dawn of science, such are generally modest, and not entirely use less; their performances serve to mark the progress of learning, though they seldom contribute to its improvement. But as nothing but speculation was required in making proficients in their respective departments, so neither the satire nor the contempt of the wise, though Socrates was of the number, nor the laws levelled at them by the state, though Cato was in the legis lature, could prevent their approaches. Possessed of all the advantages of unfeeling dulness, laborious, insensible, and persevering, they still proceeded mending, and mending every work of genius, or to speak without irony, undermining all that was polite and useful. Libraries were loaded, but not enriched with their labors, while the fatigue of reading their explanatory comments was tenfold that which might suffice for understanding the ori ginal, and their works effectually increased our application, by professing to remove it.

Against so obstinate and irrefragable an enemy, what could avail the unsupported sallies of genius, or the opposition of transitory resentment? In short, they conquered by persevering, claimed the right of dictating upon every work of taste, sentiment, or genius, and at last, when destitute of other employment, like the supernumerary domestics of the great, made work for each other.

They now took upon them to teach poetry to those who wanted genius; and the power of disputing to those who knew nothing of the subject in debate. It was observed, how some of the most admired poets had copied nature. From these they collected dry rules, dignified with long names, obtruded upon the public for their improvement. would be apt to suggest, that the art might be studied to more advantage, rather by, imitation than precept. It might suggest,

* Vide Sueton. Hist. Gram.

and such were Common sense

that these rules were collected, not from nature, but a copy of nature, and would consequently give us still fainter resemblances of original beauty. It might still suggest, that explained wit makes but a feeble impression; that the observations of others are soon forgotten, those made by ourselves are permanent and useful. But, it seems, understandings of every size were to be mechanically instructed in poetry. If the reader was too dull to relish the beauties of Virgil, the comment of Servius was ready to brighten his imagination; if Terence could not raise him vo a smile, Evantius was at hand, with a long-winded scholium to increase his titillation. Such rules are calculated to make blockheads talk; but all the lemmata of the Lyceum are unable to give him feeling*

But it would be endless to recount all the absurdities which were hatched in the schools of those specious idlers, be it sufficient to say, that they increased as learning improved, but swarmed on its decline. It was then that every work of taste was buried in long comments; every useful subject in morals was distinguished away into casuistry, and doubt and subtlety characterized the learning of the age. Metrodorus, Valerius Probus, Aulus Gellius, Pedianus, Boethius, and a hundred others, to be acquainted with whom might show much reading and but little judgment; these, I say, made choice each of an author, and delivered all their load of learning on his back. Shame to our ancestors! many of their works have reached our times entire, while Tacitus himself has suffered mutilation.

*["Their logical disputations seemed even to be the apotheosis of folly. In these the opponent had a right to affirm whatever absurdity he thought proper. The defendant, though he saw the falsehood almost by intuition, was not allowed to use his reason, but his art, in the debate. It was his business only to measure the assertion by one of his artificial instruments, and as it happened to accord or disagree, he found himself qualified to support, or obliged o discontinue, his defence; which seldom, however, happened, till fatigue or anger terminated the inquiry."---First edit.]

In a word, the commonwealth of literature was at last wholly verrun by these studious triflers. Men of real genius were lost in the multitude, or, as in a world of fools it were folly to aim at being an only exception, obliged to conform to every prevailing absurdity of the times. Original productions seldom appeared, and learning, as if grown superannuated, bestowed all its panegyric upon the vigor of its youth, and turned encomiast upon its former achievements.

It is to these, then, that the depravation of ancient polite learning is principally to be ascribed. By them it was separated + from common sense, and made the proper employment of speculative idlers. Men bred up among books, and seeing nature only by reflection, could do little except hunt after perplexity and confusion. The public, therefore, with reason rejected learning, when thus rendered barren though voluminous; for we may be assured, that the generality of mankind never lose a passion for letters while they continue to be either amusing or useful.

It was such writers as these, that rendered learning unfit for uniting and strengthening civil society, or for promoting the views of ambition. True philosophy had kept the Grecian states cemented into one effective body more than any law for that purpose, and the Etrurian philosophy which prevailed in the first ages of Rome, inspired those patriot virtues which paved the way to universal empire. But by the labors of commentators, when philosophy became abstruse or triflingly minute, when doubt was presented instead of knowledge, when the orator was taught to charm the multitude with the music of his periods, and pronounced a declamation that might be sung as well as spoken, and often upon subjects wholly fictitious; in such circumstances, learning was entirely unsuited to all the purposes of government or the designs of the ambitious. As long as the sciences could influence the state, and its politics were strengthened by them, so

long did the community give them countenance and protection. But the wiser part of mankind would not be imposed upon by unintelligible jargon, nor, like the knight in Pantagruel, swallow a chimera for a breakfast, though even cooked by Aristotle. As the philosopher grew useless in the state, he also became contemptible. In the times of Lucian, he was chiefly remarkable for his avarice, his impudence, and his beard.

Under the auspicious influence of genius, arts and sciences grew up together, and mutually illustrated each other. But when once pedants became lawgivers, the sciences began to want grace and the polite arts solidity; these grew crabbed and sour, those meretricious and gaudy; the philosopher became disgustingly precise, and the poet, ever straining after grace, caught only finery.

These men also contributed to obstruct the progress of wisdom, by addicting their readers to one particular sect, or some favorite science. They generally carried on a petty traffic in some little creek: within that they busily plied about, and drove an insignificant trade; but never ventured out into the great ocean of knowledge, nor went beyond the bounds that chance, conceit, or laziness, had first prescribed their inquiries. Their disciples, instead of aiming at being originals themselves, became imitators of that merit alone which was constantly proposed for their admiration. In exercises of this kind, the most stupid are generally most successful; for there is not in nature a more imitative animal than a dunce.

Hence ancient learning may be distinguished into three periods Its commencement, or the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its decline, or the age of critics. In the poetical age commentators were very few, but might have in some respects been useful. In its philosophical, their assist: uce must necessarily become obnoxious, yet, as if the nearer

we

approached perfection the more we stood in need of their directions, in this period they began to grow numerous. But when polite learning was no more, then it was those literary lawgivers made the most formidable appearance. "Corruptissima republica, plurimæ leges."*

But let us take a more distinct view of those ages of ignoranco in which false refinement had involved mankind, and see how far they resemble our own.

CHAPTER III.

A VIEW OF THE OBSCURE AGES.

Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it 7 is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity. The poet and the historian are they who diffuse a lustre upon the age; and the philosopher scarcely acquires any applause, unless his character be introduced to the vulgar by their mediation.

The obscure ages which succeeded the decline of the Roman Empire, are a striking instance of the truth of this assertion. Whatever period of those ill-fated times we happen to turn to, we shall perceive more skill in the sciences among the professors of them, more abstruse and deeper inquiry into every philosophical subject, and a greater show of subtlety and close reasoning, than in the most enlightened ages of all antiquity. But their writings. were mere speculative amusements, and all their researches exhausted upon trifles. Unskilled in the arts of adorning their knowledge, or adapting it to common sense, their voluminous pro

*["When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied."Tacit.]