BOOK who tried the Cynthian lyre, have not increased our VI. catalogue of good Latin poetry, they certainly imLITERARY proved and stimulated the intellect of their contemHISTORY OF poraries, and circulated an attachment to the ancient classics, by which the general taste was benefited when other studies came into fashion. ENGLAND. It would exceed both the limit and object of this Work, to detail, in regular catalogue, the ecclesiastical writers who filled the middle ages with Latin verse or prose. That respectable mediocrity of mind, which the Latin literature is well adapted to produce, was the attainment of the best. From this moderate level 64 Non uno, doctrina modo se mentibus infert. Another attempts Satire: Ridiculus mus est qui muribus imperat, et qui The fourth book exhibits his Parables, expressed in eight lines. The following is very pretty: Non omnis socius fidus est. Non omne fidele Pectus. Non omni me sociare volo. Cui socius volet esse meus, non alter et idem Fiat ego qui non est satis alter ego Non teneo socium. Qui scit quod nescio, vel qui Id, quod non habeo, me preter illud habet. Cum socio socius deliberat omnià doctus Cum sibi concordant consona corda duo. In the fifth book each idea has ten lines devoted to it; and in the sixth, twelve. "Some of these will be noticed in our subsequent observations on the rhymed Latin poetry. Leland, Tanner, Ball, Pitts, Fabricius, and Leyser, will give abundant information. The greater number of the versifiers were satisfied with their hexameters and pentameters without rhyme. I observe that very few endeavored to imitate Horace.-The British Museum contains, in hexameters and pentameters, The Monita Moralia of Nigellus Wireker, addressed to the Chancellor of Richard I. MS. Cott. Julius, A 7.-Also a poem of 2720 flowing lines, on the Life of St. Albans, with much Scripture history intermixed, written by Robert of Dunstable, about 1150. MS. Cott. Julius, D 3. . II. OF LATIN LITE others descended, in varying degrees, to the humblest CHAP. dulness. In reading a few, you exhaust the scanty ideas of all, and you desire to read no more. But this REVIVAL was not the fault of their talent, but of their instruction; their minds were new soil, fit for the most RATURe vigorous vegetation; but the Latin literature that was NORMAN transplanted into them, was composed of the flower- CONQUEST. ing, not the fruitful plants. Our ancestors produced as much from it as the later Romans had done; its unprolific nature forbad a better harvest. AFTER THE In characterising our writers of the middle age as Estimation dull and unimproving now, I do not wish to be under- intellectual stood to depreciate their contemporary utility; in the utility. commencement of mental culture, such literature must occur, and it does not occur unprofitably. The literary improvements of every country slowly and gradually accumulate; myriads of minds must labor, and a great proportion must give diction and publicity to the fruits of their secret toil, before a large population can be visibly benefited. To suit the various circumstances and tempers of mankind, numerous must be the paths of the studious, and very diversified their produce. No labourer in this great field is useless or unimportant; the meanest effort will find some individual, whose humble capacity is assisted by the tribute; and till inferior cultivators have brought the soil into a state fit for a nobler harvest, the sublimer intellects cannot appear, or would operate, if they did, with inconsiderable effect. Hence, altho our early history presents to us a crowd of Latin students, whose writings we have long consigned to oblivion, and whose names we disturb only to deride; yet they have all been, in various degrees, benefactors to so BOOK ciety: they were the laborious teachers of absolute VI. ignorance, which their tuition removed; and it is the LITERARY success of their labors in improving their countryENGLAND. men, which has made their services forgotten. HISTORY OF Valuable of the monks. The most valuable part of the Anglo-Norman chronicles Latin literature was the annals, chronicles, and hisAnglo- tories, composed by the monks; works indeed so inNorman variably associated with our habitual contempt, that it may be thought absurd to praise them here. To the graces of style they have certainly no pretensions; if they had, they might, like Saxo-Grammaticus, have been historically worthless. With the charms of order, the powers of forcible description, the use of profound reflection, or the art of intellectual criticism, they were entirely unacquainted. The superstitious legend they delighted to detail, for they sincerely believed it; they never omitted a rumored prodigy, and were ever ready to exaggerate an extraordinary natural phenomenon. With these defects, what then was their value? The simple habit of plainly annalizing the main facts of history that occurred. Such a series of regular chronology and true incident; such faithful; clear and ample materials for authentic history, had scarcely appeared before; nothing could be more contemptible as compositions; nothing could be more satisfactory as authorities. Their simplicity was ad+ vantageous to their veracity; and when the monastic habit of composing them ceased, their place was but poorly supplied by the loquacious lay-chroniclers, half romances, at least in their dress, which succeeded, It is easy to separate their legends from their facts; and perhaps the modern use of certain and correct chronology may be ascribed to their precise habit, of always dating the years of the events which they CHAP. record.65 . II. OF LATIN AFTER THE NORMAN But the Latin literature which was cultivated after REVIVAL Lanfranc, was rather useful in beginning a literary taste in England, and in forming those men who TURE deviated afterwards into other studies, than for its own intrinsic and productive affluence. However CONQUEST. valuable the best Latin classics will be to all ages, Limited for their taste, their chastised beauties of style, their the Roman utility of eloquence, and their occasional good sense, they do not impart, because they do not contain, any large funds of knowlege, great originality of thought, or important associations of ideas: they are but the best Grecian classics re-appearing, with augmented judgment and some variety of features, in a new language. Science the Romans never valued, nor much classics; A. D. 1091 1118 1117 1141 1154 Simeon of Durham 1130 Matthew of Westminster 1307 As in every monastery there was some curious mind, fond of noting the great incidents of his day, every country in Europe has such chronicles. But I think with Dr. Henry, that, upon the whole, our annalists are superior to those of any other nation, at this period. 1 BOOK understood. Mathematical studies, the proudest part VI. of Grecian knowlege, were never popular in Greece LITERARY itself, and scarcely visited Italy." All the natural ENGLAND. history and philosophy which could be collected HISTORYOF within the precincts of the Roman empire, in its largest circle, and from the labors of anterior time, Pliny embodied in his work. His countrymen never increased his store, and scanty is its amount! And it was applied both by Pliny and Lucretius, and by those who afterwards studied it from them, to establish the system of Epicurus, which pushed the Divine Creator out of nature. The Latin poets that convey useful instruction to posterity, are not more numerous than their dramatists. Their historians, together with Cicero, Seneca, Quintilian, and Epictetus, exhibit the intellects most serviceable to future ages; but even these, like the Latin fathers, with their superior topics, are not affluent in extensive knowlege, and are insufficient to create a vigorous original mind. It is one thing to please a cultivated 66 Theodoric, in his letter to Boetius, commends him, because, by his translations, the Italians could read Pythagoras on Music, Ptolemy on Astronomy, Euclid on Geometry, Nichomachus on Arithmetic, and Archimedes on Mechanics. He adds, Whatever disciplinæ or arts, fruitful Greece has produced, by you, uno auctore, Rome has received into her vernacular language.' Yet Boetius did not live till the sixth century. 67 It is a remarkable fact, which we learn from Quintilian (1. 12.) that Epicurus directed his disciples to avoid the study of the sciences. This injunction was fatal to their intellectual progress, as indeed all his leading doctrines were. Hence, tho he was temperate, his followers, pursuing his principles to their natural consequences, became mere sensualists. Lactantius says, that his sect became far more popular than others. Div. Inst. 1. 3. c. 17. Yet during his lifetime he was unknown and almost unattended. Seneca, ep. 79. It is Lucretius that so extravagantly extols him, for having been the first to assert that no part of the world was created, and for trying so feebly to explain its origin without a Deity: and who first made him popular in Rome, by writing his poem in praise of his system, at the critical moment when the mercenary luxury, pride, ambition and individual selfishness of degenerating Romans made them eager to believe that there was no superior power in the universe to control their conduct, or to make them responsible for it. |