of circumstance, were not solici- tous in tragedy to avoid colloquial lan- guage or familiar incidents, showed a pre- ference to the tragi-comic intermixture of light with serious matter, and cultivated grace in poetical diction more than vigour. The religious mysteries, once common in other parts of Europe, were devoutly kept up in Spain ; and under the name of Autos Sacra- mentales, make no inconsiderable portion of the writings of their chief dramatists. 2 1 P. 474. Corniani, vii. 31, speaks highly of the poetical abilities of Rinuceini. See also Galluzzi, Storia del Gran Ducato, v. 547. 2 Bouterwek. Lope de Vega. 7. Andres, favourable as he is to his country, is far from enthusiastic in bis praises of the Spanish theatre. Its exu- berance has been its ruin ; no one, he justly remarks, can read some thousand plays in the hope of finding a few that are tolerable. Andres, however, is not exempt from a strong prejudice in favour of the French stage. He admits the ease and harmony of the Spanish versification, the purity of the style, the abundance of the thoughts, and the ingenious complexity of the incidents. This is peculiarly the merit of the Spanish comedy, as its great defect, in his opinion, is the want of truth and delicacy in the delineation of the passions, and of power to produce a vivid impression on the reader. The best work, he con- cludes rather singularly, of the comic poets of Spain has been the French theatre. 1 8. The most renowned of these is Lope de Vega, so many of whose dramas appeared within the present century, that although, like Shak- speare, he is equally to be claimed by the next, we may place his name, once for all, in this period. Lope de Vega is called by Cervantes a prodigy of nature; and such he may justly be reckoned ; not that we can ascribe to him a sublime genius, or a mind abounding with fine original thought, but his fertility of invention and readiness of versifying are beyond His extraordi- competition. It was said nary fertility, foolishly, if meant as praise, of Shak- speare, and we may be sure untruly, that he never blotted a line. This may also be presumed of Vega. " He required," says Bouterwek, " no more than four and twenty hours to write a versified drama of three acts in redondillas, interspersed with sonnets, tercets, and octaves, and from beginning to end abounding in intrigues, prodigies, or interesting situations. This astonishing facility enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre with upwards of 2000 original dramas, of which not more than 300 have been preserved by printing. In general the theartrical manager carried away what he wrote before he had even time to revise it ; and immediately a fresh applicant would arrive to prevail on him to commence a new piece. He sometimes wrote a play in the short space of three or four hours." ..." Arithmetical cal- culations have been employed in order to arrive at a just estimate of Lope de Vega's facility in poetic composition. According to his own testimony, he wrote on an average five sheets a day ; it has therefore i Vol. v. p. 138. 354 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. been computed that the number of sheets which he composed during his life must have amounted to 133,225 ; and that, allowing for the deduction of a small portion of prose, Lope de Vega must have written upwards of 21,300,000 verses. Nature would have overstepped her bounds and have produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this rapidity of invention and composition, attained per- fection in any department of literature." 1 9. This peculiar gift of rapid composi- Hl. vacation. tion wU1 a PP ear m re 6X ' traordinary when we attend to the nature of Lope's versification, very unlike the irregular lines of our old drama, which it is not perhaps difficult for a practised hand to write or utter extem- poraneously. " The most singular circum- stance attending his verse," says Lord Holland, "is the frequency and difficulty of the tasks which he imposes on himself. At every step we meet with acrostics, echoes, and compositions of that perverted and laborious kind, from attempting which another author would be deterred by the trouble of the undertaking, if not by the little real merit attending the achieve- ment. They require no genius, but they exact much time ; which one should think that such a voluminous poet could little afford to waste. But Lope made a parade of his power over the vocabulary : he was not contented with displaying the various order in which he could dispose the syl- lables and marshal the rhymes of his lan- guage ; but he also prided himself upon the celerity with which he brought them to go through the most whimsical but the most difficult evolutions. He seems to have been partial to difficulties for the gratification of surmounting them." This trifling ambition is usual among second- rate poets, especially in a degraded state of public taste ; but it may be questionable, whether Lope de Vega ever performed feats of skill more surprising in this way than some of the Italian improvisatori, who have been said to carry on at the same time three independent sonnets, uttering, in their un- premeditated strains, a line of each in alternate succession. There is reason to believe, that their extemporaneous poetry, is as good as anything in Lope de Vega. 1 P. 361-363. Montalvan, Lope's friend, says that he wrote 1SOO plays and 400 autos. In a poem of his own, written in 1609, he claims 433 plays, and he continued afterwards to write for the stage. Those that remain and have been collected in twenty-five volumes are reckoned at about 300. 10. The immense popularity of this poet, not limited, among the peo- ple itself, to his own age, **' bespeaks some attention from criticism. " The Spaniards who affect fine taste in modern times," says Schlegel, " speak with indifference of their old national poets ; but the people retain a lively attachment to them, and their productions are received on the stage, at Madrid, or at Mexico, with passionate enthusiasm." It is true that foreign critics have not in general pro- nounced a very favourable judgment of Lope de Vega. But a writer of such pro- digious fecundity is ill appreciated by single plays ; the whole character of his composition manifests that he wrote for the stage, and for the stage of his own country, rather than for the closet of a foreigner. His writings are divided into spiritual plays, heroic and historical comedies, most of them taken from the annals and traditions of Spain, and lastly, comedies of real life, or, as they were called, "of the hat and sword," (capa y espada) a name answering to the comadia togata of the Roman stage. These have been somewhat better known than the rest, and have, in several instances, found their way to our own theatre, by suggesting plots and incidents to our older writers. The historian of Spanish literature, to whom I am so much indebted, has given a character of these comedies, in which the English reader will perhaps recognise much that might be said also of Beaumont and Fletcher. 11. " Lope de Vega's comedies de Capa y Espada, or those which character of MB may properly be denomi- comdie. nated his dramas of intrigue, though want- ing in the delineation of character, are romantic pictures of manners, drawn from real life. They present, in their peculiar style, no less interest with respect to situation than his heroic comedies, and the same irregularity in the composition of the scenes. The language, too, is alternately elegant and vulgar, sometimes highly poetic, and sometimes, though versified, reduced to the level of the dullest prose. Lope de Vega seems scarcely to have be- stowed a thought on maintaining pro- bability in the succession of the different scenes ; ingenious complication is with him the essential point in the interest of his situations. Intrigues are twisted and entwined together, until the poet, in order to bring his piece to a conclusion, without ceremony cuts the knots he can- not untie, and then he usually brings as Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 355 many couples together as he can by any possible contrivance match. He has scat- tered through his pieces occasional reflec- tions and maxims of prudence ; but any genuine morality, which might be conveyed through the stage, is wanting, for its intro- duction would have been inconsistent with that poetic freedom on which the dramatic interest of the Spanish comedy is founded. His aim was to paint what he observed, not what he would have approved, in the manners of the fashionable world of his age ; but he leaves it to the spectator to draw his own inferences." 1 12. An analysis of one of these comedies Tragedy of Don from real life is given by sancho Ortiz. Bouterwek, and another by Lord Holland. The very few that I have read appear lively and diversified, not un- pleasing in the perusal, but exciting little interest and rapidly forgotten. Among the heroic pieces of Lope de Vega a high place appears due to the Estrella de Sevilla, published with alterations by Triquero, under the name of Don Sancho Ortiz. 2 It resembles the Cid in its subject. The king, Sancho the Brave, having fallen in love with Estrella, sister of Don Bustos Tabera, and being foiled by her virtue, 3 and by the vigilance of her brother, who had drawn his sword upon him, as in disguise he was attempting to penetrate into her apartment, resolves to have him murdered, and per- suades Don Sancho Ortiz, a soldier full of courage and loyalty, by describing the attempt made on his person, to undertake the death of one whose name is contained in a paper he gives him. Sancho is the accepted lover of Estrella, and is on that day to espouse her with her brother's con- sent. He reads the paper, and after a con- flict which is meant to be pathetic, but in our eyes is merely ridiculous, determines, as might be supposed, to keep his word to his sovereign. The shortest course is to contrive a quarrel with Bustos, which pro- duces a duel, wherein the latter is killed. The second act commences with a pleasing scene of Estrella's innocent delight in her 1 Bouterwek, p. 375. 2 In Lord Holland's Life of Lope de Vega, a more complete analysis than what I have offered is taken from the original play. I have followed the rifaccimento of Triquero, which is substantially the same. 3 Lope de Vega has borrowed for Estrella the well-known answer of a lady to a king of France, told with several variations of names, and pos- sibly true of none. Soy (she says), Para esposa vuestra poco, Paro dama vuestra mucho. prospect of happiness ; but the body of her brother is now brought in, and the mur- derer, who had made no attempt to conceal himself, soon appears in custody. His ex- amination before the judges, who endeavour in vain to extort one word from him in his defence, occupies part of the third act. The king, anxious to save his life, but still more so to screen his own honour, requires only a pretext to pardon the offence. But the noble Castilian disdains to save himself by falsehood, and merely repeats that he had not slain his friend without cause, and that the action was atrocious, but not criminal. Dice que fue atrocidad, Pero que no fue delito. 13. In this embarrassment Estrella ap- pears, demanding, not the execution of justice on her brother's murderer, but that he should be delivered up to her. The king, with his usual feebleness, consents to this request, observing that he knows by experience it is no new thing for her to be cruel. She is, however, no sooner departed with the royal order, than the wretched prince repents, and determines to release Sancho, making compensation to Estrella by marrying her to a ricohombre of Castile. The lady meantime reaches the prison, and in an interview with her unfortunate lover, offers him his liberty, which by the king's concession is in her power. He is not to be outdone in generous sentiments, and steadily declares his resolution to be exe cuted. In the fifth act this heroic emula- tion is reported by one who had overheard it to the king. All the people of this city, he replies, are heroes, and outstrip nature herself by the greatness of their souls. The judges now enter, and with sorrow report their sentence that Sancho must suffer death. But the king is at length roused, and publicly acknowledges that the death of Bustos had been perpetrated by his command. The president of the tribunal remarks that, as the king had given the order, there must doubtless have been good cause. Nothing seems to remain but the union of the lovers. Here, however, the high Castilian principle once more displays itself. Estrella refuses to be united to one she tenderly loves, but who has brought such a calamity Into her family ; and San- cho himself, willingly releasing her en- gagement, admits that their marriage under siich circumstances would be a perpetual torment. The lady therefore chooses, what is always at hand in Catholic fiction, the dignified retirement of a nunnery, and the lover departs to dissipate his regrets in the Moorish war. 356 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 14. Notwithstanding all in the plan and conduct of this piece, which neither our own state of manners, nor the laws of any Bound criticism can tolerate, it is very conceivable that, to the factitious taste of a Spanish audience in the age of Lope de Vega, it would have appeared excellent. The character of Estrella is truly noble, and much superior in interest to that of Chimene. Her resentment is more genuine, and free from that hypocrisy which, at least in my judgment, renders the other almost odious and contemptible. Instead of imploring the condemnation of him she loves, it is as her own prisoner that she demands Sancho Ortiz, and this for the generous purpose of setting him at liberty. But the great superiority of the Spanish play is at the close. Chimene accepts the hand stained with her father's blood, while Estrella sacrifices her own wishes to a sen- timent which the manners of Spain, and we may add, the laws of natural decency required. 15. The spiritual plays of Lope de Vega His spiritual abound with as many incon- piays. gruous and absurd circum- stances as the mysteries of our forefathers. The Inquisition was politic enough to tolerate, though probably the sternness of Castilian orthodoxy could not approve, these strange representations which, after all, had the advantage of keeping the people in mind of the devil, and of the efficacy of holy water in chasing him away. But the regular theatre, according to Lord Holland, has always been forbidden in Spain by the church, nor do the kings frequent it. 16. Two tragedies by Bermudez, both on Numancia of the story of Ines de Castro, Cervantes. are written on the ancient model, with a chorus, and much simplicity of fable. They are, it is said, in a few Rcenes impressive and pathetic, but inter- rupted by passages of flat and tedious monotony. 1 Cervantes was the author of many dramatic pieces ; some of which are so indifferent as to have been taken for in- tentional satires upon the bad taste of his times, so much of it do they display. One or two, however, of his comedies have obtained some praise from Schlegel and Bouterwek. But his tragedy of Numancia stands apart from his other dramas, and, as I conceive, from anything on the Spanish stage. It is probably one of his earlier works, but was published for the first time in 1784. It is a drama of extraordinary power, and may justify the opinion of Bouterwek that, in different circumstances, 1 Bouterwek, 290. the author of Don Quixote might have been the ^Eschylus of Spain. If terror and pity are the inspiring powers of tragedy, few have been for the time more under their influence than Cervantes in his Nu- mancia. The story of that devoted city, its long resistance to Rome, its exploits of victorious heroism, that foiled repeatedly the consular legions, are known to every one. Cervantes has opened his tragedy at the moment when Scipio ^Emilianus, en- closing the city with a broad trench, deter- mines to secure its reduction by famine. The siege lasted five months, when the Numantines, exhausted by hunger, but resolute never to yield, setting fire to a pile of their household goods, after slaying their women and children, cast themselves into the flame. Every circumstance that can enhance horror, the complaints of fam- ished children, the desperation of mothers, the sinister omens of rejected sacrifice, the appalling incantations that reanimate a recent corpse to disclose the secrets of its prison-house, are accumulated with pro- gressive force in this tremendous drama. The love-scenes of Morando and Lira, two young persons whose marriage had been frustrated by the public calamity, though some incline to censure them, contain no- thing beyond poetical truth, and add, in my opinion, to its pathos, while they some- what relieve its severity. 17. Few, probably, would desire to read the Numaucia a second time. But it ought to be remembered that the historical truth of this tragedy, though, as in the Ugolino of Dante, it augments the paitifulness of the impression, is the legitimate apology of the author. Scenes of agony, and im- ages of unspeakable sorrow, when idly ac- cumulated by an inventor at his ease, as in many of our own older tragedies, and in much of modern fiction, give offence to a reader of just taste, from their needlessly trespassing upon his sensibility. But in that which excites an abhorrence of cruelty and oppression, or which, as the Numancia, commemorates ancestral fortitude, there is a moral power, for the sake of which tho sufferings of sympathy must not be flinched from. 18. The Numancia is divided into four jornadas or acts, each containing changes of scene, as on our own stage. The metre, by a most extraordinary choice, is the regular octave stanza, ill-adapted as that is to the drama, intermixed with the fa- vourite redondilla. The diction, though sometimes what would seem tame and diffuse to us, who are occust med to a Literature of Europe from 1550/0 1600. 357 bolder and more figurative strain in tragedy than the southern nations require, rises often with the subject to nervous and im- pressive poetry. There are, however, a few sacrifices to the times. In a finely im- agined prosopopoeia, where Spain, crowned with towers, appears on the scene to ask the Duero what hope there could be for Numancia, the river-god, rising with his tributary streams around him, after bid- ding her despair of the city, goes into a tedious consolation, in which the triumphs of Charles and Philip are specifically, and with as much tameness as adulation, brought forward as her future recompense. A much worse passage occurs in the fourth act, where Lira, her brother lying dead of famine, and her lover of his wounds before her, implores death from a soldier who passes over the stage. He replies that some other hand must perform that office ; he was born only to adore her. 1 This frigid and absurd line, in such a play by such a poet, is an almost incredible proof of the mischief which the Provencal writers, with their hyperbolical gallantry, had done to European poetry. But it is just to observe that this is the only faulty passage, and that the language of the two lovers is sim- ple, tender, and pathetic. The material accompaniments of representation on the Spanish theatre seem to have been full as defective as on our own. The Numancia is printed with stage directions, almost sufficient to provoke a smile in the midst of its withering horrors. 19. The mysteries which had delighted French theatre ; the Parisians for a century Jodeiie. an( j a jjjjf were suddenly forbidden by the parliament as indecent and profane in 1548. Four years only elapsed before they were replaced, though not on the same stage, by a different style of representation. Whatever obscure at- tempts at a regular dramatic composition may have been traced in France at an earlier period, Jodelle was acknowledged by his contemporaries to be the true father of their theatre. His tragedy of Cleopatre, and his comedy of La Rencontre, were both represented for the first time before Henry II. in 1552. Another comedy, Eugene, and a tragedy on the story of Dido, were pub- lished about the same time. Pasquier, who tells us this, was himself a witness of the representation of the two former. 2 1 Otra mano, otro hierro ha da acabaros, Que yo solo nacio por adoraros. 2 Cette comedie, et la Cleopatre furent repre- sentees devant le roy Henri a Paris en 1'Hostel de Rheims, avec un grand applaudissement de The Cleopatre, according to Fontenelle, is very simple, without action or stage effect, full of long speeches, and with a chorus at the end of every act. The style is often low and ludicrous, which did not prevent this tragedy, the first-fruits of a theatre which was to produce Racine, from being received with vast applause. There is in reality, amidst these raptures that fre- quently attend an infant literature, some- thing of an undefined presage of the future which should hinder us from thinking them quite ridiculous. The comedy of Eugene is in verse, and, in the judgment of Fontenelle, much superior to the tra- gedies of Jodelle. It has more action, a dialogue better conceived, and some traits of humour and nature. This play, how- ever, is very immoral and licentious ; and it may be remarked that some of its satire falls on the vices of the clergy. 2 20. The Agamemnon of Toutain, pub- lished in 1557, is taken from Seneca, and several other pieces about the same time or soon afterwards, seem also to be translations. 2 The Jules Cesar of Grevin was repre- sented in 1560. 3 It contains a few lines that La Harpe has extracted, as not with- out animation. But the first tragedian that deserves much notice after Jodelle was Robert Garnier, whose eight tragedies were collectively printed in 1580. They toute la compagnie : et depuis encore au college de Boncourt, ou toutes les fenestres estoient tapisse'es d'une infinite de personnages d'hon- neur, et la cour si pleine d'escoliers que lea portes du college en regorgeoient. Je le dis comme celuy qui y estois present, avec le grand Tornebus en une mesme chambre. Et les en- treparleurs estoient tous homines de nom. Car meme Kemy Belleau et Jean de la Peruse jouoient les principaux roullets. Suard tells us, that the old troop of performers, the Con- freres de la Passion, whose mysteries had been interdicted, availed themselves of an exclusive privilege granted to them by Charles VI. in 1400, to prevent the representation of the Cleo- patre by public actors. Jodelle was therefore forced to have it performed by his friends. See Recherches de la France, 1. vii. c. 6. Fonte- nelle, Hist, du Theatre Francois (in CEuvres de Font. edit. 1776) vol. iii. p. 52. Beauchamps, Recherches sur les Theatres de France. Suard, Melanges de Literature, vol. iv. p. 59. The last writer, in what he calls Coup d'CEil sur 1'His- toire de 1' Ancien Theatre Fran<;ais (in the same volume) has given an amusing and instructive sketch of the French drama down to Corneille. 1 Fontenelle, p. 61. 2 Beauchamps. Suard. 3 Suard, p. 73. La Harpe, Cours de Litera- ture. Grevin also wrote comedies which were very licentious, as those of the 16th century generally were in France and Italy, and were not in England, or, I believe, in Spain. 358 Literattire of Europe from 1550 to 1600. are chiefly taken from mythology or an- cient history, and are evidently framed according to a standard of taste which has ever since prevailed on the French stage. But they retain some characteristics of the classical drama which were soon afterwards laid aside; the chorus is heard between every act, and a great portion of the events is related by messengers. Gamier makes little change in the stories he found in Seneca or Euripides ; nor had love yet been thought essential to tragedy. Though his speeches are immeasurably long, and over- laden with pompous epithets, though they have often much the air of bad imitations of Seneca's manner, from whom probably, if any one should give himself the pains to make the comparison, some would be found to have been freely translated, we must acknowledge that in many of his couplets the reader perceives a more genuine tone of tragedy, and the germ of that artificial style which reached its perfection in far greater men than Gamier. In almost every line there is some fault, either against taste or the present rules of verse ; yet there are many which a good poet would only have had to amend and polish. The account of Polyxena's death in La Troade is very well translated from the Hecuba. But his best tragedy seems to be Les Juives, which is wholly his own, and displays no inconsiderable powers of poetical description. In this I am con- firmed by Fontenelle, who says that this tragedy has many noble and touching pas- sages ; in which he has been aided by taking much from scripture, the natural sublimity of which cannot fail to produce an effect. 1 We find, however, in Les Juives a good deal of that propensity to exhibit cruelty, by which the Italian and English theatres were at that time distin- 1 P. 71. Suard who dwells much longer on Gamier than either Fontenelle or La Harpe, observes, as I think, with justice : Les ouvrages de Gamier meritent de faire epoque dans 1'his- toire du theatre, non par la beaute de ses plans ; il n'en faut chercher de bons dans aucune des tragedies du seizieme siecle ; mais les sentimens qu'il exprime sont nobles, son style a souvent de 1'elevation sans endure et beaucoup de sensi- bilite sa versification est facile et souvent liar- monieuse. C'est lui qui a fixe 1 d'une maniere invariable la succession alternative des rimes masculines et feminines. Knfin c'est le premier des tragiques Francais dont le lecture put etre ntile a ceux qui voudraient suivre la mgme car- riere ; on a mSme pretendu quo son Hyppolite avait beaucoup aide 1 Racine dans la composition de I'hi-dre. Mais s'il 1'a aidd, c'est comme 1'Hyppolite de Seneque, dont celui de Gamier n'est qu' une imitation, p. 81. guished. Pasquier says, that every one gave the prize to Gamier above all who had preceded him, and after enumerating his eight plays, expresses his opinion that they would be admired by posterity. J 21. "We may consider the comedies of Larivey, published in 1579, : comedies of as making a sort of epoch in Larivey the French drama. This writer, of whom little is known, but that he was a native of Champagne, prefers a claim to be the first who chose subjects for comedy from real life in France (forgetting in this those of Jodelle), and the first who wrote original dramas in prose. His comedies are six in number, to which three were added in a subsequent edition, which is very rare. a These six are Le Laquais, La Veuve, Les Esprits, Le Morfondu, Les Jaloux, and Les Ecoliers. Some of them are partly bor- rowed from Plautus and Terence ; and in general they belong to that school, present- ing the usual characters of the Roman stage, with no great attempt at originality. But the dialogue is conducted with spirit ; and in many scenes, especially in the play called Le Laquais, which, though the most free in all respects, appears to me the most comic and amusing, would remind any reader of the minor pieces of Moliere, be- ing conceived, though not entirely exe- cuted, with the same humour. All these comedies of Larivey are highly licentious, both in their incidents and language. It is supposed in the Biographic Universelle that Moliere and Regnard borrowed some ideas from Larivey ; but both the instances alleged will be found in Plautus. 22. No regular theatre was yet estab- lished in France. These Theatres in plays of Gamier, Larivey, Pari. and others of that class, were represented either in colleges or in private houses. But the Confreres de la Passion, and another company, the Enfans de Sans Souci, whom they admitted into a partici- pation of their privilege, used to act gross and stupid farces, which few respectable persons witnessed. After some unsuccess- ful attempts, two companies of regular ilbid. 2 The first edition itself, I conceive, is not very common ; for few writers within my know- ledge have mentioned Larivey. Fontenelle, I think, could not have read his plays, or ha would have give him a place in his brief sketch of the early French stage, as the father of comedy in prose. La Harpe was too superficial to know anything about him. Beauchamps, voL ii. p. 68, acknowledges his pretensions, and he has a niche in the Biographic Universelle. Suard has also done him some justice. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 359 actors appeared near the close of the cen- tury ; one, in 1598, having purchased the exclusive right of the Confreres de la Passion, laid the foundations of the Comedie Francaise, so celebrated and so permanent ; the other, in 1600, established by its permission a second theatre in the Marais. But the pieces they represented were still of a very low class. 1 23. England at the commencement of this period could boast of e "' little besides the scripture mysteries, already losing ground, but which have been traced down to the close of the century, and the more popular moral plays, which furnished abundant opportunities for satire on the times, for ludicrous humour, and for attacks on the old or the new religion. The latter, how- ever, were kept in some restraint by the Tudor government. These moralities gra- dually drew nearer to regular comedies, and sometimes had nothing but an abstract name given to an individual, by which they could be even apparently distinguished from such. "We have already mentioned Ralph Royster Doyster, written by Udal in the reign of Henry VIII., as the earliest English comedy in a proper sense, so far as our negative evidence warrants such a position. Mr. Collier has recovered four acts of another, called Misogonus, which he refers to the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. 2 It is, like the former, a picture of London life. A more celebrated piece is Gammar Gammar Gurton's Needle, Gorton's Needle, commonly ascribed to John Still, afterwards bishop of Bath and "Wells. No edition is known before 1575, but it seems to have been represented in Christ's College at Cambridge, not far from the year 1565. 3 It is impossible for anything to be meaner in subject and characters than this strange farce ; but the author had some vein of humour, and writing neither for fame nor money, but to make light-hearted boys laugh, and to laugh with them, and that with as little gross- ness as the story would admit, is not to be judged with severe criticism. He comes however below Udal, and perhaps the 1 Suard. 2 Hist, of Dramatic Poetry, ii. 464. 3 Mr. Collier agrees with Malone in assigning this date, but it is merely conjectural, as one rather earlier might be chosen with equal pro- bability. Still is said in the biographies to have bBen born in 1543 ; but this date seems to be too low. He became Margaret's professor of divinity in 1570. Gammar Gurton's Needle must have been written while the protestant establishment, if it existed, was very recent, for the parson is evidently a papist. writer of Misogonus. The Supposes of George Gascoyne, acted at Gray's Inn in 1566, is but a translation in prose from the Suppositi of Ariosto. It seems to have been published in the same year. 1 24. But the progress of literature soon excited in one person an oorboducof emulation of the ancient Sackviile. drama. Sackviile has the honour of having led the way. His tragedy of Gorboduc was represented at "Whitehall before Eliza- beth in 1562. 2 It is written in what was thought the classical style, like the Italian tragedies of the same age, but more inarti- ficial and unimpassioned. The speeches are long and sententious ; the action, though sufficiently full of incident, passes chiefly in narration ; a chorus, but in the same blank verse measure as the rest, divides the acts ; the unity of place seems to be preserved, but that of time is mani- festly transgressed. The story of Gorbo- duc, which is borrowed from our fabulous British legends, is as full of slaughter as was then required for dramatic purposes ; but the characters are clearly drawn and consistently sustained ; the political maxims grave and profound ; the language not glow- ing or passionate, but vigorous ; and upon the whole it is evidently the work of a power- ful mind, though inaless poetical mood than was displayed in the Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates. Sackviile, it has been said, had the assistance of Norton in this tragedy; but "Warton has decided against this sup- position from internal evidence. 3 25. The regular form adopted in Gor- boduc, though not wholly Preference given without imitators, seems to to the irregular have had little success with form - the public. 4 An action passing visibly on 1 Warton, iv. 304. Collier, iii. 6. The ori- ginal had been first published in prose, 1525, and from this Gascoyne took his translation, adopting some of the changes Ariosto had in- troduced when he turned it into verse ; but he has invented little of his own. Ibid. 2 The 18th of January, 1561, to which date its representation is referred by Mr. Collier, seems to be 1562, according to the style of the age ; and this tallies best with what is said in the edition of 1571, that it had been played about nine years before. See Warton, iv. 179. 3 Hist, of Engl. Poetry, iv. 194. Mr. Collier supports the claim of Norton to the first three acts, which would much reduce Sackville's glory, ii. 481. I incline to Warton's opinion, grounded upon the identity of style, and the superiority of the whole tragedy to anything we can certainly ascribe to Norton, a coadjutor of Sternhold in the old version of the Psalms, and a contributor to the Mirror of Magistrates. 4 The Jocasta of Gascoyne, translated with 360 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. First theatres. the stage, instead of a frigid narrative, a copious intermixture of comic buffoonery with the gravest story, were requisites with which no English audience would dis- pense. Thus Edwards treated the story of Damon and Pythias, which, though accord- ing to the notions of those times, it was too bloodless to be called a tragedy at all, be- longed to the elevated class of dramatic compositions. 1 Several other objects were taken from ancient history ; this indeed became the usual source of the fable ; but if we may judge from those few that have survived, they were all constructed on the model which the mysteries had accustomed our ancestors to admire. 26. The office of Master of the Revels, in whose province it lay to regulate, among other a- musements of the court, the dramatic shows of various kinds, was established in 1546. The inns of court vied with the royal palace in these representations, and Elizabeth sometimes honoured the former with her presence. On her visits to the universities, a play was a constant part of the entertain- ment. Fifty-two names, though nothing more, of dramas acted at court under the superintendence of the Master of the Revels, between 1568 and 1580, are preserved.2 In 1574 a patent was granted to the Earl of Leicester's servants to act plays in any part of England, and in 1576 they erected the first public theatre in Blackfriars. It will be understood, that the servants of the Earl of Leicester were a company under his protection ; as we apply the word, Her Majesty's Servants, at this day, to the per- formers of Drury Lane. 3 27. As we come down towards 1580, a considerable freedom, in adding, omitting, and transposing, from the Phcenissae of Euripides, was represented at Gray's Inn in 1566. Warton, iv. 196. Collier, iii. 7. Gascoyne had the assis- tance of two obscure poets in this play. 1 Collier, iii. 2. 2 Collier, i. 1 93, et post, iii. 24. Of these fifty- two plays eighteen were upon classical subjects, historical or fabulous, twenty-one taken from modern history or romance, seven may by their titles, which is a very fallible criterion, be comedies or farces from real life, and six may, by the same test, be moralities. It is possible, as Mr. C. observes, that some of these plays, though no longer extant in their integrity, may have formed the foundation of others ; and the titles of a few hi the list countenance this sup- position. 3 See Mr. Collier's excellent History of Drama- tic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare, voL i., which having superseded the earlier works of Langbaine, Reid, and Hawkins, so far as this period is concerned, it is superfluous to quote them. few more plays are extant. Among these may be mentioned the Pro- piay* of Whet- mos and Cassandra of Whet- *t andothen. stone, on the subject which Shakspeare, not without some retrospect to his predecessors, so much improved in Measure for Measure. ; But in these early dramas there is hardly anything to praise ; or, if they please us at all, it is only by the broad humour of their comic scenes. There seems little reason, therefore, for regretting the loss of so many productions, which no one contem- porary has thought worthy of commen- dation. Sir Philip Sydney, writing about 1583, treats our English stage with great disdain. His censures indeed fall chiefly on the neglect of the classical unities, and on the intermixture of kings with clowns. - It is amusing to reflect, that this contemp- tuous reprehension of the English theatre (and he had spoken in as disparaging terms of our general poetry) came from the pen of Sydney, when Shakspeare had just arrived at manhood. Had he not been so prematurely cut off, what would have been the transports of that noble spirit, which the ballad of Chevy Chase could " stir as with the sound of a trumpet," in reading the Faery Queen or Othello ! 28. A better sera commenced not long after, nearly coincident with Marlowe and hli the rapid development of contemporaries, genius in other departments of poetry. Several young men of talent appeared, Marlowe, Peele, Greene, Lily, Lodge, Kyd, Nash, the precursors of Shakspeare, and real founders, as they may in some re- spects be called, of the English drama. Sackville's Gorboduc is in blank verse, though of bad and monotonous construc- tion ; but his followers wrote, as far as we know, either in rhyme or in prose. 3 In the tragedy of Tamburlaine, referred by Mr. 1 Promos and Cassandra is one of the Six Old Plays reprinted by Stevens. Shakspeare found in it not only the main story of Measure for Measure, which was far from new, and which he felicitously altered, by preserving the chastity of Isabella, but several of the minor circum- stances and names, unless even these are to be found in the novels, from which all the drama- tists ultimately derived their plot. 2 "Our tragedies and comedies, not without cause, are cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry ; " and proceeds to ridicule their inconsistencies and disregard to time and place. Defence of Poesy. 3 It may be a slight exception to this that some portions of the second part of Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra are in blank verse. This play is said never to have been represented. Collier, iii. 64. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 361 Collier to 1586, and the production wholly or principally, of Marlowe, l Tunburlaine. 1,1 i i ct.ii a better kind of blank verse is first employed ; the lines are inter- woven, the occasional hemistich and re- dundant syllables break the monotony of the measure, and give more of a colloquial spirit to the dialogue. Tamburlaine was ridiculed on account of its inflated style. The bombast, however, which is not so ex- cessive as has been alleged, was thought appropriate to such oriental tyrants. This play has more spirit and poetry than any which, upon clear grounds, can be shown to have preceded it. "We find also more action on the stage, a shorter and more dramatic dialogue, a more figurative style, with a far more varied and skilful versifica- tion. 2 If Marlowe did not re-establish blank verse, which is difficult to prove, he gave it Blank verse of at least a variety of cadence, Marlowe. an( j an easy adaptation of the rhythm to the sense, by which it in- stantly became in his hands the finest instrument that the tragic poet has ever employed for his purpose, less restricted than that of the Italians, and falling occa- sionally almost into numerous prose, lines of fourteen syllables being very common in all our old dramatists, but regular and harmonious at other times as the most ac- curate ear could require. 29. The savage character of Tamburlaine, Marlowe's Jew and the want of all interest of Malta, as to ever y other, render this tragedy a failure in comparison with those which speedily followed from the pen of Christopher Marlowe. The first two acts of the Jew of Malta are more vigorously conceived, both as to character and circum- stance, than any other Elizabethan play, except those of Shakspeare ; and perhaps we may think that Barabas, though not the 1 Nash has been thought the author of Tam- burlaine by Malone, and his inflated style, in pieces known to be his, may give some counten- ance to this hypothesis. It is mentioned, how- ever, as " Marlowe's Tamburlaine" in the con- temporary diary of Henslow, a manager or proprietor of a theatre, which is preserved at Dulwich College. Marlowe and Nash are al- lowed to have written " Dido Queen of Carthage" in conjunction. MV. Collier has produced a body of evidence to show that Tamburlaine was written, at least principally, by the former, which leaves no room, as it seems, for further doubt, vol. iii. p. 113. 2 Shakspeare having turned into ridicule a passage or two in Tamburlaine, the critics have concluded it to be a model of bad tragedy. Mr. Collier, iii. 115-126, has elaborately vindicated its dramatic merits, though sufficiently aware of its faults. His Edward IL prototype of Shylock, a praise of which he is unworthy, may have suggested some few ideas to the inventor. But the latter acts, as is usual with our old dramatists, are a tissue of uninteresting crimes and slaugh- ter. 1 Faustus is better known ; it contains nothing, perhaps, so dramatic as the first part of the Jew of Malta ; yet the occa- sional glimpses of repentance , , , - , , and Faustus. and struggles of alarmed con- science in the chief character are finely brought in. It is full of poetical beauties ; but an intermixture of buffoonery weakens the effect, and leaves it on the whole rather a sketch by a great genius than a finished performance. There is an awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephisto- pheles, perhaps more impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the re- nowned work of Goethe. But the fair form of Margaret is wanting ; and Mar- lowe has hardly earned the credit of having breathed a few casual inspirations into a greater mind than his own. 2 30. Marlowe's Life of Edward II. which was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in 1593, has been deemed by some the earliest specimen of the historical play founded upon English chronicles. Whether this be true or not, and probably it is not, it is cer- tainly by far the best after those of Shak- speare. 3 And it seems probable that the old plays of the Contention of Lancaster and York, and the True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, which Shakspeare remodelled in the second and third parts of Henry VI., were in great part by piays whence Marlowe, though Greene Henry vi. was seems to put in for some taken, share in their composition. 4 These plays 1 " Blood," says a late witty writer, " is made as light of in some of these old dramas as money in a modern sentimental comedy ; and as this is given away till it reminds us that it is nothing but counters, so that is spilt till it affects us no more than its representative, the paint of the property-man in the theatre." Lamb's speci- mens of Early Dramatic Poets, i. 19 ; 2 The German story of Faust is said to have been published for the first time in 1587. It was rapidly translated into most languages of Europe. We need hardly name the absurd supposition, that Faust, the great printer, was intended. 3 Collier observes that, " the character of Richard II. in Shakspeare seems modelled in no slight degree upon that of Edward II." But I am reluctant to admit that Shakspeare modelled his characters by those of others ; and it is natu- ral to ask whether there were not an extraordi- nary likeness in the dispositions as well as for- tunes of the two kings. 4 These old plays were reprinted by Stevens 362 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. claim certainly a very low rank among those of Shakspeare : his original portion is not inconsiderable ; but it is fair to ob- serve, that some of the passages most popular, such as the death of Cardinal Beaufort, and the last speech of the Duke of York, are not by his hand. 31. No one could think of disputing the superiority of Marlowe, to all his contemporaries of this early school of the English drama. He was killed in a tavern fray in 1593. There is more room for difference of tastes as to the second place. Mr. Campbell has bestowed high .praises upon Peele. " His David and Bethsabe is the earliest fountain of pathos and harmony that can be traced in our dramatic poetry. His fancy is rich and his feeling tender : and his conceptions of dramatic character have no inconsider- able mixture of solid veracity [sic] and ideal beauty. There is no such sweet- ness of versification and imagery to be in 1766. Malone, on a laborious comparison of them with the second and third parts of Henry VI., has ascertained that 1771 lines in the latter plays were taken from the former unaltered, 2373 altered by Shakspeare, while 1899 were al- together his own. It remains to inquire, who are to claim the credit of these other plays, so great a portion of which has passed with the world for the genuine work of Shakspeare. The solution seems to be given, as well as we can expect, in a passage often quoted from Robert Greene's Groat'sworth of Wit, published not long before his death in September 1592. " Yes," says he, addressing himself to some one who has been conjectured to be Peele, but more probably Marlowe, " trust them (the players)not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tyger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a coun- try." An allusion is here manifest to the " tyger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide," which Shakspeare borrowed from the old play. The Contention of the Houses, and which is here in- troduced to hint the particular subject of plagiarism that prompts the complaint of Greene. The bitterness he displays must lead us to suspect that he had been one himself of those who were thus preyed upon. But the greater part of the plays in question is in the judgment, I conceive, of all competent critics, far above the powers either of Greene or Peele, and exhibits a much greater share of the spirited versification, called by Jonson the " mighty line," of Christopher Marlowe. Malone, upon second thoughts, gave both these plays to Marlowe, having, in his dis- sertation on the three parts of Henry VI., assigned one to Greene, the other to Peele. None of the three parts have any resemblance to the manner of Peele. found in our blank verse anterior to Shak- spaere." 1 I must concur with Mr. Collier in thinking these compliments excessive. Peele has some command of imagery, but in every other quality it seems to me that he has scarce any claim to honour ; and I doubt if there are three lines together in any of his plays that could be mistaken for Shakspeare's. His Edward I. is a gross tissue of absurdity, with some facility of language, but no- thing truly good. It has also the fault of grossly violating historic truth, in hideous misrepresentation of the virtuous Eleanor of Castile ; probably from the base motive of rendering the Spanish nation odious to the vulgar. This play, which is founded on a ballad equally false, is re- ferred to the year 1593. The versification of Peele is much inferior to that of Mar- lowe ; and though sometimes poetical he seems rarely dramatic. 32. A third writer for the stage in this period is Robert Greene, whose "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay " may probably be placed about the year 1590. This comedy, though savouring a little of the old school, con- tains easy and spirited versification, su- perior to Peele, and though not so energetic as that of Marlowe, reminding us perhaps more frequently of Shakspeare. 2 Greene succeeds pretty well in that florid and gay style, a little redundant in images, which Shakspeare frequently gives to his princes 1 Specimens of English Poetry, i. 140. Haw- kins says of three lines in Peele's David and Bethsabe, that they contain a metaphor worthy of . Ksrli ylus : At him the thunder shall discharge his bolt ; And his fair spouse with bright and fiery wings Sit ever burning on his hateful bones. It may be rather ^Eschylean, yet I cannot much admire it. Peele seldom attempts such flights. " His genius was not boldly original ; but he had an elegance of fancy, a gracefulness of expression, and a melody of versification which, in the earlier part of his career, was scarcely approached." Collier, iii. 191. 2 " Green in facility of expression and in the flow of his blank verse is not to be placed below his contemporary Peele. His usual fault, more discoverable in his plays than in his poems, is an absence of simplicity ; but his pedantic classical references, frequently without either taste or discretion, he had in common with the other scribbling scholars of the time. It was Shakspeare's good fortune to be in a great de- gree without the knowledge, and therefore, if on no other account, without the defect." Collier, iii. 153. Tieck gives him credit for " a happy talent, a clear spirit, and a lively im- agination, which characterise all his writings. Collier iii. 148. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 363 and courtiers, and which renders some unimpassioned scenes in the historic plays effective and brilliant. There is great talent shown, though upon a very strange canvas, in Greene's "Looking-glass for London and England." His angry allusion to Shaks- peare's plagiarism is best explained by sup- posing that he was himself concerned in the two old plays which have been con- verted into the second and third parts of Henry VI. 1 In default of a more pro- bable claimant, I have sometimes been inclined to assign the first part of Henry VI. to Greene. But those who are far more conversant with the style of our. dramatists do not suggest this ; and we are evidently ignorant of many names, which might have ranked not discreditably by the side of these tragedians. The first part, however, of Henry VI. is, in some passages, not unworthy of Shakspeare's earlier days, nor, in my judgment, unlike his style ; nor in fact do I know any one of his contemporaries who could have written the scene in the Temple Garden. The light touches of his pencil have ever been still more inimitable, if possible, than its more elaborate strokes. 1 33. "We can hardly afford time to dwell 1 Mr. Collier says, iil. 146, Greene may possibly have had a hand in the True History of Richard Duke of York. But why possibly? when he claims it, if not in express words, yet so as to leave no doubt of his meaning. See the note in p. 377. In a poem written on Greene in 1594, are these lines : Green is the pleasing object of an eye ; Greene pleased the eyes of all that looked upon him: Green is the ground of every painter's die ; Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him: Nay more, the men that so eclipsed his fame, Purloined his plumes, can they deny the same ? This seems an allusion to Greene's own meta- phor, and must be taken for a covert attack on Shakspeare, who had by this time pretty well eclipsed the fame of Greene. 1 "These three gifted men (PeeJe, Greene, and Marlowe), says their late editor, Mr. Dyce (Peele's Works, preface xxxv.), though they often present to us pictures that in design and colour- ing outrage the truth of nature, are the earliest of our tragic writers who exhibit any just de- lineation of the workings of passion ; and their language, though now swelling into bombast, and now sinking into meanness, is generally rich with poetry, while their versification, though somewhat monotonous, is almost always flowing and harmonious. They as much excel their immediate predecessors as they are them- selves excelled by Shakspeare." Not quite as much. on several other writers anterior to Shak- speare. Kyd, whom Mr. Other writers of Collier places, as a writer of *M age- blank verse, next to Marlowe, 1 Lodge, 2 Lily, Nash, Hughes, and a few more, have all some degree of merit. Nor do the anonymous tragedies, some of which were formerlyascribed to Shakspeare, and which even Schlegel, with less acuteness of criti- cism than is usual with him, has deemed genuine, always want a forcible delinea- tion of passion, and a vigorous strain of verse, though not kept up for many lines. Among these are specimens of the domestic species of tragic drama, drawn probably from real occurrences, such as Arden of Feversham and the Yorkshire Tragedy, the former of which, especially, has very con- siderable merit. Its author, I believe has notbeen conjectured; butit may be referred to the last decade of the century. 3 Another play of the same kind, A "Woman killed with Kindness, bears the date of 1600, and is the earliest production of Heywood's a fertile dramatist, Thomas Woman killed Heywood. The language *"" K^ 6 "- is not much raised above that of comedy, but we can hardly rank a tale of guilt, sorrow, and death, in that dramatic cate- gory. It may be read with interest and approbation at this day, being quite free from extravagance either in manner or language, the besetting sin of our earlier dramatists, and equally so from buffoonery. The subject resembles that of Kotzebue's 1 Collier, iii. 207. Kyd is author of Jeronymo, and of the " Spanish Tragedy," a continuation of the same story. Shakspeare has selected some of their absurdities for ridicule, and has left an abundant harvest for the reader. Parts of the Spanish Tragedy, Mr. C. thinks, " are in the highest degree pathetic and interesting." This perhaps may be admitted, but Kyd is not, upon the whole, a pleasing dramatist. 2 Lodge, one of the best poets of the age, was concerned, jointly with Greene, in the Looking- glass for London. In this strange performance the prophet Hosea is brought to Nineveh, and the dramatis personae, as far as they are serious, belong to that city : but all the farcical part relates to London. Of Lodge Mr. C. says, that he is " second to Kyd in vigour and boldness of conception, but as a drawer of character, so essential a part of dramatic poetry, he unques- tionably has the advantage," iii. 214. 3 The murder of Arden of Feversham occurred under Edward VI. , but the play was published in 1592. The impression made by the story must have been deep to produce a tragedy so long afterwards. It is said by Mr. Collier, that Professor Tieck has inclined to think Arden of Feversham a genuine work of Shakspeare. I cannot but venture to suspect that, if this dis- tinguished critic were a native, he would discern 364 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. drama, the Stranger, but is managed with a nobler tone of morality. It is true that Mrs. Frankfort's immediate surrender to her seducer, like that of Beaumele in the Fatal Dowry, makes her contemptible ; but this, though it might possibly have originated in the necessity created by the narrow limits of theatrical time, has the good effect of preventing that sympathy with her guilt, which is reserved for her penitence. 34. Of "William Shakespeare, 1 whom, William Shak- through the mouths of those spcare. whom he has inspired to body forth the modifications of his im- mense mind, we seem to know better than any human writer, it may be truly said that we scarcely know anything. "We see him, so far as we do see him, not in him- self, but in a reflex image from the ob- jectivity in which he was manifested ; he is Falstaff, and Mercutio, and Malvolio, and Jaques, and Portia, and Imogen, and Lear, and Othello ; but to us he is scarcely a determined person, a substantial reality of past time, the man Shakspeare. The two greatest names in poetry are to us little more than names. If we are not yet come to question his unity, as we do that such differences of style, as render this hypo- thesis improbable. The speeches in Arden of Feversham have spirit and feeling, but there is none of that wit, that fertility of analogical imagery, which the worst plays of Shakspeare display. The language is also more plain and perspicuous than we ever find in him, especially on a subject so full of passion. Mr. Collier dis- cerns the hand of Shakspeare in the Yorkshire Tragedy, and thinks that " there are some speeches which could scarcely have proceeded from any other pen," Collier, iii. 61. It was printed with his name in 1608 ; but this, which would be thought good evidence in most cases, must not be held sufficient. It is impossible to explain the grounds of internal persuasion in these nice questions of aesthetic criticism, but I cannot perceive the hand of Shakspeare in any of the anonymous tragedies. 1 Though I shall not innovate in a work of this kind, not particularly relating to Shak- speare, I must observe, that Sir Frederic Mad- den has offered very specious reasons (in the Archaeologia, vol. xxvi.), for believing that the poet and his family spelt their name Shakspere, and that there are, at least, no exceptions in his own autographs, as has commonly been sup- posed. A copy of Florio's translation of Mon- taigne, a book which he had certainly read (see Malone's note on Tempest, act ii. scene 1), has been lately discovered with the name W. Shak- spere clearly written in it, and there seems no reason to doubt that it is a genuine signature. This book has, very properly, been placed in the British Museum, among the choice Kfifj.r]\ia of that repository. of "the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," an improvement in critical acuteness doubt- less reserved for a distant posterity, we as little feel the power of identifying the young man who came up from Stratford, was afterwards an indifferent player in a London theatre, and retired to his native place in middle life, with the author of Macbeth and Lear, as we can give a dis- tinct historic personality to Homer. All that insatiable curiosity and unwearied diligence have hitherto detected about Shakspeare serves rather to disappoint and perplex us, than to furnish the slightest illustration of his character. It is not the register of his baptism, or the draft of his will, or the orthography of his name that we seek. No letter of his writing, no re- cord of his conversation, no character of him drawn with any fulness by a contem- porary can be produced. 35. It is generally supposed that he set- tled in London about 1587, His first writings being then twenty-three for the stage, years old. For some time afterwards we cannot trace him distinctly. Venus and Adonis, published in 1593, he describes in his dedication to Lord Southampton, as "the first heir of his invention." It is however certain that it must have been written some years before, unless we take these words in a peculiar sense, for Greene, in his Groat'sworth of Wit, 1592, alludes, as we have seen, to Shakspeare as already known among dramatic authors. It ap- pears by this passage, that he had converted the two plays on the wars of York and Lancaster into what we read as the second and third parts of Henry VI. "What share he may have had in similar repairs of the many plays then represented, cannot be determined. It is generally believed that he had much to do with the tragedy of Pericles, which is now printed among his works, and which external testimony, though we should not rely too much on that as to Shakspeare, has assigned to him ; but the play is full of evident marks tff an inferior hand. 1 Its date is unknown; Drake supposes it to have been his earliest work, rather from its inferiority than on any other ground. Titus Andronicus is 1 Malone, in a dissertation on the tragedy of Pericles, maintained that it was altogether an early work of Shakspeare. Stevens contended that it was a production of some older poet, im- proved by him ; and Malone had the candour to own that he had been wrong. The opinion of Stevens is now general. Drake gives the last three acts, and part of the former, to Shak- speare ; but I can hardly think his share is by any means so large. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 365 now by common consent denied to be, in any sense, a production of Shakspeare ; very few passages, I should think not one, resemble his manner. 1 36. The Comedy of Errors may be pre- Comedy of sumed by an allusion it con- Error*, tains, to have been written before the submission of Paris to Henry IV. in 1594, which nearly put an end to the civil war. 2 It is founded on a very popular subject. This furnishes two extant comedies of Plautus, a translation from one of which, the Menoechmi, was repre- sented in Italy earlier than any other play. It had been already, as Mr. Collier thinks, brought upon the stage in England ; and another play, later than the Comedy of Errors, has been reprinted by Stevens. Shakspeare himself was so well pleased with the idea that he has returned to it in Twelfth Night. Notwithstanding the op r portunity which these mistakes of identity furnish for ludicrous situations and for carrying on a complex plot, they are not very well adapted to dramatic effect, not only from the manifest difficulty of finding performers quite alike, but because, were this overcome, the audience must be in as great embarrassment as the represented characters themselves. In the Comedy of Errors there are only a few passages of a poetical vein, yet such perhaps as no other living dramatist could have written; but the story is well invented and well man- aged; the confusion of persons does not cease to amuse ; the dialogue is easy and gay beyond what had been hitherto heard on the stage ; there is little buffoonery in the wit, and no absurdity in the circum- stances. 37. The Two Gentlemen of Verona ranks TWO Gentlemen above the Comedy of Errors, of Verona. though still in the third class of Shakspeare's plays. It was proba- bly the first English comedy in which char- acters are drawn from social life, at once ideal and true; the cavaliers of Verona and their lady -loves are graceful personages, with no transgression of the probabilities of nature ; but they are not exactly the real men and women of the same rank in England. The imagination of Shakspeare 1 Notwithstanding this internal evidence, Meres, so early as 1698, enumerates Titus An- dronicus among the plays of Shakspeare, and mentions no other but what is genuine. Drake, ii. 287. But, in criticism of all kinds, we must acquire a dogged habit of resisting testimony, when res ipsa per se vociferatur to the contrary. 2 Act iii. scene 2. Some have judged the play from this passage to be as early as 1591, but on precarious grounds. must have been guided by some familiarity with romances before it struck out this play. It contains some very poetical lines. Though these two plays could not give the slightest suspicion of the depth of thought which Lear and Macbeth were to display, it was already evident that the names of Greene, and even Marlowe, would be eclipsed without any necessity for purloin- ing their plumes. 38. Love's Labour Lost is generally placed, I believe, at the bottom of Love's Labour the list. There is indeed lort - little interest in the fable, if we can say that there is any fable at all ; but there are beautiful coruscations of fancy, more original conception of character than in the Comedy of Errors, more lively humour than in the Gentlemen of Verona, more symptoms of Shakspeare's future powers as a comic writer than in either. Much that is here but imperfectly developed came forth again in his later plays, especially in As you Like it, and Much Ado about No- thing. The Taming of the Shrew is the only play, except Henry VI., Taming of in which Shakspeare has the shrew, been very largely a borrower. The best parts are certainly his, but it must be con- fessed, that several passages, for which we give him credit, and which are very amus- ing, belong to his unknown predecessor. The original play, reprinted by Stevens, was published in 1594. l I do not find so much genius in the Taming of the Shrew as in Love's Labour Lost ; but, as an entire play, it is much more complete. 39. The beautiful play of Midsummer Night's Dream is placed by Midsummer Malone as early as 1592 ; its * Dream, superiority to those we have already men tioned affords some presumption that it was written after them. But it evidently belongs to the earlier period of Shak- speare's genius ; poetical as we account it, more than dramatic, yet rather so, because the indescribable profusion of imaginative poetry in this play overpowers our senses till we can hardly observe anything else, than from any deficiency of dramatic ex- cellence. For in reality the structure of the fable, consisting as it does of three if not four actions, very distinct in their sub- jects and personages, yet wrought into each other without effort or confusion, displays the skill, or rather instinctive felicity of 1 Mr. Collier thinks that Shakspeare had no- thing to do with any of the scenes where Kathe- rine and tetruchio are not introduced. The underplot resembles, he says, the style of Haugh- ton, author of a comedy called Englishmen for my Money, iii. 78. 366 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Its language. Shakspeare, as much as in any play he has written. No preceding dramatist had at- tempted to fabricate a complex plot, for low comic scenes, interspersed with a seri- ous action upon which they have no influ- ence, do not merit notice. The Mencechmi of Plautus had been imitated by others as well as by Shakspeare ; but we speak here of original invention. 40. The Midsummer Night's Dream is, I believe, altogether original * ery ' in one of the most beauti- ful conceptions that ever visited the mind of a poet, the fairy machinery. A few before him had dealt in a vulgar and clumsy manner with popular superstitions; but the sportive, beneficent, invisible popu- lation of the air and earth, long since established in the creed of childhood, and of those simple as children, had never for a moment been blended with "human mortals" among the personages of the drama. Lily's Maid's Metamorphosis is probably later than this play of Shak- speare, and was not published till 1600. J It is unnecessary to observe that the fairies of Spenser, as he has dealt with them, are wholly of a different race. 41. The language of Midsummer Night's Dream is equally novel with the machinery. It sparkles in perpetual brightness with all the hues of the rainbow ; yet there is nothing over- charged or affectedly ornamented. Per- haps no play of Shakspeare has fewer blemishes, or is from beginning to end in so perfect keeping ; none in which so few lines could be erased, or so few expressions blamed. His own peculiar idiom, the dress of his mind, which began to be dis- cernible in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, is more frequently manifested in the pre- sent play. The expression is seldom ob- scure, but it is never in poetry, and hardly in prose, the expression of other dramatists, and far less of the people. And here, without reviving the debated question of Shakspeare's learning, I must venture to think, that he possessed rather more ac- quaintance with the Latin language than many believe. The phrases, unintelligible and improper, except in the sense of their primitive roots, which occur so copiously in his plays, seem to be unaccountable on the supposition of absolute ignorance. In the Midsummer Night's Dream, these are much less frequent than in his later dramas. But here we find several instances. Thus, 1 Collier, iil. 185. Lily had, however, brought fairies, without making them speak, into some of his earlier plays. Ibid. ' ' things base and vile, holding no quantity," for value; rivers, that "have overborn their continents," the continente ripa of Horace ; " compact of imagination ; " "something of great constancy," for con- sistency ; " sweet Pyramus translated there ; " " the law of Athens, which by no means we may extenuate." I have con- siderable doubts whether any of these expressions would be found in the contem- porary prose of Elizabeth's reign, which was less overrun by pedantry than that of her successor ; but, could authority be produced for Latinisms so forced, it is still not very likely that one, who did not understand their proper meaning, would have introduced them into poetry. It would be a weak answer that we do not detect in Shakspeare any imitations of the Latin poets. His knowledge of the lan- guage may have been chiefly derived, like that of schoolboys, from the dictionary, and insufficient for the thorough apprecia- tion of their beauties. But, if we should believe him well acquainted with Virgil or Ovid, it would be by no means surprising that his learning does not display itself in imitation. Shakspeare seems now and then to have a tinge on his imagination from former passages; but he never de- signedly imitates, though, as we have seen, he has sometimes adopted. The streams of invention flowed too fast from his own mind to leave him time to accommodate the words of a foreign language to our own. He knew that to create would be easier, and pleasanter, and better. 1 42. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is referred by Malone to the Romeo and year 1596. Were I to judge J uUet - by internal evidence, I should be inclined to date this play before the Midsummer Night's Dream; the great frequency of rhymes, the comparative absence of Latin- isms, the want of that thoughtful philo- sophy, which, when it had once germinated in Shakspeare's mind, never ceased to dis- play itself, and several of the faults that 1 The celebrated essay by Farmer on the learning of Shakspeare, put an end to such no- tions as we find in Warburton and many of the older commentators, that he had imitated So- phocles, and I know not how many Greek au- thors. Those indeed who agree with what I have said in a former chapter as to the state of learning under Elizabeth, will not think it pro- bable that Shakspeare could have acquired any knowledge of Greek. It was not a part of such education as he received. The case of Latin is different : we know that he was at a grammar school, and could hardly have spent two or three years there without bringing away a certain portion of the language. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 367 juvenility may best explain and excuse, would justify this inference. 43. In one of the Italian novels to which Shakspeare had frequently ' ' recourse for his fable, he had the good fortune to meet with this simple and pathetic subject. What he found he has arranged with great skill. The incidents in Romeo and Juliet are rapid, various, unintermitting in interest, sufficiently probable, and tending to the catastrophe. The most regular dramatist has hardly excelled one writing for an in- fant and barbarian stage. It is certain that the observation of the unity of time, which we find in this tragedy, unfashion- able as the name of unity has become in our criticism, gives an intenseness of interest to the story, which is often diluted and dispersed in a dramatic his- tory. No play of Shakspeare is more fre- quently represented, or honoured with more tears. 44. If from this praise of the fable we its beauties and pass to other considerations, blemishes, j^ ^m ]j e more necessary to modify our eulogies. It has been said above of the Midsummer Night's Dream, that none of Shakspeare's plays have fewer blemishes. "We can by no means repeat this commendation of Romeo and Juliet. It may be said rather that few, if any, are more open to reasonable censure ; and we are almost equally struck by its excellencies and its defects. 45. Madame de Stael has truly remarked, that in Romeo and Juliet we have, more than in any other tragedy, the mere passion of love ; love, in all its vernal promise, full of hope and innocence, ardent beyond all restraint of reason, but tender as it is warm. The contrast between this impetuosity of delirious joy, in which the youthful lovers are first displayed, and the horrors of the last scene, throws a charm of deep melan- choly over the whole. Once alone each of them, in these earlier moments, is touched by a presaging fear ; it passes quickly away from them, but is not lost on the reader. To him there is a sound of despair in the wild effusions of their hope, and the mad- ness of grief is mingled witli the intoxica- tion of their joy. And hence it is that, notwithstanding its many blemishes, we all read and witness this tragedy with de- light. It is a symbolic mirror of the fearful realities of life, where "the course of true love," has so often " not run smooth," and moments of as fond illusion as beguiled the lovers of Verona have been exchanged, per- haps as rapidly, not indeed for the dagger The characters. The language. and the bowl, but for the many-headed sorrows and sufferings of humanity. 46. The character of Romeo is one of ex- cessive tenderness. His first passion for Rosaline, which no vulgar poet would have brought forward, serves to display a constitutional suscepti- bility. There is indeed so much of this in his deportment and language, that we might be in some danger of mistaking it for effeminacy, if the loss of his friend had not aroused his courage. It seems to have been necessary to keep down a little the other characters, that they might not over- power the principal one ; and though we can by no means agree with Dryden, that if Shakspeare had not killed Mercutio, Mercutio would have killed him, there might have been some danger of his killing Romeo. His brilliant vivacity shows the softness of the other a little to a disadvan- tage. Juliet is a child, whose intoxication in loving and being loved whirls away the little reason she may have possessed. It is however impossible, in my opinion, to place her among the great female characters of Shakspeare's creation. 47. Of the language of this tragedy what shall we say? It contains passages that every one re- members, that are among the nobler efforts of Shakspeare's poetry, and many short and beautiful touches of his proverbial sweet- ness. Yet, on the other hand, the faults are in prodigious number. The conceits, the phrases that jar on the mind's ear, if I may use such an expression, and interfere with the very emotion the poet would ex- cite, occur at least in the first three acts without intermission. It seems to have formed part of his conception of this youthful and ardent pair, that they should talk irrationally. The extravagance of their fancy, however, not only forgets reason, but wastes itself in frigid meta- phors and incongruous conceptions ; the tone of Romeo is that of the most bom- bastic commonplace of gallantry, and the young lady differs only in being one de- gree more mad. The voice of virgin love has been counterfeited by the authors of many fictions : I know none who have thought the style of Juliet would repre- sent it. Nor is this confined to the happier moments of their intercourse. False thoughts and misplaced phrases de- form the whole of the third act. It may be added that, if not dramatic propriety, at least the interest of the character, is affected by some of Juliet's allusions. She seems indeed to have profited by the lessons 368 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. and language of her venerable guardian ; and those who adopt the edifying principle of deducing a moral from all they read, may suppose that Shakspeare intended covertly to warn parents against the con- taminating influence of such domestics. These censures apply chiefly to the first three acts ; as the shadows' deepen over the scene, the language assumes a tone more proportionate to the interest ; many speeches are exquisitely beautiful ; yet the tendency to quibbles is never wholly eradicated. 48. The plays we have hitherto men- second period of tioned, to which one or two Shakspeare. more mignt be added, be- long to the earlier class, or, as we might say, to his first manner. In the second period of his dramatic life, we should place his historical plays, and such others as were written before the end of the century or perhaps before the death of Elizabeth. The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Much Ado about Nothing, are among these. The versification in these is more studied, the pauses more artificially dis- posed, the rhymes, though not quite aban- doned, become less frequent, the language is more vigorous and elevated, the principal characters are more strongly marked, more distinctly conceived, and framed on a deeper insight into mankind. Nothing in the earlier plays can be compared, in this respect, with the two Richards, or Shylock, or Falstaff, or Hotspur. 49. Many attempts had been made The historical to dramatise the English playi, chronicles, but with the single exception of Marlowe's Edward II., so unsuccessfully, that Shakspeare may be considered as almost an original oc- cupant of the field. He followed historical truth with considerable exactness ; and, in some of his plays, as in that of Richard II., and generally in Richard III. and Henry VIII., admitted no imaginary per- sonages, nor any scenes of amusement. The historical plays have had a great effect on Shakspeare's popularity. They have identified him with English feelings in English hearts, and are very frequently read more in childhood, and consequently better remembered than some of his superior dramas. And these dramatic chronicles borrowed surprising liveliness and probability from the national cha- racter and form of government. A prince, and a courtier, and a slave are the stuff on which the historic dramatist would have to work in some countries ; but every class of freemen, in the just subordination, without which neither human society, nor the stage, which should be its mirror, can be more than a chaos of huddled units, lay open to the selection of Shakspeare. What he invented is as truly English, as truly historical, in the large sense of moral history, as what he read. 50. The Merchant of Venice is generally esteemed the best of Shak- Merchant of speare's. comedies. This ex- Venice, cellent play is referred to the year 1597. l In the management of the plot, which is sufficiently complex without the slightest confusion or incoherence, I do not conceive that it has been surpassed in the annals of any theatre. Yet there are those who still affect to speak of Shakspeare as a bar- barian ; and others who, giving what they think due credit to his genius, deny him all judgment and dramatic taste. A com- parison of his works with those of his con- temporaries, and it is surely to them that we should look, will prove that his judg- ment is by no means the least of his rare qualities. This is not so remarkable in the mere construction of his fable, though the present comedy is absolutely perfect in that point of view, and several others are excellently managed, as in the general keep- ing of the characters, and the choice of in- cidents. If Shakspeare is sometimes ex- travagant, the Marstons and Middletons are seldom otherwise. The variety of characters in the Merchant of Venice, and the powerful delineation of those upon whom the interest chiefly depends, the effectiveness of many scenes in repre- sentation, the copiousness of the wit, and the beauty of the language, it would be superfluous to extol ; nor is it our office to repeat a tale so often told as the praise of Shakspeare. In the language there is the commencement of a metaphysical ob- scraity which soon became characteristic ; but it is perhaps less observable than in any later play. 1 Meres, in his Palladia Tamia, or Wit's Treasury, 1598, has a passage of some value in determining the age of Shakspeare's plays, both by what it contains, and by what it omits. "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakspeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage ; for comedy witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love's Labour Lost, his Love's Labour Won [the original appellation of All's Well that Ends Well], his Midsummer Night's Dream, and his Merchant of Venice ; for tra- gedy his Richard II., bis Richard III., Henry IV., King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Borneo and Juliet." Drake, ii. 287. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 369 As YouLlke It. 51. The sweet and sportive temper of Shakspeare, though it never deserted him, gave way to advancing years, and to the mastering force of serious thought. What he read we know but very imperfectly ; yet, in the last years of this century, when five and thirty summers had ripened his genius, it seems that he must have trans- fused much of the wisdom of past ages into his own all-combining mind. In several of the historical plays, in the Merchant of Venice, and es- pecially in As You Like It, the philosophic eye, turned inward on the mysteries of human nature, is more and more characteristic ; and we might apply to the last comedy the bold figure that Coleridge has less appropriately employed as to the early poems, that " the creative power and the intellectual energy wrestle as in a war embrace." In no other play, at least, do we find the bright imagination and fascinating grace of Shakspeare's youth so mingled with the thoughtfulness of his maturer age. This play is referred with reasonable probability to the year 1600. Few comedies of Shakspeare are more generally pleasing, and its manifold impro- babilities do not much affect us in perusal. The brave injured Orlando, the sprightly but modest Rosalind, the faithful Adam, the reflecting Jaques, the serene and mag- nanimous Duke, interest us by turns, though the play is not so well managed as to condense our sympathy, and direct it to the conclusion. 52. The comic scenes of Shakspeare had generally been drawn from novels, and laid in foreign lands. But several of our earliest plays, as has been partly seen, de- lineate the prevailing manners of English life. None had acquired j ons on'8 Every a reputation which endured Man in his Hn- beyond their own time till Ben Jonson in 1596 produced, at the age of twenty-two, his first comedy, Every Man in His Humour ; an extraordinary monument of early genius, in what is sel- dom the possession of youth, a clear and unerring description of human character, various, and not extravagant beyond the necessities of the stage. He had learned the principles of comedy no doubt, from Plautus and Terence ; for they were not to be derived from the moderns at home or abroad ; but he could not draw from them the application of living passions and manners ; and it would be no less unfair, as Gifford has justly observed, to make Bobadil a copy of Thraso, than to deny the dramatic originality of Kitely. 53. Every Man in his Humour is perhaps the earliest of European domestic comedies that deserves to be remembered ; for the Mandragola of Machiavel shrinks to a mere farce in comparison. 1 A much greater master of comic powers than Jon- son was indeed his contemporary, and, as he perhaps fancied, his rival ; but for some reason, Shakspeare had never yet drawn his story from the domestic life of his countrymen. Jonson avoided the common defect of the Italian and Spanish theatre, the sacrifice of all other dramatic objects to one only, a rapid and amusing succes- sion of incidents ; his plot is slight and of no great complexity ; but his excellence is to be found in the variety of his characters, and in their individuality very clearly de- fined with little extravagance. CHAPTER XVI. HISTORY OF POLITE LITERATURE IN PROSE FROM 1550 TO 1600. Italian writers. SECT. I. Style of best Italian Writers Those of France England. 1. I AM not aware that we can make any great distinction in the character of the Italian writers of this and the preceding period, though they are more numerous in the present. Some of these have been already mentioned on account of their subjects. In point of style, to which we now chiefly confine our- selves, Casa is esteemed among the best. 1 1 Corniani, v. 174. Parini called the Galateo, Capo d'opera di nostra lingua. The Galateo is certainly diffuse, but not so languid as some contemporary works ; nor 1 This would not have been approved by a modern literary historian. Quelle etait, avant que Moliere parut et meme de son temps, la comedie moderne comparable a la Calandria, a la Mandragore, aux meilleures pieces de 1'Arioste, a celles de 1'Aretin, du Cecchi, du Lasca, du Bentivoglio, de Francesco D'Ambra, et de tant d'autres? Ginguene, vi. 316. This comes of deciding before we know anything of the facts. Gingue'ne^ might possibly be able to read English, but certainly had no sort of ac- quaintance with the English theatre. I should have no hesitation in replying that we could produce at least forty comedies, before the age 2 A 370 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. do we find in it, I think, so many of the inversions which are common blemishes in the writings of this age. The prose ef Tasso is placed by Corniani almost on a level with his poetry for beauty of diction. "We find in it," he says, " dignity, rhythm, ele- gance, and purity without affectation, and perspicuity without vulgarity. He is never trifling or verbose, like his contemporaries of that century; but endeavours to fill every part of his discourses with mean- ing. '1 These praises may be just, but there is a tediousness in the moral essays of Tasso, which, like most other productions of that class, assert what the reader has never seen denied, and distinguish what he is in no danger of confounding 2. Few Italian writers, it is said by the Firenzuola. editors of the voluminous Character of Milan collection, haveunited n prose. e q ua ii v w ith Firenzuola the most simple naivete to a delicate sweet- ness, that diffuses itself over the heart of the reader. His dialogue on the Beauty of Women is reckoned one of the best of his works. It is diffuse, but seems to deserve the praise bestowed upon its language. His translation of the Golden Ass of Apuleius is read with more pleasure than the original. The usual style of Italian prose in this, accounted by some its best age, is elaborate, ornate, yet not to excess, with a rhythmical structure apparently much studied, very rhetorical and for the most part trival, as we should now think, in its matter. The style of Machiavel, to which, perhaps the reader's attention was not sufficiently called while we were con- cerned with his political philosophy, is eminent for simplicity, strength, and clear- ness. It would not be too much to place him at the head of the prose writers of Italy. But very few had the good taste to emulate so admirable a model. "They were apt to presume," says Corniani, " that the spirit of good waiting consisted in the artificial employment of rhetorical figures. They hoped to fertilize the soil barren of argument by such resources. They be- lieved that they should become eloquent by accumulating words upon words, and phrases upon phrases, hunting on every side for metaphors, and exaggerating the most trifling theme by frigid hyperboles." 2 3. A treatise on Painting, by Eaffaelle Borghino, published in 1584, called II Ri- of Moliere, superior to the best of those he has mentioned, and perhaps three times that num- ber as good as the worst. 1 Corniani vi. 240. 2 Corniani, vi. 52. poso, is highly praised for its style by the Milan editors ; but it is dif- Italian letter- ficult for a foreigner to judge writer*, so correctly of these delicacies of language, as he may of the general merits of compo- sition. They took infinite pains with their letters, great numbers of which have been collected. Those of Annibal Caro are among the best known ;* but Pietro Are- tino, Paolo Manuzio, and Bonfadio are also celebrated for their style. The appearance of labour and affectation is still less pleasing in epistolary correspondence than in writings more evidently designed for the public eye ; and there will be found abun- dance of it in these Italian writers, especially in addressing their superiors. Cicero was a model perpetually before their eyes, and whose faults they did not perceive. Yet perhaps the Italian writings of this period, with their flowing grace, are more agreeable than the sententious an- titheses of the Spaniards. Both are arti- ficial, but the efforts of the one are be- stowed on diction and cadence, those of the other display a constant strain to be emphatic and profound. What Cicero was to Italy, Seneca became to Spain. 4. An exception to the general character of diffuseness is found in the Davanzati's well-known translation of Tacitui. Tacitus by Davanzati. This, it has often been said, he has accomplished in fewer words than the original. No one, as in the story of the fish, which was said to weigh less in water than out of it, inquires into the truth of what is confidently said, even where it is obviously impossible. But whoever knows the Latin and Italian languages must know that a translation of i It is of no relevancy to the history of litera- ture, but in one of Caro's letters to Bernardo Tasso about 1544, he censures the innovation of using the third person in addressing a corre- spondent. Tutto questo secolo (dice Monsignor de la Casa) e adulatore ; ognuno che scrive da de le signorie ; ognuno, a chi si scrive, le vuole ; e non pure i grandi, ma i mezzani e i plebei quasi aspirano a questi gran nomi, e si tengono anco per affronto, se non gli hanno, e d' errore son notati quelli, che non gli danno. Cosa, che a me pare stranissima o stomachosa, che habbiamo a parlar con uno, come se fosse un altro, e tutta via in astratto, quasi con la idea di colui, con chi si parla, non con la per- sona sua propria. Pure 1' abuso e gia fatto, ed e generale, &c., lib. i. p. 122. (edit. 1581.) I have found the third person used as early as a letter of Paolo Manuzio to Castlevetro in 1543 ; but where there was any intimacy with an equal rank, it is not much employed ; nor is it al- ways found in that age in letters to men of very high rank from their inferiors. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 371 Jordano Bruno. Tacitus into Italian cannot be made in fewer words. It will be found, as might be expected, that Davanzati has succeeded by leaving out as much as was required to compensate the difference that articles and auxiliary verbs made against him. His translation is also censured by Corniani, 1 as full of obsolete terms and Florentine vulgarisms. 5. We can place under no better head than the present, much of that lighter literature which, without taking the form of romance, en- deavours to amuse the reader by fanciful invention and gay remark. The Italians have much of this ; but it is beyond our province to enumerate productions of no great merit or renown. Jordano Bruno's celebrated Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante is one of this class. Another of Bruno's light pieces is entitled, La Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo, con 1'Aggiunta del' Asino Cillenico. This has more profaneness in it than the Spaccio della Bestia. The latter, as is well known, was dedicated to Sir Philip Sydney ; as was also another little piece, Gli Eroici Furori. In this he has a sonnet addressed to .the English ladies : "Dell' Inghilterra o Vaghe Ninfe e Belle ;" but ending, of course, with a compliment, somewhat at the expense of these beauties, to " 1'unica Diana Qual' tra voi quel, che tra gl' astri il sole. " It had.been well for Bruno if he had kept himself under the protection of Diana. The "chaste beams of that watery moon " were less scorching than the fires of the Inquisition. 6. The French generally date the begin- French writers, ning of an easy and natural &m y t - style in their own language from the publication of James Amyot's translation of Plutarch in 1559. Some earlier writers, however, have been men- tioned in another place, and perhaps some might have been added. The French style of the sixteenth century is for the most part diffuse, endless in its periods, and consequently negligent of grammar ; but it was even then lively and unaffected, especi- ally in narration, the memoirs of that age being still read with pleasu e. Amyot, ac- cording to some, knew Greek but indiffer- ently, and was perhaps on that account a better model of his own language ; but if he did not always render the meaning of Plut- arch, hehas made Plutarch's reputation, and that, in some measure, of those who have taken Plutarch for their guide. It is well known how popular, more perhaps than any otherancient, this historian and moralisthas 1 vi. 58. been in France ; but it is through Amyot that he has been read. The style of his translator, abounding with the native idiom, and yet enriching the language, not at that time quite copious enough for its high vocation in literature, with many words which usage and authority have re- cognised, has always been regarded with admiration, and by some, in the prevalence of a less natural taste, with regret. It is in French prose what that of Marot is in poetry, and suggests, not an uncultivated simplicity, but the natural grace of a young person, secure of appearing to advantage, but not at bottom indifferent to doing so. This naivete, a word which, as we have neither naturalised nor translated it, I must adopt, has ever since been the charm of good writing in France. It is, above all, the characteristic of one who may justly be called the disciple of Amyot, and who ex- tols him above all other writers in the language Montaigne. The fascination of Montaigne's manner is acknowledged by all who read him ; and with a worse style, or one less individually adapted to his char- acter, he would never have been the favour- ite of the world. 1 7. In the essays of Montaigne a few pas- sages occur of striking,though Montaigne ; simple eloquence. But it DuVair. must be admitted that the familiar idio- matic tone of Amyot was better fitted to please than to awe, to soothe the mind than to excite it, to charm away the cares of the moment than to impart a durable emotion. It was also so remote from the grand style which the writings of Cicero and the pre- cepts of rhetoric had taught the learned world to admire, that we cannot wonder to find some who sought to model their French by a different standard. The only one of these, so far as I am aware, that falls within the sixteenth century is D\i Vair, a man not less distinguished in public life than in literature, having twice held the great seals of France under Louis XIII. " He composed," says a modern writer. " many works, in which he endeavoured to be eloquent ; but he fell into the error, at ^hat time so common, of too much wishing to Latinise our mother tongue. He has been charged with fabricating words, such as sponsion, cogitation, contumelie. diluci- dite, contemnement, &c." 2 Notwithstand- 1 See the articles on Amyot in Baillet, iv. 428, Bayle, La Harpe. Biogr. Universelle. Pre- face aux CEuvres de Pascal, par Neufchateau. 2 Neufchateau, in Preface a Pascal, p. 181. Bouterwek, v. 326, praises Du Vair, but he does not seem a favourite with his compatriot critics. 372 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. ing these instances of bad taste which, when collected, seem more monstrous than as they are dispersed in his writings, Du Vair is not devoid of a flowing eloquence, which, whether perfectly congenial to the spirit of the language or not, has never wanted its imitators and admirers, and those very successful and brilliant, in French literature. 1 It was of course the manner of the bar and of the pulpit after the pulpit laid aside its buffoonery, far more than that of Amyot and Montaigne. 8. It is not in my power to communicate much information as to the Satire Henlppee. . ... , _, minor literature of France. One book may be named as being familiarly known, the Satire Menippee. The first edition bears the date of 1593, but is said not to have appeared till 1594, containing some allusions to events of that year. It is a ridicule on the proceedings of the League, who were then masters of Paris, and has commonly been ascribed to Leroy, canon of Rouen, though Passerat, Pithou, Rapin, and others, are said to have had some share in it. This book is historically cur- ious, but I do not perceive that it displays 1 Du Vair's Essay de la Constance et Conso- lations es Malheurs Publiques, of which the first edition is in 1594, furnishes some eloquent de- clamation in a style unlike that of Arnyot. Kepassez en votre memorie 1'histoire de toute 1'antiquitd ; et quand vous trouverez un magi- strat qui aura eu grand credit envers un peuple, ou aupres d'un prince, etqui se seravoulu corn- porter vertueusement, dites hardiment ; Jegage que cestui-ci a etu banni, que cestui-ci a ei6 tue, qui cestui-ci a ei^ empoisonn^. A Athenes. Aristides, Themistocles, et Phocion ; & Rome inflnis desquels je laisse les norns pour n'emplir le papier, me contentant de Camille, Scipion, et Oiceron pour 1'antiquite^ de Papinien pour les temps des empereurs Remains, et de Boece sous les Gots. Mais pourquoi le prenons nous si haut. Qui avons nous vu de notre siecle tenir les sceaux de France, qui n'ait eie mis en cette charge, pour en etre dejett^ avec contumelie? (felui qui auroit vu M. le Chancellor Olivier, ou M. le Chancelier de 1'Hospital, partir de la cour pour se retirer en leurs maisons, n'auroit jamais envte de tels honneurs, ni de tels charges. Imaginez vous ces braves et venerables vieil- lards, esquels reluisoient toutes sortes de vertus, et esquels entre une infinite de grandes parties VGUS n'cussiez sgu que choisir, remplis d'eru- dition, consommez es affaires, amateurs, de leur patrie, vraiment dignes de telles charges, si le siecle eust etc 1 digne d'eux. Apres avoir longue- ment et fidelement servis la patrie, on leur dresse des querelles d'Allemans, et de fausses accusations pour les bannir des affaires, on plutot pour en priver les affaires ; comme un navire agite de la conduite de si sages et experts pilotes, afln de le faire plus aisement briser, p. 70 (edit. 1604.) any remarkable degree of humour or inven- tion. The truth appears so much through- out, that it cannot be ranked among works of fiction. 1 9. In the scanty and obscure productions of the English press under T,, , , ,, . ,, English writers. Edward and Mary, or in the early years of Elizabeth, we should search, I conceive, in vain for any elegance or eloquence in writing. Yet there is an in- creasing expertness and fluency, and the languageinsensiblyrejectingobsolete forms, the manner of our writers is less uncouth, and their sense more pointed and perspt cuous than before. Wilson's Art of Rheto- rique is at least a proof that some knew the merits of a good style, if they did not yet bring their rules to bear on their own language. In "Wilson's own manner there is nothing remarkable. The first book which can be worth naming at all is Ascham's Schoolmaster, published in 1570, and probably written some years before. Ascham is plain and strong in his style, but without grace or warmth ; his sentences have no harmony of structure. He stands, however, as far as I have seen, above all other writers in the first half of the queen's reign. The best of these, like Reginald Scott, express their meaning well, but with no attempt at a rhythmical structure or figurative language ; they are not bad writers, be- cause then" solid sense is aptly conveyed to the mind ; but they are not good, because they have little selection of words, and give no pleasure by means of Style. Putten- ham is perhaps the first who wrote a well- measured prose ; in his Art of English Poesie, published in 1586, he is elaborate, studious of elevated and chosen expression, and rather diffuse, in the manner of the Italians of the sixteenth century, who af- fected that fulness of style, and whom he probably meant to imitate. But in these later years of the queen, when almost every one was eager to be distinguished for sharp wit or ready learning, the want of good models of writing in our own language gave rise to some perversion of the public taste. Thoughts and words began to be valued, not as they were just and natural, but as they were removed from common appre- hension, and most exclusively the original property of those who employed them. This in poetry showed itself in affected conceits and in prose led to the pedantry of recondite mythological allusion, and of a Latinised phraseology. 10. The most remarkable specimen of i Biog. Univ. Vigneul-Marville, i. 197. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 373 this class is the Euphues of Lilly, a book of Euphuesof little value, but which de- iui y- serves notice on account of the influence it is recorded to have had upon the court of Elizabeth ; an influence also over the public taste, which is mani- fested in the literature of the age. It is divided into two parts, having separate titles ; the first, " Euphues, the Anatomy of "Wit;" the second, "Euphues and his England." This is a very dull story of a young Athenian, whom the author places at Naples in the first part and brings to England in the second; it is full of dry common-places. The style which obtained celebrity is antithetical, and sententious to affectation ; the perpetual effort with no adequate success rendering the book equally disagreeable and ridiculous, though it might not be difficult to find passages rather more happy and ingenious than the rest. The following specimen is taken at random, and though sufficiently characteristic, is perhaps rather unfavourable to Lilly, as a little more affected and empty than usual. 11. "The sharpest north-east wind, my good Euphues, doth never last three days, tempests have but a short time, and the more violent the thunder is, the less per- manent it is. In the like manner it falleth out with jars and carpings of friends, which, begun in a moment, are ended in a moment. Necessary it is that among friends there should be some thwarting, but to continue in anger not convenient : the camel first troubleth the water before he drink ; the frankincense is burned be- fore it smell ; friends are tried before they be trusted, lest, shining like the carbuncle as though they had fire, they be found, being touched, to be without fire. Friend- ship should be like the wine, which Homer much commending calleth Maroneum, whereof one pint being mingled with five quarts of water, yet it keepeth his old strength and virtue, not to be qualified by any discurtesie. "Where salt doth grow nothing else can breed ; where friendship is built no offence can harbour. Then, Euphues, let the falling out of friends be the renewing of affection, that in this we may resemble the bones of the lion, which, lying still and not moved, begin to rot, but being stricken one against another, break out like fire, and wax green." 12. "The lords and gentlemen in that court (of Elizabeth) are also an example," he says in a subsequent passage, "for all others to follow, true types of nobility, the only stay and staff of honour, brave courtiers, stout soldiers, apt to revel in peace and ride in war. In fight fierce, not dreading death ; in friendship firm, not breaking promise ; courteous to all that deserve well, cruel to none that deserve ill. Their adversaries they trust not that showeth their wisdom ; their enemies they fear not that argueth their courage. They are not apt to proffer injuries, not fit to take any ; loth to pick quarrels, but longing to revenge them." Lilly pays great compliments to the ladies for beauty and modesty, and overloads Elizabeth with panegyric. " Touching the beauty of this prince, her countenance, her majesty, her personage, I cannot think that it may be sufficiently commended, when it cannot be too much marvailed at ; so that I am constrained to say, as Praxiteles did when he began to paint Venus and her son, who doubted whether the world could afford colours good enough for two such fair faces, and I whether my tongue can yield words to blaze that beauty, the perfection whereof none can imagine ; which, seeing it is so, I must do like those that want a clear sight, who being not able to discern the sun in the sky, are inforced to behold it in the water." 13. It generally happens that a style devoid of simplicity, when first adopted, becomes the object of admiration for its imagined in- genuity and difficulty ; and that of Eu- phues was well adapted to a pedantic generation who valued nothing higher than far-fetched allusions and sententious pre- cepts. All the ladies of the time, we are told, were Lilly's scholars; "she who spoke not Euphuism being as littlp re- garded at court as if she could not speak French." "His invention," says one of his editors, who seems well worthy of him, " was so curiously strung, that Elizabeth's court held his notes in admiration." 1 Shakspeare has ridiculed this style in Love's Labour Lost, and Jonson in Every Man out of his Humour ; but, as will be seen on comparing the extracts I have given above, with the language of Holo- fernes and Fastidious Brisk, a little in the tone of caricature, which Sir "Walter Scott has heightened in one of his novels, till it bears no great resemblance to the real Euphues. I am not sure that Shakspeare has never caught the Euphuistic style, when he did not intend to make it ridi- culous, especially in some speeches of Hamlet. 14. The first good prose writer, in any positive sense of the word, is Sir Philip i In Biogr. Britannica, art. Lilly. 374 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Sydney. The Arcadia appeared in 1590. Sydney-* It has been said of the author Arcadia. o f this famous romance, to which, as such, we shall have soon to revert, that " we may regard the whole literary character of that age as in some sort derived and descended from him, and his work as the fountain from which all the vigorous shoots of that period drew something of their verdure and strength. It was indeed the Arcadia which first taught to the contemporary writers that inimitable interweaving and contexture of words, that bold and unshackled use and application of them, that art of giving to language, appropriated to objects the most common and trivial, a kind of acquired and adventitious loftiness, and to diction in itself noble and elevated a sort of super- added dignity, that power of ennobling the sentiments by the language, and the lan- guage by the sentiments, which so often excites our admiration in perusing the writers of the age of Elizabeth." 1 This panegyric appears a good deal too strongly expressed, and perhaps the Arcadia had not this great influence over the writers of the latter years of Elizabeth, whose age is, in the passage quoted, rather too indefin- itely mentioned. We are sometimes apt to mistake an improvement springing from the general condition of the public mind for imitation of the one writer who has first displayed the effects of it. Sydney is, as I have said, our earliest good writer ; but if the Arcadia had never been pub- lished, I cannot believe that Hooker or Bacon would have written worse. 15. Sydney's Defence of Poesie, as has His Defence of been surmised by his last Poesie. editor, was probably written about 1581. I should incline to place it later than the Arcadia ; and he may per- haps allude to himself where he says ; " some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral." This treatise is elegantly writ- ten, with perhaps too artificial a construc- tion of sentences ; the sense is good, but the expression is very diffuse, which gives it too much the air of a declamation. The great praise of Sydney in this treatise is, that he has shown the capacity of the English language for spirit, variety, gra- cious idiom, and masculine firmness. It is worth notice that under the word poesy he includes such works as his own Arcadia, or in short any fiction. "It is not rhym- ing and versing that maketh poesy ; one may be a poet without versing, and a versifier without poetry." i Retrospective Eeview, voL ii. p. 42. 1C. But the finest, as well as the most philosophical, writer of the Elizabethan period is Hooker. The first book of the Ecclesi- astical Polity is at this day one of the masterpieces of English eloquence. His periods indeed are generally much too long and too intricate, but portions of them are often beautifully rhythmical ; his language is rich in English idiom with- out vulgarity, and in words of a Latin source without pedantry ; he is more uni- formly solemn than the usage of later times permits, or even than writers of that time, such as Bacon, conversant with man- kind as well as books, would have reck- oned necessary ; but the example of ancient orators and philosophers upon themes so grave as those which he discusses may justify the serious dignity from which he does not depart. Hooker is perhaps the first in England who adorned his prose with the images of poetry ; but this he has done more judiciously and with more moderation than others of great name ; and we must be bigots in Attic severity, before we can object to some of his grand figures of speech. "We may praise him also for avoiding the superfluous luxury of quotation, a rock on which the writers of the succeeding age were so frequently wrecked. 17. It must be owned, however, by every one not absolutely blinded character of by a love of scarce books, Elizabethan that the prose literature of wr" 6 "- the queen's reign, taken generally, is but very mean. The pedantic Euphuism of Lilly overspreads the productions which aspire to the praise of politeness ; while the common style of most pieces of circum- stance, like those of Martin Mar-prelate and his answerers (for there is little to choose in this respect between parties), or of such efforts at wit and satire as came from Greene, Nash, and other worthies of our early stage, is low, and, with few ex- ceptions, very stupid ribaldry. Many of these have a certain utility in the illustra- tion of Shakspeare and of ancient manners, which is neither to be overlooked in our contempt for such trash, nor to be mis- taken for intrinsic merit. If it is alleged that I have not read enough of the Eliza- bethan literature to censure it, I must reply that, admitting my slender acquaintance with the numberless little books that some years since used to be sold at vast prices, I may still draw an inference from the in- ability of their admirers, or at least pur- chasers, to produce any tolerable specimens. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 375 Let the labours of Sir Egerton Brydges, the British Bibliographer, the Censura Literaria, the Eestituta, collections so copious, and formed with so much industry, speak for the prose of the queen's reign. I would again repeat that good sense in plain language was not always wanting upon serious subjects; it is to polite writing alone that we now refer. 1 Spenser's dialogue upon the State of Ireland, the Brief Con- ceit of English Policy, and several other tracts are written as such treatises should be written, but they are not to be counted in the list of eloquent or elegant composi- tions. SECT. II. ON CRITICISM. State of Criticism in Italy Scaliger Cas- telvetro Salviati In other Countries England. 18. In the earlier periods with which we State of have been conversant, criti- criticism, c ig m na( j keen the humble handmaid of the ancient writers, content to explain, or sometimes aspiring to restore, but seldom presuming to censure their text, or even to justify the superstitious admira- tion that modern scholars felt for it. But there is a different and far higher criticism, which excites and guides the taste for truth and beauty in works of imagination ; a criticism to which even the great masters of language are responsible, and from which they expect their reward. But of the many who have sat in this tribunal, a small minority have been recognised as rightful arbiters of the palms they pretend to con- fer, and an appeal to the public voice has as often sent away the judges in dishonour as confirmed their decision. - 19. It is a proof at least of the talents Scaiiger's and courage which distin- Poetry. guished Julius Caesar Scali- ger, that he, first of all the moderns (or, if there are exceptions, they must be partial and inconsiderable), undertook to reduce 1 It is not probable that Brydges, as a man of considerable taste and judgment, whatever some other pioneers in the same track may have been, would fail to select the best portions of the au- thors he has so carefully perused. And yet I would almost defy any one to produce five pas- sages in prose from his numerous volumes, so far as the sixteenth century is concerned, which have any other merit than that of illustrating some matter of fact, or of amusing by their oddity. I have only noted, in traversing that long desert, two sermons by one Edward Dering, preached before the queen (British Bibliogra- pher, i. 2CO and 560), which show considerably more vigour than was usual in the style of that age. the whole art of verse into system, illus trating and confirming every part by a pro- fusion of poetical literature. His Poetics form an octavo of about 900 pages, closely printed. "We can give but a slight sketch of so extensive a work. In the first book he treats of the different species of poems ; in the second, of different metres ; the third is more miscellaneous, but relates chiefly to figures and turns of phrase ; the fourth proceeds with the same subject, but these two are very comprehensive. In the fifth we come to apply these principles to criticism ; and here we find a comparison of various poets one with another, especially of Homer with Virgil. The sixth book is a general criticism on all Latin poets, ancient and modern. The seventh is a kind of supplement to the rest, and seems to con- tain all the miscellaneous matter that he found himself to have omitted, together with some questions purposely reserved, as he tells us, on account of their difficulty. His comparison of Homer with Virgil is very elaborate, extending to His preference every simile or other passage, ofVlrgUto wherein a resemblance or Homer, imitation can be observed, as well as to the general management of their epic poems. In this comparison he gives an invariable preference to Virgil, and declares that the difference between these poets is as great as between a lady of rank and an awkward wife of a citizen. Musseus he conceives to be far superior to Homer, according to the testimony of antiquity ; and his poem of Hero and Leander, which it does not occur to him to suspect, is the only one in Greek that can be named in competition with Virgil, as he shows by comparison of the said poem with the very inferior effusions of Homer. If Musaeus had written on the same subject as Homer, Scaliger does not doubt but that he would have left the Iliad and Odyssey far behind. 1 1 Quod si Musaeus ea, quae Homerus Scripsit, scripsisset, longe melius eum scripturum fuisse judicamus. The following is a specimen of Scaliger's style of criticism, chosen rather for its shortness than any other cause : Ex vicesimo tertio Iliadis transtulit versus illos in comparationem ; /jLacrTiyi 8' atev eXawe /carcB/iafioi/' at 6V ot tmroi vxjfoo-' aftpfcrdrjv pt/i0a Trprja-crovre *eA- fvQov. i.(T\voKoyia multa ; at in nostro animata oratio ; Non tarn praecipites bijugo certamine campum Corripuere, ruuntque effusi carcere currus, &c. Cum virtutibus horum canninum non est con- ferenda jejuna ilia humilitas ; audent pneferre 376 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 20. These opinions will not raise Scali- ger's taste very greatly in our eyes. But it is not perhaps surprising that an Italian, accustomed to the polished effeminacy of modern verse, both in his language and in Latin, should be delighted with the poem of Hero and Leander, which has the sort of charm that belongs to the statues of Bacchus, and soothes the' ear with voluptu- OUB harmony, while it gratifies the mind with elegant and pleasing imagery^ It is not, however, to be taken for granted that Scaliger is always mistaken in his judg- ments on particular passages in these greatest of poets. The superiority of the Homeric poems is rather incontestable in their general effect, and in the vigorous originality of his verse, than in the selec- tion of circumstance, sentiment, or expres- sion. It would be a sort of prejudice almost as tasteless as that of Scaliger, to refuse the praise of real poetic superiority to many passages of Virgil, even as com- pared with the Iliad, and far more with the Odyssey. If the similes of the older poet are more picturesque and animated, those of his imitator are more appropriate and parallel to the subject. It would be rather whimsical to deny this to be a principal merit in a comparison. Scaliger sacrifices Theocritus as much as Homer at the altar of Virgil, and of course Apol- lonius has little chance with so partial a judge. Horace and Ovid, at least the latter, are also held by Scaliger superior to the Greeks whenever they come into com- petition. 21. In the fourth chapter of the sixth His cntque on book, Scaliger criticises the modern Latin modern Latin poets, begin- poets ning with Marullus; for what is somewhat remarkable, he says that he had been unable to see the Latin poems of Petrarch. He rates Marullus low, though he dwells at length on his poetry, and thinks no better of Augurellus. The continuation of the ^Eneid by Maphseus he highly praises ; Augerianus not at all. tamen granunatici temeril. Principle, nihil infelicius quam /unorryi aitv (\avvev. Nam continuatio et equorum diminuit opinionem, et contemptum facit verberum. Frequentibus in- tervallis stimuli plus proflciunt. Quod vero admirantur Graeculi, pessimutn est, ti^oo"' (ifiixrrdrjv. Extento namque, et, ut milites loquantur, clause cursu non subsiliente opus est. Quare divlnus vir, undantia lora; hoc enim pro flagro, et prcrr.ipites, et corripwre cam- pum ; idque in preterite, ad celeritatem. Et nnmt, quasi in diversa, adeo celeres aunt. Ilia vero supra omnem Homerum, proni in verbera pendent. 1. v. c. 3. Mantuan has some genius, but no skill; and Scaliger is indignant that some ignor- ant schoolmasters should teach from him rather than from Virgil. Of Dolet he speaks with great severity; his unhappy fate does not atone for the badness of his verses in the eyes of so stern a critic ; " the fire did not purify him, but rather he pol- luted the fire." Palingenius, though too diffuse, he accounts a good poet, and Cotta as an imitator of Catullus. Palearius aims rather to be philosophical than poetical. Castiglione is excellent ; Bembus wants vigour, and sometimes elegance ; he is too fond, as many others are, of trivial words. Of Politian Scaliger does not speak highly ; he rather resembles Statius, has no grace, and is careless of harmony. Vida is reck- oned, he says, by most the first poet of our time ; he dwells, therefore, long on the Ars Poetica, and extols it highly, though not without copious censure. Of Vida's other poems the Bombyx is the best. Pontanus is admirable for everything, if he had known where to stop. To Sannazarins and Fracastorius he assigns the highest praise of universal merit, but places the last at the head of the whole band. 22. The Italian language, like those of Greece and Rome, had been critical influence hitherto almost exclusively oftheacademlei - treated by grammarians, the superior criti- cism having little place even in the writ- ings of Bembo. But soon after the middle of the century, the academies established in many cities, dedicating much time to their native language, began to point out beauties, and to animadvert on defects beyond the province of grammar. The enthusiastic admiration of Petrarch poured itself forth in -tedious commentaries upon every word of every sonnet ; one of which, illustrated with the heavy prolixity of that age, would sometimes be the theme of a volume. Some philosophical or theological pedants spiritualised his meaning, as had been attempted before ; the absurd para- dox of denying the real existence of Laura is a known specimen of their refinements. Many wrote on the subject of his love for her ; and a few denied its Platonic purity, which, however, the academy of Ferrara thought fit to decree. One of the heretics, by name Cresci, ventured also to maintain that she was married ; but this probable hypothesis had not many followers. * 23. Meantime a multitude of new versi- fiers, chiefly close copyists of the style of Petrarch, lay open to the malice of their 1 Crescimbeni, Storia della Volgar Poesia, ii. 295-309. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 377 competitors, and the strictness of these Dispute of caro self-chosen judges of song. and Castelvetro. A critical controversy that sprung up ahout 1558 between two men of letters, very prominent in their age, Annihal Caro and Ludovico Castelvetro, is celebrated in the annals of Italian litera- ture. The former had published a can- zone in praise of the king of France, beginning Venite all' ombra de' gran gigli d' oro. Castelvetro made some sharp animadver- sions on this ode, which seems really to deserve a good deal of censure, being in bad taste, turgid, and foolish. Caro re- plied with the bitterness natural to a wounded poet. In this there might be 'nothing unpardonable, and even his abu- sive language might be extenuated at least by many precedents in literary story ; but it is imputed to Caro that he excited the Inquisition against his suspected adver- sary. Castelvetro had been of the cele- brated academy of Modena, whose alleged inclination to Protestantism had proved, several years before, the cause of its dis- solution, and of the persecution which some of its members suffered. Castelve- tro, though he had avoided censure at that time, was now denounced about 1560, when the persecution was hottest, to the Inquisi- tion at Rome. He obeyed its summons, but soon found it prudent to make his escape, and reached Chiavenna in the Orison dominions. He lived several years afterwards in safe quarters, but seems never to have made an open profession of the reformed faith. 1 24. Castelvetro himself is one of the castievetro on most considerable among Aristotle's the Italian critics; but his and his fastidious temper seems to have sought nothing so much as occasion for censure. His greatest work is a com- mentary upon the Poetics of Aristotle; and it may justly claim respect, not only as the earliest exposition of the theory of criticism, but for its acuteness, erudition, and independence of reasoning, which dis- claims the Stagyrite as a master, though the diffuseness usual in that age, and the microscopic subtlety of the writer's mind may render its perusal tedious. Twining, one of the best critics on the Poetics, has said, in speaking of the commentaries of Castelvetro and of a later Italian, Beni, 1 Muratori, Vita del Castelvetro, 1727. Cres- cimbeni, ii. 431. Tiraboschi, x. 31. Ginguene", vii. 365. Corniani, vi. 61. that "their prolixity, their scholastic and trifling subtlety, their useless tediousness of logical analysis, their microscopic detec- tion of difficulties invisible to the naked eye of common sense, and their waste of confutation upon objections made only by themselves, and made on purpose to be confuted all this, it must be owned, is disgusting and repulsive. It may suffici- ently release a commentator from the duty of reading their works throughout, but not from that of examining and consulting them ; for in both these writers, but more' especially in Beni, there are many remarks equally acute and solid ; many difficulties will be seen clearly stated, and sometimes successfully removed; many things use- fully illustrated and clearly explained ; and if their freedom of censure is now and then disgraced by a little disposition to cavil, this becomes almost a virtue when com- pared with the servile and implicit admir- ation of Dacier." 1 25. Castelvetro in his censorious humour did not spare the greatest severity of shades that repose in the Casteivetro's laurel groves of Parnassus, nor even those whom national pride had elevated to a level with them. Homer is less blamed than any other ; but frequent shafts are levelled at Virgil, and not al- ways unjustly, if poetry of real genius could ever bear the extremity of critical rigour, in which a monotonous and frigid mediocrity has generally found refuge. 2 In Dante he finds fault with the pedantry that has filled his poem with terms of science, unintelligible and unpleasing to ignorant men, for whom poems are chiefly designed. 3 Ariosto he charges with pla- giarism, laying unnecessary stress on his borrowing some stories, as that of Zerbino, 1 Twining's Aristotle's Poetics, preface, p. 13. 2 One of his censures falls on the minute par- ticularity of the prophecy of Anchises in the sixth .-Eneid ; peccando Virgilio nella convene- volezza della profetia, la quale non suole con- descendere a nomi proprj, ne a cose tanto chiare e particolari, ma, tacendo i nomi, suole mani- festare le persone, e le loro azioni con figure di parlare alquanto oscure, si come si vede nelle profetie della scrittura sacra e nelT Alessandra di Licophrone, p. 219 (edit. 1576). This is not unjust in itself ; but Castelvetro wanted the candour to own, or comprehensiveness to per- ceive, that a prophecy of the Roman history, couched in allegories, would have had much less effect on Human readers. 3 Rendendola massimamente per questa via difficile ad intendere e meno piacente a uomini idioti, per gli quali principalmente si fanno i poemi, p. 597. But the comedy of Dante was about as much written for gl' idioti, as the Principia of Xewton. 378 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. from older books ; and even objects to his introduction of false names of kings, since we may as well invent new mountains and rivers, as violate the known truths of his- tory. 1 This punctilious cavil is very characteristic of Castelvetro. Yet he sometimes reaches a strain of philosophical analysis, and can by no means be placed in the ranks of criticism below La Harpe, to whom, by his attention to verbal minuteness, as well as by the acrimony and self-confidence of his character, he may in some measure be compared. 26. The Ercolano of Varchi, a series of Ercolano of dialogues, belongs to the Varchi. inferior but more numerous class of critical writings, and after some general observations on speech and langu- age as common to men, turns to the favourite theme of his contemporaries, their native idiom. He is one who with Bembo contends that the language should not be called Italian, or even Tuscan, but Floren- tine, though admitting, what might be ex- pected, that few agree to this except the natives of the city. Varchi had written on the side of Caro against Castelvetro, and though upon the whole he does not speak of the latter in the Ercolano with incivility, cannot restrain his wrath at an assertion of the stern critic of Modena, that there were as famous writers in the Spanish and French as in the Italian language. Varchi even denies that there was any writer of reputation in the first of these except Juan de la Hena, and the author of Amadis de Gaul. Varchi is now chiefly known as the author of a respect- able history, which, on account of its sin- cerity, was not published till the last century. The prejudice that, in common with some of his fellow-citizens, he enter- tained in favour of the popular idiom of Florence, has affected the style of his history, which is reckoned both tediously diffuse, and deficient in choice of phrase. 2 27. Varchi, in a passage of the Ercolano, Controvery having extolled Dante even about Dante. m preference to Homer, gave rise to a controversy wherein some Italian critics did not hesitate to point out the blemishes of their countryman. 3ul- garini was one of these. Mazzoni under- took the defence of Dante in a work of 1 Castelvetro, p. 212. He objects on the same principle to Giraldi Cinthio, that he had chosen a subject for tragedy which never had occurred, nor had been reported to have occurred, and this of royal persons unheard of before, il qual peccato di prendere soggetto tale per la tragedia non k da perdonare, p. 103. 2 Cornlani, vi. 43. considerable length, and seems to have poured out, still more abundantly than his contemporaries, a torrent of philosophical disquisition. Bulgarini replied again to him. 1 Crescimbeni speaks of these dis- cussions as having been advantageous to Italian poetry. 2 The good effects, how- ever, were not very sensibly manifested in the next century. 28. Florence was the chief scene of these critical wars. Cosmo I., the Academy of most perfect type of the Florence, prince of Machiavel, sought by the en- couragement of literature in this its most innocuous province, as he did by the arts of embellishment, both to bring over the minds of his subjects a forgetfulness of liberty, and to render them unapt for its recovery. The Academy of Florence re- sounded with the praises of Petrarch. A few seceders from this body established the more celebrated academy Delia Crusca, of the sieve, whose appellation bespoke the spirit in which they meant to sift all they undertook to judge. They were soon en- gaged, and with some loss to their fame, in a controversy upon the Gierusalemme Liberata. Camillo Pellegrino, a Neapo- litan, had published in 1584 a dialogue on epic poetry, entitled II Caraffa, wherein he gave preference to Tasso above Ariosto. Though Florence had no peculiar interest in this question, the academicians thought themselves guardians of the elder bard's renown ; and Tasso had offended the citizens by some reflections in one of his dialogues. The academy permitted them- selves, in a formal reply, to place even Pulci and Boiardo above Tasso. It was easier to vindicate Ariosto from some of Pellegrino's censures, which are couched in the pedantic tone of insisting with the reader that he ought not to be pleased. He has followed Castelvetro in several criticisms. The rules of epic poetry so long observed, he maintains, ought to be reck- oned fundamental principles, which no one can dispute without presumption. The academy answer this well on behalf of Ariosto. Their censures on the Jerusalem apply, in part to the characters and inci- dents, wherein they are sometimes right, in part to the language, many phrases, according to them, being bad Italian, as, pietose for pie in the first line. 3 1 Id. vL 260. Ginguene, vil. 491. 2 Hist, della Volgar Poesia, ii. 282. 3 In the second volume of the edition of Tasso at Venice, 1735, the Caraffa of Pellegrino, the Defence of Ariosto by the Academy, Tasso's Apology, and the Infarinato of Salviati, are cut into sentences, placed to answer each other like Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 379 29. Salviati, a verbose critic, who had Salriatfs attack written two quarto volumes on lasso. on the style of Boccaccio, assailed the new epic in two treatises, entitled L'Infarinato. Tasso's Apology fol- lowed very soon ; but it has been sometimes thought that these criticisms, acting on his morbid intellect, though he repelled them vigorously, might have influenced that waste of labour, by which, in the last years of his life, he changed so much of his great poem for the worse. The ob- scurer insects whom envy stirred up against its glory are not worthy to be remembered. The chief praise of Salviati himself is that he laid the foundations of the first classical dictionary of any modern language, the Vocabulario della Crusca. 1 30. Bouterwek has made us acquainted Pinciano's Art with a treatise in Spanish of Poetry. on the art of poetry, which he regards as the earliest of its kind in modern literature. It could not be so according to the date of its publication, which is in 1596 ; but the author, Alonzo Lopez Pinciaiio was physician to Charles V., and it was therefore written, in all probabil- ity, many years before it appeared from the press. The title is rather quaint, Philo- sophia Antigua Poetica, and it is written in the form of letters. Pinciano is the first who discovered the Poetics of Aris- totle, which he had diligently studied, to be a fragment of a larger work, as is now generally admitted. " Whenever Lopez Pinciano," says Bouterwek, abandons Aris- totle, his notions respecting the different poetic styles are as confused as those of his contemporaries ; and only a few of his no- tions and distinctions can be deemed of importance at the present day. But his name is deserving of honourable remem- brance, for he was the first writer of modern times who endeavoured to establish a philo- sophic art of poetry ; and, with all his veneration for Aristotle, he was the first scholar who ventured to think for himself, a dialogue. This produces an awkward and unnatural effect, as passages are torn from their context to place them in opposition. The criticism on both sides becomes infinitely wearisome ; yet not more so than much that we find in our modern reviews, and with the ad- vantage of being more to the purpose, less ostentatious, and with less pretence to eloquence or philosophy. An account of the controversy will be found in Crescimbeni, Ginguene^ or Corni- ani, and more at length in Serassi's Life of Tasso. i Corniani, vi. 204. The Italian literature would supply several more works on criticism, rhetoric, and grammar. Upon all these subjects it was much richer, at this time, than the French or English. and to go somewhat farther than his master." 1 The Art of Poetry, by Juan de la Cueva, is a poem of the didactic class, containing some information as to the history of Spanish verse. 2 The other cri- tical treatises which appeared in Spain about this time seem to be of little im- portance ; but we know by the writings of Cervantes, that the poets of the age of Philip were, as usual, followed by the animal for whose natural prey they are designed, the sharp-toothed and keen-scented critic. 31. France produced very few books of the same class. The In- French treatises stitutiones Oratoriae of of criticism. Omer Talon is an elementary and short treatise of rhetoric. 3 Baillet and Goujet gave some praise to the Art of Poetry by Pelletier, published in 1555. 4 The treatise of Henry Stephens, on the Conformity of the French Language with the Greek, is said to contain very good observations. 5 But it must be (for I do not recollect to have seen it) rather a book of grammar than of superior criticism. The Ehetorique Francaise of Fouquelin (1555) seems to be little else than a summary of rhetorical figures. 6 That of Courcelles, in 1557, is not much better. 7 All these relate rather to prose than to poetry. From the num- ber of versifiers in France, and the popu- larity of Eonsard and his school, we might have expected a larger harvest of critics. Pasquier, in his valuable miscellany, Les Recherches de la France, has devoted a few pages to this subject, but not on an exten- sive or systematic plan ; nor can the two Bibliotheques Francaises, by La Croix du Maine and Verdier, both published in 1584, though they contain a great deal of information as to the literature of France, with some critical estimates of books, be reckoned in the class to which we are now adverting. In this department of litera- ture, without doing a great deal, we had perhaps rather the advantage over our neighbours. 32. Thomas Wilson, afterwards secretary of state, and much em- Wilson's Art of ployed under Elizabeth, is Ehetorique. the author of an "Art of Rhetorique," dated in the preface January 1553. The rules in this treatise are chiefly from 1 Hist, of Sp. Lit. p. 323. 2 It is printed entire in the eighth volume of Parnaso Espafiol. 3 Gibert, Baillet, printed in Jugemens des Savans, viii. 181. 4 Baillet, iii. 351. Goujet, iii. 97. Pelletier had previously rendered Horace's Art of Poetry into French verse, id. 66. Baillet, iii. 353. 6 Gibert, p. 184. 7 Id. p. 366. 380 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. Aristotle, with the help of Cicero and Quintilian, but his examples and illustra- tions are modern. Warton says that it is the first system of criticism in our lan- guage. 1 But in common use of the word it is no criticism at all, any more than the treatise of Cicero de Oratore ; it is what it professes to be, a system of rhetoric in the ancient manner ; and, in this sense, it had been preceded by the work of Leonard Cox, which has been mentioned in a former chapter. Wilson was a man of considerable learning, and his Art of Rhe- torique is by no means without merit. He deserves praise for censuring the pedantry of learned phrases, or, as he calls them, "strange inkhorn terms," advising men " to speak as is commonly received ; " and he censures also what was not less pedan- tic, the introduction of a French or Italian idiom, which the travelled English affected in order to show their politeness, as the scholars did the former to prove their erudition. "Wilson had before published an Art of Logic. 33. The first English criticism, properly Gascoyne; speaking, that I find, is a Webbe. short tract by Gascoyne, doubtless the poet of that name, published in 1575 ; " Certain Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse or Rhyme in English." It consists only of ten pages, but the observations are judicious. Gas- coyne recommends that the sentence should as far as possible be finished at the close of two lines in the couplet measure. 2 Webbe, author of a "Discourse of English Poetry" (1586), is copious in comparison with Gas- coyne, though he stretches but to seventy pages. His taste is better shown in his praise of Spenser for the Shepherd's Kal- endar, than of Gabriel Harvey for his " Reformation of our English verse; " that is, by forcing it into uncouth Latin mea- sures, which Webbe has himself most un- happily attempted. 34. A superior writer to Webbe was Pnttenham'i Art George Puttenham, whose ofPoede. "Art of English Poesie," published in 1589, is a small quarto of 258 pages in three books. It is in many parts very well written, in a measured prose, rather elaborate and diffuse. He quotes occasionally a little Greek. Among the contemporary English poets, Puttenham extols " for eclogue and pastoral poetry Sir Philip Sydney and Master Chaloner, 1 Hist, of EngL Poetry, Iv. 157. 2 Gascoyne, with all the other early English critics, was republished in a collection by Mr. Haslewood in two volumes, 1811 and 1815. and that other gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Kalendar. For ditty and amorous ode I find Sir Walter Rawleigh's vein most lofty, insolent, [bold ? or un- common ?] and passionate ; Master Edward Dyer for elegy most sweet, solemn, and of high conceit ; Gascon [Gascoyne] for a good metre and for a plentiful vein ; Phaer and Golding for a learned and well con- nected verse, specially in translation, clear, and very faithfully answering their author's intent. Others have also written with much facility, but more commendably per- haps, if they had not written so much nor so popularly. But last in recital and first in degree is the queen our sovereign lady, whose learned, delicate, noble muse easily surmounteth all the rest that have written before her time or since, for sense, sweet- ness, and subtilty, be it in ode, elegy, epigram, or any other kind of poem, heroic or lyric, wherein it shall please her majesty to employ her pen, even by so much odds as her own excellent estate and degree ex- ceedeth all the rest of her most humble vassals." 1 On this it may be remarked, that the only specimen of Elizabeth's poetry which, as far as I know, remains, is pro- digiously bad. 2 In some passages of Put- tenham, we find an approach to the higher province of philosophical criticism. 35. These treatises of Webbe and Put- tenham may have been pre- Sydney's Defence ceded in order of writing, of Poesy, though not of publication, by the perfor- mance of a more illustrious author. Sir Philip Sydney. His Defence of Poesy was not published till 1595. The Defence of Poesy has already been reckoned among the polite writings of the Elizabethan age, to which class it rather belongs than to that of criticism ; for Sydney rarely comes to any literary censure, and is still farther removed from any profound philosophy. His sense is good, but not ingenious, and the declamatory tone weakens its effect. SECT. HI. ON WORKS OP FICTION. Novels and Romances in Italy and Spain Sydney's Arcadia. 36. The novels of Bandello, three parts of which were published in Hovel* of 1554, and a fourth in 1573, BandeUo; are perhaps the best known and the most admired in that species of composition after those of Boccaccio. They have been cen- sured as licentious, but are far less so than 1 Puttenham, p. 51. of Haslewood's edition, or in Censura Literaria, i. 348. 2 Ellis's Specimens, ii. 162. Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 381 any of preceding times, and the reflections are usually of a moral cast. These how- ever, as well as the speeches, are very tedious. There is not a little predilection in Bandello for sanguinary stories. Gin- guene praises these novels for just senti- ments, adherence to probability, and choice of interesting subjects. In these respects, we often find a superiority in the older novels above those of the nineteenth cen- tury, the golden age, as it is generally thought, of fictitious story. But, in the management of these subjects, the Italian and Spanish novelists show little skill ; they are worse cooks of better meat ; they exert no power over the emotions beyond what the intrinsic nature of the events re- lated must produce ; they sometimes de- scribe well, but with no great imagination ; they have no strong conception of character, no deep acquaintance with mankind, not often much humour, no vivacity and spirit of dialogue. 37. The Hecatomithi, or Hundred Tales, of Giraldi Cinthio have be- of Cinthio. , come known in England by the recourse that Shakspeare has had to them in two instances, Cymbeline and Measure for Measure, for the subjects of his plays. Cinthio has also borrowed from himself in his own tragedies. He is still more fond of dark tales of blood than Ban- dello. He seems consequently to have possessed an unfortunate influence over the stage ; and to him, as well as his brethren of the Italian novel, we trace those scenes of improbable and disgusting horror , from which, though the native taste and gentle- ness of Shakspeare for the most part dis- dained such helps, we recoil in almost all the other tragedians of the old English school. Of the remaining Italian novelists that belong to this period, it is enough to mention Erizzo, better known as one of the founders of medallic science. His Sei Giornate contain thirty-six novels, called Awenimenti. They are written with in- tolerable prolixity, but in a pure and even elevated tone of morality. This character does not apply to the novels of Lasca. 38. The French novels, ascribed to Mar- of the Queen of garet Queen of Navarre, and Navarre. g^ published in 1558, with the title " Histoire des Amans fortunes," are principally taken from the Italian col- lections or from the fabliaux of the trou- veurs. Though free in language, they are written in a much less licentious spirit than many of the former, but breathe through- out that anxiety to exhibit the clergy, especially the regulars, in an odious or ridiculous light, which the principles of their illustrious authoress might lead us to expect. Belleforest translated, perhaps with some variation, the novels of Bandello into French. 1 39. Few probably will now dispute, that the Italian novel, a picture . spaniih ro- of real life, and sometimes manceaofchiv- of true circumstances, is **** perused with less weariness than the Spanish romance, the alternative then offered to the lovers. of easy reading. But this had very numerous admirers in that generation, nor was the taste confined to Spain. The popularity of Amadis de Gaul and Palmerin of Oliva, with their various continuators, has been already mentioned. 2 One of these, " Palmerin of England," appeared in French at Lyons in 1555. It is uncertain who was the original author, or in what language it was first written. Cervantes has hon- oured it with a place next to Amadis. Mr. Southey, though he condescended to abridge Palmerin of England, thinks it inferior to that Iliad of romantic adventure. Several of the tales of knight-errantry that are recorded to have stood on the unfortu- nate shelves of Don Quixote, belong to this latter part of the century, among which Don Bellianis of Greece is better known by name than any other. These romances were not condemned by Cervantes alone. 1 Bouterwek, v. 286, mentions by name several other French novelists of the sixteenth century : I do not know anything of them. 2 La Noue, a severe Protestant, thinks them as pernicious to the young as the writings of Machiavel had been to the old. This he dwells upon in his sixth discourse. " De tout temps,"' this honest and sensible writer says, " ilya eu des hommes, qui ont este" diligens d'escrire et mettre en lumiere des choses vaines. Ce qui plus les y a conviez est, que ils sgavoient que leurs labeurs seroient agreables a ceux de leurs siecles, dont la plus part a toujours heime [aimii] la vanite, comme le poisson fait 1'eau. Les vieux romans dont nous voyons encor les fragmens par-ci et par-la, a savoir de Lancelot du Lac, de Perceforest, Tristan, Giron le courtois, et autres, font foy de ceste vanite an- tique. On s'en est repeu 1'espace de plus de cinq cens ans, jusques a ce que nostre langage estant devenu plus orne, et nostres esprits plus fretillans, il a fallu inventer quelque nouveaute' pour les egayer. Voila comment les livres d' Amadis sont venus en evidence parmi nous en ce dernier siecle. Mais pour en parler au vrai, 1'Espagne les a engendrez, et la France les a settlement revetus de plus beaux habillemens. Sous le regne du roy Henry second, ils ont eu leur principale vogue ; et croy qui si quelqu'un les eust voulu alors blasiner, en luy eust crache | au visage," &c. p. 153, edit. 1588. 382 Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. " Every poet and prose writer," says Bouterwek, "of cultivated talent, laboured to oppose the contagion." 1 40. Spain was the parent of a romance Diana of Monte- m a very different style, mayor. but, if less absurd and better written, not perhaps much more interesting to us than those of chivalry, the Diana of Montemayor. Sannazaro's beautiful model of pastoral romance, the Arcadia, and some which had been written in Portugal, take away the merit of originality from this celebrated fiction. It formed, however, a school in this department of literature, hardly less numerous, according to Bouter- wek, than the imitators of Amadis. 2 The language of Montemayor is neither laboured nor affected, and though sometimes of rather too formal a solemnity, especially in what the author thought philosophy, is remarkably harmonious and elevated ; nor is he deficient in depth of feeling or fer- tility of imagination. Yet the story seems incapable of attracting any reader of this age. The Diana, like Sannazaro's Arcadia, is mingled with much lyric poetry, which Bouterwek thinks, is the soul of the whole composition. Cervantes indeed condemns all the longer of these poems to the flames, and gives but limited praise to the Diana. Yet this romance, and a continua- tion of it by Gil Polo, had inspired his own youthful genius in the Galatea. The chief merit of the Galatea, published in 1584, consists in the poetry which the story seems intended to hold together. In the Diana of Montemayor, and even in the Galatea, it has been supposed that real adventures and characters were generally shadowed a practice not already without precedent, and which, by the French es- pecially, was carried to a much greater length in later times. 41. Spain became celebrated about the Novell in the end of this century for her picaresque style, novels in the picaresque style, of which Lazarillo de Tormes is the oldest extant specimen. The continuation of this little work is reckoned inferior to the part written by Mendoza himself ; but both together are amusing and inimitably 1 In the opinion of Bouterwek (v. 282), the taste for chivalrous romance declined in the latter part of the century, through the preva- lence of a classical spirit in literature, which exposed the mediaeval fictions to derision. The number of shorter and more amusing novels might probably have more to do with it ; the serious romance lias a terrible enemy in the lively. But it revived, with a little modifica- tion, in the next age. 2 Hist. Span. Lit. p. 305. short. 1 The first edition of the most cele- brated romance of this class, Guzman d'Al- farache, falls within the six- Guzman d 1 Aifa- teenth century. It was rache. written by Matthew Aleman, who is said to have lived long at court. He might there have acquired, not a knowledge of the tricks of common rogues, but an ex- perience of mankind, which is reckoned one of the chief merits of his romance. Many of his stories also relate to the man- ners of a higher class than that of his hero. Guzman d' Alfarache is a sort of prototype of Gilblas, though, in fact, La Sage has borrowed very freely from all the Spanish novels of this school. The adventures are numerous and diversified enough to amuse an idle reader, and Aleman has displayed a great deal of good sense in his reflections, which are expressed in the pointed con- densed style affected by most writers of Spain. Cervantes has not hesitated to borrow from him one of Sancho's celebrated adjudications, in the well-known case of the lady, who was less pugnacious in de- fence of her honour than of the purse awarded by the court as its compensation. This story is, however, if I am not mis- taken, older than either of them. 2 1 In a former chapter, on the authority of Nicolas Antonio, which I do not find very trust- worthy, I have said that the first edition of Lazarillo de Tormes was in 1586. It seems, however, to be doubtful, from what we read in Brunet, whether this edition exists. In return he mentions one printed at Burgos in 1554, and three at Antwerp in 1553 and 1555. Supple- ment au Manuel du Libraire, art. Hurtado. The following early edition is also in the British Museum, of which I transcribe the title- page. La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades, nuevamente impressa, corregida, y de nuevo anadida en este segunda impression. Vendense en Alcala de Heuares en casa de Salzedo librero aflo de N.D. 1554. A colophon recites the same date and place of im- pression. The above-mentioned Antwerp edi- tion of 1553 seems to be rather apocryphal. If it exists, It must be the first ; and is it likely that the first should have been printed out of Spain 1 Though the continuation of Lazarillo de Tormes is reckoned inferior to the original, it contains the only story in the whole novel which has made its fortune, that of the man who was exhibited as a sea-monster. 2 The following passage, which I extract from the Retrospective Review, voL v. p. 199, is a fair and favourable specimen of Aleman as a moralist, who is however apt to be tedious, as moralists usually are. " The poor man is a kind of money that is not current, the subject of every idle house- wife's chat, the offscum of the people, the dust of the street, first trampled under foot, and Literature of Europe from 1550 to 1600. 383 42. It may require some excuse that I Las Guems de insert in this place Las Granada. Guerras de Granada, a history of certain Moorish factions in the last days of that kingdom, both because it has been usually referred to the seven- teenth century, and because many have conceived it to be a true relation of events. It purports to have been translated by Gines Perez de la Hita, an inhabitant of the city of Murcia, from an Arabic original of one Aben Hamili. Its late English translator seems to entertain no doubt of its authenticity ; and it has been saga- ciously observed that no Christian could have known the long genealogies of Moor- ish nobles which the book contains. Most of those, however, who read it without credulity, will feel, I presume, little diffi- culty in agreeing with Antonio, who ranks it "among Milesian fables, though very pleasing to those who have nothing to do." The Zegris and Abencerrages, with all their romantic exploits, seem to be mere creations of Castilian imagination ; nor has Conde, in his excellent history of the Mien thrown on the dunghill ; in conclusion, the poor man is the rich man's ass. He dineth with the last, fareth with the worst, and payeth dearest ; his sixpence will not go so far as the rich man's threepence ; his opinion is ignorance, his discretion foolishness, his suffrage scorn, his stock upon the common, abused by many, and abkorred by all. If he come into company he is not heard ; if any chance to meet him, they seek to shun him ; if he advise, though never so wisely, they grudge and murmur at him ; if he work miracles, they say he is a witch ; if vir- tuous, that he goeth about to deceive ; his venial sin is a blasphemy ; his thought is made treason ; his cause, be it never so just, is not regarded ; and to have his wrongs righted, he must appeal to that other life. All men crush him ; no man favoureth him. There is no man that will relieve his wants ; no man that will bear him company when he is alone and op- pressed with grief. None help him, all hinder him ; none give him, all take from him ; he is debtor to none, and yet must make payment to all. O the unfortunate and poor condition of him that is poor, to whom even the very hours are sold which the clock striketh, and payeth custom for the sunshine in August." This is much in the style of our English writers in the first part of the seventeenth cen- tury, and confirms what I have suspected, that they formed it in a great measure on the Spanish school. Though this sententiousness and antithetical balancing of clauses is not pleasant to read, it is less insipid than the nerveless elegance of the Italians. Guzman d'Alfarache was early translated into English, as most other Spanish books were ; and the language itself was more familiar in the reigns of James and Charles than it became afterwards. Its character. Moors in Spain, once deigned to notice them even as fabulous ; so much did he reckon this famous production of Perez de la Hita below the historian's regard. Antonio mentions no edition earlier than that of Alcala in 1604 ; the English trans- lator names 1601 for the date of its publi- cation, an. edition of which year is in the Museum ; nor do I find that any one has been aware of an earlier, published at Saragoca in. 1595, except Brunet, who mentions it as rare and little known. It appears by the same authority that there is another edition of 1598. 43. The heroic and pastoral romance of Spain contributed some- Sydney's thing, yet hardly so much Arcadia. as has been supposed, to Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, the only original pro- duction of this kind, except such wretched and obscure attempts at story as are be- neath notice, which our older literature can boast. The Arcadia was published in 1590, hving been written, probably, by its highly accomplished author about ten years before. 44. Walpole, who thought fit to display the dimensions of his own mind, by announcing that he could perceive nothing remarkable in Sir Philip Sydney (as if the suffrage of Europe in what he admits to be an age of heroes were not a decisive proof that Sydney himself over-topped those sons of Anak), says of the Arcadia, that it is "a tedious lamentable pedantic pastoral ro- mance, which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade through." We may doubt whether Walpole could al- together estimate the patience of a reader so extremely unlike himself; and his epithets, except perhaps the first, are in- applicable ; the Arcadia is more free from pedantry than most books of that age ; and though we are now so accustomed to a more stimulant diet in fiction, that few would read it through with pleasure, the story is as sprightly as most other romances, sometimes indeed a little too much so, for the Arcadia is not quite a book for " young virgins," of which some of its admirers by hearsay seem not to have been aware. By the epithet "pastoral," we may doubt whether Walpole knew much of this romance beyond its name ; for it has far less to do with shepherds than with cour- tiers, though the idea might probably be suggested by the popularity of the Diana. It does not appear to me that the Arcadia is more tiresome and uninteresting than the generality of that class of long ro- 384 Literature of Europe from, 1500 to 1600. inances. proverbially among the most tire- some of all books ; and, in a less fastidious age, it was read, no doubt, even as a story, with some delight. 1 It displays a superior mind, rather complying with a temporary taste than affected by it, and many pleas- ing passages occur, especially in the tender and innocent loves of Pyrocles and Phil- oclea. I think it, nevertheless, on the whole inferior in sense, style, and spirit, to the Defence of Poesy. The following passage has some appearance of having suggested a well-known poem in the next age to the lover of Sacharissa ; we may readily believe that Waller had turned over, in the glades of Penshurst, the honoured pages of her immortal uncle. 2 45. " The elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferior to her sister ; for my part, when I marked them both, methought there was (if at least such perfections may receive the word of more) more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela : methought love played in Philoclea's eyes, and threatened in Pamela's ; methought Philoclea's beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must yield ; Pamela's beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart could resist, and it seems that such pro- portion is between their minds. Philoclea so bashful, as if her excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware ; so humble, that she will put all pride out of counten- ance ; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but teach hope good manners ; Pamela, of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of her excellencies to be void of pride ; her mother's wisdom, greatness, nobility, but, if I can guess aright, knit with a more constant temper." 46. The Arcadia stands quite alone among English fictions of inferiority of this century. But many other EngiUh were translated in the reign of Elizabeth from the Italian, French, Spanish, and even Latin, among which Painter's Palace of Pleasure, whence Shakspeare took several of his plots, and the numerous labours of Antony Munday may be mentioned. Palmerin of England in 1580, and Amadis of Gaul in 1592, were among these ; others of less value, were transferred from the Spanish text by the same industrious hand ; and since these, while still new, were sufficient to furnish all the gratification required by the public, our own writers did not much task their invention to augment the stock. They would not have been very successful, if we may judge by such deplorable specimens as Breton and Greene, two men of con- siderable poetical talent, have left us. 1 The once famous story of the Seven Champions of Christendom, by one Johnson, is of rather a superior class ; the adventures are not original, but it is by no means a translation from any single work. 2 Mai- lory's famous romance, La Morte d' Arthur, is of much earlier date, and was first printed by Caxton. It is, however, a translation from several French romances, though written in very spirited language. CHAPTER XVII. HISTOBT OF PHYSICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE, FROM 1500 TO 1600. SECT. I. ON MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSI- CAL SCIENCE. Algebraists of this Period Vieta Slow Progress of Copernican Theory Tycho Brake Reform of Calendar Mechanics Stevima Gilbert. 1. THE breach of faith towards Tartaglia, 1 "It appears," says Drake, "to have been suggested to the mind of Sir Philip by two models of very different ages, and to have been built, in fact, on their admixture ; these are the Ethiopic History of Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca in Thessaly, and the Arcadia of Sannazaro," p. 649. A translation of Heliodorus had been published a short time before. 2 The poem I mean is that addressed to by which Cardan communicated to the Amoret, "Fair! that you may truly know," drawing a comparison between her and Sa- charissa. 1 The Ma villa of Breton, the Doras tus and Fawnia of Greene, will be found in the collec- tions of the indefatigable Sir Egerton Brydges. The first is below contempt ; the second, if not quite so ridiculous, is written with a quaint affected and empty Euphuism. British Biblio- grapher, i. 508. But as truth is generally more faithful to natural sympathies than fiction, a little tale, called Never too Late, in which Greene has related his own story, is unaffected and pathetic. Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, i. 489. 2 Drake, i. 529. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 385 world the method of solving cubic equa- Tartagiia and tions, having rendered them Cardan. enemies, the injured party defied the aggressor to a contest, wherein each should propose thirty-one problems to be solved by the other. Cardan ac- cepted the challenge, and gave a list of his problems, but devolved the task of meet- ing his antagonist on his disciple Ferrari. The problems of Tartaglia are so much more difficult than those of Cardan, and the latter's representative so frequently failed in solving them, as to show the former in a higher rank among algebraists, though we have not so long a list of his discoveries. 1 This is told by himself in a work of miscellaneous mathematical and physical learning, Quesiti ed invenzioni diverse, published in 1546. In 1555, he put forth the first part of a treatise intitled Trattato di numeri e misure, the second part appearing in 1560. 2. Pelletier of Mans, a man advan- Algebra of Pelle- tageously known both in tier - literature and science, pub- lished a short treatise on algebra in 1554. He does not give the method of solving cubic equations, but Hutton is mistaken in supposing that he was ignorant of Car- dan's work, which he quotes. In fact he promises a third book, this treatise being divided into two, on the higher parts of algebra ; but I do not know whether this be found in any subsequent edition. Pelletier does not employ the signs + and , which had been invented by Stifelies, using p and m instead, but we find the sign V/ of irrationality. What is perhaps the most original in this treatise, is that its author perceived that, in a quadratic equa- tion, where the root is rational, it must be a divisor of the absolute number. 2 3. In the Whetstone of Wit, by Eobert Record's Whet- Record, in 1557, we find the stone of Wit. gjgng + an( j } an( j ) f or the first time, that of equality =, which he invented. 3 Record knew that a quadra- 1 Montucla, p. 568. 2 Pelletier seems to have arrived at this not by observation, but in a scientific method. Comme v = 2 x + 15. (I substitute the usual signs for clearness), ilest certain que a: que nous cherchons doit estre contenu egalement en 15, puisque z2 est egal a deux x, et 15 davantage, et que tout nombre censique (quarr^) contient les racines egalement et precisement. Maintenant puisque 2 x font certain nombre de racines, il faut done que 15 fasse 1' achevement des racines qui sont necessaires pour accomplir a2. p. 40. (Lyon, 1554.) 8 "And to avoid the tedious repetition of these words, "is equal to," I will set, as I do often in work use, a pair of parallels, gemowe tic equation has two roots. The scholar, for it is in dialogue, having been perplexed by this as a difficulty, the master answers, "That variety of roots doth declare that one equation in number may serve for two several questions. But the form of the question may easily instruct you which of these two roots you shall take for your purpose. Howbeit, sometimes you may take both." 1 He says nothing of cubic equations, having been prevented by an interruption, the nature of which he does not divulge, from continuing his algebraic lessons. We owe therefore nothing to Re- cord but his invention of a sign. As these artifices not only abbreviate, but clear up the process of reasoning, each successive improvement in notation deserves, even in the most concise sketch of mathematical history, to be remarked. But certainly they do not exhibit any peculiar ingenuity, and might have occurred to the most ordinary student. 4. The great boast of France, and indeed of algebraical science gene- 11 -LI j Vieta. rally, in this period, was Francis Viete, of tener called Yieta, so truly eminent a man that he may well spare laurels which are not his own. It has been observed in another place, that after Mon- tucla had rescued from the hands of Wallis, who claims everything for Harriott, many alegbraical methods indisputably contained in the writings of his own countryman, Cossalihas stepped forward, with an equal lines of one length thus =, because no two things can be more equal." The word gemowe, from the French gemeau, twin (Cotgrave) is very uncommon : it was used for a double ring, a gemel or gemou ring. Todd's Johnson's Diction- ary. i This general mode of expression might lead, us to suppose, that Record was acquainted with negative, as well as positive roots, the fictae radices of Cardan. That a quadratic equation of a certain form has two positive roots, had long been known. In a very modern book, it is said that Mohammed ben Musa, an Arabian of the reign of Almamon, whose algebra was translated by the late Dr. Rosen in 1831, ob- serves that there are two roots in the form a;2 -fac c) be sequetur abc, x explicabilis est de qualibet illarum trium a. b, vel c. The third and fourth theorems extend this to higher equations. 3 Montucla, i. 600. Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary. Biog. TJnivers. art. Vifete. 4 It is certain that Vieta perfectly knew the relation of algebra to magnitude as well as number, as the first pages of his In Artem Analyticam Isagoge fully show. But it is equally certain that Tartaglia and Cardan, and much older writers, Oriental as well as European, knew the same ; it was by help of geometry, which Cardan calls via regia, that the former made his great discovery of the solution of cubic equations. Cossali, ii. 147. Cardan, Ars Magna, ch. xi. Latus and radix are used indifferently for the \x ) 6. " Algebra," says a philosopher of the present day, "was still only an ingenious art, limited to the investigation of numbers ; Vieta displayed all its extent, and insti- tuted general expressions for particular results. Having profoundly meditated on the nature of algebra, he perceived that the chief characteristic of the science is to express relations. Newton with the same idea defined algebra an universal arith- metic. The first consequences of this general principle of Yieta were his own application of his specious analysis to geo- metry, and the theory of curve lines, which is due to Descartes ; a fruitful idea, from which the analysis of functions, and the most sublime discoveries, have been first power of the unknown quantity in the Ars Magna. Cossali contends that Fra Luca had applied algebra to geometry. Vieta, however, it is said, was the first who taught how to con- struct geometrical figures by means of algebra, Montucla, p. 604. But compare Cossali, p. 427. A writer lately quoted, and to whose know- ledge and talents I bow with deference, seems, as I would venture to suggest, to have over-rated the importance of that employment of letters to signify quantities, known or unknown, which he has found in Aristotle, and in several of the moderns, and in consequence to have depreci- ated the real merit of Vieta. Leonard of Pisa, it seems, whose algebra this writer has for the first time published, to his own honour and the advantage of scientific history, makes use of letters as well as lines, to represent quantities. Quelquefois il emploie des lettres pour exprimer des quantity's indetermine'es, connues ou incon- nues, sans les repre'senter par des lignes. On voit ici comment les modernes ont e"td amends a se servir des lettres d'alphabet (mme pour exprimer des quantity's connues) long temps avant Viete, a qui on a attribud a tort une notation qu'il faudrait peutetre faire remonter juiqu'a Aristote, et que tant d'algebraistes modernes ont employee avant le geometre Francais. Car outre Leonard di Pise, Paciolo et d'autres geometres Italiens firent usage des lettres pour indiquer les quantites con- nues, et c'est d'eux plut6t que d'Aristote que les modernes ont appris cette notation. Libri, vol. ii. p. 34. But there is surely a wide inter- val between the use of a short symbolic expres- sion for particular quantities, as M. Libri has re- marked in Aristotle, or even the partial employ- ment of letters to designate known quantities, as hi the Italian algebraists, and the method of stating general relations by the exclusive use of letters, which Vieta first introduced. That Tartaglia and Cardan, and even, as it now appears, Leonard of Pisa went a certain way to- wards the invention of Vieta, cannot much diminish his glory ; especially when we find that he entirely apprehended the importance of his own logistice speciosa in science. I have mentioned above, that, as far as my observation has gone, Vieta does not work particular pro- blems by the specious algebra. 388 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. deduced. It has led to the notion that Descartes is the first who applied algebra to geometry ; but this invention is really due to Vieta ; for he resolved geometrical problems by algebraic analysis, and con- structed figures by means of these solutions. These investigations led him to the theory of angular sections, and to the general equations which express the values of chords, "i It will be seen in the notes that some of this language requires a slight limitation. 7. The Algebra of Bombelli, published in 1589, is the only other treatise of the kind during this period that seems worthy of much notice. Bombelli saw better than Cardan the nature of what is called the ir- reducible case in cubic equations. But Vieta, whether after Bombelli or not, is not certain, had the same merit. 2 It is remarkable that Vieta seems to have paid little regard to the discoveries of his pre- decessors. Ignorant, probably, of the writings of Record, and perhaps even of those of Stifelius, he neither uses the sign = of equality, employing instead the clumsy word ^Equatio, or rather .ffique- tur, 3 nor numeral exponents ; and Hutton observes that Vieta's algebra has, in con- sequence, the appearance of being older than it is. He mentions, however, the signs + and - , as usual in his own time. 8. Amidst the great progress of algebra Geometers of through the sixteenth cen- thi period, tury, the geometers, content with what the ancients had left them, seem to have had little care but to elucidate their remains. Euclid was the object of their idolatry ; no fault could be acknowledged in his elements, and to write a verbose commentary upon a few propositions was enough to make the Deputation of a geo- meter. Among the almost innumerable editions of Euclid that appeared, those of Oommandin and Clavius, both of them in the first rank of mathematicians for that age, may be distinguished. Commandin, especially, was much in request in England, where he was frequently reprinted, and Montucla calls him the model of com- mentators for the pertinence and suffici- ency of his notes. The commentary of 1 M. Fourier, quoted in Biographic Univer- selle. 2 Cossali. Hutton. 3 Vieta uses =, but it is to denote that the proposition is true both of + and ; where we put +. It is almost a presumption of copying one from another, that several modern writers say Vieta's word is cequatio. I have always found it aquetur; a difference not material in itself. Clavius, though a little prolix, acquired . still higher reputation. "We owe to Com- mandin editions of the more difficult geometers, Archimedes, Pappus, and Apol- lonius ; but he attempted little, and that without success, beyond the province of a translator and a commentator. Mauroly- cus of Messina had no superior among con- temporary geometers. Besides his edition of Archimedes, and other labours on the ancient mathematicians, he struck out the elegant theory, in which others have fol- lowed him, of deducing the properties of the conic sections from those of the crone itself. But we must refer the reader to Montucla, and other historical and biogra- phical works, for the less distinguished writers of the sixteenth age. 1 9. The extraordinary labour of Joachim. Rhaeticus in his trigono- Joachim metrical calculations, has Rhseticm. been mentioned in our first volume. His Opus Palatinum de Triangulis was pub- lished from his manuscript by Valentine Otho, in 1594. But the work was left in- complete, and the editor did not accom- plish what Joachim had designed. In his tables the sines, tangents, and secants are only calculated to ten, instead of fifteen places of decimals. Pitiscus, in 1613, not only completed Joachim's intention, but carried the minuteness of calculation a good deal farther. 2 10. It can excite no wonder that the system of Copernicus, simple Copernican and beautiful as it is, met theory, with little encouragement for a long time after its pronrmlgation, when we reflect upon the natural obstacles to its reception. Mankind can in general take these theories of the celestial movements only upon trust from philosophers ; and in this instance it required a very general concurrence of competent judges to overcome the repug- nance of what called itself common sense, and was in fact a prejudice as natural, as universal, and as irresistible as could in- fluence human belief. With this was united another, derived from the language of Scripture ; and though it might have been sufficient to answer, that phrases implying the rest of the earth and motion of the sun are merely popular, and such as those who- are best convinced of the opposite doctrine must employ in ordinary language, this was neither satisfactory to the vulgar, nor recognised by the church. Nor were the astronomers in general much more favour- able to the new theory than either the 1 Montucla. Kastner. Hutton. Biogr. Univ. 2 Montucla, p. 581. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 389 clergy or the multitude. They had taken pains to familiarise their understandings with the Ptolemaic hypothesis ; and it may be often observed that those who have once mastered a complex theory are better pleased with it than with one of more simplicity. The whole weight of Aris- totle's name, which, in the sixteenth cen- j tury, not only biassed the judgment, but engaged the passions, connected as it was with general orthodoxy and preservation of established systems, was thrown into the scale against Copernicus. It was asked what demonstration could be given of his hypothesis; whether the movements of the heavenly bodies could not be reconciled to the Ptolemaic ; whether the greater quantity of motion, and the complicated arrangement which the latter required, could be deemed sufficient objections to a scheme proceeding from the Author of nature, to whose power and wisdom our notions of simplicity and facility are in- applicable ; whether the moral dignity of man, and his peculiar relations to the Deity, xinfolded in Scripture, did not give the world he inhabits a better claim to the place of honour in the universe, than could be pretended, on the score of mere magni- tude, for the sun. It must be confessed, that the strongest presumptions in favour of the system of Copernicus were not dis- covered by himself. 11. It is easy, says Montucla, to reckon ihe number of adherents to the Copernican theory during the sixteenth century. After Rhceticus, they may be nearly reduced to Heinold, author of the Prussian tables ; Rothrnan, whom Tycho drew over after- wards to his own system ; Christian "Wur- .sticius (Ursticius), who made some pro- selytes in Italy; finally, Msestlin, the illustrious master of Kepler. He might have added "Wright and Gilbert, for the credit of England. Among the Italian proselytes made by "Wursticius, we may perhaps name Jordano Bruno, who strenu- ously asserts the Copernican hypothesis ; and two much greater authorities in physi- cal science, Benedetti and Galileo himself. It is evident that the preponderance of valuable suffrages was already on the side of truth.! 12. The predominant disinclination to contravene the apparent Tycho Brahe. .... ,. testimonies of sense and Scripture had, perhaps, more effect than the desire of originality in suggesting the middle course taken by Tycho Brahe. He .was a Dane of noble birth, and early drawn 1 Montucla, p. 633. by the impulse of natural genius to the study of astronomy. Frederic III., hi. sovereign, after Tycho had already ob tained some reputation, erected for him the observatory of Uraniburg in a small isle of the Baltic. In this solitude he passed above twenty years, accumulating Jio most extensive and accurate observa- tions which were known in Europe before the discovery of the telescope and the im- provement of astronomical instruments. These, however, were not published till 1606, though Kepler had previously used them in his Tabulae Rodolphinse. Tycho himself did far more in this essential de- partment of the astronomer than any of his predecessors ; his resources were much beyond those of Copernicus, and the latter years of this century may be said to make an epoch in physical astronomy. Frederic, Landgrave of Hesse, was more than a pa- tron of the science. The observations of that prince have been deemed worthy of praise long after his rank had ceased to avail them. The emperor Rodolph, when Tycho had been driven by envy from Den- mark, gave him an asylum and the means of carrying on his observations at Prague, where he died in 1601. He was the first in modern times who made a catalogue of stars, registering then- positions as well as his instruments permitted him. This cata- logue, published in his Progymnasmata in 1602, contained 777, to which, from Ty- cho's own manuscripts, Kepler added 223 stars. 1 13. In the new mundane system of Ty- cho Brahe, which, though first regularly promulgated to the world in his Progymnasmata, had been communicated in his epistles to the Landgrave of Hesse, he supposes the five planets to move round the sun, but carries the sun itself with these five satellites, as well as the moon, round the earth. Though this, at least at the time, might explain the known phenomena as well as the two other theories, its want of simplicity always pre- vented its reception. Except Longomon- tanus, the countryman and disciple of Tycho, scarce any conspicuous astronomer adopted an hypothesis which, if it had been devised some time sooner, would perhaps have met with better success. But in the seventeenth century, the wise all fell into the Copernican theory, and the many were content without any theory at all. 14. A great discovery in physical astro- nomy may be assigned to Tycho. Aristotle had pronounced comets to be meteors gene- 1 Montucla, p. 653-659. His system. 390 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. rated below the orbit of the moon. But a remarkable comet in 1577 having led Tycho to observe its path accurately, he came to the conclusion that these bodies are far beyond the lunar orbit, and that they pass through what had always been taken for a solid firmament, environing the starry orbs, and which plays no small part in the system of Ptolemy. He was even near the discovery of their elliptic revolution ; the idea of a curve round the sun having struck him, though he could not follow it by ob- servation. 1 15. The acknowledged necessity of re- Gregorian caien- forming the Julian calendar dar. gave in this age a great importance to astronomy. It is unneces- sary to go into the details of this change, effected by the authority of Gregory XIII., and the skill of Lilius and Clavius, the mathematicians employed under him. The new calendar was immediately received in all countries acknowledging the pope's supremacy ; not so much on that account, though a discrepancy in the ecclesiastical reckoning would have been very inconveni- ent, as of its real superiority over the Julian. The protestant countries came much more slowly into the alteration; truth being no longer truth, when pro- mulgated by the pope. It is now admitted that the Gregorian calendar is very nearly perfect, at least as to the computation of the solar year, though it is not quite accu- rate for the purpose of finding Easter. In that age, it had to encounter the opposition of Maestlin, an astronomer of deserved reputation, and of Scaliger, whose know- ledge of chronology ought to have made him conversant with the subject, but who, by a method of squaring the circle, which he announces with great confidence as a demonstration, showed the world that his genius did not guide him to the exact scien- ces. 2 16. The science of optics, as well as all other branches of the mixed mathematics, fell very short of astronomy in the number and success of its promoters. It was carried not much farther than the point where Alhazen, Vitello, and Roger Bacon left it. Mauro- lycus of Messina, in a treatise published in 1575, though written, according to Mon- tucla, fifty years before, entitled Theore- mata de Lumine et Umbra, has mingled a few novel truths with error. He explains rightly the fact that a ray of light, received through a small aperature of any shape, 1 Montucla, p. 662. a Montucla, p. 674-686. Optics. produces a circular illumination on a body intercepting it at some distance ; and points- out why different defects of vision are remedied by convex or concave lenses. He- had however mistaken notions as to the visual power of the eye, which he ascribed not to the retina but to the crystalline humour; and on the whole, Maurolycus, though a very distinguished philosopher in that age, seems to have made few consider- able discoveries in physical science. 1 Bap- tista Porta, who invented, or at least made known, the camera obscura, though he dwells on many optical phenomena in his Magia Naturalis, sometimes making just observations, had little insight into the principles that explain them. 2 The science of perspective has been more frequently treated, especially in this period, by pain- ters and architects than by mathematicians. Albert Durer, Serlio, Vignola, and especi- ally Peruzzi, distinguished themselves by practical treatises; but the geometrical principles were never well laid down before the work of Guido Ubaldi in 1600. 3 17. This author, of a noble family in the Apennines, ranks high also among the improvers of the- Mechanics, oretical mechanics. This great science, checked, like so many others, by the erro- neous principles of Aristotle, made scarce any progress till near the end of the century. Cardan and Tartaglia wrote upon the sub- ject ; but their acuteness in abstract mathe- matics did not compensate for a want of accurate observation and a strange looseness of reasoning. Thus Cardan infers that the power required to sustain a weight on an inclined plane varies in the exact ratio of the angle, because it vanishes when the plane is horizontal, and becomes equal to the weight when the plane is perpendicular. But this must be the case if the powe follows any other law of direct variation, as that of the sine of inclination, that is, the height, which it really does. 4 Tartaglia, on his part, conceived that a cannon-ball did not indeed describe two sides of a parallelogram, as was commonly imagined even by scientific writers, but, what is hardly less absurd, that its point-blank direction and line of perpendicular descent are united by a circular arch, to which they are tangents. It was generally a- greed, till the time of Guido Ubaldi, that the arms of a lever charged with equal weights, if displaced from the horizontal position, would recover it when set at liberty. Benedetti of Turin had juster i Id. p. 695. 3 Id. p. 708. 2 Montucla, p. 69&- 4 Id. p. 690. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 391 notions than his Italian contemporaries ; he ascribed the centrifugal force of bodies to their tendency to move in a straight line ; he determined the law of equilibrium for the oblique lever, and even understood the composition of motions. 1 18. If, indeed, we should give credit to the sixteenth century for all that was actually discovered, and even reduced to writing, we might now proceed to the great name of Galileo. For it has been said that his treatise Delia Scienza Mecha- nica was written in 1592, though not pub- lished for more than forty years after- wards. 2 But as it has been our rule, with not many exceptions, to date books from their publication, we must defer any men- tion of this remarkable work to the next volume. The experiments, however, made by Galileo, when lecturer in mathematics at Pisa, on falling bodies, come strictly within our limits. He was appointed to this office in 1589, and left it in 1592. Among the many unfounded assertions of Aristotle in physics, it was one that the velocity of falling bodies was proportionate to their weights ; Galileo took advantage of the leaning tower of Pisa to prove the contrary. But this important, though obvious experiment, which laid open much of the theory of motion, displeased the adherents of Aristotle so highly, that they compelled him to leave Pisa. He soon ob- tained a chair in the university of Padua. 19. But on the same principle that we statics of exclude the work of Galileo stevinus. on mechanics from the six- teenth century, it seems reasonable to mention that of Simon Stevinus of Bruges ; since the first edition of his Statics and Hydrostatics was printed in Dutch as early as 1585, though we can hardly date its re- ception among the scientific public before the Latin edition in 1608. Stevinus has been chiefly known by his discovery of the law of equilibrium on the inclined plane, which had baffled the ancients, and, as we have seen, was mistaken by Cardan. Stevinus supposed a flexible chain of uni- form weight to descend down the sides of two connected planes, and to hang in a sort of festoon below. The chain would be in equilibrio, because, if it began to move, there would be no reason why it should not move for ever, the circumstances being un- altered by any motion it could have ; and 1 Montucla, p. 693. 2 Playfair has fallen into the mistake of supposing that this treatise was published in 1592 ; and those who, on second thoughts, would have known better, have copied him. thus there would be a perpetual motion, which is impossible. But the part below, being equally balanced, must, separately taken, be in equilibrio. Consequently the part above, lying along the planes, must also be in equilibrio ; and hence the weight of the two parts of the chain must be equal, or if that lying along the shorter plane be called the power, it will be to the other as the lengths ; or if there be but one plane, and the power hang perpendicularly, as the height to the length. 20. It has been doubted whether this demonstration of Stevinus be satisfactory, and also whether the theorem had not been proved in a different manner by an earlier writer. The claims of Stevinus, however, have very recently been main- tained by an author of high reputation. 1 The Statics of this ingenious mathematician contain several novel and curious theorems on the properties of other mechanical powers besides the inclined plane. But Montucla has attributed to him what I can- not find in his works. " In resolving these questions (concerning the ratios of weights on the oblique pulley), and several others, he frequently makes use of the famous principle which is the basis of the Nouvelle Mecanique of M. Varignon. He forms a triangle, of which the three sides are parallel to the three directions, namely, of the weight and the two powers which support it ; and he shows that these three lines express this weight and these powers respectively." 2 Playfair, copying Mon- tucla, I presume, without looking at Ste- vinus, has repeated this statement, and it will be found in other modern histories of physical science. This theorem, however, of Varignon, commonly called the triangle of forces, will not, unless I am greatly mis- taken, be discovered in Stevinus. Had it been known to him, we may presume that he would have employed it, as is done in modern works on mechanics, for demon- strating the law of equilibrium on the in- clined plane, instead of his catenarian hypothesis, which is at least not so elegant or capable of so simple a proof. It is true that in treating of the oblique pulley, he resolves the force into two, one parallel, the other perpendicular to the weight ; and thus displays his acquaintance with 1 Playfair's Dissertation. Whewell's Hist, of Inductive Sciences, ii. 11, 14. Compare Drink- water's Life of Galileo, p. 83. The reasoning which Mr. W. suggests for Stevinus, whether it had occurred to him or not, may be very just, but borders, perhaps, rather too much on the metaphysics of science. 2 Montucla, ii. 180. o92 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. Hydrostatics. the composition of forces. But whether he had a clear perception of all the dynamical laws, involved in the demonstration of Varignon's theorem, may possibly be doubt- ful ; at least, we do not find that he has employed it. 21. The first discovery made in hydro- statics since the time of Archimedes is due to Stevi- nus. He found that the vertical pressure of fluids on a horizontal surface is as the product of the base of the vessel by its height, and showed the law of pressure even on the sides. * 22. The year 1600 was the first in which Gilbert on the England produced a remark- Magnet, ableworkinphysicalscience; but this was one sufficient to raise a lasting reputation to its author. Gilbert, a phy- sician, in his Latin treatise on the Magnet, not only collected all the knowledge which others had possessed on that subject, but became at once the father of experimental philosophy in this island, and by a singular felicity and acuteness of genius, the founder of theories which have been re- vived after the lapse of ages, and are al- most universally received into the creel of the science. The magnetism of the earth itself, his own original hypothesis, nova ilia nostra et inaudita de tellure sententia, could not, of course, be confirmed by all the experimental and analogical proof, which has rendered that doctrine accepted in recent philosophy ; but it was by no means one of those vague conjectures that are sometimes unduly applauded, when they receive a confirmation by the favour of fortune. He relied on the analogy of terrestrial phenomena to those exhibited by what he calls a terrella, or artificial spherical magnet. What may be the va- lidity of his reasonings from experiment it is for those who are conversant with the subject to determine, but it is evidently by the torch of experiment that he was guided. A letter from Edward Wright, whose authority as a mathematician is of some value, admits the terrestrial magnetism to be proved. Gilbert was also one of our earliest Copernicans, at least as to the ro- tation of the earth ; 2 and with his usual 1 Montucla, II. 180. 2 Mr. Whewell thinks that Gilbert was more doubtful about the annual than the diurnal motion of the earth, and informs us that in a posthumous work he seems to hesitate between Tycho and Copernicus. Hist, of Inductive Sciences, i. 389. Gilbert's argument for the diurnal motion would extend to the annual. Non probabilis modo sed manifesta videtur tense diurna circumvolutio, cum natura semper sagacity inferred, before the invention of the telescope, that there must be a multitude of fixed stars beyond the reach of our vision. 1 SECT. II. ON NATURAL HISTORY. Zoology Gesner, Aldrovandus. Botany Lobel, CcEsalpin, and others. 23. Zoology and botany, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Oesnert were as yet almost neglected Zoology, fields of knowledge ; scarce anything had been added to the valuable history of ani- mals by Aristotle, and those of plants by Theophrastus and Dioscorides. But in the year 1551 was published the first part of an immense work, the History of Animals, by that prodigy of general erudition, Conrad Gesner. This treats of viviparous quadru- peds ; the second, which appeared in 1554, of the oviparous ; the third, in 1555, of birds ; the fourth, in the following year, of fishes and aquatic animals ; and one, long afterwards published in 1587, relates to serpents. The first part was reprinted with additions in 1560, and a smaller work of woodcuts and shorter descriptions, called Icones Animalium, appeared in 1553. 24. This work of the first great naturalist of modern times is thus its character eulogised by one of the byCnvier. latest : " Gesner's History of Animals," says Cuvier , ' ' may be considered as the basis of all modern zoology ; copied almost literally by Aldrovandus, abridged by Jon- ston, it has become the foundation of much more recent works ; and more than one famous author has borrowed from it silently most of his learning ; for those passages of the ahcients, which have escaped Gesner, have scarce ever been observed by the mo derns. He deserved their confidence by his accuracy, his perspicuity, his good faith, and sometimes by the sagacity of his views. Though he has not laid down any natural classification by genera, he often agit per pauciora magis quam plura, atquo ration! magis consentaneum videtur ununi exi- guum corpus tellurfs diurnam volutationem efficere quam mundum totum circumferri. 1 1. 6. c. 3. The article on Gilbert in the Biographic Uuiverselle is discreditable to that publication. If the author was so very ignorant as not to have known anything of Gilbert, he might at least have avoided the assumption that nothing was to be known. Sarpi, who will not be thought an incompetent judge, names Gilbert with Vieta, as the only original writers among his contemporaries. Non ho veduto in questo secolo uomo quale abbia scritto cosa sua propria, salvo Vieta in Francia e Gilbert! in Inghilterra. Lettere dl Fra Paolo, p. 31. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 393 points out very well the true relations of beings." 1 25. Gesner treats of every animal under Gemer-a eight heads or chapters : 1. arrangement, ftg name in different lan- guages ; 2. Its external description and usual place of habitation (or what natural- ists call habitat) ; 3. Its natural actions, length of life, diseases, &c. ; 4. Its disposi- tion, or, as we may say, moral character ; 5. Its utility, except for food and medicine ; 45. Its use as food ; 7. Its use in medicine ; 8. The philological relations of the name and qualities, their proper and figurative use in language, which is subdivided into several sections. So comprehensive a no- tion of zoology displays a mind accustomed to encyclopedic systems, and loving the labours of learning for their own sake. Much of course would have a very second- ary value in the eyes of a good naturalist. His method is alphabetical, but it may be reckoned an alphabet of genera; for he arranges what he deems cognate species together. In the Icones Animalium we find somewhat more of classification. Ges- ner divides quadrupeds into Animalia Mansueta and Animalia Fera ; the former in two, the latter in four orders. Cuvier, in the passage above cited, writing proba- bly from memory, has hardly done justice to Gesner in this respect. The delineations in the History of Animals and in the Icones are very rude ; and it is not always easy, with so little assistance from engrav- ing, to determine the species from his de- scription. 26. Linnaeus, though professing to give His additions to the synonyms of his prede- known cessors, has been frequently quadruped!. care l ess an( J unjust towards Gesner ; his mention of several quadrupeds (the only part of the latter's work at which I have looked), having been unnoticed in the Systema Naturae. We do not find however that Gesner had made very con- siderable additions to the number of species known to the ancients ; and it cannot be reckoned a proof of his acuteness in zoology, that he placed the hippopotamus among aquatic animals, and the bat among birds. In the latter extraordinary error he was followed by all other naturalists till the time of Hay. Yet he shows some judgment in rejecting plainly fabulous animals. In the edition of 1551 1 find but few quadru- peds, except those belonging to the coun- tries round the Mediterranean, or men- .tioned by Ph'ny and JElian. 2 The Reindeer, 1 Biogr. Universelle, art. Gesner. 2 In Cardan, De Subtilitate, lib. 10, published which it is doubtful whether the ancients knew, though there seems reason to be- lieve that it was formerly an inhabitant of Poland and Germany, he found in Albertus Magnus ; and from him too Gesner had got some notion of the Polar Bear. He men- tions the Musk deer, which was known through the Arabian writers, though un- noticed by the ancients. The new world furnished him with a scanty list. Among these is the Opossum, or Semi-Vulpa (for which Linnaeus has not given him credit), an account of which he may have found in Pinzon or Peter Martyr ;* the Manati, of which he found a description in Hernando's History of the Indies ; and the Guinea Pig, Cuniculus Indus, which he says was, within a few years, first brought to Europe from the New World, but was become every- where common. In the edition of 1560, several more species are introduced. Olaus Magnus had, in the meantime, described the Glutton ; and Belon had found an Armadillo among itinerant quacks in Turkey, though he knew that it came from America. 2 Belon had also described the in 1550, I find the anteater, ursus formicarius, which, if I am not mistaken, Gesner has omitted, though it is in Hernando d'Oviedo ; also a cer- copithecus, as large as man, which persists long in standing erect, amat pueros et mulieres, con- aturque concumbere, quod nos vidimus. This was probably one of the large baboons of Africa. 1 In the voyage of Pinzon, the companion of Columbus in his last voyage, when the continent of Guiana was discovered, which will be found in the Novus Orbis of Grynaeus, a specimen of the genus Didelphis is mentioned with the astonishment which the first appearance of the marsupial type would naturally excite in a European. Conspexere etiamnum ibi animal quadrupes, prodigiosum quidem ; nam pars anterior vulpem, posterior vero simiam prae- sentabat, nisi quod pedes effingit humanos; aures autem habet noctuae, et infra consuetam alvum aliam habet instar crumenae, in qua de- litescunt catuli ejus tantisper, donee tuto pro- dire queant, et absque parentis tutela cibatum quaerere, nee unquam exeunt crumenam, nisi cum sugunt. Portentosum hoc animal cum catulis tribus Sibiliam delatum est ; et ex Sibilia Illiberim, id est Granatam, in gratiam regum, qui novis semper rebus oblectantur, p. 116, edit. 1532. In Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, dec. i. lib. 9, we find a longer account of the monstrosum illud animal vulpino rostro, cer- copithecea cauda, verpertilioneis auribus, mani- bus humanius, pedibus simiam asmulans ; quod natos jam filios alio gestat quocunque proficis- catur utero exteriore in modum magnaa cru- menae. This animal, he says, lived some months in Spain, and was seen by him after its death. Several species are natives of Guiana. 2 Tatus, quadrupes peregrina. The species figured in Gesner is Dasypus novem cinctus. 394 Literature of Europe Jrom 1500 to 1600. Belon. Axis deer of India. The Sloth appears for the first time in this edition of Gesner, and the Sagoin, or Ouistiti, as well as what he calls Mus Indicus alius, which Linnaeus re- fers to the Eacoon, but seems rather to be the Nasua, or Coati Mondi. Gesner has given only three cuts of monkeys, but was aware that there were several kinds, and distinguishes them in description. I have not presumed to refer his cuts to particular species, which probably, on account of their rudeness, a good naturalist would not at- tempt. The Simia Inues, or Barbary ape, seems to be one, as we might expect. 1 Gesner was not very diligent in examining the histories of the New "World. Peter Martyr and Hernando would have supplied him with several he has overlooked, as the Tapir, the Pecary, the Anteater, and the fetid Polecat.* 27. Less acquainted with books but with better opportunities of ob- serving nature than Gesner, his contemporary Belon made greater aces- sions to zoology. Besides, his excellent travels in the Levant and Egypt, we have from him a history of fishes in Latin, printed in 1553, and translated by the author into French, with alterations and additions ; and one of birds, published in French in 1555, written with great learn- ing, though not without fabulous accounts, as was usual in the earlier period of natural history. Belon was perhaps the first, a,t least in modern times, who had glimpses of a great typical conformity in nature. In one of his works he places the skeletons of a man and a bird in apposition, in order to display their essential analogy. He intro- duced also many exotic plants into France. Every one knows, says a writer of the last century, that our gardens owe all their beauty to Belon. 3 The same writer has satisfactorily cleared this eminent natu- ralist from the charge of plagiarism, to This animal, however, is mentioned by Her- nando d'Oviedo under the name Bardati. 1 Sunt et cynocephalorum diversa genera, nee unum genus caudatorum. I think he knew the leading characteristics founded on the tail, but did not attend accurately to subordinate dis- tinctions, though he knew them to exist. The three principal Simiam divisions were familiarly known in Europe not very long after the time of Gesner, as we find by an old 'song of Eliza- beth's time : The ape, the monkey, and baboon did meet A breaking of their fast in Friday Street. British Bibliographer, i. 342. 2 The Tapir is mentioned by Peter Martyr, the rest in Hernando. 3 Liron, Singularity's Historiques, i. 456. which credit had been hastily givBn. x Belon may on the whole be placed by the side of Gesner. 28. Salviani published in 1558 a history of fishes (Animalium Aqua- saiviani and tilium Historia), with figures Rondeiet'a well executed, but by no ^fyoiogy. means numerous. He borrows most of his materials from the ancients, and having frequently failed in identifying the species they describe, cannot be read without precaution. 2 But Rondelet (De Piscibus Marinis, 1554), was far superior as an ichthyologist, in the judgment of Cuvier, to any of his contemporaries, both by the number of fishes he has known, and the accuracy of his figures, which exceed three hundred for fresh- water and marine species. His knowledge of those which inhabit the Mediterranean Sea was so extensive that little has been added since his time. " It is the work," says the same great authority, "which has supplied almost everything which we find on that subject in Gesner, Aldrovandus, "Willoughby, Artedi, and Lin- naeus ; and even Lacepede has been obliged, in many instances, to depend on Rondelet." The text, however, is far inferior to the figures, and is too much occupied with an attempt to fix the ancient names of the several species. 8 29. The very little book of Dr. Caius ou British Dogs, published in 1570, the whole of which I believe has been translated by Pennant in his British Zoology, is hardly worth men- tioning ; nor do I know that zoological literature has anything more to produce till almost the close of the century, when the first and second volumes of Aldro- vandus's vast natural history was pub- lished. These, as well as the third, which appeared in 1603, treat of birds ; the fourth is on insects ; and these alone were given to the world by the laborious author, a professor of natural history at Bologna. After his death in 1605, nine more folio volumes, embracing with various degrees of detail most other parts of natural his- tory, were successively published by dif- ferent editors. "We can only consider the works of Aldrovandus," says Cuvier, "as an immense compilation without taste or genius ; the very plan and materials 1 Id. p. 438. It had been suspected that the manuscripts of Gilles, the author of a compila- tion from .Mian, who had himself travelled in the east, fell into the hands of Belon who pub- lished them as his own. Gesner has been thought to insinuate this ; but Liron is of opinion that Belon was not meant by him. 2 Biogr. Univ. (Cuvier.) 3 Biogr. TTnlv. Aldrovandus. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 395 being in a great measure borrowed from Gesner ; and Buffon has had reason to say that it would be reduced to a tenth part of its bulk by striking out the useless and impertinent matter." 1 Buffon, however, which Cuvier might have gone on to say, praises the method of Aldrovandus and his fidelity of description, and even ranks his work above every other natural history. 2 I am not acquainted with its contents ; but according to Linnasus, Aldrovandus, or the editors of his posthumous volumes, added only a very few species of quadrupeds to those mentioned by Gesner, among which are the Zebra, the Jerboa, the Musk Eat of Russia, and the Manis or Scaly Anteater. 3 30. A more steady progress was made Botany; in the science of botany, Turner, which commemorates, in those living memorials with which she delights to honour her cultivators, several names still respected, and several books that have not lost their utility. Our countryman, Dr. Turner, published the first part of a New Herbal in 1551 ; the second and third did not appear till 1562 and 1568. " The arrangement," says Pul- teney, "is alphabetical according to the Latin names, and after the description he frequently specifies the places and growth. He is ample in his discrimination of the species, as his great object was to ascertain the Materia Medica of the ancients, and of Dioscorides in particular, throughout the vegetable kingdom. He first gives names to many English plants ; and allowing for the time when specifical distinctions were not established, when almost all the small plants were disregarded, and the Cryptogamia almost wholly overlooked, the number he was acquainted with is much be- yond what could easily have been imagined in an original writer on his subject." 4 lid. 2 Hist. Naturelle, Premier Discours. The truth is that all Button's censures on Aldro- vandus fall equally on Gesner, who is not less accumulative of materials not properly bearing on natural history, and not much less destitute of systematic order. The remarks of Buffon on this waste of learning are very just, and applicable to the works of the sixteenth century on almost every subject as well as zoology. 3 Collections of natural history seem to have been formed by all who applied themselves to the subject in the sixteenth century; such as Cordus, Mathiolus, Mercati, Gesner, Agricola, Belon, Rondelet, Ortelius, and many others. Hakluyt mentions the cabinets of some English collectors from which he had derived assistance. Beckmann's Hist, of Inventions, ii. 57. 4 Pulteney's Historical Sketch of the Progress of Botany in England, p. 68. 31. The work of Maranta, published in 1559, On the method Maranta; Bo- of understanding medicinal tan 1 ** 1 Gardens. plants,is, in the judgment of a later writer of considerable reputation, nearly at the head of any in that age. The author is inde- pendent, though learned, extremely acute in discriminating plants known to the ancients, and has discovered many him- self, ridiculing those who dared to add nothing to Dioscorides. 1 Maranta had studied in the private gardens formed by Pinelli at Naples. But public gardens were common in Italy. Those of Pisa and Padua were the earliest, and perhaps the most celebrated. One established by the Duke of Ferrara, was peculiarly rich in exotic plants procured from Greece and Asia. 2 And perhaps the generous emula- tion in all things honourable between tha houses of Este and Medici led Ferdinand of Tuscany, sometime afterwards near the end of the century, to enrich the gardens of Pisa with the finest plants of Asia and America. The climate of France was less favourable ; the first public garden seems to have been formed at Montpellier, and there was none at Paris in 1558. 3 Mean- time the vegetable productions of newly discovered countries became familiar to Europe. Many are described in the ex- cellent History of the Indies by Hernando d'Oviedo, such as the Cocos, the Cactus, the Guiacum. Another Spanish author, Carate, first describes the Solanum Tuber- osum, or potato, under the name of Papas. 4 It has been said that tobacco is first mentioned, or at least first well described by Benzoni, in Nova Novi Orbis Historia, (Geneva, 1578). 5 Belon went to the Levant soon after the middle of the cen- tury, on purpose to collect plants ; several other writers of voyages followed before its close. Among these was Prosper Alpinus, who passed several years in Egypt, but his principal work, De Plantis Exoticis is posthumous, and did not appear till 1627. He is said to be the first European author who has mentioned coffee. 6 1 Sprengel Historia Rei Herbaria (1807), i. 345. 2 Id. 360. 3 Id. 363. 4 Id. 378. 5 Id. 373. 6 Id. 384. Corniani, vi. 25. Biogr. Univ. Yet, in the article on Rauwolf, a German naturalist, who published an account of his travels in the Levant as early as 1581, he is mentioned as one of the first qui ait par! i de 1'usage de boire du cafe, et en ait de'crit la pre- paration avec exactitude. It is possible that this book of Rauwolf being written in German, and the author being obscure in comparison with Prosper Alpinus, his prior claim has been till lately overlooked. 396 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 32. The critical examination of the an- cients, the establishment of gardens, the travels of bot- anists thus furnished a great supply of plants; it was now required to compare and arrange them. Gesner first under- took this ; he had formed a garden of his own at Zurich, and has the credit of having discovered the true system of classifying plants according to the organs of fructification ; which however he does not seem to have made known, nor were his botanical writings published till the last century. Gesner was the first who men- tions the Indian Sugarcane and the Tobacco, as well as many indigenous plants. It is said that he was used to chew and smoke tobacco, "by which he rendered himself giddy and in a manner drunk. "* As Gesner died in 1564, this carries back the know- ledge of tobacco in Europe several years beyond the above-mentioned treatise of Benzoni. 33. Dodoens, or Dodonseus, a Dutch physician, in 1553, transla- Dodoena. ' ted into his own language the history of plants by Fuchs, to which he added 133 figures. These, instead of using the alphabetical order of his pre- decessor, he arranged according to a method which he thought more natural. "He explains," says Sprengel, "well and learnedly the ancient botanists, and de- scribed many plants for the first time ; " among these are the Ulex Europaeus and the Hyacinthus non scriptus. The great aim of rendering the modern Materia Medica conformable to the ancient seems to have made the early botanists rather in- attentive to objects before their eyes. Dodoens himself is rather a physician than a botanist, and is more diligent about the uses of plants than their characteristics. He collected all his writings, under the title Stirpium Historise Pemptades Sex, at Ant- werp in 1583, with 1341 figures, a greater number than had yet been published. 34. The Stirpium Adversaria by Pena and Lobel, the latter of whom is best known as a botanist, was published at London in 1570. Lobel indeed, though a native of Lille, having passed most of his life in England, may be fairly counted among our botanists. He had previously travelled much over Europe. "In the execution of this work," says Pulteney, " there is exhibited, I be- lieve, the first sketch, rude as it is, of a natural method of arrangement, which however extends no further than throwing 1 Sprengel, 373, 390. the plants into large tribes, families, or orders, according to the external appear- ance or habit of the whole plant or flower, without establishing any definitions or characters. The whole forms forty-four tribes. Some contain the plants of or two modern genera, others many, and some, it must be owned, very incongruous to each other. On the whole they are much supe- rior to Dodoens's divisions. " 1 Lobel's Ad- versaria contains descriptions of 1200 or 1500 plants with. 272 engravings ; the former are not clear or well expressed, and in this he is inferior to his contemporaries ; the latter are on copper, very small, but neat. 2 In a later work, the Plantarum Historia, Antwerp, 1576, the number of figures is very considerably greater, but the book has been less esteemed, being a sort of complement to the other. Sprengel speaks more highly of Lobe! than the Bio- graphic Universelle. 35. Clusius or Lecluse, born at Arras, and a traveller, like many other botanists, over Europe, till he settled at Leyden as professor of botany in 1593, is generally reckoned the greatest master of his science whom the age produced. His descriptions are re- markable for their exactness, precision, elegance, and method, though he seems to have had little regard to natural classifica- tion. He has added a long list to the plants, already known. Clusius began by a translation of Dodoens into Latin ; he published several other works within the century. 3 36. Caesalpin was not only a botanist, but greater in this than in any other of the sciences he embraced. He was the first (the writings of Gesner, if they go so far, being in his time unpublished) who endeavoured to establish a natural order of classification on philosophical principles. He founded it on the number, figure, and position of the fructifying parts, observing the situa- tion of the calix and flower relatively to the germen, the divisions of the former, and in general what has been regarded in later systems as the basis of arrangement. He treats of trees and of herbs separately, as two grand divisions, but under each follows his own natural system. The dis- tinction of sexes he thought needless in plants, on account of their greater simpli- city ; though he admits it to exist in some, as in the hemp and the juniper. His treatise on Plants, in 1583, is divided into Historical Sketch, p. 102. 2 Sprengel, 399. 3 Sprengel, 407. Biogr. Univ. Pulteney. Caesalpin. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 397 nixteen books ; in the first of which he lays down the principles of vegetable anatomy and physiology. Many ideas, says Du Petit Thouars, are found there of which the truth was long afterwards recognised. He analysed the structure of seeds, which he compares to the eggs of animals; an analogy, however, which had occurred to Empedocles among the ancients. " One page alone," the same writer observes, "in the dedication of Csesalpin to the Duke of Tuscany, concentrates the principles of a good botanical system so well that notwith- standing all the labours of later botanists, nothing material could be added to his sketch, and if this one page out of all the writings of Csesalpin remained, it would be enough to secure him an immortal re- putation." 1 Caesalpin unfortunately gave no figures of plants, which may have been among the causes that his system was so long overlooked. 37. The Historia Generalis Plantarum Daiechamps ; by Dalechamps, in 1587, Bauhin. contains 2731 figures, many of which, however, appear to be repetitions. These are divided into eighteen classes ac- cording to their form and size, but with no natural method. His work is imperfect and faulty ; most of the descriptions are borrowed from his predecessors. 2 Taber- nsemontanus, in a book in the German language, has described 5800 species, and given 2480 figures. 3 The Phytopinax of Gerard Bauhin (Basle, 1596) is the first important work of one who, in conjunction with his brother John, laboured for forty years in the advancement of botanical knowledge. It is a catalogue of 2460 plants, including, among about 250 others that were new, the first accurate descrip- tion of the potato, which, as he informs us, was already cultivated in Italy. 4 38. Gerard's Herbal, published in 1597, was formed on the basis of Dodoens, taking in much from Lobel and Clusius ; the figures are from the blocks used by Tabernsemontanus. It is not now esteemed at all by botanists, at least in this first edition; "but," says Pulteney, "from its being well timed, from its comprehending almost the whole of the subjects then known, by being written in English, and ornamented with a more 1 Biogr. Univ. Sprengel, after giving an analysis of the system of Caesalpin, concludes : En primi systematis carpologici specimen, quod licet imperfectum sit, ingenii tamen summi monumentum et aliorum omnium ad Gsertner- ium usque exemplar est, p. 430. 2 Sprengel, 432. 3 Id. 496. 4 Id. 451. Gerard's Herbal. numerous set of figures than had ever accompanied any work of the kind in this kingdom, it obtained great repute. 1 SECT. III. ON ANATOMY AND MEDICINE. Fallopius, Eustachius, and other Anatom- ists State of Medicine. 39. Few sciences were so successfully pursued in this period as Anatomy; that of anatomy. If it was FaiiopiuB. impossible to snatch from Vesalius the pre-eminent glory that belongs to him as almost its creator, it might still be said that two men now appeared who, had they lived earlier, would probably have gone as far, and who, by coming later, were en- abled to go beyond him. These were Fallopius and Eustachius, both Italians. The former is indeed placed by Sprengel even above Vesalius, and reckoned the first anatomist of the sixteenth century. No one had understood that delicate part of the human structure, the organ of hear- ing, so well as Fallopius, though even hfs left much for others. He added several to the list of muscles, and made some dis- coveries in the intestinal and generative organs. 2 40. Eustachius, though on the whole inferior to Fallopius, went v 11- , i Eustachius. beyond him in the anatomy of the ear, in which a canal, as is well known, bears his name. One of his bio- graphers has gone so far as to place him above every anatomist for the number of his discoveries. He has treated very well of the teeth, a subject little understood be- fore, and was the first to trace the vena azygos through all its ramifications. No- one before had exhibited the structure of the human kidneys, Vesalius having ex- amined them only in dogs.' 3 The scarcity of human subjects was in fact an irresist- ible temptation to take upon trust the identity between quadrupeds and man, which misled the great anatomists of the sixteenth century. 4 Comparative anatomy was therefore not yet promoted to its real dignity, both as an indispensable part of 1 Hist. Sketch, p. 122. 2 Portal. Sprengel, Hist, de la Me'decine. 3 Portal. 4 The church had a repugnance to permit the dissection of dead bodies, but Fallopius tells us that the Duke of Tuscany was sometimes oblig- ing enough to send a living criminal to the anatomists, quern, interficimus nostro modo et anatomisamus. Sprengel suggests that " nostro modo" meant by opium ; but this seems to be merely a conjecture. Hist, de la Meclecine, iv. 11. 398 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. natural history, and as opening the most conclusive and magnificent ter ' views of teleology. Coiter, an anatomist born in Holland, but who passed his life in Italy, Germany, and France, was perhaps the first to describe the skeletons of several animals ; though Belon, as we have seen, had views far be- yond his age in what is strictly comparative anatomy. Goiter's work bears the date of 1575; in 1566 he had published one on human osteology, where that of the foetus is said to be first described, though some attribute this merit to Fallopius. Goiter is called in the Biographic Universelle one of the creators of pathological anatomy. 41. Columbus (De Re Anatomica, Venice, 1559), the succes- and afterwards professor at Pisa and Rome, has announced the discovery of several muscles, and given the name of vomer to the small bone which sustains the cartilage of the nose, and which Vesalius had taken for a mere process of the sphenoid. Columbus, though too ar- rogant in censuring his great predecessor, generally follows him. 1 Arrantius, in 1571, is among the first who made known the anatomy of the gravid uterus, and the structure of the foetus. 2 He was also con- versant, as Vidius, a professor at Paris of Italian birth, as early as 1542, had already been, with the anatomy of the brain. But this was much improved by Varoli in his Anatomia, published in 1573, who traced the origin of the optic nerves, and gave a better account than any one before him of the eye and of the voice. Piccolomini (Anatomise Prselectiones, 1586) is one of the first who described the cellular tissue, and in other respects has made valuable observations. Ambrose Pare, a French surgeon, is deemed the founder of chirurgic science, at least in that country. His works were first collected in 1561 ; but his treatise on gunshot wounds is as old as 1545. Several other names are mentioned with respect by the historians of medicine and anatomy ; such as those of Alberti, Benivieni, Donatus, and Schank. Never, says Portal, were anatomy and surgery better cultivated, with more emulation or more encouragement, than about the end of the sixteenth century, A long list of minor discoveries in the human frame are recorded by this writer and by Sprengel. It will be readily understood that we give these names, which of itself it is rather an irksome labour to enumerate, with no 1 Portal, i. 541. 2 Portal, vol. il. p. 3. other object than that none of those who by their ability and diligence carried for- ward the landmarks of human knowledge, should miss, in a history of general litera- ture, of their meed of remembrance. We reserve to a later chapter circulation of those passages in the anat- tne blood, omists of this age, which have seemed to anticipate the great discovery that im- mortalizes the name of Harvey. 42. These continual discoveries in the anatomical structure of man Medicinal tended to guide and correct science, the theory of medicine. The observations of this period became more acute and ac- curate. Those of Plater and Foresti, es- pecially the latter, are still reputed classi- cal in medical literature. Prosper Alpinus may be deemed the father in modern times of diagnostic science. 1 Plater, in his Praxis Medica, made the first, though an imper- fect attempt, at a classification of diseases. Yet the observations made in this age, and the whole practical system, are not exempt from considerable faults ; the remedies were too topical, the symptoms of disease were more regarded than its cause; the theory was too simple and general ; above all, a great deal of credulity and supersti- tion prevailed in the art. 2 Many among the first in science believed in demoniacal possessions and sorcery, or in astrology. This was most common in Germany, where the school of Paracelsus, discreditably to the national understanding, exerted much influence. The best physicians of the century were either Italian or French. 43. Notwithstanding the bigoted venera- tion for Hippocrates that most avowed, several physicians, not at all adhering to Paracelsus, endeavoured to set up a ra- tional experience against the Greek school, when they thought them at variance. Joubert of Montpelier, in his Paradoxes (1566), was a bold innovator of this class ; but many of his paradoxes are now estab- lished truths. Botal of Asti, a pupil of Fallopius, introduced the practice of vene- section on a scale before unknown, but prudently aimed to show that Hippocrates was on his side. The faculty of medicine, however, at Paris condemned it as er- roneous and very dangerous. His method, nevertheless, had great success, especially in Spain. 8 SECT. IV. ON ORIENTAL LITERATUEE. 44. This is a subject over which, on ac- 1 Sprengel, lii. 173. 2 Id. 156. 3 Sprengel, iii. p. 215. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 399 Hebrew critics. count of my total ignorance of eastern lan- Byrlac version guages, I am glad to hasten, of New The first work that appears Testament. ftfter the nl i,Jdle of the century is a grammar of the Syriac, Chaldee and Rabbinical, compared with the Arabic and Ethiopic languages, which Angelo Canini, a man as great in oriental as in Grecian learning, published at Paris in 1554. In the next year Widmanstadt gave, from the press of Vienna, the first edition of the Syriac version of the New Testament. 1 Several lexicons and gram- mars of this tongue, which is in fact only a dialect not far removed from the Chaldee, though in a different alphabetical character, will be found in the bibliographical writers. The Syriac may be said to have been now fairly added to the literary domain. The Antwerp Polyglot of Arias Montanus, be- sides a complete Chaldee paraphrase of the Old Testament, the Complutensian having only contained the Pentateuch, gives the New Testament in Syriac, as well as Pagnini's Latin translation of the Old. 2 45. The Hebrew language was studied, especially among the Ger- man protestants, to a con- siderable extent, if we may judge from the number of grammatical works published within this period. Among these Morhof selects the Erotemata Linguae Hebrsese by Neander, printed at Basle in 1567. Tre- mellius, Chevalier, and Drusius among protestants, Masius and Clarius in the church of Rome, are the most conspicuous names. The first, an Italian refugee, is chiefly known by his translation of the Bible into Latin, in which he was assisted by Francis Junius. The second, a native of France, taught Hebrew at Cambridge, and was there the instructor of Drusius, whose father had emigrated from Flanders on the ground of religion. Drusius him- self, afterwards professor of Hebrew at the university of Franeker, has left writings of more permanent reputation than most other Hebraists of the sixteenth century ; they relate chiefly to biblical criticism and Jewish antiquity, and several of them have a place in the Critici Sacri and in the col- lection of Ugolini. 3 Clarius is supposed to 1 Schelhorn, Amcenitates Literarte, xiii. 234. Biogr. Universelle. Andres, xix. 45. Eichhorn, v. 435. In this edition the Syriac text alone appeared; Henry Stephens reprinted it with the Greek and with two Latin translations. a Andres, xix. 49. The whole edition is richer in materials than that of Ximenes. 3 Drusius is extolled by all critics except Scaliger (Scaligerana Secunda), who seems to have conceived one of his personal prejudices have had some influence on the decree of the council of Trent, asserting the authen- ticity of the Vulgate. * Calasio was superior probably to them all, but his principal writings do not belong to this period. No large proportion of the treatises published by Ugolini ought, so far as I know their authors, to be referred to the sixteenth century. 46. The Hebrew language had been early studied in England, though its study in there has been some con- England, troversy as to the extent of the knowledge which the first translators of the Bible possessed. We know that both Chevalier read lectures on Hebrew at Cambridge not long after the queen's accession, and his disciple Drusius at Oxford, from 1572 to 1576. 2 Hugh Broughton was a deeply learned rabbinical scholar. I do not know that we could produce any other name of marked reputation ; and we find that the first Hebrew types, employed in any con- siderable number, appear in 1592. These are in a book not relating directly to He- brew, Rheses Institutiones Linguae Cambro- Britannicse. But a few Hebrew characters, very rudely cut in wood, are found in Wakefield's Oration, printed as early as 1524.3 47. The Syriac and Chaldee were so closely related to Hebrew, Arabic begins to both as languages, and in be studied. the theological purposes for which they were studied, that they did not much enlarge the field of oriental literature. The most copious language, and by far the most fer- tile of books, was the Arabic. A few slight attempts at introducing a knowledge of this had been made before the middle of the century. An Arabic as well as Syriac press at Vienna was first due to the pat- ronage of Ferdinand I. in 1554, but for a considerable time no fruit issued from it. But the increasing zeal of Rome for the propagation of its faith, both among infi- dels and schismatics, gave a larger sweep against the Franeker professor, and depreciates his moral character. Simon thinks Drusius the most learned and judicious writer we find in the Critici Sacri. Hist. Critique du V. T., p. 498. Biogr. Univ. Blount. 1 Clarius, according to Simon, knew Hebrew but indifferently, and does little more than copy Munster, whose observations are too full of Judaism, as he consulted no interpreters but the rabbinical writers. Masius, the same author says, is very learned, but has the like fault of dealing in rabbinical expositions, p. 499. 2 Wood's Hist, and Antiquities. In 1574, he was appointed to read publicly in Syriac. 3 Preface to Herbert's Typographical An- tiquities. 400 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. to the cultivation of oriental languages. Gregory XIII. founded a Maronite College at Rome in 1584, for those Syrian Chris- tians of Libanus who had united themselves to the catholic church ; the cardinal Medici, afterwards grand Duke of Florence, estab- lished an oriental press in the city about 1580 under the superintendence of John Baptista Raimondi ; and Sixtus V. in 1588 that of the Vatican, which, though princi- pally designed for early Christian litera- ture, was possessed of types for the chief eastern languages. Hence the Arabic, hitherto almost neglected, began to attract more attention ; the gospels in that lan- guage were published at Rome in 1590 or 1591 ; some works of Euclid and Avicenna had preceded ; one or two elementary books on grammar appeared in Germany ; and several other publications belong to the last years of the centxiry. 1 Scaliger now entered upon the study of Arabic with all his indefatigable activity. Yet, at the end of the century, few had penetrated far into a region so novel and extensive, and in which the subsidiary means of knowledge were so imperfect. The early grammars are represented by Eichhorn as being very indifferent, and in fact very few Arabic books had been printed. The edition of the Koran by Pagninus in 1529 was unfor- tunately suppressed, as we have before men- tioned, by the zeal of the court of Rome. Casaubon, writing to Scaliger in 1597, declares that no one within his recollection had even touched with the tips of his fingers that language, except Postel in a few rhapsodies ; and that neither he nor any one else had written anything on the Per- sic. 2 Gesner however in his Mithridates, 1558, had given the Lord's Prayer in twenty-two languages ; to which Rocca at Rome, in 1591, added three more ; and Megiser increased the number, in a book published next year at Frankfort, to forty.3 SECT. V. ON GEOGRAPHY. Voyages in the Indies Those of the English Of Ortelius and others. 48. A more important accession to the 1 Eichhorn, v. 641, et alibi. Tiraboschi, viii. 195. Ginguene", vol. vil. p. 258. 2 Nostra autem memoria, qui eas linguas vel axpo), quod aiunt, 8a.KTV\o> attigerit, novi nemi'nem, nisi quod I'ostellum nescio quid muginatum esse de lingua Arabics memini. Sed ilia quara tenuia, quam exilia ! de Persica, quod equidem memini, neque ille, neque alius quisquam vel ypv TO \tyo^.fvov. Epist. ciii. 3 Biogr. Univ. arts. Megiser and Rocca. knowledge of Europe as to the rest of the-, world, than had hitherto collection of been made through the Voyageuby press, is due to Ramusio, a *nraio- Venetian who had filled respectable offices under the republic. He published in 1550 the first volume of his well-known collec- tion of Travels ; the second appeared in 1559, and the third in 1565. They have been reprinted several times, and all the editions are not equally complete. No general collection of travels had hitherto been published, except the Novus Orbis of Grynaeus, and though the greater part per- haps of those included in Ramusio's three volumes had appeared separately, others* came forth for the first time. The Africa of Leo Africanus, a baptized Moor, with which Ramusio begins, is among these ; and it is upon this work that such know- ledge as we possessed, till very recent times, as to the interior of that continent, was almost entirely founded. Ramusio in the remainder of this volume gives many voyages in Africa, the East Indies, and Indian Archipelago, including two ac- counts of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world, and one of Japan, which had very lately been discovered. The second volume is dedicated to travels through northern Europe and Asia, beginning with that of Marco Polo, including also the curious, though very questionable voyage of the Zeni brothers, about 1400, to some tm< known region north of Scotland. In the third volume we find the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro, with all that had already been printed of the excellent work of Hernando d'Oviedo on the western world. Few subsequent collections of voyages are more esteemed for the new matter they contain than that of Ra- musio. 1 49. The importance of such publications as that of Ramusio was soon curiosity they perceived, not only in the awakened, stimulus they gave to curiosity or cupidity towards following up the paths of dis- covery, but in calling the attention of reflecting minds, such as Bodin and Mon- taigne, to so copious a harvest of new facts, illustrating the physical and social char- acter of the human species. But from the want of a rigid investigation, or more culpable reasons, these early narratives are mingled with much falsehood, and misled some of the more credulous philosophers almost as often as they enlarged their knowledge. 50. The story of the Portuguese con- i Blog. Univ. Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 401 quests in the east, more varied and almost as wonderful as romance, Other Voyag". wag recounte d in the Asia of Joam de Barros (1552), and in that of Castanheda in the same and two ensu- ing years ; these have never been tran- slated. The great voyage of Magellan had been written by one of his companions, Pigafetta. This was first published in Italian in 1556. The History of the Indies by Acosta, 1590, may perhaps belong more strictly to other departments of literature than to geography. 51. The Romish missionaries, especially Account* of the Jesuits, spread them- china. selves with intrepid zeal during this period over infidel nations. Things strange to European prejudice, the books, the laws, the rites, the manners, the dresses of those remote people, were related by them on their return, for the most part orally, but sometimes through the press. The vast empire of China, the Cathay of Marco Polo, over which an air of fabulous mystery had hung, and which is delineated in the old maps with much ignorance of its position and extent, now first was brought within the sphere of European knowledge. The Portuguese had some traffic to Canton, but the rela- tions they gave were uncertain, till, in 1577, two Augustin friars persuaded a Chinese officer to take them into the country. After a residence of four months they returned to Manilla, and in conse- quence of their reports, Phillip II. sent, in 1580, an embassy to the court of Pekin. The History of China by Mendoza, as it is called, contains all the knowledge that the Spaniards were able to collect by these means ; and it may be said, on comparison with later books on the same subject, to be as full and ample an account of China as could have been given in such circum- stances. This book was published in 1585, and from that time, but no earlier, do we date our acquaintance with that empire. 1 Maffei, in his History of India, threw all the graces of a pure Latin style over his description of the east. The first part of a scarce and curious collection of voyages to the two Indies, with the ' names of De Bry and Meriau as its editors, appeared at Frankfort in 1590. Six other volumes were published at intervals down to 1634. Possevin, mean- time, told us more of a much nearer state, i Biogr. TJniv. This was translated into En- glish by E. Parke in 1588 ; at least I believe it to be the same work, but have never seen the original. India and Russia. Muscovy, than was before familiar to west- ern Europe, though the first information had been due to England. 52. The spirit of lucre vied with that of religion in penetrating un- English dl- known regions. In this the coveries in the English have most to boast : Horthern SeM - they were the first to pass the Icy Cape and anchor their ships in the White Sea. This was in the famous voyage of Chancel- lor in 1553. Anthony Jenkinson soon afterwards, through the heart of Russia, found his way to Bokhara and Persia. They followed up the discoveries of Cabot in North America ; and, before the end of the century, had ascertained much of the coasts about Labrador and Hudson's Bay, as well as those of Virginia, the first colony. These English voyages were recorded in the three parts of the Collection of Voy- ages, by Hakluyt, published in 1598, 1599, and 1600. Drake, second to Magellan in that bold enterprise, traversed the circum- ference of the world; and the reign of Elizabeth, quite as much as any later age, bears witness to the intrepidity and skill, if not strictly to the science, of our sailors. For these undaunted navigators traversing the unexplored wilderness of ocean in small ill-built vessels, had neither any effectual assistance from charts, nor the means of making observations themselves, or of pro- fiting by those of others. Hence, when we come to geographical knowledge, in the proper sense of the word, we find it sur- prisingly scanty, even at the close of the sixteenth century. 53. It had not, however, been neglected, so far as a multiplicity of Geographical books could prove a regard Books ; Ortellus. to it. Ortelius, in his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (the first edition of which was in 1570, augmented afterwards by several maps of later dates), gives a list of about 150 geographical treatises, most of them subsequent to 1560. His own work is the first general atlas since the revival of letters, and has been justly reckoned to make an epoch in geography, being the basis of all collections of maps since formed, and deserving, it is said, even yet to be consulted, notwithstanding the vast progress of our knowledge of the earth. * The maps in the later editions of the six- teenth century bear various dates. That of Africa is of 1590 ; and though the out- line is tolerably given, we do not find the Mauritius Isles, while the Nile is carried almost to the Cape of Good Hope, and made to issue from a great lake. In the 1 Biog. Univ. 2 c 402 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. map of America, dated 1587, the outline on the N. E. side contains New France, with the city of Canada ; the St. Lawrence traverses the country, but without lakes ; Florida is sufficiently distinguished, but the intervening coast is loosely laid down. Estotiland, the supposed discovery of the Zeni, appears to the north, and Greenland beyond. The outline of South America is worse, the southern parts covering nearly as much longitude as the northern, an error which was in some measure dimin- ished in a map of 1603. An immense solid land, as in all the older maps, connects Terra del Fuego with New Guinea. The delineation of the southern coasts of Asia is not very bad, even in the earlier maps of Ortelius, but some improvement is per- ceived in his knowledge of China and the adjacent seas in that of the world, given in the edition of 1588. The maps of Eu- rope in Ortelius are chiefly defective as to the countries on the Baltic Sea and Eussia ; but there is a general incorrectness of de- lineation which must strike the eye at once of any person slightly experienced in geography. 54. Gerard Mercator, a native of the duchy of Juliers, where he passed the greater part of his life, was perhaps supe- rior to Ortelius. His fame is most diffused by the invention of a well-known mode of delineating hydrographical charts, in which the parallels and meridians intersect each other at right angles, The first of these was published in 1569 ; but the principle of the method was not understood till Edward "Wright, in 1599, explained it in his Cor- rection of Errors in Navigation. 1 The Atlas of Mercator, in an edition of 1598, which contains only part of Europe, is superior to that of Ortelius ; and as to England, of which there had been maps published by Lluyd in 1569, and by Saxton in 1580, it may be reckoned very tolerably correct. Lluyd's map indeed is published in the Atlas of Ortelius. But, in the northern regions of Europe we still find a mass of arbitrary erroneous conjecture. 55. Botero, the Piedmontese Jesuit, men- tioned in another place, has given us a cosmography, or general description of as much of the world as was then known, en- titled Relazioni Universal!; the edition I have seen vs undated, but he mentions the discovery of Nova Zembla in 1594. His knowledge of Asia is very limited, and chiefly derived from Marco Polo. China, he says, extends from 17 to 52 of lati- i Montucla, 11. 651. Biogr. Univ. art. Mer- cator. tude, and has 22 of longitude. Japan ia- sixty leagues from China and 150 from America. The coasts, Botero observes, from Bengal to China are so dangerous, that two or three are lost out of every four ships, but the master who succeeds in es- caping these perils is sure to make his fortune. 56. But the best map of the sixteenth century is one of uncommon rarity, which is found in a very few copies of the first edition of Hakluyt's Voyages. This con- tains Davis's Straits (Fretum Davis), Vir- ginia by name, and the lake Ontario. The coasts of Chili is placed more correctly than the prior maps of Ortelius ; and it is noticed in the margin that this trending of the coast less westerly than had been supposed was discovered by Drake in 1577, and confirmed by Sarmiento and Cavendish. The huge Terra Australis of the old geography is left out. Corea is represented near its place, and China with some degree of correctness ; even the north coast of New Holland is partially traced. The Strait of Anian, which had been presumed to divide Asia from America, has disappeared, while a marginal note states that the distance be- tween those two continents in latitude 38 is not less than 1200 leagues. The Ultra- Indian region is inaccurate ; the sea of Aral is still unknown, and little pains have been taken with central and northern Asia. But upon the whole it represents the ut- most limit of geographical knowledge at the close of the sixteenth century, and far excels the maps in the edition of Ortelius at Ant- werp in 1588. SECT. VI. ON HISTORY. Gulcciardini. 57. The history of Italy by Guicciardini, though it is more properly a work of the first part of the century, was not published till 1564' It is well known for the solidity of the reflections, the gravity and impartiality with which it is written, and the prolixity of the narration ; a fault, however, frequent and not unpardonable in historians con- temporary and familiar with the events they relate. If the siege of Pisa in 1508 appeared so uninteresting a hundred years afterwards, as to be the theme of ridicule with Boccalini, it was far otherwise as to the citizens of Florence soon after the time. Guicciardini has generally held the first place among Italian historians, though he is by no means equal in literary merit to Machiavel. Adriani, whose continuation of Guicciardini extends to 1574, is little Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 403 French Memoirs. read, nor does he seem to be much recom- mended by style. No other historian of that country need be mentioned as having been published within the sixteenth century. 58. The French have ever been distin- guished for those personal memoirs of men more or less conversant with public life, to which Philip de Comines led the way. Several that fell within this period are deserving of being read, nor only for their relation of events, with which we do not here much concern ourselves, but for a lively style, and occa- sionally for good sense and acute thinking. Those of Montluc may be praised for the former. Spain had a considerable histo- rian in Mariana, twenty books of whose history were published in Latin in 1592, and five more in 1595 ; the concluding five books do not fall within the century. The style is vigorous and classical, the thoughts judicious. Buchanan's history of Scotland has already been praised for the purity of its language. Few modern histories are more redolent of an antique air. "We have nothing to boast in England ; our historical works of the Elizabethan age are mere chronicles, and hardly good even as such. Nor do I know any Latin historians of Germany or the Low Countries who, as writers, deserve our attention. SECT. VII. GENERAL STATE OF LITERATURE. 59. The great Italian universities of Bo- Universities in logna, Padua, Pisa, and Italy. Pavia, seem to have lost nothing of their lustre throughout the cen- tury. New colleges, new buildings in that stately and sumptuous architecture which distinguishes this period, bore witness to a continual patronage, and a public demand for knowledge. It is true that the best days of classical literature had passed away in Italy. But the revival of theological zeal, and of those particular studies which it fostered, might perhaps more than com- pensate in keeping up a learned class for this decline of philology. The sciences also of medicine and mathematics attracted many more students than before. The Jesuit colleges, and those founded by Gregory XIII., have been mentioned in a former part of this volume. They were endowed at a large expense in that palmy state of the Roman see. 60. Universities were founded at Altdorf in other conn- and Leyden in 1575, at tn- Helmstadt in 1576. Others of less importance began to exist in the same age. The University of Edinburgh derives its origin from the charter of James in 1582. Those of Oxford and Cambridge, reviving as we have seen after a severe shock at the accession of Eliza- beth, continued through her reign to be the seats of a progressive and solid erudi- tion. A few colleges were founded in this age. I should have wished to give some sketch of the mode of instruction pursued in these two universities. But sufficient materials have not fallen in my way ; what I have been able to glean, has already been given to the reader in former pages of this volume. It was the common practice at Oxford, observed in form down to this cen- tury, that every candidate for the degree of bachelor of arts, independently of other exercises, should undergo an examination (become absolutely nominal), in the fiva sciences of grammar, logic, rhetoric, ethics, and geometry ; every one for that of master of arts, in the additional sciences of phy- sics, metaphysics, Hebrew, and some more. These were probably the ancient trivium and quadrivium ; enlarged, perhaps after the sixteenth century, according to the in- crease of learning, and the apparent neces- sity of higher qualifications. But it would be, I conceive, a great mistake to imagine that the requisitions for academical de- grees were ever much insisted upon. The universities sent forth abundance of illite- rate graduates in every age. And as they had little influence, at least of a favourable sort, either on philosophy or polite litera- ture, we are not to overrate their import- ance in the history of the intellectual progress of mankind. 1 61. Public libraries were considerably enlarged during this period. Those of Rome, Ferrara, and ubrari * Florence in Italy, of Vienna and Heidel- berg in Germany, stood much above any others. Sixtus V. erected the splendid repository of the Vatican. Philip II. founded that of the Escurial, perhaps after 1580, and collected books with great labour and expense ; all who courted the favour of Spain contributing also by presents of rarities. 2 Ximenes had estab- 1 Lord Bacon animadverts (De Cogitatis et Visis) on the fetters which the universities im- posed on the investigation of truth ; and Morhof ascribes the establishment of the academies in Italy to the narrow and pedantic spirit of the universities, L i. c. 14. 2 Mariana, in a long passage wherein he de- scribes the Escurial palace, gives this account of the library; Vestibulo bibliotheca imposita, major! longitudine omnino pedum centum oc- toginta quinque, late pedea trigiuta duos, libros 404 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. lisbed the library of Alcala ; and that of Salamanca is likewise more ancient than this of the Escurial. Every king of France took a pride in adding to the royal library of Paris. By an ordinance of 1556, a copy of every book printed with privilege was to be deposited in this library. It was kept . at Fontainebleau, but transferred to Paris in 1595. During the civil wars its progress was slow. 1 The first prince of Orange founded the public library of Leyden, which shortly became one of the best in Europe. The catalogue was published in 1597. That bequeathed by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, to the university of Oxford, was dispersed in the general havoc made under Edward VI. At the close of the century, the university had no public library. But Sir Thomas Bodley had already, in 1597, made the generous offer of presenting his own, which was carried into effect in the first years of the ensuing age. 2 In the colleges there were generally libraries. If we could believe Scaliger these were good ; but he had never been in England, and there is no reason, I believe, to estimate them highly. 3 Archbishop Parker had founded, or at least greatly enlarged, the public library of Cambridge. Many private persons of learning and opulence had formed libraries in England under Elizabeth ; some of which still subsist in the mansions of ancient families. I in- cline to believe that there was at least as servat praesertim Grascos manuscriptos, praa- cipuaa plerosque vetustatis ; qui ex omnibus Europae partibus ad famam novi operis magno numero confluxerunt: auro pretiosiores thesauri, digni quorum evolvendorum major eruditis homi- nibus faeultas contingent. Quod enim ex cap- Uvis et majestate revinctis literis emolumentum ? De rege et regis institutions, 1. iii. c. 10. The noble freedom of Mariana breaks out, we see, in the midst of his praise of royal magnificence. Few, if any, libraries, except those of the uni- versities, were accessible to men of studious habits ; a reproach that has been very slowly effaced. I have often been astonished, in con- sidering this, that BO much learning was really acquired. 1 Jugler's Hist. Literaria, c. iii. s. 6. This very laborious work of the middle of the last century, contains the most ample account of public libraries throughout Europe that I have been able to find. The German libraries, with the two exceptions of Vienna and Heidelberg, do not seem to have become of much Im- portance in the sixteenth century. 2 Wood's Hist, and Ant p. 922. 3 Scalig. Secunda, p. 236. De mon temps, he lays in the same place, 11 y avoit a Londres douze bibliothequea completes, et a Paris quatre- vingt. I do not profess to understand this epithet. competent a stock of what is generally called learning among our gentry as in any continental kingdom ; their education was more literary, their habits more peaceable, their religion more argumentative. Per- haps we should make an exception for Italy, in which the spirit of collecting libraries was more prevalent. 62. The last forty years of the sixteenth century, were a period of un- collections of interrupted peace in Italy. Antiquities in Notwithstanding the pres- Iuly - sure of governments always jealous, and sometimes tyrannical, it is manifest that at least the states of Venice and Tuscany had grown in wealth, and in the arts that attend it. Those who had been accustomed to endure the license of armies, found a se- curity in the rule of law which compen- sated for many abuses. Hence that sort of property, which is most exposed to pil- lage, became again a favourite acquisition ; and, among the costly works of art, which adorned the houses of the wealthy, every relic of antiquity found its place. Gems and medals, which the books of Vico and Erizzo had taught the owners to arrange and to appreciate, were sought so eagerly, that, according to Hubert Goltzius, as quoted by Pinkerton, there were in Italy 380 of such collections. The marbles and bronzes, the inscriptions of antiquity, were not less in request, and the well known word, virtuosi, applied to these lovers of what was rare and beautiful in art or na- ture, bespoke the honour in which their pursuits were held. The luxury of litera ture displayed itself in scarce books, ele- gant impressions, and sumptuous bindings. 63. Among the refined gentlemen, who devoted to these gracefvd occupations their leisure and e ' their riches, none was more celebrated than Gian Vincenzio Pinelli. He was born of a good family at Naples in 1538. A strong thirst for knowledge, and the con- sciousness that his birth exposed him to difficulties and temptations at home which might obstruct his progress, induced him to seek, at the age of twenty -four, the uni- versity of Padua, at that time the re- nowned scene of learning and of philo- sophy. 1 In this city he spent forty -three 1 Animmadverterat autem hie noster, domi, inter amplexus parentum et familiarium obse- quia, in urbe deliciarum plena, militaribus et equestribus, quam musarum studiis aptiore, non perventurum sese ad earn glorias metam quam sibi destinaverat, ideo gymnasii Patavini fama pennotus, &c. Gualdi, Vita Pinelli. This life by a contemporary, or nearly such, is re- Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 405 years, the remainder of his life. His father was desirous that he should practise the law ; but after a short study of this Pinelli resumed his favourite pursuits. TTia fortune indeed was sufficiently large to render any sacrifice of them unreason- able ; and it may have been out of dislike of his compulsory reading, that in forming his vast lihrary he excluded works of juris- prudence. This library was collected by the labour of many years. The catalogues of the Frankfort fairs, and those of the principal booksellers in Italy, were dili- gently perused by Pinelli; nor did any work of value appear from the press on either side of the Alps which he did not instantly add to his shelves. This great library was regularly arranged, and though he did not willingly display its stores to the curious and ignorant, they were always accessible to scholars. He had also a con- siderable museum of globes, maps, mathe- matical instruments, and fossils; but he only collected the scarcer coins. In his manners, Pinelli was a finely polished gentleman, but of weak health, and for this cause devoted to books, and seldom mingling with gay society, nor even belong- ing to the literary academies of the city, but carrying on an extensive correspon- dence, and continually employed in writ- ing extracts or annotations. Yet he has left nothing that has been published. His own house was as it were a perpetual academy, frequented by the learned of all nations. If Pinelli was not a man of great genius, nor born to be of much service to any science, we may still respect him for a love of learning, and a nobleness of spirit, which has preserved his memory. 1 64. The literary academies of Italy con- itaiian tinued to flourish even more academies. than before; many new societies of the same kind were founded. Several existed at Florence, but all others have been eclipsed by the Delia Crusca, established in 1582. Those of another Tuscan city, which had taken the lead in such literary associations, did not long sur- vive its political independence ; the jealous spirit of Cosmo extinguished the Eozzi of Siena in 1568. In governments as sus- picious as those of Italy, the sort of secrecy belonging to these meetings, and the en- published in the Vitae Illustrium Virorum by Bates. i Gualdi. Tiraboschi, vi. 214. The library of Pinelli was dispersed, and in great part de- stroyed by pirates not long afterwards. That long since formed by one of his family is well known to book collectors. couragement they gave to a sentiment of mutual union, were at least sufficient reasons for watchfulness. We have seen how the academy of Modena was broken up on the score of religion. That of Venice, perhaps for the same reason, was dissolved by the senate in 1561, and did not revive till 1593. These, however, were exceptions to the rule ; and it was the general policy of governments to cherish in the nobility a love of harmless amuse- ments. All Lombardy and Romagna were full of academies ; they were frequent in the kingdom of Naples, and in the eccle- siastical states. 1 They are a remarkable feature in the social condition of Italy, and could not have existed perhaps in any other country. They were the encouragers of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself, and throwing for ever its little sparks of light on the still ocean of the past, but not very favourable to com- prehensive observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry the honours of real learning. This, indeed, is the inherent vice of all literary societies, accessible too frequently to those who, for amusement or fashion's sake, love as much knowledge as can be reached with facility, and from the nature of their transactions, seldom capable of affording scope for any extensive research. 65. No academy or similar institution can be traced at this time, society of Anti- as far as I know, in France quartea in or Germany. But it is de- **$** serving of remark, that one sprung up in England, not indeed of the classical and polite character that belonged to the In- fiammati of Padua, or the Delia Crusca of Florence, yet useful in its objects, and honourable alike to its members and to the country. This was the Society of Anti- quaries, founded by Archbishop Parker in 1572. Their object was the preservation of ancient documents, illustrative of his- tory, which the recent dissolution of re- ligious houses, and the shameful devasta- tion attending it, had exposed to great peril. They intended also, by the reading of papers at their meetings, to keep alive the love and knowledge of English anti- quity. In the second of these objects this society was more successful than in the 1 Tiraboschi, viii. 125-179, is so full on this subject, that I have not had recourse to other writers who have, sometimes with great pro- lixity, investigated a subject more interesting in its details to the Italians than to us. Gin- gu<5ne adds very little to what he found in his predecessor. 406 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. first ; several short dissertations, chiefly by Arthur Agard, their most active mem- ber, have been afterwards publish jd. The Society comprised very reputable names, chiefly lawyers, and continued to meet till early in the reign of James, who, from some jealousy, thought fit to dissolve it.i 66. The chief cities on this side of the Hew book* and Alps, whence new editions catalogue! of came forth, were Paris, them - Basle, Lyons, Leyden, Ant- werp, Brussels, Strasburg, Cologne, Heidelberg, Frankfort, Ingolstadt, and Geneva. In all these, and in all other populous towns, booksellers, who were generally also printers, were a numerous body. In London at least forty or fifty were contemporaneous publishers in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign ; but the number elsewhere in England was very small. The new books on the continent, and within the Alps and Pyrenees, found their principal mart at the annual Frank- fort fairs. Catalogues of such books be- gan to be published, according to Beck- mann, in 1554. 2 In a collective catalogue of all books offered for sale at Frankfort, from 1564 to 1592, I find the number, in Latin, Greek, and German, to be about 16,000. No Italian or French appear in this catalogue, being probably reserved for another. Of theology in Latin there are 3200, and in this department the catholic publications rather exceed the protestant. But of the theology in the German lan- guage the number is 3700, not one-fourth of which is catholic. Scarcely any mere German poetry appears, but a good deal in both languages with musical notes. Law furnishes about 1600 works. I reckoned twenty-seven Greek and thirty-two La- tin grammars, not counting different editions of the same. There are at least seventy editions of parts of Aristotle. The German books are rather more than one- 1 See life of Agard, in Biogr. Brit, and in Chalmers. But the best account is in the In- troduction to the first volume of the Archaeo- logia. The present society of Antiquaries is the representative, bnt after long intermission, of this Elizabethan progenitor. 2 Hist, of Inventions, iii. 120. "George Wilier, whom some improperly call Viller, and others Walter, a bookseller at Augsburg, who kept a large shop, and frequented the Frankfort fairs, first fell upon the plan of causing to be printed every fair a catalogue of all the new books, in which the size and printers' names were marked." There seems to be some doubt whether the first year of these catalogues was 1554 or 1564 : the collection mentioned in the text leads us rather to suspect the latter. third of the whole Among the Latin I did not observe one book by a writer of thi* island. In a compilation by Clessius, in 1602, purporting to be a conspectus of the publications of the sixteenth century, formed partly from catalogues of fairs, partly from those of public libraries, we find, at least in the copy I have examined, but which seems to want one volume, a much smaller number of productions than in the former, but probably with more se- lection. The books in modern languages are less than 1000, half French, half Italian. In this catalogue also the catholic theology rather outnumbers the protestant, which is perhaps not what we should have ex- pected to find. 67. These catalogues, in the total ab- sence of literary journals, Literary corre- were necessarily the great spondence. means of communicating to all the lovers of learning in Cisalpine Europe (for Italy had resources of her own) some knowledge of its progress. Another source of infor- mation was the correspondence of scholars with each other. It was their constant usage, far more than in modern times, to preserve an epistolary intercourse. If their enmities were often bitter, their con- tentions almost always violent, many beau- tiful instances of friendship and sympathy might be adduced on the other side ; they deemed themselves a distinct cast, a priest- hood of the same altar, not ashamed of poverty, nor disheartened by the world's neglect, but content with the praise of those whom themselves thought worthy of praise, and hoping something more from posterity than they obtained from their own age. 68. We find several attempts at a literary or rather bibliogra- Bibliographical phical history of a higher worki. character than these catalogues. The Bib- liotheca Universalis of Gesner was re- printed in 1574, with considerable enlarge- ments by Simler. Conrad Lycosthenes afterwards made additions to it, and Ver- dier published a supplement. Verdior was also the author of a Bibliotheque Francaise, of which the first edition ap- peared in 1584. Another with the same title was published in the same year by La Croix du Maine. Both these follow the strange alphabetical arrangement by Chris- tian instead of family names, so usual in the sixteenth century. La Croix du Maine con- fines himself to French authors, but Verdier includes all who had been translated. The former is valued for his accuracy and for curi- ous particulars in biography ; the second for the extracts he has given. Doni pretended Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. 407 ~to give's, history of books in his Libreria, but it has not obtained much reputation, and falls, according to the testimony of those who are acquainted with it, below the compilations above-mentioned. 1 69. The despotism of the state, and far Kestraintson more of the church, bore the Press. heavily on the press in Italy. Spain, mistress of Milan and Naples, and Florence under Cosmo I., were jealous governments. Venice, though we are apt to impute a rigid tyranny to its senate, appears to have indulged rather more liberty of writing on political topics . to its subjects, on the condition, no doubt, that they should eulogise the wisdom of ihe republic ; and, comparatively to the neighbouring regions of Italy, the praise both of equitable and prudent government may be ascribed to that aristocracy. It had at least the signal merit of keeping ecclesiastical oppression at a distance ; a Venetian might write with some freedom of the papal court. One of the accusations against Venice, in her dispute with Paul V., was for allowing the publication of books that had been censured at Rome. 2 70. But Rome struck a fatal blow, and index perhaps more deadly than Expurgatorins. she intended, at literature in the Index Expurgatorius of prohibited books. It had long been the regulation that no book should be printed without a previous license. This was of course a re- straint on the freedom of writing, but it was less injurious to the trade of the printer and bookseller than the subsequent prohibition of what he had published or purchased at his own cost and risk. The first list of books prohibited by the church was set forth by Paul IV. in 1559. His Index includes all Bibles in modern languages, enumerating forty-eight editions, chiefly printed in countries still within the obedi- ence of the church. Sixty-one printers are put under a general ban ; all works of every description from their presses being forbidden. Stephens and Oporinus have the honour of being among these. 3 This system was pursued and rigorously acted upon by the successors of the imperious Caraffa. The council of Trent had its own list of condemned publications. Philip II. has been said to have preceded the pope himself in a similar proscription. 1 Morhof. Goujet. Biogr. Univ. 2 Ranke, ii. 330. 3 Schelhorn, Amcenit. Liter, vii. 98. viii. 342 and 485. The two dissertations on prohibited books here quoted are full of curious informa- tion. Wherever the sway of Rome and Spain was felt, books were unsparingly burned, and to this cause is imputed the scarcity of many editions. 71. In its principle, which was apparently that of preserving obedi- ,, ,.,., Its effects, ence, the prohibitory system might seem to have untouched many great walks of learning and science. It is of course manifest that it fell with but an oblique blow upon common literature. Yet, as a few words or sentences were sufficient to elicit a sentence of condem- nation, often issued with little reflection, it was difficult for any author to be fully secure ; and this inspired so much appre- hension into printers, that they became unwilling to incur the hazard of an ob- noxious trade. These occupations, says Galluzzi, which had begun to prosper at Florence, never recovered the wound in- flicted by the severe regulations of Paul TV. and Pius V. 1 The art retired t> Switzerland and Germany. The book- sellers were at the mercy of an Inquisition, which every day contrived new methods of harassing them. From an interdiction of the sale of certain prohibited books, the church proceeded to forbid that of all which were not expressly permitted. The Guinti, a firm not so eminent as it had been in the early part of the century, but still the honour of Florence, remonstrated in vain. It seems probable, however, that after the death of Pius V., the most rigorous and bigoted pontiff that ever filled the chair, some degree of relaxation took place. 72. The restraints on the printing and sale of books .in England, Bestrictions in though not so overpowering England. as in Italy, must have stood in the way of useful knowledge under Elizabeth. The Stationers' Company, founded in 1555, obtained its monopoly at the price of severe restrictions. The Star Chamber looked vigilantly at the dangerous engine it was compelled to tolerate. By the regulations it issued in 1585, no press was allowed to be used out of London, except one at Oxford, and another at Cambridge. No- thing was to be printed without allowance of the council ; extensive powers both of seizing books and of breaking the presses were given to the officers of the crown. 2 Thus every check was imposed on literature, and it seems unreasonable to dispute that they had some efficacy in restraining its progress, though less, perhaps, than we 1 1st. del. Gran Ducato, iii. 442. 2 Herbert, iii. 1668. 408 Literature of Europe from 1500 to 1600. might in theory expect, because there was always a certain degree of connivance and indulgence. Even the current pro- hibition of importing popish books, ex- cept for the use of such as the council should permit to use them, must have affected the trade in modern Latin authors beyond the bounds of theology. 73. These restrictions do not seem to latin more have had any material oper- empioyedon this ationin France, in Germany, account. O r the Low Countries. And they certainly tended very considerably to keep up the usage of writing in Latin ; or rather, perhaps, it may be said, they were less rigorously urged in those countries, because Latin continued to be the custom- ary tongue of scholars. We have seen that great license was used in political writings in that language. The power of reading Latin was certainly so diffused, that no mystery could be affected by writing it ; yet it seemed to be a voluntary abstaining from an appeal to the passions of the mul- titude, and passed better without censure than the same sense in a modern dress. 74. The influence of literature on the influence of public mind was already literature. very considerable. All kinds of reading had become deeper and more diffused. Pedantry is the usual, perhaps the inevitable, consequence of a genuine devotion to learning, not surely in each individual, but in classes and bodies of men. And this was an age of pedants. To quote profusely from ancient writers, seemed to be a higher merit than to rival them ; they furnished both authority and ornament, they did honour to the modern, who shone in these plumes of other birds with little expense of thought, and some- times the actual substance of a book is hardly discernible under this exuberance of rich incrustations. Tacitus, Sallust, Cicero, and Seneca (for the Greeks were in comparison but little read), and many of the Latin poets, were the books that, directly, or by the secondary means of quotation, had most influence over the public opinion. Nor was it surprising that the reverence for antiquity should be still undiminished ; for, though the new litera- ture was yielding abundant crops, no- comparison between the ancients and moderns could as yet fairly arise. Mon- taigne, fearless and independent as he was, gave up altogether the pretensions of the latter ; yet no one was more destined to lead the way to that renunciation of the authority of the former which the seventeenth century was to witness. He and Machiavel were the two writers who produced the greatest effect upon this age. Some others, such as Guevara and Casti- glione, might be full as much read, but they did not possess enough of original thought to shape the opinions of mankind. And these two, to whom we may add Rabelais, seem to be the only writers of the sixteenth century, setting aside poets and historians, wbo are now much read by the world. tLC, F" UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES COLLEGE LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. HOY* 6 2 Novl62 Nov2662 JUN25 '83 14 DAY Book Slip-25m-9,'59(A4772s4)4280 College Library PN 701 v.l m K&&W5WW