long maintained her rank, if not quite equal to France in this period, yet nearer to her than to any third nation. We have mentioned several of the most distinguished; and to these we might add many names from Melchior Adam, the laborious biographer of his learned countrymen; such as Oporinus, George Fabricius, Frischlin, Crusius, who first taught the Romaic Greek in Germany. One, rather more known than these, was Laurence Rhodomann. He was the editor of several authors; but his chief claim to a niche in the temple seems to rest upon his Greek verses, which have generally been esteemed superior to any of his generation. The praise does not imply much positive excellence; for in Greek composition, and especially in verse, the best scholars of the sixteenth century make but an indifferent figure. Rhodomann's life of Luther is written in Greek hexameters. It is also a curious specimen of the bigotry of his church. He boasts that Luther predicted the deaths of Zuingle, Carlostadt, and OEcolampadius as the punishment of their sacramentarian hypothesis. The lines will be found in a note (a), and may serve as a fair specimen of as good Greek as could perhaps be written in that age of celebrated erudition. But some other poems of Rhodomann, which I have not seen, are more praised by the critics.

25. But, at the expiration of the century, few were left besides Rhodomann of the celebrated philologers of Germany: nor had a new race arisen to supply their place. Æmilius Portus, who taught with reputation at Heidelberg, was a native of Ferrara, whose father, a Greek by origin, emigrated to Genoa on account of religion. The state of literature, in a general sense, had become sensibly deteriorated in the empire. This was most perceptible, or perhaps only perceptible, in its most learned provinces, those which had embraced the Reformation. In the opposite quarter there had been little to lose, and some

(α) Και τα μεν ώς τετέλεστο μετα χρο- Οικιολαμπαδιον και Κιγκλιον έφθασεν γον, ὡς μεμορητο

ати

Ως γαρ δωδεκάμηνος έλιξ τριτος ετρεχε Ποτμου δακρυόεντος· ἵνα φρίξεις και Фобои,

άλλος

Δη τότε μοιρα, Θεου κρυφίην πρησσουσα Ατρεκίης προς κεντρον αναιδέα ταρσον

Άνδρος, ὃς οὐτιν' απρηκτον απο κραδίης. Τον δε γαρ αντιβολων κρτερώ μετά φασ

βαλε μύθον.

ματι δαίμων

Αμφω γαρ στυγερου πλαγξήνορε δογμα- Εξαπίνης ετάραξε, και ηρπασεν οὐ χρεος

thing was gained. In the first period of the Reformation, the Catholic universities, governed by men whose prejudices were insuperable even by appealing to their selfishness, had kept still in the same track, educating their students in the barbarous logic and literature of the Middle Ages, careless that every method was employed in Protestant education to develop and direct the talents of youth; and this had given the manifest intellectual superiority, which taught the disciples and contemporaries of the first reformers a scorn for the stupidity and ignorance of the popish party, somewhat exaggerated, of course, as such sentiments generally are, but dangerous above measure to its influence. It was therefore one of the first great services which the Jesuits performed to get possession of the universities, or to found other seminaries for education. In these they discarded the barbarous school-books then in use, put the rudimentary study of the languages on a better footing, devoted themselves, for the sake of religion, to those accomplishments which religion had hitherto disdained; and by giving a taste for elegant literature, with as much solid and scientific philosophy as the knowledge of the times and the prejudices of the church would allow, both wiped away the reproach of ignorance, and drew forth the native talents of their novices and scholars. They taught gratuitously, which threw, however unreasonably, a sort of discredit upon salaried professors (a): it was found that boys learned more from them in six months than in two years under other masters; and, probably for both these reasons, even protestants sometimes withdrew their children from the ordinary gymnasia and placed them in Jesuit colleges. No one will deny that, in their classical knowledge, particularly of the Latin language, and in the elegance with which they wrote it, the order of Jesuits might stand in competition with any scholars of Europe. In this period of the sixteenth century, though not perhaps in Germany itself, they produced several of the best writers whom it could boast (b).

26. It is seldom that an age of critical erudition is one also of fine writing; the two have not perhaps a natural incompatibility with each other, but the bond-woman too often usurps the

(a) Mox, ubi paululum firmitatis accessit, pueros sine mercede docendos et erudiendos susceperunt; quo artificio non vulgarem vulgi favorem emeruere, criminandis præsertim aliis doctoribus, quorum doctrina venalis esset, et scholæ nulli sine mercede paterent, et interdum etiam doctrina

peregrina personarent. Incredibile dictu est, quantum hæc criminatio valuerit. Hospinian, Hist. Jesuitarum, 1. ii. c. 1. fol. 84. See also 1. i. fol. 59.

(b) Ranke, ii. 32. Eichhorn, iii. 266. The latter scarcely does justice to the Jesuits as promoters of learning in their way.

place of the free-woman, and the auxiliary science of philology controls, instead of adorning and ministering to the taste and genius of original minds. As the study of the Latin language advanced, as better editions were published, as dictionaries and books of criticism were more carefully drawn up, we naturally expect to find it written with more correctness, but not with more force and truth. The Expostulation of Henry Stephens De Latinitate Falso Suspecta, 1576, is a collection of classical authorities for words and idioms, which seem so like French, that the reader would not hesitate to condemn them. Some of these, however, are so familiar to us as good Latin, that we can hardly suspect the dictionaries not to have contained them. I have not examined any earlier edition than that of Calepin's dictionary, as enlarged by Paulus Manutius, of the date of 1579, rather after this publication by Henry Stephens, and certainly it does not appear to want these words, or to fail in sufficient authority for them.

27. In another short production by Stephens, De Latinitate Lipsii Palæstra, he turns into ridicule the affected style of that author, who ransacked all his stores of learning to perplex the reader. A much later writer, Scioppius, in his Judicium de Stylo Historico, points out several of the affected and erroneous expressions of Lipsius. But he was the founder of a school of bad writers, which lasted for some time, especially in Germany. Seneca and Tacitus were the authors of antiquity whom Lipsius strove to emulate. "Lipsius," says Scaliger, "is the cause that men have now little respect for Cicero, whose style he esteems about as much as I do his own. He once wrote well, but his third century of epistles is good for nothing (a)." But a style of point and affected conciseness will always have its admirers, till the excess of vicious imitation disgusts the world (b).

28. Morhof, and several authorities quoted by Baillet, extol the Latin grammar of a Spaniard, Emanuel Alvarez, as the

(a) Scaligerana Secunda.

(6) Miræus, quoted in Melchior Adam's Life of Lipsius, praises his eloquence, with contempt of those who thought their own feeble and empty writing like Cicero's. See also Eichhorn, iii. 299.; Baillet, who has a long article on the style of Lipsius and the school it formed, (Jugemens des Savans, vol. ii. p. 192. 4to edition); and Blount; also the note M. in Bayle's article on Lipsius. The following passage of Scioppius I transcribe from Blount : "In Justi Lipsii stylo, scriptoris ætate nostra clarissimi,

istæ apparent dotes: acumen, venustas, delectus, ornatus vel nimius, cum vix quicquam proprie dictum ei placeat, tum schemata nullo numero, tandem verborum copia; desunt autem perspicuitas, puritas, æquabilitas, collocatio, junctura et numerus oratorius. Itaque oratio ejus est obscura, non paucis barbarismis et solœcis mis, pluribus vero archaismis et idiotismis, innumeris etiam neoterismis inquinata, comprehensio obscura, compositio fracta et în particulas concisa, vocum similium aut ambiguarum puerilis captatio."

first in which the fancies of the ancient grammarians had been laid aside. Of this work I know nothing farther. But the Minerva of another native of Spain, Sanchez, commonly called Sanctius, the first edition of which appeared at Salamanca in 1587, far excelled any grammatical treatise that had preceded it, especially as to the rules of syntax, which he has reduced to their natural principles, by explaining apparent anomalies. He is called the prince of grammarians, a divine man, the Mercury and Apollo of Spain, the father of the Latin language, the common teacher of the learned, in the panegyrical style of the Lipsii or Scioppii (a). The Minerva, enlarged and corrected at different times by the most eminent scholars, Scioppius, Perizonius, and others more recent, still retains a leading place in philology. "No one among those," says its last editor Bauer, "who have written well upon grammar, has attained such reputation and even authority as the famous Spaniard whose work we now give to the press." But Sanctius has been charged with too great proneness to censure his predecessors, especially Valla, and with an excess of novelty in his theoretical speculations.

29. The writers, who in this second moiety of the sixteenth century appear to have been most conspicuous for purity of style, were Muretus, Paulus Manutius, Perpinianus, Osorius, Maphæus, to whom we may add our own Buchanan, and perhaps Haddon. The first of these is celebrated for his Orations, published by Aldus Manutius in 1576. Many of these were delivered a good deal earlier. Ruhnkenius, editor of the works of Muretus, says that he at once eclipsed Bembo, Sadolet, and the whole host of Ciceronians; expressing himself so perfectly in that author's style that we should fancy ourselves to be reading him, did not the subject betray a modern hand. "In learning," he says, "and in knowledge of the Latin language, Manutius was not inferior to Muretus; we may even say, that his zeal in imitating Cicero was still stronger, inasmuch as he seemed to have no other aim all his life than to bear a perfect resemblance to that model. Yet he rather followed than overtook his master, and in this line of imitation cannot be compared with Muretus. The reason of this was that nature had bestowed on Muretus the same kind of genius that she had given to Cicero, while that of Manutius was very different. It was from this similarity of temperament that Muretus acquired such felicity of expression, such

(a) Baillet.

grace in narration, such wit in raillery, such perception of what would gratify the ear in the structure and cadence of his sentences. The resemblance of natural disposition made it a spontaneous act of Muretus to fall into the footsteps of Cicero ; while, with all the efforts of Manutius, his dissimilar genius led him constantly away; so that we should not wonder when the writings of one so delight us that we cannot lay them down, while we are soon wearied with those of the other, correct and polished as they are, on account of the painful desire of imitation which they betray. "No one, since the revival of letters," Ruhnkenius proceeds, "has written Latin more correctly than Muretus; yet even in him a few inadvertencies may be discovered (a)."

30. Notwithstanding the panegyric of so excellent a scholar, I cannot feel this very close approximation of Muretus to the Ciceronian standard; and it even seems to me that I have not rarely met with modern Latin of a more thoroughly classical character. His style is too redundant and florid; his topics very trivial. Witness the whole oration on the battle of Lepanto, where the greatness of his subject does not raise them above the level of a school-boy's exercise. The celebrated eulogy on the St. Bartholomew Massacre, delivered before the Pope, will serve as a very fair specimen, to exemplify the Latinity of Muretus (6). Scaliger, invidious for the most part in his characters of contemporary scholars, declares that no one since Cicero had written so well as Muretus, but that he adopted the Italian diffuseness, and says little in many words. This observation seems perfectly just.

(a) Mureti opera, cura Ruhnkenii, Lugd. 1789.

(b) O noctem illam memorabilem et in fastis eximiæ alicujus notæ adjectione signandam, quæ paucorum seditiosorum interitu regem a præsenti cædis periculo, regnum a perpetua bellorum civilium formidine liberavit! Qua quidem nocte stellas equidem ipsasluxisse solito nitidius arbitror, et flumen Sequanam majores undas volvisse, quo citius illa impurorum hominum cadavera evolveret et exoneraret in mare. O felicissimam mulierem Catharinam, regis matrem, quæ cum tot annos admirabili prudentia parique solicitudine regnum filio, filium regno conservasset, tum demum secure regnantem filium adspexit! O regis fratres ipsos quoque beatos! quorum alter cum, qua ætate cæteri vix adhuc arma tractare incipiunt, ea ipse quater commisso

prælio fraternos hostes fregisset ac fugasset, hujus quoque pulcherrimi facti præcipuam gloriam ad se potissimum voluit pertinere; alter, quamquam ætate nondum ad rem militarem idonea erat, tanta tamen est ad virtutem indole, ut neminem nisi fratrem in his rebus gerendis æquo animo sibi passurus fuerit anteponi. O diem denique illum plenum lætitiæ et hilaritatis, quo tu, beatissime pater, hoc ad te nuncio allato, Deo immortali, et Divo Ludovico regi, cujus hæc in ipso pervigilio evenerant, gratias acturus, indictas a te supplicationes pedes obiisti! Quis optabilior ad te nuncius adferri poterat? aut nos ipsi quod felicius optare poteramus principium pontificatus tui, quam ut primis illis mensibus tetram illam caliginem, quasi exorto sole, discussam cerneremus? vol. i. p. 197, edit. Ruhnken.