Epitome of the Progress of Natural Science. 1 49 



repu])lic of Cicero, written over one of the palimpsests in the 

 Vatican. 



The fatal consequences of the overthrow of the ancient litera- 

 ture, were soon obvious. The powerful minds of St. Augustine 

 and his compeers, had been alimented, and had grown to matu- 

 rity, by the writings of Plato, Homer, Sophocles, Cicero, Virgil. 

 The springs being now dried up, the streams ceased to run, and 

 the ancient barrenness prevailed. The periods of Constantine* 

 and Theodosiusf were never replaced; and the fifth century is as 

 conspicuous for its imbecility, as the preceding one had been for 

 its intelligence. Eumenius, an orator of the fourth century, said 

 of Cornelius Fronton, the chief of a school of his day, and one of 

 the panegyrists of Arttoninus, 'Romanae eloquentiae, non secundum, 

 sed alterum, decus;' that he was not the second, but the other 

 ornament of Roman eloquence : meaning that he was equal to 

 Cicero; a fatal proof of his own and of the general ignorance. At 

 this time, the schools were filled with Greek sophists of the worst 

 kind, and the Latin tongue was undergoing a corruption, by the 

 general abasement of mind, and the influx of strangers from dis- 

 tant and barbarous regions, who were gradually becoming mas- 

 ters of the Empire. 



Every thing seemed now preparing for the long night which 

 was to fall upon the human mind. The oratorical art consisted 

 in fulsome panegyrics, pronounced before the unblushing pre- 

 sence of the individual to be eulogized. The want of great ac- 

 tions, was supplied by extravagant adulation ; the love of flat- 

 tery was substituted for the love of glory, and of honest commen- 

 dation. Statues were raised both at Rome and Athens, to a 

 Greek sophist named Proeresius, the one at Rome bearing the 



inscription, 



" Regina Remra, Roma, Regi eloquentiae," 



where the only merit belonging either to the man or to the verse, 

 consists in the miserable attempt to substitute for the ancient 

 Roman verse, four capital alliterations. Amongst the gramma- 

 rians of this dull period, MacrobiusJ. deserves to be spoken of with 

 some respect, having in his Saturnalium Conviviorum, left us 

 some agreeable dialogues, containing curious details concerning 

 the mythology, poetry, and history of the ancients. It is Macro- 

 bius who has preserved "to us that most eloquent passage from 



♦ Died, A. D. 33(;. f Died, A. D. 394. t Died, A. D. 415. 



