805 
LITERATURE, 
is referred to Tirabofchi, Millot, and Antonio Sanchez, 
The author forgets not the minftrels of Great Britain. 
"William of Gloucefter wrote a chronicle in rhyme, as early 
.as 1280 j but our readers will learn more on this head 
from Percy and Warton than can be obtained from any 
foreigner. M. Meufel gives a long account of the Ger¬ 
man and Scandinavian poets; to which we muft refer our 
readers. We alfo pafs over the fedtion on the Italian poets, 
from Guinicelli to Boccacio; becaufe their hiftory is well 
known in this country. 
The principal advancement of medical fcience in this 
period was derived from the ltudy of anatomy ; the father 
of which was Mondini de’ Luzzi, profelfor at Bologna, in 
1315. His work on this fubjeit was firft publiihed at 
Lyons in 1551. The principal phyficians of this period 
were Arabians ; namely Abulcafis, Aben-Zohar, Eben- 
Beither, and Averroes. Among the Greeks, Actuarius, 
and Demetrius Pepagomenus. In the well, Roger of 
Parma, William of Solicelo, Lanfranc of Milan, Thad- 
d^us of Florence, Arnoldus of Villa-nova, Torrigiano 
Ruftichelli, Mundini, Simon de Cordo, Palvaticus of 
Mantua, and Savonarola. All thefe were Italians. From 
them, the French and other European nations borrowed 
the little which they knew. 
The principal Greek civilian of this period was Her- 
menopolus of Conftantinople ; and the principal canonifls 
were Zonaras and Balfamon. The mod; celebrated j 11- 
rifts of the weft, were, Irnerius of Bologna, Bulgarus, 
(called Golden-mouth,) his rival Martinas Gofianus, 
Portius Azzo, the two Accurfii, and Ardizzone; all Ita¬ 
lians. They were termed Gloftatores, and were followed 
by the Commentators, the chief of whom was Bartolus ; 
whofe works in eleven vols. folio were publiflied at Ve¬ 
nice in 1615. His difciple Baldus wrote comments on 
the Digefts, publiftied in an equal number of volumes at 
Venice in 1616. The canon-law was reduced by Gratian 
to a fyftem, commonly called Codex Decretorum ; which 
produced a number of commentators ; of whom the molt 
renowned were Marianus Socinus and Raymond de Peg- 
nafort. France and Germany followed, in general, the 
Roman jurifprudence; with lome local rights and privi¬ 
leges of their own. In England, this period gave birth 
to° the famous Magna Charta; the great bulwark of its 
national freedom to the prelent day. 
During the firft part of this period, theology was a jar¬ 
gon of metaphyfical fubtleties ; an uncouth medley of ar¬ 
ticles of faith and peripatetic reveries ; hut, in the twelfth 
century, the famous monk of Clairvaux, St. Bernard, gave 
a new turn to the fcience by large quotations from the 
fcripture, which he employed with wonderful eafe, and 
with great efteift. Some of his homilies are a mere tilfue 
of fcripture-texts, but fo well put together as to appear one 
natural feries. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
the writings of Wickliif and Hufs gave a new lnape to 
divinity, 3nd paved the way for the reformation. Of 
the fcripture-commentators of this period, the principal 
were De Lyra, Rupertus, Hugo of St. Vidor, and Tolta- 
tus. The dogmatilts were Hildebert, Abelard, Bernard, 
Lombard, (or the mailer of i'entences,) Albert the Great, 
'Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas; who have already 
been mentioned under the head of philofophy. Of pole¬ 
mic divines,, we find among the Greeks, Cantacuzenus, 
Theophanes, and Simeon of Thelfalonica ; in the weft, 
Ficinus, Raymond of Pegnafort, Savonarola, Moneta, and 
Raymond Martini, whole work againft the Jews is well 
known. To thefe we mult add the celebrated production 
of Aquinas, called Sumtna contra Gentiles. Moral theo¬ 
logy was blended with the dogmatic, and treated by the 
fame authors ; more particularly by the matter of len¬ 
iences and Aquinas; from whom, chiefly Vincent of 
Beauvais compiled his great Speculum Morale, publiihed at 
Douay in 4. vols. folio, 1624. To this period we owe the 
Origin of myftic divinity, in the weft at leal!; where the 
'Pleudo-Dionyfius (called the Areopagite) had new made 
bis appearance, and was embraced with eagernefs by the 
vifionaries of the time; and whofe doctrines were particu¬ 
larly propagated by the works of Thaulerus. In this clafs, 
in fome refpefts, may be ranked the famous book De Imi- 
tatione Chrilti, by Thomas a Kempis; which has been a* 
often edited, and trandated into as many languages, per¬ 
haps, as even the Holy Bible itfelf. It is indeed a won¬ 
derful compofition, and devoid of abnoft all the extrava¬ 
gant abfurdities which difgrace molt other myltical writ¬ 
ings. Preaching was revived towards the end of this pe¬ 
riod, principally by the Dominicans; who were hence 
called Fratres Predicatores, or preaching friars. The moft 
celebrated preachers were Jerome Savonarola, and Kaifer- 
berg of Strafburg. 
VI. From the Revival of Letters to the prefent Time ; i. e.from 
1500 to 1800. 
We are now to confider a portion of hiftory the moft 
interefting in the annals of mankind. The accounts of 
the former ages feern to regard a totally different clafs of 
beings ; but the events which we are at prefent to con¬ 
template refer immediately to ourfelves, and to our actual 
ftate of knowledge. The valt ltrides which fcience made 
in this period had been already prepared, fo far as regarded 
their external caufes, chiefly towards the end of the period 
preceding; and the cor.queft of Conftantinople, the dif- 
covery of America, that of a paffage by the Cape of 
Good Hope, and, more than all, the invention of the art 
of printing, had largely contributed to the dift’ufion of 
learning and philofophy. The increafed importance of 
the middle clafs of mankind excited a fpirit of inquiry, 
which tended to fecure their freedom. Luther, Melanch- 
thon, and Calvin, were zealous in the liberation of man¬ 
kind from the chains of fpiritual' bondage ; and the keen 
fatire of Erafmus, Hutten, and Nizolius, brought into 
deferved ridicule the falfe learning of the age. 
During the confuiion of foreign warfare and internal 
tumult, a plan for the extenfion of fcience was laid in 
England by Bacon ; and the principal laws of nature were 
difclofed in Italy by Galileo. Newton, Bayle, Leibnitz, 
Sec. united in eftablifhing philofophy on the fure bails of 
experiment ; and Frederic II. Button, Hutchefon, Hel- 
vetius, Rouffeau, Voltaire, &c. ever preaching up reafon, 
though even to them its primary principles were not yet 
clearly evident, were active in dii'pelling prejudice from 
the minds of men. The labours of Hume and of Kant, 
according to M. Meufel, have been moft fuccefsful in 
tracing the limits of human intellect, and in pointing 
out the true balls of reafoning. 
The principal promoters of learning were, in Italy, the 
popes Leo X. Gregory XIII. Sextus V. Urban VIII. Be¬ 
nedict XIV. Clement XIV. and Pius VI. in Germany, 
Maximilian I. Ferdinand I. Maximilian II. Rudolphus II. 
Ferdinand III. Leopold I. Charles VI. Francis I. and 
Jofeph II. in Portugal, John V. and Poinbal, prime mi- 
nilter under king Jofeph Emmanuel; in Spain, cardinal 
Ximenes, Philip V. Ferdinand VI. and Charles III. in 
France, Francis I. cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV. XV. 
and XVI. in England, Henry VIII. Elizabeth, James I. 
Charles II. William III. George II. and III. in Den¬ 
mark, Frederic II. Chriftian IV. Frederic III. Chriftian V. 
and VI. and Frederic V. in Sweden, Guftavus I. and II. 
Chriltina, Frederic, Adolphus-Frederic, and Guftavus III. 
in Poland, Stephen Batheri, John Cafunir, John Sobielky, 
Auguitus II. and III. and Staniflaus Augultus; inRuflia, 
Peter I. Elizabeth, and Catharine II. in Pruflia, Fre¬ 
deric I. and II. Frederic-William III. and belides .thefe, 
feveral German electors, princes, and others. 
The perfons by whofe influence learning was chiefly 
benefited were, Erafmus, Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, 
Beza, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Grotius, Defcartes, Con- 
ring, Puffendorf, Boyle, Bayle, Locke, Leibnitz, New¬ 
ton, Thomafius, Wolf, Moflieim, Voltaire, Roulfeau,, 
Letting, Franklin, and Kant. 
The prog;refs of the fciences had a favourable influence 
on fchools. Luther and Melanchthon particularly diftin- 
guilhei 
