LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIF'T O# J^^ Received J Accession No. 3 3~<2> Jl fi<$-ClMS No. > *?&... 7 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE HANDBOOK OP UNIVERSAL LITERATURE FROM THE BEST AND LATEST AUTHORITIES ANNE C. LYNCH \BOTTA " Fartout le Taste champ de la literature ressemble i une immense afene, ou peu de vainqueurs 61event leurs trophies sur les armes bris5es d ; une grande masse de vaincus ; ce n'est que lorsque la d^faite est devenue memorable, que 1'histoire peut s'en occuper." NEW AND REVISED EDITION OF UNIYE7 ' BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY bc HiUcrisiQc ^Jrcss, Cambridge 1899 Copyright, 1860, 1884, and 1888, BY ANNE 0. LYNCH BOTTA. All rights reserved. 36- Z&, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. Bf PREFATORY NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION. SINCE the first publication of this work in 1860, many new names have appeared in modern literature. Japan, hitherto al- most unknown to Europeans, has taken her place among the na- tions with a literature of her own, and the researches and dis- coveries of scholars in various parts of the world have thrown much light on the literatures of antiquity. To keep pace with this advance, a new edition of the work has been called for. Prefixed is a very brief summary of an important and exhaust- ive History of the Alphabet recently published. PREFACE. THIS work was begun many years ago, as a literary exercise, to meet the personal requirements of the writer, which were such as most persons experience on leaving school and " completing their education," as the phrase is. The world of literature lies before them, but where to begin, what course of study to pursue, in order best to comprehend it, are the problems which present themselves to the bewildered questioner, who finds himself in a position not unlike that of a traveler suddenly set down in an unknown country, without guide-book or map. The most nat- ural course under such circumstances would be to begin at the beginning, and take a rapid survey of the entire field of litera- ture, arriving at its details through this general view. But as this could be accomplished only by subjecting each individual to a severe and protracted course of systematic study, the idea was conceived of obviating this necessity to some extent by embody- ing the results of such a course in the form of the following work, which, after being long laid aside, is now at length com- pleted. In conformity with this design, standard books have been con- densed, with no alterations except such as were required to give unity to the whole work ; and in some instances a few additions have been made. Where standard works have not been found, the sketches have been made from the best sources of informa- tion, and submitted to the criticism of able scholars. The literatures of different nations are so related, and have so influenced each other, that it is only by a survey of all that any single literature, or even any great literary work, can be fully comprehended, as the various groups and figures of a his- torical picture must be viewed as a whole, before they can as- sume their true place and proportions. A. C. L. B. CONTENTS. LIST OF AUTHORITIES xt INTRODUCTION. THE ALPHABET. 1. The Origin of Letters. 2. The Phoenician Alphabet and Inscriptions. 3. The Greek Alphabet. Its Three Epochs. 4. The Mediaeval Scripts. The Irish. The Anglo-Saxon. The Roman. The Gothic. The Runic 1 CLASSIFICATION 07 LANGUAGES 3 CHINESE LITERATURE. 1. Chinese Literature. 2. The Language. 3. The Writing. 4. The Five Classics and Four Books. 5. Chinese Religion and Philosophy. Lao-tse". Confucius. Meng-ts6 or Mencius. 6. Buddhism. 1. Social Constitution of China. 8. In- vention of Printing. 9. Science, History, and Geography. Encyclopaedias. 10. Poetry. 11. Dramatic Literature and Fiction. 12. Education in China . . 1 JAPANESE LITERATURE, 1. The Language. 2. The Religion. 3; The Literature. Influence of Women. 4. History. 5. The Drama and Poetry. 6. Geography. Newspapers. Novels. Medical Science. 7. Position of Woman 15 SANSKRIT LITERATURE, 1, The Language. 2. The Social Constitution of India. Brahmanism. 3. Charac- teristics of the Literature and its Divisions. 4. The Vedas and other Sacred Books. 5. Sanskrit Poetry ; Epic ; the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Lyric Po- etry. Didactic Poetry ; the Hitopadesa. Dramatic Poetry. 6. History and Sci- ence. 7. Philosophy. 8. Buddhism. 9. Moral Philosophy. The Code of Manu. 10. Modern Literatures of India. 11. Education. The Brahmo Somaj . . 30 BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE. 1. The Accadians and Babylonians. 2. The Cuneiform Letters. 3. Babylonian and Assyrian Remains , ... 35 PHOENICIAN LITERATURE. The Language. The Remains 37 SYRIAC LITERATURE. The Language. Influence of the Literature in the Eighth and Ninth Century . 38 PERSIAN LITERATURE. 1. The Persian Language and its Divisions. 2. Zendic Literature ; the Zendavesta. 3. Pehlvi and Paraee Literatures, 4. The Ancient Religion of Persia; Zoro- viii CONTENTS. aster. 5. Modern Literature. 6. The Sufis. 7. Persian Poetry. 8. Persian Poets; Ferdusi; Essedi of Tus ; Togray, etc. 9. History and Philosophy. 10. Education in Persia 39 HEBREW LITERATURE. J. Hebrew Literature ; its Divisions. 2. The Language ; its Alphabet ; its Struc- ture ; Peculiarities, Formation, and Phases. 3. The Old Testament. 4. Hebrew Education. 5. Fundamental Idea of Hebrew Literature. 6. Hebrew Poetry. 7. Lyric Poetry ; Songs ; the Psalms ; the Prophets. 8. Pastoral Poetry and Di- dactic Poetry ; the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 9. Epic and Dramatic Poetry ; the Book of Job. 10. Hebrew History ; the Pentateuch and other Historical Books. 11. Hebrew Philosophy. 12. Restoration of the Sacred Books. 13. Manu- scripts and Translations. 14. Rabbinical Literature. 15. The New Revision of the Bible, and the New Biblical Manuscript 49 EGYPTIAN LITERATURE. 1. The Language. 2. The Writing. 3. The Literature. 4. The Monuments. 5. The Discovery of Champollion. 6. Literary Remains ; Historical ; Religious ; Epistolary ; Fictitious ; Scientific ; Epic ; Satirical and Judicial. 7. The Alexan- drian Period. 8. The Literary Condition of Modern Egypt 60 GREEK LITERATURE: INTRODUCTION. 1. Greek Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language. 3. The Religion 67 PEEIOD FIRST. 1. Ante-Homeric Songs and Bards. 2. Poems of Homer ; the Iliad ; the Odyssey. 3. The Cyclic Poets and the Homeric Hymns. 4. Poems of He- siod ; the Works and Days ; the Theogony. 5. Elegy and Epigram ; Tyrtaeus ; Archilochus ; Simonides. 6. Iambic Poetry, the Fable, and Parody ; Msop.l. Greek Music and Lyric Poetry ; Terpander. 8. ^olic Lyric Poets ; Alcaeus ; Sap- pho ; Anacreon. 9. Doric, or Choral Lyric Poets ; Alcman ; Stesichorus ; Pindar. 10. The Orphic Doctrines and Poems. 11. Pre-Socratic Philosophy; Ionian, Eleatic, Pythagorean Schools. 12. History ; Herodotus 72 PERIOD SECOND. 1. Literary Predominance of Athens. 2. Greek Drama. 3. Trag- edy. 4 The Tragic Poets ; JSschylus; Sophocles; Euripides. 5. Comedy; Aris- tophanes ; Menander. 6. Oratory, Rhetoric, and History ; Pericles ; the Sophists ; Lysias ; Isocrates ; Demosthenes; Thucydides; Xenophon. 7. Socrates and the Socratic Schools ; Plato ; Aristotle 90 PERIOD THIRD. 1. Origin of the Alexandrian Literature. 2. The Alexandrian _ Poets ; Philetas ; Calliinachus ; Theocritus ; Bion ; Moschus. 3. The Prose Writ- ers of Alexandria ; Zenodotus ; Aristophanes ; Aristarchus ; Eratosthenes ; Euclid ; Archimedes. 4. Philosophy of Alexandria; Neo-Platonism. 5. Anti-Neo-Pla- tonic Tendencies ; Epictetus ; Lucian ; Longinus. 6. Greek Literature in Rome ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus ; Flavius Josephus ; Polybius ; Diodorus ; Strabo ; Plu- tarch. 7. Continued Decline of Greek Literature. 8. Last Echoes of the Old Literature ; Hypatia ; Nonnus ; Musseus ; Byzantine Literature. 9. The New Tes- tament and the Greek Fathers. Modern Literature ; the Brothers Santsos and Al- exander Rangab 107 ROMAN LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. -^ 1. Roman Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language ; Ethno- graphical Elements of the Latin Language ; the Umbrian ; Oscan ; Etruscan ; the Old Roman Tongue ; Saturnian Verse ; Peculiarities of the Latin Language. 3. The Roman Religion 121 PERIOD FIRST. 1 Early Literature of the Romans ; the Fescennine Songs ; the Fab- ulae Atellanae. 2. Early Latin Poets; Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius. "" 3. Roman Comedy. 4. Comic Poets ; Plautus, Terence, and Statius. 5. Roman Tragedy. 6. Tragic Poets ; Pacuviuu and Attiua. 7. Satire ; Lucilius. 8. His- CONTENTS. ix tory and Oratory ; Fabius Pictor ; Cencius Alimentus ; Cato ; Varro ; M. Antonius ; Crassus ; Hortensius. 9. Roman Jurisprudence. 10. Grammarians . . . 127 PERIOD SECOND. 1. Development of the Roman Literature. 2. Mimes, Mimogra- phers, Pantomime ; Laberius and P. Lyrus. 3. Epic Poetry ; Virgil ; the JSneid. *** 4. Didactic Poetry ; the Bucolics; theGeorgics; Lucretius. 6. Lyric Poetry ; Catullus ; Horace. 6. Elegy ; TibuUus ; Propertius ; Ovid. 7. Oratory and Phi- losophy ; Cicero. 8. History ; J. Caesar ; Sallust ; Livy. 9. Other Prose Writers 140 PERIOD THIRD. 1. Decline of Roman Literature. 2. Fable ; Phaedrus. 3. Satire and Epigram ; Persius, Juvenal, Martial. 4. Dramatic Literature ; the Tragedies of Seneca. 5. Epic Poetry ; Lucan ; Silius Italicus ; Valerius Flaccus ; P. Statins. 6. History ; Paterculus ; Tacitus ; Suetonius ; Q. Curtius ; Valerius Maximus. 7. Rhetoric and Eloquence ; Quintilian ; Pliny the Younger. 8. Philosophy and Science ; Seneca ; Pliny the Elder ; Celsus ; P. Mela ; Columella ; Frontinus. 9. Roman Literature from Hadrian to Theodoric ; Claudian ; Eutropius ; A. Marcelli- nus ; S. Sulpicius ; Gellius ; Macrobius ; L. Apuleius ; Boethius : the Latin Fathers. 10. Roman Jurisprudence 156 ARABIAN LITERATURE. 1. European Literature in the Dark Ages. 2. The Arabian Language. 3. Arabian Mythology and the Koran. 4. Historical Development of Arabian Literature. 5. Grammar and Rhetoric. 6. Poetry. 7. The Arabian Tales. 8. History and Science. 9. Education . . .176 ITALIAN LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. Italian Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Dialects. 3. The Italian Language 193 PERIOD FIRST. 1. Latin Influence. 2. Early Italian Poetry and Prose. 3. Dante. 4. Petrarch. 5. Boccaccio and other Prose Writers. 6. First Decline of Ital- ian Literature 195 PERIOD SECOND. !. The Close of the Fifteenth Century ; Lorenzo de' Medici. 2. The Origin of the Drama and Romantic Epic ; Poliziano, Pulci, Boiardo. 3. Ro- mantic Epic Poetry ; Ariosto. 4. Heroic Epic Poetry ; Tasso. 5. Lyric Poetry ; Bembo, Molza, Tarsia, V. Colonna. 6. Dramatic Poetry ; Trissino, Rucellai ; the V Writers of Comedy. 7. Pastoral Drama and Didactic Poetry ; Beccari, Sannaz- zaro, Tasso, Guarini, Rucellai, Alamanni. 8. Satirical Poetry, Novels, and Tales; Berni, Grazzini, Firenzuola, Bandello, and others. 9. History ; Machiavelli, Guic- ciardini, Nardi, and others. 10. Grammar and Rhetoric; the Academy della Crusca, Delia Casa, Speroni, and others. 11. Science, Philosophy, and Politics ; the Academy del Cimento, Galileo, Torricelli, Borelli, Patrizi, Telesio, Campanella, Bruno, Castiglione, Machiavelli, and others. 12. Decline of the Literature in the Seventeenth Century. 13. Epic and Lyric Poetry ; Marini, Filicaja. 14. Mock Heroic Poetry, the Drama, and Satire ; Tassoni, Bracciolini, Anderini, and others. 15. History and Epistolary Writings ; Davila, Bentivoglio, Sarpi, Redi . . 205 PERIOD THIRD.- 1. Historical Development of the Third Period. 2. The Melodrama ; Rinuccini, Zeno, Metastasio. 3. Comedy; Goldoni, C. Gozzi, and others. 4. Tragedy; Maffei, Alfieri, Monti, Manzoni, Nicolini, and others. 5. Lyric, Epic, and Didactic Poetry ; Parini, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Leopardi, Grossi, Lorenzi, and others. 6. Heroic-Comic Poetry, Satire, and Fable; Fortiguerri, Passeroni, G. Gozzi, Parini, Giusti, and others. 7. Romances ; Verri, Manzoni, D'Azeglio, Cantii, Guerrazzi, and others. 8. History ; Muratori, Vico, Giannone, Botta, Col- letta, Tiraboschi, and others. 9. .Esthetics, Criticism, Philology, and Philosophy ; Baretti, Parini, Giordani, Gioja, Romagnosi, Gallupi, Rosmini, Gioberti. From 1860 to 1885 227 FRENCH LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. French Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language . . 242 PERIOD FIRST. 1. The Troubadours. 2. The Trouverea 3. French Literature in X CONTENTS. the Fifteenth Century. 4. The Mysteries and Moralities : Charles of Orleans, Villon, Ville-Hardouin, JoinvUle, Froissart, Philippe de Commines . . . .211 PERIOD SECOND. !. The Renaissance and the Reformation: Marguerite de Valois, Marot, Rabelais, Calvin, Montaigne, Charron, and others. 2. Light Literature : Ronsard, Jodelle, Hardy, Malherbe, Scarron, Madame de Rambouillet, and others. 3. The French Academy. 4. The Drama: Corneille. 5. Philosophy: Des- cartes, Pascal ; Port Royal. 6. The Rise of the Golden Age of French Literature : Louis XIV. 7. Tragedy: Racine. 8. Comedy: Moltere. 9. Fables, Satires, Mock-Heroic, and other Poetry : La Fontaine, Boileau. 10. Eloquence of the Pul- pit and of the Bar : Bourdaloue, Bossuet, Massillon, Fleshier, Le Maitre, D'Agues- seau, and others. 11. Moral Philosophy: Rochefoucault, La Bruyere, Nicole. 12. History and Memoirs : Me"zeray, Fleury, Rollin, Brantome, the Duke of Sully; Cardinal de Retz. 13. Romance and Letter Writing : F&ielon, Madame de Se"- vigntS 257 PERIOD THIRD. 1. The Dawn of Skepticism : Bayle, J. B. Rousseau, Fontenelle, La- motte. 2. Progress of Skepticism : Montesquieu, Voltaire. 3. French Literature during the Revolution : D'Holbach, D'Alembert, Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Buffon, Beaumarchais, St. Pierre, and others. 4. French Literature under the Empire: Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, Royer-Collard, Bonald, De Maistre. 5. French Literature from the Age of the Restoration to the Present Time. History : Thierry, Sismondi, Thiers, Mignet, Martin, Michelet, and others. Poetry and the Drama ; Rise of the Romantic School : Stranger, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others ; Les Parnassiens. Fiction : Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Merime"e, Balzac, Sand, Sandeau, and others. Criticism : Sainte-Beuve, Tame, and others. Miscellaneous . . 275 SPANISH LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. Spanish Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language . . 295 PERIOD FIRST. 1. Early National Literature ; the Poem of the Cid ; Berceo, Alfonso the Wise, Segura ; Don Juan Manuel, the Archpriest of Hita, Santob, Ayala. ~~ 2. Old Ballads. 3. The Chronicles. 4. Romances of Chivalry. 5. The Drama. 6. Provencal Literature in Spain. 7. The Influence of Italian Literature in Spain. 8. The Cancioneros and Prose Writing. 9. The Inquisition . . .299 PERIOD SECOND. 1. The Effect of Intolerance on Letters. 2. Influence of Italy on Spanish Literature ; Boscan, Garcilasso de la Vega, Diego de Mendoza. 3. His- tory ; Cortez, Gomara, Oviedo, Las Casas. 4. The Drama, Rueda, Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca. 5. Romances and Tales ; Cervantes, and other Writers of Fiction. 6. Historical Narrative Poems; Ercilla. 7. Lyric Poetry ; the Argen- solas ; Luis de Leon, Quevedo, Herrera, Gongora, and others. 8. Satirical and other Poetry. 9. History and other Prose Writing; Zurita, Mariana, Sandoval, and others 311 PERIOD THIRD. !. French Influence on the Literature of Spain. 2. The Dawn of Spanish Literature in the Eighteenth Century ; Feyjoo, Isla, Moratin the elder, Yriarte, Melendez, Gonzalez, Quintana, Moratin the younger. 3. Spanish Litera- ture in the Nineteenth Century 331 PORTUGUESE LITERATURE. t The Portuguese Language. 2. Early Literature of Portugal. 3. Poets of the Fifteenth Century ; Macias. Ribeyro. 4. Introduction of the Italian Style ; Saa de Miranda, Montemayor, Ferreira. 5. Epic Poetry; Camoens; the Lusiad. 6. Dramatic Poetry; Gil Vicente. 7. Prose Writing; Rodriguez Lobo, Barros, Brito, Veira. 8. Portuguese Literature in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries ; Antonio Jose", Manuel do Nascimento, Manuel de Bocage . 331 FINNISH LITERATURE. 1. The Finnish Language and Literature : Poetry ; the Kalevala ; Lonnrot ; Korrhoinen. 2. The Hungarian Language and Literature : the Age of Stephen I. ; Influence of the House of Anjou ; of the Reformation ; of the House of Austria ; Kossuth ; Josika ; Eotvos ; Kuthy ; Szigligeti ; Petd'fi 345 CONTENTS. SLAVIC LITERATURES. Fhe Slavic Race and Languages ; the Eastern and Western Stems ; the Alphabets; the Old or Church Slavic Language ; St. Cyril's Bible ; the Pravda Russkaya ; the Annals of Nestor 352 RUSSIAN LITERATURE. 1. The Language. 2. Literature in the Reign of Peter the Great ; of Alexander ; of Nicholas ; Danilof, Lomonosof, Kheraskof, Derzhavin, Karamzin. 3. History, Poetry, the Drama : Kostrof, Dmitrief, Zhukoff ski, Krylof , Pushkin, Lermontoff, Gogol. 4. Literature in Russia since the Crimean War : School of Nature; Tur- guenieff ; Ultra-realistic School : Science ; MendeleSff 353 THE SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 358 TUB BOHEMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Tycho Brake, Kepler, Comenius, and others . . 360 THE POLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Rey, Bielski, Copernicus, Czartoryski, Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, and others . . 363 ROUMANIAN LITERATURE. Carmen Sylva 367 DUTCH LITERATURE. 1. The Language. 2. Dutch Literature to the Sixteenth Century : Maerlant ; Melig Stoke ; De Weert ; the Chambers of Rhetoric ; the Flemish Chroniclers ; the Rise of the Dutch Republic. 3. The Latin Writers: Erasmus; Grotius ; Arminius; Lipsius ; the Scaligers, and others ; Salmasius ; Spinoza ; Boerhaave ; Johannes Secundus. 4. Dutch Writers of the Sixteenth Century : Anna Byns ; Coornhert ; Marnix de St. Aldegonde ; Bor, Visscher, and Spieghel. 5. Writers of the Sev- enteenth Century : Hoof t ; Vondel ; Cats ; Antonides ; Brandt, and others ; Decline jn Dutch Literature. 6. The Eighteenth Century : Poot ; Langendijk ; Hoogvliet ; De Marre ; Feitama ; Huydecoper ; the Van Harens ; Smits ; Ten Kate ; Van Whi- ter; Van Merken; De Lannoy; Van Alphen; Bellamy ; Nieuwland, Styl, and others. 7. The Nineteenth Century : Feith ; Helmera ; Bilderdyk ; Van der Palm ; Loosjes ; Loots, Tollens, Van Kampen, De s'Gravenweert, Hoevill, and others . 368 SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE. I. Introduction. The Ancient Scandinavians ; their Influence on the English Race. 2. The Mythology. 3. The Scandinavian Languages. 4. Icelandic, or Old Norse Literature : the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Scalds, the Sagas, the " Heim- skringla." The Folks-Sagas and Ballads of the Middle Ages. 5. Danish Litera- ture : Saxo Grammaticus and Theodoric ; Arreboe, Kingo, Tycho Brahe, Holberg, Evald, Baggesen, Oehlenschlager, Grundtvig, Blicher, Ingemann, Heiberg, Gyllen- bourg, Winther, Hertz, Muller, Hans Andersen, Ploug, Goldschmidt, Hastrup, and others ; Malte Brun, Rask, Rafn, Magnusen, the brothers Oersted. 6. Swedish Literature : Messenius, Stjernhjelm, Lucidor, and others. The Gallic period : Da- lin, Nordenflycht, Crutz and Gyllenborg, Gustavus III., Kellgren, Leopold, Oxen- stjerna. The New Era : Bellman, Hallman, Kexel, Wallenberg, Lidner, Thorild, Lengren, Franzen, Wallin. The Phosphorists : Atterbom, Hammarskold, and Palmblad. The Gothic School : Geijer, TegneY, Stagnelius, Almquist, Vitalis, Runeberg, and others. The Romance Writers : Cederborg, Bremer, Carlen, Knor- ring. Science : Swedenborg, Linnaeus, and others 382 GERMAN LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. German Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Mythology. 3. The Language 401 PERIOD FIBST. 1. Early Literature ; Translation of the Bible by Ulphilas ; the Hilde- brand Lied. 2. The Age of Charlemagne ; his Successors ; the Ludwig's Lied ; Roswitha ; the Lombard Cycle. 3. The Suabian Age ; the Crusades ; the Minne- singers ; the Romances of Chivalry ; the Heldenbuch ; the Nibelungen Lied. jtii CONTENTS. 4. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries ; the Mastersingers ; Satires and Fa- bles ; Mysteries and Dramatic Representations ; the Mystics ; the Universities ; the Invention of Printing 409 PERIOD SECOND. From 1517 to 1700. 1. The Lutheran Period : Luther, Melanch- thon. 2. Manuel, Zwingle, Fischart, Franck, Arnd, Boehm. 3. Poetry, Satire, and Demonology ; Paracelsus and Agrippa ; the Thirty Years' War. 4. The Sev- enteenth Century : Opitz, Leibnitz, Puffendorf, Kepler, Wolf, Thomasius, Gerhard ; Silesian Schools ; Hoffmannswaldau, Lohenstein .... . . 418 PERIOD THIRD. 1. The Swiss and Saxon Schools : Gottsched, Bodmer, Eabener, Gellert, Kastner, and others. 2. Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland, and Herder. 3. Goethe and Schiller. 4. The Gottingen School : ^"oss, Stolberg, Claudius, Bur- "" ger, and others. 5. The Romantic School : the Schlegels, Novalis ; Tieck, Kor- ner, Arndt, Uhland, Heine, and others. 6. The Drama : Goethe and Schiller ; the Power Men; Milliner, Werner, Howald, and GriUparzer. 7. Philosophy: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann. Science : Liebig, Du Boifl-Raymond, Virchow, Helmholst, Hseckel. 8. Miscellaneous Writings . 424 ENGLISH LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. English Literature. Its Divisions. 2. The Language . .448 PERIOD FIRST. 1. Celtic Literature. Irish, Scotch, and Cymric Celts ; the Chroni- cles of Ireland ; Ossian's Poems ; Traditions of Arthur ; the Triads ; Tales. 2. Latin Literature. Bede ; Alcuin ; Erigena. 3. Anglo-Saxon Literature. Poetry ; Prose ; Versions of Scripture ; the Saxon Chronicle ; Alfred 460 PERIOD SECOND. The Norman Age and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. 1. Literature in the Latin Tongue. 2. Literature in Norman-French. Poetry; Romances of Chivalry. 3. Saxon-English. Metrical Remains. 4. Literature in the Fourteenth Century. Prose Writers: Occam, Duns Scotus, Wickliffe, Mande- ville, Chaucer. Poetry; Langland, Gower, Chaucer. 5. Literature in the Fif- teenth Century. Ballads. 6. Poets of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in Scotland. Wyntoun, Barbour, and others . . . . . . . . 463 PERIOD THIRD. !. Age of the Reformation (1509-1558). Classical, Theological, and .Miscellaneous Literature : Sir Thomas More and others. Poetry : Skelton, Surrey, and Sackville ; the Drama. 2. The Age of Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Mil- ton (1558-1660). Scholastic and Ecclesiastical Literature. Translations of the Bible : Hooker, Andrews, Donne, Hall, Taylor, Baxter ; other Prose Writers : Ful- ; ler, Cudworth, Bacon, Hobbes. Raleigh, Milton, Sidney, Selden, Burton, Browne, and Cowley. Dramatic Poetry : Marlowe and Greene, Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and others ; Massinger, Ford, and Shirley ; Decline of the Drama. Non-dramatic Poetry: Spenser and the Minor Poets. Lyrical Poets: Donne, Cowley, Denhana*- Waller, Milton. 3. The Age of the Restoration and Rev- olution (1660-1702). Prose : Leighton, Tillotson, Barrow, Bunyan, Locke, and oth- ers. The Drama : Dryden, Otway. Comedy : Didactic Poetry : Roscommon, Mar- veil, Butler, Pry or, Dryden. 4. The Eighteenth Century. The First Generation r (1702-1727$* Pope, Swift, and others ; the Periodical Essayists : Addison, Steele. The Second Generation (1727-1760) ; Theology : Warburton, Butler, Watts, Dod- dridge. Philosophy : Hume. Miscellaneous Prose : Johnson ; the Novelists : Rich- ardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. The Drama ; Non-dramatic Poetry : Young, Blair, Akenside, Thomson, Gray, and Collins. The Third Generation (1760-1800) ; the Historians : Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Miscellaneous Prose : Johnson, Goldsmith, " Junius," Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and Burke. Criticism : Burke, Reynolds, Campbell, Kames. Political Economy : Adam Smith. Ethics : Paley, Smith, Tucker. Metaphysics : Reid. Theological and Religious Writers : Camp- ! . bell, Paley, Watson, Newton, Hannah More, and Wilberforce. Poetry : Comedies - of Goldsmith and Sheridan ; Minor Poets ; Later Poems ; Beattie's Minstrel ; Cow- per and Burns. 5. The Nineteenth Century. The Poets: Campbell, Southey, Scott, Byron ; Coleridge and Wordsworth ; Wilson, Shelley, Keats ; Crabbe, Moore, ^ and others ; Tennyson, Browning, Procter, and others. Fiction : the Waverley CONTENTS. xiii and other Novels ; Dickens, Thackeray, and others. History : Arnold, Thirlwall, Grote, Macaulay, Alison, Carlyle, Freeman, Buckle. Criticism: Hallam, De Quincey, Macaulay, Carlyle, Wilson, Lamb, and others. Theology : Foster, Hall, Chalmers. Philosophy: Stewart, Brown, Mackintosh, Bentham, Alison, and others. Political Economy: Mill, Whewell, Whately, De Morgan, Hamilton. Periodical Writings: the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Westminster Reviews, and Blackwood's Magazine. Physical Science : Brewster, Herschel, Playfair, Miller, Buckland, Whewell. Since 1860. 1. Poets : Matthew Arnold, Algernon Swinburne, Dante Rossetti, Robert Buchanan, Edwin Arnold, " Owen Meredith," William Morris, Jean Ingelow, Adelaide Procter, Christina Rossetti, Augusta Webster, Mary Robinson, and others. 2. Fiction: "George Eliot," McDonald, Collins, Black, Blackmore, Mrs. Oliphant, Yates, McCarthy, Trollope, and others. 3. Scientific Writers : Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, and others. 4. Mis- cellaneous .... 472 AMERICAN LITERATURE. THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 1. The Seventeenth Century. George Sandys; The Bay Psalm Book ; Anne Bradstreet, John Eliot, and Cotton Mather. 2. From 1700 to 1770. Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Cadwallader Golden . . .510 FIRST AMERICAN PERIOD, FROM 1771 TO 1820. 1. Statesmen and Political Writers: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton ; The Federalist ; Jay, Madison, Marshall, Fisher Ames, and others. 2. The Poets : Freneau, Trumbull, Hopkinson, Barlow, Clif- ton, and D wight. 3. Writers in other Departments : Bellamy, Hopkins, D wight, and Bishop White. Rush, McClurg, Lindley Murray, Charles Brockden Brown. Ramsay, Graydon. Count Rumford, Wirt, Ledyard, Pinkney, and Pike . . 612 BECOND AMERICAN PERIOD, FROM 1820 TO 1860. 1. History, Biography, and Travels : Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Godwin, Ticknor, Schoolcraft, Hildreth, Sparks, Irv- ing, Headley, Stephens, Kane, Squier, Perry, Lynch, Taylor, and others. 2. Ora- tory : Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, Everett, and others. 3. Fiction : Cooper, Irving, Willis, Hawthorne, Poe, Simms, Mrs. Stowe, and others. 4. Poetry : Bry- ant, Dana, Halleck, Longfellow, Willis, Lowell, Allston, Hillhouse, Drake, Whit- <. tier, Hoffman, and others. 5. The Transcendental Movement in New England. 6. Miscellaneous Writings : Whipple, Tuckerman, Curtis, Briggs, Prentice, and oth- ers. 7. Encyclopaedias, Dictionaries, and Educational Books. The Encyclopaedia Americana. The New American Cyclopaedia. Allibone, Griswold, Duyckinck, Webster, Worcester, Anthon, Felton, Barnard, and others. 8. Theology, Philoso- phy, Economy, and Jurisprudence : Stuart, Robinson, Wayland, Barnes, Channing, Parker. Tappan, Henry, Hickok, Haven. Carey, Kent, Wheaton, Story, Living- ston, Lawrence, Bouvier. 9. Natural Sciences : Franklin, Morse, Fulton, Silliman, Dana, Hitchcock, Rogers, Bowditch, Peirce, Bache, Holbrook, Audubon, Morton, Gliddon, Maury, and others. 10. Foreign Writers : Paine, Witherspoon, Rowson, Priestley, Wilson, Agassiz, Guyot, Mrs. Robinson, Gurowski, and others. 11. Newspapers and Periodicals. 12. Since 1860 516 CONCLUSION 539 INDEX .Ml LIST OP AUTHORITIES. THE following works are the sources from which this book is wholly or chiefly derived : Taylor's History of the Alphabet ; Ibsdght's Philology; Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry; Lowth's Hebrew Poetry; Asiatic Researches; the works of Gesenius, Do Wette, Ewald, Colebrooke, Sir William Jones, Wilson, Ward ; Scilegel's Hindu Language and Literature ; Max Miiller's History of Sanskrit Literature ; and What India has taught us; Malcolm's History of Persia; Richardson on the Language of Eastern Nations; Adelung's Mithridates; Chodzko's Specimens of the Popular Poetry of Persia^ Costello's Rose Garden of Persia; Re'- musat's Memoire sur 1'Ecriture Cbinoise; Davis on the Poetry of the Chinese; Williams's Middle Kingdom; The Mikado's Empire; Rein's Travels in Japan; Duhalde's Description de la Chine; Champollion's Letters ; Wilkinson's Extracts from Hieroglyphical Subjects; the works of Bunsen, Miiller, and Lane ; Muller's History of the Litera- ture of Ancient Greece, continued by Donaldson ; Browne's History of Roman Classical Literature ; Fiske's Manual of Classical Litera- ture; Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe; Goodrich's Uni- versal History; Sanford's Rise and Progress of Literature; Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature ; Schlegel's History of Dramatic Art; Tiraboschi's History of Italian Literature; Maffei, Corniani, and Ugoni on the same subject ; Chambers's Handbooks of Italian and German Literature; Vilmar's History of German Literature; Foster's Handbook of French Literature ; Nisard's Histoire de la Litterature Fran9aise ; Demogeot's Histoire de la Litterature Fran^aise ; Tick- nor's History of Spanish Literature ; Talvi's (Mrs. Robinson) Liter- ature of the Slavic Nations; Mallet's Northern Antiquities ; Keyson's Religion of the Northmen ; Pigott's Northern Mythology; William and Mary Hewitt's Literature and Romance of Northern Europe ; De s'Gravenweert's Sur la Litterature Neerlandaise ; Siegenbeck's Histoire Litteraire des Pays-Bas; Da Pontes' Poets and Poetry of Germany; Menzel's German Literature ; Spaulding's History of Eng- lish Literature; Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature; Shaw's English Literature ; Stedman's Victorian Poets; Triibner's Guide t6 American Literature ; Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia of American Liter 1 - ature; Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers of America; Tuckerman's Sketch of American Literature ; Frothingham's Transcendental Move- ment in New England. French, English, and American Encyclopae- dias, Biographies, Dictionaries, and numerous other works of refer- ence have also been extensively consulted. INTRODUCTION. THE ALPHABET. 1. The Origin of Letters. -2. The Phrenician Alphabet and Inscriptions. - 3. Th Greek Alphabet. Its Three Epochs. 4. The Mediaeval Scripts. The Irish. The Anglo- Saxon. The Roman. The Gothic. The Runic. 1. THE ORIGIN OF LETTERS. Alphabetic writing is an art easy to acquire, but its invention has tasked the genius of the three most gifted nations of the ancient world. All primitive people have begun to record events and transmit messages by means of rude pictures of objects, intended to represent things or thoughts, which afterwards became the symbols of sounds. For instance, the letter M is traced down from the convention- alized picture of an owl in the ancient language of Egypt, Mulak. This was used first to denote the bird itself ; then it stood for the name of the bird ; then gradually became a syllabic sign to express the sound " mu," the first syllable of the name, and ul- timately to denote " M," the initial sound of that syllable. In like manner A can be shown to be originally the picture of an eagle, D of a hand, F of the horned asp, It of the mouth, and so on. Five systems of picture-writing have been independently in- vented, the Egyptian, the Cuneiform, the Chinese, the Mexican, and the Hittite. The tradition of the ancient world, which as- signed to the Phoenicians the glory of the invention of letters, declared that it was from Egypt that they originally derived the art of writing, which they afterwards carried into Greece, and the latest investigations have confirmed this tradition. 2. THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET. Of the Phoenician alphabet the Samaritan is the only living representative, the Sacred Script of the few families who still worship on Mount Gerizim. With this exception, it is only known to us by inscriptions, of which several hundred have been discovered. They form two well-marked varieties, the Moabite and the Sidonian. The most important monument of the first is the celebrated Moabite stone, discovered in 1868 on the site of the ancient capital of the land of Moab, portions of which are preserved in the Louvre. It gives an account of the revolt of the King of Moab against 2 INTRODUCTION. Jehoram, King of Israel, 890 B. c. The most important inscrip- tion of the Sidonian type is that on the magnificent sarcophagus of a king of Sidon, now one of the glories of the Louvre. A monument of the early Hebrew alphabet, another offshoot of the Phoenician, was discovered in 1880 in an inscription in the ancient tunnel which conveys water to the pool of Siloam. 3. THE GREEK ALPHABET. The names, number, order, and forms of the primitive Greek alphabet attest its Semitic origin. Of the many inscriptions which remain, the earliest has been discovered, not in Greece, but upon the colossal portrait statues carved by Rameses the Great, in front of the stupendous cave temple at Abou-Simbel, at the time when the Hebrews were still in Egyptian bondage. In the seventh century B. c., certain Greek mercenaries in the service of an Egyptian king inscribed a rec- ord of their visit in five precious lines of writing, which the dry Nubian atmosphere has preserved almost in their pristine sharp- ness. The legend, according to which Cadmus the Tyrian sailed for Greece in search of Europa, the damsel who personified the West, designates the island of Thera as the earliest site of Phoe- nician colonization in the JEgean, and from inscriptions found there this may be regarded as the first spot of European soil on which words were written, and they exhibit better than any others the progressive form of the Cadmean alphabet. The oldest inscriptions found on Hellenic soil bearing a definite date are those cut on the pedestals of the statues which lined the sa- cred way leading to the temple of Apollo, near Miletus. Sev- eral of those, now in the British Museum, range in date over the sixth century B. c. They belong, not to the primitive alphabet, but to the Ionian, one of the local varieties which mark the sec- ond stage, which may be called the epoch of transition, which be- gan in the seventh and lasted to the close of the fifth century B. c. It is not till the middle of the fifth century that we have any dated monuments belonging to the Western types. Among these are the names of the allied states of Hellas, inscribed on the coils of the three-headed bronze serpent which supported the gold tripod dedicated to the Delphian Apollo, 476 B. c. This famous monument was transported to Byzantium by Constantino the Great, and still stands in the Hippodrome at Constantinople. Of equal interest is the bronze Etruscan helmet in the British Museum, dedicated to the Olympian Zeus, in commemoration of the great victory off Cumse, which destroyed the naval suprem- acy of the Etruscans, 474 B. c., and is celebrated in an ode by Pindar. The third epoch witnessed the emergence of the classical al phabets of European culture, the Ionian and the Italic. INTRODUCTION. 3 The Ionian has been the source of the Eastern scripts, Ro maic, Coptic, Slavic, and others. The Italic became the parent of the modern alphabets of Western Europe. 4. THE MEDUEVAL SCRIPTS. A variety of national scripts arose in the establishment of the Teutonic kingdoms upon the, ruins of the Roman Empire. But the most magnificent of all mediaeval scripts was the Irish, which exercised a profound in- fluence on the later alphabets of Europe. From a combination of the Roman and Irish arose the Anglo-Saxon script, the precur- sor of that which was developed in the ninth century by Alcuin of York, the friend and preceptor of Charlemagne. This was the parent of the Roman alphabet, in which our books are now printed. Among other deteriorations, there crept in, in the four- teenth century, the Gothic or black letter character, and these bar- barous forms are still essentially retained by the Teutonic nations though discarded by the English and Latin races ; but from its superior excellences the Roman alphabet is constantly extend- ing its range and bids fair to become the sole alphabet of the future. In all the lands that were settled and overrun by the Scandinavians, there are found multitudes of inscriptions in the ancient alphabet of the Norsemen, which is called the Runic. The latest modern researches seem to prove that this was de- rived from the Greek, and probably dates back as far as the sixth century B. c. The Goths were early in occupation of the regions south of the Baltic and east of the Vistula, and in direct commercial intercourse with the Greek traders, from whom they doubtless obtained a knowledge of the Greek alphabet, as the Greeks themselves had gained it from the Phosnicians. CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES. Modern philologists have made different classifications of the various languages of the world, one of which divides them into three great classes : the Monosyllabic, the Agglutinated, and the Inflected. The first, or Monosyllabic class, contains those languages which consist only of separate, unvaried monosyllables. The words have no organization that adapts them for mutual affilia- tion, and there is in them, accordingly, an utter absence of all scientific forms and principles of grammar. The Chinese and a few languages in its vicinity, doubtless originally identical with it, are all that belong to this class. The languages of the North American Indians, though differing in many respects, iiave the same general grade of character. The second class consists of those languages which are formed 4 INTRODUCTION. by agglutination. The words combine only in a mechanical way; they have no elective affinity, and exhibit toward each other none of the active or sensitive capabilities of living organ- isms. Prepositions are joined to substantives, and pronouns to verbs, but never so as to make a new form of the original word, as in the inflected languages, and words thus placed in juxtapo- sition retain their personal identity unimpaired. The agglutinative languages are known also as the Turanian, from Turan, a name of Central Asia, and the principal varieties of this family are the Tartar, Finnish, Lappish, Hungarian, and Caucasian. They are classed together almost exclusively on the ground of correspondence in their grammatical structure, but they are bound together by ties of far less strength than those which connect the inflected languages. The race by whom they are spoken has, from the first, occupied more of the surface of the earth than either of the others, stretching westward from the shores of the Japan Sea to the neighborhood of Vienna, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to Afghanistan and the south- ern coast of Asia Minor. The inflected languages form the third great division. . They have all a complete interior organization, complicated with many mutual relations and adaptations, and are thoroughly systematic in all their parts. Between this class and the monosyllabic there is all the difference that there is between organic and inorganic forms of matter ; and between them and the agglutinative lan- guages there is the same difference that exists in nature be- tween mineral accretions and vegetable growths. The bounda- ries of this class of languages are the boundaries of cultivated humanity, and in their history lies embosomed that of the civil- ized portions of the world. Two great races speaking inflected languages, the Semitic and the Indo-European, have shared between them the peopling of the historic portions of the earth ; and on this account these two languages have sometimes been called political or state lan- guages, in contrast with the appellation of the Turanian as no- madic. The term Semitic is applied to that family of languages which are native in Southwestern Asia, and which are supposed to have been spoken by the descendants of Shem, the son of Noah. They are the Hebrew, Aramaeic, Arabic, the ancient Egyptian or Coptic, the Chaldaic, and Phrenician. Of these the only living language of note is the Arabic, which has supplanted all the others, and wonderfully diffused its elements among the con* stituents of many of the Asiatic tongues. In Europe the Arabic has left a deep impress on the Spanish language, and ii still represented in the Maltese, which is one of its dialects. INTRODUCTION. t 5 The Semitic languages differ widely from the Indo-European in reference to their grammar, vocabulary, and idioms. On account of the great preponderance of the pictorial element in them, they may be called the metaphorical languages, while the Indo-European, from the prevailing style of their higher litera- ture, may be called the philosophical languages. The Semitic nations also differ from the Indo-European in their national characteristics ; while they have lived with remarkable uniform- ity on the vast open plains, or wandered over the wide and dreary deserts of their native region, the Indo-Europeans have spread themselves over both hemispheres, and carried civiliza- tion to its highest development. But the Semitic mind has not been without influence on human progress. It early recorded its thoughts, its wants, and achievements in the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt; the Phoenicians, foremost in their day in commerce and the arts, introduced from Egypt alphabetic let- ters, of which all the world has since made use. The Jewish portion of the race, long in communication with Egypt, Phoeni- cia, Babylonia, and Persia, could not fail to impart to these na- tions some knowledge of their religion and literature, and it cannot be doubted that many new ideas and quickening influ- ences were thus set in motion, and communicated to the more remote countries both of the East and West. The most ancient languages of the Indo-European stock may be grouped in two distinct family pairs : the Aryan, which com- prises two leading families, the Indian and Iranian, and the Graeco-Italic or Pelasgic, which comprises the Greek family and its various dialects, and the Italic family, the chief-subdivisions of which are the Etruscan, the Latin, and the modern languages derived from the Latin. The other Indo-European families are the Lettic, Slavic, Gothic, and Celtic, with their various sub- divisions. The word Aryan (Sanskrit, Arya), the oldest known name of the entire Indo-European family, signifies well-born, and was applied by the ancient Hindus to themselves in contradistinction to the rest of the world, whom they considered base-born and contemptible. In the country called Aryavarta, lying between the Himalaya and the Vindhya Mountains, the high table-land of Central Asia, more than two thousand years before Christ, our Hindu ances- tors had their early home. From this source there have been, historically, two great streams of Aryan migration. One, towards the south, stagnated in the fertile valleys, where they were walled in from all danger of invasion by the Himalaya Mountains on the north, the Indian Ocean on the south, and the deserts of Bactria on the west, and where the people sunk into a life of 6 INTRODUCTION. inglorious ease, or wasted their powers in the regions of dreamy mysticism. The other migration, at first northern, and then western, includes the great families of nations in Northwestern Asia and in Europe. Forced by circumstances into a more ob- jective life, and under the stimulus of more favorable influences, these nations have been brought into a marvelous state of in- dividual and social progress, and to this branch of the human family belongs all the civilization of the present, and most of that which distinguishes the past. The Indo-European family of languages far surpasses the Semitic in variety, flexibility, beauty, and strength. It is re- markable for its vitality, and has the power of continually re- generating itself and bringing forth new linguistic creations. It renders most faithfully the various workings of the human mind, its wants, its aspirations, its passion, imagination, and reasoning power, and is most in harmony with the ever progressive spirit of man. In its varied scientific and artistic development it forms the most perfect family of languages on the globe, and modern civilization, by a chain reaching through thousands of years, ascends to this primitive source. HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. CHINESE LITERATURE. 1. Chinese Literature. 2. The Language. 3. The Writing. 4. The five Classics and four Books. 5. Chinese Religion and Philosophy. Lao-ts*. Confucius. Meng-ts6 or Mencius. 6. Buddhism. 7. Social Constitution of China. 8. Invention of Printing. 9. Science, History, and Geography. Encyclopaedias. 10. Poetry. 11. Dramatic Literature and Fiction. 12. Education in China. 1. CHINESE LITERATURE. The Chinese literature is one of the most voluminous of all literatures, and among the most im- portant of those of Asia. Originating in a vast empire, it is dif- fused among a population numbering nearly half the inhabitants of the globe. It is expressed by an original language differing from all others, it refers to a nation whose history may be traced back nearly five thousand years in an almost unbroken series of annals, and it illustrates the peculiar character of a people long unknown to the Western world. 2. THE LANGUAGE. The date of the origin of this language is lost in antiquity, but there is no doubt that it is the most an- cient now spoken, and probably the oldest written language used by man. It has undergone few alterations during successive ages, and this fact has served to deepen the lines of demarkation between the Chinese and other branches of the race and has re- sulted in a marked national life. It belongs to the monosyllabic family ; its radical words number 450, but as many of these, by being pronounced with a different accent convey a different meaning, in reality they amount to 1,203. Its pronunciation varies in different provinces, but that of Nanking, the ancient capital of the Empire, is the most pure. Many dialects are spoken in the different provinces, but the Chinese proper is the literary tongue of the nation, the language of the court and of polite society, and it is vernacular in that portion of China called the Middle Kingdom. 3. THE WRITING. There is an essential difference between the Chinese language as spoken and written, and the poverty of the former presents a striking contrast with the exuberance of the latter. Chinese writing, generally speaking, does not ex- press the sounds of the words, but it represents the ideas or the objects indicated by them. Its alphabetical characters are there- 8 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. fore ideographic, and not phonetic. They were originally rude representations of the thing signified ; but they have undergone various changes from picture-writing to the present more sym- bolical and more complete system. As the alphabetic signs represent objects or ideas, it would follow that there must be in writing as many characters as words in the spoken language. Yet many words, which have the same sound, represent different ideas ; and these must be represented also in the written language. Thus the number of the written words far surpasses that of the spoken language. As far as they are used in the common writing, they amount to 2,425. The number of characters in the Chinese dictionary is 40,000, of which, however, only 10,000 are required for the gen- eral purposes of literature. They are disposed under 214 signs, which serve as keys, and which correspond to our alphabetic order. The Chinese language is written from right to left, in vertical columns or in horizontal lines. 4. THE CLASSICS. The first five canonical books are " The Book of Transformations," " The Book of History," " The Book of Rites," " The Spring and Autumn Annals," and " The Book of Odes." " The Book of Transformations " consists of sixty-four short essays on important themes, symbolically and enigmatically ex- pressed, based on linear figures and diagrams. These cabala are held in high esteem by the learned, and the hundreds of fortune-tellers in the streets of Chinese towns practice their art on the basis of these mysteries. " The Book of History " was compiled by Confucius, 551-470 B. c., from the earliest records of the Empire, and in the estima- tion of the Chinese it contains the seeds of all that is valuable in their political system, their history, and their religious rites, and is the basis of their tactics, music, and astronomy. It con- sists mainly of conversations between kings and their ministers, in which are traced the same patriarchal principles of govern- ment that guide the rulers of the present day. " The Book of Rites " is still the rule by which the Chinese regulate ah 1 the relations of life. No everyniay ceremony is too insignificant to escape notice, and no social or domestic duty is beyond its scope. No work of the classics has left such an im- pression on the manners and customs of the people. Its rules are still minutely observed, and the office of the Board of Rites, one of the six governing boards of Peking, is to see that its pre- cepts are carried out throughout the Empire. According to this system, all the relations of man to the family, society, the state, to morals, and to religion, are reduced to ceremonial, but this CHINESE LITERATURE. 9 includes not only the external conduct, but it involves those right principles from which all true politeness and etiquette spring. The " Book of Odes " consists of national airs, chants, and sacrificial odes of great antiquity, some of them remarkable for their sublimity. It is difficult to estimate the power they have exerted over all subsequent generations of Chinese scholars. They are valuable for their religious character and for their illustration of early Chinese customs and feelings ; but they are crude in measure, and wanting in that harmony which comes from study and cultivation. The " Spring and Autumn Annals " consist of bald statements of historical facts. Of the Four Books, the first three the "Great Learning," the "Just Medium," and the "Confucian Analects " are by the pupils and followers of Confucius. The last of the four books consists entirely of the writings of Mencius (371-288 B. c.). In originality and breadth of view he is superior to Confucius, and must be regarded as one of the greatest men Asiatic nations have produced. The Five Classics and Four Books would scarcely be considered more than curiosities in literature were it not for the incompar- able influence, free from any debasing character, which they have exerted over so many millions of minds. 5. CHINESE RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. Three periods may be distinguished in the history of the religious and philosophical progress of China. The first relates to ancient tradition, to the idea of one supreme God, to the patriarchal institutions, which were the foundation of the social organization of the Empire, and to the primitive customs and moral doctrines. It appears that this religion at length degenerated into that mingled idolatry and indifference which still characterizes the people of China. In the sixth century B. c., the corruption of the ancient religion having reached its height, a reaction took place which gave birth to the second, or philosophical period, which produced three sys- tems. Lao-tse, born 604 B. c., was the founder of the religion of the Tao, or of the external and supreme reason. The Tao is the primitive existence and intelligence, the great principle of the spiritual and material world, which must be worshiped through the purification of the soul, by retirement, abnegation, contemplation, and metempsychosis. This school gave rise to a sect of mystics similar to those of India. Later writers have debased the system of Lao-tse*, and cast aside his profound speculations for superstitious rituals and the multiplication of gods and goddesses. Confucius was the founder of the second school, which has exerted a far more extensive and beneficial influence on the political ancl social institutions of China. Conf ueius is a Latin 10 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. name, corresponding to the original Kung-fu-tse, Kung being the proper name, and Fu-tse signifying reverend teacher or doctor. He was born 551 B. c., and educated by his mother, who im- pressed upon him a strong sense of morality. After a careful study of the ancient writings he decided to undertake the moral reform of his country, and giving up his high position of prime minister, he traveled extensively in China, preaching justice and virtue wherever he went. His doctrines, founded on the unity of God and the necessities of human nature, bore essen- tially a moral character, and being of a practical tendency, they exerted a great influence not only on the morals of the people, but also on their legislation, and the authority of Confucius be- came supreme. He died 479 B. c., at the age of seventy-two, eleven years before the birth of Socrates. He left a grandson, through whom the succession has been transmitted to the pres- ent day, and his descendants constitute a distinct class in Chinese society. At the close of the fourth century B. c., another philosopher appeared by the name of Meng-tse, or Mencius (eminent and venerable teacher), whose method of instruction bore a strong similarity to that of Socrates. His books rank among the clas- sics, and breathe a spirit of freedom and independence ; they are full of irony on petty sovereigns and on their vices ; they es- tablish moral goodness above social position, and the will of the people above the arbitrary power of their rulers. He was much revered, and considered bolder and more eloquent than Con- fucius. 6. The third period of the intellectual development of the Chinese dates from the introduction of Buddhism into the coun- try, under the name of the religion of Fo, 70 A. D. The em- peror himself professes this religion, and its followers have the largest number of temples. The great bulk of Buddhist litera- ture is of Indian origin. Buddhism, however, has lost in China much of its originality, and for the mass it has sunk into a low and debasing idolatry. Recently a new religion has sprung up in China, a mixture of ancient Chinese and Christian doctrines, which apparently finds great favor in some portions of the coun- try. 7. SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF CHINA. The social constitution of China rests on the ancient traditions preserved in the canon- ical and classic books. The Chinese empire is founded on the patriarchal system, in which all authority over the family be- longs to the pater familias. The emperor represents the great father of the nation, and is the supreme master of the state and the head of religion. All his subjects being considered as his children, they are all equal before him, and according to CHINESE LITERATURE. 11 their capacity are admitted to the public offices. Hence no dis- tinction of castes, no privileged classes, no nobility of birth ; but a general equality under an absolute chief. The public admin- istration is entirely in the hands of the emperor, who is assisted by his mandarins, both military and civil. They are admitted to this rank only after severe examinations, and from them the members of the different councils of the empire are selected. Among these the Board of Control, or the all-examining Court, and the Court of History and Literature deserve particular mention, as being more closely related to the subject of this work. The duty of this board consists in examining all the official acts of the government, and in preventing the enacting of those measures which they may deem detrimental to the best interests of the country. They can even reprove the personal acts of the emperor, an office which has afforded many occasions for the display of eloquence. The courage of some of the mem- bers of this board has been indeed sublime, giving to their words wonderful power. The Court of History and Literature superintends public edu- cation, examines those who aspire to the degree of mandarins, and decides on the pecuniary subsidies, which the government usually grants for defraying the expenses of the publication of great works on history and science. 8. INVENTION OF PRINTING. At the close of the sixth cen- tury B. c. it was ordained that various texts in circulation should be engraved on wood to be printed and published. At first comparatively little use seems to have been made of the inven- tion, which only reached its full development in the eleventh century, when movable types were first invented by a Chinese blacksmith, who printed books with them nearly five hundred years before Gutenberg appeared. In the third century B. c., one of the emperors conceived the mad scheme of destroying all existing records, and writing a new set of annals in his own name, in order that posterity might consider him the founder of the empire. Sixty years after this barbarous decree had been carried into execution, one of his successors, who desired as far as possible to repair the injury, caused these books to be re-written from a copy which had es- caped destruction. 9. SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND GEOGRAPHY. Comparing the scientific development of the Chinese with that of the Western world, it may be said that they have made little progress in any branch of science. There are, however, to be found in almost every department some works of no indifferent merit. In math- ematics they begin only now to make some progress, since the mathematical works of Europe have been introduced into their 12 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. country. Astrology still takes the place of astronomy, and the almanacs prepared at the observatory of Peking are made chiefly by foreigners. Books on natural philosophy abound, some of which are written by the emperors themselves. Medicine is imperfectly understood. They possess several valuable works on Chinese jurisprudence, on agriculture, economy, mechanics, trades, many cyclopaedias and compendia, and several dictiona- ries, composed with extraordinary skill and patience. To this department may be referred all educational books, the most of them written in rhyme, and according to a system of intellectual gradation. The historical and geographical works of China are the most valuable and interesting department of its literature. Each dynasty has its official chronicle, and the celebrated collection of twenty-one histories forms an almost unbroken record of the annals from the third century B. c. to the middle of the seven- teenth century, and contains a vast amount of information to European readers. The edition of this huge work, in sixty-six folio volumes, is to be found in the British Museum. This and many similar works of a general and of a local character unite in rendering this department rich and important for those who are interested in the history of Asiatic civilization. " The Gen- eral Geography of the Chinese Empire " is a collection of the statistics of the country, with maps and tables, in two hundred and sixty volumes. The " Statutes of the Reigning Dynasty," from the year 1818, form more than one thousand volumes. Chinese topographical works are characterized by a minuteness of detail rarely equaled. Historical and literary encyclopaedias form a very notable fea- ture in all Chinese libraries. These works show great research, clearness, and precision, and are largely drawn upon by Euro- pean scholars. Early in the last century one of the emperors appointed a commission to reprint in one great collection all the works they might think worthy of preservation. The result was a compilation of 6,109 volumes, arranged under thirty-two heads, embracing works on every subject contained in the national literature. This work is unique of its kind, and the largest in the world. 10. POETRY. The first development of literary talent in China, as elsewhere, is found in poetry, and in the earliest days songs and ballads were brought as offerings from the various principalities to the heads of government. At the time of Con- fucius there existed a collection of three thousand songs, from which he selected those contained in the " Book of Odes." There is not much sublimity or depth of thought in these odes, but they abound in touches of nature, and are exceedingly in* CHINESE LITERATURE. 13 teresting and curious, as showing how little change time has effected in the manners and customs of this singular people. Similar in character are the poems of the Tshian-teng-shi, an- other collection of lyrics published at the expense of the emperor, in several thousand volumes. Among modern poets may be mentioned the Emperor Khian-lung, who died at the close of the last century. After the time of Confucius the change in Chinese poetry became very marked, and, instead of the peaceful tone of his day, it reflected the unsettled condition of social and political affairs. The simple, monotheistic faith was exchanged for a superstitious belief in a host of gods and goddesses, a contempt for life, and an uncertainty of all beyond it. The period be- tween 620 and 907 A. D., was one of great prosperity, and is looked upon as the golden age. 11. DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND FICTION. Chinese litera- ture affords no instance of real dramatic poetry or sustained effort of the imagination. The " Hundred Plays of the Yuen Dynasty " is the most celebrated collection, and many have been translated into European languages. One of them, " The Orphan of China," served as the groundwork of Voltaire's tragedy of that name. The drama, however, constitutes a large depart- ment in Chinese literature, though there are, properly speaking, no theatres in China. A platform in the open air is the ordi- nary stage, the decorations are hangings of cotton supported by a few poles of bamboo, and the action is frequently of the coars- est kind. When an actor comes on the stage, he says, " I am the mandarin so-and-so." If the drama requires the actor to enter a house, he takes some steps and says, " I have entered ; " and if he is supposed to travel, he does so by rapid running on the stage, cracking his whip, and saying afterwards, "I have arrived." The dialogue is written partly in verse and partly in prose, and the poetry is sometimes sung and sometimes recited. Many of their dramas are full of bustle and abound in incident. They often contain the life and adventures of an individual, some great sovereign or general, a history, in fact, thrown into action. Two thousand volumes of dramatic compositions are known, and the best of these amount to five hundred pieces. Among them may be mentioned the " Orphan of the House of Tacho," and the " Heir in Old Age," which have much force and character, and vividly describe the habits of the people. The Chinese are fond of historical and moral romances, lyhich, however, are founded on reason and not on imagination, as are the Hindu and Persian tales. Their subjects are not submarine abysses, enchanted palaces, giants and genii, but man as he is in his actual life, as he lives with his fellow-men, with 4 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. all his virtues and vices, sufferings and joys. But the Chinese novelists show more skill in the details than in the conception of their works ; the characters are finished and developed in every respect. The pictures with which they adorn their works are minute and the descriptions poetical, though they often sacrifice to these qualities the unity of the subject. The characters of their novels are principally drawn from the middle class, as governors, literary men, etc. The episodes are, generally speak- ing, ordinary actions of common life all the quiet incidents of the phlegmatic life of the Chinese, coupled with the regular and mechanical movements which distinguish that people. Among the numberless Chinese romances there are several which are considered classic. Such are the " Four Great Marvels' Books," and the " Stories of the Pirates on the Coast of Kiangnan." 12. EDUCATION- w CHINA. Most of the Chinese people have a knowledge of the rudiments of education. There is scarcely a man who does not know how to read the books of his profes- sion. Public schools are everywhere established ; in the cities there are colleges, in which pupils are taught the Chinese litera- ture ; and in Peking there is an imperial college for the educa- tion of the mandarins. The offices of the empire are only at- tained by scholarship. There are four literary degrees, which give title to different positions in the country. The government fosters the higher branches of education and patronizes the publi- cation of literary works, which are distributed among the libra- ries, colleges, and functionaries. The press is restricted only from publishing licentious and revolutionary books. The future literature of China in many branches will be greatly modified by the introduction of foreign knowledge and influences. JAPANESE LITERATURE. I. The Language. 2. The Religion. 3. The Literature. Influence of Women. 4. History. 5. The Drama and Poetry. 6. Geography. Newspapers. Novels. Medi- cal Science. 7. Position of Woman. 1. THE LANGUAGE. The Japanese is considered as be- longing to the isolated languages, as philologists have thus far failed to classify it. It is agglutinative in its syntax, each word consisting of an unchangeable root and one or several suf- fixes. Before the art of writing was known, poems, odes to the gods, and other fragments which still exist had been com- posed in this tongue, and it is probable that a much larger liter- ature existed. During the first centuries of writing in Japan, the spoken and written language was identical, but with the study of the Chinese literature and the composition of native works almost exclusively in that language, there grew up differ- ences between the colloquial and literary idiom, and the infusion of Chinese words steadily increased. In writing, the Chinese characters occupy the most important place. But all those words which express the wants, feelings, and concerns of every- day life, all that is deepest in the human heart, are for the most part native. If we would trace the fountains of the musical and beautiful language of Japan, we must seek them in the hearts and hear them flow from the lips of the mothers of the Island Empire. Among the anomalies with which Japan has surprised and delighted the world may be claimed that of woman's achievements in the domain of letters. It was woman's services, not man's, that made the Japanese a literary language, and un- der her influence the mobile forms of speech crystallized into perennial beauty. The written language has heretofore consisted mainly of char- acters borrowed from the Chinese, each character representing an idea of its own, so that in order to read and write the student must make himself acquainted with several thousand characters, and years are required to gain proficiency in these elementary arts. There also exists in Japan a syllabary alphabet of forty- seven characters, used at present as an auxiliary to the Chinese. Within a very recent period, since the acquisition of knowledge has become a necessity in Japan, a society has been formed by 16 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the most prominent men of the empire, for the purpose of assim- ilating the spoken and written language, taking the forty-seven native characters as the basis. 2. RELIGION. The two great religions of Japan are Shinto- ism and Buddhism. The chief characteristic of the Shinto re- ligion is the worship of ancestors, the deification of emperors, heroes, and scholars, and the adoration of the personified forces of nature. It lays down no precepts, teaches no morals or doc- trines, and prescribes no ritual. The number of Shinto deities is enormous. In its higher form the chief object of the Shinto faith is to enjoy this life ; in its lower forms it consists in a blind obedience to governmental and priestly dictates. On the recent accession of the Mikado to his former supreme power, an attempt was made to restore this ancient faith, but it failed, and Japan continues as it has been for ten centuries in the Buddhist faith. The religion of Buddha was introduced into Japan 581 A. D., and has exerted a most potent influence in forming the Japanese character. The Protestants of Japanese Buddhism are the followers of Shinran, 1262 A. D., who have wielded a vast influence in the religious development of the people both for good and evil. In this creed prayer, purity, and earnestness of life are insisted upon. The Scriptures of other sects are written in Sanskrit and Chinese which only the learned are able to read, those of the Shin sect are in the vernacular Japanese idiom. After the death of Shinran, Rennio, who died in 1500 A. D., produced sacred writings now daily read by the disciples of this denomination. Though greatly persecuted, the Shin sect have continually in- creased in numbers, wealth, and power, and now lead all in in- telligence and influence. Of late they have organized their theological schools on the model of foreign countries that their young men may be trained to resist the Shinto and Christian faiths. 3. THE LITERATURE. INFLUENCE OF WOMEN. Previous to the fourteenth century learning in Japan was confined to the court circle. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries are the dark ages when military domination put a stop to all learning except with a few priests. With the seventeenth cen- tury begins the modern period of general culture. The people are all fond of reading, and it is very common to see circulating libraries carried from house to house on the backs of men. As early as the tenth century, while the learned affected a pedantic style so interlarded with Chinese as to be unintelligible, JAPANESE LITERATURE. 17 the cultivation of the native tongue was left to the ladies of the court, a task which they nobly discharged. It is a remarkable fact, without parallel in the history of letters, that a very large proportion of the best writings of the best ages was the work of women, and their achievement in the domain of letters is one of the anomalies with which Japan has surprised and delighted the world. It was their genius that made the Japanese a literary language. The names and works of these authoresses are quoted at the present day. 4. HISTORY. The earliest extant Japanese record is a work entitled " Kojiki," or book of ancient traditions. It treats of the creation, the gods and goddesses of the mythological period, and gives the history of the Mikados from the accession of Jim- mu, year 1 (660 B. c.), to 1288 of the Japanese year. It was supposed to date from the first half of the eighth century, and another work " Nihonghi," a little later, also treats of the mytho- logical period. It abounds in traces of Chinese influence, and in a measure supersedes the " Kojiki." These are the oldest books in the language. They are the chief exponents of the Shinto faith, and form the bases of many commentaries and subsequent works. The " History of Great Japan," composed in the latter part of the seventeenth century, by the Lord of Mito (died 1700), is the standard history of the present day. The external history of Japan, in twenty-two volumes, by Rai Sanyo (died 1832), com- posed in classical Chinese, is most widely read by men of educa- tion. The Japanese are intensely proud of their history and take great care in making and preserving records. Memorial stones are among the most striking sights on the highways and in the towns, villages, and temple yards, in honor of some noted scholar, ruler, or benefactor. Few people are more thoroughly informed as to their own history. Every city, town, and village has its annals. Family records are faithfully copied from gener- ation to generation. Almost every province has its encyclopaedic history, and every high-road its itineraries and guide-books, in which famous places and events are noted. In the large cities professional story-tellers and readers gain a lucrative livelihood by narrating both legendary and classical history, and the theatre is often the most faithful mirror of actual history. There are hundreds of child's histories in Japan. Many of the standard works are profusely illustrated, are models of style and eloquence, and parents delight to instruct their children in the national laws and traditions. 5. THE DRAMA. The theatre is a favorite amusement, es 1 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. pecially among the lower classes ; the pieces represented are of a popular character and written in colloquial language, and gen- erally founded on national history and tradition, or on the lives and adventures of the heroes and gods ; and the scene is always laid in Japan. The play begins in the morning and lasts all day, spectators bringing their food with them. No classical dramatic author is known. Poetry has always been a favorite study with the Japanese. The most ancient poetical fragment, called a " Collection of Myriad Leaves," dates from the eighth century. The collec- tion of " One Hundred Persons " is much later, and contains many poems written by the emperors themselves. The Japan- ese possess no great epic or didactic poems, although some of their lyrics are happy examples of quaint modes of thought and expression. It is difficult to translate them into a foreign tongue. 6. GEOGRAPHY. NEWSPAPERS AND NOVELS. The largest section of Japanese literature is that treating of the local geogra- phy of the country itself. These works are minute in detail and of great length, describing events and monuments of historic in- terest. Before the recent revolution but one newspaper existed in Japan, but at present the list numbers several hundred. Free- dom of the press is unknown, and fines and imprisonment for violation of the stringent laws are very frequent. Novels constitute a large section of Japanese literature. Fairy tales and story books abound. Many of them are translated into English ; " The Royal Ronans " and other works have recently been published in New York. Medical science was borrowed from China, but upon this, as upon other matters, the Japanese improved. Acupuncture, or the introduction of needles into the living tissues for remedial purposes, was invented by the Japanese, as was the moxa, or the burning of the flesh for the same purpose. 7. POSITION OF WOMAN. Women in Japan are treated with far more respect and consideration than elsewhere in the East- According to Japanese history the women of the early centuries were possessed of more intellectual and physical vigor, filling the offices of state and religion, and reaching a high plane of social dignity and honor. Of the one hundred and twenty-three Jap- anese sovereigns, nine have been women. The great heroine of Japanese history and tradition was the Empress Jingu, re- nowned for her beauty, piety, intelligence, and martial valor, who, about 200 A. D., invaded and conquered Corea. The female children of the lower classes receive tuition in pri JAPANESE LITERATURE. 19 rate schools so generally established during the last two centu- ries throughout the country, and those of the higher classes at the hands of private tutors or governesses ; and in every house- hold may be found a great number of books exclusively on the duties of women. SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 1. The Language. 2. The Social Constitution of India. Brahmanism. 3. Charac- teristios of the Literature and its Divisions. 4. The Vedas and other Sacred Books. 5. Sanskrit Poetry ; Epic ; The Ramayana and Mahabharata. Lyric Poetry. Didactic Poetry; the Hitopadesa. Dramatic Poetry. 6. History and Science. 7. Philosophy. 8. Buddhism. 9. Moral Philosophy. The Code of Manu. 10. Modern Literatures of India. 11. Education. The Brahmo Somaj. 1. THE LANGUAGE. Sanskrit is the literary language of the Hindus, and for two thousand years has served as the means of learned intercourse and composition. The name denotes culti- vated or perfected, in distinction to the Prakrit or uncultivated, which sprang from it and was contemporary with it. The study of Sanskrit by European scholars dates less than a century back, and it is important as the vehicle of an immense literature which lays open the outward and inner life of a re- markable people from a remote epoch nearly to the present day, and as being the most ancient and original of the Indo-Euro- pean languages, throwing light upon them all. The Aryan or Indo-European race had its ancient home in Central Asia. Col- onies migrated to the west and founded the Persian, Greek, and Roman civilization, and settled in Spain and England. Other branches found their way through the passes of the Himalayas and spread themselves over India. Wherever they went they asserted their superiority over the earlier people whom they found in possession of the soil, and the history of civilization is everywhere the history of the Aryan race. The forefathers of the Greek and Roman, of the Englishman and the Hindu, dwelt together in India, spoke the same language, and worshiped the same gods. The languages of Europe and India are merely different forms of the original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the words of common family life. Father, mother, brother, sister, and widow, are substantially the same in most of the Aryan languages, whether spoken on the banks of the Ganges, the Tiber, or the Thames. The word daughter, which occurs in nearly all of them, is derived from the Sanskrit word signifying to draw milk, and preserves the memory of the time when the daughter was the little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household. It is probable that as late as the third or fourth century B. c. it was still spoken. New dialects were engrafted upon it which SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 21 at length superseded it, though it has continued to be revered as the sacred and literary language of the country. Among the modern tongues of India, the Hindui and the Hindustani may be mentioned ; the former, the language of the pure Hindu pop- ulation, is written in Sanskrit characters ; the latter is the lan- guage of the Mohammedan Hindus, in which Arabic letters are used. Many of the other dialects spoken and written in North- ern India are derived from the Sanskrit. Of the more impor- tant among them there are English grammars and dictionaries. 2. SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF INDIA. Hindu literature takes its character both from the social and the religious institutions of the country. The social constitution is based on the distinc- tion of classes into which the people, from the earliest times, have been divided, and which were the natural effect of the long struggle between the aboriginal tribes and the new race which had invaded India. These castes are four : 1st. The Brahmins or priests ; 2d. The warriors and princes ; 3d. The husbandmen ; 4th. The laborers. There are, besides, several impure classes, the result of an intermingling of the different castes. Of these lower classes some are considered utterly abominable as that of the Pariahs. The different castes are kept distinct from each other by the most rigorous laws ; though in modern times the system has been somewhat modified. THE RELIGION. In the period of the Vedas the religion of the Hindus, was founded on the simple worship of Nature. But the Pantheism of this age was gradually superseded by the worship of the one Brahm, from which, according to this belief, the soul emanated, and to which it seeks to return. Brahm is an impersonality, the sum of all nature, the germ of all that is. Existence has no purpose, the world is wholly evil, and all good persons should desire to be taken out of it and to return to Brahm. This end is to be attained only by transmigration of the soul through all previous stages of life, migrating into the body of a higher or lower being according to the sins or merits of its former exist- ence, either to finish or begin anew its purification. This re- ligion of the Hindus led to the growth of a philosophy the pre- cursor of that of Greece, whose aims were loftier and whose methods more ingenious. From Brahm, the impersonal soul of the universe, emanated the personal and active Brahma, who with Siva and Vishnu con- stitute the Trimurti or god under three forms. Siva is the second of the Hindu deities, and represents the 22 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. primitive animating and destroying forces of nature. His sym- bols relate to these powers, and are worshiped more especially by the Sivaites a numerous sect of this religion. The wor- shipers of Vishnu, called the Preserver, the first-born of Brahma, constitute the most extensive sect of India, and their ideas relating to this form of the Divinity are represented by tradition and poetry, and are particularly developed in the great monuments of Sanskrit literature. The myths connected with Vishnu refer especially to his incarnations or corporeal appari- tions both in men and animals, which he submits to in order to conquer the spirit of evil. These incarnations are called Avatars, or descendings, and form an important part of Hindu epic poetry. Of the ten Ava- tars which are attributed to Vishnu, nine have already taken place ; the last is yet to come, when the god shall descend again from heaven, to destroy the present world, and to restore peace and purity. The three forms of the Deity, emanating mutually from each other, are expressed by the three symbols, A U M, three letters in Sanskrit having but one sound, forming the mys- tical name Om, which never escapes the lips of the Hindus, but is meditated on in silence. The predominant worship of one or the other of these forms constitutes the peculiarities of the nu- merous sects of this religion. There are other inferior divinities, symbols of the forces of nature, guardians of the world, demi-gods, demons, and heroes, whose worship, however, is considered as a mode of reaching that divine rest, immersion and absorption in Brahm. To this end are directed the sacrifices, the prayers, the ablutions, the pilgrimages, and the penances, which occupy so large a place in the Hindu worship. 3. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LITERATURE AND ITS DIVIS- IONS. A greater part of the Sanskrit literature, which counts its works by thousands, still remains in manuscript. It was nearly all composed in metre, even works of law, morality, and science. Every department of knowledge and every branch of inquiry is represented, with the single exception of history, and this forms the most striking general characteristic of the litera- ture, and one which robs it of a great share of worth and inter- est. Its place is in the intellectual rather than in the political history of the world. The literary monuments of the Sanskrit language correspond to the great eras in the history of India. The first period reaches back to that remote age, when those tribes of the Aryan race speaking Sanskrit emigrated to the northwestern portion of the Indian Peninsula, and established themselves there, an agri- Cultural and pastoral people. That was the age in which wer* SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 23 composed the prayers, hymns, and precepts afterwards col- lected in the form of the Vedas, the sacred books of the coun- try. In the second period, the people, incited by the desire of conquest, penetrated into the fertile valleys lying between the Indus and the Ganges ; and the struggle with the aboriginal in- habitants, which followed their invasion, gave birth to epic po- etry, in which the wars of the different races were celebrated and the extension of Hindu civilization related. The third period embraces the successive ages of the formation and development of a learned and artistic literature. It contains collections of the ancient traditions, expositions of the Vedas, works on gram- mar, lexicography, and science ; and its conclusion forms the golden age of Sanskrit literature, when, the country being ruled by liberal princes, poetry, and especially the drama, reached its highest degree of perfection. The chronology of these periods varies according to the sys- ( terns of different orientalists. It is, however, admitted that the Vedas are the first literary productions of India, and that their origin cannot be later than the fifteenth century B. c. The pe- ' riod of the Vedas embraces the other sacred books, or commen- taries founded upon them, though written several centuries after- wards. The second period, to which belong the two great epic ' poems, the " Ramayana " and the " Mahabharata," according to the best authorities ends with the sixth or seventh century B. c. The third period embraces all the poetical and scientific works written from that time to the third or fourth century B. c., when the language, having been progressively refined, became fixed in the writings of Kalidasa, Jayadeva, and other poets. A fourth period, including the tenth century A. D., may be added, distin- guished by its erudition, grammatical, rhetorical, and scientific disquisitions, which, however, is not considered as belonging to the classical age. From the Hindu languages, originating in the Sanskrit, new literatures have sprung ; but they are essen- tially founded on the ancient literature, which far surpasses them in extent and importance, and is the great model of them all. Indeed, its influence has not been limited to India ; all the poetical and scientific works of Asia, China, and Japan included, have borrowed largely from it, and in Southern Russia the scanty literature of the Kalmucks is derived entirely from Hindu sources. The Sanskrit literature, known to Europe only re- cently, through the researches of the English and German ori- entalists, has now become the auxiliary and foundation of all philological studies. 4. THE VEDAS AND OTHER SACRED BOOKS. The Vedas (knowledge or science) are the Bible of the Hindus, the most ancient book of the Aryan family, and contain the revelation of 24 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Brahm which was preserved by tradition and collected by Vyasa, a name which means compiler. The word Veda, how- ever, should be taken as a collective name for the sacred litera- ture of the Vedic age which forms the background of the whole Indian world. Many works belonging to that age are lost, though a large number still exists. The most important of the Vedas are three in number. First, The " Rig-Veda," which is the great literary memorial of the settlement of the Aryans in the Punjaub, and of their religious hymns and songs. Second, The " Yajur-Veda." Third, iThe " Sama-Veda." Each Veda is divided into two parts : the first contains prayers and invocations, most of which are of a rhythmical character ; the second records the precepts relative to those prayers and to the ceremonies of the sacrifices, and describes the religious myths and symbols. There are many commentaries on the Vedas of an ancient date, which are considered as sacred books, and relate to medi- cine, music, astronomy, astrology, grammar, philosophy, juris- prudence, and, indeed, to the whole circle of Hindu science. They represent a period of unknown antiquity, when the Ar- yans were divided into tribes of which the chieftain was the father and priest, and when women held a high position. Some of the most beautiful hymns of this age were composed by la- dies and queens. The morals of Avyan, a woman of an early age, are still taught in the Hindu schools as the golden rule of life. India to-day acknowledges no higher authority in matters of religion, ceremonial, customs, and law than the Vedas, and the spirit of Vedantism, which is breathed by every Hindu from his earliest youth, pervades the prayers of the idolater, the specula- tions of the philosopher, and the proverbs of the beggar. The " Puranas " (ancient writings) hold an eminent rank in the religion and literature of the Hindus. Though of a more recent date than the Vedas, they possess the credit of an ancient and divine origin, and exercise an extensive and practical influ- ence upon the people. They comprise vast collections of ancient traditions relating to theology, cosmology, and to the genealogy of gods and heroes. There are eighteen acknowledged Puranas, which altogether contain 400,000 stanzas. The " Upapuranas," also eighteen in number, are commentaries on the Puranas. Fi- nally, to the sacred books, and next to the Vedas both in antiq- uity and authority, belong the " Manavadharmasastra," or the ordinances of Manu, spoken of hereafter. 5. SANSKRIT POETRY. This poetry, springing from the lively and powerful imagination of the Hindus, is inspired by SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 25 their religious doctrines, and embodied in the most harmonious language. Exalted by their peculiar belief in pantheism and metempsychosis, they consider the universe and themselves as directly emanating from Brahm, and they strive to lose their own individuality in its infinite essence. Yet, as impure beings, they feel their incapacity to obtain the highest moral perfection, except through a continual atonement, to which all nature is con- demned. Hence Hindu poetry expresses a profound melancholy, which pervades the character as well as the literature of that people. This poetry breathes a spirit of perpetual sacrifice of the individual self, as the ideal of human life. The bards of India, inspired by this predominant feeling, have given to poetry nearly every form it has assumed in the Western world, and in each and all they have excelled. Sanskrit poetry is both metrical and rhythmical, equally free from the confused strains of unmoulded genius and from the ser- vile pedantry of conventional rules. The verse of eight sylla- bles is the source of all other metres, and the sloka or double distich is the stanza most frequently used. Though this poetry- presents too often extravagance of ideas, incumbrance of epi- sodes, and monstrosity of images, as a general rule it is endowed with simplicity of style, pure coloring, sublime ideas, rare fig- ures, and chaste epithets. Its exuberance must be attributed to the strange mythology of the Hindus, to the immensity of the fables which constitute the groundwork of their poems, and to the gigantic strength of their poetical imaginations. A striking peculiarity of Sanskrit poetry is its extensive use in treating of those subjects apparently the most difficult to reduce to a metri- cal form not only the Vedas and Manu's code are composed in verse, but the sciences are expressed in this form. Even in the few works which may be called prose, the style is so modu- lated and bears so great a resemblance to the language of poetry as scarcely "to be distinguished from it. The history of San- skrit poetry is, in reality, the history of Sanskrit literature. The subjects of the epic poems of the Hindus are derived chiefly from their religious tenets, and relate to the incarnations of the gods, who, in their human forms, become the heroes of this poetry. The idea of an Almighty power warring against the cpirit of evil destroys the possibility of struggle, and impairs the character of epic poetry ; but the Hindu poets, by submitting their gods both to fate and to the condition of men, diminish their power and give them the character of epic heroes. The Hindu mythology, however, is the great obstacle which must ever prevent this poetry from becoming popular in the Western world. The great personifications of the Deity have not been softened down, as in the mythology of the Greeks, to 26 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the perfection of human symmetry, but are here exhibited in their original gigantic forms. Majesty is often expressed by enormous stature ; power, by multitudinous hands ; providence, by countless eyes ; and omnipresence, by innumerable bodies. In addition to this, Hindu epic poetry departs so far from what may be called the vernacular idiom of thought and feeling, and refers to a people whose political and religious institutions, as well as moral habits, are so much at variance with our own, that no labor or skill could render its associations familiar. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the most important and sublime creations of Hindu literature, and the most colos- sal epic poems to be found in the literature of the world. They surpass in magnitude the Iliad and Odyssey, the Jerusalem De- livered and the Lusiad, as the pyramids of Egypt tower above the temples of Greece. The Ramayana (Hama and yana expedition) describes the exploits of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu, and the son of Dasaratha, king of Oude. Ravana, the prince of demons, had stolen from the gods the privilege of being invulnerable, and had thus acquired an equality with them. He could not be over- come except by a man, and the gods implored Vishnu to become incarnate in order that Ravana might be conquered. The origin and the development of this Avatar, the departing of Rama for the battlefield, the divine signs of his mission, his love and marriage with Sita, the daughter of the king Janaka, the persecution of his step-mother, by which the hero is sent into exile, his penance in the desert, the abduction of his bride by Ravana, the gigantic battles that ensue, the rescue of Sita, and the triumph of Rama constitute the principal plot of this won- derful poem, full of incidents and episodes of the most singular and beautiful character. Among these may be mentioned the descent of the goddess Ganga, which relates to the mythological origin of the river Ganges, and the story of Yajnadatta, a young penitent, who through mistake was killed by Dasaratha ; the former splendid for its rich imagery, the latter incomparable for its elegiac character, and for its expression of the passionate Borrow of parental affection. The Ramayana was written by Valmiki, a poet belonging to an unknown period. It consists of seven cantos, and contains twenty-five thousand verses. The original, with its translation into Italian, was published in Paris by the government of Sar- dinia about the middle of this century. The Mahabharata (the great Bharata) has nearly the same antiquity as the Ramayana. It describes the greatest Avatar of Vishnu, the incarnation of the god in Krishna, and it pre gents a vast picture of the Hindu religion. It relates to the leg SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 27 endary history of the Bharata dynasty, especially to the wars be- tween the Pandus and Kurus, two branches of a princely family of ancient India. Five sons of Pandu, having been unjustly exiled by their uncle, return, after many wonderful adventures, with a powerful army to oppose the Kurus, and being aided by Krishna, the incarnated Vishnu, defeat their enemies and be- come lords of all the country. The poem describes the birth of Krishna, his escape from the dangers which surrounded his cradle, his miracles, his pastoral life, his rescue of sixteen thou- sand young girls who had become prisoners of a giant, his heroic deeds in the war of the Pandus, and finally his ascent to heaven, where he still leads the round dances of the spheres. This work is not more remarkable for the grandeur of its conceptions than for the information it affords respecting the social and religious systems of the ancient Hindus, which are here revealed with ma- jestic and sublime eloquence. Five of its most esteemed epi- sodes are called the Five Precious Stones. First among these may be mentioned the " Bhagavad-Gita," or the Divine Song, containing the revelation of Krishna, in the form of a dialogue between the god and his pupil Arjuna. Schlegel calls this epi- sode the most beautiful, and perhaps the most truly philosophical, poem that the whole range of literature has produced. The Mahabharata is divided into eighteen cantos, and it con- tains two hundred thousand verses. It is attributed to Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas, but it appears that it was the result of a period of literature rather than the work of a single poet. Its different incidents and episodes were probably separate poems, which from the earliest age were sung by the people, and later, by degrees, collected in one complete work. Of the Ma- habharata we possess only a few episodes translated into Eng- lish, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, by Wilkins. At a later period other epic poems were written, either as abridgments of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or founded on episodes contained in them. These, however, belong to a lower order of composition, and cannot be compared with the great works of Valmiki and Vyasa. In the development of lyric poetry the Hindu bards, partic- ularly those of the third period, have been eminently successful ; their power is great in the sublime and the pathetic, and mani- fests itself more particularly in awakening the tender sympathies of our nature. Here we find many poems full of grace and delicacy, and splendid for their charming descriptions of nature. Such are the " Meghaduta " and the u Ritusanhara " of Kali- flasa, the " Madhava and Radha " of Jayadeva, and especially the " Gita-Govinda " of the same poet, or the adventures of Krishna as a shepherd, a poem in which the soft languors of love 28 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. are depicted in enchanting colors, and which is adorned with all the magnificence of language and sentiment. Hindu poetry has a particular tendency to the didactic style and to embody religious and historical knowledge ; every sub- ject is treated in the form of verse, such as inscriptions, deeds, and dictionaries. Splendid examples of didactic poetry may be found in the episodes of the epic poems, and more particularly in the collections of fables and apologues in which the Sanskrit literature abounds. Among these the Hitopadesa is the most celebrated, in which Vishnu-saima instructs the sons of a king committed to his care. Perhaps there is no book, except the Bible, which has been translated into so many languages as these fables. They have spread in two branches over nearly the whole civilized world. The one, under the original name of the Hitopadesa, remains almost confined to India, while the other, under the title of " Calila and Dimna," has become famous over all western Asia and in all the countries of Europe, and has served as the model of the fables of all languages. To this de- partment belong also the "Adventures of the Ten Princes," by Dandin, which, in an artistic point of view, is far superior to any other didactic writings of Hindu literature. The drama is the most interesting branch of Hindu literature. No other ancient people, except the Greeks, has brought forth anything so admirable in this department. It had its most flourishing period probably in the third or fourth century B. c. Its origin is attributed to Brahm, and its subjects are selected from the mythology. Whether the drama represents the leg- ends of the gods, or the simple circumstances of ordinary life ; whether it describes allegorical or historical subjects, it bears always the same character of its origin and of its tendency. Sim- plicity of plot, unity of episodes, and purity of language, unite in the formation of the Hindu dramas. Prose and verse, the serious and the comic, pantomime and music are intermingled in their representations. Only the principal characters, the gods, the Brahmins, and the kings, speak Sanskrit ; women and the less important characters speak Prakrit, more or less refined according to their rank. Whatever may offend propriety, what- ever may produce an unwholesome excitement, is excluded ; for the hilarity of the audience, there is an occasional introduction on the stage of a parasite or a buffoon. The representation is usually opened by an apologue and always concluded with a prayer. Kalidasa, the Hindu Shakespeare, has been called by his coun- trymen the Bridegroom of Poetry. His language is harmonious and elevated, and in his compositions he unites grace and ten derness with grandeur and sublimity. Many of his dramas con SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 29 tain episodes selected from the epic poems, and are founded on the principles of Brahmanism. The " Messenger Cloud " of this author, a monologue rather than a drama, is unsurpassed in beauty of sentiment by any European poet. " Sakuntala," or the Fatal Ring, is considered one of the best dramas of Kalidasa. It has been translated into English by Sir W. Jones. Bhavabhuti, a Brahmin by birth, was called by his contem- poraries the Sweet Speaking. He was the author of many dramas of distinguished merit, which rank next to those of Ka- lidasa. 6. HISTORY AND SCIENCE. History, considered as the de- velopment of mankind in relation to its ideal, is unknown to Sanskrit literature. Indeed, the only historical work thus far discovered is the " History of Cashmere," a series of poetical compositions, written by different authors at different periods, the last of which brings down the annals to the sixteenth cen- tury A. D., when Cashmere became a province of the Mogul empire. In the scientific department, the works on Sanskrit grammar and lexicography are models of logical and analytical research. There are also valuable works on jurisprudence, on rhetoric, poetry, music, and other arts. The Hindu system of decimal no- tation made its way through the Arabs to modern nations, our usual figures being, in their origin, letters of the Sanskrit alpha- bet. Their medical and surgical knowledge is deserving of study. 7. PHILOSOPHY. The object of Hindu philosophy consists in obtaining emancipation from metempsychosis, through the ab- sorption of the soul into Brahm, or the universal being. Ac- cording to the different principles which philosophers adopt in attaining this supreme object, their doctrines are divided into the four following systems : 1st, Sensualism ; 2d, Idealism ; 3d, Mysticism ; 4th, Eclecticism. Sensualism is represented in the school of Kapila, according to whose doctrine the purification of the soul must be effected through knowledge, the only source of which lies in sensual perception. In this system, nature, eternal and universal, is considered as the first cause, which produces intelligence and all the other principles of knowledge and existence. This philoso- phy of nature leads some of its followers to seek their purifica- tion in the sensual pleasures of this life, and in the loss of their own individuality in nature itself, in which they strive to be absorbed. Materialism, fatalism, and atheism are the natural consequences of the system of Kapila. Idealism is the foundation of three philosophical schools : the 80 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Dialectic, the Atomic, and the Vedanta. The Dialectic school considers the principles of knowledge as entirely distinct from nature ; it admits the existence of universal ideas in the human mind ; it establishes the syllogistic form as the complete method of reasoning, and finally, it holds as fundamental the duality of intelligence and nature. In this theory, the soul is considered as distinct from Brahm and also from the body. Man can ap- proach Brahm, can unite himself to the universal soul, but can never lose his own individuality. The Atomic doctrine explains the origin of the world through the combination of eternal, simple atoms. It belongs to Ideal- ism, for the predominance which it gives to ideas over sensation, and for the individuality and consciousness which it recognizes in man. The Vedanta is the true ideal pantheistic philosophy of India. It considers Brahm in two different states: first, as a pure, simple, abstract, and inert essence ; secondly, as an active indi- viduality. Nature in this system is only a special quality or quantity of Brahm, having no actual reality, and he who turns away from all that is unreal and changeable and contemplates Brahm unceasingly, becomes one with it, and attains liberation. Mysticism comprehends all doctrines which deny authority to reason, and admit no other principles of knowledge or rule of life than supernatural or direct revelation. To this system belong the doctrines of Patanjali, which teach that man must emancipate himself from metempsychosis through contemplation and ecstasy to be attained by the calm of the senses, by corpo- real penance, suspension of breath, and immobility of position. The followers of this school pass their lives in solitude, absorbed in this mystic contemplation. The forests, the deserts, and the environs of the temples are filled with these mystics, who, thus separated from external life, believe themselves the subjects of supernatural illumination and power. The Bhagavad-Gita, al- ready spoken of, is the best exposition of this doctrine. The Eclectic school comprises all theories which deny the authority of the Vedas, and admit rational principles borrowed both from sensualism and idealism. Among these doctrines Buddhism is the principal. 8. BUDDHISM. Buddhism is so called from Buddha, a name meaning deified teacher, which was given to Sakyamuni, or Saint Sakya, a reformer of Brahmanism, who introduced into the Hindu religion a more simple creed, and a milder and more humane code of morality. The date of the origin of this re form is uncertain. It is probably not earlier than the sixth cen- tury B. c. Buddhism, essentially a proselyting religion, spread over Central Asia and through the island of Ceylon. Its fol- SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 31 lowers in India being persecuted and expelled from the country, penetrated into Thibet, and pushing forward into the wilderness of the Kalmucks and Mongols, entered China and Japan, where they introduced their worship under the name of the religion of Fo. Buddhism is more extensively diffused than any other form of religion in the world. Though it has never extended beyond the limits of Asia, its followers number over four hun- dred millions. As a philosophical school, Buddhism partakes both of sen- sualism and idealism ; it admits sensual perception as the source of knowledge, but it grants to nature only an apparent exist- ence. On this universal illusion, Buddhism founded a gigantic system of cosmogony, establishing an infinity of degrees in the scale of existences from that of pure being without form or qual- ity to the lowest emanations. According to Buddha, the object of philosophy, as well as of religion, is the deliverance of the soul from metempsychosis, and therefore from all pain and il- lusion. He teaches that to break the endless rotation of trans- migration the soul must be prevented from being born again, by purifying it even from the desire of existence. He denied the authority of the Vedas, and abolished or ignored the divis- ion of the people into castes, admitting whoever desired it to the priesthood. Notwithstanding the doctrine of metempsycho- sis, and the belief that life is only an endless round of birth and death, sin and suffering, the most sacred Buddhistic books teach a pure and elevated morality, and that the highest happiness is only to be reached through self-abnegation, universal benevo- lence, humility, patience, courage, self-knowledge, and contem- plation. Much has been added to the original doctrines of Buddha in the way of mythology, sacrifices, penances, mysti- cism, and hierarchy. Buddhism possesses a literature of its own ; its language and style are simple and intelligible to the common people, to whom it is particularly addressed. For this reason the priests of this religion prefer to write in the dialects used by the people, and indeed some of their principal works are written in Prakrit or in Pali. Among these are many legends, and chronicles, and books on theology and jurisprudence. The literary men of Buddhism are generally the priests, who receive different names in different countries. A complete collection of the sacred books of Buddhism forms a theological body of one hundred and eight volumes. 9. MORAL PHILOSOPHY. The moral philosophy of India is contained in the Sacred Book of Manavadharmasastra, or Code !>f Manu. This embraces a poetical account of Brahma and other gods, of the origin of the world and man, and of the 32 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. duties arising from the relation of man towards Brahma and towards his fellow-men. Whether regarded for its great antiq- uity and classic beauty, or for its importance as being con- sidered of divine revelation by the Hindu people, this Cede must ever claim the attention of those who devote themselves to the study of the Sanskrit literature. Though inferior to the Vedas in antiquity, it is held to be equally sacred ; and being more closely connected with the business of life, it has done so much towards moulding the opinions of the Hindus that it would be impossible to comprehend the literature or local usages of India without being master of its contents. It is believed by the Hindus that Brahma taught his laws to Maim in one hundred thousand verses, and that they were after- wards abridged for the use of mankind to four thousand. It is most probable that the work attributed to Manu is a collection made from various sources and at different periods. Among the duties prescribed by the laws of Manu man is enjoined to exert a full dominion over his senses, to study sacred science, to keep his heart pure, without which sacrifices are use- less, to speak only when necessity requires, and to despise worldly honors. His principal duties toward his neighbor are to honor old age, to respect parents, the mother more than a thousand fathers, and the Brahmins more than father or mother, to in- jure no one, even in wish. Woman is taught that she cannot aspire to freedom, a girl is to depend on her father, a wife on her husband, and a widow on her son. The law forbids her to marry a second time. The Code of Manu is divided into twelve books or chapters, in which are treated separately the subjects of creation, educa- tion, marriage, domestic economy, the art of living, penal and civil laws, of punishments and atonements, of transmigration, and of the final blessed state. These ordinances or institutes contain much to be admired and much to be condemned. They form a system of despotism and priestcraft, both limited by law , but artfully conspiring to give mutual support,, though with mut- ual checks. A spirit of sublime elevation and amiable benevo- lence pervades the whole work, sufficient to prove the author to have adored not the visible sun, but the incomparably greater light, according to the Vedas, which illuminates all, delights all, from which all proceed, to which all must return, and which alone can irradiate our souls. 10. MODERN LITERATURES OF INDIA. The literature of the modern tongues of the Hindus consists chiefly of imitations and translations from the Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and from Euro- pean languages. There is, however, an original epic poem, writ- ten in Hindui by Tshand, under the title of the " Adventures of SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 33 Pritliivi Raja," which is second only to the great Sanskrit poems. This work, which relates to the twelfth century A. D., describes the struggle of the Hindus against their Mohammedan con- querors. The poem of " llamayana," by Tulsi-Das, and that of the " Ocean of Love," are extremely popular in India. The modern dialects contain many religious and national songs of exquisite beauty and delicacy. Among the poets of India, who have written in these dialects, Sauday, Mir-Mohammed Taqui, Wali, and Azad are the principal. The Hindi, which dates from the eleventh century A. D., is one of the languages of Aryan stock still spoken in Northern India. One of its principal dialects is the Hindustani, which is employed in the literature of the northern country. Its two divisions are the Hindi and Urdu, which represent the popular side of the national culture, and are almost exclusively used at the present day ; the first chiefly by writers not belonging to the Brahminical order, while those of the Urdu dialect follow Per- sian models. The writings in each, though numerous, and not without pretension, have little interest for the European reader. 11. EDUCATION IN INDIA. For the education of the Brah- mins and of the higher classes, there was founded, in 1792, a Sanskrit College at Benares, the Hindu capital. The course of instruction embraces Persian, English, and Hindu law, and gen- eral literature. In 1854 universities were established at Cal- cutta, Madras, and Bombay. Of late public instruction has be- come a department of the government, and schools and colleges for higher instruction have been established in various parts of the country, and books and newspapers in English and in the vernacular are everywhere increasing. As far back as 1824 the American and English missionaries were the pioneers of female education. The recent report of the Indian Commission of Edu- cation deals particularly with this question, and attributes the wide difference between the extent of male and female acquire- ments to no inferiority in the mental capacities of women ; on the contrary, they find their intellectual activity very keen, and often outlasting the mental energies of men. According to the traditions of pre-historic times, women occupied a high place in the early civilization of India, and their capacity to govern is shown by the fact, that at the present day one of the best ad- ministered States has been ruled by native ladies during two generations, and that the most ably managed of the great landed properties are entirely in the hands of women. The chief causes which retard their education are to be found in the social cus- toms of the country, the seclusion in which women live, the ap- propriation of the educational fund to the schools for boys, and the need of trained teachers- 34 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, the first Asiatic writer in the languages of the West who has made a literary fame in Europe is a young Hindu girl, Tom Dutt (1856-1877), whose writings in prose and verse in English, as well as in French, have called forth admiration and astonishment from the critics, and a sincere lament for her early death. 12. THE BRAMO-SoMAj. In 1830, under this name (Wor- shiping Assembly), Rammohun Roy founded a religious soci- ety in India, of which, after him, Keshub Chunder Sen (died 1884) was the most eminent member. Their aim is to es- tablish a new religion for India and the world, founded on a belief in one God, which shall be freed from all the errors and corruptions of the past. They propose many important reforms, such as the abolition of caste, the remodeling of mar- riage customs, the emancipation and education of women, the abolition of infanticide and the worship of ancestors, and a gen- eral moral regeneration. Their chief aid to spiritual growth may be summed up in four words, self-culture, meditation, per- sonal purity, and universal beneficence. Their influence has been already felt in the legislative affairs of India. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE. I. The Accadians and Babylonians. 2. The Cuneiform Letters. 3. Babylonian and Assyrian Remains. 1. ACCADIANS AND BABYLONIANS. Geographically, as well as historically and ethnographically, the district lying between the Tigris and Euphrates forms but one country, though the rival kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia became, each in turn, superior to the other. The primitive inhabitants of this dis- trict were called Accadians, or Chaldeans, but little or noth- ing was known of them until within the last fifteen or twenty years. Their language was agglutinative, and they were the inventors of the cuneiform system of writing. The Babylonians conquered this people, borrowed their signs, and incorporated their literature. Soon after their conquest by the Babylonians, they established priestly caste in the state and assumed the wor- ship, laws, and manners of their conquerors. They were de- voted to the science of the stars, and determined the equinoctial and solstitial points, divided the ecliptic into twelve parts and the day into hours. The signs, names, and figures of the Zodiac, and the invention of the dial are some of the improvements in astronomy attributed to this people. With the decline of Baby- lon their influence declined, and they were afterwards known to the Greeks and Romans only as astrologers, magicians, and soothsayers. 2. THE CUNEIFORM LETTERS. These characters, borrowed by the Semitic conquerors of the Accadians, the Babylonians, and Assyrians, were originally hieroglyphics, each denoting an object or an idea, but they were gradually corrupted into the forms we see on Assyrian monuments. They underwent many changes, and the various periods are distinguished as Archaic, hieratic, Assyrian, and later Babylonian. 3. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN REMAINS. The origin and history of this civilization have only been made known to us by the very recent decipherment of native monuments. Before these discoveries the principal source of information was found in the writings of Berosus, a priest of Babylon, who lived about 300 B. c., and who translated the records of astronomy into Greek. Though his works have perished, we have quotations from them in Eusebius and other writers, which have been strik- 36 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ingly verified by the inscriptions. The chief work on astron- omy, compiled for Sargon, one of the earliest Babylonian mon- archs, is inscribed on seventy tablets, a copy of which is in the British Museum. The Babylonians understood the movements of the heavenly bodies, and Calisthenes, who accompanied Alex- ander on his eastern expedition, brought with him on his return the observations of 1903 years. The main purpose of all Babylonian astronomical observation, however, was astrological, to cast horoscopes, or to predict the weather. Babylon retained for a long time its ancient splendor after the conquest by Cyrus and the final fall of the empire, and in the first period of the Macedonian sway. But soon after that time its fame was ex- tinguished, and its monuments, arts, and sciences perished. Assyria was a land of soldiers and possessed little native lit- erature. The more peaceful pursuits had their home in Baby- lonia, where the universities of Erech and Borsippa were re- nowned down to classical times. The larger part of this literature was stamped in clay tablets and baked, and these were numbered and arranged in order. Papyrus was also used, but none of this fragile material has been preserved. In the reign of Sardanapalus (660-647 B. c.) Assyrian art and literature reached their highest point. In the ruins of his palace have been found three chambers the floors of which were covered a foot deep with tablets of all sizes, from an inch to nine inches long, bearing inscriptions many of them so minute as to be read only by the aid of a magnifying glass. Though broken they have been partially restored and are among the most precious cuneiform inscriptions. They have only been deciphered within the present century, and thousands of inscriptions are yet buried among the ruins of Assyria. The most interesting of these re- mains yet discovered are the hymns to the gods, some of which strikingly resemble the Hebrew Psalms. Of older date is the collection of formulas which consists of omens and hymns and tablets relating to astronomy. Later than the hymns are the mythological poems, two of which are preserved intact. They are " The Deluge " and " The Descent of Istar into Hades." They form part of a very remarkable epic which centred round the adventures of a solar hero, and into which older and inde- pendent lays were woven as episodes. Copies are preserved in the British Museum. The literature on the subject of these re mains is very extensive and rapidly increasing. PHOENICIAN LITERATURE. The Language. The Remains. THE Phoenician language bore a strong affinity to the Hebrew, through which alone the inscriptions on coins and monuments can be interpreted, and these constitute the entire literary re- mains, though the Phoenicians had doubtless their archives and written laws. The inscriptions engraved on stone or metal are found chiefly in places once colonies, remote from Phoenicia itself. The Phoenician alphabet forms the basis of the Semitic and Indo-European graphic systems, and was itself doubtless based on the Egyptian hieratic writing. Sanchuniathon is the name given as that of the author of a history of Phoenicia which was translated into Greek and published by Philo, a grammarian of the second century A. D. A considerable fragment of this work is preserved in Eusebius, but after much learned contro versy it is now believed that it was the work of Philo himself. SYRIAC LITERATURE. The Language. Influence of the Literature in the Eighth and Ninth Century. THE LANGUAGE. The Aramaic language, early spoken in Syria and Mesopotamia, is a branch of the Semitic, and of this tongue the Chaldaic and Syriac were dialects. Chaldaic is sup- posed to be the language of Babylonia at the time of the captiv- ity, and the earliest remains are a part of the Books of Daniel and Ezra, and the paraphrases or free translations of the Old Testament. The Hebrews having learned this language during the Babylonian exile, it continued in use for some time after their return, though the Hebrew remained the written and sacred tongue. Gradually, however, it lost this prerogative, and in the second century A. D. the Chaldaic was the only spoken language of Palestine. It is still used by the Nestorians and Maronites in their religious services and in their literary works. The spoken language of Syria has undergone many changes corre- sponding to the political changes of the country. The most prominent Syriac author is St. Ephraem, or Ephraem Syrus (350 A. D.),with whom begins the best period of Syriac literature, which continued until the ninth century. A great part of this literature has been lost, and what remains is only par- tially accessible. Its principal work was in the eighth and ninth centuries in introducing classical learning to the knowledge of the Arabs. In the seventh century, Jacob of Edessa gave the clas- sical and sacred dialect its final form, and from this time the series of native grammarians and lexicographers continued un- broken to the time of its decline. The study of Syriac was introduced into Europe in the fifteenth century. Valuable col- lections of MSS., in this language, are to be found in the British Museum, and grammars and dictionaries have been published in Germany and in New York. PERSIAN LITERATURE. I. The Persian Language and its Divisions. 9. Zendic Literature; The Zenda vesta. 3. Pehlvi and Parsee Literatures. 4. The Ancient Religion of Persia ; Zoroaster. 5. Modern Literature. 6. The Sufis. 7. Persian Poetry. 8. Persian Poets ; Ferdusi ; Essedi of Tus ; Togray, etc. 9. History and Philosophy. 10. Education in Persia. 1. THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND ITS DIVISIONS. The Persian language and its varieties, as far as they are known, be- long to the great Indo-European family, and this common origin explains the affinities that exist between them and those of the ancient and modern languages of Europe. During successive ages, four idioms have prevailed in Persia, and Persian literature may be divided into four corresponding periods. First. The period of the Zend (living), the most ancient of the Persian languages ; it was from a remote, unknown age spoken in Media, Bactria, and in the northern part of Persia. This language partakes of the character both of the Sanskrit and of the Chaldaic. It is written from right to left, and it possesses, in its grammatical construction and its radical words, many elements in common with the Sanskrit and the German lan- guages. Second. The period of the Pehlvi, or language of heroes, anciently spoken in the western part of the country. Its alpha- bet is closely allied with the Zendic, to which it bears a great resemblance. It attained a high degree of perfection under the Parthian kings, 246 B. c. to 229 A. D. Third. The period of the Parsee or the dialect of the south- western part of the country. It reached its perfection under the dynasty of the Sassanides, 229-636 A. D. It has great anal- ogy with the Zend, Pehlvi, and Sanskrit, and is endowed with peculiar grace and sweetness. Fourth. The period of the modern Persian. After the con- quest of Persia, and the introduction of the Mohammedan faith in the seventh century A. D., the ancient Parsee language became greatly modified by the Arabic. It adopted its alphabet, add- ing to it, however, four letters and three points, and borrowed from it not only words but whole phrases, and thus from the union of the Parsee and the Arabic was formed the modern Persian. Of its various dialects, the Deri is the language of the court and of literature. 2. ZENDIC LITERATURE. - To the first period belong the an- 40 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. cient sacred books of Persia, collected under the name of avesta (living word), which contain the doctrines of Zoroaster, the prophet and lawgiver of ancient Persia. The Zendavesta is divided into two parts, one written in Zend, the other in Pehlvi ; it contains traditions relating to the primitive condition and colonization of Persia, moral precepts, theological dogmas, prayers, and astronomical observations. The collection orig- inally consisted of twenty-one chapters or treatises, of which only three have been preserved. Besides the Zendavesta there are two other sacred books, one containing prayers and hymns, and the other prayers to the Genii who preside over the days of the month. To this first period some writers refer the fables of Lokman, who is supposed to .have lived in the tenth century B. c., and to have been a slave of Ethiopic origin ; his apologues have been considered the model on which Greek fable was con- structed. The work of Lokman, however, existing now only in the Arabic language, is believed by other writers to be of Ara- bic origin. It has been translated into the European languages, and is still read in the Persian schools. Among the Zendic books preserved in Arabic translations may also be mentioned the " Giavidan Kird," or the Eternal Reason, the work of Hu- shang, an ancient priest of Persia, a book full of beautiful and sublime maxims. 3. PEHLVI AND PARSEE LITERATURES. The second period of Persian literature includes all the books written in Pehlvic, and especially all the translations and paraphrases of the works of the first period. There are also in this language a manual of the religion of Zoroaster, dictionaries of Pehlvi explained by the Parsee, inscriptions, and legends. When the seat of the Persian empire was transferred to the southern states under the Sassanides, the Pehlvi gave way to the Parsee, which became the prevailing language of Persia in the third period of its literature. The sacred books were trans- lated into this tongue, in which many records, annals, and trea- tises on astronomy and medicine were also written. But all these monuments of Persian literature were destroyed by the conquest of Alexander the Great, and by the fury of the Mon- gols and Arabs. This language, however, has been immortal- ized by Ferdusi, whose poems contain little of that admixture of Arabic which characterizes the writings of the modern poets of Persia. 4. THE ANCIENT RELIGION OF PERSIA. The ancient litera- ture of Persia is mainly the exposition of its religion. Persia, Media, and Bactria acknowledged as their first religious prophet Honover, or Horn, symbolized in the star Sirius, and himself the symbol of the first eternal word, and of the tree of knowledge. PERSIAN LITERATURE. 41 In the numberless astronomical and mystic personifications under which Horn was represented, his individuality was lost, and little is known of his history or of his doctrines. It appears, how- ever, that he was the founder of the magi (priests), the conser- vators and teachers of his doctrine, who formed a particular order, like that of the Levites of Israel and of the Chaldeans of Assyria. They did not constitute a hereditary caste like the . Brahmins of India, but they were chosen from among the peo- ple. They claimed to foretell future events. They worshiped fire and the stars, and believed in two principles of good and evil, of which light and darkness were the symbols. Zoroaster, one of these magi, who probably lived in the eighth century B. c., undertook to elevate and reform this religion, which had then fallen from its primitive purity. Availing him- self of the doctrines of the Chaldeans and of the Hebrews, Zo- roaster, endowed by nature with extraordinary powers, sustained by popular enthusiasm, and aided by the favor of powerful princes, extended his reform throughout the country, and founded a new religion on the ancient worship. According to this religion the two great principles of the world were repre- sented by Ormuzd and Ahriman, both born from eternity, and both contending for the dominion of the world. Ormuzd, the principle of good, is represented by light, and Ahriman, the principle of evil, by darkness. Light, then, being the body or symbol of Ormuzd, is worshiped in the sun and stars, in fire, and wherever it is found. Men are either the servants of Or- muzd, through virtue and wisdom, or the slaves of Ahriman, through folly and vice. Zoroaster explained the history of the world as the long contest of these two principles, which was to close with the conquest of Ormuzd over Ahriman. The moral code of Zoroaster is pure and elevated. It aims to assimilate the character of man to light, to dissipate the dark- ness of ignorance ; it acknowledges Ormuzd as the ruler of the universe ; it seeks to extend the triumph of virtue over the mate- rial and spiritual world. The religion of Zoroaster prevailed for many centuries in Persia. The Greeks adopted some of its ideas into their philos- ophy, and through the schools of the Gnostics and Neo-Platon- ists, its influence extended over Europe. After the conquest of Persia by the Mohammedans, the Fire-worshipers were driven to the deserts of Kerman, or took refuge in India, where, under the name of Parsees or Guebers, they still keep alive the sacred fire, and preserve the code of Zoroaster. 5. MODERN LITERATURE. Some traces of the modern lit- erature of Persia appeared shortly after the conquest of the country by the Arabians in the seventh century A. D. ; but the 42 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. true era dates from the ninth or tenth century. It may be di- vided into the departments of Poetry, History, and Philosophy. 6. THE SUFIS. After the introduction of Mohammedanism into Persia, there arose a sect of pantheistic mystics called Sufis, to which most of the Persian poets belong. They teach their doctrine under the images of love, wine, intoxication, etc., by which, with them, a divine sentiment is always understood. The doctrines of the Sufis are undoubtedly of Hindu origin. Their fundamental tenets are, that nothing exists absolutely but God ; that the human soul is an emanation from his essence and will finally be restored to him ; that the great object of life should be a constant approach to the eternal spirit, to form as perfect a union with the divine nature as possible. Hence all worldly attachments should be avoided, arid in all that we do a spiritual object should be kept in view. The great end with these philosophers is to attain to a state of perfection in spirit- uality and to be absorbed in holy contemplation, to the exclusion of all worldly recollections or interests. 7. PERSIAN POETRY. The Persian tongue is peculiarly adapted to the purposes of poetry, which in that language is rich in forcible expressions, in bold metaphors, in ardent senti- ments, and in descriptions animated with the most lively color- ing. In poetical composition there is much art exercised by the Persian poets, and the arrangement of their language is a work of great care. One favorite measure which frequently ends a poem is called the Suja, literally the cooing of doves. The poetical compositions of the Persians are of several kinds ; the gazel or ode usually treats of love, beauty, or friendship. The poet generally introduces his name in the last couplet. The idyl resembles the gazel, except that it is longer. Poetry enters as a universal element into all compositions ; physics, mathemat- ics, medicine, ethics, natural history, astronomy, grammar all lend themselves to verse in Persia. The works of favorite poets are generally written on fine, silky paper, the ground of which is often powdered with gold or silver dust, the margins illuminated, and the whole perfumed with some costly essence. The magnificent volume containing the poem of Yussuf and Zuleika in the public library at Oxford affords a proof of the honors accorded to poetical composition. One of the finest specimens of caligraphy and illumination is the exordium to the life of Shah Jehan, for which the writer, besides the stipulated remuneration, had his mouth stuffed with There are three principal love stories in Persia which, from the earliest times, have been the themes of every poet. Scarcely one of the great masters of Persian literature but has adopted PERSIAN LITERATURE. 43 and added celebrity to these beautiful and interesting legends, which can never be too often repeated to an Oriental ear. They are, the " History of Khosru and Shireen," the " Loves of Yus- suf and Zuleika," and the " Misfortunes of Me j noun and Leila." So powerful is the charm attached to these stories, that it ap- pears to have been considered almost the imperative duty of all the poets to compose a new version of the old, familiar, and be- loved traditions. Even down to a modern date, the Persians have not deserted their favorites, and these celebrated themes of verse reappear, from time to time, under new auspices. Each of these poems is expressive of a peculiar character. That of Khosru and Shireen may be considered exclusively the Persian romance ; that of Mejnoun the Arabian ; and that of Yussuf and Zuleika the sacred. The first presents a picture of happy love and female excellence in Shireen ;. Mejnoun is a represen- tation of unfortunate love carried to madness ; the third ro- mance contains the ideal of perfection in Yussuf (Joseph) and the most passionate and imprudent love in Zuleika (the wife of Potiphar), and exhibits in strong relief the power of love and beauty, the mastery of mind, the weakness of overwhelming passion, and the victorious spirit of holiness. 8. PERSIAN POETS. The first of Persian poets, the Homer of his country, is Abul Kasim Mansur, called Ferdusi or " Par- adise," from the exquisite beauty of his compositions. He flour- ished in the reign of the Shah Mahmud (940-1020 A. D.). Mahmud commissioned him to write in his faultless verse a his- tory of the monarchs of Persia, promising that for every thou- sand couplets he should receive a thousand pieces of gold. For thirty years he studied and labored on his epic poem, " the Shah Namah," or Book of Kings, and when it was completed he sent a copy of it, exquisitely written, to the sultan, who received it coldly, and treated the work of the aged poet with contempt. Disappointed at the ingratitude of the Shah, Ferdusi wrote some satirical lines, which soon reached the ear of Mahmud, who, piqued and offended at the freedom of the poet, ordered sixty thousand small pieces of money to be sent to him, instead of the gold which he had promised. Ferdusi was in the public bath when the money was given to him, and his rage and amazement exceeded all bounds when he found himself thus insulted. He distributed the paltry sum among the attendants of the bath and the slaves who brought it. He soon after avenged himself by writing a satire full of stinging invective, which he caused to be transmitted to the fa- vorite vizier who had instigated the sultan against him. It was carefully sealed up, with directions that it should be read to Mahmud on some occasion when his mind was perturbed with 44 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. affairs of state, and his temper ruffled, as it was a poem likely to afford him entertainment. Ferdusi having thus prepared his vengeance, quitted the ungrateful court without leave-taking, and was at a safe distance when news reached him that his lines had fully answered their intended purpose. Mahmud had heard and trembled, and too late discovered that he had ruined his own reputation forever. After the satire had been read by Shah Mahmud, the poet sought shelter in the court of the caliph of Bagdad, in whose honor he added a thousand couplets to the poem of the Shah Namah, and who rewarded him with the sixty thousand gold pieces, which had been withheld by Mahmud. Meantime, Ferdusi's poem of Yussuf, and his magnificent verses on several subjects, had received the fame they deserved. Shah Mahniud's late remorse awoke. Thinking by a tardy act of lib- erality to repair his former meanness, he dispatched to the author of the Shah Namah the sixty thousand pieces he had promised, a robe of state, and many apologies and expressions of friendship and admiration, requesting his return, and professing great sor- row for the past. But when the message arrived, Ferdusi was dead, and his family devoted the whole sum to the benevolent purpose he had intended, the erection of public buildings, and the general improvement of his native village, Tus. He died at the age of eighty. The Shah Namah contains the history of the kings of Persia down to the death of the last of the Sassanide race, who was deprived of his kingdom by the invasion of the Arabs during the caliphat of Omar, 636 A. D. The language of Ferdusi may be considered as the purest specimen of the ancient Parsee : Arabic words are seldom introduced. There are many episodes in the Shah Namah of great beauty, and the power and elegance of its verse are unrivaled. Essedi of Tus is distinguished as having been the master of Ferdusi, and as having aided his illustrious pupil in the comple- tion of his great work. Among many poems which he wrote, the " Dispute between Day and Night " is the most celebrated. Togray was a native of Ispahan and contemporary with Fer- dusi. He became so celebrated as a writer, that the title of Honor of Writers was given him. He was an alchemist, and wrote a treatise on the philosopher's stone. Moasi, called King of Poets, lived about the middle of the eleventh century. He obtained his title at the court of Ispahan, and rose to high dignity and honor. So renowned were his odes, that more than a hundred poets endeavored to imitate his style. Omar Kheyam, who was one of the most distinguished of the poets of Persia, lived toward the close of the eleventh century. He was remarkable for the freedom of his religious opinions, PERSIAN LITERATURE. 45 and the boldness with which he denounced hypocrisy and intol- erance. He particularly directed his satire against the mystic poets. Nizami, the first of the romantic poets, flourished in the latter part of the twelfth century A. D. His principal works are called the " Five Treasures," of which the " Loves of Khosru and Shi- reen " is the most celebrated, and in the treatment of which he has succeeded beyond all other poets. Sadi (1194-1282) is esteemed among the Persians as a mas- ter in poetry and in morality. He is better known in Europe than any other Eastern author, except Hafiz, and has been more frequently translated. Jami calls him the nightingale of the groves of Shiraz, of which city he was a native. He spent a part of his long life in travel and in the acquisition of knowl- edge, and the remainder in retirement and devotion. His works are termed the salt-mine of poets, being revered as unrivaled models of the first genius in the world. His philosophy enabled him to support all the ills of life with patience and fortitude, and one of his remarks, arising from the destitute condition in which he once found himself, deserves preservation : " I never complained of my condition but once, when my feet were bare, and I had not money to buy shoes ; but I met a man without feet, and I became contented with my lot." The works of Sadi are very numerous, and are popular and familiar everywhere in the East. His two greatest works are the " Bostan " and " Gulistan " (Bostan, the rose garden, and Gulistan, the fruit garden). They abound in striking beauties, and show great knowledge of human nature. Attar (1119-1233) was one of the great Sufi masters, and spent his life in devotion and contemplation. He died at the advanced age of 114. It would seem that poetry in the East was favorable to human life, so many of its professors attained to a great age, particularly those who professed the Sufi doc- trine. The great work of Attar is a poem containing useful moral maxims. Roumi (1203-1272), usually called the Mulah, was an en- thusiastic follower of the doctrine of the Sufis. His son suc- ceeded him at the head of the sect, and surpassed his father not only in the virtues and attainments of the Sufis, but by his splendid poetical genius. His poems are regarded as the most perfect models of the mystic style. Sir William Jones says, " There is a depth and solemnity in his works unequaled by any poet of this class ; even Hafiz must be considered inferior to him." Among the poets of Persia the name of Hafiz (d. 1389), the prince of Persian lyric poets, is most familiar to the English 46 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. reader. He was born at Shiraz. Leading a life of poverty, of which he was proud, for he considered poverty the companion of genius, he constantly refused the invitation of monarchs to visit their courts. There is endless variety in the poems of Hafiz, and they are replete with surpassing beauty of thought, feeling, and expression. The grace, ease, and fancy of his num- bers are inimitable, and there is a magic in his lays which few even of his professed enemies have been able to resist. To the young, the gay, and the enthusiastic his verses are ever welcome, and the sage discovers in them a hidden mystery which recon- ciles him to their subjects. His tomb, near Shiraz, is visited as a sacred spot by pilgrims of all ages. The place of his birth is held in veneration, and there is not a Persian whose heart does not echo his strains. Jami (d. 1492) was born in Khorassan, in the village of Jam, from whence he is named, his proper appellation being Abd Arahman. He was a Sufi, and preferred, like many of his fel- low-poets, the meditations and ecstasies of mysticism to the pleas- ures of a court. His writings are very voluminous ; he com- posed nearly forty volumes, all of great length, of which twenty- two are preserved at Oxford. The greater part of them treat of Mohammedan theology, and are written in the mystic style. He collected the most interesting under the name of the " Seven Stars of the Bear," or the " Seven Brothers," and among these is the famous poem of Yussuf and Zuleika. This favorite sub- ject, which every Persian poet has touched with more or less success, has never been so beautifully rendered as by Jami. Nothing can exceed the admiration which this poem inspires in the East. Hatifi (d. 1520) was the nephew of the great poet Jami. It was his ambition to enter the lists with his uncle, by composing poems on similar subjects. Opinions are divided as to whether he succeeded as well as his master, but none can exceed him in sweetness and pathos. His version of the sad tale of Mejnoun and Leila, the Romeo and Juliet of the East, is confessedly superior to that of Nizami. The lyrical compositions of Sheik Feizi (d. 1575) are highly valued. In his mystic poems he approaches to the sublimity of Attar. His ideas are tinged with the belief of the Hindus, in which he was educated. When a boy he was introduced to the Brahmins by the Sultan Mohammed Akbar, as an orphan of their tribe, in order that he might learn their language and obtain possession of their religious secrets. He became attached to the daughter of the Brahmin who protected him, and she wa? offered to him in marriage by the unsuspecting parent. After a struggle between inclination an,d honor, the latter prevailed^ PERSIAN LITERATURE. 47 and he confessed the fraud. The Brahmin, struck with horror, attempted to put an end to his own existence, fearing that he had betrayed his oath and brought danger and disgrace on his sect. Feizi, with tears and protestations, besought him to for- bear, promising to submit to any command he might impose on him. The Brahmin consented to live, on condition that Feizi should take an oath never to translate the Vedas nor to repeat to any one the creed of the Hindus. Feizi entered into the desired obligations, parted with his adopted father, bade adieu to his love, and with a sinking heart returned home. Among his works the most important is the " Mahabarit," which con^ tains the chronicles of the Hindu princes, and abounds in ro^ mantic episodes. The most celebrated recent Persian poet is Blab Phelair. (1729-1825). He left many astronomical, moral, political, and literary works. He is called the Persian Voltaire. Among the collections of novels and fables, the "Lights of Canope " may be mentioned, imitated from the Hitopadesa. Persian literature is also enriched by translations of the standard works in Sanskrit, among which are the epic poems of Valmiki and Vyasa. 9. HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY. Among the most celebrated of the Persian historians is Mirkhond, who lived in the middle of the fifteenth century. His great work on universal history contains an account of the origin of the world, the life of the patriarchs, prophets, and philosophers of Persia, and affords valuable materials, especially for the history of the Middle Ages. His son, Khondemir, distinguished himself in the same branch of literature, and wrote two works which, for their historical correctness and elegance of style, are in great favor among the Persians. Ferischta, who flourished in the beginning of the seventeenth century, is the author of a valuable history of India. Mirgholah, a historian of the eighteenth century, gives a con- temporary history of Hindustan and of his own country, under the title of " A Glance at Recent Affairs," and in another work he treats of the causes which, at some future time, will probably lead to the fall of the British power in India. The " History of the Reigning Dynasty " is among the principal modern historical works of Persia. The Persians possess numerous works on rhetoric, geography, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, few of which are entitled to much consideration. In philosophy may be mentioned the "Essence of Logic," an exposition in the Arabic language of the doctrines of Aristotle on Ipgic ; and the " Moral System of Na- eir," published in the thirteenth century A. D., a valuable trea- tise on morals, economy, and politics. 48 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 10. EDUCATION IN PERSIA. There are established, in every town and city, schools in which the poorer children can be in- structed in the rudiments of the Persian and Arabic languages. The pupil, after he has learned the alphabet, reads the Koran in Arabic ; next, fables in Persian ; and lastly is taught to write a beautiful hand, which is considered a great accomplish- ment. The Persians are fond of poetry, and the lowest artisans can read or repeat the finest passages of their most admired poets. For the education of the higher classes there are in Persia many colleges and universities where the pupils are taught grammar, the Turkish and Arabic languages, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry. The literary men are numerous ; they pursue their studies till they are entitled to the honors of the colleges ; afterwards they devote themselves to copying and illuminating manuscripts. Of late many celebrated European works have been translated and published in Persia. HEBREW LITERATURE. 1. Hebrew Literature ; its Divisions. 2. The Language ; its Alphabet ; its Struc- ture ; Peculiarities, Formation, and Phases. 3. The Old Testament. 4. Hebrew Edu- cation. 5. Fundamental Idea of Hebrew Literature. 6. Hebrew Poetry. 7. Lyric Poetry ; Songs ; the Psalrns ; the Prophets. 8. Pastoral Poetry and Didactic Poetry ; the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 9. Epic and Dramatic Poetry ; the Book of Job. 10. He- brew History ; the Pentateuch and other Historical Books. 11. Hebrew Philosophy. 12. Restoration of the Sacred Books. 13. Manuscripts and Translations. 14. Rabbin- ical Literature. 15. The New Revision of the Bible, and the New Biblical Manuscript. 1. HEBREW LITERATURE. In the Hebrew literature we find expressed the national character of that ancient people who, for a period of four thousand years, through captivity, disper- sion, and persecution of every kind, present the wonderful spec- tacle of a race preserving its nationality, its peculiarities of wor- ship, of doctrine, and of literature. Its history reaches back to an early period of the world, its code of laws has been studied and imitated by the legislators of all ages and countries, and its literary monuments surpass in originality, poetic strength, and religious importance those of any other nation before the Chris- tian era. The literature of the Hebrews may be divided into the four following periods : The first, extending from remote antiquity to the time of Da- vid, 1010 B. c., includes all the records of patriarchal civiliza- tion transmitted by tradition previous to the age of Moses, and contained in the Pentateuch or five books attributed to him after lie had delivered the people from the bondage of Egypt. The second period extends from the time of David to the death of Solomon, 1010-940 B. c., and to this are referred some of the Psalms, Joshua, the Judges, and the Chronicles. The third period extends from the death of Solomon to the return from the Babylonian captivity, 940-532 B. c., and to this age belong the writings of most of the Prophets, The Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Ruth. The fourth period extends from their return from the Baby- lonian Captivity to the present time, and to this belong some of the Prophets, the Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the final completion of the Psalms, the Septuagint translation of the Bible, the writings of Josephus, of Philo of Alexandria, and the rabbinical literature. 4 50 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 2. THE LANGUAGE. The Hebrew language is of Semitic origin ; its alphabet consists of twenty-two letters. The number of accents is nearly forty, some of which distinguish the sen- tences like the punctuation of our language, and others serve to determine the number of syllables, or to mark the tone with which they are to be sung or spoken. The Hebrew character is of two kinds, the ancient or square, and the modern or rabbinical. In the first of these the Scrip- tures were originally written. The last is deprived of most of its angles, and is more easy and flowing. The Hebrew words as well as letters are written from right to left in common with the Semitic tongues generally, and the language is regular, particu- larly in its conjugations. Indeed, it has but one conjugation, but with seven or eight variations, having the effect of as many different conjugations, and giving great variety of expression. .The predominance of these modifications over the noun, the idea of time contained in the roots of almost all its verbs, so expres- sive and so picturesque, and even the scarcity of its prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs, make this language in its organic struc- ture breathe life, vigor, and emotion. If it lacks the flowery and luxuriant elements of the other oriental idioms, no one of these can be compared with the Hebrew tongue for the richness of its figures and imagery, for its depth, and for its majestic and im- posing features. In the formation, development, and decay of this language, the following periods may be distinguished : First. From Abraham to Moses, when the old stock was changed by the infusion of the Egyptian and Arabic. Abraham, residing in Chaldea, spoke the Chaldaic language, then travel- ing through Egypt, and establishing himself in Canaan or Pales- tine, his language mingled its elements with the tongues spoken by those nations, and perhaps also with that of the Phoanicians, who early established commercial intercourse with him and his descendants. It is probable that the Hebrew language sprung from the mixture of these elements. Second. From Moses and the composition of the Pentateuch to Solomon, when it attained its perfection, not without being influenced by the Phoanician. This is the Golden Age of the Hebrew language. Third. From Solomon to Ezra, when, although increasing in beauty and sweetness, it became less pure by the adoption of for- eign ideas and idioms. Fourth. From Ezra to the end of the reign of the Macca- bees, when it was gradually lost in the Aramaean or Chaldaic tongue, and became a dead language. The Jews of the Middle Ages, incited by the learning of the HEBREW LITERATURE. 51 Arabs in Spain, among whom they received the protection de- nied them by Christian nations, endeavored to restore their lan- guage to something of its original purity, and to render the Biblical Hebrew again a written language ; but the Chaldaic idioms had taken too deep root to be eradicated, and besides, the ancient language was found insufficient for the necessities of an advancing civilization. Hence arose a new form of written Hebrew, called rabbinical from its origin and use among the rabbins. It borrowed largely from many contemporary lan- guages, and though it became richer and more regular in its structure, it retained little of the strength and purity of the ancient Hebrew. 3. THE OLD TESTAMENT. The literary productions of the Hebrews are collected in the sacred books of the Old Testament, in which, according to the celebrated orientalist, Sir William Jones, we can find more eloquence, more historical and moral truth, more poetry, in a word, more beauties than we could gather from all other books together, of whatever country or lan- guage. Aside from its supernatural claims, this book stands alone among the literary monuments of other nations, for the sublimity of its doctrine, as well as for the simplicity of its style. It is the book of all centuries, countries, and conditions, and affords the best solution of the most mysterious problems con- cerning God and the world. It cultivates the taste, it elevates the mind, it nurses the soul with the word of life, and it has in- spired the best productions of human genius. 4. HEBREW EDUCATION. Religion, morals, legislation, his- tory, poetry, and music were the special objects to which the at- tention of the Levites and Prophets was particularly directed. The general education of the people, however, was rather simple and domestic. They were trained in husbandry, and in military and gymnastic exercises, and they applied their minds almost exclusively to religious and moral doctrines and to divine wor- ship ; they learned to read and write their own language cor- rectly, but they seldom learned foreign languages or read foreign books, and they carefully prevented strangers from obtaining a knowledge of their own. 5. FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF HEBREW LITERATURE. Mono- theism was the fundamental idea of the Hebrew literature, as well as of the Hebrew religion, legislation, morals, politics, and philosophy. The idea of the unity of God constitutes the most striking characteristic of Hebrew poetry, and chiefly distin- guishes it from that of all mythological nations. Other ancient literatures have created their divinities, endowed them with hu- man passions, and painted their achievements in the glowing colors of Doetrv. The Hebrew poetry, on the contrary, makes 52 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. no attempt to portray the Deity by the instruments of sensuous representation, but simple, majestic, and severe, it pours forth a perpetual anthem of praise and thanksgiving. The attributes of God, his power, his paternal love and wisdom, are described in the most sublime language of any age or nation. His seat is the heavens, the earth is his footstool, the heavenly hosts his ser- vants ; the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands prepared the dry land. Placed under the immediate government of Jehovah, having with Him common objects of aversion and love, the Hebrews reached the very source* of enthusiasm, the fire of which burned in the hearts of the prophets so fervently as to cause them to utter the denunciations and the promises of the Eternal in a tone suited to the inspired of God, and to sing his attributes and glo- ries with a dignity and authority becoming them, as the vicege- rents of God upon earth. 6. HEBREW POETRY. The character of the people and their language, its mission, the pastoral life of the patriarchs, the beautiful and grand scenery of the country, the wonderful his- tory of the nation, the feeling of divine inspiration, the promise of a Messiah who should raise the nation to glory, the imposing solemnities of the divine worship, and finally, the special order of the prophets, gave a strong impulse to the poetical genius of the nation, and concurred in producing a form of poetry which cannot be compared with any other for its simplicity and clear- ness, for its depth and majesty. These features of Hebrew poetry, however, spring from its internal force rather than from any external form. Indeed, the Hebrew poets soar far above all others in that energy of feeling, impetuous and irresistible, which penetrates, warms, and moves the very soul. They reveal their anxieties as well as their hopes ; they paint with truth and love the actual condition of the human race, with its sorrows and consolations, its hopes and fears, its love and hate. They select their images from the habitual ideas of the people, and personify inanimate objects the mountains tremble and exult, deep cries unto deep. An- other characteristic of Hebrew poetry is the strong feeling of nationality it expresses. Of their two most sublime poets, one was their legislator, the other their greatest king. 7. LYRIC POETRY. In their national festivals the Hebrews sang the hymns of their lyric poets, accompanied by musical instruments. The art of singing, as connected with poetry, flourished especially ' under David, who instituted twenty-four choruses, composed of four thousand Levites, whose duty it was to sing in the public solemnities. It is generally believed that the Hebrew lyric poetry was not ruled by any measure, eithei HEBREW LITERATURE. 53 of syllables or of time. Its predominant form was a succession of thoughts and a rhythmic movement, less of syllables and words than of ideas and images systematically arranged. The Psalms, especially, are essentially symmetrical, according to the Hebrew ritual, their verses being sung alternately by Levites and people, both in the synagogues and more frequently in the open air. The song of Moses after the passage of the Red Sea is the most sublime triumphal hymn in any language, and of equal merit is his song of thanksgiving in Deuteronomy. Beautiful examples of the same order of poetry may be found in the song of Judith (though not canonical), and the songs of Deborah and Balaam. But Hebrew poetry attained its meridian splendor in the Psalms of David. The works of God in the creation of the world, and in the government of men ; the illustrious deeds of the House of Jacob ; the wonders and mysteries of the new Covenant are sung by David in a fervent out-pouring of an im- pulsive, passionate spirit, that alternately laments and exults, bows in contrition, or soars to the sublimest heights of devotion. The Psalms, even now, reduced to prose, after three thousand years, present the best and most sublime collection of lyrical poems, unequaled for their aspiration, their living imagery, their grand ideas, and majesty of style. When at length the Hebrews, forgetful of their high duties and calling, trampled on their institutions and laws, prophets were raised up to recall the wandering people to their allegiance. ISAIAH, whether he foretells the future destiny of the nation, or the coming of the Messiah, in his majestic eloquence, sweetness, and simplicity, gives us the most perfect model of lyric poetry. He prophesied during the reigns of Azariah and Hezekiah, and his writings bear the mark of true inspiration. JEREMIAH flourished during the darkest period in the history of the kingdom of Judah, and under the last four kings, pre- vious to the Captivity. The Lamentations, in which he pours forth his grief for the fate of his country, are full of touching melancholy and pious resignation, and, in their harmonious and beautiful tone, show his ardent patriotism and his unshaken trust in the God of his fathers. He does not equal Isaiah in the sublimity of his conceptions and the variety of his imagery, but whatever may be the imperfections of his style, they are lost in the passion and vehemence of his poems. DANIEL, after having struggled against the corruptions of Babylon, boldly foretells the decay of that empire with terrible power. His conceptions and images are truly sublime ; but his style is less correct and regular than that of his predecessors, his language being a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldaic. Such is also the style of EZEKIEL, who sings the development 54 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. of the obscure prophesies of his master. His writings abound in dreams and visions, and convey rather the idea of the terrible than of the sublime. These four, from the length of their writings, are called the Greater Prophets, to distinguish them from the twelve Minor Prophets : HOSEA, JOEL, AMOS. OBADIAH, JONAH, MICAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, ZEPHANIAH, HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, and MALACHI, all of whom, though endowed with different charac teri sties and genius, show in their writings more or less of that fire and vigor which can only be found in writers who were moved and warmed by the very spirit of God. 8. PASTORAL POETRY AND DIDACTIC POETRY. The Song of Solomon and the history of Ruth are the best specimens of the Hebrew idyl, and breathe all the simplicity of pastoral life. The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes contain treatises on moral philosophy, or rather, are didactic poems. The Proverb, which is a maxim of wisdom, greatly used by the ancients be- fore the introduction of dissertation, is, as the name indicates, the prevalent form of the first of these books. In Ecclesiastes we have described the trials of a mind which has lost itself in unde- fined wishes and in despair, and the efficacious remedies for these mental diseases are shown in the pictures of the vanity of the world and in the final divine judgment, in which the problem of this life will have its complete solution. SOLOMON, the author of these works, adds splendcr to the sublimity of his doctrines by the dignity of his style. 9. EPIC AND DRAMATIC POETRY. The Book of Job may be considered as belonging either to epic or to dramatic poetry. Its exact date is uncertain ; some writers refer it to the primitive period of Hebrew literature, and others to a later age ; and, while some contend that Job was but an ideal, representing human suffering, whose story was sung by an anonymous poet, others, with more probability, regard him as an actual person, exposed to the trials and temptations described in this wonder- ful book. However this may be, it is certain that this monu- ment of wisdom stands alone, and that it can be compared to no other production for the sublimity of its ideas, the vivacity and force of its expressions, the grandeur of its imagery, and the variety of its characters. No other work represents, in more true and vivid colors, the nobility and misery of humanity, the laws of necessity and Providence, and the trials to which the good are subjected for their moral improvement. Here the great struggle between evil and good appears in its true light, and human virtue heroically submits itself to the ordeal of mis- fortune. Here we learn that the evil and good of this life are by no means the measure of morality, and here we witness tha final triumDh ol iustice. HEBREW LITERATURE. 55 10. HEBREW HISTORY. Moses, the most ancient of all his- torians, was also the first leader and legislator of the Hebrews. When at length the traditions of the patriarchs had become obscured and confused among the different nations of the earth, Moses was inspired to write the history of the human race, and especially of the chosen people, in order to bequeath to coming centuries a memorial of revealed truths and of the divine works of eternal Wisdom. Thus in the first chapters of Genesis, with- out aiming to write the complete annals of the first period of the world, he summed up the general history of man, and described, more especially, the genealogy of the patriarchs and of the gen- erations previous to the time of the dispersion. The subject of the book of Exodus is the delivery of the peo- ple from the Egyptian bondage, and it is not less admirable for the importance of the events which it describes, than for the manner in which they are related. In this, and in the following book of Numbers, the record of patriarchal life gives place to the teachings of Moses and to the history of the wanderings in the deserts of Arabia. In Leviticus the constitution of the priesthood is described, as well as the peculiarities of a worship. Deuteronomy records the laws of Moses, and concludes with his sublime hymn of thanksgiving. The historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chron- icles, Ezra, etc., contain the history of the Hebrew nation for nearly a thousand years, and relate the prosperity and the dis- asters of the chosen people. Here are recorded the deeds of Joshua, of Samson, of Samuel, of David, and of Solomon, the building of the Temple, the division of the tribes into two king- doms, the prodigies of Elijah and Elisha, the impieties of Ahab, the calamities of Jedekiah, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the first Temple, the dispersion and the Babylonish captivity, the deliverance under Cyrus, and the rebuilding of the city and Temple under Ezra, and other great events in Hebrew history. The internal evidence derived from the peculiar character of each of the historical books is decisive of their genuineness, which is supported above all suspicion of alteration or addition by the scrupulous conscientiousness and veneration with which the Hebrews regarded their sacred writings. Their authenticity is also proved by the uniformity of doctrine which pervades them all, though written at different periods, by the simplicity and naturalness of the narrations, and by the sincerity of the writers. These histories display neither vanity nor adulation, nor do they attempt to conceal from the reader whatever might be tonsidered as faults in their authors or their heroes. While 56 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. they select facts with a nice judgment, and present the most luminous picture of events and of their causes, they abstain from reasoning or speculation in regard to them. 11. HEBREW PHILOSOPHY.- Although the Hebrews, in their different sacred writings, have transmitted to us the best solu- tion of the ancient philosophical questions on the creation of the world, on the Providence which rules it, on monotheism, and on the origin of sin, yet they have nowhere presented us with a complete system of philosophy. During the Captivity, their doctrines were influenced by those of Zoroaster, and later, when many of the Jews established themselves in Egypt, they acquired some knowledge of the Greek philosophy, and the tenets of the sects of the Essenes bear a strong resemblance to the Pythagorean and Platonic schools. This resemblance appears most clearly in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, a Jew, born a few years before the birth of our Saviour. Though not belonging to the sect of the Essenes, he followed their example in adopting the doctrines of Plato And taking them as the criterion in the interpretation of the Scrip- tures. So r also, Flavius Josephus, born in Jerusalem, 37 A. D., and Numenius, born in Syria, in the second century A. D., adopted the Greek philosophy, and by its doctrines amplified and ex- panded the tenets of Judaism. 12. RESTORATION OF THE SACRED BOOKS. One of the most important eras in Hebrew literature is the period of the restora- tion of the Mosaic institutions, after the return from the Cap- tivity. According to tradition, at that time Ezra established the great Synagogue, a college of one hundred and twenty learned men, who were appointed to collect copies of the ancient sacred books, the originals of which had been lost in the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and Nehemiah soon after placed this, or a new collection, in the Temple. The design of these reformers to give the people a religious canon in their ancient tongue induces the belief that they engaged in the work with the strictest fidelity to the old Mosaic institutions, and it is cer- tain that the canon of the Old Testament, in the time of the Maccabees, was the same as that which we have at present. 13. MANUSCRIPTS AND TRANSLATIONS. Of the canonical books of the Old Testament we have Hebrew manuscripts, printed editions, and translations. The most esteemed manuscripts are those of the Spanish Jews, of which the most ancient belong to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The printed editions of the Bible in Hebrew are numerous. The earliest are those of Italy. L/uther made his German translation from the edition of Brescia, printed .in 1494. The earliest and most famous translation of the Old Testament is the Septuagint, or Greek translation, which HEBREW LITERATURE. 57 was made about 283 B. c. It may, probably, be attributed to the Alexandrian Jews, who, having lost the knowledge of the He- brew, caused the translation to be made by some of their learned countrymen for the use of the Synagogues of Egypt. It was probably accomplished under the authority of the Sanhedrim, composed of seventy elders, and therefore called the Septuagint > version, and from it the quotations in the New Testament are chiefly taken. It was regarded as canonical by the Jews to the exclusion of other books written in Greek, but not translated from the Hebrew, which we now call, by the Greek name, the Apocrypha. The Vulgate or Latin translation, which has official authority in the Catholic Church, was made gradually from the eighth to the sixteenth century, partly from an old translation which was made from the Greek in the early history of the Church, and partly from translations from the Hebrew made by St. Jerome. The English version of the Bible now in use in England and America was made by order of James I. It was accomplished by forty-seven distinguished scholars, divided into six classes, to each of which a part of the work was assigned. This translation occupied three years, and was printed in 1611. 14. RABBINICAL LITERATURE. Rabbinical literature in- cludes all the writings of the rabbins, or teachers of the Jews in the later period of Hebrew letters, who have interpreted and developed the literature of the earlier ages. The language made use of by them has its foundation in the Hebrew and Chaldaic, with various alterations and modifications in the use of words, the meaning of which they have considerably enlarged and ex- tended. They have frequently borrowed from the Arabic, Greek, and Latin, and from those modern tongues spoken where they severally resided. The Talmud, from the Hebrew word signifying he has learned, is a collection of traditions illustrative of the laws and usages oi the Jews. The Talmud consists of two parts, the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna, or second law, is a col- lection of rabbinical rules and precepts made in the second cen- tury. The Gemara (completion or doctrine) was composed in the third century. It is a collection of commentaries and expla- nations of the Mishna, and both together formed the Jerusalem Talmud. The Babylonian rabbins composed new commentaries on the Mishna, and this formed the Babylonian Talmud. Bath Tal- muds were first committed to writing about 500 A. D. At the period of the Christian Era, the civil constitution, language, and mode of thinking among the Jews had undergone a complete revolution, and were entirely different from what they had been 58 HANDBOOK' OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. in the early period of the commonwealth. The Mosaic booka contained rules no longer adapted to the situation of the nation, and many difficult questions arose to which their law afforded no satisfactory solution. The rabbins undertook to supply this defect, partly by commentaries on the Mosaic precepts, and partly by the composition of new rules. The Talmud requires that wherever twelve adults reside to- gether in one place, they shall erect a synagogue and serve the God of their fathers by a multitude of prayers and formalities, amidst the daily occupations of life. It allows usury, treats agricultural pursuits with contempt, and requires strict separa- tion from the other races, and commits the government to the rabbins. The Talmud is followed by the Rabbinites, to which sect nearly all the European and American Jews belong. The sect of the Caraites rejects the Talmud and holds to the law of Moses only. It is less numerous, and its members are found chiefly in the East, or in Turkey and Eastern Russia. The Cabala, or oral tradition, is, according to the Jews, a per- petual divine revelation, preserved among the Jewish people by secret transmission. It sometimes denotes the doctrines of the prophets, but most commonly the mystical philosophy, which was probably introduced into Palestine from Egypt and Persia. It was first committed to writing in the second century A. D. The Cabala is divided into the symbolical and the real, of which the former gives a mystical signification to letters. The latter comprehends doctrines, and is divided into the theoretical and practical. The first aims to explain the Scriptures according to the secret traditions, while the last pretends to teach the art of performing miracles by an artificial use of the divine names and sentences of the sacred Scriptures. The Jews of the Middle Ages acquired great reputation for learning, especially in Spain, where they were allowed to study astronomy, mathematics, and medicine in the schools of the Moors. Granada and Cordova became the centres of *rabbinical literature, which was also cultivated in France, Italy, Portugal, and Germany. In the sixteenth century the study of Hebrew and rabbinical literature became common among Christian schol- ars, and in the following centuries it became more interesting and important from the introduction of comparative philology in the department of languages. Rabbinical literature still has its students and interpreters. In Padua, Berlin, and Metz there are seminaries for the education of rabbins, which supply with able doctors the synagogues of Italy, Germany, and France. There is also a rabbinical school in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Po- lish rabbins and Talmudists, however, are the most celebrated. 15. THE NEW REVISION OF THE BIBLE.' The convocation HEBREW LITERATURE. 59 of the .English House of Bishops, which met at Canterbury in 1870, recommended a revised version of the Scriptures, and appointed a committee for the work of sixty-seven members from various ecclesiastical bodies of England, to which an American committee of thirty-five was added, and by their joint labors the revised edition of the New Testament was issued in 1881. The revised Old Testament is expected to ap- pear during 1884. The advantages claimed for these new ver- sions are : a more accurate rendering of the text, a correction of the errors of former translations, the removal of misleading archaisms and obsolete terms, better punctuation, arrangement in sections as well as chapters and verses, the metrical arrange- ment of poetry, and an increased number of marginal read- ings. In 1875, Bryennios, a metropolitan of the Greek Church, dis- covered in the library of the Most Holy Sepulchre at Constanti- nople a manuscript belonging to the second century A. D., which contains, among other valuable and interesting documents, one on the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," many points of which bear on the usages of the church, such as the mode of baptism, the celebration of the Eucharist, and the orders of the ministry. It was at first considered authentic and highly important, but more deliberate study tends to discredit its authority. EGYPTIAN LITERATURE. 1. The Language. 2. The Writing. 3. The Literature. 4. The Monuments. 5. The Discovery of Champollion. 0. Literary Remains ; Historical ; Religious ; Episto- lary ; Fictitious ; Scientific ; Epic ; Satirical and Judicial. 7. The Alexandrian Period. 8. The Literary Condition of Modern Egypt. 1. THE LANGUAGE. From the earliest times the language of Egypt was divided into three dialects : the Memphitic, spoken in Memphis and Lower Egypt ; the Theban, or Sahidic, spoken in Upper Egypt ; and the Bashmuric, a provincial variety be- longing to the oases of the Lybian Desert. The Coptic tongue, which arose from a union of ancient Egyp- tian with the vulgar vernacular, later became mingled with Greek and Arabic words, and was written in the Greek alpha- bet. It was used in Egypt until the tenth century A. D., when it gave way to the Arabic ; but the Christians still preserve it in their worship and in their translation of the Bible. By reject- ing its foreign elements Egyptologists have been enabled to study this language in its purity, and to establish its grammar and construction. It is the exclusive character of the Christian Egyp- tian literature, and marks the last development and final decay of the Egyptian language. 2. THE WRITING. Four distinct graphic systems were in use in ancient Egypt : the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, the demotic, and Coptic. The first expresses words partly by representa- tion of the object and partly by signs indicating sounds, and was used chiefly for inscriptions. The hieratic characters pre- sented a flowing and abbreviated form of the hieroglyphic, and were used more particularly in the papyri. The great body of Egyptian literature has reached us through this character, the reading of which can only be determined by resolving it into its prototype, hieroglyphics. The demotic writing indicates the rise of the vulgar tongue, which took place about the beginning of the seventh century B. c. It was used to transcribe hieroglyphic and hieratic in- scriptions and papyri into the common idiom until the second century A. D., when the Coptic generally superseded it. 3. THE LITERATURE. The literary history of ancient Egypt presents a remarkable exception to that of any other country. While the language underwent various modifications, and the written characters changed, the literature remained the same in EGYPTIAN LITERATURE. 61 all its principal features. This literature consists solely of in- scriptions painted or engraved on monuments, or of written manuscripts on papyrus buried in the tombs or beneath the ruins of temples. It is so deficient in style, and so unsystematic in its construction, that it has taxed the labors of the ablest critics for the last fifty years to construct a whole from its disjointed mate- rials, and these are so imperfect that many periods of Egyptian history are complete literary blanks. In the great period of the Rameses, novels or works of amusement predominated ; under the Ptolemies, historical records, and in the Coptic or Christian stage, homolies and church rituals prevailed ; but through every epoch the same general type appears. Notwithstanding these deficiencies, however, Egypt offers a most attractive field for the archaeologist, and new discoveries are constantly adding to our knowledge of this interesting country. 4. THE MOXUMENTS. The monuments of Egypt are relig- ious, as the temples, sepulchral, as the necropoles, or triumphal, as the obelisks. The temples were the principal structures of the Egyptian cities, and their splendid ruins, covered with in- scriptions, are among the most interesting remains of antiquity. Life after death, the leading idea of the religion of Egypt, was expressed in the construction of the tombs, so numerous in the vicinity of all the large cities. These necropoles, excavated in the rocks or hillsides, or built within the pyramids, consist of rows of chambers with halls supported by columns, which, with the walls, are often covered with paintings, historical or monu- mental, representing scenes from domestic or civil .life. The great pyramids were probably built for the sepulchres of kings and their families, and the smaller ones for persons of inferior rank. The most magnificent of the triumphal monuments are the obelisks, gigantic monoliths of red or white granite, some of which are more than two hundred feet high, covered with in- scriptions, and bearing the image of the triumphant king, painted or engraved. The splendid obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, at Paris, celebrates the glories of Rameses II. The obelisk now in New York is one of a pair erected at Heliopolis, before the Temple of the Sun, about 1600 B. c. In the reign of Augustus both were removed to Alexandria, and were known in modern times as Cleopatra's Needles. One was presented by the Khedive to the city of London in 1877, and the other to the city of New York the same year. The shaft on the latter bears two inscriptions, one celebrating Thoth- mes III., and the other Rameses II. One of the most characteristic monuments of Egypt is the statue of the Sphinx, so often found in the temples and necropo- 62 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. les. It is a recumbent figure, having a human head and breast and the body of a lion. Whatever idea the Egyptians may have attached to this symbol, it represents most truly the character of that people and the struggle of mind to free itself from the in- stincts of brutal nature. 5. THE DISCOVERY OF CHAMPOLLTON. During the expedi- tion into Egypt, in 1799, in throwing up some earthworks near Rosetta, a town on the western arm of the Nile, an officer of the French army discovered a block or tablet of black basalt, upon which were engraved inscriptions in Egyptian and Greek characters. This tablet, called the Rosetta Stone, was sent to France and submitted to the orieritalists for interpretation. The inscription was found to be a decree of the Egyptian priests in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes (196 B. c.), which was ordered to be engraved on stone in sacred (hieroglyphic), common (de- motic), and in Greek characters. Through this interpretation, Champollion (1790-1832), after much study, discovered and established the alphabetic system of Egyptian writing, and ap- plying his discovery more extensively, he was able to decipher the names of the kings of Egypt from the Roman emperors back, through the Ptolemies, to the Pharaohs of the elder dy- nasties. This discovery was the key to the interpretation of all the ancient monuments of Egypt ; by it the history of the coun- try was thrown open for a period of twenty-six centuries, the annals of the neighboring nations were rendered more intelligi- ble, the religion, arts, sciences, life, and manners of the ancient Egyptians were revealed to the modern world, and the obelisks, the innumerable papyri, and the walls of the temples and tombs were transformed into inexhaustible mines of historical and sci- entific knowledge. 6. LITERARY REMAINS ; HISTORICAL ; RELIGIOUS ; EPISTO- LARY ; FICTITIOUS ; SCIENTIFIC ; EPIC ; SATIRICAL AND JUDI- CIAL. The Egyptian priests from the earliest times must have preserved the annals of their country, though obscured by myths and symbols. These annals, however, were destroyed by Cam- byses (500 B. c.), who, during his invasion of the country, burned the temples where they were preserved, although they were soon rewritten, according to the testimony of Herodotus, who visited Egypt 450 B. c. In the third century B. c., Mane- tho, a priest and librarian of Heliopolis, wrote the succession of kings, and though the original work was lost, important frag- ments of it have been preserved by other writers. There seem to have been four periods in this history of ancient Egypt, marked by great changes in the social and political constitution of the country. In the first epoch, under the rule of the gods, demigods, and heroes, according to Manetho, it was probably EGYPTIAN LITERATURE. 63 colonized and ruled by the priests, in the name of the gods. The second period extends from Menes, the supposed founder of the monarchy, to the invasion of the Shepherd Kings, about 2000 B. c. In the third period, under this title, the Phoanicians probably ruled Egypt for three centuries, and it was one of these kings or Pharaohs of whom Joseph was the prime minister. In the fourth period, from 1180 to 350 B. c., the invaders were ex- pelled and native rule restored, until the country was again con- quered, first by the Persians, about 500 B. c., and again by the Greeks under Alexander, 350 B. 0. From that time to the pres- ent no native ruler has sat on the throne of that country. After the conquest by Alexander the Great, who left it to the sway of the Ptolemies, it was successively conquered by the Romans, the Saracens, the Mamelukes, and the Turks. Since 1841 it has been governed by a viceroy under nominal allegiance to the Sul- tan oi Turkey. In 1865 the title of khedive was substituted for that of viceroy. Early Egyptian chronology is in a great measure merely con- jectural, and new information from the monuments only adds to the obscurity. The historical papyri are records of the kings or accounts of contemporary events. These, as well as the inscrip- tions on the monuments, generally in the form of panegyric, are inflated records of the successes of the heroes they celebrate, or explanations of the historical scenes painted or sculptured on the monuments. The early religion of Egypt was founded on a personification of the laws of Nature, centred in a mysterious unity. Egyp- tian nature, however, supplied but few great objects of worship as symbols of divine power, the desert, a natural enemy, the fer- tilizing river, and the sun, the all-pervading presence, worshiped as the source of life, the lord of time, and author of eternity. Three great realms composed the Egyptian cosmos ; the heav- ens, where the sun, moon, and stars paced their daily round, the abode of the invisible king, typified by the sun and wor- shiped as Ammon Ra, the earth and the under-world, the abode of the dead. Here, too, reigned the universal lord under the name of Osiris, whose material manifestation, the sun, as he passed beneath the earth, lightened up the under-world, where the dead were judged, the just recompensed, and the guilty punished. Innumerable minor divinities, which originally personified attributes of the one Supreme Deity, were represented under the form of such animals as were endowed with like qualities. Every god was symbolized by some animal, which thus became an object of worship ; but by confounding symbols with realities this worship soon degenerated into gross materialism and idol- atry. 64 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. The most important religious work in this literature is the " Book of the Dead," a funeral ritual. The earliest known copy is in hieratic writing of the oldest type, and was found in the tomb of a queen, who lived probably about 3000 B. c. The latest copy is of the second century A. D., and is written in pure Coptic. This work, consisting of one hundred and sixty-six chapters, is a collection of prayers of a magical character, an account of the adventures of the soul after death, and directions for reaching the Hall of Osiris. It is a marvel of confusion and poverty of thought. A complete translation may be found in <; Egypt's Place in Universal History," by Bunsen (second edi- tion), and specimens in almost every museum of Europe. There are other theological remains, such as the Metamorphoses of the gods and the Lament of Isis, but their meaning is disguised in allegory. The hymns and addresses to the sun abound in pure and lofty sentiment. The epistolary writings are the best known and understood branch of Egyptian literature. From the Ramesid era, the most literary of all, we have about eighty letters on various subjects, interesting as illustrations of manners and specimens of style. The most important of these is the " Anastasi Papyri " in the British Museum, written about the time of the Exodus. Two valuable and tolerably complete relics represent the ficti- tious writing of Egyptian literature ; they are " The Tale of Two Brothers," now in the British Museum, and "The Romance of Setna," recently discovered in the tomb of a Coptic monk. The former was evidently intended for the amusement of a royal prince. One of its most striking features is the low moral tone of the women introduced. " The Romance of Setna " turns upon the danger of acquiring possession of the sacred books. The opening and date of the story are missing. Fresh information is being constantly acquired as to the knowledge of science possessed by the ancient Egyptians. Ge- ometry originated with them, or from remote ages they were ac- quainted with the principles of this science, as well as with those of hydrostatics and mechanics, as is proved by the immense structures which remain the wonder of the modern world. They cultivated astronomy from the earliest times, and they have transmitted to us their observations on the movements of the sun, the stars, the earth, and other planets. The obelisks served them as sun dials, and the pyramids as astronomical observato- ries. They had greal skill in medicine and much knowledge of anatomy. The most remarkable medical papyri are to be found in the Berlin Museum. The epics and biographical sketches are narratives of personal adventure in war or travel, and are distinguished by some effort EGYPTIAN LITERATURE. 65 at grace of style. The epic of Pentaur, or the achievements of liameses II., has been called the Egyptian Iliad. It is several centuries older than the Greek Iliad, and deserves admiration for its rapid narrative and epic unity. The history of Mohan (by some thought to be Moses) has been called the Egyptian Odyssey, in contrast to the preceding. Mohan was a high official, and this narrative describes his trav- els in Syria and Palestine. This papyrus is in the British Mu- seum, and both epics have been translated. The satirical writings and beast fables of the Egyptians cari- cature the foibles of all classes, not sparing the sacred person of the king, and are often illustrated with satirical pictures. Be-. sides these strictly literary remains, a large number of judicial documents, petitions, decrees, and treaties has been recovered. 7. THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. Egypt, in its flourishing period, having contributed to the civilization of Greece, became, in its turn, the pupil of that country. In the century following the age of Alexander the Great, under the rule of the Ptolemies, the philosophy and literature of Athens were transferred to Alexandria. Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the third century B. c., completed the celebrated Alexandrian Library, formed for the most part of Greek books, and presided over by Greek librari- ans. The school of Alexandria had its poets, its grammarians, and philosophers ; but its poetry lacked the fire of genius, and its grammatical productions were more remarkable for sophistry and subtlety, than for soundness and depth of research. In the philosophy of Alexandria, the Eastern and Western systems com- bined, and this school had many distinguished disciples. In the first century of the Christian era, Egypt passed from the Greek kings to the Roman emperors, and the Alexandrian school continued to be adorned by the first men of the age. This splendor, more Grecian than Egyptian, was extinguished in the seventh century by the Saracens, who conquered the country, and, it is believed, burned the great Alexandrian Library. After the wars of the immediate successors of Mohammed, the Ara- bian princes protected literature, Alexandria recovered its schools, and other institutions of learning were established ; but in the conquest of the country by the Turks, in the thirteenth century, all literary light was extinguished. 8. LITERARY CONDITION OF MODERN EGYPT. For more than nine hundred years Cairo has possessed a university of high rank, which greatly increased in importance on the accession of Mehemet Ali, in 1805, who established many other schools, pri- mary, scientific, medical, and military, though they were suffered to languish under his two successors. In 1865, when Ismail- Pacha mounted the throne as Khedive (tributary king), he gave 66 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. powerful aid to the university and to public instruction every- where. The number of students at the University of Cairo ad- vanced to eleven thousand. The wife of the Khedive, the Prin- cess Cachma-Afet, founded in 1873, and maintained from her privy purse, a school for the thorough instruction of girls, which led to the establishment of a similar institution by the Ministry of Public Instruction. This princess is the first in the history of Islam who, from the interior of the harem, has exerted her influ- ence to educate and enlighten her sex. When the Khedive was driven into exile in 1879, the number of schools, nearly all the result of his energetic rule, was 4,817 and of pupils 170,000. Since the European intervention and domination the number of both has sensibly diminished, and a serious retrograde movement has taken place. The higher literature of Egypt at the present time is written in pure Arabic. The popular writing in magazines, periodicals, etc., is in Arabic mixed with Syriac and Egyptian dialects. Newspaper literature has greatly increased during the past eight years. GREEK LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. Greek Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language. 3. The Religion. PERIOD FIRST. 1. Ante-Homeric Songs and Bards. 2. Poems of Homer ; the Iliad ; the Odyssey. 3. The Cyclic Poets and the Homeric Hymns. 4. Poems of Hesiod ; the Works and Days ; the Theogony. 5. Elegy and Epigram ; Tyrtaeus ; Archilochus ; Si- monides. 6. Iambic Poetry, the Fable, and Parody ; J.sop. 7. Greek Music and Lyric Poetry; Terpander. 8. ^Eolic Lyric Poets; Alcseus ; Sappho; Anacreoii. 9. Doric, or Choral Lyric Poets ; Alcman ; Stesichorus ; Pindar. 10. The Orphic Doctrines and Poems. 11. Pre-Socratic Philosophy ; Ionian, Eleatic, Pythagorean Schools. 12. His- tory ; Herodotus. PERIOD SECOND. 1. Literary Predominance of Athens. 2. Greek Drama. 3. Trag- edy. 4. The Tragic Poets ; M schylus ; Sophocles ; Euripides. 5. Comedy ; Aristophanes ; Menander. 6. Oratory, Rhetoric, and History ; Pericles ; the Sophists ; Lysias ; Iso- crates; Demosthenes; Thucydides; Xenophon. 7. Socrates and the Socratic Schools ; Plato; Aristotle. PERIOD THIRD. 1. Origin of the Alexandrian Literature. 2. The Alexandrian Poets ; Philetas; Caliimachus ; Theocritus; Bion ; Moschus. 3. The Prose Writers of Alexan- di ia ; Zenodotus ; Aristophanes ; Aristarchus ; Eratosthenes ; Euclid ; Archimedes. 4. Philosophy of Alexandria; Neo-Platouism. 5. Anti-Neo-Platonic Tendencies; Epic- tetus ; Lucian ; Longinus. G. Greek Literature in Rome ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus ; Flavius Josephus ; Polybius ; Diodorus ; Strabo ; Plutarch. 7. Continued Decline of Greek Literature. 8. List Echoes of the Old Literature ; Hypatia ; Nonnus ; MUSXHIS ; Byzantine Literature. 9. The New Testament and the Greek Fathers. Modern Litera- ture ; the Brothers Santsos and Alexander Rangabe\ INTRODUCTION. 1. GREEK LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS. The literary histories thus far sketched, with the exception of the Hebrew, occupy a subordinate position, and constitute but a small part of the general and continuous history of literature. As there are states whose interests are so detached from foreign nations and so centred in themselves that their history seems to form no link in the great chain of political events, so there are bod- ies of literature cut off from all connection with the course of general refinement, and bearing no relation to the development of mental power in the most civilized portions of the globe. Thus, the literature of India, with its great antiquity, its lan- guage, which, in fullness of expression, sweetness of tone, and regularity of structure, rivals the most perfect of those Western tongues to which it bears such an affinity, with all its affluence of imagery and its treasures of thought, has hitherto been desti- tute of any direct influence on the progress of general literature, and China has contributed still less to its advancement. Other branches of Oriental literature, as the Persian and Arabian, were equally isolated, until they were brought into contact with the European mind through the medium of the Crusaders and of the Moorish empire in Spain. OF THK UNIVERST 68 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. We come now to speak of the literature of the Greeks ; a lit- erature whose continuous current has rolled down from remote ages to our own day, and whose influence has been more exten- sive and lasting than that of any other nation of the ancient or modern world. Endowed with profound sensibility and a lively imagination, surrounded by all the circumstances that could aid in perfecting the physical and intellectual powers, the Greeks early acquired that essentially literary and artistic character which became the source of the greatest productions of litera- ture and art. This excellence ^was, also, in some measure due to their institutions ; free from the system of castes which prevailed in India and Egypt, aud which confined all learning by a sort of hereditary right to the priests, the tendency of the Greek mind was from the first liberal, diffusive, and aesthetic. The manifestation of their genius, from the first dawn of their intel- lectual culture, was of an original and peculiar character, and their plastic minds gave a new shape and value to whatever materials they drew from foreign sources. The ideas of the Egyptians and Orientals, which they adopted into their mythol- ogy, they cast in new moulds, and reproduced in more beautiful forms. The monstrous they subdued into the vast, the gro- tesque they softened into the graceful, and they diffused a fine spirit of humanity over the rude proportions of the primeval figures. So with the dogmas of their philosophy, borrowed from the same sources ; all that could beautify the meagre, harmonize the incongruous, enliven the dull, or convert the crude materials of metaphysics into an elegant department of literature, belongs to the Greeks themselves. The Grecian mind became the foun- dation of the Roman and of all modern literatures, and its mas- ter-pieces afford the most splendid examples of artistic beauty and perfection that the world has ever seen. The history of Greek literature may be divided into three periods. The first, extending from remote antiquity to the age of Herodotus (484 B. c.), includes the earliest poetry of Greece, the ante-Homeric and the Homeric eras, the origin of Greek elegy, epigram, iambic, and lyric poetry, and the first develop- ment of Greek philosophy. The second, or Athenian period, the golden age of Greek literature, extends from the age of Herodotus (484 B. c.) to the death of Alexander the Great (323 B. c.), and comprehends the development of the Greek drama in the works of ^iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and of political oratory, history, and philosophy, in the works of Demosthenes, Thucydides, Xeno- phon, Plato, and Aristotle. The third, or the period of the decline of Greek literature, extending from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B. c.) GREEK LITERATURE. 69 to the fall of the Byzantine empire (1453 A. D.), is characterized by the removal of Greek learning and literature from Athens to Alexandria, and by its gradual decline and extinction. 2. THE LANGUAGE. Of all known languages none has attained so high a degree of perfection as that of the Greeks. Belonging to the great Indo-European family, it is rich in sig- nificant words, strong and elegant in its combinations and phrases, and extremely musical, not only in its poetry, but in its prose. The Greek language must have attained great excel- lence at a very early period, for it existed in its essential perfec- tion in the time of Homer. It was, alsj^early divided into dia- lects, as spoken by the various Hellenic tribes that inhabited different parts of the country. The principal of these found in written composition are the ^Eolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic, of which the .ZEolic, the most ancient, was spoken north of the Isthmus, in the -ZEolic colonies of Asia Minor, and in the north- ern islands of the ^gean Sea. Pt was chiefly cultivated by the lyric poets. The Doric, a variety of the ^Eolic, characterized by its strength, was spoken in Peloponnesus, and in the Doric colonies of Asia Minor, Lower Italy, and Sicily. The Ionic, the most soft and liquid of all the dialects, belonged to the Io- nian colonies of Asia Minor and the islands of the Archipelago. It was the language of Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus. The Attic, which was the Ionic developed, enriched, and refined, was spoken in Attica, and prevailed in the flourishing period of Greek literature. After the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the Greek language, which had been gradually declining, became entirely extinct, and a dialect, which had long before sprung up among the com- mon people, took the place of the ancient, majestic, and refined tongue. This popular dialect in turn continued to degenerate until the middle of the last century. Recently institutions of learning have been established, and a new impulse given to im- provement in Greece^ Great progress has been made in the cultivation of the language, and great care is taken by modern Greek writers to avoid the use of foreign idioms and to preserve the ancient orthography. Many newspapers, periodicals, orig- inal works, and translations are published every year in Greece. The name Romaic, which has been applied to modern Greek, is now almost superseded by that of Neo-Hellenic. 3. THE RELIGION. In the development of the Greek relig- ion two periods may be distinguished, the ante-Homeric and the Homeric. As the heroic age of the Greek nation was preceded by one in which the cultivation of the land chiefly occupied the attention of the inhabitants, so there are traces and remnants of a state of the Greek religion, in which the gods were considered TO HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. as exhibiting their power chiefly in the changes of the seasons, and in the operations and phenomena of outward nature. Im- agination led these early inhabitants to discover, not only in the general phenomena of vegetation, the unfolding and death of the leaf and flower, and in the moist and dry seasons of the year, but also in the peculiar physical character of certain districts, a sign of the alternately hostile or peaceful, happy or ill-omened interference of certain deities. There are still preserved in the Greek mythology many legends of charming and touching sim- plicity, which had their origin at this period, when the Greek religion bore the character of a worship of the powers of nature. Though founded on the same ideas as most of the religions of the East, and particularly of Asia Minor, the earliest religion of the Greeks was richer and more various in its forms, and took a loftier and a wider range. Th.3 Grecian worship of nature, in all the various forms which it assumed, recognized one deity, as the highest of all, the head of the entire system, Zeus, the god of heaven and light ; with him, and dwelling in the pure expanse of ether, is associated the goddess of the earth, who, in different temples, was worshiped under different names, as Hera, Demeter, and Dione. Besides this goddess, other beings are united with the supreme god, who are personifications of certain of his ener- gies ; powerful deities who carry the influence of light over the earth, and destroy the opposing powers of darkness and confu- sion ; as Athena, born from the head of her father, and Apollo, the pure and shining god of light. There are other deities allied with earth and dwelling in her dark recesses ; and as life ap- pears not only to spring from the earth, but to return whence it sprung, these deities are, for the most part, also connected with death ; as Hermes, who brings up the treasures of fruitfulness from the depths of the earth, and Cora, the child, now lost and now recovered by her mother, Demeter, the goddess both of re- viving and of decaying nature. The element of water, Poseidon, was also introduced into this assemblage of the personified powers of nature, and peculiarly connected with the goddess of the earth ; fire, Hephsestus, was represented as a powerful prin- ciple derived from heaven, having dominion over the earth, and closely allied with the goddess who sprang from the head of the supreme god. Other deities form less important parts of this system, as Dionysus, whose alternate joys and sufferings show a strong resemblance to the form which religious notions assumed in Asia Minor. Though not, like the gods of Olympus, recog- nized by all the races of the Greeks, Dionysus exerted an impor tant influence on the spirit of the Greek nation, and in sculpture and poetry gave rise to bold flights of imagination, and to pow- erful emotions, both of joy and sorrow. GREEK LITERATURE. 71 These notions concerning the gods must have undergone many changes before they assumed the form under which they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. The Greek religion, as manifested through them, reached the second period of its de- velopment, belonging to that time when the most distinguished and prominent part of the people devoted their lives to the affairs of the state and the occupation of arms, and in which the heroic spirit was manifested according to these ideas. On Olympus, ly- ing near the northern boundary of Greece, the highest mountain of that country, whose summit seems to touch the heavens, there rules the assembly or family of the gods ; the chief of which, Zeus, summons at his pleasure the other gods to council, as Aga- memnon summons the other princes. He is acquainted with the decrees of fate, and able to control them, and being himself king among the gods, he gives the kings of the earth their powers and dignity. By his side is his wife, Hera, whose station entitles her to a large share of his rank and dominion ; and a daughter of masculine character, Athena, a leader of battles and a protectress of citadels, who, by her wise counsels, deserves the confidence which her father bestows on her ; besides these, there are a number of gods with various degrees of kindred, who have each their proper place and allotted duty on Olympus. The attention of this divine council is chiefly turned to the fortunes of nations and cities, and especially to the adventures and enter- prises of the heroes, who being themselves, for the most part, sprung from the blood of the gods, form the connecting link between them and the ordinary herd of mankind. At this stage the ancient religion of nature had disappeared, and the gods who dwelt on Olympus scarcely manifested any connection with natural phenomena. Zeus exercises his power as a ruler and a king ; Hera, Athena, and Apollo no longer symbolize the fertility of the earth, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the arrival of the serene spring ; Hephaestus has passed from the powerful god of fire in heaven and earth into a laborious smith and worker of metals ; Hermes is transformed into, the messen- ger of Zeus ; and the other deities which stood at a greater dis- tance from the affairs of men are entirely forgotten, or scarcely mentioned in the Homeric mythology. These deities are known to us chiefly through the names given to them by the Romans, who adopted them at a later period, or identified them with deities of their own. Zeus was called by them Jupiter; Hera, Juno; Athena, Minerva; Ares, Mars ; Artemis, Diana ; Hermes, Mercury ; Cora, Proserpine ; Hephcestus, Vulcan ; Poseidon, Neptune ; Aphrodite, Venus ; Dionysus, Bacchus. 72 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. PERIOD FIRST. FROM REMOTE ANTIQUITY TO HERODOTUS (484 B. c.). 1. ANTE-HOMERIC SONGS AND BARDS. Many centuries must have elapsed before the poetical language of the Greeks could have attained the splendor, copiousness, and fluency found in the poems of Homer. The first outpourings of poetical enthu- siasm were, doubtless, songs describing, in few and simple verses, events which powerfully affected the feelings of the hearers. It is probable that the earliest were those that referred to the sea- sons and their phenomena, and that they were sung by the peas- ants at their corn and wine harvests, and had their origin in times of ancient rural simplicity. Songs of this kind had often a plain- tive and melancholy character. Such was the song " Linus " men- tioned by Homer, which was frequently sung at the grape-picking. This Linus evidently belongs to a class of heroes or demi-gods, of which many instances occur in the religions of Asia Minor. Boys of extraordinary beauty and in the flower of youth were supposed to have been drowned, or devoured by raging dogs, and their death was lamented at the harvests and other periods of the hot season. According to the tradition, Linus sprang from a divine origin, grew up with the shepherds among the Jambs, and was torn in pieces by wild dogs, whence arose the festival of the lambs, at which many dogs were slain. The real object- of lamentation was the tender beauty of spring destroyed by the summer heat, and other phenomena of the same kind which the imagination of those times invested with a personal form, and represented as beings of a divine nature. Of similar meaning are many other songs, which were sung at the time of the summer heat or at the cutting of the corn. Such was the song called " Bormus " from its subject, a beautiful boy of that name, who, having gone to fetch water for the reapers, was, while drawing it, borne down by the nymphs of the stream. Such were the cries for the youth Hylas, swallowed up by the waters of a fountain, and the lament for Adonis, whose untimely death was celebrated by Sappho. The Paeans were songs originally dedicated to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods ; their tune and words expressed hope and confidence to overcome, by the help of the god, great and imminent danger, or gratitude and thanksgiving for victory and safety. To this class belonged the vernal Paeans, which were sung at the termination of winter, and those sung in war before the attack on the enemy. The Threnos, or lamentations for the dead, were songs containing vehement expressions of grief, Bung by professional singers standing near the bed upon which GREEK LITERATURE. 73 the body was laid, and accompanied by the cries and groans of women. The Hymenaeos was the joyful bridal song of the wed- ding festivals, in which there were ordinarily two choruses, one of boys bearing burning torches and singing the hymenaeos to the clear sound of the pipe, and another of young girls dancing to the notes of the harp. The Chorus originally referred chiefly to dancing. The most ancient sense of the word is a place for dancing, and in these choruses young persons of both sexes danced together in rows, holding one another by the hand, while the citharist, or the player on the lyre, sitting in their midst, accompanied the sound of his instrument with songs, which took their name from the choruses in which they were sung. Besides these popular songs, there were the religious and heroic poems of the bards, who were, for the most part, natives of that portion of the country which surrounds the mountains of Helicon and Parnassus, distinguished as the home of the Muses. Among the bards devoted to the worship of Apollo and other deities, were Marsyas, the inventor of the flute, Musseus and Or- pheus. Many names of these ancient poets are recorded, but of their poetry, previous to Homer, not even a fragment remains. The bards or chanters of epic poetry were called Rhapsodists, from the manner in which they delivered their compositions ; this name was applied equally to the minstrel who recited his own poems, and to him who declaimed anew songs that had been heard a thousand times before. The form of these heroic songs, probably settled and fixed by tradition, was the hexame- ter, as this metre gave to the epic poetry repose, majesty, a lofty and solemn tone, and rendered it equally adapted to the pythoness who announced the decrees of the deity, and to the rhapsodist who recited the battles of heroes. The bards held an important post in the festal banquets, where they flattered the pride of the princes by singing the exploits of their forefathers. 2. POEMS OP HOMER. Although seven cities contended for the honor of giving birth to Homer, it was the prevalent belief, in the flourishing times of Greece, that he was a native of Smyrna. He was probably born in that city about 1000 B. c. Little is known of his life, but the power of his transcendent genius is deeply impressed upon his works. He was called by the Greeks themselves, the poet ; and the Iliad and the Odyssey were with them the ultimate standard of appeal on all matters of religious doctrine and early history. They were learned by boys at school, and became the study of men in their riper years, and in the time of Socrates there were Athenians who could repeat both poems by heart. In whatever part of the world a Greek settled, he carried with him a love for the great poet, and long after the Greek people had lost their independence. 74 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the Iliad and the Odyssey continued to maintain an undiminished hold upon their affections. The peculiar excellence of these poems lies in their sublimity and pathos, in their tenderness and simplicity, and they show in their author an inexhaustible vigor, that seems to revel in an endless display of prodigious energies. The universality of the powers of Homer is their most astonish- ing attribute. He is not great in any one thing ; he is greatest in all things. He imagines with equal ease the terrible, the beautiful, the mean, the loathsome, and he paints them all with equal force. In his descriptions of external nature, in his ex- hibitions of human character and passion, no matter what the subject, he exhausts its capabilities. His pictures are true to the minutest touch ; his men and women are made of flesh and blood. They lose nothing of their humanity for being cast in a heroic mould. He transfers himself into the identity of those whom he brings into action ; masters the interior springs of their spiritual mechanism ; and makes them move, look, speak, and do exactly as they would in real life. In the legends connected with the Trojan war, the anger of Achilles and the return of Ulysses, Homer found the subjects of the Iliad and Odyssey. The former relates that Agamemnon had stolen from Achilles, Briseis, his beloved slave, and describes the fatal consequences which the subsequent anger of Achilles brought upon the Greeks ; and how the loss of his dearest friend, Patroclus, suddenly changed his hostile attitude, and brought about the destruction of Troy and of Hector, its magnanimous defender. The Odyssey is composed on a more artificial and complicated plan than the Iliad. The subject is the return of Ulysses from a land beyond the range of human knowledge to a home invaded by bands of insolent intruders, who seek to kill his son and rob him of his wife. The poem begins at that point where the hero is considered to be farthest from his home, in the central portion of the sea, where the nymph Calypso has kept him hidden from all mankind for seven years. Having by the help of the gods passed through innumerable dangers, after many adventures he reaches Ithaca, and is finally introduced into his own house as a beggar, where he is made to suffer the harshest treatment from the suitors of his wife, in order that he may afterwards appear with the stronger right as a terrible avenger. In this simple story a second was interwoven by the poet, which renders it richer and more complete, though more intricate and less natural. It is probable that Homer, after having sung the Iliad in the vigor of his youthful years, either composed the Odyssey in his old age, or communicated to some devoted disciple the plan of this poem. In the age immediately succeeding Homer, his great poema GREEK LITERATURE. 75 were doubtless recited as complete wholes, at the festivals of the princes ; but when the contests of the rhapsodists became more animated, and more weight was laid on the art of the reciter than on the beauty of the poem he recited, and when other musical and poetical performances claimed a place, then they were permitted to repeat separate parts of poems, and the Iliad, and Odyssey, as they had not yet been reduced to writing, ex- isted for a time only as scattered and unconnected fragments ; and we are still indebted to the regulator of the poetical contests (either Solon or Pisistratus) for having compelled the rhapso- dists to follow one another according to the order of the poem, and for having thus restored these great works to their pristine integrity. The poets, who either recited the poems of Homer or imitated him in their compositions, were called Homerides. 3. THE CYCLIC POETS AJSTD THE HOMERIC HYMNS. - The poems of Homer, as they became the foundation of all Grecian literature, are likewise the central point of the epic poetry of Greece. All that is most excellent in this line originated from them, and was connected with them in the way of completion or continuation. After the time of Homer, a class of poets arose who, from their constant endeavor to connect their poems with those of this master, so that they might form a great cycle, were called the Cyclic Poets. They were probably Homeric rhapsodists by profession, to whom the constant recitation of the ancient Homeric poems would naturally suggest the idea of con- tinuing them by essays of their own. The poems known as Homeric hymns formed an essential part of the epic style. They were hymns to the gods, bearing an epic character, and were called proemia, or preludes, and served the rhapsodists either as introductory strains for their recitation, or as a transi- tion from the festivals of the gods to the competition of the singers of heroic poetry. 4. POEMS OF HESIOD. Nothing certain can be affirmed respecting the date of Hesiod ; a Boeotian by birth, he is con- sidered by some ancient authorities as contemporary with Homer, while others suppose him to have flourished two or three genera- tions later. The poetry of Hesiod is a faithful transcript of the whole condition of Bo3otian life. It has nothing of that youth- ful and inexhaustible fancy of Homer which lights up the sub- lime images of a heroic age and moulds them into forms of surpassing beauty. The poetry of Hesiod appears struggling to emerge out of the narrow bounds of common life, which he strives to ennoble and to render more endurable. It is purely didactic, and its object is to disseminate knowledge, by which life may be improved, or to diffuse certain religious notions as to the influence of a superior destiny. His poein entitled " Works 76 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. and Days " is so entirely occupied with the events of common life, that the author would not seem to have been a poet by pro- fession, but some Boeotian husbandman whose mind had been moved by circumstances to give a poetical tone to the course of his thoughts and feelings. The unjust claim of Perses, the brother of Hesiod, to the small portion of their father's land which had been allotted to him, called forth this poem, in which he seeks to ftnprove the character and habits of Perses, to deter him from acquiring riches by litigation, and to incite him to a life of labor, as the only source of permanent prosperity. He points out the succession in which his labors must follow if he determines to lead a life of industry, and gives wise rules of economy for the management of a family ; and to illustrate and enforce the principal idea, he ingeniously combines with his pre- cepts mythical narratives, fables, and descriptions. The " The- ogony " of Hesiod is a production of the highest importance, as it contains the religious faith of Greece. It was through it that Greece first obtained a religious code, which, although without external sanction or priestly guardians and interpreters, must have produced the greatest influence on the religious con- dition of the Greeks. 5. ELEGY AND EPIGRAM. Until the beginning of the sev- enth century B. c., the epic was the only kind of poetry cultivated in Greece, with the exception of the early songs and hymns, and the hexameter the only metre used by the poets. This exclusive prevalence of epic poetry was doubtless connected with the po- litical state of the country. The ordinary subjects of these poems must have been highly acceptable to the princes who derived their race from the heroes, as was the case with all the royal families of early times. The republican movements, which deprived these families of their privileges, were favorable to the stronger development of each man's individuality, and the poet, who in the most perfect form of the epos was completely lost in his subject, now came before the people as a man with thoughts and objects of his own, and gave free vent to the emotions of his soul in elegiac and iambic strains. *The word elegeion means noth- ing more than the combination of a hexameter and a pentam- eter, making together a distich, and an elegy is a poem of such verses. It was usually sung at the Symposia or literary festivals of the Greeks ; in most cases its main subject was political ; it afterwards assumed a plaintive or amatory tone. The elegy is the first regularly cultivated branch of Greek poetry, in which the flute alone and neither the cithara nor lyre was employed. It was not necessary that lamentations should form the subject of it, but emotion was essential, and excited by events or circum- stances of the time or place the poet poured forth his heart in the unreserved expression of his fears and hopes. GREEK LITERATURE. 77 Tyrtseus (fl. 694 B. c.), who went from Athens to Sparta, com- posed the most celebrated of his elegies on the occasion of the Messenian war, and when the Spartans were on a campaign, it was their custom after the evening meal, when the paean had been sung in honor of the gods, to recite these poems. From this time we find a union between the elegiac and iambic poetry ; the same poet, who employs the elegy to express his joyous and melancholy emotions, has recourse to the iambus when his cool sense prompts him to censure the follies of mankind. The rela- tion between these two metres is observable in Archilochus (fl. 688 B. c.) and Simonides (fl. 664 B. c.). The elegies of Archilochus, of which many fragments are extant (while of Simonides we only know that he composed elegies), had nothing of that spirit of which his iambics were full, but they contain the frank expression of a mind powerfully affected by outward circumstances. With the Spartans, wine and the pleasures of the feaat became the subject of the elegy, and it was also recited at the solemnities held in honor of all who had fallen for their country. The elegies of Solon (592-559 B. c.) were pure ex- pressions of his political feelings. Simonides of Scios, the re- nowned lyric poet, the contemporary of Pindar and -ZEschylus, was one of the great masters of elegiac song. The epigram was originally an inscription on a tombstone, or a votive offering in a temple, or on any other thing which re- quired explanation. The unexpected turn of thought and point- edness of expression, which the moderns consider the essence of this species of composition, were not required in the ancient Greek epigram, where nothing was wanted but that the entire thought should be conveyed within the limit of a few distichs, and thus, in the hands of the early poets, the epigram was re- markable for the conciseness and expressiveness of its language and differed in this respect from the elegy, in which full expres- sion was given to the feelings of the poet. It was Simonides who first gave to the epigram all the perfec- tion of which it was capable, and he was frequently employed by the states which fought against the Persians to adorn with in- scriptions the tombs of their fallen warriors. The most cele- brated of these is the inimitable inscription on the Spartans who died at Thermopylae : " Foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians that we are lying here in obedience to their laws." On the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon, an opponent of Simonides in his art, he wrote the following in the form of an epitaph : " Having eaten much and drank much and said much evil of other men, here I le, Timocreon the Rhodian." 6. IAMBIC POETRY. THE FABLE AND PARODY. The kind of poetry known by the ancients as Iambic was created among 78 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the Athenians by Archilochus at the same time as the elegy. It arose at a period when the Greeks, accustomed only to the calm, unimpassioned tone of the epos, had but just found a temperate expression of lively emotion in the elegy. It was a light, trip- ping measure, sometimes loosely constructed, or purposely halt- ing and broken, well adapted to vituperation, unrestrained by any regard to morality and decency. At the public tables of Sparta keen and pointed raillery was permitted, and some of the most venerable and sacred of their religious rites afforded occasion for their unsparing and audacious jests. This raillery was so ancient and inveterate a custom, that it had given rise to a peculiar word, which originally denoted nothing but the jests and banter used at these festivals, namely, Iambus. All the wanton extravagance which was elsewhere repressed by law or custom, here, under the protection of religion, burst forth with boundless license, and these scurrilous effusions were at length reduced by Archilochus into the systematic form of "iambic metre. Akin to the iambic are two sorts of poetry, the fable and the parody, which, though differing widely from each other, have both their source in the turn for the delineation of the ludicrous, and both stand in close historical relation to the iambic. The fable in Greece originated in an intentional travesty of human affairs. It is probable that the taste for fables of beasts and numerous similar inventions found its way from the East, since this sort of symbolical narrative is more in accordance with the Oriental than with the Greek character. JEsop (fl. 572 B. c.) was very far from being regarded by the Greeks as one of their poets, and still less as a writer. They considered him merely as an ingenious fabulist, to whom, at a later period, nearly ah 1 fables, that were invented or derived from any other source, were attributed. He was a slave, whose wit and pleasantry procured him his freedom, and who finally perished in Delphi, where the people, exasperated by his sarcas- tic fables, put him to death on a charge of robbing the temple. No metrical versions of these fables are known to have existed in early times. The word " parody " means an adoption of the form of some celebrated poem with such changes as to produce a totally dif- ferent effect, and generally to substitute mean and, ridiculous for elevated and poetical sentiments. " The Battle of the Frogs and Mice," attributed to Homer, but bearing evident traces of a later age, belongs to this species of poetry. 7. GREEK Music AND LYRIC POETRY. It was notf until the minds of the Greeks had been elevated by the productions of the epic muse, that the genius of original poets broke loose from GREEK LITERATURE. 79 the dominion of the epic style, and invented new forms for ex- pressing the emotions of a mind profoundly agitated by passing events ; with few innovations in the elegy, but with greater bold- ness in the iambic metre. In these two forms, Greek poetry entered the domain of real life. The elegy and iambus contain the germ of the lyric style, though they do not themselves come under that head. The Greek lyric poetry was characterized by the expression of deeper and more impassioned feeling, and a more impetuous tone than the elegy and iambus, and at the same time the effect was heightened by appropriate vocal and instrumental music, and often by the figures of the dance. In this union of the sister arts, poetry was indeed predominant, yet music, in its turn, exercised a reciprocal influence on poetry, so that as it became more cultivated, the choice of the musical meas- ure decided the tone of the whole poem. The history of Greek music begins with Terpander the Les- bian (fl. 670 B. c.), who was many times the victor in the musi- cal contests at the Pythian temple of Delphi. He added three new strings to the cithara, which had consisted only of four, and this heptachord was employed by Pindar, and remained long in high repute ; he was also the first who marked the different tones in music. With other musicians, he united the music of Asia Minor with that of the ancient Greeks, and founded on it a system in which each style had its appropriate character. By the efforts of Terpander and one or two other masters, music was brought to a high degree of excellence, and adapted to ex- press any feeling to which the poet could give a more definite character and meaning, and thus they had solved the great prob- lem of their art. It was in Greece the constant endeavor of the great poets, thinkers, and statesmen who interested themselves in the education of youth, to give a good direction to this art ; they all dreaded the increasing prevalence of a luxuriant style of instrumental music and an unrestricted flight into the bound- less realms of harmony. The lyric poetry of the Greeks was of two kinds, and culti- vated by two different schools of poets. One, called the ^Eolic, flourished among the ^Eolians of Asia Minor, and particularly in the island of Lesbos ; the other, the Doric, which, although diffused over the whole of Greece, was at first principally culti- vated by the Dorians. These two schools differed essentially in the subjects, as in the form and style of their poems. The Doric was intended to be executed by choruses, and to be sung to choral dances ; while the ^Eolic was recited by a single per- son, who accompanied his recitation with a stringed instrument, generally the lyre. 8. ^EOLIC LYRIC POETS. Alcaeus (fl. 611 B. c.), born in 80 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, being driven out of his native city for political reasons, wandered about the world, and, in the midst of troubles and perils, struck the lyre and gave utterance to the passionate emotions of his mind. His war-songs express a stirring, martial spirit ; and a noble nature, accompanied with strong passions, appears in ah 1 his poems, especially in those in which he sings the praises of love and wine, though little of his erotic poetry has reached our time. It is evident that poetry was not with him a mere pastime or exercise of skill, but a means of pouring out the inmost feelings of the soul. Sappho (fl. 600 B. c.) the other leader of the ^Eolic school of poetry, was the object of the admiration of all antiquity. She was contemporary with Alcaeus, and in her verses to him we plainly discern the feeling of unimpeached honor proper to a free-born and well-educated maiden. Alcreus testifies that the attractions and loveliness of Sappho did not derogate from her moral worth when he calls her u violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho." This testimony is, indeed, opposed to the accounts of later writers, but the probable cause of the false imputations in reference to Sappho seems to be that the refined Athenians were incapable of appreciating the frank simplicity with which she poured forth her feelings, and therefore they confounded them with unblushing immodesty. While the men of Athens were distinguished for their perfection in every branch of art, none of their women emerged from the obscurity of do- mestic life. " That woman is the best," says Pericles, " of whom the least is said among men, whether for good or for evil." But the ^Eolians had in some degree preserved the ancient Greek manners, and their women enjoyed a distinct individual existence and moral character. They doubtless participated in the gen- eral high state of civilization, which not only fostered poetical talents of a high order among women, but produced in them a turn for philosophical reflection. This was so utterly inconsist- ent with Athenian manners, that we cannot wonder that women, who had in any degree overstepped the bounds prescribed to their sex at Athens, should be represented by the licentious pen of Athenian comic writers as lost to every sense of shame and decency. Sappho, in her odes, made frequent mention of a youth to whom she gave her whole heart, while he requited her love with cold indifference ; but there is no trace of her having named the object of her passion. She may have celebrated the beautiful and mythical Phaon in such a manner that the verses were supposed to refer to a lover of her own. The account of her leap from the Leucadian rock is rather a poetical image, than a real event in the life of the poetess. The true conception of the erotic poetry of Sappho can only be drawn from the frag- GREEK LITERATURE. 81 ments of her odes, which, though numerous, are for the most part very short. Among them, we must distinguish the Epitha- lamia or hymeneals, which were peculiarly adapted to the genius of the poetess from the exquisite perception she seems to have had of whatever was attractive in either sex. From the numer- ous fragments that remain, these poems appear to have had great beauty and much of that expression which the simple and natural manners of the times allowed, and the warm and sensi- tive heart of the poetess suggested. That Sappho's fame was spread throughout Greece, may be seen from the history of Solon, who was her contemporary. Hearing his nephew recite one of her poems, he said that he would not willingly die until he had* learned it by heart. And, doubtless, from that circle- of accomplished women, of whom she formed the brilliant centre, a flood of poetic light was poured forth on every side. Among them may be mentioned the names of Damophila and Erinna, whose poem, " The Spindle," was highly esteemed by the an- cients. The genius of Anacreon (fl. 540 B. c.), though akin to that of Alcseus and Sappho, had an entirely different bent. He seems to consider life as valuable only so far as it can be spent in wine, love, and social enjoyment. The Ionic softness and departure from strict rule may also be perceived in his versification. The different odes preserved under his name are the productions of poets of a much later date. With Anacreon ceased the species of lyric poetry in which he excelled ; indeed, he stands alone in it, and the tender softness of his song was soon drowned by the louder tones of the choral poetry. The Scolia were a kind of lyric songs sung at social meals, when the spirit was raised by wine and conversation to a lyrical pitch. The lyre or a sprig of myrtle was handed round the table and presented to any one who could amuse the company by a song or even a good sentence in a lyrical form. 9. DORIC, OB CHORAL LYRIC POETS. The chorus was in general use in Greece before the time of Homer, and nearly every variety of the choral poetry, which was afterwards so brill- iantly developed, existed at that remote period in a rude, un- finished state. After the improvements made by Terpander and others in musical art, choral poetry rapidly progressed to- wards perfection. The poets during the period of progress were Alcman and Stesichorus, while finished lyric poetry is repre- sented by Ibycus, Simonides, his disciple Bacchylides and Pindar. These great poets were only the representatives of the fervor with which the religious festivals inspired all classes. Choral dances were performed by the whole people with great ardo* 82 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. and enthusiasm ; every considerable town had its poet, who de- voted his whole life to the training and exhibition of choruses. Alcman (b. 660 B. c.) was a Lydian of Sardis, and an eman- cipated slave. His poems exhibit a great variety of metre, of dialect, and of poetic tone. He is regarded as having overcome the difficulties presented by the rough dialect of Sparta, and .as having succeeded in investing it with a certain grace. He is one of the poets whose image is most effaced by time, and of whom we can obtain little accurate knowledge. The admiration awarded him by antiquity is scarcely justified by the extant re- mains of his poems. Stesichorus (fl. 611 B. c.) lived at a time when the predomi- nant tendency of the Greek mind was towards lyric poetry. His special business was the training and direction of the cho- ruses, and he assumed the name of Stesichorus, or leader of choruses, his real name being Tesias. His metres approach more nearly to the epos than those of Alcman. As Quintilian says, he sustained the weight of epic poetry with the lyre. His language accorded with the tone of his poetry, and he is not less remarkable in himself, than as the precursor of the perfect lyric poetry of Pindar. Arion (625-585 B. c.) was chiefly known in Greece as the perfecter of the " Dithyramb," a song of Bacchanalian festivals, doubtless of great antiquity. Its character, like the worship to which it belonged, was always impassioned and enthusiastic ; the extremes of feeling, rapturous pleasure, and wild lamentation were both expressed in it. Ibycus (b. 528 B. c.) was a wandering poet, as is attested by the story of his death having been avenged by the cranes. His poetical style resembles that of Stesichorus, as also his subjects. The erotic poetry of Ibycus is most celebrated, and breathes a fervor of passion far exceeding that of any similar production of Greek literature. Simonides (556-468 B. c.) has already been described as one of the great masters of the elegy and epigram. In depth and novelty of ideas, and in the fervor of poetic feeling, he was far inferior to his contemporary Pindar, but he was probably the most prolific lyric poet of Greece. According to the frequent reproach of the ancients, he was the first that^old his poems for money. His style was not as lofty as that of Pindar, but what he lost in sublimity he gained in pathos. Bacchylides (fl. 450 B. c.), the nephew of Simonides, devoted his genius chiefly to the pleasures of private life, love, and wine, and his productions, when compared with those of Simonides, are marked by less moral elevation. Timocreon the Rhodian (fl. 471 B. c.) owes his chief celebrity GREEK LITERATURE. 83 among the ancients to the hate he bore to Themistocles in polit- ical life, and to Simonides on the field of poetry. Pindar (522435 B. c.) was the contemporary of JEschylus, but as the causes which determined his poetical character are to be sought in an earlier age, and in the Doric and -ZEolic parts of Greece, he may properly be placed at the close of the early period, while ^Eschylus stands at the head of the new epoch of literature. Like Hesiod, Pindar was a native of Boeotia, and that there was still much love for music and poetry there is proved by the fact that two women, Myrtis and Corinna, had obtained great celebrity in these arts during the youth of this poet. Myrtis (fl. 490 B. c.) strove with him for the prize at the public games, and Corinna (fl. 490 B. c.) is said to have gained the victory over him five times. Too little of the poetry of Corinna has been preserved to allow a judgment on her style of composi- tion. Pindar made the arts of poetry and music the business of his life, and his fame soon spread throughout Greece and the neighboring countries. He excelled in all the known varieties of choral poetry, but the only class of poems that enables us to judge of his general style is his triumphal odes. When a victory was gained in a contest at a festival by the speed of horses, the strength and dexterity of the human body, or by skill in music, such a victory, which shed honor not only on the victor, but also on his family, and even on his native city, de- manded a public celebration. An occasion of this kind had always a religious character, and often began with a procession to an altar or temple, where a sacrifice was offered, followed by a banquet, and the solemnity concluded with a merry and bois- terous revel. At this sacred and at the same time joyous fes- tival, the chorus appeared and recited the triumphal hymn, which was considered the fairest ornament of the triumph. Such an occasion, a victory in the sacred games and its end, the ennobling of a ceremony connected with the worship of the gods, required that the ode should be composed in a lofty and dignified style. Pindar does not content himself with celebrat- ing the bodily prowess of the victor alone, but he usually adds some moral virtue which he has shown, and which he recom- mends and extols. Sometimes this virtue is moderation, wisdom, or filial love, more often piety to the gods, and he expounds to the victor his destiny, by showing him the dependence of his exploits on the higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much space in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish the present. 10. ORPHIC DOCTRINES Axr> POEMS. The interval between 84 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Homer and Pindar is an important period in the history of Greek civilization. In Homer we perceive that infancy of the mind which lives in seeing and imagining, and whose moral judgments are determined by impulses of feeling rather than by rules of conduct, while with Pindar the chief effort of his genius is to discover the true standard of moral government. This great change of opinion must have been affected by the efforts of many sages and poets. All the Greek religious po- etry, treating of death and of the world beyond the grave, re- fers to the deities whose influence was supposed to be exercised in the dark regions at the centre of the earth, and who had lit- tle connection with the political and social relations of human life. They formed a class apart from the gods of Olympus ; the mysteries of the Greeks were connected with their worship alone, and the love of immortality first found support in a be- lief in these deities. The mysteries of Demeter, especially those celebrated at Eleusis, inspired the most "animating hopes with regard to the soul after death. These mysteries, however, had little influence on the literature of the nation ; but there was a society of persons called the followers of Orpheus, who published their notions and committed them to literary works. Under the guidance of the ancient mystical poet, Orpheus, they dedicated themselves to the worship of Bacchus or Dionysus, in which they sought satisfaction for an ardent longing after the soothing and elevating influences of religion, and upon the worship of this deity they founded their hopes of an ultimate immortality of the soul. Unlike the popular worshipers of Bacchus, they did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure or frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. It is difficult to tell when this association was formed in Greece, but we find in Hesiod something of the Orphic spirit, and the beginning of higher and more hopeful views of death. The endeavor to obtain a knowledge of divine and human things was in Greece slowly and with difficulty evolved from their religious notions, and it was for a long time confined to the refining and rationalizing of their mythology. An extensive Orphic literature first appeared at the time of the Persian war, when the remains of the Pythagorean order in Magna Graecia united themselves to the Orphic associations. The philosophy of Pythagoras, however, had no analogy with the spirit of the Orphic mysteries, in which the worship of Dionysus was the centre of all religious ideas, while the Pythagorean philosophers preferred the worship of Apollo and the Muses. In the Orphic theogony we find, for the first time, the idea of creation. An- other difference between the notions of the Orphic poets and those .of the early Greeks was that the former did not limit GREEK LITERATURE. 85 their views to the present state of mankind, still less did they ac- quiesce in Hesiod's melancholy doctrine of successive ages, each one worse than the preceding ; but they looked for a cessation of strife, a state of happiness and beatitude at the end of all things. Their hopes of this result were founded on Dionysus, from the worship of whom all their peculiar religious ideas were derived. This god, the son of Zeus, is to succeed him in the government of the world, to restore the Golden Age, and to lib- erate human souls, who, according to an Orphic notion, are pun- ished by being confined in the body as in a prison. The suffer- ings of the soul in its prison, the steps and transitions by which it passes to a higher state of existence, and its gradual purifica- tion and enlightenment, were all fully described in these poems. Thus, in the poetry of the first five centuries of Greek literature, especially at the close of this period, we find, instead of the calm enjoyment of outward nature which characterized the early epic poetry, a profound sense of the misery of human life, and an ardent longing for a condition of greater happiness. This feel- ing, indeed, was not so extended as to become common to the whole Greek nation, but it took deep root in individual minds, and was connected with more serious and spiritual views of human nature. 11. PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy was early cul- tivated by the Greeks, who first among all nations distinguished it from religion and mythology. For some time, however, after its origin, it was as far removed from the ordinary thoughts and occupations of the people as poetry was intimately connected with them. Poetry idealizes all that is most characteristic of a nation ; its religion, mythology, political and social institutions, and manners. Philosophy, on the other hand, begins by de- taching the mind from the opinions and habits in which it has been bred up, from the national conceptions of the gods and the universe, and from traditionary maxims of ethics and politics. The philosophy of Greece, antecedent to the time of Socrates, is contained in the doctrines of the Ionic, Eleatic, and Pythagorean schools. Thales of Miletus (639-548 B. c.) was the first in the series of the lanic philosophers. He was one of the Seven Sages, who by their practical wisdom nobly contributed to the flourish- ing condition of Greece. Thales, Solon, Bion (fl. 570 B. c.), Cleobulus (fl. 542 B. c.), Periander (fl. 598 B. c.), Pittacus of Mytilene (579 B. c.), and Chilon (fl. 542 B. c.), were the seven philosophers called the seven sages by their countrymen. Thales is said to have foretold an eclipse of the sun, for which he doubtless employed astronomical formulae, which he had ob- tained from the Chaldeans. His tendency was practical, and where his own knowledge was insufficientj he applied the dis- 86 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. coveries of other nations more advanced than his own. He considered all nature as endowed with life, and sought to dis- cover the principles of external forms in the powers which lie beneath ; he taught that water was the principle of things. Anaximander (fl. 547 B. c.), and Anaximenes (fl. 548 B. c.) were the other two most distinguished representatives of the Ionic school. The former believed that chaotic matter was the principle of all things, the latter taught that it was air. The Eleatic school is represented by Xeiiophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno. As the philosophers of the first school were called lo- nians from the country in which they resided, so these were named from Elea, a Greek colony of Italy. Xenophanes (fl. 538 B. c.), the founder of this school, adopted a different principle from that of the Ionic philosophers, and proceeded upon an ideal system, while that of the latter was exclusively founded upon experience. He began with the idea of the godhead, and showed the necessity of considering it as an eternal and unchanging ex- istence, and represented the anthropomorphic conceptions of the Greeks concerning their gods as mere prejudices. In his works he retained the poetic form of composition, some fragments of which he himself recited at public festivals, after the manner of the rhapsodists. Parmenides flourished 504 years B. c. His philosophy rested upon the idea of existence which excluded the idea of creation, and thus fell into pantheism. His poem on " Nature " was composed in the epic metre, and in it he ex- pressed in beautiful forms the most abstract ideas. Zeno of Elea (fl. 500 B. c.) was a pupil of Parmenides, and the earliest prose writer among the Greek philosophers. He developed the doctrines of his master by showing the absurdities involved in the ideas of variety and of creation, as opposed to one and uni- versal substance. Other philosophers belonging to lona or Elea may be referred to these schools, as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras, whose doctrines, however, vary from those of the representatives of the philosophical systems above named. Heraclitus (fl. 505 B. c.) dealt rather in inti- mations of important truths than in popular exposition of them ; his cardinal doctrine seems to have been that everything is in perpetual motion, that nothing has any permanent existence, and that everything is assuming a new form or perishing : the principle of this perpetual motion he supposed to be fire, though probably he did not mean material fire, but some higher and more universal agent. Like nearly all the philosophers, he de spised the popular religion. Empedocles (fl. 440 B. c.) wrote a doctrinal poem concerning nature, fragments of which have been preserved. He denied the possibility of creation, and held the doctrine of an eternal and imperishable existence ; but he con- GREEK LITERATURE. 87 sidered this existence as having different natures, and admitted that fire, earth, air, and water were the four elements of all things. These elements he supposed to be governed by two principles, one positive and one negative, that is to say, connect- ing love and dissolving discord. Democritus (fl. 460 B. c.) em- bodied his extensive knowledge in a series of writings, of which only a few fragments have been preserved. Cicero compared him with Plato for rhythm and elegance of language. He de- rived the manifold phenomena of the world from the different form, disposition, and arrangement of the innumerable elements or atoms as they become united. He is the founder of the atomic doctrine. Anaxagoras (fl. 456 B. c.) rejected all popular notions of religion, excluded the idea of creation and destruc- tion, and taught that atoms were unchangeable and imperish- able ; that spirit, the purest and subtlest of all things, gave to these atoms the impulse by which they took the forms of indi- vidual things and beings ; and that this impulse was given in circular motion, which kept the heavenly bodies in their courses. But none of his doctrines gave so much offence or was consid- ered so clear a proof of his atheism as his opinion that the sun, the bountiful god Helios, who shines both upon mortals and im- mortals, was a mass of red-hot iron. His doctrines tended powerfully by their rapid diffusion to undermine the principles on which the worship of the ancient gods rested, and they there- fore prepared the way for the subsequent triumph of Chris- tianity. The Pythagorean or Italic School was founded by Pythagoras, who is said to have flourished between 540 and 500 B. c. Pythag- oras was probably an Ionian who emigrated to Italy, and there established his school. His principal efforts were directed to practical life, especially to the regulation of political institutions, and his influence was exercised by means of lectures, or sayings, or by the establishment and direction of the Pythagorean asso- ciations. He encouraged the study of mathematics and music, and considered singing to the cithara as best fitted to produce that mental repose and harmony of soul which he regarded as the highest object of education. 12. HISTORY. It is remarkable that a people so cultivated as the Greeks should have been so long without feeling the want of a correct record of their transactions in war and peace. The difference between this nation and the Orientals, in this respect, is very great. But the division of the country into numerous small states, and the republican form of the governments, pre- vented a concentration of interest on particular events and per* sons, and owing to the dissensions between the republics, their historical traditions could not but offend some while they flat- 88 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. tered others ; it was not until a late period that the Greeks con- sidered contemporary events as worthy of being thought or written of. But for this absence of authentic history, Greek literature could never have become what it was. By the purely fictitious character of its poetry, and its freedom from the shack- les of particular truths, it acquired that general probability which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more philosophical than his- tory. Greek art, likewise, from the lateness of the period at which it descended from the representation of gods and heroes to the portraits of real men, acquired a nobleness and beauty of form which it could not otherwise have obtained. This poet- ical basis gave the literature of the Greeks a noble and liberal turn. Writing was probably known in jrreece some centuries before the time of Cadmus of Miletus (fl. 522 B. c.), but it had not been employed for the purpose of preserving any detailed his- torical record, and even when, towards the end of the age of the Seven Sages (550 B. c.), some writers of historical narratives began to appear, they did not select recent historical events, but those of distant times and countries ; so entirely did they believe that oral tradition and the daily discussions of common life were sufficient records of the events of their own time and country. Cadmus of Miletus is mentioned as the first historian, but his works seem to have been early lost. To him, and other Greek historians before the time of Herodotus, scholars have given the name of Logographers, from Logos, signifying any discourse in prose. The first Greek to whom it occurred that a narrative of facts might be made intensely interesting was Herodotus (484-432 B. c.), a native of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, the Homer of Greek history. Obliged, for political reasons, to leave his native land, he visited many countries, such as Egypt, Babylon, and Persia, and spent the latter years of his life in one of the Gre- cian settlements in Italy, where he devoted himself to the com- position of his work. His travels were undertaken from the pure spirit of inquiry, and for that age they were very extensive and important. It is probable that his great and intricate plan, hitherto unknown in the historical writings of the Greeks, did not at first occur to him, and that it was only in his later years that he conceived the complete idea of a work so far beyond those of his predecessors and contemporaries. It is stated that he recited his history at different festivals, which is quite credi- ble, though there is little authority for the story that at one of these Thucydides was present as a boy, and shed tears, drawn forth by his own desire for knowledge and his intense interest in the narrative. His work comprehends a history of nearly all GREEK LITERATURE. 89 the nations of the world at that time known. It has an epic character, not only from the equable and uninterrupted flow of the narrative, but also from certain pervading ideas which give a tone to the whole. The principal of these is the idea of a fixed destiny, of a wise arrangement of the world, which has pre- scribed to every being his path, and which allots ruin and de- struction not only to crime and violence, but to excessive power and riches and the overweening pride which is their companion. In this consists the envy of the gods so often mentioned by He- rodotus, and usually called by the other Greeks the divine Ne- mesis. He constantly adverts in his narrative to the influence of this divine power, the Daemonion, as he calls it. He shows how the Deity visits the sins of the ancestors upon their de- scendants, how man rushes, as it were, wilfully upon his own destruction, and how oracles mislead by their ambiguity, when interpreted by blind passion. He shows his awe of the divine Nemesis by his moderation and the firmness with which he keeps down the ebullitions of national pride. He points out traits of greatness of character in the hostile kings of Persia, and shows his countrymen how often they owed their successes to Provi- dence and external advantages rather than to their own valor and ability. Since Herodotus saw the working of a divine agency in all human events, and considered the exhibition of it as the main object of his history, his aim is totally different from that of a historian who regards the events of life merely with reference to men. He is, in truth, a theologian and a poet as well as a historian. It is, however, vain to deny that when Herodotus did not see himself the events which he describes, he is often deceived by the misrepresentations of others ; yet, with- out his single-hearted simplicity, his disposition to listen to every remarkable account, and his admiration for the wonders of the Eastern world, Herodotus would never have imparted to us many valuable accounts. Modern travelers, naturalists, and geographers have often had occasion to admire the truth, and correctness of the information contained in his simple and mar- velous narratives. But no dissertation on this writer can con- vey any idea of the impression made by reading his work ; his language closely approximates to oral narration ; it is like hear- ing a person speak who has seen and lived through a variety of remarkable things, and whose greatest delight consists in recall- ing these images of the past. Though a Dorian by birth, he adopted the Ionic dialect, with its uncontracted terminations, its accumulated vowels, and its soft forms. These various ele- ments conspire to render the work of Herodotus a production as perfect in its kind as any human work can be. 90 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. PERIOD SECOND. THE EPOCH OP THE ATHENIAN LITERATURE (484-322 B. c.). 1. LITERARY PREDOMINANCE OF ATHENS. Among the Greeks a national literature was early formed. Every literary work in the Greek language, in whatever dialect it might be composed, was enjoyed by the whole nation, and the fame of remarkable writers soon spread throughout Greece. Certain cities were considered almost as theatres, where the poets and sages could bring their powers and acquirements into public no- tice. Among these, Sparta stood highest down to the time of the Persian war. But when Athens, raised by her political power and the mental qualities of her citizens, acquired the rank of the capital of Greece, literature assumed a different form, and there is no more important epoch in the history of the Greek intellect than the time when she obtained this pre- eminence over her sister states. The character of the Athe- nians peculiarly fitted them to take this lead ; they were lonians, and the boundless resources and mobility of the Ionian spirit are shown by their astonishing productions in Asia Minor and in the islands, in the two centuries previous to the Persian war ; in their iambic and elegiac poetry, and in the germs of philosophic inquiry and historical composition. The literature of those who remained in Attica seemed poor and meagre when compared with that luxuriant outburst ; nor did it appear, till a later pe- riod, that the progress of the Athenian intellect was the more sound and lasting. The lonians of Asia Minor, becoming at length enfeebled and corrupted by the luxuries of the East, passed easily under the power of the Persians, while the inhabitants of Attica, encompassed and oppressed by the manly tribes of Greece, and forced to keep the sword constantly in their hands, exerted all their talents and thus developed all their extraordi- nary powers. Solon, the great lawgiver, arose to combine moral strictness and order with freedom of action. After Solon came the do- minion of the Pisistratidae, which lasted from about 560 to 510 B. c. They showed a fondness for art, diffused a taste for poetry among the Athenians, and naturalized at Athens the best literary productions of Greece. They were unquestionably the first to introduce the entire recital of the Iliad and Odyssey ; they also brought to Athens the most distinguished lyric poets of the time, Anacreon, Simonides, and others. But, notwith- standing their patronage of literature and art, it was not till after the fall of their dynasty that Athens shot up with a vigor that can only be derived from the consciousness of every citizen that he has a share in the common weal. GREEK LITERATURE. 91 It is a remarkable fact that Athens produced her most excel- lent works in literature and art in the midst of the greatest po- litical convulsions, and of her utmost efforts for conquest and self-preservation. The long dominion of the Pisistratids pro- duced nothing more important than the first rudiments of the tragic drama, for the origin of comedy at the country festivals of Bacchus falls in the time before Pisistratus. On the other hand, the thirty years between the expulsion of Hippias, the last of the Pisistratids, and the battle of Salamis (510-480 B. c.), was a period marked by great events both in politics and literature. Athens contended with success against her warlike neighbors, supported the lonians in their revolt against Persia, and warded off the first powerful attack of the Persians upon Greece. Dur- ing the same period, the pathetic tragedies of Phrynichus and the lofty tragedies of JEschylus appeared on the stage, political eloquence was awakened in The.mistocles, and everything seemed to give promise of future greatness. The political events which followed the Persian war gradu- ally gave to Athens the dominion over her allies, so that she became the sovereign of a large and flourishing empire, compre- hending the islands and coasts o^ the JSgean and a part of the Euxine sea. In this manner was gained a wide basis for the lofty edifice of political glory, which was raised by her states- men. The completion of this splendid structure was due to Pericles (500-429 B. c.). Through his influence Athens be- came a dominant community, whose chief business it was to ad- minister the affairs of an extensive empire, flourishing in agri- culture, industry, and commerce. Pericles, however, did not make the acquisition of power the highest object of his exer- tions ; his aim was to realize in Athens the idea which he had conceived of human greatness, that great and noble thoughts should pervade the whole mass of the ruling people ; and this was, in fact, the case as long as his influence lasted, to a greater degree than has occurred in any other period of history. The objects to which Pericles directed the people, and for which he accumulated so much power and wealth at Athens, may be best seen in the still extant works of architecture and sculpture which originated under his administration. He induced the Athenian people to expend on the decoration of Athens a larger part of its ample revenues than was ever applied to this purpose in any other state, either republican or monarchical. Of the surpassing skill with which he collected into one focus the rays of artistic genius at Athens, no stronger proof can be afforded, than the fact that no subsequent period, through the patronage of Macedonian or Roman princes, produced works of equal ex- cellence. Indeed, it may be said that the creations of the age 92 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. of Pericles are the only works of art which completely satisfy the most refined and cultivated taste. But this brilliant exhibition of human excellence was not without its dark side, nor the flourishing state of Athenian civil- ization exempt from the elements of decay. The political posi- tion of Athens soon led to a conflict between the patriotism and moderation of her citizens, and their interests and passions,. From the earliest times, this city had stood in an unfriendly relation to the rest of Greece, and her policy of compelling so many cities to contribute their wealth in order to make her the focus of art and civilization was accompanied with offensive pride and selfish patriotism. The energy in action, which dis- tinguished the Athenians, degenerated into a restless love of adventure ; and that dexterity in the use of words, which they cultivated more than the other Greeks, induced them to subject everything to discussion, and destroyed the habits founded on unreasoning faith. The principles of the policy of Pericles were closely connected with the demoralization which followed his administration. By founding the power of the Athenians on the dominion of the sea, he led them to abandon land war and the military exercises requisite fo^ it, which had hardened the old warriors at Marathon. As he made them a dominant people, whose time was chiefly devoted to the business of governing their widely-extended empire, it was necessary for him to pro- vide that the common citizens of Athens should be able to gain a livelihood by their attention to public business, and accord- ingly, a large revenue was distributed among them in the form of wages for attendance in the courts of justice and other public assemblies. These payments to citizens for their share in the public business were quite new in Greece, and many considered the sitting and listening in these assemblies as an idle life in comparison with the labor of the plowman and vine-grower in the country, and for a long time the industrious cultivators, the brave warriors, and the men of old-fashioned morality were opposed, among the citizens of Athens, 'to the loquacious, lux- urious, and dissolute generation who passed their whole time in the market-place and courts of justice. The contests between these two parties are the main subject of the early Attic comedy. Literature and art, however, were not, during the Pelopon- nesian war, affected by the corruption of morals. The works of fhis period exhibit not only a perfection of form but also an elevation of soul and a grandeur of conception, which fill us with admiration not only for those who produced them, but for those who could enjoy such works of art. A step farther, and the love of genuine beauty gave place to a desire for evil pleas- ures, and the love of wisdom degenerated into an idle use of words. GREEK LITERATURE. 93 2, THE DRAMA. The spirit of an age is more completely represented by its poetry than by its prose composition, and ac- cordingly we may best trace the character of the three different stages of civilization among the Greeks in the three grand divis- ions of their poetry. The epic belongs to their monarchical period, when the minds of the people were impregnated and swayed by legends handed down from antiquity. Elegiac, iam- bic, and lyric poetry arose in the more stirring and agitated times which accompanied the development of republican gov- ernments, times in which each individual gave vent to his per- sonal aims and wishes, and all the depths of the human breast were unlocked by the inspirations of poetry. And now, when at the summit of Greek civilization, in the very prime of Athen- ian power and freedom, we see dramatic poetry spring up as the organ of the prevailing thoughts and feelings of the time, we are naturally led to ask how it comes that this style of poetry agreed so well with the spirit of the age, and so far outstripped its com- petitors in the contest for public favor. Dramatic poetry, as its name implies, represents actions, which are not, as in the epos, merely narrated, but seem to take place before the eyes of the spectator. The epic poet appears to re- gard the events, which he relates from afar, as objects of calm contemplation and admiration, and is always conscious of the great interval between him and them, while the dramatist plunges with his entire soul into the scenes of human life, and seems himself to experience the events which he exhibits to our view. The drama comprehends and develops the events of human life with a force and depth which no other style of poetry can reach. If we carry ourselves in imagination back to a time when dramatic composition was unknown, we must acknowledge that its creation required great boldness of mind. Hitherto the bard had only sung of gods and heroes ; it was, therefore, a great change for the poet himself to come forward all at once in the character of the god or hero, in a nation which, even in its amusements, had always adhered closely to established usages. It is true that there is much in human nature which impels it to dramatic representations, such as the universal love of imitating other persons, and the child-like liveliness with which a narrator, strongly impressed with his subject, delivers a speech which he has heard or perhaps only imagined. Yet there is a wide step from these disjointed elements to the genuine drama, and it seems that no nation, except the Greeks, ever made this step. The dramatic poetry of the Hindus belongs to a time when there had been much intercourse between Greece and India; even in ancient Greece and Italy, dramatic poetry, and especially 94 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. tragedy, attained to perfection only in Athens, and here it was exhibited only at a i'ew festivals of a single god, Dionysus, while epic rhapsodies and lyric odes were recited on various occasions. All this is incomprehensible, if we suppose dramatic poetry to have originated in causes independent of the peculiar circum- stances of time and place. If a love of imitation and a delight in disguising the real person under a mask were the basis upon which this style of poetry was raised, the drama would have been as natural and as universal among men as these qualities are common to their nature. A more satisfactory explanation of the origin of the Greek drama may be found in its connection with the worship of the gods, and particularly that of Bacchus. The gods were sup- posed to dwell in their temples and to participate in their fes- tivals, and it was not considered presumptuous or unbecoming to represent them as acting like human beings, as was frequently done by mimic representations. The worship of Bacchus had one quality which was more than any other calculated to give birth to the drama, and particularly to tragedy, namely, the enthusiasm which formed an essential part of it, and which proceeded from an impassioned sympathy with the events of nature in connection with the course of the seasons. The orig- inal participators in these festivals believed that they perceived the god to be really affected by the changes of nature, killed or dying, flying and rescued, or reanimated, victorious, and dom- inant. Although the great changes, which took place in the religion and cultivation of the Greeks, banished from their minds the conviction that these events really occurred, yet an enthu- siastic sympathy with the god and his fortunes, as with real events, always remained. The swarm of subordinate beings by whom Bacchus was surrounded satyrs, nymphs, and a vari- ety of beautiful and grotesque forms were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks, and it was not necessary to depart very widely from the ordinary course of ideas to imagine them visible to human eyes among the solitary woods and rocks. The cus- tom, so prevalent at the festivals of Bacchus, of taking the dis- guise of satyrs, doubtless originated in the desire to approach more nearly to the presence of their divinity. The desire of escaping from self into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, broke forth in a thousand instances in those festivals. It was seen in the coloring of the body, the wearing of skins and masks of wood or bark, and in the complete costume belonging to the character. The learned writers of antiquity agree in stating that tragedy, as well as comedy, was originally a choral song. The action, the adventures of the gods, was presupposed or only symbolically GREEK LITERATURE. 95 indicated ; the chorus expressed their feelings upon it. This choral song belonged to the class of the dithyramb, an enthusi- astic ode to Bacchus, capable of expressing every variety of feel- ing excited by the worship of that god. It was first sung by revelers at convivial meetings, afterwards it was regularly exe- cuted by a chorus. The subject of these tragic choruses some- times changed from Bacchus to other heroes distinguished for their misfortunes and suffering. The reason why the dithy- ramb and afterwards tragedy was transferred from that god to heroes and not to other gods of the Greek Olympus, was that the latter were elevated above the chances of fortune and the al-, ternations of joy and grief to which both Bacchus and the he- roes were subject. It is stated by Aristotle, that tragedy originated with the chief singers of the dithyramb. It is probable that they repre- sented Bacchus himself or his messengers, that they came for- ward and narrated his perils and escapes, and that the chorus then expressed their feeling, as at passing events. The chorus thus naturally assumed the character of satellites of Bacchus, whence they easily fell into the parts of satyrs, who were his companions in sportive adventures, as well as in combats and misfortunes. The name of tragedy, or goafs song, was derived from the resemblance of the singers, in their character of satyrs, to goats. Thus far tragedy had advanced among the Dorians, who, therefore, considered themselves the inventors of it. All its fur- ther development belongs to the Athenians. In the time of Pis- istratus, Thespis (506 B. c.) first caused tragedy to become a drama, though a very simple one. He connected with the choral representation a regular dialogue, by joining one person to the chorus who was the first actor. He introduced linen masks, and thus the one actor might appear in several charac- ters. In the drama of Thespis we find the satyric drama, con- founded with tragedy, and the persons of the chorus frequently representing satyrs. The dances of the chorus were still a principal part of the performance ; the ancient tragedians, in general, were teachers of dancing, as well as poets and musi- cians. In Phrynichus (fl. 512 B. c.) the lyric predominated over the dramatic element. Like Thespis, he had only one actor, but he used this actor for different characters, and he was the first who brought female parts upon the stage, which, according to the manners of the ancients, could be acted only by men. In sev- eral instances it is remarkable that Phrynichus deviated from mythical subjects to those taken from contemporary history. 3. TRAGEDY. The tragedy of antiquity was entirely differ- 96 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ent from that which, in progress of time, arose among other na tions ; a picture of human life, agitated by the passions, and cor- responding as accurately as possible to its original in all its features. Ancient tragedy departs entirely from ordinary life ; its character is in the highest degree ideal, and its development necessary, and essentially directed by the fate to which gods and men were subjected. As tragedy and dramatic exhibitions, generally, were seen only at the festivals of Bacchus, they re- tained a sort of Bacchic coloring, and the extraordinary excite- ment of all minds at these festivals, by raising them above the tone of every-day existence, gave both to the tragic and comic muse unwonted energy and fire. The Bacchic festal costume, which the actors wore, consisted of long striped garments reaching to the ground, over which were thrown upper garments of some brilliant color, with gay- trimmings and gold ornaments. The choruses also vied with each other in the splendor of their dress, as well as in the excel- lence of their singing and dancing. The chorus, which always bore a subordinate part in the action of the tragedy, was in no respect distinguished from the stature and appearance of ordi- nary men, while the actor, who represented the god or hero, re- quired to be raised above the usual dimensions of mortals. A tragic actor was a strange, and, according to the taste of the ancients themselves at a later period, a very monstrous being. His person was lengthened out considerably beyond the propor- tions of the human figure by the very high soles of the tragic shoe, and by the length of the tragic mask, and the chest, body, legs, and arms were stuffed and padded to a corresponding size ; the body thus lost much of its natural flexibility, and the gestic- ulation consisted of stiff, angular movements, in which little was left to the emotion or the inspiration of the moment. Masks, which had originated in the taste for mumming and disguises of all sorts, prevalent at the Bacchic festivals, were an indispensa- ble accompaniment to tragedy. They not only concealed the individual features of well-known actors, and enabled the spec- tators entirely to forget the performer in his part, but gave to his whole aspect that ideal character which the tragedy of antiq- uity demanded. The tragic mask was not intentionally ugly and caricatured like the comic, but the half-open mouth, the large eye-sockets, and sharply-defined features, in which every characteristic was presented in its utmost strength, and the bright and hard coloring were calculated to make the impres- sion of a being agitated by the emotions and passions of human nature in a degree far above the standard of common life. The masks could, however, be changed between the acts, so as to represent the necessary changes in the state or emotions of th persons. GREEK LITERATURE. 97 The ancient theatres were stone buildings of enormous size, calculated to accommodate the whole free and adult population of a great city at the spectacles and festal games. These the- atres were not designed exclusively for dramatic poetry ; choral dances, processions, revels, and all sorts of representations were held in them. We find theatres in every part of Greece, though dramatic poetry was the peculiar growth of Athens. The whole structure of the theatre, as well as the drama it/- self, may be traced to the chorus, whose station was the original centre of the whole performance. The orchestra, which occu- pied a circular level space in the centre of the building, grew out of the chorus or dancing-place of the Homeric times. The altar of Bacchus, around which the dithyrambic chorus danced in a circle, had given rise to a sort of raised platform in the centre of the orchestra, which served as a resting-place for the chorus. The chorus sang alone when the actors had quitted the stage, or alternately with the parsons of the drama, and sometimes en- tered into dialogues with them. These persons represented heroes of the mythical world, whose whole aspect bespoke some- thing mightier and more sublime than ordinary humanity, and it was the part of the chorus to show the impression made by the incidents of the drama on lower and feebler minds, and thus, as it were, to interpret them to the audience, with whom they owned a more kindred nature. The ancient stage was remark- ably long, and of little depth ; it was called the proscenium, be- cause it was in front of the scene. Scene properly means tent or hut, such as originally marked the dwelling of the principal person. This hut at length gave place to a stately scene, en- riched with architectural decorations, yet its purpose remained the same. We have seen how a single actor was added to the chorus by Thespis, who caused him to represent in succession all the per- sons of the drama. ^Eschylus added a second actor in order to obtain the contrast of two acting persons on the stage ; even Sophocles did not venture beyond the introduction of a third. But the ancients laid more stress upon the precise number and mutual relations of these actors than can here be explained. 4. THE TRAGIC POETS. ^Eschylus (525-477 B. c.), like almost all the great masters of poetry in ancient Greece, was a poet by profession, and from the great improvements which he introduced into tragedy he was regarded by the Athenians as its founder. Of the seventy tragedies which he is said to have written, only seven are extant. Of these, the " Prometheus " is beyond all question his greatest work. The genius of ^Eschylus inclined rather to the awful and sublime, than to the tender and 7 98 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. pathetic. He excels in representing the superhuman, in depict- ing demigods and heroes, and in tracing the irresistible march of fate. The depth of poetical feeling in him is accompanied with intense and philosophical thought ; he does not merely rep- resent individual tragical events, but he recurs to the greater elements of tragedy the subjection of the gods and Titans, and the original dignity and greatness of nature and of man. He delights to portray this gigantic strength, as in his Prome- theus chained and tortured, but invincible ; and these represen- tations have a moral sublimity far above mere poetic beauty. His tragedies were at once political, patriotic, and religious. Sophocles (495-406 B. c.), as a poet, is universally allowed to have brought the drama to the highest degree of perfection of which it was susceptible. Indeed, the Greek mind may be said to have culminated in him ; his writings overflow with that indescribable charm which only flashes through those of other poets. His plots are worked up with more skill and care than those of either of his great rivals, ^Eschylus or Euripides, and he added the last improvement to the form of the drama by the introduction of a third actor, a change which greatly enlarged the scope of the action. Of the many tragedies which he is said to have written, only seven are extant. Of these, the " QEdipus Tyrannus " is particularly remarkable for its skillful develop- ment, and for the manner in which the interest of the piece in- creases through each succeeding act. Of all the poets of antiq- uity, Sophocles has penetrated most deeply into the recesses of the human heart. His tragedies appear to us as pictures of the mind, as poetical developments of the secrets of our souls, and of the laws to which their nature makes them amenable. In Euripides (480-407 B. c.) we discover the first traces of decline in the Greek tragedy. He diminished its dignity by depriving it of its ideal character, and by bringing it down to the level of e very-day life. All the characters of Euripides have that loquacity and dexterity in the use of words which dis- tinguished the Athenians of his day ; yet in spite of all these faults he has many beauties, and is particularly remarkable for pathos, so that Aristotle calls him the most tragic of poets. Eighteen of his tragedies are still extant. The contemporaries of the three great tragic poets, .ZEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, must be regarded for the most part as far from insignificant, since they maintained their place on the stage beside them, and not unfrequently gained the tragic prize in competition with them; yet the general character of these poets must have been deficient in that depth and peculiar force of genius by which these great tragedians were distinguished. If this had not been the case, their works would assuredly have GREEK LITERATURE. 99 attracted greater attention, and would have been read more fre- quently in later times. 5. COMEDY. Greek comedy was distinguished as the Old, the Middle, and the New. As tragedy arose from the winter feast of Bacchus, which fostered an enthusiastic sympathy with the apparent sorrows of the god of nature, comedy arose from the concluding feast of the vintage, at which an exulting joy over the inexhaustible riches of nature manifested itself in wan- tonness of every kind. In such a feast, the Comus, or Baccha- nalian procession, was a principal ingredient. This was a tumultuous mixture of the wild carouse, the noisy song, and the drunken dance ; and the meaning of the word comedy is a comus song. It was from this lyric comedy that the dramatic comedy was gradually produced. It received its full development from Cratinus, who lived in the age of Pericles. Cratinus and his younger contemporaries, Eupolis (431 B. c.) and Aristophanes (452-380 B. c.), were the great poets of the old Attic comedy. Of their works, only eleven dramas of Aristophanes are extant. The chief object of these comedies was to excite laughter by the boldest and most ludicrous caricature, and, provided that end was obtained, the poet seems to have cared little about the justice of the picture. It is scarcely possible to imagine the unmeasured and unsparing license of attack assumed by these comedies upon the gods, the institutions, the politicians, philosophers, poets, private citizens, and women of Athens. With this universal liberty of subject there is combined a poignancy of derision and satire, a fecundity of imagination, and a richness of poetical ex- pression such as cannot be surpassed. Towards the end of the career of Aristophanes, however, this unrestricted license of the ' comedy began gradually to disappear. The Old comedy was succeeded by the Middle Attic comedy, in which the satire was no longer directed against the influential men or rulers of the people, but was rich in ridicule of the Pla- tonic Academy, of the newly revived sect of the Pythagoreans, and of the orators, rhetoricians, and poets of the day. In this transition from the Old to the Middle comedy, we may discern at once the great revolution that had taken place in the domestic history of Athens, when the Athenians, from a nation of politi- cians, became a nation of literary men ; when it was no longer the opposition of political ideas, but the contest of opposing schools of philosophers and rhetoricians, which set all heads in motion. The poets of this comedy were very numerous. The last poets of the Middle comedy were contemporaries of the writers of the New, who rose up as their rivals, and who were only distinguished from them by following the new ten- dency more decidedly and exclusively. Menander (342-293 100 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. B. c.) was one of the first of these poets, and he is also the most perfect of them. The Athens of his day differed from that of the time of Pericles, in the same way that an old man, weak in body but fond of life, good-humored and self-indulgent, differs from the vigorous, middle-aged man at the summit of his mental strength and bodily energy. Since there was so little in politics to interest or to employ the mind, the Athenians found an ob- ject in the occurrences of social life and the charm of dissolute enjoyment. Dramatic poetry now, for the first time, centred in love, as it has since done among all nations to whom the Greek cultivation has descended. But it certainly was not love in those nobler forms to which it has since elevated itself. Menander painted truly the degenerate world in which he lived, actu- ated by no mighty impulses, no noble aspirations. He was con- temporary with Epicurus, and their characters had much in common ; both were deficient in the inspiration of high moral ideas. Th6 comedy of Menander and his contemporaries completed what Euripides had begun on the tragic stage a hundred years before their time. They deprived their characters of that ideal grandeur which had been most conspicuous in the creations of jEschylus and the earlier poets, and thus tragedy and comedy, which had started from such different beginnings, here met as at the same point. The comedies of Menander may be considered as almost the conclusion of Attic literature; he was the last original poet of Athens ; those who arose at a later period were but gleaners after the rich harvest of Greek poetry had been gathered. 6. ORATORY, RHETORIC, AND HISTORY. We may distin- guish three epochs in the history of Attic prose from Pericles to Alexander the Great: first,, that of Pericles and Thucydides ; second, that of Lysias, Socrates, and Plato ; and, third, that of Demosthenes and ^Eschines. Public speaking had been com- mon in Greece from' the earliest times, but as the works of Athe- nian orators alone have come down to us, we may conclude that oratory was cultivated in a much higher degree at Athens than elsewhere. No speech of Pericles has been preserved in writ- ing ; only a few of his emphatic and nervous expressions were kept in remembrance ; but a general impression of the grandeur of his oratory long prevailed among the Greeks, from which we may form a clear conception of his style. The sole object of the oratory of Pericles was to produce conviction ; he did not aim to excite any sudden or transient burst of passion by working on the emotions of the heart ; nor did he use any of those means employed by the orators of a later age to set in motion the un- ruly impulses of the multitude. His manner was tranquil, with GREEK LITERATURE. 101 hardly any change of feature ; his garments were undisturbed by any oratorical gesticulations, and his voice was equable and sus- tained. He never condescended to flatter the people, and his dignity never stooped to merriment. Although there was more of reasoning than imagination in his speeches, he gave a vivid and impressive coloring to his language by the use of striking metaphors and comparisons, as when, at the funeral of a number of young persons who had fallen in battle, he used the beautiful figure, that " the year had lost its spring." The cultivation of the art of oratory among the Athenians was due to a combination of the natural eloquence displayed by the Athenian statesmen, and especially by Pericles, with the rhetori- cal studies of the sophists, who exercised a greater influence on the culture of the Greek mind than any other class of men, the poets excepted. The sophists, as their name indicates, were persons who made knowledge their profession, and undertook to impart it to every one who was willing to place himself under their guidance ; they were reproached with being the first to sell knowledge for money, for they not only demanded pay from those who came to hear their lectures, but they undertook, for a certain sum, to give young men a complete sophistical education. Pupils flocked to them in crowds, and they acquired such riches as neither art nor science had ever before earned among the Greeks. If we consider their doctrines philosophically, they amounted to a denial or renunciation of all true science. They were able to speak with equal plausibility for and against the same position ; not in order to discover the truth, but to show the nothingness of truth. In the improvement of written com- position, however, a high value must be set on their services. They made language the object of their study ; they aimed at correctness and beauty of style, and they laid the foundation for the polished diction of Plato and Demosthenes. They taught that the sole aim of the orator is to turn the minds of his hear- ers into such a train as may best suit his own interest ; that, consequently, rhetoric is the agent of persuasion, the art of all arts, because the rhetorician is able to speak well and convinc- ingly on every subject, though he may have no accurate knowl- edge respecting it. The Peloponnesian war, which terminated in the downfall of Athens, was succeeded by a period of exhaustion and repose. The fine arts were checked in their progress, and poetry degen- erated into empty bombast. Yet at this very time prose litera- ture began a new career, which led to its fairest development. Lysias and Isocrates gave an entirely new form to oratory by the happy alterations which they in different ways introduced mto the old prose style. Lysias (fl. 359 B. c.), in the fiftieth 102 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. year of his age, began to follow the trade of writing speeches for such private individuals as could not trust their own skill in ad- dressing a court ; for this object, a plain, unartificial style was best suited, because citizens who called in the aid of the speech- writer had no knowledge of rhetoric, and thus Lysias was obliged to originate a style, which became more and more con- firmed by habit. The consequence was, that for his contem- poraries and for all ages he stands forth as the first and in many respects the perfect pattern of a plain style. The narra- tive part of the speech, for which he was particularly famous, is always natural, interesting, and lively, and often relieved by mimic touches which give it a wonderful air of reality. The proofs and confutations are distinguished by a clearness of rea- soning and a boldness of argument which leave no room for doubt ; in a word, the speeches are just what they ought to be in order to obtain a favorable decision, an object in which, it seems, he often succeeded. Of his many orations, thirty-five have come down to us. Isocrates (fl. 338 B. c.) established a school for political ora- tory, which became the first and most flourishing in Greece. His orations were mostly destined for this school. Though nei- ther a great statesman nor philosopher in himself, Isocrates constitutes an epoch as a rhetorician or artist of language. His influence extended far beyond the limits of his own school, and without his reconstruction of the style of Attic oratory we could have had no Demosthenes and no Cicero ; through these, the school of Isocrates has extended its influence even to the oratory of our own day. The verdict of his contemporaries, ratified by posterity, has pronounced Demosthenes (380-322 B. c.) the greatest orator that has ever lived, yet he had no natural advantages for oratory. A feeble frame and a weak voice, a shy and awkward manner, the ungraceful gesticulations of one whose limbs had never been duly exercised, and a defective articulation, would have deterr f ed most men from even attempting to address an Athenian assem- bly ; but the ambition and perseverance of Demosthenes enabled him to triumph over every disadvantage. He improved his bodily powers by running, his voice by speaking aloud as he walked up hill, or declaimed against the roar of the sea ; he practiced graceful delivery before a looking-glass, and controlled his unruly articulation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. His want of fluency he remedied by diligent composition, and by copying and committing to memory the works of the best au- thors. By these means he came forth as the acknowledged leader of the assembly, and, even by the confession of his dead' liest enemies, the first orator of Greece. His harangues to the GREEK LITERATURE. 103 people, and his speeches on public and private causes, which have been preserved, form a collection of sixty-one orations. The most important efforts of Demosthenes, however, were the series of public speeches referring to Philip of Macedon, and known as the twelve Philippics, a name which has become a general designation for spirited invectives. The main charac- teristic of his eloquence consisted in the use of the common lan- guage of his age and country. He took great pains in the choice and arrangement of his words, and aimed at the utmost concise- ness, making epithets, even common adjectives, do the work of a whole sentence, and thus, by his perfect delivery and action, a sentence composed of ordinary terms sometimes smote with the weight of a sledge-hammer. In his orations there is not any long or close train of reasoning, still less any profound ob- servations or remote and ingenious allusions, but a constant suc- cession of remarks, bearing immediately on the matter in hand, perfectly plain, and as readily admitted as easily understood. These are intermingled with the most striking appeals either to feelings which all were conscious of, and deeply agitated by, though ashamed to own, or to sentiments which every man was panting to utter and delighted to hear thundered forth, bursts of oratory, which either overwhelmed or relieved the audience. Such characteristics constituted the principal glory of the great orator. The most eminent of the contemporaries of Demosthenes were Isaeus (420-348 B. c.), an artificial and elaborate orator ; Lycurgus (393-328 B. c.), a celebrated civil reformer of Athens ; Hypereides, contemporary of Lycurgus ; and, above all, ^Es- chines (389-314 B. c.), the great rival of Demosthenes, of whose numerous speeches only three have been preserved. At a- later period we find two schools of rhetoric, the Attic, founded by ^Eschines, and the Asiatic, established by Hegesias of Mag- nesia. The former proposed as models of oratory the great Athenian orators, the latter depended on artificial manners, and produced speeches distinguished rather by rhetorical orna- ments and a rapid flow of diction than by weight and force of style. In the historical department, Thucydides (471-391 B. c.) began an entirely new class of historical writing. While He- rodotus aimed at giving a vivid picture of all that fell under the cognizance of the senses, and endeavored to represent a superior power ruling over the destinies of princes and people, the attention of Thucydides was directed to human action, as it is developed from the character and situation of the individ- ual. His history, from its unity of action, may be considered as a historical drama, the subject being the Athenian domination 104 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. over Greece, and the parties the belligerent republics. Clearness in the narrative, harmony and consistency of the details with the general history, are the characteristics of his work ; and in his style he combines the concise and pregnant oratory of Peri- cles with the vigorous but artificial style of the rhetoricians. Demosthenes was so diligent a student of Thucydides that he copied out his history eight times. Xenophon (445391 B. c.) may also be classed among the great historians, his name being most favorably known from the " Anabasis," in which he describes the retreat of the ten thou- sand Greek mercenaries in the service of Cyrus, the Persian king, among whom he himself played a prominent part. The minuteness of detail, the picturesque simplicity of the style, and the air of reality which pervades it, have made it a favorite with every age. In his memorials of Socrates, he records the conversations of a man whom he had admired and listened to, but whom he did not understand. In the language of Xeno- phon we find the first approximation to the common dialect, which became afterwards the universal language of Greece. He wrote several other works, in which, however, no development of one great and pervading idea can be found ; but in all of them there is a singular clearness and beauty of description. 7. SOCRATES AND THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. Although Soc- rates (468-399 B. c.) left no writings behind him, yet the intel- lect of Greece was powerfully affected by the principles of his philosophy, and the greatest literary genius that ever appeared in Hellas owed most of his mental training to his early inter- course with him. It was by means of conversation, by a search- ing process of question and answer, that Socrates endeavored to lead his pupils to a consciousness of their own ignorance, and thus to awaken in their minds an anxiety to obtain more exact views. This method of questioning he reduced to a scientific process, and " dialectics " became a name for the art of reason- ing and the science of logic. The subject-matter of this method was moral science considered with special reference to politics. To him may be justly attributed induction and general defini- tions, and he applied this practical logic to a common-sense estimate of the duties of man both as a moral being and as a member of a community, and thus he first treated moral philos- ophy according to scientific principles. No less than ten schools of philosophers claimed him as their head, though the majority of them imperfectly represented his doctrines. By his influence on Plato, and through him on Aristotle, he constituted himseli the founder of the philosophy which is still recognized in the civilized world. From the doctrine held by Socrates, that virtue was depend? GREEK LITERATURE. 105 ent on knowledge, Eucleides of Megara (fl. 398 B. c.), the founder of the Megaric school, submitted moral philosophy to dialectical reasoning and logical refinements ; and from the Socratic principle of the union between virtue and happiness, Aristippus of Gyrene (fl. 396 B. c.) deduced the doctrine which became the characteristic of the Cyrenian school, affirming that pleasure was the ultimate end of life and the higher good ; while Antisthenes (fl. 396 B. c.) constructed the Cynic philosophy, which placed the ideal of virtue in the absence of every need, and hence in the disregarding of every interest, wealth, honor, and enjoyment, and in the independence of any restraints of life and society. Diogenes of Sinope (fl. 300 B. c.) was one of the most prominent followers of this school. He, like his master, Antisthenes, always appeared in the most beggarly clothing, with the staff and wallet of mendicancy ; and this ostentation of self-denial drew from Socrates the exclamation, that he saw the vanity of Antisthenes through the holes in his garments. Plato (429-348 B. c.) was the only one of the disciples of Socrates who represented the whole doctrines of his teacher. We owe to him that the ideas which Socrates awakened have been made the germ of one of the grandest systems of specula- tion that the world has ever seen, and that it has been conveyed to us in literary compositions which are unequaled in refine- ment of conception, or in vigor and gracefulness of style. At the age of nineteen he became one of the pupils and associates of Socrates, and did not leave him until that martyr of intellect- ual freedom drank the fatal cup of hemlock. He afterwards traveled in Asia Minor, in Egypt, in Italy, and Sicily, and made himself acquainted with all contemporary philosophy. During the latter part of his life he was engaged as a public lecturer on philosophy. His lectures were delivered in the gardens of the Academia, and they have left proof of their celebrity in the structure of language, which has derived from them a term now common to all places of instruction. Of the importance of the Socratic and Pythagorean elements in Plato's philosophy there can be no doubt ; but he transmuted all he touched into his own forms of thought and language, and there was no branch of speculative literature which he had not mastered. By adopting the form of dialogue, in which all his extant works have come down to us, he was enabled to criticise the various systems of philosophy then current in Greece, and also to gratify his own dramatic genius, and his almost unrivaled power of keeping up an assumed character. The works of Plato have been divided into three classes : first, the elementary dialogues, or those which contain the germs of all that follows, of logic as the in- strument of philosophy, and of ideas as its proper object ; sec- 106 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ond, progressive dialogues, which treat of the distinction between philosophical and common knowledge, in their united application to the proposed and real sciences, ethics, and physics ; third, the constructive dialogues, in which the practical is completely united with the speculative, with an appendix containing laws, epis- tles, etc. The fundamental principle of Plato's philosophy is the belief in an eternal and self-existent cause, the origin of all things. From this divine Being emanate not only the souls of men, which are immortal, but that of the universe itself, which is sup- posed to be animated by a divine spirit. The material objects of our sight, and other senses, are mere fleeting emanations of the divine idea ; it is only this idea itself that is really existent ; the objects of sensuous perception are mere appearances, taking their forms by participation in the idea ; hence it follows, that in Plato's philosophy all knowledge is innate, and acquired by the soul before birth, when it was able to contemplate real ex- istences, and all our ideas of this world are mere reminiscences of their true and eternal patterns. The belief of Plato in the immortality of the soul naturally led him to establish a high standard of moral excellence, and, like his great teacher, he con- stantly inculcates temperance, justice, and purity of life. His political views are developed in the " Republic " and in the " Laws," in which the main feature of his system is the subor- dination, or rather the entire sacrifice of the individual to the state. The style of Plato is in every way worthy of his position in universal literature, and modern scholars have confirmed the en- comium of Aristotle, that all his dialogues exhibit extraordinary acuteness, elaborate elegance, bold originality, and curious spec- ulation. In Plato, the powers of imagination were just as con- spicuous as those of reasoning and reflection ; he had all the chief characteristics of a poet, especially of a dramatic poet, and if his rank as a philosopher had been lower than it is, he would still have ranked high among dramatic writers for his life-like representations of the personages whose opinions he wished to combat or to defend. Aristotle (384-322 B. c.) occupies a position among the lead- ers of human thought not inferior to that of his teacher, Plato. He was a native of Stagyra, in Macedonia, and is hence often called the Stagyrite. He early repaired to Athens, and became a pupil of Plato, who called him the soul of his school. He was afterwards invited by Philip of Macedon to undertake the liter- ary education of Alexander, at that time thirteen years old. This charge continued about three years. He afterwards r& turned to Athens, where he opened his school in a gymnasium GREEK LITERATURE. 107 called the Lyceum, delivering his lessons as he walked to and fro, and from these saunters his scholars were called Peripa- tetics, or saunterers. During this period he composed most of his extant works. Alexander placed at his disposal a large sum for his collections in natural history, and employed some thousands of men in procuring specimens for his museum. After the death of Alexander, he was accused of blasphemy to the gods, and, warned by the fate of Socrates, he withdrew from Athens to Chalcis, where he afterwards died. In looking at the mere catalogue of the works of Aristotle, we are struck with his vast range of knowledge. He aimed at nothing less than the completion of a general encyclopedia of philosophy. He was the author of the first scientific cultivation of each science, and there was hardly any quality distinguishing a philosopher as such, which he did not possess in an eminent degree. Of all the philosophical systems of antiquity, that of Aristotle was the best adapted to the physical wants of mankind. His works consisted of treatises on natural, moral, and political philosophy, history, rhetoric, criticism, indeed, there was scarcely a branch of knowledge which his vast and comprehen- sive genius did not embrace. His greatest claim to our admira- tion is as a logician. He perfected and brought into form those elements of the dialectic art which had been struck out by Soc- rates and Plato, and wrought them, by his additions, into so com- plete a system, that he may be regarded as, at once, the founder and perfecter of logic as an art, which has since, even down to our own days, been but very little improved. The style of Aris- totle has nothing to attract those who prefer the embellishments of a work to its subject-matter and the scientific results which it presents. PERIOD THIRD. . THE EPOCH OF THE DECLINE OF GREEK LITERATURE, 322 B. c.- 1453 A. D. 1. ORIGIN OF THE ALEXANDRIAN LITERATURE. As the lit- erary predominance of Athens was due mainly to the political importance of Attica, the downfall of Athenian independence brought with it a deterioration, and ultimately an extinction of that intellectual centralization which for more than a century had fostered and developed the highest efforts of the genius and culture of the Greeks. While the living literature of Greece was thus dying away, the conquests of Alexander prepared a new home for the muses on the coast of that wonderful country, to which all the nations of antiquity had owed a part of their sci- ence and religious belief. In Egypt, as in other regions, Alex* 108 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ander gave directions for the foundation of a city to be called after his own name, which became the magnificent metropolis of the Hellenic world. This capital was the residence of a family who attracted to their court all the living representatives of the literature of Greece, and stored up in their enormous library all the best works of the classical period. It was chiefly during the reigns of the first three Ptolemies that Alexandria was made the new home of Greek literature. Ptolemy Soter (306-285 B. c.) laid the foundations of the library, and instituted the mu- seum, or temple of the muses, where the literary men of the age were maintained by endowments. This encouragement of litera- ture was continued by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B. c.). He had the celebrated Callimachus for his librarian, who bought up not only the whole of Aristotle's great collection of works, but transferred the native annals of Egypt and Judea to the do- main of Greek literature by employing the priest Manetho to translate the hieroglyphics of his own temple-archives into the language of the court, and by procuring from the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem the first part of that celebrated version of the Hebrew sacred books, which was afterwards completed and known as the Septuagint, or version of the Seventy. Ptolemy Euergetes (247-222 B. c.) increased the library by depriving the Athenians of their authentic editions of the great dramatists. In the course of time the library founded at Pergamos was transferred to Egypt, and thus we are indebted to the Ptolemies for pre- serving to our times 'all the best specimens of Greek literature which have come down to us. This encouragement of letters, however, called forth no great original genius ; but a few emi- nent men of science, many second-rate and artificial poets, and a host of grammarians and literary pedants. 2. THE ALEXANDRIAN POETS. Among the poets of the pe- riod, Philetas, Callimachus, Lycophron, Apollonius, and the writ- ers of idyls, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus are the most emi- nent. The founder of a school of poetry at Alexandria, and the model for imitation with the Roman writers of elegiac poetry, was Philetas of Cos (fl. 260 B. c), whose extreme emaciation of person exposed him to the imputation of wearing lead in the soles of his shoes, lest he should be blown away. He was chiefly celebrated as an elegiac poet, in whom ingenious, elegant, and harmonious versification took the place of higher poetry. Cal- limachus (fl. 260 B. c.) was the type of an Alexandrian man of letters, distinguished by skill rather than genius, the most fin- ished specimen of what might be effected by talent, learning, and ambition, backed by the patronage of a court. He was a living representative of the great library over which he presided ; he was not only a writer of all kinds of poetry, but a critic, gram- GREEK LITERATURE. 109 marian, historian, and geographer. Of his writings, a few poem? only are extant. Next to Callimachus, as a representative of the learned poetry of Alexandria, stands the dramatist Lyco- phron (fl. 250 B. c.). All his works are lost, with the exception of the oracular poem called the " Alexandra," or " Cassandra," on the merits of which very opposite opinions are entertained. Apollonius, known as the Rhodian (fl. 240 B. c.), was a native of Alexandria, and a pupil of Callimachus, through whose influ- ence he was driven from his native city, when he established himself in the island of Rhodes, where he was so honored and distinguished that he took the name of the Rhodian. On the death of Callimachus, he was appointed to succeed him as libra- rian at Alexandria. His reputation depends on his epic poem, the " Argonautic Expedition." Of all the writers of the Alexandrian period, the bucolic poets have enjoyed the most popularity. Their pastoral poems were called Idyls, from their pictorial and descriptive character, that is, little pictures of common life, a name for which the later writ- ers have sometimes substituted the term Eclogues, that is, selec- tions, which is applicable to any short poem, whether complete and original, or appearing as an extract. The name of Idyls, however, was afterwards applicable to pastoral poems. The- ocritus (fl. 272 B. c.) gives his name to the most important of these extant bucolics. He had an original genius for poetry of the highest kind ; the absence of the usual affectation of the Alexandrian school, constant appeals to nature, a fine perception of character, and a keen sense of both the beautiful and the ludicrous, indicate the high order of his literary talent, and ac- count for his universal and undiminished popularity. The two other bucolic poets of the Alexandrian school were Bion (fl. 275 B. c.), born near Smyrna, and his pupil Moschus of Syracuse (fl. 273 B. c.). It appears, from an elegy by Moschus, that Bion migrated from Asia Minor to Sicily, where he was poisoned. He wrote harmonious verses with a good deal of pathos and ten- derness, but he is as inferior to Theocritus as he is superior to Moschus, whose artificial style characterizes him rather as a learned versifier than a true poet. 3. PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA. Many of the most eminent poets were also prose writers, and they exhibited their versatility by writing on almost every subject of literary interest. The progress of prose writing manifested itself from grammar and criticism to the more elaborate and learned treatment of history and chronology, and to observations and speculations in pure and mixed mathematics. Demetrius the Phalerian (fl. 295 B. c.), Zenodotus (fl. 279 B. c.), Aristophanes (fl. 200 B. c.), and Aristarchus (fl. 156 B. c.), the three last of whom were success' 110 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ively intrusted with the management of the Library, were the representatives of the Alexandrian school of grammar and criti- cism. They devoted themselves chiefly to the revision of the text of Homer, which was finally established by Aristarchus. In the historical department may be mentioned Ptolemy Soter, who wrote the history of the wars of Alexander the Great; Apollodorus (fl. 200 B. c.), whose " Bibliotheca " contains a general sketch of the mystic legends of the Greeks ; Eratosthe- nes (fl. 235 B. c.), the founder of scientific chronology in Greek history ; Manetho (fl. 280 B. c.), who introduced the Greeks to a knowledge of the Egyptian religion and annals ; and Berosus of Babylon, his contemporary, whose work, fragments of which were preserved by Josephus, was known as the " Babylonian Annals." While the Greeks of Alexandria thus gained a knowledge of the religious books of the nations conquered by Alexander, the same curiosity, combined with the necessities of the Jews of Alexandria, gave birth to the translation of the Bible into Greek, known under the name of Septuagint, which has exercised a more lasting influence on the civilized world than that of any book that has ever appeared in a new tongue. The beginning of that translation was probably made in the reigns of the first Ptolemies (320-249 B. c.), while the remainder was completed at a later period. The wonderful advance, which took place in pure and applied mathematics, is chiefly due to the learned men who settled in Alexandria ; the greatest mathematicians and the most eminent founders of scientific geography were all either immediately or indirectly connected with the school of Alexandria. Euclid (fl. 300 B. c.) founded a famous school of geometry in that city, in the reign of the first Ptolemy. Almost the only incident of his life which is known to us is a conversation between him and that king, who, having asked if there was no easier method of learning the science, is said to have been told by Euclid, that " there was no royal path to geometry." His most famous work is his " Elements of Pure Mathematics," at the present time a manual of instruction and the foundation of all geometrical treatises. Archimedes (287-212 B. c.) was a native of Syra- cuse, in Sicily, but he traveled to Egypt at an early age, and studied mathematics there in the school of Euclid. He not only distinguished himself as a pure mathematician and astronomer, and as the founder of the theory of statics, but he discovered the law of specific gravity, and constructed some of the most useful machines in the mechanic arts, such as the pulley and the hydraulic screw. His works are written in the Doric dialect. Apollonius of Perga (221-204 B. c.) distinguished himself in the mathematical department by his work on "Conic Elements." GREEK LITERATURE. Ill Eratosthenes was not only prominent in the science of chro- nology, but was also the founder of astronomical geography, and the author of many valuable works in various branches of philos- ophy. Hipparchus (fl. 150 B. c.) is considered the founder of the science of exact astronomy, from his great work, the " Cata- logue of the Fixed Stars," his discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, and many other valuable astronomical observations and calculations. 4. ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY. Athens, which had been the centre of Greek literature during the second or classical period of its development, had now, in all respects but one, resigned the intellectual leadership to the city of the Ptolemies. While Alexandria was producing a series of learned poets, scholars, and discoverers in science, Athenian literature was mainly rep- resented by the establishment of certain forms of mental and moral philosophy founded on the various Socratic schools. Two schools of philosophy were established at Athens at the time of the death of Aristotle : that of the Academy, in which he him- self had studied, and that of the Lyceum, which he had founded, as the seat of his peripatetic system. But the older schools soon reappeared under new names : the Megarics, with an infusion of the doctrines of Democritus, revived in the skeptic philosophy of Pyrrhon (375-285 B. c.). Epicurus (342-370 B. c.) founded the school to which he gave his name, by a similar combination of Democritean philosophy with the doctrines of the Cyrenaics ; the Cynics were developed into Stoics by Zeno (341-260 B. c.), who borrowed much from the Megaric school and from the Old Academy ; and, finally, the Middle and New Academy arose from a combination of doctrines which were peculiar to many of these sects. Though these different schools, which flourished at Athens, had early representatives in Alexandria, their different doctrines, coming in contact with the ancient religious systems of the Per- sians, Jews, and Hindus, underwent essential modifications, and gave birth to a kind of electicism, which became later an im- portant element in the development of Christian history. The rationalism of the Platonic school and the supernaturalism of the Jewish Scriptures were chiefly mingled together, and from this amalgamation sprang the system of Neo-Platonism. When the early teachers of Christianity at Alexandria strove to show the harmony of the Gospel with the great principles of the Greco- Jewish philosophy, it underwent new modifications, and the Neo-Platonic school, which sprang up in Alexandria three cen- turies B. c., was completed in the first and second centuries of the Christian era. The common characteristic of the Neo-Pla- tonists was a tendency to mysticism. Some of them believed that 112 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. they were the subjects of divine inspiration and illumination; able to look into the future and to work miracles. Philo-Judaeus (fl. 20 B. c.), Numenius (fl. 150 A. D.), Ammonius Saccas (fl. 200 A. D.), Plotinus (fl. 260 A. D.), Porphyry (fl. 260 A. D.), and sev- eral fathers of the Greek Church are among the principal dis- ciples of this school. 5. ANTI-NEO-PLATONIC TENDENCIES. While the Neo-Pla- tonism of Alexandria introduced into Greek philosophy Oriental ideas and tendencies, other positive and practical doctrines also prevailed, founded on common sense and conscience. First among these were the tenets of the Stoics, who owed their sys- tem mainly and immediately to the teaching of Epictetus (fl. 60 A. D), who opposed the Oriental enthusiasm of the Neo-Platonists. He was originally a slave, and became a prominent teacher of philosophy in Rome, in the reign of Domitian. He left nothing in writing, and we are indebted for a knowledge of his doctrines to Arrian, who compiled his lectures or philosophical disserta- tions in eight books, of which only four are preserved, and the " Manual of Epictetus," a valuable compendium of the doctrines of the Stoics. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius not only lectured at Rome on the principles of Epictetus, but he left us his pri- vate meditations, composed in the midst of a camp, and exhibit- ing the serenity of a mind which had made itself independent of outward actions and warring passions within. Lucian (fl. 150 A. D.) may be compared to Voltaire, whom he equaled in his powers both of rhetoric and ridicule, and surpassed in his more conscientious and courageous love of truth. Though the results of his efforts against heathenism were merely negative, he prepared the way for Christianity by giving, the death-blow to declining idolatry. Lucian, as a man of letters, is on many accounts interesting, and in reference to his own age and to the literature of Greece he is entitled to an important position both with regard to the religious and philosophical results of his works, and to the introduction of a purer Greek style, which he taught and exemplified. Longinus (fl. 230 A. D.), both as an opponent of Neo-Platonism and as a sound and sensible critic, occupies a position similar to that of Lucian, in the declining period of Greek literary history. During a visit to the East, he became known to Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, who adopted the celebrated scholar as her instructor in the language and lit- erature of Greece, her adviser and chief minister ; and when Palmyra fell before the Roman power he was put to death by the Roman emperor. To his treatise on " The Sublime " he is chiefly indebted for his fame. When France, in the reign of Louis XIV., gave a tone to the literary judgments of Europe, this work was translated by Boileau, and received by the wits of GREEK LITERATURE. 113 Paris as an established manual in all that related to the sublime and beautiful. 6. GREEK LITERATURE IN ROME. After the subjugation of Greece by the Romans, Greek authors wrote in their own lan- guage and published their works in Rome ; illustrious Romans chose the idiom of Plato as the best medium for the expression of their own thoughts ; dramatic poets gained a reputation by imitating the tragedies and comedies of Athens, and every ver- sifier felt compelled by fashion to revive the metres of ancient Greece. This naturalization of Greek literature at Rome was due to the rudeness and poverty of the national literature of Italy, to the influence exerted by the Greek colonies, and to the political subjugation of Greece. In Rome, Greek libraries were established by the Emperor Augustus and his successors ; and the knowledge of the Greek language was considered a necessary accomplishment. Cicero made his countrymen acquainted with the philosophical schools of Athens, and Rome became more and more the rival of Alexandria, both as a receptacle for the best Greek writings and as a seat of learning, where Greek authors found appreciation and patronage. The Greek poets, who were fostered and encouraged at Rome, were chiefly writers of epi- grams, and their poems are preserved in the collections called "Anthologies." The growing demand for forensic eloquence naturally led the Roman orators to find their examples in those of Athens, and to the study of rhetoric in the Grecian writers. Among the writers on rhetoric whose works seem to have produced the greatest effect at the beginning of the Roman pe- riod, we mention Dionysius of Halicarnassus (fl. 7 B. c.). As a critic, he occupies the first rank among the ancients. Besides his rhetorical treatises, he wrote a work on " Roman Archaeol- ogy," the object of which was to show that the Romans were not, after all, barbarians, as was generally supposed, but a pure Greek race, whose institutions, religion, and manners were trace- able to an identity with those of the noblest Hellenes. What Dionysius endeavored to do for the gratification of his own countrymen, by giving them a Greek version of Roman his- tory, an accomplished Jew, who lived about a century later, at- tempted, from the opposite point of view, for his own fallen race, in a work which was a direct imitation of that just de- scribed. Flavius Josephus (fl. 60 A. D.) wrote the "Jewish Archaeology " in order to show the Roman conquerors of Jeru- salem that the Jews did not deserve the contempt with which they were universally regarded. His " History of the Jewish Wars " is an able and valuable work. At an earlier period, Polybius (204-122 B. c.) wrote to ex- plain to the Greeks how the power of the Romans had estab- 8 114 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. lished itself in Greece. His great work was a universal history, but of the forty books of which it consisted only five have been preserved ; perhaps no historical work has ever been written with such definiteness of purpose or unity of plan, or with such self-consciousness on the part of the writer. The object to which he directs attention is the manner in which fortune or provi- dence uses the ability and energy of man as instruments in car- rying out what is predetermined, and specially the exemplifica- tion of these principles in the wonderful growth of the Roman power during the fifty-three years of which he treats. Taking his history as a whole, it is hardly possible to speak in too high terms of it, though the style has many blemishes, such as endless digressions, wearisome repetition of his own principles and collo- quial vulgarisms. Diodorus, a native of Sicily, generally known as the Sicilian (Siculus), flourished in the time of the first two Caesars. In his great work, the " Historical Library," it was his object to write a history of the world down to the commencement of Caesar's Gallic wars. He is content to give a bare recital of the facts, which crowded upon him and left him no time to be diffuse or ornamental. The geography of Strabo (fl. 10 A. D.), which has made his name familiar to modern scholars, has come down to us very nearly complete. Its merits are literary rather than scientific. His object was to give an instructive and readable account of the known world, from the point of view taken by a Greek man of letters. His style is simple, unadorned, and unaffected. Plutarch (40-120 A. D.) may be classed among the philoso- phers as well as among the historians. Though he has left many essays and works on different subjects, he is best known as a bi- ographer. His lives of celebrated Greeks and Romans have made his name familiar to the readers of every country. The universal popularity of his biographies is due to the fact that they are dramatic pictures, in which each personage is repre- sented as acting according to his leading characteristics. Pausanias (fl. 184 A. D.), a professed describer of countries and of their antiquities and works of art, in his " Gazetteer of Hellas " has left the best repertory of information for the topog- raphy, local history, religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of the different states of Greece. Among the scientific men of this period we find Ptolemy, whose name for more than a thousand years was coextensive with the sciences of astronomy and geography. He was a native of Alexandria, and flourished about the latter part of the second century. The best known of his works is his " Great Construc- tion of Astronomy." He was the first to indicate the true shape GREEK LITERATURE. 115 of Spain, Gaul, and Ireland ; as a writer, he deserves to be held in high estimation. Galen (fl. 130 A. D.) was a writer on phi- losophy and medicine, with whom few could vie in productive- ness. It was his object to combine philosophy with medical science, and his works for fifteen centuries were received as oracular authorities throughout the civilized world. 7. CONTINUED DECLINE OF GREEK LITERATURE. The adoption of the Christian religion by Constantine, and his estab- lishment of the seat of government in his new city of Constanti- nople, concurred in causing the rapid decline of Greek literature in the fourth and following centuries. Christianity, no longer the object of persecution, became the dominant religion of the state, and the profession of its tenets was the shortest road to influence and honor. The old literature, with its mythological allusions, became less and less fashionable, and the Greek poets, philosophers, and orators of the better periods gradually lost their attractions. Greek, the official language of Constantinople, was spoken there, with different degrees of corruption, by Syr- ians, Bulgarians, and Goths ; and thus, as Christianity under- mined the old classical literature, the political condition of the capital deteriorated the language itself. Other causes accel- erated the decadence of Greek learning : the great library at Alexandria, and the school which had been established in con- nection with it, were destroyed at the end of the fourth century by the edict of Theodosius, and the conquest of Egypt by the Saracens in the seventh century only completed the work of de- struction. Justinian closed the schools of Athens, and prohibited the teaching of philosophy ; the Arabs overthrew those estab- lished elsewhere, and there remained only the institutions of Con- stantinople. But long before the establishment of the Turks on the ruins of the Byzantine empire, Greek literature had ceased to claim any original or independent existence. The opposition between the literary spirit of heathen Greece and the Christian scholarship of the time of Constantine and his immediate suc- cessors, which grew up very gradually, was the result of the Oriental superstitions which distorted Christianity and disturbed the old philosophy. The abortive attempt of the Emperor Jul- ian to create a reaction in favor of heathenism was the cause of the open antagonism between the classical and Christian forms of literature. The church, however, was soon enabled not only to dictate its own rules of literary criticism, but to destroy the writings of its most formidable antagonists. The last rays of heathen cultivation in Italy were extinguished in the gloomy dungeon of Boethius, and the period so justly designated as the Dark Ages began both in eastern and western Europe. 8. LAST ECHOES OF THE OLD LITERATURE. From the time 116 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. when Christianity placed itself in opposition to the old culture of heathen Greece and Rome, down to the period of the revival of classical literature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the classical spirit was nearly extinct both in eastern and west- ern Europe. In Italy, the triumph of barbarism was more sud- den and complete. In the eastern empire there was a certain literary activity, and in the department of history, Byzantine literature was conspicuously prolific. The imperial family of the Comneni, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the Palseologi, who reigned from the thir- teenth century to the end of the eastern empire, endeavored to revive the taste for literature and learning. But the echoes of the past became fainter and fainter, and when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks, 1453 A. D., the wandering Greeks who found their way into Italy could only serve as lan- guage-masters to a race of scholars, who thus recovered the learning that had ceased to exist among the Greeks themselves. The last manifestations of the old classical learning by the Alexandrian school, which had done so much in the second and first centuries before our era, may be divided into three classes. In the first are placed the mathematical and geographical stud- ies, which had been brought to such perfection by Euclid, his successors, and after them by Ptolemy. In the second class we have the substitution of prose romances for the bucolic and erotic poetry of the Alexandrian and Sicilian writers. In the third class the revival, by Nonnus and his followers, of a learned epos, of much the same kind as the poems of Callimachus. Among the representatives of the mathematical school of Alex- andria was Theon, whose celebrity is obscured by that of his daughter Hypatia (fl. 415 A. D.), whose sex, youth, beauty, and cruel fate have made her a most interesting martyr of philoso- phy. She presided in the public school at Alexandria, where she taught mathematics and the philosophy of Ammonius and Plotinus. Her influence over the educated classes of that city excited the jealousy of the archbishop. She was given up to the violence of a superstitious and brutal mob, attacked as she was passing through the streets in her chariot, torn in pieces, and her mutilated body thrown to the flames. When rhetorical prose superseded composition in verse, the greater facility of style naturally led to more detailed narratives, and the sophist who would have been a poet in the time of Calli- machus, became a writer of prose romances in the final period of Greek literature. The first ascertained beginning of this style of light reading, which occupies so large a space in the cata- logues of modern libraries, was in the time of the Emperor Tra- jan, when a Syrian or Babylonian freedman, named lamblichus, GREEK LITERATURE. 11T published a love story called the " Babylonian Adventures." Among his successors is Longus, of whose work, " The Lesbian Adventure," it is sufficient to say, that it was the model of the " Diana " of Montemayor, the " Aminta " of Tasso, the " Pas- tor Fido " of Guarini, and the " Gentle Shepherd " of Allan Ramsay. While the sophists were amusing themselves by clothing erotic and bucolic subjects in rhetorical prose, an Egyptian boldly revived the epos which had been cultivated at Alexandria in the earliest days of the Museum. Nonnus probably flourished at the commencement of the fifth century A. D. His epic poem, which, in accordance with the terminology of the age, is called " Dionysian Adventures," is an enormous farrago of learning on the well-worked subject of Bacchus. The most interesting of the epic productions of the school of Nonnus is the story of " Hero and Leander," in 340 verses, which bears the name of Musseus. For grace of diction, metrical elegance, and simple pathos, this little canto stands far before the other poems of the same age. The Hero and Leander of Musaeus is the dying swan-note of Greek poetry, the last distinct note of the old music of HeUas. In the Byzantine literature, there are works which claim no originality, but have a higher value than their contemporaries, because they give extracts or fragments of the lost writings of the best days of Greece. Next in value follow the lexicogra- phers, the grammarians, and commentators. The most volumi- nous department, however, of Byzantine literature, was that of the historians, annalists, chroniclers, biographers, and anti- quarians, whose works form a continuous series of Byzantine annals from the time of Constantine the Great to the taking of the capital by the Turks. This literature was also enlivened by several poets, and enriched by some writers on natural history ,nd medicine. 9. THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE GREEK FATHERS. The history of Greek literature would be imperfect without some allusion to a class of writings not usually included in the range of classical studies. The first of these works, the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, before mentioned, and the Greek Apocrypha, may properly be termed Hebrew-Grecian. Their spirit is wholly at variance with that of pagan literature, and it cannot be doubted that they exerted great influence when made known to the pagans of Alexandria. Many of the books termed the Apocrypha were originally written in Greek, and mostly before the Christian era. Many of them- contain authentic nar- ratives, and are valuable as illustrating the circumstances of the age to which they refer. The other class of writings alluded 118 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. to comprehends the works of the Christian authors. As the iiv fluence of Christianity became more diffused during the first and second centuries, its regenerating power became visible. After the time of Christ, there appeared, in both the Greek and Latin tongues, works wholly different in their spirit and character from all that is found in pagan literature. The collection of sacred writings contained in the New Testament and the works of the early fathers constitute a distinct and interesting feature in the literature of the age in which they appeared. The writ- ings of the New Testament, considered simply in their literary aspect, are distinguished by a simplicity, earnestness, natural- ness, and beauty that find no parallel in the literature of the world. But the consideration must not be overlooked, that they were the work of those men who wrote as they were moved of the Holy Ghost, that they contain the life and the teachings of the great Founder of our faith, and that they come to us invested with divine authority. Their influence upon the ages which have succeeded them is incalculable, and it is still widen- ing as the knowledge of Christianity increases. The composition of the New Testament is historical, epistolary, and prophetic. The first five books, or the historical division, contain an account of the life and death of our Saviour, and some account of the first movements of the Apostles. The epistolary division con- sists of letters addressed by the Apostles to the different churches or to individuals. The last, the book of Revelation, the only part that is considered prophetic, differs from the others in its use of that symbolical language which had been common to the Hebrew prophets, in the sublimity and majesty of its imagery, and in its prediction of the final and universal triumph of Christianity. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers, or the immediate suc- cessors of the Apostles, were held in high estimation by the primitive Christians. Of those who wrote under this denomina- tion, the venerable Polycarp and Ignatius, after they had both attained the age of eighty years, sealed their faith in the blood of martyrdom. The former was burned at the stake in Smyrna, and the latter devoured by lions in the amphitheatre of Rome. In the second and third centuries, Christianity numbered among its advocates many distinguished scholars and philosophers, par- ticularly among the Greeks. Their productions may be classed under the heads of biblical, controversial, doctrinal, historical, and homiletical. Among the most distinguished of the Greek fathers were Justin Martyr (fl. 89 A. D.), an eminent Christian philosopher and speculative thinker ; Clement of Alexandria (fl. 190 A. D.), who has left us a collection of works, which, fop learning and literary talent, stand unrivaled among the writings GREEK LITERATURE. 119 of the early Christian fathers ; Origen (184-253 A. D.), who, in his numerous works, attempted to reconcile philosophy with Christianity; Eusebius (fl. 325 A. D.), whose ecclesiastical his- tory is ranked among the most valuable remains of Christian antiquity ; Athanasius, famous for his controversy with Arius ; Gregory Nazianzen (329-390 A. D.), distinguished for his rare union of eloquence and piety, a great orator and theologian ; Basil (329-379 A. D. ) whose works, mostly of a purely theolog- ical character, exhibit occasionally decided proofs of his strong feeling for the beauties of nature ; and John Chrysostom (347 407 A. D.), the founder of the art of preaching, whose extant homilies breathe a spirit of sincere earnestness and of true genius. To these may be added Nemesius (fl. 400 A. D.), whose work on the "Nature of Man " is distinguished by the purity of its style and by the traces of a careful study of classical authors, and Synesius (378-430 A. D.), who maintained the parallel im- portance of pagan and Christian literature, and who has always been held in high estimation for his epistles, hymns, and dramas. MODERN LITERATURE. At the time of the fall of Constantinople, ancient Greek was still the vehicle of literature, and as such it has been preserved to our day. After the political changes of the present century, however, it was felt by the best Greek writers that the old forms were no longer fitted to express modern ideas, and hence it has become transfused with those better adapted to the clear and rapid expression of modern literature, though at the same time the body and substance, as well as the grammar, of the language have been retained. From an early age, along with the literary language of Greece, there existed a conversational language, which varied in different localities, and out of this grew the Modern Greek or Neo-Hellenic. After the fall of Constantinople, the Greeks were prominent in spreading a knowledge of their language through Europe, and but few works of importance were produced. During the eight- eenth century a revival of enthusiasm for education and litera- ture took place, and a period of great literary activity has since followed. Perhaps no nation now produces so much literature in proportion to its numbers, although the number of readers is small and there are great difficulties in publishing. In these cir- cumstances, the Ralli and other distinguished Greeks have nobly come forward and published books at their own expense, and great activity prevails in every department of letters. Since the establishment of Greek independence, three writers 120 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. have secured for themselves a permanent place in literature as men of true genius : the two brothers Panagiotis and Alexander Santsos, and Alexander Rangabe. The brothers Santsos threw all their energies into the war for independence and sang of its glories. Panagiotis (d. 1868) was always lyrical, and Alexan- der (d. 1863) always satirical. Both were highly ideal in their conceptions, and both had a rich command of musical language. The other great poet of regenerated Greece is Alexander Ran- gabe, whose works range through almost every department of literature, though it is on his poems that his claim to remem- brance will specially rest. They are distinguished by fine poetic feeling, rare command of exquisite and harmonious language, and singular beauty and purity of thought. His poetical works consist of hymns, odes, songs, narrative poems, ballads, trage- dies, comedies, and translations. There is no department in prose literature which is not well represented in modern Greek, and many women have particularly distinguished themselves. ROMAN LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. Roman Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language; Ethno- graphical Elements of the Latin Language ; the Umbrian ; Oscan ; Etruscan ; the Old Roman Tongue ; Saturnian Verse ; Peculiarities of the Latin Language. 3. The Roman Religion. PERIOD FIRST. 1. Early Literature of the Romans ; the Fescennine Songs ; the Fabulaj Atellaiue. 2. Early Latin Poets ; Livius Andronicus, Nsevius, and Ennius. 3. Roman Comedy. 4. Comic Poets; Plautus, Terence, and Statius. 5. Roman Tragedy. 6. Tragic Poets; Pacuvius and Attius. 7. Satire; Lucilius. 8. History and Oratory ; Fabius Pictor ; Cencius Alimentus ; Cato ; Varro ; M. Antonius ; Crassus ; Hortensius. 9. Roman Jurisprudence. 10. Grammarians. PERIOD SECOND. 1 . Development of the Roman Literature. 2. Mimes, Mimogra- phers, Pantomime ; Laberius and P. Lyrus. 3. Epic Poetry ; Virgil ; The ^liieid. 4. Didactic Poetry ; the Bucolics ; the Georgics ; Lucretius. 5. Lyric Poetry ; Catullus ; Horace. 6. Elegy; Tibullus ; Propertius; Ovid. 7. Oratory and Philosophy ; Cicero. 8. History ; J. Caesar ; Sallust ; Livy. 9. Other Prose Writers. PERIOD THIRD. 1. Decline of Roman Literature. 2. Fable; Phsedrus. 3. Satire and Epigram ; Persius, Juvenal, Martial. 4. Dramatic Literature ; the Tragedies of Seneca. 5. Epic Poetry ; Lucan ; Silius Italicus ; Valerius Flaccus ; P. Statius. 6. History ; Paterculus ; Tacitus ; Suetonius ; Q. Curtius ; Valerius Maximus. 7. Rhetoric and Eloquence; Qnintilian ; Pliny the Younger. 8. Philosophy and Science; Seneca; Pliny the Elder ; Celsus ; P. Mela ; Columella ; Frontinus. 9. Roman Literature from Hadrian to Theodoric ; Claudian ; Eutropius ; A. Marcellinus ; S. Sulpicius ; Gellius ; Macrobius ; L. Apuleius ; JJoethius ; the Latin Fathers. 10. Roman Jurisprudence. INTRODUCTION. 1. ROMAN LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS. Inferior to Greece in the genius of its inhabitants, and, perhaps, in the in- trinsic greatness of the events of which it was the theatre, un- questionably inferior in the fruits of intellectual activity, Italy holds the second place in the classic literature of antiquity. Etruria could boast of arts, legislation, scientific knowledge, a fanciful mythology, and a form of dramatic spectacle, before the foundations of Rome were laid. But, like the ancient Egyptians, the Etrurians made no progress in composition. Verses of an irregular structure and rude in sense and harmony appear to have formed the highest limit of their literary achievements. Nor did even the opulent and luxurious Greeks of Southern Italy, while they retained their independence, contribute much to the glory of letters in the West. It was only in their fall that they did good service to the cause, when they redeemed the disgrace of their political humiliation by the honor of communi- cating the first impulse towards intellectual refinement to the bosoms of their conquerors. When, in the process of time, Sic- ily, Macedonia, and Achaia had become Roman provinces, some acquaintance with the language of their new subjects proved to be a matter almost of necessity to the victorious people ; but 122 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the first impression made at Rome by the productions of the Grecian Muse, and the first efforts to create a similar literature, must be traced to the conquest of Tarentum (272 B. c.)t From that memorable period, the versatile talents which distinguished the Greeks in every stage of national decline began to exercise a powerful influence on the Roman mind, which was particularly felt in the departments of education and amusement. The in- struction of the Roman youth was committed to the skill and learning of Greek slaves ; the spirit of the Greek drama was transferred into the Latin tongue, and, somewhat later, Roman genius and ambition devoted their united energies to the study of Greek rhetoric, which long continued to be the guide and model of those schools, in whose exercises the abilities of Cicero himself were trained. Prejudice and patriotism were powerless to resist this flood of foreign innovation ; and for more than a century after the Tarentine war, legislative influence strove in vain to counteract the predominance of Greek philosophy and eloquence. But this imitative tendency was tempered by the pride of Roman citizenship. That sentiment breaks out, not merely in the works of great statesmen and warriors, but quite as strikingly in the productions of those in whom the literary character was all in all. It is as prominent in Virgil and Hor- ace as in Cicero and Caesar ; and if the language of Rome, in other respects so inferior to that of Greece, has any advantage over the sister tongue, it lies in that accent of dignity and com- mand which seems inherent in its tones. The austerity of power is not shaded down by those graceful softenings so agreeable to the disposition of the most polished Grecian communities. In the Latin forms and syntax we are everywhere conscious of a certain energetic majesty and forcible compression. We hear, as it were, the voice of one who claims to be respected, and resolves to be obeyed. The Roman classical literature may be divided into three peri- ods. The first embraces its rise and progress, oral and tradi- tional compositions, the rude elements of the drama, the intro- duction of Greek literature, and the construction and perfection of comedy. To this period the first five centuries of the repub- lic may be considered as introductory, for Rome had, properly speaking, no literature until the conclusion of the first Punic war (241 B. c.), and the first period, commencing at that time, ex- tends through 160 years that is, to the first appearance of Cicero in public life, 74 B. c. The second period ends with the death of Augustus, 14 A. D. It comprehends the age of which Cicero is the representative as the most accomplished orator, philosopher, and prose-writer of his time, as well as that of Augustus, which is commonly called the Golden Age of Latin poetry. ROMAN LITERATURE. 123 The third and last period terminates with the death of The- odoric, 526 A. D. Notwithstanding the numerous excellences which distinguished the literature of this time, its decline had evidently commenced, and, as the age of Augustus has been dis- tinguished by the epithet ''golden," the succeeding period, to the death of Hadrian, 138 A. D., on account of its comparative inferiority, has been designated " the Silver Age." From this time to the close of the reign of Theodoric, only a few distin- guished names are to be found. 2. THE LANGUAGE. The origin of the Latin language is necessarily connected with that of the Romans themselves. In the most distant ages to which tradition extends, Italy appears to have been inhabited by three stocks or tribes of the great Indo-European family. One of these is commonly known by the name of Oscans ; another consisted of two branches, the Sabelians or Sabines, and the Umbrians ; the third was called Sikeli, sometimes Vituli or Itali. The original settlements of the Umbrians extended over the district bounded on one side by the Tiber, and on the other by the Po. All the country to the south was in possession of the Oscans, with the exception of Latium, which was inhabited by the Sikeli. But, in process of time, the Oscans, pressed upon by the Sabines, invaded the abodes of this peaceful and rural people, some of whom submitted, and amalgamated with their conquerors ; the rest were driven across the narrow sea into Sic- ily, and gave their name to the island. These tribes were not left in undisturbed possession of their rich inheritance. More than 1000 B. c. there arrived in the northern part of Italy the Pelasgians (or dark Asiatics), an en- terprising race, famed for their warlike spirit and their skill in the arts of peace, who became the civilizers of Italy. They were far advanced in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the science of politics and social life. They enriched their newly acquired country with commerce, and filled it with strongly fortified and populous cities, and their dominion rapidly spread over the whole peninsula. Entering the territory of the Umbrians, they drove them into the mountainous districts, or compelled them to live among them as a subject people, while they possessed themselves of the rich and fertile plains. The headquarters of the invaders was Etruria, and that portion of them who settled there were known as Etrurians. Marching southward, they vanquished the Oscans and occupied the plains of Latium. They did not, however, remain long at peace in the districts which they had conquered. The old inhabitants re- turned from the neighboring highlands to which they had been driven, and subjugated the northern part of Latium, and estab- 124 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. lished a federal union between the towns of the north, of which Alba was the capital, while of the southern confederacy the chief city was Lavinium. At a later period, a Latin tribe, belonging to the Alban fed- eration, established itself on the Mount Palatine, and founded Rome, while a Sabine community occupied the neighboring heights of the Quirinal. Mutual jealousy of race kept them, for some time, separate from each other ; but at length the two communities became one people, called the Romans. These were, at an early period, subjected to Etruscan rule, and when the Etruscan dynasty passed away, its influence still remained, and permanently affected the Roman language. The Etruscan tongue being a compound of Pelasgian and Umbrian, the language of Latium may be considered as the re- sult of those two elements combined with the Oscan, and brought together by the mingling of those different tribes. These ele- ments, which entered into the formation of the Latin, may be classified under two heads : the one which has, the other which has not a resemblance to the Greek. All Latin words which resemble the Greek are Pelasgian, and all which do not are Etruscan, Oscan, or Umbrian. From the first of these classes must be excepted those words which are directly derived from the Greek, the origin of which dates partly from the time when Rome began to have intercourse with the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, partly after the Greeks exercised a direct influ- ence on Roman literature. Of the ancient languages of Italy, which concurred in the formation of the Latin, little is known. The Eugubine Tables are the only extant fragments of the Umbrian language. These were found in the neighborhood of Ugubio, in the year 1444 A. D. ; they date as early as 354 B. c., and contain prayers and rules for religious ceremonies. Some of these tables were en- graved in Etruscan or Umbrian characters, others in Latin let- ters. The remains which have come down to us of the Oscan language belong to a composite idiom made up of the Sabine and Oscan, and consist chiefly of an inscription engraved on a brass plate, discovered in 1793 A. D. As the word Bansse occurs in this inscription, it has been supposed to refer to the town of Bantia, which was situated not far from the spot where the tablet was found, and it is, therefore, called the Bantine Table. The similarity between some of the words found in the Eugubine Tables and in Etruscan inscriptions, shows that the Etruscan language was composed of the Pelasgian and Umbrian, and from the examples given by ethnographers, it is evident that the Etruscan element was most influential in the formation of the Latin language. ROMAN LITERATURE. 125 The old Roman tongue, or lingua prisca, as it was composed of these materials, and as it existed previous to coming in con- tact with the Greek, has almost entirely perished ; it did not grow into the new, like the Greek, by a process of intrinsic development, but it was remoulded by external and foreign in- fluences. So different was the old Roman from the classical Latin, that some of those ancient fragments were with difficulty intelligible to the cleverest and best educated scholars of the Augustan age. An example of the oldest Latin extant is contained in the sacred chant of the Fratres Arvales. These were a college of priests, whose function was to offer prayers for plenteous har- vests, in solemn dances and processions at the opening of spring. Their song was chanted in the temple with closed doors, accom- panied by that peculiar dance which was termed the tripudium, from its containing three beats. The inscription which embodied this litany was discovered in Rome in 1778 A. D. The monu- ment belongs to the reign of Heliogabalus, 218 A. D., but al- though the date is so recent, the permanence of religious formu- las renders it probable that the inscription contains the exact words sung by this priesthood in the earliest times. The " Car- men Saliare," or the Salian hymn, the leges regice, the Tiburtine inscription, the inscription on the sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the great-grandfather of the conqueror of Han- nibal, the epitaph of Lucius Scipio, his son, and, above all, the Twelve Tables, are the other principal extant monuments of ancient Latin. The laws of the Twelve Tables were engraven on tablets of brass, and publicly set up in the comitium ; they were first made public 449 B. c. Most of these literary monuments were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used by the Latin poets. It was prob- ably derived from the Etruscans, and until Ennius introduced the heroic hexameter, the strains of the Italian bards flowed in this metre. The structure of the Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay adduces, as an example of this meas- ure, the following line from the well-known nursery song, " The queen was in her pdrlor, | eating brerid and honey." From this species of verse, which probably prevailed among the natives of Provence (the Roman Provincia), and into which, at a later period, rhyme was introduced as an embellishment, the Troubadours derived the metre of their ballad poetry, and thence introduced it into the rest of Europe. A wide gap separates this old Latin from the Latin of Ennius, tfhose style was formed by Greek taste ; another not so wide is 126 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. interposed between the age of Ennius and that of Plautus and Terence, and lastly, Cicero and the Augustan poets mark an- other age. But in all its periods of development, the Latin bears a most intimate relation with the Greek. This similarity is the result both of their common origin from the primitive Pelasgian and of the intercourse which the Romans at a later period held with the Greeks. Latin, however, had not the plastic property of the Greek, the faculty of transforming itself into every variety of form and shape conceived by the fancy and imagination ; it partook of the spirit of Roman nationality, of the conscious dignity of the Roman citizen, of the indomitable will that led that people to the conquest of the world. In its construction, instead of conforming to the thought, it bends the thought to its own genius. It is a fit language for expressing the thoughts of an active and practical, but not of an imaginative and speculative people. It was propagated, like the dominion of Rome, by conquest. It either took the place of the language of the conquered nation, or became ingrafted upon it, and grad- ually pervaded its composition ; hence its presence is discernible in all European languages. 3. THE RELIGION. The religion and mythology of Etruria left an indelible stamp on the rites and ceremonies of the Roman people. At first they worshiped heaven and earth, personified in Saturn and Ops, by whom Juno, Vesta, and Ceres were gen- erated, symbolizing marriage, family, and fertility ; soon after, other Etruscan divinities were introduced, such as Jupiter, Mi- nerva, and Janus ; and Sylvanus and Faunus, who delighted in the simple occupations of rural and pastoral life. From the Etrurians the Romans borrowed, also, the institution of the Ves- tals, whose duty was to watch and keep alive the sacred fire of Vesta ; the Lares and Penates, the domestic gods, which presided over the dwelling and family ; Terminus, the god of property and the rites connected with possession ; and the orders of Augurs and Aruspices, whose office was to consult the flight of birds or to inspect the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice, in order to ascertain future events. The family of the Roman gods continued to increase by adopting the divinities of the con- quered nations, and more particularly by the introduction of those of Greece. The general division of the gods was twofold, the superior and inferior deities. The first class contained the Consentes and the Selecti ; the second, the Indigetes and Semones. The Consentes, so called because they were supposed to form the great council of heaven, consisted of twelve : Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Vulcan, Juno, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, and Vesta. The Selecti were nearly equal to thera in rank, and consisted of eight : Saturn, Pluto, Bacchus, Janus, ROMAN LITERATURE. 127 Sol, Genius, Rhea, and Luna. The Indigites were heroes who were ranked among the gods, and included particularly Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Quirinus or Romulus. The Semones comprehended those deities that presided over particular objects, as Pan, the god of shepherds ; Flora, the goddess of flowers, etc. Besides these, there were among the inferior gods a numerous class of deities, including the virtues and vices and other objects personified. The religion of the Romans was essentially political, and em- ployed as a means of promoting the designs of tn*e state. It was prosaic in its character, and in this respect differed essen- tially from the artistic and poetical religion of the Greeks. The Greeks conceived religion as a free and joyous worship of na- ture, a centre of individuality, beauty, and grace, as well as a source of poetry, art, and independence. With the Romans, on the contrary, religion conveyed a mysterious and hidden idea, which gave to this sentiment a gloomy and unattractive charac- ter, without either moral or artistic influence. PERIOD FIRST. FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR TO THE AGE OF CICERO (241-74 B. c.) 1. EARLY LITERATURE OF THE ROMANS. The Romans, like all other nations, had oral poetical compositions before they possessed any written literature. Cicero speaks of the banquet being enlivened by the songs of bards, in which the exploits of heroes were recited and celebrated. By these lays national pride and family vanity were gratified, and the anecdotes, thus pre- served, furnished sources of early legendary history. But these legends must not be compared to those of Greece, in which the religious sentiment gave a supernatural glory to the effusions of the bard, painted men as heroes and heroes as deities, and, while it was the natural growth of the Greek intellect, twined itself around the affections of the people. The Roman religion was a ceremonial for the priests, and not for the people, and in Ro- man tradition there are no traces of elevated genius or poetical inspiration. The Romans possessed the germs of those faculties which admit of cultivation and improvement, such as taste and genius, and the appreciation of the beautiful ; but they did not possess those natural gifts of fancy and imagination which formed part of the Greek mind, and which made that nation in a state of infancy, almost of barbarism, a poetical people. With them literature was not of spontaneous growth ; it was chiefly the re- sult of the influence exerted by the Etruscans, who were their teachers in everything mental and spiritual. 128 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. The tendency of the Roman mind was essentially utilitarian. Even Cicero, with all his varied accomplishments, will recognize but one end and object of all study, namely, those sciences which will render man useful to his country, and the law of literary development is modified according to this ruling principle. From the very beginning, the first cause of Roman literature will be found to have been a view to utility and not to the satisfaction of an impulsive feeling. In other nations, poetry has been the first spontaneous pro- duction. With the Romans, the first written literary effort was history ; but even their early history was a simple record of facts, not of ideas or sentiments, and valuable only for its truth and accuracy. Their original documents, mere records of mem- orable events anterior to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, per- ished in the conflagration of the city. The earliest attempt at versification made by the rude inhab- itants of Latium was satire in a somewhat dramatic form. The Fescennine songs were metrical, for the accompaniments of mu- sic and dancing necessarily restricted them to measure, and, like the dramatic exhibitions of the Greeks, they had their origin among the rural population, not like them in any religious cere- monial, but in the pastimes of the village festival. At first they were innocent and gay, but liberty at length degenerated into license, and gave birth to malicious and libelous attacks upon persons of irreproachable character. This infancy of song illus- trates the character of the Romans in its rudest and coarsest form. They loved strife, both bodily and mental, and they thus early displayed that taste which, in more polished ages, and in the hands of cultivated poets, was developed in the sharp, cut- ting wit, and the lively but piercing points of Roman satire. In the Fescennine songs the Etruscans probably furnished the spectacle, all that which addresses itself to the eye, while the habits of Italian rural life supplied the sarcastic humor and ready extemporaneous gibe, which are the essence of the true comic. The next advance in point of art must be attributed to the Oscans, whose entertainments were most popular among the Italian nations. They represented in broad caricature national peculiarities. Their language was, originally, Oscan, as well as the characters represented. The principal one resembled the clown of modern pantomime ; another was a kind of pantaloon or charlatan, and much of the rest consisted of practical jokes, like that of the Italian Polincinella. After their introduction at Rome, they received many improvements ; they lost their na- tive rusticity ; their satire was good-natured ; their jests were seemly, and kept in check by the laws of good taste. They were not acted by common professional performers, and even a ROMAN LITERATURE. 129 Roman citizen might take part in them without disgrace. They were known by the name of " Fabulae Atellanae," from Attela, a town in Campania, where they were first performed. They re- mained in favor with the Roman people for centuries. Sylla amused his leisure hours in writing them, and Suetonius bears testimony to their having been a popular amusement under the empire. Towards the close of the fourth century, the Etruscan histri- ones were introduced, whose entertainments consisted of grace- ful national dances, accompanied with the music of the flute, but without either songs or dramatic action. With these dances the Romans combined the old Fescennine songs, and the varied me- tres, which their verse permitted to the vocal parts, gave to this mixed entertainment the name of Satura (a hodge-podge or potpourri), from which, in after times, the word satire was de- rived. 2. EARLY LATIN POETS. At the conclusion of the first Punic war, when the influence of Greek intellect, which had al- ready long been felt in Italy, had extended to the capital, the Romans were prepared for the reception of a more regular drama. But not only did they owe to Greece the principles of literary taste ; their earliest poet was one of that nation. Livius Andronicus (fl. 240 JB. c.), though born in Italy, and educated at Rome, is supposed to have been a native of the Greek colony of Tarentum. He was at first a slave, probably a captive taken in war, but was finally emancipated by his master, in whose family he occupied the position of instructor to his children. He wrote a translation, or perhaps an imitation of the Odyssey, in the old Saturnian metre, and also a few hymns. His principal works, however, were tragedies ; but, from the few fragments of his writings extant, it is impossible to form an estimate of his ability as a poet. According to Livy, Andronicus was the first who substituted, for the rude extemporaneous effusions of the Fescen- nine verse, plays with a regular plot and fable. In consequence of losing his voice, from being frequently encored, he obtained permission to introduce a boy to sing the ode or air to the ac- companiment of the flute, while he himself represented the ac- tion of the song by his gestures and dancing. Nsevius (fl. 235 B. c.) was the first poet who really deserves the name of Roman. He was not a servile imitator, but applied Greek taste and cultivation to the development of Roman senti- ments, and was a true Roman in heart, unsparing in his censure of immorality and his admiration for heroic self-devotion. His honest principles cemented the strong friendship between him and the upright and unbending Cato, a friendship which probably contributed to form the political and literary character of that 9 130 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. stern old Roman. The comedies of Nsevius had undoubted pre- tensions to originality ; he held up to public scorn the vices and follies of his day, and, being a warm supporter of the people against the encroachments of the nobility, and unable to resist indulgence in his satiric vein, he was exiled to Utica, where he died. He was the author of an epic poem on the Punic war. . Ennius and Virgil unscrupulously copied and imitated him, and Horace writes that in his day the poems of Nsevius were in the hands and hearts of everybody. The fragments of his writings extant are not more numerous than those of Livius. Nsevius, the last of the older school of writers, by introducing new principles of taste to his countrymen, altered their stand- ards ; and Greek literature having now driven out its predeces- sor, a new school of poetry arose, of which Ennius (239-169 B. c.) was the founder. He earned a subsistence as a teacher of Greek, was the friend of Scipio, and, at his death, was buried in the family tomb of the Scipios, at the request of the great conqueror of Hannibal, whose fame he contributed to hand down to pos- terity. Cicero always uses the appellation, " our own Ennius," when he quotes his poetry. Horace calls him " Father Ennius," a term which implies reverence and regard, and that he was the founder of Latin poetry. He was, like his friends Cato the censor, and Scipio Africanus the elder, a man of action as well as philosophical thought, and not only a poet, but a brave sol- dier, with all the singleness of heart and simplicity of manners which marked the old times of Roman virtue. Ennius possessed great power over words, and wielded that power skillfully. He improved the language in its harmony and its grammatical forms, and increased its copiousness and power. What he did was im- proved upon, but was never undone ; and upon the foundations he laid, the taste of succeeding ages erected an elegant and beautiful Superstructure. His great epic poem, the " Annals," gained him the attachment and admiration of his countrymen. In this he first introduced the hexameter to the notice of the Romans, and detailed the rise and progress of their national glory, from the earliest legendary period down to his own times. The fragments of this work which remain are amply sufficient to show that he possessed picturesque power, both in sketching his narratives and in portraying his characters, which seem to live and breathe ; his language, dignified, chaste, and severe, rises as high as the most majestic eloquence, but it does not soar to the sublimity of poetry. As a dramatic poet, Ennius does not deserve a high reputation. In comedy, as in tragedy, he never emancipated himself from the Greek originals. 3. ROMAN COMEDY. The rude comedy of the early Roman? made little progress beyond personal satire, burlesque extrava- ROMAN LITERATURE. 131 gance and licentious jesting, but upon this was ingrafted the new Greek comedy, and hence arose that phase of the drama, of which the representatives were Plautus, Statius, and Terence. The Roman comedy was calculated to produce a moral result, although the morality it inculcated was extremely low. Its standard was worldly prudence, its lessons utilitarian, and its philosophy Epicurean. There is a want of variety in the plots, but this defect is owing to the social and political condition of ancient Greece, which was represented in the Greek comedies and copied by the Romans. There is also a sameness in the dramatis personce, the principal characters being always a mo- rose or a gentle father, who is sometimes also the henpecked husband of a rich wife, an affectionate or domineering wife, a good-natured profligate, a roguish servant, a calculating slave- dealer and some others. The actors wore appropriate masks, the features of which were not only grotesque, but much exaggerated and magnified. This was rendered necessary by the immense size of the theatre and stage, and the mouth of the mask answered the purpose of a speaking trumpet, to assist in conveying the voice to every part of the vast building. The characters were known by a con- ventional costume ; old men wore robes of white, y^ung men were attired in gay clothes, rich men in purple, soldiers in scar- let, poor men and slaves in dark and scanty dresses. The com- edy had always a musical accompaniment of flutes of different kinds. In order to understand the principles which regulated the Roman comic metres, it is necessary to observe the manner in which the language itself was affected by the common conver- sational pronunciation. Latin, as it was pronounced, was very different from Latin as it is written ; this difference consisted in abbreviation, either by the omission of sounds altogether, or by the contraction of two sounds into one, and in this respect the conversational language of the Romans resembled that of modern nations ; with them, as with us, the mark of good taste was ease and the absence of pedantry and affectation. In the comic writers we have a complete representation of Latin as it was commonly pronounced and spoken, and but little trammeled or confined by a rigid adhesion to Greek metrical laws. 4. COMIC POETS. Plautus (227-184 B. c.) was a contem- porary of Ennius ; he was a native of Umbria, and of humble origin. Education did not overcome his vulgarity, although it produced a great effect upon his language and style. He must have lived and associated with the people whose manners he describes, hence his pictures are correct and truthful. The class from which his representations are taken consisted of 132 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. clients, the sons of freedmen and the half-enfranchised natives of Italian towns. He had no aristocratic friends, like Ennius and Terence ; the Roman public were his patrons, and notwith- standing their faults, his comedies retained their popularity even in the Augustan age, and were acted as late as the reign of Diocletian. Life, bustle, surprise, unexpected situations, sharp, sparkling raillery that knew no restraint nor bound, left his audience no time for dullness or weariness. Although Greek was the fountain from which he drew his stores, his wit, thought, and language were entirely Roman, and his style was Latin of the purest and most elegant kind not, indeed, controlled by much deference to the laws of metrical harmony, but full of pith and sprightliness, bearing the stamp of colloquial vivacity, and suitable to the general briskness of his scenes. Yet in the tone of his dialogue we miss all symptoms of deference to the taste of the more polished classes of society. Almost all his comedies were adopted from the new comedy of the Greeks, and though he had studied both the old and the middle comedy, Menander and others of the same school furnished him the originals of his plots. The popularity of Plautus was not confined to Rome, either republican or imperial. Dramatic writers of modern times, as Shakspeare, Dryden, and Moliere, have recognized the effec- tiveness of his plots, and have adopted or imitated them. About twenty of his plays are extant, among which the Captivi, the Epidicus, the Cistellaria, the Aulularia, and the Rudens are considered the best. Terence (193-158 B. c.) was a slave in the family of a Roman senator, and was probably a native of Carthage. His genius presented the rare combination of all the fine and delicate quali- ties which characterized Attic sentiment, without corrupting the native purity of the Latin language. The elegance and grace- fulness of his style show that the conversation of the accom- plished society, in which he was a welcome guest, was not lost upon his correct ear and quick intuition. So far as it can be so, comedy was, in the hands of Terence, an instrument of moral teaching. Six of his comedies only remain, of which the Andrian and the Adelphi are the most interesting. If Terence was infe- rior to Plautus in life, bustle, and intrigue, and in the delinea- tion of national character, he is superior in elegance of language and refinement of taste. The justness of his reflections 'more than compensates for the absence of his predecessor's humor ; he touches the heart as well as gratifies the intellect. Of the few other writers of comedy among the Romans, Sta- tius may be mentioned, who flourished between Plautus and Terence. He was an emancipated slave, born in Milan. Cicero and Varro have pronounced judgment upon his merits, the sul> ROMAN LITERATURE. 133 itance of which appears to be, that his excellences consisted in the conduct of the plot, in dignity, and in pathos, while his fault was too little care in preserving the purity of the Latin style. The fragments, however, of his works, which remain are not sufficient to test the opinion of the ancient critics. 5. ROMAN TRAGEDY. While Roman comedy was brought to perfection under the influence of Greek literature, Roman tragedy, on the other hand, was transplanted from Athens, and, with few exceptions, was never anything more than translation or imitation. In the century during which, together with com- edy, it flourished and decayed, it boasted of five distinguished writers, Livius, Naevius, Ennius (already spoken of), Pacuvius, and Attius. In after ages, Rome did not produce one tragic poet, unless Varius be considered an exception. The tragedies attributed to Seneca were never acted, and were only composed for reading and recitation. Among the causes which prevented tragedy from flourishing at Rome was the little influence the national legends exerted over the people. These legends were more often private than public property, and ministered more to the glory of private families than to that of the nation at large. They were em- balmed by their poets as curious records of antiquity, but they did not, like the venerable traditions of Greece, twine them- selves around the heart of the nation. Another reason why Roman legends had not the power to move the affections of the Roman populace is to be found in the changes the masses had undergone. The Roman people wsre no longer the descendants of those who had maintained the national glory in the early period ; the patrician families were almost extinct ; war and poverty had extinguished the middle classes and miserably thinned the lower orders. Into the vacancy thus caused, poured thousands of slaves, captives in the bloody wars of Gaul, Spain, Greece, and Africa. These and their descendants replaced the ancient people, and while many of them by their talents and energy arrived at wealth and station, they could not possibly be Romans at heart, or consider the past glories of their adopted country as their own. It was to the rise of this new element of population, and the displacement or absorption of the old race, that the decline of patriotism was owing, and the disregard of everything except daily sustenance and daily amusement, which paved the way for the empire and marked the downfall of lib- erty. With the people of Athens, tragedy formed a part of the national religion. By it the people were taught to sympathize with their heroic ancestors ; the poet was held to be inspired, and poetry the tongue in which the natural held communion with the supernatural. With the Romans, the theatre was merely a "134 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. place for secular amusement, and poetry only an exercise of the fancy. Again, the religion of the Romans was not ideal, like that of the Greeks. The old national faith of Italy, not being rooted in the heart, soon became obsolete, and readily admitted the ingrafting of foreign superstitions, which had no hold on the belief or love of the people. Nor was the genius of the Roman people such as to sympathize with the legends of the past ; they lived only in the present and the future ; they did npt look back on their national heroes as demigods ; they were pressing for- ward to extend the frontiers of their empire, to bring under their yoke nations which their forefathers had not known. If they regarded their ancestors at all, it was not in the light of men of heroic stature as compared with themselves, but as those whom they could equal or even surpass. The scenes of real life, the bloody combats of the gladiators, the captives, and malefactors stretched on crosses, expiring in excruciating agonies or mangled by wild beasts, were the trage- dies which most deeply interested a Roman audience. The Romans were a rough people, full of physical rather than of intellectual energy, courting peril and setting no value on hu- man life or suffering. Their very virtues were stern and severe ; they were strangers to both the passions which it was the object of tragedy to excite pity and terror. In the public games of Greece, the refinements of poetry mingled with those exercises which were calculated to invigorate the physical powers, and develop manly beauty. Those of Rome were sanguinary and brutalizing, the amusements of a nation to whom war was a pleasure and a pastime. It cannot be asserted, however, that tragedy was never to a certain extent an acceptable entertainment at Rome, but only that it never flourished there as it did at Athens, and that no Roman tragedies can be compared with those of Greece. 6. TRAGIC POETS. Three separate eras produced tragic poets. In the first flourished Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius ; in the second, Pacuvius and Attius ; in the third, Asi- nius Pollio wrote tragedies, the plots of which seem to have been taken from Roman history. Ovid attempted a \ l Medea," and even the Emperor Augustus, with other men of genius, tried his hand, though unsuccessfully, at tragedy. In the second of the eras mentioned, Roman tragedy reached its highest degree of perfection simultaneously with that of comedy. While Terence was successfully reproducing the wit and manners of the new Attic comedy, Pacuvius (220-130 B. c.) was enriching the Roman drama with free translations of the Greek tragedians. He was a native of Brundusium and a grand- son of the poet Ennius. At Rome he distinguished himself as ROMAN LITERATURE. 135 a painter as well as a dramatic poet. His tragedies were not mere translations, but adaptations of Greek tragedies to the Roman stage. The fragments which are extant are full of new and original thoughts, and the very roughness of his style and audacity of his expressions have somewhat of the solemn grand- eur and picturesque boldness which distinguish the father of Attic tragedy. Attius (fl. 138 B. c.), though born later than Pacuvius, was almost his contemporary, and a competitor for popular applause. He is said to have written more than fifty tragedies, of which fragments only remain. His taste is chastened, his sentiments noble, and his versification elegant. With him, Latin tragedy disappeared. The tragedies of the third period were written expressly for reading and recitation, and not for the stage : they were dramatic poems, not dramas. Amidst the scenes of horror and violence which followed, the voice of the tragic muse was hushed. Massacre and rapine raged through the streets of Rome, itself a theatre where the most terrible scenes were daily enacted. 7. SATIRE. The invention of satire is universally attributed to the Romans, and this is true as far as the external form is concerned, but the spirit is found in many parts of the litera- ture of Greece. Ennius was the inventor of the name, but Lucilius (148-102 B. c.) was the father of satire, in the proper sense. His satires mark an era in Roman literature, and prove that a love for this species of poetry had already made great progress. Hitherto, literature, science, and art had been con- sidered the province of slaves and freedmen. The stern old Roman virtue despised such sedentary employment as intellectual cultivation, and thought it unworthy of the warrior and states- man. Some of the higher classes loved literature and patron- ized it, but did not make it their pursuit. Lucilius was a Ro- man knight, as well as a poet. His satires were comprised in thirty books, numerous fragments of which are still extant. He was a man of high moral principle, though stern and stoical ; a relentless enemy of vice and profligacy, and a gallant and fearless defender of truth and honesty. After the death of Lucilius satire languished, until half a century later, when it assumed a new garb in the descriptive scenes of Horace, and put forth its original vigor in the burning thoughts of Persius and Juvenal. 8. HISTORY AND ORATORY . Prose was far more in accord- ance with the genius of the Romans than poetry. As a nation, they had little or no imaginative power, no enthusiastic love of natural beauty, and no acute perception of the sympathy be- tween man and the external world. The favorite civil pursuit 136 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. of an enlightened Roman was statesmanship, and the subjects akin to it, history, jurisprudence, and oratory, the natural lan- guage of which was prose, not poetry. And their practical states- manship gave an early encouragement to oratory, which is pecul- iarly the literature of active life. As matter was more valued than manner by this utilitarian people, it was long before it was thought necessary to embellish prose composition with the graces of rhetoric. The fact that Roman literature was imitative rather than inventive, gave a historical bias to the Roman intel- lect, and a tendency to study subjects from an historical point of view. But even in history, they never attained that compre- hensive and philosophical spirit which distinguished the Greek historians. The most ancient writer of Roman history was Fabius Pictor (fl. 219 B. c.). His principal work, written in Greek, was a his- tory of the first and second Punic war, to which subsequent writers were much indebted. Contemporary with Fabius was Cincius Alimentus, also an annalist of the Punic war, in which he was personally engaged. He was a prisoner of Hannibal, who delighted in the society of literary men, and treated him with great kindness and consideration, and himself communi- cated to him the details of his passage across the Alps. Like Fabius, he wrote his work in Greek, and prefixed to it a brief abstract of Roman history. Though the works of these anna- lists are valuable as furnishing materials for more philosophical minds, they are such as could have existed only in the infancy of a national literature. They were a bare compilation of facts the mere framework of history diversified by no critical remarks or political reflections, and meagre and insipid in style. The versatility of talent displayed by Cato the censor (224- 144 B. c.) entitles him to a place among orators, jurists, econ- omists, and historians. His life extends over a wide and impor- tant period of literary history, when everything was in a state of change, morals, social habits, and literary taste. Cato was born in Tusculum, and passed his boyhood ii the pursuits of rural life at a small Sabine farm belonging to his father. The skill with which he pleaded the causes of his clients before the rural magistracy made his abilities known, and he rose rapidly to eminence as a pleader,. He filled many high offices of state. His energies were not weakened by advancing age, and he was always ready as the advocate of virtue, the champion of the op- pressed, and the punisher of vice. With many defects, Cato was morally and intellectually one of the greatest men Rome ever produced. He had the ability and the determination to excel in everything which he undertook. His style is rude, un polished, ungraceful, because to him polish was superficial, and, ROMAN LITERATURE. 137 therefore, unreal. His statements, however, were clear, his il- lustrations striking ; the words with which he enriched his na- tive tongue were full of meaning ; his wit was keen and lively, and his arguments went straight to the intellect, and carried con- viction with them. Cato's great historical and antiquarian work, " The Origins," ' was a history of Italy and Rome from the earliest times to the latest events which occurred in his own lifetime. It was a work of great research and originality, but only brief fragments of it remain. In the " De Re Rustica," which has come down to us in form and substance as it was written, Cato maintains, in the introduction, the superiority of agriculture over other modes of gaining a livelihood. The work itself is a commonplace book of agriculture and domestic economy ; its object is utility, not science : it serves the purpose of a farmer's and gardener's man- ual, a domestic medicine, herbal, and cookery book. Cato teaches his readers, for example, how to plant osier beds, to cultivate vegetables, to preserve the health of cattle, to pickle pork, and to make savory dishes. Of the " Orations " of Cato, ninety titles are extant, together with numerous fragments. In style he despised art. He was too fearless and upright, too confident in the justness of his cause to be a rhetorician ; he imitated no one, and no one was ever able to imitate him. Niebuhr pronounces him to be the only great man in his generation, and one of the greatest and most honorable characters in Roman history. Varro (11628 B. c.) was an agriculturist, a grammarian, a critic, a theologian, a historian, a philosopher, a satirist. Of his miscellaneous works considerable portions are extant, sufficient to display his erudition and acuteness, yet, in themselves, more curious than attractive. Eloquence, though of a rude, unpolished kind, must have been, in the very earliest times, a characteristic of the Roman people. It is a plant indigenous to a free soil. As in modern times it has flourished especially in England and America, fostered by the unfettered freedom of debate, so it found a congenial home in free Greece and republican Rome. Oratory was, in Rome, the unwritten literature of active life, and recommended itself to a warlike and utilitarian people by its utility and its antago- nistic spirit. Long before the art of the historian was sufficiently advanced to record a speech, the forum, the senate, the battle- field, and the threshold of the jurisconsult had been nurseries of Roman eloquence, or schools in which oratory attained a vigor- ous youth, and prepared for its subsequent maturity. While the legal and political constitution of the Roman people gave direct encouragement to deliberative and judicial oratory, Of I TTNv 138 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. respect for the illustrious dead furnished opportunities for pane- gyric. The song of the bard in honor of the departed warrior gave place to the funeral oration. Among the orators of this time were the two Scipios, and Galba, whom Cicero praises as having been the first Roman who understood how to apply the theoretical principles of Greek rhetoric. All periods of political disquiet are necessarily favorable to eloquence, and the era of the Gracchi was especially so. After a struggle of nearly four centuries the old distinction of plebeian and patrician no longer existed. Plebeians held high offices, and patricians, like the Gracchi, stood forward as champions of popular rights. These stirring times produced many celebrated orators. The Gracchi themselves were both eloquent and pos- sessed of those qualities and endowments which would recom- mend their eloquence to their countrymen. Oratory began now to be studied more as an art, and the interval between the Gracchi and Cicero boasted of many distinguished names ; the most illustrious among them are M. Antonius, Crassus, and Cic- ero's contemporary and most formidable rival, Hortensius. M. Antonius (fl. 119 B. c.) entered public life as a pleader, and thus laid the foundation of his brilliant career ; but he was through life greater as a judicial than as a deliberative orator. He was indefatigable in preparing his case, and made every point tell. He was a great master of the pathetic, and knew the way to the heart. Although he did not himself give his speeches to posterity, some of his most pointed expressions and favorite passages left an indelible impression on the memories of his hearers, and many of them were preserved by Cicero. In the prime of life he fell a victim to political fury, and his bleeding head was placed upon the rostrum, which was so fre- quently the scene of his eloquent triumphs. L. Licinius Crassus was four years younger than Antonius, and acquired great reputation for his knowledge of jurispru- dence, for his eminence as a pleader, and, above all, for his powerful and triumphant orations in support of the restoration of the judicial office to the senators. From among the crowd of orators, who were then flourishing in the last days of expiring Roman liberty, Cicero selected Crassus to be the representative of his sentiments in his imaginary conversation in " The Orator." Like Lord Chatham, Crassus almost died on the floor of the Senate house, and his last effort was in support of the aristo- cratic party. Q. Hortensius was born 114 B. c. He was only eight years senior to the greatest of all Roman orators. He early com- menced his career as a pleader, and he was the acknowledged leader of the Roman bar, until the star of Cicero arose. Hia ROMAN LITERATURE. 139 political connection with the faction of Sylla, and his unscru- pulous support of the profligate corruption which characterized that administration, both at home and abroad, enlisted his legal talents in defense of the infamous Verres ; but the eloquence of Cicero, together with the justice of the cause which he espoused, prevailed ; and from that time forward his superiority over Hortensius was established and complete. The style of Hor- tensius was Asiatic more florid and ornate than polished and refined. 9. ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE. The framework of their juris- prudence the Romans derived from Athens, but the complete structure was built up by their own hands. They were the au- thors of a system possessing such stability that they bequeathed it, as an inheritance, to modern Europe, and traces of Roman law are visible in the legal systems of the whole civilized world. The complicated principles of jurisprudence of the Roman constitution became, in Rome, a necessary part of a liberal edu- cation. When a Roman youth had completed his studies, under his teacher of rhetoric, he not only frequented the forum, in order to learn the application of the rhetorical principles he had acquired, and frequently took some celebrated orator as a model, but also studied the principles of jurisprudence under eminent jurists, and attended the consultations in which they gave to their clients their expositions of law. The earliest systematic works on Roman law were the " Man- ual " of Pomponius, and the " Institutes " of Gaius, who flour- ished in the time of Hadrian and the Antonines. Both of these works were, for a long time, lost, though fragments were pre- served in the pandects of Justinian. In 1816, however, Niebuhr discovered a palimpsest MS., in which the epistles of St. Jerome were written over the erased " Institutes " of Gaius. From the numerous misunderstandings of the Roman historians respecting the laws and constitutional history of their country, the subject continued long in a state of confusion, until Vico, in his " Sci- enza nuova," dispelled the clouds of error, and reduced it to a system ; and he was followed so successfully by Niebuhr, that modern students can have a more comprehensive and antiqua- rian knowledge of the subject than the writers of the Augustan age. The earliest Roman laws were the " Leges Regiae," which were collected and codified by Sextus Papirius, and were hence called the Papirian code ; but these were rude and unconnected, simply a collection of isolated enactments. The laws of the "Twelve Tables" stand next in point of antiquity. They ex- hibited the first attempt at regular system, and embodied not only legislative enactments, but legal principles. So popular 140 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. were they that when Cicero was a child every Roman boy com- mitted them to memory, as our children do their catechism, and the great orator laments that in the course of his lifetime this practice had become obsolete. The oral traditional expositions of these laws formed the groundwork of the Roman civil law. To these were added, from time to time, the decrees of the people, the acts of the sen- ate, and prastorian edicts, and from these various elements the whole body of Roman law was composed. So early was the sub- ject diligently studied, that the age preceding the first two cen- turies of our era was rich in jurists whose powers are celebrated in history. The most eminent jurists who adorned this period were the Scsevolae, a family in whom the profession seems to have been hereditary. After them flourished ^Elius Gallus (123-67 B. c.), eminent as a law reformer, C. Juventius, Sextus Papirius, and L. Lucilius Balbus, three distinguished jurists, who were a few years senior to Cicero. 10. GRAMMARIANS. Towards the conclusion of this literary period a great increase took place in the numbers of those learned men whom the Romans at first termed literati, but afterwards, following the custom of the Greeks, grammarians. To them literature was under great obligations. Although few of them were authors, and all of them possessed acquired learn- ing rather than original genius, they exercised a powerful influ- ence over the public mind as professors, lecturers, critics, and schoolmasters. By them the youths of the best families not only were imbued with a taste for Greek philosophy and poetry, but were also taught to appreciate the literature of their own country. Livius Andronicus and Ennius may be placed at the head of this class, followed by Crates Mallotes, C. Octavius Lampadio, Lselius, Archelaus, and others, most of whom were emancipated slaves, either from Greece or from other foreign countries. PEKIOD SECOND. FROM THE AGE OF CICERO TO THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS (74 B. C.-14 A. D.) 1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN LITERATURE. Latin lit- erature, at first rude, and, for five centuries, unable to reach any high excellence, was, as we have seen, gradually developed by the example and tendency of the Greek mind, which moulded Roman civilization anew. The earliest Latin poets, historians, and grammarians were Greeks. The metre^J^ich was brought to such perfection by the Latin poets was formed from the Greek, and the Latin language more and more assimilated to the Hellenic tongue. ROMAN LITERATURE. 141 As civilization advanced, the rude literature of Rome was compared with the great monuments of Greek genius, their su- periority was acknowledged, and the study of them encouraged. The Roman youth not only attended the schools of the Greeks, in Rome, but their education was considered incomplete, unless they repaired to those of Athens, Rhodes, and Mytilene. Thus, whatever of national character existed in the literature was gradually obliterated, and what it gained in harmony and finish it lost in originality. The Roman writers imitated more partic- ularly the writers of the Alexandrian school, who, being more artificial, were more congenial than the great writers of the age of Pericles. Roman genius, serious, majestic, and perhaps more original than at a later period, was manifest even at the time of the Punic wars, but it had not yet taken form ; and while thought was vigorous and powerful, expression remained weak and un- certain. But, under the Greek influence, and aided by the vigor imparted by free institutions, the union of thought and form was at length consummated, and the literature reached its culminating point in the great Roman orator. The fruits which had grown and matured in the centuries preceding were gath-r ered by Augustus ; but the influences that contributed to the splendor of his age belong rather to the republic than the em- pire, and with the fall of the liberties of Rome, Roman literature declined. 2. MIMES, MIMOGRAPHERS, AND PANTOMIME. Amidst all the splendor of the Latin literature of this period, dramatic poetry never recovered from the trance into which it had fallen, though the stage had not altogether lost its popularity. ^Esopus and Roscius, the former the great tragic actor, and the latter the favorite comedian, in the time of Cicero, enjoyed his friendship and that of other great men, and both amassed large fortunes. But although the standard Roman plays were constantly repre- sented, dramatic literature had become extinct. The entertain- ments, which had now taken the place of comedy and tragedy, were termed mimes. These were laughable imitations of man- ners and persons, combining the features of comedy and farce, for comedy represents the characters of a class, farce those of individuals. Their essence was that of the modern pantomime, and their coarseness, and even indecency, gratified the love of broad humor which characterized the Roman people. After a time, when they became established as popular favorites, the dialogue occupied a more prominent position, and was written in verse, like that of tragedy and comedy. During the dictator- ship of Caesar, a Roman knight named Laberius (107-45 B. c.) became famous for his mimes. The profession of an actor of 142 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. mimes was infamous, but Laberius was a writer, not an actor. On one occasion, Caesar offered him a large sum of money to enter the lists in a trial of his improvisatorial skill. Laberius did not submit to the degradation for the sake of the money, but he was afraid to refuse. The only method of retaliation in his power was sarcasm. His part was that of a slave ; and when his master scourged him, he exclaimed : " Porro, Quirites, liber- tatem perdimus ! " His words were received with a round of applause, and all eyes were fixed on Caesar. The dictator re- stored him to the rank of which his act had deprived him, but he could never recover the respect of his countrymen. As he passed the orchestra, on his way to the stalls of the knights, Cicero cried out : " If we were not so crowded, I would make room for you here." Laberius replied, alluding to Cicero's luke- warmness as a political partisan : " I am astonished that you should be crowded, as you generally sit on two stools." Another writer and actor of mimes was Publius Syrus, orig- inally a Syrian slave. Tradition has recorded a bon mot of his which is as witty as it is severe. Seeing an ill-tempered man named Mucius in low spirits, he exclaimed : " Either some ill fortune has happened to Mucius, or some good fortune to one of his friends ! " The Roman pantomime differed somewhat from the mime. It was a ballet of action, performed by a single dancer, who not only exhibited the human figure in its most graceful attitudes, but represented every passion and emotion with such truth that the spectators could, without difficulty, understand the story. The pantomime was licentious in its character, and the actors were forbidden by Tiberius to hold any intercourse with Romans of equestrian or senatorial dignity. These were the exhibitions which threw such discredit on the stage, which called forth the well-deserved attacks of the early Christian fathers, and caused them to declare that whoever at- tended them was unworthy of the name of Christian. Had the drama not been so abused, had it retained its original purity, and carried out the object attributed to it by Aristotle, they would have seen it, not a nursery of vice, but a school of virtue ; not only an innocent amusement, but a powerful engine to form the taste, to improve the morals, and to purify the feelings of a people. 3. EPIC POETRY. The epic poets of this period selected cheir subjects either from the heroic age and the mythology of Greece, or from their own national history. The Augustan age abounds in representatives of these two poetical schools, though possessing little merit. But the Romans, essentially practical and positive in their character, felt little interest in the descrip ROMAN LITERATURE. 143 tions of manners and events remote from their associations, and poetry, restrained within the limits of their history, could not rise to that height of imagination demanded by the epic muse. Virgil unfted the two forms by selecting his subject from the national history, and adorning the ancient traditions of Rome with the splendor of Greek imagination. Virgil (70-19 B. c.) was born at Andes, near Mantua ; he was educated at Cremona and at Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy. After this he came to Rome, where, through Maecenas, he became known to Octavius, and basked in the sunshine of court favor. His favorite residence was Naples. On his return from Athens, in company with Augustus, he was seized with an illness of which he died. He was buried about a mile from Naples, on the road to Pozzuoli ; and a tomb is still pointed out to the traveler which is said to be that of the poet. Virgil was deservedly popular both as a poet and as a man. The emperor esteemed him and people respected him ; he was constitutionally pensive and melancholy, temperate, and pure-minded in a profligate age, and his popu- larity never spoiled his simplicity and modesty. In his last moments he was anxious to burn the whole manuscript of the -*Eneid, and directed his executors either to improve it or com- mit it to the flames. The idea and plan of the ^Eneid are derived from Homer. As the wrath of Achilles is the mainspring of the Iliad, so the unity of the ^Eneid results from the anger of Juno. The arrival of JEneas in Italy after the destruction of Troy, the obstacles that opposed him through the intervention of Juno, and the adventures and the victories of the hero form the subject of the poem. Leaving Sicily for Latium, JEneas is driven on the coast -of Africa by a tempest raised against him by Juno; at Carthage he is welcomed by the queen, Dido, to whom he relates his past adventures and sufferings. By his narrative he wins her love, but at the command of Jupiter abandons her. Unable to retain him, Dido, in the despair of her passion, destroys her- self. After passing through many dangers, under the guidance of the Sibyl of Cumae, he descends into the kingdom of the dead to consult the shade of his father. There appear to him the souls of the future heroes of Rome. On his return, he becomes a friend of the king of Latium, who promises to him the hand of his daughter, which is eagerly sought by King Turnus. A fearful war ensues between the rival lovers, which ends in the victory of jEneas. Though the poem of Virgil is in many passages an imitation from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Roman element predomi- nates in it, and the JEneid is the true national poem of Rome* 141 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. There was no subject more adapted to flatter the vanity of the Romans, than the splendor and antiquity of their origin. Au- gustus is evidently typified under the character of ^Eneas ; Cleo- patra is boldly sketched as Dido ; and Turnus as the popular Antony. The love and death of Dido, the passionate victim of an unrequited love, give occasion to the poet to sing the victories of his countrymen over their Carthaginian rivals ; the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which he adopts in the descrip- tion of Elysium, affords an opportunity to exalt the heroes of Rome ; and the wars of jflEneas allow him to describe the locali- ties and the manners of ancient Latium with such truthfulness as to give to his verses the authority of historical quotations. In style, the ^Eneid is a model of purity and elegance, and for the variety and the harmony of its incidents, for the power of its descriptions, and for the interest of its plot and episodes, second only to the Iliad. It has been observed that Virgil's descriptions are more like landscape painting than those of any of his predecessors, whether Greek or Roman, and it is a re- markable fact, that landscape painting was first introduced in his time. 4. DIDATIC POETRY. The poems, which first established the reputation of Virgil as a poet, belong to didactic poetry. They are his Bucolics and Georgics. The Bucolics are pastoral idyls ; the characters are Italian in all their sentiments and feelings, acting, however, the unreal and assumed part of Greek shepherds. The Italians never possessed the elements of pasto- ral life, and could not furnish the poet with originals and models from which to draw his portraits. When represented as Virgil represents them in his Bucolics, they are in masquerade, and the drama in which they form the characters is of an allegorical kind. Even the scenery is Sicilian, and does not truthfully describe the tame neighborhood of Mantua. In fact, these poems are imitations of Theocritus ; but, divesting ourselves of the idea of the outward form which the poet has chosen to adopt, we are touched by the simple narrative of disappointed loves and childlike woes; we appreciate the delicately-veiled compliments paid by the poet to his patron ; we enjoy the inventive genius and poetical power which they display, and \ve are elevated by the exalted sentiments which they sometimes breathe. The Georgics are poems on the labors and enjoyments of rural life, a subject for which Rome offered a favorable field. Though in this style Hesiod was the model of Virgil, his system is per- fectly Italian, so much so, that many of his rules may be traced in modern Italian husbandry, just as the descriptions of imple* ments in the Greek poet are frequently found to agree with those ROMAN LITERATURE. 145 in use in modern Greece. The great merit of the Georgics con- sists in their varied digressions, interesting episodes, and in the sublime bursts of descriptive vigor which are interspersed throughout them. They have frequently been taken as models for imitation by the didactic poets of all nations, and more par- ticularly of England. The " Seasons," for instance, is a thor- oughly Virgilian poem. Lucretius (95-51 B. c.) belongs to the class of didactic poets. He might claim a place among philosophers as well as poets, for his poem marks an epoch both in poetry and philosophy. But his philosophy is a mere reflection from that of Greece, while his poetry is bright with the rays of original genius. His poem on " The Nature of Things " is in imitation of that of Empedo- cles. Its subject is philosophical and its purpose didactic ; but its unity of design gives to it almost the rank of an epic. Its structure prevents it from being a complete and systematic sur- vey of the whole Epicurean philosophy, but as far as the form of the poem permitted, it presents an accurate view of the phi- losophy which then enjoyed the highest popularity. The object of the poem of Lucretius is to emancipate man- kind from the debasing effects of superstition by an exposition of philosophy, and though a follower of Epicurus, he is not entirely destitute of the religious sentiment, for he deifies nature and has a veneration for her laws. His infidelity must be viewed rather in the light of a philosophical protest against the results of heathen superstition, than a total rejection of the principles of religious faith. Lucretius valued the capabilities of the Latin language. He wielded at will its power of embodying the noblest thoughts, and showed how its copious and flexible properties could overcome the hard technicalities of science. The great beauty of his poetry is its variety ; his fancy is always lively, his imagination has always free scope. He is sublime, as a philosopher who penetrates the secrets of the natural world, and discloses to the eyes of man the hidden causes of its wonderful phenomena. His object was a lofty one; for although the absurdities of the national creed drove him into skepticism, his aim was to set the intellect free from the trammels of superstition. But besides grandeur and sublimity, we find the totally different qualities of softness and tenderness. Rome had long known nothing but war, and was now rent by civil dissension. Lucretius yearned for peace ; and his prayer, that the fabled goddess of all that is beautiful in nature would heal the wounds which discord had made, is distinguished by tenderness and pathos even more than by sublimity. He is superior to Ovid in force, though inferior in facility ; not so smooth or harmonious as Virgil, his poetry 10 146 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. always falls upon the ear with a swelling and sonorous melody. Virgil appreciated his excellence, and imitated not only single expressions, but almost entire verses and passages ; and Ovid exclaims, that the sublime strains of Lucretius shall never perish until the world shall be given up to destruction. 5. LYRIC POETRY. The Romans had not the ideality and the enthusiasm which are the elements of lyric poetry, and in all the range of their literature there are only two poets who, greatly inferior to the lyric poets of Greece, have a positive claim to a place in this department, Catullus and Horace. Catullus (86-46 B. c.) was born near Verona. At an early age he went to Rome, where he plunged into all the excesses of the capital, and where his sole occupation was the cultivation of his literary tastes and talents. A career of extravagance and debauchery terminated in the ruin of his fortune, and he died at the age of forty. The works of Catullus consist of numerous short pieces of a lyrical character, elegies and other poems. He was one of the most popular of the Roman poets, because he possessed those qualities which the literary society at Rome most valued, polish and learning, and because, although an imitator, there was a truly Roman nationality in all that he wrote. His satire was the bitter resentment of a vindictive spirit ; his love and his hate were both purely selfish, but his excellences were of the most alluring and captivating kind. He has never been sur- passed in gracefulness, melody, and tenderness. Horace (65-8 B. c.), like Virgil and other poets of his time, enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of Maecenas, who procured for him the public grant of his Sabine farm, situated about fif- teen miles from Tivoli. At Rome he occupied a house on the beautiful heights of the Esquiline. The rapid alternation of town and country life, which the fickle poet indulged in, gives a peculiar charm to his poetry. His " Satires " were followed by the publication of the " Odes " and the " Epistles." The satires of Horace occupied the position of the fashionable novel of our day. In them is sketched boldly, but good-humoredly, a picture of Roman social life, with its vices and follies. They have noth- ing of the bitterness of Lucilius, the love of purity and honor that adorns Persius, or the burning indignation of Juvenal at the loathsome corruption of morals. Vice, in his day, had not reached that appalling height which it attained in the time of the emperors who succeeded Augustus. Deficient in moral purity, nothing would strike him as deserving censure, except such excess as would actually defeat the object which he pro- posed to himself, namely, the utmost enjoyment of life. In the " Epistles," he lays aside the character of a moral teacher or censor, and writes with the freedom with which he would con* ROMAN LITERATURE. 147 verse with an intimate friend. But it is in his inimitable " Odes " that the genius of Horace as a poet is especially dis- played ; they have never been equaled in beauty of sentiment, gracefulness of language, and melody of versification ; they com- prehend every variety of subject suitable to the lyric muse ; they rise without effort to the most elevated topics ; and they descend to the simplest joys and sorrows of e very-day life. The life of Horace is especially instructive, as a mirror in which is reflected a faithful image of the manners of his day. He is the representative of Roman refined society, as Virgil is of the national mind. His morals were lax, but not worse than those of his contemporaries. He looked at virtue and vice from a worldly, not from a moral point of view, and with him the one was prudence and the other folly. In connection with Horace, we may mention Maecenas, who, by his good taste and munificence, exercised a great influence upon literature, and literary men of Rome were much indebted to him for the use he made of his friendship with Augustus, to whom, probably, his love of literature and of pleasure and his imperturbable temper recommended him as an agreeable com- panion. He had wealth enough to gratify his utmost wishes, and his mind was so full of the delights of refined society, of palaces, gardens, wit, poetry, and art, that there was no room in it for ambition. All the most brilliant men of Rome were found at his table, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius were among his friends and constant associates. He was a fair speci- men of the man of pleasure and society, liberal, kind-hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and vola- tile, with good impulses, but without principle. 6. ELEGY. Tibullus (b. 54 B. c.) was the father of the Ro- man elegy. He was a contemporary of Virgil and Horace. The style of his poems and their tone of thought are like his character, deficient in vigor and manliness, but sweet, smooth, polished, tender, and never disfigured by bad taste. He passed his short life in peaceful retirement, and died soon after Virgil. The poems ascribed to Tibullus consist of four books, of which only two are genuine. Propertius (b. 150 B. c.), although a contemporary and friend of the Augustan poets, may be considered as belonging to a somewhat different school of poetry. While Horace, Virgil, and Tibullus imitated the noblest poets of the Greek age, Propertius, like the minor Roman poets, aspired to nothing more than the imitation of the graceful, but feeble strains of the Alexandrian poets. If he excels Tibullus in vigor of fancy, expression, and coloring, he is inferior to him in grace, spontaneity, and delicacy ; he cannot, also, be compared with Catullus, who greatly sur- passes him in his easy and effective style. 148 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Ovid (43 B. c.-6 A. D.), the most fertile of the Latin poets, not only in elegy, but also in other kinds of poetry, was enabled by his rank, fortune, and talents to cultivate the society of men of congenial tastes. A skeptic and an epicurean, he lived a life of continual indulgence and intrigue. He was a universal ad- mirer of the female sex, and a favorite among women. He was popular as a poet, successful in society, and possessed all the enjoyments that wealth could bestow ; but later in life he in- curred the anger of Augustus, and was banished to the very frontier of the Roman empire, where he lingered for a few years and died in great misery. The " Epistles to and from Women of the Heroic Age " are a series of love-letters ; with the excep- tion of the " Metamorphoses," they have been greater favorites than any other of his works. Love, in the days of Ovid, had in it nothing pure or chivalrous. The age in which he lived was morally polluted, and he was neither better nor worse than his contemporaries ; hence grossness is the characteristic of his " Art of Love." His " Metamorphoses " contain a series of mytho- logical narratives from the earliest times to the translation of the soul of Julius Caesar from earth to heaven, and his metamor- phosis into a star. In this poem especially may be traced that study and learning by which the Roman poets made all the treasures of Greek literature their own. " The Fasti," a poem on the Roman calendar, is a beautiful specimen of simple narra- tive in verse, and displays, more than any of his works, his power of telling a story without the slightest effort, in poetry as well as prose. The five books of the " Tristia," and the " Epistles from Pontus," were the outpourings of his sorrowful heart during the gloomy evening of his days. 7. ORATORY AND PHILOSOPHY. As oratory gave to Latin prose-writing its elegance and dignity, Cicero (106-43 B. c.) is not only the representative of the flourishing period of the lan- guage, but also the instrumental cause of its arriving at per- fection. He gave a fixed character to the Latin tongue ; showed his countrymen what vigor it possessed, and of what elegance and polish it was susceptible. The influence of Cicero on the language and literature of his day was not only extensive, but permanent, and it survived almost until the language was cor- rupted by barbarism. After traveling in Greece and Asia, and holding a high office in Sicily, he returned to Rome, resumed . his forensic practice, and was made consul. The conspiracy of Catiline was the great event of his consulship. The prudence and tact with which he crushed this gained him the applause and gratitude of his fellow-citizens, who hailed him as the father of his country ; but he was obliged, by the intrigues of his ene- mies, to fly from Rome ; his exile was decreed, and his towo ROMAN LITERATURE. 149 and country houses given up to plunder. He was, however, recalled, and appointed to a seat in the college of Augurs. In the struggle between Pompey and Caesar, he followed the for- tunes of the former ; but Caesar, after his triumph, granted him a full and free pardon. After the assassination of Caesar, Cicero delivered that torrent of indignant and eloquent invective, his twelve Philippic orations, and became again the popular idol ; but when the second triumvirate was formed, and each member gave up his friends to the vengeance of his colleagues, Octavius did not hesitate to sacrifice Cicero. Betrayed by a treacherous freedman, he would not permit his attendants to make any resistance, but courageously submitted to the sword of the as- sassins, who cut off his head and hands, and carried them to Antony, whose wife, Julia, gloated with inhuman delight upon the pallid features, and in petty spite pierced with a needle the once eloquent tongue. Cicero had numerous faults ; he was vain, .vacillating, inconstant, timid, and the victim of morbid sen- sibility ; but he was candid, truthful, just, generous, pure-minded, and warm-hearted. Gentle, sympathizing, and affectionate, he lived as a patriot and died as a philosopher. The place which Cicero occupies in the history of Roman lit- erature is that of an orator and philosopher. The effectiveness of his oratory was mainly owing to his knowledge of the human heart, and of the national peculiarities of his countrymen. Its charm was owing to his extensive acquaintance with the stores of literature and philosophy, which his sprightly wit moulded at will ; to the varied learning, which his unpedantic mind made so pleasant and popular ; and to his fund of illustration, at once interesting and convincing. He carried his hearers with him ; senate, judges, and people understood his arguments, and felt his passionate appeals. Compared with the dignified energy and majestic vigor of Demosthenes, the Asiatic exuberance of some of his orations may be fatiguing to the more sober and chaste taste of modern scholars ; but in order to form a just ap- preciation, we must transport ourselves mentally to the excite- ments of the thronged forum, to the senate, composed of statesmen and warriors in the prime of life, maddened with the party-spirit of revolutionary times. Viewed in this light, his most florid passages will appear free from affectation the natural flow of a speaker carried away with the torrent of his enthusiasm. Among his numerous orations, in which, according to the crit- icisms of Quintilian, he combined the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates, we mention the six celebrated Verrian harangues, which are considered mas- terpieces of Tullian eloquence. In the speech for the poet Archias, he had evidently expended all his resources of art, 150 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. taste, and skill ; and his oration in defense of Milo, for force, pathos, and the externals of eloquence, deserves to be reckoned among his most wonderful efforts. The oratory of Cicero was essentially judicial ; even his political orations are rather judicial than deliberative. He was not born for a politician ; he did not possess that analytical character of mind which penetrates into the remote causes of human action, nor the synthetical power which enables a man to follow them out to their farthest consequences. Of the three qualities necessary for a statesman, he possessed only two, honesty and patriotism ; he had not political wisdom. Hence, in the finest specimens of his political orations, his Catilinarians and Philippics, we look in vain for the calm, practical weighing of the subject which is necessary in addressing a deliberative assembly. Nevertheless, so irre- sistible was the influence which he exercised upon the minds of his hearers, that all his political speeches were triumphs. His panegyric on Pompey carried his appointment as commander- in-chief of the armies of the East ; he crushed in Catiline one of the most formidable traitors that had ever menaced the safety of the republic, and Antony's fall followed the complete ex- posure of his debauchery in private life, and the factiousness of his public career. In his rhetorical works, Cicero left a legacy of practical in- struction to posterity. The treatise " On Invention " is merely interesting as the juvenile production of a future great man. "The Orator," " Brutus, or the illustrious Orators," and "The Orator to Marius Brutus," are the results of his matured expe- rience. They form together one series, in which the principles are laid down, and their development carried out and illus- trated ; and in the " Orator " he places before the eyes of Bru- tus the model of ideal perfection. In his treatment of that subject, he shows a mind imbued with the spirit of Plato ; he invests it with dramatic interest, and transports the reader into the scene which he so graphically describes. Roman philosophy was neither the result of original investi- gation, nor the gradual development of the Greek system. It arose rather from a study of ancient philosophical literature, than from an emanation of philosophical principles. It consisted in a kind of eclecticism with an ethical tendency, bringing to- gether doctrines and opinions scattered over a wide field in reference to the political and social relations of man. Greek philosophy was probably first introduced into Rome 166 B. c. But although the Romans could appreciate the majestic dignity and poetical beauty of the style of Plato, they were not equal to the task of penetrating his hidden meaning ; neither did the peripatetic doctrines meet with much favor. The philosophical ROMAN LITERATURE. 151 system which first arrested the attention of the Romans, and gained an influence over their minds, was the Epicurean. That of the Stoics also, the severe principles of which were in har- mony with the stern old Roman virtues, had distinguished disci- ples. The part which Cicero's character qualified him to per- form in the philosophical instruction of his countrymen was scarcely that of a guide ; he could give them a lively interest in the subject, but he could not mould and form their belief, and train them in the work of original investigation. Not being de- voutly attached to any system of philosophical belief, he would be cautious of offending the philosophical prejudices of others. He was essentially an eclectic in accumulating stores of Greek erudition, while his mind had a tendency, in the midst of a va- riety of inconsistent doctrines, to leave the conclusion undeter- mined. He brought everything to a practical standard ; he ad- mired the exalted purity of stoical morality, but he feared that it was impractical. He believed in the existence of one supreme creator, in his spiritual nature, and the immortality of the soul ; but his belief was rather the result of instinctive conviction, than of proof derived from philosophy. The study of Cicero's philosophical works is invaluable, in order to understand the minds of those who came after him. Not only all Roman philosophy after his time, but a great part of that of the Middle Ages, was Greek philosophy filtered through Latin, and mainly founded oil that of Cicero. Among his works on speculative philosophy are " The Academics, or a history and defense of the belief of the new Academy ; " " Dia- logues on the Supreme Good, the end of all moral action ; " " The Tusculan Disputations," containing five treatises on the fear of death, the endurance of pain, power of wisdom over sor- row, the morbid passions, and the relation of virtue to happiness. His moral philosophy comprehends the " Duties," a stoical trea- tise on moral obligations, and the unequaled little essays on 64 Friendship and Old Age." His political works are " The Re- public " and " The Law ; " but these remains are fragmentary. The extent of Cicero's correspondence is almost incredible. Even those epistles which remain number more than eight hun- dred. In them we find the eloquence of the heart, not of the rhetorical school. They are models of pure Latinity, elegant without stiffness, the natural outpourings of a mind which could not give birth to an ungraceful idea. In his letters to Atticus he lays bare the secret of his heart ; he trusts his life in his hands ; he is not only his friend but his confidant, his second self. In the letters of Cicero we have the description of the period of Roman history, and the portrait of the inner life of Roman society in his day. 152 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 8. HISTORY. In their historical literature the Romans exhib- ited a faithful transcript of their mind and character. History at once gratified their patriotism, and its investigations were in accordance with their love of the real and the practical. In this department, they were enabled to emulate the Greeks and to be their rivals, and sometimes their superiors. The elegant simplicity of Caesar is as attractive as that of Herodotus ; none of the Greek historians surpasses Livy in talent for the pictur- esque and in the charm with which he invests his spirited and living stories ; while for condensation of thought, terseness of expression, and political and philosophical acumen, Tacitus is not inferior to Thucydides. The catalogue of Roman historians con- tains many writers whose works are lost ; such as L. Lucretius, the friend and correspondent of Cicero, L. Lucullus, the illus- trious conqueror of Mithridates, and Cornelius Nepos, of whom only one work was preserved, the "Lives of Eminent Gen- erals." The authenticity of this work is, however, disputed. But at the head of this department, as the great representatives of Roman history, stand Julius Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, all of whom, except the last, belong to the Augustan age. Julius Caesar (100-44 B. c.) was descended from one of the oldest among the patrician families of Rome. He attached him- self to the popular party, and his good taste, great tact, and pleasing manners contributed, together with his talents, to insure his popularity. He became a soldier in the nineteenth year of his age, and hence his works display all the best qualities which are fostered by a military education frankness, simplicity, and brevity. His earliest literary triumph was as an orator, and, according to Quintilian, he was a worthy rival of Cicero. When he obtained the office of Pontifex Maximus, he diligently ex- amined the history and nature of the Roman belief in augury, and published his investigations. When his career as a military commander began, whatever leisure his duties permitted him to enjoy he devoted to the composition of his memoirs, or commen- taries of the Gallic and civil wars. He wrote, also, some minor works on different subjects, and he left behind him various let te]*s, some of which are extant. But by far the most important of the works of Caesar is his " Commentaries," which have come down to us in a tolerably perfect state. They are sketches taken on the spot, in the midst of action, while the mind was full, and they have all the graphic power of a master-mind and the vigorous touches of a master-hand. The Commentaries are the materials for history, notes jotted down for future historians. The very faults which may justly be found with the style of Caesar are such as reflect the man himself. The majesty of his character consists chiefly ROMAN LITERATURE. 153 in the imperturbable calmness and equanimity of his temper ; he had no sudden bursts of energy and alternations of passion and inactivity. The elevation of his character was a high one, but it was a level table-land. This calmness and equability pervades his writings, and for this reason they have been thought to want life and energy. The beauty of his language is, as Cicero says, statuesque rather than picturesque. Simple and severe, it con- veys the idea of perfect and well-proportioned beauty, while it banishes all thoughts of human passion. In relating his own deeds, he does not strive to add to his own reputation by de- tracting from the merits of those who served under him. He is honest, generous, and candid, not only towards them, but also towards his brave enemies. He recounts his successes without pretension or arrogance, though he has evidently no objection to be the hero of his own tale. His Commentaries are not confes- sions, although he is the subject of them ; not a record of a weakness appears, nor even a defect, except that which the Ro- mans would readily forgive, cruelty. His savage waste of hu- man life he recounts with perfect self-complacency. Vanity, the crowning error in his career as a statesman, though hidden by the reserve with which he speaks of himself, sometimes discovers itself in the historian. The Commentaries of Caesar have been compared with the work of the great soldier-historian of Greece, Xenophon. Both are eminently simple and unaffected, but there the parallel ends. The severe contempt of ornament, which characterizes the stern Roman, is totally unlike the mellifluous sweetness of the Attic writer. Sallust (85-35 B. c.) was born of a plebeian family, but, hav- ing filled the offices of tribune and quaestor, attained senatorial rank. He was expelled from the Senate for his profligacy, but restored again to his rank through the influence of Caesar, whose party he espoused. He accompanied his patron in the African war, and was mado governor of Numidia. While in that capac- ity, he accumulated by rapacity and extortion enormous wealth, which he lavished in expensive but tasteful luxury. The gar- dens on the Quirinal which bore his name were celebrated for their beauty ; and there, surrounded by the choicest works of art, he devoted his retirement to composing the historical rec- ords which survived him. As a politician, he was a mere par- tisan of Caesar, and therefore a strenuous opponent of the higher classes and of the supporters of Pompey. The object of his hatred was not the old patrician blood of Rome, but the new aristocracy, which had of late years been rapidly rising up and displacing it. That new nobility was utterly corrupt, and its corruption was encouraged by the venality of the masses, whose 154 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. poverty and destitution tempted them to be the tools of unscru- pulous ambition. Sallust strove to place that party in the un- favorable lighf which it deserved ; but, notwithstanding the truthfulness of the picture which he draws, selfishness and not patriotism was the mainspring of his politics ; he was not an honest champion of popular rights, but a vain and conceited man, who lived in an immoral and corrupt age, and had not the strength of principle to resist the force of example and tempta- tion. If, however, we make some allowance for the political bias of Sallust, his histories have not only the charms of the his- torical romance, but are also valuable political studies. His characters are vigorously and naturally drawn, and the more his histories are read, the more obvious it is that he always writes with an object, and uses his facts as the means of enforcing a great political lesson. His first work is on the " Jugurthine War ; " the next related to the period from the consulship of Lepidus to the prsetorship of Cicero, and is unfortunately lost. This was followed by a history of the conspiracy of Catiline, " The War of Catiline," in which he paints in vivid colors the depravity of that order of society which, bankrupt in fortune and honor, still plumes itself on its rank and exclusiveness. To Sallust must be conceded the praise of having first conceived the notion of a history, in the true sense of the term. He was the first Roman histo- rian, and the guide of future historians. He had always an ob- ject to which he wished all his facts to converge, and he brought them forward as illustrations and developments of principles. He analyzed and exposed the motives of parties, and laid bare the inner life of those great actors on the public stage, in the in- teresting historical scenes which he describes. His style, al- though ostentatiously elaborate and artificial, is, upon the whole, pleasing, and almost always transparently clear. Following Thucydides, whom he evidently took as his model, he strives to imitate his brevity ; but while this quality with the Greek his- torian is natural and involuntary, with the Roman it is inten- tional and studied. The brevity of Thucydides is the result of condensation, that of Sallust is elliptical expression. Livy (59-18 B. c.) was born in Padua, and came to Rome during the reign of Augustus, where he resided in the enjoy- ment of the imperial favor and patronage. He was a warm and open admirer of the ancient institutions of the country, and es- teemed Pompey as one of its greatest heroes ; but Augustus did not allow political opinions to interfere with the regard which he entertained for the historian. His great work is a history of Rome, which he modestly terms " Annals," in one hundred and forty-two books, of which thirty-five are extant. Besides hi ROMAN LITERATURE. 155 history, Livy is said to have written treatises and dialogues, which were partly philosophical and partly historical. The great object of Livy's history was to celebrate the glories of his native country, to which he was devotedly attached. He was a patriot : his sympathy was with Pompey, called forth by the disinterestedness of that great man, and perhaps by his sad end. He delights to put forth his powers in those passages which relate to the affections. He is a biographer quite as much as a historian ; he anatomizes the moral nature of his heroes, and shows the motive springs of their noble exploits. His char- acters stand before us like epic heroes, and he tells his story like a bard singing his lay at a joyous festive meeting, checkered by alternate successes and reverses, though all tending to a happy result at last. But while these features constitute his charm as a narrator, they render him less valuable as a historian. Al- though he would not be willfully inaccurate, if the legend he was about to tell was interesting, he would not stop to inquire whether or not it was true. Taking upon trust the traditions which had been handed down from generation to generation, the more flat- tering and popular they were, the more suitable would he deem them for his purposes. He loved his country, and he would scarcely believe anything derogatory to the national glory. Whenever Rome was false to treaties, unmerciful in victory, or unsuccessful in arms, he either ignores the facts or is anxious to find excuses. He does not appear to have made researches into the many original documents which were extant at his time, but he trusted to the annalists, and took advantage of the investiga- tions of preceding historians. His descriptions of military af- fairs are often vague and indistinct, and he often shows himself ignorant of the localities which he describes. Such are tho principal defects of Livy, who otherwise charms his readers with his romantic narratives, and his lively, fresh, and fascinat- ing style. 9. OTHER PROSE WRITERS. Though the grammarians of this period were numerous, they added little or nothing to its literary reputation. The most conspicuous among them wero Atteius, a friend of Sallust ; Epirota, the correspondent of Cic- ero ; Julius Hyginus, a friend of Ovid ; and Nigidius Figulus, an orator as well as grammarian. M. Vitruvius Pollio, the cele- brated architect, deserves to be mentioned for his treatise on ar- chitecture. He was probably native of Verona, and served under Julius Caesar in Africa, as a military engineer. Notwith- standing the defects of his style, the language of Vitruvius is vig- orous, and his descriptions bold ; his work is valuable as exhibit- ing the principles of Greek architectual taste and beauty, of which he was a devoted admirer. 156 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. PERIOD THIRD. FROM THE DEATH OP AUGUSTUS TO THE CLOSE or THE REIGN o< THEODORIC ( 14-526 A. D.). 1. DECLINE OP ROMAN LITERATURE. With the death of Augustus began the decline of Roman literature, and a few names only rescue the first years of this period from the charge of a corrupt and vitiated taste. After a while, indeed, political circumstances again became more favorable ; the dangers, which paralyzed genius and talent, and prevented their free exercise under Tiberius and his tyrannical successors, diminished, and a more liberal system of administration ensued under Vespasian and Titus. Juvenal and Tacitus then stood forth, as the repre- sentatives of the old Roman independence. Vigor of thought communicated itself to the language ; a taste for the sublime and beautiful, to a certain extent, revived, although it did not attain to the perfection which shed a lustre over the Augustan age. Between the ages of Horace and Juvenal, Cicero and Tacitus, there was a gap of half a century, in which Roman genius was slumbering. The gradual growth of a spirit of adulation de- terred all who were qualified for the task of the historian from attempting it. Fear, during the lifetime of Tiberius and Ca- ligula, Claudius and Nero, and hatred, still fresh after their deaths, rendered all accounts of their reigns false. And the same causes which silenced the voice of history extinguished the gen- ius of poetry ancl oratory. As liberty declined, natural eloquence decayed ; the orator sought only to please the corrupt taste of his audiences with strange and exaggerated statements ; the poet aimed to win public admiration through a style overladen with ornament, and florid and diffuse descriptions. Literature, in order to flourish, requires the genial sunshine of human sym- pathy ; it needs either the patronage of the great, or the favor of the people. Immediately after the death of Augustus, pat- ronage was withdrawn, and there was no public sympathy to sup- ply its place. In the reign of Nero, literature partially revived ; for, though the bloodiest of tyrants, he had a taste for art and poetry, and an ambition to excel in refinement. 2. FABLE. In fable, as in other fields of literature, Rome was an imitator of Greece, but nevertheless Phaedrus struck out a new line for himself, and, through his fables, became not only a moral instructor, but a political satirist. Pha3drus (fl. 16 A. D.), the originator and only author of Roman fable, though born in the reign of Augustus, wrote when tho Augustan age had passed away. His works are, as it were, isolated ; he had no content poraries. Nevertheless, his solitary voice was lifted up when ROMAN LITERATURE. 157 those of the poet, the historian, and the philosopher were silenced. The moral and political lessons conveyed in his fables were sug- gested by the evils of the times in which he lived. Some of them illustrate the danger of riches and the comparative safety of obscurity and poverty, in an age when the rich were marked for destruction, in order that the confiscation of their property might glut the avarice of the emperor and of his servants ; others were suggested by historical events, being nevertheless satirical strictures on individuals. The style of Phaedrus is pure and classical, and combines the simple neatness and graceful ele- gance of the golden age with the vigor and terseness of the sil- ver one. He has the facility of Ovid and the brevity of Tacitus. In the construction of his fables, he displays observation and in- genuity ; but he is deficient in imagination. He makes his ani- mals the vehicles of his wisdom, but he does not throw himself into them, or identify himself with them ; while they look and act like animals, they talk like human beings. In this consists the great superiority of ^Esop to his Roman imitator ; his brutes are a superior race, but they are still brutes, and it would seem that the fabulist had lived among them as one of themselves, had adopted their mode of life, and conversed with them in their own language. In Phaedrus we have human sentiments trans- lated into the language of beasts, while in .ZEsop we have beasts giving utterance to such sentiments as would be naturally theirs if they were placed in the position of men. 3. SATIRE AND EPIGRAM. Roman satire, subsequently to Horace, is represented by Persius and Juvenal. Persius (34-62 A. D.) early attached himself to the Stoic philosophy. He was pure in mind, and free from the corrupt taint of an immoral age. Although Lucilius was, to a certain extent, his model, he does not attack vice with the biting severity of the old satirist, nor do we find in his writings the enthusiastic indignation which burns in the verses of Juvenal. His purity of mind and kindli- ness of heart disinclined him to portray vice in its hideous and loathsome forms, and to indulge in that bitterness of invective which the prevalent enormities of his times deserved. His up- rightness and love of virtue are shown by the uncompromising severity with which he rebukes sins of not so deep a dye ; and the heart which was capable of being moulded by his example, and influenced by his purity, would have shrunk from the fear- ful crimes which deform the pages of Juvenal. The greatest defect in Persius, as a satirist, is that the Stoic philosophy in which he was educated rendered him indifferent to the affairs of the world. His contemplative habits led him to criticise, as his favorite subjects, false taste in poetry and empty pretensions to philosophy. Horace mingled in the society of the profligate wid 158 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. considering them as fools, laughed their folly to scorn. Juvenal looked down upon the corruption of the age from the eminence of his virtue, and punished it like an avenging deity. Persius, pure in heart and passionless by education, while he lashes wick- edness in the abstract, almost ignores its existence, and shrinks from probing to the bottom the vileness of the human heart. His works comprise six satires, all of which breathe the natural amiability and placid cheerfulness of his temper. Juvenal flourished in the reign of Domitian, towards the close of the first century A. D., a dark period, which saw the utter moral degradation of the people, and the bloodiest tyranny and oppression on the part of their rulers. The picture of Roman manners, as painted by his glowing pencil, is truly appalling. The fabric of society was in ruins, the popular religion was rejected with scorn, and the creed of natural religion had not occupied its place. The emperors took part in public scenes of folly and profligacy, and exposed themselves as charioteers, as dancers, and as actors. Nothing was respected but wealth, nothing provoked contempt but poverty. Players and dancers had all honors and offices at their disposal ; the city swarmed with informers, who made the rich their prey ; every man feared his most intimate friend, and the only bond of friendship was to be an accomplice in crime. The teacher would corrupt his pupil, and the guardian defraud his ward. Crimes which cannot be named were common, and the streets of Rome were the constant scene of robbery, assault, and assassination. The morals of women were as depraved as those of men, and there was no pub- lic amusement so immoral or so cruel as not to be countenanced by their presence. In this period of moral dearth, the fountains of genius and literature were dried up. There was criticism, declamation, panegyric, and verse writing, but no oratory, his- tory, or poetry. Juvenal, though himself not free from the de- clamatory affectation of the day, attacked the false literary taste of his contemporaries as unsparingly as he did their depraved morality. His sixteen satires exhibit an enlightened, truthful, and comprehensive view of Roman manners, and of the inevita- ble result of such depravity. The two finest of them are those which Dr. Johnson has thought worthy of imitation. The historical value of these satires must not be forgotten. Tacitus lived in the same perilous times as Juvenal, and when they had come to an end and it was not unsafe to speak, he wrote their public history, which the poet illustrates by display- ing the social and inner life of the Romans. Their works are parallel, and each forms a commentary upon the other. The style of Juvenal is vigorous and lucid ; his morals were pure in the midst of a debased age, and his language shines forth in ROMAN LITERATURE. 159 classic elegance, in the midst of specimens of declining and de- generate taste. Juvenal closes the list of Roman satirists, properly speaking. The satirical spirit animates the piquant epigrams of his friend Martial, but their purpose is not moral or didactic. They sting the individual, and render him an object of scorn and disgust, but they do not hold up vice itself to ridicule and detestation. Martial (43-104 A. D.) was born in Spain. He early emi- grated to Rome, where he became a favorite of Titus and Domitian, and in the reign of the latter he was appointed to the office of court-poet. During thirty-five years, he lived at Rome the life of a flatterer and a dependent, and then he re- turned to his native town, where his death was hastened by his distaste for provincial life. Measured by the corrupt standard of morals which disgraced the age in which he lived, Martial was probably not worse than most of his contemporaries ; for the fearful profligacy, which his powerful pen describes in such hideous terms, had spread through Rome its loathsome infection. Had he lived in better times, his talents might have been devoted to a purer object ; as it was, no language is strong enough to denounce the impurities of his page, and his moral taste must have been thoroughly depraved not to have turned with disgust from the contemplation of such subjects. But not all his poems are of this character. Amidst some obscurity of style and want of finish, many are redolent of Greek sweetness and elegance. Here and there are pleasing descriptions of the beauties of nature, and many are kind-hearted and full of varied wit, poeti- cal imagination, and graceful expression. To the original char- acteristics of the Greek epigram, Martial, more than any other poet, added that which constitutes an epigram in the modern sense of the term : pointedness either in jest or earnest, and tho bitterness of personal satire. 4. DRAMATIC LITERATURE. Dramatic literature never flour- ished in Rome, arid still less under the empire. During this period there were not wanting some imitators of Greece in this noble branch of poetry, but their productions were rather literary than dramatic ; they were poems composed in a dramatic form, intended to be read, not acted. They contain noble philosophi- cal sentiments, lively descriptions, and passages full of tender- ness and pathos, but they are deficient in dramatic effect, and positively offend against those laws of good taste which regu- lated the Athenian stage. In the Augustan age, a few writers attained some excellence in tragedy, at least in the opinion of ancient critics. Under the tyrant Nero, dramatic literature reappeared, speci- mens of which are extant in the ten tragedies attributed to 160 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Seneca. But the genius of the author never grasps, in their wholeness, the characters which he attempts to copy ; they are distorted images of the Greek originals, and the shadowy grand- eur of the godlike heroes of ^Eschylus stands forth in corporeal vastness, and appears childish and unnatural, like the giants of a story-book. The Greeks believed in the gods and heroes whose agency and exploits constituted the machinery of tragedy, but the Komans did not, and we cannot sympathize with them, be- cause we see that they are insincere. An awful belief in destiny, and the hopeless yet patient strug- gle of a great and good man against this all-ruling power, are the mainspring of Greek tragedy. This belief the Romans did not transfer into their imitations, but they supplied its place with the stern fatalism of the Stoics. The principle of destiny enter- tained by the Greek poets is a mythological, even a religious one. It is the irresistible will of God. God is at the com- mencement of the chain of causes and effects, by which the event is brought about which God has ordained ; his inspired prophets have power to foretell, and mortals cannot resist or avoid. It is rather predestination than destiny. The fatalism of the Stoics, on the other hand, is the doctrine of practical necessity. It ignores the almighty power of the Supreme Being, and although it does not deny his existence, it strips him of his attributes as the moral governor of the universe. These doctrines, expressed equally in the writings of Seneca the philosopher, and in the tragedies attributed to him, lead to the probability, amounting almost to certainty, that he was their author. But whatever be the case in regard to their authorship, it is certain that, notwith- standing their false rhetorical taste and the absence of all ideal and creative genius, they have found many admirers and imita- tors in modern times. The French school of tragic poets took them for their model ; Corneille evidently considered them the ideal of tragedy, and Racine servilely imitated them. 5. EPIC POETRY. At the head of the epic poets who flour- ished during the Silver Age, stands Lucan (39-66 A. D.). He was born at Cordova, in Spain, and probably came to Rome when very young, where his literary reputation was soon estab- lished. But Nero, who could not bear the idea of a rival, forbade him to recite his poems, then the common mode of publication. Neither would he allow him to plead as an advocate. Smarting under this provocation, he joined in a conspiracy against tho emperor's life. The plot failed, but Lucan was pardoned on condition of pointing out his confederates, and in the vain hope of saving himself from the monster's vengeance, he actually im peached his mother. This noble woman was incapable of trea- son. Tacitus says, "the scourge, the flames, the rage of the ROMAN LITERATURE. 161 executioners who tortured her the more savagely, lest they should be scorned by a woman, were powerless to extort a false confession." Lucan never received the reward which he pur- chased by treachery. When the warrant for his death was issued, he caused his veins to be cut asunder, and expired in the twenty- seventh year of his age. The only one of his works which survives is the " Pharsalia," an epic poem on the subject of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. It bears evident marks of having been left unfinished ; it has great faults and at the same time great beauties. The sentiments contained in this poem breathe a love of freedom and an attachment to the old Roman republicanism. Its subject is a noble one, full of historic interest, and it is treated with spirit, brilliancy, and animation. The characters of Caesar and Pom- pey are masterpieces ; but while some passages are scarcely inferior to any written by the best Latin poets, others have neither the dignity of prose, nor the melody of poetry. Descrip- tion forms the principal feature in the poetry of Lucan ; in fact, it constitutes one of the characteristic features of Roman litera- ture in its decline, because poetry had become more than ever an art, and the epoch one of erudition. Silius Italicus (fl. 54 A. D.) was the favorite and intimate of two emperors, Nero and Vitellius. He left a poem, the " Pu- nica," which contains the history in heroic verse of the second Punic war. The ^Eneid of Virgil was his model, and the nar- rative of Livy furnished his materials. It is considered the dullest and most tedious poem in the Latin language though its versification is harmonious, and will often, in point of smooth- ness, bear comparison with that of Virgil. Valerius Flaccus flourished in the reign of Vespasian. He is author of the " Argonautica," an imitation and in some parts a translation of the Greek poem of Apollonius Rhodius on the same subject. He evidently did not live to complete his original design. In the Argonautica there are no glaring faults or blemishes, but there is also no genius, no inspiration. He has some talents as a descriptive poet ; his versification is harmonious and his style graceful. P. Statius (61-95 A. D.) was the author of the Silviae, The- baid, and Achilleid. The " Silviae " are the rude materials of thought springing up spontaneously in all their wild luxuriance, from the rich, natural soil of the imagination of the poet. The subject of the "Thebaid" is the ancient Greek legend respecting the war of the Seven against Thebes, and the " Achilleid " was intended to embrace all the exploits of Achilles, but only two books were completed. The poems of Statius contain many poetical incidents, which might stand by themselves as perfect 11 162 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. fugitive pieces. In these we see his natural and unaffected ele- gance, his harmonious ear, and the truthfulness of his percep- tions. But, as an epic poet, he has neither grasp of mind nor vigor of conception ; his imaginary heroes do not inspire and warm his imagination ; and his genius was unable to rise to the highest departments of art. 6. HISTORY. For the reasons already stated, Rome for a long period could boast of no historian ; the perilous nature of the times, and the personal obligations under which learned men frequently were to the emperors, rendered contemporary his- tory a means of adulation and servility. To this class of his- torians belongs Paterculus (fl. 30 A. D.), who wrote a history of Rome which is partial, prejudiced, and adulatory. He was a man of lively talents, and his taste was formed after the model of Sallust, of whom he was an imitator. His style is often over- strained and unnatural. Under the genial and fostering influence of the Emperor Trajan, the fine arts, especially architecture, flourished, and lit- erature revived. The same taste and execution which are visible in the bas-reliefs on the column of Trajan adorn the literature of his age as illustrated by its two great lights, Tacitus and the younger Pliny. There is not the rich, graceful manner which invests with such a charm the writers of the Golden Age, but the absence of these qualities is amply compensated by dignity, gravity, and honesty. Truthfulness beams throughout the writ- ings of these two great contemporaries, and incorruptible virtue is as visible in the pages of Tacitus as benevolence and tender- ness are in the letters of Pliny. They mutually influenced each other's characters and principles ; their tastes and pursuits were similar ; they loved each other dearly, corresponded regularly, corrected each other's works, and accepted patiently and grate- fully each other's criticism. Tacitus (60-135 A. D.) was of equestrian rank, and served in several important offices of the empire. His works now extant are a life of his father-in-law, Agricola, a tract on the manners and nations of the Germans, a small portion of a voluminous work entitled "Histories," about two thirds of another historical work, entitled " Annals," and a dialogue on the decline of elo- quence. The life of Agricola, though a panegyric rather than a biography, is a beautiful specimen of the vigor and force of ex- pression with which this greatest painter of antiquity could throw off any portrait which he attempted. Even if the likeness be somewhat flattered, the qualities which the writer possessed, his insight into character, his pathetic power, and his affectionate heart, render this short piece one of the most attractive biogra- phies extant. The treatise on the " Geography, Manners, and ROMAN LITERATURE. 163 Nations of Germany," though containing geographical descrip- tions often vague and inaccurate, and accounts evidently founded on mere tales of travelers, bears the impress of truth in the salient points and characteristic features of the national manners and institutions of Teutonic nations. The " Histories," his ear- liest historical work, of which only four books and a portion of the fifth are extant, extended from the year 69 to 96 A. D., and it was his intention to include the reigns of Nero and Trajan. In this work he proposed to investigate the political state of the commonwealth, the feeling of its armies, the sentiments of its provinces, the elements of its strength and weakness, and the causes and reasons for each historical phenomenon. The prin- cipal fault which diminishes the value of his history as a record of events is his too great readiness to accept evidence unhesitat- ingly, and to record popular rumors without taking sufficient pains to examine into their truth. His incorrect account of the history, constitution, and manners of the Jewish people is one among the few instances of this fault, scattered over a vast field of faithful history. The "Annals" consist of sixteen books; they begin with the death of Augustus, and conclude with that of Nero (14-68 A. D.). The object of Tacitus was to describe the influence which the establishment of tyranny on the ruins of liberty exercised for good or for evil in bringing out the character of the individual. In the extinction of freedom there still existed in Rome bright examples of heroism and courage, and instances not less prominent of corruption and degradation. In the annals of Tacitus these individuals stand out in "bold re- lief, either singly or in groups upon the stage, while the emperor forms the principal figure, and the moral sense of the reader is awakened to admire instances of patient suffering and deter- mined bravery, or to witness abject slavery and remorseless des- potism. Full of sagacious observation and descriptive power, Tacitus engages the most serious attention of the reader by the gravity of his condensed and comprehensive style, as he does by the wisdom and dignity of his reflections. Living amidst the influ- ences of a corrupt age, he was uncontaminated. By his virtue and integrity, and his chastened political liberality, he commands our admiration as a man, while his love of truth is reflected in his character as a historian. In his style, the form is always subordinate to the matter ; his sentences are suggestive of far more than they express, and his brevity is enlivened by copious- ness, variety, and poetry ; his language is highly figurative ; his descriptions of scenery and incidents are eminently picturesque, his characters dramatic, and the expression of his own senti- ments almost lyrical. 164 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Suetonius was born about 69 A. D. His principal extant works are the " Lives of the Twelve Caesars," " Notices of Illus- trious Grammarians and Rhetoricians," and the Lives of the Poets Terence, Horace, Persius, Lucaii, and Juvenal. The use which he makes of historical documents proves that he was a man of diligent research, and, as a biographer, industrious and careful. He indulges neither in ornament of style nor in roman- tic exaggeration. The pictures which he draws of some of the Caesars are indeed terrible, but they are fully supported by the contemporary authority of Juvenal and Tacitus. As a histo- rian, Suetonius had not that comprehensive and philosophical mind which would qualify him for taking an enlarged view of his subject ; he has no definite plan or method, and wanders at will from one subject to another just as the idea seizes him. Curtius is considered by some writers as belonging to the Sil- ver Age, and by others to a later period. His biography of Alexander the Great is deeply interesting. It is a romance rather than a history. He never loses an opportunity, by the coloring which he gives to historical facts, of elevating the Mac- edonian conqueror to a superhuman standard. His florid and ornamented style is suitable to the imaginary orations which are introduced in the narrative, and which constitute the most strik- ing portions of the work. Valerius Maximus flourished during the reign of Tiberius. His work is a collection of anecdotes entitled " Memorable Say- ings and Deeds," the object of which was to illustrate by exam- ples the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. The style is prolix and declamatory, and characterized by awkward affec- tation and involved obscurity. 7. RHETORIC AND ELOQUENCE. Under the empire, schools of rhetoric were multiplied, as harmless as tyranny could desire. In these the Roman youth learned the means by which the ab- sence of natural endowments could be compensated. The stu- dents composed their speeches according to the rules of rhetoric ; they were then corrected, committed to memory, and recited, partly with a view to practice, partly in order to amuse an ad- miring audience. Nor were these declamations confined to mere students. Public recitations had, since the days of Juve- nal, been one of the crying nuisances of the times. Seneca, the father of the philosopher of the same name, a famous rhetorician himself, left two works containing a series of exercises in ora- tory, which show the hollow and artificial system of those schools. He was born in Cordova in Spain (61 A. D.), and as a profes- sional rhetorician amassed a considerable fortune. Quintilian (40-118 A. D.) was the most distinguished teacher of rhetoric of this age. He attempted to restore a purer and ROMAN LITERATURE. 165 more classical taste, but, although to a certain extent he was successful, the effect which he produced was only temporary. For the instruction of his elder son he wrote his great work, " Institutes of Oratory," a complete system of instruction in the art of oratory ; and in it he shows himself far superior to Cicero as a teacher, though he was inferior to him as an orator. His work is divided into twelve books, in which he traces the progress of the orator from the very cradle until he arrives at perfection. In this monument of his taste and genius he fully and completely exhausted the subject, and left a text-book of the science and art of nations, as well as a masterly sketch of the eloquence of antiquity. The disposition of Quintilian was as affectionate and tender as his genius was brilliant and his taste pure ; few passages through- out the whole range of Latin literature can be compared to that in which he mourns the loss of his wife and children. It is the touching eloquence of one who could not write otherwise than gracefully. Among the pupils of Quintilian, Pliny the younger took the highest place in the literature of his age. He was born in Como, 61 A. D., and adopted and educated by his maternal uncle, the elder Pliny. He attained great celebrity as a pleader, and stood high in favor with the emperor. His works consist of a pane- gyric on Trajan, and a collection of letters in ten books. / The panegyric is a piece of courtly flattery in accordance with the cringing and fawning manners of the times. The letters are very valuable, not only for the insight which they give into his own character, but also into the manners and modes of thought of his illustrious contemporaries, as well as the politics of the day. For liveliness, descriptive power, elegance, and simplicity of style, they are scarcely inferior to those of Cicero, whom he evidently took for his model. These letters show how accurate and judicious was the mind of Pliny, how prudent his adminis- tration in the high offices which he filled under the reign of Tra- jan, and how refined his taste for the beautiful. The tentli book, which consists of the letters to Trajan, together with the em- peror's rescripts, will be read with the greatest interest. The following passages from his dispatch respecting the Christians, written while he was procurator of the province of Bithynia, and the emperor's answer, are worthy of being transcribed, both because reference is so often made to them, and because they throw light upon the marvelous and rapid propagation of the gospel, the manners of the early Christians, the treatment to which their constancy exposed them, and the severe jealousy with which they were regarded : " It is my constant practice, sire, to refer to you all subjects 166 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. on which I entertain doubt. For who is better able to direct my hesitation, or to instruct my ignorance ? I have never been present at the trials of Christians, and, therefore, I do not know in what way, or to what extent it is usual to question or to punish them. I have also felt no small difficulty in deciding whether age should make any difference, or whether those of the tenderest and those of mature years should be treated alike ; whether pardon should be accorded to repentance, or whether, where a man has once been a Christian, recantation should profit him ; whether, if the name of Christian does not imply crimi- nality, still the crimes peculiarly belonging to the name should be punished. Meanwhile, in the case of those against whom informations have been laid before me, I have pursued the fol- lowing line of conduct : I have put to them, personally, the question whether they were Christians. If they confessed, I interrogated them a second and third time, and threatened them with punishment. If they still persevered, I ordered their com- mitment ; for I had no doubt whatever, that whatever they con- fessed, at any rate, dogged and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished. There were others who displayed similar madness ; but, as they were Roman citizens, I ordered them to be sent back to the city. Soon, persecution itself, as is generally the case, caused the crime to spread, and it appeared in new forms. An anonymous information was laid against a large number of persons, but they deny that they are, or ever have been, Chris- tians. As they invoked the gods, repeating the form after me, and offered prayer with incense and wine, to your image, which I had ordered to be brought together with those of the deities, and besides, cursed Christ, while those who are true Christians, it is said, cannot be compelled to do any one of these things, I thought it right to set them at liberty. Others, when accused by an informer, confessed that they were Christians, and soon after denied the fact. They said they had been, but had ceased to be, some three, some more, not a few even twenty years pre- viously. All these worshiped your image and those of the gods, and cursed Christ. But they affirmed that the sum-total of their fault, or their error, was that they were accustomed to assemble on a fixed day, before dawn, and sing an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God ; that they bound themselves by an oath, not to the commission of any wickedness, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery ; never to break a promise, or to deny a deposit, when it was demanded back. When these ceremonies were concluded, it was their custom to depart, and again assem- ble together to take food harmlessly and in common. That after my proclamation, in which, in obedience to your command, I had forbidden associations, they had desisted from this prac- ROMAN LITERATURE. 167 tice. For these reasons, I the more thought it necessary to in- vestigate the real truth, by putting to the torture two maidens who were called deaconessos ; but I discovered nothing, but a perverse and excessive superstition. I have, therefore, deferred taking cognizance of the matter until I had consulted you ; for it seemed to me a case requiring advice, especially on account of the number of those in peril. For many of every age, sex, and rank are, and will continue to be called in question. The infection, in fact, has spread not only through the cities, but also through the villages and open country ; but it seems that its progress can be arrested. At any rate, it is clear that the tem- ples, which were almost deserted, begin to be frequented ; and solemn sacrifices, which had been long intermitted, are again performed, and victims are being sold everywhere, for which, up to this time, a purchaser could rarely be found. It is, there- fore, easy to conceive that crowds might be reclaimed, if an op- portunity for repentance were given." Trajan to Pliny : " In sifting the cases of those who have been indicted on the charge of Christianity, you have adopted, my dear Secundus, the right course of proceeding ; for no cer- tain rule can be laid down which will meet all cases. They must not be sought after, but if they are informed against, and convicted, they must be punished ; with this proviso, however, that if any deny that he is a Christian, and proves the point by offering prayers to our deities, notwithstanding the suspicions under which he has labored, he shall be pardoned on his re- pentance. On no account should any anonymous charges be attended to, for it would be the worst possible precedent, and is inconsistent with the habits of our time." 8. PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. Philosophy, and particularly moral philosophy, became a necessary study at this time, when the popular religion had lost its influence. In the general ruin of public and private morals, virtuous men found in this science a guide in the dangers by which they were continually threat- ened, and a consolation in all their sorrows. The Stoic among the other schools met with most favor from this class of men, for it offered better security against the evils of life, and taught men how to take shelter from baseness and profligacy under the influence of virtue and courage. The doctrines of the Stoics suited the rigid sternness of the Roman character. They em- bodied that spirit of self-devotion and self-denial with which the Roman patriot, in the old times of simple republican virtue, threw himself into his public duties, and they enabled him to meet death with a courageous spirit in this degenerate age, in which many of the best and noblest willingly died by their own /lands, at the imperial mandate, in order to save their name from infamy, and their inheritance from confiscation. 168 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Seneca (12-69 A. D.), a native of Cordova in Spain, was the greatest philosopher of this age. He early displayed great tal- ent as a pleader, but in the reign of Claudius he was banished to Corsica, where he solaced his exile with the study of the Stoic philosophy ; and though its severe precepts exercised no moral influence on his conduct, he not only professed himself a Stoic, but imagined that he was one. A few years after, he was re- called by Agrippina, to become tutor to her son Nero. He was too unscrupulous a man of the world to attempt the correction of the vicious propensities of his pupil, or to instill into him high principles. After the accession of Nero, he endeavored to ar- rest his depraved career, but it was too late. Seneca had, by usury and legacy-hunting, amassed one of those large fortunes of which so many instances are met with in Roman history ; feel- ing the dangers of wealth, he offered his property to Nero, who refused it, but resolved to rid himself of his former tutor, and easily found a pretext for his destruction. In adversity the char- acter of Seneca shone with brighter lustre. Though he had lived ill, he could die well. He met the messengers of death without trembling. His noble wife, Paulina, determined to die with him. The veins of both were opened at the same time, but the little blood which remained in his emaciated frame refused to flow. He suffered excruciating agony. A warm bath was tried, but in vain ; and a draught of poison was equally ineffectual. At last he was suffocated by the vapor of a stove. Seneca lived in a perilous atmosphere. He had not firmness to act up to the high moral standard which he proposed to him- self. He was avaricious, but avarice was the great sin of his times. The education of one who was a brute rather than a man was a task to which no one would have been equal ; he therefore retained the influence which he had not the upright> ness to command, by miserable and sinful expedients. He had great abilities, and some of the noble qualities of the old Ro- mans ; and had he lived in the days of the republic, he would have been a great man. Seneca was the author of twelve ethical treatises, the best of which are entitled, " On Providence," " On Consolation," and " On the Perseverance of Wise Men." He cared little for ab- stract speculation, and delighted to inculcate precepts rather than to investigate principles. He was always a favorite with Chris- tian writers, and some of his sentiments are truly Christian. There is even a tradition that he was acquainted with St. Paul. He may unconsciously have imbibed some of the principles of Christianity. The gospel had already made great and rapid strides over the civilized world, and thoughtful minds may have been enlightened by some of the rays of divine truth dispersed ROMAN LITERATURE. 169 by the moral atmosphere, just as we are benefited by the light of the sun, even when its disk is obscured by clouds. His epis- tles, of which there are one hundred and twenty-four, are moral essays, and are the most delightful of his works. They are evi- dently written for the public eye ; they are rich in varied thought, and their reflections flow naturally, and without effort. They 1 contain a free and unconstrained picture of his mind, and we see in them how he despised verbal subtleties, the external badges of a sect or creed, and insisted that the great end of sci- ence is to learn how to live and how to die. The style of Sen- eca is too elaborate to please. It is affected, often florid, and bombastic ; there is too much sparkle and glitter, too little re- pose and simplicity. Pliny the elder (A. D. 23-79) was born probably at Como, the family residence. He was educated at Rome, where he practiced at the bar, and filled different civil offices. He perished a mar- tyr to the cause of science, in the eruption of Vesuvius, which took place in the reign of Titus, the first of which there is any record in history. The circumstances of his death are described by his nephew, Pliny the younger, in two letters to Tacitus. He was at Misenum, in command of the fleet, when, observing the first indications of the eruption, and wishing to investigate it more closely, he fitted out a light galley, and sailed towards the villa of a friend at Stabiae. He found his friend in great alarm, but Pliny remained tranquil and retired to rest. Meanwhile, broad flames burst forth from the volcano, the blaze was reflected from the sky, and the brightness was enhanced by the darkness of the night. Repeated shocks of an earthquake made the houses rock to and fro, while in the air the fall of half burnt pumice-stones menaced danger. He was awakened, and he and his friend, with their attendants, tied cushions over their heads to protect them from the falling stones, and walked out to see if they might venture on the water. It was now day, but the darkness was denser than the darkest night, the sea was a waste of stormy waters, and when at last the flames and the sulphure- ous smell could no longer be endured, Pliny fell dead, suffocated by the dense vapor. The natural history of Pliny is an unequaled monument of studious diligence and persevering industry. It consists of thirty- seven books, and contains 20,000 facts (as he believed them to be) connected with nature and art, the result not of original research, but, as he honestly confessed, culled from the labors of other men. Owing to the extent of his reading, his love of the marvelous, and his want of judgment in comparing and selecting, he does not present us with a correct view of the science of his own age. 170 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. He reproduces errors evidently obsolete and inconsistent with facts and theories which had afterwards replaced them. With him, mythological traditions appeared to have almost the same authority as modern discoveries ; the earth teems with monsters, not exceptions to the regular order of nature, but specimens of her ingenuity. His peculiar pantheistic belief prepared him to consider nothing incredible, and his temper inclined him to ad- mit all that was credible as true. He tells us of men whose feet were turned backwards, of oth- ers whose feet were so large as to shade them when they lay in the sun ; others without mouths, who fed on the fragrance of fruits and flowers. Among the lower animals, he enumerates horned horses furnished with wings ; the mantichora, with the face of a man, three rows of teeth, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail ; the basilisk, whose very glance is fatal ; and an insect which cannot live except in the midst of the flames. But notwithstand- ing his credulity and his want of judgment, this elaborate work contains many valuable truths and much entertaining informa- tion. The prevailing character of his philosophical belief, though tinctured with the stoicism of the day, is querulous and melan- choly. Believing that nature is an all-powerful principle, and the universe instinct with deity, he saw more of evil than of good in the divine dispensation, and the result was a gloomy and dis- contented pantheism. Celsus probably lived in the reign of Tiberius. He was the author of many works, on various subjects, of which one, in eight books, on medicine, is now extant. The independence of his views, the practical, as well as the scientific nature of his in- structions, and above all, his knowledge of surgery, and his clear exposition of surgical operations, have given his work great au- thority ; the highest testimony is borne to its merits by the fact of its being used as a text-book, even in the present advanced state of medical science. The taste of the age in which he lived turned his attention also to polite literature, and to that may be ascribed the Augustan purity of his style. Pomponius Mela lived in the reign of Claudius. He is con- sidered as the representative of the Roman geographers. Though his book, " The Place of the World," is but an epitome of former treatises, it is interesting for the simplicity of its style and the purity of its language. Columella flourished in the reigns of Claudius and Nero. He is author of an agricultural work, " De Re Rustica," in which he gives, in smooth and fluent, though somewhat too diffuse a style, the fullest and completest information on practical agriculture among the Romans in the first century of the Christian era. Frontinus (fl. 78 A. D.) left two valuable works, one on mil* ROMAN LITERATURE. 171 tary tactics, the other a descriptive architectural treatise on those wonderful monuments of Roman art, the aqueducts. Besides these, there are extant fragments of other works on surveying, and on the laws and customs relating to landed property, which assign Frontinus an important place in the estimation of the stu- dents of Roman history. 9. ROMAN LITERATURE FROM HADRIAN TO THEODORIC (138- 526 A. D.). From the death of Augustus, Roman literature had gradually declined, and though it shone forth for a time with classic radiance in the writings of Persius, Juvenal, Quin- tilian, Tacitus, and the Plinies, with the death of freedom, the extinction of patriotism, and the decay of the national spirit, noth- ing could avert its fall. Poetry had become declamation ; his- tory had degenerated either into fulsome panegyric or the flesh- less skeletons of epitomes ; and at length the Romans seemed to disdain the use of their native tongue, and wrote again in Greek, as they had in the infancy of the national literature. The Em- peror Hadrian resided long at Athens, and became imbued with a taste and admiration for Greek ; and thus the literature of Rome became Hellenized. From this epoch the term classical can no longer be applied to it, for it no longer retained its purity. To Greek influence succeeded the still more corrupting one o foreign nations. With the death of Nerva, the uninterrupted succession of emperors of Roman or Italian birth ceased. Trajan himself was a Spaniard, and after him not only foreigners of every European race, but even Orientals and Africans were in- vested with the imperial purple, and the huge empire over which they ruled was one unwieldy mass of heterogeneous materials. The literary influence of the capital was not felt in the interior portions of the Roman dominions. Schools were established in the very heart of nations just emerging from barbarism ; and though the blessings of civilization and intellectual culture were thus distributed far ana wide, still literary taste, as it flowed through the minds of foreigners, became corrupted, and the lan- guage of the imperial city, exposed to the infecting contact of barbarous idioms, lost its purity. The Latin authors of this age were numerous, but few had taste to appreciate and imitate the literature of the Augustan age. They may be classified according to their departments of poetry, history, grammar and oratory, philosophy and science. The brightest star of the poetry of this period was Claudian (365404 A. D.), in whom the graceful imagination of classical antiquity seems to have revived. He enjoyed the patronage of Stilicho, the guardian and minister of Honorius, and in the praise and honor of him and of his pupil, he wrote " The Rape of Pros- erpine," the "War of the Giants," and several other poems. 172 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. His descriptions indicate a rich and powerful imagination, but, neglecting substance for form, his style is often declamatory and affected. Among the earliest authors of Christian hymns were Hilarius and Prudentius. Those of the former were expressly designed to be sung, and are said to have been set to music by the author himself. Prudentius (fl. 348 A. D.) wrote many hymns and poems in defense of the Christian faith, more distin- guished for their pious and devotional character than for their lyric sublimity or purity of language. To this age belong also the hymns of Damasus and of Ambrose. Among the historians are Flavius Eutropius, who lived in the fourth century, and by the direction of the Emperor Valens com- Ced an " Epitome of Roman History," which was a favorite k in the Middle Ages. Ammianus Marcellinus, his contem- porary, wrote a Roman history in continuation of Tacitus and Suetonius. Though his style is affected and often rough and in- accurate, his work is interesting for its digressions and observa- tions. Severus Sulpicius wrote the history of the Hebrews, and of the four centuries of the church. His " Sacred History," for its language and style, is one of the best works of that age. In the department of oratory may be mentioned Cornelius Fronto, who flourished under Domitian and Nerva, and was endowed with a rich imagination and a mind stored with vast erudition in Greek and Latin literature, Symmachus, distin- guished for his opposition to Christianity, and Cassiodorus, min- ister and secretary of the Emperor Theodoric. In the decline of Roman, as of Greek literature, grammarians took the place of poets and of historians ; they commented on and interpreted the ancient classics, and transmitted to us valu- able information concerning the Augustan writers. Among the most important works of this kind are the " Attic Nights " of Gellius, who was born in Rome, and lived under Hadrian and the Antonines. In this work are preserved many valuable pas- sages of the classics which would otherwise have been lost. Macrobius, who flourished in the middle of the fifth century, was the author of different works in which the doctrines of the Neo- Platonic school are expounded. His style, however, is very de- fective. A striking characteristic of the writings, both in Greek and Latin, of the last ages of the empire, is the prevalence of prin- ciples and opinions imported from the East. The Neo-Platonic school, imbued with Oriental mysticism, had diffused the belief in spirits and magic, and the philosophy of this age was a mix- ture of ancient wisdom with new superstitions belonging to the ages of transition between the decadence of the ancient faith and the development of a new religion. The best representative ROMAN LITERATURE. 173 of the philosophy of this age is Apuleius, born in Africa in the reign of Hadrian. After having receive^his education in Car- thage and Athens, he came to Rome, ^p-e he acquired great reputation as a literary man, and as the possessor of extraordi- nary supernatural powers. IV this extensive philosophical knowl- edge and immense erudition IWBmited great polish of manner and remarkable beauty of person. He wrote much on philoso- phy ; but his most important work is a romance known as " Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass," containing his philosoph- ical and mystic doctrines. In this book, the object of which is to encourage the belief in mysticism, the writer describes the transformation of a young man into an ass, who is allowed to take his primitive human form only through a knowledge of the mysteries of Isis. The story is well told, and the romance is full of interest and sprightliness ; but its style is incorrect, florid, and bombastic. Boethius (470-524), the last of the Roman philosophers, was the descendant of an illustrious family. He made Greek phi- losophy the principal object of his meditations. He was raised to the highest honors and offices in the empire by Theodoric, but finally, through the artifices of enemies who envied his reputa- tion, he lost the favor of his patron, was imprisoned, and at length beheaded. Of his numerous works, founded on the peri- patetic philosophy, that which has gained him the greatest celeb- rity is entitled " On the Consolations of Philosophy," composed while he was in prison. It is in the form of a dialogue, in which philosophy appears to console him with the idea of Divine Provi- dence. The poetical part of the book is written with elegance and grace, and his prose, though not pure, is fluent and full of tranquil dignity. The work of Boethius, which is known in all modern languages, was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, 900 A. D. The fathers of the church followed more particularly the phi- losophy of Plato, which was united and adapted to Christianity. St. Augustine is the most illustrious among the Christian Pla- tonists. The most eloquent orators and writers of this period were found among the advocates of Christianity ; and among the most celebrated of these Latin fathers of the Christian church we may mention the following names. Tertullian (160-285), in his apology for the Christians, gives much information on the manners and conduct of the early Christians ; his style is concise and figurative, but harsh, unpolished, and obscure. St. Cyprian (200-258), beheaded at Carthage for preaching the gospel con- trary to the orders of the government, wrote an explanation of the Lord's Prayer, which affords a valuable illustration of the 174 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ecclesiastical history of the time. Arnobius (fl. 300) refuted the objections of the heathen against Christianity with spirit and learning, in his " Disputes with the Gentiles," a work rich in materials for the understanding of Greek and Roman mythol- ogy.. Lactantius (d. 335), on account of his fine and eloquent language, is frequently called the Christian Cicero ; his " Divine Institutes " are particularly celebrated. St. Ambrose (340-397) obtained great honor by his conduct as Bishop of Milan, and his writings bear the stamp of his high Christian character. St. Augustine (360-430) was one of the most renowned of all the Latin fathers. Though others may have been more learned or masters of a purer style, none more powerfully touched and warmed the heart towards religion. His " City of God " is one of the great monuments of human genius. St. Jerome (330-420) wrote many epistles full of energy and affection, as well as of religious zeal. He made a Latin version of the Old Testament, which was the foundation of the Vulgate, and which gave a new impulse to the study of the Holy Scriptures. Leo the Great (fl. 440) is the first pope whose writings have been preserved. They consist of sermons and letters. His style is finished and rhetorical. 10. ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE. In the period which followed, from the death of Augustus to the time of the Antonines, Roman civilians and legal writers continued to be numerous, and as a professional body they seem to have enjoyed high consideration until the close of the reign of Alexander Severus, 335 A. D. After that time they were held in much less estimation, as the science fell into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who practiced it as a sordid and pernicious trade. With the reign of Constan- tine, the credit of the profession revived, and the youth of the empire were stimulated to pursue the study of the law by the hope of being ultimately rewarded by honorable and lucrative offices, the magistrates being almost wholly taken from the class of lawyers. Two jurists of this reign, Gregorianus and Hermo- genianus, are particularly distinguished as authors of codes which are known by their names, and which were recognized as stand- ard authorities in courts of justice. The "Code of Theodosius " was a collection of laws reduced by that emperor, and promul- gated in both empires 438 A. D. It retained its authority in the western empire until its final overthrow, 476 A. D., and even after this, though modified by the institutions of the conquerors. In the eastern empire, it was only superseded by the code of Justinian. This emperor undertook the .task of reducing to order and system the great confusion and perplexity in which the whole subject of Roman jurisprudence was involved. For this pur- pose he employed the most eminent lawyers, with the celebrated ROMAN LITERATURE. 175 Tribonian at their head, to whom he intrusted the work of form- ing and publishing a complete collection of the preceding laws and edicts, and who devoted several years of unwearied labor and research to this object. They first collected and reduced the imperial constitutions from the time of Hadrian downwards, which was promulgated as the " Justinian Code." Their next labor was to reduce the writings of the jurisconsults of the pre- ceding ages, especially those who had lived under the empire, and whose works are said to have amounted to two thousand volumes. This work was published 533 A. D., under the title of " Pandects," or " Digest," the former title referring to their completeness as comprehending the whole of Roman jurispru- dence, and the latter to their methodical arrangement. At the same time, a work prepared by Tribonian was published by the order of the emperor, on the elements or first principles of Ro- man law, entitled " Institutes," and another collection consisting of constitutions and edicts, under the title of " Novels," chiefly written in Greek, but known to the moderns by a Latin transla- tion. These four works, the Code, the Pandects, the Institutes, and the Novels, constituted what is now called the Body of Ro- man Law. Tho system of jurisprudence established by Justinian remained in force in the eastern empire until the taking of Constantinople, 1453 A. D. After the fall of the western empire, these laws had little sway until the twelfth century, when Irnerius, a German lawyer who had studied at Constantinople, opened a school at Bologna, and thus revived and propagated in the West a knowl- edge of Roman civil law. Students flocked to this school from all parts, and by them Roman jurisprudence, as embodied in the system of Justinian, was transmitted to most of the countries of Europe. During the fourth and fifth centuries, the process of the de- basement of the Roman tongue went on with great rapidity. The influence of the provincials began what the irruptions of the northern tribes consummated. In many scattered parts of the empire it is probable that separate Latin dialects arose, and the strain upon the whole structure of the tongue was prodigious, when the Goths poured into Italy, established themselves in the capital, and began to speak and write in a language previously foreign to them. With the close of the reign of Theodoric the curtain falls upon ancient literature. ARABIAN LITERATURE. 1. European Literature in the Dark Ages. 2. The Arabian Language. 3. Arabian Mythology and the Koran. 4. Historical Development of Arabian Literature. 5. Grammar and Rhetoric. 6. Poetry. 7. The Arabian Tales. 8. History and Science. 9. Education. 1. EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN THE DARK AGES. The lit- erature, arts, and sciences of the Arabs formed the connecting link between the civilizations of ancient and modern times. To them we owe the revival of learning in Western Europe, and many of the inventions and useful arts perfected by later na- tions. From the middle of the sixth century A. D. to the beginning of the eleventh, the interval between the decline of ancient and the development of modern literature is known in history as the Dark Ages. The sudden rise of the Arabian Empire and the rapid development of its literature were the great events which characterize the period. At the beginning of this epoch classical genius was already ex- tinct, and the purity of the classical tongues was yielding rapidly to the corruptions of the provinces and of the new dialects. Many other causes conspired to work great changes in the fab- ric of society, and in the manifestations of human intellect. Throughout this period the treasures of Greek and Latin litera- ature, exposed to the danger of perishing and impaired by much actual loss, exerted no influence on the minds of those who still used the tongues to which they belong. Greek letters, as we have seen, decayed with the Byzantine power, and the vital prin- ciple in both became extinct long before the sword of the Turk- ish conqueror inflicted the final blow. The fate of Latin litera- ture was not less deplorable. When province after province of the Roman dominions was overrun by the northern hordes, when the imperial schools were suppressed and the monuments of an- cient genius destroyed, an enfeebled people and a debased lan- guage could not withstand such adverse circumstances. During the seventh and eighth centuries Latin composition degenerated into the rudeness of the monkish style. The care bestowed by Charlemagne upon education in the ninth century produced some purifying effect upon the writings of the cloister ; the tenth was distinguished by an increased zeal in the task of transcribing the classical authors, and in the eleventh the Latin works of the ARABIAN LITERATURE. 177 Normans display some masculine force and freedom. Latin was the repository of such knowledge as the times could boast ; it was used in the service of the church, and in the chronicles that supplied the place of history, but it was not the vehicle of any great production stamped with true genius and impressing the minds of posterity. Still, genius was not altogether extinguished in every part of Europe. The north, which sent out its daring tribes to change the aspect of civil life, furnished a fresh source of mental inspiration, which was destined, with the recovered in- fluence of the classic spirit and other prolific causes, to give birth to some of the best portions of modern literature. At the memorable epoch of the overthrow of the Roman do- minion in the West (476 A. D.), the seats of the Teutonic race extended from the banks of the Rhine and the Danube to the rock-bound coasts of Norway. The victorious invaders who oc- cupied the southern provinces of Europe speedily lost their own forms of speech, which were broken down, together with those of the vanquished, into a jargon unfit for composition. But in Ger- many and Scandinavia, where the old language retained its pu- rity, song continued to flourish. There, from the most distant eras described by Tacitus and other Latin writers, the favorite attendants of kings and chiefs were those celebrated bards who preserved in their traditionary strains the memory of great events, the praises of the gods, the glory of warriors, and the laws and customs of their countrymen. Intrusted, like the Gre- cian heroic minstrelsy, to oral recitation, it was not until the propitious reign of Charlemagne that these verses were collected. But, through the bigotry of his successor or the ravages of time, not a fragment of this collection remains. We are enabled, how- ever, to form an idea of the general tone and tenor of this early Teutonic poetry from other interesting remains. The " Nibe- lungen-Lied" (Lay of the Nibelungeri) and "Heldenbuch" (Book of Heroes) may be regarded as the Homeric poems of Germany. After an examination of their monuments, the abil- ity of the ancient bards, the honor in which they were held, and the enthusiasm which they produced, will not be surprising. Equally distinguished were the Scalds of Scandinavia. Ever in the train of princes and gallant adventurers, they chanted their rhymeless verse for the encouragement and solace of he- roes. Their oldest songs, or sagas, are mostly of a historical import. In the Icelandic Edda, however, the richest monument of this species of composition, the theological element of their poetry is shadowed out in the most picturesque and fanciful leg- ends. Such was the intellectual state of Europe down to the age of Charlemagne. While in the once famous seats of arts and arms 12 178 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. scarcely a ray of native genius or courage was visible, the light of human intellect still burned in lands whose barbarism had furnished matter for the sarcasm of classical writers. Charlemagne encouraged learning, established schools, and filled his court with men of letters ; while in England, the illus- trious Alfred, himself a scholar and an author, improved and enriched the Anglo-Saxon dialect, and exerted the most benefi- cial influence on his contemporaries. The confusion and debasement of language in the south of Europe has already been alluded to. But the force and activity of mind, that formed an essential characteristic of the conquer- ing race, were destined ultimately to evolve regularity and har- mony out of the concussion of discordant elements. The Latin and Teutonic tongues were blended together, and hence pro- ceeded all the chief dialects of modern Europe. Over the south, from Portugal to Italy, the Latin element prevailed ; but even where the Teutonic was the chief ingredient, as in the English and German, there has also been a large infusion of the Latin. To these two languages, and to the Provencal, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portugese, called, from their Roman origin, the Romance or Romanic languages, all that is prominent and pre- cious in modern letters belongs. But it is not until the eleventh century that their progress becomes identified with the history of literature. Up to this period there had been little repose, freedom, or peaceful enjoyment of property. The independence and industry of the middle classes were almost unknown, and the chieftain, the vassal, and the slave were the characters which stood out in the highest relief. Throughout the whole of the eleventh century, the social chaos seemed resolving itself into some approach to order and tranquillity. The gradual abolition of personal servitude, hardly accomplished in three successive centuries, now began. A third estate arose. The rights of cities, and the corporation-spirit, the result of the necessity that drove men to combine for mutual defense, led to intercourse among them and to consequent improvement in language. Chiv- alry, also, served to mitigate the oppressions of the nobles, and to soften and refine their manners. From the date of the first crusade (1093 A. D.) down to the close of the twelfth century, was the golden age of chivalry. The principal thrones of Europe were occupied by her foremost knights. The East formed a point of union for the ardent and adventurous of different coun- tries, whose courteous rivalry stimulated the growth of generous sentiments and the passion for brave deeds. The genius of Eu- rope was roused by the passage of thousands of her sons through Greece into Asia and Egypt, amidst the ancient seats of art science, and refinement ; and the minds of men received a fresfc ARABIAN LITERATURE. 179 and powerful impulse. It was during the eleventh century that the brilliancy of the Arabian literature reached its culminating point, and, through the intercourse of the Troubadours with the Moors of the peninsula, and of the Crusaders with the Arabs in the East, began to influence the progress of letters in Europe. 2. THE ARABIAN LANGUAGE. The Arabian language be- longs to the Semitic family ; it has two principal dialects the northern, which has, for centuries, been the general tongue of the empire, and is best represented in literature, and the south- ern, a branch of which is supposed to be the mother of the Ethi- opian language. The former, in degenerated dialects, is stiU spoken in Arabia, in parts of western Asia, and throughout northern Africa, and forms an important part of the Turkish, Persian, and other Oriental languages. The Arabic is character- ized by its guttural sounds, by the richness and pliability of its vowels, by its dignity, volume of sound, and vigor of accentua- tion and pronunciation. Like all Semitic languages, it is writ* ten from right to left ; the characters are of Syrian origin, and were introduced into Arabia before the time of Mohammed. They are of two kinds, the Cufic, which were first used, and the Nieskhi, which superseded them, and which continue in use at the present day. The Arabic alphabet was, with a few modifica- tions, early adopted by the Persians and Turks. 3. ARABIAN MYTHOLOGY AND THE KORAN. Before the time of Mohammed, the Arabians were gross idolaters. They had some traditionary idea of the unity and perfections of the Deity, but their creed embraced an immense number of subordi- nate divinities, represented by images of men and women, beasts and birds. The essential basis of their religion was Sabeism, or star-worship. The number and beauty of the heavenly lumina- ries, and the silent regularity of their motions, could not fail deeply to impress the minds of this imaginative people, living in the open air, under the clear and serene sky, and wandering among the deserts, oases, and picturesque mountains of Arabia. They had seven celebrated temples dedicated to the seven plan- ets. Some tribes exclusively reverenced the moon ; others the dog-star. Some had received the religion of the Magi, or fire- worshipers, while others had become converts to Judaism. Ishmael is one of the most venerated progenitors of the na- tion ; and it is the common faith that Mecca, then an arid wil- derness, was the spot where his life was providentially saved, and where Hagar, his mother, was buried. The well pointed out by the angel, they believe to be the famous Zemzem, of which all pious Mohammedans drink to this day. To commem- orate the miraculous preservation of Ishmael, God commanded Abraham to build a temple, and he erected and consecrr-ted the 180 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Caaba, or sacred house, which is still venerated in Mecca ; and the black stone incased within its walls is the same on which Abraham stood. Mohammed (569-632 A. D.) did not pretend to introduce a new religion; his professed object was merely to restore the primitive and only true faith, such as it had been in the days of the patriarchs ; the fundamental idea of which was the unity of God. He made the revelations of the Old and New Testaments the basis of his preaching. , He maintained the authority of the books of Moses, admitted the divine mission of Jesus, and he enrolled himself in the catalogue of inspired teachers. This doctrine was proclaimed in the memorable words, which for so many centuries constituted the war-cry of the Saracens, There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet. Mohammed preached no dogmas substantially new, but he adorned, ampli- fied, and adapted to the ideas, prejudices, and inclinations of the Orientals, doctrines which were as old as the race. He enjoined the ablutions suited to the manners and necessities of hot cli- mates. He ordained five daily prayers, that man might learn habitually to elevate his thoughts above the outward world. He instituted the festival of the Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, and commanded that every man should bestow in alms the hundredth part of his possessions ; observances which, for the most part, already existed hi the established customs of the country. The Koran (Reading), the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is, according to their belief, the revelation of God to their prophet Mohammed. It contains not only their religious belief, but their civil, military, and political code. It is divided into 114 chapters, and 1,666 verses. It is written in rhythmical prose, and its materials are borrowed from the Jewish and Chris- tian scriptures, the legends of the Talmud, and the traditions and fables of the Arabian and Persian mythologies. Confusion of ideas, obscurity, and contradictions destroy the unity and even the interest of this work. The chapters are preposterously dis- tributed, not according to their date or connection, but according to their length, beginning with the longest, and ending with the shortest ; and thus the work becomes often the more unintelligi- ble by its singular arrangement. But notwithstanding this, there is scarcely a volume in the Arabic language which contains pas- sages breathing more sublime poetry, or more enchanting elo- quence ; and the Koran is so far important in the history of Arabian letters, that when the scattered leaves were collected by Abubeker, the successor of Mohammed (635 A. D.) and after- wards revised, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira, they fixed at once the classic language of the Arabs, and became their stand- ard in style as well as in religion. ARABIAN LITERATURE. 181 This work and its commentaries are held in the highest rever- ence by the Mohammedans. It is the principal book taught in their schools ; they never touch it without kissing it, and carry- ing it to the forehead, in token of their reverence ; oaths before the courts are taken upon it ; it is learned by heart, and repeated every forty days ; many believers copy it several times in their lives, and often possess one or more copies ornamented with gold and precious stones. The Koran treats of death, resurrection, the judgment, para- dise, and the place of torment, in a style calculated powerfully to affect the imagination of the believer. The joys of paradise, promised to all who fall in the cause of religion, are those most captivating to an Arabian fancy. When Al Sirat, or the Bridge of Judgment, which is as slender as the thread of a famished spider, and as sharp as the edge of a sword, shall be passed by the believer, he will be welcomed into the gardens of delight by black-eyed Houris, beautiful nymphs, not made of common clay, but of pure essence and odors, free from all blemish, and subject to no decay of virtue or of beauty, and who await their destined lovers in rosy bowers, or in pavilions formed of a single hollow pearl. The soil of paradise is composed of musk and saffron, sprinkled with pearls and hyacinths. The walls of its mansions are of gold and silver ; the fruits, which bend spontaneously to him who would gather them, are of a flavor and delicacy un- known to mortals. Numerous rivers flow through this blissful abode ; some of wine, others of milk, honey, and water, the peb- bly beds of which are rubies and emeralds, and their banks of musk, camphor, and saffron. In paradise the enjoyment of the believers, which is subject neither to satiety nor diminution, will be greater than the human understanding can compass. The meanest among them will have eighty thousand servants, and seventy-two wives. Wine, though forbidden on earth, will there be freely allowed, and will not hurt or inebriate. The ravishing songs of the angels and of the Houris will render all the groves vocal with harmony, such as mortal ear never heard. At what- ever age they may have died, at their resurrection all will be in the prime of manly and eternal vigor. It would be a journey of a thousand years for a true Mohammedan to travel through paradise, and behold all the wives, servants, gardens, robes, jew- els, horses, camels, and other things, which belong exclusively to him. The hell of Mohammed is as full of terror as his heaven is of delight. The wicked, who fall into the gulf of torture from the bridge of Al Sirat, will suffer alternately from cold and heat ; when they are thirsty, boiling water will be given them to drink ; and they will be shod with shoes of fire. The dark mansions of 182 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the Christians, Jews, Sabeans, Magians, and idolaters are sunk below each other with increasing horrors, in the order of their names. The seventh or lowest hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites of every religion. Into this dismal receptacle the un- happy sufferer will be dragged by seventy thousand halters, each pulled by seventy thousand angels, and exposed to the scourge of demons, whose pastime is cruelty and pain. It is a portion of the faith inculcated in the Koran, that both angels and demons exist, having pure and subtle bodies, created of fire, and free from human appetites and desires. The four principal angels are Gabriel, the angel of revelation ; Michael, the friend and protector of the Jews ; Azrael, the angel of death ; and Izrafel, whose office it will be to sound the trumpet at the last day. Every man has two guardian angels to attend him and record his actions, good and evil. The doctrine of the angels, demons, and jins or genii, the Arabians probably derived from the Hebrews. The demons are fallen angels, the prince of whom is Eblis ; he was at first one of the angels nearest to God's presence, and was called Azazel. He was cast out of heaven, according to the Koran, for refusing to pay homage to Adam at the time of the creation. The genii are intermediate creatures, neither wholly spiritual nor wholly earthly, some of whom are good and entitled to salvation, and others infidels and devoted to eternal torture. Among them are several ranks and degrees, as the Peris, or fairies, beautiful female spirits, who seek to do good upon the earth, and the Deev, or giants, who frequently make war upon the Peris, take them captive, and shut them up in cages. The genii, both good and bad, have the power of mak- ing themselves invisible at pleasure. Besides the mountain of Kaf, which is their chief place of resort, they dwell in ruined cities, uninhabited houses, at the bottom of wells, in woods, pools of water, and among the rocks and sandhills of the desert. Shooting stars are still believed by the people of the East to be arrows shot by the angels against the genii, who transgress these limits and approach too near the forbidden regions of bliss. Many of the genii delight in mischief ; they surprise and mis- lead travelers, raise whirlwinds, and dry up springs in the des- ert. The Ghoul lives on the flesh of men and women, whom he decoys to his haunts in wild and barren places, in order to kill and devour them, and when he cannot thus obtain food, he enters the graveyards and feeds upon the bodies of the dead. The fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Eu- rope in the eleventh century by the Troubadours and writers of the romances of chivalry, and through them it became an impor- tant element in the literature of Europe. It constituted the machinery of the Fabliaux of the Trouveres, and of the roman* ARABIAN LITERATURE. 183 tic epic's of Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, Shakspeare, and others. The three leading Mohammedan sects are the Sunnees, the Sheahs, and the Wahabees. The Sunnees acknowledge the au- thority of the first Caliphs, from whom most of the traditions were derived. The Sheahs assert the divine right of Ali to suc- ceed to the prophet ; consequently they consider the first Caliphs, and all their successors, as usurpers. The Wahabees are a sect of religious reformers, who took their name from Abd al Wahab (1700-1750), the Luther of the Mohammedans. They became a formidable power in Arabia, but they were finally overcome by Ibrahim Pacha in 1816. 4. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARABIAN LITERATURE. The literature of the Arabians has, properly speaking, but one period ; although from remote antiquity poetry was with them a favorite occupation, and long before the time of Moham- med the roving tribes of the desert had their annual conventions, where they defended their honor and celebrated their heroic deeds. As early as the fifth century A. D., at the fair of Ochadh, thirty days every year were employed not only in the exchange of merchandise, but in the nobler display of rival talents. A place was set apart for the competitions of the bards, whose highest ambition was to conquer in this literary arena, and the victorious compositions were inscribed in golden letters upon Egyptian paper, and suspended upon the doors of the Caaba, the ancient national sanctuary of Mecca. Seven of the most famous of these ancient poets have been celebrated by Oriental writers under the title of the Arabian Pleiades, and their songs, still preserved, are full of passion, manly pride, and intensity of im- agination and feeling. These and similar effusions constituted the entire literature of Arabia, and were the only archives of the nation previous to the age of Mohammed. The peninsula of Arabia, hitherto restricted to its natural boundaries, and peopled by wandering tribes, had occupied but a subordinate place in the history of the world. But the success of Mohammed and the preaching of the Koran were followed by the union of the tribes who, inspired by the feelings of national pride and religious fervor, in less than a century made the Ara- bian power, tongue, and religion predominant over a third part of Asia, almost one half of Africa, and a part of Spain ; and, from the ninth to the sixteenth century, the literature of the Arabians far surpassed that of any contemporary nation. After the fall of the Roman empire in the fifth century A. D., when the western world sank into barbarism, and the inhabitants, ever menaced by famine or the sword, found full occupation in struggling against civil wars, feudal tyranny, and the invasion 184 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. of barbarians ; when poetry was unknown, philosophy was pro scribed as rebellion against religion, and barbarous dialects had usurped the place of that beautiful Latin language which had so long connected the nations of the West, and preserved to them so many treasures of thought and taste, the Arabians, who by their conquests and fanaticism had contributed more than any other nation to abolish the cultivation of science and literature, having at length established their empire, in turn devoted them- selves to letters. Masters of the country of the magi and the Chaldeans, of Egypt, the first storehouse of human science, of Asia Minor, where poetry and the fine arts had their birth, and of Africa, the country of impetuous eloquence and subtle intel- lect they seemed to unite in themselves the advantages of all the nations which they had thus subjugated. Innumerable treasures had been the fruit of their conquests, and this hitherto rude and uncultivated nation now began to indulge in the most unbounded luxury. Possessed of all the delights that human industry, quickened by boundless riches, could procure, with all that could flatter the senses and attach the heart to life, they now attempted to mingle with these the pleasures of the intel- lect, the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and all that is most excellent in human knowledge. In this new career, their con- quests were not less rapid than they had been in the field ; nor was the empire which they founded less extended. With a ce- lerity equally surprising, it rose to a gigantic height, but it rested on a foundation no less insecure, and it was quite as transitory in its duration. The Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, corresponds with the year 622 of our era, and the supposed burning of the Alexandrian library by Amrou, the general of the Caliph Omar, with the year 641. This is the period of the deepest barbarism among the Saracens, and this event, doubtful as it is, has left a melancholy proof of their contempt for letters. A century had scarcely elapsed from the period to which this barbarian outrage is referred, when the family of the Abassides, who mounted the throne of the Caliphs in 750, introduced a passionate love of art, of science, and of poetry. In the litera- ture of Greece, nearly eight centuries of progressive cultivation succeeding the Trojan war had prepared the way for the age of Pericles. In that of Rome, the age of Augustus was also in the eighth century after the foundation of the city. In French literature, the age of Louis XIV. was twelve centuries subse- quent to Clovis, and eight after the development of the first rudiments of the language. But, in the rapid progress of the Arabian empire, the age of Al Mamoun, the Augustus of Bag- dad, was not removed more than one hundred and fifty year* ARABIAN LITERATURE. ( UN: . V Op 185 from the foundation of the monarchy. All the literature of the Arabians bears the marks of this rapid development. Ali, the fourth Caliph from Mohammed, was the first who extended any protection to letters. His rival and successor, Moawyiah, the first of the Ommyiades (661-680), assembled at his court all who were most distinguished by scientific acquire- ments ; he surrounded himself with poets ; and as he had sub- jected to his dominion many of the Grecian islands and provinces, the sciences of Greece under him first began to obtain any influ- ence over the Arabians. After the extinction of the dynasty of the Ommyiades, that of the Abassides bestowed a still more powerful patronage on letters. The celebrated Haroun al Raschid (786-809) acquired a glorious reputation by the protection he afforded to letters. He never undertook a journey without carrying with him at least a hundred men of science in his train, and he never built a rtnosque without attaching to it a school. But the true protector and father of Arabic literature was Al Mamoun, the son of Haroun al Raschid (813-833), who ren- dered Bagdad the centre of literature. He invited to his court from every part of the world all the learned men with whose existence he was acquainted, and he retained them by rewards, honors, and distinctions of every kind. He exacted, as the most precious tribute from the conquered provinces, all the important books and literary relics that could be discovered. Hundreds of camels might be seen entering Bagdad, loaded with nothing but manuscripts and papers, and those most proper for instruc- tion were translated into Arabic. Instructors, translators, and commentators formed the court of Al Mamoun, which appeared to be rather a learned academy, than the seat of government in a warlike empire. The Caliph himself was much attached to the study of mathematics, which he pursued with brilliant success. He conceived the grand design of measuring the earth, which was accomplished by his mathematicians, at his own expense. Not less generous than enlightened, Al Mamoun, when he par- doned one of his relatives who had revolted against him, ex- claimed, " If it were known what pleasure I experience in grant- ing pardon, all who have offended against me would come and confess their crimes." The progress of the Arabians in science was proportioned to the zeal of the sovereign. In every town of the empire schools, colleges, and academies were established. Bagdad was the capital of letters as well as of the Caliphs, but Bassora and Cufa almost equaled that city in reputation, and in the number of celebrated poems and treatises that they produced. Balkh, Ispahan, and Samarcand were equally the homes of science. 186 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Cairo contained a great number of colleges ; in the towns of Fez and Morocco the most magnificent buildings were appro- priated to the purposes of instruction, and in their rich libraries were preserved those precious volumes which had been lost in other places. What Bagdad was to Asia, Cordova was to Europe, where, particularly in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Arabs were the pillars of literature. At this period, when learning found scarcely anywhere either rest or encouragement, the Arabians were employed in collecting and diffusing it in the three great divisions of the world. Students traveled from France and other European countries to the Arabian schools in Spain, par- ticularly to learn medicine and mathematics. Besides the acad- emy at Cordova, there were established fourteen others in differ- ent parts of Spain, exclusive of the higher schools. The Arabians made the most rapid advancement in all the departments of learning, especially in arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. In the various cities of Spain, seventy libraries were opened for public instruction at the period when all the rest of Europe, without books, without learning, without cultivation, was plunged in the most disgraceful ignorance. The number of Arabic authors which Spain produced was so prodigious, that many Arabian bibliographers wrote learned treatises on the authors born in particular towns, or on those among the Spaniards who devoted themselves to a single branch of study, as philosophy, medicine, mathematics, or poetry. Thus, throughout the vast extent of the Arabian empire, the progress of letters had fol- lowed that of arms, and for five centuries this literature pre- served all its brilliancy. 5. GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC. The perfection of the lan- guage was one. of the first objects of the Arabian scholars, and from the rival schools cf Cufa and Bassora a number of distin- guished men proceeded, who analyzed with the greatest subtlety all its rules and aided in perfecting it. As early as in the age of Ali, the fourth Caliph, Arabian literature boasted of a num- ber of scientific grammarians. Prosody and the metric art were reduced to systems. Dictionaries of the language were com- posed, some of which are highly esteemed at the present day. .Ajnong these may be mentioned the " Al Sehah," or Purity, and " El Kamus," or the Ocean, which is considered the best dictionary of the Arabian language. The study of rhetoric was united to that of grammar, and the most celebrated works of the Greeks on this art were translated and adapted to the Arabic. After the age of Mohammed and his immediate suc- cessors, popular eloquence was no longer cultivated. Eastern despotism having supplanted the liberty of the desert, the heads ARABIAN LITERATURE. 187 of the state or army regarded it beneath them to harangue the people or the soldiers ; they called upon them only for obedience. But though political eloquence was of short duration among the Arabians, on the other hand they were the inventors of that species of rhetoric most cultivated at the present day, that of the academy and the pulpit. Their philosophers in these learned assemblies displayed all the measured harmony of which their language was susceptible. Mohammed had ordained that his faith should be preached in the mosques ; many of the har- angues of these sacred orators are still preserved in the Escurial, and the style of them is very similar to that of the Christian orators. 6. POETRY. Poetry still more than eloquence was the fa- vorite occupation of the Arabians from their origin as a nation. It is said that this people alone have produced more poets than all others united. Mohammed himself, as well as some of his first companions, cultivated this art, but it was under Haroun al Raschid and his successor, Al Mamoun, and more especially under the Ommyiades of Spain that Arabic poetry attained its highest splendor. But the ancient impetuosity of expression, the passionate feeling, and the spirit of individual independence no longer characterized the productions of this period, nor is there among the numerous constellations of Arabic poets any star of distinguished magnitude. With the exception of Mo- hammed and a few of the Saracen conquerors and sovereigns, there is scarcely an individual of this nation whose name is familiar to the nations of Christendom. The Arabians possess many heroic poems composed for the purpose of celebrating the praises of distinguished men, and of animating the courage of their soldiers. They doc not, however, boast of any epics ; their poetry is entirely lyric and didactic. They have been inexhaustible in their love poems, their elegies, their moral verses, among which their fables may be reck- oned, their eulogistic, satirical, descriptive, and above all, their didactic poems, which have graced even the most abstruse science, as grammar, rhetoric, and arithmetic. But among all their poems, the catalogue alone of which, in the Escurial, con- sists of twenty-four volumes, there is not a single epic, comedy, or tragedy. In those branches of poetry which they cultivated they dis- played surprising subtlety and great refinement of thought, but the fame of their compositions rests, in some degree, on their bold metaphors, their extravagant allegories, and their excessive hyperboles. The Arabs despised the poetry of the Greeks, which appeared to them timid, cold, and constrained, and among all the books which, with almost superstitious veneration, they 188 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. borrowed from them, there is scarcely a single poem which they judged worthy of translation. The object of the Arabian poets was to make a brilliant use of the boldest and most gigantic images, and to astonish the reader by the abruptness of their expressions. They burdened their compositions with riches, under the idea that nothing which was beautiful could be super- fluous. They neglected natural sentiment, and the more they could multiply the ornaments of art, the more admirable in their eyes did the work appear. The nations who possessed a classical poetry, in imitating na- ture, had discovered the use of the epic and the drama, in which the poet endeavors to express the true language of the human heart. The people of the East, with the exception of the Hin- dus, never made this attempt their poetry is entirely lyric ; but under whatever name it may be known, it is always found to be the language of the passions. The poetry of the Arabians is rhymed like our .own, and the rhyming is often carried still farther in the construction of the verse, while the uniformity of sound is frequently echoed throughout the whole expression. The collection made by Aboul Teman (fl. 845 A. D.) containing the Arabian poems of the age anterior to Mohammed, and that of Taoleti, which embraces the poems of the subsequent periods, are considered the richest and most complete anthologies of Ara- bian poetry. Montanebbi, a poet who lived about 1050, has been compared to the Persian Hafiz. 7. THE ARABIAN TALES. If the Arabs have neither the epic nor the drama, they have been, on the other hand, the in- ventors of a style of composition which is related to the epic, and which supplies among them the place of the drama. We owe to them those tales, the conception of which is so brilliant and the imagination so rich and varied : tales which have been the delight of our infancy, and which at a more advanced age we can never read without feeling their enchantment anew. Every one is acquainted with the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments ; " but in our translation we possess but a very small part of the Arabian collection, which is not confined merely to books, but forms the treasure of a numerous class of men and women, who, throughout the East, find a livelihood in reciting these tales to crowds, who delight to forget the present, in the pleasing dreams of imagination. In the coffee-houses of the Levant, one of these men will gather a silent crowd around him, and picture to his audience; those brilliant and fantastic visions which are the pat- rimony of Eastern imaginations. The public squares abound with men of this class, and their recitations supply the place of our dramatic representations. The physicians frequently recon* ARABIAN LITERATURE. 189 mend them to their patients in order to soothe pain, to calm agi tation, or to produce sleep ; and these story-tellers, accustomed to sickness, modulate their voices, soften their tones, and gently suspend them as sleep steals over the sufferer. The imagination of the Arabs in these tales is easily distin- guished from that of the chivalric nations. The supernatural world is the same in both, but the moral world is different. The Arabian tales, like the romances of chivalry, convey us to the fairy realms, but the human personages which they introduce are very dissimilar. They had their birth after the Arabians had devoted themselves to commerce, literature, and the arts, and we recognize in them the style of a mercantile people, as we do that of a warlike nation in the romances of chivalry. Valor and military achievements here inspire terror but no en- thusiasm, and on this account the Arabian tales are often less noble and heroic than we usually expect in compositions of this nature. But, on the other hand, the Arabians are our masters in the art of producing and sustaining this kind of fiction. They are the creators of that brilliant mythology of fairies and genii which extends the bounds of the world, and carries us into the realms of marvels and prodigies. It is from them that Euro- pean nations have derived that intoxication of love, that tender- ness and delicacy of sentiment, and that reverential awe of women, by turns slaves and divinities, which have operated so powerfully on their chivalrous feelings. We trace their effects in all the literature of the south, which owes to this cause its mental character. Many of these tales had separately found their way into the poetic literature of Europe, long before the translation of the Arabian Nights. Some are to be met with in the old fabliaux, in Boccaccio, and in Ariosto, and these very tales which have charmed our infancy, passing from nation to nation through channels frequently unknown, are now familiar to the memory and form the delight of the imagination of half the inhabitants of the globe. The author of the original Arabic work is unknown, as is also the period at which it was composed. It was first introduced into Europe from Syria, where it was obtained, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, by Galland, a French traveler, who was sent to the East by the celebrated Colbert, to collect manu- scripts, and by him first translated and published. 8. HISTORY AND SCIENCE. As early as the eighth century . D., history became an important department in Arabian lit- erature. At later periods, historians who wrote on all subjects were numerous. Several authors wrote universal history from the beginning of the world to their own time ; every state, prov- ince, and city possessed its individual chronicle. Many, in imi- 190 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. tation of Plutarch, wrote the lives of distinguished men ; and there was such a passion for every species of composition, and such a desire to leave no subject untouched, that there was a serious history written of celebrated horses, and another of camels that had risen to distinction. They possessed historical dictionaries, and made use of all those inventions which curtail labor and dispense with the necessity of research. Every art and science had its history, and of these this nation possessed a more complete collection than any other, either ancient or modern. The style of the Arabian historians is simple and un- adorned. Philosophy was passionately cultivated by the Arabians, and upon it was founded the fame of many ingenious and sagacious men, whose names are still revered in Europe. Among them were Averrhoes of Cordova (d. 1198), the great commentator on the works of Aristotle, and Avicenna (d. 1037), a profound philosopher as well as a celebrated writer on medicine. Ara- bian philosophy penetrated rapidly into the West, and had greater influence on the schools of Europe than any branch of Arabic literature ; and yet it was the one in which the progress was, in fact, the least real. The Arabians, more ingenious than pro- found, attached themselves rather to the subtleties than to the connection of ideas ; their object was more to dazzle than to in- struct, and they exhausted their imaginations in search of mys- teries. Aristotle was worshiped by them, as a sort of divinity. In their opinion all philosophy was to be found in his writings, and they explained every metaphysical question according to the scholastic standard. The interpretation of the Koran formed another important part of their speculative studies, and their literature abounds with exegetic works on their sacred book, as well as with com- mentaries on Mohammedan law. The learned Arabians did not confine themselves to the studies which they could only prose- cute in their closets ; they undertook, for the advancement of science, the most perilous journeys, and we owe to Aboul Feda (1273-1331) and other Arabian travelers the best works on geography written in the Middle Ages. The natural sciences were cultivated by them w|th great ardor, and many naturalists among them merit the gratitude of poster- ity. Botany and chemistry, of which they were in some sort the inventors, gave them a better acquaintance with nature than the Greeks or Romans ever possessed, and the latter science was applied by them to all the necessary arts of life. Above all, agriculture was studied by them with a perfect knowledge of the climate, soil, and growth of plants. From the eighth to the elev- enth century, they established medical, schools in the principal ARABIAN LITERATURE. 191 cities of their dominions, and published valuable works on med- ical science. They introduced more simple principles into math- ematics, and extended the use and application of that science. They added to arithmetic the decimal system, and the Arabic numerals, which, however, are of Hindu origin ; they simplified the trigonometry of the Greeks, and gave algebra more useful and general applications. Bagdad and Cordova had celebrated schools of astronomy, and observatories, and their astronomers made important discoveries ; a great number of scientific words are evidently Arabic, such as algebra, alcohol, zenith, nadir, etc., and many of the inventions, which at the present day add to the comforts of life, are due to the Arabians. Paper, now so neces- sary to the progress of intellect, was brought by them from Asia. In China, from all antiquity, it had been manufactured from silk, but about the year 30 of the Hegira (649 A. D.) the manu- facture of it was introduced at Samarcand, and when that city was conquered by the Arabians, they first employed cotton in the place of silk, and the invention spread with rapidity through- out their dominions. The Spaniards, in fabricating paper, sub- stituted flax for cotton, which was more scarce and dear ; but it was not till the end of the thirteenth century that paper mills were established in the Christian states of Spain, from whence the invention passed, in the fourteenth century only, to Treviso and Padua. Tournaments were first instituted among the Ara- bians, from whom they were introduced into Italy and France. Gunpowder, the discovery of which is generally attributed to a German chemist, was known to the Arabians at least a century before any trace of it appeared in European history. The com- pass, also, the invention of which has been given alternately to the Italians and French in the thirteenth century, was known to the Arabians in the eleventh. The number of Arabic inven- tions, of which we enjoy the benefit without suspecting it, is pro- digious. Such, then, was the brilliant light which literature and science displayed from the ninth to the fourteenth century of our era in those vast countries which had submitted to the yoke of Islam- ism. In this immense extent of territory, twice or thrice as large as Europe, nothing is now found but ignorance, slavery, terror, and death. Few men are there capable of reading the works of their illustrious ancestors, and few who could comprehend them are able to procure them. The prodigious literary riches of the Arabians no longer exist in any of the countries where the Arabians or Mussulmans rule. It is not there that we must Beek for the fame of their great men or for their writings. What has been preserved is in the hands of their enemies, in the con- Vents of the monks, or in the royal libraries of Europe. 192 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 9. EDUCATION. At present there is little education, in our sense of the word, in Arabia. In the few instances where pub- lic schools exist, writing, grammar, and rhetoric sum up the teaching. The Bedouin children learn from their parents much more than is common in other countries. Great attention is paid to accuracy of grammar and purity of diction throughout the country, and of late literary institutions have been estab- lished at Beyrout, Damascus, Bagdad, and Hefar. Such is the extent of Arabic literature, that, notwithstanding the labors of European scholars and the productions of native presses, in Boulak and Cairo, in India, and recently in England, where Hassam, an Arabian poet, has devoted himself to the production of standard works, the greater part of what has been preserved is still in manuscript and still more has per ished. ITALIAN LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. Italian Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Dialects. 3. The Italian Language. PERIOD FIRST. !. Latin Influence. 2. Early Italian Poetry and Prose. 3. Dante. --4. Petrarch. 5. Boccaccio and other Prose Writers. 6. First Decline of Italian Literature. PERIOD SECOND. 1. The Close of the Fifteenth Century ; Lorenzo de' Medici. 2. The Origin of the Drama and Romantic Epic ; Poliziano, Pulci, Boiardo. 3. Romantic Epic Poetry; Ariosto. 4. Heroic Epic Poetry; Tasso. 5. Lyric Poetry; Bembo, Molza, Tarsia, V. Colonna. 6. Dramatic Poetry ; Trissinp, Rucellai ; the Writers of Comedy. 7. Pastoral Drama and Didactic Poetry ; Beccari, Sannazzaro, Tasso, Guarini, Rucel- lai, Alamanni. 8. Satirical Poetry, Novels, and Tales ; Berni, Grazziui, Firenzuola, Bandello, and others. 9. History; Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Nardi, and others. 10. Grammar and Rhetoric ; the Academy della Crusca, Delia Casa, Speroni, and others. 11. Science, Philosophy, and Politics; the Academy del Cimento, Galileo, Torricelli, Borelli, Patrizi, Telesio, Campanella, Bruno, Castiglione, Machiavelli, and others. 12. Decline of the Literature in the Seventeenth Century. 13. Epic and Lyric Poetry ; Ma- rini, Filicaja. 14. Mock Heroic Poetry, the Drama, and Satire; Tassoni, Bracciolini, Andreini, and others. 15. History and Epistolary Writings ; Davila, Bentivoglio, Sarpi, Redi. PERIOD THIRD. 1. Historical Development of the Third Period. 2. The Melodrama ; Rinuccini, Zeno, Metastasio. 3. Comedy ; Goldoni, C. Gozzi, and others. 4. Tragedy ; Maffei, Alfleri, Monti, Manzoni, Nicolini, and others. 5. Lyric, Epic, and Didactic Poetry ; Parini, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Leopardi, Grossi, Lorenzi, and others. 6. Heroic- Comic Poetry, Satire, and Fable ; Fortiguerri, Passeroni, G. Gozzi, Parini, Giusti, and others. 7. Romances; Verri, Manzoni, D'Azeglio, Cantu, Guerrazzi, and others. 8. History ; Muratori, Vico, Giannone, Botta, Colletta, Tiraboschi, and others. 9. ^^thetics, Criticism, Philology, and Philosophy; Baretti, Parini, Giordani, Gioja, Romag- nosi, Gallupi, Rosinini, Gioberti. From 1860 to 1885. INTRODUCTION. 1. ITALIAN LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS. The fall of the Western Empire, the invasions of the northern tribes, and the subsequent wars and calamities, did not entirely extinguish the fire of genius in Italy. As we have seen, the Crusades had opened the East and revealed to Europe its literary and artistic treasures; the Arabs had established a celebrated school of medicine in Salerno, and had made known the ancient classics ; a school of jurisprudence was opened in Bologna, where Roman law was expounded by eminent lecturers ; and the spirit of chivalry, while it softened and refined human character, awoke the desire of distinction in arms and poetry. The origin of the Italian republics, giving scope to individual agency, marked another era in civilization ; while the appearance of the Italian language quickened the national mind and led to a new litera- ture. The spirit of freedom, awakened as early as the elev- enth century, received new life in the twelfth, when the Lom- bard cities, becoming independent, formed a powerful league against Frederick Barbarossa. The instinct of self-defense thus 18 194 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. developed increased the necessity of education. In the thir- teenth and fourteenth centuries, Italian literature acquired its national character and rose to its highest splendor, through the writings of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose influence has been more or less felt in succeeding centuries. The literary history of Italy may be divided into three peri- ods, each of which presents two distinct phases, one of progress and one of decline. The first period, extending from 1100 to 1475, embraces the origin of the literature, its development through the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and its first decline in the fifteenth, when it was supplanted by the absorbing study of the Greek and Latin classics. The second period, commencing 1475, embraces the age of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X., when literature began to re- vive ; the age of Ariosto, Tasso, Machiavelli, and Galileo, when it reached its meridian splendor ; its subsequent decline, through the school of Marini ; and its last revival towards the close of the seventeenth century. The third period, extending from the close of the seventeenth century to the present time, includes the development of Italian literature, its decline under French influence, and its subsequent national tendency, through the writings of Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Parini, Monti, Manzoni, and Leopardi. 2. THE DIALECTS. The dialects of the ancient tribes in- habiting the peninsula early came in contact with the rustic Latin, and were moulded into new tongues, which, at a later period, were again modified by the influence of the barbarians who successively invaded the country. These tongues, elabo- rated by the action of centuries, are still in use, especially with the lower classes, and many of them have a literature of their own, with grammars and dictionaries. The more important of these dialects are divided into three groups : 1st. The North- ern, including the Ligurian, Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetian, and Emilian. 2d. The Central, containing the Tuscan, Umbrian, the dialects of the Marches and of the Roman Provinces. 3d. The Southern, embracing those of the Neapolitan provinces and of Sicily. Each is distinguished from the other and from the true Italian, although they all rest on a common basis, the rustic Latin, the plebeian tongue of the Romans, as distinct from the official and literary tongue. 3. THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. The Tuscan or Florentine dialect, which early became the literary language of Italy, was the result of the natural development of the popular Latin and a native dialect probably akin to the rustic Roman idiom, Tuscany suffering comparatively little from foreign invasion, ITALIAN LITERATURE. 195 the language lost none of its purity, and remained free from heterogeneous elements. The great writers, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, who appeared so early, promoted its perfection, secured its prevailing influence, and gave it a national charac- ter. Hence, in the literature there is no old Italian as distinct from the modern ; the language of Dante continues to be that of modern writers, and becomes more perfect the more it ap- proaches the standard fixed by the great masters of the four- teenth century. Of this language it may be said that for flexi- bility, copiousness, freedom of construction, and harmony and beauty of sound, it is the most perfect of all the idioms of the Neo-Latin or Romanic tongues. PERIOD FIRST. FROM THE ORIGIN OF ITALIAN LITERATURE TO ITS FIRST DECLINE (1100-1475). 1. LATIN INFLUENCE. During the early part of the Middle Ages Latin was the literary language of Italy, and the aim of the best writers of the time was to restore Roman culture. The Gothic kingdom of Ravenna, established by Theodoric, was the centre of this movement, under the influence of Cassiodorus, Boethius, and Symmachus. It was due to the prevailing affec- tion for the memories of Rome, that through all the Dark Ages the Italian mind kept alive a spirit of freedom unknown in other countries of Europe, a spirit active, later, in the establishment of the Italian republics, and showing itself in the heroic resist- ance of the communes of Lombardy to the empire of the Ho- henstaufens. While the literatures of other countries were drawn almost exclusively from sacred and chivalric legends, the Italians devoted themselves to the study of Roman law and his- tory, to translations from the philosophers of Greece, and, above all, to the establishment of those great universities which were so powerful in extending science and culture throughout the Peninsula. While the Latin language was used in prose, the poets wrote in Provengal and in French, and many Italian troubadours ap- peared at the courts of Europe. 2. EARLY ITALIAN POETRY AND PROSE. The French ele- ment became gradually lessened, and towards the close of the thirteenth century there arose the Tuscan school of lyric poetry, the true beginning of Italian art, of which Lapo Gianni, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and Dante Alighieri were the mas- ters. It is mainly inspired by love, and takes a popular courtly or scholastic form. The style of Gianni had many of the faults of his predecessors. That of Cavalcanti, the friend and precursor 196 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. of Dante, showed a tendency to stifle poetic imagery under the dead weight of philosophy. But the love poems of Cino are so mellow, so sweet, so musical, that they are only surpassed by those of Dante, who, as the author of the " Vita Nuova," belongs to this lyric school. In this book he tells the story of his love for Beatrice, which was from the first a high idealization in which there was apparently nothing human or earthly. Every- thing is super-sensual, aerial, heavenly, and the real Beatrice melts more and more into the symbolic, passing out of her human nature into the divine. Italian prose writing is of a later date, and also succeeded a period when Italian authors wrote in Latin and French. It consists chiefly of chronicles, tales, and translations. 3. DANTE (1265-1331). No poet had yet arisen gifted with absolute power over the empire of the soul ; no philosopher had pierced into the depths of feeling and of thought, when Dante, the greatest name of Italy and the father of Italian literature, ap- peared in the might of his genius, and availing himself of the rude and imperfect materials within his reach, constructed his magnifi- cent work. Dante was born in Florence, of the noble family of Alighieri, which was attached to the papal, or Guelph party, in opposition to the imperial, or Ghibelline. He was but a child when death deprived him of his father ; but his mother took the greatest pains with his education, placing him under the tuition of Brunetto Latini, and other masters of eminence. He early made great progress, not only in an acquaintance with classical literature and politics, but in music, drawing, horsemanship, and other accomplishments suitable to his station. As he grew up, he pursued his studies in the universities of Padua, Bologna, and Paris. He became an accomplished scholar, and at the same time appeared in public as a gallant and high-bred man of the world. At the age of twenty-five, he took arms on the side of the Flor- entine Guelphs, and distinguished himself in two battles against the Ghibellines of Arezzo and Pisa. But before Dante was either a student or a soldier, he had become a lover ; and this character, above all others, was impressed upon him for life. At a May-day festival, when only nine years of age, he had singled out a girl of his own age, by the name of Bice, or Bea- trice, who thenceforward became the object of his constant and passionate affection, or the symbol of all human wisdom and perfection. Before his twenty-fifth year she was separated from him by death, but his passion was refined, not extinguished by this event ; not buried with her body but translated with her soul, which was its object. On the other hand, the affection of Beatrice for the poet troubled her spirit amid the bliss of Para disc, and the visions of the eternal world with which he was ITALIAN LITERATURE. 197 favored were a device of hers for reclaiming him from sin, and preparing him for everlasting companionship with herself. At the age of thirty-five he was elected prior, or supreme magistrate of Florence, an honor from which he dates all his subsequent misfortunes. During his priorship, the citizens were divided into two factions called the Neri and Bianchi, as bitterly opposed to each other as both had been to the Ghibellines. In the absence of Dante on an embassy to Rome, a pretext was found by the Neri, his opponents, for exciting the populace against him. His dwelling was demolished, his property confis- cated, himself and his friends condemned to perpetual exile, with the provision that, if taken, they should be burned alive. After a fruitless attempt, by himself and his party, to surprise Florence, he quitted his companions in disgust, and passed the remainder of his life in wandering from one court of Italy to another, eat- ing the bitter bread of dependence, which was granted him often as an alms. The greater part of his poem was composed during this period ; but it appears that till the end of his life he con- tinued to retouch the work. The last and most generous patron of Dante was Guido di Polenta, lord of Ravenna, and father of Francesca da Rimini, whose fatal love forms one of the most beautiful episodes of this poem. Polenta treated him, not as a dependent but as an hon- ored guest, and in a dispute with the Republic of Venice he em- ployed the poet as his ambassador, to effect a reconciliation ; but he was refused even an audience, and, returning disappointed and broken-hearted to Ravenna, he died soon after at the age of fifty-six, having been in exile nineteen years. His fellow-citizens, who had closed their hearts and their gates against him while living, now deeply bewailed his death ; and, during the two succeeding centuries, embassy after embassy was vainly sent from Florence to recover his honored remains. Not long after his death, those who had exiled him and confiscated his property provided that his poem should be read and ex- pounded to the people in a church. Boccaccio was appointed to this professorship. Before the end of the sixteenth century, the " Divine Comedy " had gone through sixty editions. The Divine Comedy is one of the greatest monuments of human genius. It is an allegory conceived in the form of a vision, which was the most popular style of poetry at that age. At the close of the year 1300 Dante represents himself as lost in a forest at the foot of a hill, near Jerusalem. He wishes to ascend it, but is prevented by a panther, a lion, and a she-wolf which beset the way. He is met by Virgil, who tells him that he is sent by Beatrice as a guide through the realm of shadows, hell, and purgatory, and that she will afterwards lead him up 198 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. to heaven. They pass the gates of hell, and penetrate into the dismal region beyond. This, as represented by Dante, consists of nine circles, forming an inverted cone, of the size of the earth, each succeeding circle being lower and narrower than the former, while Lucifer is chained in the centre and at the bottom of the dreadful crater. Each circle contains various cavities, where the punishments vary in proportion to the guilt, and the suffer- ing increases in intensity as the circles descend and contract. In the first circle were neither cries nor tears, but the eternal sighs of those who, having never received Christian baptism, were, ac- cording to the poet's creed, forever excluded from the abodes of bliss. In the next circle, appropriated to those whose souls had been lost by the indulgence of guilty love, the poet recognizes the unhappy Francesca da Rimini, whose history forms one of the most beautiful episodes of the poem. The third circle in- cludes gluttons ; the fourth misers and spendthrifts ; each suc- ceeding circle embracing what the poet deems a deeper shade of guilt, and inflicting appropriate punishment. The Christian and heathen systems of theology are here freely interwoven. We have Minos visiting the Stygian Lake, where heretics are burn- ing ; we meet Cerberus and the harpies, and we accompany the poet across several of the fabulous rivers of Erebus. A fearful scene appears in the deepest circle of the infernal abodes. Here, among those who have betrayed their country, and are entombed in eternal ice, is Count Ugolino, who, by a series of treasons, had made himself master of Pisa. He is gnawing with savage feroc- ity the skull of the archbishop of that state, who had condemned him and his children to die by starvation. The arch-traitor, Satan, stands fixed in the centre of hell and of the earth. All the streams of guilt keep flowing back to him as their source, and from beneath his threefold visage issue six gigantic wings with which he vainly struggles to raise himself, and thus produces winds which freeze him more firmly in the marsh. After leaving the infernal regions, and entering purgatory, they find an immense cone divided into seven circles, each of which is devoted to the expiation of one of the seven mortal sins. The proud are overwhelmed with enormous weights ; the envious are clothed in garments of horse-hair, their eye-lids closed ; the choleric are suffocated with smoke ; the indolent are compelled to run about continually ; the avaricious are prostrated upon the earth ; epicures are afflicted with hunger and thirst ; and the incontinent expiate their crimes in fire. In this portion of the work, however, while there is much to admire, there is less to excite and sustain the interest. On the summit of the purgato rial mountain is the terrestial paradise, whence is the only as* eent to the celestial. Beatrice, the object of his early and con. ITALIAN LITERATURE. 199 stant affection, descends hither to meet the poet. Virgil disap- pears, and she becomes his only guide. She conducts him through the nine heavens, and makes him acquainted with the great men who, by their virtuous lives, have deserved the high- est enjoyments of eternity. In the ninth celestial sphere, Dante is favored with a manifestation of divinity, veiled, however, by three hierarchies of attending angels. He sees the Virgin Mary, and the saints of the Old and New Testament, and by these per- sonages, and by Beatrice, all his doubts and difficulties are finally solved, and the conclusion leaves him absorbed in the beatific vision. The allegorical meaning of the poem is hidden under the literal one. Dante, traveling through the invisible world, is a symbol of mankind aiming at the double object of temporal and eternal hap- piness. The forest typifies the civil and religious confusion of society deprived of its two judges, the pope and the emperor. The three beasts are the powers which offered the greatest obsta- cles to Dante's designs, Florence, France, and the papal court. Virgil represents reason and the empire, and Beatrice symbolizes the supernatural aid, without which man cannot attain the su- preme end, which is God. But the merit of the poem is that for the first time classic art is transferred into a Romance form. Dante is, above all, a great artist. Whether he describes nature, analyzes passions, curses the vices, or sings hymns to the virtues, he is always wonderful for the grandeur and delicacy of his art. He took his materials from mythology, history, and philosophy, but more especially from his own passions of hatred and love, breathed into them the breath of genius and produced the greatest work of modern times. The personal interest that he brings to bear on the historical representation of the three worlds is that which most interests and stirs us. The Divine Comedy is not only the most lifelike drama of the thoughts and feelings that moved men at that time, but it is also the most spontaneous and clear reflection of the in- dividual feelings of the poet, who remakes history after his own passions, and who is the real chastiser of the sins and rewarder of the virtues. He defined the destiny of Italian literature in the Middle Ages, and began the great era of the Renaissance. 4. PETRARCH. Petrarch (1304-1374) belonged to a re- spected Florentine family. His father was the personal friend of Dante, and a partaker of the same exile. While at Avignon, then the seat of the papal court, on one occasion he made an ex- cursion to the fountain of Vaucluse, taking with him his son, the future poet, then in the tenth year of his age. The wild and solitary aspect of the place, inspired the boy with an enthusiasm beyond his years, leaving an impression which was never after* 200 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. wards effaced, and which affected his future life and writings. As Petrarch grew up, unlike the haughty, taciturn, and sarcastic Dante, he seems to have made friends wherever he went. With splendid talents, engaging manners, a handsome person, and an affectionate and generous disposition, he became the darling of his age, a man whom princes delighted to honor. At the age of twenty-three, he first met Laura de Sade in a church at Avignon. She was only twenty years of age, and had been for three years the wife of a patrician of that city. Laura was not more distinguished for her beauty and fortune than for the unsullied purity of her manners in a licentious court, where she was one of the chief ornaments. The sight of her beauty inspired the young poet with an affection which was as pure and virtuous as it was tender and passionate. He poured forth in song the fervor of his love and the bitterness of his grief. Upwards of three hundred sonnets, written at various times, commemorate all the little circumstances of this attachment, and describe the favors which, during an acquaintance of fifteen or twenty years, never exceeded a kind word, a look less severe than usual, or a passing expression of regret at parting. He was not permitted to visit at Laura's house ; he had no oppor- tunity of seeing her except at mass, at the brilliant levees of the pope, or in private assemblies of beauty and fashion : but she forever remained the dominant object of his existence. He purchased a house at Vaucluse, and there, shut in by lofty and craggy heights, the river Sorgue traversing the valley on one side, amidst hills clothed with umbrageous trees, cheered only by the song of birds, the poet passed his lonely days. Again and again he made tours through Italy, Spain, and Flanders, during one of which he was crowned with the poet's laurel at Rome, but he always returned to Vaucluse, to Avignon, to Laura. Thus years passed away. Laura became the mother of a nu- merous family, and time and care made havoc of her youthful beauty. Meanwhile, the sonnets of Petrarch had spread her fame throughout France and Italy, and attracted many to the court of Avignon, who were surprised and disappointed at the sight of her whom they had believed to be the loveliest of mor- tals. In 1347, during the absence of the poet from Avignon, Laura fell a victim to the plague, just twenty-one years from the day that Petrarch first met her. Now all his love was deep- ened and consecrated, and the effusions of his poetic genius be- came more melancholy, more passionate, and more beautiful than ever. He declined the offices and honors that his countrymen offered him, and passed his life in retirement. He was found one morning by his attendants dead in his library, his head rest* ing on a book. ITALIAN LITERATURE. 201 The celebrity of Petrarch at the present day depends chiefly on his lyrical poems, which served as models to all the distin- guished poets of southern Europe. They are restricted to two forms : the sonnet, borrowed from the Sicilians, and the canzone, from the Provengals. The subject of almost all these poems is the same the hopeless affection of the poet for the high-minded Laura. This love was a kind of religious and enthusiastic pas- sion, such as mystics imagine they feel towards the Deity, or such as Plato believes to be the bond of union between elevated minds. There is no poet in any language more perfectly pure than Petrarch more completely above all reproach of laxity or immorality. This merit, which is equally due to the poet and to his Laura, is the more remarkable, considering the models which he followed and the court at which Laura lived. The labor of Petrarch in polishing his poems did much towards perfecting the language, which through him became more elegant and more melodious. He introduced into the lyric poetry of Italy the pathos and the touching sweetness of Ovid and Tibullus, as well as the simplicity of Anacreon. Petrarch attached little value to his Italian poems ; it was on his Latin works that he founded his hopes of renown. But his highest title to immortal fame is his prodigious labor to promote the study of ancient authors. Wherever he traveled, he sought with the utmost avidity for classic manuscripts, and it is difficult to estimate the effect produced by his enthusiasm. He corre- sponded with all the eminent literati of his day, and inspired them with his own tastes. Now for the first time there appeared a kind of literary republic in Europe united by the magic bond of Petrarch's influence, and he was better known and exercised a more extensive and powerful influence than many of the sover- eigns of the day. He treated with various princes rather in the character of an arbitrator than an ambassador, and he not only directed the tastes of his own age, but he determined those of succeeding generations. 5. BOCCACCIO AND OTHER PROSE WRITERS. The fourteenth century forms a brilliant era in Italian literature, distinguished beyond any other period for the creative powers of genius which it exhibited. In this century, Dante gave to Europe his great epic poem, the lyric muse awoke at the call of Petrarch, while Boccaccio created a style of prose, harmonious, flexible, and en- gaging, and alike suitable to the most elevated and to the most playful subjects. Boccaccio (1313-1375) was the son of a Florentine merchant ; he early gave evidence of superior talents, and his father vainly attempted to educate him to follow his own profession. He re- sided at Naples, where he became acquainted with a lady cele* 202 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. brated in his writings under the name of Fiammetta. It was at her desire that most of his early pieces were written, and the very exceptionable moral character which attaches to them must be attributed, in part, to her depraved tastes. The source of Boccaccio's highest reputation, and that which entitles him to rank as the third founder of the national literature, is his " De- cameron," a collection of tales written during the period when the plague desolated the south of Europe, with a view to amuse the ladies of the court during that dreadful visitation. The tales are united under the supposition of a party of ten who had retired to one of the villas in the environs of Naples to strive, in the enjoyment of innocent amusement, to escape the danger of contagion. It was agreed that each person should tell a new story during the space of ten days, whence the title Decameron. The description of the plague, in the introduction, is considered not only the finest piece of writing from Boccaccio's pen, but one of the best historical descriptions that have descended to us. The stories, a hundred in number, are varied with considerable art, both in subject and in style, from the most pathetic and sportive to the most licentious. The great merit of Boccaccio's composition consists in his easy elegance, his naivete, and, above all, in the correctness of his language. The groundwork of the Decameron has been traced to an old Hindu romance, which, after passing through all the languages of the East, was translated into Latin as early as the twelfth century ; the originals of several of these tales have been found in the ancient French Fabliaux, while others are believed to have been borrowed from popular recitation or from real occur- rences. But if Boccaccio cannot hoast of being the inventor of all, or even any of these tales, he is still the father of this class of modern Italian literature, since he was the first to transplant into the world of letters what had hitherto been only the subject of social mirth. These tales have in their turn been repeated anew in almost every language of Europe, and have afforded reputations to numerous imitators. One of the most beautiful and unexceptionable tales in the Decameron is that of " Griselda," the last in the collection. It is to be regretted that the author did not prescribe to himself the same purity in his images that he did in his phraseology. Many of these tales are not only im- moral but grossly indecent, though but too faithful a representa- tion of the manners of the age in which they were written. The Decameron was published towards the middle of the fourteenth century ; and, from the first invention of printing, it was freely circulated in Italy, until the Council of Trent proscribed it in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was, however, agaifl published in 1570, purified and abridged. ITALIAN LITERATURE. 203 Boccaccio is the author of two romances, one called " Fiam- metta," the other the '* Filocopo ; " the former distinguished for the fervor of its expression, the latter for the variety of its ad- ventures and incidents. He wrote also two romantic poems, in which he first introduced the ottava rima, or the stanza com- posed of six lines, which rhyme interchangeably with each other, and are followed by a couplet. In these he strove to revive an- cient mythology, and to identify it with modern literature. His Latin compositions are voluminous, and materially contributed to the advancement of letters. While Boccaccio labored so successfully to reduce the lan- guage to elegant and harmonious forms, he strove like Petrarch to excite his contemporaries to the study of the ancient classics. He induced the senate of Florence to establish a professorship of Greek, entered his name among the first of the students, and procured manuscripts at his own expense. Thus Hellenic litera- ture was introduced into Tuscany, and thence into the rest of Europe. Boccaccio, late in life, assumed the ecclesiastical habit, and entered on the study of theology. When the Florentines founded a professorship for the reading and exposition of the Divine Comedy, Boccaccio was made the first incumbent. The result of his labors was a life of Dante, and a commentary on the first seventeen cantos of the Inferno. With the death of Petrarch, who had been his most intimate friend, his last tie to earth was loosed ; he died at Certaldo a few months later, in the sixty-third year of his age. His dwelling is still to be seen, situ- ated on a hill, and looking down on the fertile and beautiful val- ley watered by the river Elsa. Of the other prose writers of the fourteenth century the most remarkable are the three Florentine historians named Villani, the eldest of whom (1310-1348) wrote a history of Florence, which was continued afterwards by his brother and by his nephew ; a work highly esteemed for its historical interest, and for its purity of language and style ; and Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400), who approaches nearest to Boccaccio. His "Nov- els and Tales ' ' are valuable for the purity and eloquence of their style, and for the picture they afford of the manners of his age. Among the ascetic writers of this age St. Catherine of Siena occupies an important place, as one who aided in preparing the way for the great religious movement of the sixteenth century. The writings of this extraordinary woman, who strove to bring back the Church of Rome to evangelical virtue, are the strongest, clearest, most exalted religious utterance that made itself heard in Italy in the fourteenth century. 204 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 6. THE FIRST DECLINE OF ITALIAN LITERATURE. The pas- sionate study of the ancients, of which Petrarch and Boccaccio had given an example, suspended the progress of Italian litera- ture in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and through al- most all the fifteenth. The attention of the literary men of this time was wholly engrossed by the study of the dead languages, and of manners, customs, and religious systems equally extinct. They present to our observation boundless erudition, a just spirit of criticism, and nice sensibility to the beauties and defects of the great authors of antiquity ; but we look in vain for that true eloquence which is more the fruit of an intercourse with the world than of a knowledge of books. They were still more un- successful in poetry, in which their attempts, all in Latin, are few in number, and their verses harsh and heavy, without orig- inality or vigor. It was not until the peripd when Italian poetry began to be again cultivated, that Latin verse acquired any of the characteristics of genuine inspiration. But towards the close of the fifteenth century the dawn of a new literary era appeared, which soon shone with meridian light. At this time, the universities had become more and more the subjects of attention to the governments ; the appointment of eminent professors, and the privileges connected with these in- stitutions, attracted to them large numbers of students, and the concourse was often so great that the lectures were delivered in the churches and in public squares. Those republics which still existed, and the princes who had risen on the ruins of the more ephemeral ones, rivaled each other in their patronage of literary men : the popes, who in the preceding ages had denounced all secular learning, now became its munificent patrons ; and two of them, Nicholas V. and Pius II., were themselves scholars of high distinction. The Dukes of Milan, and the Marquises of Mantua and Ferrara, surrounded themselves in their capitals with men illustrious in science and letters, and seemed to vie with each other in the favors which they lavished upon them. In the hitherto free republic of Florence, which had given birth to Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, literature found support in a family which, at no distant period, employed it to augment their power, and to rule the city with an almost despotic sway. The Medici had been long distinguished for the wealth they had ac- quired by commercial enterprise, and for the high offices which they held in the republic. Cosmo de' Medici had acquired a degree of power which shook the very foundations of the state. He was master of the moneyed credit of Europe, and almost the equal of the kings with whom he negotiated ; but in the midst of the projects of his ambition he opened his palace as an asy- lum to the scholars and artists of the age, turned its gardens ITALIAN LITERATURE. 205 into an academy, and effected a revolution in philosophy., by set- ting up the authority of Plato against that of Aristotle. His banks, which were scattered over Europe, were placed at the service of literature as well as commerce. His agents abroad sold spices and bought manuscripts ; the vessels which returned to him from Constantinople, Alexandria, and Smyrna were often laden with volumes in the Greek, Syriac, and Chaldaic lan- guages. Being banished to Venice, he continued his protection of letters, and on his return to Florence he devoted himself more than ever to the cause of literature. In the south of Italy, Al- phonso V., and, indeed, all the sovereigns of that age, pursued the same course, and chose for their chancellors and ambassa- dors the same scholars who educated their sons and expounded the classics in their literary circles. This patronage, however, was confined to the progress of ancient letters, while the native literature, instead of redeeming the promise of its infancy, remained at this time mute and in- glorious. Yet the resources of poets and orators were multiply- ing a thousand fold. The exalted characters, the austere laws, the energetic virtues, the graceful mythology, the thrilling elo- quence of antiquity, were annihilating the puerilities of the old Italian rhymes, and creating purer and nobler tastes. The clay which was destined for the formation of great men was under- going a new process ; a fresh mould was cast, the forms at first appeared lifeless, but ere the end of the fifteenth century the breath of genius entered into them, and a new era of life began. PERIOD SECOND. REVIVAL OF ITALIAN LITERATURE AND ITS SECOND DECLINE (1476-1675). 1. THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. The first man who contributed to the restoration of Italian poetry was Lorenzo de' Medici (1448-1492), the grandson of Cosmo. In the brill- iant society that he gathered around him, a new era was opened in Italian literature. Himself a poet, he attempted to restore poetry to the condition in which Petrarch had left it ; although superior in some respects to that poet, he had less power of versification, less sweetness, and harmony, but his ideas were more natural, and his style was more simple. He attempted all kinds of poetical composition, and in all he displayed the versa- tility of his talents and the exuberance of his imagination. But to Lorenzo poetry was but an amusement, scarcely regarded in his brilliant political career. He concentrated in himself all the power of the republic he was the arbiter of the whole politi cal state of Italy, and from the splendor with which he SUIT 206 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. rounded himself, and his celebrity, he received the title of Lo- renzo the Magnificent. He continued to collect manuscripts, and to employ learned men to prepare them for printing. His Platonic Academy extended its researches into new paths of study. The collection of antique sculpture, the germ of the gallery of Florence, which had been established by Cosmo, he enriched, and gave to it a new destination, which was the occa- sion of imparting fresh life and vigor to the liberal arts. He appropriated a part of his gardens to serve as a school for the study of the antique, and placed his statues, busts, and other models of art in the shrubberies, terraces, and buildings. Young men were liberally paid for the copies which they made while pursuing their studies. It was this institution that kindled the flame of genius in the breast of Michael Angelo, and to it must be attributed the splendor which was shed by the fine arts over the close of the fifteenth century, and which extended rapidly from Florence throughout Italy, and over a great part of Europe. Among the friends of Lorenzo may be mentioned Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), one of the most prominent men of his age, who left in his Latin and Italian works monuments of his vast erudition and exuberant talent. The fifteenth century closed brightly on Florence, but it was otherwise throughout Italy. Some of its princes still patronized the sciences, but most of them were engaged in the intrigues of ambition ; and the storms which were gathering soon burst on Florence itself. Shortly after the death of Lorenzo, nearly the whole of Italy fell under the rule of Charles VIII., and the voice of science and literature was drowned in the clash of arms ; military violence dispersed the learned men, and pillage destroyed or scattered the literary treasures. Literature and the arts, banished from their long-loved home, sought another asylum. We find them again at Rome, cherished by a more powerful and fortunate protector, Pope Leo X., the son of Lo- renzo (1475-1521). Though his patronage was confined to the fine arts and to the lighter kinds of composition, yet 6wing to the influence of the newly-invented art of printing, the discovery of Columbus, and the Reformation, new energies were imparted to the age, the Italian mind was awakened from its slumber, and prepared for a new era in literature. 2. THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA AND ROMANTIC EPIC. Among the gifted individuals in the circle of Lorenzo, the high- est rank may be assigned to Poliziano (1454-1494). He re* vived on the modern stage the tragedies of the ancients, or rather created a new kind of pastoral tragedy, on which Tasso did not disdain to employ his genius. His " Orpheus," composed within ten days, was performed at the Mantuan court in 1483, ITALIAN LITERATURE. 207 and may be considered as the first dramatic composition in Ital- ian. The universal homage paid to Virgil had a decided influ- ence on this kind of poetry. His Bucolics were looked upon as dramas more poetical than those of Terence and Seneca. The comedies of Plautus were represented, and the taste for theat- rical performances was eagerly renewed. In these representa- tions, however, the object in view was the restoration of the classics rather than the amusement of the public ; and the new dramatists confined themselves to a faithful copy of the ancients. But the Orpheus of Poliziano caused a revolution. The beauty of the verse, the charm of the music, and the decorations which accompanied its recital, produced an excitement of feeling and intellect that combined to open the way for the true dramatic art. At the same time, several eminent poets devoted their atten- tion to that style of composition which was destined to form the glory of Ariosto. The trouveres chose Charlemagne and his paladins as the heroes of their poems and romances, and these, composed for the most part in French in the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries, were early circulated in Italy. Their origin accorded with the vivacity of the prevailing religious sentiment, the violence of the passions and the taste for adventures which distinguished the first crusades ; while from the general igno- rance of the times, their supernatural agency was readily ad- mitted. But at the close of the fifteenth century, when the poets possessed themselves of these old romances, in order to give a variety to the adventures of their heroes, the belief in the marvelous was much diminished, and they could not be re- counted without a mixture of mockery. The spirit of the age did not admit in the Italian language a subject entirely serious. He who made pretensions to fame was compelled to write in Latin, and the choice of the vulgar tongue was the indication of a humorous subject. The language had developed since the time of Boccaccio a character of naivete mingled with satire, which still remains, and which is particularly remarkable in Ariosto. The " Morgante Maggiore " of Pulci (1431-1470) is the first of these romantic poems. It is alternately burlesque and serious, and it abounds with passages of great pathos and beauty. The " Orlando Innamorato " of Boiardo (1430-1494) is a poem somewhat similar to that of Pulci. It was, however, remodeled by Berni, sixty years after the death of the author, and from the variety and novelty of the adventures, the richness of its de- scriptions, the interest excited by its hero, and the honor ren- dered to the female sex, it excels the Morgante. 3. ROMANTIC EPIC POETRY. The romances of chivalry, which had been thus versified by Pulci and Boiardo, were elevated 208 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. to the rank of epic poetry by the genius of Ariosto (1474-1533). He was born at Reggio, of which place his father was governor. As the means of improving his resources, he early attached him- self to the service of Cardinal D'Este, and afterwards to that of the Duke of Ferrara. At the age of thirty years he commenced his " Orlando Furioso," and continued the composition for eleven years. While the work was in progress, he was in the habit of reading the cantos, as they were finished, at the courts of the cardinal and duke, which may account for the manner in which this hundred-fold tale is told, as if delivered spontane- ously before scholars and princes, who assembled to listen to the marvelous adventures of knights and ladies, giants and magi- cians, from the lips of the story-teller. Ariosto excelled in the practice of reading aloud with distinct utterance and animated elocution, an accomplishment of peculiar value at a time when books were scarce, and the emoluments of authors depended more on the gratuities of their patrons than the sale of their works. In each of the four editions which he published, he improved, corrected, and enlarged the original. No poet, per- haps, ever evinced more fastidious taste in adjusting the nicer points that affected the harmony, dignity, and fluency of his composition, yet the whole seems as natural as if it had flowed extemporaneously from his pen. Throughout life it was the lot of Ariosto to struggle against the difficulties inseparable from narrow and precarious circumstances. His patrons, among them Leo X., were often culpable in exciting expectations, and after- wards disappointing them. The earliest and latest works of Ariosto, though not his best, were dramatic. He wrote also some satires in the form of epistles. He died in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and his ashes now rest under the magnificent monument in the new church of the Benedictines in Ferrara. The house in which the poet lived, the chair in which he was wont to study, and the inkstand whence he filled his pen, are still shown as interesting memorials of his life and labors. Ariosto, like Pulci and Boiardo, undertook to sing the pala- dins and their amours at the court of Charlemagne, during the fabulous wars of this emperor against the Moors. In his poem he seems to have designedly thrown off the embarrassment of a unity of action. The Orlando Furioso is founded on three principal narratives, distinct but often intermingled ; the history of the war between Charlemagne and the Saracens, Orlando's love for Angelica, his madness on hearing of her infidelity, and Ruggiero's attachment to Bradamante. These stories are inter- woven with so many incidents and episodes, and there is in the poem such a prodigious quantity of action, that it is difficult to assign it a central point. Indeed, Ariosto, playing with his read- ITALIAN LITERATURE. 209 rs, seems to delight in continually misleading them, and allows them no opportunity of viewing the general subject of the poem. This want of unity is essentially detrimental to the general im- pression of the work, and the author has succeeded in throwing around its individual parts an interest which does not attach to it as a whole. The world to which the poet transports his read- ers is truly poetic ; all the factitious wants of common life, its cold calculations and its imaginary distinctions, disappear ; love and honor reign supreme, and the prompting of the one and the laws of the other are alone permitted to stimulate and regulate a life, of which war is the only business and gallantry the only pastime. The magic and sorcery, borrowed from the East, which pervade these chivalric fictions, lead us still farther from the world of realities. Nor is it the least charm that all the won- ders and prodigies here related are made to appear quite prob- able from the apparently artless, truthful style of the narration. The versification of the Orlando is more distinguished for sweet- ness and elegance than for strength ; but, in point of harmony, and in the beauty, pathos, and grace of his descriptions, no poet surpasses Ariosto. 4. HEROIC EPIC POETRY. While, in the romantic epic of the Middle Ages, unity of design was considered unnecessary, and truthfulness of detail, fertility of imagination, strength of color- ing, and vivacity of narration were alone required, heroic poetry was expected to exhibit, on the most extensive scale, those laws of symmetry which adapt all the parts to one object, which com- bine variety with unity, and, as it were, initiate us into the secrets of creation, by disclosing the single idea which governs the most dissimilar actions, and harmonizes the most opposite interests. It was reserved to Torquato Tasso to raise the Italian language to this kind of epic poetry. Tasso (1544-1595) was born in Sorrento, and many marvels are told by his biographers of the precocity of his genius. Po- litical convulsions early drove his father into exile. He went to Home and sent for his son, then ten years of age. When the exiles were no longer safe at Rome, an asylum was offered them at Pesaro by the Duke of Urbino. Here young Tasso pursued his studies in all the learning and accomplishments of the age. In his seventeenth year he had completed the composition of an epic poem on the adventures of Rinaldo, which was received with passionate admiration throughout Italy. The appearance of this poem proved not only the beginning of the author's fame, but the dawn of a new day in Italian literature. In 1565, Tasso was nominated by the Cardinal D'Este as gentleman of his house- hold, and his reception at the court was in every respect most pleasing to his youthful ambition. He was honored by the inti- 14 210 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. mate acquaintance of the accomplished princesses Lucretia and Leonora, and to this dangerous friendship must be attributed most of his subsequent misfortunes, if it be true that he cherished a secret attachment for Leonora. During this prosperous period of his life, Tasso prosecuted his great epic poem, the " Jerusalem Delivered," and as canto after canto was completed and recited to the princesses, he found in their applause repeated stimulus to proceed. While steadily engaged in his great work, his fancy gave birth to numerous fugitive poems, the most remarkable of which is the " Aminta." After its representation at the court of Ferrara, all Italy re- sounded with the poet's fame. It was translated into aU the languages of Europe, and the name of Tasso would have been immortal even though he had never composed an epic. The various vexations he endured regarding the publication of his work at its conclusion, the wrongs he suffered from both patrons and rivals, together with disappointed ambition, rendered him the subject of feverish anxiety and afterwards the prey of rest- less fear and continual suspicion. His mental malady increased, and he wandered from place to place without finding any per- manent home. Assuming the disguise of a shepherd, he trav- eled to Sorrento, to visit his sister ; but soon, tired of seclusion, he obtained permission to return to the court of Ferrara. He was coldly received by the duke, and was refused an interview with the princesses. He left the place in indignation, and wan- dered from one city of Italy to another, reduced to the appear- ance of a wretched itinerant, sometimes kindly received, some- times driven away as a vagabond, always restless, suspicious, and unhappy. In this mood he again returned to Ferrara, at a mo- ment when the duke was too much occupied with the solemnities of his own marriage to attend to the complaints of the poet. Tasso became infuriated, retracted all the praises he had be- stowed on the house of Este, and indulged in the bitterest invec- tives against the duke, by whose orders he was afterwards com- mitted to the hospital for lunatics, where he was closely confined, and treated with extreme rigor. If he had never been insane before, he certainly now became so. To add to his misfortune, his poem was printed without his permission, from an imperfect copy, and while editors and printers enriched 'themselves with the fruit of his labors, the poet himself was languishing in a dungeon, despised, neglected, sick, and destitute of the common conveniences of life, and above all, deafened by the frantic cries with which the hospital continually resounded. When the first rigors of his imprisonment were relaxed, Tasso pursued his stud- ies, and poured forth his emotions in every form of verse. Some of his most beautiful minor poems were composed during this ITALIAN LITERATURE. 211 period. After more than seven years' confinement, the poet was liberated at the intercession of the Duke of Mantua. From this time he wandered from city to city ; the hallucinations of his mind never entirely ceased. Towards the close of the year 1594 he took up his residence at Rome, where he died at the age of fifty-two. Tasso was particularly happy in choosing the most engaging subject that could inspire a modern poet the struggle between the Christians and the Saracens. The Saracens considered them- selves called on to subjugate the earth to the faith of Mohammed ; the Christians to enfranchise the sacred spot where their divine founder suffered death. The religion of the age was wholly warlike. It was a profound, disinterested, enthusiastic, and po- etic sentiment, and no period has beheld such a brilliant display of valor. The belief in the supernatural, which formed a strik- ing characteristic of the time, seemed to have usurped the laws of nature and the common course of events. The faith against which the crusaders fought appeared to them the worship of the powers of darkness. They believed that a contest might exist between invisible beings as between different nations, and when Tasso armed the dark powers of enchantment against the Christian knights, he only developed and embellished a popular idea. The scene of the Jerusalem Delivered, so rich in recollections and associations with all our religious feelings, is one in which nature displays her riches and treasures, and where descriptions, in turn the most lovely and the most austere, attract the pen of the poet. All the nations of Christendom send forth their war- riors to the army of the cross, and the whole world thus becomes his patrimony. Whatever interest the taking of Troy might pos- sess for the Greeks, or the vanity of the Romans might attach to the adventures, of uEneas, whom they adopted as their progen- itor, it may be asserted that neither the Iliad nor the ^Eneid possesses the dignity of subject, the interest at the same time divine and human, and the varied dramatic action which are peculiar to the Jerusalem Delivered. The whole course of the poem is comprised in the campaign of 1093, when the Christian army, assembled on the plain of Tortosa, marched towards Jerusalem, which they besieged and captured. From the commencement of the poem, the most ten- der sentiments are combined with the action, and love has been assigned a nobler part than had been given to it in any other epic poem. Love, enthusiastic, respectful, and full of homage, was an essential characteristic of chivalry and the source of the no- blest actions. While with the heroes of the classic epic it was a weakness, with the Christian knights it was a devotion. In 212 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 4 this work are happily combined the classic and romantic styles. It is classic in its plan, romantic in its heroes ; it is conceived in the spirit of antiquity, and executed in the spirit of mediaeval romance. It has the beauty which results from unity of design and from the harmony of all its parts, united with the romantic form, which falls in with the feelings, the passions, and the recol- lections of Europeans. Notwithstanding some defects, which must be attributed rather to the taste of his age than to his genius, in the history of literature Tasso may be placed by the side of Homer and Virgil. 5. LYRIC POETRY. Lyric poetry, which had been brought to such perfection by Petrarch in the fourteenth century, but al- most lost sight of in the fifteenth, was cultivated by all the Italian poets of this period. Petrarch became the model, which every aspirant endeavored to imitate. Hence arose a host of poetasters, who wrote with considerable elegance, but without the least power of imagination. We must not, however, confound with the servile imitators of Petrarch those who took nothing from his school but purity of language and elegance of style, and who- consecrated the lyre not to love alone, but to patriotism and religion. First of these are Poliziano and Lorenzo de' Medici, in whose ballads and stanzas the language of Petrarch reap- peared with all its beauty and harmony. Later, Cardinal Bembo (1470-1547), Molza (1489-1544), Tarsia (1476-1535), Guidic- cioni (1480-1541), Delia Casa (1503-1556), Costanzo (1507- 1585), and later still, Chiabrera (1552-1637), attempted to re- store Italian poetry to its primitive elegance. Their sonnets and canzoni contributed much to the revival of a purer style, although their elegance is often too elaborate and their thoughts and feel- ings too artificial. Besides these, Ariosto, Tasso, Machiavelli, and Michael Angelo, whose genius was practiced in more ambi- tious tasks, did not disdain to shape and polish such diminutive gems as the canzone, the madrigal, and the sonnet. This reform of taste in lyric composition was also promoted by several women, among whom the most distinguished at once for beauty, virtue, and talent was Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547). She was daughter of the high constable of Naples, and married to the Marquis of Pescara. Early left a widow, she abandoned herself to sorrow. That fidelity which made her refuse the hand of princes in her youth, rendered her incapable of a second attachment in her widowhood. The solace of her life was to mourn the loss and cherish the memory of Pescara. After passing several years in retirement, Vittoria took up her resi dence at Rome, and became the intimate friend of the distin- guished men of her time. Her verses, though deficient in poetic fancy, are full of tenderness and absorbing passion. Vittoria ITALIAN LITERATURE. 213 Colonna was reckoned by her contemporaries as a being almost more than human, and the epithet divine was usually prefixed to her name. By her death-bed stood Michael Angelo, who was considerably her junior, but who enjoyed her friendship and regarded her with enthusiastic veneration. He wrote sev- eral sonnets in her praise. Veronica Gambara, Tullia d'Aragona, and Giulia Gonzaga may also be named as possessing superior genius to many literary men of their time. 6. DRAMATIC POETRY. Tragedy, in the hands of the Ro- mans, had exhibited no national characteristics, and disappeared with the decline of their literature. When Europe began to breathe again, the natural taste of the multitude for games and spectacles revived ; the church entertained the people with its representations, which, however, were destitute of all literary character. At the commencement of the fourteenth century we find traces of Latin tragedies, and these, during the fifteenth century, were frequently represented, as we have seen, more as a branch of ancient art and learning than as matter of recrea- tion. After the " Orpheus " of Poliziano had appeared on the stage, the first drama in the Italian tongue, Latin tragedies and comedies were translated into the Italian, but as yet no one had ventured beyond mere translation. Leo X. shed over the dramatic art the same favor which he bestowed on the other liberal arts, and the theatricals of the Vatican were of the most splendid description. During his pontificate, Trissino (1478-1550) dedicated to him the tragedy of " Sofonisba," formed on the Greek model, the first regular tragedy which had appeared since the revival of letters. Its subject is found entire in the work of Livy, and the invention of the poet has added little to the records of the historian. The piece is not divided into acts and scenes, and the only repose given to the action is by the chorus, who sing odes and lyric stanzas. The story is well conducted, the characters are all dramatic, and the incidents arise spontaneously out of each other; but the style of the tragedy has neither the sublimity nor the originality which becomes this kind of composition, and which distinguished the genius of the dramatic poets of Athens. The example of Trissino was followed by Rucellai (1475- 1525), who left two dramas, " Rosamunda " and " Orestes," written in blank verse, with a chorus, much resembling the Greek tragedies. This poet used much more license with his subject than Trissino ; his plot is less simple and pathetic, but abounds in horror, and his style is florid and rhetorical. Tasso, Speroni (1500-1588), Giraldi (1504-1573), and others, at- tempted also this species of composition, and their dramas are considered the best of the age. 214 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. As the tragic poets of this century servilely imitated Sopho- cles and Euripides, the comic writers copied Plautus and Ter- ence. The comedies of Ariosto, of which there are five, display considerable ingenuity of invention and an elegant vivacity of language. The dramatic works of Machiavelli approach more nearly to the middle comedy of the Greeks. They depict and satirize contemporaneous rather than obsolete manners, but the characters and plots awaken little interest. Bentivoglio (1506-1573), Salviati (1540-1589), Firenzuola (1493-1547), Caro (1507-1566), Cardinal Bibiena (1470- 1520), Aretino (1492-1556), and others, are among the princi- pal comic writers of the age, who displayed more or less dra- matic talent. Of all the Italian comedies composed in the six- teenth century, however, scarcely one was the work of eminent genius. A species of comic drama, known under the name of Commedia dell 1 arte, took its rise in this century. The charac- teristic of these plays is that the story only belongs to the poet, the dialogue being improvised by the actors. The four princi- pal characters, denominated masks, were Pantaloon, a merchant of Venice, a doctor of laws from Bologna, and two servants, known to us as Harlequin and Columbine. When we add to these a couple of sons, one virtuous and the other profligate ; a couple of daughters, and a pert, intriguing chambermaid, we have nearly the whole dramatis personce of these plays. The extempore dialogue by which the plot was developed was re- plete with drollery and wit, and there was no end to the novelty of the jests. 7. PASTORAL DRAMA AND DIDACTIC POETRY. The pas- toral drama, which describes characters and passions in their primitive simplicity, is thus distinguished from tragedy and comedy. It is probable that the idyls of the Greeks afforded the first germ of this species of composition, but Beccari, a poet of Ferrara (1510-1590), is considered the father of the genu- ine pastoral drama. Before him Sannazzaro (1458-1530) had written the " Arcadia," which, however, bears the character of an eclogue rather than that of a drama. It is written in the choicest Jtalian ; its versification is melodious, and it abounds with beautiful descriptions ; as an imitation of the ancients, it is entitled to the highest rank. The beauty of the Italian landscape and the softness of the Italian climate seem naturally fitted to dispose the poetic soul to the dreams of rural life, and the lan- guage seems, by its graceful simplicity, peculiarly adapted to ex- press the feelings of a class of people whom we picture to our- selves as ingenuous and infantine in their natures. The manners of the Italian peasantry are more truly pastoral than those of any other people, and a bucolic poet in that fair region need not ITALIAN LITERATURE. 215 wander to Arcadia. But Sannazzaro, like all the early pastoral poets of Italy, proposed to himself, as the highest excellence, a close imitation of Virgil ; he took his shepherds from the fabu- lous ages of antiquity, borrowed the mythology of the Greeks, and completed the machinery with fauns, nymphs, and satyrs. Like Sannazzaro, Beccari places his shepherds in Arcadia, and invests them with ancient manners ; but he goes beyond mere dialogue ; he connects their conversations by a series of dra- matic actions. The representation of one of these poems in- cited Tasso to the composition of his " Aminta," the success of which was due less to the interest of the story than to the sweetness of the poetry, and the soft voluptuousness which breathes in every line. It is written in flowing verse of various measures, without rhyme, and enriched with lyric choruses of uncommon beauty. The imitations of the Aminta were numerous, but, with one exception, which has disputed the palm with its model, they had an ephemeral existence. Guarini (1537-1612) was the author of the " Pastor Fido," which is the principal monument of his genius ; its chief merit lies in the poetry in which the tale is embodied, the simplicity and clearness of the diction, the tender- ness of the sentiments, and the vehement passion which gives life to the whole. This drama was first performed in 1585, at Turin, during the nuptial festivities of the Prince of Savoy. Its success was triumphant, and Guarini was justly considered as second only to Tasso among the poets of the age. Theatrical music, which was now beginning to be cultivated, found its way into the acts of the pastoral drama, and in one scene of the Pastor Fido it is united with dancing ; thus was opened the way for the Italian opera. Among the didactic poets, Rucellai may be first mentioned. His poem of " The Bees " is an imitation of the fourth book of the Georgics ; he does not, however, servilely follow his model, but gives an original coloring to that which he borrowed. Ala- manni (14951556) occupies a secondary rank among epic, tragic, and comic poets, but merits a distinguished place in di- dactic poetry. His poem entitled " Cultivation " is pure and elegant in its style. 8. SATIRICAL POETRY, NOVELS, AND TALES. In an age when every kind of poetry that had flourished among the Greeks and Romans appeared again with new lustre, satire was not wanting. There is much that is satirical in the " Divine Comedy " of Dante. Three of Petrarch's sonnets are satires on the court of Rome ; those of Ariosto are valuable not only for their flowing style, but for the details they afford of his character, taste, and circumstances. The satires of Alamanni 216 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. are chiefly political, and in general are characterized by purity of diction and by a high moral tendency. There is a kind of jocose or burlesque satire peculiar to Italy, in which the literature is extremely rich. If it serves the cause of wisdom, it is always in the mask of folly. The poet who carried this kind of writing to the highest perfection was Berni (1499-1536). Comic poetry, hitherto known in Italy as bur- lesque, of which Burchiello was the representative in the fif- teenth century, received from Berni the name of Bernesque, in its more refined and elegant character. His satirical poems are full of light and elegant mockery, and his style possesses nature and comic truth. In his hand, everything was transformed into ridicule ; his satire is almost always personal, and his laughter is not always restrained by respect for morals or for decency. To burlesque poetry may be referred also the Macaronic style, a ludicrous mixture of Latin and Italian, introduced by Merlino Coccajo (1491-1544). His poems are as full of lively descrip- tions and piquant satire as they are wanting in decorum and morality. The story-tellers of the sixteenth century are numerous. Sometimes they appear as followers of Boccaccio ; sometimes they attempt to open new paths for themselves. The class of productions, of which the " Decameron " was the earliest exam- ple in the fourteenth century, is called by the Italians " Novelle." In general, the interest of the tale depends rather on a number of incidents slightly touched, than on a few carefully delineated ; from the difficulty of developing character in a few isolated scenes, the story-teller trusts for effect to the combination of in- cident and style, and the delineation of character, which is the nobler part of fiction, is neglected. Italian novelists, too, have often regarded the incidents themselves but as a vehicle for fine writing. An interesting view of these productions is, that they form a vast repository of incident, in which we recognize the origin of much that has since appeared in our own and other languages. Machiavelli was one of the first novelists of this age. His little tale, " Belfagor," is pleasantly told, and has been translated into all languages. The celebrated " Giulietta " of Luigi da Porta is the sole production of the author, but it has served to give him a high place among Italian novelists. This is Shak- speare's Romeo and Juliet in another shape, though it is not prob- able that it was the immediate source from which the great dramatist collected the materials for his tragedy. The " Hun- dred Tales " of Cinzio Giraldi (1504-1573) are distinguished by great boldness of conception, and by a wild and tragic horror which commands the attention, while it is revolting to the feel- ITALIAN LITERATURE. 217 ings. He appears to have ransacked every age and country, and to have exhausted the catalogue of human crimes in procuring subjects for his novels. Grazzini, called Lasca (1503-1583), is perhaps the best of the Italian novelists after Boccaccio. His manner is light and grace- ful. His stories display much ingenuity, but are often improb- able and cruel in their nature. The Fairy Tales of Strapparola (b. 1500) are the earliest specimens of the kind in the prose lit- erature of Italy, and this work has been a perfect storehouse from which succeeding writers have derived a vast multitude of their tales. To this, also, we are indebted for the legend of " Fair Star," " Puss in Boots," " Fortunio," and others which adorn our nursery libraries. Firenzuola (1493-1547) occupies a high rank among the Ital- ian novelists ; his " Golden Ass," from Apuleius, and his " Dis- courses of Animals " are distinguished for their originality and purity of style. Bandello (1480-1562) is the novelist best known to foreigners after Boccaccio. Shakspeare and other English dramatists have drawn largely from his voluminous writings. His tales are founded upon history rather than fancy. 9. HISTORY. Historical composition was cultivated with much success by the Italians of the sixteenth century ; yet such was the altered state of things, that, except at Venice and Genoa, republics had been superseded by princes, and republican author- ity by the pomp of regal courts. Rome was a nest of intrigue, luxury, and corruption ; Tuscany had become the prey of a powerful family ; Lombardy was but a battle-field for the rival powers of France and Germany, and the lot of the people was oppression and humiliation. High independence of mind, one of the most valuable qualities in connection with historical re- search, was impossible under these circumstances, and yet, some of the Italian writers of this age exhibit genius, strength of char- acter, and a conscientious sense of the sacred commission of the historian. Machiavelli (1469-1527) was born in Florence of a family which had enjoyed the first offices in the republic. At the age of thirty, he was made chancellor of the state, and from that time he was constantly employed in public affairs, and particu- larly in embassies. Among those to the smaller princes of Italy, the one of the longest duration was to CaBsar Borgia, whom he narrowly observed at the very important period when this illus- trious villain was elevating himself by his crimes, and whose diabolical policy he had thus an opportunity of studying. He had a considerable share in directing the counsels of the repub- lic, and the influence to which he owed his elevation was that of 218 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. the free party, which censured the power of the Medici, and at that time held them in exile. When the latter were recalled, Machiavelli was deprived of all his offices and banished. He then entered into a conspiracy against the usurpers, which was discovered, and he was put to the torture, but without wresting from him any confession which could impeach either himself or those who had confided in his honor. Leo X., on his elevation to the pontificate, restored him to liberty. At this time he wrote his " History of Florence," in which he united eloquence of style with depth of reflection, and although an elegant, animated, and picturesque composition, it is not the fruit of much research or criticism. Besides this history, Machiavelli wrote his discourses on the first decade of Livy, considered his best work, and " The Art of War," which is an invaluable commentary on the history of the times. These works had the desired effect of inducing the Med- ici family to use the political services of the author, and at the request of Leo X. he wrote his essay " On the Reform of the Florentine Government." Guicciardini (1483-1541), the friend of Machiavelli, is con- sidered the greatest historian of this age. He attached himself to the service of Leo X., and was raised to high offices and hon- ors by him and the two succeeding popes. On the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, the republican party having obtained the ascendency, he was obliged to fly from the city. From this time he manifested an utter abhorrence of all popular institu- tions, and threw himself heart and soul into the interests of the Medici. He displayed his zeal at the expense of the lives and liberties of the most virtuous among his fellow-citizens. Having aided in the elevation of Cosmo, afterwards Grand Duke of Tus- cany, and being requited with ingratitude and neglect, he retired in disgust from public life, and devoted himself wholly to the completion of his history of Italy. This work, which is a mon- ument of his genius and industry, commences with the coming of Charles VIII. to Italy, and concludes with the year 1534, em- bracing one of the most important periods of Italian history. His powerfully-drawn pictures exhibit the men and the times so vividly, that they seem to pass before our eyes. His delineations of character, his masterly views of the course of events, the con- duct of leaders, and the changes of war, claim our highest admi- ration. His language is pure and his style elegant, though some- times too Latinized ; his letters are considered as a most valuable contribution to the history of his times. Numberless historians, of more or less merit, stimulated by the renown of Machiavelli and Guicciardini, composed annals oj ITALIAN LITERATURE. 219 the states to which they belonged, while others undertook to write the histories of foreign nations. Nardi (1496-1556), one of the most ardent and pure patriots of his age, takes the first place. He wrote the history of the Florentine Revolution of 1527, a work which, though defective in style, is distinguished for its truthfulness. The histories of Florence by Adriani, Var- chi, and Segni (1499-1559), are considered the best works of their kind, for elegance of style and for interest of the narrative. Almost all the other cities of Italy had their historians, but the palm must be awarded to the Florentine writers, not only on ac- count of their number, but for the elegance and purity of their style, for their impartiality and the sagacity of their research into matters of fact. Among the writers of the second class may be mentioned Davanzati (1519), the translator of Tacitus, who wrote, in the Florentine dialect, a history of the schism of Eng- land ; Giambullari (1495-1564), who wrote a history of Europe ; D'Anghiera (fl. 1536), who, after having examined the papers of Christopher Columbus, and the official reports transmitted from America to Spain, compiled an interesting work on " Ocean Navigation and the New World." His style is incorrect ; but this is compensated for by the fidelity of his narration. Several of the German States, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Hun- gary, and the East Indies, found Italian authors in this age to digest and arrange their chronicles, and give them historical form. To this period belong also the " Lives of the Most Celebrated Artists/' written by Vasari (1512-1574), himself a distinguished artist, a work highly interesting for its subject and style, and the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (b. 1500), one of the most curious works which was ever written in any language. 10. GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC. The Italian language was used both in writing and conversation for three centuries be- fore its rules and principles were reduced to a scientific form. Bembo was the first scholar who established the grammar. Grammatical writings and researches were soon multiplied and extended. Salviati was one of the most prominent grammarians of the sixteenth century, and Buonmattei and Cinonio of the seventeenth. But the progress in this study was due less to the grammarians than to the Dictionary detta Crusca. Among the scholars who took part in the exercises of the Florentine Acad- emy, founded by Cosmo de' Medici, there were some who, dis- satisfied with the philosophical disputations which were the object of this institution, organized another association for the purpose of giving a new impulse to the study of the language. This academy, inaugurated in 1587, was called della Crusca, literally, of the bran. The object of this new association being to sift all 220 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. impurities from the language, a sieve, the emblem of the acad- emy, was placed in the hall ; the members at their meetings sat on flour-barrels, and the chair of the presiding officer stood on three mill-stones. The first work of the academy was to com- pile a universal dictionary of the Italian language, which was published in 1612. Though the Dictionary della Crusca was conceived in an exclusive spirit, and admitted, as linguistic au- thorities, only writers of the fourteenth century, belonging to Tuscany, it contributed greatly to the progress of the Italian tongue. Every university of Italy boasted in the sixteenth century of some celebrated rhetoricians, all of whom, however, were over- shadowed by Vettori (14991585), distinguished for the edi- tions of the Greek and Latin classics published under his super- intendence, and for his commentaries on the rhetorical books of Aristotle. B. Cavalcanti (1503-1562) was also celebrated in this department, and his " Rhetoric " is the best work of the age on that subject. The oratory of this period is very imperfect. Orations were written in the style of Boccaccio, which, however suitable for the narration of merry tales, is entirely unfit for oratorical com- positions. Among those who most distinguished themselves in this department are Della Casa (1503-1556), whose harangues against the Emperor Charles V. are full of eloquence ; Speroni (15001588), whose style is more perfect than that of any other writer of the sixteenth century ; and Lollio (d. 1568) , whose orations are the most polished. At that time, in the forum of Venice, eloquent orators pleaded the causes of the citizens, and at the close of the preceding century, Savonarola (1452-1498), a preacher of Florence, thundered against the abuses of the Roman church, and suffered death in consequence. Among the models of letter-writing, Caro takes the first place. His familiar letters are written with that graceful elegance which becomes this kind of composition. The letters of Tasso are full of elo- quence and philosophy, and are written in the most select Italian. 11. SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND POLITICS. The sciences, during this period, went hand in hand with poetry and history. Libraries and other aids to learning were multiplied, and acad- emies were organized with other objects than those of enjoyment of mere poetical triumphs or dramatic amusements. The Acad- emy del Cimento was founded at Florence in 1657 by Leopold de' Medici, for promoting the study of the natural sciences, and similar institutions were established in Rome, Bologna, and Na- ples, and other cities of Italy, besides the Royal Academy of London (1660), and the Academy of Sciences in Paris (1666). From the period of the first institution of universities, that of ITALIAN LITERATURE. 221 Bologna had maintained its preeminence. Padua, Ferrara, Pa- via, Turin, Florence, Siena, Pisa, and Rome were also seats of learning. The men who directed the scientific studies of their country and of Europe were almost universally attached as pro- fessors to these institutions. Indeed, at this period, through the genius of Galileo and his school, European science first dawned in Italy. Galileo (15641641) was a native of Pisa, and professor of mathematics in the university of that city. Being obliged to leave it on account of scientific opinions, at that time at variance with universally received principles, he removed to the university of Padua, where for eighteen years he enjoyed the high consideration of his countrymen. He re- turned to Pisa, and at the age of seventy was summoned to Rome by the Inquisition, and required to renounce his doctrines relative to the Copernican system, of which he was a zealous defender, and his life was spared only on condition of his abjur- ing his opinions. It is said that on rising from his knees, after making the abjuration of his belief that the earth moved round the sun, he stamped his foot on the floor and said, " It does move, though." To Galileo science is indebted for the discov- ery of the laws of weight, the scientific construction of the sys- tem of Copernicus, the pendulum, the improvement of many scientific instruments, the invention of the hydrostatic balance, the thermometer, proportional compasses, and, above all, the telescope. He discovered the satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the mountains of the moon, the spots and the rotation of the sun. Science, which had consisted for centuries only of scholastic subtleties and barren dialectics, he established on an experimental basis. In his works he unites delicacy and purity with vivacity of style. Among the scholars of Galileo, who most efficaciously con- tributed to the progress of science, may be mentioned Torricelli (1608-1647), th^ inventor of the barometer, an elegant and pro- found writer; Borelli (1608-1679), the founder of animal me- chanics, or the science of the movements of animals, distinguished for his works on astronomy, mathematics, anatomy, and natural philosophy; Cassini (1625-1712), a celebrated astronomer, to whom France is indebted for its meridian ; Cavalieri (1598- 1648), distinguished for his works on geometry, which paved the way to the discovery of the infinitesimal calculus. In the scientific department of the earlier part of this period may also be mentioned Tartaglia (d. 1657) and Cardano (1501- 1576), celebrated for their researches on algebra and geometry ; Vignola (1507-1573) and Palladio (1518-1580), whose works on architecture are still held in high estimation, as well as the trork of Marchi (fl. 1550) on military construction. Later, 222 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Redi (1626-1697) distinguished himself as a natural philoso- pher, a physician and elegant writer, both in prose and verse, and Malpighi (1628-1694) and Bellini (1643-1704) were anat- omists of high repute. Scamozzi (1550-1616) emulated the glory formerly won by Palladio in architecture, and Montecuc- coli (1608-1681), a great general of the age, ably illustrated the art of strategy. The sixteenth century abounds in philosophers who, abandon- ing the doctrines of Plato, which had been in great favor in the fifteenth, adopted those of Aristotle. Some, however, dared to throw off the yoke of philosophical authority, and to walk in new paths of speculation. Patrizi (1529-1597) was one of the first who undertook to examine for himself the phenomena of nature, and to attack the authority of Aristotle. Telesio (1509- 1588), a friend of Patrizi, joined him in the work of overthrow- ing the Peripatetic idols ; but neither of them dared to renounce entirely the authority of antiquity. The glory of having claimed absolute freedom in philosophical speculation belongs to Car- dano, already mentioned, to Campanella (1568-1639), who for the boldness of his opinions was put to the torture and spent thirty years in prison, and to Giordano Bruno (1550-1600), a sublime thinker and a bold champion of freedom, who was burned at the stake. Among the moral philosophers of this age may be mentioned Speroni, whose writings are distinguished by harmony, freedom, and eloquence of style ; Tasso, whose dialogues unite loftiness of thought with elegance of style ; Castiglione (1468-1529), whose " Cortigiano " is in equal estimation as a manual of ele- gance of manners and as a model of pure Italian ; and Delia Casa, whose " Galateo " is a complete system of politeness, couched in elegant language, and a work to which Lord Ches- terfield was much indebted. Political science had its greatest representative in Machiavelli, who wrote on it with that profound knowledge of the human haart which he had acquired in public life, and with the habit of unweaving, in all its intricacies, the political perfidy which then prevailed in Italy. The " Prince " is the best known of his po- litical works, and from the infamous principles which he has here developed, though probably with good intentions, his name is allied with everything false and perfidious in politics. The object of the treatise is to show how a new prince may establish and consolidate his power, and how the Medici might not only confirm their authority in Florence, but extend it over the whole of the Peninsula. At the time that Machiavelli wrote, Italy had been for centuries a theatre where might was the only right. He was not a man given to illusive fancies, and throughout a ITALIAN LITERATURE. 223 long political career nothing had been permitted to escape his keen and penetrating eye. In all the affairs in which he had taken part he had seen that success was the only thing studied, and therefore to succeed in an enterprise, by whatever means, had become the fundamental idea of his political theory. His Prince reduced to a science the art, long before known and practiced by kings and tyrants, of attaining absolute power by deception and cruelty, and of maintaining it afterwards by the dissimulation of leniency and virtue. It does not appear that any exception was at first taken to the doctrines which have since called forth such severe reprehension, and from the mo- ment of its appearance the Prince became a favorite at every court. But soon after the death of Machiavelli a violent out- cry was raised against him, and although it was first heard with amazement, it soon became general, The Prince was laid un- der the ban of several successive popes, and the name of Ma- chiavelli passed into a proverb of infamy. His bones lay undis- tinguished for nearly two centuries, when a monument was erected to his memory in the church of Santa Croce, through the influence of an English nobleman. 12. PERIOD OF DECADENCE. The sixteenth century reaped the fruits that had been sown in the fifteenth, but it scattered no seeds for a harvest in the seventeenth, which was therefore doomed to general sterility. In the reigns of Charles V. and Philip II. the chains of civil and religious despotism were forged which subdued the intellect and arrested the genius of the peo- ple. The Spanish viceroys ruled with an iron hand over Milan, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Poverty and superstition wasted and darkened the minds of the people, and indolence and love of pleasure introduced almost universal degeneracy. But the Spanish yoke, which weighed so heavily at both extremities of the Peninsula, did not extend to the republic of Venice, or to the duchy of Tuscany ; and the heroic character of the princes of Savoy alone would have served to throw a lustre over this otherv/ise darkened period. In literature, too, there were a few who resisted the torrent of bad taste, amidst many who opened the way for a crowd of followers in the false route, and gave to the age that character of extravagance for which it is so pecul- iarly distinguished. The literary works of the seventeenth century may be divided into three classes, the first of which, under the guidance of Marini, attained the lowest degree of corruption, and remain in the annals of literature as monuments of bombastic style and bad taste. The second embraces those writers who were aware of the faults of the school to which they belonged, and who, aiming to bring about a reform in literature, while they en- 224 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. deavored to follow a better style, partook more or less of the character of the age. To this class may be referred Chiabrera already named, and more particularly Filicaja and other poets of the same school. The third class is composed of a few writ- ers who preserved themselves faithful to the principles of true taste, and among them are Menzini, Salvator Rosa, Redi, and more particularly Tassoni. 13. EPIC AND LYRIC POETRY. Marini (1569-1625), the celebrated innovator on classic Italian taste, is considered as the first who seduced the poets of the seventeenth century into a labored and affected style. He was born at Naples and edu- cated for the legal profession, for which he had little taste, and on publishing a volume of poems, his indignant father turned him out of doors. But his popular qualities never left him without friends. He was invited to the Court of France, obtained the favor of Mary de' Medici, and the situation of gentleman to the king. He became exceedingly popular among the French no- bility, many of whom learned Italian for the sole purpose of reading his works. It was here that he published the most cele- brated of his poems, entitled " Adonis." He afterwards pur- chased a beautiful villa near Naples, to which he retired, and where he soon after died. The Adonis of Marini is a mixturp of the epic and the romantic style, the subject being taken from the well-known story of Venus and Adonis. He renounced all keeping and probability, both in his incidents and descriptions ; if he could present a series of enchanted pictures, he was little solicitous as to the manner of their arrangement. But the work has much beauty and imagination, and is often animated by the true spirit of poetry. Its principal faults are that it is sadly wire-drawn, and abounds in puns, endless antitheses, and inven- tions for surprising or bewildering the reader; graces which were greatly admired by the contemporaries of the poet. Marini was a voluminous writer, and was not only extolled in his own country above its classic authors, and in France, but the Span- iards held him in the highest esteem, and imitated and even surpassed him in his own eccentric career. He had also innu- merable imitators in Italy, many of whom attained a high rep- utation during their lives, and afterwards sank into complete oblivion. Filicaja (1642-1709) stands at the head of the lyric poets of the seventeenth century. His inspiration seems first to have been awakened when Vienna was besieged by the Turks in 1683, and gallantly defended by the Christian powers. His verses on this occasion awoke the most enthusiastic admiration, and called forth the eulogies of princes and poets. The admira* tion which he excited in his day is scarcely to be wondered at; ITALIAN LITERATURE. 225 for, though this judgment has not been ratified by posterity, Filicaja has at least the merit of having raised the poetry of Italy from the abject service of mere amorous imbecility to the noble office of embodying the more manly and virtuous senti- ments ; and though his style is infected with the bombastic spirit of the age, it is even in this respect singularly moderate, com- pared with that of his contemporaries. 14. MOCK-HEROIC POETRY, THE DRAMA, AND SATIRE. The full maturity of the style of mock-heroic poetry is due to Tassoni (1565-1635). He first attracted public notice by dis- puting the authority of Aristotle, and the poetical merits of Petrarch. In 1622 he published his " Rape of the Bucket," a burlesque poem on the petty wars which were so common be- tween the towns of Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies. The heroes of Modena had, in 1325, discomfited the Bolognese, and pursued them to the very heart of their city, whence they carried off, as a trophy of their victory, the bucket belonging to the public well. The expedition undertaken by the Bolognese for its recovery forms the basis of the twelve mock-heroic c^htos of Tassoni. To understand this poem re- quires a knowledge of the vulgarisms and idioms which are fre- quently introduced in it. About the same period, Bracciolini (1566-1645) produced another comic-heroic poem, entitled the " Ridicule of the Gods,'* in which the ancient deities are introduced as mingling with the peasants, and declaiming in the low, vulgar dialect, and making themselves most agreeably ridiculous. Somewhat later appeared one more example of the same species of epic, " The Malmantile," by Lippi (1606-1664). This poem is considered a pure model of the dialect of the Florentines, which is so graceful and har- monious even in its homeliness. The seventeenth century was remarkable for the prodigious number of its dramatic authors, but few of them equaled and none excelled those of the preceding age. The opera, or melo- drama, which had arisen out of the pastoral, seemed to monop- olize whatever talent was at the disposal of the stage, and branches formerly cultivated sank below mediocrity. Amid the crowd of theatrical corrupters, the name of Andreini (1564 1652) deserves peculiar mention, not from any claim to exemp- tion from the general censure, but because his comedy of " Adam " is believed to have been the foundation of Milton's " Paradise Lost." Andreini was but one of the common throng of dra- matic writers, and it has been fiercely contended by some, that it is impossible that the idea of so sublime a poem should have been taken from so ordinary a composition as his Adam. His 15 226 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. piece was represented at Milan as early as 1613, and so has at least a claim of priority. Menzini (1646-1708) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1675) were the representatives of the satire of this century ; the former dis- tinguished for the purity of his language and the harmony of his verse ; the latter for his vivacity and sprightliness. 15. HISTORY AND EPISTOLARY WRITINGS. The number of historical works in this century is much greater than in that of the preceding, but they are generally far from possessing the same merit or commanding the same interest. The historians seem to have lost all feeling of national dignity ; they do not venture to unveil the causes of public events, or to indicate their results. Even those that dared treat of Italy or its provinces, confined themselves to the reigning dynasties, and overlooking the causes which most deeply affected the happiness of the peo- ple, described only the festivities, battles, and triumphs of their princes. A large number of historians chose foreign subjects ; the history of France was remarkable for the number of Italians who endeavored to relate it in this age. The work of Davila (1576-1630) on "The Civil Wars of France," however, throws all the rest into the shade. What gives to it peculiar value is the carefulness with which the materials were collected, in con- nection with the opportunities its author enjoyed for gaining information. This history is considered as superior to that of Guicciardini in its matter, as the latter excels it in style. It is wanting in that elegance which characterized the Florentine his- torians of the sixteenth century. Bentivoglio (1579-1644) was an eminent rival of Davila ; he wrote the history of the civil wars of Flanders ; a work remarkable for the elegance and cor- rectness of its style. Above all stand the works of Sarpi, who lived between 1552 and 1623, and who defended with great courage the authority of the Senate of Venice against the power of the Popes, notwithstanding their excommunication and con- tinued persecution. His history of the Council of Trent con- tains a curious account of the intrigues of the Court of Rome at the period of the Reformation. It was chiefly in the more showy departments of literature that the extravagance of the Marinists was most conspicuous, and the decay of native genius was most apparent. But this genius had turned into other paths, which it pursued with a steady, though less brilliant course. Of all branches of prose composition, the epistolary was the most carefully cultivated. The talent for letter- writing was often the means of considerable emolument, as all the petty princes of Italy and the cardinals of Rome were ambitious of having secretaries who would give them eclat in their correspondence, and these situations, which ITALIAN LITERATURE. , 227 were steps to higher preferment, were eagerly sought ; hence the prodigious number of collections of letters which have at all times inundated Italy specimens by which those who believed themselves elegant writers endeavored to make known their talent. The letters of Bentivoglio have obtained European ce- lebrity. They are distinguished for elegance of style as well as for the interest of those historical recollections which they trans- mit ; they are considered superior to his history. But of all the letters of this or of the preceding age, none are more rich, more varied, or more pleasing than those of Redi, who threw into this form his discoveries in natural history. The driest subjects, even those of language and grammar, are here treated in an interesting and agreeable manner. PERIOD THIRD. THE SECOND REVIVAL OF ITALIAN LITERATURE, AND ITS PRESENT CONDITION (4675-1885). 1. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD PERIOD. At the close of the seventeenth century, a new dawn arose in the history of Italian letters, and the general corruption which had extended to every branch of literature and paralyzed the Italian mind began to be arrested by the appearance of writers of bet- ter taste ; the affectations of the Marinists and of the so-called Arcadian poets were banished from literature ; science was ele- vated and its dominion extended, the melodrama, comedy, and tragedy recreated, and a new spirit infused into every branch of composition. Amidst the clash of arms and the vicissitudes of long and bloody wars, Italy began to awake from her lethargy to the aspiration for greater and better things, and her intel- lectual condition soon underwent important changes and im- provements. In the eighteenth century, in Naples, Vico trans- formed history into a new science. Filangeri contended with Montesquieu for the palm of legislative philosophy ; and new light was thrown on criminal science by Mario Pagano. In Rome, letters and science flourished under the patronage of Ben- edict XIV., Clement XIV., and Pius VI., under whose auspices Quirico Viscohti undertook his " Pio Clementine Museum " and his " Greek and Roman Iconography," the two greatest archseo^ logical works of all ages. Padua was immortalized by tho works of Cesarotti, Belzoni, and Stratico ; Venice by Goldoni ; Verona by Maffei, the critic and the antiquarian, as well as the first reformer of Italian tragedy. Tuscany took the lead of the intellectual movement of the country under Leopold and his suc- cessor Ferdinand, when Florence, Pisa, and Siena again became seats of learning and of poetry and the arts. Maria Theresa 228 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. and Joseph II. fostered the intellectual progress of Lombardy ; Spallanzani published his researches on natural philosophy ; Volta discovered the pile which bears his name ; a new era in poetry was created by Parini ; another in criminal jurisprudence by Beccaria ; history was reconstructed by Muratori ; mathe- matics promoted by Lagrange, and astronomy by Oriani ; and Alfieri restored Italian letters to their primitive splendor. But at the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, Italy became the theatre of political and mil- itary revolutions, whose influence could not fail to arrest the development of the literature of the country. The galleries, museums, and libraries of Rome, Florence, and other cities suf- fered from the military occupation, and many of their treasures, manuscripts, and masterpieces of art were carried to Paris by command of Napoleon. The entire peninsula was subject to French influence, which, though beneficial to its material prog- ress, could not fail to be detrimental to national literature. All new works were composed in" French, and indifferent or bad translations from the French were widely circulated ; the French language was substituted for the Italian, and the national litera- ture seemed about to disappear. But Italian genius was not wholly extinguished ; a few writers powerfully opposed this new tendency, and preserved in its purity the language of Dante and Petrarch. Gradually the national spirit revived, and literature was again moulded in accordance with the national character. Notwithstanding the political calamities of which, for some time after the treaty of Vienna in 1815, Italy was continually the victim, the literature of the country awakened and fostered a sentiment of nationality, and Italian independence is at this pres- ent moment already achieved. 2. THE MELODRAMA. The first result of the revival of let- ters at the close of the seventeenth century was the reform of the theatre. The melodrama, or Italian opera, arose out of the pastoral drama, which it superseded. The astonishing progress of musical science succeeded that of poetry and sculpture, which fell into decline with the decay of literature. Music, rising into excellence and importance at a time when poetry was on the decline, acquired such superiority that verse, instead of being its mistress, became its handmaid. The first occasion of this inversion was in the year 1594, when Rinuccini, a Florentine poet, associated himself with three musicians to compose a mythological drama. This and several other pieces by the same author met with a brilliant reception. Poetry, written only in order to be sung, thus assumed a different character ; Rinuccini abandoned the form of the canzone which had hitherto been used in the lyrical part of the drama, and adopted the Pindaric ITALIAN LITERATURE. 229 ode. Many poets followed in the same path ; more action was given to the dramatic parts, and greater variety to the music, in which the airs were agreeably blended with the recitative duets ; other harmonized pieces were also added, and after the lapse of a century Apostolo Zeno (1669-1750) still further improved the melodrama. But it was the spirit of Metastasio that breathed a soul of fire into this ingenious and happy form created by others. Metastasio (1698-1782) gave early indications of genius, and when only ten years of age used to collect an audience in his father's shop, by his talent for improvisation. He thus attracted the notice of Gravina, a celebrated patron of letters, who adopted him as his son, changed his somewhat ignoble name of Trepassi to Metastasio, and had him educated in every branch necessary for a literary career. He still continued to improvise verses on any given subject for the amusement of company. His youth, his harmonious voice, and prepossessing appearance, added greatly to the charm of his talent. It was one generally cultivated in Italy at this time, and men of mature years often presented themselves as rivals of the boy. This occupation becoming inju- rious to the youth, Gravina forbade him to compose extempore verses any more, and this rule, imposed on him at sixteen, he never afterwards infringed. When Metastasio was in his twen- tieth year Gravina died, leaving to him his fortune, most of which he squandered in two years. He afterwards went to Naples, where, under a severe master, he devoted himself to the closest study and for two years resisted every solicitation to compose verses. At length, under promise of secrecy, he wrote a drama. All Naples resounded with its praise, and the author was soon discovered. Metastasio from this time followed the career for which nature seemed to have formed him, and devoted himself to the opera, which he considered to be the natural drama of Italy. An invitation to become the court poet of Vienna made his future life both stable and prosperous. On the death of Charles VI., in 1740, several other European sovereigns made advantageous overtures to the poet, but as Maria Theresa was disposed to retain him, he would not leave her in her adverse circumstances. The remainder of his life he passed in Germany, and his latter years were as monotonous as they were pros- perous. Metastasio seized with a daring hand the true spirit of the melodrama, and scorning to confine himself to unity of place, opened a wide field for the display of theatrical variety, on which the charm of the opera so much depends. The language in which he clothed the favorite passion of liis drama exhibits all that is delicate and yet ardent, and he develops the most ele- vated sentiments of loyalty, patriotism, and filial love. The 230 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. flow of his verse in the recitative is the most pure and harmo- nious known in any language, and the strophes at the close of each scene are scarcely surpassed by the first masters in lyric poetry. Metastasio is one of the most pleasing, at the same time one of the least difficult of the Italian poets, and the tyro in the study of Italian classics may begin with his works, and at once enjoy the pleasures of poetic harmony at their highest source. 3. COMEDY. The revolution, so frequently attempted in Italian comedy by men whose genius was unequal to the task, was reserved for Goldoni (1707-1772) to accomplish. His life, written by himself, presents a picture of Italian manners in their gayest colors. He was a native of Venice, and from his early youth was constantly surrounded by theatrical people. At eight years of age he composed a comedy, and at fourteen he ran away from school with a company of strolling players. He afterwards prepared for the medical, then for the legal profes- sion, and finally, at the age of twenty-seven, he was installed poet to a company of players. He now attempted to introduce the reforms that he had long meditated ; he attained a purer style, and became a censor of the manners and a satirist of the follies of his country. His dialogue is extremely animated, ear- nest, and full of meaning ; with a thorough knowledge of na- tional manners, he possessed the rare faculty of representing them in the most life-like manner on the stage. The language used by the inferior characters of his comedies is the Venetian dialect. In his latter days Goldoni was rivaled by Carlo Gozzi (1722- 1806), who parodied his pieces, and, it is thought, was the cause of his retirement, in the decline of life, to Paris. Gozzi intro- duced a new style of comedy, by reviving the familiar fictions of childhood ; he selected and dramatized the most brilliant fairy tales, such as " Blue Beard," u The King of the Genii," etc., and gave them to the public with magnificent decorations and surprising machinery. If his comedies display little resemblance to nature, they at least preserve the kind of probability which is looked for in a fairy tale. Many years elapsed after Goldoni and Gozzi disappeared from the arena before there was any successor to rival their compositions. Among those who contributed to the perfection of Italian comedy may be mentioned Albergati (fl. 1774), Gherardo de' Rossi (1754-1827), and above all, Nota (d. 1847), who is pre- eminent among the new race of comic authors ; although some- what cold and didactic, he at least fulfils the important office of holding the mirror up to nature. He exhibits a faithful picture of Italian society, and applies the scourge of satire to its most prevalent faults and follies. ITALIAN LITERATURE. 231 4. TRAGEDY. The reform of Italian tragedy was early at- tempted by Martelli (d. 1727) and by Scipione Maffei (1675- 1755). But Martelli was only a tame imitator of French mod- els, while Maffei, possessing real talent and feeling, deserved the extended reputation he acquired. His " Merope " is con- sidered as the last and the best specimen of the elder school of Italian tragedy. The honor of raising tragedy to its highest standard was re- served for Alfieri (17491803), whose remarkable personal character exercised a powerful influence over his works. He was possessed of an impetuosity which continually urged him towards some indefinite object, a craving for something more free in politics, more elevated in character, more ardent in love, and more perfect in friendship ; of desires for a better state of things, which drove him from one extremity of Europe to an- other, but without discovering it in the realities of this every- day world. Finally, he turned to the contemplation of a new universe in his own poetical creations, and calmed his agitations by the production of those master-pieces which have secured his immortality. His aim in life, in the pursuit of which he never deviated, was that of founding a new and classic school of trag- edy. He proposed to himself the severe simplicity of the Greeks with respect to the plot, while he rejected the pomp of poetry which compensates for interest among the classic writers of an- tiquity. Energy and conciseness are the distinguishing features of his style ; and this, in his earlier dramas, is carried to the extreme. He brings the whole action into one focus ; the pas- sion he would exhibit is introduced into the first verse and kept in view to the last. No event, no character, no conversation unconnected with the advancement of the plot is permitted to appear ; all confidants and secondary personages are, therefore, excluded, and there seldom appear more than four interlocutors. These tragedies breathe the spirit of patriotism and freedom, and for this, even independently of their intrinsic merit, Alfieri is considered as the reviver of the national character in modern times, as Dante was in the fourteenth century. " Saul " is re- garded as his masterpiece ; it represents a noble character suf- fering under those weaknesses which sometimes accompany great virtues, and are governed by the fatality, not of destiny, but of human nature. Among the earliest and most distinguished of those who fol- lowed in the path of Alfieri was Monti (1754-1828). Though endowed with a sublime imagination and exquisite taste, his character was weak and vain, and he, in turn, celebrated every party as it became the successful one. Educated in the school of Dante, he introduced into Italian poetry those bold and se- 232 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. vere beauties which adorned its infancy. His " Aristodemus " is one of the most affecting tragedies in Italian literature. The story is founded on the narrative of Pausanias. It is simple in its construction, and its interest is confined almost entirely to the principal personage. In the loftiness of the characters of his tragedies, and the energy of sentiment and simplicity of action which characterize them, we recognize the school of Alfi- eri, while in harmony and elegance of style and poetical lan- guage, Monti is superior. Another follower of the school of Alfieri is Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), one of the greatest writers of this age, in whom inspiration was derived from a lofty patriotism. At the time of the French revolution he joined the Italian army, with the object of restoring independence to his country. Disap- pointed in this hope, he left Italy for England, where he dis- tinguished himself by his writings. The best of his tragedies, " Ricciarda," is founded on events supposed to have occurred in the Middle Ages. While some of its scenes and situations are forced and unnatural, some of the acts are wrought with con- summate skill and effect, and the conception of the characters is tragic and original. Foscolo adopts in his tragedies a concise and pregnant style, and displays great mastery over his native language. Marenco (d. 1846) is distinguished for the noble and moral ideas, lofty images, and affections of his tragedies; but he lacks unity of design and vigor of style. Silvio Pellico (1789-1854) was born in Piedmont. As a writer he is best known as the author of " My Prisons," a narrative full of sim- plicity and resignation, in which he relates his sufferings during ten years in the fortress of Spielberg. His tragedies are good specimens of modern art ; they abound in fine thoughts and tender affections, but they lack that liveliness of dialogue and rapidity of action which give reality to the situations, and that knowledge of the human heart and unity and grandeur of con- ception which are the characteristics of true genius. Manzoni (1785-1873) and Nicolini (1782-1861) are the last of the modern representatives of the tragic drama of Italy. The tragedies of Manzoni, and especially his " Conte di Carmag- nola," and " Adelchi," abound in exquisite beauties. His style is simple and noble, his verse easy and harmonious, and his object elevated. The merits of these tragedies, however, belong rather to parts, and while the reading of them is always interesting, on the stage they fail to awaken the interest of the audience. After Manzoni, Nicolini was the most popular literary man of Italy of his time. Lofty ideas, generous passions, splendor and harmony of poetry, purity of language, variety of characters, and warmth f patriotism, constitute the merit of his tragedies ; while his ITALIAN LITERATURE. 233 Faults consist in a style somewhat too exuberant and lyrical, in ideas sometimes too vague, and characters often too ideal. 5. LYRIC, EPIC, AND DIDACTIC POETRY. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, a class of poets who called themselves " The Arcadians " attempted to overthrow the artificial and bombastic school of Marini ; but their frivolous and insipid productions had little effect on the literature. The first poets who gave a new impulse to letters were Parini and Monti. Parini (1729-1799) was a man of great genius, integrity, and taste ; he contributed more than any other writer of his age to the progress of literature and the arts. His lyrical poems abound in noble thoughts, and breathe a pure patriotism and high morality. His style is forcible, chaste, and harmoni- ous. The poems of Monti have much of the fire and elevation of Pindar. Whatever object employs his thoughts, his eyes immediately behold ; and, as it stands before him, a flexible and harmonious language is ever at his command to paint it in the brightest colors. His " Basvilliana " is the most celebrated of his lyric poems, and, beyond every other, is remarkable for majesty, nobleness of expression, and richness of coloring. The poetical writings of Pindemonte (1753-1828) are stamped with the melancholy of his character. Their subjects are taken from contemporary events, and his inspiration is drawn from nature and rural life. His " Sepulchres " breathes the sweetest and most pathetic tenderness, and the brightest hopes of im- mortality. The poems of Foscolo have the grace and elegance of the Greek poets ; but in his " Sepulchres " the gloom of his melancholy imagination throws a funereal light over the noth- ingness of all things, and the silence of death is unbroken by any voice of hope in a future life. Torti (1774-1852), a pupil of Parini, rivaled his master in the simplicity of style and pu- rity of his images ; while Leopardi (1798-1837) impressed upon his lyric poems the peculiarities of his own character. A sublime poet and a profound scholar, his muse was inspired by a deep sorrow, and his poems pour out a melancholy that is ter- rible and grand, the most agonizing cry in modern literature uttered with a solemn quietness that elevates and terrifies. The poetry of despair has never had a more powerful voice than his. He is not only the first poet since Dante, but perhaps the most perfect prose writer. Berchet (1790-1851) is considered as the Italian Beranger, and his songs glow with patriotic fire. Those of Silvio Pellico, always sweet and truthful, bear the stamp of a calm resignation, hope, and piety. The list of mod- ern lyric poets closes with Manzoni, whose hymns are models of this style of poetry. In the epic department the third period does not afford any 234 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. poems of a high order. But the translation of the Iliad by Monti, that of the Odyssey by Pindemonte, for their purity of language and beauty of style, may be considered as epic additions to Ital- ian literature. "'The Longobards of the First Crucade," written by Grossi (1791-1853), excels in beauty and splendor of poetry all the epic poems of this age, though it lacks unity of design and comprehensiveness of thought. Among the didactic poems may be mentioned the " Invitation of Lesbia," by Mascheroni (1750-1800), a distinguished poet as well as a celebrated mathematician. This poem, which de- scribes the beautiful productions of nature in the Museum of Pavia, is considered a masterpiece of didactic poetry. The " Riseide," or cultivation of rice, by Spolverini (1695-1762), and the " Silkworm," by Betti (1732-1788), are characterized by poetical beauties. The poem on the u Immortality of the Soul," by Fiorentino (1742-1815), though defective in style, is distinguished by its elevation of ideas and sentiments. " The Cultivation of Mountains," by Lorenzi (1732-1822), is rich in beautiful images and thoughts. " The Cultivation of Olive Trees," by Ariel (1782-1836), his " Corals," and other poems, especially in their descriptions, are graceful and attractive. " The Seasons " of Barbieri (1774-1852), though bearing marks of imitation from Pope, is written in a pure and elegant style. 6. HEROIC-COMIC POETRY, SATIRE, AND FABLE. The period of heroic-comic poetry closes in the eighteenth century. The " Ricciardetto " of Fortiguerri (1674-1735) is the last of the poems of chivalry, and with it terminated the long series of romances founded on the adventures of Charlemagne and his paladins. The " Cicero " of Passeroni (17131803) is a ram- bling composition in a style similar to Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," which, it appears, was suggested by this work. Satiric poetry, which had flourished in the preceding period, was enriched by new productions in the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries. G. Gozzi (1713-1789) attacked in his satires the vices and prejudices of his fellow-citizens, in a forcible and elegant style ; and Parini, the great satirist of the eighteenth century, founded a school of satire, which proved most beneficial to the country. His poem, " The Day," is distinguished by fine irony and by the severity with which he attacks the effeminate habits of his age. He lashes the affectations and vices of the Milanese aristocracy with a sarcasm worthy of Juvenal. The satires of D'Elci, Guadagnoli, and others are characterized by wit and beauty of versification. Those of Leopardi are bitter and contemptuous, while Giusti (1809-1850), the political sat> irist of his age, scourged the petty tyrants of his country with biting severity and pungent wit; the circulation of his satires ITALIAN LITERATURE. 235 throughout Italy, in defiance of its despotic governments, greatly contributed to the revolution of 1848. In the department of fable may be mentioned Roberti (1719- 1786), Passeroni, Pignotti (1739-1812), and Clasio (1754- 1825), distinguished for invention, purity, and simplicity of style, 7. ROMANCES. Though the tales of Boccaccio and the story- tellers of the sixteenth century paved the way to the romances of the present time, it was only at a late period that the Italians gave their attention to this kind of composition. In the eight eenth century we find only two specimens of romance, "The Congress of Citera," by Algarotti, of which Voltaire said that it was written with a feather drawn from the wings of love ; and the " Roman Nights," by Alexander Vend (1741-1816). In his romance he introduces the shades of celebrated Romans, par- ticularly of Cicero, and an ingenious comparison of ancient and modern institutions is made. The style is picturesque and poe* ical, though somewhat florid. This kind of composition has found more favor in the nine- teenth century. First among the writers of this age is Manzoni, whose " Betrothed " is a model of romantic literature. The va- riety, originality, and truthfulness of the characters, the perfect knowledge of the human heart it displays, the simplicity and vi- vacity of its style, form the principal merits of this work. The " Marco Visconti " of Grossi is distinguished for its pathos and for the purity and elegance of its style. The " Ettore Fieramosca " of Massimo d'Azeglio is distin- guished from the works already spoken of by its martial and national spirit. His " Nicol6 de Lapi," though full of beauties, partakes in some degree of the faults common to the French school. After these, the " Margherita Pusterla " of Cantu, the " Luisa Strozzi " of Rosini, the " Lamberto Malatesta " of Ro- vani, the *' Angiola Maria " of Carcano, are the best historical romances of Italian literature. Both in an artistic and moral point of view, they far excel those of Guerrazzi, which represent the French school of George Sand in Italy, and whose " Battle of Benevento," " Isabella Orsini," " Siege of Florence," and " Beatrice Cenci," while they are written in pure language and abound in minor beauties, are exaggerated in their characters, bombastic and declamatory in style, and overloaded in descrip- tion. The " Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis," by Foscolo, belongs to that kind of romance which is called sentimental. Overcome by the calamities of his country, with his soul full of fiery passion and sad disappointment, Foscolo wrote this romance, the protest of his heart against evils which he could not heal. 8. HISTORY. Among the most prominent of the numerous 236 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. historians of this period, a few only can be named. Muratori (1672-1750), for his vast erudition and profound criticism, has no rivals. He made the most accurate and extensive researches and discoveries relating to the history of Italy from the fifth to the sixteenth century, which he published in twenty-seven folio volumes ; the most valuable collection of historical documents which ever appeared in Italy. He wrote, also, a work on " Ital- ian Antiquities," illustrating the history of the Middle Ages through ancient monuments, and the " Annals of Italy," a his- tory of the country from the beginning of the Christian ei-a to his own age. Though its style is somewhat defective, the rich- ness and abundance of its erudition, its clearness, and arrange- ment, impart to this work great value and interest. Maffei, already spoken of as the first reformer of Italian trag- edy, surpassed Muratori in the purity of his style, and was only second to him in the extent and variety of his erudition. He wrote several works on the antiquities and monuments of Italy. Bianchini (1662-1729), a celebrated architect and scholar, wrote a "Universal History," which, though not complete, is characterized as a work of great genius. It is founded exclu- sively on the interpretations of ancient monuments in marble and metal. Vico (1670-1744), the founder of the philosophy of history, embraced with his comprehensive mind the history of all nations, and from the darkness of centuries he created the science of hu- manity, which he called " Scienza Nuova." Vico does not pro- pose to illustrate any special historical epoch, but follows the general movement of mankind in the most remote and obscure times, and establishes the rules which must guide us in interpret- ing ancient historians. By gathering from different epochs, re- mote from each other, the songs, symbols, monuments, laws, ety- mologies, and religious and philosophical doctrines, in a word, the infinite elements which form the life of mankind, he estab- lishes the unity of human history. The " Scienza Nuova " is one of the great monuments of human genius, and it has inspired many works on the philosophy of history, especially among the Germans, such as those of Hegel, Niebuhr, and others. Giannone (1676-1748) is the author of a " Civil History of the Kingdom of Naples," a work full of juridical science as well as of historical interest. Having attacked with much violence the encroachments of the Church of Rome on the rights of the state, he became the victim of a persecution which ended in his death in the fortress of Turin. Giannone, in his history, gave the first example in modern times of that intrepidity and cour- age which belong to the true historian. Botta (1766-1837) is among the first historians of the present ITALIAN LITERATURE. 237 age. He was a physician and a scholar, and devoted to the freedom of his country. He filled important political offices in Piedmont, under the administration of the French government. In 1809 he published, in Paris, his " History of the American Revolution," a work held in high estimation both in this country and in Italy. In the political changes which followed the fall of Napoleon, Botta suffered many pecuniary trials, and was even obliged to sell, by weight, to a druggist, the entire edition of his history, in order to pay for medicines for his sick wife. Meanwhile, he wrote a history of Italy, from 1789 to 1814, which was received with great enthusiasm through Italy, and for which the Academy della Crusca, in 1830, granted to him a pecuniary reward. This was followed by the " History of Italy," in continuation of Guicciardini, from the fall of the Florentine Republic to 1789, a gigantic work, with which he closed his his- torical career. The histories of Botta are distinguished by clear- ness of narrative, vividness and beauty of description, by the prominence he gives to the moral aspect of events and charac- ters, and by purity, richness, and variety of style. Colletta (1775-1831) was born in Naples ; under the govern- ment of Mural he rose to the rank of general, and fell with his patron. His " History of the Kingdom of Naples," from 1734 to 1825, is modeled after the annals of Tacitus. The style is simple, clear, and concise, the subject is treated without digres- sions or episodes ; it is conceived in a partial spirit, and is a eu- logium of the administration of Joachim ; but no writer can rival Colletta in his descriptions of strategic movements, of sieges and battles. Balbo (1789-1853) was born in Turin ; during the adminis- tration of Napoleon he filled many important political offices, and afterwards entered upon a military career. Devoted to the freedom of his country, he strove to promote the progress of Italian independence. In 1847 he published the " Hopes of Italy," the first political work that had appeared in the peninsula since the restoration of 1814 ; it was the spark which kindled the movements of 1848. In the events of that and of the suc- ceeding year, he ranked among the most prominent leaders of the national party. His historical works are a " Life of Dante," considered the best on the subject ; " Historical Contemplations," in which he developed the history of mankind from a philosoph- ical point of view ; and " The Compendium of the History of Italy," which embraces in a synthetic form all the history of the country from the earliest times to 1814. His style is pure, clear, and sometimes eloquent, though often concise and abrupt. Cantu, a living historian, has written a universal history, in tfhich he* attempts tue philosophical style. Though vivid in his 238 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. narratives, descriptions, and details, he is often incorrect in his statements, and rash in his judgments ; his work, though profess- ing liberal views, is essentially conservative in its tendency. The same faults may be discovered in his more recent " History of the Italians." Tiraboschi (1731-1794) is the great historian of Italian liter- ature ; his work is biographical and critical, and is the most ex- tensive literary history of Italy. His style is simple and elegant, and his criticism profound ; but he gives greater prominence to the biographies of writers than to the consideration of their works. This history was continued by Corniani (1742-1813), and afterwards by Ugoni (17841855). 9. ^ESTHETICS, CRITICISM, PHILOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY. Italian literature is comparatively deficient in aesthetics, the sci- ence of the beautiful. The treatise of Gioberti on the " Beauti- ful," the last work which has appeared on this subject, is distin- guished for its profound doctrines and brilliant style. Philology and criticism first began to flourish at the close of the seventeenth century, and are well represented at the present time. The re- vival of letters was greatly promoted by the criticism of Gravina (1664-1718), one of the most celebrated jurisconsults and schol- ars of his age, who, through his work, " The Poetical Reason," greatly contributed to the reform of taste. Zeno, Maffei, and Muratori also distinguished themselves in the art of criticism, and by their works aided in overthrowing the school of Marini. At a later date, Gaspar Gozzi, through his " Observer," a peri- odical publication modeled after the " Spectator " of Addison, undertook to correct the literary taste of the country ; for its in- vention, pungent wit, and satire, and the purity and correctness of its style, it is considered one of the best compositions of this kind. Baretti (1716-1789) propagated in England the taste for Italian literature, and at the same time published his " Literary Scourge," a criticism of the ancient and modern writers of Italy. His style, though always pure, is often caustic. He wrote sev-' eral books in the English language, one of which is in defense of Shakspeare against Voltaire. Cesarotti (1730-1808), though eminent as a critic, introduced into the Italian language some innovations, which contributed to its corruption ; while- the nice judgment, good taste, and pure style of Parini place him at the head of this department. In the latter part of this period we find, in the criticisms of Monti, vigorous logic and a splendid and attractive style. Foscolo is distinguished for his acumen and pungent wit. The works of Perticari (1779-1822) are written with extreme polish, erudition, judgment, and dignity. In Leopardi, philosophical acumen equals the elegance of his style. Giordani (d. 1848), as a critic and an epigraphist, de- ITALIAN LITERATURE. 239 serves notice for his fine judgment and pure taste, as do Tom- maseo and Cattaneo, who are both epigrammatic, witty, and pungent. The golden age of philology dates from the time of Lorenzo de' Medici to the seventeenth century. It then declined until the eighteenth, but revived in the works of Maffei, Muratori, Zeno, and others. In the same century this study was greatly pro- moted by Foscolo, Monti, and Cesari (1760-1828), who, among other philological works, published a new edition of the Diction- ary della Crusca, revised and augmented. Of the modern writ- ers on philology, Gherardini, Tommaseo, and Ascoli are the most prominent. The revival of philosophy in Italy dates from the age of Gal- ileo, when the authority of the Peripatetics was overthrown, and a new method introduced into scientific researches. From that time to the present, this science has been represented by opposite schools, the one characterized by sensualism and the other by rationalism. The experimental method of Galileo paved the way to the first, which holds that experience is the only source of knowledge, a doctrine which gained ground in the seventeenth century, became universally accepted in the eighteenth, through the influence of Locke and Condillac, and continued to prevail during the first part of the nineteenth. Gioja (1767-1829), and Romagnosi (1761-1835) are the greatest representatives of this system, in the last part of this period. But while the former developed sensualism in philosophy and economy, the latter ap- plied it to political science and jurisprudence. The numerous works of Gioja are distinguished for their practical value and clearness of style, though they lack eloquence and purity ; those of Romagnosi are more abstract, and couched in obscure and often incorrect language, but they are monuments of vast erudi- tion, acute and profound judgment, and powerful dialectics. Galluppi (1773-1846), though unable to extricate himself en- tirely from the sensualistic schoqjl, attempted the reform of phi- losophy, which resulted in a movement in Italy similar to that produced by Reid and Dugald Stewart in Scotland. While sensualism was gaining ground in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, rationalism, having its roots in the Platonic system which had prevailed in the fifteenth and sixteenth, was remodeled under the influence of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Wolf, and opposed to the invading tendencies of its antagonist. From causes to be found in the spirit of the age and the political con- dition of the country, this system was unable to take the place to which it was entitled, though it succeeded in purifying sensu- alism from its more dangerous consequences, and infusing into it some of its own elements. But the overthrow of that system 240 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. was completed only by the works of Rosmini and Gioberti. Ros- mini (1795-1855) gave a new impulse to metaphysical re- searches, and created a new era in the history of Italian philoso- phy. His numerous works embrace all philosophical knowledge in its unity and universality, founded on a new basis, and devel- oped with deep, broad, and original views. His philosophy, both inductive and deductive, rests on experimental method, reaches the highest problems of ideology and ontology, and infuses new life into all departments of science. This philosophical progress was greatly aided by Gioberti (18011851), whose life, however, was more particularly devoted to political pursuits. His work on " The Regeneration of Italy " contains his latest and soundest views on Italian nationality. Another distinguished philosoph- ical and political writer is Mamiani, whose work on " The Rights of Nations " deserves the attention of all students of history and political science. As a statesman, he belongs to the National party, of which Count Cavour (1810-1861), himself an eminent writer on political economy, was the great representative, and to whose commanding influence is to be attributed the rapid prog- ress which the Italian nation was making towards unity and independence at the time of his death. FROM 1860 TO 1885. During the last twenty-five years the rapid progress of polit- ical events in Italy seems to have absorbed the energies of the people, who have made little advance in literature. For the first time since the fall of the Roman empire the country has become a united kingdom, and in the national adjustment to the new conditions, and in the material and industrial development which has followed, the new literature has not yet, to any great extent, found voice. Yet this period of national formation and consolidation, however, has not been without its poets, among whom a few may be here named. Aleardo Aleardi (d. 1882) is one of the finest poetical geniuses that Italy has produced within the last century, but his writings show the ill effects of a poet sacrificing his art to a political cause, and when the patriot has ceased to declaim the poet ceases to sing. Prati (1815-1884), on the other hand, in his writings exemplifies the evil of a poet refusing to take part in the grand movement of his nation. He severs himself from all present interests and finds his subjects in sources which have no interest for his contemporaries. He has great metrical facility and his lyrics are highly praised. Carducci, like Aleardi, is a poet who has written on political subjects ; he belongs to the class of closet democrats. His poems display a remarkable talent for the picturesque, forcible, and ITALIAN LITERATURE. 241 epigrammatic. The poems of Zanella are nearly all on scien- tific subjects connected with human feeling, and entitle him to a distinguished place among the refined poets of his country. A poet of greater promise than those already spoken of is Arna- boldi, who has the endowment requisite to become the first Ital- ian poet of a new school, but who endangers his position by de- voting his verse to utilitarian purposes. The tendency of the younger poets is to realism and to rep- resenting its most materialistic features as beautiful. Against this current of the new poetry Alessandro Kizzi, Guerzoni, and others have uttered a strong protest in poetry and prose. Among historians, Capponi is the author of a history of Flor- ence ; Zini has continued Farina's history of Italy ; Bartoli, Settembrini, and De Sanctis have written histories of Italian literature ; Villari is the author of able works on the life of Machiavelli and of Savonarola, and Berti has written the life of- Giordano Bruno. In criticism philosophic, historical, and lit- erary, Fiorentino, De Sanctis, Massarani, and Trezza are distin- guished. Barili, Farina, Bersezio, and Giovagnoli are writers of fiction, and Cossa, Ferrari, and Giacosa are the authors of many dramatic works. The charming books of travel by De Amicis are extensively translated and very popular. 16 FRENCH LITERATURE. INTRODUCTION. 1. French Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language. PERIOD FIRST. 1. The Troubadours. 2. The Trouveres. 3. French Literature it the Fifteenth Century. 4. The Mysteries and Moralities : Charles of Orleans, Villon, Ville-Hardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Philippe de Commines. PERIOD SECOND. 1 . The Renaissance and the Reformation : Marguerite de Valois, Marot, Rabelais, Calvin, Montaigne, Charron, and others. 2. Light Literature : Ron- sard, Jodelle, Hardy, Malherbe, Scarron, Madame de Rambouillet, and others. 3. The French Academy. 4. The Drama : Corneille. 5. Philosophy: Descartes, Pascal ; Port Royal. 6. The Rise of the Golden Age of French Literature : Louis XIV. 7. Tragedy : Racine. 8. Comedy : Moliere. 9. Fables, Satires, Mock- Heroic, and other Poetry : La Fontaine, Boileau. 10. Eloquence of the Pulpit and of the Bar : Bourdaloue, Bossuet, Massillon, Flechier, Le Maitre, D'Aguesseau, and others. 11. Moral Philosophy : Roche- foucault, La Bruyere, Nicole. 12. History and Memoirs : Mezeray, Fleury, Rollin, Bran- tome, the Duke of Sully, Cardinal de Retz. 13. Komance and Letter Writing : Fenelon, Madame de Sevigne". PERIOD THIRD. 1. The Dawn of Skepticism: Bayle, J. B. Rousseau, Fontenelle, La- motte. 2. Progres of Skepticism: Montesquieu, Voltaire. 3. French Literature dur- ing the Revolution : D'Holbach, D'Alembert, Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Butfon, Beau- marchais, St. Pierre, and others. 4. French Literature under the Empire : Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, Royer-Collard, Bonald, De Maistre. 5. French Literature from the Age of the Restoration to the Present Time. History : Thierry, Sismondi, Thiers, Mignet, Martin, Michelet, and others. Poetry and the Drama ; Rise of the Romantic School : Beranger, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others ; Les Parnassiens. Fiction : Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Merimee, Balzac, Sand, Sandeau, and others. Criticism : Sainte- Beuve, Taine, and others. Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION. 1. FRENCH LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS. Towards the middle of the fifth century the Franks commenced their in- vasions of Gaul, which ended in the conquest of the country, and the establishment of the French monarchy under Clovis. The period from Clovis to Charlemagne (487-768) is the most ob- scure of the Dark Ages. The principal writers, whose names have been preserved, are St. Remy, the archbishop of Rheims (d. 535), distinguished for his eloquence, and Gregory of Tours (d. 595), whose contemporary history is valuable for the good faith in which it is written, in spite of the ignorance and credul- ity which it displays. The genius of Charlemagne (r. 768-814) gave a new impulse to learning. By his liberality he attracted the most distinguished scholars to his court, among others Al cuin, from England, whom he chose for his instructor ; he estab- lished schools of theology and science, and appointed the most learned professors to preside over them. But in the century succeeding his death the country relapsed into barbarism. In the south of France, Provence early became an independ- ent kingdom, and consolidating its language, laws, and manners, at the close of the eleventh century it gave birth to the literature of the Troubadours ; while in the north, the language and litera- FRENCH LITERATURE. 243 ture of the Trouveres, which were the germs of the national literature of France, were not developed until a century later. In the schools established by Charlemagne for the education of the clergy, the scholastic philosophy originated, which pre- vailed throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The most dis- tinguished schoolmen or scholastics in France during this period are Roscellinus (fl. 1092), the originator of the controversy be- tween the Nominalists and Realists, which occupied so promi- nent a place in the philosophy of the time ; Abelard (1079- 1142), equally celebrated for his learning, and for his unfor- tunate love for Heioise ; St. Bernard (1091-1153), one of the most influential ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages ; and Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274) and Bonaventure (1221-1274), Italians who taught theology and philosophy at Paris, and who power- fully influenced the intellect of the age. Beginning with the Middle Ages, the literary history of France may be divided into three periods. The first period extends from 1000 to 1500, and includes the literature of the Trouba- dours, the Trouveres, and of the fifteenth century. The second period extends from 1500 to 1700, and includes the revival of the study of classical literature, or the Renais- sance, and the golden age of French literature under Louis XIV. The third period, extending from 1700 to 1885, comprises the age of skepticism introduced into French literature by Vol- taire, the Encyclopaedists and others, the Revolutionary era, the literature of the Empire and of the Restoration, of the Second Empire, and of the present time. 2. THE LANGUAGE. After the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, Latin became the predominant language of the country ; but on the overthrow of the Western Empire it was corrupted by the intermixture of elements derived from the northern in- vaders of the country, and from the general ignorance and bar- barism of the times. At length a distinction was drawn between the language of the Gauls who called themselves Romans, and that of the Latin writers ; and the Romance language arose from the former, while the Latin was perpetuated by the latter. At the commencement of the second race of monarchs, German was the language of Charlemagne and his court, Latin was the writ- ten language, and the Romance, still in a state of barbarism, was the dialect of the people. The subjects of Charlemagne were composed of two different races, the Germans, inhabiting along and beyond the Rhine, and the Wallons, who called themselves Romans. The name of Welsch or Wallons, given them by the Germans, was the same as Galli, which they had received from the Latins, and as Keltai or Celts, which they themselves ac- knowledged. The language which they spoke was called after 244 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. them the Romance- Wallon, or rustic Romance, which was at first very much the same throughout France, except that as it extended southward the Latin prevailed, and in the north the German was more perceptible. These differences increased, and the languages rapidly grew more dissimilar. The people of the south called themselves Romans-provencaux, while the northern tribes added to the name of Romans, which they had assumed, that of Wallons, which they had received from the neighboring people. The Provencal was called the Langue d'oc, and the Wallon the Langue d'oui, from the affirmative word in each language, as the Italian was then called the Langue de si, and the German the Langue de ya. The invasion of the Normans, in the tenth century, supplied new elements to the Romance Wallon. They adopted it as their language, and stamped upon it the impress of their own genius. It thus became Norman-French. In 1066, William the Conqueror introduced it into England, and enforced its use among his new subjects by rigorous laws ; thus the popular French became there the language of the court and of the edu- cated classes, while it was still the vulgar dialect in France. From the beginning of the twelfth century, the two dialects were known as the Provencal and the French. The former, though much changed, is still the dialect of the common people in Provence, Languedoc, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, and Minorca. In the thirteenth century, the northern French dialect gained the ascendency, chiefly in consequence of Paris becom- ing the centre of refinement and literature for all France. The Langue d'oui was, from its origin, deficient in that rhythm which exists in the Italian and Spanish languages. It was formed rather by an abbreviation than by a harmonious transformation of the Latin, and the metrical character of the language was gradually lost. The French became thus more accustomed to rhetorical measure than to poetical forms, and the language led them rather to eloquence than poetry. Francis I. established a professorship of the French language at Paris, and banished Latin from the public documents and courts of justice. The Academy, established by Cardinal Richelieu (1635), put an end to the arbitrary power of usage, and fixed the standard of pure French, though at the same time it restricted the power of genius over the language. Nothing was approved by the Acad- emy unless it was received at court, and nothing was tolerated by the public that had not been sanctioned by the Academy. The language now acquired the most admirable precision, and thus recommended itself not only as the language of science and diplomacy, but of society, capable of conveying the most dis- criminating observations on character and manners, and the mosl FRENCH LITERATURE. 245 delicate expressions of civility which involve no obligation. Hence its adoption as the court language in so many European countries. Among the dictionaries of the French language, that of the Academy holds the first rank. PERIOD FIRST. PROVENCAL AND FRENCH LITERATURES IN THE MIDDLE AGES (1000-1500). 1. THE TROUBADOURS. When, in the tenth century, the nations of the south of Europe attempted to give consistency to the rude dialects which had been produced by the mixture of the Latin with the northern tongues, the Provencal, or Langue d'oc, was the first to come to perfection. The study of this lan- guage became the favorite recreation of the higher classes dur- ing the tenth and eleventh centuries, and poetry the elegant occupation of those whose time was not spent in the ruder pas- times of the field. Thousands of poets, who were called trou- badours (from trobar, to find or invent), flourished in this new language almost contemporaneously, and spread their reputation from the extremity of Spain to that of Italy. All at once, how- ever, this ephemeral reputation vanished. The voice of the trou- badours was silent, the Provencal was abandoned and sank into a mere dialect, and after a brilliant existence of three centuries (950-1250), its productions were ranked among those of the dead languages. The high reputation of the Provei^al poets, and the rapid decline of their language, are two phenomena equally striking in the history of human culture. This literature, which gave models to other nations, yet among its crowds of agreeable poems did not produce a single masterpiece destined to immortality, was entirely the offspring of the age, and not of individuals. It reveals to us the sentiments and imagination of modern nations in their infancy ; it exhibits what was common to all and pervaded all, and not what genius superior to the age enabled a single individual to accomplish. Southern France, having been the inheritance of several of the successors of Charlemagne, was elevated to the rank of an independent kingdom in 879, by Bozon, and under his sover- eignty, and that of his successors for 213 years, it enjoyed a paternal government. The accession of the Count of Barcelona to the crown, in 1092, introduced into Provence the spirit both of liberty and chivalry, and a taste for elegance and the arts, with all the sciences of the Arabians. The union of these noble sentiments added brilliancy to that poetical spirit which shone out at once over Provence and all the south of P^urope, like an electric flash in the midst of profound darkness, illuminating all things with the splendor of its flame. 240 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. At the same time with Provengal poetry, chivalry had its rise 5 it was, in a manner, the soul of the new literature, and gave to it a character different from anything in antiquity. Love, in this age, while it was not more tender and passionate than among the Greeks and Romans, was more respectful, and women were regarded with something of that religious venera- tion which the Germans evinced towards their prophetesses. To this was added that passionate ardor of feeling peculiar to the people of the South, the expression of which was borrowed from the Arabians. But although among individuals love preserved this pure and religious character, the license engendered by the feudal system, and the disorders of the time, produced a univer- sal corruption of manners which found expression in the litera- ture of the age. Neither the sirventes nor the chanzos of the troubadours, nor the fabliaux of the trouveres, nor the romances of chivalry, can be read without a blush. On every page the grossness of the language is only equaled by the shameful de- pravity of the characters and the immorality of the incidents. In the south of France, more particularly, an extreme laxity of manners prevailed among the nobility. Gallantry seems to have been the sole object of existence. Ladies were proud of the celebrity conferred upon their charms by the songs of the troubadours, and they themselves often professed the '" Gay Sci- ence," as poetry was called. They instituted the Courts of Love where questions of gallantry were gravely discussed and decided by their suffrages ; and they gave, in short, to the whole south of France the character of a carnival. No sooner had the Gay Science been established in Provence, than it became the fash- ion in surrounding countries. The sovereigns of Europe adopted the Provengal language, and enlisted themselves among the poets, and there was soon neither baron nor knight who did not feel himself bound to add to his fame as a warrior the reputa- tion of a gentle troubadour. Monarchs were now the professors of the art, and the only patrons were the ladies. Women, no longer beautiful ciphers, acquired complete liberty of action, and the homage paid to them amounted almost to worship. At the festivals of the haughty barons, the lady of the castle, attended by youthful beauties, distributed crowns to the con- querors in the jousts and tournaments. She then, in turn, sur- rounded by her ladies, opened her Court of Love, and the candi- dates for poetical honors entered with their harps and contended for the prize in extempore verses called tensons. The Court of Love then entered upon a grave discussion of the merits of the question, and a judgment or amt d'amour was given, frequently in verse, by which the dispute was supposed to be decided. These courts often formally justified the abandonment of moral duty, FRENCH LITERATURE. 247 and assuming the forms and exercising the power of ordinary tribunals, they defined and prescribed the duties of the sexes, and taught the arts of love and song according to the most de- praved moral principles, mingled, however, with an affected display of refined sentimentality. Whatever may have been their utility in the advancement of the language and the cultiva- tion of literary taste, these institutions extended a legal sanction to vice, and inculcated maxims of shameful profligacy. The songs of the Provencals were divided into chanzos and sirventes ; the object of the former was love, and of the latter war, politics, or satire. The name of tenson was given to those poetical contests in verse which took place in the Courts of Love, or before illustrious princes. The songs were sung from chateau to chateau, either by the troubadours themselves, or by the jon- gleur or instrument player by whom they were attended ; they often abounded in extravagant hyperboles, trivial conceits, and grossness of expression. Ladies, whose attractions were esti- mated by the number and desperation of their lovers, and the songs of their troubadours, were not offended if licentiousness mingled with gallantry in the songs composed in their praise. Authors addressed prayers to the saints for aid in their amorous intrigues, and men, seemingly rational, resigned themselves to the wildest transports of passion for individuals whom, in some cases, they had never seen. Thus, religious enthusiasm, martial bravery, and licentious love, so grotesquely mingled, formed the very life of the Middle Ages, and impossible as it is to transfuse into a translation the harmony of Provencal verse, or to find in it, when stripped of this harmony, any poetical idea, these re- mains are valuable since they present .us with a picture of the life and manners of the times. The intercourse of the Provencals with the Moors of Spain, which, as we have seen, was greatly increased by the union of Catalonia and Provence (1092), introduced into the North an acquaintance with the arts and learning of the Arabians. It was then that rhyme, the essential characteristic of Arabian poetry, was adopted by the troubadours into the Provencal language, and thence communicated to the nations of modern Europe. The poetry of the troubadours borrowed nothing from his- tory, mythology, or from foreign manners, and no reference to the sciences or the learning of the schools mingled with their simple effusions of sentiment. This fact enables us to compre- hend how it was possible for princes and knights, who were often unable to read, to be yet ranked among the most ingenious troubadours. Several public events, however, materially con- tributed to enlarge the sphere of intellect of the knights of the Langue d'oc. The first was the conquest of Toledo and New 248 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. Castile by Alphonso VI., in which he was seconded by the Cid Rodriguez, the hero of Spain, and by a number of French Pro- ven^al knights ; the second was the preaching of the Crusades. Of all the events recorded in the history of the world, there is, perhaps, not one of a nature so highly poetical as these holy wars ; not one which presents a more powerful picture of the grand effects of enthusiasm, of noble sacrifices of self-interest to faith, sentiment, and passion, which are essentially poetical. Many of the troubadours assumed the cross ; others were de tained in Europe by the bonds of love, and the conflict between passion and religious enthusiasm lent its influence to the poems they composed. The third event was the succession of the kinga of England to the sovereignty of a large part of the countries where the Langue d'oc prevailed, which influenced the manners and opinions of the troubadours, and introduced them to the courts of the most powerful monarchs ; while the encouragement given to them by the kings of the house of Plantagenet had a great influence on the formation of the English language, and furnished Chaucer, the father of English literature, with his first models for imitation. The troubadours numbered among their ranks the most illus* trious sovereigns and heroes of the age. Among others, Rich- ard Coeur de Lion, who, as a poet and knight, united in his own person all the brilliant qualities of the time. A story is told of him, that when he was detained a prisoner in Germany, the place of his imprisonment was discovered by Blondel, his min- strel, who sang beneath the fortress a tenson which he and Richard had composed in common, and to which Richard re- sponded. Bertrand de Born, who was intimately connected with Richard, and who exercised a powerful influence over the destinies of the royal family of England, has left a number of original poems ; Bordello of Mantua was the first to adopt the ballad form of writing, and many of his love songs are expressed in a pure and delicate style. Both of these poets are immortal- ized in. the Divine Comedy of Dante. The history of Geoffroy Rudel illustrates the wildness of the imagination and manners of the troubadours. He was a gentleman of Provence, and hearing the knights who had returned from the Holy Land speak with enthusiasm of the Countess of Tripoli, who had ex- tended to them the most generous hospitality, and whose grace and beauty equaled her virtues, he fell in love with her without ever having seen her, and, leaving the Court of England, he embarked for the Holy Land, to offer to her the homage of his neart. During the voyage he was attacked by a severe illness, and lost the power of speech. On his arrival in the harbor, the countess, being informed that a celebrated poet was dying FRENCH LITERATURE. 249 of love for her, visited him on shipboard, took him kindly by the hand, and attempted to cheer his spirits. Rudel revived sufficiently to thank the lady for her humanity and to declare his passion, when his voice was silenced by the convulsions of death. He was buried at Tripoli, and, by the orders of the countess, a tomb of porphyry was erected to his memory. It is unnecessary to mention other names among the multitude of these poets, who all hold nearly the same rank. An extreme monotony reigns throughout their works, which offer little indi- viduality of character. After the thirteenth century, the troubadours were heard no more, and the efforts of the counts of Provence, the magistrates of Toulouse, and the kings of Arragon to awaken their genius by the Courts of Love and the Floral Games were vain. They themselves attributed their decline to the degradation into which the jongleurs, with whom at last they were confounded, had fallen. But their art contained within itself a more imme- diate principle of decay in the profound ignorance of its profes- sors. They had no other models than the songs of the Ara- bians, which perverted their taste. They made no attempt at epic or dramatic poetry ; they had no classical allusions, no mythology, nor even a romantic imagination, and, deprived of the riches of antiquity, they had few resources within them- selves. The poetry of Provence was a beautiful flower spring- ing up on a sterile soil, and no cultivation could avail in the absence of its natural nourishment. From the close of the twelfth century the language began to decline, and public events occurred which hastened its downfall, and reduced it to the con- dition of a provincial dialect. Among the numerous sects which sprang up in Christendom during the Middle Ages, there was one which, though bearing- different names at different times, more or less resembled what is now known as Protestantism ; in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was called the faith of the Albigenses, as it prevailed most widely in the district of Albi. It easily came to be iden- tified with the Provencal language, as this was the chosen vehi- cle of its religious services. This sect was tolerated and pro- tected by the Court of Toulouse. It augmented its numbers j it devoted itself to commerce and the arts, and added much to the prosperity which had long distinguished the south of France. The Albigenses had lived long and peaceably side by side with the Catholics in the cities and villages ; but Innocent III. sent legates to Provence, who preached, discussed, and threatened, and met a freedom of thought and resistance to authority which Rome was not willing to brook. Bitter controversy was now substituted for the amiable frivolity of the tensons, and theolog- 250 HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. ical disputes superseded those on points of gallantry. The long struggle between the poetry of the troubadours and the preach- ing of the monks came to a crisis ; the severe satires which the disorderly lives of the clergy called forth became severer still, and the songs of the troubadours wounded the power and pride of Rome more deeply than ever, while they stimulated the Albi- genses to a valiant resistance or a glorious death. A crusade followed, and when the dreadful strife was over, Provencal po- etry had received its death-blow. The language of Provence was destined to share the fate of its poetry ; it became identified in the minds of the orthodox with heresy and rebellion. When Charles of Anjou acquired the kingdom of Naples, he drew thither the Provencal nobility, and thus drained the kingdom of those who had formerly maintained its chivalrous manners. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Court of Rome was removed to Avignon, the retinues of the three successive popes were Italians, and the Tuscan language entirely super- seded the Provencal among the higher classes. 2. THE TROUVERES. While the Provencal was thus relaps- ing into a mere dialect, the north of France was maturing a new language and literature of an entirely different character. Normandy, a province of France, was invaded in the tenth cen- tury by a new northern tribe, who, under the command of Rollo or Raoul the Dane, incorporated themselves with the ancient inhabitants. The victors adopted the language of the van- quished, stamped upon it the impress of their own genius, and gave it a fixed form. It was from Normandy that the first writers and poets in the French language sprang. While the Romance Provencal spoken in the South was sweet, and expres- sive of effeminate manners, the Romance- Wallon was energetic and warlike, and represented the severer manners of the Ger- mans. Its poetry, too, was widely different from the Proven-