OF LITERATURE. 



XXXVll 



accomplished in three successive centuries, began.. 

 A third estate arose. The rights of cities, and 

 the corporation - spirit, growing out of the 

 necessity that drove men to combine for mutual 

 defence, gave birth to a species of steady inter- 

 course among them, which led to immediate 

 improvements of language and idiom. Then also 

 chivalry, strictly adhering to its original purpose, 

 served to mitigate the oppressions of the nobles, 

 and to soften and refine their manners. From 

 the date of the firsj crusade * down to the close 

 of the twelfth century was the golden age of 

 chivalry. The principal thrones of Europe were 

 occupied by her foremost knights. The East 

 formed a point of union for the ardent and 

 adventurous natives of many different countries ; 

 whose courteous rivalry carried to a high pitch 

 the profession of generous sentiments arid the 

 passion for brave deeds. The feeling of honour, 

 which is the very soul of chivalry, was never 

 more lively. And the crusades themselves, 

 though intended by their original promoters to 

 rivet the fetters of superstition and retard the 

 progress of the human intellect, had to a great 

 degree an opposite effect. By the passage of 

 thousands of her sons through Greece into Asia 

 and Egypt, amid the ancient seats of art and 

 science and refinement, in which all traces of 

 their former reign were not yet obliterated, the 

 genius of Europe was roused. Men's minds 

 received a fresh and powerful impulse. They 

 were led to compare, to reflect, to aspire, and 

 to imitate. 



In order to trace clearly the progress of modern 

 letters from the epoch which we have fixed, and 

 to show at once their general scope and spirit at 

 different times, and the height of excellence to 

 which certain great minds attained, it will be 

 proper now to distribute our subject according 

 to three remarkable periods. The first will com- 

 prehend the course of the new literature from its 

 dawn to the Reformation of religion ; the second 

 will extend from the Reformation to the end of 

 the seventeenth century, or the reign of Queen 

 Anne in England ; and the third period, com- 

 mencing with the reign of that princess, will 

 carry us down to the present day. 



I. Of the first of these periods, or of a large 

 portion of it at least, very opposite impressions 

 may be given, as prejudice and the love of theory, 

 or fairness and the love of truth, are allowed to 

 sway the mind of the critic. It will be painted 

 in sad and sombre tints by those who choose, 

 with Robertson,f confounding the limits of 



* A. D. 1095. 



+ See his View of the progress of Society in Europe, &c., 

 Sect. 1. 



literature and science, to fasten their eyes upon 

 the scholastic theology, or the metaphysics of 

 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and to in- 

 veigh against the speculative refinements of the 

 one, or the frivolous subtleties of the other. 

 But it seems monstrous to confine attention to 

 works of this sort, composed in degenerate Latin, 

 while, at the same points of time, the natural and 

 healthy produce of genius, excited by all the 

 causes that have been above enumerated, and 

 breathing the accents of vernacular dialects 

 which had at last arisen, presents a prospect 

 equally real, and infinitely more pleasing to 

 contemplate. 



As of these dialects the Provengal was the 

 earliest formed, so in the age with which we are 

 now concerned, the Provengal poetry took pre- 

 cedence of all other kinds of literature. It was 

 the most rapidly developed, and the most widely 

 diffused ; spreading from the extremities of Spain 

 to those of Italy, and serving for a model to the 

 poets of other lands and tongues ; even to those 

 of the North. The language, in which it was 

 composed, was spoken in all the provinces of 

 France south of the Loire ; a region that had 

 been subject to several of the successors of 

 Charlemagne, but had, in 879, gained the rank 

 of an independent kingdom, and enjoyed its in- 

 dependence for more than two hundred years. 

 At the close of that period, Provenge was joined 

 to a portion of Spain, under the sovereignty of 

 Raymond Berenger,J count of Barcelona : but 

 as the Catalonian dialect was closely allied to 

 the Provengal, this junction, instead of distract- 

 ing the minds of the united people, only impressed 

 them with a fresh movement. The Catalonians 

 had exercised their faculties in the pursuits of 

 commerce and of war ; they had enlarged their 

 knowledge and polished their taste by familiar 

 intercourse with the Moors of the peninsula. 

 The Arabian poets, and writers of history, who 

 were then to be found at every petty Spanish 

 court, were brought by the reign of Berenger 

 into contact with his French subjects. And thus 

 from East and West at once, partly through 

 means of the Crusaders, partly through means of 

 the Moors, the fictions and modes of composi- 

 tion, belonging to Arabia and Persia, began to 

 influence the progress of letters in Europe. 

 Here, therefore, seems the proper place to say 

 a few words concerning both these branches of 

 literature. 



Until the middle of the seventh century after 

 Christ, the ARABIAN peninsula, cut off by its 

 position from the rest of the world, and having 



t A D. 1002. 



