Nor is it to be overlooked, that the importance attached to birth exposes men under this influence to the danger of contracting a thousand stains of pride. "Nobilitas generis sæpe parit ignobilitatem mentis," said St. Gregory.* It was well for many to resemble Bernardin di Fosco, as described by Dante, A gentle scion from ignoble stem.† The heart, on that account, was often lighter, the conscience less oppressed. This is shown by the very bard of chivalry, where he describes how to the mind of Marmion, the wild and innocent song of youth sounded as if disgrace and ill and shameful death were near. Her wing shall the eagle flap O'er the false-hearted; His warm blood the wolf shall lap, Ere life be parted. Shame and dishonor sit By his grave ever; Blessing shall hallow it Never, O never! So sung the simple Fitz Eustace, hoping to amuse his lord, in whom, on the contrary, it awakened all the pangs of horrible remorse. Not alone nobility of birth, but the being placed in the condition of the rich and powerful, and even that very excellence of disposition which gave rise to chivalry, and which we have seen to be peculiarly favorable to the reception of the Christian doctrine, required more than ordinary assistance from heaven, to prevent it from becoming the very source of the greatest evil. To understand this position, which at first may seem partly to contradict itself, we need only attend to what Socrates says in the sixth book of the Republic, and every one will perceive that his argument receives additional force from the philosophy of Christians. He speaks thus, "I think that all persons must admit that the qualities which are required to constitute a true lover of wisdom, are imparted but seldom, and to very few men, and see how many and great are the causes of corruption even to these few. For in the first place, that which is most strange of all to hear, each one of the qualities which we have lately praised as requisite for philosophy, destroys the soul and tears it from philosophy, such as courage, temperance, and all the other virtues of which we spoke. In addition to this, all the things that are called good, corrupt the soul and tear it from philosophy, such as beauty and riches, and strength of body, and the having powerful relations in the state, καὶ ξυγγένεια ἑῤῥωμένη ἐν πόγει, and all such things, for you have the type of what I wish to describe. This can be made to appear most clearly. For we know that every seed, whether of plants or of animals, which does not meet with the nourishment proper for it, neither the seasons nor the locality, by how much the more vigorous it is, by so much the more does it want what is proper for it. It is reasonable, then, that the best nature, when it receives an education improper for it, should become worse than an evil nature; so that the souls which are of the best disposition by nature, when they receive an evil education, become eminently bad. The greatest crimes spring from such natures, spoiled by a bad education; for a weak nature is capable of nothing great, either in virtue or in vice. If, then, the philosophic nature should obtain the education proper for it, of necessity it will grow up to all virtue ; but if it experience a contrary, it will proceed to the very reverse of this ἐὰν μή τις αὐτῇ βοηθήσας θεῶν τύχῃ. Ι, then, any one should come softly up to a man in this condition, and should say truly, that there is no sense in him, and that he wants sense, and that this is not a thing to be acquired by any one unless by him who is content to make himself a slave for the sake of its acquisition, μὴ δουλεύσαντι τῇ κτήσει αὐτοῦ do you think that he would take pleasure in hearing this, while oppressed with so many evils? Far otherwise indeed. But, on the other hand, if through the excellence of his natural disposition by birth, from being well born, and from his natural affinity to what is delivered, any one should be enabled to perceive what a thing philosophy was, should be bent and drawn to it, what think you would those men do who would know that the use for them and the grounds on which they had enjoyed his company would perish if he yielded to the love of wisdom? Would they not do and say every thing respecting him, that he might not be persuaded, and respecting those persuading him, that they might not be able, conspiring against them in secret, and even calling them before the tribunals? How then can such a man attain to the exercise of philosophy ?-We see, then, that the parts of a philosophic nature, when they meet with an evil education, are the very cause why the men who possess them fall from their vocation to philosophy; that the things which are commonly called good, riches and all other attendants, conduce to the same effect,—so great is the facility of destruction and corruption to the best natures, which are themselves but so few in number as we have shown, and that it is from these men that the greatest evils are produced, both private and public, as well as the greatest good whenever they happen to flow in that direction of av ταύτῃ τύχωσι ῥυέντες ̇ whereas a little nature never does any thing great to any one, either in private or in public."* This remarkable passage might be illustrated by many memorable events in the intellectual history of the middle ages, by showing the perfection to which men of noble natures did sometimes attain, the difficulties which they had always to surmount from the very causes above enumerated; the persecution of those who converted them to a life of sanctity, respecting whom the world made as anxious enquiries as the suitors of Penelope did after Minerva, who, in disguise of a guest, had reminded Telemachus of his father; and the number of those whose evil and extravagant deeds of robust prof ligacy appear in such dark contrast with the generous and brilliant actions of the just, and whose crimes and follies may be traced to the misdirection of noble qualities, proving the justice of what Dante also says, that The more of kindly strength is in the soil, Indeed, this position is no novelty in the schools. "The blindness of fallen nature,” says a famous book, "judged a life of pleasure and licence to be the best and happiest. Nature adheres to this as most agreeable to it. And this results most powerfully in those who are endowed with an excellent natural reason for this ascends so high in its own light and in itself, that it thinks itself to be the eternal and true light, and proposes itself for that; and being deceived by itself, proceeds to deceive others along with itself." The consclusion, therefore, is the same, that the very best qualities, and the very choicest intellectual and moral treasures are changed into evils, and obstacles to virtue, by the pride and self-sufficiency which they generate; and that in this respect the only possible safety, reserved for the chivalrous nature, was in its complete and unreserved submission to the influence of that Catholic doctrine, which taught and enabled men to embrace practically poverty of spirit—which taught the monarch on his throne to say, with the son of a poor laborer, "Let others, like the Jews, seek honor one from another: I will desire that which is from God alone. All human glory, all temporal honor, all mundane altitude, compared with thy eternal glory, is vanity and folly. O veritas mea et misericordia mea, Deus meus, Trinitas beata! tibi soli laus, honor, virtus, et gloria, per infinita seculorum secula.‡ And now, in passing from this retrospect of the ways and thoughts of pride, may we feel that joy which Dante experienced, when he had traversed the first division of the suffering Church, where this sin was expiated and purged away :— HE line of this argument presents a changing scene, and brings before us men of very different classes in one succeeding order. From knights who were exposed to the danger of seeking glory in their deeds, I pass to the consideration of the learned and the holy writers, whose indifference to fame, though theirs were souls wanting nothing of great praise, furnishes a subject of itself instructive and suitable to the present inquiry. Here are presented two objects most characteristic of Christian ages-the motives, and object, and expectations of men in writing books, and the style and general tone of their composition. The great writers of heathen antiquity have generally taken care to acquaint us at once with their motives in writing, and the expectations which they founded upon their labors. With one, Eximia laudis succensus amore, it is to transmit his own achievements to posterity; with another, to beguile a period of exile, or to divert his mind from public calamities; with another, to amuse his leisure, and prepare glory for his own name : thinking with Pindar, "that he is happy whom fame celebrates" Ja ὁ δ ̓ ὄλβιος, ὃν Φᾶμαι κατέχοντ' ἀγαθαί.* "I am persuaded," says Dionysius, "that those who would wish to leave monuments of their genius to posterity, ought in the first place to choose a splendid and illustrious theme, which can afford much utility to those who study it for they who undertake to write upon obscure, ignoble matters, or such as are evil, and of no importance, whether from a desire to show their knowledge and to make a name for themselves, or merely from a wish to display their skill in writing, are never the objects of emulation to posterity, in consequence to this knowledge, nor are they praised on account of their eioquence."+ Cardan seems to express the sense of nearly all Pagan writers on this point, where he says, "In universum nil prosunt literæ ni tympanum pulset aliquis. Infelix autem conditio tua est quum ipse cogeris pulsare." They nearly all indicate the sentiment expressed by Janson *Olymp. VII. Antiquit. Rom. Lib. I. Prudentia Civilis. Cap. xc. in the tragedy-"May I never possess treasures without the applause of men.” μήτ' Ορφέως κάλλιον ὑμνῆσαι μέλος, εἰ μὴ ἐπίσημος ή τύχη λένοιτό μοι.* A result which they deemed adequate compensation for any previous injury; so that Jason reminds Medea of the advantage he has already conferred upon her in causing her to reside in Greece, where every one praises her talents and wisdom; whereas if she had lived έn' oxάro15 yns, there would have been no talk of her.† In the ages of faith, the motives and views of men who were authors of books, were totally opposed to these: and therefore, without proceeding to enquire farther, it would be but reasonable to expect, à priori, that their works themselves would have a new and distinctive character. There were also external and accidental circumstances, which contributed to secure this result. Many of the chronicles, and other books of the middle ages, were written by monks for the use of their brethren in the cloister. "The greatest number of these writers," says a learned historian of the Crusades, "believed that their books were to live and die like themselves in solitude. Hence the simplicity of their narrative, and sometimes its indiscretion. What would have been their surprise if it had been announced to them, that on a future day their volumes were to be judged before the tribunal of the proud world, or of the age, and that the invention of printing would multiply copies of their manuscripts! As they never thought that the public would behold them, their style was frank and natural. Piety prescribed to the writers of the cloister to fly from all falsehood; and that fact should be a warrant to us at least of their good faith. Some condemn themselves to the punishment of hell if they should ever write in the spirit of prejudice or of hatred; others in their preface implore the charity of their readers, and addressing themselves to the Divine clemency, hope that, if they should commit any errors, God will pardon them when they appear at his dread tribunal. In relating events, they are accustomed to date from the festivals of the Church, for religion was always in their thoughts. After the interests of the Church they attend to those of their respective monasteries. In speaking of heroes or princes, they represent them rather according to their physical than their moral qualities, unlike those who look not at the deed alone, but spy into the thoughts with subtle skill.' They relate only facts, and make no speculation as to causes or effects; only they sometimes conclude the account of a mournful event with a pious reflectionwhen they have related the fall of an empire or the death of a great king, they exclaim that the glory of the world vanishes like a vapor, that it passes like the water of a torrent, or decays like the flowers of the spring. A wet season, an inundation, a drought, a storm, would then occupy the attention of history, for the public prosperity depended upon the harvest; and they even descended to the least particulars, as when the monk of St. Denis says, that the lightning fell upon the + Ibid. 540. *Eurip. Med. 542. -as |