Nicholas, the Emperor, and the present gov- Science and the arts, recent discoveries in,

REFERRED TO IN THIS VOLUME.

Gersdorf's Repertorium, 196, 400, 602.
Inventor's Advocate, 188, 396.
La Revue des deux Mondes, 146, 201.
Le Semeur, 200, 404, 602, 605.
Literary Gazette, 190, 191, 582.
Metropolitan, 194.

Monthly Review, 87, 397, 545, 597, 601.
Nordish Tidsskrift, 131.

Polytechnic Journal, 113, 399, 505.
Quarterly Review, 334, 356, 409.
Revue Critique, 196, 400, 604, 605.
Revue Français, 240.
Svea Rikets Hafder, 326.

199, Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, 192.
The Times (London,) 187, 395.
Westminster Review, 183, 196, 291, 371.
Year-Book of Facts, 188, 190, 391.

NEW-YORK.

THE

AMERICAN ECLECTIC.

JULY, 1841.

VOL. II., NO. IV.

ARTICLE I.

REVIEW OF HALLAM'S INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

IN presenting the following review of "Hallam's Literature of Europe," it affords us pleasure to announce the publication of an American Edition of the same work:

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries: by Henry Hallum, F. R. A. S., Corresponding Member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in the French Institute. In Two Volumes. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1841. pp. 416,

462.

The very high reputation of the works of Henry Hallam, on both sides of the Atlantic, renders it unnecessary for us to express our own estimation of their worth, or of the gratitude which is due to the learned and laborious author from the literary world. His "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages" has been published in six or eight editions in England and two in this country. His "Constitutional History of England," in some respects a continuation of his "Middle Ages," has appeared in three English and one or two American editions.

The first volume of his "Literature of Europe" was published in London, in 1837, and the three succeeding volumes, in 1839. The American Edition above announced embraces the whole work in two volumes royal octavo, substantially bound and in good taste, with a full index, which, in a work of this description, is invaluable.

As the review, which we are about to select from the "British and Foreign," begins its analysis with the second volume of the English edition, we think it proper to precede it with our own notice of the first volume of the same edition, which appeared in the American Biblical Repository for January, 1838. Our readers will thus be in possession of the best analysis, which we are able to furnish, of the whole VOL. II.-No. I.

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work as it now appears entire in the Harpers' edition. And few works, in any language, we may confidently add, are so worthy of careful review and commendation.

"In these volumes," the author remarks, "some departments of literature are passed over, or partially touched. Among the former are books relating to particular arts, as agriculture or painting, or subjects of merely local interest, as those of English laws; among the latter is the great and extensive portion of every library, the historical. Unless where history has been written with peculiar beauty of language, or philosophical spirit, I have generally omitted all mention of it." The principal authorities that the author mentions are the Bibliotheca Universalis, and the Pandectae Universales of Conrad Gesner; the Bibliotheca Selecta of Possevin; Fabricius's edition of the Polyhistor of Morhof; the Origine Progresso e Stato attuale d'ogni Litteratura of Andrés, a Spanish Jesuit, characterized as an extraordinary performance; the History of Literature, a plan undertaken in Germany (but a small part of which has been completed), under the general direction of Eichhorn,-in which Bouterwek had the department of poetry and polite letters, Sprengel of anatomy and medicine, Kästner of the mathematical sciences, Buhle of speculative philosophy, and Heeren of classical philology; Eichhorn's History of Literature in six volumes; the works of Tiraboschi, Corniani and Ginguéné, on Italian literature; Warton's History of English Poetry; the philosophical works of Brucker and Tennemann; the French works of Montucla, Portal, Bayle, Niceron and the Biographie Universelle; Chalmers's English Biographical Dictionary, etc.

The first chapter of the work is on the general state of literature in the Middle Ages to the end of the 14th century. The last of the ancients, and one who forms a link between the classical period of literature and that of the Middle Ages, in which he was a favorite author, was Boethius, a man of fine genius, whose Consolation of Philosophy was written in prison, shortly before his death. Thenceforward the downfall of learning and eloquence was inconceivably rapid. A state of general ignorance lasted about five centuries. A slender but living stream, however, kept flowing on in the worst times. Guizot and Hallam agree in the opinion that the seventh century is the nadir of the human mind in Europe. Its movement in advance began in the eighth century, with Charlemagne. England soon furnished names of considerable importance in Theodore, Bede and Alcuin. Cathedral and conventual schools were created or restored by Charlemagne, which produced happy fruits under his successors. It is the most striking circumstance in the literary annals of the Middle Ages, that they are more deficient in native genius than in acquired ability. There was a tameness, a mediocrity, a servile habit of copying from others. Only two extraordinary men stand out from the crowd in literature and philosophy-Scotus Erigena and Gerbert. At the beginning of the 12th century, we enter on a new division in the literary history of Europe. The most important circumstances which tended to arouse Europe from her lethargy were the institution of universities, and

the methods pursued in them; the cultivation of the modern languages, followed by the multiplication of books, and the extension of the art of writing; the investigation of the Roman law; and the return to the study of the Latin language in its purity. Collegiate foundations in universities seem to have been derived from the Saracens. At the year 1400, we find a national literature subsisting in seven European languages, three spoken in the Spanish peninsula, the French, the Italian, the German and the English. The 14th century was not in the slightest degree superior to the preceding age in respect to classical studies. The first real restorer of polite letters was Petrarch.

Mr. Hallam, in his second chapter, treats of the literature of Europe from 1400 to 1440. The latter of these periods is nearly coincident with the complete development of an ardent thirst for classical-especially Grecian literature in Italy, as the year 1400 was with its first manifestation. There are vestiges much earlier than 1400 of the study of Greek literature. But its decided revival cannot be placed before 1395, when Chrysoloras established himself at Florence as public teacher of Greek. He had some eminent disciples. The principal Italian cities became more wealthy after 1350. Books were cheaper than in other parts of Europe. In Milan, about 1300, there were fifty persons who lived by copying them. At Bologna also, it was a regular occupation at fixed prices. Albertus Magnus, whose collected works were published at Lyons, in 1651, in twenty-one folio volumes, may pass for the most fertile writer in the world. Upon the three columns, chivalry, gallantry and religion, says Hallam, repose the fictions of the middle ages. In the first part of the 15th century, we find three distinct currents of religious opinion, the high pretensions of the Roman church to a sort of moral, as well as theological infallibility, and to a paramount authority even in temporal affairs; second, the councils of Constance and Basle and the contentions of the Gallican and German churches against the encroachments of the holy see had raised up a strong adverse party; third, the avowed heretics, such as the disciples of Wiclif and Huss. Thomas à Kempis's De Imitatione Christi is said to have gone through 1800 editions, and to have been read, probably, more than any work after the Scriptures.

The third chapter embraces the literature of Europe from 1440 to 1500. About 1450, Laurentius Valla gives us the earliest specimens of explanations of the New Testament founded on the original languages of Scripture. The capture of Constantinople, in 1453, drove a few learned Greeks to hospitable Italy. About the end of the 14th century, impressions were taken from engraved blocks of wood, sometimes for playing cards, which came into use not long before that time; sometimes for rude cuts of saints. Gradually entire pages were impressed in this manner, and thus began what are called block-books, printed in fixed characters, but never exceeding a very few leaves. The earliest book printed from the movable types of Gutenberg is generally believed to be the Latin Bible, commonly called the Mazarin Bible. This appears to have been executed in 1455. An almanac for 1457 has been detected. From

1470 to 1480, 1297 books were printed in Italy, of which 234 are editions of ancient classics. The first Hebrew book, Jarchi's Commentary on the Pentateuch, was printed in Italy in 1475. The whole Hebrew Bible was printed in Soncino in 1488. Several distinguished men now arose, such as Politian, Picus of Mirandola, Reuchlin and Lionardo da Vinci. Erasmus and Budaeus were now devoting incessant labor to the acquisition of the Greek language. Erasmus's Adages, printed at Basle in 1500, was doubtless the chief prose work of the century beyond the limits of Italy. It is certain that much more than ten thousand editions of books or pamphlets were printed from 1470 to 1500. More than half of the number appeared in Italy. The price of books was diminished by four-fifths after the invention of printing.

The fourth chapter treats of the literature of Europe from 1500 to 1520. Leo X. became pope in 1513. He began by placing men of letters in the most honorable stations of his court. There were two, Bembo and Sadolet, who had by common consent reached a consummate elegance of style. The personal taste of Leo was almost entirely directed towards poetry and the beauties of style. We owe to him the publication of the first five books of the Annals of Tacitus. In 1514, above 100 professors received salaries in the Roman university or gymnasium. Erasmus diffuses a lustre over his age, which no other name among the learned supplies. His Greek Testament was published in 1516. More's Utopia was the only work of genius furnished by England in this age.

In treating of the Reformation, Mr. Hallam, as it seems to us, does great injustice to Luther: "The doctrines of Luther," he remarks, "taken altogether, are not more rational, that is, more conformable to what men, a priori, would expect to find in religion, than those of the church of Rome; nor did he ever pretend that they were so. As to the privilege of free inquiry, it was of course exercised by those who deserted their ancient altars, but certainly not upon any latitudinarian theory of a right to judge amiss. Nor again, is there any foundation for imagining that Luther was concerned for the interests of literature. None had he himself, save theological; nor are there, as I apprehend, many allusions to profane studies, or any proof of his regard to them, in all his works. On the contrary, it is probable that both the principles of this great founder of the Reformation, and the natural tendency of so intense an application to theological controversy, checked for a time the progress of philological and philosophical literature on this side the Alps." Again: "In the history of the Reformation, Luther is incomparably the greatest name. We see him, in the skilful composition of Robertson, the chief figure of a group of gownsmen, standing in contrast on the canvass with the crowned rivals of France and Austria, and their attendant warriors, but blended in the unity of that historic picture. This amazing influence on the revolutions of his own age, and on the opinions of mankind, seems to have produced, as is not unnatural, an exaggerated notion of his intellectual greatness. It is admitted on all sides, that he wrote his own language with force and purity; and he is reckoned one of its best models. The hymns in use in the Lutheran church, many of which are his own,