And thus too out of that dreariest tenth century, that wastest place, as it is commonly and indeed rightly esteemed, of European literature and of the human mind, James Grimm has published a brief Latin epic of very high merit1; while Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, whose death took place quite early in the eleventh (1027), could celebrate the song of the nightingale in strains such as these. Cùm telluris, vere novo, producuntur germina, itself. It was first published by Mone, Reinhardus Vulpes, Stuttgart, 1832. 1 Waltharius. It had been published indeed before; and has since been so by Du Méril, Poésies popul. Lat., 1843, p. 313–377. 2 Sonus re-appears here as of the fourth declension. See Freund's Lat. Wörterbuch, s. v. 3 D. Fulberti Opera Varia, Paris, 1608, p. 181. Surely with all its rudeness and deficiencies this poem has the true passion of nature, and contains in it the prophecy of much more than it actually accomplishes. In that Gloriosa valde facta veris præ lætitiâ, we have no weak preludes of such rapturous enthusiasm and inspiration in like kind, as at a later day have given us such immortal hymns as Shelley's Ode to the Skylark, and as others of a merit nearly or altogether as great. Or consider these lines of Marbod, bishop of Rheims, in the twelfth century, which, stiffly and awkwardly versified as they may be, have yet a further and deeper interest, as touching on those healing influences of nature, the sense of which is almost, if not entirely, confined to modern, that is to Christian, art. They belong to a poem on the coming of the spring; and, as the reader will observe, are in leonine hexameters : Moribus esse feris prohibet me gratia veris, Qui tot pulcra videt, nisi flectitur et nisi ridet, Bruma rigens, æstas, auctumnus, veris honestas'. May we not say that the old monkish poet is anticipating here, and however faintly, yet distinctly,-such 1 Hildeberti et Marbodi Opera, ed. Beaugendre, Paris, 1708, p. 1617. strains as the great poets of nature in our own day have made to be heard-the conversion of the witch Maimuna in Thalaba, Peter Bell, or those loveliest lines in Coleridge's Remorse? With other ministrations, thou, O Nature, Healest thy wandering and distempered child; Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, To be a jarring and a dissonant thing By the benignant touch of love and beauty. Hard measure is for the most part dealt to this poetry1. Men come to it with a taste formed on quite 1 Few are so just to it as Bähr (Die Christl. Dichter Rom's, p. 10): Wenn wir daher auch nicht unbedingt die Ansicht derjenigen theilen können, welche die Einführung dieser Christlichen Dichter statt der heidnischen in Schulen zum Zwecke des Sprachunterrichts wie zur Bildung eines ächt christlichen Gemüths vorschlagen, aus Gründen, die zu offen da liegen, um weiterer Ausführung zu bedürfen, die auch nie, selbst in Mittelalter, verkannt worden sind, so glauben wir doch dass es zweckmässig und von wesentlichem Nutzen seyn dürfte den Erzeugnissen christlicher Poesie auch auf unseren höheren Bildungsanstalten eine grössere Aufmerksamheit zuzuwenden, als diess bisher der Fall war, die Jugend demnach in den obern Classen der Gymnasien und Lyceen mit den vorzüglicheren Erscheinungen dieser Poesie, die ihnen jetzt so ganz fremd ist und bleibt, bekannt zu machen, ja selbst einzelne Stücke solcher Dichtungen in die Chrestomathien Lateinischer Dichter, in denen sie wahrlich, auch von anderen Standpunkten aus betrachtet, eine Stelle neben manchen Productionen der heidnischen Zeit verdienen, aufzunehmen, um so zugleich den lebendigen Gegensatz der heidnischen und christli other models, trying it by laws which were not its laws, by its approximation to a standard which is so far from being its standard, that the nearer it reaches that, the further removed from any true value it is. They come trying the Gothic dome by the laws of the Greek temple, and because they do not find in it that which, in its very faithfulness to its own idea, it cannot have, they have treated it as worthy only of scorn and contempt. Nor less have they forgotten, in estimating the worth of this poetry, that much which appears trite and commonplace to us, was yet very far from being so at its first utterance'. When the Gothic nations which divided the Roman empire began to crave intellectual and spiritual food, in the healthy hunger of their youth there lay the capacity of deriving truest nourishment from that which to us, partly from our far wider range of choice, and partly also from a satiated appetite, seems little calculated to yield it2. chen Welt und Poesie erkennen zu lassen, und jugendlichen Gemüthern frühe einzuprägen. 1 Ampère (t. 3, p. 213) says with great truth, and on this very subject of medieval Latin verse: Ce qui est peu important pour l'histoire de l'art peut l'être beaucoup pour l'histoire de l'esprit humain. 2 Ferdinand Wolf, in his learned and instructive work, Ueber die Lais, p. 281, has observed, and James Grimm has made very nearly the same observation, that a history of this medieval Latin poetry is a book at this day still waiting to be written, and which, when it is written, will fill up what is now a huge gap in the literary history of Europe. We have indeed nothing in the kind but Leyser's compendium, Historia Poëtarum et Poëmatum Medii Ævi, Hala, 1721, which would have its use for the future labourer in this field, which he would find especially serviceable in its copious 4 [T. L. P.] But considerations of this kind would lead me too far; and they lie too wide of the immediate scope of literary notices; but for a book making, as by its title it does, some claim to completeness, absurdly fragmentary and imperfect, -and this, even when is added to it another essay, which Leyser published two years earlier, Diss. de fictâ medii ævi barbarie imprimis circa Poësin Latinam, Helmstadt, 1719. Less complete than even in his own day he might have made it, it is far more deficient now, when so much bearing on the subject has been brought to light, which was then unknown. The volume, too, is as much at fault in what it has, as what it has not-including vast poems of very slightest merits; and from which an extract or two had sufficed. Edélestand du Méril's two volumes, Poésies populaires Latines anterieures au douxième Siècle, Paris, 1843, and Poés. pop. Lat. du Moyen Age, Paris, 1847, contain many valuable notices, and poems which have not previously, or have only partially or incorrectly, been printed. But, as the titles of the works indicate, they have only to do with the popular Latin poetry of the middle ages. Whoever undertakes such a work, must be one who esteems as the glory of this poetry, and not as its shame, its endeavour to emancipate itself, if not always from the forms, yet always from the spirit, of the classical poetry of the old world-its desire to stand on its own ground, to grow out of its own root. Indeed no one else would have sufficient love to the subject to move him to face the labours and wearinesses which it would involve. The later Latin poetry, that which has flourished since the revival of learning, and which has drawn its inspiration not from the Church, but from the ancient heathen world, has found a very careful and enthusiastic historian; one however who, according to my convictions, has begun his work just where that of any true value has ended, leaving untouched the whole period which really offers much of any deep or abiding interest. I mean Budik, in his work Leben und Wirken der vorzüglichsten Latein. Dichter des XV.— XVIII. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1828. Such, however, was not his mind, who could thus express himself about the Christian middle ages; and his words are worth quoting for the fanaticism of contempt which they express-a fanaticism which was possible twenty years ago, but would hardly be so now, when we are in |