weak and effeminate monarchs were ruled by eunuchs and women; when the barbarians threatened on all sides the conquerors of the world; when the discipline of their armies was still enabled to repulse the bold invader: at this time a new eloquence arose with a new religion, which, persecuted at first and trampled under foot, had reached afterwards the throne of the Cæsars. In regarding then the defenders of Christianity, merely under the aspect of literature, we may observe what were the causes which contributed to give a new life to eloquence for so long time forgotten. A new order of ideas and sentiments to develope and explain, a crowd of obstacles to fight against, and of adversaries to confute, the necessity of conquering through persuasion and example, were what must have animated the defenders of Christianity. Paganism, so terrible by its persecution, was still to be feared even when Constantine had embraced the Gospel. The supporters of Paganism had, according to time and circumstances, party interest in their favour, and at all times possessed that of all passions which polytheism had both deified and indulged. But unfortunately for the cause of literature, and we may add even of religion, they soon began to enter into verbal and doctrinal disputes, with all the fencing of the Aristotelian school. It was then that the removal of the seat of empire to Byzantium sternly began to affect literature and good taste, inasmuch as it increased still more this mania of controversy. The less they understood the main point of the question, the more they disputed upon words, and often blows and persecution were resorted to as a last resource by those who were conquered in argument. The emperors themselves, who were often the de-. fenders of the different doctrines held out by the orthodox or by the heretics, without much troubling themselves about the care of the empire, entered the list against the opposite party. Thus the remedies increased the evils which they were intended to cure; and the love of solecisms, quibbles, and subtlety, all joined together against the cause of literature and good taste.

In the mean while, the loss of liberty, and the removal of the court, had deprived the Romans, and indeed all Italians, of the means of passing their time and disposing of their wealth, excepting in luxury and profligacy. This degrading way of lavishing their wealth and life, must at all times be the consequence of the loss of liberty in a rich nation. It had begun amongst the Romans from the time of Cæsar, and it kept pace with the growing despotism of the succeeding emperors. The Barbarians, in the mean time, had already begun to make depredations on the bor ders of the empire; but the Romans, deprived by their despots of some of the privileges attached to the jus civitatis, very soon grew indifferent about the rest; the militia itself, this chief sup

porter

porter of the republic, and the primitive and boldest right of a citizen, began to lose its allurement, and was granted at last to mercenary soldiers. Having very little or nothing to fight for, the Romans would fight no longer; and in the lethargy which had seized the whole of the west, they disregarded all literary and scientific pursuits, and the perusal even of their best writers.

The Barbarians, however, were soon enticed to repeat their excursions. The effeminacy of the people, and the weakness of their rulers, insured them plunder at least, if not success. Slaves pillaged and debased, the Italians had now sunk beneath the dignity of men. With the records of their grandeur, they lost the very recollection of having once been great; and this ignorance, which was the greatest misfortune which could have happened to mankind, became in progress of time in the hands of the Roman Pontiff and his monks, the means of raising their temporal power.

30

We are sorry at not having it in our power to follow Mr. Berington through all the gradations of barbarism which he accurately describes. Much valuable information can be derived from the perusal of them, and we earnestly recommend it to the reader who wishes to acquire a full and perfect idea of the literature during these turbulent ages. Nothing for instance can be better drawn than the state of literature in England at the time when St. Gregory sent a mission in our island to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. The following may serve as a specimen,

"Before I proceed to mention the ornament of our island, the venerable Bede, it may be proper to observe, that the conversion of the nation by agents from Rome, in the beginning of the seventh century, had been productive of many happy effects, in a civil point of view. The christian missionaries brought with them the learning, the language, the manners, of a people, certainly less ignorant and barbarous than the natives to whom they came; and as their influence increased, less savage modes were likely to prevail. In speaking of the Roman conquests, I remarked the general policy of their administration, and what changes, in common with other countries, Britain had experienced under their sway. A similar revolution was now to happen. The new masters were, indeed, very few, compared with the Roman legions, who, at that time, were spread over the face of the country; but their powers of persuasion were such, as, within the lapse of somewhat more than half a century, to prevail on the different nations of the heptarchy to surrender the strongest prepossessions of the heart, and embrace. a religion, very different from that which they had hitherto professed. Indeed, the single act of adopting a new religion, such as the christian was, involved in it a series of other changes; though it must be confessed that, where indulgence could be allowed,

Pope

Pope Gregory was disposed to accommodate his discipline to the inveterate habits of the people. He directed their ancient temples to be preserved, and their days of festivity to be continued. And

as the people,' he adds, in a letter to St. Augustine, have been used to slaughter oxen in their sacrifices to devils, some feasts, on this account, must be substituted for them. Thus, on the days of the new dedication (of churches) or on the nativities of the martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees round the churches, and, celebrating the solemnity with religious feasting, no more offer beasts to the devil; but kill them to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things. While some pleasures are thus outwardly permitted them, they will more easily consent to inward joys; for there is no doubt, that it is impossible to retrench all, at once, from obdurate hearts." " P. 134.

The third book represents Charlemagne as a legislator, and a promoter of learning; but we should have expected from Mr. Berington a more impartial and philosophical account of this prince, who, with great reason, has been both praised and condemned, according to the different manner in which he has been considered by the historians.

Indeed this prince must be regarded as assuming a different character under different circumstances. In his wars with the Saxons, he resembles the savage inhabitant of the wilds of Africa, thirsting for blood and resolved on destruction, lurking on the border of his desolated shores, and prying for the footsteps of the wretched victims of a shipwreck, to put to death the squalid remains of the fury of the water, without the least consideration or pity for their sex or their age. In his inquisitorial institutions, worse than the savage, worse even than the brutish child of nature, Charlemagne is the dupe of superstition and fanaticism; he is the man, whose compound character of ambition and fanaticism urges him to run throughout Europe sword in hand, to act as the agent of the Roman Pontiffs, and deserve the bloody crown which usurpation and imposture had placed on the head of his father.

On the other hand, if we examine this same prince in the bosom of the Gauls, regenerating both their laws and their manners, moralizing his half savage people, endeavouring to inspire them with an idea of their dignity, couceiving by himself the plan of the division of his empire, which nine centuries after we have seen adopted by the national assembly in the re-establishment of the Champ-de-Mars and Champ-de-Mai, in short, if we consider him as a legislator, we are tempted to doubt the veracity of history, in thus attributing to one man two such different and op posite characters.

The

The history of the successors of Charlemagne will shew how little the wisdom and ordinances of one man can fix for any long period the state and the happiness of a nation. During the short course of human life, there is no work produced by the labour of a single hand which can resist the effect of the contrary will of the man who succeeds him. There has hardly existed a minister or monarch who has an entire similarity of character and views with his predecessors; and as i mature great masses alone preserve their ensemble, when every thing else differs in the detail, thus in politics the works and the joint labour of a number alone can acquire an imposing consistency, and resist the ravages of time; and for this reason the laws promulgated by one man, however great he may be, will perish with their author, if he should not have had the time to incorporate them with the ideas and improvement of his people. Thus alone they will become the laws of the nation, and can only perish with it.

For this reason we are willing to give ample credit to Mr. Berington for having developed with a masterly hand the causes why no success followed the flattering prospect which Charlemagne gave at the beginning of his reign. They all tend to illustrate the theory which we have just laid down, and Mr. Berington copies them from the "History of the Papal Power," a work of his, which in a note we find is still in manuscript. The specimen which he gives makes us wish that the learned writer will not delay any longer to impart to the public the result of his labours upon a branch of history so interesting, and at the same time so little known or studied.

"The want of success in the strenuous efforts and excellent establishments of Charlemagne, may be traced to various causes. To the inaptitude of the teachers, who, though endowed with the natural powers of intellect, knew not how to excite attention, to interest curiosity, or to rouse into action the latent capacities of the mind To the subjects called sciences, or the seven liberal arts --grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy-which were so taught, as to disgust by their barbarous elements; and of which the emaciated and haggard skeleton was alike unfit for ornament or for use.- -To the absence of the first rudiments of education, as of reading and writing, in the higher orders of society; and to their habitual devotion to martial exer cises; and amusements which kept up the image of war, and enured them to its dangers and its toils.--These, it was not likely that they would be allured to relinquish by the insipid lectures of the schools -to the oblivion in which the classical productions of former ages were buried, or the disregard in which they were held to a want of capacity in the bishops, clergy, and monks, upon whom the weighty charge of education had devolved-to a selfish reflection in the same order of men, that in proportion to the decline of

learning

learning and the spread of ignorance, their churches and monas, teries had prospered; whilst the revival of letters was likely to divert the copious streams of pious benevolence into a channel less favourable to the interests of the clergy and the monks.-To a marked aversion in the bishop of Rome to any scheme, by which the minds of churchmen, or of others, might be turned to the study of antiquity, and to those documents, which would disclose on what futile reasons and sandy foundations the exclusive prerogatives of his see were established. To the genius of the christian system itself, which was now fortified by long indurated habits and maxims, which, when it expelled the Pagan deities from their seats, too successfully fixed a reproach on many things connected with them"; and thus contributed to banish from the schools, and to consign to oblivion, those works, on the study and the prevalence of which will ever depend the progress of the arts, of the sciences, and of literary taste." P. 154.

The philosophical view of Italy is another specimen which we cannot resist the temptation of presenting to our reader. It is taken from the same MS. history of the Papal power.

"On a former occasion, before I proceeded with my subject, looking towards Italy, I observed: What causes, in a gradual but sure process, had conducted the human mind to this temporary state of ruin, we have beheld visibly unfolded; and the reader, whose view I wish to confine to its proper object-who has already witnessed the chair of Peter partially degraded by some unworthy men-will be prepared to expect, in the undeviating progress of human depravity, that characters less pure will contrive to invade that sacred seat. He has often deplored the misjudging policy of many pontiffs, who, under the imposing profession of extending the influence of religious truth, left nothing untried by which they might accomplish the aggrandisement of the Roman see. Hence they acquired wealth, and temporal sovereignty, while they, at the same time, gradually enlarged the boundaries of their ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The apostolic chair, thus surrounded at once by the combined attractions of power and riches, became an object of envy; and minds of the highest ambition began to aspire to it, as the point where that desire would experience the most extensive gratification.*

"When we consider the factions which for more than half the century oppressed the city of Rome; the efforts of the neighbouring princes to foment discord; the unbounded influence, within the walls, of three Roman ladies of patrician descent, the mother The odora, with her daughters Mározia and Theodora; with the political and the amorous intrigues which they exercised; the characters of many of the bishops, particularly of the three Johns, X. XI. XII. who, by the wiles of those women, or by agents equally unworthy, were raised to the papal throne; when these things are considered, we cannot but assent to the propriety of the reproach,