becomes prolix, and yet we are never weary of it, so matchless is the charm of the language, and so airy the lightness of the narrative; an almost dramatic developement of characters and passions, of speeches and replies; and an almost historical fidelity in the description of incidents the most minute. It is perhaps to this last peculiarity, which distinguishes Homer so much, even among the poets of his own country, that he is indebted for the name by which he is known to us. For Homeros signifies, in Greek, a witness or voucher, and this name has probably been given to him on account of his truth, such truth I mean as it was in the power of a poet-especially a poet who celebrates heroic ages, to possess. To us he

is indeed a Homer-a faithful voucher, an

unfalsifying witness, of the true shape and

fashion of the heroic life. The other ex

planation of the word Homeros a blind man-is pointed out in the often repeated and vulgar history which has come down to us of the life of a poet, concerning whom we know absolutely nothing, and is without doubt altogether to be despised. In the poetry of Milton, even without the express assertion of the poet himself, we can discover many marks that he saw only with the internal eye of the mind, but was deprived of the quickening and cheering influence of the light of day. The poetry of Ossian is clothed, in like manner, with a melancholy twilight, and seems to be wrapped, as it were, in an everlasting cloud. It is easy to perceive that the poet himself was in a similar condition. But he who can conceive that the Iliad and the Odyssey,

the most clear and luminous of ancient

poems, were composed by one deprived of his sight, must, at least in some degree, elose his own eyes, before he can resist the evidence of so many thousand circumstances which testify, so incontrovertibly, the re

verse.

"In whatever way, and in whatever century, the Homeric poems might be created and fashioned, they place before us a time when the heroic age was on the decline, or had perhaps already gone by. For there are two different worlds which both exist together in the compositions of Homer,the world of marvels and tradition, which still however appears to be near and lively before the eyes of the poet; and the living circumstances and present concerns of the world which produced the poet himself. This commingling of the present and the past (by which the first is adorned and the second illustrated), lends, in a pre-eminent degree to the Homeric poems, that charm which is so peculiarly their characteristic.

Of old the whole of Greece was ruled by kings who claimed descent from the heroic races. This is still the case in the world of Homer. Very soon, however, after his time, the regal form of government was entirely laid aside, and every people which had power enough to be independent, erect

ed itself into a little republic. This change in the government of states, and the condition of their citizens, must have had a tendency to render the relations of society every day more and more prosaic. The old heroic tales must have by degrees become foreign to the feelings of the people, and there can be little doubt that this universal revolution of governments must have mainly contributed towards bringing Homer into that sort of oblivion, out of which he was first recalled by the efforts of Solon and Pisistratus.

His account of the Greek dramatists, historians, and philosophers, is equally excellent with regard to the last set of writers, however, we suspect his observations are much better fitted for German than for English readers. With the exception of the unhappy young gentlemen who are drilled into a superficial and mechanical knowledge of some part of Aristotle's writings at Oxford and Cambridge, the whole subject of ancient philosophy is, we verily believe, as little known in England as in Iceland. Even the most distinguished of our philosophical writers, Mr Dugald Stewart, never touches upon it, without betraying ignorance unworthy of his great genius. We hope the day is not far distant, when the example of the Germans, more lately, of the French themselves, may produce an important and happy change, in this particular, among a set of men who are far too good to be thrown away upon the vain work of doing over again things that were as well understood two thousand years ago as they

are now.

As a specimen of the view which literature of the Romans, we extract our author takes of the history of the the following very original, and, we think, satisfactory account of their drama.

"In the drama the Romans were perpetually making attempts, from the time of Ennius downwards. In truth, however, they have left nothing in that department of poetry except translations from the Greek, -more or less exact, but never executed with sufficient spirit to entitle them even to the less servile name of imitations. The lost tragedians, Pacuvius and Attius, were mere translators; and the same thing may be said of the two comic poets, Plautus and Terence, whose writings are in our hands. That old domestic species of bantering comedy, which was known by the Oscian name of fabula atellana, was not however entirely laid aside. It still preserved its place as an amusement of society in the merry meetings of the nobles; who, in the

midst of all their foreign refinements, were willing, now and then, to revive in this way their recollections of the national sports and diversions of their Italian ancestry.-With the exception of this low species of buffoon writing, the Romans never possessed any thing which deserved to be called a dramatic literature of their own. With regard to their translations from the Greek tragedians, one principal cause of their stiffness and general want of success was this, that the mythology, which forms the essence of these compositions, was in fact foreign to the Roman people. It is very true that the general outline of Roman mythology was originally copied from that of the Greeks, but the individual parts of the two fabrics were altogether different and local. Iphigenia and Orestes were always more or less foreigners to a Roman audience; and the whole drama in which these and similar personages figured, never attained in Rome any more healthy state of existence, than that of an exotic in a green-house, which is only preserved from death by the daily application of artificial heat and unsatisfying labour. The names of the individual tragedies, which were supposed to be the best of their kind in the time of Augustus, may suffice to shew us how narrow was the circle in which the Roman dramatists moved, and how soon their tragic art has reached the termination of its progress. The same thing may easily be gathered from a consideration of those orations in dramatic form which are commonly ascribed to Seneca.-In like manner the representation of the foreign manners of Athens, which perpetually occupied the Roman comedy, must have appeared to Roman spectators at once cold and uninteresting. It is no difficult matter to perceive the reasons why the witchery of pantomime and dance soon supplanted at Rome every other species of dramatic spectacle.

"There is one of a still more serious nature, upon which I have not yet touched. The Roman people had by degrees become accustomed to take a barbarous delight in the most wanton displays of human violence and brutal cruelty. Hundreds of lions and elephants fought and bled before their eyes; even Roman ladies could look on, and see crowds of hireling gladiators wasting energy, valour, and life, on the guilty arena of a circus. It is but too evident, that they who could take pleasure in spectacles such as these, must very soon have lost all that tenderness of inward feeling, and all that sympathy for inward suffering, without which none can perceive the force and beauty of a tragic drama. Still, however, it may unquestionably appear a strange thing, that, since the Romans did make any attempts at the composition of tragedies, they should never have chosen their subjects from the ancient history or traditions of their country-more particularly, when we consider that the tragedians of modern times have VOL. III.

borrowed, from these very sources, many subjects of a highly poetical nature, and, at the same time, far from being unsusceptible of dramatic representation, such as the combat of the Horatii, the firmness of Brutus, the internal conflict and changed spirit of Coriolanus,-restoring in this way to poetry what was originally among the most rightful of her possessions. To find a satisfactory solution of this difficulty, we must examine into the nature of these neglected themes.-The patriotic feelings embodied in these traditions, were too much a-kin to the feelings of every Roman audience, to admit of being brought forward upon a stage. The story of Coriolanus may serve as an example. How could a Roman poet have dared to represent this haughty patrician in the full strength of his disdain and scorn of plebeians, at the time when the Gracchi were straining every nerve to set the plebeians free from the authority of the nobles? What effect must it have had, to introduce the banished Coriolanus upon a Roman stage, reproaching, in his merited indignation, with bitter words and dearbought mockery, the jealous levity of his countrymen at a time when the noblest and most free-spirited of the last Romans, Sertorius, from his place of exile, among the unsubdued tribes of Spain and Lusita nia, meditated more complete revenge against similar ingratitude, and was laying plans for the destruction of the old, and the foundation of a second Rome? Or how could a Roman audience have endured to see Coriolanus represented as approaching Rome at the head of an hostile and victorious army, at the time when Sylla was in reality at open war with his country; or even at a somewhat later period, when the principal events of his history must have still been familiar and present to the recollection of his countrymen? Not in these instances alone, but in the whole body of the early traditions and history of Rome, the conflict between patricians and plebeians occupied so pre-eminent a place, as to render Roman subjects incapable of theatrical representation during the times of the republic. Much more does this apply to the age of Augustus and his successors, when, indeed, Brutus and the ancient consular heroes could not have failed to be the most unwelcome of all personages. We may find sufficient illustrations of these remarks in the history of the modern drama. For, although Shakspeare has not hesitated to represent the civil wars of York and Lancaster on the English stage, we must observe, that before he did so, these wars had entirely terminated; and the recurrence of similar events could not easily have been foreseen by one living in the pacific times of James. With regard to our German drama, it is true that our tragic poets have chosen many of these most interesting subjects from our civil tumults-particularly from the thirty years war; but even here 3 S

the case is very different from what it would have been among the Romans. The Germans are indeed countrymen, but they are not all subjects of the same state. And yet with us, the poets who handle such topics at much length, have a very difficult task to perform; they have need of much delicacy to avoid wounding or perhaps reviving the feelings of parties, and thus destroying the proper impression which their poetry should make.

"Such are the reasons why the Romans had no national tragedies; and why, in general, they had no such thing as a theatre of their own."

After running, in this manner, over the whole of the literature of classical antiquity, he passes into the consideration of that of the Persians, the Indians, and other ancient peoples,-the nature and character of which are to be gathered not from monuments, but from hints. The beautiful lecture on

the spirit of the old Indian philosophy must be highly interesting to all readers. It is the first intelligible view which has been given of that subject; indeed Schlegel appears to us to be the first worthy successor that Sir William Jones has had in his most favourite department of learning.

But by far the more full and interesting part of the work is that which refers to the history of the middle ages -the rise and developement of the different nations among which Europe is divided-the circumstances which have forwarded in some, and retarded or thrown back in others, the progress of refinement, and the excellence of literature. At the outset of this part of his work, our author has a good deal of rubbish to clear away.

We are

"We often think of and represent to ourselves the middle age, as a blank in the history of the human mind-an empty space between the refinement of antiquity and the illumination of modern times. willing to believe that art and science had entirely perished, that their resurrection, after a thousand years sleep, may appear something more wonderful and sublime. Here, as in many others of our customary opinions, we are at once false, narrow-sighted, and unjust; we give up substance for gaudiness, and sacrifice truth to effect. The fact is, that the substantial part of the knowledge and civilization of antiquity never was forgotten, and that for very many of the best and noblest productions of modern genius, we are entirely obliged to the inventive spirit of the middle age. It is, upon the whole, extremely doubtful whether those periods which are the most rich in literature possess the greatest share either of

moral excellence or of political happiness. We are well aware that the true and happy age of Roman greatness long preceded that of Roman refinement and Roman authors; and I fear there is too much reason to suppose that, in the history of the modern nations, we may find many examples of the same kind. But even if we should not at all take into our consideration these higher and more universal standards of the worth and excellence of ages and nations, and although we should entirely confine our attention to literature and intellectual cultivation alone, we ought still, I imagine, to be very far from viewing the period of the middle ages with the fashionable degree of selfsatisfaction and contempt.

"If we consider literature in its widest sense, as the voice which gives expression to human intellect-as the aggregate mass of symbols in which the spirit of an age or the character of a nation is shadowed forth,

then indeed a great and accomplished literature is, without all doubt, the most va

luable possession of which any nation can

boast.

But if we allow ourselves to narrow the meaning of the word literature so as to make it suit the limits of our own prejudices, and expect to find in all literatures the same

sort of excellencies, and the same sort of forms, we are sinning against the spirit of all philosophy, and manifesting our utter ignorance of all nature. Every where, in individuals as in species, in small things as in great, the fulness of invention must precede the refinements of art-legend must go before history, and poetry before criticism. If the literature of any nation has had no such poetical antiquity before arriving at its period of regular and artificial developement, we may be sure that this literature can never attain to a national shape and character, or come to breathe the spirit of originality and independence. The Greeks possessed such a period of poetical wealth in those ages (ages certainly not very remarkable for their refinement either in literature, properly so called, or in science) which elapsed between the Trojan adventures and the times of Solon and Pericles, and it is to this period that the literature of Greece was mainly indebted for the variety, originality, and beauty of its unrivalled productions. What that period was to Greece, the middle age was to modern Europe; the fulness of creative fancy was the distinguishing characteristic of them both. The long and silent process of vegetation must precede the spring, and the spring must precede the maturity of the fruit. The youth of individuals has been often called their spring-time of life; I imagine we may speak so of whole nations with the same propriety as of individuals. They also have their seasons of unfolding intellect and mental blossoming. The age of crusades, chivalry, romance, and minstrelsy, was an intellectual spring among all the nations of the west."

After an account of the mode of education adopted in those under-rated ages, he proceeds as follows:

"The reproach, then, which is commonly thrown out against the Teutonic nations -that they introduced barbarity and ignorance into all those provinces of the Roman empire to which their victories reached, is, at least in the extent which is commonly given to it, altogether false and ungrounded. To none, however, of all these nations is it applied with so much injustice as to the Goths, who lived at the time of the first northern inroads. For many centuries before these expeditions commenced, the Goths had been already Christians; they were well acquainted with the importance of regular laws, and with the relations of the learned and religious orders of society; and the truth is, that, far from promoting any work of destruction in the Roman provinces, they were indefatigable, so far as their powers and circumstances admitted of it, in forwarding and maintaining the interests of science. The only exception to this is to be found in those times when the Gothic tribes entered Italy under the guide of a foreign, a savage, and a heathen conqueror; or when in some particular instances they were exasperated by party-hatred and Arian bigotry, to take too severe revenge against the equal hatred and bigotry of their Catholic opponents. Even the last flourishing era of what still might be called ancient Roman literature, took place under Theodorick; and never did the mock patriotism of Italians take up a more ridiculous idea than in the favourite theme of their later poets-the deliverance of Italy from the power of the Goths. In the time of Theodorick, and under the government of the Goths, Italy was just beginning to enjoy the opening of a new period of happiness. The true misery and the true barbarism began when the Goths were expelled, and Italy submitted her neck once more to the deadening tyranny of Byzantine Eunuchs and Satraps. Let us also compare for a moment the activity and life of Western Europe, her nationalities, her adventures, and her chivalrous poetry with the long and mortal sleep under which the Eastern Empire lay for a thousand years—and we shall have no difficulty in deciding where the charges of sloth and ignorance ought to fall. And yet the Byzantines were in possession of much greater literary riches, and of several useful inventions, with which the west was entirely unacquainted. The matter of chief importance in all civilization and all literature is not the dead treasures we possess, but the living uses to which we apply them.

But the effect was beyond all comparison more unfortunate in the case of those wandering and conquering Teutonic nations which were not yet Christians; these were Auch more rude in their manners than those

we have as yet been considering; they had no acquaintance either with the social or the scientific refinements of the Romans. Such were the Franks in Gaul, and the Saxons in Britain. If we must fix upon some period as that of complete void,-as a time of ignorance, darkness, and destruction-we shall find the nearest approximation to what we wish in the age which elapsed between the reigns of Theodorick and Charlemagne. But while Italy remained bowed down under the barbarous oppression of Byzantium, the light of knowledge had found its refuge in the cloisters of Ireland and Scotland; and no sooner had the Saxons in England received the first rudiments of knowledge along with their Christianity, than they at once carried all branches of science to a height of perfection at that time altogether unrivalled among the nations of the west. By them this light was carried into France and Germanythere never more to be extinguished. For from this time knowledge was not only systematically preserved, but unweariedly cultivated and extended, insomuch that the proper period of revival should, I think, be placed, not in the time of the crusades, but in that of Charlemagne. But even in the darkest period of all, that between the sixth century and the eighth, the foundations were already laid for that mighty engine of instruction which was afterwards perfected by the wisdom of Charlemagne. The estab lishment of learned cloisters and brotherhoods had already commenced. It is to the after extension of these spiritual corporations, by whose exertions lands were rendered fruitful, and peoples civilized, and sciences useful, and states secure, that Western Europe is indebted for the superiority which she attained over the Byzantines on the one hand, who were possessed of more hereditary knowledge, and the Arabs on the other, who had every advantage that external power and proselytizing enthusiasm could afford them. That the result should have been what we now see it, could scarcely, I should suppose, have been believed to be within the reach of possibility by any contemporary spectator. While Alfred lived almost in the poverty of a poet, and while Charlemagne practised in his own palace the frugality of a monk, how must their attempts in the cause of science have been limited by the narrowness of their means? and what, on the contrary, would have been too much for Haroon al Ruscheed to perform-living as he did in the midst of the untroubled splendour of Bagdad, and having it in his power to forward the cause of science by all the aids which ingenuity could invent, or magnificence supply? The result may give us an important lesson, and teach us not to repose our confidence in the munificence of kings. Science is not made to be cultivated in obedience to the command of a monarch. He lends it indeed a temporary favour, but it is only that it may increase his own fame, and throw additional lustre around his

throne. Caliphs and Sultans attempted in vain to effect what was slowly and calmly accomplished in the unpretending cloisters of the west.

The exertions of Charlemagne in securing the independence, and diffusing the establishment of religious houses, have entitled him to the warmest gratitude of Europe, and the admiration of every cultivated age. But we must not conceal from ourselves, that great as were the merits of Charlemagne, both in regard to the vernacular and the Latin literature of Europe, they were still inferior to those of Alfred. That wise and virtuous monarch was not only like Charlemagne, the unwearied patron of learning in all its branches; he was himself a scholar and a philosopher, and he even contributed more than any other individual towards the elegant formation of the Anglosaxon tongue. But the successful expeditions of the Danes threw back the progress of England; and the literary establishments founded by Charlemagne in France and Southern Germany were disturbed, in their infancy, by the attacks made on the one part of his empire by the Normans, and on the other by the Hungarians. The literature which flourished soon afterwards under the Saxon Emperors was in every respect far superior to that of the days of Alfred or Charlemagne. At that time Germany was rich above all other things in good writers of history, from Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne, down to Otto von Freysingen, a prince of the house of Babenberg, who was son to St Leopold, and grandson to the great Barbarossa, of the imperial family of Hohenstaufen. Her riches in this respect were indeed greater than those of any other country in Europe, nor is the circumstance to be wondered at, for she was in fact the centre of all European politics. It is a very common thing to hear all those

Latin histories of the middle age, which were written by clergymen, classed together under the same contemptuous appellation of" Monkish Chronicles." They who indulge in such ridicule, must, beyond all doubt, be either ignorant or forgetful, that, these Monkish writers were very often men of princely descent; that they were intrust ed with the most important affairs of government, and therefore could best explain them; that they were the ambassadors and travellers of the times; that they often penetrated into the remote East, and the still more obscure regions of the North, and were indeed the only persons capable of describ. ing foreign countries and manners; that in general they were the most accomplished and intelligent men whom the world could then produce; and that, in one word, if we were to have any histories at all of those ages, it was absolutely necessary they should be written by the Monks. The reproaches which we cast out against the men and the manners of the middle age, are indeed not unfrequently altogether absurd and incon

sistent. When we wish to depict the corruption of the clergy, we inveigh against them for tyrannizing over kingdoms and conducting negotiations; but if we talk of their works, then they were all ignorant, slothful Monks, who knew nothing of the world, and therefore could not possibly write histories. Perhaps the very best of all situations for a writer of history is one not widely differing from that of a Monk— one in which he enjoys abundant opportu nities of gaining experimental knowledge of men and their affairs, but is at the same time independent of the world and its transactions, and has full liberty to mature in retirement his reflections upon that which he has seen. Such was the situation of many of those German historians who flourished in the days of the Saxon Emperors. The more the study of history advances, the more universally are their merits recognised. But if Germany had the advantage in history, the superiority of France and England was equally apparent in philosophy. These countries, indeed, had already produced several distinguished philosophical writers, even before the influence of the Arabians had introduced the monopolizing despotism of Aristotle. In the 9th century there arose that profound inquirer who, as it is doubtful whether he was a Scotsman or an Irishman, is now known by the reconciling name of Scotus Erigena. No less profound, though somewhat more limited in their application, were the views of Anselm. Abelard was both a thinker and an orator; his language was elegant, and his knowledge of antiquity extensive, praises which he shares with his illustrious scholar, John of Salisbury."

We have scarcely room to quote any part of the two lectures in which Schlegel enlarges upon the poetry of the middle age-above all the love Poetry or gaye science of the provincials, and the mynnclieder of his own countrymen. The whole subject of romance is discussed in a very lively, though, considering its importance, in perhaps too concise a manner. The influence of the crusades is among other things presented, we think, in a very striking light. We extract only the concluding paragraphs, in which he gives something like a summing up of the conclusions to which his mind has come.

"If we compare the old French tales and fabliaux with the Arabian tales, we shall have no difficulty in perceiving that the greater part of these fictions had been brought from the East into Europe, in a great measure, it is probable, by the oral narratives of the Crusaders. The small variations which have been introduced, and the colouring of European manners which has so carefully been thrown over them,