which, for the improvement of those who were little versed in Latin, he expounded in the Saxon tongue. Bede died in 735. "If the fame of such a master attracted many scholars, we might naturally expect a succession of men of learning; and an increased diffu-; sion of knowledge. But the historian whom I have quoted, and who flourished in the beginning of the twelfth century, observes: with Bede was buried almost the entire knowledge of events down to our own times. No Englishman, emulous of his learning, or pleased with his elegance, was anxious to follow his steps. Some, not altogether void of letters, passed their days without leaving any record of their talents; others, not masters of the first elements, indulged in a torpid sloth. Thus the indolent were succeeded by a race still more indolent than they; and for a long period, the love of letters was no where to be found. Of this what stronger evidence can be demanded, than the lines of the contemptible epitaph inscribed on the tomb of Bede? Presbyter hic Beda, etc. "In the monastery, which was, while he lived, justly deemed the school of general science, could no one be found qualified to celebrate the praises of his master, in language more worthy of the subject?' "Since that time more justice has been done to the memory of Bede, and more elegant Latinity has been employed in his encomium. Amongst his panegyrists, the mouk of Malmesbury, whilst dweiling with admiration on the number and character of his works, hesitates not to say that heaven had encircled his mind with copious streams of inspiration.' The works themselves contain the least ambiguous testimony of their value. They are, certainly, numerous, and on various subjects; evincing extensive reading; an unbounded range of curiosity; unwearied industry; and great facility of composition. But judicious selection, nice discrimination, or critical exactness, are not to be expected; when, whatever might be the subject, sacred or profane, the highest proof of talents and of erudition was supposed to be furnished by a promiscuous accumula tion of opinions and authorities. Hence the commentaries of Bede on the Scriptures are formed of extracts from the fathers; and his philosophy flowed from a borrowed source. The Ecclesiastical History of Engand in five books, from the coming of Julius Cæsar to the year 731, is his only work which is now read. He candidly cites the authorities, on which his narrative rests, and as these were sometimes oral, they might be fallacious; but no better could be found. The credulity of Bede is seen in the admission of idle tales into a history, which in other respects merits the highest praise. For any part I should lament, had the historian of those times been guided, in the selection of his materials, by a more discriminating scepticism; for we should have wanted a just transcript of the age in which he lived; and might even have doubted the authenticity of the composition. As it is, we see what was at that period the superstitious character of our ancestors; and in the historian we behold a man, endowed with great talents, and possessed of extraordinary erudition, but in those habits of his mind-in which virtue was not not concerned-not less weak nor credulous than his contemporaries. Such is sometimes the lot of individuals of great learning and talents, till knowledge, more generally diffused, has dissipated prejudices, broken the iron mace of superstition, and rendered the horizon of science more spacious and serene. The style of Bede is sufficiently perspicuous and flowing, but not always pure, and seldom elegant. "As works of really classical taste are barely mentioned by Bede, it is probable that he had read few, and that, in his public lectures, he proposed them not as models for imitation. What was the degree of his proficiency in the Greek language, does not distinctly appear; though, as observed, he speaks highly of the acquirements of many of his contemporaries, who had been the scholars of Theodore and Adrian. It may then be asked, what authors were generally read in the English and other schools? The reply is not easy; but the subject has been carefully investigated. "The recent and high authority of St. Gregory appears to have thrown discredit on the elegant productions of heathen writers, and to have substituted others, which were less dangerous to orthodox piety. Among these his own Moral writings seem to have held a conspicuous place, though, as he owns, they were compiled without regard to the rules of grammar,' and with some affectation of barbarism. Of bis Dialogues, I may add, that, as they were written purposely to excite the attention of an unlettered age, they would provoke imitation; and, probably, in addition to the general taste, they were no small induce ment to Bede, to encumber his history with so many tales. "In Moral philosophy the worka of St. Gregory became a sort of classical text, to which passages were added from other fathers, particu- . larly from the works of St. Augustin. The erudition of this great man naturally commanded respect; and his acuteness in disputation caused him to be regarded as a complete master in the dialectic art. It has, however, since been proved, that the work, which was in most request, was not the genuine production of the bishop of Hippo; and had it been otherwise, though the principles of accurate reasoning might have been learned from it, the general ruggedness of his style and the involution of his sentences, with other blemishes of African origin, must have evinced, how unfit he was to reform a vitiated taste; or rather to exhibit to the barbarous tribes of Europe, a perfect model of correct and elegant composition. "In Philology, Marcianus Capella was the guide, a native also of Africa, who, in the fifth century, wrote a Treatise, in nine books, on the liberal arts. In the succeeding centuries, this work was read with general applause; when the asperity of its style could best accord with the rude taste of Gothic ears. It became a school-book, in which the grammarian, as Gregory of Tours observes, learned the rules of construction; the logician to arrange his arguments; the orator to persuade; the geometrician to trace his lines; the astrologer to watch the courses of the stars; the arithmetician to fix his numbers, and the lover of harmony to adopt his words to the modulation of musical sounds. And it was afterwards observed of this favourite work, that he, who possessed its contents, might be deemed a master of the whole circle of of the sciences. Capella was undoubtedly a man of learning, and his compilation recorded many opinions which were derived from early times; but a deep shade of obscurity was thrown over the whole, and rendered it, without a commentator, peculiarly unfit to enlighten the students of a barbarous age. "The works of Cassiodorus and Boetius, particularly of the latter, were much studied. They were both, considering the age in which they lived, writers of elegance, and abounding in valuable information. Ignorant as men had, at this period, become of the Greek language, they drew from Boetius some knowledge of its treasures; and his own maxims became, as they well deserved, the canons of their philosophy. Our Alfred, it is known, translated into the Saxon tongue the celebrated Consolation of Philosophy. Boetius had likewise written on music, which, as it was reckoned one of the liberal arts, and was particularly cultivated since the days of St. Gregory, increased the number of his readers. The work of Cassiodorus which chiefly attracted notice, was his Treatise on the Seven Arts, coinciding in matter, but surpassing in style and arrangement the Encyclopædia of Marcianus Capella. "Some scholars of better taste are said not to have disdained the hea then Macrobius, and other secondary writers; and it is possible, that the best models may have sometimes passed through their hands: but that they derived no real advantage from them, is clearly proved tom the character of their various works, which are still preserved.. "The subjects which are taught in the schools were, soon after this, comprised under the general heads of Trivium and Quadrivium, words which are sufficiently indicative of their barbarous origin. Trivium included what was deemed the introductory and less noble arts, Grammar, Dialectics, and Rhetoric: Quadrivium closed the circle by Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy. The following lines served to fix them in the memory: Gramm. loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rhet. verba colorat : Mus. canit, Ar. numerat, Geo. ponderat, Ast. colit astra. "Why the place of honour was rather given to the latter than to the numbers of the Trivium, does not distinctly appear; but whatever may have been its temporary ascendant, Logic, or rather the scholastic art of disputation, was afterwards pursued, with so much ardour, that it absorbed all its sister arts, and triumphed over the circle of the Quadrivium. "B ANECDOTES AND LEARNING OF ABEILLARD. [From the same.] EFORE I speak of Abeillard, sophizing in religion, to which I alwhose name is essentially lude, had grown out of the more connected with letters, I must ob- sober rules, which were established serve, that the new method of philo- by the great masters of the Bea school, school, in their theological lectures: the Arabian schools, particularly those of Spain, in which-having learned the language, or, at least, understood, in what esteem the writings of the Athenian sage were held by them-they brought back other translations, which were, it is said, less faithful than those already in their possession. Even their intricacy conferred a value, which the difficulty of their procurement would serve to eubance From this time, the Peripatetic philosophy gradually obtained the ascendeucy in the schools, which it maintained through a succession of many years. Its progress, indeed, was occasionally checked by men of sober discernment, who beheld the fatal use to which its perverted precepts were applied. The history of its various fortunes, in the schools of Paris alone may afford some instructive entertainment. It was the dialectic art, rendered complicated and mysterious by metaphysical terms and subtleties, applied, as a test of truth, to every subject, and particularly to those of religion. But it is evident, that religion could not be benefited by such an auxiliary; and what service was it likely to render to philosophy? The object of these doctors was not so, much to elucidate truth, or to promote its interests, as to perplex by abstruse and elaborate distinctions; and, on every question, to evince an imperturbable obstinacy. No attention was paid to the realities of nature, nor to the operations of the human mind; but the wildest fictions, and the most palpable sophisms were embodied in a nomenclature of distinctions, which seemed calculated for the defence of error rather than the support of truth. It had, however, a powerful tendency to exercise the faculties of the mind, the extraordinary display of which often attracted admiration, particularly of numbers who flocked to the schools, and crowned the triumphs of the masters with their applause. The feats of the Grecian sophists, which had been exhibited in Rome and in Athens, were re-traordinary man, extraordinary both peated, in the twelfth century, on the benches of our christian schools, and with the nearly similar effect, of engendering difficulties, of multiplying errors, and of obscuring truth. "To the solution of theological questions the philosophy of Aristotle had, before this time, been applied, imperfect translations of certain portions of which were in the hands of the western teachers. It now came into much more general vogue; and acquired higher estimation. Some men of curious inquiry resorted to "These schools had now acquired considerable celebrity. Here the great dialectician and teacher, William de Champeaux, afterwards Bishop of Chalons, when he had founded the abbey of St. Victor, is believed to have delivered the first lectures in scholastic theology. Abeillard was his pupil. This ex from his talents and his misfortunes, Because,' says he of himself, 'I preferred the armour of dialectic warfare, warfare, to all other modes of philosophy; for it I quitted the military life, choosing rather the conflicts of disputation, than the trophies of real battle. With this view, emulating the Peripatetic fame, and disputing, as I went, I passed through various provinces, wherever I understood that the study was zealously pursued. At length I reached Paris, which was then the great theatre of the art, where William de Champeaux taught; whom I chose for my preceptor.' But soon, impelled by a forward petulance and a skill in disputation above his years, to enter the lists with that preceptor, he incurred his displeasure; when he formed the design of opening a school himself, and cf giving public lectures. This he did with wonderful applause; first at the royal castle of Melun, and then at Corbeil, which was still nearer to Paris, where he had a more favour able theatre for the display of his talents, and more opportunity of mortifying his opponents. The undisguised jealousy, indeed, of De Champeaux contributed much to the cause of Abeillard, and brought to his lectures a more numerous and more applauding audience. But his health was unequal to the incessant exertion which his situation required; and he withdrew to his native air of Brittany. "When the sophist had recovered his health, he returned, after an absence of two years; when, finding his old master in the monkish habit, but still delivering his lectures, and that on a more extended plan, he chose, from what motive must be left to conjecture, again to become his hearer. Again,' says he, I at tended his school, to hear his lecture on the art of rhetoric; but where, in our several contests, I so pressed him on his favourite doctrine of universals, that he gave up the point, renounced his former opinion, and hence lost all the fame which he had acquired.' "The sophists of the day were wholly occupied about the intricate questions relating to genus and species, otherwise denominated universals. The dispute, indeed, was of high antiquity, taking its rise in the schools of Plato. Zeno, and Aristotle; and it was now revived with uncommon ardour. On one side were the Realists; on the other the Nominalists: the first affirming, that the primordial or essential forms of things had a real existence, independently of intellectual conception; the latter, that they were nothing more than general notions, formed by mental abstraction, and expressed by words. Champeaux was Realist; Abeillard a Nominalist. The questions branched out into a variety of nice and impalpable distinctions; and the Universal, such as human nature in the abstract, was represented in their language, as metaphysical, physical, and logical, that is, ante rem, in rem, post rem. "The school of Champeaux was almost deserted after his discomfiture, and the reputation of his rival had a proportional rise. We then read of the success of Abeillard, though still opposed; of his return to Melun; and of his finally opening a school on the mount of St. Genevieve, where, within the precincts of the enemy's camp, and surrounded by his pupils, he waged incessant war, and was daily engaged, as he pompously describes it, in the most furious contests, for Champeaux had rallied his forces, and returned to the attack. At this critical period Abeillard, on some con cerns |