VI.

BOOK who tried the Cynthian lyre, have not increased our catalogue of good Latin poetry, they certainly im LITERARY proved and stimulated the intellect of their contemENGLAND. poraries, and circulated an attachment to the ancient classics, by which the general taste was benefited when other studies came into fashion.

HISTORYOF

It would exceed both the limit and object of this Work, to detail, in regular catalogue, the ecclesiastical writers who filled the middle ages with Latin verse or prose." That respectable mediocrity of mind, which the Latin literature is well adapted to produce, was the attainment of the best. From this moderate level

Non uno, doctrina modo se mentibus infert.
His timor: his monitus, his adhibetur amor.
Quadrupes adaquare nequis, dum percutis illos.
Nec cogit pueros Virga studere rudes.

Another attempts Satire:

Ridiculus mus est qui muribus imperat, et qui
Tanquam rex horum sic dominatur eis.
Non minor est risus de servo, quando levatur
In dominum: quando voce, manu ferit.
Asperius nihil est humili; dum surgit in altum
Pingitur in celso, Simià, sede sedens.

The fourth book exhibits his Parables, expressed in 'eight lines. The

following is very pretty :

Non omnis socius fidus est. Non omne fidele

Pectus. Non omni me sociare volo.

Cui socius volet esse meus, non alter et idem

Fiat ego qui non est satis alter ego

Non teneo socium. Qui scit quod nescio, vel qui.
Id, quod non habeo, me preter illud habet.

Cum socio socius deliberat omnià doctus

Cum sibi concordant consona corda duo.

In the fifth book each idea has ten lines devoted to it; and in the sixth, twelve.

64 Some of these will be noticed in our subsequent observations on the rhymed Latin poetry. Leland, Tanner, Ball, Pitts, Fabricius, and Leyser, will give abundant information. The greater number of the versifiers were satisfied with their hexameters and pentameters without rhyme. I observe that very few endeavored to imitate Horace. The British Museum contains, in hexameters and pentameters, The Monita Moralia of Nigellus Wireker, addressed to the Chancellor of Richard I. MS. Cott. Julius, A 7.-Also a poem of 2720 flowing lines, on the Life of St. Albans, with much Scripture history intermixed, written by Robert of Dunstable, about 1150. MS. Cott. Julius, D 3.

11

idea

I

II.

OF LATIN

LITE

others descended, in varying degrees, to the humblest CHAP. dulness. In reading a few, you exhaust the scanty ideas of all, and you desire to read no more. But this REVIVAL was not the fault of their talent, but of their instruction; their minds were new soil, fit for the most RATURE vigorous vegetation; but the Latin literature that was NORMAN transplanted into them, was composed of the flower- CONQUEST. ing, not the fruitful plants. Our ancestors produced

as much from it as the later Romans had done; its unprolific nature forbad a better harvest.

AFTER THE

intellectual

In characterising our writers of the middle age as Estimation dull and unimproving now, I do not wish to be under- of their stood to depreciate their contemporary utility; in the utility. commencement of mental culture, such literature must occur, and it does not occur unprofitably. The literary improvements of every country slowly and gradually accumulate; myriads of minds must labor, and a great proportion must give diction and publicity to the fruits of their secret toil, before a large population can be visibly benefited. To suit the various circumstances and tempers of mankind, numerous must bé the paths of the studious, and very diversified their produce. No labourer in this great field is useless or unimportant; the meanest effort will find some individual, whose humble capacity is assisted by the tribute; and till inferior cultivators have brought the soil into a state fit for a nobler harvest, the sublimer intellects cannot appear, or would operate, if they did, with inconsiderable effect. Hence, altho our early history presents to us a crowd of Latin students, whose writings we have long consigned to oblivion, and whose names we disturb only to deride; yet they have all been, in various degrees, benefactors to so

HISTORY OF
ENGLAND.

Valuable

of the

Anglo

monks.

men,

it

BOOK ciety: they were the laborious teachers of absolute
VI. ignorance, which their tuition removed; and it is the
LITERARY success of their labors in improving their country-
which has made their services forgotten.
The most valuable part of the Anglo-Norman
chronicles Latin literature was the annals, chronicles, and his-
tories, composed by the monks; works indeed so in-
Norman variably associated with our habitual contempt, that
may be thought absurd to praise them here. To
the
graces of style they have certainly no pretensions;
if they had, they might, like Saxo-Grammaticus, have
been historically worthless. With the charms of order,
the powers of forcible description, the use of profound
reflection, or the art of intellectual criticism, they
were entirely unacquainted. The superstitious legend
they delighted to detail, for they sincerely believed
it; they never omitted a rumored prodigy, and were
ever ready to exaggerate an extraordinary natural
phenomenon. With these defects, what then was their
value? The simple habit of plainly annalizing the
main facts of history that occurred. Such a series of
regular chronology and true incident; such faithful,
clear and ample materials for authentic history, had
scarcely appeared before: nothing could be more
contemptible as compositions; nothing could be more
satisfactory as authorities. Their simplicity was ad
vantageous to their veracity; and when the monastic
habit of composing them ceased, their place was but
poorly supplied by the loquacious lay-chroniclers,
half romances, at least in their dress, which succeeded.
It is easy to separate their legends from their facts;
and perhaps the modern use of certain and correct
chronology may be ascribed to their precise habit,

rec

Lar

of always dating the years of the events which they CHAP. record.65

II.

OF LATIN

AFTER THE

NORMAN

But the Latin literature which was cultivated after REVIVAL Lanfranc, was rather useful in beginning a literary LITERA taste in England, and in forming those men who TURE deviated afterwards into other studies, than for its own intrinsic and productive affluence. However CONQUEST. valuable the best Latin classics will be to all ages, Limited utility of for their taste, their chastised beauties of style, their the Roman eloquence, and their occasional good sense, they do not impart, because they do not contain, any large funds of knowlege, great originality of thought, or important associations of ideas: they are but the best Grecian classics re-appearing, with augmented judgment and some variety of features, in a new language. Science the Romans never valued, nor much

classics;

A. D. 1091

1118

1117

1141

1154

Simeon of Durham

1130

Hoveden

1202

Eadmer

1122

Matthew Paris

1259

Rishanger's Continuation to

1273

Gervas

1200

William of Malmsbury

1143

Alured of Beverly

1129

Bromton, about

Cron. Petri-burgi

Continued, by Rob. Boston, to

1368

William of Newborough

1197

Ralph de diceto, about

1,200

Benedict Abbas

1192

Thomas Wikes

1304

Annals of Waverly

1291

Matthew of Westminster

1307

As in every monastery there was some curious mind, fond of noting the great incidents of his day, every country in Europe has such chronicles. But I think with Dr. Henry, that, upon the whole, our annalists are superior to those of any other nation, at this period.

HISTORYOF

ENGLAND.

66

BOOK understood. Mathematical studies, the proudest part VI. of Grecian knowlege, were never popular in Greece LITERARY itself, and scarcely visited Italy. All the natural history and philosophy which could be collected within the precincts of the Roman empire, in its largest circle, and from the labors of anterior time, Pliny embodied in his work. His countrymen never increased his store, and scanty is its amount! And it was applied both by Pliny and Lucretius, and by those who afterwards studied it from them, to establish the system of Epicurus, which pushed the Divine Creator out of nature." The Latin poets that convey useful instruction to posterity, are not more numerous than their dramatists. Their historians, together with Cicero, Seneca, Quintilian, and Epictetus, exhibit the intellects most serviceable to future ages; but even these, like the Latin fathers; with their superior topics, are not affluent in extensive knowlege, and are insufficient to create a vigorous original mind. It is one thing to please a cultivated

66 Theodoric, in his letter to Boetius, commends him, because, by his translations, the Italians could read Pythagoras on Music, Ptolemy on Astronomy, Euclid on Geometry, Nichomachus on Arithmetic, and Archimedes on Mechanics. He adds, Whatever disciplinæ or arts, fruitful Greece has produced, by you, uno auctore, Rome has received into her vernacular language. Yet Boetius did not live till the sixth century.

2..

67 It is a remarkable fact, which we learn from Quintilian (1.12.) that Epicurus directed his disciples to avoid the study of the sciences. This injunction was fatal to their intellectual progress, as indeed all his leading doctrines were. Hence, tho he was temperate, his followers, pursuing his principles to their natural consequences, became mere sensualists. Lactantius says, that his sect became far more popular than others. Div. Inst. 1. 3. c. 17. Yet during his lifetime he was unknown and almost unattended. Seneca, ep. 79. It is Lucretius that so extravagantly extols him, for having been the first to assert that no part of the world was created, and for trying so feebly to explain its origin without a Deity: and who first made him popular in Rome, by writing his poem in praise of his system, at the critical moment when the mercenary luxury, pride, ambition and individual selfishness of degenerating Romans made them eager to believe that there was no superior power in the universe to control their conduct, or to make them responsible for it.