ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGES. 



299 



But a mode of acquiring a familiar and systematic initiation into the gene- 

 ral circle of the arts and sciences was still felt desirable for the body of the 

 people; a sort of rudimental education, by which they might be able to assist 

 and appropriate the knowledge that was flowing around them in every direc- 

 tion ; that might call forth their own energies and resources, and reflect with 

 increased lustre the light in which they were walking. And hence have 

 arisen these scientific schools which are now commonly known by the name 

 of Institutions ; and especially, if I mistake not, the school I have the honour 

 of addressing. 



An establishment of this kind, to be perfect, should be possessed of a 

 library adequate to every inquiry — a laboratory and a museum of equal ex- 

 tent, and a course of instruction commensurate with the whole circle of the 

 sciences. Such an establishment, however, is not to be expected ; and espe- 

 cially in our own country, where the government is seldom solicited for 

 assistance, and the sole endowment results from the joint patronage and con- 

 tribution of individuals. All that remains for us, therefore, is to make the 

 best use of the means that are in our power, and to carry them to the utmost 

 extent they will reach ; and I can honestly congratulate the members of the 

 Institution before me with having, in this respect, conscientiously acted up 

 to the fullest limits of their duty, and of having rather set an example than 

 followed one ; for it is a matter of notoriety to the world at large, that there 

 is no other Institution in which the same measure of income has been ex- 

 tended to the same measure of acquiring knowledge, whether by books or 

 by lectures. 



LECTURE XII. 



ON THE MroOLE OR DARK AGES. 



If we examine the history of Europe in a literary point of view, we shall 

 find it consist of three distinct periods — an era of light, of darkness, and of 

 light restored. To the first of these periods I directed your attention in the 

 preceding lecture. We noticed the general state of literature and the mode 

 of education adopted in Greece and Rome, at the most splendid epochs of 

 these celebrated republics, and briefly compared them with the means of ac- 

 quiring knowledge in our own day ; and we at the same time glanced rapidly 

 at the intervening space, or middle period ; or rather only touched upon a few 

 of its leading features, from an impossibility of compressing even a minia- 

 ture sketch of its history into the limits of a single lecture; though it may 

 be remembered that I threw out a pledge of returning to the subject on the 

 present occasion, and of investigating it in a more regular detail. 



A part of that pledge I shall now, by your permission, endeavour to re 

 deem ; by taking a survey of the general literature, or ignorance of mankind, 

 which characterized that wonderful era which has usually been described by 

 the name of the dark, or MmDLE ages ; and which extends from the fall of 

 Rome before the barbarous arms of the Goths, in the fifth century, to the fall 

 of Constantinople before the equally barbarous arms of the Turks, in the 

 fifteenth century; thus comprising a long aflflictive night of not less than a 

 thousand years ; yet occasionally illuminated by stars of the first magnitude 

 and splendour: and big with the important events of the sack of Alexandria 

 and the destruction of its library; the triumph and establishment of the Sa- 

 racens, and their expulsion from Spain ; the devastation of Europe, and the 

 overthrow of its ancient governments in favour of the feudal system, by suc- 

 cessive currents of barbarians from the north-west of Asia, pouring down 

 under the various names of Alans, Huns, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths, or East- 

 ern and Western Goths ; sometimes in separate tides, and sometimes in one 



