348 



ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 



eircumstances indicates, the following may, perhaps, be regarded as among 

 the principal. 



First, the natural spring or elasticity of the human mind, by means of 

 which, though it may for a time be borne down by a weight of ignorance 

 or oppression, it at length rouses from its turpitude, resumes its innate 

 energy, and shakes off the vampire burthen with a recoil proportioned tp 

 the pressure that subdued or stifled it. 



Seco ndly, he sudden flight and dispersion'of the best and almost the 

 only literary characters of the age frorn the walls of Constantinople, upon 

 the capture of this elegant and renowned city by the Turks, under the 

 victorious banners of Mahomet II. 



Thirdly, the taste for literature which, at this very period, was reviving 

 in many of the Italian states, and more particularly at Florence under the 

 illustrious family of the Medici ; and especially the election of the cele- 

 brated Giovanni de' Medici to the pontificate, under the name of Leo X. 



Fourthly, the facihty aflfbrded by the art of printing, discovered at the 

 very period of the fall of Constantinople, to the diflusion of useful and 

 polite learning in every direction. 



And, fifthly, and, perhaps, chiefly, the general attention and spirit of 

 inquiry, which were excited throughout every country in Christendom, by 

 the grand and eventful drama of the Reformation at this time exhibiting 

 in Germany. 



Let us attend to each of these causes in the order in which I have stated 

 them. 



I. Vice and ignorance are the necessary companions of each other : 

 such is the immutable law of nature ; and we can no more reverse 

 it, than we can reverse the stars in their courses ; and nothing can ex- 

 ceed the extreme to which both w^ere carried during the period of the 

 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; and to which the whole texture 

 of the feudal system, and the abominations of the Vatican tyranny, equally 

 contributed. 



When the barbarous and intermixed tribes of Goths, Huns, and Van- 

 dals, poured down in successive streams from the north, and overran the 

 diflferent provinces of the Roman empire, ihe conquered lands'distributed 

 by lot, and thence called allotted or allodial^ were held in entire sovereignty 

 by the difl^erpnt chieftains, without any other obligation existing between 

 them than that of uniting on great occasions to defend the community. 

 Additional tribes still succeeded : — wider tracks of country were subdued, 

 and many individuals occupied land to a very considerable extent : while 

 the king or captain-general, who led on his respective tribes to conquest, 

 naturally acquired by far the largest portion of territory as his own share. 

 These lands he found it convenient, in order to maintain his influence, to 

 divide among his principal followers, merely subjecting them, for the grant, 

 to certain aids and military services. 



His example was imitated by his courtiers, who distributed, under simi- 

 lar conditions, portions of their estates to their dependants. Thus a 

 feudal kingdom became a military establishment, and had the appearance 

 of a victorious army, subordinate to command, and encamped under its 

 officers in different parts of the country ; every captain or baron consider- 

 ing himself independent of his sovereign, except during a period of na- 

 tional war. Possessed of wide tracts of country, and residing at a dis- 

 tance from the capital,'^hey erected strong and gloomy fortresses in places 

 of cTifficuii aeces^s ; a*id not only oppressed the people, and slighted what- 



