authority and ornament, they did honour to the modern, who shone in these plumes of other birds with little expense of thought, and sometimes the actual substance of a book is hardly discernible under this exuberance of rich incrustations. Tacitus, Sallust, Cicero, and Seneca (for the Greeks were in comparison but little read), and many of the Latin poets, were the books that, directly, or by the secondary means of quotation, had most influence over the public opinion. Nor was it surprising that the reverence for antiquity should be still undiminished; for, though the new literature was yielding abundant crops, no comparison between the ancients and moderns could as yet fairly arise. Montaigne, fearless and independent as he was, gave up altogether the pretensions of the latter; yet no one was more destined to lead the way to that renunciation of the authority of the former which the seventeenth century was to witness. He and Machiavel were the two writers who produced the greatest effect upon this age. Some others, such as Guevara and Castiglione, might be full as much read, but they did not possess enough of original thought to shape the opinions of mankind. And these two, to whom we may add Rabelais, seem to be the only writers of the sixteenth century, setting aside poets and historians, who are now much read by the world. 271 CHAPTER I. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE, FROM 1600 TO 1650. SECT. I. Decline of merely Philological, especially Greek, Learning Casaubon - Viger. - Editions of Greek and Latin Classics - Critical Writings - Latin Style Successive Periods of modern Latinists. Scioppius-Vossius Learning of less philological. 1. In every period of literary history, if we should listen to the complaints of contemporary writers, all learning and science have been verging towards extinction. None 17th century remain of the mighty, the race of giants is no more; the lights that have been extinguished burn in no other hands; we have fallen on evil days, when letters are no longer in honour with the world, nor are they cultivated by those who deserve to be honoured. Such are the lamentations of many throughout the whole sixteenth century; and with such do Scaliger and Casaubon greet that which opened upon them. Yet the first part of the seventeenth century may be reckoned eminently the learned age; rather, however, in a more critical and exact erudition with respect to historical fact, than in what is strictly called philology, as to which we cannot, on the whole, rank this so high as the preceding period. Neither Italy nor Germany maintained its reputation, which, as it has been already mentioned, had begun to wane towards the close of the sixtenth century. The same causes were at work, the same preference of studies very foreign to polite letters, metaphysical philosophy, dogmatic theology, patristic or mediæval ecclesiastical history, or, in some countries, the physical sciences, which were rapidly gaining ground. And to these we must add a prevalence of bad taste, even among those who had some pretensions to be reckoned scholars. Lipsius had set an example of abandoning the purest models; and his followers had less sense and taste than himself. They sought obsolete terms from Pacuvius and Plautus, they affected pointed sentences, and a studied conciseness of period, which made their style altogether dry and jejune.* The universities, and even the gymnasia, or schools of Germany, grew negligent of all the beauties of language. Latin itself was acquired in a slovenly manner, by help of modern books, which spared the pains of acquiring any subsidiary knowledge of antiquity. And this neglect of the ancient writers in education caused even eminent scholars to write ill, as we perceive in the supplements of Freinshemius to Curtius and Livy.† 2. A sufficient evidence of this is found in the vast popuPopularity of larity which the writings of Comenius acquired in Comenius. Germany. This author, a man of much industry, some ingenuity, and little judgment, made himself a temporary reputation by his Orbis Sensualium Pictus, and still more by his Janua Linguarum Reserata, the latter published in 1631. This contains, in 100 chapters subdivided into 1000 paragraphs, more than 9300 Latin words, exclusive, of course, of such as recur. The originality of its method consists in weaving all useful words into a series of paragraphs, so that they may be learned in a short time, without the tediousness of a nomenclature. It was also intended to blend a knowledge of things with one of words. The Orbis Sensualium Pictus has the same end. This is what has since been so continually attempted in books of education, that some may be surprised to hear of its originality. No one, however, before Comenius seems to have thought of this method. It must, unquestionably, have appeared to facilitate the early acquirement of knowledge in a very great degree; and even with reference to language, if a compendious mode of getting at Latin words were the object, the works of Comenius would answer the purpose beyond those of any classical author. In a country where Latin was a living and spoken tongue, as was in some measure the case with Germany, no great strict * Biogr. Univ. art. Grævius. Eichhorn, iii. 1. 320. † Eichhorn, 326. |