But while MSS. thus increased in the monasteries, there were, at the same time, during this century, many counteracting causes, which rendered them more scarce than they would otherwise have been. During the Norman invasion, the convents were the chief objects of plunder. From the time, too, of the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens, in the seventh century, when the Egyptian papyrus almost ceased to be imported into Europe, till the close of the tenth, when the art of making paper from cotton rags seems to have been introduced, there were no materials for writing except parchment, a substance too expensive to be readily spared for mere purposes of literature(540). The scarcity of paper, too, not only prevented the increase of cla.s.sical MSS., but occasioned the loss of some which were then in existence, from the characters having been deleted, in order to make way for a more favourite production. The monkish scribes were accustomed to peel off the surface of parchment MSS., or to obliterate the ink by a chemical process, for the purpose of fitting them to receive the works of some Christian author; so that, by a singular and fatal metamorphosis, a cla.s.sic was frequently translated into a vapid homily or monastic legend. That many valuable works of antiquity perished in this way, is evinced by the number of MSS. which have been discovered, evidently written on erased parchments. Thus the fragments of Cicero"s Orations, lately found in the Ambrosian library, had been partly obliterated, to make room for the works of Sedulius, and the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon; and Cicero"s treatise _de Republica_ had been effaced, in order to receive a commentary of St Augustine on the Psalms.
The tenth century has generally been accounted the age of deepest darkness in the west of Europe. During its course, Italy was united by Otho I. with the German empire, and was torn by civil dissensions. Muratori gives a detailed account of the plundering of Italian convents, which was the consequence of these commotions, and of the irruption of the Huns in 899(541). Still, however, Italy continued to be the great depository of cla.s.sical MSS.; and in that country they were occasionally sought with the utmost avidity. Gerbert, who became Pope in the last year of the tenth century, by name of Silvester II., spared neither pains nor expense in procuring transcriptions of MSS. This extraordinary man, impelled by a thirst of science, had left his home and country at an early period of life: He had visited various nations of Europe, but it was in Spain, then partly subject to the Arabs, that he had chiefly obtained an opportunity of gratifying his mathematical talent, and desire of general information.
Being no less ready to communicate than eager to acquire learning, he founded a school on his return to Italy, and greatly increased the library at Bobbio, in Lombardy, to the abbacy of which he had been promoted. While Archbishop of Rheims, in France, that kingdom experienced the effects of his enlightened zeal. During his papacy, obtained for him by his pupil Otho III., he persevered in his love of learning. In his generosity to scholars, and his expenditure of wealth for the employment of copyists, as well as for exploring the repositories in which the mouldering relics of ancient learning were yet to be found, we trace a liberality, bordering on profusion.-"Nosti," says he, in one of his epistles to the monk Rainaldo, "quanto studio librorum exemplaria undique conquiram; nosti quot scriptores in urbibus, aut in agris Italiae pa.s.sim habeantur. Age ergo, et te solo conscio, ex tuis sumptibus fac ut mihi scribantur Manilius de Astronomia, et Victorinus. Spondeo tibi, et certum teneo quod, quicquid erogaveris, c.u.mulatim remittam(542)." Having by this means exhausted Italy, Silvester directed his researches to countries beyond the Alps, as we perceive from his letter to Egbert, Abbot of Tours.-"Cui rei preparandae bibliothecam a.s.sidue comparo; et sicut Romae dudum, et in aliis partibus Italiae, in Germania quoque, et Belgica, scriptores auctorumque exemplaria mult.i.tudine nummorum redemi; adjutus benevolentia et studio amicorum comprovincialium: sic identidem apud vos per vos fieri sinite ut exorem.
Quos scribi velimus, in fine epistolae designabimus(543)." This list, however, is not printed in any of the editions of Gerbert"s Letters, which I have had an opportunity of consulting.
It thus appears that there were zealous researches for the cla.s.sics, and successful discoveries of them, long before the age of Poggio, or even of Petrarch; but so little intercourse existed among different countries, and the monks had so little acquaintance with the treasures of their own libraries, that a cla.s.sical author might be considered as lost in Italy, though familiar to a few learned men, and still lurking in many of the convents.
Gerbert, previous to his elevation to the Pontificate, had, as already mentioned, been Abbot of Bobbio; and the catalogue which Muratori has given of the library in that convent, may be taken as an example of the description and extent of the cla.s.sical treasures contained in the best monastic libraries of the tenth century. While the collection, no doubt, chiefly consists of the works of the saints and fathers, we find Persius, Valerius Flaccus, and Juvenal, contained in one volume. There are also enumerated in the list Cicero"s Topica, and his Catilinarian orations, Martial, parts of Ausonius and Pliny, the first book of Lucretius, four books of Claudian, the same number of Lucan, and two of Ovid(544). The monastery of Monte Casino, which was the retreat, as we have seen, of Ca.s.siodorus, was distinguished about the same period for its cla.s.sical library.-"The monks of Casino, in Italy," observes Warton, "were distinguished before the year 1000, not only for their knowledge of the sciences, but their attention to polite learning, and an acquaintance with the cla.s.sics. Their learned Abbot, Desiderius, collected the best of the Roman writers. This fraternity not only composed learned treatises on music, logic, astronomy, and the Vitruvian architecture, but likewise employed a portion of their time in transcribing Tacitus, Jornandes, Ovid"s Fasti, Cicero, Seneca, Donatus the grammarian, Virgil, Theocritus, and Homer."
During the eleventh century, the Benedictines having excited scandal by their opulence and luxury, the Carthusian and Cistertian orders attracted notice and admiration, by a self-denying austerity; but they valued themselves not less than the Benedictines, on the elegance of their cla.s.sical transcriptions; and about the same period, translations from the Cla.s.sics into the _Lingua volgare_, first commenced in Italy.
At the end of the eleventh century, the Crusades began; and during the whole course of the twelfth century, they occupied the public mind, to the exclusion of almost every other object or pursuit. Schools and convents were affected with this religious and military mania: All sedentary occupations were suspended, and a mark of reproach was affixed to every undertaking which did not promote the contagion of the times.
About the middle of the thirteenth century, and after the death of the Emperor Frederic II., Italy was for the first time divided into a number of petty sovereignties, unconnected by any system of general union, except the nominal allegiance still due to the Emperor. This separation, while it excited rivalry in arms, also created some degree of emulation in learning. Many Universities were established for the study of theology and the exercise of scholastic disputation; and though the cla.s.sics were not publicly diffused, they existed within the walls of the convent, and were well known to the learned men of the period. Brunetto Latini, the teacher of Dante, and author of the _Tesoro_, translated into Italian several of Cicero"s orations, some parts of his rhetorical works, and considerable portions of Sall.u.s.t(545). Dante, in his _Amoroso Convito_, familiarly quotes Livy, Virgil, and Cicero _de Officiis_; and Mehus mentions various translations of Seneca, Ovid, and Virgil, which had been executed in the age of Dante, and which he had seen in MSS. in the different libraries of Italy(546).
It was Petrarch, however, who, in the fourteenth century, led the way in drawing forth the cla.s.sics from the dungeons where they had been hitherto immured, and holding up their light and glory to the eyes of men. While enjoying the reputation of having perfected the most melodious and poetical language of Europe, Petrarch has acquired a still higher t.i.tle to fame, by his successful exertions in rousing his country from a slumber of ignorance which threatened to be eternal. In his earliest youth, instead of the dry and dismal works which at that time formed the general reading, he applied himself to the reading of Virgil and Cicero; and when he first commenced his epistolary correspondence, he strongly expressed his wish that their fame should prevail over the authority of Aristotle and his commentators; and declared his belief of the high advantages the world would enjoy if the monkish philosophy should give place to cla.s.sical literature. Petrarch, as is evinced by his letters, was the most a.s.siduous recoverer and restorer of ancient MSS. that had yet existed. He was an enthusiast in this as he was in every thing else that merited enthusiasm-love, friendship, glory, patriotism, and religion. He never pa.s.sed an old convent without searching its library, or knew of a friend travelling into those quarters where he supposed books to be concealed, without entreaties to procure for him some cla.s.sical MS. It is evident that he came just in time to preserve from total ruin many of the mouldering remains of cla.s.sical antiquity, and to excite among his countrymen a desire for the preservation of those treasures when its gratification was on the very eve of being rendered for ever impracticable. He had seen, in his youth, several of Cicero"s now lost treatises, and Varro"s great work _Rerum Divinarum et Humanarum_(547), which has forever disappeared from the world; and it is probable that had not some one, endued with his ardent love of letters, and indefatigable research, arisen, many similar works which we now enjoy, would soon have sunk into a like oblivion.
About the same period, Boccaccio also collected several Latin MSS., and copied such as he could not purchase. He transcribed so many of the Latin poets, orators, and historians, that it would appear surprising had a copyist by profession performed so much. In a journey to Monte Casino, a place generally considered as remarkably rich in MSS., he was both astonished and afflicted to find the library exiled from the monastery into a barn, which was accessible only by a ladder. He opened many of the books, and found much of the writing effaced by damp. His grief was redoubled when the monks told him, that when they wanted money, they erased an ancient writing, wrote psalters and legends on the parchment, and sold the new MSS. to women and children(548).
But though, in the fourteenth century, copies of the cla.s.sics were multiplied and rendered more accessible to the world, and though a few were made by such hands as those of Petrarch and Boccaccio, the transcriptions in general were much less accurate than those of a former period. The Latin tongue, which had received more stability than could otherwise have been expected, from having been consecrated in the service of the church, had now at length become a dead language, and many of the transcribers did not understand what they wrote. Still more mistakes than those produced by ignorance, were occasioned by the presumption of pretenders to learning, who were often tempted to alter the text, in order to accommodate the sense to their own slender capacity and defective taste. Whilst a remedy has been readily found for the gross oversight or neglect of the ignorant and idle, in subst.i.tuting one letter for another, or inserting a word without meaning, errors affecting the sense of the author, which were thus introduced, have been of the worst species, and have chiefly contributed to compose that ma.s.s of various readings, on which the sagacity of modern scholars has been so copiously exercised. In a pa.s.sage of Coluccio Salutati"s treatise _De Fato_, published by the Abbe Mehus, the various modes in which MSS. were depraved by copyists are fully pointed out(549). To such extent had these corruptions proceeded, that Petrarch, talking of the MSS. of his own time, and those immediately preceding it, asks, "Quis scriptorum inscitiae medebitur, inertiaeque corrumpenti omnia ac miscenti? Non quaero jam aut queror Orthographiam, quae jam dudum interiit; qualitercunque utinam scriberent quod jubentur. An si redeat Cicero aut Livius, ante omnes Plinius Secundus, sua scripta religentes intelligent?" So sensible was Coluccio Salutati of the injury which had been done to letters by the ignorance or negligence of transcribers, that he proposed, as a check to the evil, that public libraries should be every where formed, the superintendence of which should be given to men of learning, who might carefully collate the MSS.
intrusted to them, and ascertain the most correct readings(550). To this labour, and to the detection of counterfeit works, of which many, from various motives, now began to be circulated, Coluccio devoted a considerable portion of his own time and studies. His plan for the inst.i.tution of public libraries did not succeed; but he ama.s.sed a private one, which, in that age, was second only to the library of Petrarch. A considerable cla.s.sical library, though consisting chiefly of the later cla.s.sics, particularly Seneca, Macrobius, Apuleius, and Suetonius, was ama.s.sed by Tedaldo de Casa, whose books, with many remarks and emendations in his own hand, were inspected by the Abbe Mehus in the library of Santa-Croce at Florence(551).
The path which had been opened up by Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Coluccio Salutati, in the fourteenth century, was followed out in the ensuing century with wonderful a.s.siduity and success by Poggio Bracciolini, Filelfo, and Ambrosio Traversari, Abbott of Camaldoli, under the guidance and protection of the Medicean Family and Niccolo Niccoli.
Of all the learned men of his time, Poggio seems to have devoted himself with the greatest industry to the search for cla.s.sical MSS. No difficulties in travelling, or indifference in the heads of convents to his literary inquiries, could damp his zeal. His ardour and exertions were fortunately crowned with most complete success. The number of MSS.
discovered by him in different parts of Europe, during the s.p.a.ce of nearly fifty years, will remain a lasting proof of his unceasing perseverance, and of his sagacity in these pursuits. Having spent his youth in travelling through different countries, he at length settled at Rome, where he continued as secretary, in the service of eight successive Pontiffs. In this capacity he, in the year 1414, accompanied Pope John XXIII. to the Council of Constance, which was opened in that year. While residing at Constance, he made several expeditions, most interesting to letters, in intervals of relaxation during the prosecutions of Jean Hus and Jerome of Prague, of which he had the official charge. His chief excursion was to the monastery of St Gal, about twenty miles distance from Constance, where his information led him to expect that he might find some MSS. of the ancient Roman writers(552). The earliest Abbots, and many of the first monks of St Gal, had been originally transferred to that monastery from the literary establishment founded by Charlemagne at Fulda.
Werembert and Helperic, who were sent to St Gal from Fulda in the ninth century, introduced in their new residence a strong taste for letters, and the practice of transcribing the cla.s.sics. In examining the _Histoire Litteraire de la France_, by the Benedictines, we find that no monastery in the middle ages produced so many distinguished scholars as St Gal. In this celebrated convent, which, (as Tenhove expresses it) had been so long the Dormitory of the Muses, Poggio discovered some of the most valuable cla.s.sics,-not, however, in the library of the cloister, but covered with dust and filth, and rotting at the bottom of a dungeon, where, according to his own account, no criminal condemned to death would have been thrown(553). This evinces that whatever care may at one time have been taken of cla.s.sical MSS. by the monks, they had subsequently been shamefully neglected.
The services rendered to literature by Ambrosio of Camaldoli were inferior only to those of Poggio. Ambrosio was born at Forli in 1386, and was a disciple of Emanuel Chrysoloras. At the age of fourteen, he entered into the convent of Camaldoli at Florence, and thirty years afterwards became the Superior of his order. In the kind conciliatory disposition of Ambrosio, manifested by his maintaining an uninterrupted friendship with Niccolo Niccoli, Poggio, and Filelfo, and by moderating the quarrels of these irascible _Literati_-in his zeal for the sacred interests, discipline, and purity of his convent, to which his own moral conduct afforded a spotless example-and, finally, in his enthusiastic love of letters, in which he was second only to Petrarch, we behold the brightest specimen of the monastic character, of which the memory has descended to us from the middle ages. Though chiefly confined within the limits of a cloister, Ambrosio had perhaps the best pretensions of any man of his age, to the character of a polite scholar. The whole of the early part of his life, and the leisure of its close, were employed in collecting ancient MSS. from every quarter where they could be procured, and in maintaining a constant correspondence with the most distinguished men of his age. His letters which have been published in 1759, at Florence, with a long preface and life by the Abbe Mehus, contain the fullest information that can be any where found with regard to the recovery of ancient cla.s.sical MSS. and the state of literature at Florence in the fifteenth century.
It would appear from these Epistles, that though the monks had been certainly instrumental in preserving the precious relics of cla.s.sical antiquity, their avarice and bigotry now rather obstructed the prosecution of the researches undertaken for the purpose of bringing them to light. It was their interest to keep these treasures to themselves, because it was a maxim of their policy to impede the diffusion of knowledge, and because the transcription of MSS. was to them a source of considerable emolument.
Hence they often threw obstacles in the way of the inquiries of the learned, who were obliged to have recourse to various artifices, in order to draw cla.s.sical MSS. from the recesses of the cloister(554).
The exertions of Poggio and Ambrosio, however, were stimulated and aided by the munificent patronage of many opulent individuals of that period, who spared no expense in reimbursing and rewarding those who had made successful researches after these favourite objects of pursuit. "To such an enthusiasm," says Tiraboschi, "was this desire carried, that long journeys were undertaken, treasures were levied, and enmities were excited, for the sake of an ancient MS.; and the discovery of a book was regarded as almost equivalent to the conquest of a kingdom."
The most zealous promoters of these researches, and most eager collectors of MSS. during the fifteenth century, were the Cardinal Ursini, Niccolo Niccoli and the Family of Medici.
Niccolo Niccoli, who was an humble citizen of Florence, devoted his whole time and fortune to the acquisition of ancient MSS. In this pursuit he had been eminently successful, having collected together 800 volumes, of which a great proportion contained Roman authors. Poggio, in his funeral oration of Niccolo, bears ample testimony to his liberality and zeal, and attributes the successful discovery of so many cla.s.sical MSS. to the encouragement which he had afforded. "Quod autem," says he, "egregiam laudem meretur, summam operam, curamque adhibuit ad pervestigandos auctores, qui culpa temporum perierant. Qua in re vere possum dicere, omnes libros fere, qui noviter tum ab aliis reperti sunt, tum a me ipso, qui integrum Quintilianum, Ciceronis nostri orationes, Silium Italic.u.m, Marcellinum, Lucretii partem, multosque praeterea e Germanorum Gallorumque ergastulis, mea diligentia eripui, atque in lucem extuli, Nicholai suasu, impulsu, cohortatione, et paene verborum molestia esse Latinis literis rest.i.tutos(555)." Several of these cla.s.sical works Niccolo copied with his own hand, and with great accuracy, after he had received them(556). The MSS. in his hand-writing were long known and distinguished by the beauty and distinctness of the characters. Nor did he content himself with mere transcription: He diligently employed himself in correcting the errors of the MSS. which were transmitted to him, and arranging the text in its proper order. "Quum eos auctores," says Mehus, "ex vetustissimis codicibus exscriberet, qui suo potissimum consilio, aliorum vero opera inventi sunt, non solum mendis, quibus obsiti erant, expurgavit, sed etiam distinxit, capitibusque locupletavit(557)." Such was the judgment of Niccolo, in this species of emendation, that Politian always placed the utmost reliance on his MS. copies(558); and, indeed, from a complimentary poem addressed to him in his own time, it would seem that he had carefully collated different MSS. of the same work, before he transcribed his own copy-
"Ille hos errores, una exemplaribus actis Pluribus ante oculos, ne postera oberret et aetas, Corrigit."
Previous to the time of Niccolo, the only libraries of any extent or value in Italy, were those of Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati, and Boccaccio. The books which had belonged to Petrarch and Coluccio, were sold or dispersed after the decease of their ill.u.s.trious possessors. Boccaccio"s library had been bequeathed by him to a religious order, the Hermits of St Augustine; and this library was repaired and arranged by Niccolo, for the use of the convent, and a proper hall built for its reception(559). Niccolo was likewise the first person in modern times who conceived the idea of forming a public library. Previous to his death, which happened in 1437, he directed that his books should be devoted to the use of the public; and for this purpose he appointed sixteen curators, among whom was Cosmo de Medici. After his demise, it appeared that he was greatly in debt, and that his liberal intentions were likely to be frustrated by the insolvency of his circ.u.mstances. Cosmo therefore offered to his a.s.sociates, that if they would resign to him the exclusive right of the disposal of the books, he would himself discharge all the debts of Niccolo, to which proposal they readily acceded. Having thus obtained the sole direction of the MSS., he deposited them for public use in the Dominican Monastery of St Marco, at Florence, which he had himself erected at an enormous expense(560).
This library, for some time celebrated under the name of the _Bibliotheca Marciana_, or library of St Marc, was arranged and catalogued by Tommaso da Sarzana Calandrino, at that time a poor but zealous scholar in the lower orders of the clergy, and afterwards Pope, by the name of Nicholas V. The building which contained the books of Niccolo having been destroyed by an earthquake in 1454, Cosmo rebuilt it on such a plan, as to admit a more extensive collection. After this it was enriched by private donations from citizens of Florence, who, catching the spirit of the reigning family, vied with each other in the extent and value of their gifts(561).
When Cosmo, having finally triumphed over his enemies, was recalled from banishment, and became the first citizen of Florence, "which he governed without arms or a t.i.tle," he employed his immense wealth in the encouragement of learned men, and in collecting, under his own roof, the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman writers. His riches, and extensive mercantile intercourse with different parts of Europe and Asia, enabled him to gratify a pa.s.sion of this kind beyond any other individual. He gave injunctions to all his friends and correspondents, to search for and procure ancient MSS., in every language, and on every subject. From these beginnings arose the celebrated library of the Medici, which, in the time of Cosmo, was particularly distinguished for MSS. of Latin cla.s.sics-possessing, in particular, full and accurate copies of Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Ovid, and Tibullus(562). This collection, after the death of its founder, was farther enriched by the attention of his descendants, particularly his grandson, Lorenzo, under whom it acquired the name of the Medicean-Laurentian Library. "If there was any pursuit," says the biographer of Lorenzo, "in which he engaged more ardently, and persevered more diligently, than the rest, it was in that of enlarging his collections of books and antiquities. His emissaries were dispersed through every part of the globe, for the purpose of collecting books, and he spared no expense in procuring, for the learned, the materials necessary for the prosecution of their studies(563)." In the execution of his n.o.ble design, he was a.s.sisted by Ermolao Barbaro, and Paulo Cortesi; but his princ.i.p.al coadjutor was Politian, to whom he committed the care and arrangement of his collection, and who made excursions, at intervals, through Italy, to discover and purchase such remains of antiquity as suited the purposes of his patron. An ample treasure of books was expected, during his last illness, under the care of Lascaris. When the vital spark was nearly extinguished, he called Politian to his side, and grasping his hand, told him he could have wished to have lived to see the library completed(564).
After the death of Lorenzo, some of the volumes were dispersed, when Charles VIII. of France invaded Italy; and, on the expulsion of the Medici family from Florence, in 1496, the remaining volumes of the Laurentian collection were united with the books in the library of St Mark.
It being the great object of Lorenzo to diffuse the spirit of literature as extensively as possible, he permitted the Duke of Urbino, who particularly distinguished himself as a patron of learning, to copy such of his MSS. as he wished to possess. The families, too, of Visconti at Milan, of Este at Ferrara, and Gonzaga at Mantua, excited by the glorious example set before them, emulated the Medici in their patronage of cla.s.sical literature, and formation of learned establishments. "The division of Italy," says Mr Mills, "into many independent princ.i.p.alities, was a circ.u.mstance highly favourable to the nourishing and expanding learning. Every city had a Maecenas sovereign. The princes of Italy rivalled each other in literary patronage as much as in political power, and changes of dominion did not affect letters(565)." Eight Popes, in succession, employed Poggio as their secretary, which greatly aided the promotion of literature, and the collecting of MSS. at Rome. The last Pontiff he served was Nicholas V., who, before his elevation, as we have seen, had arranged the library of St Mark at Florence. From his youth he had shown the most wonderful avidity for copies of ancient MSS., and an extraordinary turn for elegant and accurate transcription, with his own hand. By the diligence and learning which he exhibited in the schools of Bologna, he secured the patronage of many literary characters. Attached to the family of Cardinal Albergati, he accompanied him in several emba.s.sies, and seldom returned without bringing back with him copies of such ancient works as had been previously unknown in Italy. The t.i.tles of some of these are mentioned by his biographer, who adds, that there was no Latin author, with whose writings he was unacquainted. This enabled him to be useful in the arrangement of many libraries formed at this period(566). His promotion to the Pontifical chair, in 1447, was, in the circ.u.mstances of the times, peculiarly auspicious to the cause of letters. With the a.s.sistance of Poggio, he founded the library of the Vatican. The scanty collection of his predecessors had been nearly dissipated or destroyed, by frequent removals from Rome to Avignon: But Nicholas more than repaired these losses; and before his death, had collected upwards of 5000 volumes of Greek and Roman authors-and the Vatican being afterwards increased by Sixtus IV. and Leo X. became, both in extent and value, the first library in the world.
It is with Poggio, that the studies peculiar to the commentator may be considered as having commenced, at least so far as regards the Latin cla.s.sics. Poggio lived from 1380 to 1459. He was succeeded towards the close of the fifteenth century, and during the whole course of the sixteenth, by a long series of Italian commentators, among whom the highest rank may be justly a.s.signed to Politian.-(Born, 1454died, 1494.) To him the world has been chiefly indebted for corrections and elucidations of the texts of Roman authors, which, from a variety of causes, were, when first discovered, either corrupt, or nearly illegible.
In the exercise of his critical talents, Politian did not confine himself to any one precise method, but adopted such as he conceived best suited his purpose-on some occasions only comparing different copies, diligently marking the variations, rejecting spurious readings, and subst.i.tuting the true. In other cases he proceeded farther, adding _scholia_ and notes, ill.u.s.trative of the text, either from his own conjecture, or the authority of preceding writers. To the name of Politian, I may add those of his bitter rival and contemporary, Georgius Merula, (born, 1420died, 1494); Aldus Manutius, (14471516); his son Paullus; Landini, author of the _Disputationes Camaldulenses_, (14241504); Philippus Beroaldus, (14531505); Petrus Victorius, (14981585); Robortellus, (15161567). Most of these commentators were entirely verbal critics; but this was by far the most useful species of criticism which could be employed at the period in which they lived. We have already seen, that in the time of Petrarch, cla.s.sical ma.n.u.scripts had been very inaccurately transcribed; and, therefore, the first great duty of a commentator, was to amend and purify the text. Criticisms on the general merits of the author, or the beauties of particular pa.s.sages, and even expositions of the full import of his meaning, deduced from antiquities, mythology, history, or geography, were very secondary considerations. Nor, indeed, was knowledge far enough advanced at the time, to supply such ill.u.s.trations. Grammar, and verbal criticism, formed the porch by which it was necessary to enter that temple of sublimity and beauty which had been reared by the ancients; and without this access, philosophy would never have enlightened letters, or letters ornamented philosophy. "I cannot, indeed, but think," says Mr Payne Knight, in his a.n.a.lytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, "that the judgment of the public, on the respective merits of the different cla.s.ses of critics, is peculiarly partial and unjust. Those among them who a.s.sume the office of pointing out the beauties, and detecting the faults, of literary composition, are placed with the orator and historian, in the highest ranks, whilst those who undertake the more laborious task of washing away the rust and canker of time, and bringing back those forms and colours, which are the objects of criticism, to their original purity and brightness, are degraded with the index-maker and antiquary among the pioneers of literature, whose business it is to clear the way for those who are capable of more splendid and honourable enterprizes. Nevertheless, if we examine the effects produced by those two cla.s.ses of critics, we shall find that the first have been of no use whatever, and that the last have rendered the most important services to mankind. All persons of taste and understanding know, from their own feelings, when to approve and disapprove, and therefore stand in no need of instructions from the critic. But whatever may be the taste or discernment of a reader, or the genius and ability of a writer, neither the one nor the other can appear while the text remains deformed by the corruptions of blundering transcribers, and obscured by the glosses of ignorant grammarians. It is then that the aid of the verbal critic is required; and though his minute labour in dissecting syllables and a.n.a.lysing letters may appear contemptible in its operation, it will be found important in its effect."
It is to those early critics, then, who washed away the rust and canker of time, and brought back those forms and colours which are the subject of criticism, that cla.s.sical literature has been chiefly indebted. The newly discovered art of printing, which was itself the offspring of the general ardour for literary improvement, and of the daily experience of difficulties encountered in prosecuting cla.s.sical studies, contributed, in an eminent degree, to encourage this species of useful criticism. At the instigation of Lorenzo, and other patrons of learning in Italy, many scholars in that country were induced to bestow their attention on the collation and correction of the MSS. of ancient authors, in order that they might be submitted to the press with the greatest possible accuracy, and in their original purity. Nor was it a slight inducement to the industrious scholar, that his commentaries were no longer to be hid in the recesses of a few vast libraries, but were to be now placed in the view of mankind, and enshrined, as it were, for ever in the immortal page of the poet or historian whose works he had preserved or elucidated.
With Fulvius Ursinus, who died in the year 1600, the first school of Italian commentators may be considered as terminating. In the following century, cla.s.sical industry was chiefly directed to translation; and in the eighteenth century, the list of eminent commentators was increased only by the name of Vulpius, who introduced a new style in cla.s.sical criticism, by an amusing collection of verses, both in ancient and modern poets, which were parallel to pa.s.sages in his author, not merely in some words, but in the poetical idea.
The career which had so gloriously commenced in Italy in the end of the fifteenth century, was soon followed in France and Germany. Julius Scaliger, a native of Verona, had been naturalized in France, and he settled there in the commencement of the sixteenth century. In that country cla.s.sical studies were introduced, under the patronage of Francis I., and were prosecuted in his own and the six following reigns, by a long succession of ill.u.s.trious scholars, among whom Turnebus (15121565), Lambrinus (15261572), the family of the Stephenses, who rivalled the Manutii of Italy, Muretus (15261585), Casaubon (15591614), Joseph Scaliger (15401609), and Salmasius (15881653), distinguished themselves by the ill.u.s.tration of the Latin cla.s.sics, and the more difficult elucidation of those studies which a.s.sist and promote a full intelligence of their meaning and beauties. Our geographical and historical knowledge of the ancient world, was advanced by Charles Stephens-its chronology was ascertained by Scaliger, and the whole circle of antiquities was extended by Salmasius. After the middle of the seventeenth century, a new taste in the ill.u.s.tration of cla.s.sical literature sprung up in France-a lighter manner and more philosophic spirit being then introduced. The celebrated controversy on the comparative merit of the ancients and moderns, aided a more popular elucidation of the cla.s.sics; and as the preceptors of the royal family were on the side of the ancients, they promoted the famed Delphin edition, which commenced under the auspices of the Duke De Montausier, and was carried on by a body of learned Jesuits, under the superintendence of Bossuet and Huetius. Elegance and taste were required for the instruction of a young French Prince; and accordingly, instead of profound philological learning, or the a.s.siduous collation of MSS., light notes were appended, explanatory of the mythological and historical allusions contained in the works of the author, as also remarks on his most prominent defects and excellencies.
Joseph Scaliger and Salmasius, who were French Protestants, found shelter for their heretical principles, and liberal reward for their learning, in the University of Leyden; and with Douza (15451604), and Justus Lipsius (15471606), became the fathers and founders of cla.s.sical knowledge in the Netherlands. As the inhabitants of that territory spoke and wrote a language which was but ill adapted for the expression of original thought, their whole force of mind was directed to throwing their humorous and grand conceptions on canva.s.s, or to the elucidation of the writings of those who had been gifted with a more propitious tongue. These studies and researches were continued by Heinsius (15821655), Gerard and Isaac Vossius (15771689), and Gronovius (16111671). At this period Schrevelius (16151664) commenced the publication of the Cla.s.sics, _c.u.m Notis __Variorum_; and in the end of the seventeenth century, his example was followed by some of the most distinguished editors. The merit of these editions was very different, and has been variously estimated. Morhoff, while he does justice to the editorial works of Gronovius and other learned men, in which parts of the commentaries of predecessors, judiciously extracted, were given at full length, has indulged himself in an invective against other _variorum_ editions, in which everything was mutilated and incorrect. "Sane ne comparandae quidem illi" (the editions of Aldus) "sunt ineptae Variorum editiones; quam nuper pestem bonis auctoribus Bibliopolae Batavi inducere cperunt, reclamantibus frustra viris doctis(567)." In the course of the eighteenth century, the Burmans (16681778), Oudendorp (16961761), and Havercamp (16841742), continued to support the honour of a school, which as yet had no parallel in certainty, copiousness, and depth of ill.u.s.tration.
In Germany, the school which had been established by Charlemagne at Fulda, and that at Paderborn, long flourished under the superintendence of Meinwerk. The author of the Life of that scholar, speaking of these establishments, says, "Ibi viguit Horatius, magnus atque Virgilius, Crispus et Sall.u.s.tius, et Urba.n.u.s Statius." During the ninth century, Rabin Maur, a scholar of Alcuin, and head of the cathedral school at Fulda, became a celebrated teacher; and profane literature was not neglected by him amid the importance of his sacred lessons. Cla.s.sical learning, however, was first thoroughly awakened in Germany, by the scholars of Thomas A"Kempis, in the end of the fifteenth century. A number of German youths, who were a.s.sociated in a species of literary fraternity, travelled into Italy, at the time when the search for cla.s.sical MSS. in that country was most eagerly prosecuted. Rudolph Agricola, afterwards Professor of Philosophy at Worms, was one of the most distinguished of these scholars. Living immediately after the invention of printing, and at a time when that art had not yet entirely superseded the transcription of MSS., he possessed an extensive collection of these, as well as of the works which had just issued resplendent from the press. Both were ill.u.s.trated by him with various readings on the margin; and we perceive from the letters of Erasmus the value which even he attached to these notes, and the use which he made of the variations. Rudolph was succeeded by Herman von Busche, who lectured on the cla.s.sics at Leipsic. He had in his possession a number of the Latin cla.s.sics; but it is evident from his letters that some, as for instance Silius Italicus, were still inaccessible to him, or could only be procured with great difficulty. The German scholars did not bring so many MSS. to light, or multiply copies of them, so much as the Italians, because, in fact, their country was less richly stored than Italy with the treasures bequeathed to us by antiquity; but they exercised equal critical acuteness in amending the errors of the MSS. which they possessed. The sixteenth century was the age which produced in Germany the most valuable and numerous commentaries on the Latin cla.s.sics. That country, in common with the Netherlands, was enlightened, during this period, by the erudition of Erasmus (14671536).
In the same and succeeding age, Camerarius (15001574), Taubmann (15651613), Acidalius (15671595), and Gruterus (15601627), enriched the world with some of the best editions of the cla.s.sics which had hitherto appeared. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, cla.s.sical literature had for some time rather declined in Germany-polemical theology and religious wars having at this period exhausted and engrossed the attention of her universities. But it was revived again about the middle of the eighteenth by J. Math. Gesner (16911761), and Ernesti (17071781), who created an epoch in Germany for the study of the ancient authors.
These two scholars surpa.s.sed all their predecessors in taste, in a philosophical spirit, and in a wide acquaintance with the subsidiary branches of erudition: They made an advantageous use of their critical knowledge of the languages; they looked at once to the words and to the subject of the ancient writers, established and applied the rules of a legitimate interpretation, and carefully a.n.a.lysed the meaning as well as the form of the expression. Their task was extended from words to things; and what has been called aesthetic annotations, were combined with philological discussion. "Non volui," says Gesner, in the Preface to his edition of Claudian, "commentarios scribere, collectos undique, aut locos communes: Non volui dictionem poetae, congestis aliorum poetarum formulis ill.u.s.trare; sed c.u.m illud volui efficere poeta ut intelligatur, tum judicio meo juvare volui juniorum judicium, quid pulchrum, atque decens, et summorum poetarum simile putarem ostendendo, et contra, ea, ubi erra.s.se illum a natura, a magnis exemplis, a decoro arbitrarer, c.u.m fide indicando." J. Ernesti considers Gesner as unquestionably the first who introduced what he terms the aesthetic mode of criticism(568). But the honour of being the founder of this new school, has perhaps, with more justice, been a.s.signed by others to Heyne(569) (17291811). "From the middle of last century," it is remarked, in a late biographical sketch of Heyne, "several intelligent philologers of Germany displayed a more refined and philosophic method in their treatment of the different branches of cla.s.sical learning, who, without neglecting either the grammatical investigation of the language, or the critical const.i.tution of the text, no longer regarded a Greek or Roman writer as a subject for the mere grammarian and critic; but, considering the study of the ancients as a school for thought, for feeling, and for taste, initiated us into the great mystery of reading every thing in the same spirit in which it had originally been written. They demonstrated, both by doctrine and example, in what manner it was necessary for us to enter into the thoughts of the writer, to pitch ourselves in unison with his peculiar tone of conception and expression, and to investigate the circ.u.mstances by which his mind was affected-the motives by which he was animated-and the influences which co-operated in giving the intensity and character of his feelings. At the head of this school stands Heyne; and it must be admitted, that nothing has contributed so decisively to maintain or promote the study of cla.s.sical literature, as the combination which he has effected of philosophy with erudition, both in his commentaries on ancient authors, and those works in which he has ill.u.s.trated various points of antiquity, or discussed the habit of thinking and spirit of the ancient world." From the time of Heyne, almost the whole grand inheritance of Roman literature has been cultivated by commentators, who have raised the Germans to undisputed pre-eminence among the nations of Europe, for profound cla.s.sical learning, and all the delightful researches connected with literary history. I have only s.p.a.ce to mention the names of Zeunius (17361788), Jani (17431790), Wernsdorff (17231793); and among those who still survive, Harles (born 1738), Schutz (1747), Schneider (1751), Wolf (1757), Beck, (1757), Doering (1759), Mitscherlich (1760), Wetzel (1762), Goerenz (1765), Eichstadt (1771), Hermann (1772).
While cla.s.sical literature and topography were so highly cultivated abroad, England, at the revival of literature, remained greatly behind her continental neighbours in the elucidation and publication of the precious remains of ancient learning. It appears from Ames" Typographical Antiquities, that the press of our celebrated ancient printers, as Caxton, Wynkin de Worde, and Pynson, was rarely employed in giving accuracy or embellishment to the works of the cla.s.sics; and, indeed, so late as the middle of the sixteenth century, only Terence and Cicero"s _Offices_ had been published in this country, in their original tongue. Matters had by no means improved in the seventeenth century. Evelyn, who had paid great attention to the subject, gives the following account of the state of cla.s.sical typography and editorship in England, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, dated November 1666: "Our booksellers," says he, "follow their own judgment in printing the ancient authors, according to such text as they found extant when first they entered their copy; whereas, out of the MSS. collated by the industry of later critics, those authors are exceedingly improved. For instance, about thirty years since, Justin was corrected by Isaac Vossius, in many hundreds of places, most material to sense and elegancy, and has since been frequently reprinted in Holland, after the purer copy; but with us still according to the old reading. The like has Florus, Seneca"s Tragedies, and near all the rest, which have, in the meantime, been castigated abroad by several learned hands, which, besides that it makes ours to be rejected, and dishonours our nation, so does it no little detriment to learning, and to the treasure of the nation in proportion. The cause of this is princ.i.p.ally the stationer driving as hard and cruel a bargain with the printer as he can, and the printer taking up any smatterer in the tongues, to be the less loser; an exactness in this no ways importing the stipulation, by which means errors repeat and multiply in every edition(570)." Since the period in which this letter is dated, Bentley, who bears the greatest name in England as a critic, however acute and ingenious, did more by his slashing alterations to injure than amend the text, at least of the Latin authors on whom he commented. He subst.i.tuted what he thought best for what he actually found; and such was his deficiency in taste, that what he thought best (as is evinced by his changes on the text of Lucretius), was frequently destructive of the poetical idea, and almost of the sense of his author.
I have thought it right, before entering into detail concerning the _Codices_ and editions of the works of the early cla.s.sics mentioned in the text, briefly to remind the reader of the general circ.u.mstances connected with the loss and recovery of the cla.s.sical MSS. of Rome, and to recall to his recollection the names of a few of the most celebrated commentators in Italy, France, Holland, and Germany. This will render the following Appendix, in which there must be constant reference to the discovery of MSS. and the labours of commentators, somewhat more distinct and perspicuous than I could otherwise make it.
LIVIUS ANDRONICUS, NaeVIUS.
The fragments of these old writers are so inconsiderable, that no one has thought of editing them separately. They are therefore to be found only in the general collections of the whole Latin poets; as Maittaires _Opera et Fragmenta Veterum Poetarum Latinorum_, London, 1713. 2 Tom. fo., (to some copies of which a new t.i.tle-page has been printed, bearing the date, Hag.
Comit. 1721;) or in the collections of the Latin tragic poets, as Delrio"s _Syntagma Tragdiae Latinae_, Paris, 1620, and Scriverius" _Collectanea Veterum Tragicorum_, Lugd. Bat. 1620. It is otherwise with
ENNIUS,
of whose writings, as we have seen, more copious fragments remain than from those of his predecessors. The whole works of this poet were extant in the time of Ca.s.siodorus; but no copy of them has since appeared. The fragments, however, found in Cicero, Macrobius, and the old grammarians, are so considerable, that they have been frequently collected together, and largely commented on. They were first printed in Stephen"s _Fragmenta Veterum Poetarum Latinorum_, but without any proper connection or criticism. Ludovicus Vives had intended to collect and arrange them, as we are informed in one of his notes to St Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_: But this task he did not live to accomplish(571). The first person who arranged these scattered fragments, united them together, and cla.s.sed them under the books to which they belonged, was Hier. Columna. He adopted the orthography which, from a study of the ancient Roman monuments and inscriptions, he found to be that of the Latin language in the age of Ennius. He likewise added a commentary, and prefixed a life of the poet.
The edition which he had thus fully prepared, was first published at Naples in 1590, four years after his death, by his son Joannes Columna(572). This _Editio Princeps_ of Ennius is very rare, but it was reprinted under the care of Fr. Hesselius at Amsterdam in 1707. To the original commentary of Columna there are added the annotations on Ennius which had been inserted in Delrio and Scriverius" collection of the Latin tragic poets; and Hesselius himself supplied a very complete _Index Verborum_. The ancient authors, who quote lines from Ennius, sometimes mention the book of the _Annals_, or the name of the tragedy to which they belonged, but sometimes this information is omitted. The arrangement, therefore, of the verses of the latter description (which are marked with an asterisk in Columna"s edition), and indeed the precise collocation of the whole, is in a great measure conjectural. Accordingly, we find that the order of the lines in the edition of Paulus Merula is very different from that adopted by Columna. The materials for Merula"s edition, which comprehends only the _Annals_ of Ennius, had already been collected and prepared at the time when Columna"s was first given to the world. Merula, however, conceived that while the great object of Columna had been to compare and contrast the lines of Ennius with those of other heroic poets, he himself had been more happy in the arrangement of the verses, and the restoration of the ancient orthography, which is much more antiquated in the edition of Merula than in that of Columna. He had also discovered some fragments of the _Annals_, unknown to Columna, in the MS. of a work of L.
Calp. Piso, a writer of the age of Trajan, ent.i.tled _De Continentia Veterum Poetarum_, and preserved in the library of St Victor at Paris. In these circ.u.mstances, Merula was not deterred by the appearance of the edition of Columna, from proceeding with his own, which at length came forth at Leyden in the year 1595. The same sort of discrepance which exists between Columna and Merula"s arrangement of the Annals, appears in the collocation of the _Tragic Fragments_ adopted by Columna, and that which has been preferred by Delrio, in his _Syntagma Tragdiae Latinae_.
H. Planck published at Gottingen, in 1807, the fragments of Ennius"s tragedy of _Medea_. These comprehend all the verses belonging to this drama, collected by Columna, and some newly extracted by the editor from old grammarians. The whole are compared with the parallel pa.s.sages in the _Medea_ of Euripides. Two dissertations are prefixed; one on the Origin and Nature of Tragedy among the Romans; and the other, on the question, whether Ennius wrote two tragedies, or only a single tragedy, ent.i.tled _Medea_. A commentary is also supplied, in which, as Fuhrmann remarks, one finds many things, but not much:-"Man findet in demselben _multa_, aber nicht _multum_(573)."
Some fine pa.s.sages of the fragments of Ennius have been filled up, and the old readings corrected, by the recent discovery of the work _De Republica_ of Cicero, who is always quoting from the ancient poets. Thus the pa.s.sage in the Annals, where the Roman people are described as lamenting the death of Romulus, stands thus in Columna"s edition:-
-- "O Romole, Romole, _dic o_ Qualem te patriae custodem dii genuerunt, Tu produxisti nos intra luminis oras, O pater, o genitor, o sanguen diis oriundum."
This fragment may be now supplied, and the verses arranged and corrected, from the quotation in the first book _De Republica_-
"Pectora pia tenet desiderium; simul inter Sese sic memorant-O Romule, Romule _die_, Qualem te patriae custodem di genuerunt, O pater, o genitor, o sanguen dis oriundum!
Tu produxisti nos intra luminis oras."
The fragments of the Annals of Ennius, as the text is arranged by Merula, have been translated into Italian by Bernardo Philippini, and published at Rome in 1659, along with his _Poesie_. I know of no other translations of these fragments.