It is obvious to obferve, how little conformable, this just taste, these elegant arts, and these new amusements, proved in their confequences to the spirit of the papal fystem: and it is remarkable, that the court of Rome, whofe fole defign and intereft it had been for fo many centuries, to enslave the minds of men, should be the first to restore the religious and intellectual liberties of Europe. The apoftolical fathers, aiming at a fatal and ill-timed popularity, did not reflect, that they were shaking the throne, which they thus adorned.

Among those who distinguished themselves in the exercise of these ftudies, the firft and moft numerous were the Italian ecclefiaftics. If not from principles of inclination, and a natural impulse to follow the paffion of the times, it was at least their intereft, to concur in forwarding those improvements, which were commended, countenanced, and authorised, by their spiritual fovereign: they abandoned the pedantries of a barbarous theology, and cultivated the purest models of antiquity. The cardinals and bishops of Italy composed Latin verses, and with a success attained by none in more recent times, in imitation of Lucretius, Catullus, and Virgil. Nor would the encouragement of any other European potentate have availed fo much, in this great work of restoring literature: as no other patronage could have operated with fo powerful and immediate an influence on that order of men, who, from the nature of their education and profeffion, must always be the principal inftruments in fupporting every fpecies of liberal erudition.

And here we cannot but obferve the neceffary connection between literary compofition and the arts of defign. No fooner had Italy banished the Gothic ftyle in eloquence and poetry, than painting, fculpture, and architecture, at the fame time, and in the fame country, arrived at maturity, and appeared in all their original fplendour. The beautiful or fublime ideas which the Italian artifts had conceived from the contemplation of antient ftatues and antient temples,

were

were invigorated by the defcriptions of Homer and Sophocles. Petrarch was crowned in the capitol, and Raphael was promoted to the dignity of a cardinal.

These improvements were foon received in other countries. Lafcaris, one of the most learned of the Conftantinopolitan exiles, was invited into France by Lewis the twelfth, and Francis the firft: and it was under the latter of these monarch that he was employed to form a library at Fontainbleau, and to introduce Greek profeffors into the university of Paris'. Yet we find Gregory Typhernas teaching Greek at Paris, fo early as the year 1472. About the fame time, Antonius Eparchus of Corfica fold one hundred Greek books to the empereur Charles the fifth and Francis the firft', those great rivals, who agreed in nothing, but in promoting the cause of literature. Francis the firft maintained even a Greek fecretary, the learned Angelus Vergerius, to whom he af signed, in the year 1541, a penfion of four hundred livres from his exchequer. He employed Julius Camillus to teach him to speak fluently the language of Cicero and Demofthenes, in the space of a month: but fo chimerical an attempt neceffarily proved abortive, yet it fhewed his paffion for letters. In the year 1474, the parliament of Paris, who, like other public bodies, eminent for their wisdom, could proceed on no other foundation than that of ancient forms and cuftoms, and were alarmed at the appearance of an innovation, commanded a cargo of books, fome of the first specimens of typography, which were imported into Paris by a factor of the city of Mentz, to be feized and destroyed.

* Du Breul, ANTIQUITEZ de Paris, liv. ii. 1639. 4to. p. 563. Bembi HIST. VENET. par. ii. p. 76. And R. Simon, CRITIQUE de la Bibl, Ecclef. par du Pin, tom. i. p. 502. 512.

* Hody, p. 233.

y Morhoff, POLYHIST. iv. 6.

z Du Breul, ibid. p. 568. It is a juft remark of P. Victorius, that Francis the

firft, by founding beautiful Greek and Roman types at his own coft, invited many ftudents, who were caught by the elegance of the impreffion, to read the antient books. PRÆFAT. AD COMMENT. in octo libr. Ariftotelis de Opt. Statu Civitat.

a Alciati EPISTOL. xxiii. inter GUDIANAS, pag. 109.

Francis

Francis the first would not fuffer fo great a dishonour to remain on the French nation; and although he interpofed his authority too late for a revocation of the decree, he ordered the full price to be paid for the books. This was the fame parliament that opposed the reformation of the calendar, and the admiffion of any other philosophy than that of Ariftotle. Such was Francis's follicitude to encourage the graces of a claffical ftyle, that he abolished the Latin tongue from all public acts of justice, because the first president of the parliament of Paris had used a barbarous term in pronouncing fentence; and because the Latin code and judicial proceffes, hitherto adopted in France, familiarifed the people to a base Latinity. At the fame time, he ordered these formularies to be turned, not into good Latin, which would have been abfurd or impoffible, but into pure French: a reformation which promoted the culture of the vernacular tongue. He was the first of the kings of France, that encouraged brilliant affemblies of ladies to frequent the French court: a circumstance, which not only introduced new splendour and refinement into the parties and caroufals of the court of that monarchy, but gave a new turn to the manners of the French ecclefiaftics, who of courfe attended the king, and destroyed much of their monkish pedantry“. When we mention the share which Germany took in the reftitution of letters, fhe needs no greater panegyric, than that her mechanical genius added, at a lucky moment, to all these fortunate contingencies in favour of science, an admirable invention, which was of the moft fingular utility in facilitating the diffufion of the antient writers over every part of Europe: I mean the art of printing. By this observation, I do not mean to infinuate that Germany kept no pace with

Matagonis de Matagonibus adverfus Italogalliam Antonii Matharelli, p. 226. Varillas, HIST. de François I. livr. ix. pag. 381.

d Brantome, MEм. tom. i. p. 227. Mezerai, HIST. France, fur HEN. III. tom. iii. P. 446 447.

her

her neighbours in the production of philological scholars. Rodolphus Langius, a canon of Munster, and a tolerable Latin poet, after many struggles with the inveterate prejudices and authoritative threats of German bishops, and German universities, opened a school of humanity at Munster: which fupplied his countrymen with every species of elegant learning, till it was overthrown by the fury of fanaticism, and the revolutions introduced by the barbarous reformations of the anabaptistic zealots, in the year 1534. Reuchlin, otherwife called Capnio, cooperated with the laudable endeavours of Langius by profeffing Greek, before the year 1490, at Bafil. Soon afterwards he tranflated Homer, Aristophanes, Plato, Xenophon, Efchines, and Lucian, into Latin, and Demofthenes into German. At Heidelberg he founded a library, which he ftored with the choiceft Greek manufcripts. It is worthy to remark, that the first public inftitution in any European univerfity for promoting polite literature, by which I understand these improvements in erudition, appears to have been established at Vienna. In the year 1501, Maximilian the first, who, like Julius Cefar, had compofed a commentary on his own illustrious military achievements, founded in the univerfity of Vienna a COLLEGE of POETRY. This fociety confifted of four profeffors: one for poetry, a fecond for oratory, and two others for mathematics. The profeffor of poetry was fo ftyled, because he prefided over all the reft: and the first perfon appointed to this office was Conradus Celtes, one of the reftorers of the Greek language in Germany, an elegant Latin poet, a critic on the art of Latin verfification, the firft poet laureate of his country, and the. first who introduced the practice of acting Latin tragedies and

"D. Chytræus, SAXONIA. 1. iii. p. 80. Trithem. p. 993. De S. E. Et på LuMINARIE. GERMAN. p. 239.

w See EPISTOL. CLAROR. VIROR. ad Reuchlin. p. m. 4. 17. Maius, in VITA REUCHLINI, &c. [See fupr. p. 376.]

comedies

It

comedies in public, after the manner of Terence'. was the business of this profeffor, to examine candidates in philology; and to reward those who appeared to have made a distinguished proficiency in claffical ftudies with a crown of laurel. Maximilian's chief and general design in this institution, was to reftore the languages and the eloquence of Greece and Rome'.

Among the chief restorers of literature in Spain, about 1490, was Antonio de Lebrixa, one of the profeffors in the university of Alacala, founded by the magnificent cardinal Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo. It was to the patronage of Ximenes that Lebrixa owed his celebrity Profoundly verfed in every species of facred and profane learning, and appointed to the refpectable office of royal hiftorian, he chofe to be diftinguished only by the name of the grammarian"; that is, a teacher of polite letters. In this department, he enriched the feminaries of Spain with new systems of grammar, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and, with a view to reduce his native tongue under some critical laws, he wrote comparative lexicons, in the Latin, Caftilian, and Spanish languages. These, at this time, were

Celtes dedicates his AMORES, or Latin Elegies, to Maximilian, in a latin panegyric prefixed; in which he compliments the emperor," You who have this year "endowed moft liberally the muses, long

wandering, and banished from Germany "by the calumnies of certain unskilful men,

with a college and a perpetual ftipend: i having, moreover, according to a custom "practifed in my time at Rome, delegated "to me and my fucceffors, in your ftead, "the authority of creating and laureating "poets in the faid college, &c." PANEG. PRIM. ad Maximilian. IMP. Signat. a. ii. AMORES, &C. Noringb. 1502. 4to. The fame author, in his DESCRIPTION of the city of Nuremburgh, written in 1501, mentions it as a circumftance of importance and a fingularity, that a perfon fkilled in the

Roman literature had juft begun to give lectures in a public building, to the inge nuous youth of that city, in poetry and oratory, with a falary of one hundred aurei, as was the practice in the cities of Italy. Defcript. URB. NORINGE. cap. xii.

See the imperial patent for erecting this college, in Freherus's GERMAN. RE RUM SCRIPTOR. VAR. &C. tom. ii. fol. Francof. 1602. p. 237. And by J. Henry Van Seelen, Lubec. 4to. 1723. And in his SELECT. LITERAR. p. 488. In this pa tent, the purpofe of the foundation is declared to be," reftituere abolitam prifci "fæculi eloquentiam."