1848.] Study of Greek and Roman Literature. 223 At N. Arûs the trap rock disappears and the road ascends a considerable hill of semi-crystalline limestone, passing Tel Tûrmûs, and then et-Tulaiyeh. At the latter village we found the governor of Sâfetâ with all his posse of ragamuffins, apparently making caif. Everywhere we are looked at with wonder, and often with suspicion. Franks have never been seen in these parts. From Tulaiyeh the water flows north and falls into the N. Abrosh which we crossed at a bridge of four arches-the name I failed to obtain. In Arrowsmith's map this river is placed south of N. Kebeer, which is a mistake. The distance between the two, by our road, is three hours' rapid riding— at least twelve miles. In twenty-five minutes from N. Abrosh is the first harah (division) of the village called Yesdîyeh-over the worst road I have met with out of Lebanon; twenty minutes more brought us to the second harah of Yesdîyeh, the inhabitants of which are Greeks and have a curious old church embowered amongs large oak trees. The third harah is fifteen minutes further, and here the sheikh of the whole resides. It being quite dark, and the road dangerous even by daylight, we pitched our tent in the yard of the sheikh-a surly, beastly looking Ansairiyeh, who gave us but a cold reception. From this to Burj Sâfetâ is one hour; to Tripoli, twelve hours; to Tortosa, six; and the same to Kulaet Husn. Scattered over the fields to the north of Tulaiyeh, are bowlders of a yellow siliceous rock, which are crowded with very curious fossils. They bear a striking resemblance to cows' tongues. I obtained one about a foot long, which can be compared to nothing else. These bowlders are altogether foreign to the limestone rock of this region, and were probably transported from a distance. This however needs further examination. [To be concluded.] ARTICLE II. THE STUDY OF GREEK AND ROMAN LITERATURE WITH By Charles Siedhof, Ph. D., late Rector of the Gymnasium at Aurich, in the Kingdom of Hanover, now teacher of a private Classical School, Newton Centre, Ms. AFTER the long, almost lethargic slumber following the storms of the Reformation, and interrupted, if we except political disturbances, whose appeal was rather to the sword than the pen, only by a few schools of theology that are still doing battle together, there finally dawned forth as a necessary counterpart a new day. All things which had been considered as authentic and sacred till the middle of the preceding century were now made a subject of doubt; they were shaken to their foundations, and the question was asked whether these were still strong enough to bear the structure that was daily growing higher and heavier. On this occasion novelty had its peculiar attractions; the German fondness for all things foreign afforded a wide field to English and especially French influences, and it seemed as if the Rationalism of Kant, which was striving to establish itself in all branches of learning and life, in place of the old harmless and implicit trust in authority, were destined to extirpate and destroy this blind confidence, root and branch. Then came the French revolution, breaking in upon the world and its mechanism with such appalling power, that its vibrations will not soon cease to agitate the minds of men. In its front stalks Napoleon like a wasting demon with iron sceptre. The steps to the imperial throne which, after the example of the Byzantine emperors, he strove to rear, are red with blood; he stands forth alone in the night of his time, like a baleful meteor, and points towards the East, with threatening finger, to down-trodden humanity that lay and groaned at his feet. But the sun arose victorious here; the meteor vanished suddenly, as it had come; in its place a joyous dawn shone forth, only obscured by occasional driving clouds. Amid such stupendous revolutions,-unexampled in extent and suddenness, and their consequent changes, it is natural that individual elements should not at once come distinctly forth and act and react till they neutralized each other; they differ rather by almost imperceptible shades, and harmonize or conflict with one another in proportion to the greatness of their sympathies and antipathies. It is not the object of these remarks to show how this takes place in all the various relations of society; we shall content ourselves with showing the view in which Greek and Roman literature is regarded at the present day, as distinguished from former times. On the one side are the philologists of the old school, holding up the study of this literature in highways and byways, as the one thing needful for almost every man; on the other it is every day attacked with increasing zeal and violence; and decried not as merely useless, but as a positive incumbrance and hindrance to the problems the present age has to solve. Between the two extremes lie an infinite multitude of views; covenants and compromises are made upon concessions from which only a temporary truce can be extorted; the fire still glows 1848.] Roman supremacy-Latin Language. 25 25 under the ashes, and soon bursts forth again at an unexpected moment, and the more the material that has gathered, the fiercer are the flames. To estimate aright these conflicting opinions it is indispensably necessary to take a view of the past; for the past always forms the basis of the present. But since such a phenomenon as we are now considering is without a parallel in the history of the world; the language and literature of extinct nations maintaining such a high significance, and exercising such an important influence on life and culture as those of the Greeks and Romans have exerted on the whole western world; such a retrospect becomes doubly necessary if we would avoid the easy path of error, and do something more than blindly follow the loud brawlers on both sides, who launch forth assertions instead of proofs. Rome had conquered the world; nothing remained then for her but to wrap herself in her shroud, for her dissolution was at hand. She had striven not to conciliate but to annihilate all national characteristies differing from her own, and though this daring attempt had failed in a few instances, as among the German nations, it had in the main succeeded. As soon as this vocation was fulfilled, she folded her hands and saw her domain divided into the Eastern and Western empires, and barbarians pour in to destroy all of her but her name. The immediate consequence of her unbounded supremacy, was the successful attempt to thrust upon the conquered nations her language; a language whose perfection made it possible either wholly to suppress the national languages of the various provinces, or at least to throw them far in the back-ground. Had Herrman, the Cheruscan, not appeared on the stage, we should assuredly not have had the glorious German tongue, which still maintained its ground when the Latin had usurped sway, as the medium of communication among the learned. We will direct our attention particularly to the middle ages. Christianity had chosen in the West the Latin language as its organ; yet the multitude of entirely new ideas it called forth, caused the language, already much corrupted under the emperors, to assume a garb altogether new, and in the course of time it bore hardly any resemblance to the old tongue. The efforts of the theologians to secure for Christianity the treasures of the Aristotelian philosophy which had been laid open by the Arabs, tended to the same end. The language thus built up on the foundations of the Latin, retains a general family resemblance to it only in a few external features. We cannot measure them both by the same rule, without doing to one or the other of them VOL. V. No. 17. 3 the greatest injustice. Quidditas, haeccitas, aseitas, and similar words are indeed monstra compared with Cicero's style; in reality, however, they are not so, any more than possibile and possibilitas which too were unknown to Cicero; they are rather the creations of a new mind; but we must not imagine them to be Latin. During the whole of the middle ages Greek was unknown, and when it was introduced into Germany by Reuchlin, (who went to Paris expressly to learn it,) and by his successors, the monks preached against it, declaring that the Devil, ever seeking the injury of man, had invented a new language, the Greek. Under these circumstances ancient literature was passing into oblivion, and would have been lost, we may suppose, had not the eternal law of God's providence called forth a reäction. In Italy the restoration of learning began; the Latin language was studied with ever increasing enthusiasm; Italian literati, like Petrarch, went on distant and dangerous journeys to collect or copy manuscripts of the ancients. The Greeks-still polished and learned, like their ancestors,-who had been driven from Constantinople by their rude victors, found a welcome reception as teachers in schools and universities. Finally the art of printing was invented. The words on the leaf that the statue of Guttenburg in Strassburg holds spread out in its hand, are strikingly true: Et la lumière fut; a noble inscription with which the defective Latin verses on the statue in Mainz are not to be compared. Shortly before, the enthusiasm for Latin had passed to a singular extreme. Not only did the Ciceronians persuade themselves that everything, new and old, could and should be expressed in Cicero's terms, Christ, to cite an instance, they called Jupiter Optimus Maximus,but with the language they also exchanged the idea, and Christianity existed with the learned only in name; Pope Leo the Tenth is said to have spoken of the "fabula de Christo," which brought much money into the church. This new world, created with such mighty influences, was completed by the Reformation. But though its great author, Luther, elevated the German tongue by his translation of the Bible, to a degree that we should consider impossible, if we examined the language immediately before his day; yet he was obliged like his fellow-laborers in the stupendous work, to retain the Latin as a means of communication with the learned, both in writing and speech; for the scholars at the newly established universities spoke and wrote nothing but Latin, so that established tradition had its hallowed influence upon the great man: Latin had become the prevailing language in all church business; and Luther had, besides, much to do with the Italians. 1848.] Corruption of Latin-Modern Tongues. 27 Still the language of Luther and the Reformers was far purer than that of the schoolmen of the middle ages, or rather the two admit of no comparison. Even Reuchlin's style is very harsh; his pupil Melanchthon wrote best of all. We can see that the great moral revolution brought about by the Reformation was not without its effects even in this respect. What is true of the prose of this age is true likewise of its poetry. Who has not heard of Petrus Lotichius Secundus, and his exquisite Latin elegies, so much admired by all true lovers of poetry? It was perhaps no loss to the fame of the young poet that he died at Heidelberg in the bloom of youth, in consequence of poison unintentionally administered to him in Italy. Burmann, the younger, edited these charming poems in two quarto volumes accompanied by learned annotations, in the style of an ancient classic; he calls Lotichius the phonix of poets, which he really is. But this period of advancement did not last long. The necessity of establishing the new science of theology, and the variety of philosophical systems occasioned a rapid corruption of style, in the same way that the German was corrupted by an intermixture of French. New ideas make new forms necessary, and in the philosophical writings of Leibnitz and Wolf we see almost a return to the scholastic Latinity. Notwithstanding all this, the shackles the Latin imposed were even at that time cumbersome to some, and they chose the French; Leibnitz, to name a familiar instance, wrote his Theodicee in that language. On the whole, however, it was still considered absolutely necessary to learn the Latin for practical purposes; in the schools hardly anything but Latin was taught; it was made the duty of all rectors and teachers to train their pupils to speak it, and to adhere steadfastly to it as the language of conversation. But to prevent the former barbarisms from creeping in, collections of the more common ones were made of which we mention here only those of Goclenius, of the Dane Borrichius and Cellarius. Laurentius Valla, the Italian, in his Elegantiae and Dukerus de Latinitate Ictorum had a different end in view. The case was everywhere the same as in Germany; only in Italy and France the national languages, being earlier developed and perfected, sooner maintained their proper rights. Du Thou (Thuanus) retained the Latin in his great historical work. In Holland especially did the study of the language flourish, and here a far purer style was maintained than in most other countries. When we consider the long series of renowned classical scholars who labored so zealously within |