ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGES. 



What," says he, " shall I say of the beauteous Helen ; of her who broughl. 

 together all Greece against Troy ? Does she mitigate these immitigable, 

 these iron-hearted men ? No — nothing like it could even she effect, who 

 had before enslaved so many spectators with her beauty. Her lips," con- 

 tinues he, ^'like opening fl»)wers, were gently parted, as if she were going 

 to speak : md as for that graceful smile, which instantly met the behold€>r, 

 al5d filled him with delight ; those elegant curvatures of her eyebrows, 

 and the remaming harmony of her figure ; they were what no words «att 

 describe and deliver down to posterity."* 



Flrom the ^ame demo liao sf)irit proceeded the infuriate crusade against 

 the virtuous Albigeois or Albigenses in the thirteenth century ; and the 

 long and savage persecutions of the Waldenses or Vaudois, which con- 

 tinued almost without intermission for eighty or ninety years ; and the de- 

 population of Spain, by an equal expulsion of Jews and Moors, when the 

 Christian arms had once more proved successful in that country. It was 

 during the crusade against the Albigeois (and it is the only anecdote 1 need' 

 advance in proof of the blind and indiscriminate fury with which these 

 adventures were conducteri) that, when a scruple arose among the cru- 

 sading army as to the propriety of storming the city of Bezieres, after 

 having made preparation for so doing in consequence of its being peopled 

 with catholics as well as with heretics ; a dexterous casuist settled the point 

 abruptly, by exclaiming, Killthem all : God knows which arehisown."t 



independently of any other cause, therefore, it must be obvious that the 

 internal disputes of the Christian church itself, or rather that which was 

 called Christian, in which every nation, and almost every individual took 

 a part, were alone sufficient to have repelled the progress of liberal and 

 ^enhghtened science. But beyond this, very soon after the introduction of 

 Christianity, a fondness for the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras 

 prompted the more speculative ecclesiastics to investigate the mysteries of 

 the divinity and humanity of oiir Saviour with too nice a curiosity ; and 

 hence the famous controversies of Praxeas, Sabelhus, A.rius, Nestorius, 

 Eutyches, and various others, most of which led to very extensive proscrip- 

 tions and persecutions. The schoolmen carried this itch for discussio^n 

 into the most visionary subtleties of metaphysics, and acquired high- 

 sounding titles by devoting the whole of their lives to an investigation of 

 trifles that would disgrace a nursery. The Bishops of Rome, after having 

 advanced themselves to the popedom or supremacy of the Church, and in- 

 vested themselves with territorial power, soon began to arrogate a tempo- 

 ral as well as a spiritual supremacy throughout Christendom ; and hence 

 the different courts of Europe, and at times even the emperors, were in a 

 state of perpetual hostihty with them ; sometitnes the emperors obtaining 

 a triumph and deposing the popes, and sometimes the popes proving suc- 

 cessful and deposing the emperors : and hence the separation of the Greek 

 church from that of Rome, in the middle of the ninth century, and of the 

 English church towards the beginning of the sixteenth. 



There is another cause, and it is the last I shall notice, which powerfully 

 contributed to the night of error and ignorance, which overspread the 

 nioral horizon during the melancholy period before us ; and that is, the 

 general chaos which prevailed in the language of almost every nation of 

 the civilized world, and the consequent want of some current medium of 

 communication. It was a maxim of the Roman government, and of a 



* Harria, ii. 465, 456. 



t Hist, des Troubadourt, i. 193. 



