ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGES. 



345 



jiiost artful and politic character, and which, in our own day, has been 

 closely copied by the crafty tyrant of France,* to plant its vernacular 

 tongue wherever it planted its arms. Greece formed the only exception 

 to this general rule ; and, from its admitted superiority of taste and genius, 

 was allowed to teach its conquerors instead of being taught by them. 

 With this exception all the rest of Europe was Latmized in a greater or 

 less degree. The Latinity, indeed, was of the most barbarous kind imaginable 

 — for the dialect was, in almost every instance, a mongrel breed of Romark 

 and aboriginal terms, with imperfect inflexions and unauthorized idioms, 

 ready for any other change that chance might suggest or future conquest 

 impose. 



The barbarian conquerors of the north, however, seemed to have cared 

 as little about their respective dialects as about their religion ; and hence, 

 in both instances, they gave and took alternately with the different nations, 

 that submitted to their yoke. Yet as fresh tides of invaders poured for- 

 ward, the Latin character progressively died away ; and pure Latin was 

 at length no longer known except as the language of the learned. Even 

 in Rome itself it ceased to be spoken at the commencement of the seventh 

 century ; and the descendants of Caesar and Cicero, and Virgil and Ho- 

 race, were incapable of reading the immortal productions of their fore- 

 fathers. It had already ceased for some ages to be employed in the Greek 

 empire ; having here been supplanted by the Greek tongue itself, the pre- 

 vailing language of the country, and the fashionable language of every 

 polite Roman, shortly after the removal of the imperial court to the eastern 

 metropolis, in the reign of Constantino. 



With respect to language, Mahomet pursued the same plan as the Ro- 

 mans. Wherever he conquered he introduced the Alcoran, and compelled 

 every nation to read and to understand it in his own tongue. And hence, 

 during the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, the only genuine languages 

 spoken throughout the civilized world were Greek and Arabic ; both de- 

 rived from a similar source, and of very early origin ; and both existing 

 without any very great degree of variation to the preser t hour ; but neither 

 of them employed at any time as a vernacular tongue, in the north or south, 

 or even the west of Europe, except in Spain, where the Arabic was used 

 during the dominion of the western caliphat in that country. In conse- 

 quence of which the Latinity of the Spanish tongue is considerably tinctured 

 with Arabic terms and phraseologies, and possesses less resemblance to 

 its Roman origin than the Portuguese, which, as being more remote, was 

 less affected by the Saracen invasion and conquest. 



The controversies of the church, and the subtle logomachies, or word- 

 wars of the school-men, were conducted sometimes in Greek, but far 

 more generally in Latin. And as only the former of these tongues was 

 known to the people of the eastern, and neither of them to those of the 

 western empire, the laity, in general, were completely cut off from all 

 knowledge of the httle and only learning that was alternately exercised, 

 excepting as occasionally explained to them in whatever might happen to 

 be their vernacular tongue. 



Upon the fall of the Latin language, the rude dialect that was most 

 approved in France and Italy was the Provengal, or that made use of in 

 Provence and its vicinity ; and it was hence exclusively employed by the 

 Troveurs or Troubadours, as they were called, Provencal poets that about 



* This lecture was delivered in 1813, during the domiu€ering- power of Buonaparte, 



