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THE WORKS OF HENRY HALLAM.
Introduction
TO THE
LITERATURE OF EUROPE
IN THE FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH,
AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
BY
HENRY HALLAM, F.R.A.S.,
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES IN THE FRENCH INSTITUTE.
VOLUME II.
WARD, LOCK & CO.,
LONDON: WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. NEW YORK: BOND STREET.
Chapter I
ON THE GENERAL STATE OF LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE END OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
Page Retrospect of Learning in Middle Ages Necessary 1 Loss of learning in Fall of Roman Empire 1 Boethius--his Consolation of Philosophy 1 Rapid Decline of Learning in Sixth Century 2 A Portion remains in the Church 2 Prejudices of the Clergy against Profane Learning 2 Their Uselessness in preserving it 3 First Appearances of reviving Learning in Ireland and England 3 Few Schools before the Age of Charlemagne 3 Beneficial Effects of those Established by him 4 The Tenth Century more progressive than usually supposed 4 Want of Genius in the Dark Ages 5 Prevalence of bad Taste 5 Deficiency of poetical Talent 5 Imperfect State of Language may account for this 6 Improvement at beginning of Twelfth Century 6 Leading Circumstances in Progress of Learning 6 Origin of the University of Paris 6 Modes of treating the Science of Theology 6 Scholastic Philosophy--its Origin 7 Roscelin 7 Progress of Scholasticism; Increase of University of Paris 8 Universities founded 8 Oxford 8 Collegiate Foundations not derived from the Saracens 9 Scholastic Philosophy promoted by Mendicant Friars 9 Character of this Philosophy 10 It prevails least in Italy 10 Literature in Modern Languages 10 Origin of the French, Spanish, and Italian Languages 10 Corruption of colloquial Latin in the Lower Empire 11 Continuance of Latin in Seventh Century 12 It is changed to a new Language in Eighth and Ninth 12 Early Specimens of French 13 Poem on Boethius 13 Provençal Grammar 14 Latin retained in use longer in Italy 14 French of Eleventh Century 14 Metres of Modern Languages 15 Origin of Rhyme in Latin 16 Provençal and French Poetry 16 Metrical Romances--Havelok the Dane 18 Diffusion of French Language 19 German Poetry of Swabian Period 19 Decline of German Poetry 20 Poetry of France and Spain 21 Early Italian Language 22 Dante and Petrarch 22 Change of Anglo-Saxon to English 22 Layamon 23 Progress of English Language 23 English of the Fourteenth Century--Chaucer, Gower 24 General Disuse of French in England 24 State of European Languages about 1400 25 Ignorance of Reading and Writing in darker Ages 25 Reasons for supposing this to have diminished after 1100 26 Increased Knowledge of Writing in Fourteenth Century 27 Average State of Knowledge in England 27 Invention of Paper 28 Linen Paper when first used 28 Cotton Paper 28 Linen Paper as old as 1100 28 Known to Peter of Clugni 29 And in Twelfth and Thirteenth Century 29 Paper of mixed Materials 29 Invention of Paper placed by some too low 29 Not at first very important 30 Importance of Legal Studies 30 Roman Laws never wholly unknown 31 Irnerius--his first Successors 31 Their Glosses 31 Abridgements of Law--Accursius’s Corpus Glossatum 31 Character of early Jurists 32 Decline of Jurists after Accursius 32 Respect paid to him at Bologna 33 Scholastic Jurists--Bartolus 33 Inferiority of Jurists in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 34 Classical Literature and Taste in dark Ages 34 Improvement in Tenth and Eleventh Centuries 34 Lanfranc and his Schools 35 Italy--Vocabulary of Papias 36 Influence of Italy upon Europe 36 Increased copying of Manuscripts 36 John of Salisbury 36 Improvement of Classical Taste in Twelfth Century 37 Influence of increased Number of Clergy 38 Decline of Classical Literature in Thirteenth Century 38 Relapse into Barbarism 38 No Improvement in Fourteenth Century--Richard of Bury 39 Library formed by Charles V. at Paris 39 Some Improvement in Italy during Thirteenth Century 40 Catholicon of Balbi 40 Imperfection of early Dictionaries 40 Restoration of Letters due to Petrarch 40 Character of his Style 41 His Latin Poetry 41 John of Ravenna 41 Gasparin of Barziza 42
II. ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1400 TO 1440
Zeal for Classical Literature in Italy 42 Poggio Bracciolini 42 Latin Style of that Age indifferent 43 Gasparin of Barziza 43 Merits of his Style 43 Victorin of Feltre 44 Leonard Aretin 44 Revival of Greek Language in Italy 44 Early Greek Scholars of Europe 44 Under Charlemagne and his Successors 45 In the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries 45 In the Twelfth 46 In the Thirteenth 46 Little Appearance of it in the Fourteenth Century 47 Some Traces of Greek in Italy 47 Corruption of Greek Language itself 47 Character of Byzantine Literature 48 Petrarch and Boccace learn Greek 48 Few acquainted with the Language in their Time 49 It is taught by Chrysoloras about 1395 49 His Disciples 49 Translations from Greek into Latin 50 Public Encouragement delayed 51 But fully accorded before 1440 51 Emigration of learned Greeks to Italy 52 Causes of Enthusiasm for Antiquity in Italy 52 Advanced State of Society 52 Exclusive Study of Antiquity 53 Classical Learning in France low 53 Much more so in England 53 Library of Duke of Gloucester 54 Gerard Groot’s College at Deventer 54 Physical Sciences in Middle Ages 55 Arabian Numerals and Method 55 Proofs of them in Thirteenth Century 56 Mathematical Treatises 56 Roger Bacon 57 His Resemblance to Lord Bacon 57 English Mathematicians of Fourteenth Century 57 Astronomy 58 Alchemy 58 Medicine 58 Anatomy 58 Encyclopædic Works of Middle Ages 58 Vincent of Beauvais 59 Berchorius 59 Spanish Ballads 59 Metres of Spanish Poetry 60 Consonant and assonant Rhymes 60 Nature of the Glosa 61 The Cancionero General 61 Bouterwek’s Character of Spanish Songs 61 John II. 62 Poets of his Court 62 Charles, Duke of Orleans 62 English Poetry 62 Lydgate 63 James I. of Scotland 63 Restoration of Classical Learning due to Italy 63 Character of Classical Poetry lost in Middle Ages 64 New School of Criticism in Modern Languages 64 Effect of Chivalry on Poetry 64 Effect of Gallantry towards Women 64 Its probable Origin 64 It is shown in old Teutonic Poetry; but appears in the Stories of Arthur 65 Romances of Chivalry of two Kinds 65 Effect of Difference of Religion upon Poetry 66 General Tone of Romance 66 Popular Moral Fictions 66 Exclusion of Politics from Literature 67 Religious Opinions 67 Attacks on the Church 67 Three Lines of Religious Opinions in Fifteenth Century 67 Treatise de Imitatione Christi 68 Scepticism--Defences of Christianity 69 Raimond de Sebonde 69 His Views misunderstood 69 His real Object 70 Nature of his Arguments 70
Chapter III
ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1440 TO THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
The year 1440 not chosen as an Epoch 71 Continual Progress of Learning 71 Nicolas V. 71 Justice due to his Character 72 Poggio on the Ruins of Rome 72 Account of the East, by Conti 72 Laurentius Valla 72 His Attack on the Court of Rome 72 His Treatise on the Latin Language 73 Its Defects 73 Heeren’s Praise of it 73 Valla’s Annotations on the New Testament 73 Fresh Arrival of Greeks in Italy 74 Platonists and Aristotelians 74 Their Controversy 74 Marsilius Ficinus 75 Invention of Printing 75 Block Books 75 Gutenberg and Costar’s Claims 75 Progress of the Invention 76 First printed Bible 76 Beauty of the Book 77 Early printed Sheets 77 Psalter of 1547--Other early Books 77 Bible of Pfister 77 Greek first taught at Paris 78 Leave unwillingly granted 78 Purbach--his Mathematical Discoveries 78 Other Mathematicians 78 Progress of Printing in Germany 79 Introduced into France 79 Caxton’s first Works 79 Printing exercised in Italy 79 Lorenzo de’ Medici 80 Italian Poetry of Fifteenth Century 80 Italian Prose of same Age 80 Giostra of Politian 80 Paul II. persecutes the Learned 81 Mathias Corvinus 81 His Library 81 Slight Signs of Literature in England 81 Paston Letters 82 Low Condition of Public Libraries 83 Rowley 83 Clotilde de Surville 83 Number of Books printed in Italy 83 First Greek printed 84 Study of Antiquities 84 Works on that Subject 84 Publications in Germany 85 In France 85 In England, by Caxton 85 In Spain 85 Translations of Scripture 85 Revival of Literature in Spain 86 Character of Labrixa 86 Library of Lorenzo 87 Classics corrected and explained 87 Character of Lorenzo 87 Prospect from his Villa at Fiesole 87 Platonic Academy 88 Disputationes Camaldulenses of Landino 88 Philosophical Dialogues 89 Paulus Cortesius 89 Schools in Germany 89 Study of Greek at Paris 91 Controversy of Realists and Nominalists 91 Scotus 91 Ockham 92 Nominalists in University of Paris 92 Low State of Learning in England 92 Mathematics 93 Regiomontanus 93 Arts of Delineation 93 Maps 94 Geography 94 Greek printed in Italy 94 Hebrew printed 95 Miscellanies of Politian 95 Their Character, by Heeren 95 His Version of Herodian 96 Cornucopia of Perotti 96 Latin Poetry of Politian 96 Italian Poetry of Lorenzo 97 Pulci 97 Character of Morgante Maggiore 97 Platonic Theology of Ficinus 98 Doctrine of Averroes on the Soul 98 Opposed by Ficinus 99 Desire of Man to explore Mysteries 99 Various Methods employed 99 Reason and Inspiration 99 Extended Inferences from Sacred Books 99 Confidence in Traditions 100 Confidence in Individuals as inspired 100 Jewish Cabbala 100 Picus of Mirandola 101 His Credulity in the Cabbala 101 His Literary Performances 102 State of Learning in Germany 102 Agricola 103 Renish Academy 103 Reuchlin 104 French Language and Poetry 104 European Drama 104 Latin 104 Orfeo of Politian 105 Origin of Dramatic Mysteries 105 Their early Stage 105 Extant English Mysteries 105 First French Theatre 106 Theatrical Machinery 107 Italian Religious Dramas 107 Moralities 107 Farces 107 Mathematical Works 107 Leo Baptista Alberti 108 Lionardo da Vinci 108 Aldine Greek Editions 109 Decline of Learning in Italy 110 Hermolaus Barbarus 111 Mantuan 111 Pontanus 111 Neapolitan Academy 112 Boiardo 112 Francesco Bello 113 Italian Poetry near the End of the Century 113 Progress of Learning in France and Germany 113 Erasmus--his Diligence 114 Budæus--his early Studies 114 Latin not well written in France 115 Dawn of Greek Learning in England 115 Erasmus comes to England 116 He publishes his Adages 116 Romantic Ballads of Spain 116 Pastoral Romances 117 Portuguese Lyric Poetry 117 German popular Books 117 Historical Works 118 Philip de Comines 118 Algebra 118 Events from 1490 to 1500 119 Close of Fifteenth Century 119 Its Literature nearly neglected 119 Summary of its Acquisitions 119 Their Imperfection 120 Number of Books printed 120 Advantages already reaped from Printing 120 Trade of Bookselling 121 Books sold by Printers 121 Price of Books 122 Form of Books 122 Exclusive Privileges 122 Power of Universities over Bookselling 123 Restraints on Sale of Printed Books 124 Effect of Printing on the Reformation 124
IV. ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1500 TO 1520
Decline of Learning in Italy 125 Press of Aldus 125 His Academy 126 Dictionary of Calepio 126 Books printed in Germany 126 First Greek Press at Paris 126 Early Studies of Melanchthon 127 Learning in England 127 Erasmus and Budæus 128 Study of Eastern Languages 128 Dramatic Works 128 Calisto and Melibœa 128 Its Character 129 Juan de la Enzina 129 Arcadia of Sanazzaro 129 Asolani of Bembo 130 Dunbar 130 Anatomy of Zerbi 130 Voyages of Cadamosto 130 Leo X., his Patronage of Letters 131 Roman Gymnasium 131 Latin Poetry 132 Italian Tragedy 132 Sophonisba of Trissino 132 Rosmunda of Rucellai 132 Comedies of Ariosto 132 Books printed in Italy 133 Cælius Rhodiginus 133 Greek printed in France and Germany 133 Greek Scholars in these Countries 134 College at Alcala and Louvain 134 Latin Style in France 135 Greek Scholars in England 135 Mode of Teaching in Schools 136 Few Classical Works printed here 137 State of Learning in Scotland 137 Utopia of More 137 Inconsistency in his Opinions 138 Learning restored in France 138 Jealousy of Erasmus and Budæus 138 Character of Erasmus 139 His Adages severe on Kings 139 Instances in illustration 140 His Greek Testament 142 Patrons of Letters in Germany 142 Resistance to Learning 143 Unpopularity of the Monks 145 The Book excites Odium 145 Erasmus attacks the Monks 145 Their Contention with Reuchlin 145 Origin of the Reformation 146 Popularity of Luther 147 Simultaneous Reform by Zwingle 147 Reformation prepared beforehand 147 Dangerous Tenets of Luther 148 Real Explanation of them 149 Orlando Furioso 150 Its Popularity 150 Want of Seriousness 150 A Continuation of Boiardo 150 In some Points inferior 151 Beauties of its Style 151 Accompanied with Faults 151 Its Place as a Poem 152 Amadis de Gaul 152 Gringore 152 Hans Sachs 152 Stephen Hawes 153 Change in English Language 153 Skelton 154 Oriental Languages 154 Pomponatius 155 Raymond Lully 155 His Method 155 Peter Martyr’s Epistles 156
V. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550
Superiority of Italy in Taste 157 Admiration of Antiquity 158 Sadolet 158 Bembo 159 Ciceronianus of Erasmus 159 Scaliger’s Invective against it 160 Editions of Cicero 160 Alexander ab Alexandro 160 Works on Roman Antiquities 161 Greek less Studied in Italy 161 Schools of Classical Learning 161 Budæus--his Commentaries on Greek 161 Their Character 162 Greek Grammars and Lexicons 162 Editions of Greek Authors 163 Latin Thesaurus of R. Stephens 163 Progress of Learning in France 164 Learning in Spain 165 Effects of Reformation on Learning 165 Sturm’s Account of German Schools 165 Learning in Germany 166 In England--Linacre 166 Lectures in the Universities 166 Greek perhaps Taught to Boys 167 Teaching of Smith at Cambridge 167 Succeeded by Cheke 168 Ascham’s Character of Cambridge 168 Wood’s Account of Oxford 168 Education of Edward and his Sisters 169 The Progress of Learning is still slow 169 Want of Books and Public Libraries 169 Destruction of Monasteries no Injury to Learning 169 Ravisius Textor 170 Conrad Gesner 170
Chapter VI
HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550.
Progress of the Reformation 171 Interference of Civil Power 171 Excitement of Revolutionary Spirit 172 Growth of Fanaticism 172 Differences of Luther and Zwingle 172 Confession of Augsburg 173 Conduct of Erasmus 173 Estimate of it 174 His Controversy with Luther 174 Character of his Epistles 176 His Alienation from the Reformers increases 176 Appeal of the Reformers to the Ignorant 176 Parallel of those Times with the Present 177 Calvin 177 His Institutes 177 Increased Differences among Reformers 178 Reformed Tenets spread in England 178 In Italy 178 Italian Heterodoxy 179 Its Progress in the Literary Classes 180 Servetus 180 Arianism in Italy 181 Protestants in Spain and Low Countries 181 Order of Jesuits 181 Their Popularity 181 Council of Trent 182 Its Chief Difficulties 182 Character of Luther 182 Theological Writings--Erasmus 183 Melanchthon--Romish Writers 183 This Literature nearly forgotten 184 Sermons 184 Spirit of the Reformation 184 Limits of Private Judgment 185 Passions instrumental in Reformation 185 Establishment of new Dogmatism 186 Editions of Scripture 186 Translations of Scripture 186 In English 187 In Italy and Low Countries 187 Latin Translations 187 French Translations 188
Chapter VII
HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE, MORAL, AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, AND OF JURISPRUDENCE, IN EUROPE, FROM 1520 TO 1550.
Logic included under this head 188 Slow Defeat of Scholastic Philosophy 188 It is sustained by the Universities and Regulars 188 Commentators on Aristotle 188 Attack of Vives on Scholastics 189 Contempt of them in England 189 Veneration for Aristotle 189 Melanchthon countenances him 189 His own Philosophical Treatises 190 Aristotelians of Italy 190 University of Paris 190 New Logic of Ramus 190 It meets with unfair treatment 191 Its Merits and Character 191 Buhle’s account of it 191 Paracelsus 191 His Impostures 192 And Extravagancies 192 Cornelius Agrippa 192 His pretended Philosophy 193 His Sceptical Treatise 193 Cardan 193 Influence of Moral Writers 194 Cortegiano of Castiglione 194 Marco Aurelio of Guevara 194 His Menosprecio di Corte 194 Perez d’Oliva 195 Ethical Writings of Erasmus and Melanchthon 195 Sir T. Elyot’s Governor 195 Severity of Education 196 He seems to avoid Politics 196 Nicholas Machiavel 196 His motives in writing the Prince 197 Some of his Rules not immoral 197 But many dangerous 197 Its only Palliation 198 His Discourses on Livy 198 Their leading Principles 198 Their Use and Influence 199 His History of Florence 199 Treatises on Venetian Government 199 Calvin’s Political Principles 199 Jurisprudence confined to Roman Law 200 The Laws not well arranged 200 Adoption of the entire System 200 Utility of General Learning to Lawyers 200 Alciati--his Reform of Law 201 Opposition to him 201 Agustino 201
Chapter VIII
HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE OF TASTE IN EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550.
Poetry of Bembo 201 Its Beauties and Defects 202 Character of Italian Poetry 202 Alamanni 202 Vittoria Colonna 202 Satires of Ariosto and Alamanni 203 Alamanni 203 Rucellai 203 Trissino 203 Berni 203 Spanish Poets 204 Boscan and Garcilasso 204 Mendoza 204 Saa di Miranda 205 Ribeyro 205 French Poetry 205 Marot 206 Its Metrical Structure 206 German Poetry 206 Hans Sachs 206 German Hymn 206 Theuerdanks of Pfintzing 206 English Poetry--Lyndsay 206 Wyatt and Surrey 207 Dr. Nott’s Character of them 207 Perhaps rather exaggerated 208 Surrey improves our versification 208 Introduces Blank Verse 208 Dr. Nott’s Hypothesis as to his Metre 208 It seems too extensive 209 Politeness of Wyatt and Surrey 209 Latin Poetry 210 Sannazarius 210 Vida 210 Fracastorius 210 Latin Verse not to be disdained 210 Other Latin Poets in Italy 211 In Germany 211 Italian Comedy 211 Machiavel 211 Aretin 211 Tragedy 212 Sperone 212 Cinthio 212 Spanish Drama 212 Torres Naharro 212 Lope de Rueda 212 Gil Vicente 213 Mysteries and Moralities in France 213 German Theatre--Hans Sachs 213 Moralities and Similar Plays in England 214 They are turned to religious Satire 214 Latin Plays 214 First English Comedy 215 Romances of Chivalry 215 Novels 215 Rabelais 216 Contest of Latin and Italian Languages 216 Influence of Bembo in this 217 Apology for Latinists 217 Character of the Controversy 217 Life of Bembo 217 Character of Italian and Spanish Style 218 English Writers 218 More 218 Ascham 218 Italian Criticism 218 Bembo 218 Grammarians and Critics in France 219 Orthography of Meigret 219 Cox’s Art of Rhetoric 219
Chapter IX
ON THE SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE OF EUROPE FROM 1520 TO 1550.
Geometrical Treatises 220 Fernel Rhœticus 220 Cardan and Tartaglia 220 Cubic Equations 220 Beauty of the Discovery 221 Cardan’s other Discoveries 221 Imperfections of Algebraic Language 222 Copernicus 222 Revival of Greek Medicine 223 Linacre and other Physicians 223 Medical Innovators 224 Paracelsus 224 Anatomy 224 Berenger 224 Vesalius 224 Portal’s Account of him 225 His Human Dissections 225 Fate of Vesalius 225 Other Anatomists 225 Imperfection of the Science 225 Botany--Botanical Gardens 226 Ruel 226 Fuchs 226 Matthioli 226 Low State of Zoology 226 Agricola 227 Hebrew 227 Elias Levita--Pellican 227 Arabic and Oriental Literature 227 Geography of Grynæus 228 Apianus 228 Munster 228 Voyages 228 Oviedo 228 Historical Works 228 Italian Academies 229 They pay regard to the Language 229 Their fondness for Petrarch 229 They become numerous 229 Their Distinctions 230 Evils connected with them 230 They succeed less in Germany 230 Libraries 230
X. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1550 TO 1600
Progress of Philology 231 First Editions of Classics 231 Change in Character of Learning 232 Cultivation of Greek 232 Principal Scholars--Turnebus 232 Petrus Victorius 233 Muretus 233 Gruter’s Thesaurus Criticus 234 Editions of Greek and Latin Authors 235 Tacitus of Lipsius 235 Horace of Lambinus 235 Of Cruquius 236 Henry Stephens 236 Lexicon of Constantin 237 Thesaurus of Stephens 237 Abridged by Scapula 238 Hellenismus of Caninius 239 Vergara’s Grammar 239 Grammars of Ramus and Sylburgius 239 Camerarius--Canter--Robortellus 240 Editions by Sylburgius 241 Neander 241 Gesner 241 Decline of Taste in Germany 242 German Learning 242 Greek Verses of Rhodomanu 242 Learning Declines 243 Except in Catholic Germany 243 Philological Works of Stephens 243 Style of Lipsius 244 Minerva of Sanctius 244 Orations of Muretus 244 Panegyric of Ruhnkenius 244 Defects of his Style 245 Epistles of Manutius 245 Care of the Italian Latinists 245 Perpinianus--Osorius--Maphœus 246 Buchanan--Haddon 246 Sigonius, De Consolatione 246 Decline of Taste and Learning in Italy 247 Joseph Scaliger 247 Isaac Casaubon 248 General Result 249 Learning in England under Edward and Mary 249 Revival under Elizabeth 249 Greek Lectures at Cambridge 250 Few Greek Editions in England 250 School Books enumerated 250 Greek taught in Schools 251 Greek better known after 1580 251 Editions of Greek 252 And of Latin Classics 252 Learning lower than in Spain 252 Improvement at the End of the Century. 253 Learning in Scotland 253 Latin little used in Writing 253 Early Works on Antiquities 254 P. Manutius on Roman Laws 254 Manutius, De Civitate 254 Panvinius--Sigonius 255 Gruchius 255 Sigonius on Athenian Polity 256 Patrizzi and Lipsius on Roman Militia 256 Lipsius and other Antiquaries 256 Saville on Roman Militia 257 Numismatics 257 Mythology 257 Scaliger’s Chronology 258 Julian Period 258
Chapter XI
HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1550 TO 1600.
Diet of Augsburg in 1555 259 Progress of Protestantism 259 Its Causes 260 Wavering of Catholic Princes 260 Extinguished in Italy and Spain 260 Reaction of Catholicity 260 Especially in Germany 261 Discipline of the Clergy 261 Influence of Jesuits 261 Their Progress 262 Their Colleges 262 Jesuit Seminary at Rome 262 Patronage of Gregory XIII. 262 Conversions in Germany and France 263 Causes of this Reaction 263 A rigid Party in the Church 264 Its Efforts at Trent 264 No Compromise in Doctrine 265 Consultation of Cassander 265 Bigotry of Protestant Churches 266 Tenets of Melanchthon 266 A Party hostile to him 267 Form of Concord, 1576 267 Controversy raised by Baius 267 Treatise of Molina on Free will 268 Protestant Tenets 268 Trinitarian Controversy 268 Religious Intolerance 270 Castalio 270 Answered by Beza 271 Aconcio 271 Minus Celsus, Koornhert 271 Decline of Protestantism 272 Desertion of Lipsius 272 Jewell’s Apology 272 English Theologians 272 Bellarmin 273 Topics of Controversy changed 273 It turns on Papal Power 274 This upheld by the Jesuits 274 Claim to depose Princes 274 Bull against Elizabeth 274 And Henry IV. 275 Deposing Power owned in Spain 275 Asserted by Bellarmin 275 Methods of Theological Doctrine 275 Loci Communes 275 In the Protestant and Catholic Church 276 Catharin 276 Critical and Expository Writings 276 Ecclesiastical Historians 277 Le Clerc’s Character of them 277 Deistical Writers 277 Wierus, De Præstigiis 278 Scot on Witchcraft 278 Authenticity of Vulgate 278 Latin Versions and Editions by Catholics 278 By Protestants 279 Versions into Modern Languages 279
XII. HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1550 TO 1600
Predominance of Aristotelian Philosophy 279 Scholastic and genuine Aristotelians 280 The former class little remembered 280 The others not much better known 280 Schools of Pisa and Padua 280 Cesalpini 280 Sketch of his System 280 Cremonini 281 Opponents of Aristotle 281 Patrizzi 281 System of Telesio 281 Jordano Bruno 282 His Italian Works--Cena de li Ceneri 282 Della Causa, Principio ed Uno 282 Pantheism of Bruno 283 Bruno’s other Writings 284 General Character of his Philosophy 285 Sceptical Theory of Sanchez 286 Logic of Aconcio 286 Nizolius on the Principles of Philosophy 286 Margarita Antoniana of Pereira 287 Logic of Ramus--its Success 288
Chapter XIII
HISTORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE FROM 1550 TO 1600.
Soto, De Justitia 289 Hooker 290 His Theory of Natural Law 290 Doubts felt by others 290 Essays of Montaigne 290 Their Characteristics 290 Writers on Morals in Italy 293 In England 293 Bacon’s Essays 293 Number of Political Writers 294 Oppression of Governments 294 And Spirit generated by it 294 Derived from Classic History 294 From their own and the Jewish 294 Franco Gallia of Hossoman 295 Vindiciæ of Languet 295 Contr’Un of Boetie 295 Buchanan, De Jure Regni 296 Poynet, on Politique Power 296 Its liberal Theory 296 Argues for Tyrannicide 297 The Tenets of Parties swayed by Circumstances 297 Similar Tenets among the Leaguers 298 Rose on the Authority of Christian States over Kings 298 Treatise of Boucher in the same Spirit 299 Answered by Barclay 299 The Jesuits adopt these Tenets 299 Mariana, De Rege 299 Popular Theories in England 300 Hooker 300 Political Memoirs 301 La Noue 301 Lipsius 301 Botero 301 His Remarks on Population 301 Paruta 302 Bodin 302 Analysis of his Treatise called the Republic 302 Authority of Heads of Families 302 Domestic Servitude 303 Origin of Commonwealths 303 Privileges of Citizens 303 Nature of Sovereign Power 304 Forms of Government 304 Despotism and Monarchy 304 Aristocracy 305 Senates and Councils of State 305 Duties of Magistrates 305 Corporations 305 Slaves, part of the State 305 Rise and Fall of States 306 Causes of Revolution 306 Astrological Fancies of Bodin 306 Danger of sudden Changes 307 Judicial Power of the Sovereign 307 Toleration of Religions 307 Influence of Climate on Government 307 Means of obviating Inequality 308 Confiscations--Rewards 308 Fortresses 308 Necessity of Good Faith 309 Census of Property 309 Public Revenues 309 Taxation 309 Adulteration of Coin 310 Superiority of Monarchy 310 Conclusion of the Work 310 Bodin compared with Aristotle and Machiavel 310 And with Montesquieu 310 Golden Age of Jurisprudence 311 Cujacius 311 Eulogies bestowed upon him 311 Cujacius, an Interpreter of Law rather than a Lawyer 312 French Lawyers below Cujacius--Govca and others 312 Opponents of the Roman Law 313 Faber of Savoy 313 Anti-Tribonianus of Hottoman 313 Civil Law not countenanced in France 314 Turamini 314 Cau Law 314 Law of Nations; its early State 314 Francis a Victoria 314 His Opinions on Public Law 315 Ayala, on the Rights of War 315 Albericus Gentilis on Embassies 316 His Treatise on the Rights of War 317
XIV. HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1550 TO 1600
General Character of Italian Poets in this Age 318 Their usual Faults 318 Their Beauties 318 Character given by Muratori 318 Poetry of Casa 318 Of Costanzo 319 Baldi 319 Caro 319 Odes of Celio Magus 319 Coldness of the Amatory Sonnets 320 Studied Imitation of Petrarch 320 Their Fondness for Description 320 Judgment of Italian Critics 320 Bernardino Rota 320 Gaspara Stampa; her Love for Collalto 321 Is ill-requited 322 Her Second Love 322 Style of Gaspara Stampa 322 La Nautica of Baldi 322 Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso 323 Satirical and burlesque Poetry; Aretin 323 Other burlesque Writers 324 Attempts at Latin Metres 324 Poetical Translations 324 Torquato Tasso 324 The Jerusalem excellent in Choice of Subject 324 Superior to Homer and Virgil in some Points 324 Its Characters 325 Excellence of its Style 325 Some Faults in it 325 Defects of the Poem 326 It indicates the peculiar Genius of Tasso 326 Tasso compared to Virgil 326 To Ariosto 326 To the Bolognese Painters 327 Poetry Cultivated under Charles and Philip 327 Luis de Leon 328 Herrera 328 General Tone of Castilian Poetry 329 Castillejo 329 Araucana of Ercilla 329 Many epic Poems in Spain 329 Camœns 330 Defects of the Lusiad 330 Its Excellencies 330 Mickle’s Translation 330 Celebrated Passage in the Lusiad 331 Minor Poems of Camœns 331 Ferreira 331 Spanish Ballads 331 French Poets numerous 332 Change in the Tone of French Poetry 333 Ronsard 333 Other French Poets 334 Du Bartas 334 Pibrac; Desportes 335 French Metre and Versification 335 General character of French Poetry 335 German Poetry 336 Paradise of Dainty Devices 336 Character of this Collection 336 Sackville’s Induction 336 Inferiority of Poets in early years of Elizabeth 337 Gascoyne 337 Spenser’s Shepherd’s Kalendar 337 Sydney’s Character of Contemporary Poets 338 Improvement soon after this Time 338 Relaxation of Moral Austerity 339 Serious Poetry 339 Poetry of Sydney 339 Epithalanium of Spenser 340 Poems of Shakspeare 340 Daniel and Drayton 340 Nosce Teipsum of Davies 340 Satires of Hall, Marston, and Donne 341 Modulation of English Verse 341 Translations of Homer by Chapman 341 Of Tasso by Fairfax 342 Employment of Ancient Measures 342 Number of Poets in this Age 342 Scots and English Ballads 343 The Faery Queen 343 Superiority of the First Book 343 The succeeding Books 344 Spenser’s Sense of Beauty 344 Compared to Ariosto 344 Style of Spenser 345 Inferiority of the latter Books 345 Allegories of the Faery Queen 346 Blemishes in the Diction 346 Admiration of the Faery Queen 346 General Parallel of Italian and English Poetry 347 Decline of Latin Poetry in Italy 347 Compensated in other Countries 347 Lotichius 347 Collections of Latin Poetry by Gruter 348 Characters of some Gallo-Latin Poets 348 Sammarthanus 349 Belgic Poets 349 Scots Poets--Buchanan 349
XV. HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1550 TO 1600
Italian Tragedy 350 Pastoral Drama 351 Aminta of Tasso 351 Pastor Fido of Guarini 352 Italian Opera 352 The National Taste revives in the Spanish Drama 353 Lope de Vega 353 His Extraordinary Fertility 353 His Versification 354 His Popularity 354 Character of his Comedies 354 Tragedy of Don Sancho Ortiz 355 His Spiritual Plays 356 Numancia of Cervantes 356 French Theatre--Jodelle 357 Garnier 357 Comedies of Larivey 358 Theatres in Paris 358 English Stage 359 Gammar Gurton’s Needle 359 Gorboduc of Sackville 359 Preference given to the Irregular Form 359 First Theatres 360 Plays of Whetstone and Others 360 Marlowe and his Contemporaries 360 Tamburlaine 361 Blank Verse of Marlowe 361 Marlowe’s Jew of Malta 361 And Faustus 361 His Edward II. 361 Plays whence Henry VI. was taken 361 Peele 362 Greene 362 Other Writers of this Age 363 Heywood’s Woman Killed with Kindness 363 William Shakspeare 364 His First Writings for the Stage 364 Comedy of Errors 365 Love’s Labour Lost 365 Taming of the Shrew 365 Midsummer Night’s Dream 365 Its Machinery 366 Its Language 366 Romeo and Juliet 366 Its Plot 367 Its Beauties and Blemishes 367 The Characters 367 The Language 367 Second Period of Shakspeare 368 The Historical Plays 368 Merchant of Venice 368 As You Like It 369 Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour 369
XVI. HISTORY OF POLITE LITERATURE IN PROSE FROM 1550 TO 1600
Italian Writers 369 Casa 369 Tasso 370 Firenzuola 370 Character of Italian Prose 370 Italian Letter Writers 370 Davanzati’s Tacitus 371 Jordano Bruno 371 French Writers--Amyot 371 Montaigne; Du Vair 371 Satire Menippée 372 English Writers 372 Ascham 372 Euphues of Lilly 373 Its Popularity 373 Sydney’s Arcadia 374 His Defence of Poesie 374 Hooker 374 Character of Elizabethan Writers 374 State of Criticism 375 Scaliger’s Poetics 375 His Preference of Virgil to Homer 375 His Critique on Modern Latin Poets 376 Critical Influence of the Academics 376 Dispute of Caro and Castelvetro 377 Castelvetro on Aristotle’s Poetics 377 Severity of Castelvetro’s Criticism 377 Ercolano of Varchi 378 Controversy about Dante 378 Academy of Florence 378 Salviati’s Attack on Tasso 379 Pinciano’s Art of Poetry 379 French Treatises of Criticism 379 Wilson’s Art of Rhetorique 379 Gascoyne; Webbe 380 Puttenham’s Art of Poesie 380 Sydney’s Defence of Poesy 380 Novels of Bandello 380 Of Cinthio 381 Of the Queen of Navarre 381 Spanish Romances of Chivalry 381 Diana of Monte-Mayor 382 Novels in the Picaresque Style 382 Guzman d’Alfarache 382 Las Guerras de Granada 383 Sydney’s Arcadia 383 Its Character 383 Inferiority of other English Fictions 384
Chapter XVII
HISTORY OF PHYSICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE FROM 1500 TO 1600.
Tartaglia and Cardan 385 Algebra of Pelletier 385 Record’s Whetstone of Wit 385 Vieta 385 His Discoveries 386 Geometers of this Period 388 Joachim Rhœticus 388 Copernican Theory 388 Tycho Brahe 389 His System 389 Gregorian Calendar 390 Optics 390 Mechanics 390 Statics of Stevinus 391 Hydrostatics 392 Gilbert on the Magnet 392 Gesner’s Zoology 392 Its Character by Cuvier 392 Gesner’s Arrangement 393 His Additions to known Quadrupeds 393 Belon 394 Salviani and Rondelet’s Ichthyology 394 Aldrovandus 394 Botany--Turner 395 Maranta--Botanical Gardens 395 Gesner 396 Dodœns 396 Lobel 396 Clusius 396 Cæsalpin 396 Dalechamps--Bauhin 397 Gerard’s Herbal 397 Anatomy--Fallopius 397 Eustachius 397 Coiter 398 Columbus 398 Circulation of the Blood 398 Medicinal Science 398 Syriac Version of New Testament 399 Hebrew Critics 399 Its Study in England 399 Arabic begins to be Studied 399 Collection of Voyages by Ramusio 400 Curiosity they awakened 400 Other Voyages 401 Accounts of China 401 India and Russia 401 English Discoveries in the Northern Seas 401 Geographical Books--Ortelius 401 Guicciardini 402 French Memoirs 403 Universities in Italy 403 In other Countries 403 Libraries 403 Collections of Antiquities in Italy 404 Pinelli 404 Italian Academies 405 Society of Antiquaries in England 405 New Books and Catalogues of them 406 Literary Correspondence 406 Bibliographical Works 406 Restraints on the Press 407 Index Expurgatorius 407 Its Effects 407 Restrictions in England 407 Latin more employed on this account 408 Influence of Literature 408
XVIII. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1600 TO 1650
Learning of 17th Century less Philological 409 Popularity of Comenius 409 Decline of Greek Learning 410 Casaubon 410 Viger de Idiotismis 411 Weller’s Greek Grammar 411 Labbe and Others 411 Salmasius de Lingua Hellenistica 412 Greek Editions--Savile’s Chrysostom 412 Greek Learning in England 413 Latin Editions--Torrentius 413 Gruter 413 Heinsius 413 Grotius 414 Rutgersius--Reinesius--Barthius 414 Other Critics--English 414 Salmasius 415 Good Writers of Latin 415 Scioppius 416 His Philosophical Grammar 416 His Infamia Famiani 416 Judicium de Stylo Historico 416 Gerard Vossius, de Vitiis Sermonis 417 His Aristarchus 417 Progress of Latin Style 418 Gruter’s Collection of Inscriptions 418 Assisted by Scaliger 419 Works on Roman Antiquity 419 Geography of Cluversius 420 Meursius 420 Ubbo Emmius 420 Chronology of Lydiat--Calvisius 420 Petavius 421 Character of this Work 421
Chapter XIX
HISTORY Of THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1600 TO 1650.
Temporal Supremacy of Rome 422 Contest with Venice 423 Father Paul Sarpi 423 History of Council of Trent 424 Gallican Liberties--Richter 424 Perron 425 Decline of Papal Power 425 Unpopularity of the Jesuits 426 Richelieu’s Care of Gallican Liberties 426 Controversy of Catholics and Protestants 426 Increased respect for the Fathers 426 Especially in England--Laud 427 Defections to the Catholic Church 427 Wavering of Casaubon 428 And of Grotius 429 Calixtus 434 His Attempts at Concord 434 High Church Party in England 435 Daillé on the Right Use of the Fathers 435 Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants 436 Character of this Work 436 Hales on Schism 438 Controversies on Grace and Free will--Augustinian Scheme 438 Semi-pelagian Hypothesis 439 Tenets of the Reformers 439 Rise of Arminianism 440 Episcopius 440 His Writings 440 Their Spirit and Tendency 440 Great Latitude allowed by them 441 Progress of Arminianism 441 Cameron 441 Rise of Jansenism 441 Socinus--Volkelius 442 Crellius--Ruarus 442 Erastianism maintained by Hooker 443 And Grotius 444 His Treatise on Ecclesiastical Power of the State 444 Remark upon this Theory 446 Toleration of Religious Tenets 446 Claimed by the Arminians 446 By the Independents 447 And by Jeremy Taylor 447 His Liberty of Prophesying 447 Boldness of his Doctrines 447 His Notions of Uncertainty in Theological Tenets 448 His low Opinion of the Fathers 448 Difficulty of Finding out Truth 449 Grounds of Toleration 449 Inconsistency of One Chapter 450 His General Defence of Toleration 450 Effect of this Treatise 451 Its Defects 451 Great Erudition of this Period 452 Usher--Petavius 452 Sacred Criticism 452 Grotius--Coccejus 452 English Commentators 453 Style of Preaching 453 English Sermons 453 Of Donne 454 Of Jeremy Taylor 454 Devotional Writings of Taylor and Hall 454 In the Roman 455 And Lutheran Church 455 Infidelity of some Writers--Charron--Vanini 455 Lord Herbert of Cherbury 456 Grotius de Veritate 457 English Translation of the Bible 457 Its Style 457
XX. HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1600 TO 1650
Subjects of this Chapter 458 Aristotelians and Ramists 458 No improvement till near the End of the Century 459 Methods of the Universities 459 Scholastic Writers 459 Treatises on Logic 460 Campanella 460 His Theory taken from Telesio 460 Notion of Universal Sensibility 461 His Imagination and Eloquence 461 His Works Published by Admai 462 Basson 463 Berigard 463 Magnen 463 Paracelsists 463 And Theosophists 463 Fludd 464 Jacob Behmen 464 Lord Herbert de Veritate 464 His Axioms 465 Conditions of Truth 465 Instinctive Truths 466 Internal Perceptions 466 Five Notions of Natural Religion 466 Remarks of Gassendi on Herbert 467 Gassendi’s Defence of Epicurus 468 His chief Works after 1650 468 Preparation for the Philosophy of Lord Bacon 468 His Plan of Philosophy 468 Time of its Conception 469 Instauratio Magna 470 First Part--Partitiones Scientiarum 470 Second Part--Novum Organum 470 Third Part--Natural History 470 Fourth Part--Scala Intellectûs 471 Fifth Part--Anticipationes Philosophiæ 471 Sixth Part--Philosophia Secunda 471 Course of studying Lord Bacon 472 Nature of the Baconian Induction 472 His Dislike of Aristotle 474 His Method much required 474 Its Objects 474 Sketch of the Treatise De Augmentis 474 History 474 Poetry 475 Fine Passage on Poetry 475 Natural Theology and Metaphysics 475 Form of Bodies might sometimes be inquired into 475 Final Causes too much slighted 476 Man not included by him in Physics 476 Man--in Body and Mind 476 Logic 476 Extent given it by Bacon 476 Grammar and Rhetoric 477 Ethics 477 Politics 477 Theology 478 Desiderata enumerated by him 478 Novum Organum--First Book 478 Fallacies--Idola 478 Confounded with Idols 478 Second Book of Novum Organum 479 Confidence of Bacon 479 Almost justified of late 480 But should be kept within Bounds 481 Limits to our Knowledge by Sense 481 Inductive Logic--whether confined to Physics 481 Baconian Philosophy built on Observation and Experiment 482 Advantages of the latter 482 Sometimes applicable to Philosophy of Human Mind 483 Less so to Politics and Morals 483 Induction less conclusive on these Subjects 483 Reasons for this Difference 484 Considerations on the other Side 484 Result of the whole 485 Bacon’s Aptitude for Moral Subjects 486 Comparison of Bacon and Galileo 487 His Prejudice against Mathematics 488 Bacon’s Excess of Wit 488 Fame of Bacon on the Continent 489 Early Life of Descartes 491 His beginning to philosophise 491 He retires to Holland 491 His Publications 492 He begins by doubting all 492 His First Step in Knowledge 492 His Mind not Sceptical 493 He arrives at more Certainty 493 His Proof of a Deity 493 Another Proof of it 494 His Deductions from this 494 Primary and Secondary Qualities 495 Objections made to his Meditations 495 Theory of Memory and Imagination 496 Seat of Soul in Pineal Gland 497 Gassendi’s Attacks on the Meditations 497 Superiority of Descartes 497 Stewart’s Remarks on Descartes 498 Paradoxes of Descartes 499 His Just Notions and Definitions 500 His Notion of Substances 501 Not Quite Correct 501 His Notions of Intuitive Truth 501 Treatise on Art of Logic 502 Merits of his Writings 502 His Notions of Free will 502 Fame of his System, and Attacks upon it 503 Controversy with Voet 503 Charges of Plagiarism 504 Recent Increase of his Fame 505 Metaphysical Treatises of Hobbes 505 His Theory of Sensation 506 Coincident with Descartes 506 Imagination and Memory 506 Discourse or Train of Imagination 507 Experience 507 Unconceivableness of Infinity 507 Origin of Language 508 His Political Theory interferes 508 Necessity of Speech exaggerated 509 Use of Names 509 Names Universal not Realities 509 How imposed 510 The Subject continued 510 Names differently imposed 511 Knowledge 511 Reasoning 512 False Reasoning 512 Its frequency 513 Knowledge of Fact not derived from Reasoning 514 Belief 514 Chart of Science 515 Analysis of Passions 515 Good and Evil relative Terms 515 His Paradoxes 515 His Notion of Love 516 Curiosity 516 Difference of Intellectual Capacities 516 Wit and Fancy 517 Differences in the Passions 517 Madness 517 Unmeaning Language 517 Manners 517 Ignorances and Prejudice 518 His Theory of Religion 518 Its supposed Sources 518
Chapter XXI
HISTORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE FROM 1600 TO 1650.
Casuistical Writers 521 Importance of Confession 521 Necessity of Rules for the Confessor 521 Increase of Casuistical Literature 521 Distinction of subjective and objective Morality 522 Directory Office of the Confessor 522 Difficulties of Casuistry 522 Strict and Lax Schemes of it 523 Convenience of the latter 523 Favoured by the Jesuits 523 The Causes of this 523 Extravagance of the strict Casuists 524 Opposite Faults of Jesuits 524 Suarez, De Legibus 524 Titles of his Ten Books 524 Heads of the Second Book 525 Character of such Scholastic Treatises 525 Quotations of Suarez 525 His Definition of Eternal Law 526 Whether God is a Legislator 526 Whether God could permit or commend wrong Actions 527 English Casuists--Perkins--Hall 527 Selden, De Jure Naturali Juxta Hebræos 528 Jewish Theory of Natural Law 528 Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah 528 Character of Selden’s Work 528 Grotius and Hobbes 528 Charron on Wisdom 529 La Mothe le Vayer--his Dialogues 529 Bacon’s Essays 529 Their Excellence 530 Feltham’s Resolves 530 Browne’s Religio Medici 531 Selden’s Table Talk 532 Osborn’s Advice to his Son 532 John Valentine Andrax 532 Abandonment of Anti-Monarchical Theories 533 Political Literature becomes historical 533 Bellenden De Statu 534 Campanella’s Politics 534 La Mothe le Vayer 534 Naude’s Coups d’Etat 534 Patriarchal Theory of Government 534 Refuted by Suarez 535 His Opinion of Law 535 Bacon 536 Political Economy 536 Serra on the Means of obtaining Money without Mines 537 His Causes of Wealth 537 His Praise of Venice 537 Low Rate of Exchange not essential to wealth 587 Hobbes.--His Political Works 538 Analysis of his Three Treatises 538 Civil Jurists of this period 543 Suarez on Laws 544 Grotius--De Jure Belli et Pacis 544 Success of this Work 544 Its Originality 545 Its Motive and Object 545 His Authorities 545 Foundation of Natural Law 546 Positive Law 546 Perfect and Imperfect Rights 546 Lawful Cases of War 546 Resistance by Subjects unlawful 547 All Men naturally have Right of War 547 Right of Self-Defence 548 Its Origin and Limitations 548 Right of Occupancy 549 Relinquishment of it 549 Right over Persons--By Generation 549 By Consent 549 In Marriage 549 In Commonwealths 549 Right of Alienating Subjects 549 Alienation by Testament 550 Rights of Property by Positive Law 550 Extinction of Rights 550 Some Casuistical Questions 550 Promises 550 Contracts 551 Considered ethically 551 Promissory Oaths 552 Engagements of Kings towards Subjects 552 Public Treaties 552 Their Interpretation 553 Obligation to repair Injury 553 Rights by Law of Nations 554 Those of Ambassadors 554 Right of Sepulture 554 Punishments 554 Their Responsibility 555 Insufficient Causes of War 556 Duty of avoiding it 556 And Expediency 556 War for the sake of other Subjects 556 Allies 556 Strangers 556 None to Serve in an Unjust War 556 Rights in War 557 Use of Deceit 557 Rules and Customs of Nations 557 Reprisals 557 Declarations of War 557 Rights by law of nations over Enemies 558 Prisoners become Slaves 558 Rights of Postliminium 558 Moral Limitation of Rights in War 558 Moderation required as to spoil 559 And as to Prisoners 559 Also in Conquest 559 And in Restitution to right Owners 559 Promises to Enemies and Pirates 559 Treaties concluded by competent Authority 560 Matters relating to them 561 Truces and Conventions 561 Those of Private persons 561 Objections to Grotius made by Paley unreasonable 561 Reply of Mackintosh 561 Censures of Stewart 562 Answer to them 562 Grotius vindicated against Rousseau 565 His Arrangement 565 His Defects 565
XXII. HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1600 TO 1650
Low Estimation of the Seicentisti 566 Not quite so great as formerly 566 Praise of them by Rubbi 566 Also by Salfi 566 Adone of Marini 567 Its Character 567 And Popularity 567 Secchia Rapita of Tassoni 568 Chiabrera 569 His Followers 569 The Styles of Spanish Poetry 570 The Romances 570 The Brothers Argensola 570 Villegas 571 Quevedo 571 Defects of Taste in Spanish Verse 571 Pedantry and far-fetched Allusions 572 Gongora 572 The Schools formed by him 573 Malherbe 573 Criticisms upon his Poetry 574 Satires of Regnier 574 Racan--Maynard 574 Voiture 574 Sarrasin 575 Low state of German Literature 575 Literary Societies 575 Opitz 575 His Followers 576 Dutch Poetry 576 Spiegel 576 Hooft-Cats-Vondel 577 Danish Poetry 577 English Poets numerous in this age 577 Phineas Fletcher 577 Giles Fletcher 578 Philosophical Poetry 578 Lord Brooke 578 Denham’s Cooper’s Hill 579 Poets called Metaphysical 579 Donne 580 Crashaw 580 Cowley 580 Johnson’s Character of him 580 Narrative Poets--Daniel 580 Drayton’s Polyolbion 581 Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals 581 Sir John Beaumont 582 Davenant’s Gondibert 582 Sonnets of Shakspeare 582 The person whom they address 583 Sonnets of Drummond and others 584 Carew 584 Ben Jonson 585 Wither 585 Habington 585 Earl of Pembroke 585 Suckling 586 Lovelace 586 Herrick 586 Milton 586 His Comus 586 Lycidas 587 Allegro and Penseroso 587 Ode on the Nativity 588 His Sonnets 588 Anonymous Poetry 588 Latin Poets of France 588 In Germany and Italy 588 In Holland--Heinsius 589 Casimir Sarbievius 589 Barlæus 589 Balde--Greek Poems of Heinsius 590 Latin Poets of Scotland--Jonston’s Psalms 590 Owen’s Epigrams 590 Alabaster’s Roxana 590 May’s Supplement to Lucan 590 Milton’s Latin Poems 591
XXIII. HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1600 TO 1650
Decline of the Italian Theatre 591 Filli de Sciro 592 Translations of Spanish Dramas 592 Extemporaneous Comedy 593 Spanish Stage 593 Calderon--Number of his Pieces 593 His Comedies 593 La Vida es Sueno 594 A Secreto agravio secreta vengança 595 Style of Calderon 595 His Merits sometimes over-rated 596 Plays of Hardy 596 The Cid 597 Style of Corneille 598 Les Horaces 598 Cimia 598 Polyeucte 599 Rodogune 599 Pompey 599 Heraclius 599 Nicomède 600 Faults and Beauties of Corneille 600 Le Menteur 600 Other French Tragedies 600 Wenceslas of Rotron 600 Popularity of the Stage under Elizabeth 601 Number of Theatres 601 Encouraged by James 601 General Taste for the Stage 601 Theatres closed by the Parliament 602 Shakspeare’s Twelfth Night 602 Merry Wives of Windsor 603 Measure for Measure 604 Lear 604 Timon of Athens 604 Pericles 605 His Roman Tragedies--Julius Cæsar 606 Antony and Cleopatra 606 Coriolanus 606 His Retirement and Death 607 Greatness of his Genius 607 His Judgment 607 His Obscurity 608 His Popularity 608 Critics on Shakspeare 609 Ben Jonson 609 The Alchemist 609 Volpone, or The Fox 610 The Silent Woman 610 Sad Shepherd 611 Beaumont and Fletcher 611 Corrupt State of their Text 611 The Maid’s Tragedy 611 Philaster 612 King and no King 613 The Elder Brother 613 The Spanish Curate 613 The Custom of the Country 613 The Loyal Subject 613 Beggar’s Bush 613 The Scornful Lady 614 Valentinian 614 The Two Noble Kinsmen 615 The Faithful Shepherdess 615 Rule a Wife, and have a Wife 616 Some other Plays 616 Origin of Fletcher’s Plays 616 Defects of their plots 616 Their Sentiments and Style Dramatic 617 Their Characters 617 Their Tragedies 617 Inferior to their Comedies 618 Their Female Characters 618 Massinger--Nature of his Dramas 619 His Delineations of Character 619 His Subjects 619 Beauty of His Style 620 Inferiority of his Comic Powers 620 Some of his Tragedies particularized 620 And of his other Plays 620 Ford 621 Shirley 621 Heywood 622 Webster 622 His Duchess of Malfy 622 Vittoria Corombona 622
XXIV. HISTORY OF POLITE LITERATURE IN PROSE FROM 1600 TO 1650
Decline of Taste in Italy 623 Style of Galileo 624 Bentivoglio 624 Boccalini’s News from Parnassus 624 His Pietra del Paragone 625 Terrante Pallavicino 625 Dictionary Delia Crusca 625 Grammatical Works--Buonmattei--Bartoli 626 Tassoni’s Remarks on Petrarch 626 Galileo’s Remarks on Tasso 626 Sforza Pallavicino 626 And other Critical Writers 626 Prolusiones of Strada 627 Spanish Prose--Gracian 627 French Prose--Du Vair 627 Balzac 628 Character of his Writings 628 His Letters 628 Voiture--Hotel Rambouillet 629 Establishment of French Academy 630 Its objects and Constitution 630 It publishes a Critique on the Cid 631 Vaugelas’s Remarks on the French Language 631 La Mothe le Vayer 632 Legal Speeches of Patru 632 And of Le Maistre 632 Improvement in English Style 633 Earl of Essex 633 Knolles’s History of the Turks 634 Raleigh’s History of the World 635 Daniel’s History of England 635 Bacon 635 Milton 636 Clarendon 636 The Icon Basilice 636 Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy 637 Earle’s Characters 637 Overbury’s Characters 637 Jonson’s Discoveries 637 Publication of Don Quixote 638 Its Reputation 638 New Views of its Design 638 Probably erroneous 638 Difference between the two Parts 639 Excellence of this Romance 639 Minor Novels of Cervantes 639 Other Novels--Spanish 639 And Italian 639 French Romances--Astrée 639 Heroic Romances--Gomberville 640 Calprenède 640 Scuderi 641 Argenis of Barclay 641 His Euphormis 643 Campanella’s City of the Sun 643 Few Books of Fiction in England 643 Mundus Alter et Idem of Hall 644 Godwin’s Journey to the Moon 644 Howell’s Dodona’s Grove 644 Adventures of Baron de Fænesle 644
Chapter XXV
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE FROM 1600 TO 1650.
State of Science in 16th Century 645 Tediousness of Calculations 645 Napier’s Invention of Logarithms 645 Their Nature 645 Property of Numbers discovered by Stifelius 645 Extended to Magnitudes 646 By Napier 646 Tables of Napier and Briggs 646 Kepler’s New Geometry 647 Its Difference from the Ancient 647 Adopted by Galileo 648 Extended by Cavalieri 648 Applied to the Ratios of Solids 648 Problem of the Cycloid 648 Progress of Algebra 649 Briggs--Girard 649 Harriott 649 Descartes 650 His Application of Algebra to Curves 650 Suspected Plagiarism from Harriot 650 Fermat 651 Algebraic Geometry not successful at first 652 Astronomy--Kepler 652 Conjectures as to Comets 652 Galileo’s Discovery of Jupiter’s Satellites 653 Other Discoveries by him 653 Spots of the Sun discovered 653 Copernican System held by Galileo 654 His Dialogues, and Persecution 654 Descartes alarmed by this 655 Progress of Copernican System 655 Descartes denies General Gravitation 655 Cartesian Theory of the World 655 Transits of Mercury and Venus 656 Laws of Mechanics 656 Statics of Galileo 657 His Dynamics 657 Mechanics of Descartes 658 Law of Motion laid down by Descartes 658 Also those of Compound Forces 659 Other Discoveries in Mechanics 659 In Hydrostatics and Pneumatics 659 Optics--Discoveries of Kepler 660 Invention of the Telescope 660 Of the Microscope 660 Antonio de Dominis 660 Dioptrics of Descartes--Law of Refraction 661 Disputed by Fermat 661 Curves of Descartes 661 Theory of the Rainbow 661
Chapter XXVI
HISTORY OF SOME OTHER PROVINCES OF LITERATURE FROM 1600 TO 1650.
Aldrovandus 662 Clusius 662 Rio and Marcgraf 662 Jonston 662 Fabricius on the Language of Brutes 663 Botany--Columna 664 John and Gaspar Bauhin 664 Parkinson 664 Valves of the Veins discovered 665 Theory of the Blood’s Circulation 665 Sometimes ascribed to Servetus 665 To Columbus 666 And to Cæsalpin 666 Generally unknown before Harvey 667 His Discovery 667 Unjustly doubted to be Original 667 Harvey’s Treatise on Generation 668 Lacteals discovered by Asellius 668 Optical Discoveries of Scheiner 669 Medicine--Van Helmont 669 Diffusion of Hebrew 669 Language not studied in the best method 669 The Buxtorfs 670 Vowel Points rejected by Cappel 670 Hebrew Scholars 671 Chaldee and Syriac 671 Arabic 671 Erpenius 671 Golius 671 Other Eastern Languages 672 Purchas’s Pilgrim 672 Olearius and Pietro della Valle 672 Lexicon of Ferrari 672 Maps of Blaew 672 Davila and Bentivoglio 673 Mendoza’s Wars of Granada 673 Mezeray 673 English Historians 673 English Histories 673 Universities 673 Bodleian Library founded 674 Casaubon’s Account of Oxford 674 Catalogue of Bodleian Library 674 Continental Libraries 675 Italian Academies 675 The Lincei 675 Prejudice for Antiquity diminished 676 Browne’s Vulgar Errors 677 Life and Character of Peiresc 677
XXVII. HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE FROM 1650 TO 1700
James Frederic Gronovius 678 James Gronovius 679 Grævius 679 Isaac Vossius 679 Decline of German Learning 679 Spanheim 679 Jesuit Colleges in France 679 Port-Royal Writers--Lancelot 679 Latin Writers--Perizonius 680 Delphin Editions 680 Le Fevre and the Daciers 680 Henry Valois--Complaints of Decay of Learning 680 English Learning--Duport 681 Greek not much studied 681 Gataker’s Cinnus and Antoninus 681 Stanley’sÆschylus 682 Other English Philologers 682 Bentley 682 His Epistle to Mill 682 Dissertation on Phalaris 682 Disadvantages of Scholars in that Age 683 Thesauri of Grævius and of Gronovius 683 Fabretti 684 Numismatics, Spanheim--Vaillant 684 Chronology--Usher 684 Pezron 685 Marsham 685
XXVIII. HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE FROM 1650 TO 1700
Decline of Papal Influence 685 Dispute of Louis XIV. with Innocent XI. 686 Four Articles of 1682 686 Dupin on the ancient Discipline 686 Dupin’s Ecclesiastical Library 687 Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History 687 His Dissertations 687 Protestant Controversy in France 688 Bossuet’s Exposition of Catholic Faith 688 His Conference with Claude 688 Correspondence with Molanus and Leibnitz 689 His Variations of Protestant Churches 690 Anglican Writings against Popery 690 Taylor’s Dissuasive 690 Barrow--Stillingfleet 690 Jansenius 691 Condemnation of his Augustinus in France 691 And at Rome 691 The Jansenists take a Distinction 692 And are Persecuted 692 Progress of Arminianism 692 Courcelles 693 Limborch 693 Le Clerc 693 Sancroft’s Fur Prædestinatus 693 Arminianism in England 694 Bull’s Harmonia Apostolica 694 Hammond--Locke--Wilkins 694 Socinians in England 695 Bull’s Defensio Fidei Nicenæ 695 Not Satisfactory to all 695 Mystics 696 Fenelon 696 Change in the Character of Theological Literature 696 Freedom of many Writings 696 Thoughts of Pascal 697 Vindications of Christianity 699 Progress of Tolerant Principles 700 Bayle’s Philosophical Commentary 700 Locke’s Letter on Toleration 700 French Sermons 701 Bourdaloue 701 Compared with Bossuet 702 Funeral Discourses of Bossuet 702 Fléchier 703 English Sermons--Barrow 703 South 704 Tillotson 704 Expository Theology 704 Pearson on the Creed 704 Simon’s Critical Histories 705
XXIX. HISTORY OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY FROM 1650 TO 1700
Aristotelian Metaphysics 705 Their Decline. Thomas White 706 Logic 706 Stanley’s History of Philosophy 707 Gale’s Court of Gentiles 707 Cudworth’s Intellectual System 707 Its object 708 Sketch of it 708 His plastic nature 708 His account of old Philosophy 708 His Arguments against Atheism 709 More 709 Gassendi 710 His Logic 710 His Theory of Ideas 710 And of the Nature of the Soul 710 Distinguishes Ideas of Reflection 711 Also Intellect from Imagination 711 His Philosophy misunderstood by Stewart 712 Bernier’s Epitome of Gassendi 713 Process of Cartesian Philosophy 713 La Forge--Regis 714 Huet’s Censure of Cartesianism 715 Port-Royal Logic 716 Malebranche 717 His Style 717 Sketch of his Theory 717 Character of Malebranche 724 Compared with Pascal 724 Arnauld on True and False ideas 725 Norris 725 Pascal 725 Spinosa’s Ethics 726 Its general Originality 726 View of his Metaphysical Theory 727 Spinosa’s Theory of action and Passion 731 Character of Spinosism 732 Glanvil’s Scepsis Scientifica 733 His Plus Ultra 734 Dalgarno 735 Wilkins 736 Locke on Human Understanding 736 Its merits 736 Its Defects 737 Origin of Ideas according to Locke 737 Vague Use of the Word Idea 738 An Error as to Geometrical Figure 739 His Notions as to the Soul 740 And its Immateriality 740 His Love of Truth and Originality 741 Defended in two cases 742 His View of Lunatic Ideas 742 General Praise 743 Locke’s Conduct of Understanding 743
Chapter XXX
HISTORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE FROM 1650 TO 1700.
Casuistry of the Jesuits 744 Pascal’s Provincial Letters 744 Their Truth questioned by some 744 Taylor’s Ductor Dubitantium 745 Its Character and Defects 745 Cudworth’s immutable Morality 745 Nicole--La Placette 746 Other Writers 746 Moral System of Spinosa 746 Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturæ 747 Analysis of Prolegomena 748 His Theory expanded afterwards 749 Remarks on Cumberland’s Theory 752 Puffendorf’s Law of Nature and Nations 753 Analysis of this Work 754 Puffendorf and Paley compared 757 Rochefoucault 757 La Bruyère 758 Education--Milton’s Tractrate 758 Locke on Education--Its merits 759 And Defects 759 Fenelon on Female Education 761 Puffendorf’s Theory of Politics 762 Politics of Spinosa 764 His Theory of a Monarchy 766 Amelot de la Houssaye 766 Harrington’s Oceana 766 Patriarcha of Filmer 767 Sydney’s Discourses on Government 767 Locke on Government 768 Observations on this Treatise 771 Avis auz Refugiéz, perhaps by Bayle 772 Political Economist’s 772 Mun on Foreign Trade 773 Child on Trade 773 Locke on the Coin 773 Statistical Tracts 774 Works of Leibnitz on Roman Law 775 Civil Jurists--Godefroy--Domat 775 Noodt of Usury 776 Law of Nations--Puffendorf 776
XXXI. HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1650 TO 1700
Improved Tone of Italian Poetry 776 Filicaja 777 Guidi 777 Menzini 778 Salvator Rosa--Redi 778 Other Poets 778 Christina’s Patronage of Letters 778 Society of Arcadians 778 La Fontaine 779 Character of his Fables 779 Boileau: His Epistles 780 His Art of Poetry 780 Comparison with Horace 780 The Lutrin 780 General Character of his Poetry 780 Lyric Poetry lighter than before 781 Benserade 781 Chaulieu 781 Pastoral Poetry 781 Segrais 781 Deshouliéres 781 Fontenelle 782 Bad Epic Poems 782 German Poetry 782 Waller 782 Butler’s Hudibras 783 Paradise Lost--Choice of Subject 783 Open to some Difficulties 783 Its Arrangement 783 Characters of Adam and Eve 784 He owes less to Homer than the Tragedians 784 Compared with Dante 784 Elevation of his Style 785 His Blindness 786 His Passion for Music 786 Faults in Paradise Lost 786 Its Progress to Fame 786 Paradise Regained 787 Samson Agonistes 787 Dryden--His earlier Poems 787 Absalom and Achitophel 788 Mac Flecknoe 788 The Hind and Panther 789 Its Singular Fable 789 Its Reasoning 789 The Fables 789 His Odes--Alexander’s Feast 790 His Translation of Virgil 790 Decline of Poetry from the Restoration 790 Some Minor Poets enumerated 790 Latin Poets of Italy 791 Ceva 791 Sergardi 791 Of France--Quillet 791 Menage 792 Rapin on Gardens 792 Santeul 793 Latin Poetry in England 793
XXXII. HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1650 TO 1700
Italian and Spanish Drama 793 Racine’s first Tragedies 793 Andromaque 794 Britannicus 795 Berenice 795 Bajazet 795 Mithridate 796 Iphigénie 796 Phèdre 797 Esther 797 Athalie 797 Racine’s Female Characters 798 Racine compared with Corneille 798 Beauty of his Style 798 Thomas Corneille--His Ariane 799 Manlius of La Fosse 799 Molière 799 L’Avare 799 L’Ecole des Femmes 800 Le Misanthrope 800 Les Femmes Savantes 801 Tartuffe 801 Bourgeois Gentilhomme--George Dandin 801 Character of Molière 802 Les Plaideurs of Racine 802 Regnard--Le Joueur 802 His Other Plays 803 Quinault--Boursault 803 Dancourt 803 Brueys 804 Operas of Quinault 804 Revival of the English Theatre 804 Change of Public Taste 804 Its Causes 805 Heroic Tragedies of Dryden 805 His later Tragedies 805 Don Sebastian 806 Spanish Friar 806 Otway 806 Southern 807 Lee 807 Congreve 807 Comedies of Charles II.’s Reign 807 Wycherley 808 Improvement after the Revolution 808 Congreve 808 Love for Love 808 His other Comedies 808 Farquhar--Vanbrugh 809
XXXIII. HISTORY OF POLITE LITERATURE IN PROSE FROM 1650 TO 1700
Low State of Literature in Italy 809 Crescimbeni 810 Age of Louis XIV. in France 810 Fontenelle--his Character 810 His Dialogues of the Dead 811 Those of Fenelon 811 Fontenelle’s Plurality of Worlds 811 His History of Oracles 811 St. Evremond 812 Madame de Sevigné 812 The French Academy 812 French Grammars 813 Bouhour’s Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène 813 Attacked by Barbier d’Ancour 814 La Manière de Bien Penser 815 Rapin’s Reflections on Eloquence and Poetry 815 His Parallel’s of Great Men 815 Bossu on Epic Poetry 816 Fontenelle’s Critical Writings 816 Preference of French Language to Latin 816 General Superiority of Ancients disputed 816 Charles Perrault 816 Fontenelle 817 Boileau’s Defence of Antiquity 817 First Reviews--Journal des Sçavans 817 Reviews Established by Bayle 818 Reviews Established by Le Clerc 818 Leipsic Acts 819 Bayle’s Thoughts on the Comet 819 His Dictionary 819 Baillet--Morhof 820 The Ana 820 English Style in this Period 820 Hobbes 821 Cowley 821 Evelyn 821 Dryden 821 His Essay on Dramatic Poesy 822 Improvements in his Style 823 His Critical Character 823 Rymer on Tragedy 823 Sir William Temple’s Essays 824 Style of Locke 824 Sir George Mackenzie’s Essays 824 Andrew Fletcher 824 Walton’s Complete Angler 824 Wilkins’ New World 824 Antiquity defended by Temple 825 Wotton’s Reflection’s 825 Quevedo’s Visions 825 French Heroic Romances 826 Novels of Madame La Fayette 826 Scarron’s Roman Comique 826 Cyrano de Bergerac 827 Segrais 827 Perrault 827 Hamilton 827 Télémaque of Fenelon 827 Deficiency of English Romances 828 Pilgrim’s Progress 828 Turkish Spy 829 Chiefly of English Origin 830 Swift’s Tale of a Tub 831
XXXIV. HISTORY OF PHYSICAL AND OTHER LITERATURE FROM 1650 TO 1700
Reasons for omitting Mathematics 831 Academy del Cimento 831 Royal Society 832 Academy of Sciences at Paris 832 State of Chemistry 832 Becker 833 Boyle 833 His Metaphysical Works 833 Extract from one of them 833 His Merits in Physics and Chemistry 834 General Character of Boyle 834 Of Hooke and Others 834 Lemery 835 Slow Progress of Zoology 835 Before Ray 835 His Synopsis of Quadrupeds 835 Merits of this Work 835 Redi 836 Swammerdam 836 Lister 836 Comparative Anatomy 836 Botany 837 Jungius 837 Morison 837 Ray 837 Rivinus 838 Tournefort 838 Vegetable Physiology 839 Grew 839 His Anatomy of Plants 840 He discovers the Sexual System 840 Camerarius confirms this 840 Predecessors of Grew 840 Malpighi 840 Early Notions of Geology 840 Burnet’s Theory of Earth 840 Other Geologists 841 Protogæa of Leibnitz 841 Circulation of Blood Established 842 Willis--Vieussens 842 Malpighi 842 Other Anatomists 842 Medical Theories 843 Polyglott of Walton 843 Hottinger 844 Spencer 844 Bochart 844 Pococke 844 D’Herbelot 844 Hyde 844 Maps of the Sansons 844 De Lisle’s Map of the World 845 Voyages and Travels 845 Historians 845 De Solis 845 Memoirs of De Retz 845 Bossuet on Universal History 846 English Historical Works 846 Burnet 846 General Character of 17th Century 846 Conclusion 847
Introduction
TO THE
LITERATURE OF EUROPE
IN THE FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH, AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
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. Neither Italy nor Germany maintained its reputation, which, as it has been already mentioned, had begun to wane towards the close of the sixteenth century. The same causes were b 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.[1] 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]
[1] Biogr. Univ. art. Grævius. Eichhorn, iii. 1. 320.
[2] Eichhorn, 326.
|Popularity of Comenius.|
2. A sufficient evidence of this is found in the vast popularity which the writings of Comenius acquired in Germany. This author, a man of much industry, some ingenuity, and little judgment, made himself a colossal 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.[3] 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 strictness in excluding barbarous phrases is either practicable or expedient. But, according to the received principles of philological literature, they are such books as every teacher would keep out of the hands of his pupils. They were, nevertheless, reprinted and translated in many countries; and obtained a general reception, especially in the German empire, and similarly circumstanced kingdoms.[4]
[3] Biogr. Univ.
[4] Baillet, Critiques Grammairiens, part of the Jugemens des Sçavans (whom I cite by the number or paragraph, on account of the different editions), No. 634, quotes Lancelot’s remark on the Janua Linguarum, that it requires a better memory than most boys possess to master it, and that commonly the first part is forgotten before the last is learned. It excites disgust in the scholar, because he is always in a new country, every chapter being filled with words he has not seen before; and the successive parts of the book have no connection with one another.
Morhof, though he would absolutely banish the Janua Linguarum from all schools where good Latinity is required, seems to think rather better of the Orbis Sensualium Pictus, as in itself a happy idea, though the delineations are indifferent, and the whole not so well arranged as it might be. Polyhistor. lib. ii. c. 4.
|Decline of Greek learning.|
3. The Greek language, meantime, was thought unnecessary, and few, comparatively speaking, continued to prosecute its study. In Italy it can merely be said that there were still professors of it in the universities; but no one Hellenist distinguishes this century. Most of those who published editions of Greek authors in Germany, and they were far from numerous, had been formed in the last age. The decline was progressive; few scholars remained after 1620, and a long blank ensued, until Fabricius and Kuster restored the study of Greek near the end of the century. Even in France and Holland, where many were abundantly learned, and some, as we shall see, accomplished philologers, the Greek language seems to have been either less regarded, or at least less promoted by eminent scholars, than in the preceding century.[5]
[5] Scaliger, even in 1602, says: Quis hodie nescit Græcè? sed quis est doctus Græcè? Non dubito esse aliquot, sed paucos, et quos non novi ne de nomine quidem. Te unum novi et memoriæ avorum et nostri sæculi Græcè doctissimum, qui unus in Græcis præstiteris, quæ post renatas apud nos bonas literas omnes nunquam præstare potuissent. He goes on to speak of himself, as standing next to Casaubon, and the only competent judge of the extent of his learning; qui de præstantia doctrinæ tuæ certo judicare possit, ego aut unicus sum, aut qui cæteros hac in re magno intervallo vinco. Scal. Epist. 72.
|Casaubon.|
4. Casaubon now stood on the pinnacle of critical renown. His Persius in 1605, and his Polybius in 1609, were testimonies to his continued industry in this province.[6] But with this latter edition the philological labours of Casaubon came to an end. In 1610 he accepted the invitation of James I., who bestowed upon him, though a layman, a prebend in the church of Canterbury, and, as some, perhaps erroneously, have said, another in that of Westminster.[7] He died in England within four years after, having consumed the intermediate time in the defence of his royal patron against the Jesuits, and in writing Animadversions on the Annals of Baronius; works ill-suited to his peculiar talent, and in the latter of which he is said to have had but little success. He laments, in his epistles, the want of leisure for completing his labours on Polybius; the king had no taste but for theology, and he found no library in which he could pursue his studies.[8] “I gave up,” he says, “at last, with great sorrow, my commentary on Polybius, to which I had devoted so much time, but the good king must be obeyed.”[9] Casaubon was the last of the great scholars of the sixteenth century. Joseph Scaliger, who, especially in his recorded conversation, was very sparing of praise, says expressly, “Casaubon is the most learned man now living.” It is not impossible that he meant to except himself; which would by no means be unjust, if we take in the whole range of erudition; but in the exactly critical knowledge of the Greek language, Casaubon had not even a rival in Scaliger.
[6] The translation that Casaubon has here given of Polybius has generally passed for excellent, though some have thought him a better scholar in Greek than in Latin, and consequently not always able to render the sense as well as he conceived it. Baillet, n. 902. Schweighauser praises the annotations, but not without criticism, for which a later editor generally finds room in an earlier. Reiske, he says, had pointed out many errors.
[7] The latter is contradicted by Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature, vol. v., p. 126, on the authority of Le Neve’s Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ.
[8] Jacent curæ Polybianæ, et fortasse æternum jacebunt, neque enim satis commodus ad illa studia est locus. Epist. 705. Plura adderem, nisi omni librorum præsidio meorum deficerer. Quare etiam de commentariis Polybianis noli meminisse, quando rationes priorum meorum studiorum hoc iter mirificè conturbavit, ut vix sine suspirio ejus incepti possim meminisse, quod tot vigiliis mihi constitit. Sed neque adest mea bibliotheca, neque ea studia multum sunt ad gustum illius, cujus solius, quamdiu hic sum futurus, habenda mihi ratio. Ep. 704 (Feb. 1611). Rex optimus atque ευσεβεστατος [eusebestatos] rebus theologicis ita delectatur, ut aliis curis literariis non multum operæ impendat. Ep. 872. Ego quid hic agam, si cupis scire, hoc unum respondebo, omnia priora studia mea funditus interiisse. Nam maximus rex et liberalissimus unico genere literarum sic capitur, ut suum et suorum ingenia in illo detineat. Ep. 753.
[9] Decessi gemens a Polybiano commentario, quem tot laboribus concinnaveram; sed regi optimo parendum erat. Ep. 854. Feb. 1613.
|Viger de Idiotismis.|
5. A long period ensued, during which no very considerable progress was made in Greek literature. Few books occur before the year 1650 which have obtained a durable reputation. The best known, and, as I conceive, by far the best of a grammatical nature, is that of Viger de Idiotismis præcipuis Græcæ Linguæ, which Hoogeveen and Zeunius successively enlarged in the last century. Viger was a Jesuit of Rouen, and the first edition was in 1632. It contains, even as it came from the author, many valuable criticisms, and its usefulness to a Greek scholar is acknowledged. But, in order to determine the place of Viger among grammarians, we should ascertain by comparison with preceding works, especially the Thesaurus of Stephens, for how much he is indebted to their labours. He would probably, after all deductions, appear to merit great praise. His arrangement is more clear, and his knowledge of syntax more comprehensive, than that of Caninius or any other earlier writer; but his notions are not unfrequently imperfect or erroneous, as the succeeding editors have pointed out. In common with many of the older grammarians, he fancied a difference of sense between the two aorists, wherein even Zeunius has followed him.[10]
[10] An earlier treatise on Greek particles by Devarius, a Greek of the Ionian Islands, might have been mentioned in the last volume. It was republished by Reusmann, who calls Devarius, homo olim haud ignobilis, at hodie pæne neglectus. He is thought too subtle in grammar, but seems to have been an excellent scholar. I do not perceive that Viger has borrowed from him.
|Weller’s Greek grammar.|
6. In a much lower rank, we may perhaps next place Weller, author of a Greek grammar, published in 1638, of which its later editor, Fischer, says that it has always stood in high repute as a school-book, and been frequently reprinted; meaning, doubtless, in Germany. There is nothing striking in Weller’s grammar; it may deserve praise for clearness and brevity; but, in Vergara, Caninius, and Sylburgius, there is much more instruction for those who are not merely schoolboys. What is most remarkable is, that Weller claims as his own the reduction of the declensions to three, and of the conjugations to one; which, as has been seen in a former chapter,[11] is found in the grammar of Sylburgius, and is probably due to Ramus. This is rather a piece of effrontery, as he could scarcely have lighted by coincidence on both these innovations. Weller has given no syntax; what is added in Fischer’s edition is by Lambert Bos.
[11] Page 239.
|Labbe and others.|
|Salmasius de Lingua Hellenistica.|
7. Philip Labbe, a French Jesuit, was a laborious compiler, among whose numerous works not a few relate to the grammar of the Greek language. He had, says Niceron, a wonderful talent in multiplying title pages; we have fifteen or sixteen grammatical treatises from him, which might have been comprised in two or three ordinary volumes. Labbe’s Regulæ Accentuum, published in 1635, was once, I believe, of some repute; but he has little or nothing of his own.[12] The Greek grammars published in this age by Alexander Scot and others are ill-digested, according to Lancelot, without order or principle, and full of useless and perplexing things;[13] and that of Vossius, in 1642, which is only an improved edition of that of Clenardus, appears to contain little which is not taken from others.[14] Erasmus Schmidt is said by Eichhorn to be author of a valuable work on Greek dialects;[15] George Pasor is better known by his writings on the Hellenistic dialect, or that of the Septuagint and New Testament. Salmasius, in his Commentarius de Hellenistica, (Leyden, 1643), has gone very largely into this subject. This, he says, is a question lately agitated, whether there be a peculiar dialect of the Greek Scriptures; for, in the last age, the very name of Hellenistic was unknown to scholars. It is not above half a century old. It was supposed to be a Hebrew idiom in Greek words; which, as he argues elaborately and with great learning, is not sufficient to constitute a distinct dialect, none of the ancients having ever mentioned one by this name. This is evidently much of a verbal dispute; since no one would apply the word to the scriptural Greek, in the same sense that he does to the Doric and Attic. Salmasius lays down two essential characteristics of a dialect: one, that it should be spoken by people differing in locality; another, that it should be distinguishable by single words, not merely by idiom. A profusion of learning is scattered all round, but not pedantically or impertinently; and this seems a very useful book in Greek or Latin philology. He may perhaps be thought to underrate the peculiarities of language in the Old and New Testament, as if they were merely such as passed current among the contemporary Greeks. The second part of this Commentary relates to the Greek dialects generally, without reference to the Hellenistic. He denies the name to what is usually called the common dialect, spoken, or at least written, by the Greeks in general after the time of Alexander. This also is of course a question of words; perhaps Salmasius used a more convenient phraseology than what is often met with in grammarians.
[12] Niceron, vol. xxv.
[13] Baillet, n. 706.
[14] Id. n. 711.
[15] Geschichte der Cultur, iii. 325.
|Greek editions--Savile’s Chrysostom.|
8. Editions of Greek classics are not so numerous as in the former period. The Pindar of Erasmus Schmidt, in 1614, and the Aristotle of Duval, in 1619, may be mentioned: the latter is still in request as a convenient and complete edition. Meursius was reckoned a good critical scholar, but his works as an editor are not very important. The chief monument of his philological erudition is the Lexicon Græco-Barbarum, a glossary of the Greek of the lower empire. But no edition of a Greek author published in the first part of the seventeenth century is superior, at least in magnificence, to that of Chrysostom by Sir Henry Savile. This came forth, in 1612, from a press established at Eton by himself, provost of that college. He had procured types and pressmen in Holland, and three years had been employed in printing the eight volumes of this great work; one, which both in splendour of execution, and in the erudition displayed in it by Savile, who had collected several manuscripts of Chrysostom, leaves immeasurably behind it every earlier production of the English press. The expense, which is said to have been eight thousand pounds, was wholly defrayed by himself, and the tardy sale of so voluminous a work could not have reimbursed the cost.[16] Another edition, in fact, by a Jesuit, Fronto Ducæus (Fronton le Duc), was published at Paris within two years afterwards, having the advantage of a Latin translation, which Savile had imprudently waived. It has even been imputed to Ducæus, that, having procured the sheets of Savile’s edition from the pressmen while it was under their hands, he printed his own without alteration. But this seems an apocryphal story.[17] Savile had the assistance, in revising the text, of the most learned coadjutors he could find in England.
[16] Beloe’s Anecdotes of Literature, vol. v., p. 103. The copies sold for 9_l_. each; a sum equal to nearly 30_l_. at present, and from the relative wealth of the country, to considerably more. What wonder that the sale was slow? Fuller, however, tells us, that when he wrote, almost half a century afterwards, the book was become scarce. Chrysostomus, says Casaubon, a Savilio editur privata impensa, animo regio. Ep. 738 (apud Beloe). The principal assistants of Savile were, Matthew Bust, Thomas Allen, and especially Richard Montagu, afterwards celebrated in our ecclesiastical history as bishop of Chichester, who is said to have corrected the text before it went to the press. As this is the first work of learning, on a great scale, published in England, it deserves the particular commemoration of those to whom we owe it.
[17] It is told by Fuller, and I do not know that it has any independent confirmation. Savile himself says of Fronto Ducæus, “Vir doctissimus, et cui Chrysostomus noster plurimum debet.” Fuller, it may be observed, says that the Parisian edition followed Savile’s “in a few months,” whereas the time was two years; and, as Brunet (Manuel du Libraire) justly observes, there is no apparent necessity to suppose an unfair communication of the sheets, even if the text should be proved to be copied.
|Greek learning in England.|
9. A very few more Greek books were printed at Eton soon afterwards; and though that press soon ceased, some editions of Greek authors, generally for schools, appeared in England before 1650. One of these, the Poetæ Minores of Winterton, is best known, and has sometimes been reprinted; it does little credit to its original editor, the text being exceedingly corrupt, and the notes very trifling. The Greek language, however, was now much studied;[18] the age of James and Charles was truly learned; our writers are prodigal of an abundant erudition, which embraces a far wider range of authors than are now read; the philosophers of every class, the poets, the historians and orators of Greece, to whom few comparatively had paid regard in the days of Elizabeth, seem as familiar to the miscellaneous writers of her next successors, as the fathers of the church are to the theologians. A few, like Jeremy Taylor, are equally copious in their libations from both streams. But though thus deeply read in ancient learning, our old scholars were not very critical in philology.
[18] It might appear, at first sight, that Casaubon intended to send his son Meric to Holland, under the care of Heinsius, because he could not get a good classical education in England. Cupio in Græcis, Latinis, et Hebraicis literis ipsum serio exerceri. Hoc in Anglia posse fieri sperare non possumus: nam hic locupletissima sunt collegia, sed quorum ratio toto genere diversa est ab institutis omnium aliorum collegiorum. Ep. 962 (1614). But possibly he meant that, on account of his son’s foreign birth, he could not be admitted on the foundation of English colleges, though the words do not clearly express this. At the king’s command, however, Meric was sent to Oxford. One of Casaubon’s sons went to Eton school; literis dat operam in gymnasio Etoniensi. Ep. 737 (apud Beloe’s Anecdotes; I had overlooked the passage). Theological learning, in the reign of James, opposed polite letters and philology, Est in Anglia, says Casaubon, theologorum ingens copia; eo enim fere omnes studia sua referunt. Ep. 762. Venio ex Anglia (Grotius writes in 1613), literarum ibi tenuis est merces; theologi regnant, leguleii rem faciunt; unus ferme Casaubonus habet fortunam satis faventem, sed, ut ipse judicat, minus certam. Ne huic quidem locus fuisset in Anglia ut literatori, theologum induere debuit. Epist. Grot. p. 751.
|Latin editions--Torrentius.|
10. In Latin criticism, the pretensions of the seventeenth century are far more considerable than in Greek. The first remarkable edition, however, that of Horace by Torrentius, a Belgian ecclesiastic, though it appeared in 1602, being posthumous, belongs strictly to the preceding age. It has been said that Dacier borrowed much for his own notes from this editor; but Horace was so profusely illustrated in the sixteenth century, that little has been left for later critics, except to tamper, as they have largely done, with his text. This period is not generally conspicuous for editions of Latin authors; but some names of high repute in grammatical and critical lore belong to it.
|Gruter.|
11. Gruter, a native of Antwerp, who became a professor in several German universities, and finally in that of Heidelberg, might have been mentioned in our history of the sixteenth century, before the expiration of which some of his critical labours had been accomplished. Many more belong to the first twenty years of the present. No more diligent and indefatigable critic ever toiled in that quarry. His Suspiciones, an early work, in which he has explained and amended miscellaneous passages, his annotations on the Senecas, on Martial, on Statius, on the Roman historians, as well as another more celebrated compilation which we shall have soon to mention, bear witness to his immense industry. In Greek he did comparatively but little; yet he is counted among good scholars in that language. All others of his time, it has been said, appear mere drones in comparison with him.[19] Scaliger indeed, though on intimate terms with Gruter, in one of his usual fits of spleen, charges him with a tasteless indifference to the real merit of the writers whom he explained, one being as good as another for his purpose, which was only to produce a book.[20] In this art Gruter was so perfect, that he never failed to publish one every year, and sometimes every month.[21] His eulogists have given him credit for acuteness and judgment, and even for elegance and an agreeable variety; but he seems not to have preserved much repute except for his laborious erudition.
[19] Baillet, n. 483. Bayle. Niceron, vol. ix.
[20] Non curat utrum charta sit cacata, modo libros multos excudat. Scalig. secunda.
[21] Bayle, note i.
|Heinsius.|
12. Daniel Heinsius, conspicuous as secretary of the synod of Dort, and a Latin poet of distinguished name, was also among the first philologers of his age. Many editions of Greek and Latin writers, of annotations upon them, Theocritus, Hesiod, Maximus Tyrius, Aristotle, Horace, Terence, Silius, Ovid, attest his critical skill. He is praised for a judicious reserve in criticism, avoiding the trifles by which many scholars had wearied their readers, and attending only to what really demanded the aid of a critic, as being corrupt or obscure. His learning was very extensive and profound, so that in the panegyrical tone of the times, he is set above all the living, and almost above all the dead.[22]
[22] Baillet, n. 517.
|Grotius.|
13. Grotius contributed much to ancient philology. His editions of Aratus, Stobæus, the fragments of the lost Greek dramas, Lucan and Tacitus are but a part of those which he published. In the power of illustrating a writer by parallel or resembling passages from others, however remote, his taste and fondness for poetry, as much as his vast erudition, have made him remarkable. In mere critical skill, he was not quite so great a master of the Greek as of the Latin language; nor was he equal to restoring the text of the dramatic poets.
|Rutgersius, Reinesius, Barthius.|
14. The Variæ Lectiones of Rutgersius, in 1618, whose premature death cut off a brilliant promise of erudition, are in six books, almost entirely devoted to emendation of the text, in such a miscellaneous and desultory series of criticisms, as the example of Turnebus and other scholars had rendered usual.[23] Reinesius, a Saxon physician, in 1640 put forth a book with the same title, a thick volume of about 700 pages, of multifarious learning, chiefly, but not exclusively, classical. He is more interpretative, and less attentive to restore corrupted texts than Rutgersius.[24] The Adversaria of Gaspar Barthius are better known. This work is in 60 books, and extends to about 1500 pages in folio. It is exactly like those of Turnebus and Muretus, an immense repertory of unconnected criticisms and other miscellaneous erudition. The chapters exceed in number the pages, and each chapter contains several articles. There is, however, more connection, alphabetical or otherwise, than in Turnebus; and they are less exclusively classical, many relating to mediæval and modern writers. The sixtieth book is a commentary on a part of Augustin de Civitate Dei. It is difficult to give a more precise notion of Barthius; he is more æsthetic than Turnebus, but less so than Muretus; he explains and corrects fewer intricate texts than the former, but deals more in parallel passages and excursive illustrations.[25] Though Greek appears more than in Turnebus, by far the greater part of Barthius’s Adversaria relates to Latin, in the proportion of at least fifteen to one. A few small poems are printed from manuscripts for the first time. Barthius, according to Morhof, though he sometimes explains authors very well, is apt to be rash in his alterations, hasty in his judgments, and has too much useless and frivolous matter. Bayle is not more favourable. Barthius published an edition of Statius, and another of Claudian.
[23] “This work,” says Niceron (vol. xxxii.), “is in esteem: the style is neat and polite, the thoughts are just and refined; it has no more quotations than the subject requires.”
[24] Bayle observes of the writings of Reinesius in general, that “good judges of literature have no sooner read some pages, but they place him above those philologers who have only a good memory, and rank him with critics who go beyond their reading and know more than books have taught them. The penetration of their understanding makes them draw consequences, and form conjectures, which lead them to discover hidden treasures. Reinesius was one of these, and made it his chief business to find out what others had not said.”
[25] The following are the heads of the fourth chapter of the first book, which may serve as a specimen of the Adversaria: Ad Victoris Uticensis librum primum notæ et emendationes. Limites. Collimitia. Quantitas. H. Stephanus notatur. Impendere. Totum. Omnimodè. Dextrales. Asta. Francisii Balduini audacia castigatur. Tormenta antiqua. Liguamen Arx capitis. Memoriæ. Cruciari. Balduinus denuo aliquoties notatur. It is true that all this farrago arises out of one passage in Victor of Utica, and Barthius is far from being so desultory as Turnebus: but 3000 columns of such notes make but a dictionary without the help of the alphabet. Barthius tells us himself that he had finished two other volumes of Adversaria, besides correcting the first. See the passage in Bayle, note K. But he does not stand on very high ground as a critic, on account of the rapidity with which he wrote, and, for the same reason, has sometimes contradicted himself. Bayle. Baillet, n. 528. Niceron, vol. vii. Morhof, lib. v. 1. 10.
|Other critics--English.|
15. Rigault, or Rigaltius, Petit, Thysius, and several more, do honour to France and the Low countries during this period. Spain, though not strong in classical philology, produced Ramiresius de Prado, whose Πεντηκονταρχος [Pentêkontarchos], sive quinquaginta militum ductor, 1612, is but a book of criticism with a quaint title.[26] In Latin Literature we can hardly say that England made herself more conspicuous than in Greek. The notes of John Bond on Horace, published in 1606, are properly a work of the age of Elizabeth: the author was long a schoolmaster in that reign. These notes are only little marginal scholia for the use of boys of no great attainments; and in almost every instance, I believe, taken from Lambinus. This edition of Horace, though Antony Wood calls the author a most noted critic and grammarian, has only the merit of giving the observations of another concisely and perspicuously. Thomas Farnaby is called by Baillet one of the best scholiasts, who says hardly anything useless, and is very concise.[27] He has left notes on several of the Latin poets. It is possible that the notes are compiled, like those of Bond, from the foreign critics. Farnaby also was a schoolmaster, and schoolmasters do not write for the learned. He has however been acknowledged on the continent for a diligent and learned man. Wood says he was “the chief grammarian, rhetorician, poet, Latinist, and Grecian of his time; and his school was so much frequented, that more churchmen and statesmen issued thence than from any school taught by one man in England.”[28]
[26] This has been ascribed by some to his master Sanctius, author of the Minerva, Ramirez himself having been thought unequal to such remarks as we find in it. Baillet, n. 527.
[27] N. 521.
[28] Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. iii.
|Salmasius.|
16. But the greatest in this province of literature was Claude Saumaise, best known in the Latin form Salmasius, whom the general suffrage of his compeers placed at their head. An incredible erudition, so that it was said, what Salmasius did not know, was beyond the bounds of knowledge, a memory such as none but those great scholars of former times seem to have possessed, a life passed, naturally enough, in solitary labour, were sufficient to establish his fame among the learned. His intellectual strength has been more questioned; he wrote, it has been alleged, on many subjects that he did not well understand, and some have reduced his merit to that of a grammatical critic, without altogether rating this so highly as the world has done.[29] Salmasius was very proud, self-confident, disdainful, and has consequently fallen into many errors, and even contradictions, through precipitancy. In his controversy with Milton, for which he was little fitted, he is rather feeble, and glad to escape from the severity of his antagonist by a defence of his own Latinity.[30] The works of Salmasius are numerous, and on very miscellaneous subjects; among the philological, his Annotations on the Historiæ Augustæ Scriptores seem to deserve mention. But the most remarkable, besides the Commentary on the Hellenistic Dialect, of which an account has been given, is the Plinianæ Exercitationes, published in 1629. These remarks, nominally on Pliny, are, in the first instance, on Solinus. Salmasius tells us that he had spent much time on Pliny; but finding it beyond the powers of one man to write a commentary on the whole Natural History of that author, he had chosen Solinus, who is a mere compiler from Pliny, and contains nothing from any other source. The Plinianæ Exercitationes is a mass of learning on the geography and natural history of Pliny in more than 900 pages, following the text of the Polyhistor of Solinus.[31]
[29] Baillet, n. 511, is excessively severe on Salmasius; but the homage due to his learning by such an age as that in which he lived cannot be extenuated by the censure of a man like Baillet, of extensive, but rather superficial attainments, and open to much prejudice.
[30] Milton began the attack by objecting to the use of persona for an individual man; but in this mistaken criticism uttered himself the solecism vapulandum. See Johnson’s Lives of the Poets. This expression had previously been noticed by Vavasseur.
[31] Nemo adeo ut propriam, suumque veluti regnum, sibi criticen vindicatum ivit, ac Claudius Salmasius, qui, quemadmodum nihil unquam scripsit, in quo non insignia multa artis criticæ vestigia deprehendas, ita imprimis, ut auctores cum notis et castigationibus absolutissimis editos taceamus, vasto illo Plinianarum Exercitationum opere, quantum in eo eruditionis genere valeret demonstratum dedit. Morhof. lib. v. c. 1. § 12. The Jesuits, Petavius and Harduin, who did not cordially praise any Protestant, charged this book with passing over real difficulties, while a mass of heterogeneous matter was foisted in. Le Clerc (or La Croze) vindicates Salmasius against some censures of Harduin in Bibl. Univ. vol. iv.
|Good writers of Latin.|
17. It had been the desire of those who aspired to reputation for taste and eloquence to write well in Latin, the sole language, on this side of the Alps and Pyrenees, to which the capacity of choice and polished expression was conceded. But when the French tongue was more cultivated and had a criticism of its own, this became the natural instrument of polite writers in France, and the Latin fell to the merely learned who neglected its beauties. In England it had never been much studied for the purposes of style; and though neither in Germany nor the Low Countries it was very customary to employ the native language, the current Latin of literature was always careless and often barbarous. Even in Italy the number of good writers in that language was now very scanty. Two deserve to be commemorated with praise, both historians of the same period. The History and Annals of Grotius, in which he seems to have emulated, with more discretion than some others, the nervous brevity of Tacitus, though sometimes not free from a certain hardness and want of flow, nor equal, consequently, in elegance to some productions of the sixteenth century, may be deemed a monument of vigorous and impressive language. The Decades of Famianus Strada, a Roman Jesuit, contain a history of the Flemish war, not written certainly in imitation of Tacitus, whom the author depreciated, but with more classical spirit than we usually find in that age. Scarcely any Latin, however, of this period is equal to that of Barclay in the Argenis and Euphormio. His style, though rather diffuse, and more florid than that of the Augustan age, is perhaps better suited to his subjects, and reminds us of Petronius Arbiter, who was probably his model.
|Scioppius.|
|His Philosophical Grammar.|
18. Of the grammatical critics, whose attention was solely turned to the purity of Latin style, two are conspicuous, Gaspar Scioppius and Gerard Vossius. The first, one of those restless and angry spirits whose hand is against all the world, lived a long life of controversy and satire. His productions, as enumerated by Niceron, mostly anonymous, are about one hundred; twenty-seven of which, according to another list, are grammatical.[32] The Protestants, whom he had abandoned, and the Jesuits whom he would not join, are equally the objects of his anger. In literature, he is celebrated for the bitterness of his attacks on Cicero, whom he spared as little as he did his own contemporaries. But Scioppius was an admirable master of the Latin language. All that is remembered of his multifarious publications relates to this. We owe to him a much improved edition of the Minerva of Sanctius. His own Grammatica Philosophica, (Milan, 1628,) notwithstanding its title, has no pretentions to be called anything more than an ordinary Latin grammar. In this I observed nothing remarkable but that he denies the gerund and supine to be parts of the verb, considering the first as passive participles, and the second as nouns substantive; a theory which seems erroneous.
[32] Niceron, vol. xxxv. Biog. Univ.
|His Infamia Famiani.|
19. The Infamia Famiani of Scioppius was written against Famianus Strada, whom he hated both as a Jesuit, and as one celebrated for the beauty of his style. This book serves to show how far those who wrote with some eloquence, as Strada certainly did, fell short of classical purity. The faults pointed out are often very obvious to those who have used good dictionaries. Scioppius is however so fastidious as to reject words employed by Seneca, Tacitus, and even Phædrus, as of the silver age; and sometimes probably is wrong in his dogmatic assertion of a negative, that no good authority can be found.
|Judicium de Stylo Historico.|
20. But his most considerable work is one called Judicium de Stylo Historico, subjoined to the last, and published after his death, in 1650. This treatise consists chiefly of attacks on the Latin style of Thuanus, Lipsius, Casaubon, and other recent authors; but in the course of it we find the remarks of a subtle and severe observer on the ancients themselves. The silver age he dates from the latter years of Augustus, placing even Ovid within it. The brazen he carries up to Vespasian. In the silver period he finds many single words as well as phrases not agreeable to the usage of more ancient authors. As to the moderns the Transalpine writers, he says, speaking as an Italian, are always deficient in purity; they mingle the phraseology of different ages as preposterously as if they were to write Greek in a confusion of dialects; they affect obscurity, a broken structure of periods, a studied use of equivocal terms. This is particularly perceived in the school of Lipsius, whose own faults, however, are redeemed by many beauties even of style.[33] The Italians, on the contrary, he proceeds to say, read nothing but what is worthy of imitation, and shun every expression that can impair the clearness and purity of a sentence. Yet even in Manutius and in the Jesuit Maffei, he finds instances of barbarism, much more in the French and German scholars of the sixteenth age; expressing contempt upon this account for his old enemy, Joseph Scaliger. Thuanus, he says, is full of modern idioms; a crime not quite unpardonable, when we remember the immensity of his labour, and the greater importance of other objects of it that he had in view.
[33] Transalpinis hominibus ex quotidiano Latini sermonis inter ipsos usu, multa sive barbaræ, sive plebeiæ ac deterioris notæ, sic adhærescere solent, ut postea cum stylum arripuere, de Latinitate eorum dubitare nequaquam iis in mentem veniat. Inde fit ut scripta eorum plerumque minus puritatis habeant, quamvis gratia et venustas in iis minime desideretur. Nam hæc natura duce melius fiebant, quam arte aut studio. Accedit alia causa cur non æquè pura sit multorum Transalpinorum oratio, quod nullo ætatis discrimine ac delectu in autorum lectione versantur, et ex omnium commixtione varium quoddam ac multiforme pro suo quisque ingenio dicendi genus effingunt, contempto hoc Fabii monito: “Diu non nisi optimus quisque et qui credentem sibi minime fallat, legendus est, sed diligenter ac pæne ad scribendi solicitudinem; nec per partes modo scrutanda omnia, sed perlectus liber utique ex integro resumendus.” Itaque genus illud corruptæ orationis, seu κακοζηλιας [kakozêlias], effugere nequeunt, quod κοινισμον [koinismon] vocant, quæ est quædam mista ex variarum linguarum ratione oratio, ut si Atticis Dorica, Ionica, Æolica etiam dicta confundas; cui simile est si quis sublimia humilibus, vetera novis, poetica vulgaribus, Sallustiana Tullianis, æneæ et ferreæ ætatis vocabula aureis et argenteis misceat, qui Lipsio deductisque ab eo viris, solennis et jam olim familiaris, est morbus. In quibus hoc amplius, verba maxime impropria, comprehensionem obscuram, compositionem fractam, aut in frustula concisam, vocum similium aut ambiguarum puerilem captationem passim animadvertas. Magnis tamen, non nego, virtutibus vitia sua Lipsius redimit, imprimis acumine, venere, salibus (ut excellens viri ingenium ferebat) tum plurimis lectissimis verbis loquendique modis, ex quibus non tam facultatem bene scribendi, ejusque, quod melius est, intellectum ei deesse, quam voluntatem, quo minus rectiora malit, ambitiuscule, plaususque popularis studio præpediri intelligas. Italorum longè dispar ratio. Primum enim non nisi optimum legere et ad imitandum sibi proponere solent; quod judicio quo cæteras nationes omnium consensu superant, imprimis est consentaneum. Deinde nihil non faciunt, ut evitent omnia, unde aliquid injucundæ et contaminandæ orationis periculi ostenditur. Latinè igitur nunquam loquuntur, quod fieri vix posse persuasum habeant, quin quotidianus ejus linguæ usus ad instar torrentis lutulentus fluat, et cujusque modi verborum sordes secum rapiat, quæ postea quodam familiaritatis jure sic se scribentibus ingerant, ut etiam diligentissimos fallant, et haud dubie pro Latinis habeantur. Hoc eorum consilium cum non intelligant Transalpini, id eorum inscitiæ perperam assignant. Sic rectè Paulo Manutio usu venit, ut quoniam vix tria verba Latina in familiari sermone proferre poterat, eam Germani complures, qui loquentem audituri ad eum venerunt, vehementer præ se contemnerent. Huic tamen nemo qui sanus sit ad puritatis et elegantiæ Latinæ summam quicquid defuisse dixerit, p. 65.
|Gerard Vossius de Vitiis sermonis.|
21. Gerard Vossius, a far greater name in general literature than Scioppius, contributed more essentially to these grammatical rules; and to him, perhaps, rather than to any other one man, we may refer the establishment of as much correctness of writing as is attainable in a dead language. Besides several works on rhetoric and poetry, which, as those topics were usually treated in ages of more erudition than taste or philosophy, resolved themselves into philological disquisitions, looking only to the language of the ancient writers, we have several more strictly within that province. The long use of Latin in writings on modern subjects, before the classical authors had been studied, had brought in a host of barbarisms, that even yet were not expelled. His treatise De Vitiis Sermonis et Glossematis Latino-barbaris is in nine books; four published in 1645, during the author’s life; five in 1685. The former are by far the most copious. It is a very large collection of words in use among modern writers, for which there is no adequate authority. Of these many are plainly barbarous, and taken from the writers of the middle ages, or at best from those of the fifth and sixth centuries. Few of such would be used by any tolerable scholar. He includes some which, though in themselves good, have a wrong sense given to them. Words however occur, concerning which one might be ignorant without discredit, especially before the publication of this treatise, which has been the means of correcting the ordinary dictionaries.
22. In the five posthumous books, which may be mentioned in this place, having probably been written before 1650, we find chiefly what the author had forgotten to notice in the former, or had since observed. But the most valuable part relates to the “falso suspecta,” which fastidious critics have unreasonably rejected, generally because they do not appear in the Augustan writers. Those whom he calls “Nizoliani verius quam Ciceroniani,” disapproved of all words not found in Cicero.[34] It is curious to perceive, as Vossius shows us, how many apparently obvious words do not occur in Cicero; yet it would be mere affectation to avoid them. This is perhaps the best part of Vossius’s treatise.
[34] Paulus Manutius scrupled to use words on the authority of Cicero’s correspondents, such as Cælius or Pollio; a ridiculous affectation, especially when we observe what Vossius has pointed out, that many common words do not occur in Cicero. It is amazing to see the objections of these Ciceronian critics.
|His Aristarchus.|
23. We are indebted to Vossius for a still more important work on grammar, the Aristarchus, sive de Arte Grammatica, which first appeared in 1635. This is in seven books; the first treats of grammar in general, and especially of the alphabet; the second of syllables, under which head he dwells at great length on prosody;[35] the third (which, with all the following, is separately entitled De vocum Analogia) of words generally, and of the genders, numbers, and cases of nouns. The same subject occupies the fourth book. In the fifth, he investigates verbs; and in the sixth, the remaining parts of speech. The last book relates to syntax. This work is full of miscellaneous observations, placed for the most part alphabetically under each chapter. It has been said that Vossius has borrowed almost everything in this treatise from Sanctius and Scioppius. If this be true, we must accuse him of unfairness; for he never mentions the Minerva. But the edition of this grammar by Scioppius was not published till after the death of Vossius. Salmasius extolled that of the latter above all which had been published.[36]
[35] In this we find Vossius aware of the rule brought to light by Dawes, and now familiar, that a final vowel is rarely short before a word beginning with s and a mute consonant.
[36] Tuum de grammatica à te accepi exactissimum in hoc genere opus, ac cui nullum priorum aut prisci ævi aut nostri possit comparari. Apud Blount in Vossio. Daunou says of the grammatical and rhetorical writings of Vossius: Ces livres se recommandent par l’exactitude, par la méthode, par une littérature très étendue. Gibert en convient, mais il trouve de la prolixité. D’autres pourraient n’y voir qu’une instruction sérieuse, souvent austère, et presque toujours profitable. Biogr. Univ.
|Progress of Latin Style.|
24. In later times the ambition of writing Latin with accuracy and elegance has so universally declined, that the diligence of Scioppius and Vossius has become hardly valuable except to schoolmasters. It is, however, an art not contemptible, either in respect to the taste and discernment for which it gives scope in composition, or for the enhanced pleasure it reflects on the pages of ancient writers. We may distinguish several successive periods in its cultivation since the first revival of letters. If we begin with Petrarch, since before his time there was no continuous imitation of classical models, the first period will comprise those who desired much, but reached little, the writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, destitute of sufficient aids, and generally incapable of clearly discriminating the pure from the barbarous in Latin. A better æra may be dated from Politian; the ancients were now fully known, and studied with intense labour; the graces of style were frequently caught; yet something was still wanting to its purity and elegance. At the end of a series of improvements, a line marked by Bembus, Sadolet, and Longolius, we arrive at a third period, which we may call that of Paulus Manutius, the golden age of modern Latinity. The diligence in lexicography of Robert Stephens, of Nizolius, of Manutius himself, and the philological treatises of their times, gave a much greater nicety of expression; while the enthusiasm with which some of the best writers emulated the ancients inspired them with a sympathetic eloquence and grace. But towards the end of the century, when Manutius, and Muretus, and Maphæus, and others of that school had been removed by death, an age of worse taste and perhaps of more negligence in grammar came on, yet one of great scholars, and of men powerful even in language; the age of Lipsius, of Scaliger, of Grotius. This may be called the fourth period; and in this apparently the purity of the language, as well as its beauty, rather declined. Finally, the publications of Scioppius and Vossius mark the beginning of another period, which we may consider as lasting to the present day. Grammatical criticism had nearly reached the point at which it now stands; the additions, at least, which later philologers, Perizonius, Burman, Bentley, and many others have made, though by no means inconsiderable, seem hardly sufficient to constitute a distinct period, even if we could refer them properly to any single epoch. And the praise of eloquent composition has been so little sought after the close of the years passed in education, or attained only in short and occasional writings, which have left no durable reputation behind, that we may consider the Latin language, for this purpose, to have silently expired in the regions of polite literature.
SECT. II.
Antiquities of Rome and Greece--Gruter--Meursius--Chronology.
|Gruter’s collection of inscriptions.|
25. The antiquities of Greece and Rome, though they did not occupy so great a relative space in the literature of this period as of the sixteenth century, were, from the general increase of erudition, not less frequently the subject of books than before. This field indeed is so vast, that its harvest had in many parts been scarcely touched, and in others very imperfectly gathered by those we have already commemorated, the Sigonii, the Manutii, the Lipsii, and their fellow-labourers in ancient learning. The present century opened with a great work, the Corpus Inscriptionum by Gruter. A few endeavours had long before been made[37] to collect the ancient inscriptions, of which the countries once Roman, and especially Italy, were full. The best work hitherto was by Martin Smetius of Bruges, after whose death his collection of inscriptions was published at Leyden in 1588, under the superintendence of Dousa and Lipsius.
[37] See p. 160.
|Assisted by Scaliger.|
26. Scaliger first excited his friend Gruter to undertake the task of giving an enlarged edition of Smetius.[38] He made the index for this himself, devoting the labour of the entire morning for ten months (a summo mane ad tempus cœnæ) to an occupation from which so little glory could accrue. “Who,” says Burman, “would not admire the liberal erudition and unpretending modesty of the learned of that age, who, worn as they were by those long and weary labours of which they freely complain in their correspondence with each other, though they knew that such occupations as these could gain for them no better name than that of common clerks or mere drudges, yet hesitated not to abandon for the advantage of the public those pursuits which a higher fame might be expected to reward? Who in these times would imitate the generosity of Scaliger, who, when he might have ascribed to himself this addition to the work of Smetius, gave away his own right to Gruter, and declined to let his name be prefixed either to the index which he had wholly compiled, or to the many observations by which he corrects and explains the inscriptions, and desired, in recompence for the industry of Gruter, that he alone should pass with posterity as the author of the work?”[39] Gruter, it is observed by Le Clerc, has committed many faults: he often repeats the same inscriptions, and still more frequently has printed them from erroneous copies; his quotations from authors, in whom inscriptions are found, sometimes want exactness; finally, for which he could not well be answerable, a vast many have since been brought to light.[40] In consequence of the publication of Gruter’s Inscriptions, the learned began with incredible zeal to examine old marbles for inscriptions, and to insert them in any work that had reference to antiquity. Reinesius collected as many as make a respectable supplement.[41] But a sort of æra in lapidary learning was made by Selden’s description, in 1629, of the marbles, brought by the Earl of Arundel from Greece, and which now belong to the university of Oxford. These contain a chronology of the early times of Greece, on which great reliance has often been placed, though their antiquity is not accounted very high in comparison with those times.
[38] Burman in Præfatione ad Gruteri Corpus Inscript. Several of Scaliger’s epistles prove this, especially the 405th addressed to Gruter.
[39] Id. p. 6.
[40] Bibl. Choisie, vol. xiv., p. 51. Burman, ubi supra, gives a strange reason for reprinting Gruter’s Inscriptions with all their blemishes, even the repetitions; namely, that it was convenient to preserve the number of pages which had been so continually referred to in all learned works, the simple contrivance of keeping the original numeration in the margin not having occurred to him.
[41] Burman, ubi supra.
|Works on Roman antiquity.|
27. The Jesuit Donati published, in 1633, Roma vetus et nova, which is not only much superior to anything previously written on the antiquities of the city, but is preferred by some competent judges, to the later and more known work of Nardini. Both these will be found, with others of an earlier date, in the third and fourth volumes of Grævius. The tenth volume of the same collection contains a translation from the history of the Great Roads of the Roman Empire, published in French by Nicolas Bergier in 1622; ill arranged, it has been said, and diffuse, according to the custom of his age, but inferior. Grævius declares, in variety of learning to no one work that he has inserted in his numerous volumes. Guther, whose treatise on the pontifical law of Rome appears in the fifth volume, was, says the editor, “a man of various and extended reading, who had made extracts from every class of writers, but had not always digested his learning or weighed what he wrote. Hence much has been found open to criticism in his writings, and there remains a sufficient harvest of the same kind for any one who should care to undertake it.” The best work on Roman dress is by Octavius Ferrarius, published partly in 1642, partly in 1654. This has been called superficial by Spanheim; but Grævius, and several other men of learning, bestow more praise.[42] The Isiac tablet, covered with emblems of Egyptian antiquity, was illustrated by Pignoria, in a work bearing different titles in the successive editions from 1605; and his explanations are still considered probable. Pignoria’s other writings were also in high esteem with the antiquaries.[43] It would be tedious to enumerate the less important productions of this kind. A minute and scrupulous criticism, it has been said, distinguished the antiquaries of the seventeenth century. Without, perhaps, the comprehensive views of Sigonius and Panvinius, they were more severely exact. Hence forgery and falsehood stood a much worse chance of success than before. Annius of Viterbo had deceived half the scholars of the preceding age. But when Inghirami, in 1637, published his Etruscarum Antiquitatum Fragmenta, monuments of Etruscan antiquity, which he pretended to have discovered at Volterra, the imposture was speedily detected.[44]
[42] Niceron, v. 80. Tiraboschi, xi. 300.
[43] Niceron, vol. xxi. Biogr. Univ.
[44] Salfi, Continuation de Ginguéné xi. 358.
|Geography of Cluverius.|
28. The Germania Antiqua of Cluverius was published in 1616, and his Italia Antiqua in 1624. These form a sort of epoch in ancient geography. The latter, especially, has ever since been the great repertory of classical illustration on this subject. Cluverius, however, though a man of acknowledged ability and erudition, has been thought too bold an innovator in his Germany, and to have laid down much on his own conjecture.[45]
[45] Blount. Niceron, vol. xxi. Biogr. Univ.
|Meursius.|
|Ubbo Emmius.|
29. Meursius, a native of Holland, began when very young, soon after the commencement of the century, those indefatigable labours on Grecian antiquity, by which he became to Athens and all Hellas what Sigonius had been to Rome and Italy. Niceron has given a list of his publications, sixty-seven in number, including some editions of ancient writers, but for the most part confined to Illustrations of Greek usages; some also treat of Roman. The Græcia feriata, on festivals and games; the Orchestra, on dancing; the Eleusinia, on that deeply interesting and in his time almost untouched subject, the ancient mysteries, are collected in the works of this very learned person, or scattered through the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Græcarum of Gronovius. “Meursius,” says his editor, “was the true and legitimate mystagogue to the sanctuarius of Greece.” But his peculiar attention was justly shown to “the eye of Greece,” Athens. Nothing that bore on her history, her laws and government, her manners and literature, was left by him. The various titles of his works seem almost to exhaust Athenian Antiquity: De Populis Atticæ--Athenæ Atticæ--Cecropia--Regnum Atticum--Archontes Athenienses--Pisistratus--Fortuna Attica--Atticarum Lectionum Libri IV.--Piraeus--Themis Attica--Solon--Areopagus-- Panathenæa--Eleusinia--Theseus--Æschylus--Sophocles et Euripides. It is manifest that all later learning must have been built upon his foundations. No one was equal to Meursius in this province; but the second place is perhaps due to Ubbo Emmius, professor of Greek at Groningen, for his Vetus Græcia Illustrata, 1626. The facilities of elucidating the topography of that country were by no means such as Cluverius had found for Italy; and in fact little was done in respect to local investigation in order to establish a good ancient geography till recent times. Samuel Petit, a man placed by some in the very first list of the learned, published in 1635 a commentary on the Athenian laws, which is still the chief authority on that subject.
30. In an age so peculiarly learned as this part of the seventeenth century, it will be readily concluded that many books must have a relation to the extensive subject of this section; though the stream of erudition had taken rather a different course, and watered the provinces of ecclesiastical and mediæval more than those of heathen antiquity. But we can only select one or two which treat of chronology, and that chiefly because we have already given a place to the work of Scaliger.
|Chronology of Lydiat. Calvisius.|
31. Lydiat was the first who, in a small treatise on the various calendars, 1605, presumed in several respects to differ from that of the dictator of literature. He is in consequence reviled in Scaliger’s Epistles as the most stupid and ignorant of the human race, a portentous birth of England, or at best an ass and a beetle, whom it is below the dignity of the author to answer.[46] Lydiat was however esteemed a man of deep learning, and did not flinch from the contest. His Emendatio Temporum, published in 1609, is a more general censure of the Scaligerian chronology, but it is rather a short work for the extent of the subject. A German, Seth Calvisius, on the other hand, is extolled to the skies by Scaliger for a chronology founded on his own principles. These are applied in it to the whole series of history, and thus Calvisius may be said to have made an epoch in historical literature. He made more use of eclipses than any preceding writer; and his dates are reckoned as accurate in modern as in ancient history.[47]
[46] Ante aliquot dies tibi scripsi, ut scirem ex te quis sit Thomas Lydiat iste, quo monstro nullum portentosius in vestra Anglia natum puto; tanta est inscitia hominis et confidentia. Ne semel quidem illi verum dicere accidit. And again:--Non est similis morio in orbe terrarum. Paucis asinitatem ejus perstringam ut lector rideat. Nam in tam prodigiosè imperitum scarabæum scribere, neque nostræ dignitatis est, neque otii. Scalig. Epist. 291. Usher, nevertheless, if we may trust Wood, thought Scaliger worsted by Lydiat. Ath. Oxon. iii. 187.
[47] Blount. Biogr. Univ.
|Petavius.|
32. Scaliger, nearly twenty years after his death, was assailed by an adversary whom he could not have thought it unworthy of his name to repel. Petau, or Petavius, a Jesuit of uncommon learning, devoted the whole of the first of two large volumes, entitled Doctrina, Temporum, 1627, to a censure of the famous work De Emendatione Temporum. This volume is divided into eight books; the first on the popular year of the Greeks; the second on the lunar; the third on the Ægyptian, Persian, and Armenian; the fourth on the solar year; the fifth treats of the correction of the paschal cycle and the calendar; the sixth discusses the principles of the lunar and solar cycles; the seventh is entitled an introduction to computations of various kinds, among which he reckons the Julian period; the eighth is on the true motions of the sun and moon, and on their eclipses. In almost every chapter of the first five books, Scaliger is censured, refuted, reviled. It was a retribution upon his own arrogance; but published thus after his death, with no justice done to his great learning and ability, and scarcely the common terms of respect towards a mighty name, it is impossible not to discern in Petavius both an envious mind, and a partial desire to injure the fame of a distinguished protestant. His virulence indeed against Scaliger becomes almost ridiculous. At the beginning of each of the first five books, he lays it down as a theorem to be demonstrated, that Scaliger is always wrong on the particular subjects to which it relates; and at the close of each, he repeats the same in geometrical form as having been proved. He does not even give him credit for the invention of the Julian period, though he adopts it himself with much praise, positively asserting that it is borrowed from the Byzantine Greeks.[48] The second volume is in five books, and is dedicated to the historical part of chronology, and the application of the principles laid down before. A third volume in 1630, relating to the same subjects, though bearing a different title, is generally considered as part of the work. Petavius, in 1633, published an abridgment of his chronological system, entitled Rationarium Temporum, to which he subjoined a table of events down to his own time, which in the larger work had only been carried to the fall of the empire. This abridgment is better known, and more generally useful than the former.
[48] Lib. vii., c. 7.
|Character of this work.|
33. The merits of Petavius as a chronologer have been differently appreciated. Many, of whom Huet is one, from religious prejudices rejoiced in what they hoped to be a discomfiture of Scaliger, whose arrogance had also made enemies of a large part of the literary world. Even Vossius, after praising Petavius, declares that he is unwilling to decide between men who have done for chronology more than any others.[49] But he has not always been so favourably dealt with. Le Clerc observes, that as Scaliger is not very perspicuous, and Petavius has explained the former’s opinions before he proceeds to refute them, those who compare the two will have this advantage, that they will understand Scaliger better than before.[50] This is not very complimentary to his opponent. A modern writer of respectable authority gives us no reason to consider him victorious. “Though the great work of Petavius on chronology,” says M. St. Martin, “is certainly a very estimable production, it is not less certain that he has in no degree contributed to enlarge the boundaries of the science. The author shows too much anxiety to refute Scaliger, whether right or wrong; his sole aim is to destroy the edifice, perhaps too boldly elevated by his adversary. It is not unjust to say that Petavius has literally done nothing for positive chronology; he has not even determined with accuracy what is most incontestable in this science. Many of the dates which he considers as well established, are still subject to great doubt, and might be settled in a very different manner. His work is clear and methodical; and, as it embraces the whole of chronology, it might have become of great authority: but these very qualities have rendered it injurious to the science. He came to arrest the flight which, through the genius of Scaliger, it was ready to take, nor has it made the least progress ever since; it has produced nothing but conjectures, more or less showy, but with nothing solid and undeniable for their basis.”[51]
[49] Vossius apud Niceron, xxxvii. 111. Dionysius Petavius permaulta post Scaligerum optime observavit. Sed nolim judicium interponere inter eos, quorum uterque præclare adeo de chronologia meritus est, ut nullis plus hæc scientia debeat.... Qui sine affectu ac partium studio conferre volet quæ de temporibus scripsere, conspiciet esse ubi Scaligero major laus debeatur, comperiet quoque ubi longe Petavio malit assentiri; erit etiam ubi ampliandum videatur; imo ubi nec facile veritas à quoquam possit indagari. The chronology of Petavius was animadverted upon by Salmasius with much rudeness, and by several other contemporaries engaged in the same controversy. If we were to believe Baillet, Petavius was not only the most learned of the order of Jesuits, but surpassed Salmasius himself de plusieurs coudées. Jugemens des Sçavans, n. 513. But to judge between giants we should be a little taller ourselves than most are. Baillet, indeed, quotes Henry Valois for this preference of Petavius to any other of his age, which, in other words, is much the same as to call him the most learned man that ever lived; and Valois was a very competent judge. The words, however, are found in a funeral panegyric.
[50] Bibl. Choisie, ii. 186. A short abstract of the Petavian scheme of chronology will be found in this volume of Le Clerc.
[51] Biogr. Univ. art. Petavius.