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system: that is, it must embrace the whole of truth. However broken and imperfect its arrangement, though it be but a rhapsody, it must still be systematic, in this noble and just sense of the term; and, in fact, it is nothing but this Catholic view of things, conceived in its highest degree of clearness, which Dante describes in that unrivalled passage, which is near the close of the Paradise, where he says that he looked, and in the depth of the everlasting splendor

Saw in one volume clasp'd of love, whate'er

The universe unfolds; all properties

Of substance and of accident beheld

Compounded, yet one individual light

The whole.*

Many saintly men, like St. Benedict, have reached the same pitch, in more than poetic semblance, and have described it; while its practical effects have been the support and consolation of all the just. These have been expressed in the sacred songs: "Ambulabam in latitudine, quia mandata tua exquisivi,” said David; and again, "Eduxit me in latitudinem ;" and again, Statuisti in loco spatioso pedes meos." †

It is true that I shall not stop to take up the odious and degrading objects which may occasionally be met with on the way. We read, in Homer, that when Jove suspended the fatal balance, and the scale of Hector descended, that immediatley Apollo left him—

-λίπεν δέ ἑ Φοίβος Απόλλων

The Muse should forsake all cursed and condemned things abandoned by God; not search for them and make them the subject of interminable complaints. "How have my verses injured the state? "asked Euripides. "Have I composed the history of Phædra otherwise than according to the facts ?" "Nay, according to the facts," replies his accuser Eschylus. "But you should not have produced what is evil, and bring it upon the scene to pervert the minds of youth." Some are yet to be convinced of the wisdom of our modern writers, who would agree with Euripides in maintaining that it was more useful to expose on the stage, all the turpitudes of his familiar fables, than to resemble Eschylus in the lofty and superhuman grandeur of his theme.§ Let no one, however, express his alarm here on account of truth. We do not think it a pardonable offence to invent and publish falsehoods, however admirable in appearance respecting holy men, like Pindar, who says that it be allowable for mortals to frame beautiful tales in honor of the immortals. Strictly speaking, however, the best history of these middle ages would be collected from a series of biographical memorials respecting the great and holy personages who flourished from the time of Charlemagne and Alfred till

may

* Canto XXXIII. Ps. cxviii. 17, 30. XXII. 212. § Aristoph. Ranæ, 1055. | Olymp. I.

their close. Frederick Schlegel says, "I would rather seek to find the true quality of a Christian state during this period, in a series of portraits, representing men who were great in a Christian sense, and who governed according to Christian principles, than in any scientific definition."* But all things now are full of pedantry. History is only regarded as a mine from which men of every political school can extract the matter which can be made serviceable to the illustration of their respective theories; and even when they loudly protest against such an application of historical study, they are still like inquisitive mechanics, who, when presented at the representation of a solemn tragedy, occupy themselves solely endeavoring to discover by what wires and pullies the scenes are shifted, and the artifices of the stage conducted, without ever having one thought excited by the harmony of the heroic pageant. How much wiser and more acute are those who are sitting in ignorance of what passes behind the scenes and only anxious to cooperate with the moral intentions of the poet, which were to instruct, to delight, and to move! Whether it be from a mere vanity, which makes men anxious to evince the powers of an analytical mind, even though it is to be misapplied, or whether it be from the deeper motive mentioned by St. Jerome, saying, "Lacerant sanctum propositum, et remedium pœnæ suæ arbitrantur, si nemo sit sanctus," or whether it arise from that mistaken principle which perverts the whole of modern philosophy, and which displays men as the poet says, who

Viewing all objects unremittingly,

In disconnection dead and spiritless;
And still dividing, and dividing still,
Break down all the grandeur,

the great object of modern research seems to consist in contriving arguments which will oblige men to renounce their admiration for ancient deeds of virtue, and to come to the conclusion, that there is no one who can show them any good. Well migh the poet feel it sad

-to hear

The repetitions wearisome of sense

Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place;

Where knowledge, ill begun, in cold remark

On outward things, with formal inference ends.

A distinguished professor in the Academy of Paris complains of the Germans, and says that "whenever a social state appears noble and good, seen on one grand side, they regard it with an exclusive admiration and sympathy. They are inclined generally to admire, to be impassioned; imperfections, deficiencies, and the bad side of things strike them but little. Singular contrast! In the sphere purely intellectual, in the research and combination of ideas, no people have more.

* Philosophie der Geschichte, II. 20. Epist. XXVIII. Wordsworth, the Excursion.

extent of mind and more philosophic impartiality; and when facts are concerned which address themselves to the imagination, which excite moral emotions, they fall easily into narrow prejudice and confined views; their imagination wants fidelity and faith: they lose all poetical impartiality; they do not see things under all their faces, and such as they really are."* This long dogmatical censure, as far as it is intelligible, proves only the good sense and judgment which guides the imagination that it condemns. Sin and evil are only negations in the universal view of this creation, and to the person whose mind is united with the source and essence of all created things, they are as if not existing. They interrupt not for a moment his view of the immensity of that great glory for which his heart devoutly returns continual thanks.

It may be further objected to the present design, that it does not suppose sufficient attention to distinguish the peculiar character of each age in the annals of the Christian society, and that consequently it would tend to give, at the best, but a very confused idea of the history of the period. But nothing can be farther from it than to profess to give a history of these ages in any ordinary sense of the term. The object in view is to show in how many details the life and institutions of men were then inspired with the Christian spirit, and if the succession of ages are not always distinguished, it is because such a distinction would be wholly unnecessary to the proposed argument. And after all, as far as relates to the greatest part of the subjects that will here be introduced, all ages of the Church are one and the same, in like manner as when the soul is united to God,

Looking at the point whereto all times are present;

there is for her neither past nor future; she is in possession of eternity, and in the bosom of this immutable eternity, which is God; she possesses all things.

I deny not, that in some respects there may be ground for many timid friends of truth to think that there is danger and novelty in the course which is here laid down for us. What more dangerous, they will say, than to attempt to eulogize these ancient times, which so many deem to have been buried in darkness and barbarism? And

Why dost thou with single voice renew memorial of their praise?

I admit, that in some parts we may seem to arrive at troubled and turbid waters. Convinced, however, notwithstanding the arguments of the sophists, that there is always excellent store beyond them; I only ask, in the Platonic style, "Whether I, being youngest, and having experience of many streams, may not be permitted to try to first pass alone, leaving those who would counsel me to watch in safety, and determine if it be fordable to them also who are older; that if it should prove

*Guizot, Cours d' Hist. Mod. IV. 3.

so, they also may cross over, but if it be not passable, it will be of no importance that I should incur danger."* We shall enter on a forest where no track of steps hath worn a way, but it may resemble that forest of Colonea, the forest of the sombre destinies, yet flourishing with all the sweet verdure of a Grecian spring, within which the laurel, and the olive, and the vine are found, and where the nightingale pours forth her ceaseless song.† I shall not find the track of many lately preceding us. For there is no chance here of discovering mines of gold and silver, or any thing that can be turned into money; nor can I hope that many will hereafter follow. I am but a lonely gleaner "through fields timewasted;" but the weakest may do something, and as a father says, "sometimes what has been left by the perfect is found by a little boy." It will be something in our age to bring any one to renounce the style of the ignoble Capaneus, "We are much better than our fathers:"

Τῷ μή μοι πατέρας ποθ' ὁμοίῃ ἔνθεο τιμῇ.

and to say not merely from devotion, but upon a ground of historical veracity, "Sufficit mihi Domine; neque enim melior sum quam patres mei." It will be something to make the proud world see that all were not of its train ; that there were those "who faith preferred, and piety to God." But whatever be the supposed danger, or the apparent novelty, let it be well understood that the whole is written in a spirit of the most humble submission to the judgment of our holy mother the Catholic Church, and that if any thing should be in the least at variance with that judgment, I renounce, and in proportion to the degree of variance, abhor it with the utmost clearness of tongue and sincerity of heart.

In a little work that once met the eye of a few persons, whom chance or private friendship directed to it, which attempted to unfold the ways of the ancient chivalry, may perhaps be traced the commencement of this course, of which I now enter upon the last stages. Here we need a still more simple construction, and one ought to perceive already that we move in a freer sphere, as in imagination we draw nearer to the limit where all wishes end. It should be no longer that same mixture of grace and terror, as when we consorted with the offspring of earth and darkness. The burlesque and the ignoble ought to disappear. We are entering as if within that circle of hope described by Dante, which inspires temperance in sadness, and a melancholy, always gentle, which has left all the misanthropy of this lower world and of hell. The haughty knight, severe and inflexible in his judgments, must disappear now or leave but few traces, and we shall seem, though some will ascribe it only to a greater degree of weakness, to have lost the memory of the agitations of the world: and though the subject of this book will be so high above me, there need be no charge of great presumption, for it

* Plato, de Legibus, Lib. X.

Sophoc. Edip. Col.

+ II. IV. 410.

will not be as priest or man of blessed order that I shall propose my thoughts, but like to those who, speaking before their betters with reverent awe,

Draw not the voice alive unto their lips.

I shall but suggest things in imperfect sounds; coming forth as the meanest brother, that has only charge of the outward gate of the blissful enclosure, or perhaps as the last comer among the rude strangers of the common hall ́; and if still sometimes there should be aught of rash and intemperate observable, it will be enough to remember, that such men have long haunted the proud courts of mundane chivalry, and that time is needful no less for diseases of the mind than for those of the body. The sea itself, for a long while after the tempest, is still agitated; still its waves retire back to return again and dash themselves against the shore, and it is not till after a great interval that they become appeased and recover their original tranquillity. Ah! truly, to lead men to consort with the spirits of the great and good of times gone by, demands a tongue not used to childlike babbling :

Myself I deem not worthy, and none else

Will deem me. I, if on this voyage then
I venture, fear it will in folly end;*

for I shall sometimes catch, even amidst the music of angelic bells, the wild measure of those tales that once charmed me:

Rude though they be, still with the chime
Return the thoughts of early time.

Then will begin to rise the ancient pride, and like the last minstrel in Newark's tower, he who once loved all the pomp of chivalry, will begin, perhaps, (such grounds are there for suspecting the truth of Plato's nation, that names are of some importance in determining the human course,)

Thus,

to talk anon

Of good Earl Francis dead and gone,

And of Earl Walter, rest him God!

A braver never to battle rode.

"speaking of matters, once perhaps befitting well to speak, now better left untold;" and then going on to say

He would full fain,

He could recall an ancient strain

He never thought to sing again.

For he too his legendary song could tell

*Dante, Hell. II.

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