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it. While our institutions are safe, we have little to do but to follow the path before us, but the occasion is fitting to prepare ourselves for the time when they may be in danger. The spirit may remain quiet, but it should not be lost. Let it be cherished in secret, by a thorough study of the principles of our fathers, and still more of the modes in which these were carried into such successful operation.

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ART. VII.-Early Literature of Modern Europe.

1. Tableau Historique de la Littérature Française. Par M. J. DE CHENIER. Paris. 1821.

2. Historia de la Literatura Española escrita en aleman por F. BOUTERWEK, traducida al castellano y adicionada. Par D. JOSE GOMEZ DE LA CORTINA Y D. NICOLAS HUGALDE Y MOLLENIDO. Madrid. tom. 1. 1829.

LITERATURE has been declared by a celebrated female writer to be an expression of the state of society: by which is meant, that its various forms are determined, in a great measure, by the political and social condition of the nations, in which they are exhibited. This remark is confirmed in most respects by the literary history of modern Europe, and is particularly verified by the fact of the subdivision of European literature into several distinct branches, corresponding with the political sections into which the common continent was cut up after the fall of the Roman Empire. As the continent of Europe, politically viewed, presents the appearance of a number of nations of kindred origin, and of manners substantially similar, but nevertheless marked by formal differences of considerable importance, nominally independent, but really, though loosely combined together by their constant intercourse and the various moral, ties and relations, that necessarily result from it, -so the literature of this part of the world, while it all springs from the common root of classical learning, has shot forth in the course of its development and progress several distinct and independent branches, whose forms are now so various, that each requires a separate course of study. The immediate cause of this division was the variety of languages, which

naturally grew up in different parts of Europe, in consequence of their political separation, their little intercourse with each other, and the general rudeness of the period, during which these languages were formed. Other causes, of a less direct and powerful character, also operated in a greater or less degree in producing this effect; such as the difference that existed among these nations in regard to geographical situation,political institutions,-economical pursuits,—and, ultimately, religious forms and principles. All these circumstances operate, to a certain extent, though indirectly, in encouraging or depressing the growth of learning, and in modifying the form which it assumes; while learning, in turn, exercises a strong reaction on the state of society.

The principles that regulate this connexion between the condition of literature and that of government, are among the most interesting subjects of general inquiry, and have not yet been settled in a satisfactory way. The question has been considered, but not exhausted by Madame de Stäel, in her work on the Influence of Literature. In fact, the highest and most general problem connected with it, viz: whether learning and the arts flourish better under liberal or despotic governments, does not seem to be viewed by the best judges as entirely free from doubt. While the splendid example of Greek refinement favors the opinion, that liberty is the proper nurse of genius and taste, as well as happiness and virtue, some other brilliant periods in the history of wit and learning coincide with the existence of absolute, and even military monarchies. It is not, however, our present object, to enter at large into this inquiry, nor to examine particularly the causes which have created this variation between the several branches of the modern literature of Europe. Each of these topics would furnish the matter of a separate and extensive treatise. It is our purpose, at present, to state very briefly the manner and succession in which these branches respectively shot from the parent stock.

I. From the period of the invasion of the Roman Empire by the barbarians up to about the time of the first crusade, there was no such thing, in any part of Europe, as a modern literature. The learning of the period, such as it was, was wholly in the hands of the monks and clergy, and was recorded and communicated exclusively in Latin. Greek was known; the vernacular languages were despised as barbarous

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by the clergy, and, in fact, can hardly be said to have then existed. These were gradually forming out of a slow and forced amalgamation between the original Celtic of the west of Europe, the Latin of the Roman conquerors, and the various Teutonic tongues of the last invaders; all dialects of kindred origin, and fitted of course to coalesce in the end,— as they have done,-into compact, and tolerably homogeneous tongues; but at that time wholly distinct, and mutually unintelligible. They were not then used for the ordinary despatch of important business. The laws were published, and the religious ceremonies conducted in Latin. The very few attempts at literary composition, made at this time, were mostly in the same language, which also continued for several centuries to be the most usual instrument of communication, verbal and written, among the learned. Hence arose very naturally, and even necessarily, the practice of making this lan

the basis of literary and professional education; which has been kept up by habit, like many other practices, long after the state of things that rendered it necessary ceased, and is often defended on account of some fantastic and imaginary advantages, which are supposed to result from it, but which had no connexion with its first introduction.

The earliest appearance of any thing like a regular modern language and literature, was exhibited in the south of France, and the neighboring parts of Spain and Italy, about the time of the crusades. The Provençal dialect promised at one time to obtain the ascendency through the whole south of Europe. It was cultivated with enthusiasm for two or three centuries, and produced many poets of high reputation in their day, and probably not inferior in genius to their modern successors. During the flourishing period of this school, polite literature was, in fact, a sort of passion among the higher orders of society, and was more in honor with them than it has perhaps ever been under any other circumstances. Noblemen, ladies of the first rank, kings and sovereign princes made it a matter of pride to profess and practise what they called the gay science; and carrying into their amusements the forms and terms to which they were accustomed in their more serious occupations, they instituted their courts of love,-enacted their codes of laws for the better regulation of courtship and matrimony,-and conducted the trials of the heart, like those of the person and property, by judicial process, before a jury impannelled and

sworn in proper form. The lion-hearted Richard, King of England, was distinguished in his day as a minstrel. René, titular King of Jerusalem, and father of Margaret of Anjou, the celebrated wife of Henry the Sixth, was illustrious for his patronage of poetry, and for the care with which he superintended the proceedings of these tribunals of the tender passion. He appears to have been the Justinian of this strange code. The Floral games, which were instituted about this time at Toulouse, by Clemence d'Isaure, and have been held there ever since, formed a regular annual festival, somewhat analogous to the periodical religious celebrations of ancient Greece. A similar institution existed at Tolosa in Spain. Catalonia produced, even as lately as the thirteenth century, many Provençal bards of high celebrity, and this school of language and literature had even sent off colonies into the south of the Peninsula. There was therefore at that time reason to expect, that it would continue to be cultivated, until its productions should assume a finished and classical form.

This result, however, did not happen, although it is now somewhat difficult to assign the precise reason which prevented it. It is true, that the singular fooleries, to which we have alluded, and which form so prominent a feature in the literary pursuits of that day, argue but slightly in favor of the general intelligence of the period. The understanding of Europe seems to have been, as it were, in a childish state. But as all the great and wealthy encouraged literature with extraordinary zeal, it might naturally have been anticipated, that it would in time have ripened into something truly rich and valuable. Political circumstances probably turned the scale against the masters of the joyous knowledge. The northern provinces of Gaul gradually acquired the ascendency over those of the south, or Langue d'oc, and brought in with them their own Langue d'oui, which was afterwards matured into the modern French language.* Castile and Leon absorbed the kingdom of Aragon, and established their own magnificent dialect on the ruins of the Catalonian, while the more rapid progress of civilization in Italy led to the formation and early cultivation of a purer tongue, which prevented the Troubadours from pushing their conquests in that direc

*Oc and Oui were the forms of affirmation, corresponding with yes, respectively used in the southern and northern provinces of France. They seem at one time to have been employed as distinctive names for the dialects of those provinces, and even, in the case of Languedoc, for the country itself.

VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. 82.

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tion. Thus their territory was gradually encroached upon in one way or another, on all sides, until it was finally reduced to nothing. The Provençal dialect went out of use before it had attained a pure and settled shape, and before it had served as a vehicle of thought and passion to any one of those leading minds, which stamp durability upon the language they employ. The light-hearted race of Troubadours became extinct, without producing a single powerful writer, and of all the lays that once resounded so merrily through the sunny fields that are watered by the Rhone, the Garonne and the Ebro, and were echoed by the Alps and the Pyrenees, nothing now remains but the name. The courts of love were closed. Society assumed more sober and business-like aspect, and men began to look with something like contempt on the songs and sports, which had given them before so much pleasure. Not long after came on the Reformation, and brought in its train a century and a half of mysterious metaphysics, and uninterrupted war. Science was now any thing but gay; and this unhappy generation, which seems to have been driven on by a sort of demoniacal frenzy to pour out torrents of tears and ink and blood, in quarrels about points which they did not even pretend to understand, notwithstanding their imagined superiority, must have looked, we should think, with some regret and envy upon the happier lot of their simple and joyous forefathers. In the mean time, the Provençal literature became entirely extinct, and is now only known as a branch of antiquarian study. Thus ended the first attempt at the formation of a cultivated language in modern Europe.

II. The next was made in Italy, with a success not less signal, than the failure of the former. The beautiful, or as Dante calls it, the illustrious vernacular dialect, which replaced the stern and simple majesty of the Latin, had been silently maturing, and, as early as the thirteenth century, while the Provençal poets were still lisping their childish and ephemeral lays, was seized upon and fixed by three manly minds, which appeared about the same time in the north of Italy. It is hardly necessary to add the names of Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio; who may well be considered, especially the two former, as the great fathers of all modern literature. Petrarch and Dante were doubtless two of the loftiest and finest spirits, that ever descended upon this our visible diurnal sphere. They divided between them the empire of poetry; the disposition of Petrarch being particularly sensible to kind emo

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