HISTORY OF BOTANY. 323 



influence ; pretended Christians, as well as Pagans, destroyed libra- 

 ries and the monuments of literature, sacred and profane. 



At this time the barbarians of the north and west 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 enervated 

 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 diminished ; the country, formerly fertile and cultivated, be- 

 came overgrown 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, spoke in a barbarous language of the 

 plants of Theophrastus and Pliny, commented upon writings they 

 were incapable of comprehending, and mingled with their errors re- 

 specting facts, the most shameful superstitions 



LECTURE XLIII, 



HISTORY OF BOTANY, FROM THE EIGHTH CENTURY TO THE DISCOVERY OF 

 AMERICA. 



The state of science was thus gloomy in the empire of the West, 

 when Charlemagne, a monarch endowed with a genius for learning 

 and civilization, vainly endeavoured to relight the torch of human 

 knowledge in this barbarous age. The renown of Charlemagne ex- 

 tended to Asia ; he entered into a correspondence with the famous 

 Calif of the Saracens, Haroun Alraschid, a man who greatly con- 

 tributed towards polishing and enlightening the Arabians ; and who 

 preferred 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 Charlemagne, 

 which took place in the year 814, Europe became involved 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 deposites of an- 

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

 the subtleties of scholastic theology, made no effort to enlarge 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 upon the shores of the Euphrates, 

 where they taught rhetoric, languages, and medicine. 



The Arabs, fond of mysteries, and led by their genius and ardent 

 imaginations to the cultivation of poetry and works of fiction, 

 seemed to have little taste for sciences which required assiduous ap- 

 plication and patient investigation. Urged on by fanaticism, under 

 Mahomet they were the conquerors and scourges of the civilized 

 world. Alexandria experienced their ruthless violence. This city, 



Barbarians ravage Italy— Language corrupted— Botany shared the fate of other 

 sciences— Charlemagne— Decline of learning in the Empire of the East— Literature 

 carried among the Arabs. 



