OF LITERATURE. 



xlix 



Italy was the first to prove, by her appreciation 

 of the resuscitated classics, that the germ of taste 

 was not dead within her bosom. Nor did any feel- 

 ing of hereditary pride confine her within the pale 

 of Roman letters. Towards the end of the four- 

 teenth century, she listened once more to the 

 dictates of Grecian teachers ; and when the fall 

 of Constantinople, in 1453, forced crowds of 

 enlightened Greeks to flee from the Turkish 

 * sword, it was Italy that welcomed the fugitives : 

 there the generous wisdom of many rulers raised 

 them to wealth and dignity ; and thence, in spite 

 of opposition in England and elsewhere, the 

 lessons they had given were ultimately imparted 

 to the leading nations of Europe. The political 

 greatness of the Italians did not endure long. 

 By the discovery of new avenues for commerce, 

 they lost their trade. War robbed them of 

 independence. But they still grasped at the 

 wreath of genius ; and we shall see that, for a 

 time at least, they won and wore it. From 

 Italy, Spain and Portugal caught the classic 

 fire that glows in their best poetry and eloquence. 

 Then came the Elizabethan age of England. 

 More slowly dawned the brightest era of France. 

 Germany, swayed to and fro by contending 

 forces, last perceived the true route she ought to 

 follow, and which has conducted her to so many 

 triumphs. On all these countries, on all their 

 great minds, the literature of Greece and Rome 

 has acted with an operation more or less direct, 

 but in the end always powerful and always bene- 

 ficial. It has elevated the tone of history ; 

 guided and enriched philosophy ; modulated the 

 periods of oratory ; imped the wings of song. 

 An/1, unless wickedness and folly are destined 

 to rebarbarise mankind, that literature must ever 

 continue to stimulate and light them on their 

 intellectual way ; by its difficulties, which exercise 

 without wearying the mental powers ; by its 

 beauties, which have stood the brunt of time ; 

 by its lofty independence of changeful fashions 

 and local partialities, through which it forms a 

 standard that all ages may regard with the same 

 fondness, and all nations cherish with the same 

 pride. 



Nor should it be forgotten that, in conjunction 

 with the treasures of the Greek and Latin tongues, 

 those of the Hebrew language were soon brought, 

 by the zeal of Reuchlin * and his followers, into 

 the hands of the Christian world. Moreover 

 now, exactly at the moment when it was most 

 needed, appeared that great invention, without 

 which these treasures, displayed perhaps for a 

 brief interval, rather to dazzle than instruct, 



A. D. 14551522. 



e 



would have enjoyed no wide and lasting circula- 

 tion. The art of PRINTING^ the most precious 

 gift to man since that of an alphabet, obtained 

 for genius the whole earth as an audience. We 

 are accustomed to dwell on many of the grand 

 results of this invention ; how it helped to break 

 the chains of superstition, to found and fence the 

 citadel of reason, to shake despotism, to render 

 every future conspiracy against knowledge un- 

 availing. Let us rank among its best fruits, that 

 by it the stores of ancient learning were instan- 

 taneously diffused and made immortal. 



And never, we repeat, from that moment of its 

 complete awakening, has the universal mind of 

 Europe relapsed into slumber. Look at her 

 political condition from the Reformation to the 

 commencement of the eighteenth century. Italy, 

 indeed, fell. Spain did not long occupy that 

 pinnacle on which she stood at the abdication of 

 Charles V.J Her riches, amassed for the most 

 part by so much crime ; her insolence, that caused 

 her to aspire to the mastery of the world ; her 

 population ; her moral and intellectual might ; 

 these were exhausted, humbled, prostrated, by 

 the wars of the succeeding hundred years. 

 But in England, France, and Germany, those 

 civil and religious strifes, which broke out anew, 

 fierce and desolating as they were, produced 

 no such final consequences. The tempest that 

 passed over them seemed but to quicken the 

 virtues of the soil. England established her 

 Protestant faith ; secured her liberties ; became 

 mistress of the sea. France forgot a bloody 

 series of insurrections, massacres, and assassi- 

 nations in the glories of Louis the Fourteenth. [| 

 Germany arose from the ashes of the thirty years 



r.^[ Look, in the next place, at the state of 

 European letters for the same period. Though 

 the resurrection of the classics was followed by 

 a burst of pedantry ; by the fooleries of the 

 Apuleian and Ciceronian sects ; by a serious 

 design of some scholars to make Latin the com- 

 mon literary language ; yet these evils quickly 

 vanished, leaving nothing but good behind. 

 Though the din of senseless metaphysics re- 

 sounded again ; though the mysteries of the 

 cabbala, the absurdities of astrology, theosophy, 

 and magic, engrossed some subtle intellects ; 

 though there were faults of puritanism, faults of 

 licentiousness, faults of affectation ; still was 

 there evermore a host of high minds, that either 

 bowed not down at all to the Baals of the day, 

 or ennobled their idolatry by the splendours 

 which they threw around it. Our review of 



t A. D. 14301440. t A. D. 1555. 



5 Down to the peace of Westphalia, A. D. 1648. 

 J A. t). 164J-1715. f A. D. 1418164* 



