Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, (as above quoted,) calls such reasonings тà ZwкρаTIKà, "the Socratics;" in the beginning of his Poetics he calls them the wxpaтikoì Xóyot, the "Socratic discourses;" and Horace, in his Art of Poetry, calls them the "Socraticæ chartæ."P

If truth be always the same, no wonder geniuses should coincide, and that, too, in philosophy as well as in criticism.

We venture to add, returning to rules, that if there be any things in Shakspeare objectionable, (and who is hardy enough to deny it?) the very objections, as well as the beauties, are to be tried by the same rules; as the same plummet alike shews, both what is out of the perpendicular, and in it; the same ruler alike proves, both what is crooked and what is straight.

We cannot admit that geniuses, though prior to systems, were prior also to rules, because rules from the beginning existed in their own minds, and were a part of that immutable truth, which is eternal and every where. Aristotle, we know, did not form Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides; it was Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides, that formed Aristotle.

And this, surely, should teach us to pay attention to rules, inasmuch as they and genius are so reciprocally connected, that it is genius which discovers rules, and then rules which govern genius.

It is by this amicable concurrence, and by this alone, that every work of art justly merits admiration, and is rendered as highly perfect, as by human power it can be made.'

But we have now (if such language may be allowed) travelled over a vast and mighty plain; or, (as Virgil better expresses it,) Immensum spatio confecimus æquor.

It is not however improbable, that some intrepid spirit may demand again,' What avail these subtleties? Without so much trouble, I can be full enough pleased. I know what I like. We answer, And so does the carrion-crow, that feeds upon a carcase. The difficulty lies not in knowing what we like; but in knowing how to like, and what is worth liking. Until these

P See a most admirable instance of this induction, quoted by Cicero from the Socratic schines. Cic. de Invent. lib. i. s. 51. a The author thinks it superfluous to panegyrize truth; yet in favour of sound and rational rules, (which must be founded in truth, or they are good for nothing,) he ventures to quote the Stagirite himself: ̓Αληθῆ ἀληθεῖ οὐκ ἐνδέχεται ἐναντίαν εἶναι οὔτε δόξαν, οὔτ ̓ ἀντίφασιν: “ It is not pos sible for a true opinion, or a true contradictory proposition, to be contrary to another true one." Aristot. de Interpret. c. 19. p. 78. edit. Sylb.

This may be thus illustrated: If it be

ends are obtained, we may admire Durfey before Milton; a smoking boor of Hemskirk, before an apostle of Raphael.

Now as to the knowing how to like, and then what is worth liking; the first of these, being the object of critical disquisition, has been attempted to be shewn through the course of these inquiries.

As to the second, what is worth our liking, this is best known by studying the best authors, beginning from the Greeks, then passing to the Latins; nor on any account excluding those who have excelled among the moderns.

And here, if, while we peruse some author of high rank, we perceive we do not instantly relish him, let us not be disheartened; let us even feign a relish, till we find a relish come. A morsel perhaps pleases us; let us cherish it: another morsel strikes us; let us cherish this also. Let us thus proceed, and steadily persevere, till we find we can relish, not morsels, but wholes; and feel, that what began in fiction, terminates in reality. The film being in this manner removed, we shall discover beauties which we never imagined; and contemn for puerilities, what we once foolishly admired.

One thing, however, in this process is indispensably required: we are on no account to expect that fine things should descend to us; our taste, if possible, must be made ascend to them.

This is the labour, this the work; there is pleasure in the success, and praise even in the attempt.

This speculation applies not to literature only: it applies to music, to painting, and, as they are all congenial, to all the liberal arts. We should in each of them endeavour to investigate what is best, and there, (if I may so express myself,) there to fix our abode.

By only seeking and perusing what is truly excellent, and by contemplating always this, and this alone, the mind insensibly becomes accustomed to it, and finds that in this alone it can acquiesce with content. It happens, indeed, here, as in a subject far more important, I mean in a moral and a virtuous conduct. If we choose the best life, use will make it pleasant.*

And thus having gone through the sketch we promised, (for our concise manner cannot be called any thing more,) we here finish the second part of these Inquiries, and, according to our original plan, proceed to the third part, the taste and literature of the middle age.

· Ἑλοῦ βίον ἄριστον, ἡδὺν δὲ αὐτὸν ἡ συνήθεια ποιήσει. Plut. Mor. P. 602. ed. Wolfii.

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

DESIGN OF THE WHOLE-LIMITS AND EXTENT OF THE MIDDLE AGE— THREE CLASSES OF MEN, DURING THAT INTERVAL, CONSPICUOUS: THE BYZANTINE GREEKS; THE SARACENS, OR ARABIANS; AND THE LATINS, OR FRANKS, INHABITANTS OF WESTERN EUROPE EACH CLASS IN THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS CONSIDERED APART.

WHEN the magnitude of the Roman empire grew enormous, and there were two imperial cities, Rome and Constantinople, then that happened which was natural; out of one empire it became two, distinguished by the different names of the Western and the Eastern.

a

The Western empire soon sunk. So early as in the fifth century, Rome, once the mistress of nations, beheld herself at the feet of a Gothic sovereign. The Eastern empire lasted many centuries longer; and though often impaired by external enemies, and weakened as often by internal factions, yet still it retained traces of its ancient splendour, resembling, in the language of Virgil, some fair, but faded flower:

Cui neque fulgor adhuc, necdum sua forma recessit.

At length, after various plunges and various escapes, it was totally annihilated in the fifteenth century, by the victorious arms of Mahomet the Great.b

The interval between the fall of these two empires, (the Western or Latin in the fifth century, the Eastern or Grecian in the fifteenth,) making a space of near a thousand years, constitutes what we call the middle age.

Dominion passed, during this interval, into the hands of rude,

a About the year of Christ 475, Augustulus was compelled to abdicate the Western empire by Odoacer, king of the Heruli. As Augustulus was the last Roman who possessed the imperial dignity at Rome, and as the dominion both of Rome and Italy soon after passed into the hands of Theodoric the Goth, it has been justly said, that then terminated the Roman empire in the West.

During these wretched times, Rome had been sacked not long before by Alaric, as it was a second time (about the middle of the sixth century) by Totila; after which events the Roman name and authority were so far

sunk, that early in the seventh century they ceased to speak Latin, even in Rome itself. See Blair's Chronology.

b See the various histories of the Turkish empire. The unfortunate Greeks, at this period, when, to resist such an enemy as the Turks, they should have been firmly combined, were never so miserably distracted. An union with the church of Rome was at the time projected. The Greeks who favoured it imputed their calamities to their not-uniting; those who opposed it, to their uniting. Between the two factions all was lost, and Constantinople taken in the year 1453.

illiterate men; men who conquered more by multitude than by military skill; and who, having little or no taste either for sciences or arts, naturally despised those things from which they reaped no advantage.

C

This was the age of monkery and legends; of Leonine verses, (that is, of bad Latin put into rhyme ;) of projects to decide truth by ploughshares and batoons; of crusades to conquer infidels and extirpate heretics; of princes deposed, not as Croesus was by Cyrus, but by one who had no armies, and who did not even wear a sword.

See below, chap. xi.

d This alludes to the two methods of trial, much practised in those dark times, the trial by ordeal, and that by duel.

Heated ploughshares were often employed in trials by ordeal; and it is remarkable, that express mention is made of this absurd method of purgation by fire, even in the Antigone of Sophocles. The messenger there says, in order to justify himself and his companions,

Ημεν δ ̓ ἔτοιμοι καὶ μύδρους αἴρειν χεροίν,
Καὶ πῦρ διέρπειν, καὶ θεοὺς ὀρκωμοτεῖν,
Τὸ μήτε δρᾶσαι, μήτε, κ.τ.λ.

Antig. v. 270.
Ready we were with both our hands to lift
The glowing mass; or slowly cross the fire,
And by the gods to swear, we neither did
The deed, nor knew, &c.

This carries up the practice to the time of Eteocles and Polynices, before the Trojan

war.

Perhaps the poet, by the incidental mention of so strange a custom, intended to characterize the manners of a ruder age; an age widely different from his own, which was an age of science and philosophical disquisition.

As to trials by battle, they were either before the earl marshal, or the judges of Westminster-hall. If before the earl mar shal, they were upon accusations of treason, or other capital crimes, and the parties were usually of high and noble rank. If before the judges of Westminster-hall, the cause was often of inferior sort, as well as the parties litigating.

Hence the combats differed in their ends. That before the earl marshal was victory, often attended with slaughter; that before the judges was victory alone, with no such

consequence.

The weapons, too, differed, as well as the ends. The weapons before the earl marshal were a long sword, a short sword, and a dagger; that before the judges was a batoon, above mentioned, called in barbarous Latin druncus, but in words more intelligible fustis teres.

an instance occurs of this trial being insisted upon. But that wise princess, though she permitted the previous forms, I mean that of the lists being enclosed, of the judges taking their seats there, of the champions making their appearance, &c. (forms which perhaps could not legally be prevented,) had too much sense to permit so foolish a decision. She compelled the parties to a compromise, by the plaintiff's taking an equivalent in money for his claim, and making in consequence a voluntary default.

Wyvil, bishop of Salisbury, in the reign of Edward the Third, recurred to trial by battle in a dispute with the earl of Salisbury, and ordered public prayers through his diocese for the success of his champion, till the matter, by the king's authority, was compromised.

But notwithstanding this bishop's conduct, it was a practice which the church disapproved, and wisely, as well as humanely, endeavoured to prevent. Truculentum morem in omni ævo acriter insectarunt theologi, præ aliis Agobardus, et plurimo canone ipsa ecclessia. See Spelman, under the words Campus, Campsius, and Campio.

I must not omit that there is a complete history of such a duel, recorded by Walsingham, in the reign of Richard the Second, between Aneslee a knight, and Karryngton an esquire. Karryngton was accused by the other of treason, for selling a castle to the French, and, being defeated in the combat, died the next day raving mad. Walsingham's narrative is curious and exact, but their weapons differed from those above mentioned, for they first fought with lances, then with swords, and lastly with daggers. Walsing. Histor. p. 237.

e Such was pope Innocent the Third, who, besides his crusades to extirpate here tics by armies not his own, excommunicated Philip king of France, Alphonso king of Leon, Raimond earl of Toulouse, and John king of England.

Nor is this wonderful, when we view in his own language the opinion he had of his So late as the reign of queen Elizabeth, own station and authority.

Different portions of this age have been distinguished by different descriptions; such as Sæculum Monotheleticum, Sæculum Eiconoclasticum, Sæculum Obscurum, Sæculum Ferreum, Sæculum Hildibrandinum, &c.; strange names, it must be confessed, some more obvious, others less so, yet none tending to furnish us with any high or promising ideas.

And yet we must acknowledge, for the honour of humanity, and of its great and divine Author, who never forsakes it, that some sparks of intellect were at all times visible, through the whole of this dark and dreary period. It is here we must look for the taste and literature of the times.

The few who were enlightened, when arts and sciences were thus obscured, may be said to have happily maintained the continuity of knowledge; to have been (if I may use the expression) like the twilight of a summer's night; that auspicious gleam between the setting and the rising sun, which, though it cannot retain the lustre of the day, helps at least to save us from the totality of darkness.

A cursory disquisition, illustrated by a few select instances, will constitute the subject of the present essay; and these instances we shall bring from among three classes of men, who had each a large share in the transactions of those times: from the Byzantine Greeks, from the Arabians or Saracens, and from the inhabitants of Western Europe, at that time called the Latins. We shall give precedence, as we think they merit it, to the Greeks of Constantinople, although it is not always easy to preserve an exact chronology, because in each of these three classes many eminent men were contemporary.

CHAPTER II.

CONCERNING THE FIRST CLASS, THE BYZANTINE GREEKS-SIMPLICIUSAMMONIUS-PHILOPONUS-FATE OF THE FINE LIBRARY AT ALEX

ANDRIA.

SIMPLICIUS and Ammonius were Greek authors, who flourished at Athens, during the sixth century; for Athens, long after her trophies at Marathon, long after her political sovereignty was no more, still maintained her empire in philosophy and the fine arts."

"I am placed (says he) in the middle, between God and man; on this side God, but beyond man; nay, I am greater than man, as I can judge of all men, but can be judged by no one. Sum enim inter Deum et hominem medius constitutus, citra Deum sed ultra hominem; imo major homine, qui de omnibus judicem, a nemine vero judicari possim." Innocen. III. serm. 2. in Historia

Transubstantionis Joannis Cosin. Episcop. Dunelm. Lond. 1675. See also the church histories of this period.

f Those who would be further informed concerning these Sæcula, may, among other authors, consult two very learned ones, Cave, in his Historia Literaria, and Mosheim, in his Ecclesiastical History.

* See below, chap. iii.