390 Mr TYTLER'S Introduction to an Enquiry 



explain not only their origin, but the causes to which they owe 

 their invention, the manner in which they have been transmit- 

 ted, the peculiar discipline, and the particular institutions under 

 which they have been improved and perfected. But the task is 

 not concluded. It is moreover the business of such a moral his- 

 torian, to note the most celebrated sects and controversies which 

 have sprung from the opinions of learned men, the persecutions 

 they have suffered, the glories and the honours they have won. 

 The most celebrated authors, the best books, the most learned 

 academies, schools, endowments, associations of philosophic spi- 

 rits, in short, every thing which regards the state and history of 

 literature, must be carefully described." Such is a feeble trans- 

 lation from the energetic latinity of the original, presenting us 

 with an outline, which, as has been remarked * by a later author, 

 is the most perfect which a scholar could devise, but which no 

 scholar can hope to complete. Dr JOHNSON, as we learn from 

 his delightful biographer BOSWELL, " would have a history of the 

 revival of learning contain an account of whatever contributed 

 to the restoration of literature, such as controversies, printing, 

 the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement of great 

 men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and professors 

 of all kinds of learning in different countries." To the execu- 

 tion of this plan, which, although sufficiently vast, is but a cor- 

 ner of the mighty design of BACON, the works of TIRABOSCHI, of 

 BRUCKER, of MORHOFF, of BAILLET, and, latterly, of GUINGENE' 

 and SISMONDI, present us with materials, both of a philosophical 

 and of a critical nature, which are in the highest degree valuable. 

 The original volumes of the great restorers themselves, the now 



* Preface to " An Introduction to the Literary History of the 14th and 15th 

 " Centuries," p. 5. ; an anonymous but able and elegant work, published by CADEU. 

 find DA VIES, 1798. 



