404 Mr TYTLER'S Introduction to an Enquiry 



The obligations which the cause of letters owes to monastic 

 establishments, were different in their nature, but equal in their 

 importance. During the persecutions of the Christians in the 

 fourth century, which at this period were carried forward with 

 unremitting barbarity, a convert to the new religion, to escape 

 the terrors of death or torture, concealed himself in the desart of 

 Egypt. His life of abstinence and solitary piety caused many 

 devout persons to repair to the desart ; and, during the conti- 

 nuance of the persecution, the love of life, combined, with the ar- 

 dour of devotion, to increase the numbers who flocked to the 

 cave of this holy man ; and, either in emulation of his austeri- 

 ty, or perhaps under the idea of imitating the Divine Author of 

 their religion, betook themselves to prayer and seclusion in the 

 caves and mountains *. 



The passion for the monastic life increased in an almost in- 

 calculable degree during the succeeding centuries. The differ- 

 ent orders established by these recluses, soon spread their rami- 

 fications not only throughout the East, but over the great- 

 est part of Europe, and, fortunately for the interests of human 

 knowledge, an eager love of learning, such as it then existed, in- 

 duced the monks to found libraries, to establish schools, to tran- 

 scribe ancient manuscripts, and to preserve at least, if they could 

 not appretiate, the invaluable volumes of antiquity. 



But, upon the conquest of Italy by the Lombards, a darker 

 and more melancholy spectacle succeeds. Their dominion in 

 Italy continued for two centuries, and, under their iron yoke, the 

 literature both of Greece and of Rome became entirely extin- 

 guished. Hitherto the barbarian tribes had respected the con- 

 quered people. The Gothic race under THEODOBIC had become 

 amalgamated with the Roman. The luxury and enervating in- 

 fluence of Italian wealth, of the manners and the climate of this 



* SPANHEIM, Epitom. ad Hist. Nov. Testara. p. 273. 



