domestic antiquities would furnish ample matter to exercise, with the greatest advantage, all our diligence and research, though we had the industry of a Chrysippus, who was so curious, as Cicero says, in collecting various examples from all history.* St. Ambrose mentions that he had himself written a book, "De Patrum Moribus ;"† but it would be difficult to find a work which entered into the full detail of the manners and institutions of the ancient Christian society amongst our ancestors. In the composition of these books, I shall avail myself of the interesting writings which remain to us from the middle age; of which we may say, with far greater justice than Quinctilian affirmed of the old Latin authors, "Sanctitas certe, et ut sic dicam, virilitas ab his petenda, quando nos in omnia deliciarum genera vitiaque, dicendi quoque ratione, defluximus." The ancients, from a general principle, professed a great respect and admiration for their old authors. Cicero and Virgil both extracted gold from Ennius: Horace thought that the reading of the books of the ancients was the best consolation for the misery of the present.—

O rus! quando te aspiciam, quandoque licebit,

Nunc veterum libris

Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ? §

The Romans speak with enthusiasm of their Attius, their Pacuvius, and their Nuvius, for whom they have almost a religious respect. Thus Quinctilian, in reference to them, says, "Let us reverse these old trees of our sacred groves, whose trunks, half-decayed, have something in them most venerable, which even time seems to respect while it destroys them."

Without alluding to the works of a St. Thomas or an Anselm, and others, whose names should stand, not so much for the names of men as of wisdom and even eloquence, there are a multitude of works which date from that begotten period of the middle ages, of whom fame has no note; in which, like an ancient temple, there is not so much grace and elegance as religion, but yet, which contain many bright sentences, and many things to be read for the sake of manners; whose authors do not collect the rain-water, but burst forth into a living spring.

From these works, then, "quasi quodam sancto augustoque fonte nostra omnis manabit oratio." They will be quoted, but without any reference to the disputes and controversies which modern writers may have raised upon them. Mabillon, in applying himself to illustrate the acts of the Benedictine order, found the necessity, from the first, of approaching things so ancient with the mind of an ancient, free from the disputes of more recent times, and anxious only to serve the common cause of Christian religion. To some it will appear a recommendation, that truth is not produced here as in a work of reasoning, where, as Bonald says, it is like a king at the head of his army on a day of battle,—but rather, as in one of

*Tuscul. 1. 45. Epist. Lib. VI. 37. Cicero, Tuscul. Lib. V. 13.

Inst. Lib. 1. 8. Lib. II. Sat. 6. v. 66. ¶ Præfat, in IV. Sæcul Benedict. § 4.

sentiment, where he compares it to a queen on the day of her coronation, amidst
the pomp of festivity, the splendor of a court, the acclamations of a whole people,
the decorations and perfumes, and surrounded by all that is magnificent and gra-
cious. And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French
for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings,
and not with weapons to say, fight; so, with Lord Bacon, many will say, that they
like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably, with chalk to mark up
those minds which are capable to lodge and harbor it, than that which cometh
with pugnacity and contention.* I shall wander on, therefore, without fearing to
be led far from the matter, even though I should resemble Isocrates in writ-
ing the praise of Helen; for I shall presume that my reader will be like the youth
who disputes with Cicero, in the first book of the Tusculans, when he replies, that
he remembers the proposed object of their conversation, from which they had been
led away, and adds, "Sed te de æternitate dicentem aberrare à proposito facile
patiebar." But writers in our time affect to be more judicious in their style of
discourse than even the Minerva of Homer.‡ Nevertheless, Euripides, as a
philosopher or as a poet, does not stand higher in the estimation of sensible men,
because he offers to prove, in the famous contest between him and Æschylus, in the
shades, that he has never said the same thing twice. § It is Plato who is so fond
of the maxim; καλὸν δὲ τό γε ὀρθὸν καὶ δὶς καὶ τρίς.] And we shall be on
dè
the soil of Catholicism;—that is, on the ground of infinity in great thoughts and
gracious harmonies,-ground that is

Enlivened by that warmth, whose kindly force
Gives birth to flowers and fruits of holiness;

fruits, let it be remembered,

That ne'er were plucked on other soil.

In whatever direction, on that blessed shore, we turn our steps, we shall find inexhaustible riches of every virtue, of wisdom and learning, of beauty and grandeur; to cheer the sage, who may then detect the truth of things in an abyss of radiance, clear and lofty; to ravish that imagination of the young, which is kindled by the splendor of eternal light; and to satisfy in all

The increate perpetual thirst, that draws
Toward the realm of God's own form. ¶

Such a course, viewed in relation to the number of material images which truth and love assumed on earth, does not afford a prospect of a speedy termination; it rather would prepare us for a work deserving the title of that which Christine de

* Of the Advancement of Learning. I. 33. Odyss. I. 260. § Aristoph. Ranæ. 1178.

"Le

Pisan wrote, and styled " Le chemin de longue estude." But if a description of the armor of one hero could justly occupy so many verses as those of Homer and Virgil, in explaining that of Achilles and of Æneas, what indulgence may not be granted to him who should endeavor to place before men's eyes the grandeur and holiness of the lives and deaths of men under the ancient Catholic state? πρεὶ γὰρ τίνος ἂν μᾶλλον πολλάκις τὶς äv νοῦν ἔχων χαίροι λέγων καὶ ἀκούων;* it is such things which, as Socrates says, one should learn to sing to one's self; καὶ χρὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥς περ ἐπᾴδειν Eavr. They should be embodied before the mind as if on a painted tablet; that as the poet, says, " even though we lived and speculated alone, Remembrance, like a sovereign prince, might still maintain for us a stately gallery of gay or tragic pictures." Yet I shall not swell the book with those sentences which serve, like straw and wool, to pack precious objects for a rude journey. The passage here will be into quick and generous souls, to whom precious fragments may be offered as I find them, without the delay of enveloping them in this stuffing of one's own creation. Cardan shows the advantage of such a plan, saying, "Brevity of language is of excellent service to persons of competent ability and knowledge, though to stupid and ignorant persons it may be useless. To those who have the power of understanding many things comprised in few words, this style impresses the mind with more force, brings light, and prevents things from vanishing through oblivion; does not produce weariness; and while it increases the authority of the speaker, augments also in the hearer the desire of being gratified." This mode of representing the lion only by showing his claws, was greatly esteemed by the ancients, who studied the utmost brevity and compression in their writings, so as to speak much in a narrow space; whereas the moderns, who can trace no connection unless it can be touched with their fingers, are unable to understand any thing unless it be drawn out at length into a continued flowing discourse. We hardly can get beyond the bark of the old authors, who wrote with the greatest art and study; so that many things still lie deeply buried in their writings, which would amply repay men for the trouble of searching, and which would render any man now admirable. This is still the remark of Cardan, who gives the instance of Plato, who, hating Aristippus and Cleombrotus, wrote that they were in Ægina when Socrates was in prison.§ For it was a fact, that Ægina was only a short distance from Athens. From many writers of the middle age also, men might learn "scholastico more presse loqui," although it is from their works that precedents may be produced to justify the frequent occurrence of poetry, with which these pages will be interspersed. Thus the Temple of Honor, by John le Maire, addressed to the Duchesse de Bourbonnois, et d'Auvergne, daughter of Louis XI. is composed of both prose and verse, after the style of the work by Boethius on

* Plato, de Repub. II. + Phædo, 114. Hieronym. Cardan. de Prudentia civili, Lib. cap. I. § Phædo. Ib. cap. 54.

the Consolations of Philosophy;* as is also Pierre Michault's book, "Le Doctrinal de Cour," and "Le Verger d' Honneur," by André de la Vigne, and the Manuel Royal of John Breche, and the Life of Louis de la Tremouille, by John Bouchet; for the separation of the prose and poetry in this latter work was not made until the year 1536, when the poems were separately published.

It may be remarked in general, that the writers of that period loved to embrace the whole of wisdom in their works. Thus, in the famous Tresor of Brunetto the Florentine, which is said to be "un enchaussement des choses divines et humaines,' there is an union of theology and the beauties of heathen literature. Perhaps too in this history there will be found matter to illustrate the position of Aristotle, ὅτι χωρίζονται ἀλλήλων αἱ ἀρεται, † and that of Plato, when he says, that our soul seems to resemble a book. Its form shall not resemble that which the writers of wars give to their histories, nor such as that adopted by men who relate the separate condition of particular states, nor that of those meagre annals which are so tedious and uninviting; but it shall be a mixed style, like that proposed by Dionysius," composed of every idea, both positive and theoretical, that it may be agreeable both to those who study the policy of nations and to those who devote themselves to philosophic speculation, and also to such as seek a kind of quiet delight in the reading of history."§ So that the subject here proposed would require a writer like the old Monk of Cluny, Udalricus, who collected with diligence the ancient customs of that place; of whom it is said, "He was a learned Father, producing from his treasury things new and old, with which he instructed many to knowledge." It may with truth be said here, referring to what I have found in ancient books,

̓́Εχω καλά τε φράσαι, τόλμα τέ μοι
Εὐθεῖα γλῶσσαν ὀρνύει λέγειν.

Or, as Pindar sings of himself elsewhere, "There are to me, within the quiver, many quick arrows, sounding to the wise, though with the vulgar they may want an interpreter."

Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς
Δὲ τὸ πᾶν, ἑρμηνέων
Χατίζει

The whole may be styled a rhapsody, for it is made up of fragments, and from the works of men who, like Homer, flourished in an heroic age—

Hic genus antiquum

Magnanimi heroës, nati melioribus annis.**

And the rule for such compositions would not be unworthy of a Christian author, for the Scoliast on Pindar informs us that the rhapsodists always began with the

Gouget, Bibliotheque François, Tom. X. p.70.
Pindar, Olymp. XIII.

S Antiquit. Rom. Lib. I.

Ethic, VI. 13.
Olymp. II.

+ Philebus. **Eneid, VI. 644.

name of Jove.* Farther than fragments collected in a spirit of reverence, nothing can be expected here.

Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,

Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.f

Certainly if one were ambitious of taking lofty ground in self-defence for such a mode of composition, there might be abundant precedents. Plautus and Terence took whole scenes from ancient poets, and Cardinal Bona appeals to the example of Virgil, Cicero, Aristotle, and also of Plato, who transferred a great part of the work of Philolaus into his Timæus. Nay, Homer himself supplies an instance, as Eustathius shows. Apollodorus used to say, that if any one took from the books of Chrysippus what he had borrowed from others, there would be left only empty sheets. St. Jerome remarks, that the writings of St. Ambrose are filled with the sentences of Origen. The second part of the Somme of St. Thomas is taken almost entirely from the Speculum of Vincentius Belacensis. And such a mode is absolutely inseparable from the course of one who attempts to exhibit ancient manners and ways of thinking:

Veterum volvens monumenta virorum.

Which is the object here proposed :-for,

-Tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis

Ingredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes. §

It may be objected to the design of this work, that it engages one in the support of an arbitrary system, which would lead us from viewing the truth of history. Before replying to this charge, I would observe, that the expression, a system or systematic, may be taken and employed in a double signification; in a good and praise-worthy sense, as well as in one that deserves blame and rejection. In this latter sense, it appears in those phrases which affirm that some thing is a mere system, or conformable to this or that system, in which judgment, as Frederick Schlegel remarks, " men do not intend to affirm that it stands upon no ground. whatever, a mere creation of caprice, but rather, perhaps, that though it may contain many truths and much good, yet it does not extend to the whole of truth; or, in a word, that the systematic connection is only external and visible and a mere delusive contrivance; whereas, in a good and right sense, we may say that a work is a system, or that it is systematic, in allusion to its internal connection, and to the uniform and living unity which pervades it throughout." Now, in this latter sense, every work which is written in the spirit of Catholicism must be a

*Rhapsody, from pánτw wôn, because the Rhapsodists sung fragments from Homer. The Scoliast on Pindar, Nem, III. Od. 2, says that they were of the family of Homer, and Pindar calls them the children of Homer.

+ Lucret. Lib. III. Æneid, III. 102. Georg. II. 174. | Philosophie der Sprache, p. 7.