With Tyranny, then Superstition join'd, VARIATIONS. Between ver. 690 and 691, the author omitted these two, When none but Saints had licence to be proud. NOTES. 690 P. In a monarchy, there may be poets, painters, and musicians; but orators, historians, and philosophers, can exist, in their full force, in a well-ordered republic alone. Ver. 686. Saw Learning fall] Literature and the Arts, which flourished to so great a degree about the time of Augustus, gradually felt a decline, from many concurrent causes; from the vast extent of the Roman empire, and its consequent despotism, which crushed every noble effort of the mind; from the military government, which rendered life and property precarious, and therefore destroyed even the necessary arts of agriculture and manufactures; and by the irruption of the barbarous nations, which was occasioned and facilitated by this state of things. About the eleventh century the people of Christendom were sunk in the lowest ignorance and brutality, till the accidental finding Justinian's Pandects, at Amalfi, in Italy, about the year 1130, began to awaken and enlarge the minds of men, by laying before them an art that would give stability and security to all the other arts that support and embellish life. It is a mistake to think, that the arts were destroyed by the irruptions of the northern nations; they had degenerated and decayed before that event. Ver. 692. What the Goths begun.] Leontius Pilatus was the person that restored Greek learning in Italy; Gregoris Tiphernas in France; William Grocyn of New College, Oxford, in England. The nine Grecians that came first from Constantinople into the West, were, Bessarion, Chrysoloras, Demet, Calchondylas, Gaza, J. Argyropulus, G. Trapezuntius, Mar. Musurus, M. Marullus, J. Lascaris. At length Erasmus, that great injur'd name, (The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame!) NOTES. Ver. 693. At length Erasmus, &c.] Nothing can be more artful than the application of this example: or more happy than the turn of the compliment. To throw glory quite round the character of this admirable person, he makes it to be (as in fact it really was) by his assistance chiefly, that Leo was enabled to restore letters and the fine arts in his Pontificate. W. This is not exactly true: others had a share in this great and important work. "I have been asked, whether I would decide the question, What was the religion of Erasmus? In one respect, I account myself qualified for the undertaking; for I am unprejudiced, and have nothing to bias me. But I think it best to leave the reader to judge for himself, and to make his inferences from the premises. Therefore I shall only observe, that Erasmus, if he had had an absolute power to establish a form of religion in any country, would have been a moderate man, and a Latitudinarian, as to the credenda. He would have proposed few articles of faith, and those with a primitive simplicity. This system, indeed, would have been highly disagreeable to the men, who enjoy no comfort in believing, or in pretending to believe, what they think fit, unless they can vex, harass, and torment, all those who will not submit to their decisions." This is the candid opinion of Dr. Jortin, in his Life of Erasmus, p. 609. "I am afraid (said Erasmus in one of his epistles), that not having the firmness and spirit of Luther, I should have behaved like St. Peter in the same circumstances." Ver. 694. The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame !] Our author elsewhere lets us know what he esteems to be the glory of the priesthood as well as of a Christian in general, where, comparing himself to Erasmus, he says, "In Moderation placing all my glory," and consequently what he regards as the shame of it. The whole of this character belonged eminently and almost solely to Erasmus: for the other Reformers, such as Luther, Calvin, and their followers, understood so little in what true Christian liberty consisted, that they carried with them, into the reformed churches, that very spirit of persecution, which had driven them from the church of Rome. W. 695 Stem'd the wild torrent of a barb'rous age, of NOTES. Ver. 696. And drove these holy Vandals off the stage.] In this attack on the established ignorance of the times, Erasmus succeeded so well, as to bring good letters into fashion: to which he gave new splendour, by preparing for the press, correct editions many of the best ancient writers, both ecclesiastical and profane. But having laughed and shamed his age out of one folly, he had the mortification of seeing it run headlong into another. The Virtuosi of Italy, in a superstitious dread of that monkish barbarity which he had so severely handled, would use no term (for now almost every man was become a Latin writer), not even when they treated of the highest mysteries of religion, which had not been consecrated in the Capitol, and dispensed unto them from the sacred hand of Cicero. Erasmus observed the growth of this classical folly with the greater concern, as he discovered, under all their attention to the language of old Rome, a certain fondness for its religion, in a growing impiety which disposed them to think irreverently of the Christian faith. And he no sooner discovered it than he set upon reforming it; which he did so effectually in the Dialogue, entitled Ciceronianus, that he brought the age back to that just temper, which he had been all his life endeavouring to mark out to it: Purity, but not pedantry, in Letters; and zeal, but not bigotry, in Religion. In a word, by employing his great talents of genius and literature on subjects of general importance; and by opposing the extremes of all parties in their turns; he completed the real character of a true Critic and an honest Man. W. Ver. 697. But see! each Muse, in Leo's golden days,] History has recorded five ages of the world, in which the human mind has exerted itself in an extraordinary manner; and in which its productions in literature and the fine arts have arrived at a perfection not equalled in other periods. The First, is the age of Philip and Alexander; about which time flourished Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes, Aristotle, Lysippus, Apelles, Phidias, Praxiteles, Thucydides, Xenophon, Æschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander, Phile Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread, Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev'rend head. 699 NOTES. mon. The Second age, which seems not to have been taken sufficient notice of, was that of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, in which appeared Lycophron, Aratus, Nicander, Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, Callimachus, Eratosthenes, Philichus, Erasistratus the physician, Timæus the historian, Cleanthes, Diogenes the painter, and Sostrates the architect. This prince, from his love of learning, commanded the Old Testament to be translated into Greek. The Third age, is that of Julius Cæsar, and Augustus; marked with the illustrious names of Laberius, Catullus, Lucretius, Cicero, Livy, Varro, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Phædrus, Vitruvius, Dioscorides. The Fourth age was that of Julius II, and Leo X, which produced Ariosto, Tasso, Fracastorius, Sannazarius, Vida, Bembo, Sadolet, Machiavel, Guiccardin, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian. The Fifth age is that of Louis XIV, in France, and of King William and Queen Anne, in England; in which, or thereabouts, are to be found, Corneille, Moliere, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, La Rochefoucault, Paschal, Bourdaloue, Patru, Malbranche, De Retz, La Bruyere, St. Real, Fenelon, Lully, Le Sæur, Poussin, La Brun, Puget, Theodon, Gerradon, Edelinck, Nanteuill, Perrault the architect, Dryden, Tillotson, Temple, Pope, Addison, Garth, Congreve, Rowe, Prior, Lee, Swift, Bolingbroke, Atterbury, Boyle, Locke, Newton, Clarke, Kneller, Thornhill, Jervas, Purcell, Mead, Friend. Leo the Tenth little imagined, that by promoting the revival of ancient literature, and by the discovery and diffusion of that manly and liberal knowledge which it contained, and which opened and enlarged the bigoted minds of men, into boldness of thought, and freedom of inquiry on all important subjects, he was gradually undermining the absurdity and the tyranny of the Romish church, and emancipating its wretched devotees from ignorance and superstition. In vain, under such circumstances, was the Complutensian edition of the Bible given. Cardinal Pole, it is said, with great shrewdness, warned Leo of the consequences of thus enlightening Europe. In Bayle may be seen, the pains he took, and the expenses he incurred, by purchasing curious manuscripts from every country Then Sculpture, and her sister-arts revive; NOTES. 705 where they could be found; and his liberalities to men of genius need not be enlarged upon. One cannot but lament that the charming Ariosto, who was once so favoured and caressed by him, was afterward neglected and forgotten by this Pope, and denied a preferment which he had promised him, which occasioned the severity with which he treated Leo in his Fifth Satire. It is remarkable, that in the bull which this Pope gave to Ariosto, on the printing his Orlando, he speaks of it as a kind of burlesque poem; as describing, Equitum errantium Itinera, ludicro more, longo tamen studio, &c. Ver. 699. o'er its ruins spread,] In the ninth century, it was said, there were more statues than inhabitants, at Rome. Ver. 703. With sweeter notes] I have the best authority, that of the learned, accurate, and ingenious Dr. Burney, for observing that, in the age of Leo the Tenth, music did not keep pace with poetry in advancing towards perfection. Constantio Festa was the best Italian composer during the time of Leo, and Pietro Aron the best Theorist. Palestrina was not born till eight years after the death of Leo. See History of Music, Vol. II. p. 336. In the year 1521, Luther wrote a serious and pressing letter to Leo, exhorting him to retire from the splendour and yanity of the court, to some religious solitude, after the example of St. Bernard. We may easily imagine how much our polite successor of St. Peter was diverted with this remonstrance of Luther. Leo did not receive the sacrament before he died; on which, Sannazarius wrote this distich; "Sacra sub extrema si forte requiritis hora, Cur Leo non potuit sumere? vendiderat. Ver. 705. Immortal Vida:] But Vida was by no means the most celebrated poet that adorned the age of Leo the Tenth; and music received not so many improvements, as the other fine arts, at that period. When Vida was advanced to a bishoprick, |