common-place remarks may sometimes be presented under a certain noble form, when connected with works whose origin seems lost "in the dark backward and abysm of time," or conveyed in the language of men whose very names breathe holiness and majesty. Assuredly, if with the Platonic philosopher,' in beginning his research into the high and sacred mysteries of the divine nature, any one should ask where he ought to apply for beauty of language, a light of words, or a harmony of melodious sounds, worthy of such a flight, he ought to be directed to the writings of the holy doctors and monks of the earlier and middle ages of the Church. Occasionally, though but very seldom, the sentence of some writers of the modern philosophy may be introduced, because, in the instance of such men who wrote in the first age of its establishment, they were not wholly deprived of the light of the Catholic faith, which was then but passing away from this country and still discernible; and we find that frequently such men expressed the ancient principles, in the noble language with which the old religion furnished them, to the sublimity of which they had not then become insensible; and besides, with respect to others of subsequent time, whose genius has fostered some scattered rays of celestial brightness, every sentence which expresses truth belongs of right to the philosophy of the Catholic Church, and it is an innocent and even perhaps a very laudable exercise to direct these separated beams back to their common centre, where only they can discharge the salutary office for which they were created. Nay, who can tell but that the lost children, who have followed them through the interminable wastes of error and vanity, may be enabled to persevere in pursuing them, when they are con

'Max. Tyr. XVII, 1.

2

strained to cease their anomalous wanderings, and to guide men infallibly to truth?

2

With respect to the style to be observed in these disputations, I shall not labour to imitate that of our modern Stoics, who, like their models of old, may be truly denominated "architects of words." i It is an excellent rule for this purpose which prescribes, that in general every word taken separately should be a common word in constant use with the people; so that even children, when they hear the whole read aloud, may suppose that they could write in the same style. With respect to the introduction of learned tongues, which may seem to justify a charge of foreign insolence (a fault which Cicero ranks along with rustic asperity),3 it may be sufficient to remark, that there are many sentences and expressions which do not retain the same beauty when the words are changed; and Greek shall only be used where the verse or phrase carries with it a greater grace and emphasis than the same would bear in Latin or English. 'After all that can be said against pedantry, the Greek language was familiar to the knightly heroes of the Crusades, and the noble princes of Latin dynasties in the East; and therefore its introduction here is the less open to a charge of inconsistency. On the tombs of the grand masters of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, which are still to be seen at Jerusalem, Ptolemais, Rhodes, and Malta, many inscriptions are in Greek, the being able to read and understand which would certainly never be unbecoming in a knight. Such are those on the tombs of Fernan de Heredia, Jacques de Milli, Giovan Battista Orsini, Pierre d'Aubusson, and Guy de Blanchefort.*

1 Cicero, Bratus, XXXI. De Oratore, III.

Cicero, Orator, XXIII.

• Monumens des Grands.Maitres de l'Ordre de Saint Jean de Jerusalem, par le Vicomte de Villeneuve-Bargemont, I.

1

However, every visitor here has permission to pass over such passages, if he find them troublesome. They shall not be multiplied where the occasion already explained does not exist. It shall be left to learned poets like Virgil to talk of mixing wine with Achelous; and in no instance shall it be intimated that the ability to conjugate TUTTO is essential to chivalry. Where classical authorities are associated with passages from Christian writers of various ages, it will be obvious that they are not produced as historical evidence respecting a fact connected with any point of time, but only as moral evidence to enforce or exemplify some general truth, which may apply equally to all periods of the world.

IX. It may be proper to offer some general observations, in this place, touching the character of the works from which chiefly I have derived my materials. The declamations of the modern philosophic writers on history, as they have been called, were, in the first place, passed by with the contempt, and also with the horror, which even the world is beginning to evince for deceivers of this kind. But history in general, and that of the middle ages in particular, presented of course the most fruitful ground for the exercise of such labours. And here I must call my reader's attention to the benefit which may be derived from consulting those original historians, who present such lively portraits of ancient chivalry, and to whose candour and love of truth their infidel transcribers of these days are indebted for all the information which they so proudly present, as if it were to them that the world. was indebted for the discovery. As for the general character of the times with which those histories are concerned, it would be premature to offer many reflections at present; yet some few remarks may

1 Vid. Macrob. Saturnal. V, 18.

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be advanced. It may be urged, in the first place, that nothing can be more unreasonable than to make the obscurity in which those ages are involved to serve as evidence that they were unhappy. We know but little of the twenty-three years' reign of Antoninus Pius. The Count of Stolberg produces this as an instance to shew that the happiest periods of history are not those of which we hear the most:1 in the same manner as in the little world of man's soul, the most saintly spirits are often existing in those who have never distinguished themselves as authors, or left any memorial of themselves to be the theme of the world's talk; but who have led an interior angelic life, having borne their sweet blossoms unseen, like the young lily in a sequestered vale, on the banks of a limpid stream.

In a state of society also, where men were not obliged by law to observe the discipline of Christians, it is to be expected that violent contrasts would be presented, and that the number of the good, that is, of those who were good from principle, would appear comparatively small. Before all things were weakened, dissolved, and melted into one vast dull mass of mediocrity, in which there would be nothing to appear as a contrast to evil, it was unavoidable that excellence and constancy of virtue, and that the perfection of Christian sanctity, should produce a violent reaction, so as apparently to give rise to crimes of a certain ferocious and sublime character; for the same reason that there may be fewer avowed infidels and atheists, where the modern system has obtained undisputed possession of a country, than in any other. M. Rubichon has well explained this difficulty-"There is no reaction where there is no action; there is no infidelity where there is no faith; religion is not insulted where it is never

1 Geschichte, VIII, 1.

mentioned. Is there not a God? 'I wish nothing better,' is the general reply under such circumstances. There is no reason to hate him. If there be a God, it is well; but as his kingdom is not of this world, and we are so beneath him, he can never be concerned about us, and consequently he does not require that we should be concerned about him.'

"The history of the world is the judgment of the world," says a celebrated poet; and I am far from wishing to express the opinion, that the middle ages should be exempted from this charge. There have been always passions and errors, and consequently crimes and troubles; but it seems to me that the Abbé de la Mennais is singularly happy in his distinction between the past and later ages, where he says, that in them "men knew what was evil and what was good; whereas, at present, men are rather inclined to doubt than to pronounce positively what is evil and what is good."

The disposition to revile the period of Christian antiquity accompanied the zeal of the religious and political innovators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it became the spirit of those ages to revile the past; and this leads me to remark a circumstance which will further explain why historical truth, as far as regards Christian antiquity, is often obscured to the moderns. On the one side, those who are attached to the ancient wisdom find it impossible to enter into the detail of all the crimes and absurdities and sophisms of the men who calumniate it, whose whole course is so ignoble and wretched that they rather endeavour to forget it, and leave the judgment to God, who searcheth hearts; whereas the Church, which became intimately connected with all the institutions of the

1 De l'Action du Clergé, p. 20, 200.