the object of which peculiarly was, to excite a love CHAP. of general study; an encouragement of new books; II. a desire to collect them; a taste for the liberal arts; PROGRESS indulgence for poetry; and an increased facility to students, to read the books that were obtained. 42 OF THE LANGUAGE AND PROSE In considering the middle ages with respect to the progression of the human race, we must recollect that TION. it is not the existence of one long-living and undying individual or generation that we are contemplating. It is not an Adam born 5833 years ago, who has been in life and action during all that time on this earth, and who has at last become what any of the classes of mankind now existing shew themselves to be. It has not been the system of the Creator that the world should be a continuing population of one never-dying nation. Having appointed that the earthly duration of every one should be ended by death at such a restricted period of life, that a new generation occurs every thirty, or as now, thirty-four years, the history of mankind is the history of nearly two hundred new generations; and their progress and attainments are those of so. many distinct races and individuals, and not of one permanent population, adding to their individual minds all the successive effects of the experience, feelings and reasonings of 5000 years. The consequence of the adoption of this plan of human existence hast 42 It is a MS. in the British Museum, Harleian, No. 492. Some of its chapters will shew its more remarkable subjects:-Ch. 1. That the treasure of wisdom lies chiefly in books:-Ch. 2. What love should reasonably be given to books:-Ch. 9. Tho' we ought to love the works of the ancients most, yet we ought not to condemn the study of the moderns: Ch. 11. On the preference to books on the liberal arts:-Ch. 13. We should not entirely neglect the fables of the poets:-Ch. 15. The advantages of the love of books:-Ch. 16. How meritorious it is to write new books, and to renew old ones:-Ch. 18. That we should collect a great abundance of books, to the common profit of scholars, and not merely for our own pleasure:-Ch. 19. On the best mode of communicating our books to all-students. MS. Harl. No. 492. IX. ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOK been, that at various epochas, particular races have become, or been caused to be, prominent, have been formed into nations and states, and have been continued under their peculiar governments, institutions and manners, undergoing all the effects, and attaining all the improvements and deteriorations which they exhibit to the historical reader. AND PROSE TION. As soon as their progression had reached a point, beyond which no more appears, but decline and debasement begin; we see these left to decay and disappear, and some new race or state brought forward in their stead, and impelled or aided into predominance and advancement, until their melioration has become stationary. Corruption and degradation then appear, instead of progress; and national virtues give place to national vice and evil. Thus Babylon, thus Persia, thus Greece, thus Rome, successively ascended and fell, as soon as they each began to exhibit a deteriorating tendency. Hence, in England, the Anglo-Saxons displaced the enervated Romans; to be themselves, as they began to retrograde, conquered and depressed by the AngloNormans, whose predominance introduced a new spirit of intellect and virtue, which having never ceased to be progressive, has never been superseded by any other foreign race or power. But, altho England as a nation has now exhibited a continuation of the same mixed population of AngloNormans and Anglo-Saxons, amalgamated into one general mass of Englishmen for the last eight hundred years; yet this continued population has been a succession of at least twenty-five distinct and new generations, tho all have flowed on from the same fountain It is still not the same individuals living for races. II. OF THE ENGLISH AND PROSE TION. seven hundred and sixty-three years, but twenty-five CHAP. series of individuals, each having to grow up from babyhood in a moral and intellectual process, and PROGRESS dying away; to be followed by others who had also to pass thro the same personal progress: beginning LANGUAGE always from the cradle, and giving way to their de- COMPOSIscendants as they completed their allotted and transitory maturity. The true way of estimating human progression, and the most correct mode of perceiving and displaying it, therefore, will be to put man against man; to compare the improved individuals of one series with the improved individuals of the next, until we reach our own generation; and by this means we shall attain a distinct view of the certainty, nature and gradation which every age comparatively exhibits. END OF VOL. V. INDEX. INDEX. ABELARD, one of the earliest supporters of the scholastic Absolution, its use in the Catholic church, v. 61. Acre, besieged by the crusaders, i. 374; captured, 378. iv. 201. Adhemar, bishop of, embarks in the crusades, i. 335. Egidius de Columna, "the most profound doctor," iv. 472. Afer, Constantine, studies the sciences under the Saracens in Africa, causes which have retarded its political improvement, i. 3. Agriculture, early promoted in Swedèn, i. 33, note. Akrsboag, the Norwegian name of Acre, ii. 4, note. Albemarle, duke of, assists in the murder of the duke of Gloucester, Albert, the Victorious, marquis of Austria, expels the Hungarians Albertus Magnus, charged with studying necromancy, iii. 118; Albigenses, crusade against them, i. 441; their derivation from Aldenberg, its idolatrous worship, ii. 9. Alexander, early romances on, iv. 254. III. king of Scotland, his death, ii. 68. Alexis Commines, the Grecian emperor, his treacherous conduct Alexius, the emperor of Greece, solicits assistance from the Euro- Alfred, contributed to the maintenance of Christianity in Europe, Al Gazel, the Arabian philosopher, importance and celebrity of sals, 491. |