views of the emperor ranged beyond the conceptions of the somewhat cold and decorous ecclesiastic. Though an ardent admirer of the De Civitate Dei, Charlemagne had other sympathies, sympathies which strongly inclined him to that secular learning so strongly condemned by Gregory. By his directions steps were taken for the collection and revision of manuscripts, a care especially necessary now that Egypt under Saracen occupation no longer furnished the papyrus for the use of Europe. One of the numerous letters of Alcuin consists of a reply to two grammatical questions propounded by the emperor,-the proper gender of rubus, and whether despereris or dispereris be the preferable form. The letter attests no contemptible scholarship, supported as its decisions are by references to Priscian and Donatus; it is moreover an important piece of evidence with respect to Alcuin's knowledge of Greek, for it contains seven quotations in that language, and illustrates the force of di, in such Latin compounds as dirido, diruo, discurro, by the Greek Ed. Such enquiries on the part of the emperor, together with The those interesting dialogues wherein Alcuin unfolded to the courtly circle at Aix-la-Chapelle the mysteries of logic and grammar, unmistakeably evidence the presence of a spirit very different from that of Gregory and altogether in advance of way, the ecclesiastical ideas of the time. It might seem indeed not unreasonable to suppose that when the dark, forebodings that derived their strength froin calamity and invasion drew off at the approach of a more hopeful age, and that as the Lorizon that bounded human life regained the charms that long to the illimitable and the unknown, men might well again find leisure to draw delight an inspiration from the Jege of Grecian and Roman genins Such happiness how DUCTION. INTRO ever the scholar was not yet destined to enjoy. The course of events, it is true, had tended to weaken the belief which Gregory had held', but there had at the same time been growing up in the Church a subsidiary theory with respect to pagan literature, which equally served to discredit and discourage the study. From considerations which led to an estimate of pagan learning as a thing wherein the Christian had no longer part or lot, objectors now turned to considerations derived from the morality of the literature. The spirit of Tertullian and Arnobius long survived in the Latin Church; and the most learned ecclesiastics of these centuries are to be found ignoring that very culture which in a later age has proved the road to ecclesiastical preferment, on grounds precisely similar to those assumed by the most illiterate and bigoted zealots of more modern times'. Thus Alcuin himself, who had been wont as a boy to conceal in his bed his Virgil from the observation of the brother who came to rouse the It is remarkable how the antici- Quedam videlicet signa, quæ ipse no monastery at Montier-en-Der, and written more than a century later, we find the following remarkable passage: Quicumque enim, sive laicus, sive anonicus, sive monachus contra jusutiam vivit, et ordinis sui regulam impugnat, et quod bonum est blasphemat, Antichristus et minister Satane est.' This brief tract, successively attributed to Augustine, Alcuin, and Rabanus Maurus (see edition of the last named, published at Col. Agripp. vi 178, also Migne, c1 1291), while it specifies a definite period of persecution, assigns the East as the quarter from whence Antichrist would appear, and ranges against him the Western Powers. The whole has a marked resemblance to Lactantius, Institutiones, Bk. vII. 2 Herwerden, in his Commentatio De Caroli Magni, etc., one of his earliest productions, has very happily characterised this prejudice of the time: Veteribus Latinis Græcisque litteris pestifera præsertim erat su perstitiosissimi ejus vi opinio, stu dium earum et exercitationen Christiano contumeliosa esse, eique notum impietatis inurere, qum æternæ ejus saluti ac beatitudini nociva sit.' THE CHURCH STILL HOST:LE TO PAGAN LITERATURE, 17 sleepers to nocturns, lived to set a bann upon the impure cloquence of the poet, and forbade him to his pupils'. The guardian of the library at York, who had once so enthusias tically described its treasures, employed his later years in testifying to the vanity of all pagan learning. The difference we have noted in the spirit of the emperor and the ccclesiastie is apparent to the close. The former withdrew, as far as he was able, from the anxieties of political life, to devote himself with yet greater ardour to his literary labours; the latter pat aile his secular learning to cultivate more closely the ase ticism of the monastery. The one died while occupied in restoring the text of the Gospels; the other, worn out by the austerities of the cloister". If we pursue our enquiry beyond the time of Alcuin it is long before we find this tradition materially impaired. DUCTION Rabanus Maurus ATM (1) Alewin's of the Church dence of the tradition INTRO Rabanus Maurus, his most illustrious pupil, while distinguished by his ability and learning, still held it, as Trithemius observes, the highest excellence of the scholar to render all profane literature subservient to the illustration of the Scriptures; and, up to the eleventh century, the great preponthe tradition derance of authority, including such men as Odo, abbot of Clugni, Peter Damian, and Lanfranc, is to be found ranged on the same side. Even so late as the seventeenth century, De Rancé, in his celebrated diatribe against secular learning, could point triumphantly to the fact that the rule so systematically violated by the honorable activity of the DeMaitland's Benedictines had never been formally rescinded. I grant,' says one of the ablest apologists of the culture and men of these ages, that they had not that extravagant and factitious admiration for the poets of antiquity, which they probably would have had if they had been brought up to read them before they could understand them, and to admire them as a necessary matter of taste, before they could form any intellectual or moral estimate of them: they thought too that there were worse things in the world than false quantities, and preferred running the risk of them to some other risks. which they apprehended; but yet there are instances enough of the classics (even the poets) being taught in schools, and read by individuals; and it cannot be doubted that they might have been, and would have been, read by more, but for the prevalence of that feeling which I have described, and which, notwithstanding these exceptions, was very general. Modern and, as it is supposed, more enlightened views of education have decided that this was all wrong; but let us not set down what was at most an error of judgement, as mere stupidity and a proof of total barbarism. If the modern ecclesiastic should ever meet with a crop-cared monk of the tenth century, he may, if he pleases, laugh at him for not. having read Virgil; but if he should be led to confess that, though a priest of Christ's catholic church, and nourished in the languages of Greece and Rome till they were almost as familiar to him as his own, he had never read a single page of Chrysostom or Basil, of Augustine or Jerome, of Ambrose LETTERS AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE 19 or Hilary-if he should confess this, I am of opinion that R the poor monk would cross himself, and make off without looking behind him. Within three years after the death of Charlemagne an AD E important change was introduced in the Benedictine schools The seculars, by the decree of a Council held at Aix-laChapelle, were no longer admitted to mingle with the oblati and the monks, but received instruction in separate classes, and probably without the precincts of the monastery. This distinction continued to exist down to the twelfth century, and may be regarded as favorable to learning in so far that the most learned body of the period still continued to direct the education of the secular clergy. In the political disturbances that ensued upon the death of the great emperor the prospects of learning became again clouded, and the scholars of the time are loud in their Laments over the paliny days of the past, and gloomy in their prognostications of the future. The few who still essayed to part to others something of learning and culture, found their efforts useless while a barbarous soldiery plundered the monasteries, and the country rounded with the clang of arms. Heu! misera dies quam infelicior nor sequitur! is the exclamation of Paschasius Radbertus. The deacon a Florus, in the dismal strains wherein he describes the dsisters that followed upon the division of the empire, contrasts the prospects of learning with the bright promise of the time when Charlemagne guided the fortunes of the state. The cultivation of letters is at an end, writes Lupus, bishop teof Fornères, to Altwinus, 'who is there who does not deplore |