54 Oriental Literature. 



into German, by Schutze; and Plutarch, also 

 into German, by Penzel. 



Versions of Virgil were made, in the period of 

 this retrospect, into Italian, by Bendi; and into 

 German, by Voss and Spitzenbergen; of Horace, 

 into French, by Sanadon and Darcu; of S alius t, 

 into German, by Schluter; and of Tacitus, into 

 French, by Guerrin, Bletterie, and Dotter- 

 ville. 



But notwithstanding all the labours of learned 

 men to promote the knowledge of the Greek and 

 Latin classics, the study of them was almost uni- 

 formly declining from the beginning to the end of 

 the century. And in the course of little more than 

 two centuries, this kind of knowledge, from being 

 considered the most interesting and important that 

 could occupy the attention of man, came to be 

 regarded, by a large portion of the literary world, 

 as among the most useless objects of pursuit. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 



THE literature of Asia, the birth- place and cradle 

 of our species, where Philosophy first reared her 

 head, and whence Greece and Rome borrowed a 

 large portion of their knowledge, cannot be other- 

 wise than highly interesting to the enlightened 

 and inquisitive mind. At the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century much had been written, but 

 comparatively little was really known concerning 

 that important part of the globe. The works 



