that of most European nations, her vast conquered territories, unlike those of Spain and Portugal, mostly obey her rule. The great facilities, inducements, and rewards thereby offered to enterprising travellers enable them by antiquarian, scientific, or scholastic researches, as well as by military and naval triumphs, to enrich fellow-countrymen in almost every department of human knowledge. The vast discoveries made by British travellers in lands unknown to the ancient world have, in London especially, been added to the grand inheritance of classic learning, which centuries of domestic peace enable England to enjoy in intellectual security.

Macaulay's expression about the durability of English literature indicates that being founded alike on classic learning and the Jewish Scriptures, it has through centuries derived aid, addition, and enlightenment from the efforts of geographers, the voyages of travellers, the researches and studies of antiquaries and scholars, and even from the results of military conquest. England's insular position, her complete independence of foreign influence, her maritime ascendancy over the classic Mediterranean, and all those newly discovered oceans which separated the new world from the old, her retained supremacy over all conquests and colonies except the United States of America, all these practical and peculiar advantages to her political power, have in various ways confirmed her intellectual greatness.

In many early specimens of British literature the Roman Catholic influence which then comprised all

the Christianity of western Europe is very apparent.1 Legends, traditions, anecdotes, as well as writings of Christian saints and martyrs, were generally studied and often implicitly believed. The Church "the Roman Empire over again " 2 united some amount of Pagan civilisation, history, and art with the Christian doctrine, communicated from Judea to her Roman sovereign.3 The learning, knowledge, and wisdom of ancient Rome were thus historically connected with the first authentic version of Christianity.

Rome, the political ruler of Athens, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, became in every sense the head and centre of intellectual supremacy. The complete extinction of Paganism throughout the Roman Empire enabled its Christian successor to admire and preserve its noble literature without the least fear of thereby restoring its religious ideas. Christianity seems to have replaced the faith of Jupiter more rapidly than it effaced the old religion of northern and western Europe.

"Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was in the dark ages productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the nations of western Europe in one great commonwealth. Learning followed in the train of Christianity."—Macaulay's History of England," Vol. 1st.

2 Dean Milman's "History of Christianity."

3 "The Church has many times been compared by divines to the Ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis, but never was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode amidst the darkness and tempest on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilisation was to spring."-Macaulay's "History of England,” Vol. 1st.

Many years after Christian supremacy, there remained a belief in fairies and witchcraft, apparently connected with the ancient worship, yet which lingered even in some learned minds during centuries of established Christianity. But Paganism evidently vanished from the hearts and minds of all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, and seems never to have revived even in remote districts.

Christianity throughout that vast dominion became not only supreme but popular. The ignorant as well as the comparatively learned embraced it with an earnest enthusiasm which the previous fanciful Paganism had probably never aroused. Hence the most devout early Christians studied, preserved, and transmitted Pagan literature to a Christian posterity, while either effacing or neglecting all traces of the ancient faith of northern Europe.

Greek and Roman literature, carefully preserved by Christian monks, together with the Scripture history and a few local traditions, for centuries comprised nearly all the literary knowledge of Great Britain.1

The indignation against Jews which the New Testament for centuries excited among Christians practically destroyed that admiration for them which the Old Testament was calculated to arouse. While some learned Christians admired David's psalms, and respected Abraham and Moses, their Jewish descen

I "Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness which she was destined to attain. She was subjugated by the Roman arms, but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters."-Macaulay's "History," Vol. 1st.

dants and co-religionists were much more associated in most Christian minds with the rigid priests, Annas and Caiaphas, executing the founder of Christianity for the sake of preserving their ancient Deism, which they accused Him of deserting. Thence arose hatred and persecution of the Jews in Christian countries, where yet praises of Moses, Abraham, and David were uttered alike by Christian and Jewish clergy.

As Roman civilisation spread chiefly westward, the partially verified works of classic historians, geographers, poets, and philosophers were soon preferred by all intelligent British minds to the vague, mysterious, practically useless legends of their own country, which apparently lingered longest in the Highlands of Scotland.2

These traditions, however, though perhaps partly true, being unsupported by historical proof, political authority, or literary vindication, became almost fabulous through time. Shakespeare and Scott mention some of them in their works, but merely in interesting plays, poems, or romances, not as historical facts.3

Legends of Christian saints and martyrs, stories of witchcraft, fairy tales, and poetical praises of the Crusades gradually extended British literary know

I Hallam's "Middle Ages"; also Dean Milman's "History of Latin Christianity."

2 Gibbon's remarks on

the Roman Empire," Vol. 1st.

Ossian's Poems,"
""Decline and Fall of

3 Shakespeare's" King Lear" and "Cymbeline," Scott's historical novels, and "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border."

ledge. The Crusades united real warfare with the charms of music and poetry, and were melodiously advocated by foreign minstrels, as well as eagerly sanctioned by the Christian clergy. The influence of the former over some European kings, especially Richard I. of England, is historically recorded, and apparently not exaggerated in Scott's novels, "The Talisman," and "Ivanhoe."

During the reigns of the first Norman Kings of England, literature was only cultivated by "the clergy and the minstrels." These classes, usually inspired by different motives, ideas, and thoughts, yet united during early English history in devoting all the literary influence of their period in favour of the Crusades.

To inspire admiration for this alleged holy warfare, religious fervour, music, and poetry were alike invoked. The clergy promised the blessing and approval of the Deity, the poets promised earthly fame, glory, and renown, as rewards of these desperate, yet heroic enterprises. The Pagan religion. was extinct, the Jewish Deism survived, believed in, perhaps, by as many millions as ever, though scattered among different nations. They doubtless watched with feelings they dared not express the strange warfare chiefly caused by the influence of religious and poetical literature, waged in their ancestral land by Christians and Mohammedans, who knowing Jewish history alike condemned the execution of the Christian prophet.

1 T. Arnold's "Manual of English Literature."