Chapter XXVI: Part II (8)

[811] Ante ipsum dominum Carolum regem in Gallia nullum fuit studium liberalium artium. Monachus Engolismensis, apud Launoy, De Scholis per occidentem instauratis, p. 5. See too Histoire Litteraire de la France, t. iv. p. 1. "Studia liberalium artium" in this passage, must be understood to exclude literature, commonly so called, but not a certain measure of very ordinary instruction. For there were episcopal and conventual schools in the seventh and eighth centuries, even in France, especially Aquitaine; we need hardly repeat that in England, the former of these ages produced Bede and Theodore, and the men trained under them; the Lives of the Saints also lead us to take with some limitation the absolute denial of liberal studies before Charlemagne. See Guizot, Hist. de la Civilis. en France, Lecon 16; and Ampere, Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. p. 4. But, perhaps, philology, logic, philosophy, and even theology were not taught, as sciences, in any of the French schools for these two centuries; and consequently those established by Charlemagne justly make an epoch.

[812] Id. Ibid. There was a sort of literary club among them, where the members assumed ancient names. Charlemagne was called David; Alcuin, Horace; another, Dametas, &c.

[813] Hist. Litteraire, p. 217, &c.

[814] This division of the sciences is ascribed to St. Augustin; and we certainly find it established early in the sixth century. Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiae, t. iii. p. 597.

[815] Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 126.

[816] Crevier, Hist. de l'Universite de Paris, t. i. p. 28.

[817] Brucker, t. iii. p. 612. Raban Maurus was chief of the cathedral school at Fulda, in the ninth century.

[818] Crevier, p. 66.

[819] Crevier, p. 171; Brucker, p. 677; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 275.

[820] Brucker, p. 750.

[821] A great interest has been revived in France for the philosophy, as well as the personal history of Abelard, by the publication of his philosophical writings, in 1836, under so eminent an editor as M. Cousin, and by the excellent work of M. de Remusat, in 1845, with the title Abelard, containing a copious account both of the life and writings of that most remarkable man, the father, perhaps, of the theory as to the nature of universal ideas, now so generally known by the name of _conceptualism_.

[822] The faculty of arts in the university of Paris was divided into four nations; those of France, Picardy, Normandy, and England. These had distinct suffrages in the affairs of the university, and consequently, when united, outnumbered the three higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine. In 1169, Henry II. of England offers to refer his dispute with Becket to the provinces of the school of Paris.

[823] Crevier, t. i. p. 279. The first statute regulating the discipline of the university was given by Robert de Courcon, legate of Honorius III., in 1215, id. p. 296.

[824] No one probably would choose to rely on a passage found in one manuscript of Asserius, which has all appearance of an interpolation. It is evident from an anecdote in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 23 (Gutch's edition), that Camden did not believe in the authenticity of this passage, though he thought proper to insert it in the Britannia.

[825] 1 Gale, p. 75. The mention of Aristotle at so early a period might seem to throw some suspicion on this passage. But it is impossible to detach it from the context; and the works of Aristotle intended by Ingulfus were translations of parts of his Logic by Boethius and Victorin. Brucker, p. 678. A passage indeed in Peter of Blois's continuation of Ingulfus, where the study of Averroes is said to have taken place at _Cambridge_ some years before he was born, is of a different complexion, and must of course be rejected as spurious. In the Gesta Comitum Andegavensium, Fulk, count of Anjou, who lived about 920, is said to have been skilled Aristotelicis et Ciceronianis ratiocinationibus.

[The authenticity of Ingulfus has been called in question, not only by Sir Francis Palgrave, but by Mr. Wright. Biogr. Liter., Anglo-Norman Period, p. 29. And this implies, apparently, the spuriousness of the continuation ascribed to Peter of Blois, in which the passage about Averroes throws doubt upon the whole. I have, in the Introduction to the History of Literature, retracted the degree of credence here given to the foundation of the university of Oxford by Alfred. If Ingulfus is not genuine, we have no proof of its existence as a school of learning before the middle of the twelfth century.]

[826] It may be remarked, that John of Salisbury, who wrote in the first years of Henry II.'s reign, since his Polycraticon is dedicated to Becket, before he became archbishop, makes no mention of Oxford, which he would probably have done if it had been an eminent seat of learning at that time.

[827] Wood's Hist. and Antiquities of Oxford, p. 177. The Benedictines of St. Maur say, that there was an eminent school of canon law at Oxford about the end of the twelfth century, to which many students repaired from Paris. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 216.

[828] Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 259, et alibi; Muratori, Dissert. 43.

[829] "But among these," says Anthony Wood, "a company of varlets, who pretended to be scholars, shuffled themselves in, and did act much villany in the university by thieving, whoring, quarrelling, &c. They lived under no discipline, neither had they tutors; but only for fashion's sake would sometimes thrust themselves into the schools at ordinary lectures, and when they went to perform any mischief, then would they be accounted scholars, that so they might free themselves from the jurisdiction of the burghers." p. 206. If we allow three varlets to one scholar, the university will still have been very fully frequented by the latter.

[830] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 47. Azarius, about the middle of the fourteenth century, says the number was about 13,000 in his time. Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 325.

[831] Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xvi. p. 341. This may perhaps require to be taken with allowance. But Paris owes a great part of its buildings on the southern bank of the Seine to the university. The students are said to have been about 12,000 before 1480. Crevier, t. iv. p. 410.

[832] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 43 and 46.

[833] The earliest authentic mention of Cambridge as a place of learning, if I mistake not, is in Matthew Paris, who informs us, that in 1209, John having caused three clerks of Oxford to be hanged on suspicion of murder, the whole body of scholars left that city, and emigrated, some to Cambridge, some to Reading, in order to carry on their studies (p. 191, edit. 1684). But it may be conjectured with some probability, that they were led to a town so distant as Cambridge by the previous establishment of academical instruction in that place. The incorporation of Cambridge is in 1231 (15 Hen. III.), so that there is no great difference in the legal antiquity of our two universities.

[834] Crevier, Hist. de l'Universite de Paris, t. ii. p. 216; t. iii. p. 140.

[835] Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique de l'Hist. de l'Allemagne, p. 550, 607.

[836] Rymer, t. vi. p. 292.

[837] Crevier, t. ii. p. 398.

[838] Crevier and Villaret, passim.

[839] Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosophiae, t. iii. p. 678.

[840] Id. Ibid. Tiraboschi conceives that the translations of Aristotle made by command of Frederic II. were directly from the Greek, t. iv. p. 145; and censures Brucker for the contrary opinion. Buhle, however (Hist. de la Philosophie Moderne, t. i. p. 696), appears to agree with Brucker. It is almost certain that versions were made from the Arabic Aristotle: which itself was not immediately taken from the Greek, but from a Syriac medium. Ginguene, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 212 (on the authority of M. Langles).

It was not only a knowledge of Aristotle that the scholastics of Europe derived from the Arabic language. His writings had produced in the flourishing Mohammedan kingdoms a vast number of commentators, and of metaphysicians trained in the same school. Of these Averroes, a native of Cordova, who died early in the thirteenth century, was the most eminent. It would be curious to examine more minutely than has hitherto been done the original writings of these famous men, which no doubt have suffered in translation. A passage from Al Gazel, which Mr. Turner has rendered from the Latin, with all the disadvantage of a double remove from the author's words, appears to state the argument in favour of that class of Nominalists, called Conceptualists, with more clearness and precision than any thing I have seen from the schoolmen. Al Gazel died in 1126, and consequently might have suggested this theory to Abelard, which however is not probable. Turner's Hist. of Engl. vol. i. p. 513.

[841] Brucker, Hist. Crit Philosophiae, t. iii. I have found no better guide than Brucker. But he confesses himself not to have read the original writings of the scholastics; an admission which every reader will perceive to be quite necessary. Consequently, he gives us rather a verbose declamation against their philosophy than any clear view of its character. Of the valuable works lately published in Germany on the history of philosophy, I have only seen that of Buhle, which did not fall into my hands till I had nearly written these pages. Tiedemann and Tennemann are I believe, still untranslated.

[842] Buhle, Hist. de la Philos. Moderne, t. i. p. 723. This author raises upon the whole a favourable notion of Anselm and Aquinas; but he hardly notices any other.

[843] Mr. Turner has with his characteristic spirit of enterprise examined some of the writings of our chief English schoolmen, Duns Scotus and Ockham (Hist of Eng. vol. i.), and even given us some extracts from them. They seem to me very frivolous, so far as I can collect their meaning. Ockham in particular falls very short of what I had expected; and his nominalism is strangely different from that of Berkeley. We can hardly reckon a man in the right, who is so by accident, and through sophistical reasoning. However, a well-known article in the Edinburgh Review, No. liii. p. 204, gives, from Tennemann, a more favourable account of Ockham.

Perhaps I may have imagined the scholastics to be more forgotten than they really are. Within a short time I have met with four living English writers who have read parts of Thomas Aquinas; Mr. Turner, Mr. Berington, Mr. Coleridge, and the Edinburgh Reviewer. Still I cannot bring myself to think that there are four more in this country who can say the same. Certain portions, however, of his writings are still read in the course of instruction of some Catholic universities.

[I leave this passage as it was written about 1814. But it must be owned with regard to the schoolmen, as well as the jurists, that I at that time underrated, or at least did not anticipate, the attention which their works have attracted in modern Europe, and that the passage in the text is more applicable to the philosophy of the eighteenth century than of the present. For several years past the metaphysicians of Germany and France have brushed the dust from the scholastic volumes; Tennemann and Buhle, Degerando, but more than all Cousin and Remusat, in their excellent labours on Abelard, have restored the mediaeval philosophy to a place in transcendental metaphysics, which, during the prevalence of the Cartesian school, and those derived from it, had been refused. 1848.]

[844] Roger Bacon, by far the truest philosopher of the middle ages, complains of the ignorance of Aristotle's translators. Every translator, he observes, ought to understand his author's subject, and the two languages from which and into which he is to render the work. But none hitherto, except Boethius, have sufficiently known the languages; nor has one, except Robert Grostete (the famous bishop of Lincoln), had a competent acquaintance with science. The rest make egregious errors in both respects. And there is so much misapprehension and obscurity in the Aristotelian writings as thus translated, that no one understands them. Opus Majus, p. 45.

[845] Brucker, p. 733, 912. Mr. Turner has fallen into some confusion as to this point, and supposes the nominalist system to have had a pantheistical tendency, not clearly apprehending its characteristics, p. 512.

[846] Petrarch gives a curious account of the irreligion that prevailed among the learned at Venice and Padua, in consequence of their unbounded admiration for Aristotle and Averroes. One of this school, conversing with him, after expressing much contempt for the Apostles and Fathers, exclaimed: Utinam tu Averroim pati posses, ut videres quanto ille tuis his nugatoribus major sit! Mem. de Petrarque, t. iii. p. 759. Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 162.

[847] Brucker, p. 898.

[848] This mystical philosophy appears to have been introduced into Europe by John Scotus, whom Buhle treats as the founder of the scholastic philosophy; though, as it made no sensible progress for two centuries after his time, it seems more natural to give that credit to Roscelin and Anselm. Scotus, or Erigena, as he is perhaps more frequently called, took up, through the medium of a spurious work, ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, that remarkable system, which has from time immemorial prevailed in some schools of the East, wherein all external phenomena, as well as all subordinate intellects, are considered as _emanating_ from the Supreme Being, into whose essence they are hereafter to be absorbed. This system, reproduced under various modifications, and combined with various theories of philosophy and religion, is perhaps the most congenial to the spirit of solitary speculation, and consequently the most extensively diffused of any which those high themes have engendered. It originated no doubt in sublime conceptions of divine omnipotence and ubiquity. But clearness of expression, or indeed of ideas, being not easily connected with mysticism, the language of philosophers adopting the theory of emanation is often hardly distinguishable from that of the pantheists. Brucker, very unjustly, as I imagine from the passages he quotes, accuses John Erigena of pantheism. Hist. Crit. Philos. p. 620. The charge would, however, be better grounded against some whose style might deceive an unaccustomed reader. In fact, the philosophy of emanation leads very nearly to the doctrine of an universal substance, which, begot the atheistic system of Spinoza, and which appears to have revived with similar consequences among the metaphysicians of Germany. How very closely the language of this oriental philosophy, or even that which regards the Deity as the soul of the world, may verge upon pantheism, will be perceived (without the trouble of reading the first book of Cudworth) from two famous passages of Virgil and Lucan. Georg. I. iv. v. 219; and Pharsalia, I. viii. v. 578.

[849] This subject, as well as some others in this part of the present chapter, has been touched in my Introduction to the Literature of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries.

[850] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 150.

[851] There is a very copious and sensible account of Roger Bacon in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 332 (Gutch's edition). I am a little surprised that Antony should have found out Bacon's merit.

The resemblance between Roger Bacon and his greater namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the Opus Majus, I know not; but it is singular, that his favourite quaint expression, _praerogativae_ scientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the Opus Majus, upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype, in spirit, of the Novum Organum. The same sanguine and sometimes rash confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning, pervade both works. Roger Bacon's philosophical spirit may be illustrated by the following passage: Duo sunt modi cognoscendi; scilicet per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et facit nos concludere quaestionem; sed non certificat neque removet dubitationem, ut quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi eam inveniat via experientiae; quia multi habent argumenta ad scibilia, sed quia non habent experientiam, negligunt ea, neque vitant nociva nec persequuntur bona. Si enim aliquis homo, qui nunquam vidit ignem, probavit per argumenta sufficientia quod ignis comburit et laedit res et destruit, nunquam propter hoc quiesceret animus audientis, nec ignem vitaret antequam poneret manum vel rem combustibilem ad ignem, ut per experientiam probaret quod argumentum edocebat; sed assumta experientia combustionis certificatur animus et quiescit in fulgore veritatis, quo argumentum non sufficit, sed experientia. p. 446.

[852] See the fate of Cecco d'Ascoli in Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 174.

[853] Le Boeuf, Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xvii. p. 711.

[854] Gregorius, cognomento Bechada, de Castro de Turribus, professione miles, subtilissimi ingenii vir, aliquantulum imbutus literis, horum gesta praeliorum materna lingua rhythmo vulgari, ut populus pleniter intelligeret, ingens volumen decenter composuit, et ut vera et faceta verba proferret, duodecim annorum spatium super hoc opus operam dedit. Ne vero vilesceret propter verbum vulgare, non sine praecepto episcopi Eustorgii, et consilio Gauberti Normanni, hoc opus aggressus est. I transcribe this from Heeren's Essai sur les Croisades, p. 447; whose reference is to Labbe, Bibliotheca nova MSS. t. ii. p. 296.

[855] De Sade, Vie de Petrarque, t. i. p. 155. Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, t. i. p. 228.

[856] For the Courts of Love, see De Sade, Vie de Petrarque, t. ii. note 19. Le Grand. Fabliaux, t. i. p. 270. Roquefort, Etat de la Poesie Francoise. p. 94. I have never had patience to look at the older writers who have treated this tiresome subject.

[857] Histoire Litteraire des Troubadours Paris, 1774.

[858] Two very modern French writers, M. Ginguene (Histoire Litteraire d'Italie, Paris, 1811) and M. Sismondi (Litterature du Midi de l'Europe, Paris, 1813), have revived the poetical history of the troubadours. To them, still more than to Millot and Tiraboschi, I would acknowledge my obligations for the little I have learned in respect of this forgotten school of poetry. Notwithstanding, however, the heaviness of Millot's work, a fault not imputable to himself, though Ritson as I remember, calls him, in his own polite style, "a blockhead," it will always be useful to the inquirer into the manners and opinions of the middle ages, from the numerous illustrations it contains of two general facts; the extreme dissoluteness of morals among the higher ranks, and the prevailing animosity of all classes against the clergy.

[859] Hist. Litt. de la France, t. vii. p. 58. Le Boeuf, according to these Benedictines, has published some poetical fragments of the tenth century; and they quote part of a charter as old as 940 in Romance. p. 59. But that antiquary, in a memoir printed in the seventeenth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, which throws more light on the infancy of the French language than anything within my knowledge, says only that the earliest specimens of verse in the royal library are of the eleventh century _au plus tard_. p. 717. M. de la Rue is said to have found some poems of the eleventh century in the British Museum. Roquefort, Etat de la Poesie Francoise, p. 206. Le Boeuf's fragment may be found in this work, p. 379; it seems nearer to the Provencal than the French dialect.

[860] Gale, XV Script. t. i. p. 88.

[861] Ritson's Dissertation on Romance, p. 66. [The laws of William the Conqueror, published in Ingulfus, are translated from a Latin original; the French is of the thirteenth century. It is now doubted whether any French, except a fragment of a translation of Boethius, in verse, is extant of an earlier age than the twelfth. Introduction to Hist. of Literat. 3rd edit. p. 28.]

[862] Hist. Litt. t. ix. p. 149; Fabliaux par Barbasan, vol. i. p. 9, edit. 1808; Mem. de l'Academie des Inscr. t. xv. and xvii, p. 714, &c.

[863] Mabillon speaks of this as the oldest French instrument he had seen. But the Benedictines quote some of the eleventh century. Hist. Litt. t. vii. p. 59. This charter is supposed by the authors of Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique to be translated from the Latin, t. iv. p. 519. French charters, they say, are not common before the age of Louis IX.; and this is confirmed by those published in Martenne's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, which are very commonly in French from his reign, but hardly ever before.

[864] Ravaliere, Revol. de la Langue Francoise, p. 116, doubts the age of this translation.

[865] Archaeologia, vols. xii. and xiii.

[866] Millot says that Richard's sirventes (satirical songs) have appeared in French as well as Provencal, but that the former is probably a translation. Hist. des Troubadours, vol. i. p. 54. Yet I have met with no writer who quotes them in the latter language, and M. Ginguene, as well as Le Grand d'Aussy, considers Richard as a trouveur.

[Raynouard has since published, in Provencal, the song of Richard on his captivity, which had several times appeared in French. It is not improbable that he wrote it in both dialects. Leroux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Francais, vol. i. p. 55. Richard also composed verses in the Poitevin dialect, spoken at that time in Maine and Anjou, which resembles the Langue d'Oc more than that of northern France, though, especially in the latter countries, it gave way not long afterwards. Id. p. 77.]

[867] 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.

[868] [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.]

[869] 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 whether _biblia_ is ever used except for the Scriptures; and the Italian translator renders it, cioe 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.

[870] The Assises de Jerusalem 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.

[871] 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 Ravaliere 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 Poesie Francaise dans les 12me et 13me siecles, Paris, 1815 p. 147.

[872] Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xi. p. 121; De Sade, Vie de Petrarque, 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 accoutumee entre les princes. Collect. de Mem. t. v. p. 103, 190, &c.

[873] 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.

[874] 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 Provencal dialect, as well as those who wrote in Castilian.

[875] Dissert. 32.

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

[877] Dante, in his treatise De vulgari Eloquentia, 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.

[878] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 309-377. Ginguene, 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 his _Tesoro_ in 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 chose _que 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. Ginguene, vol. i. p. 384.

[879]
Tu proverai si (says Cacciaguida to him) come sa di sale
Il pane altrui, e come e duro calle
Il scendere e 'l salir per altrui scale.

Paradis. cant. 16.

[880] Paradiso, cant. 16.

[881] Velli, Vita di Dante. Tiraboschi.

[882] 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 AEneid 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. Ginguene, t. ii. p. 8.

[883] 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 invidiae. 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.

[884] 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.

[885] 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 read _perturbationibus_, instead of _partubus_. Two manuscripts in the royal library at Paris have the contraction _ptbus_, 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.

[886] [Note III.]

[887] [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.]

[888] 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 of _a_ as an article--the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminations _a_ and _an_ into _e_ and _en_, 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 preposition _to_ before infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs and participles instead of strong--the constant recurrence of _er_ for _or_ in 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.]

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

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

[891] 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.

[892] 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.

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

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

[895] [Note IV.]

[896] 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.

[897] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. Dissertation II. Roquefort, Etat de la Poesie Francaise du douzieme Siecle 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 annum
Frigore depulso veris tepor, et renovari
Coeperat et viridi gremio juvenescere tellus;
Cum Rea laeta Jovis rideret ad oscula mater,
Cum jam post tergum Phryxi vectore relicto
Solis 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.

[898] 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. Litteraire 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.

[899] 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 Traite 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. Sec. 58.

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

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

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

[903] Ibid.

[904] 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.

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

[906] 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.

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

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

[909] Tiraboschi, p. 89.

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

[911] Tiraboschi, p. 101.

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

[913] 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.

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

[915] Greek characters are found in a charter of 943, published in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdot. t. i. p. 74. The title of a treatise peri phuseon merismou, and the word theotokos, 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 word ousia in 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, Sec. 7.]

[916] Nemo est qui Graecas literas norit; at ego in hoc Latinitati compatior, quae sic omnino Graeca abjecit studia, ut etiam non noscamus characteres literarum. Genealogiae Deorum, apud Hodium de Graecis Illustribus, p. 3.

[917] Mem. de Petrarque, t. i. p. 407.

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

[919] 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.

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

[921] 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 Saeculum 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.

[922] The honour of restoring ancient or heathen literature is due to the Caesar Bardas, uncle and minister of Michael II. Cedrenus speaks of it in the following terms: epemelethe de kai tes exo sophias, (en gar ek pollou chronou pararrhueisa, kai pros te meden holos choresasa te ton kratounton argia kai amathia) diatribas hekaste ton epistemon aphorisas, ton men allon hope per etuche, tes d' epi pason epochou philosophias kat' auta ta basileia en te Magnaura; kai houto ex ekeinou anebaskein hai epistemai erxanto. k. t. l. 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.

[923] Du Cange, Praefatio ad Glossar. Graecitatis 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, ten archaian glottan huper ten idioten meletousi. Du Cange, ibid. p. 11. It is well known that the popular, or _political_ verses 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 auxiliary thelo. See some instances of this in Lesbonax, peri schematon, ad finem Ammonii, cura Valckenaer.

[924] 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 Isaeus, 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. AEneas 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 et _Menandro_ et 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. AEn. 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 Graeca of Fabricius, will be found in Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages, Appendix I.; and one rather more copious in Schoell, Abrege de la Litterature Grecque. (Paris, 1812.)

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

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

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

[928] Incredibilis ingeniorum barbaries est; rarissimi literas norunt, nulli elegantiam. Papiensis Epistolae, 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 violasse. Troops committing outrages in a city are accused virgines vestales incestasse. 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.

[929] 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.

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

[931] Id., p. 71.

[932] Mem. 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.

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

[934] 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.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX.

NOTE I. Page 288.

A rapid decline of learning began in the sixth century, of which Gregory of Tours is both a witness and an example. It is, therefore, properly one of the dark ages, more so by much than the eleventh, which concludes them; since very few were left in the church who possessed any acquaintance with classical authors, or who wrote with any command of the Latin language. Their studies, whenever they studied at all, were almost exclusively theological; and this must be understood as to the subsequent centuries. By theological is meant the vulgate Scriptures and some of the Latin fathers; not, however, by reasoning upon them, or doing much more than introducing them as authority in their own words. In the seventh century, and still more at the beginning of the eighth, very little even of this remained in France, where we find hardly a name deserving of remembrance in a literary sense; but Isidore, and our own Bede, do honour to Spain and Britain.