THAT peculiar and arbitrary species of Fiction which we commonly call Romantic, was entirely unknown to the writers of Greece and Rome. It appears to have been imported into Europe by a people, whose modes of thinking, and habits of invention, are not natural to that country. It is generally supposed to have been borrowed from the Arabians. But this origin has not been hitherto perhaps examined or ascertained with a sufficient degree of accuracy. It is my present design, by a more distinct and extended inquiry than has yet been applied to the subject, to trace the manner and the period of its introduction into the popular belief, the oral poetry, and the literature, of the Europeans.

It is an established maxim of modern criticism, that the fictions of Arabian imagination were communicated to the [Page] western world by means of the crusades. Undoubtedly those expeditions greatly contributed to propagate this mode of fabling in Europe. But it is evident, although a circum­stance which certainly makes no material difference as to the principles here established, that these fancies were intro­duced at a much earlier period. The Saracens, or Arabians, having been for some time seated on the northern coasts of Africa, entered Spain about the beginning of the eighth cen­tury ^a. Of this country they soon effected a complete con­quest: and imposing their religion, language, and customs, upon the inhabitants, erected a royal seat in the capital city of Cordoua.

That by means of this establishment they first revived the sciences of Greece in Europe, will be proved at large in another place ^b: and it is obvious to conclude, that at the same time they disseminated those extravagant inventions which were so peculiar to their romantic and creative genius. A manuscript cited by Du Cange acquaints us, that the Spaniards, soon after the irruption of the Saracens, entirely neglected the study of the Latin language; and captivated with the novelty of the oriental books imported by these strangers, suddenly adopted an unusual pomp of style, and an affected elevation of diction ^c. The ideal tales of these eastern invaders, recommended by a brilliancy of descrip­tion, a variety of imagery, and an exuberance of invention, hitherto unknown and unfamiliar to the cold and barren conceptions of a western climate, were eagerly caught up, and universally diffused. From Spain, by the communica­tions of a constant commercial intercourse through the ports of Toulon and Marseilles, they soon passed into France and Italy.

[Page] In France, no province, or district, seems to have given these fictions of the Arabians a more welcome or a more early reception, than the inhabitants of Armorica or Basse Bretagne, now Britany; for no part of France can boast so great a number of antient romances ^c. Many poems of high antiquity, composed by the Armorican bards, still re­main ^d, and are frequently cited by father Lobineau in his learned history of Basse Bretagne ^e. This territory was as it were newly peopled in the fourth century by a colony or army of the Welsh, who migrated thither under the con­duct of Maximus a Roman general in Britain ^f, and Conan [Page] lord of Meiriadoc or Denbigh-land ^g. The Armoric language now spoken in Britany is a dialect of the Welsh: and so strong a resemblance still subsists between the two languages, that in our late conquest of Belleisle, such of our soldiers as were natives of Wales were understood by the peasantry. Milton, whose imagination was much struck with the old British story, more than once alludes to the Welsh colony planted in Armorica by Maximus and the prince of Meiriadoc. ‘Et tandem ARMORICOS Britonum sub lege colonos ^h.’ And in the PARADISE LOST he mentions indiscriminately the knights of Wales and Armorica as the customary retinue of king Arthur.

This migration of the Welsh into Britany or Armorica, which during the distractions of the empire, in consequence of the numerous armies of barbarians with which Rome was surrounded on every side, had thrown off its dependence on the Romans, seems to have occasioned a close connection between the two countries for many centuries ^k. Nor will [Page] it prove less necessary to our purpose to observe, that the Cornish Britons, whose language was another dialect of the antient British, from the fourth or fifth century downwards, maintained a no less intimate correspondence with the natives of Armorica: intermarrying with them, and perpetually re­sorting thither for the education of their children, for ad­vice, for procuring troops against the Saxons, for the pur­poses of traffick, and various other occasions. This con­nection was so strongly kept up, that an ingenious French antiquary supposes, that the communications of the Armori­cans with the Cornish had chiefly contributed to give a roughness or rather hardness to the romance or French language in some of the provinces, towards the eleventh century, which was not before discernible ^l. And this inter­course will appear more natural, if we consider, that not only Armorica, a maritime province of Gaul, never much frequented by the Romans, and now totally deserted by them, was still in some measure a Celtic nation; but that also the inhabitants of Cornwall, together with those of Devonshire and of the adjoining parts of Somersetshire, intermixing in a very slight degree with the Romans, and having suffered fewer important alterations in their original constitution and customs from the imperial laws and police than any other province of this island, long preserved their genuine manners and British character: and forming a sort of separate princi­pality under the government of a succession of powerful chieftains, usually denominated princes or dukes of Corn­wall, remained partly in a state of independence during the Saxon heptarchy, and were not entirely reduced till the Nor­man conquest. Cornwall, in particular, retained its old Celtic dialect till the reign of Elizabeth ^m.

[Page] And here I digress a moment to remark, that in the circum­stance just mentioned about Wales, of its connection with Ar­morica, we perceive the solution of a difficulty which at first sight appears extremely problematical: I mean, not only that Wales should have been so constantly made the theatre of the old British chivalry, but that so many of the favorite fictions which occur in the early French romances, should also be literally found in the tales and chronicles of the elder Welsh bards ⁿ. It was owing to the perpetual com­munication kept up between the Welsh, and the people of Armorica who abounded in these fictions, and who na­turally took occasion to interweave them into the history of their friends and allies. Nor are we now at a loss to give the reason why Cornwall, in the same French romances, is made the scene and the subject of so many romantic adven­tures ^o. In the meantime we may observe, what indeed has been already implied, that a strict intercourse was upheld between Cornwall and Wales. Their languages, customs, and alliances, as I have hinted, were the same; and they were separated only by a strait of inconsiderable breadth. Cornwall is frequently styled West-Wales by the British writers. At the invasion of the Saxons, both countries became indiscriminately the receptacle of the fugitive Bri­tons. We find the Welsh and Cornish, as one people, often uniting themselves as in a national cause against the Saxons. They were frequently subject to the same prince ^p, who sometimes [Page] resided in Wales, and sometimes in Cornwall; and the kings or dukes of Cornwall were perpetually sung by the Welsh bards. Llygad Gwr, a Welsh bard, in his sublime and spirited ode to Llwellyn, son of Grunfludd, the last prince of Wales of the British line, has a wish, ‘"May the prints of the hoofs of my prince's steed be seen as far as CORNWALL ^q.’ Traditions about king Arthur, to mention no more instances, are as popular in Cornwall as in Wales: and most of the romantic castles, rocks, rivers, and caves, of both nations, are alike at this day distinguished by some noble atchievement, at least by the name, of that celebrated champion. But to return.

About the year 1100, Gualter, archdeacon of Oxford, a learned man, and a diligent collector of histories, travelling through France, procured in Armorica an antient chronicle written in the British or Armorican language, entitled, BRUT­Y-BRENHINED, or THE HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRI­TAIN ^r. This book he brought into England, and communi­cated it to Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh Benedictine monk, an elegant writer of Latin, and admirably skilled in the British tongue. Geoffrey, at the request and recommen­dation of Gualter the archdeacon, translated this British chronicle into Latin ^s, executing the translation with a tole­rable degree of purity and great fidelity, yet not without [Page] some interpolations ^s. It was probably finished after the year 1138 ^t.

[Page] It is difficult to ascertain exactly the period at which our translator's original romance may probably be supposed to have been compiled. Yet this is a curious speculation, and will illustrate our argument. I am inclined to think that the work consists of fables thrown out by different rhap­sodists at different times, which afterwards were collected and digested into an entire history, and perhaps with new decorations of fancy added by the compiler, who most pro­bably was one of the professed bards, or rather a poetical historian, of Armorica or Basse Bretagne. In this state, and under this form, I suppose it to have fallen into the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth. If the hypothesis hereafter ad­vanced concerning the particular species of fiction on which this narrative is founded, should be granted, it cannot, from what I have already proved, be more antient than the eighth century: and we may reasonably conclude, that it was composed much later, as some considerable length of time must have been necessary for the propagation and establish­ment of that species of fiction. The simple subject of this chronicle, divested of its romantic embellishments, is a de­duction of the Welsh princes from the Trojan Brutus to Cadwallader, who reigned in the seventh century ^u. It must [Page] be acknowledged, that many European nations were antiently fond of tracing their descent from Troy. Hunnibaldus Fran­cus, in his Latin history of France, written in the sixth cen­tury, beginning with the Trojan war, and ending with Clovis the first, ascribes the origin of the French nation to Francio a son of Priam ^w. So universal was this humour, and car­ried to such an absurd excess of extravagance, that under the reign of Justinian, even the Greeks were ambitious of being thought to be descended from the Trojans, their an­tient and notorious enemies. Unless we adopt the idea of those antiquaries, who contend that Europe was peopled from Phrygia, it will be hard to discover at what period, or from what source, so strange and improbable a notion could take its rise, especially among nations unacquainted with history, and overwhelmed in ignorance. The most rational mode of accounting for it, is to suppose, that the revival of Virgil's Eneid about the sixth or seventh century, which re­presented the Trojans as the founders of Rome, the capital of the supreme pontiff, and a city on various other accounts in the early ages of christianity highly reverenced and dis­tinguished, occasioned an emulation in many other European nations of claiming an alliance to the same respectable origi­nal. The monks and other ecclesiastics, the only readers and writers of the age, were likely to broach, and were in­terested in propagating, such an opinion. As the more bar­barous countries of Europe began to be tinctured with lite­rature, there was hardly one of them but fell into the fashion of deducing its original from some of the nations most cele­brated in the antient books. Those who did not aspire so [Page] high as king Priam, or who found that claim preoccupied, boasted to be descended from some of the generals of Alexander the Great, from Prusias king of Bithynia, from the Greeks or the Egyptians. It it not in the mean time quite impro­bable, that as most of the European nations were provincial to the Romans, those who fancied themselves to be of Trojan extraction might have imbibed this notion, at least have ac­quired a general knowledge of the Trojan story, from their conquerors: more especially the Britons, who continued so long under the yoke of Rome ^x. But as to the story of Brutus in particular, Geoffrey's hero, it may be presumed that his legend was not contrived, nor the history of his successors invented, till after the ninth century: for Nennius, who lived about the middle of that century, not only speaks of Brutus with great obscurity and inconsistency, but seems totally uninformed as to every circumstance of the British affairs which preceded Cesar's invasion. There are other proofs that this piece could not have existed before the ninth century. Alfred's Saxon translation of the Mercian law is mentioned ^y. Charlemagne's Twelve Peers, and by an ana­chronism not uncommon in romance, are said to be present at king Arthur's magnificent coronation in the city of Caer­leon ^z. It were easy to produce instances, that this chronicle was undoubtedly framed after the legend of saint Ursula, the acts of saint Lucius, and the historical writings of the venerable Bede, had undergone some degree of circulation in the world. At the same time it contains many passages which incline us to determine, that some parts of it at least were written after or about the eleventh century. I will not insist on that passage, in which the title of legate of the apostolic see is attributed to Dubricius in the character of primate of Britain; as it appears for obvious reasons to have been an artful interpolation of the translator, who was an ecclesiastic. But I will select other arguments. Canute's forest, or Cannock-wood [Page] in Staffordshire occurs; and Canute died in the year 1036 ^z. At the ideal coronation of king Arthur, just mentioned, a tournament is described as exhibited in its highest splendor. ‘"Many knights, says our Armoric fa­bler, famous for feats of chivalry, were present, with ap­parel and arms of the same colour and fashion. They formed a species of diversion, in imitation of a fight on horseback, and the ladies being placed on the walls of the castles, darted amorous glances on the combatants. None of these ladies esteemed any knight worthy of her love, but such as had given proof of his gallantry in three several encounters. Thus the valour of the men encou­raged chastity in the women, and the attention of the wo­men proved an incentive to the soldier's bravery ^a."’ Here is the practice of chivalry under the combined ideas of love and military prowess, as they seem to have subsisted after the feudal constitution had acquired greater degrees not only of stability but of splendor and refinement ^b. And although a species of tournament was exhibited in France at the recon­ciliation of the sons of Lewis the feeble, in the close of the ninth century, and at the beginning of the tenth, the co­ronation of the emperor Henry was solemnized with mar­tial entertainments, in which many parties were introduced fighting on horseback; yet it was long afterwards that these games were accompanied with the peculiar formalities, and ceremonious usages, here described ^c. In the mean time, we [Page] cannot answer for the innovations of a translator in such a description. The burial of Hengist, the Saxon chief, who is said to have been interred not after the pagan fashion, as Geoffrey renders the words of the original, but after the manner of the SOLDANS, is partly an argument that our ro­mance was composed about the time of the crusades. It was not till those memorable campaigns of mistaken devotion had infatuated the western world, that the soldans or sultans of Babylon, of Egypt, of Iconium, and other eastern kingdoms, became familiar in Europe. Not that the notion of this piece being written so late as the crusades in the least invalidates the doctrine delivered in this discourse. Not even if we sup­pose that Geoffrey of Monmouth was its original composer. That notion rather tends to confirm and establish my system. On the whole we may venture to affirm, that this chronicle, supposed to contain the ideas of the Welsh bards, entirely consists of Arabian inventions. And, in this view, no dif­ference is made whether it was compiled about the tenth century, at which time, if not before, the Arabians from their settlement in Spain must have communicated their ro­mantic fables to other parts of Europe, especially to the French; or whether it first appeared in the eleventh cen­tury, after the crusades had multiplied these fables to an ex­cessive degree, and made them universally popular. And al­though the general cast of the inventions contained in this romance is alone sufficient to point out the source from whence they were derived, yet I chuse to prove to a demon­stration what is here advanced, by producing and examining some particular passages.

The books of the Arabians and Persians abound with ex­travagant traditions about the giants Gog and Magog. These they call Jagiouge and Magiouge; and the Caucasian wall, [Page] said to be built by Alexander the Great from the Caspian to the Black Sea, in order to cover the frontiers of his domi­nion, and to prevent the incursions of the Sythians ^d, is cal­led by the orientals the WALL of GOG and MAGOG ^e. One of the most formidable giants, according to our Armorican romance, [Page] which opposed the landing of Brutus in Britain, was Goemagot. He was twelve cubits high, and would unroot an oak as easily as an hazel wand: but after a most obsti­nate encounter with Corineus, he was tumbled into the sea from the summit of a steep cliff on the rocky shores of Corn­wall, and dashed in pieces against the huge crags of the de­clivity. The place where he fell, adds our historian, taking its name from the giant's fall, is called LAM-GOEMAGOT, or GOEMAGOT'S LEAP, to this day ^f. A no less monstrous giant, whom king Arthur slew on Saint Michael's Mount in Corn­wall, is said by this fabler to have come from Spain. Here the origin of these stories is evidently betrayed ^g. The Ara­bians, or Saracens, as I have hinted above, had conquered Spain, and were settled there. Arthur having killed this redoubted giant, declares, that he had combated with none of equal strength and prowess, since he overcame the mighty giant Ritho, on the mountain Arabius, who had made himself a robe of the beards of the kings whom he had killed. This tale is in Spenser's Faerie Queene. A magician brought from Spain is called to the assistance of Edwin, a prince of Northumberland ^h, educated under Solomon king of the Armoricans ⁱ. In the prophecy of Merlin, delivered to Vorti­gern after the battle of the dragons, forged perhaps by the translator Geoffrey, yet apparently in the spirit and manner of the rest, we have the Arabians named, and their situa­tions in Spain and Africa. ‘"From Conau shall come forth a wild boar, whose tusks shall destroy the oaks of the fo­rests of France. The ARABIANS and AFRICANS shall dread him; and he shall continue his rapid course into the most distant parts of Spain ^k."’ This is king Arthur. In the same prophecy, mention is made of the ‘"Woods of [Page] Africa."’ In another place Gormund king of the Africans occurs ^l. In a battle which Arthur fights against the Ro­mans, some of the principal leaders in the Roman army are Alifantinam king of Spain, Pandrasus king of Egypt, Boccus king of the Medes, Evander king of Syria, Micipsa king of Babylon, and a duke of Phrygia ^m. It is obvious to suppose how these countries became so familiar to the bard of our chronicle. The old fictions about Stonehenge were derived from the same inexhaustible source of extravagant imagina­tion. We are told in this romance, that the giants con­veyed the stones which compose this miraculous monument from the farthest coasts of Africa. Every one of these stones is supposed to be mystical, and to contain a medicinal virtue: an idea drawn from the medical skill of the Arabians ⁿ, and more particularly from the Arabian doctrine of attri­buting healing qualities, and other occult properties, to stones ^o. Merlin's transformation of Uther into Gorlois, and of Ulfin into Bricel, by the power of some medical pre­paration, is a species of Arabian magic, which professed to work the most wonderful deceptions of this kind, and is men­tioned at large hereafter, in tracing the inventions of Chaucer's poetry. The attribution of prophetical language to birds was common among the orientals: and an eagle is supposed to speak at building the walls of the city of Paladur, now Shaftesbury ^p. The Arabians cultivated the study of philosophy, [Page] particularly astronomy, with amazing ardour ^o. Hence arose the tradition, reported by our historian, that in king Arthur's reign, there subsisted at Caer-leon in Glamorgan­shire a college of two hundred philosophers, who studied astronomy and other sciences; and who were particularly employed in watching the courses of the stars, and predicting events to the king from their observations ^p. Edwin's Spanish magician above-mentioned, by his knowledge of the flight of birds, and the courses of the stars, is said to foretell future disasters. In the same strain Merlin, prognosticates Uther's success in battle by the appearance of a comet ^q. The same enchanter's wonderful skill in mechanical powers, by which he removes the giant's Dance, or Stonehenge, from Ireland into England, and the notion that this stupendous structure was raised by a PROFOUND PHILOSOPHICAL KNOW­LEDGE OF THE MECHANICAL ARTS, are founded on the Arabic literature ^r. To which we may add king Bladud's magical operations ^s. Dragons are a sure mark of orientalism. One of these in our romance is a ‘"terrible dragon flying from the west, breathing fire, and illuminating all the country with the brightness of his eyes ^t."’ In another place we have a giant mounted on a winged dragon: the dragon erects his scaly tail, and wafts his rider to the clouds with great rapidity ^u.

Arthur and Charlemagne are the first and original heroes of romance. And as Geoffrey's history is the grand repository of the acts of Arthur, so a fabulous history ascribed to Turpin is the ground work of all the chimerical legends which have been related concerning the conquests of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. Its subject is the expulsion of the Saracens [Page] from Spain: and it is filled with fictions evidently cogenial with those which characterise Geoffrey's history ^w.

Some suppose, as I have hinted above, this romance to have been written by Turpin, a monk of the eighth century; who, for his knowledge of the Latin language, his sanctity, and gallant exploits against the Spanish Saracens, was pre­ferred to the archbishoprick of Rheims by Charlemagne. Others believe it to have been forged under archbishop Turpin's name about that time. Others very soon after­wards, in the reign of Charles the Bald ^x. That is, about the year 870 ^y.

Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is ima­gined, and the first who has displayed the literature and customs of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and comprehension, speaking of the fictitious tales concern­ing Charlemagne, has remarked, ‘"Ces fables qu'un moine ecrivit au onzieme siecle, sous le nom de l'archeveque Turpin ^z."’ And it might easily be shewn that just before the commencement of the thirteenth century, romantic stories about Charlemagne were more fashionable than ever among the French minstrels. That is, on the recent pub­lication of this fabulous history of Charlemagne. Historical evidence concurs with numerous internal arguments to prove, that it must have been compiled after the crusades. In the twentieth chapter, a pretended pilgrimage of Charlemagne to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem is recorded: a forgery [Page] seemingly contrived with a design to give an importance to those wild expeditions, and which would easily be believed when thus authenticated by an archbishop ^a.

There is another strong internal proof that this romance was written long after the time of Charlemagne. Our his­torian is speaking of the numerous chiefs and kings who came with their armies to assist his hero: among the rest he mentions earl Oell, and adds, ‘"Of this man there is a song commonly sung among the minstrels even to this day ^b."’ Nor will I believe, that the European art of war, in the eighth century, could bring into the field such a prodigious parade of battering rams and wooden castles, as those with which Charlemagne is said to have besieged the city Agen­num ^c: the crusades seem to have made these huge military machines common in the European armies. However we may suspect it appeared before, yet not long before, Geof­frey's romance; who mentions Charlemagne's TWELVE PEERS, so lavishly celebrated in Turpin's book, as present at king Arthur's imaginary coronation at Caer-leon. Al­though the twelve peers of France occur in chronicles of the tenth century ^d; and they might besides have been sug­gested to Geoffrey's original author, from popular traditions and songs of minstrels. We are sure it was extant before the year 1122, for Calixtus the second in that year, by papal [Page] authority, pronounced this history to be genuine ^e. Mon­sieur Allard affirms, that it was written, and in the eleventh century, at Vienna by a monk of Saint Andrew's ^f. This monk was probably nothing more than some Latin tran­slator: but a learned French antiquary is of opinion, that it was originally composed in Latin; and moreover, that the most antient romances, even those of the Round Table, were originally written in that language ^g. Oienhart, and with the greatest probability, supposes it to be the work of a Spaniard. He quotes an authentic manuscript to prove, that it was brought out of Spain into France before the close of the twelfth century ^h; and that the miraculous exploits performed in Spain by Charlemagne and earl Roland, recorded in this romantic history, were unknown among the French before that period: except only that some few of them were obscurely and imperfectly sketched in the metrical tales of those who sung heroic adventures ⁱ. Oienhart's sup­position that this history was compiled in Spain, the centre of oriental fabling in Europe, at once accounts for the na­ture and extravagance of its fictions, and immediately points to their Arabian origin ^k. As to the French manuscript of [Page] this history, it is a translation from Turpin's Latin, made by Michel de Harnes in the year 1207 ^l. And, by the way, from the translator's declaration, that there was a great im­propriety in translating Latin prose into verse, we may con­clude, that at the commencement of the thirteenth century the French generally made their translations into verse.

In these two fabulous chronicles the foundations of romance seem to be laid. The principal characters, the leading sub­jects, and the fundamental fictions, which have supplied such ample matter to this singular species of composition, are here first displayed. And although the long continuance of the crusades imported innumerable inventions of a similar complexion, and substituted the atchievements of new cham­pions and the wonders of other countries, yet the tales of Arthur and of Charlemagne, diversified indeed, or enlarged with additional embellishments, still continued to prevail, and to be the favourite topics: and this, partly from their early popularity, partly from the quantity and the beauty of the fictions with which they were at first supported, and especially because the design of the crusades had made those subjects so fashionable in which christians fought with infi­dels. In a word, these volumes are the first specimens [Page] extant in this mode of writing. No European history before these has mentioned giants, enchanters, dragons, and the like monstrous and arbitrary fictions. And the reason is obvious: they were written at a time when a new and unnatural mode of thinking took place in Europe, intro­duced by our communication with the east.

Hitherto I have considered the Saracens either at their immigration into Spain about the ninth century, or at the time of the crusades, as the first authors of romantic fabling among the Europeans. But a late ingenious critic has advanced an hypothesis, which assigns a new source, and a much earlier date, to these fictions. I will cite his opinion of this matter in his own words. ‘"Our old romances of chivalry may be derived in a LINEAL DES­CENT from the antient historical songs of the Gothic bards and scalds.—Many of those songs are still preserved in the north, which exhibit all the seeds of chivalry before it became a solemn institution.—Even the com­mon arbitrary fictions of romance were most of them familiar to the antient scalds of the north, long before the time of the crusades. They believed the existence of giants and dwarfs, they had some notion of fairies, they were strongly possessed with the belief of spells and in­chantment, and were fond of inventing combats with dragons and monsters ^m."’ Monsieur Mallet, a very able and elegant inquirer into the genius and antiquities of the northern nations, mantains the same doctrine. He seems to think, that many of the opinions and practices of the Goths, however obsolete, still obscurely subsist. He adds, ‘"May we not rank among these, for example, that love and admiration for the profession of arms which prevailed among our ancestors even to fanaticism, and as it were through system, and brave from a point of honour?— [Page] Can we not explain from the Gothic religion, how judi­ciary combats, and proofs by the ordeal, to the astonish­ment of posterity, were admitted by the legislature of all Europe ⁿ: and how, even to the present age, the people are still infatuated with a belief of the power of magi­cians, witches, spirits, and genii, concealed under the earth or in the waters?—Do we not discover in these religious opinions, that source of the marvellous with which our ancestors filled their romances; in which we see dwarfs and giants, fairies and demons," &c ^o.’ And in another place. ‘"The fortresses of the Goths were only rude castles situated on the summits of rocks, and rendered inaccessible by thick misshapen walls. As these walls ran winding round the castles, they often called them by a name which signified SERPENTS or DRAGONS; and in these they usually secured the women and young virgins of distinction, who were seldom safe at a time when so many enterprising heroes were rambling up and down in search of adven­tures. It was this custom which gave occasion to antient romancers, who knew not how to describe any thing simply, to invent so many fables concerning princesses of great beauty guarded by dragons, and afterwards delivered by invincible champions ^p.’

[Page] I do not mean entirely to reject this hypothesis: but I will endeavour to shew how far I think it is true, and in what manner or degree it may be reconciled with the system delivered above.

A few years before the birth of Christ, soon after Mithri­dates had been overthrown by Pompey, a nation of Asiatic Goths, who possessed that region of Asia which is now called Georgia, and is connected on the south with Persia, alarmed at the progressive encroachments of the Roman armies, re­tired in vast multitudes under the conduct of their leader Odin, or Woden, into the northern parts of Europe, not subject to the Roman government, and settled in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and other districts of the Scandinavian terri­tory ^q. As they brought with them many useful arts, parti­cularly the knowledge of letters, which Odin is said to have invented ^r, they were hospitably received by the natives, [Page] and by degrees acquired a safe and peaceable establishment in the new country, which seems to have adopted their lan­guage, laws, and religion. Odin is said to have been stiled a god by the Scandinavians; an appellation which the supe­riour address and specious abilities of this Asiatic chief easily extorted from a more savage and uncivilised people.

This migration is confirmed by the concurrent testimo­nies of various historians: but there is no better evidence of it, than that conspicuous similarity subsisting at this day between several customs of the Georgians, as described by Chardin, and those of certain cantons of Norway and Swe­den, which have preserved their antient manners in the purest degree ^s. Not that other striking implicit and in­ternal proofs, which often carry more conviction than direct historical assertions, are wanting to point out this migration. The antient inhabitants of Denmark and Nor­way inscribed the exploits of their kings and heroes on rocks, in characters called Runic; and of this practice many marks are said still to remain in those countries ^t. This art or custom of writing on rocks is Asiatic ^u. Modern travel­lers report, that there are Runic inscriptions now existing in the deserts of Tartary ^x. The WRITTEN MOUNTAINS of the Jews are an instance that this fashion was oriental. Antiently, when one of these northern chiefs fell honourably in battle, his weapons, his war-horse, and his wife, were consumed with himself on the same funeral pile ^y. I need [Page] not remind my readers how religiously this horrible cere­mony of sacrificing the wife to the dead husband is at present observed in the east. There is a very remarkable corre­spondence, in numberless important and fundamental points, between the Druidical and the Persian superstitions: and notwithstanding the evidence of Cesar, who speaks only from popular report, and without precision, on a subject which he cared little about, it is the opinion of the learned Banier, that the Druids were formed on the model of the Magi ^z. In this hypothesis he is seconded by a modern anti­quary; who further supposes, that Odin's followers im­ported this establishment into Scandinavia, from the con­fines of Persia ^a. The Scandinavians attributed divine virtue to misletoe; it is mentioned in their EDDA, or system of religious doctrines, where it is said to grow on the west side of Val-hall, or Odin's elysium ^b. That Druidical rites existed among the Scandinavians we are informed from many antient Erse poems, which say that the British Druids, in the extremity of their affairs, sollicited and obtained aid from Scandinavia ^c. The Gothic hell exactly resembles that which we find in the religious systems of the Persians, the most abounding in superstition of all the eastern nations. One of the circumstances is, and an oriental idea, that it is full of scorpions and serpents ^d. The doctrines of Zeno, who borrowed most of his opinions from the Persian philo­sophers, are not uncommon in the EDDA. Lok, the evil [Page] deity of the Goths, is probably the Arimanius of the Per­sians. In some of the most antient Islandic chronicles, the Turks are mentioned as belonging to the jurisdiction of the Scandinavians. Mahomet, not so great an inventor as is imagined, adopted into his religion many favourite no­tions and superstitions from the bordering nations which were the offspring of the Scythians, and especially from the Turks. Accordingly, we find the Alcoran agreeing with the Runic theology in various instances. I will mention only one. It is one of the beatitudes of the Mahometan paradise, that blooming virgins shall administer the most luscious wines. Thus in Odin's Val-hall, or the Gothic elysium, the departed heroes received cups of the strongest mead and ale from the hands of the virgin-goddesses called Valkyres ^e. Alfred, in his Saxon account of the northern seas, taken from the mouth of Ohther, a Norwegian, who had been sent by that monarch to discover a north-east passage into the Indies, constantly calls these nations the ORIENTALS ^f. And as these eastern tribes brought with them into the north a certain degree of refinement, of luxury and splendor, which appeared singular and prodigious among barbarians; one of their early historians describes a person better dressed than usual, by saying, ‘"he was so well cloathed, that you might have taken him for one of the Asiatics ^g."’ Wor­mius mentions a Runic incantation, in which an Asiatic inchantress is invoked ^h. Various other instances might here [Page] be added, some of which will occasionally arise in the future course of our inquiries.

It is notorious, that many traces of oriental usages are found amongst all the European nations during their pagan state; and this phenomenon is rationally resolved, on the supposition that all Europe was originally peopled from the east. But as the resemblance which the pagan Scandina­vians bore to the eastern nations in manners, monu­ments, opinions, and practices, is so very perceptible and apparent, an inference arises, that their migration from the east must have happened at a period by many ages more recent, and therefore most probably about the time specified by their historians. In the mean time we must re­member, that a distinction is to be made between this expe­dition of Odin's Goths, who formed a settlement in Scandi­navia, and those innumerable armies of barbarous adventu­rers, who some centuries afterwards, distinguished by the same name, at different periods overwhelmed Europe, and at length extinguished the Roman empire.

When we consider the rapid conquests of the nations which may be comprehended under the common name of Scythians, and not only those conducted by Odin, but by Attila, Theodoric, and Genseric, we cannot ascribe such suc­cesses to brutal courage only. To say that some of these irresistible conquerors made war on a luxurious, effeminate, and enervated people, is a plausible and easy mode of ac­counting for their conquests: but this reason will not ope­rate with equal force in the histories of Genghizcan and [Page] Tamerlane, who destroyed mighty empires founded on arms and military discipline, and who baffled the efforts of the ablest leaders. Their science and genius in war, such as it then was, cannot therefore be doubted: that they were not deficient in the arts of peace, I have already hinted, and now proceed to produce more particular proofs. Innumerable and very fundamental errors have crept into our reasonings and systems about savage life, resulting merely from those strong and undistinguishing notions of barbarism, which our prejudices have hastily formed concerning the character of all rude nations ⁱ.

Among other arts which Odin's Goths planted in Scandi­navia, their skill in poetry, to which they were addicted in a peculiar manner, and which they cultivated with a won­derful enthusiasm, seems to be most worthy our regard, and especially in our present inquiry.

As the principal heroes of their expedition into the north were honourably distinguished from the Europeans, or ori­ginal Scandinavians, under the name of Asae, or Asiatics, so the verses, or language, of this people, were denominated ASAMAL, or ASIATIC speech ^k. Their poetry contained not only the praises of their heroes, but their popular traditions and their religious rites; and was filled with those fictions which the most exaggerated pagan superstition would natu­rally implant in the wild imaginations of an Asiatic people. And from this principle alone, I mean of their Asiatic origin, some critics would at once account for a certain capricious spirit of extravagance, and those bold eccentric conceptions, which so strongly distinguish the old northern poetry ^l. Nor [Page] is this fantastic imagery, the only mark of Asiaticism which appears in the Runic odes. They have a certain sublime and figurative cast of diction, which is indeed one of their pre­dominant characteristics ^m. I am very sensible that all rude nations are naturally apt to cloath their sentiments in this style. A propensity to this mode of expression is necessarily occasioned by the poverty of their language, which obliges them frequently to substitute similitudes and circumlocu­tions: it arises in great measure from feelings undisguised and unrestrained by custom or art, and from the genuine efforts of nature working more at large in uncultivated minds. In the infancy of society, the passions and the imagination are alike uncontrouled. But another cause seems to have con­curred in producing the effect here mentioned. When ob­vious terms and phrases evidently occurred, the Runic poets are fond of departing from the common and established dic­tion. They appear to use circumlocution and comparisons not as a matter of necessity, but of choice and skill: nor are these metaphorical colourings so much the result of want of words, as of warmth of fancy ⁿ.

[Page] Their warmth of fancy, however, if supposed to have proceeded from the principles above suggested, in a few ge­nerations after this migration into Scandinavia, must have lost much of its natural heat and genuine force. Yet ideas and sentiments, especially of this sort, once imbibed, are long remembered and retained, in savage life. Their reli­gion, among other causes, might have contributed to keep this spirit alive; and to preserve their original stock of images, and native mode of expression, unchanged and una­bated by climate or country. In the mean time we may suppose, that the new situation of these people in Scan­dinavia, might have added a darker shade and a more savage complexion to their former fictions and superstitions; and that the formidable objects of nature to which they became familiarised in those northern solitudes, the piny precipices, the frozen mountains, and the gloomy forests, acted on their imaginations, and gave a tincture of horror to their imagery.

A skill in poetry seems in some measure to have been a national science among the Scandinavians, and to have been familiar to almost every order and degree. Their kings and warriors partook of this epidemic enthusiasm, and on fre­quent occasions are represented as breaking forth into spon­taneous songs and verses ^o. But the exercise of the poetical [Page] talent was properly confined to a stated profession: and with their poetry the Goths imported into Europe a species of poets or singers, whom they called SCALDS or POLISHERS of LANGUAGE. This order of men, as we shall see more distinctly below, was held in the highest honour and vene­ration: they received the most liberal rewards for their verses, attended the festivals of heroic chiefs, accompanied them in battle, and celebrated their victories ^p.

These Scandinavian bards appear to have been esteemed and entertained in other countries besides their own, and by that means to have probably communicated their fictions to various parts of Europe. I will give my reasons for this supposition.

In the early ages of Europe, before many regular govern­ments took place, revolutions, emigrations, and invasions, were frequent and almost universal. Nations were alternately [Page] destroyed or formed; and the want of political security exposed the inhabitants of every country to a state of eternal fluctuation. That Britain was originally peopled from Gaul, a nation of the Celts, is allowed: but that many colonies from the northern parts of Europe were afterwards suc­cessively planted in Britain and the neighbouring islands, is an hypothesis equally rational, and not altogether destitute of historical evidence. Nor was any nation more likely than the Scandinavian Goths, I mean in their early periods, to make descents on Britain. They possessed the spirit of adventure in an eminent degree. They were habituated to dangerous enterprises. They were acquainted with distant coasts, exercised in navigation, and fond of making expe­ditions, in hopes of conquest, and in search of new acqui­sitions. As to Scotland and Ireland, there is the highest probability, that the Scutes, who conquered both those coun­tries, and possessed them under the names of Albin Scutes and Irin Scutes, were a people of Norway. The Caledo­nians are expressly called by many judicious antiquaries a Scandinavian colony. The names of places and persons, over all that part of Scotland which the Picts inhabited, are of Scandinavian extraction. A simple catalogue of them only, would immediately convince us, that they are not of Celtic, or British, origin. Flaherty reports it as a re­ceived opinion, and a general doctrine, that the Picts mi­grated into Britain and Ireland from Scandinavia ^q. I for­bear to accumulate a pedantic parade of authorities on this occasion: nor can it be expected that I should enter into a formal and exact examination of this obscure and complicated [Page] subject in its full extent, which is here only intro­duced incidentally. I will only add, that Scotland and Ire­land, as being situated more to the north, and probably less difficult of access than Britain, might have been objects on which our northern adventurers were invited to try some of their earliest excursions: and that the Orkney-islands remained long under the jurisdiction of the Norwegian potentates.

In these expeditions, the northern emigrants, as we shall prove more particularly below, were undoubtedly attended by their scalds or poets. Yet even in times of peace, and without the supposition of conquest or invasion, the Scan­dinavian scalds might have been well known in the British islands. Possessed of a specious and pleasing talent, they fre­quented the courts of the British, Scottish, and Irish chief­tains. They were itinerants by their institution, and made voyages, out of curiosity, or in quest of rewards, to those islands or coasts which lay within the circle of their mari­time knowledge. By these means, they established an in­terest, rendered their profession popular, propagated their art, and circulated their fictions, in other countries, and at a distance from home. Torfaeus asserts positively, that various Islandic odes now remain, which were sung by the Scandinavian bards before the kings of England and Ireland, and for which they received liberal gratuities ^r. They were more especially caressed and rewarded at the courts of those princes, who were distinguished for their warlike character, and their passion for military glory.

Olaus Wormius informs us, that great numbers of the northern scalds constantly resided in the courts of the kings of Sweden, Denmark, and England ^s. Hence the tradition in an antient Islandic Saga, or poetical history, may be ex­plained; which says, that Odin's language was originally [Page] used, not only in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, but even in England ^t. Indeed it may be naturally concluded from these suggestions, that the Scandinavian tongue became fami­liar in the British islands by the songs of the scalds: unless it be rather presumed, that a previous knowledge of that tongue in Britain was the means of facilitating the admission of those poets, and preparing the way for their reception.

And here it will be much to our present argument to observe, that some of the old Gothic and Scandinavian su­perstitions are to this day retained in the English language. MARA, from whence our Night-mare is derived, was in the Runic theology a spirit or spectre of the night, which seized men in their sleep, and suddenly deprived them of speech and motion ^u. NICKA was the Gothic demon who inha­bited the element of water, and who strangled persons that were drowning ^w. BOH was one of the most fierce and formidable of the Gothic generals ^x, and the son of Odin: the mention of whose name only was sufficient to spread an immediate panic among his enemies ^y.

[Page] The fictions of Odin and of his Scandinavians, must have taken still deeper root in the British islands, at least in England, from the Saxon and Danish invasions.

That the tales of the Scandinavian scalds flourished among the Saxons, who succeeded to the Britons, and became pos­sessors of England in the sixth century, may be justly pre­sumed ^z. The Saxons were originally seated in the Cimbric Chersonese, or those territories which have been since called Jutland, Angelen, and Holstein; and were fond of tracing the descent of their princes from Odin ^a. They were there­fore a part of the Scandinavian tribes. They imported with them into England the old Runic language and letters. This appears from inscriptions on coins ^b, stones ^c, and other monuments; [Page] and from some of their manuscripts ^d. It is well known that Runic inscriptions have been discovered in Cum­berland and Scotland: and that there is even extant a coin of king Offa, with a Runic legend ^e. But the conversion of the Saxons to christianity, which happened before the seventh century, entirely banished the common use of those cha­racters ^f, which were esteemed unhallowed and necromantic; and with their antient superstitions, which yet prevailed for some time in the popular belief, abolished in some measure their native and original vein of poetic fabling ^g. They sud­denly became a mild and polished people, addicted to the arts of peace, and the exercise of devotion; and the poems they have left us are chiefly moral rhapsodies, scriptural histories, or religious invocations ^h. Yet even in these pieces they have frequent allusions to the old scaldic fables and heroes. Thus, in an Anglo-Saxon poem on Judith, Holofernes is [Page] called BALDER, or leader and prince of warriors. And in a poetical paraphrase on Genesis, Abimelech has the same ap­pellation ⁱ. This Balder was a famous chieftain of the Asiatic Goths, the son of Odin, and supposed to inhabit a magnificent hall in the future place of rewards. The same Anglo-Saxon paraphrast, in his prosopopea of Satan ad­dressing his companions plunged in the infernal abyss, adopts many images and expressions used in the very sublime des­cription of the Eddic hell ^k: Henry of Huntingdon com­plains of certain extraneous words and uncommon figures of speech, in a Saxon ode on a victory of king Athelstan ^l. These were all scaldic expressions or allusions. But I will give a literal English translation of this poem, which can­not be well understood without premising its occasion. In the year 938, Anlaff, a pagan king of the Hybernians and the adjacent isles, invited by Constantine king of the Scots, en­tered the river Abi or Humber with a strong fleet. Our Saxon king Athelstan, and his brother Eadmund Clito, met them with a numerous army, near a place called Brunen­burgh; and after a most obstinate and bloody resistance, drove them back to their ships. The battle lasted from day­break till the evening. On the side of Anlaff were slain six petty kings, and seven chiefs or generals. ‘"King Adelstan, the glory of leaders, the giver of gold chains to his nobles, and his brother Eadmund, both shining with the bright­ness of a long train of ancestors, struck [the adversary] in war; at Brunenburgh, with the edge of the sword, they clove the wall of shields. The high banners fell. The earls of the departed Edward fell; for it was born within them, even from the loins of their kindred, to defend the treasures and the houses of their country, and [Page] their gifts, against the hatred of strangers. The nation of the Scots, and the fatal inhabitants of ships, fell. The hills resounded, and the armed men were covered with sweat. From the time the sun, the king of stars, the torch of the eternal one, rose chearful above the hills, till he returned to his habitation. There lay many of the northern men, pierced with lances; they lay wounded, with their shields pierced through: and also the Scots, the hateful harvest of battle. The chosen bands of the West-Saxons, going out to battle, pressed on the steps of the detested nations, and slew their flying rear with sharp and bloody swords. The soft effeminate men yielded up their spears. The Mercians did not fear or fly the rough game of the hand. There was no safety to them, who sought the land with Anlaff in the bosom of the ship, to die in fight. Five youthful kings fell in the place of fight, slain with swords; and seven captains of Anlaff, with the innumerable army of Scottish mariners: there the lord of the Normans [Northern-men] was chased; and their army, now made small, was driven to the prow of the ship. The ship sounded with the waves; and the king, marching into the yellow sea, escaped alive. And so it was, the wise northern king Constantine, a veteran chief, returning by flight to his own army, bowed down in the camp, left his own son worn out with wounds in the place of slaughter; in vain did he lament his earls, in vain his lost friends. Nor less did Anlaff, the yellow­haired leader, the battle-ax of slaughter, a youth in war, but an old man in understanding, boast himself a con­queror in fight, when the darts flew against Edward's earls, and their banners met. Then those northern sol­diers, covered with shame, the sad refuse of darts in the resounding whirlpool of Humber, departed in their ships with rudders, to seek through the deep the Irish city and their own land. While both the brothers, the [Page] king and Clito, lamenting even their own victory, toge­ther returned home; leaving behind them the flesh-de­vouring raven, the dark-blue toad greedy of slaughter, the black crow with horny bill, and the hoarse toad, the eagle a companion of battles with the devouring kite, and that brindled savage beast the wolf of the wood, to be glutted with the white food of the slain. Never was so great a slaughter in this island, since the Angles and Saxons, the fierce beginners of war, coming hither from the east, and seeking Britain through the wide sea, over­came the Britons excelling in honour, and gained pos­session of their land ^m."’

This piece, and many other Saxon odes and songs now remaining, are written in a metre much resembling that of the scaldic dialogue at the tomb of Angantyr, which has been beautifully translated into English, in the true spirit of the original, and in a genuine strain of poetry, by Gray. The extemporaneous effusions of the glowing bard seem na­turally to have fallen into this measure, and it was probably more easily suited to the voice or harp. Their versification for the most part seems to have been that of the Runic poetry.

As literature, the certain attendant, as it is the parent, of true religion and civility, gained ground among the Saxons, poetry no longer remained a separate science, and the profession of bard seems gradually to have declined among them: I mean the bard under those appropriated characteristics, and that peculiar appointment, which he sustained among the Scandinavian pagans. Yet their na­tional love of verse and music still so strongly predominated, that in the place of their old scalders a new rank of poets arose, called GLEEMEN or Harpers ⁿ. These probably gave [Page] rise to the order of English Minstrels, who flourished till the sixteenth century.

And here I stop to point out one of the principal reasons, why the Scandinavian bards have transmitted to modern times so much more of their native poetry, than the rest of their southern neighbours. It is true, that the inhabitants of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, whether or no from their Asiatic origin, from their poverty which compelled them to seek fortunes at foreign courts by the exercise of a popular art, from the success of their bards, the nature of their republican government, or their habits of unsettled life, were more given to verse than any other Gothic, or even Celtic, tribe. But this is not all: they re­mained pagans, and retained their original manners, much longer than any of their Gothic kindred. They were not completely converted to christianity till the tenth century ^o. Hence, under the concurrence however of some of the causes just mentioned, their scaldic profession acquired greater degrees of strength and of maturity: and from an uninterrupted pos­session through many ages of the most romantic religious superstitions, and the preservation of those rough manners which are so favourable to the poetical spirit, was enabled to produce, not only more genuine, but more numerous, compo­sitions. True religion would have checked the impetuosity of their passions, suppressed their wild exertions of fancy, and banished that striking train of imagery, which their [Page] poetry derived from a barbarous theology. This circum­stance also suggests to our consideration, those superior advantages and opportunities arising from leisure and length of time, which they enjoyed above others, of circulating their poetry far and wide, of giving a general currency to their mode of fabling, of rendering their skill in versifica­tion more universally and familiarly known, and a more conspicuous and popular object of admiration or imitation to the neighbouring countries. Hence too it has happened, that modern times have not only attained much fuller information concerning their historical transactions, but are so intimately acquainted with the peculiarities of their character.

It is probable, that the Danish invasions produced a con­siderable alteration in the manners of our Anglo-Saxon an­cestors. Although their connections with England were transient and interrupted, and on the whole scarcely lasted two hundred years, yet many of the Danish customs began to prevail among the inhabitants, which seem to have given a new turn to their temper and genius. The Danish fashion of excessive drinking, for instance, a vice almost natural to the northern nations, became so general among the Anglo-Saxons, that it was found necessary to restrain so pernicious and contagious a practice by a particular statute ^p. Hence it seems likely, that so popular an entertainment as their poetry gained ground; especially if we consider, that in their expeditions against England they were of course attended by many northern scalds, who constantly made a part of their military retinue, and whose language was understood by the Saxons. Rogwald, lord of the Orcades, who was also himself a poet, going on an expedition into Palestine, carried with him two Islandic bards ^q. The noble ode, called [Page] in the northern chronicles the ELOGIUM OF HACON ^r, king of Norway, was composed on a battle in which that prince, with eight of his brothers fell, by the scald Eyvynd; who for his superior skill in poetry was called the CROSS of POETS, and fought in the battle which he celebrated. Hacon earl of Norway was accompanied by five celebrated bards in the battle of Jomsburgh: and we are told, that each of them sung an ode to animate the soldiers before the en­gagement began ^s. They appear to have been regularly brought into action. Olave, a king of Norway, when his army was prepared for the onset, placed three scalds about [Page] him, and exclaimed aloud, ‘"You shall not only record in your verses what you have HEARD, but what you have SEEN."’ They each delivered an ode on the spot ^t. These northern chiefs appear to have so frequently hazarded their lives with such amazing intrepidity, merely in expecta­tion of meriting a panegyric from their poets, the judges, and the spectators of their gallant behaviour. That scalds were common in the Danish armies when they invaded England, appears from a stratagem of Alfred; who, availing himself of his skill in oral poetry and playing on the harp, entered the Danish camp habited in that character, and procured a hospitable reception. This was in the year 878 ^u. Anlaff, a Danish king, used the same disguise for re­connoitring the camp of our Saxon monarch Athelstan: tak­ing his station near Athelstan's pavilion, he entertained the king and his chiefs with his verses and music, and was dis­missed with an honourable reward ^w. As Anlaff's dialect must have discovered him to have been a Dane; here is a proof, of what I shall bring more, that the Saxons, even in the midst of mutual hostilities, treated the Danish scalds with favour and respect. That the Islandic bards were com­mon in England during the Danish invasions, there are numerous proofs. Egill, a celebrated Islandic poet, having murthered the son and many of the friends of Eric Blodoxe, king of Denmark or Norway, then residing in Northum­berland, and which he had just conquered, procured a pardon by singing before the king, at the command of his queen Gunhilde, an extemporaneous ode ^x. Egill compliments the king, who probably was his patron, with the appellation of the [Page] English chief. ‘"I offer my freight to the king. I owe a poem for my ransom. I present to the ENGLISH CHIEF the mead of Odin ^y."’ Afterwards he calls this Danish conqueror the commander of the Scottish fleet. ‘"The com­mander of the Scottish fleet fattened the ravenous birds. The sister of Nera [Death] trampled on the foe: she trampled on the evening food of the eagle."’ The Scots usually joined the Danish or Norwegian invaders in their attempts on the northern parts of Britain ^z: and from this circumstance a new argument arises, to shew the close com­munication and alliance which must have subsisted between Scotland and Scandinavia. Egill, although of the enemy's party, was a singular favourite of king Athelstan. Athelstan once asked Egill how he escaped due punishment from Eric Blodoxe, the king of Northumberland, for the very capital and enormous crime which I have just mentioned. On which Egill immediately related the whole of that transaction to the Saxon king, in a sublime ode still extant ^a. On another occasion Athelstan presented Egill with two rings, and two large cabinets filled with silver; promising at the same time, to grant him any gift or favour which he should chuse to request. Egill, struck with gratitude, immediately composed a panegyrical poem in the Norwegian language, then com­mon to both nations, on the virtues of Athelstan, which the latter as generously requited with two marcs of pure gold ^b. Here is likewise another argument that the Saxons had no small esteem for the scaldic poetry. It is highly rea­sonable to conjecture, that our Danish king Canute; a po­tentate of most extensive jurisdiction, and not only king of [Page] England, but of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, was not without the customary retinue of the northern courts, in which the scalds held so distinguished and important a sta­tion. Human nature, in a savage state, aspires to some species of merit; and in every stage of society is alike suscep­tible of flattery, when addressed to the reigning passion. The sole object of these northern princes was military glory. It is certain that Canute delighted in this mode of entertain­ment, which he patronised and liberally rewarded. It is related in KNYTLINGA-SAGA, or Canute's History, that he commanded the scald Loftunga to be put to death, for daring to comprehend his atchievements in too concise a poem. ‘"Nemo, said he, ante te, ausus est de me BREVES CANTILENAS componere."’ A curious picture of the tyrant, the patron, and the barbarian, united! But the bard extorted a speedy pardon, and with much address, by producing the next day before the king at dinner an ode of more than thirty strophes, for which Canute gave him fifty marcs of purified silver ^c. In the mean time, the Danish language began to grow perfectly familiar in England. It was eagerly learned by the Saxon clergy and nobility, from a principle of ingratiating themselves with Canute: and there are many manuscripts now remaining, by which it will appear, that the Danish runes were much studied among our Saxon ancestors, under the reign of that monarch ^d.

The songs of the Irish bards are by some conceived to be strongly marked with the traces of scaldic imagination; and these traces, which will be reconsidered, are believed still to survive among a species of poetical historians, whom they call TALE-TELLERS, supposed to be the descendants of the original Irish bards ^e. A writer of equal elegance and veracity [Page] city relates, ‘"that a gentleman of the north of Ireland has often told me of his own experience, that in his wolf­huntings there, when he used to be abroad in the moun­tains three or four days together, and laid very ill in the night, so as he could not well sleep, they would bring him one of these TALE-TELLERS, that when he lay down would begin a story of a KING, or a GIANT, a DWARF, and a DAMSEL ^f."’ These are topics in which the Runic poetry is said to have been greatly conversant.

Nor is it improbable that the Welsh bards ^g might have been acquainted with the Scandinavian scalds. I mean before [Page] their communications with Armorica, mentioned at large above. The prosody of the Welsh bards depended much on alliteration ^h. Hence they seem to have paid an at­tention to the scaldic versification. The Islandic poets are said to have carried alliteration to the highest pitch of exact­ness in their earliest periods: whereas the Welsh bards of the sixth century used it but sparingly, and in a very imper­fect degree. In this circumstance a proof of imitation, at least of emulation, is implied ⁱ. There are moreover, strong instances of conformity between the manners of the two nations; which, however, may be accounted for on general principles arising from our comparative observations on rude life. Yet it is remarkable that mead, the northern nectar, or favourite liquor of the Goths ^k, who seem to have stamped it with the character of a poetical drink, was no less cele­brated among the Welsh ^l. The songs of both nations abound [Page] with its praises: and it seems in both to have been alike the delight of the warrior and the bard. Taliessin, as Lhuyd informs us, wrote a panegyrical ode on this inspring beverage of the bee; or, as he translates it, De Mulsorum HYDROMELI ^k. In Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, translated by Wootton, we have, ‘"In omni convivio in quo MULSUM bibitur ^l."’ From which passage, it seems to have been served up only at high festivals. By the same constitutions, at every feast in the king's castle­hall, the prefect or marshal of the hall is to receive from the queen, by the hands of the steward, a HORN OF MEAD. It is also ordered, among the privileges annexed to the office of prefect of the royal hall, that the king's bard shall sing to him as often as he pleases ^m. One of the stated officers of the king's houshold is CONFECTOR MULSI: and this officer, together with the master of the horse ⁿ, the master of the hawks, the smith of the palace ^o, the royal bard ^p, the first [Page] musician^q, with some others, have a right to be^r seated in the hall. We have already seen, that the Scandinavian scalds were well known in Ireland: and there is sufficient evidence to prove, that the Welsh bards were early connected with the Irish. Even so late as the eleventh century, the practice continued among the Welsh bards, of receiving instructions in the bardic profession from Ireland. The Welsh bards were reformed and regulated by Gryffyth ap Conan, king of Wales, in the year 1078. At the same time he brought over with him from Ireland many Irish bards, for the infor­mation and improvement of the Welsh ^s. Powell acquaints us, that this prince ‘"brought over with him from Ireland divers cunning musicians into Wales, who devised in a manner all the instrumental music that is now there used: as appeareth, as well by the bookes written of the same, [Page] as also by the names of the tunes and measures used among them to this daie ^t."’ In Ireland, to kill a bard was highly criminal: and to seize his estate, even for the public service and in time of national distress, was deemed an act of sacrilege ^u. Thus in the old Welsh laws, whoever even slightly injured a bard, was to be fined six cows and one hundred and twenty pence. The murtherer of a bard was to be fined one hundred and twenty-six cows ^w. Nor must I pass over, what reflects much light on this reasoning, that the establishment of the houshold of the old Irish chiefs, exactly resembles that of the Welsh kings. For, besides the bard, the musician, and the smith, they have both a physician, a huntsman, and other corresponding officers ^x. We must also remember, that an intercourse was necessarily produced between the Welsh and Scandinavians, from the piratical irruptions of the latter: their scalds, as I have already remarked, were respected and patronised in the courts of those princes, whose territories were the prin­cipal objects of the Danish invasions. Torfaeus expressly affirms this of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish kings; and it is [Page] at least probable, that they were entertained with equal re­gard by the Welsh princes, who so frequently concurred with the Danes in distressing the English. It may be added, that the Welsh, although living in a separate and detached situation, and so strongly prejudiced in favour of their own usages, yet from neighbourhood, and unavoidable communications of various kinds, might have imbibed the ideas of the Scandinavian bards from the Saxons and Danes, after those nations had occupied and overspread all the other parts of our island.

Many pieces of the Scottish bards are still remaining in the high-lands of Scotland. Of these a curious specimen, and which considered in a more extensive and general respect, is a valuable monument of the poetry of a rude period, has lately been given to the world, under the title of the WORKS OF OSSIAN. It is indeed very remarkable, that in these poems, the terrible graces, which so naturally characterise, and so generally constitute, the early poetry of a barbarous people, should so frequently give place to a gentler set of manners, to the social sensibilities of polished life, and a more civilised and elegant species of imagination. Nor is this circumstance, which disarranges all our established ideas concerning the savage stages of society, easily to be accounted for, unless we suppose, that the Celtic tribes, who were so strongly addicted to poetical composition, and who made it so much their study from the earliest times, might by de­grees have attained a higher vein of poetical refinement, than could at first sight or on common principles be expected among nations, whom we are accustomed to call barbarous; that some few instances of an elevated strain of friendship, of love, and other sentimental feelings, ex­isting in such nations, might lay the foundation for intro­ducing a set of manners among the bards, more refined and exalted than the real manners of the country: and that panegyrics on those virtues, transmitted with improvements [Page] from bard to bard, must at length have formed characters of ideal excellence, which might propagate among the peo­ple real manners bordering on the poetical. These poems, however, notwithstanding the difference between the Gothic and the Celtic rituals, contain many visible vestiges of Scan­dinavian superstition. The allusions in the songs of Ossian to spirits, who preside over the different parts and direct the various operations of nature, who send storms over the deep, and rejoice in the shrieks of the shipwrecked mariner, who call down lightning to blast the forest or cleave the rock, and diffuse irresistible pestilence among the people, beautifully conducted indeed, and heightened, under the skilful hand of a master bard, entirely correspond with the Runic system, and breathe the spirit of its poetry. One fiction in particular, the most EXTRAVAGANT in all Ossian's poems, is founded on an essential article of the Runic belief. It is where Fingal fights with the spirit of Loda. Nothing could aggrandise Fingal's heroism more highly than this marvellous encounter. It was esteemed among the antient Danes the most daring act of courage to engage with a ghost ^y. Had Ossian found it convenient, to have introduced religion into his compositions ^z, not only a new source had [Page] been opened to the sublime, in describing the rites of sacri­fice, the horrors of incantation, the solemn evocations of infernal beings, and the like dreadful superstitions, but pro­bably many stronger and more characteristical evidences would have appeared, of his knowledge of the imagery of the Scandinavian poets.

Nor must we forget, that the Scandinavians had con­quered many countries bordering upon France in the fourth century ^a. Hence the Franks must have been in some mea­sure used to their language, well acquainted with their man­ners, and conversant in their poetry. Charlemagne is said to have delighted in repeating the most antient and bar­barous odes, which celebrated the battles of antient kings ^b. [Page] But we are not informed whether these were Scandinavian, Celtic, or Teutonic poems.

About the beginning of the tenth century, France was invaded by the Normans, or NORTHERN-MEN, an army of adventurers from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. And although the conquerors, especially when their success does not solely depend on superiority of numbers, usually assume [Page] the manners of the conquered, yet these strangers must have still further familiarised in France many of their northern fictions.

From this general circulation in these and other countries, and from that popularity which it is natural to suppose they must have acquired, the scaldic inventions might have taken deep root in Europe ^c. At least they seem to have prepared the way for the more easy admission of the Arabian fabling about the ninth century, by which they were, however, in great measure, superseded. The Arabian fictions were of a more splendid nature, and better adapted to the increasing civility of the times. Less horrible and gross, they had a novelty, a variety, and a magnificence, which carried with them the charm of fascination. Yet it is probable, that many of the scaldic imaginations might have been blended with the Arabian. In the mean time, there is great reason to believe, that the Gothic scalds enriched their vein of fabling from this new and fruitful source of fiction, opened by the Arabians in Spain, and afterwards propagated by the crusades. It was in many respects cogenial with their own ^d: and the northern bards, who visited the countries [Page] where these new fancies were spreading, must have been naturally struck with such wonders, and were certainly fond of picking up fresh embellishments, and new strokes of the marvellous, for augmenting and improving their stock of poetry. The earliest scald now on record is not before the year 750. From which time the scalds flourished in the northern countries, till below the year 1157 ^e. The celebrated ode of Regner Lodbrog was composed about the end of the ninth century ^f.

And that this hypothesis is partly true, may be concluded from the subjects of some of the old Scandic romances, manuscripts of which now remain in the royal library at Stockholm. The titles of a few shall serve for a specimen; which I will make no apology for giving at large. ‘"SAGAN AF HIALMTER OC OLWER. The History of Hialmter king of Sweden, son of a Syrian princess, and of Olver Jarl. Containing their expeditions into Hunland, and Arabia, with their numerous encounters with the Vikings and the giants. Also their leagues with Alsola, daughter of Ringer king of Arabia, afterwards married to Hervor king of Hunland, &c.—SAGAN AF SIOD. The History of Siod, son of Ridgare king of England; who first was made king of England, afterwards of Babylon and Niniveh. [Page] Comprehending various occurrences in Saxland, Babylon, Greece, Africa, and especially in Eirice^g the region of the giants.—SAGAN AF ALEFLECK. The History of Alefleck, a king of England, and of his expeditions into India and Tartary.—SAGAN AF ERIK WIDFORLA. The History of Eric the traveller, who, with his companion Eric, a Danish prince, undertook a wonderful journey to Odin's Hall, or Oden's Aker, near the river Pison in India ^h."’ Here we see the circle of the Islandic poetry enlarged; and the names of countries and cities belonging to another quarter of the globe, Arabia, India, Tartary, Syria, Greece, Babylon, and Niniveh, intermixed with those of Hunland, Sweden, and England, and adopted into the northern romantic nar­ratives. Even Charlemagne and Arthur, whose histories, as we have already seen, had been so lavishly decorated by the Arabian fablers, did not escape the Scandinavian scalds ⁱ. Accordingly we find these subjects among their Sagas. ‘"SAGAN AF ERIK EINGLANDS KAPPE. The History of Eric, son of king Hiac, king Arthur's chief wrestler.—HISTORICAL RHYMES of king Arthur, containing his league with Charlemagne.—SAGAN AF IVENT. The History of Ivent, king Arthur's principal champion, containing his battles with the giants ^k.—SAGAN AF [Page] KARLAMAGNUSE OF HOPPUM HANS. The History of Charle­magne, of his champions, and captains. Containing all his actions in several parts. 1. Of his birth and coronation: and the combat of Carvetus king of Babylon, with Od­degir the Dane ^l. 2. Of Aglandus king of Africa, and of his son Jatmund, and their wars in Spain with Charle­magne. 3. Of Roland, and his combat with Villaline king of Spain. 4. Of Ottuel's conversion to christianity, and his marriage with Charlemagne's daughter. 5. Of Hugh king of Constantinople, and the memorable exploits of his champions. 6. Of the wars of Ferracute king of Spain. 7. Of Charlemagne's atchievements in Rounce­valles, and of his death ^m."’ In another of the Sagas, Jarl, a magician of Saxland, exhibits his feats of necro­mancy before Charlemagne. We learn from Olaus Magnus, that Roland's magical horn, of which archbishop Turpin relates such wonders, and among others that it might be heard at the distance of twenty miles, was frequently celebrated in the songs of the Islandic bards ⁿ. It is not likely that these pieces, to say no more, were composed till the Scandinavian tribes had been converted to christianity; that is, as I have before observed, about the close of the tenth century. These barbarians had an infinite and a national contempt for the christians, whose religion inculcated a spirit of peace, gen­tleness, and civility; qualities so dissimilar to those of their own [Page] ferocious and warlike disposition, and which they naturally interpreted to be the marks of cowardice and pusillanimity ^o. It has, however, been urged, that as the irruption of the Normans into France, under their leader Rollo, did not take place till towards the beginning of the tenth century, at which period the scaldic art was arrived to the highest perfection in Rollo's native country, we can easily trace the descent of the French and English romances of chivalry from the Northern Sagas. It is supposed, that Rollo carried with him many scalds from the north, who transmitted their skill to their children and successors: and that these, adopting the religion, opinions, and language, of the new country, substituted the heroes of christendom, instead of those of their pagan ancestors, and began to celebrate the feats of Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver, whose true history they set off and embellished with the scaldic figments of dwarfs, giants, dragons, and inchantments ^p. There is, however, some reason to believe, that these fictions were current among the French long before; and, if the principles advanced in the former part of this dissertation be true, the fables adhering to Charlemagne's real history must be referred to another source.

Let me add, that the inchantments of the Runic poetry are very different from those in our romances of chivalry. The former chiefly deal in spells and charms, such as would preserve from poison, blunt the weapons of an enemy, pro­cure victory, allay a tempest, cure bodily diseases, or call the dead from their tombs: in uttering a form of mysterious words, or inscribing Runic characters. The magicians of romance are chiefly employed in forming and conducting a train of deceptions. There is an air of barbaric horror in the [Page] incantations of the scaldic fablers: the magicians of romance often present visions of pleasure and delight; and, although not without their alarming terrors, sometimes lead us through flowery forests, and raise up palaces glittering with gold and precious stones. The Runic magic is more like that of Canidia in Horace, the romantic resembles that of Armida in Tasso. The operations of the one are frequently but mere tricks, in comparison of that sublime solemnity of necromantic machinery which the other so awefully displays.

It is also remarkable, that in the earlier scaldic odes, we find but few dragons, giants, and fairies. These were intro­duced afterwards, and are the progeny of Arabian fancy. Nor indeed do these imaginary beings often occur in any of the compositions which preceded the introduction of that species of fabling. On this reasoning, the Irish tale-teller mentioned above, could not be a lineal descendant of the elder Irish bards. The absence of giants and dragons, and, let me add, of many other traces of that fantastic and bril­liant imagery which composes the system of Arabian ima­gination, from the poems of Ossian, are a striking proof of their antiquity. It has already been suggested, at what period, and from what origin, those fancies got footing in the Welsh poetry: we do not find them in the odes of Taliessin or Aneurin ^q. This reasoning explains an observation [Page] of an ingenious critic in this species of literature, and who has studied the works of the Welsh bards with much attention. ‘"There are not such extravagant FLIGHTS in any poetic compositions, except it be in the EASTERN; to which, as far as I can judge by the few translated speci­mens I have seen, they bear a near resemblance ^r."’ I will venture to say he does not meet with these flights in the elder Welsh bards. The beautiful romantic fiction, that king Arthur, after being wounded in the fatal battle of Cam­lan, was conveyed by an Elfin princess into the land of Faery, or spirits, to be healed of his wounds, that he reigns there still as a mighty potentate in all his pristine splendour, and will one day return to resume his throne in Britain, and restore the solemnities of his champions, often occurs in the antient Welsh bards ^s. But not in the most antient. It [Page] is found in the compositions of the Welsh bards only, who flourished after the native vein of British fabling had been tinctured by these FAIRY TALES, which the Arabians had propagated in Armorica, and which the Welsh had received from their connection with that province of Gaul. Such a fiction as this is entirely different from the cast and com­plection of the ideas of the original Welsh poets. It is easy to collect from the Welsh odes, written after the tenth century, many signatures of this EXOTIC imagery. Such as, ‘"Their assault was like strong lions. He is valourous as a lion, who can resist his lance? The dragon of Mona's sons were so brave in fight, that there was horrible con­sternation, and upon Tal Moelvre a thousand banners. Our lion has brought to Trallwng three armies. A dragon he was from the beginning, unterrified in battle. A dragon of Ovain. Thou art a prince firm in battle, like an elephant. Their assault was as of strong lions. The lion of Cemais fierce in the onset, when the army rusheth to be covered with red. He saw Llewellyn like a burning dragon in the strife of Arson. He is furious in fight like an outrageous dragon. Like the roaring of a furious lion, in the search of prey, is thy thirst of praise."’ Instead of producing more proofs from the multitude that might be mentioned, for the sake of illustration of our argument, I will contrast these with some of their natural unadulterated thoughts. ‘"Fetch the drinking horn, whose gloss is like the wave of the sea. Tudor is like a wolf rushing on his prey. They were all covered with blood when they re­turned, and the high hills and the dales enjoyed the sun equally ^t. O thou virgin, that shinest like the snow on the brows of Aran ^u: like the fine spiders webs on the grass on a summer's day. The army at Offa's dike panted [Page] for glory, the soldiers of Venedotia, and the men of Lon­don, were as the alternate motion of the waves on the sea­shore, where the sea-mew screams. The hovering crows were numberless: the ravens croaked, they were ready to suck the prostrate carcases. His enemies are scattered as leaves on the side of hills driven by hurricanes. He is a warrior, like a surge on the beach that covers the wild salmons. Her eye was piercing like that of the hawk ^w: her face shone like the pearly dew on Eryri ^x. Llewellyn is a hero who setteth castles on fire. I have watched all night on the beach, where the sea-gulls, whose plumes glitter, sport on the bed of billows; and where the herbage, growing in a solitary place, is of a deep green ^y."’ These images are all drawn from their own country, from their situation and circumstances; and, although highly poetical, are in general of a more sober and temperate colouring. In a word, not only that elevation of allusion, which many suppose to be peculiar to the poetry of Wales, but that fertility of fiction, and those marvellous fables recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth, which the generality of readers, who do not sufficiently attend to the origin of that historian's ro­mantic materials, believe to be the genuine offspring of the Welsh poets, are of foreign growth. And, to return to the ground of this argument, there is the strongest reason to suspect, that even the Gothic EDDA, or system of poetic mythology of the northern nations, is enriched with those higher strokes of oriental imagination, which the Arabians had communicated to the Europeans. Into this extravagant tissue of unmeaning allegory, false philosophy, and false theology, it was easy to incorporate their most wild and romantic conceptions ^z.

[Page] It must be confessed, that the ideas of chivalry, the appen­dage and the subject of romance, subsisted among the Goths. But this must be understood under certain limitations. There is no peculiarity which more strongly discriminates the manners of the Greeks and Romans from those of modern times, than that small degree of attention and re­spect with which those nations treated the fair sex, and that inconsiderable share which they were permitted to take in conversation, and the general commerce of life. For the truth of this observation, we need only appeal to the classic writers: in which their women appear to have been devoted to a state of seclusion and obscurity. One is surprised that barbarians should be greater masters of complaisance than the most polished people that ever existed. No sooner was the Roman empire overthrown, and the Goths had over­powered Europe, than we find the female character assuming an unusual importance and authority, and distinguished with new privileges, in all the European governments established by the northern conquerors. Even amidst the confusions of savage war, and among the almost incredible enormities committed by the Goths at their invasion of the empire, they forbore to offer any violence to the women. This perhaps is one of the most striking features in the new state of manners, which took place about the seventh century: and it is to this period, and to this people, that we must refer the origin of gallantry in Europe. The Romans never intro­duced these sentiments into their European provinces.

[Page] The Goths believed some divine and prophetic quality to be inherent in their women; they admitted them into their coun­cils, and consulted them on the public business of the state. They were suffered to conduct the great events which they predicted. Ganna, a prophetic virgin of the Marcomanni, a German or Gaulish tribe, was sent by her nation to Rome, and admitted into the presence of Domitian, to treat con­cerning terms of peace ^y. Tacitus relates, that Velleda, another German prophetess, held frequent conferences with the Roman generals; and that on some occasions, on account of the sacredness of her person, she was placed at a great distance on a high tower, from whence, like an oracular divinity, she conveyed her answers by some chosen messenger ^z. She appears to have preserved the supreme rule over her own people and the neighbouring tribes ^a. And there are other instances, that the government among the antient Germans was sometimes vested in the women ^b. This practice also prevailed among the Sitones or Norwegians ^c. The Cimbri, a Scandinavian tribe, were accompanied at their assemblies by venerable and hoary-headed prophetesses, apparelled in long linen vestments of a splendid white ^d. Their matrons and daughters acquired a reverence from their skill in studying simples, and their knowledge of healing wounds, arts reputed mysterious. The wives frequently attended their husbands in the most perilous expeditions, and fought with great intre­pidity in the most bloody engagements ^e. These nations dreaded [Page] captivity, more on the account of their women, than on their own: and the Romans, availing themselves of this appre­hension, often demanded their noblest virgins for hostages ^f. From these circumstances, the women even claimed a sort of precedence, at least an equality subsisted between the sexes, in the Gothic constitutions.

But the deference paid to the fair sex, which produced the spirit of gallantry, is chiefly to be sought for in those strong and exaggerated ideas of female chastity which prevailed among the northern nations. Hence the lover's devotion to his mistress was encreased, his attentions to her service multiplied, his affection heightened, and his sollicitude ag­gravated, in proportion as the difficulty of obtaining her was enhanced: and the passion of love acquired a degree of delicacy, when controlled by the principles of honour and purity. The highest excellence of character then known was a superiority in arms; and that rival was most likely to gain his lady's regard, who was the bravest champion. Here we see valour inspired by love. In the mean time, the same heroic spirit which was the surest claim to the favour of the ladies, was often exerted in their protection: a protection much wanted in an age of rapine, of plunder, and piracy; when the weakness of the softer sex was exposed to conti­nual dangers and unexpected attacks ^g. It is easy to sup­pose the officious emulation and ardour of many a gallant young warrior, pressing forward to be foremost in this ho­nourable service, which flattered the most agreeable of all passions, and which gratified every enthusiasm of the times, [Page] especially the fashionable fondness for a wandering and mili­tary life. In the mean time, we may conceive the lady thus won, or thus defended, conscious of her own importance, affecting an air of stateliness: it was her pride to have pre­served her chastity inviolate, she could perceive no merit but that of invincible bravery, and could only be approached in terms of respect and submission.

Among the Scandinavians, a people so fond of cloathing adventures in verse, these gallantries must naturally become the subject of poetry, with its fictitious embellishments. Accordingly, we find their chivalry displayed in their odes; pieces, which at the same time greatly confirm these obser­vations. The famous ode of Regner Lodbrog, affords a striking instance; in which, being imprisoned in a loath­some dungeon, and condemned to be destroyed by venomous serpents, he solaces his desperate situation by recollecting and reciting the glorious exploits of his past life. One of these, and the first which he commemorates, was an at­chievement of chivalry. It was the delivery of a beautiful Swedish princess from an impregnable fortress, in which she was forcibly detained by one of her father's captains. Her father issued a proclamation, promising that whoever would rescue the lady, should have her in marriage. Regner suc­ceeded in the attempt, and married the fair captive. This was about the year 860 ^h. There are other strokes in Reg­ner's ode, which, although not belonging to this particular story, deserve to be pointed out here, as illustrative of our argument. Such as, ‘"It was like being placed near a beau­tiful virgin on a couch.—It was like kissing a young widow in the first seat at a feast. I made to struggle in the twilight that golden-haired chief, who passed his mornings among the young maidens, and loved to converse with [Page] widows.—He who aspires to the love of young virgins, ought always to be foremost in the din of arms ⁱ."’ It is worthy of remark, that these sentiments occur to Regner while he is in the midst of his tortures, and at the point of death. Thus many of the heroes in Froissart, in the greatest extremities of danger, recollect their amours, and die think­ing of their mistresses. And by the way, in the same strain, Boh, a Danish champion, having lost his chin, and one of his cheeks, by a single stroke from Thurstain Midlang, only re­flected how he should be received, when thus maimed and disfigured, by the Danish girls. He instantly exclaimed in a tone of savage gallantry, ‘"The Danish virgins will not now willingly or easily give me kisses, if I should perhaps return home ^k."’ But there is an ode, in the KNYTLINGA-SAGA, written by Harald the VALIANT, which is professedly a song of chivalry; and which; exclusive of its wild spirit of ad­venture, and its images of savage life, has the romantic air of a set of stanzas, composed by a Provencial troubadour. Harald, appears to have been one of the most eminent ad­venturers of his age. He had killed the king of Drontheim in a bloody engagement. He had traversed all the seas, and visited all the coasts, of the north; and had carried his pira­tical enterprises even as far as the Mediterranean, and the shores of Africa. He was at length taken prisoner, and de­tained for some time at Constantinople. He complains in this ode, that the reputation he had acquired by so many hazardous exploits, by his skill in single combat, riding, swimming, gliding along the ice, darting, rowing, and guiding a ship through the rocks, had not been able to make any impression on Elissiff, or Elisabeth, the beautiful daughter of Jarilas, king of Russia ^l.

Here, however, chivalry subsisted but in its rudiments. Under the feudal establishments, which were soon afterwards erected in Europe, it received new vigour, and was invested [Page] with the formalities of a regular institution. The nature and circumstances of that peculiar model of government, were highly favourable to this strange spirit of fantastic heroism; which, however unmeaning and ridiculous it may seem, had the most serious and salutary consequences in assisting the gene­ral growth of refinement, and the progression of civilisation, in forming the manners of Europe, in inculcating the prin­ciples of honour, and in teaching modes of decorum. The genius of the feudal policy was perfectly martial. A nu­merous nobility, formed into separate principalities, affecting independence, and mutually jealous of their privileges and honours, necessarily lived in a state of hostility. This situa­tion rendered personal strength and courage the most requi­site and essential accomplishments. And hence, even in time of peace, they had no conception of any diversions or public ceremonies, but such as were of the military kind. Yet, as the courts of these petty princes were thronged with ladies of the most eminent distinction and quality, the ruling passion for war was tempered with courtesy. The prize of contending champions was adjudged by the ladies; who did not think it inconsistent to be present or to preside at the bloody spectacles of the times; and who, themselves, seem to have contracted an unnatural and unbecoming ferocity, while they softened the manners of those valorous knights who fought for their approbation. The high notions of a noble descent, which arose from the condition of the feudal constitution, and the ambition of forming an alliance with powerful and opulent families, cherished this romantic system. It was hard to obtain the fair feudatary, who was the object of universal adoration. Not only the splendor of birth, but the magnificent castle surrounded with embattelled walls, guarded with massy towers, and crowned with lofty pinnacles, served to inflame the imagination, and to create an attachment to some illustrious heiress, whose point of honour it was to be chaste and inaccessible. And the difficulty [Page] of success on these occasions, seems in great measure to have given rise to that sentimental love of romance, which acquiesced in a distant respectful admiration, and did not aspire to possession. The want of an uniform administration of justice, the general disorder, and state of universal anarchy, which naturally sprung from the principles of the feudal policy, presented perpetual oppor­tunities of checking the oppressions of arbitrary lords, of delivering captives injuriously detained in the baronial castles, of punishing robbers, of succouring the distressed, and of avenging the impotent and the unarmed, who were every moment exposed to the most licentious insults and injuries. The violence and injustice of the times gave birth to valour and humanity. These acts conferred a lustre and an im­portance on the character of men professing arms, who made force the substitute of law. In the mean time, the crusades, so pregnant with enterprize, heightened the habits of this warlike fanaticism. And when these foreign expedi­tions were ended, in which the hermits and pilgrims of Palestine had been defended, nothing remained to employ the activity of adventurers but the protection of innocence at home. Chivalry by degrees was consecrated by religion, whose authority tinctured every passion, and was engrafted into every institution, of the superstitious ages; and at length composed that singular picture of manners, in which the love of a god and of the ladies were reconciled, the saint and the hero were blended, and charity and revenge, zeal and gallantry, devotion and valour, were united.

Those who think that chivalry started late, from the na­ture of the feudal constitution, confound an improved effect with a simple cause. Not having distinctly considered all the particularities belonging to the genius, manners, and usages of the Gothic tribes, and accustomed to contemplate nations under the general idea of barbarians, they cannot look for the seeds of elegance amongst men, distinguished [Page] only for their ignorance and their inhumanity. The rude origin of this heroic gallantry was quickly overwhelmed and extinguished, by the superior pomp which it necessarily adopted from the gradual diffusion of opulence and civility, and that blaze of splendor with which it was surrounded, amid the magnificence of the feudal solemnities. But above all, it was lost and forgotten in that higher degree of embel­lishment, which at length it began to receive from the repre­sentations of romance.

From the foregoing observations taken together, the following general and comprehensive conclusion seems to result.

Amid the gloom of superstition, in an age of the grossest ignorance and credulity, a taste for the wonders of oriental fiction was introduced by the Arabians into Europe, many countries of which were already seasoned to a reception of its extravagancies, by means of the poetry of the Gothic s [...]alds, who perhaps originally derived their ideas from the fame fruitful region of invention. These fictions, coinciding with the reigning manners, and perpetually kept up and improved in the tales of troubadours and minstrels, seem to have centered about the eleventh century in the ideal histories of Turpin and Geoffrey of Monmouth, which record the supposititious atchievements of Charlemagne and king Arthur, where they formed the ground-work of that species of fabulous narrative called romance. And from these be­ginnings or causes, afterwards enlarged and enriched by kindred fancies fetched from the crusades, that singular and capricious mode of imagination arose, which at length composed the marvellous machineries of the more sublime Italian poets, and of their disciple Spenser.

THE irruption of the northern nations into the western empire, about the beginning of the fourth century, forms one of the most interesting and im­portant periods of modern history. Europe, on this great event, suffered the most memorable revolutions in its govern­ment and manners; and from the most flourishing state of peace and civility, became on a sudden, and for the space of two centuries, the theatre of the most deplorable devastation and disorder. But among the disasters introduced by these irresistible barbarians, the most calamitous seems to have been the destruction of those arts which the Romans still conti­nued so successfully to cultivate in their capital, and which they had universally communicated to their conquered pro­vinces. Towards the close of the fifth century, very few traces of the Roman policy, jurisprudence, sciences, and literature, [Page] remained. Some faint sparks of knowledge were kept alive in the monasteries; and letters and the liberal arts were happily preserved from a total extinction during the confusions of the Gothic invaders, by that slender degree of culture and protection which they received from the prelates of the church, and the religious communities.

But notwithstanding the famous academy of Rome^a with other literary seminaries had been destroyed by Alaric in the fourth century; yet Theodoric the second, king of the Ostrogoths, a pious and humane prince, restored in some degree the study of letters in that city, and encouraged the pursuits of those scholars who survived this great and general desolation of learning ^b. He adopted into his service Boe­thius, the most learned and almost only Latin philosopher of that period. Cassiodorus, another eminent Roman scholar, was Theodoric's grand secretary: who retiring into a mo­nastery in Calabria, passed his old age in collecting books, and practising mechanical experiments ^c. He was the author of many valuable pieces which still remain ^d. He wrote with little elegance, but he was the first that ever digested a series of royal charts or instruments; a monument of singular utility to the historian, and which has served to throw the [Page] most authentic illustration on the public transactions and legal constitutions of those times. Theodoric's patronage of learning is applauded by Claudian, and Sidonius Apollinaris. Many other Gothic kings were equally attached to the works of peace; and are not less conspicuous for their justice, pru­dence, and temperance, than for their fortitude and magna­nimity. Some of them were diligent in collecting the scat­tered remains of the Roman institutes, and constructing a regular code of jurisprudence ^d. It is highly probable, that those Goths who became masters of Rome, sooner acquired ideas of civility, from the opportunity which that city above all others afforded them of seeing the felicities of polished life, of observing the conveniencies arising from political economy, of mixing with characters respectable for prudence and learning, and of employing in their counsels men of supe­rior wisdom, whose instruction and advice they found it their interest to follow. But perhaps these northern adventurers, at least their princes and leaders, were not even at their first migrations into the south, so totally savage and uncivilised as we are commonly apt to suppose. Their enemies have been their historians, who naturally painted these violent disturbers of the general repose in the warmest colours. It is not easy to conceive, that the success of their amazing en­terprizes was merely the effect of numbers and tumultuary depredation: nor can I be persuaded, that the lasting and flourishing governments which they established in various parts of Europe, could have been framed by brutal force alone, and the blind efforts of unreflecting savages. Superior strength and courage must have contributed in a consider­able degree to their rapid and extensive conquests; but at the same time, such mighty atchievements could not have been planned and executed without some extraordinary vigour of mind, uniform principles of conduct, and no common talents of political sagacity.

[Page] Although these commotions must have been particularly unfavourable to the more elegant literature, yet Latin poetry, from a concurrence of causes, had for some time begun to relapse into barbarism. From the growing encrease of christianity, it was deprived of its old fabulous embel­lishments, and chiefly employed in composing ecclesiastical hymns. Amid these impediments however, and the necessary degeneration of taste and style, a few poets supported the character of the Roman muse with tolerable dignity, during the decline of the Roman empire. These were Ausonius, Paulinus, Sidonius, Sedulius, Arator, Juvencus, Prosper, and Fortunatus. With the last, who flourished at the be­ginning of the sixth century, and was bishop of Poitiers, the Roman poetry is supposed to have expired.

In the sixth century Europe began to recover some degree of tranquillity. Many barbarous countries during this pe­riod, particularly the inhabitants of Germany, of Friesland, and other northern nations, were converted to the christian faith ^e. The religious controversies which at this time di­vided the Greek and Latin churches, roused the minds of men to literary enquiries. These disputes in some measure called forth abilities which otherwise would have been un­known and unemployed; and, together with the subtleties of argumentation, insensibly taught the graces of style, and the habits of composition. Many of the popes were persons of distinguished talents, and promoted useful knowledge no less by example than authority. Political union was by degrees established; and regular systems of government, which alone can ensure personal security, arose in the various provinces of Europe occupied by the Gothic tribes. The Saxons had taken possession of Britain, the Franks be­came masters of Gaul, the Huns of Pannonia, the Goths of [Page] Spain, and the Lombards of Italy. Hence leisure and re­pose diffused a mildness of manners, and introduced the arts of peace; and, awakening the human mind to a con­sciousness of its powers, directed its faculties to their proper objects.

In the mean time, no small obstruction to the propagation or rather revival of letters, was the paucity of valuable books. The libraries, particularly those of Italy, which abounded in numerous and inestimable treasures of literature, were every where destroyed by the precipitate rage and undistin­guishing violence of the northern armies. Towards the close of the seventh century, even in the papal library at Rome, the number of books was so inconsiderable, that pope Saint Martin requested Sanctamand bishop of Maestricht, if possible to supply this defect from the remotest parts of Ger­many ^g. In the year 855, Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres in France, sent two of his monks to pope Benedict the third, to beg a copy of CICERO DE ORATORE, and QUINTILIAN'S INSTITUTES ^h, and some other books: ‘"for, says the abbot, [Page] although we have part of th [...]se books, yet there is no whole or complete copy of them in all France ⁱ".’ Albert abbot of Gemblours, who with incredible labour and immense expence had collected an hundred volumes on theological and fifty on profane subjects, imagined he had formed a splendid library ^k. About the year 790, Charlemagne granted an unlimited right of hunting to the abbot and monks of Sithiu, for making their gloves and girdles of the skins of the deer they killed, and covers for their books ^l. We may imagine that these religious were more fond of hunting than reading. It is certain that they were obliged to hunt before they could read: and at least it is probable, that under these circumstances, and of such materials, they did not manufacture many volumes. At the beginning of the tenth century books were so scarce in Spain, that one and the same copy of the bible, Saint Jerom's Epistles, and some volumes of ecclesiastical offices and martyrologies, often served several different monasteries ^m. Among the constitutions given to the monks of England by archbishop Lanfranc, in the year 1072, the following injunction occurs. At the beginning of Lent, the librarian is ordered to deliver a book to each of the religious: a whole year was allowed for the perusal of this book: and at the returning Lent, those monks who had neglected to read the books they had respectively received, are commanded to prostrate themselves before the [Page] abbot, and to supplicate his indulgence ⁿ. This regulation was partly occasioned by the low state of literature which Lanfranc found in the English monasteries. But at the same time it was a matter of necessity, and is in great mea­sure to be referred to the scarcity of copies of useful and suitable authors. In an inventory of the goods of John de Pontissara, bishop of Winchester, contained in his capital palace of Wulvesey, all the books which appear are nothing more than ‘"Septendecem pecie librorum de diversis Scienciis ^o."’ This was in the year 1294. The same prelate, in the year 1299, borrows of his cathedral convent of St. Swithin at Winchester, BIBLIAM BENE GLOSSATAM, that is, the Bible, with marginal Annotations, in two large folio volumes: but gives a bond for due return of the loan, drawn up with great solemnity ^p. This Bible had been bequeathed to the convent the same year by Pontissara's predecessor, bishop Ni­cholas de Ely: and in consideration of so important a bequest, that is, ‘"pro bona Biblia dicti episcopi bene glosata,"’ and one hundred marks in money, the monks founded a daily mass for the soul of the donor ^q. When a single book was bequeathed [Page] to a friend or relation, it was seldom without many restrictions and stipulations ^r. If any person gave a book to a religious house, he believed that so valuable a donation merited eternal salvation, and he offered it on the altar with great ceremony. The most formidable anathemas were pe­remptorily denounced against those who should dare to alien­ate a book presented to the cloister or library of a religious house. The prior and convent of Rochester declare, that they will every year pronounce the irrevocable sentence of damnation on him who shall purloin or conceal a Latin translation of Aristotle's PHYSICS, or even obliterate the title ^s. Sometimes a book was given to a monastery on con­dition that the donor should have the use of it during his life: and sometimes to a private person, with the reservation that he who receives it should pray for the soul of his benefactor. The gift of a book to Lincoln cathedral, by bishop Repingdon, in the year 1422, occurs in this form and under these curious circumstances. The memorial is written in Latin, with the bishop's own hand, which I will give in English, at the beginning of Peter's BREVIARY OF THE BIBLE. ‘"I Philip of Repyndon, late bishop of Lincoln, give this book called Peter de Aureolis to the new library to be built within the church of Lincoln: reserving the use and possession of it to Richard Trysely, clerk, canon and pre­bendary of Miltoun, in fee, and to the term of his life: and afterwards to be given up and restored to the said library, or the keepers of the same, for the time being, faithfully and without delay. Written with my own hand, A. D. 1422 ^t."’ When a book was bought, the [Page] affair was of so much importance, that it was customary to assemble persons of consequence and character, and to make a formal record that they were present on this occasion. Among the royal manuscripts, in the book of the SENTENCES of Peter Lombard, an archdeacon of Lincoln has left this entry ^u. ‘"This book of the SENTENCES belongs to master Robert, archdeacon of Lincoln, which he bought of Geof­frey the chaplain, brother of Henry vicar of Northelking­ton, in the presence of master Robert de Lee, master John of Lirling, Richard of Luda, clerk, Richard the al­moner, the said Henry the vicar and his clerk, and others: and the said archdeacon gave the said book to God and saint Oswald, and to Peter abbot of Barton, and the con­vent of Barden ^w."’ The disputed property of a book often occasioned the most violent altercations. Many claims appear to have been made to a manuscript of Matthew Paris, be­longing to the last-mentioned library: in which John Rus­sell, bishop of Lincoln, thus conditionally defends or explains his right of possession. ‘"If this book can be proved to be or to have been the property of the exempt monastery of saint Alban in the diocese of Lincoln, I declare this to be my mind, that, in that case, I use it at present as a loan under favour of those monks who belong to the said monastery. Otherwise, according to the condition under which this book came into my possession, I will that it shall belong to the college of the blessed Win­chester Mary at Oxford, of the foundation of William Wykham. Written with my own hand at Bukdane, 1 Jan. A. D. 1488. Jo. LINCOLN. Whoever shall obliterate or destroy this writing, let him be anathema ^x."’ About [Page] the year 1225, Roger de Insula, dean of York, gave se­veral Latin bibles to the university of Oxford, with a condition that the students who perused them should de­posit a cautionary pledge ^y. The library of that university, before the year 1300, consisted only of a few tracts, chained or kept in chests in the choir of St. Mary's church ^z. In the year 1327, the scholars and citizens of Oxford assaulted and entirely pillaged the opulent Benedictine abbey of the neighbouring town of Abingdon. Among the books they found there, were one hundred psalters, as many grayles, and forty missals, which undoubtedly belonged to the choir of the church: but besides these, there were only twenty­two CODICES, which I interpret books on common subjects ^a. [Page] And although the invention of paper, at the close of the ele­venth century, contributed to multiply manuscripts, and con­sequently to facilitate knowledge, yet even so late as the reign of our Henry the sixth, I have discovered the following re­markable instance of the inconveniencies and impediments to study, which must have been produced by a scarcity of books. It is in the statutes of St. Mary's college at Oxford, founded as a seminary to Oseney abbey in the year 1446. ‘"Let no scholar occupy a book in the library above one hour, or two hours at most; so that others shall be hin­dered from the use of the same ^b".’ The famous library established in the university of Oxford, by that munificent patron of literature Humphrey duke of Gloucester, contained only six hundred volumes ^c. About the commencement of the fourteenth century, there were only four classics in the royal library at Paris. These were one copy of Cicero, Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius. The rest were chiefly books of devo­tion, which included but few of the fathers: many treatises of astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, and medicine, originally written in Arabic, and translated into Latin or French: pandects, chronicles, and romances. This collection was principally made by Charles the fifth, who began his reign [Page] in 1365. This monarch was passionately fond of reading, and it was the fashion to send him presents of books from every part of the kingdom of France. These he ordered to be elegantly transcribed, and richly illuminated; and he placed them in a tower of the Louvre, from thence called, la toure de la libraire. The whole consisted of nine hundred volumes. They were deposited in three chambers; which, on this oc­casion, were wainscotted with Irish oak, and cieled with cypress curiously carved. The windows were of painted glass, fenced with iron bars and copper wire. The English became masters of Paris in the year 1425. On which event the duke of Bedford, regent of France, sent this whole li­brary, then consisting of only eight hundred and fifty-three volumes, and valued at two thousand two hundred and twenty­three livres, into England; where perhaps they became the ground-work of duke Humphrey's library just mentioned ^e. Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis the eleventh of France borrowed the works of the Arabian physician Rhasis, from the faculty of medicine at Paris, he not only deposited by way of pledge a quantity of valuable plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed ^f, by which he bound himself to return it under a considerable forfeiture ^g. The excessive prices of books in the middle ages, afford numerous and curious proofs. I will mention a few only. In the year 1174, Wal­ter prior of St. Swithin's at Winchester, afterwards elected abbot of Westminster, a writer in Latin of the lives of the bishops who were his patrons ^h, purchased of the monks of [Page] Dorchester in Oxfordshire, Bede's Homilies, and saint Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of barley, and a pall on which was embroidered in silver the history of saint Birinus con­verting a Saxon king ^h. Among the royal manuscripts in the British museum there is COMESTOR'S SCHOLASTIC HIS­TORY in French; which, as it is recorded in a blank page at the beginning, was taken from the king of France at the battle of Poitiers; and being purchased by William Montague earl of Salisbury for one hundred mars, was ordered to be sold by the last will of his countess Elizabeth for forty livres ⁱ. About the year 1400, a copy of John of Meun's ROMAN DE LA ROSE, was sold before the palace­gate at Paris for forty crowns or thirty-three pounds six and six-pence ^k. But in pursuit of these anecdotes, I am [Page] imperceptibly seduced into later periods, or rather am deviating from my subject.

After the calamities which the state of literature sustained in consequence of the incursions of the northern nations, the first restorers of the antient philosophical sciences in Europe, the study of which, by opening the faculties and extending the views of mankind, gradually led the way to other parts of learning, were the Arabians. In the beginning of the eighth century, this wonderful people, equally fa­mous for their conquests and their love of letters, in ravaging the Asiatic provinces, found many Greek books, which they read with infinite avidity: and such was the gratification they received from this fortunate acquisition, and so power­fully their curiosity was excited to make further discoveries in this new field of knowledge, that they requested their ca­liphs to procure from the emperor at Constantinople the best Greek writers. These they carefully translated into Arabic ^k. But every part of the Grecian literature did not equally gratify their taste. The Greek poetry they rejected, because it inculcated polytheism and idolatry, which were inconsistent with their religion. Or perhaps it was too cold and too correct for their extravagant and romantic conceptions ^l. [Page] Of the Greek history they made no use, because it recorded events which preceded their prophet Mahomet. Accustomed to a despotic empire, they neglected the political systems of the Greeks, which taught republican freedom. For the same reasons they despised the eloquence of the Athenian orators. The Greek ethics were super [...]eded by their Alcoran, and on this account they did not study the works of Plato ^m. Therefore no other Greek books engaged their attention but those which treated of mathematical, metaphysical, and phy­sical knowledge. Mathematics coincided with their natural turn to astronomy and arithmetic. Metaphysics, or logic, suited their speculative genius, their love of tracing intricate and abstracted truths, and their ambition of being admired for difficult and remote researches. Physics, in which I in­clude medicine, assisted the chemical experiments to which they were so much addicted ⁿ: and medicine, while it was connected with chemistry and botany, was a practical art of immediate utility ^o. Hence they studied Aristotle, Galen, [Page] and Hippocrates, with unremitted ardour and assiduity: they translated their writings into the Arabic tongue ^p, and by degrees illustrated them with voluminous commentaries ^q. These Arabic translations of the Greek philosophers produced new treatises of their own, particularly in medicine and me­taphysics. They continued to extend their conquests, and their frequent incursions into Europe before and after the ninth century, and their absolute establishment in Spain, imported the rudiments of useful knowledge into nations in­volved in the grossest ignorance, and unpossessed of the [Page] means of instruction. They founded universities in many cities of Spain and Africa ^r. They brought with them thei [...] books, which Charlemagne, emperor of France and Ger­many, commanded to be translated from Arabic into Latin ^s: and which, by the care and encouragement of that liberal prince, being quickly disseminated over his extensive domi­nions, soon became familiar to the western world. Hence it is, that we find our early Latin authors of the dark ages chiefly employed in writing systems of the most abstruse sciences: and from these beginnings the Aristotelic philoso­phy acquired such establishment and authority, that from long prescription it remains to this day the sacred and un­controverted doctrine of our schools ^t. From this fountain the infatuations of astrology took possession of the middle ages, and were continued even to modern times. To the peculiar genius of this people it is owing, that chemistry became blended with so many extravagancies, obscured with unintelligible jargon, and filled with fantastic notions, mysterious [Page] pretensions, and superstitious operations. And it is easy to conceive, that among these visionary philosophers, so fertile in speculation, logic, and metaphysics, contracted much of that refinement and perplexity, which for so many centuries exercised the genius of profound reasoners and captious disputants, and so long obstructed the progress of true knowledge. It may perhaps be regretted, in the mean time, that this predilection of the Arabian scholars for phi­losophic enquiries, prevented them from importing into Europe a literature of another kind. But rude and barba­rous nations would not have been polished by the history, poetry, and oratory of the Greeks. Although capable of comprehending the solid truths of many parts of science, they are unprepared to be impressed with ideas of elegance, and to relish works of taste. Men must be instructed before they can be refined; and, in the gradations of knowledge, polite literature does not take place till some progress has first been made in philosophy. Yet it is at the same time probable, that the Arabians, among their literary stores, brought into Spain and Italy many Greek authors not of the scientific species ^u: [Page] and that the migration of this people into the western world, while it proved the fortunate instrument of introducing into Europe some of the Greek classics at a very early period, was moreover a means of preserving those genuine models of composition, and of transmitting them to the present gene­ration ^u. It is certain, that about the close of the ninth cen­tury, polite letters, together with the sciences, began in some degree to be studied in Italy, France, and Germany. Charlemagne, whose munificence and activity in propagating the Arabian literature has already been mentioned, founded the universities of Bononia, Pavia, Paris, and Osnaburgh. Charles the Bald seconded the salutary endeavours of Char­lemagne. Lothaire, the brother of the latter, erected schools in the eight principal cities of Italy ^w. The number of mo­nasteries and collegiate churches in those countries was daily encreasing ^x: in which the youth, as a preparation to the [Page] study of the sacred scriptures, were exercised in reading pro­fane authors, together with the antient doctors of the church, and habituated to a Latin style. The monks of Cassino in Italy were distinguished before the year 1000, not only for their knowledge of the sciences, but their attention to polite learning, and an acquaintance with the classics. Their learned abbot Desiderius collected the best of the Greek and Roman writers. This fraternity not only composed learned treatises in music, logic, aftronomy, and the Vitruvian architecture, but likewise employed a portion of their time in transcribing Tacitus ^y, Jornandes, Josephus, Ovid's Fasti, Cicero, Seneca, Donatus the grammarian, Virgil, Theocritus, and Homer ^z.

[Page] In the mean time England shared these improvements in knowledge: and literature, chiefly derived from the same sources, was communicated to our Saxon ancestors about the beginning of the eighth century ^c. The Anglo-Saxons were converted to christianity about the year 570. In consequence of this event, they soon acquired civility and learning. Hence they necessarily established a communication with Rome, and acquired a familiarity with the Latin language. During this period, it was the prevailing practice among the Saxons, not only of the clergy but of the better sort of laity, to make a voyage to Rome ^d. It is natural to imagine with what ardour the new converts visited the holy see, which at the same time was fortunately the capital of literature. While they gratified their devotion, undesignedly and im­perceptibly they became acquainted with useful science.

In return, Rome sent her emissaries into Britain. Theo­dore, a monk of Rome, originally a Greek priest, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, was consecrated archbishop of Canter­bury, and sent into England by pope Vitellian, in the year 688 ^e. He was skilled in the metrical art, astronomy, arith­metic, church-music, and the Greek and Latin languages ^f. The new prelate brought with him a large library, as it was called and esteemed, consisting of numerous Greek and Latin authors; among which were Homer in a large volume, written on paper with most exquisite elegance, the homi­lies of saint Chrysostom on parchment, the psalter, and Jo­sephus's Hypomnesticon, all in Greek ^g. Theodore was accompanied [Page] into England by Adrian, a Neapolitan monk, and a native of Africa, who was equally skilled in sacred and profane learning, and at the same time appointed by the pope to the abbacy of saint Austin's at Canterbury. Bede informs us, that Adrian requested pope Vitellian to confer the arch­bishoprick on Theodore, and that the pope consented on condition that Adrian, ‘"who had been twice in France, and on that account was better acquainted with the nature and difficulties of so long a journey,"’ would conduct Theo­dore into Britain ^h. They were both escorted to the city of Canterbury by Benedict Biscop, a native of Northumber­land, and a monk, who had formerly been acquainted with them in a visit which he made to Rome ⁱ. Benedict seems at this time to have been one of the most distinguished of the Saxon ecclesiastics: availing himself of the arrival of these two learned strangers, under their direction and assistance, he procured workmen from France, and built the monastery of Weremouth in Northumberland. The church he con­structed of stone, after the manner of the Roman architec­ture; and adorned its walls and roof with pictures, which he purchased at Rome, representing among other sacred sub­jects the Virgin Mary, the twelve apostles, the evangelical history, and the visions of the Apocalypse ^k. The windows were glazed by artists brought from France. But I mention this foundation to introduce an anecdote much to our purpose. [Page] Benedict added to his monastery an ample library, which he stored with Greek and Latin volumes, imported by himself from Italy ^l. Bede has thought it a matter worthy to be recorded, that Ceolfrid, his successor in the government of Weremouth-abbey, augmented this collection with three volumes of pandects, and a book of cosmography wonderfully enriched with curious workmanship, and bought at Rome ^m. The example of the pious Benedict was imme­diately followed by Acca bishop of Hexham in the same pro­vince: who having finished his cathedral church by the help of architects, masons, and glasiers hired in Italy, adorned it, according to Leland, with a valuable library of Greek and Latin authors ⁿ. But Bede, Acca's cotemporary, relates, that this library was entirely composed of the histories of those apostles and martyrs to whose relics he had dedicated se­veral altars in his church, and other ecclesiastical treatises, which he had collected with infinite labour ^o. Bede however calls it a most copious and noble library ^p. Nor is it foreign to our purpose to add, that Acca invited from Kent into Northumberland, and retained in his service during the space of twelve years, a celebrated chantor named Maban: by the assistance of whose instructions and superintendance he not only regulated the church music of his diocese, but in­troduced the use of many Latin hymns hitherto unknown in the northern churches of England ^q. It appears that before [Page] the arrival of Theodore and Adrian, celebrated schools for educating youth in the sciences had been long established in Kent ^r. Literature, however, seems at this period to have flourished with equal reputation at the other extremity of the island, and even in our most northern provinces. Ecbert bishop of York, founded a library in his cathedral, which, like some of those already mentioned, is said to have been replenished with a variety of Latin and Greek books ^s. Alcuine, whom Ecbert appointed his first librarian, hints at this library in a Latin epistle to Charlemagne. ‘"Send me from France some learned treatises, of equal excellence with those which I preserve here in England under my custody, collected by the industry of my master Ecbert: and I will send to you some of my youths, who shall carry with them the flowers of Britain into France. So that there shall not only be an enclosed garden at York, but also at Tours some sprouts of Paradise ^t," &c.’ William of Malmesbury judged this library to be of sufficient im­portance not only to be mentioned in his history, but to be styled, ‘"Omnium liberalium artium armarium, nobilissimam bibliothecam ^u."’ This repository remained till the reign of king Stephen, when it was destroyed by fire, with great part of the city of York ^w. Its founder Ecbert died in the year 767 ^x. Before the end of the eighth century, the monasteries of Westminster, Saint Alban's, Worcester, Malmesbury, Glas­tonbury, with some others, were founded, and opulently en­dowed. That of Saint Alban's was filled with one hundred monks by king Offa ^y. Many new bishopricks were also established in England: all which institutions, by multiplying [Page] the number of ecclesiastics, turned the attention of many persons to letters.

The best writers among the Saxons flourished about the eighth century. These were Aldhelm, bishop of Shirburn, Ceolfrid, Alcuine, and Bede; with whom I must also join king Alfred. But in an enquiry of this nature, Alfred de­serves particular notice, not only as a writer, but as the illustrious rival of Charlemagne, in protecting and assisting the restoration of literature. He is said to have founded the university of Oxford; and it is highly probable, that in imi­tation of Charlemagne's similar institutions, he appointed learned persons to give public and gratuitous instructions in theology, but principally in the fashionable sciences of logic, astronomy, arithmetic, and geometry, at that place, which was then a considerable town, and conveniently situated in the neighbourhood of those royal seats at which Alfred chiefly resided. He suffered no priest that was illite­rate to be advanced to any ecclesiastical dignity ^y. He invited his nobility to educate their sons in learning, and requested those lords of his court who had no children, to send to school such of their younger servants as discovered a pro­mising capacity, and to breed them to the clerical profession ^z. Alfred, while a boy, had himself experienced the inconve­niencies arising from a want of scholars, and even of com­mon instructors, in his dominions: for he was twelve years of age, before he could procure in the western kingdom a master properly qualified to teach him the alphabet. But, while yet unable to read, he could repeat from memory a great variety of Saxon songs ^a. He was fond of cultivating [Page] his native tongue: and with a view of inviting the people in general to a love of reading, and to a knowledge of books which they could not otherwise have understood, he tran­slated many Latin authors into Saxon. These, among others, were Boethius OF THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSO­PHY, a manuscript of which of Alfred's age still remains ^a, Orosius's HISTORY OF THE PAGANS, saint Gregory's PASTORAL CARE, the venerable Bede's ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, and the SOLILOQUIES of saint Austin. Probably saint Austin was selected by Alfred, because he was the favorite author of Charlemagne ^b. Alfred died in the year 900, and was buried at Hyde abbey, in the suburbs of Winchester, under a sumptuous monument of porphyry ^c.

Aldhelm, nephew of Ina king of the West Saxons, fre­quently visited France and Italy. While a monk of Malmes­bury in Wiltshire, he went from his monastery to Canter­bury, in order to learn logic, rhetoric, and the Greek lan­guage, of archbishop Theodore, and of Albin abbot of saint Austin's ^d, the pupil of Adrian ^e. But he had before acquired [Page] some knowledge of Greek and Latin under Maidulf, an Hi­bernian or Scot, who had erected a small monastery or school at Malmesbury ^f. Camden affirms, that Aldhelm was the first of the Saxons who wrote in Latin, and that he taught his countrymen the art of Latin versification ^g. But a very intelligent antiquarian in this sort of literature, men­tions an anonymous Latin poet, who wrote the life of Char­lemagne in verse; and adds, that he was the first of the Saxons that attempted to write Latin verse ^h. It is however certain, that Aldhelm's Latin compositions, whether in verse or prose, as novelties were deemed extraordinary performan­ces, and excited the attention and admiration of scholars in other countries. A learned cotemporary, who lived in a remote province of a Frankish territory, in an epistle to Ald­helm has this remarkable expression, ‘"VESTRAE LATINITATIS PANEGYRICUS RUMOR has reached us even at this dis­tance ⁱ, &c."’ In reward of these uncommon merits he was made bishop of Shirburn in Dorsetshire in the year 705 ^k. His writings are chiefly theological: but he has likewise left in Latin verse a book of AENIGMATA, copied from a work of the same title under the name of Symposius ^l, a poem de VIRGINITATE hereafter cited, and treatises on arithmetic, astro­logv, rhetoric, and metre. The last treatise is a proof that the ornaments of composition now began to be studied. Leland mentions his CANTIONES SAXONICAE, one of which continued to be commonly sung in William of Malmesbury's time: and, as it was artfully interspersed with many allusions [Page] to passages of Scripture, was often sung by Aldhelm him­self to the populace in the streets, with a design of alluring the ignorant and idle, by so specious a mode of instruction, to a sense of duty, and a knowledge of religious subjects ^o. Malmesbury observes, that Aldhelm might be justly deemed ‘"ex acumine Graecum, ex nitore Romanum, et ex pompa Anglum ^p."’ It is evident, that Malmesbury, while he here characterises the Greeks by their acuteness, took his idea of them from their scientifical literature, which was then only known. After the revival of the Greek philoso­phy by the Saracens, Aristotle and Euclid were familiar in Europe long before Homer and Pindar. The character of Aldhelm is thus drawn by an antient chronicler, ‘"He was an excellent harper, a most eloquent Saxon and Latin poet, a most expert chantor or singer, a DOCTOR EGREGIUS, and admirably versed in the scriptures and the liberal sciences ^q."’

[Page] Alcuine, bishop Ecbert's librarian at York, was a cotem­porary pupil with Aldhelm under Theodore and Adrian at Canterbury ^q. During the present period, there seems to have been a close correspondence and intercourse between the French and Anglo-Saxons in matters of literature. Al­cuine was invited from England into France, to superintend the studies of Charlemagne, whom he instructed in logic, rhetoric, and astronomy ^r. He was also the master of Ra­banus Maurus, who became afterwards the governor and preceptor of the great abbey of Fulda in Germany, one of [Page] the most flourishing seminaries in Europe, founded by Charlemagne, and inhabited by two hundred and seventy monks ^s. Alcuine was likewise employed by Charlemagne to regulate the lectures and discipline of the universities ^t, which that prudent and magnificent potentate had newly constituted ^u. He is said to have joined to the Greek and Latin, an acquaintance with the Hebrew tongue, which perhaps in some degree was known sooner than we may suspect; for at Trinity college in Cambridge there is an He­brew Psalter, with a Normanno-Gallic interlinear version of great antiquity ^w. Homilies, lives of saints, commentaries on the bible, with the usual systems of logic, astronomy, rhetoric, and grammar, compose the formidable catalogue of Alcuine's numerous writings. Yet in his books of the sciences, he sometimes ventured to break through the pedantic formalities of a systematical teacher: he has thrown one of [Page] his treatises in logic, and I think, another in grammar, into a dialogue between the author and Charlemagne. He first advised Bede to write his ecclesiastical history of England; and was greatly instrumental in furnishing materials for that early and authentic record of our antiquities ^y.

In the mean time we must not form too magnificent ideas of these celebrated masters of science, who were thus invited into foreign countries to conduct the education of mighty monarchs, and to plan the rudiments of the most illustrious academies. Their merits are in great measure relative. Their circle of reading was contracted, their systems of phi­losophy jejune; and their lectures rather served to stop the growth of ignorance, than to produce any positive or im­portant improvements in knowledge. They were unable to make [...]xcursions from their circumscribed paths of scientific instruction, into the spacious and fruitful regions of liberal and manly study. Those of their hearers, who had passed through the course of the sciences with applause, and aspired to higher acquisitions, were exhorted to read Cassiodorus and Boethius; whose writings they placed at the summit of profane literature, and which they believed to be the great boundaries of human erudition.

I have already mentioned Ceolfrid's presents of books to Benedict's library at Weremouth abbey. He wrote an account of his travels into France and Italy. But his principal work, and I believe the only one preserved, is his diss [...]rtation con­cerning the clerical tonsure, and the rites of celebrating Easter ^z. This was written at the desire of Naiton, a Pictish king, who dispatched ambassadors to Ceolfrid for informa­tion concerning these important articles; requesting Ceolfrid at the same time to send him some skilful architects, who could build in his country a church of stone, after the [Page] fashion of the Romans ^a. Ceolfrid died on a journey to Rome, and was buried in a monastery of Navarre, in the year 706 ^b.

But Bede, whose name is so nearly and necessarily connected with every part of the literature of this pe­riod, and which has therefore been often already mentioned, emphatically styled the Venerable by his cotemporaries, was by far the most learned of the Saxon writers. He was of the northern school, if it may be so called; and was educated in the monastery of saint Peter at Weremouth, under the care of the abbots Ceolfrid and Biscop ^c. Bale affirms, that Bede learned physics and mathematics from the purest sources, the original Greek and Roman writers on these subjects ^d. But this hasty assertion, in part at least, may justly be doubted. His knowledge, if we consider his age, was extensive and profound: and it is amazing, in so rude a period, and during a life of no considerable length, he should have made so suc­cessful a progress, and such rapid improvements, in scientifical and philological studies, and have composed so many elabo­rate treatises on different subjects ^e. It is diverting to see the French critics censuring Bede for credulity: they might as well have accused him of superstition ^f. There is much [Page] perspicuity and facility in his Latin style. But it is void of elegance, and often of purity; it shews with what grace and propriety he would have written, had his mind been formed on better models. Whoever looks for digestion of mate­rials, disposition of parts, and accuracy of narration, in this writer's historical works, expects what could not exist at that time. He has recorded but few civil transactions: but besides that his history professedly considers ecclesiastical affairs, we should remember, that the building of a church, the preferment of an abbot, the canonisation of a martyr, and the importation into England of the shin-bone of an apostle, were necessarily matters of much more importance in Bede's conceptions than victories or revolutions. He is fond of minute description; but particularities are the fault and often the merit of early historians ^r. Bede wrote many [Page] pieces of Latin poetry. The following verses from his ME­DITATIO DE DIE JUDICII, a translation of which into Saxon verse is now preserved in the library of Bennet college at Cambridge ^s, are at least well turned and harmonious.

Some of Aldhelm's verses are exactly in this cast, written on the Dedication of the abbey-church at Malmesbury to saint Peter and saint Paul.

The strict and superabundant attention of these Latin poets to prosodic rules, on which it was become fashionable to write didactic systems, made them accurate to excess in the metrical conformation of their hexameters, and produced a faultless and flowing monotony. Bede died in the monastery of Weremouth, which he never had once quitted, in the year 735 ^x.

[Page] I have already observed, and from good authorities, that many of these Saxon scholars were skilled in Greek. Yet scarce any considerable monuments have descended to modern times, to prove their familiarity with that language. I will, however, mention such as have occurred to me. Archbishop Parker, or rather his learned scribe Jocelin, affirms, that the copy of Homer, and of some of the other books im­ported into England by archbishop Theodore, as I have above related, remained in his time ^y. There is however no allusion to Homer, nor any mention made of his name, in the writings of the Saxons now existing ^z. In the Bodleian library are some extracts from the books of the Prophets in Greek and Latin: the Latin is in Saxon, and the Greek in Latino-greek capital characters. A Latino-greek alphabet is prefixed. In the same manuscript is a chapter of Deutero­nomy, Greek and Latin, but both are in Saxon characters ^a. In the curious and very valuable library of Bennet college in Cambridge, is a very antient copy of Aldhelm DE LAUDE VIRGINITATIS. In it is inserted a specimen of Saxon poetry full of Latin and Greek words, and at the end of the ma­nuscript some Runic letters occur ^b. I suspect that their Grecian literature was a matter of ostentation rather than use. William of Malmesbury, in his life of Aldhelm, cen­sures an affectation in the writers of this age; that they were fond of introducing in their Latin compositions a difficult and abstruse word latinised from the Greek ^c. There are many instances of this pedantry in the early charters of Dugdale's Monasticon. But it is no where more visible than in the LIFE of Saint WILFRID, archbishop of Canterbury, written by Fridegode a monk of Canterbury, in Latin [Page] heroics, about the year 960 ^d. Malmesbury observes of this author's style, ‘"Latinitatem perosus, Graecitatem amat, Grae­cula verba frequentat ^e."’ Probably to be able to read Greek at this time was esteemed a knowledge of that language. Eginhart relates, that Charlemagne could speak Latin as fluently as his native Frankish: but slightly passes over his accomplishment in Greek, by artfully saying, that he un­derstood it better than he could pronounce it ^f. Nor, by the way, was Charlemagne's boasted facility in the Latin so remarkable a prodigy. The Latin language was familiar to the Gauls when they were conquered by the Franks; for they were a province of the Roman empire till the year 485. It was the language of their religious offices, their laws, and public transactions. The Franks who conquered the Gauls at the period just mentioned, still continued this usage, imagining there was a superior dignity in the language of imperial Rome: although this incorporation of the Franks with the Gauls greatly corrupted the latinity of the latter, and had given it a strong tincture of barbarity before the reign of Charlemagne. But while we are bringing proofs which tend to extenuate the notion that Greek was now much known or cultivated, it must not be dissembled, that John Erigena, a native of Aire in Scotland, and one of king Alfred's first lecturers at Oxford ^g, translated into Latin from the Greek original four large treatises of Dionysius the Areopagite, about the year 860 ^h. This translation, which [Page] is dedicated to Charles the Bald, abounds with Greek phra­seology and is hardly intelligible to a mere Latin reader. He also translated into Latin the Scholia of saint Maximus on the difficult passages of Gregory Nazianzen ⁱ. He frequently visited his munificent patron Charles the Bald, and is said to have taken a long journey to Athens, and to have spent many years in studying not only the Greek but the Arabic and Chaldee languages ^k.

As to classic authors, it appears that not many of them were known or studied by our Saxon ancestors. Those with which they were most acquainted, either in prose or verse, seem to have been of the lower empire; writers who, in the declension of taste, had superseded the purer and more an­ti [...]nt Roman models, and had been therefore more recen [...]ly and frequently transcribed. I have mentioned Alfred's trans­lations of Boethius and Orosius. Prudentius was also per­haps one of their favorites. In the British Museum there is a manuscript copy of that poet's PSYCOMACHIA. It is illustrated with drawings of historical figures, each of which have an explanatory legend in Latin and Saxon letters; the Latin in large red characters, and the Saxon in black, of great anti­quity ^l. Prudentius is likewise in Bennet college library at Cambridge, transcribed in the time of Charles the Bald, with several Saxon words written into the text ^m. Sedulius's hymns are in the same repository in Saxon characters, in a volume containing other Saxon manuscripts ⁿ. Bede says, [Page] that Aldhelm wrote his book DE VIRGINITATE, which is both prose and verse, in imitation of the manner of Sedu­lius ^o. We learn from Gregory of Tours, what is not foreign to our purpose to remark, that king Chilperic, who began to reign in 562, wrote two books of Latin verses in imitation of Sedulius. But it was without any idea of the com­mon quantities ^p. A manuscript of this poet in the British Museum is bound up with Nennius and Felix's MIRACLES OF SAINT GUTHLAC, dedicated to Alfwold king of the East Angles, and written both in Latin and Saxon ^q. But these classics were most of them read as books of religion and mo­rality. Yet Aldhelm, in his tract de METRORUM GENERI­BUS, quotes two verses from the third book of Virgil's Georgics ^r: and in the Bodleian library we find a manuscript of the first book of Ovid's Art of Love, in very antient Saxon characters, accompanied with a British gloss ^s. And the venerable Bede, having first invoked the Trinity, thus begins a Latin panegyrical hymn on the miraculous virgi­nity of Ethildryde. ‘"Let Virgil sing of wars, I celebrate the gifts of peace. My verses are of chastity, not of the rape of the adulteress Helen. I will chant heavenly bles­sings, not the battles of miserable Troy ^t."’ These however are rare instances. It was the most abominable heresy to have any concern with the pagan fictions. The graces of composition were not their objects, and elegance found no place amidst their severer pursuits in philosophy and theology ³¹⁷.

[Page] It is certain that literature was at its height among our Saxon ancestors about the eighth century. These happy be­ginnings were almost entirely owing to the attention of king Alfred, who encouraged learning by his own example, by founding [...]eminaries of instruction, and by rewarding the labours of scholars. But the efforts of this pious monarch were soon blasted by the supineness of his successors, the incursions of the Danes, and the distraction of national af­fairs. Bede, from the establishment of learned bishops in every diocese, and the universal tranquillity which reigned over all the provinces of England, when he finished his ec­clesiastical history, flatters his imagination in anticipating [Page] the most advantageous consequences, and triumphantly closes his narrative with this pleasing presentiment. The Picts, at this period, were at peace with the Saxons or English, and converted to christianity. The Scots lived contented within their own boundary. The Britons or Welsh, from a natural enmity, and a dislike to the catholic institution of keeping Easter, sometimes attempted to disturb the national repose; but they were in some measure subservient to the Saxons. Among the Northumbrians, both the nobility and private persons rather chose their children should receive the mo­nastic tonsure, than be trained to arms ^x.

But a long night of confusion and gross ignorance suc­ceeded. The principal productions of the most eminent monasteries for three centuries, were incredible legends which discovered no marks of invention, unedifying homilies, and trite expositions of the scriptures. Many bishops and abbots began to consider learning as pernicious to true piety, and confounded illiberal igno [...]ance with christian simplicity. Leland frequently laments the loss of libraries destroyed in the Danish invasions ^y. Some slight attempts were made for restoring literary pursuits, but with little success. In the tenth century, Oswald archbishop of Canterbury, finding the monasteries of his province extremely ignorant not only in the common elements of grammar, but even in the canonical rules of their respective orders, was obliged to send into France for competent masters, who might remedy these evils ^z. In the mean time, from perpetual commotions, the manners of the people had degenerated from that mildness which a short interval of peace and letters had introduced, [Page] and the national character had contracted an air of rudenes [...] and ferocity.

England at length, in the beginning of the eleventh cen­tury, received from the Normans the rudiments of that cultivation which it has preserved to the present times. The Normans were a people who had acquired ideas of splendor and refinement from their residence in France; and the gallantries of their f [...]udal system introduced new magni­ficence and elegance among our rough unpolished ancestors. The conqueror's army was composed of the flower of the Norman nobility; who sharing allotments of land in different parts of the new territory, diffused a general knowledge of various improvements entirely unknown in the most flou­rishing eras of the Saxon government, and gave a more libe­ral turn to the manners even of the provincial inhabita [...]ts. That they brought with them the arts, may yet be seen by the castles and churches which they built on a more extensive and stately plan ^a. Literature, in particular, the chief object of our present research, which had long been reduced to the most abject condition, appeared with new lustre in conse­quence of this important revolution.

Towards the close of the tenth century, an event took place, which gave a new and very fortunate turn to the state of letters in France and Italy. A little before that time, there were no schools in Europe but those whic [...] belonged to the monasteries or episcopal churches; and the monks were almost the only masters employed to educate the youth in the principles of sacred and profane erudition. But at the commencement of the eleventh century, many learned per­sons of the laity, as well as of the clergy, undertook in th [...] [Page] most capital cities of France and Italy this important charge. The Latin versions of the Greek philosophers from the Arabic, had now become so frequent and common, as to fall into the hands of the people; and many of these new preceptors having travelled into Spain with a design of studying in the Arabic schools ^b, and comprehending in their course of in­stitution, more numerous and useful branches of science than the monastic teachers were acquainted with, commu­nicated their knowledge in a better method, and taught in a much more full, perspicuous, solid, and rational manner. These and other beneficial effects, arising from this practice of admitting others besides ecclesiastics to the profession of letters, and the education of youth, were imported into Eng­land by means of the Norman conquest.

The conqueror himself patronised and loved letters. He filled the bishopricks and abbacies of England with the most learned of his countrymen, who had been educated at the university of Paris, at that time the most flourishing school in Europe. He placed Lanfranc, abbot of the monastery of Saint Stephen at Caen, in the see of Canterbury; an eminent master of logic, the subtleties of which he employed with great dexterity in a famous controversy concerning the real presence. Anselm, an acute metaphysician and theologist, his immediate successor in the same see, was called from the government of the abbey of Bec in Normandy. Herman, a Norman bishop of Salisbury, founded a noble library in the antient cathedral of that see ^c. Many of the Norman prelates [Page] preferred in England by the conqueror, were polite scholars. Godfrey, prior of Saint Swithin's at Winchester, a native of Cambray, was an elegant Latin epigrammatist, and wrote with the smartness and ease of Martial ^d. A circumstance, which by the way shews that the literature of the monks at this period was of a more liberal cast than that which we commonly annex to their character and profession. Geoffrey, a learned Norman, was invited from the university of Paris to superintend the direction of the school of the abbey of Dunstable; where he composed a play called the Play of SAINT CATHARINE ^e, which was acted by his scholars. This was perhaps the first spectacle of the kind that was ever at­tempted, and the first trace of theatrical representation which appeared, in England. Mathew Paris, who first records this anecdote, says, that Geoffrey borrowed copes from the sacrist of the neighbouring abbey of saint Alban's to dress his characters. He was afterwards elected abbot of that opulent monastery ^f.

[Page] The king himself gave no small countenance to th [...] clergy, in sending his son Henry Beauclerc to the abbey of Abingdon, where he was initiated in the sciences under the care of the abbot Grymbald, and Fa [...]ice a physician of Ox­ford. Robert d'Oilly, constable of Oxford castle, was ordered to pay for the board of the young prince in the convent, which the king himself frequently visited ^g. Nor was Wil­liam wanting in giving ample revenues to learning: he founded the magnificent abbies of Battel and Selby, wit [...] other smaller convents. His nobles and their successors co­operated with this liberal spirit in erecting many monaste­ries. Herbert de Losinga, a monk of Normandy, bishop of Thetford in Norfolk, instituted and endowed with large possessions a Benedictine abbey at Norwich, consisting of sixty monks. To mention no more instances, such great institutions of persons dedicated to religious and literary leisure, while they diffused an air of civility, and softened the manners of the people in their respective circles, must have afforded powerful invitations to studious pursuits, and have consequently added no small degree of stability to the interests of learning.

By these observations, and others which have occurred in the course of our enquiries, concerning the utility of monas­teries, I certainly do not mean to defend the monastic system. We are apt to pass a general and undistinguishing censure on the monks, and to suppose their foundations to have been the retreats of illiterate indolence at every period of time. B [...]t it should be remembered, that our universities about the time of the Norman conquest, were in a low condition: while the monasteries contained ample endowments and ac­commodations, and were the only respectable seminaries of literature. A few centuries afterwards, as our universities began to flourish, in consequence of the distinctions and [Page] [...]onours which they conferred on scholars, the establishment of colleges, the introduction of new systems of science, the universal ardour which prevailed of breeding almost all persons to letters, and the abolition of that exclusive right of teaching which the ecclesiastics had so long claimed; the monasteries of course grew inattentive to studies, which were more strongly encouraged, more commodiously pursued, and more successfully cultivated, in other places: they gradually became contemptible and unfashionable as nurseries of learn­ing, and their fraternities degenerated into sloth and igno­rance. The most eminent scholars which England produced, both in philosophy and humanity, before and even below the twelfth century, were educated in our religious houses. The encouragement given in the English monasteries for transcribing books, the scarcity of which in the middle ages we have before remarked, was very considerable. In every great abbey there was an apartment called the SCRIPTORIUM: where many writers were constantly busied in transcribing not only the service-books for the choir, but books for the library ^h. The Scriptorium of Saint Alban's abbey was built by abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many vo­lumes to be written there, about the year 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies ⁱ. Estates were often granted for the support of the Scriptorium. That at Saintedmonsbury was endowed with two mills ^k. The tythes of a rectory were appropriated to the cathedral convent of saint Swithin at [Page] Winchester, ad libros transcribendos, in the year 1171 ^k. Many instances of this species of benefaction occur from the tenth century. Nigel, in the year 1160, gave the monks of Ely two churches, ad libros faciendos ^l. This employment appears to have been diligently practised at Croyland; for Ingulphus relates, that when the library of that convent was burnt in the year 1091, seven hundred volumes were consumed ⁿ. Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glastonbury, during the government of one abbot, about the year 1300 ^o. And in the li­brary of this monastery, the richest in England, there were up­wards of four hundred volumes in the year 1248 ^p. More than eighty books were thus transcribed for saint Alban's abbey, by abbot Wethamstede, who died about 1440 ^q. Some of these instances are rather below our period; but they illustrate the subject, and are properly connected with those of more antient date. I find some of the classics written in the English monasteries very early. Henry, a Benedictine monk of Hyde-abbey near Winchester, transcribed in the year 1178, Terence, Boethius ^r, Suetonius ^s, and Claudian. Of these he formed one book, illuminating the initials, and [Page] forming the brazen bosses of the covers with his own hands^u. But this abbot had more devotion than taste: for he exchanged this manuscript a few years afterwards for four missals, the Legend of saint Christopher, and saint Gregory's PASTORAL CARE, with the prior of the neighbour­ing cathedral convent^w. Benedict, abbot of Peterborough, author of the Latin chronicle of king Henry the second, amongst a great variety of scholastic and theological treatises, transcribed Seneca's epistles and tragedies^x, Terence, Martial^y, and Claudian, to which I will add GESTA ALEXANDRI^z, about the year 1180^a. In a catalogue of the^b books of the [Page] library of Glastonbury we find Livy ^b, Sallust ^c, Seneca, Tully DE SENECTUTE and AMICITIA ^d, Virgil, Persius, and Claudian, in the year 1248. Among the royal manuscripts of the British Museum, is one of the twelve books of Statius's Thebaid, supposed to have been written in the tenth century, which once belonged to the cathedral convent of Rochester ^e. And another of Virgil's Eneid, written in the thirteenth, which came from the library of saint Austin's at Canterbur [...] ^f. Wallingford, abbot of saint Alban's, gave or sold from the library of that monastery to Richard of Bury, bishop of Durham, author of the PHILOBIBLON, and a great collector of books, Terence, Virgil, Quintilian, and Jerom against Rufinus, together with thirty-two other volumes valued at fifty pounds of silver ^g. The scarcity of [Page] parchment undoubtedly prevented the transcription of many other books in these societies. About the year 1120, one master Hugh, being appointed by the convent of Saint­edmondsbury in Suffolk to write and illuminate a grand copy of the bible for their library, could procure no parch­ment for this purpose in England ^h.

In consequence of the taste for letters and liberal studies introduced by the Normans, many of the monks became almost as good critics as catholics; and not only in France but in England, a great variety of Latin writers, who studied the elegancies of style, and the arts of classical composition, appeared soon after the Norman conquest. A view of the writers of this class who flourished in England for the two [Page] subsequent centuries, till the restless spirit of novelty brought on an attention to other studies, necessarily follows from what has been advanced, and naturally forms the conclusion of our present investigation.

Soon after the accession of the conqueror, John commonly called Joannes Grammaticus, having studied polite literature at Paris, which not only from the Norman connection, but from the credit of its professors, became the fashionable university of our countrymen, was employed in educating the sons of the Norman and English nobility ⁱ. He wrote an explanation of Ovid's Metamorphoses ^k, and a treatise on the art of metre or versification ^l. Among the manuscripts of the library of New College in Oxford, I have seen a book of Latin poetry, and many pieces in Greek, attributed to this writer ^m. He flourished about the year 1070. In the reign of Henry the first, Laurence, prior of the church of Durham, wrote nine books of Latin elegies. But Leland, who had read all his works, prefers his compositions in oratory; and adds, that for an improvement in rhetoric and eloquence, he frequently exercised his talents in framing Latin defences on dubious cases which occurred among his friends. He likewise, amongst a variety of other elaborate pieces on saints, confes­sors, and holy virgins, in which he humoured the times and his profession, composed a critical treatise on the method of writing Epistles, which appears to have been a favourite [Page] subject ⁿ. He died in 1154 ^o. About the same time Robert Dunstable, a monk of Saint Alban's, wrote an elegant Latin poem in elegiac verse, containing two books ^p, on the life of saint Alban ^q. The first book is opened thus:

We are not to expect Leonine rhymes in these writers, which became fashionable some years afterwards ^r [...] Their [Page] verses are of a higher cast, and have a classical turn. The following line, which begins the second book, is remarkably flowing and harmonious, and much in the manner of Claudian.

Smoothness of versification was an excellence which, like their Saxon predecessors, they studied to a fault. Henry of Huntingdon, commonly known and celebrated as an histo­rian, was likewise a terse and polite Latin poet of this pe­riod. He was educated under Alcuine of Anjou, a canon of Lincoln cathedral. His principal patrons were Aldwin and Reginald, both Normans, and abbots of Ramsey. His turn for poetry did not hinder his arriving to the dignity of an archdeacon. Leland mentions eight books of his epi­grams, amatorial verses ^s, and poems on philosophical sub­jects ^t. The proem to his book DE HERBIS, has this elegant invocation.

[Page] But Leland appears to have been most pleased with Henry's poetical epistle to Elfleda, the daughter of Alfred ^u. In the Bodleian library, is a manuscript Latin poem of this writer, on the death of king Stephen, and the arrival of Henry the second in England, which is by no means contemptible ^w. He occurs as a witness to the charter of the monastery of Sautree in the year 1147 ^x. Geoffrey of Monmouth was bishop of Saint Asaph in the year 1152 ^y. He was indefa­tigable in his enquiries after British antiquity; and was patronised and assisted in this pursuit by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, a diligent antiquarian, and Alexander, bishop of Lincoln ^y. His credulity as an historian has been deservedly censured: but fabulous histories were then the fashion, and he well knew the recommendation his work would receive from comprehending all the popular traditions ^z. His lati­nity rises far above mediocrity, and his Latin poem on Mer­lin is much applauded by Leland ^a.

We must not judge of the general state of society by the more ingenious and dignified churchmen of this period; who seem to have surpassed by the most disproportionate degrees in point of knowledge, all other members of the commu­nity. Thomas of Becket, who belongs to the twelfth cen­tury, and his friends, in their epistles, distinguish each other by the appellation of philosophers, in the course of their correspondence ^b. By the present diffusion of literature, even those who are illiterate are yet so intelligent as to stand more on a level with men of professed science and knowledge; but the learned ecclesiastics of those times, as is evident ³⁷² [Page] from many passages in their writings, appear, and not without reason, to have considered the rest of the world as totally immersed in ignorance and barbarity. A most distinguished ornament of this age was John of Salisbury ^b. His style has a remarkable elegance and energy. His POLICRATICON is an extremely pleasant miscellany; replete with erudition, and a judgment of men and things, which properly belongs to a more sensible and reflecting period, His familiar ac­quaintance with the classics, appears not only from the happy facility of his language, but from the many citations of the purest Roman authors, with which his works are perpetually interspersed. Montfaucon asserts, that some parts of the supplement to Petronius, published as a genuine and valuable discovery a few years ago, but since supposed to be spurious, are quoted in the POLICRATICON ^c. He was an illustrious rival of Peter of Blois, and the friend of many learned foreigners ^d. I have not seen any specimens of his Latin poetry ^e; but an able judge has pronounced, that no­thing can be more easy, finished, and flowing than his verses ^f. He was promoted to high stations in the church by Henry the second, whose court was crouded with scho­lars, and almost equalled that of his cotemporary William king of Sicily, in the splendor which it derived from encou­raging erudition, and assembling the learned of various countries ^g. Eadmer was a monk of Canterbury, and endeared [Page] by the brilliancy of his genius, and the variety of his litera­ture, to Anselm, archbishop of that see ^h. He was an elegant writer of history, but exceeded in the artifices of composi­tion, and the choice of matter, by his cotemporary William of Malmesbury. The latter was a monk of Malmesbury, and it reflects no small honour on his fraternity that they elected him their librarian ⁱ. His merits as an historian have been justly displayed and recommended by lord Lyttelton ^k. But his abilities were not confined to prose. He wrote many pieces of Latin poetry; and it is remarkable, that almost all the professed writers in prose of this age made experiments in verse. His patron was Robert earl of Glo­cester; who, amidst the violent civil commotions which disquieted the reign of king Stephen, found leisure and opportunity to protect and promote literary merit ^l. Till Malmesbury's works appeared, Bede had been the chief and principal writer of English history. But a general spirit of writing history, owing to that curiosity which more polished manners introduce, to an acquaintance with the antient histo­rians, and to the improved knowledge of a language in which facts could be recorded with grace and dignity, was now pre­vailing. Besides those I have mentioned, Simeon of Dur­ham, Roger Hoveden, and Benedict abbot of Peterborough, are historians whose narratives have a liberal cast, and whose [Page] details rise far above the dull uninteresting precision of pa­tient annalists and regular chronologers. John Hanvill, a monk of Saint Alban's, about the year 1190, studied rhe­toric at Paris, and was distinguished for his taste even among the numerous and polite scholars of that flourishing semi­nary ^m. His ARCHITRENIUS is a learned, ingenious, and very entertaining performance. It is a long Latin poem in nine books, dedicated to Walter bishop of Rouen. The design of the work may be partly conjectured from its af­fected Greek title: but it is, on the whole, a mixture of satire and panegyric on public vice and virtue, with some historical digressions. In the exordium is the following ner­vous and spirited address.

In the fifth book the poet has the following allusions to the fables of Corineus, Brutus, king Arthur, and the popula­tion of Britain from Troy. He seems to have copied these traditions from Geoffrey of Monmouth ⁿ.

There is a false glare of expression, and no great justness of sentiment, in these verses; but they are animated, and flow in a strain of poetry. They are pompous and sonorous; but these faults have been reckoned beauties even in polished ages. In the same book our author thus characterises the different merits of the satires of Horace and Persius.

In the third book he describes the happy parsimony of the Cistercian monks.

Among Digby's manuscripts in the Bodleian library, are Hanvill's Latin epigrams, epistles, and smaller poems, many of which have considerable merit ^r. They are followed by a metrical tract, entitled DE EPISTOLARUM COMPOSITIONE. But this piece is written in rhyme, and seems to be posterio [...] to the age, at least inferior to the genius, of Hanvill. He [Page] was buried in the abbey church of saint Alban's, soon after the year 1200 ^s. Gyraldus Cambrensis deserves particular regard for the universality of his works, many of which are written with some degree of elegance. He abounds with quotations of the best Latin poets. He was an historian, an antiquary, a topographer, a divine, a philosopher, and a poet. His love of science was so great, that he refused two bishopricks; and from the midst of public business, with which his political talents gave him a considerable connection in the court of Richard the first, he retired to Lincoln for seven years, with a design of pursuing theolo­gical studies ^t. He recited his book on the topography of Ireland in public at Oxford, for three days successively. On the first day of this recital he entertained all the poor of the city; on the second, all the doctors in the several faculties, and scholars of better note; and on the third, the whole body of students, with the citizens and soldiers of the gar­rison ^u. It is probable that this was a ceremony practised on the like occasion in the university of Paris ^w; where Giraldus [Page] had studied for twenty years, and where he had been elected professor of canon law in the year 1189 ^x. His ac­count of Wales was written in consequence of the observa­tions he made on that country, then almost unknown to the English, during his attendance on an archiepiscopal visitation. I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing from this book his picture of the romantic situation of the abbey of Lantony in Monmouthshire. I will give it in English, as my meaning is merely to shew how great a master the author was of that selection of circumstances which forms an agreeable descrip­tion, and which could only flow from a cultivated mind. ‘"In the deep vale of Ewias, which is about a bowshot over, and enclosed on all sides with high mountains, stands the abbey church of saint John, a structure covered with lead, and not unhandsomely built for so lonesome a situation: on the very spot, where formerly stood a small chapel dedicated to saint David, which had no other ornaments than green moss and ivy. It is a situation fit for the exer­cise of religion; and a religious edifice was first founded in this sequestered retreat to the honour of a solitary life, by two hermits, remote from the noise of the world, upon the banks of the river Hondy, which winds through the midst of the valley.—The rains which mountainous countries usually produce, are here very frequent, the winds exceedingly tempestuous, and the winters almost [Page] continually dark. Yet the air of the valley is so happily tempered, as scarcely to be the cause of any diseases. The monks sitting in the cloisters of the abbey, when they chuse for a momentary refreshment to cast their eyes abroad, have on every side a pleasing prospect of moun­tains ascending to an immense height, with numerous herds of wild deer feeding aloft on the highest extremity of this lofty horizon. The body of the sun is not visible above the hills till after the meridian hour, even when the air is most clear."’ Giraldus adds, that Roger bishop of Salisbury, prime minister to Henry the first, having visited this place, on his return to court told the king, that all the treasure of his majesty's kingdom would not suffice to build such another cloister. The bishop explained him [...]elf by saying, that he meant the circular ridge of mountains with which the vale of Ewias was enclosed ^y. Alexander Neckham was the friend, the associate, and the correspondent of Peter of Blois already mentioned. He received the first part of his education in the abbey of saint Alban's, which he afterwards completed at Paris ^z. His compositions are va­rious, and croud the department of manuscripts in our public libraries. He has left n [...]merous treatises of divinity, philosophy, and morality: but he was likewise a poet, a philologist, and a grammarian. He wrote a tract on the mythology of the antient poets, Esopian fables, and a system of grammar and rhetoric. I have seen his elegiac poem on the monastic life ^a, which contains some finished lines. But his capital piece of Latin poetry is On the Praise of DIVINE WISDOM, which consists of seven books. In the introduc­tion h [...] commemorates the innocent and unreturning plea­sures of his early days, which he passed among the learned monks of saint Alban's, in these perspicuous and unaffected elegiacs.

Neckham died abbot of Cirencester in the year 1217^c. He was much attached to the studious repose of the monastic profession, yet he frequently travell [...]d into Italy^d. Walter Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford, has been very happily styled the Anacreon of the eleventh century^e. He studied at Paris^f. His vein was chiefly festive and satirical ^g: and as his wit was frequently levelled against the corruptions of the clergy, his poems often appeared under fictitious names, or have been ascribed to others^h. The celebrated drinking odeⁱ of this genial archdeacon has the regular returns of the monkish rhyme: but they are here applied with a characteristical propriety, are so happily invented, and so humourously in­troduced, that they not only suit the genius but heighten the spirit of the piece ^k. He boasts that good wine inspires [Page] him to sing verses equal to those of Ovid. In another Latin ode of the same kind, he attacks with great liveliness the new injunction of pope Innocent, concerning the celibacy of the clergy; and hopes that every married priest with his bride, will say a pater noster for the soul of one who had thus hazarded his salvation in their defence.

But a miracle of this age in classical composition was Joseph of Exeter, commonly called Josephus Iscanus. He wrote two epic poems in Latin heroics. The first is on the Trojan War; it is in six books, and dedicated to Baldwin archbishop of Canterbury ^m. The second is entitled ANTIOCHEIS, the [Page] War of Antioch, or the Crusade; in which his patron th [...] archbishop was an actor ⁿ. The poem of the Trojan war is founded on Dares Phrygius, a favorite fabulous historian of that time ^o. The diction of this poem is generally pure, the periods round, and the numbers harmonious: and on the whole, the structure of the versification approaches nearly to that of polished Latin poetry. The writer appears to have possessed no common command of poetical phraseology, and wanted nothing but a knowledge of the Virgilian chastity. His style is a mixture of Ovid, Statius, and Claudian, who seem then to have been the popular patterns ^p. But a few specimens will best illustrate this criticism. He thus, in a strain of much spirit and dignity, addresses king Henry the second, who was going to the holy war ^q, the intended subject of his ANTIOCHEIS.

The tomb or mausoleum of Teuthras is feigned with a brilliancy of imagination and expression; and our poet's [Page] classical ideas seem here to have been tinctured with the description of some magnificent oriental palace, which he had seen in the romances of his age.

He thus describes Penthesilea and Pyrrhus.

Afterwards a Grecian leader, whose character is invective, insults Penthesilea, and her troop of heroines, with these reproaches.

I will add one of his comparisons. The poet is speaking of the reluctant advances of the Trojans under their new leader Memnon, after the fall of Hector.

His ANTIOCHEIS was written in same strain, and had equal merit. All that remains of it is the following fragment ^t, in which the poet celebrates the heroes of Britain, and par­ticularly king Arthur.

Camden asserts, that Joseph accompanied king Richard the first to the holy land ^z, and was an eye-witness of that he­roic monarch's exploits among the Saracens, which after­wards he celebrated in the ANTIOCHEIS. Leland mentions his love-verses and epigrams, which are long since perished ^a. He^b flourished in the year 1210 ^c.

[Page] There seems to have been a rival spirit of writing Latin heroic poems about this period. In France, Guillaume le Breton, or William of Bretagny, about the year 1230, wrote a Latin heroic poem on Philip Augustus king of France, about the commencement of the thirteenth century, in twelve books, entitled PHILIPPIS ^d. Barthius gives a prodi­gious character of this poem: and affirms that the author, a few gallicisms excepted, has expressed the facility of Ovid with singular happiness ^e. The versification much resembles that of Joseph Iscanus. He appears to have drawn a great part of his materials from Roger Hoveden's annals. But I am of opinion, that the PHILIPPID is greatly exceeded by the ALEXANDREID of Philip Gualtier de Chatillon, who flourished likewise in France, and was provost of the canons of Tournay, about the year 1200 ^f. This poem celebrates the actions of Alexander the Great, is founded on Quintus Curtius ^g, consists of ten books, and is dedicated to Guillerm archbishop of Rheims. To give the reader an opportunity of comparing Gualtier's style and manner with those of our countryman Josephus, I will transcribe a few specimens from a beautiful and antient manuscript of the ALEXANDREID in the Bodleian library ^h. This is the exordium.

A beautiful rural scene is thus described.

He excells in similies. Alexander, when a stripling, is thus compared to a young lion.

The ALEXANDREID soon became so popular, that Henry of Gaunt, archdeacon of Tournay, about the year 1330, complains that this poem was commonly taught in the [Page] rhetorical schools, instead of Lucan^l and Virgil ^m. The learned Charpentier cites a passage from the manuscript statutes of the university of Tholouse, dated 1328, in which the professors of grammar are directed to read to their pupils ‘"De Historiis Alexandri ⁿ."’ Among which I include Gualtier's poem ^o. It is quoted as a familiar classic by Thomas Rod­burn, a monkish chronicler, who wrote about the year 1420 ^p. An anonymous Latin poet, seemingly of the thir­teenth century, who has left a poem on the life and miracles of saint Oswald, mentions Homer, Gualtier, and Lucan, as the three capital heroic poets. Homer, he says, has ce­lebrated Hercules, Gualtier the son of Philip, and Lucan has sung the praises of Cesar. But, adds he, these heroes much less deserve to be immortalised in verse, than the deeds of the holy confessor Oswald.

I do not cite this writer as a proof of the elegant versifica­tion which had now become fashionable, but to shew the popularity of the ALEXANDREID, at least among scholars. About the year 1206, Gunther a German, and a Cistercian monk of the diocese of Basil, wrote an heroic poem in Latin verse entitled, LIGURINUS, which is scarce inferior to the PHILIPPID of Guillaum le Breton, or the ALEXANDREID of Gualtier: but not so polished and classical as the TROJAN WAR of our Josephus Iscanus. It is in ten books, and the subject is the war of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa against [Page] the Milanese in Liguria ^q. He had before written a Latin poem on the expedition of the emperor Conrade against the Saracens, and the recovery of the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bulloign, which he called SOLYMARIUM ^r. The subject is much like that of the ANTIOCHEIS; but which of the two pieces was written first it is difficult to ascertain.

While this spirit of classical Latin poetry was universally prevailing, our countryman Geoffrey de Vinesauf, an accom­plished scholar, and educated not only in the priory of saint Frideswide at Oxford, but in the universities of France and Italy, published while at Rome a critical didactic poem en­titled, DE NOVA POETRIA ^s. This book is dedicated to pope Innocent the third: and its intention was to recommend and illustrate the new and legitimate mode of versification which had lately begun to flourish in Europe, in opposition to the Leonine or barbarous species. This he compendiously styles, and by way of distinction, The NEW Poetry. We must not be surprised to find Horace's Art of Poetry entitled HORATII NOVA POETRIA, so late as the year 1389, in a catalogue of the library of a monastery at Dover ^t.

Even a knowledge of the Greek language imported from France, but chiefly from Italy, was now beginning to be diffused in England. I am inclined to think, that many [Page] Greek manuscripts found their way into Europe from Con­stantinople in the time of the crusades: and we might ob­serve that the Italians, who seem to have been the most po­lished and intelligent people of Europe during the barbarous ages, carried on communications with the Greek empire as early as the reign of Charlemagne. Robert Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln, an universal scholar, and no less conver­sant in polite letters than the most abstruse sciences, culti­vated and patronised the study of the Greek language. This illustrious prelate, who is said to have composed almost two hundred books, read lectures in the school of the Franciscan friars at Oxford about the year 1230 ^w. He translated Dio­nysius the Areopagite and Damascenus into Latin ^x. He greatly facilitated the knowledge of Greek by a translation of Suidas's Lexicon, a book in high repute among the lower Greeks, and at that time almost a recent compilation ^y. He promoted John of Basingstoke to the archdeaconry of Lei­cester; chiefly because he was a Greek scholar, and possessed many Greek manuscripts, which he is said to have brought from Athens into England ^z. He entertained, as a domestic [Page] in his palace, Nicholas chaplain of the abbot of saint Alban's, surnamed GRAECUS, from his uncommon proficiency in Greek; and by his assistance he translated from Greek into Latin the testaments of the twelve patriarchs ^a. Grosthead had almost incurred the censure of excommunication for preferring a complaint to the pope, that most of the opulent benefices in England were occupied by Italians ^b. But this practice, although notoriously founded on the monopolising and arbitrary spirit of papal imposition, and a manifest act of injustice to the English clergy, probably contributed to introduce many learned foreigners into England, and to propagate philological literature.

Bishop Grosthead is also said to have been profoundly skilled in the Hebrew language ^c. William the conqueror permitted great numbers of Jews to come over from Rouen, and to settle in England about the year 1087 ^d. Their mul­titude soon encreased, and they spread themselves in vast bodies throughout most of the cities and capital towns in England, where they built synagogues. There were fifteen hundred at York about the year 1189 ^e. At Bury in Suffolk [Page] is a very complete remain of a Jewish synagogue of stone in the Norman style, large and magnificent. Hence it was that many of the learned English ecclesiastics of these times be­came acquainted with their books and language. In the reign of William Rufus, at Oxford the Jews were remark­ably numerous, and had acquired a considerable property; and some of their Rabbis were permitted to open a school in the university, where they instructed not only their own people, but many christian students, in the Hebrew litera­ture, about the year 1054 ^f. Within two hundred years after their admission or establishment by the conqueror, they were banished the kingdom ^g. This circumstance was highly favourable to the circulation of their learning in England. The suddenness of their dismission obliged them for present subsistence, and other reasons, to sell their moveable goods of all kinds, among which were large quantities of Rab­binical books. The monks in various parts availed them­selves of the distribution of these treasures. At Huntingdon and Stamford there was a prodigious sale of their effects, containing immense stores of Hebrew manuscripts, which were immediately purchased by Gregory of H [...]ntingdon, prior of the abbey of Ramsey. Gregory speedily became an adept in the Hebrew, by means of these valuable acquisitions, which he bequeathed to his monastery about the year 1250 ^h. Other members of the same convent, in consequence of these advantages, are said to have been equal proficients in the same language, soon after the death of prior Gregory: among which were Robert Dodford, librarian of Ramsey, and Laurence Holbech, who compiled a Hebrew Lexicon ⁱ. [Page] At Oxford, great multitudes of their books fell into the hands of Roger Bacon, or were bought by his brethren the Franciscan friars of that university ^k.

But, to return to the leading point of our enquiry, this promising dawn of polite letters and rational know­ledge was soon obscured. The temporary gleam of light did not arrive to perfect day. The minds of scholars were diverted from these liberal studies in the rapidity of their career; and the arts of composition, and the ornaments of language were neglected, to make way for the barbarous and barren subtleties of scholastic divinity. The first teachers of this art, originally founded on that spirit of intricate and metaphysical enquiry which the Arabians had communicated to philosophy, and which now became almost absolutely necessary for defending the doctrines of Rome, were Peter Lombard archbishop of Paris, and the celebrated Abelard: men whose consummate abilities were rather qualified to re­form the church, and to restore useful science, than to cor­rupt both, by confounding the common sense of mankind with frivolous speculation ^l. These visionary theologists never explained or illustrated any scriptural topic: on the contrary, they perverted the simplest expressions of the sacred text, and embarrassed the most evident truths of the gospel by laboured distinctions and unintelligible solutions. From the universities of France, which were then filled with mul­titudes of English students, this admired species of sophistry was adopted in England, and encouraged by Lanfranc and Anselm, archbishops of Canterbury ^m. And so successful was its progress at Oxford, that before the reign of Edward the second, no foreign university could boast so conspicuous a catalogue of subtle and invincible doctors.

[Page] Nor was the profession of the civil and canonical laws a small impediment to the propagation of those letters which humanise the mind, and cultivate the manners. I do not mean to deny, that the accidental discovery of the imperial code in the twelfth century, contributed in a considerable degree to civilise Europe, by introducing, among other be­neficial consequences, more legitimate ideas concerning the nature of government and the administration of justice, by creating a necessity of transferring judicial decrees from an illiterate nobility to the cognisance of scholars, by lessening the attachment to the military profession, and by giving ho­nour and importance to civil employments: but to suggest, that the mode in which this invaluable system of jurispru­dence was studied, proved injurious to polite literature. It was no sooner revived, than it was received as a scholastic science, and taught by regular professors, in most of the universities of Europe. To be skilled in the theology of the schools was the chief and general ambition of scholars: but at the same time a knowledge of both the laws was become an indispensable requisite, at least an essential re­commendation, for obtaining the most opulent ecclesiastical dignities. Hence it was cultivated with universal avidity. It became so considerable a branch of study in the plan of academical discipline, that twenty scholars out of seventy were destined to the study of the civil and canon laws, in one of the most ample colleges at Oxford, founded in the year 1385. And it is easy to conceive the pedantry with which it was pursued in these seminaries during the middle ages. It was treated with the same spirit of idle speculation which had been carried into philosophy and theology, it was over­whelmed with endless commentaries which disclaimed all elegance of language, and served only to exercise genius, as it afforded materials for framing the flimsy labyrinths of casuistry.

[Page] It was not indeed probable, that these attempts in elegant literature which I have mentioned should have any per­manent effects. The change, like a sudden revolution in go­vernment, was too rapid for duration. It was moreover premature, and on that account not likely to be lasting. The habits of superstition and ignorance were as yet too powerful for a reformation of this kind to be effected by a few polite scholars. It was necessary that many circumstances and events, yet in the womb of time, should take place, before the minds of men could be so far enlightened as to receive these improvements.

But perhaps inventive poetry lost nothing by this relapse. Had classical taste and judgment been now established, ima­gination would have suffered, and too early a check would have been given to the beautiful extravagancies of romantic fabling. In a word, truth and reason would have chased before their time those spectres of illusive fancy, so pleasing to the imagination, which delight to hover in the gloom of ignorance and superstition, and which form so considerable a part of the poetry of the succeeding centuries.