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MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



HISTORY, POLITICS, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



The Life of ALCUIN. T. tlurst, St. Paul's Church Yard. 



THE secretary, favourite, and adviser of Charlemagne must have been no 

 common person, and the details of his life both interesting and instructive. 

 They are, however, but little known, and we are highly indebted to those 

 who have first set before us in an English dress the work of the learned Dr. 

 Lorenz. This history is the more interesting to us as it is that of an English- 

 man born and bred, and who, though residing in foreign courts, never forgot 

 the land of his birth. As a specimen of the work we give an account of the 

 state of civilisation in France towards the conclusion of the eighth century : 

 " At the period of the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, the natives were 

 far superior to their conquerors in intellectual cultivation. The permanent 

 footing which the victors obtained had, however, no influence in refining 

 their manners ; and their adoption of the Christian religion contributed less 

 to eradicate their barbarism than to increase their superstition. Instead of 

 the new settlers acquiring a share of civilisation, the natives assimilated 

 themselves to them more than the Romans had done to other tribes of Ger- 

 many, by whom they had been subdued. In times when religion forms the 

 sole subject of mental interest, we can judge of the general state of civilisation 

 by the condition of the priests. From the moment that the Franks began to 

 aspire to high dignities in the church, such a degeneracy of manners prevailed 

 amongst the superior clergy, that we should scarcely credit the accounts of 

 the ignorance and scandalous practices of many ecclesiastics, were they not 

 recorded by Gregory himself. Intemperance in drinking, perjury, debauchery, 

 adultery, and the most abominable cruelties were as common among the 

 bishops as among the rest of the Franks. The contagion of their evil example 

 spread among the inferior clergy ; and had not some resisted the general de- 

 pravity, and distinguished themselves by lives strict in proportion to the pro- 

 fligacy of the rest, or had not the ignorance and barbarism of the times been so 

 great that the most absurd superstitions found a ready acceptance, it would 

 be difficult for us to conceive how a religion could continue to be held in esti- 

 mation, whose ministers surpassed other men not in virtue but in vice. The 

 lives of the clergy being subject to no inspection, they sank still lower through- 

 out the whole Christian world during the restless and warlike times when the 

 sceptre was transferred from the enfeebled line of the Merovingian house to 

 the more vigorous hand of the race of Charlemagne. A system, therefore, 

 such as popery developed itself in its commencement, was a positive benefit 

 to the middle ages. In the warmth with which popery is both attacked and 

 defended, it is but too often overlooked, that there was a time when it was 

 beneficial to mankind, as well as a time when it degenerated through the 

 abuse of its power, and ripened for the destruction connected with the accom- 

 plishment of its objects. Every human expedient is the result only of peculiar 

 exigencies ; and no sooner does it cease to be necessary than it loses its im- 

 portance, which no means, however artfully contrived, can restore. Were 

 the Roman hierarchy now surrounded even by an army of Jesuits, we need 

 not dread the thunders of the Vatican. The depravity of the clergy, however, 

 proves how necessary it was in those days to create an authority distinct from 



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