The opening of XVIII. 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--Scioppius--Vossius--Successive Periods of modern Latinists.
|Learning of 17th century 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 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.