74 



who looks into the misernhle productions* of those ages, 

 may perceive, that taste and Uterature were then so de- 

 based, that they could not well fall lower; and that there 

 is no real cause of regret for the loss of such false know- 

 ledge and base refinement. At this fatal period, from the 

 east, and from the north, countless swarms of gloomy and 

 ferocious barbarians, ignorant of every art, but that of de- 

 solation, poured over the Roman provinces: they swept 

 away the monuments of former science and magnificence, 

 the institutions and enjoyments of peaceful times. 



In conformity with this political state of society, was 

 the state of the arts; which seemed to be extinct, and 

 swallowed up, in the vast abyss of general ruin. The me- 

 morial rhymes and incantations of the Druids; the bardic 

 songs of the ancient Gauls and Britons; the hymns of the 

 noTtheni Scalders, often the harbingers of battles, some- 

 times the prelude to human sacrifices, and fraught with 

 all the horrors of a gloomy and sanguinary mythology; 

 cannot be considered as forming an exception to what has 

 been said, respecting the absence of the fine arts, at this 

 period. It is further to be obser\-ed, that whatever might 

 be the science or talents of the Druids and bards, they 



seem 



* See the mob of Augustan historians; Ammianus Marcellinus, respectable 

 ill point of historic fidelity, detestable ia point of stile; Ausoniusj Prtidentios, 

 Juvencus, Sedulius, Nonnus, Quintus Calaber, Serenus, Sammonicus, Martia- 

 njs Capella, &c. &c. &c. Claudian is a prodigy for his time: Dion Cassius, 

 «nd Anna Comnena, are sjileiidid exceptions; 7-uri nantes in gurgile xasto. 



