traded in the cities of Greece for the purpose of purchasing books, which they sold in Italy: and it was chiefly by means of this literary traffic, that Cosmo and Laurence of Medici, and their munificent successors the dukes of Florence, composed the famous Florentine library.

It is obvious to remark the popularity which must have accrued to these politer studies, while they thus paved the way to the most opulent and honourable promotions in the church: and the authority and estimation with which they must have been surrounded, in being thus cultivated by the most venerable ecclesiastics. It is indeed true, that the dignified clergy of the early and darker ages were learned beyond the level of the people. Peter de Blois, successively archdeacon of Bath

the earl of Arundel, should behave himself in the family of the bishop of Norwich, whither he is sent for education as page and in which his lordship observes, that his grandfather the duke of Norfolk, and his uncle the earl of Northampton, were both bred as pages with bishopps. Fiddes, ibid. RECORDS. No. 6. c. 4. pag. 19. Sir Thomas More was educated as a page with cardinal Moreton, archbishop of Canterbury, about 1490, who was so struck with his genius, that he would often say at dinner, This child here waiting at table is so very ingenious, that he will one day prove an extraordinary man. Mori Urop. cited by Stapleton, p. 157. 138. And Roper's MORE, p. 27. edit. ut supr.

Many of them were sent into Italy by Laurence of Medicis, particularly John Lascaris. Varillas says, that Bajazet the Second understood Averroes's commentaries on Aristotle. ANECDOT. de Florence, p. 183. P. Jovii ELOG. c. xxxi. p. 74. Lascaris also made a voyage into Greece by command of Leo the Tenth; and brought with him some Greek boys, who were to be educated in the college which that pope had founded on mount Quirinal, and who were intended to propagate the genuine and native pronunciation of the Greek tongue. Jov. ut supr. c. xxxi.

The inferiour clergy were in the mean time extremely ignorant. About

the year 1300, pope Boniface the Eighth published an edict, ordering the incumbents of ecclesiastic benefices to quit their cures for a certain time, and to study at the universities. [See his ten CONSTITUTIONES, in the BULLARIUM MAGNUM of Laertius Cherubinus, tom. i. p. 198. seq. Where are his Erectiones studiorum generalium in civitate Firmana, Romæ, et Avenione, A.D. 1303.] Accordingly our episcopal registers are full of licences granted for this purpose. The rector of Bedhampton, Hants, being an accolite, is permitted to study for seven years from the time of his institution, in literarum scientia, on condition that within one year he is made a sub. deacon, and after seven years a deacon and priest. Mar. 5, 1302. Registr. PoNTISSAR. Winton. fol. 38. Another rector is allowed to study for seven years, in loco quem eligit et ubi viget studium generale, 16 kal. Octobr. 1303. ibid. fol. 40. Another receives the same privilege, to study at Oxford, Orleans, or Paris, A.D. 1904. ibid. fol. 42. Another, being desirous of study, and able to make a proficiency, is licenced to study in aliquo studio transmarino, A. D. 1291. ibid. fol. 84. This, however, was three years before Boniface became pope. Another is to study per terminum constitutionis novellæ, A.D. 1302. ibid. fol. 37. b. But these dispensations, the necessity of which proves the illiteracy of the priests,

and London, about the year 1160, acquaints us, that the palace of Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, was perpetually filled with bishops highly accomplished in literature; who passed their time there, in reading, disputing, and deciding important questions of the state. He adds, that these prelates, although men of the world, were a society of scholars: yet

very different from those who frequented the universities, in which nothing was taught but words and syllables, unprofitable subtleties, elementary speculations, and trifling distinctions". De Blois was himself eminently learned, and one of the most distinguished ornaments of Becket's attendants. He tells us, that in his youth, when he learned the ARS VERSIFICATORIA, that is, philological literature, he was habituated to an urbanity of style and expression: and that he was instituted, not in idle fables and legendary tales, but in Livy, Quintus Curtius, Suetonius, Josephus, Trogus Pompeius, Tacitus, and other classical historians". At the same time he censures with a just indignation, the absurdity of training boys in the frivolous intricacies of logic and geometry, and other parts of the scholastic philosophy; which, to use his own emphatical words, "Nec domi, nec militiæ, nec in foro, nec in claustro, nec in ecclesia, nec in curia, nec alicubi prosunt alicuic." The Latin Epistles of De Blois, from which these anecdotes are taken, are full of good sense, observations on life, elegant turns, and ingenious allusions to the classics. He tells Jocelyne, bishop of Salisbury, that he had long wished to see the bishop's two nephews, according to promise: but that he feared he expected them as the Britons expected king Arthur, or the Jews the Messiah". He describes, with a liveliness by no means belonging to the

their celibacy, prevailed among the clergy. In the statutes of the college of saint Mary Ottery in Devonshire, dated 1337, and given by the founder bishop Grandison, the following injunction occurs. "Item statuimus, quod nullus Canonicus, Vicarius, vel Secundarius, pueros choristas [collegii] secum pernoctare, aut in lectulo cum ipsis dormire, faciat seu permittat." Cap. 50. MS. apud Archiv. Wulves. Winton. And what shall we think of the religious manners and practices of an age, when the following precautions were thought necessary, in a respectable collegiate church, consisting of a dean and six secular canons, amply endowed? "Statutum est, quod siquis convictus fuerit de peccato Sodomitico, vel arte magica,”

&c. From the statutes of Stoke-Clare college, in Suffolk, given by the dean Thomas Barnesley, in the year 1422. Dugd. MONAST. ut supr. p. 169. col. 1.

From these horrid pictures let us turn our eyes, and learn to set a just value on that pure religion, and those improved habits of life and manners, which we at present enjoy.

a EPIST. Petr. Blesens. vi. fol. 3. a. OPERA. edit. Paris. 1519. fol. b EPIST. cii. fol. 49. b.

Ibid. That is, "Which are of no real use or service, at home, in the camp, at the bar, in the cloyster, in the court, in the church, or indeed in any place or situation whatsoever."

d EPIST. li. fol. 24. a.

archdeacons of the twelfth century, the difficulties, disappointments, and inconveniencies, of paying attendance at court. In the course of his correspondence, he quotes Quintilian, Cicero, Livy, Sallust, Seneca, Virgil, Quintus Curtius, Ovid, Statius, Suetonius, Juvenal, and Horace, more frequently and familiarly than the fathers. Horace seems his favorite. In one of the letters, he quotes a passage concerning Pompey the Great, from the Roman History of Sallust, in six books, now lost, and which appears at present only in part among the fragments of that valuable historians. In the NUGE CURIALIUM of MAPES, or some other manuscript Latin tract written by one of the scholars of the twelfth century, I remember to have seen a curious and striking anecdote, which in a short compass shews Becket's private ideas concerning the bigotries and superstitious absurdities of his religion. The writer gives an account of a dinner in Becket's palace; at which was present, among many other prelates, a Cistercian abbot. This abbot engrossed almost the whole conversation, in relating the miracles performed by Robert, the founder of his order. Becket heard him for some time with a patient contempt; and at length could not help breaking out with no small degree of indignation, And these are your miracles!

We must however view the liberal ideas of these enlightened dignitaries of the twelfth century under some restrictions. It

e "Ut ad ministeriales curia redeam, apud forinsecos janitores biduanam forte gratiam aliquis multiplici obsequio merebitur.-Regem dormire, aut ægrotare, aut esse in consiliis, mentientur.-Ostiarios cameræ confundat altissimus ! Si nihil dederis ostiario actum est. Si nihil attuleris ibis, Homere, foras. Post primum Cerberum, tibi superest alius horribilior Cerbero, Briareo terribilior, nequior Pygmalione,crudelior Minotauro. Quantacunque tibi mortis necessitas, aut discrimen exhæredationis incubat, non intrabis ad regem." EPIST. xiv. fol. 8. b.

f Latin and French, the vernacular excepted, were the only languages now known. Foliot bishop of London, cotemporary with De Blois and Becket,

was esteemed, both in secular and sacred literature, the most consummate prelate of his time. Becket, ErISTOL. lib. iii. 5. Walter Mapes, their cotemporary, giving Foliot the same character, says he was TRIUM peritissimus linguarum Latinæ, Gallica, Anglica, et lucidissime disertus in singulis. Apud MSS. JAMES, xiv. p. 86. Bibl. Bodl. [Ex NUGIS CURIAL.]

"De magno Pompeio refert Sallustius, quod cum alacribus saltu, cum velocibus cursu, cum validis vecte certabat," &c. &c. EPIST. xciv. fol. 45. a. Part of this passage is cited by Vegetius, a favorite author of the age of Peter de Blois. De RE MILIT. lib. i. c. ix. It is exhibited by the modern editors of Sallust, as it stands in Vegetius.

must be acknowledged, that their literature was clogged with pedantry, and depressed by the narrow notions of the times. Their writings shew, that they knew not how to imitate the beauties of the antient classics. Exulting in an exclusive privilege, they certainly did not see the solid and popular use of these studies at least they did not chuse, or would not venture, to communicate them to the people, who on the other hand were not prepared to receive them. Any attempts of that kind, for want of assistances which did not then exist, must have been premature; and these lights were too feeble to dissipate the universal darkness. The writers who first appeared after Rome was ravaged by the Goths, such as Boethius, Prudentius, Orosius, Fortunatius, and Sedulius, and who naturally, from that circumstance, and because they were Christians, came into vogue at that period, still continued in the hands of common readers, and superseded the great originals. In the early ages of Christianity a strange opinion prevailed, in conformity to which Arnobius composed his celebrated book against the gentile superstitions, that pagan authors were calculated to corrupt the pure theology of the gospel. The prejudice however remained, when even the suspicions of the danger were removed. But I return to the progress of modern letters in the fifteenth century.