Their faults and merits.

men applauded by themselves and the public; and | whose writings, now overspread with dust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century; and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius Chalcondyles, who taught their native language in the schools of Florence and Rome. Their labours were not inferior to those of Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of their envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure: they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since they were confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards, of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris will deserve an exception. His eloquence, politeness, and imperial descent, recommended him to the French monarchs; and in the same cities he was alternately employed to teach and to negociate. Duty and interest prompted them to cultivate the study of the Latin language: and the most successful attained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of their country; their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved for the national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satire on Virgil's poetry and the oratory of Tully. The superiority of these masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice, of their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, which they introduced, was banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were ignorant, and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous, and troublesome in verse, The art of grammar they truly possessed: the valuable fragments of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the

He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his honourible life was stretched far into the sixteenth century (A. D. 1535). Leo and Francis I. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he ounded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris. (Hody, p. 247–275.) le left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and their umerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marage in the thirteenth century with the daughter of a Greek emperor. Ducange, Fam. Byzant, p. 224-230.)

Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against Tully, are reserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no better James than Græculus ineptus et impudens. (Hody, p. 274.) In our own imes, an English critic has accused the Eneid of containing multa lan. mida, nugatoria, spiritù et majestate carminis heroici defecta; many ach verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning, (præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)

P Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of ignorance, vy, or avarice. (Sylloge, &c. tom. ii. p. 235.) The modern Greeks

shipwreck of the Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of some author, who, without his industry, might have perished: the transcripts were multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant, pen; and the text was corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of the elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine and experimental science. Yet the fleeting shadows of meta- The Platonic physics were pursued with more curi- philosophy. osity and ardour. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by a venerable Greek, who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect; and his sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned with the richest colours of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage; and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and liberal inquiry: and if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions and errors of their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct the dry dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may be balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophical debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for Plato, protected the national honour, by interposing the advice and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the polite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly dissolved; and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the more pronounce the ẞ as a V consonant, aud confound three vowels (nv) and several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the monosyllable Bn represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep, and a bell.wether is better evidence than a bishop or a chan cellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge of Havercamp, (2 vols in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740.) but it is difficult to paint sounds by words; and in their reference to modern use, they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may observe, that our peculiar pronunciation of the 6, th, is approved by Erasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.)

q George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer, the master of Bessarion and all the Platonists of the times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius. (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 739–756.).

Emulation and
Latins.

Nicholas V.

powerful Stagyrite continued to reign the oracle of and without a title. Cosmo of Medicis was the the church and school.r father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of learning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London: and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit to reward; his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonic academy: he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcondyles and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris returned from the East with a treasure of two hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in the libraries of Europe. The rest of Italy was animated by a similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the liberality of her princes. The Latins held the exclusive property of their own literature and these disciples of Greece were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of Constantinople was spread be

I have fairly represented the literary progress of the merits of the Greeks; yet it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by the ardour of the Latins. Italy was divided into many independent states; and at that time, it was the ambition of princes and republics to vie with each other in the encouragement and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the fifths has not been A. D. 1447—1455. adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he raised himself by his virtue and learning the character of the man prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons which were soon pointed against the Roman church. He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became their patron; and such was the humility of his manners, that the change was scarcely discernible either to them or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift, it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof of benevolence: and when modest merit declined his bounty, "accept it," would he say with a consciousness of his own worth; 66 ye will not always have a Nicholas among you." The influence of the holy see pervaded Christendom; and he ex-yond the Alps; and the natives of France, Germany, erted that influence in the search, not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and wherever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for superstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more precious furniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign of eight years, he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo's Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greek church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imirenzo of Medicis, tated by a Florentine merchant, who A. D. 1428-1492. governed the republic without arms

Cosmo and Lo

The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy, is illustrated by Boivin, (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 715-729.) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. p. i. p. 259-288.)

See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary authors, Janottus Manettus (tom. iii. p. ii. p. 905-962.) and Vespasian of Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267-290.) in the collection of Muratori; and consult Tirabos chi (tom. vi. p. 1. p. 46-52. 109.) and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, &c.

Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, that the popes in this instance were worse politicians than the muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages, was broken by the magicians themselves. (Letters on the Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166. octavo edition, 1779.)

See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis, in Tiraboschi, (tom, vi. p. i. 1. i. c. 2.) who bestows a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, the dukes of Milan, Ferrara, Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars."

* Tiraboschi (tom. vi. p. i. p. 104.) from the preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at Florence 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek orators, apud Hodium, p. 249.) in Atho Thraciæ monte. Eas Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendos simul,

and England, imparted to their country the sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Flerence and Rome. In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames and Bessarion or Gaza might have envied the superior science of the barbarians; the accuracy of Budæus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske, or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate and multiply the works of antiquity. A single manuscript imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each copy is fairer than the original. In this form Homer and Plato would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their scholiasts must resign the prize to the labours of our western editors. et quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough, that the research was facilitated by sultan Bajazet II.

in the last years of the fifteenth century, by Grocyn, Linacer, and a
y The Greek language was introduced into the university of Ord
mer, who had all studied at Florence under Demetrius Chalcodiles.
See Dr. Knight's curious life of Erasmus. Although a stout acade
patriot, he is forced to acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at
Oxford, and taught it at Cambridge.

learning. When Aldus was about to publish the Greek scholiasts on
z The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a monopoly of Greek
Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,) cave hoc facias, ne barlari

Dr.

Knight, in his life of Erasmus, p. 365. from Beatus Rhenanus)
a The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was established at Vice
about the year 1494; he printed above sixty considerable works of
Greek literature, almost all for the first time; several containing it.

ent treatises and authors, and of several authors two, three,

editions. (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet his t must not tempt us to forget, that the first Greek book, the Gra

of Constantine Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476: and that the Florence Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical See the Annales Typographici of Mataire, and the Bibliograph la structive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.

Use and abuse of

Before the revival of classic liteancient learning rature, the barbarians in Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were introuduced to a new world of light and science: to the society of the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet, from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind. However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast; and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote times, might have improved or adorned the present state of society: the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of Aristotle: the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age; the works of nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of Homer and Plato." The Italians were oppressed by the strength and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; out in that æra of learning, it will not be easy to liscern a real discovery of science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular language of he country. But as soon as it had been deeply saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickned into vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics of Athens and Rome nspired a pure taste and a generous emulation; ind in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, he pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeedd by the light of speculative and experimental hilosophy. Genius may anticipate the season of aturity; but in the education of a people, as in hat of an individual, memory must be exercised, efore the powers of reason and fancy can be exanded; nor may the artist hope to equal or surass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his redecessors.

I will select three singular examples of this classic enthusiasm. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho said, in familiar converLion to George of Trebizond, that in a short time mankind would animously renounce the Gospel and the Koran, for a religion similar that of the Gentiles. (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751.) 2. II. persecuted the Roman academy, which had been founded by mponius Lætus; and the principal members were accused of heresy, piety, and paganism. (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. p. i. p. 81, 82. 3. In the * century, some scholars and poets in France celebrated the success Jodelle's trajedy of Cleopatra, by a festival of Bacchus, and, as it aid, by the sacrifice of a goat. (Bayle. Dictionnaire, JODELLE. tencile, tom. iii. p. 56-61.) Yet the spirit of bigotry might often turn a serious impiety in the sportive play of fancy and learning.

CHAP. LXVII.

Schism of the Greeks and Latins.-Reign and character of Amurath the second.—Crusade of Ladislaus king of Hungary.-His defeat and death.John Huniades.-Scanderbeg.-Constantine Palaologus, last emperor of the east.

THE respective merits of Rome and Comparison of

stantinople.

Constantinople are compared and Rome and Concelebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian schools." The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed the exclamation of an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of gods. Those gods, and those men, had long since vanished; but to the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls and Cæsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides the curiosity of the philosopher and the christian; and he confessed, that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined to reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable beauties of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native, country, her fairest daughter, her imperial colony; and the Byzantine patriot expatiates with zeal and truth, on the eternal advantages of nature, and the more transitory glories of art and dominion, which adorned, or had adorned, the city of Constantine. Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds (as he modestly observes) to the honour of the original, and parents are delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of their children.

Constantinople," says the orator, "is situate on a commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the Archipelago and the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas, and the two continents, are united for the common benefit of nations; and

the gates of commerce may be shut or opened at her command. The harbour, encompassed on all sides by the sea and the continent, is the most secure and capacious in the world. The walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared with those of Babylon the towers are many; each tower is a solid and lofty structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches; and the artificial island may be encompassed, like

e The survivor of Boccace died in the year 1375; and we cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, and the Orlando Inamorato of Boyardo. (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. p. ii. p. 174-177.)

a The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor John Palæo. logus will not offeud the eye or ear of a classical student, (ad calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus Č. P. p. 107-126.) The superscription suggests a chronological remark, that John Palæologus II. was associated in the empire before the year 1414, the date of Chrysoloras's death. A still earlier date, at least 1408, is deduced from the age of his youngest sons, Demetrius and Thomas, who were both Porphyrogeniti. (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 244. 247.)

b

of Florence,

Athens, by land or water." Two strong and natural | nicus the elder. Thirty years after the emperor had causes are alleged for the perfection of the model of fortified St. Sophia with two new buttresses or pyranew Rome. The royal founder reigned over the mids, the eastern hemisphere suddenly gave way; most illustrious nations of the globe; and in the and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary, were accomplishment of his designs, the power of the crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed Romans was combined with the art and science of was speedily repaired; the rubbish was cleared by the Greeks. Other cities have been reared to the incessant labour of every rank and age; and maturity by accident and time; their beauties are the poor remains of riches and industry were conmingled with disorder and deformity; and the in- secrated by the Greeks to the most stately and venehabitants, unwilling to remove from their natal spot, rable temple of the east. are incapable of correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original vices of situation or climate. But the free idea of Constantinople was formed and executed by a single mind; and the primitive model was improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and successors of the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with an inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches, aqueducts, cisterns, porticoes, columns, baths, and hippodromes, were adapted to the greatness of the capital of the east. The superfluity of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a populous suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering picture, the past and the present, the times of prosperity and decay, are artfully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape from the orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre of its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced by christian zeal or barbaric violence; the fairest structures were demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of the emperors were scattered on the ground; the stroke of time was accelerated by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant space was adorned, by vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold and silver. From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and colossus of Justinian, and the church, more especially the dome, of St. Sophia; the best conclusion, since it could not be described according to its merits, and after it no other object could deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets, that a century before, the trembling

fabrics of the colossus and the church had been saved and supported by the timely care of Andro

b Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be circumnavigated, (τις είπεν την πολιν των Αθηναίων δυνασθαι και παραπλείν Kat wеpinλev.) But what may be true in a rhetorical sense of Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of Athens, five miles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any navigable

streams.

e Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of Justinian: (1. vii. 12.) but his measures are false and inconsistent. The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon; and the sculptor gave him the true proportions of an equestrian statue. That of Justinian was still visible to Peter Gyllius, not on the column, but in the outward court of the seraglio; and he was at Constantinople when it was melted down, and cast into a brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. 1. ii. c. 17.)

a See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in Nicephorus Gregoras,

The last hope of the falling city and The Greek schism empire was placed in the harmony of after the council the mother and daughter, in the ma-A. D. 1440-1448. ternal tenderness of Rome, and the filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of Florence, the Greeks and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and promised; but these signs of friendship were perfidious or fruitless; and the baseless fabric of the union vanished like a dream. The emperor and his prelates returned home in the Venetian galleys: but as they touched at the Morea and the isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained that the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and discontent. During their absence, above two years, the capital had been deprived of its civil and ecclesiastical rulers: fanaticism fermented in anarchy: the most furious monks reigned over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred of the Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with the assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succour; and the clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the blind shepherds of the west. The double disappointment exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing prelates was awakened ; of temptation was past; and they had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could hope from the favour of the emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their conduct, they deplored their weakness, professed their contrition, and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of their bre thren. To the reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, "Alas! we have made a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed the immaculate sacrifice; and we are become Azymites." (The Azymites were those who celebrated the communion with uil(1. vii. 12. 1. xv. 2.) The building was propped by Andronicus in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in 1345. The Greeks, in their pompas rhetoric, exalted the beauty and holiness of the church, an earthly bea

ven, the abode of angels, and of God himself, &c.

the hour

e The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus, (p. 312-36)) opens the schism from the first office of the Greeks at Venice, to the general opposition at Constantinople of the clergy and

people

nicus Chalcondyles, (1. vi. p. 155, 156.) and Ducas (c. 31.); the last of f On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l. ii. c. 17. La whom writes with truth and freedom. Among the moderns we say distinguish the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 338, 401.420, drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and religion are &c.) and Spondanus. (A. D. 1440-50.) The sense of the latter is.

concerned.

4