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LXVI.

From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms, CHA P. the natives of Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom, curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the lights of the Greek church, and the oracles of the Platonic philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union, had the double merit of renouncing their country, not only for the Christian, but for the Catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrificed his party and conscience to the allurements of favour, may be possessed, however, of the private and social virtues; he no longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and the consideration which he acquires among his new associates, will restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The prudent conformity of Bessarion Cardinal was rewarded with the Roman purple; he fixed Bessarion, his residence in Italy; and the Greek cardinal, the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the chief and protector of his nation. His abilities were exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France; and his election to the chair of St Peter floated for a moment on the uncertain breath of a conclave f. His ecclesiastical honours diffused a splendour and pre-eminence over his literary merit and service: VOL. XII.

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his

* See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136—177.): Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of the 6th tome.

+ The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: "Nicholas," said he, "thy respect hath cost thee an hat, and me the tiara."

& Co

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CHAP. his palace was a school; as often as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned train of both nations; of men applauded by themselves and the public; and whose writings, now overspread with dust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century; and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius Chalcondyles, who taught their native language in the schools of Florence and Rome. Their labours were not inferior to those of Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of their envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure; they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since they were confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards of learning. From this character, Janus Cascaris † will deserve an exception. His eloquence, politeness, and Im

Their faults and merits.

perial

*Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri (says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) nullo ævo perituri, (p. 156.).

+ He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his honourable life was stretched far into the 16th century, (A. D. 1535). Leo X. and Francis J. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris, (Hody, p. 247-275.). He left posterity in France; but the Counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage, in the 13th century, with the daughter of a Greek Emperor, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 224-230.).

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perial descent, recommended him to the French CHAP. monarchs; and in the same cities he was alternately employed to teach and to negociate. Duty and interest prompted them to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most successful attained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of their country; their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved for the national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satire on Virgil's poetry and the oratory of Tully *. The superiority of these masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice, of their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation †, which they introduced, was banished from

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*Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no better names than Græculus ineptus et impudens, (Hody, p. 274.). In our own times, an English critic has accused the Æneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritu et majestate carminis heroici defecta; many such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning, (præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21. 22.).

+ Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c. tom. ii. p. 235.). The modern Greek pronounces the as a V consonant, and confound three vowels, (n), and several dipthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the University of Cambridge; but the monosyllable Ba represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep; and a bell-wether is better evidence than a bishop or a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are col

lected

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CHAP. the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than mute and unmeaning marks; in prose superfluous, and troublesome in verse. The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwrick of the Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of some author, who, without his industry, might have perished; the transcripts were multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the text was corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of the elder scholiasts. sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek classics, was interpreted to the Latin world; the beauties of style evaporate in a version; but the judgement of Theodore Gaza selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine and experimental science.

The Pla

The

Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were tonic phi- pursued with more curiosity and ardour.

losophy.

After a

long

lected in the Sylloge of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740): but it is difficult to paint sounds by words; and in their reference to modern use, they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may observe, that our peculiar pronunciation of the 4 to th, is approved by E. rasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.).

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long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by a vene. CHA P. rable Greek *, who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegant philosophy; his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect; and his sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned with the richest colours of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage; and as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system inculcates the love of truth, of our coun try, and of mankind. The precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and li beral inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions and errors of their di vine master, their enthusiasm might correct the dry dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may be balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided between the two sects; with more fury than skill they fought under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophic debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion,

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* George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. P. 739-756.).

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