XXXI V 



in a sketch that can touch upon only the most pro- 

 minent and attractive points of literary history. 



Even, therefore, as regards the middle age, it 

 seems a mere abuse of terms to talk of a double 

 literature. There was certainly a double em- 

 ployment of language ; the corrupted Latin 

 being appropriated to one class of compositions, 

 the vernacular dialects of Northern Europe to 

 another. Latin was the repository of such sys- 

 tematic knowledge as the times could boast ; it 

 was used in the service of the church ; in the 

 chronicles that supplied the place of history ; in 

 the very songs of the soldiery of the southern 

 countries, some of which still rank amid the most 

 curious relics of the ninth and tenth centuries. 

 But it was not the vehicle of any great produc- 

 tions, stamped with true genius, and deeply 

 impressing the mind of posterity. Still, genius 

 was not altogether sunk and lost in every part of 

 Europe. There were yet sundry emanations of 

 it, conceived in a national vein, and expressed 

 in national tongues of great antiquity. For 

 these we must look to the NORTH ; a region 

 which not only sent out its daring tribes to 

 change the aspect of civil life, but which fur- 

 nished, moreover, a fresh source of mental in- 

 spiration, destined at last to work together with 

 the recovered influence of the classic spirit, and 

 other prolific causes, in giving birth to the best 

 portion of modern literature. 



It is very easy for historical and literary in- 

 quirers to treat with contempt the intellectual 

 achievements of our Celtic and Teutonic ances- 

 tors. Nevertheless it is certain that those proofs 

 of a primitive relationship between them and the 

 inhabitants of Greece, which are drawn from the 

 affinities of language and of popular supersti- 

 tions, may be strengthened by lively evidence 

 that each people underwent the same process in 

 first developing the mental faculties. Unfa- 

 vourable circumstances long interfered with the 

 regular growth and establishment of literature 

 among the northern nations ; but the grand ele- 

 mentary step towards a complete literature was 

 very early attained by their independent efforts. 

 Impulses, similar to those which awoke the 

 Grecian lyre, operated with equal energy upon 

 the natives of a less genial clime ; and the 

 poetry, thus called out from the depths of the 

 human heart, was kindred in its character, as 

 well as in its causes, with that, to whose first 

 fruits, as far as their quality has been ascertained, 

 we may, without injustice, compare it. 



At the memorable epoch of the overthrow of 

 the Roman dominion in the West,* the seats of 



the Teutonic race extended from the banks of the 

 Rhine and the Danube to the rock-bound coasts 

 of Norway. The victorious emigrants who oc- 

 cupied the southern provinces of Europe speedily 

 lost their own forms of speech, which were 

 broken down, together with those of the van 

 quished, into a jargon unfit for composition. 

 But in Germany and Scandinavia, where the old 

 language retained its purity, that species of song, 

 which all we know of the state of manners in 

 those districts at that time, and all we can gather 

 from the analogies of history, prepare us to look 

 for, continued to flourish. There, from the 

 most distant era, which Latin f pens have de- 

 scribed, the favourite attendants of chiefs and 

 kings were those celebrated BARDS who pre- 

 served, in their traditionary strains, the memory 

 of great events, the praises of the gods, the 

 glory of warriors, the laws and customs of their 

 countrymen. Entrusted, for the most part, like 

 the Grecian heroic minstrelsy, to oral recitation, 

 and seldom committed to writing, it was not until 

 the propitious reign of Charlemagne that in this 

 respect also sharing the fortune of the eldest sur- 

 viving Greek poems these verses were at last 

 collected, and, as he hoped, secured from further 

 hazard. But, alas ! not a fragment of his collec- 

 tion has survived the active persecution of his 

 bigoted successor, or the slower ravages of time. 

 The loss thus occasioned can hardly be too much 

 lamented ; since, though some original relics of 

 the eighth century perhaps exist, we may be sure 

 that the researches of Charlemagne and his 

 learned assistants remounted to a far higher date, 

 and accumulated a mass of valuable specimens. 

 That, even at a very high date, the Teutonic 

 poetry displayed considerable excellence of 

 structure and expression, may be inferred from 

 the formed and regular prose of Ulphilas, whose 

 Gothic translation of the scriptures still evinces 

 the state of the tongue in the three hundred and 

 eightieth year after Christ. But of the general 

 tone and tenor of that poetry we derive indica- 

 tions from other interesting documents. The 

 NIBELUNGEN-LIED (Lay of the Nibelungeri), and 

 HELDEN BUCK (BooH of heroes), especially the 

 former, may be marked as the Homeric poems 

 of Germany. The Lay of the Nibelungen is an 

 epic of the most rich, bold, and natural character. 

 Though recast, probably by Henry of Ofterdingen, 

 about the close of the twelfth century, and trans- 

 mitted to us in the altered fonn which he imposed 

 upon it, yet through all interpolations and 

 changes of diction, the original substance can be 

 clearly discerned. The scene, laid partly on 



A. D. 476. 



t Tacitus, Li ican, Ammianua Marcellinus. 



