Chapter 31

[m]This derivation of the romantic stories of Arthur, which Le Grand d'Aussy ridiculously attributes to the jealousy entertained by the English of the renown of Charlemagne, is stated in a very perspicuous and satisfactory manner by Mr. Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances.[n][Though the stories of Arthur were not invented by the English out of jealousy of Charlemagne, it has been ingeniously conjectured and rendered highly probable by Mr. Sharon Turner, that the history by Geoffrey of Monmouth was composed with a political view to display the independence and dignity of the British crown, and was intended, consequently, as a counterpoise to that of Turpin, which never became popular in England. It is doubtful, in my judgment, whether Geoffrey borrowed so much from Armorican traditions as he pretended.][o]Prose e Rime di Dante, Venez. 1758, t. iv. p. 261. Dante's words, biblia cum Trojanorum Romanorumque gestibus compilata, seem to bear no other meaning than what I have given. But there may be a doubt whetherbibliais ever used except for the Scriptures; and the Italian translator renders it, cioè la bibbia, i fatti de i Trojani, e de i Romani. In this case something is wrong in the original Latin, and Dante will have alluded to the translations of parts of Scripture made into French, as mentioned in the text.[p]The Assises de Jérusalem have undergone two revisions; one, in 1250, by order of John d'Ibelin, count of Jaffa, and a second in 1369, by sixteen commissioners chosen by the states of the kingdom of Cyprus. Their language seems to be such as might be expected from the time of the former revision.[q]Several prose romances were written or translated from the Latin about 1170, and afterwards. Mr. Ellis seems inclined to dispute their antiquity. But, besides the authorities of La Ravalière and Tressan, the latter of which is not worth much, a late very extensively informed writer seems to have put this matter out of doubt. Roquefort Flamericourt, Etat de la Poésie Française dans les 12meet 13mesiècles, Paris, 1815 p. 147.[r]Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xi. p. 121; De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. iii. p. 548. Charles V. had more learning than most princes of his time. Christine de Pisan, a lady who has written memoirs, or rather an eulogy of him, says that his father le fist introdire en lettres moult suffisamment, et tant que competemment entendoit son Latin, et souffisamment scavoit les regles de grammaire; la quelle chose pleust a dieu qu'ainsi fust accoutumée entre les princes. Collect. de Mém. t. v. p. 103, 190, &c.[s]The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen is an instrument in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. 263; the date of which is 1095. Persons more conversant with the antiquities of that country may possibly go further back. Another of 1101 is published in Marina's Teoria de las Cortes, t. iii. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the Cruel, and cannot, I presume, have been a translation from the Latin. Yet the editors of Nouveau Tr. de Diplom. mention a charter of 1243, as the earliest they are acquainted with in the Spanish language. t. iv. p. 525.Charters in the German language, according to the same work, first appear in the time of the emperor Rodolph, after 1272, and became usual in the next century. p. 523. But Struvius mentions an instrument of 1235, as the earliest in German. Corp. Hist. Germ. p. 457.[t]An extract from this poem was published in 1808 by Mr. Southey, at the end of his "Chronicle of the Cid," the materials of which it partly supplied, accompanied by an excellent version by a gentleman, who is distinguished, among many other talents, for an unrivalled felicity in expressing the peculiar manner of authors whom he translates or imitates. M. Sismondi has given other passages in the third volume of his History of Southern Literature. This popular and elegant work contains some interesting and not very common information as to the early Spanish poets in the Provençal dialect, as well as those who wrote in Castilian.[u]Dissert. 32.[x]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 340.[y]Dante, in his treatise De vulgari Eloquentiâ, reckons fourteen or fifteen dialects, spoken in different parts of Italy, all of which were debased by impure modes of expression. But the "noble, principal, and courtly Italian idiom," was that which belonged to every city, and seemed to belong to none, and which, if Italy had a court, would be the language of that court. p. 274, 277.Allowing for the metaphysical obscurity in which Dante chooses to envelop the subject, this might perhaps be said at present. The Florentine dialect has its peculiarities, which distinguish it from the general Italian language, though these are seldom discerned by foreigners, nor always by natives, with whom Tuscan is the proper denomination of their national tongue.[z]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 309-377. Ginguené, vol. i. c. 6. The style of the Vita Nuova of Dante, written soon after the death of his Beatrice, which happened in 1290, is hardly distinguishable, by a foreigner, from that of Machiavel or Castiglione. Yet so recent was the adoption of this language, that the celebrated master of Dante, Brunetto Latini, had written hisTesoroin French; and gives as a reason for it, that it was a more agreeable and useful language than his own. Et se aucuns demandoit pourquoi chis livre est ecris en Romans, selon la raison de France, pour chose que nous sommes Ytalien, je diroie que ch'est pour chose que nous sommes en France; l'autre pour choseque la parleure en est plus delitable et plus commune a toutes gens. There is said to be a manuscript history of Venice down to 1275, in the Florentine library, written in French by Martin de Canale, who says that he has chosen that language, parceque la langue franceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus delitable a lire et a oir que nulle autre. Ginguené, vol. i. p. 384.[a]Tu proverai si (says Cacciaguida to him) come sà di saleIl pane altrui, e come è duro calleIl scendere e 'l salir per altrui scale.Paradis. cant. 16.[b]Paradiso, cant. 16.[c]Velli, Vita di Dante. Tiraboschi.[d]The source from which Dante derived the scheme and general idea of his poem has been a subject of inquiry in Italy. To his original mind one might have thought the sixth Æneid would have sufficed. But besides several legendary visions of the 12th and 13th centuries, it seems probable that he derived hints from the Tesoretto of his master in philosophical studies, Brunetto Latini. Ginguené, t. ii. p. 8.[e]There is an unpleasing proof of this quality in a letter to Boccaccio on Dante, whose merit he rather disingenuously extenuates; and whose popularity evidently stung him to the quick. De Sade, t. iii. p. 512. Yet we judge so ill of ourselves, that Petrarch chose envy as the vice from which of all others he was most free. In his dialogue with St. Augustin, he says: Quicquid libuerit, dicito; modo me non accuses invidiæ.Aug.Utinam non tibi magis superbia quam invidia nocuisset: nam hoc crimine, me judice, liber es. De Contemptu Mundi, edit. 1581, p. 342.I have read in some modern book, but know not where to seek the passage, that Petrarch did not intend to allude to Dante in the letter to Boccaccio mentioned above, but rather to Zanobi Strata, a contemporary Florentine poet, whom, however forgotten at present, the bad taste of a party in criticism preferred to himself.—Matteo Villani mentions them together as the two great ornaments of his age. This conjecture seems probable, for some expressions are not in the least applicable to Dante. But whichever was intended, the letter equally shows the irritable humour of Petrarch.[f]A goldsmith of Bergamo, by name Henry Capra, smitten with an enthusiastic love of letters, and of Petrarch, earnestly requested the honour of a visit from the poet. The house of this good tradesman was full of representations of his person, and of inscriptions with his name and arms. No expense had been spared in copying all his works as they appeared. He was received by Capra with a princely magnificence; lodged in a chamber hung with purple, and a splendid bed on which no one before or after him was permitted to sleep. Goldsmiths, as we may judge by this instance, were opulent persons; yet the friends of Petrarch dissuaded him from the visit, as derogatory to his own elevated station. De Sade, t. iii. p. 496.[g]See the beautiful sonnet, Erano i capei d'oro all'aura sparsi. In a famous passage of his Confessions, he says: Corpus illud egregium morbis et crebris partubus exhaustum, multum pristini vigoris amisit. Those who maintain the virginity of Laura are forced to readperturbationibus, instead ofpartubus. Two manuscripts in the royal library at Paris have the contractionptbus, which leaves the matter open to controversy. De Sade contends that "crebris" is less applicable to "perturbationibus" than to "partubus." I do not know that there is much in this; but I am clear that corpus exhaustum partubus is much the more elegant Latin expression of the two.[h][NoteIII.][i][I leave this as it stood. But my own taste has changed. I retract altogether the preference here given to the Triumphs above the Canzoni, and doubt whether the latter are superior to the Sonnets. This at least is not the opinion of Italian critics, who ought to be the most competent. 1848.][k]A sufficient extract from this work of Layamon has been published by Mr. Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poetry, vol. i. p. 61. This extract contains, he observes, no word which we are under the necessity of ascribing to a French origin.[Layamon, as is now supposed, wrote in the reign of John. See Sir Frederick Madden's edition, and Mr. Wright's Biographia Literaria. The best reason seems to be that he speaks of Eleanor, queen of Henry, as then dead, which took place in 1204. But it requires a vast knowledge of the language to find a date by the use or disuse of particular forms; the idiom of one part of England not being similar to that of another in grammatical flexions. See Quarterly Review for April 1848.The entire work of Layamon contains a small number of words taken from the French; about fifty in the original text, and about forty more in that of a manuscript, perhaps half a century later, and very considerably altered in consequence of the progress of our language. Many of these words derived from the French express new ideas, as admiral, astronomy, baron, mantel, &c. "The language of Layamon," says Sir Frederick Madden, "belongs to that transition period in which the groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phraseology and grammar still existed, although gradually yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. We find in it, as in the later portion of the Saxon Chronicle, marked indications of a tendency to adopt those terminations and sounds which characterize a language in a state of change, and which are apparent also in some other branches of the Teutonic tongue. The use ofaas an article—the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminationsaandanintoeanden, as well as the disregard of inflections and genders—the masculine forms given to neuter nouns in the plural—the neglect of the feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and confusion between the definite and indefinite declensions—the introduction of the prepositiontobefore infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs and participles instead of strong—the constant recurrence oferfororin the plurals of verbs—together with the uncertainty of the rule for the government of prepositions—all these variations, more or less visible in the two texts of Layamon, combined with the vowel-changes, which are numerous, though not altogether arbitrary, will show at once the progress made in two centuries, in departing from the ancient and purer grammatical forms, as found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts." Preface, p. xxviii.][m]Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, Ellis's Specimens.[n]This conjecture of Scott has not been favourably received by later critics.[o]Warton printed copious extracts from some of these. Ritson gave several of them entire to the press. And Mr. Ellis has adopted the only plan which could render them palatable, by intermingling short passages, where the original is rather above its usual mediocrity, with his own lively analysis.[p]The evidences of this general employment and gradual disuse of French in conversation and writing are collected by Tyrwhitt, in a dissertation on the ancient English language, prefixed to the fourth volume of his edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; and by Ritson, in the preface to his Metrical Romances, vol. i. p. 70.[q]Rymer, t. v. p. 490; t. vi. p. 642, et alibi.[r]Ritson, p. 80. There is one in Rymer of the year 1385.[s][NoteIV.][t]See Tyrwhitt's essay on the language and versification of Chaucer, in the fourth volume of his edition of the Canterbury Tales. The opinion of this eminent critic has lately been controverted by Dr. Nott, who maintains the versification of Chaucer to have been wholly founded on accentual and not syllabic regularity. I adhere, however, to Tyrwhitt's doctrine.[u]Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. Dissertation II. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Française du douzième Siècle p. 18. The following lines from the beginning of the eighth book of the Philippis seem a fair, or rather a favourable specimen of these epics. But I am very superficially acquainted with any of them.Solverat interea zephyris melioribus annumFrigore depulso veris tepor, et renovariCœperat et viridi gremio juvenescere tellus;Cum Rea læta Jovis rideret ad oscula mater,Cum jam post tergum Phryxi vectore relictoSolis Agenorei premeret rota terga juvenci.The tragedy of Eccerinus (Eccelin da Romano), by Albertinus Mussatus, a Paduan, and author of a respectable history, deserves some attention, as the first attempt to revive the regular tragedy. It was written soon after 1300. The language by no means wants animation, notwithstanding an unskilful conduct of the fable. The Eccerinus is printed in the tenth volume of Muratori's collection.[x]Booksellers appear in the latter part of the twelfth century. Peter of Blois mentions a law book which he had procured a quodam publico mangone librorum. Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. ix. p. 84. In the thirteenth century there were many copyists by occupation in the Italian universities. Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 72. The number of these at Milan before the end of that age is said to have been fifty. Ibid. But a very small proportion of their labour could have been devoted to purposes merely literary. By a variety of ordinances, the first of which bears date in 1275, the booksellers of Paris were subjected to the control of the university. Crevier, t. ii. p. 67, 286. The pretext of this was, lest erroneous copies should obtain circulation. And this appears to have been the original of those restraints upon the freedom of publication, which since the invention of printing have so much retarded the diffusion of truth by means of that great instrument.[y]Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 85. On the contrary side are Montfaucon, Mabillon, and Muratori; the latter of whom carries up the invention of our ordinary paper to the year 1000. But Tiraboschi contends that the paper used in manuscripts of so early an age was made from cotton rags, and, apparently from the inferior durability of that material, not frequently employed. The editors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique are of the same opinion, and doubt the use of linen paper before the year 1300. t. i. p. 517, 521. Meerman, well known as a writer upon the antiquities of printing, offered a reward for the earliest manuscript upon linen paper, and, in a treatise upon the subject, fixed the date of its invention between 1270 and 1300. But M. Schwandner of Vienna is said to have found in the imperial library a small charter bearing the date of 1243 on such paper. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 394. Tiraboschi, if he had known this, would probably have maintained the paper to be made of cotton, which he says it is difficult to distinguish. He assigns the invention of linen paper to Pace da Fabiano of Treviso. But more than one Arabian writer asserts the manufacture of linen paper to have been carried on at Samarcand early in the eighth century, having been brought thither from China. And what is more conclusive, Casiri positively declares many manuscripts in the Escurial of the eleventh and twelfth centuries to be written on that substance. Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispanica, t. ii. p. 9. This authority appears much to outweigh the opinion of Tiraboschi in favour of Pace da Fabiano, who must perhaps take his place at the table of fabulous heroes with Bartholomew Schwartz and Flavio Gioja. But the material point, that paper was very little known in Europe till the latter part of the fourteenth century, remains as before. See Introduction to History of Literature, c. i. § 58.[z]Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 122.[a]Velly, t. v. p. 202; Crevier, t. ii. p. 36.[b]Warton, vol. i; Dissert. II.[c]Ibid.[d]Warton, vol. i. Dissert. II. Fifty-eight books were transcribed in this abbey under one abbot, about the year 1300. Every considerable monastery had a room, called Scriptorium, where this work was performed. More than eighty were transcribed at St. Albans under Whethamstede, in the time of Henry VI. ibid. See also Du Cange, V Scriptores. Nevertheless we must remember, first, that the far greater part of these books were mere monastic trash, or at least useless in our modern apprehension; secondly, that it depended upon the character of the abbot, whether the scriptorium should be occupied or not. Every head of a monastery was not a Whethamstede. Ignorance and jollity, such as we find in Bolton Abbey, were their more usual characteristics. By the account books of this rich monastery, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, three books only appear to have been purchased in forty years. One of those was the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, which cost thirty shillings, equivalent to near forty pounds at present. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 330.[e]Ibid.; Villaret, t. xi. p. 117.[f]Niccolo Niccoli, a private scholar, who contributed essentially to the restoration of ancient learning, bequeathed a library of eight hundred volumes to the republic of Florence. This Niccoli hardly published any thing of his own; but earned a well-merited reputation by copying and correcting manuscripts. Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 114; Shepherd's Poggio, p. 319. In the preceding century Colluccio Salutato had procured as many as eight hundred volumes. Ibid. p. 23. Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 55.[g]Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. v. p. 520.[h]He had lent it to a needy man of letters, who pawned the book, which was never recovered. De Sade, t. i. p. 57.[i]Tiraboschi, p. 89.[k]Idem, t. v. p. 83; De Sade, t. i p. 88.[m]Tiraboschi, p. 101.[n]Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 104; and Shepherd's Life of Poggio, p. 106, 110; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 38.[o]Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 374; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 124, et alibi. Bede extols Theodore primate of Canterbury and Tobias bishop of Rochester for their knowledge of Greek. Hist. Eccles. c. 9 and 24. But the former of these prelates, if not the latter, was a native of Greece.[p]Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 12[q]Greek characters are found in a charter of 943, published in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdot. t. i. p. 74. The title of a treatiseπερὶ φύσεων μερίσμου, and the wordθεοτόκος, occur in William of Malmsbury, and one or two others in Lanfranc's Constitutions. It is said that a Greek psalter was written in an abbey at Tournay about 1105. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 102. This was, I should think, a very rare instance of a Greek manuscript, sacred or profane, copied in the western parts of Europe before the fifteenth century. But a Greek psalter written in Latin characters at Milan in the 9th century was sold some years ago in London. John of Salisbury is said by Crevier to have known a little Greek, and he several times uses technical words in that language. Yet he could not have been much more learned than his neighbours; since, having found the wordοὐσίαin St. Ambrose, he was forced to ask the meaning of one John Sarasin, an Englishman, because, says he, none of our masters here (at Paris) understand Greek. Paris, indeed, Crevier thinks, could not furnish any Greek scholar in that age except Abelard and Heloise, and probably neither of them knew much. Hist. de l'Univers. de Paris, t. i. p. 259.The ecclesiastical language, it may be observed, was full of Greek words Latinized. But this process had taken place before the fifth century; and most of them will be found in the Latin dictionaries. A Greek word was now and then borrowed, as more imposing than the correspondent Latin. Thus the English and other kings sometimes called themselves Basileus, instead of Rex.It will not be supposed that I have professed to enumerate all the persons of whose acquaintance with the Greek tongue some evidence may be found; nor have I ever directed my attention to the subject with that view. Doubtless the list might be more than doubled. But, if ten times the number could be found, we should still be entitled to say, that the language was almost unknown, and that it could have had no influence on the condition of literature. [See Introduction to Hist. of Literature, chap. 2, § 7.][r]Nemo est qui Græcas literas nôrit; at ego in hoc Latinitati compatior, quæ sic omnino Græca abjecit studia, ut etiam non noscamus characteres literarum. Genealogiæ Deorum, apud Hodium de Græcis Illustribus, p. 3.[s]Mém. de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 407.[t]Mém. de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 447; t. iii. p. 634. Hody de Græcis Illust. p. 2. Boccace speaks modestly of his own attainments in Greek: etsi non satis plené perceperim, percepi tamen quantum potui; nee dubium, si permansisset homo ille vagus diutius penes nos, quin plenius percepissem. id. p. 4.[u]Hody places the commencement of Chrysoloras's teaching as early as 1391. p. 3. But Tiraboschi, whose research was more precise, fixes it at the end of 1396 or beginning of 1397, t. vii. p. 126.[x]Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 102; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 43.[y]The authors most conversant with Byzantine learning agree in this. Nevertheless, there is one manifest difference between the Greek writers of the worst period, such as the eighth century, and those who correspond to them in the West. Syncellus, for example, is of great use in chronology, because he was acquainted with many ancient histories now no more. But Bede possessed nothing which we have lost; and his compilations are consequently altogether unprofitable. The eighth century, the Sæculum Iconoclasticum of Cave, low as it was in all polite literature, produced one man, John Damascenus, who has been deemed the founder of scholastic theology, and who at least set the example of that style of reasoning in the East. This person, and Michael Psellus, a philosopher of the eleventh century, are the only considerable men, as original writers, in the annals of Byzantine literature.[z]The honour of restoring ancient or heathen literature is due to the Cæsar Bardas, uncle and minister of Michael II. Cedrenus speaks of it in the following terms:ἐπεμελήθη δὲ καὶ τῆς ἔξω σοφίας, (ἢν γὰρ ἐκ πόλλου χρόνου παραῤῥυεῖσα, καὶ πρὸς τῇ μηδὲν ὅλως χωρήσασα τῇ τῶν κρατοῦντων ἀργίᾳ καὶ αμαθίᾳ) διατρίβας ἑκάστῃ τῶν επιστήμων άφορισὰς, τῶν μὲν ἄλλων ὅπῃ περ ἔτυχε, τῆς δ' ἐπὶ πασῶν ἐπόχου φιλοσοφίας κατ' ἀυτὰ τὰ βασίλεια ἐν τῇ Μαγναύρᾳ · καὶ οὕτω ἐξ ἐκέινου ἀνηβάσκειν αἱ ἐπιστημᾶι ἤρξαντο. κ. τ. λ.Hist. Byzant. Script. (Lutet.) t. x. p. 547. Bardas found out and promoted Photius, afterwards patriarch of Constantinople, and equally famous in the annals of the church and of learning. Gibbon passes perhaps too rapidly over the Byzantine literature, chap. 53. In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and precision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts of the same field, are apt to escape an uninformed reader.[a]Du Cange, Præfatio ad Glossar. Græcitatis Medii Evi. Anna Comnena quotes some popular lines, which seem to be the earliest specimen extant of the Romaic dialect, or something approaching it, as they observe no grammatical inflexion, and bear about the same resemblance to ancient Greek that the worst law-charters of the ninth and tenth centuries do to pure Latin. In fact, the Greek language seems to have declined much in the same manner as the Latin did, and almost at as early a period. In the sixth century, Damascius, a Platonic philosopher, mentions the old language as distinct from that which was vernacular,τὴν ἀρχάιαν γλῶτταν ὑπὲρ τὴν ἰδιώτην μελετοῦσι. Du Cange, ibid. p. 11. It is well known that the popular, orpoliticalverses of Tzetzes, a writer of the twelfth century, are accentual; that is, are to be read, as the modern Greeks do, by treating every acute or circumflex syllable as long, without regard to its original quantity. This innovation, which must have produced still greater confusion of metrical rules than it did in Latin, is much older than the age of Tzetzes; if, at least, the editor of some notes subjoined to Meursius's edition of the Themata of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Lugduni, 1617) is right in ascribing certain political verses to that emperor, who died in 959. These verses are regular accentual trochaics. But I believe they have since been given to Constantine Manasses, a writer of the eleventh century.According to the opinion of a modern traveller (Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, letter 33) the chief corruptions which distinguish the Romaic from its parent stock, especially the auxiliary verbs, are not older than the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. But it seems difficult to obtain any satisfactory proof of this; and the auxiliary verb is so natural and convenient, that the ancient Greeks may probably, in some of their local idioms, have fallen into the use of it; as Mr. H. admits they did with respect to the future auxiliaryθελω. See some instances of this in Lesbonax,περὶ σχημάτων, ad finem Ammonii, curâ Valckenaër.[b]Photius (I write on the authority of M. Heeren) quotes Theopompus, Arrian's History of Alexander's Successors, and of Parthia, Ctesias, Agatharcides, the whole of Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, twenty lost orations of Demosthenes, almost two hundred of Lycias, sixty-four of Isæus, about fifty of Hyperides. Heeren ascribes the loss of these works altogether to the Latin capture of Constantinople, no writer subsequent to that time having quoted them. Essai sur les Croisades, p. 413. It is difficult however not to suppose that some part, of the destruction was left for the Ottomans to perform. Æneas Sylvius bemoans, in his speech before the diet of Frankfort, the vast losses of literature by the recent subversion of the Greek empire. Quid de libris dicam, qui illic erant innumerabiles, nondum Latinis cogniti!... Nunc ergo, et Homero et Pindaro etMenandroet omnibus illustrioribus poetis, secunda mors erit. But nothing can be inferred from this declamation, except, perhaps, that he did not know whether Menander still existed or not. Æn. Sylv. Opera, p. 715; also p. 881. Harris's Philological Inquiries, part iii. c. 4. It is a remarkable proof, however, of the turn which Europe, and especially Italy, was taking, that a pope's legate should, on a solemn occasion, descant so seriously on the injury sustained by profane literature.An useful summary of the lower Greek literature, taken chiefly from the Bibliotheca Græca of Fabricius, will be found in Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages, Appendix I.; and one rather more copious in Schoëll, Abrégé de la Littérature Grècque. (Paris, 1812.)[c]Wood's Antiquities of Oxford, vol. i p. 537.[d]Roper's Vita Mori, ed. Hearne, p. 75.[e]Crevier, t. iv. p. 243; see too p. 46.[f]Incredibilis ingeniorum barbaries est; rarissimi literas nôrunt, nulli elegantiam. Papiensis Epistolæ, p. 377. Campano's notion of elegance was ridiculous enough. Nobody ever carried further the pedantic affectation of avoiding modern terms in his Latinity. Thus, in the life of Braccio da Montone, he renders his meaning almost unintelligible by excess of classical purity. Braccio boasts se numquam deorum immortalium templa violâsse. Troops committing outrages in a city are accused virgines vestales incestâsse. In the terms of treaties he employs the old Roman forms; exercitum trajicito—oppida pontificis sunto, &c. And with a most absurd pedantry, the ecclesiastical state is called Romanum imperium. Campani Vita Braccii, in Muratori Script. Rer. Ital. t. xix.[g]A letter from Master William Paston at Eton (Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 299) proves that Latin versification was taught there as early as the beginning of Edward IV.'s reign. It is true that the specimen he rather proudly exhibits does not much differ from what we denominate nonsense verses. But a more material observation is, that the sons of country gentlemen living at a considerable distance were already sent to public schools for grammatical education.[h]De Bure, t. i. p. 30. Several copies of this book have come to light since its discovery.[i]Id., p. 71.[k]Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xiv. p. 265. Another edition of the Bible is supposed to have been printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1459.[m]Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 140.[n]Sanuto mentions an order of the senate in 1469, that John of Spira should print the epistles of Tully and Pliny for five years, and that no one else should do so. Script. Rerum Italic. t. xxii. p. 1189.

[n][Though the stories of Arthur were not invented by the English out of jealousy of Charlemagne, it has been ingeniously conjectured and rendered highly probable by Mr. Sharon Turner, that the history by Geoffrey of Monmouth was composed with a political view to display the independence and dignity of the British crown, and was intended, consequently, as a counterpoise to that of Turpin, which never became popular in England. It is doubtful, in my judgment, whether Geoffrey borrowed so much from Armorican traditions as he pretended.]

[o]Prose e Rime di Dante, Venez. 1758, t. iv. p. 261. Dante's words, biblia cum Trojanorum Romanorumque gestibus compilata, seem to bear no other meaning than what I have given. But there may be a doubt whetherbibliais ever used except for the Scriptures; and the Italian translator renders it, cioè la bibbia, i fatti de i Trojani, e de i Romani. In this case something is wrong in the original Latin, and Dante will have alluded to the translations of parts of Scripture made into French, as mentioned in the text.

[p]The Assises de Jérusalem have undergone two revisions; one, in 1250, by order of John d'Ibelin, count of Jaffa, and a second in 1369, by sixteen commissioners chosen by the states of the kingdom of Cyprus. Their language seems to be such as might be expected from the time of the former revision.

[q]Several prose romances were written or translated from the Latin about 1170, and afterwards. Mr. Ellis seems inclined to dispute their antiquity. But, besides the authorities of La Ravalière and Tressan, the latter of which is not worth much, a late very extensively informed writer seems to have put this matter out of doubt. Roquefort Flamericourt, Etat de la Poésie Française dans les 12meet 13mesiècles, Paris, 1815 p. 147.

[r]Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xi. p. 121; De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. iii. p. 548. Charles V. had more learning than most princes of his time. Christine de Pisan, a lady who has written memoirs, or rather an eulogy of him, says that his father le fist introdire en lettres moult suffisamment, et tant que competemment entendoit son Latin, et souffisamment scavoit les regles de grammaire; la quelle chose pleust a dieu qu'ainsi fust accoutumée entre les princes. Collect. de Mém. t. v. p. 103, 190, &c.

[s]The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen is an instrument in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. 263; the date of which is 1095. Persons more conversant with the antiquities of that country may possibly go further back. Another of 1101 is published in Marina's Teoria de las Cortes, t. iii. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the Cruel, and cannot, I presume, have been a translation from the Latin. Yet the editors of Nouveau Tr. de Diplom. mention a charter of 1243, as the earliest they are acquainted with in the Spanish language. t. iv. p. 525.Charters in the German language, according to the same work, first appear in the time of the emperor Rodolph, after 1272, and became usual in the next century. p. 523. But Struvius mentions an instrument of 1235, as the earliest in German. Corp. Hist. Germ. p. 457.

Charters in the German language, according to the same work, first appear in the time of the emperor Rodolph, after 1272, and became usual in the next century. p. 523. But Struvius mentions an instrument of 1235, as the earliest in German. Corp. Hist. Germ. p. 457.

[t]An extract from this poem was published in 1808 by Mr. Southey, at the end of his "Chronicle of the Cid," the materials of which it partly supplied, accompanied by an excellent version by a gentleman, who is distinguished, among many other talents, for an unrivalled felicity in expressing the peculiar manner of authors whom he translates or imitates. M. Sismondi has given other passages in the third volume of his History of Southern Literature. This popular and elegant work contains some interesting and not very common information as to the early Spanish poets in the Provençal dialect, as well as those who wrote in Castilian.

[u]Dissert. 32.

[x]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 340.

[y]Dante, in his treatise De vulgari Eloquentiâ, reckons fourteen or fifteen dialects, spoken in different parts of Italy, all of which were debased by impure modes of expression. But the "noble, principal, and courtly Italian idiom," was that which belonged to every city, and seemed to belong to none, and which, if Italy had a court, would be the language of that court. p. 274, 277.Allowing for the metaphysical obscurity in which Dante chooses to envelop the subject, this might perhaps be said at present. The Florentine dialect has its peculiarities, which distinguish it from the general Italian language, though these are seldom discerned by foreigners, nor always by natives, with whom Tuscan is the proper denomination of their national tongue.

Allowing for the metaphysical obscurity in which Dante chooses to envelop the subject, this might perhaps be said at present. The Florentine dialect has its peculiarities, which distinguish it from the general Italian language, though these are seldom discerned by foreigners, nor always by natives, with whom Tuscan is the proper denomination of their national tongue.

[z]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 309-377. Ginguené, vol. i. c. 6. The style of the Vita Nuova of Dante, written soon after the death of his Beatrice, which happened in 1290, is hardly distinguishable, by a foreigner, from that of Machiavel or Castiglione. Yet so recent was the adoption of this language, that the celebrated master of Dante, Brunetto Latini, had written hisTesoroin French; and gives as a reason for it, that it was a more agreeable and useful language than his own. Et se aucuns demandoit pourquoi chis livre est ecris en Romans, selon la raison de France, pour chose que nous sommes Ytalien, je diroie que ch'est pour chose que nous sommes en France; l'autre pour choseque la parleure en est plus delitable et plus commune a toutes gens. There is said to be a manuscript history of Venice down to 1275, in the Florentine library, written in French by Martin de Canale, who says that he has chosen that language, parceque la langue franceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus delitable a lire et a oir que nulle autre. Ginguené, vol. i. p. 384.

[a]Tu proverai si (says Cacciaguida to him) come sà di saleIl pane altrui, e come è duro calleIl scendere e 'l salir per altrui scale.Paradis. cant. 16.

[a]

Tu proverai si (says Cacciaguida to him) come sà di saleIl pane altrui, e come è duro calleIl scendere e 'l salir per altrui scale.Paradis. cant. 16.

[b]Paradiso, cant. 16.

[c]Velli, Vita di Dante. Tiraboschi.

[d]The source from which Dante derived the scheme and general idea of his poem has been a subject of inquiry in Italy. To his original mind one might have thought the sixth Æneid would have sufficed. But besides several legendary visions of the 12th and 13th centuries, it seems probable that he derived hints from the Tesoretto of his master in philosophical studies, Brunetto Latini. Ginguené, t. ii. p. 8.

[e]There is an unpleasing proof of this quality in a letter to Boccaccio on Dante, whose merit he rather disingenuously extenuates; and whose popularity evidently stung him to the quick. De Sade, t. iii. p. 512. Yet we judge so ill of ourselves, that Petrarch chose envy as the vice from which of all others he was most free. In his dialogue with St. Augustin, he says: Quicquid libuerit, dicito; modo me non accuses invidiæ.Aug.Utinam non tibi magis superbia quam invidia nocuisset: nam hoc crimine, me judice, liber es. De Contemptu Mundi, edit. 1581, p. 342.I have read in some modern book, but know not where to seek the passage, that Petrarch did not intend to allude to Dante in the letter to Boccaccio mentioned above, but rather to Zanobi Strata, a contemporary Florentine poet, whom, however forgotten at present, the bad taste of a party in criticism preferred to himself.—Matteo Villani mentions them together as the two great ornaments of his age. This conjecture seems probable, for some expressions are not in the least applicable to Dante. But whichever was intended, the letter equally shows the irritable humour of Petrarch.

I have read in some modern book, but know not where to seek the passage, that Petrarch did not intend to allude to Dante in the letter to Boccaccio mentioned above, but rather to Zanobi Strata, a contemporary Florentine poet, whom, however forgotten at present, the bad taste of a party in criticism preferred to himself.—Matteo Villani mentions them together as the two great ornaments of his age. This conjecture seems probable, for some expressions are not in the least applicable to Dante. But whichever was intended, the letter equally shows the irritable humour of Petrarch.

[f]A goldsmith of Bergamo, by name Henry Capra, smitten with an enthusiastic love of letters, and of Petrarch, earnestly requested the honour of a visit from the poet. The house of this good tradesman was full of representations of his person, and of inscriptions with his name and arms. No expense had been spared in copying all his works as they appeared. He was received by Capra with a princely magnificence; lodged in a chamber hung with purple, and a splendid bed on which no one before or after him was permitted to sleep. Goldsmiths, as we may judge by this instance, were opulent persons; yet the friends of Petrarch dissuaded him from the visit, as derogatory to his own elevated station. De Sade, t. iii. p. 496.

[g]See the beautiful sonnet, Erano i capei d'oro all'aura sparsi. In a famous passage of his Confessions, he says: Corpus illud egregium morbis et crebris partubus exhaustum, multum pristini vigoris amisit. Those who maintain the virginity of Laura are forced to readperturbationibus, instead ofpartubus. Two manuscripts in the royal library at Paris have the contractionptbus, which leaves the matter open to controversy. De Sade contends that "crebris" is less applicable to "perturbationibus" than to "partubus." I do not know that there is much in this; but I am clear that corpus exhaustum partubus is much the more elegant Latin expression of the two.

[h][NoteIII.]

[i][I leave this as it stood. But my own taste has changed. I retract altogether the preference here given to the Triumphs above the Canzoni, and doubt whether the latter are superior to the Sonnets. This at least is not the opinion of Italian critics, who ought to be the most competent. 1848.]

[k]A sufficient extract from this work of Layamon has been published by Mr. Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poetry, vol. i. p. 61. This extract contains, he observes, no word which we are under the necessity of ascribing to a French origin.[Layamon, as is now supposed, wrote in the reign of John. See Sir Frederick Madden's edition, and Mr. Wright's Biographia Literaria. The best reason seems to be that he speaks of Eleanor, queen of Henry, as then dead, which took place in 1204. But it requires a vast knowledge of the language to find a date by the use or disuse of particular forms; the idiom of one part of England not being similar to that of another in grammatical flexions. See Quarterly Review for April 1848.The entire work of Layamon contains a small number of words taken from the French; about fifty in the original text, and about forty more in that of a manuscript, perhaps half a century later, and very considerably altered in consequence of the progress of our language. Many of these words derived from the French express new ideas, as admiral, astronomy, baron, mantel, &c. "The language of Layamon," says Sir Frederick Madden, "belongs to that transition period in which the groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phraseology and grammar still existed, although gradually yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. We find in it, as in the later portion of the Saxon Chronicle, marked indications of a tendency to adopt those terminations and sounds which characterize a language in a state of change, and which are apparent also in some other branches of the Teutonic tongue. The use ofaas an article—the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminationsaandanintoeanden, as well as the disregard of inflections and genders—the masculine forms given to neuter nouns in the plural—the neglect of the feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and confusion between the definite and indefinite declensions—the introduction of the prepositiontobefore infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs and participles instead of strong—the constant recurrence oferfororin the plurals of verbs—together with the uncertainty of the rule for the government of prepositions—all these variations, more or less visible in the two texts of Layamon, combined with the vowel-changes, which are numerous, though not altogether arbitrary, will show at once the progress made in two centuries, in departing from the ancient and purer grammatical forms, as found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts." Preface, p. xxviii.]

[Layamon, as is now supposed, wrote in the reign of John. See Sir Frederick Madden's edition, and Mr. Wright's Biographia Literaria. The best reason seems to be that he speaks of Eleanor, queen of Henry, as then dead, which took place in 1204. But it requires a vast knowledge of the language to find a date by the use or disuse of particular forms; the idiom of one part of England not being similar to that of another in grammatical flexions. See Quarterly Review for April 1848.

The entire work of Layamon contains a small number of words taken from the French; about fifty in the original text, and about forty more in that of a manuscript, perhaps half a century later, and very considerably altered in consequence of the progress of our language. Many of these words derived from the French express new ideas, as admiral, astronomy, baron, mantel, &c. "The language of Layamon," says Sir Frederick Madden, "belongs to that transition period in which the groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phraseology and grammar still existed, although gradually yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. We find in it, as in the later portion of the Saxon Chronicle, marked indications of a tendency to adopt those terminations and sounds which characterize a language in a state of change, and which are apparent also in some other branches of the Teutonic tongue. The use ofaas an article—the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminationsaandanintoeanden, as well as the disregard of inflections and genders—the masculine forms given to neuter nouns in the plural—the neglect of the feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and confusion between the definite and indefinite declensions—the introduction of the prepositiontobefore infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs and participles instead of strong—the constant recurrence oferfororin the plurals of verbs—together with the uncertainty of the rule for the government of prepositions—all these variations, more or less visible in the two texts of Layamon, combined with the vowel-changes, which are numerous, though not altogether arbitrary, will show at once the progress made in two centuries, in departing from the ancient and purer grammatical forms, as found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts." Preface, p. xxviii.]

[m]Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, Ellis's Specimens.

[n]This conjecture of Scott has not been favourably received by later critics.

[o]Warton printed copious extracts from some of these. Ritson gave several of them entire to the press. And Mr. Ellis has adopted the only plan which could render them palatable, by intermingling short passages, where the original is rather above its usual mediocrity, with his own lively analysis.

[p]The evidences of this general employment and gradual disuse of French in conversation and writing are collected by Tyrwhitt, in a dissertation on the ancient English language, prefixed to the fourth volume of his edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; and by Ritson, in the preface to his Metrical Romances, vol. i. p. 70.

[q]Rymer, t. v. p. 490; t. vi. p. 642, et alibi.

[r]Ritson, p. 80. There is one in Rymer of the year 1385.

[s][NoteIV.]

[t]See Tyrwhitt's essay on the language and versification of Chaucer, in the fourth volume of his edition of the Canterbury Tales. The opinion of this eminent critic has lately been controverted by Dr. Nott, who maintains the versification of Chaucer to have been wholly founded on accentual and not syllabic regularity. I adhere, however, to Tyrwhitt's doctrine.

[u]Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. Dissertation II. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Française du douzième Siècle p. 18. The following lines from the beginning of the eighth book of the Philippis seem a fair, or rather a favourable specimen of these epics. But I am very superficially acquainted with any of them.Solverat interea zephyris melioribus annumFrigore depulso veris tepor, et renovariCœperat et viridi gremio juvenescere tellus;Cum Rea læta Jovis rideret ad oscula mater,Cum jam post tergum Phryxi vectore relictoSolis Agenorei premeret rota terga juvenci.The tragedy of Eccerinus (Eccelin da Romano), by Albertinus Mussatus, a Paduan, and author of a respectable history, deserves some attention, as the first attempt to revive the regular tragedy. It was written soon after 1300. The language by no means wants animation, notwithstanding an unskilful conduct of the fable. The Eccerinus is printed in the tenth volume of Muratori's collection.

Solverat interea zephyris melioribus annumFrigore depulso veris tepor, et renovariCœperat et viridi gremio juvenescere tellus;Cum Rea læta Jovis rideret ad oscula mater,Cum jam post tergum Phryxi vectore relictoSolis Agenorei premeret rota terga juvenci.

The tragedy of Eccerinus (Eccelin da Romano), by Albertinus Mussatus, a Paduan, and author of a respectable history, deserves some attention, as the first attempt to revive the regular tragedy. It was written soon after 1300. The language by no means wants animation, notwithstanding an unskilful conduct of the fable. The Eccerinus is printed in the tenth volume of Muratori's collection.

[x]Booksellers appear in the latter part of the twelfth century. Peter of Blois mentions a law book which he had procured a quodam publico mangone librorum. Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. ix. p. 84. In the thirteenth century there were many copyists by occupation in the Italian universities. Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 72. The number of these at Milan before the end of that age is said to have been fifty. Ibid. But a very small proportion of their labour could have been devoted to purposes merely literary. By a variety of ordinances, the first of which bears date in 1275, the booksellers of Paris were subjected to the control of the university. Crevier, t. ii. p. 67, 286. The pretext of this was, lest erroneous copies should obtain circulation. And this appears to have been the original of those restraints upon the freedom of publication, which since the invention of printing have so much retarded the diffusion of truth by means of that great instrument.

[y]Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 85. On the contrary side are Montfaucon, Mabillon, and Muratori; the latter of whom carries up the invention of our ordinary paper to the year 1000. But Tiraboschi contends that the paper used in manuscripts of so early an age was made from cotton rags, and, apparently from the inferior durability of that material, not frequently employed. The editors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique are of the same opinion, and doubt the use of linen paper before the year 1300. t. i. p. 517, 521. Meerman, well known as a writer upon the antiquities of printing, offered a reward for the earliest manuscript upon linen paper, and, in a treatise upon the subject, fixed the date of its invention between 1270 and 1300. But M. Schwandner of Vienna is said to have found in the imperial library a small charter bearing the date of 1243 on such paper. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 394. Tiraboschi, if he had known this, would probably have maintained the paper to be made of cotton, which he says it is difficult to distinguish. He assigns the invention of linen paper to Pace da Fabiano of Treviso. But more than one Arabian writer asserts the manufacture of linen paper to have been carried on at Samarcand early in the eighth century, having been brought thither from China. And what is more conclusive, Casiri positively declares many manuscripts in the Escurial of the eleventh and twelfth centuries to be written on that substance. Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispanica, t. ii. p. 9. This authority appears much to outweigh the opinion of Tiraboschi in favour of Pace da Fabiano, who must perhaps take his place at the table of fabulous heroes with Bartholomew Schwartz and Flavio Gioja. But the material point, that paper was very little known in Europe till the latter part of the fourteenth century, remains as before. See Introduction to History of Literature, c. i. § 58.

[z]Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 122.

[a]Velly, t. v. p. 202; Crevier, t. ii. p. 36.

[b]Warton, vol. i; Dissert. II.

[c]Ibid.

[d]Warton, vol. i. Dissert. II. Fifty-eight books were transcribed in this abbey under one abbot, about the year 1300. Every considerable monastery had a room, called Scriptorium, where this work was performed. More than eighty were transcribed at St. Albans under Whethamstede, in the time of Henry VI. ibid. See also Du Cange, V Scriptores. Nevertheless we must remember, first, that the far greater part of these books were mere monastic trash, or at least useless in our modern apprehension; secondly, that it depended upon the character of the abbot, whether the scriptorium should be occupied or not. Every head of a monastery was not a Whethamstede. Ignorance and jollity, such as we find in Bolton Abbey, were their more usual characteristics. By the account books of this rich monastery, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, three books only appear to have been purchased in forty years. One of those was the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, which cost thirty shillings, equivalent to near forty pounds at present. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 330.

[e]Ibid.; Villaret, t. xi. p. 117.

[f]Niccolo Niccoli, a private scholar, who contributed essentially to the restoration of ancient learning, bequeathed a library of eight hundred volumes to the republic of Florence. This Niccoli hardly published any thing of his own; but earned a well-merited reputation by copying and correcting manuscripts. Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 114; Shepherd's Poggio, p. 319. In the preceding century Colluccio Salutato had procured as many as eight hundred volumes. Ibid. p. 23. Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 55.

[g]Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. v. p. 520.

[h]He had lent it to a needy man of letters, who pawned the book, which was never recovered. De Sade, t. i. p. 57.

[i]Tiraboschi, p. 89.

[k]Idem, t. v. p. 83; De Sade, t. i p. 88.

[m]Tiraboschi, p. 101.

[n]Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 104; and Shepherd's Life of Poggio, p. 106, 110; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 38.

[o]Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 374; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 124, et alibi. Bede extols Theodore primate of Canterbury and Tobias bishop of Rochester for their knowledge of Greek. Hist. Eccles. c. 9 and 24. But the former of these prelates, if not the latter, was a native of Greece.

[p]Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 12

[q]Greek characters are found in a charter of 943, published in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdot. t. i. p. 74. The title of a treatiseπερὶ φύσεων μερίσμου, and the wordθεοτόκος, occur in William of Malmsbury, and one or two others in Lanfranc's Constitutions. It is said that a Greek psalter was written in an abbey at Tournay about 1105. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 102. This was, I should think, a very rare instance of a Greek manuscript, sacred or profane, copied in the western parts of Europe before the fifteenth century. But a Greek psalter written in Latin characters at Milan in the 9th century was sold some years ago in London. John of Salisbury is said by Crevier to have known a little Greek, and he several times uses technical words in that language. Yet he could not have been much more learned than his neighbours; since, having found the wordοὐσίαin St. Ambrose, he was forced to ask the meaning of one John Sarasin, an Englishman, because, says he, none of our masters here (at Paris) understand Greek. Paris, indeed, Crevier thinks, could not furnish any Greek scholar in that age except Abelard and Heloise, and probably neither of them knew much. Hist. de l'Univers. de Paris, t. i. p. 259.The ecclesiastical language, it may be observed, was full of Greek words Latinized. But this process had taken place before the fifth century; and most of them will be found in the Latin dictionaries. A Greek word was now and then borrowed, as more imposing than the correspondent Latin. Thus the English and other kings sometimes called themselves Basileus, instead of Rex.It will not be supposed that I have professed to enumerate all the persons of whose acquaintance with the Greek tongue some evidence may be found; nor have I ever directed my attention to the subject with that view. Doubtless the list might be more than doubled. But, if ten times the number could be found, we should still be entitled to say, that the language was almost unknown, and that it could have had no influence on the condition of literature. [See Introduction to Hist. of Literature, chap. 2, § 7.]

The ecclesiastical language, it may be observed, was full of Greek words Latinized. But this process had taken place before the fifth century; and most of them will be found in the Latin dictionaries. A Greek word was now and then borrowed, as more imposing than the correspondent Latin. Thus the English and other kings sometimes called themselves Basileus, instead of Rex.

It will not be supposed that I have professed to enumerate all the persons of whose acquaintance with the Greek tongue some evidence may be found; nor have I ever directed my attention to the subject with that view. Doubtless the list might be more than doubled. But, if ten times the number could be found, we should still be entitled to say, that the language was almost unknown, and that it could have had no influence on the condition of literature. [See Introduction to Hist. of Literature, chap. 2, § 7.]

[r]Nemo est qui Græcas literas nôrit; at ego in hoc Latinitati compatior, quæ sic omnino Græca abjecit studia, ut etiam non noscamus characteres literarum. Genealogiæ Deorum, apud Hodium de Græcis Illustribus, p. 3.

[s]Mém. de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 407.

[t]Mém. de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 447; t. iii. p. 634. Hody de Græcis Illust. p. 2. Boccace speaks modestly of his own attainments in Greek: etsi non satis plené perceperim, percepi tamen quantum potui; nee dubium, si permansisset homo ille vagus diutius penes nos, quin plenius percepissem. id. p. 4.

[u]Hody places the commencement of Chrysoloras's teaching as early as 1391. p. 3. But Tiraboschi, whose research was more precise, fixes it at the end of 1396 or beginning of 1397, t. vii. p. 126.

[x]Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 102; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 43.

[y]The authors most conversant with Byzantine learning agree in this. Nevertheless, there is one manifest difference between the Greek writers of the worst period, such as the eighth century, and those who correspond to them in the West. Syncellus, for example, is of great use in chronology, because he was acquainted with many ancient histories now no more. But Bede possessed nothing which we have lost; and his compilations are consequently altogether unprofitable. The eighth century, the Sæculum Iconoclasticum of Cave, low as it was in all polite literature, produced one man, John Damascenus, who has been deemed the founder of scholastic theology, and who at least set the example of that style of reasoning in the East. This person, and Michael Psellus, a philosopher of the eleventh century, are the only considerable men, as original writers, in the annals of Byzantine literature.

[z]The honour of restoring ancient or heathen literature is due to the Cæsar Bardas, uncle and minister of Michael II. Cedrenus speaks of it in the following terms:ἐπεμελήθη δὲ καὶ τῆς ἔξω σοφίας, (ἢν γὰρ ἐκ πόλλου χρόνου παραῤῥυεῖσα, καὶ πρὸς τῇ μηδὲν ὅλως χωρήσασα τῇ τῶν κρατοῦντων ἀργίᾳ καὶ αμαθίᾳ) διατρίβας ἑκάστῃ τῶν επιστήμων άφορισὰς, τῶν μὲν ἄλλων ὅπῃ περ ἔτυχε, τῆς δ' ἐπὶ πασῶν ἐπόχου φιλοσοφίας κατ' ἀυτὰ τὰ βασίλεια ἐν τῇ Μαγναύρᾳ · καὶ οὕτω ἐξ ἐκέινου ἀνηβάσκειν αἱ ἐπιστημᾶι ἤρξαντο. κ. τ. λ.Hist. Byzant. Script. (Lutet.) t. x. p. 547. Bardas found out and promoted Photius, afterwards patriarch of Constantinople, and equally famous in the annals of the church and of learning. Gibbon passes perhaps too rapidly over the Byzantine literature, chap. 53. In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and precision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts of the same field, are apt to escape an uninformed reader.

[a]Du Cange, Præfatio ad Glossar. Græcitatis Medii Evi. Anna Comnena quotes some popular lines, which seem to be the earliest specimen extant of the Romaic dialect, or something approaching it, as they observe no grammatical inflexion, and bear about the same resemblance to ancient Greek that the worst law-charters of the ninth and tenth centuries do to pure Latin. In fact, the Greek language seems to have declined much in the same manner as the Latin did, and almost at as early a period. In the sixth century, Damascius, a Platonic philosopher, mentions the old language as distinct from that which was vernacular,τὴν ἀρχάιαν γλῶτταν ὑπὲρ τὴν ἰδιώτην μελετοῦσι. Du Cange, ibid. p. 11. It is well known that the popular, orpoliticalverses of Tzetzes, a writer of the twelfth century, are accentual; that is, are to be read, as the modern Greeks do, by treating every acute or circumflex syllable as long, without regard to its original quantity. This innovation, which must have produced still greater confusion of metrical rules than it did in Latin, is much older than the age of Tzetzes; if, at least, the editor of some notes subjoined to Meursius's edition of the Themata of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Lugduni, 1617) is right in ascribing certain political verses to that emperor, who died in 959. These verses are regular accentual trochaics. But I believe they have since been given to Constantine Manasses, a writer of the eleventh century.According to the opinion of a modern traveller (Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, letter 33) the chief corruptions which distinguish the Romaic from its parent stock, especially the auxiliary verbs, are not older than the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. But it seems difficult to obtain any satisfactory proof of this; and the auxiliary verb is so natural and convenient, that the ancient Greeks may probably, in some of their local idioms, have fallen into the use of it; as Mr. H. admits they did with respect to the future auxiliaryθελω. See some instances of this in Lesbonax,περὶ σχημάτων, ad finem Ammonii, curâ Valckenaër.

According to the opinion of a modern traveller (Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, letter 33) the chief corruptions which distinguish the Romaic from its parent stock, especially the auxiliary verbs, are not older than the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. But it seems difficult to obtain any satisfactory proof of this; and the auxiliary verb is so natural and convenient, that the ancient Greeks may probably, in some of their local idioms, have fallen into the use of it; as Mr. H. admits they did with respect to the future auxiliaryθελω. See some instances of this in Lesbonax,περὶ σχημάτων, ad finem Ammonii, curâ Valckenaër.

[b]Photius (I write on the authority of M. Heeren) quotes Theopompus, Arrian's History of Alexander's Successors, and of Parthia, Ctesias, Agatharcides, the whole of Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, twenty lost orations of Demosthenes, almost two hundred of Lycias, sixty-four of Isæus, about fifty of Hyperides. Heeren ascribes the loss of these works altogether to the Latin capture of Constantinople, no writer subsequent to that time having quoted them. Essai sur les Croisades, p. 413. It is difficult however not to suppose that some part, of the destruction was left for the Ottomans to perform. Æneas Sylvius bemoans, in his speech before the diet of Frankfort, the vast losses of literature by the recent subversion of the Greek empire. Quid de libris dicam, qui illic erant innumerabiles, nondum Latinis cogniti!... Nunc ergo, et Homero et Pindaro etMenandroet omnibus illustrioribus poetis, secunda mors erit. But nothing can be inferred from this declamation, except, perhaps, that he did not know whether Menander still existed or not. Æn. Sylv. Opera, p. 715; also p. 881. Harris's Philological Inquiries, part iii. c. 4. It is a remarkable proof, however, of the turn which Europe, and especially Italy, was taking, that a pope's legate should, on a solemn occasion, descant so seriously on the injury sustained by profane literature.An useful summary of the lower Greek literature, taken chiefly from the Bibliotheca Græca of Fabricius, will be found in Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages, Appendix I.; and one rather more copious in Schoëll, Abrégé de la Littérature Grècque. (Paris, 1812.)

An useful summary of the lower Greek literature, taken chiefly from the Bibliotheca Græca of Fabricius, will be found in Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages, Appendix I.; and one rather more copious in Schoëll, Abrégé de la Littérature Grècque. (Paris, 1812.)

[c]Wood's Antiquities of Oxford, vol. i p. 537.

[d]Roper's Vita Mori, ed. Hearne, p. 75.

[e]Crevier, t. iv. p. 243; see too p. 46.

[f]Incredibilis ingeniorum barbaries est; rarissimi literas nôrunt, nulli elegantiam. Papiensis Epistolæ, p. 377. Campano's notion of elegance was ridiculous enough. Nobody ever carried further the pedantic affectation of avoiding modern terms in his Latinity. Thus, in the life of Braccio da Montone, he renders his meaning almost unintelligible by excess of classical purity. Braccio boasts se numquam deorum immortalium templa violâsse. Troops committing outrages in a city are accused virgines vestales incestâsse. In the terms of treaties he employs the old Roman forms; exercitum trajicito—oppida pontificis sunto, &c. And with a most absurd pedantry, the ecclesiastical state is called Romanum imperium. Campani Vita Braccii, in Muratori Script. Rer. Ital. t. xix.

[g]A letter from Master William Paston at Eton (Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 299) proves that Latin versification was taught there as early as the beginning of Edward IV.'s reign. It is true that the specimen he rather proudly exhibits does not much differ from what we denominate nonsense verses. But a more material observation is, that the sons of country gentlemen living at a considerable distance were already sent to public schools for grammatical education.

[h]De Bure, t. i. p. 30. Several copies of this book have come to light since its discovery.

[i]Id., p. 71.

[k]Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xiv. p. 265. Another edition of the Bible is supposed to have been printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1459.

[m]Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 140.

[n]Sanuto mentions an order of the senate in 1469, that John of Spira should print the epistles of Tully and Pliny for five years, and that no one else should do so. Script. Rerum Italic. t. xxii. p. 1189.

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