impossibility in the fact attested. But the laws by which the Deity governs the universe can, at best, only be inferred from the whole series of his dispensations from the beginning of the world; testimony must therefore necessarily be admitted in establishing these laws. Now our author, in deducing the laws of nature, rejects all well authenticated 'miraculous events, granted to be possible, and therefore not altogether incredible and to be rejected without examination, and thence establishes a law to prove against their credibility; but the proof of a position ought to proceed upon principles which are totally independent of any supposition of its being either true or false. His conclusion therefore is not deduced by just reasoning from acknowledged principles, but it is a necessary consequence of his own arbitrary supposition. "'Tis a miracle," says he, "that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or country." Now testimony, confirmed by every proof which can tend to establish a true matter of fact, asserts that such an event, has happened. But our author argues against the credibility of this, because it is contrary to the laws of nature; and in establishing these laws, he rejects all such extraordinary facts, although they are authenticated by all the evidence which such facts can possibly admit of; taking thereby into consideration, events of that kind only which have fallen within the sphere of his own observations, as if the whole series of God's dispensations were necessarily included in the course of a few years. But who shall thus circumscribe the operations of divine power and infinite wisdom, and say," Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further." Before he rejected circumstances of this kind in establishing the laws of nature, he should, at least, have shewn, that we have not all that evidence for them which we might have had, upon supposition that they were true; he should also have shewn, in a moral point of view, that the events were inconsistent with the ordinary operations of Providence; and that there was no end to justify the means. Whereas, on the contrary, there is all the evidence for them which a real matter of fact can possibly have; they are perfectly consistent with all the moral dispensations of Providence; and at the same time that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is most unexceptionably attested, we discover a moral intention in the miracle, which very satisfactorily accounts for that exertion of divine power.?

In one part of the sermon, Mr. Vince confounds what Hume had particularly distinguished; he says, a tree springing up from a seed which is buried in the earth is equally unaccountable and astonishing, as that of a man being raised from the dead.' This is a verbal sophism; a tree springing up from a seed is an event which we frequently see and expect; a man raised from the dead we never saw, and it would therefore be contrary to experience; the mode by which a tree springs from a seed is unaccountable, but the fact itself is not miraculous; it would be a miraculous event if a tree were suddenly to contract itself and be again involved in a seed; for this event

would

would be directly contrary to the usual and observed operations of nature.

These sermons are however entitled to notice by the clear manner in which the arguments are stated, and by their ingenuity and theological acuteness.

ART. V. An Introduction to the Literary History of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. 8vo. pp. 272. 58. Boards. Cadell, jun. and Davies.

IT

1798.

T has been said of the professed copyists of Michael Angelo, that few, if any, have been successful; since that which they intended to be grand and sublime proved to be only preposterous or fantastic:-they found it easy to depart from what was common and natural, but were unable to reach the heights of excentric greatness. A fate somewhat similar has attended the imitators of Johnson and Gibbon. From these writers, the English language received a prodigious augmentation of force and dignity: but, as great virtues sometimes border very nearly on great vices, so the excellencies of Johnson and Gibbon are scarely separable from very culpable defects. Johnson was able to "endow his purposes with words;" and the natural dignity of his ideas was suitable to the magnificence of the phraseology with which he clothed them: but his imitators have not unfrequently swaddled infantine and puny conceptions in gorgeous apparel; and, with the semblance of sense, have written what Addison calls "most elaborate and refined nonsense." Like the bow of Ulysses, the language of Johnson is only formidable in the hands of its master.

It, may easily be conjectured that these observations augur unfavourably to the author of the present treatise. He appears indeed to have imitated the style of Gibbon, and to have shared the general fate of imitators. Yet we have pleasure in saying that the style is the most objectionable part of the work for we have frequently found, during the perusal of it, proofs of a mind stored with knowlege, and capable of thinking and judging correctly. Previously, however, to any specific examination of the performance, we deem it proper to lay before our readers the author's own account of its nature, plan, and the proposed manner of its execution:

On turning his thoughts to the manner in which such a work might be written to render it useful and interesting, three modes occurred with different degrees of facility and merit. 1. The first is chalked out by Johnson, who, according to his biographer Boswell, would have "a history of the revival of learning contain an account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature, such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement

Introduction to the Lit. Hist. of the 14th and 15th Centuries. 255

couragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and professors of all kinds of learning in different countries." This is a plan on a large scale, like the powers of its framer, and may perhaps remind the critical reader of Bacon's noble outline of a general history of learning, the most perfect scholar could devise; but which no scholar can hope to complete.

2. Inferior in merit, and easier in execution, seems the design which should select and arrange the more striking parts of literary history on its revival, record and illustrate those material causes by which its progress was obviously affected, exhibit those pre-eminent characters, whether of patrons or scholars, who most filled the public eye, and connect the literary with the political and general history of the period. Such a performance, while it carries with it considerable splendour and a permanent interest, offers no insurmountable difficulties to the scholar who has books to read, judgment to digest, and talents to compose.

3. But as the present age is not remarkable for literary labour, perhaps a method of subordinate consequence, and a more practicable nature, may be viewed with greater complacency-a general and rapid outline-such a cursory, yet not indistinct, review of the revival of literature, as no laborious perusal of the most popular authors might suggest, and which might hope to satisfy learning, while it instructed ignorance and gratified curiosity. In other words, a hasty passage over this charming but undescribed country, in which the traveller would seize and exhibit the most interesting scenes, without aspiring to the accuracy of the topographer, the acuteness of the critic, and the dignity of the historian: a work strictly compendious, yet excluding no attractions of style, and which, though meant to instruct and inform, might be adapted to every comprehension, and find a friend in every reader.'

In the first part of this tract, he has endeavoured to give a short historical and critical sketch of the decline of learning in the Roman empire, and followed it to a period when its spirit subsided, and its very existence may be reasonably questioned. Need he say he means the tenth century? Three short chapters are employed in this discussion, which if it should not be deemed indispensably necessary to an introduction like the present, was yet too important to be wholly omitted, though there was little prospect of doing it justice.

In the second part he has entered on a more difficult task, and attempted at some length to explain and illustrate the principal causes to which in his opinion the re-appearance of learning may be properly attributed, its dawn in the eleventh, and an increasing radiance in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For this seems the proper place to observe, that learning, however defined, the sciences, and in some respects the arts, had re-appeared before the age of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccace. To them we owe the introduction of classical studies, the first happy imitation of the Roman authors, and what was yet more important, the first successful cultivation of their verna. cular tongue. Nor will it be denied that their age was marked by a corresponding progress of rapidity and success in the polite arts. It is this splendid assemblage of merit which has caused theirs to be con

sidered

sidered as the exclusive period of reviving letters, though with considerable injustice to the two preceding centuries. This distinction the author flatters himself is just and accurate, and with those who look beyond the surface, who are aware of the impossibility of the instant reproduction of learning, will detract little from the splendour and value of that memorable period. It has too much solid and intrinsic property to shrink from the payment of just demands and equitable claims. To have revived classical and polite composition is splendid praise.

These causes will admit of a commodious division.-1. The Arabian settlements in Europe, and their literary and scientific communications.-2. The Crusades in their effects on the manners, learning, romance, and poetry.-3. The introduction of the Roman civil law, together with the canon law, into our universities, schools, and tribunals.

The third and last part is designed to exhibit a view of the progress of learning thus assisted and advanced, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Hence one chapter is dedicated to a statement of those political events, to which a literary influence may be properly ascribed, to an account of the patronage of the great, the establishment of universities, and the travels of scholars. The remaining one offers a sketch of the actual state of learning during that period, but more particularly at its clòse, under its general branches and divisions. In this attempt the clear and perspicuous method of Tiraboschi is adopted, and with it much of his various and well-digested knowledge. Perhaps it would be difficult to suggest a better mode for arranging and discussing the abundant materials of the two next

centuries.

Such are the subjects of the present discussion, important in themselves, and leading by a natural progress to the threshold of a greater undertaking. No one is more sensible of their importance than the author, no one wishes more sincerely they had received an accurate and masterly investigation. But standing here in the light of preliminary considerations only, he has availed himself of a liberty authorised by such a supposition, has avoided the formality of citation and the parade of notes, and reviewed them rather as an observer and an essayist than as a critic and historian. Not that he is inclined to shrink from the acknowledgment of his obligations. He has perused or consulted several of the best authors, from whose labours he has derived much useful assistance, and is particularly indebted to the French Benedictine history, Tiraboschi, and D'Herbelot. May he be permitted to add, that he believes there is no fact or opinion mentioned, and hardly an illustration offered, for which, if necessary, an authority or a reason might not be assigned?

With these explanations the author flatters himself he may venture to submit this imperfect essay to the public notice, and hopes it will be considered, agreeably to his idea and expectation, as an enlarged and not unuseful Preface to a Literary History of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.'

It has been objected against Gibbon, by the most profound scholar not only of this age but perhaps of every other, that

he

Introduction to the Lit. Hist. of the 14th and 15th Centuries. 257

he speaks too frequently in the obscure language of hint and allusion. Truth seldom comes forwards in his pages, boldly, naked, and unadorned, but slides in slyly and veiled. This, however, is to be tolerated in a work so abundant in information as that of Gibbon; because, from the context and previous narrative, we are always able to ascertain the truth, such at least as it appeared to the author, without reference to other books but, in a work intended as a sketch or epitome, it is surely desirable to have the information stated as clearly and intelligibly as it is possible; the language of hint, allusion, and insinuation, in its most proper application still needing a defence, here deserves to have summary justice inflicted on it; it is an intellectual crime at which every sane mind revolts. The present work, if we consider its use,, must be intended for readers who are unacquainted with the histories of the 14th and 15th centuries; can it, then, be charged with a greater fault, than that of wrapping up its information in allusions to the events of those periods? If the transactions of those times be known, the allusions may be understood: but, if they be not known, what is the use of this work? Let it be seen whether we unfairly give its character:

For two hundred years was Italy doomed to this state of intel lectual and moral depression, till the arms of Charlemagne before the close of the eighth century gave it a generous master, and founded the new empire of the west. Rome, it is true, had escaped the Lombard dominion; but the horrors of a perpetual siege can alone convey an adequate idea of its distressed situation. In casting our eye back through the whole of this disastrous period, Gregory seems, the only man who deserves, I will not say, the epithet of Great, but who can claim any notice for force of mind or vigour of intellect, for the possession of any learning or the display of any genius. In the bold and masculine outline of his character all pencils agree; yet so imperfectly and confusedly are the transactions of his age recorded, that it is to this day a doubt with some inquirers, whether the sciences, with the exception of theology, did not find in him a determined enemy; whether he did not persecute classical learning and interdict its study; whether with more than Gothic fury he did not destroy the valuable libraries of antiquity, and level with the ground the most splendid monuments of Roman art. In this doubt or dispute, it is safer and wiser to adopt the neutrality of Bayle, than to contend with the historian of Italian literature*, or the author of the history of philosophy +.'

Again; speaking of the religion of the tenth century, the author says:

To perform a part in their splendid drama demanded close observance and long experience. The knowledge of church music