704 De Sales’ Philfophical Sketch of the Progrefs of Literature: 
fuperftitious rites of the Greek theo- 
logy,—thus preparing in the recefs of 
ages thofe weapons with which, one day 
or,other, the dangerous coloffus ae fuper- 
ftition will be overthrown. 
The hero, in my cpinion, of this age, 
maft fo be admired, was Marcus Aurelius 
himfelf ; ‘whofe thoyehts, pure as thofe of 
an Evangelif?, but far 
were ever intent on refining morality by 
that culture which human reafon can only 
applaud—the culture of human nature. 
Marcas Aurelius died in the 180th 
year of the vulgar era: 150 years from 
that time began the epocha, when Con-~ 
fiantine, in transferring to Byzantium 
the throne of the Cx iar. gave a new 1m- 
pulfe to the political ev and accumu- 
lated the flades of ignorance more and 
More over the plains of literature. 
in this long interval, only one man ap- 
nos worth mentioning, whom nature, in 
a forgetful mood, feems to have caft on 
thele times or barbarity and ignorance ; it 
was the celeprated Lo: Aginus, who wrote 
on the fublime in a manner worthy of the 
fubject; and him~the fierce Aurelian, 
vanquifner of Zencbia, for that eloquence 
which could only revile his crimes, pu- 
nifhed with death. ~ : 
~Conftantine, in that city which he 
founded on the banks: of the Propontis, 
eo the. crofs of Chriftianity in 
place of the Roman Eagle; it was at this 
time that philofophy, fhackled by pro- 
{cription, began to flatter a court religi ion, 
in which it did not believ ye; till the time 
of the illuftricus Julian, who fuppreffed 
it afecond time, and imitated in every 
refpect his predeceflor Marcus. Aure- 
linus. 
Unfortunately this reign of Julian being 
ee his endeavours to Tee the caufe of 
reafon were of no avail; and the fyftem 
which was adopted by the politics of Con- 
{tantine cantinued to extend itS 1ron {cep- 
tre over the improvements of knowledge. 
At laft Odoacre,. a cacique of a favage 
horde of Lombards, came to Rome in the 
year 476, cepofed Aveuftulus, and put 
an end to the domination of the Cefars in 
the Weft. 
of philofophy and letters: frem that mo- 
ment the age cf Augu&us was no more, 
not even in the memory, of thofe perfons 
whohad keen the witnefles oars long decay. 
~* Four hundred years had clapfed from 
the deftruGion of the Wettern empire, to 
the time that Charlemagne, by overturh- 
ing the reign of the Lombards in Italy, 
endeave fees but in vain, to impart his 
heroifm . the Romans, and his genius to 
the reft of Europe. 
4 
mcre . fublime, 
fined to his own age. 
This completed the deftfuction- 
[Oe 
By a concurrence of fingular events, .it 
happened, that at the time when Charle- 
magne was endeavouring to move literary 
Europe by the lever of his own genius, a 
chief among the Arabian Califs, Aaron 
Rafchild, was trying the fame experiment 
in Afia, and, by a fuccefsful invafion of 
Saracens, tran {ported into Spain the Ara- 
bian language, the Eaftern arts, ‘and the 
haughty {pirit of ancient chivalry. 
The feeds of {cience, fcattered by Aaron 
Rafchild in Afia, continued to flourith for 
many ages; but the benefits that Charle- 
magne conferred on knowledge were con- 
At his death there 
were no literary men in Europe except 
monks, who may be {aid to have battened 
fecretly in the night of theology: from 
that time to the overthrow of the Eaftera 
a 
empire, a fpace of time including fix hun- - 
dred years, the world, China excepted, 
fome Arabian’ villages, and the country 
of the Troubadours, feemed enveloped in 
a chaos of barbarity, as if retrograding to 
thofe times anterior to the focial compact. 
We muft now fly over, with tlie rapi- 
dity of thought that interval of fix hun- 
dred years, to the true modern era of arts 
and iciences, that is, to the overthrow of ° 
the empire of Conftantine by the fecond 
Mahomet. “That was the epocha, when 
the literati of ancient Byzantium, obliged 
to return. to Italy, brought back with ~ 
them the germs of human “feience : they 
were afterwards colleéted by France, dur- 
ing the hoftile invafions of Charles the 
eighth, Francis the Firft, and Louis the 
welfehs and thence diffufed over the reft 
of Eurcpe 
It is Sith regret that I cannot Le 
to my {cale the two brilliant but ifolated 
reigns of Aaron and Charlemagne ; thofe 
reigns feem equally difowned by every re 
fined age; like the iflands in the South 
Sea, thrown by nature to a frightful dif: 
tance from the three worlds, and where 
Cook at the fame time was idolized and 
affaffinated. 
My plan of uniting in this work the 
hiftory cf literature with that of literary 
men gives me an opportunity of conneét- 
ing, in fpite of the interregnum of fix 
ages, the acceflion of the arts under the 
Medici, with thefe important triumphs 
effeted by the genius. of Aaron and _ 
Teens 
Tt is a defign to draw the grand out. 
lines of thofe men, who, for thefe thou- 
fand years 
nien, and preferved it from apathy. 
Under this de efcription, the Arabian hero 
and the hero of France have the fame 
natural 
/ 
, have agitated the public opi _ 
