HISTORY OF BOTANY. 219 



guisbed ; " Mistress of the world," corrupted by victories, and 

 by tyrants, she had abandoned herself to luxury. The false 

 philosophy of the vanquished Greeks reigned in the schools ol 

 victorious Rome, chasing away every trace of true knowledge. 

 Religious fanaticism had also its influence; pretended Chris- 

 tians, as well as Pagans, destroyed libraries and the monuments 

 of literature, sacred and profane. At tliis time the barbarians 

 of the North and AYest precipitated themselves upon a country 

 weakened by effeminate habits. Italy, ravaged by the Huns 

 and Vandals, became successively the prey of the Heruli, of the 

 Goths and Lombards. These people, nursed in war, abhorred the 

 sciences and arts ; and believing they were unfavorable to courage, 

 allowed not their children to cultivate them. The Latin ceased 

 to be the common language, and a corrupt mixture of barbarous 

 languages took its place. The population was greatly diminish- 

 ed ; the country, formerly fertile and cultivated became over- 

 grown with forests and inhabited by wild beasts. In this dark 

 period Botany shared the fate of other sciences. The monks, 

 strangers to the first elements of literature, and yet passing for 

 the lights of their age, spake in a barbarous language of the 

 plants of Theophrastus and Pliny, commented upon writings 

 they were incapable of comprehending, and mingled with their 

 errors respecting facts the most shameful superstitions. 



335. The state of science was thus gloomy in the empire of 

 the West, when Cnariemagne vainly endeavored to relight the 

 torch of human knowledge in this barbarous age. Charlemagne 

 entered into a correspondence with the famous Calif of the 

 Saracens, Ilaroun Alraschid, a man who greatly contributed 

 towards polishing and enlightening the Arabians ; and who pre- 

 ferred the friendship of the King of France to that of all the 

 princes of Europe, because none, like Charlemagne, possessed a 

 desire for intellectual greatness. After the death of Charle- 

 magne, which took place in the year Sl-l, Europe became in- 

 volved in still greater mental darkness than before. When the 

 Western empire, weakened by luxury and effeminacy, had fallen 

 an easy prey into the hands of barbarians, the empire of the 

 East, though feeble, yet preserved the precious deposits of an- 

 cient literature ; but the greater part of the learned, occupied 

 with the subtleties of scholastic theology, made no effort to en- 

 large the boundaries of natural science. Religious intolerance 

 drove from the empire many enlightened men, who, banished 

 by the emperor Theodosius, carried among the Arabs the taste 

 for Greek and Latin literature, and founded schools uj^on the 

 shores of the Euphrates, where they taught rhetoric, languages, 



Barbarians ravage Italy— Language corrupted — Botany shared the fate of other sciences — 33o. Char 

 iemague — Decline of learning in the Empire of tiie East. 



