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Theodore H. Jewett.

Se Berwick clle

October 1835

་ང་ང་་ ་འ.

དབུ་་་ས་ས། ་་ད་

྾་་་་(་་་ ཤྰན་་ར་

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SAMUEL COLMAN, BOSTON; AND CHAPPELL AND CO, PHILADELPHIA.

1835.

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PREFACE

It may be useful to state the design of the present volume, which differs in its character from the preceding Series.

The form of essay-writing, were it now moulded even by the hand of the Raphael of Essayists, would fail in the attraction of novelty; Morality would now in vain repeat its counsels in a fugitive page, and Manners now offer but little variety to supply one. The progress of the human mind has been marked by the enlargement of our knowledge; and essay-writing seems to have closed with the century which it charmed and enlightened.

I have often thought that an occasional recurrence to speculations on human affairs, as they appear in private and in public history, and to other curious inquiries in literature and philosophy, would form some substitute for this mode of writing. These Researches, therefore, offer authentic knowledge for evanescent topics; they attempt to demonstrate some general principle, by induction from a variety of particulars -to develop those imperfect truths which float obscurely in the mindand to suggest subjects, which, by their singularity, are new to inquiry, and which may lead to new trains of ideas. Such Researches will often form supplements to our previous knowledge.

In accustoming ourselves to discoveries of this nature, every research seems to yield the agreeable feeling of invention-it is a pleasure peculiar to itself-something which we ourselves have found out — and which, whenever it imparts novelty or interest to another, communicates to him the delight of the first discoverer.

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HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

THE BEQUEST OF
THEODORE JEWETT EASTMAN

1931

CURIOSITIES OF
OF LITERATURE.

MODERN LITERATURE, BAYLE'S CRITICAL DICTIONARY.

A new edition of Bayle in France is now in a progressive state of publication; an event in literary history which could not have been easily predicted. Every work which creates an epoch in literature is one of the great monuments of the human mind; and Bayle may be considered as the father of literary curiosity, and of Modern Literature. Much has been alleged against our author: yet let us be careful to preserve what is precious. Bayle is the inventor of a work which dignified a collection of facts constituting his text, by the argumentative powers and the copious illustrations which charm us in his diversified commentary. Conducting the humble pursuits of an Aulus Gellius and an Atheneus, with a higher spirit he showed us the philosophy of Books, and communicated to such limited researches a value which they had otherwise not possessed.

tain the substantial nourishment of European knowledge, a library of ten thousand volumes will not satisfy our inquiries, nor supply our reasearches even on a single topic!

Let not, however, the votaries of ancient literature dread its neglect, nor be over jealous of their younger and Gothic sister. The existence of their favourite study is secured, as well by its own imperishable claims, as by the stationary institutions of Europe. But one of those silent revo lutions in the intellectual history of mankind, which are not so obvious as those in their political state, seems now fully accomplished. The very term 'classical,' so long limited to the ancient authors, is now equally applicable to the most elegant writers of every literary people; and although Latin and Greek were long characterized as the learned languages,' yet we cannot in truth any longer concede that those are the most learned who are inter Græcos Græcissimi, inter Latinos Latinissimi,' any more than we can reject from the class of the learned,' those great writers, whose scholarship in the ancient classics may be very indifferent. The modern languages now have alsc become learned ones, when he who writes in them is imbued with their respective learning. He is a 'learned' writer who has embraced most knowledge on the particular subject of his investigation, as he is a 'classical' one who composes with the greatest elegance. Sir David Dalrymple dedicates his Memorials relating to the History of Britain' to the Earl of Hardwicke, whom he styles with equal happiness and propriety, Learned in British History.' 'Scholarship' has hitherto been a term reserved for the adept in ancient literature, whatever may be the mediocrity of his intellect; but the honourable distinction must be extended to all great writers in modern literature, if we would not confound the natural sense and propriety of things.

Modern literature may, perhaps, still be discriminated from the ancient, by a term it began to be called by at the Reformation, that of the New Learning.' Without supplanting the ancient, the modern must grow up with it; the further we advance in society, it will more deeply occupy our interests; and it has already proved what Bacon, casting his philosophical views retrospectively and prospectively, has observed, that Time was the greatest of innovators.'

This was introducing a study perfectly distinct from what is pre-eminently distinguished as classical learn. ing,' and the subjects which had usually entered into philological pursuits. Ancient literature, from century to century, had constituted the sole labours of the learned, and Vari lectiones' were long their pride and their reward. Latin was the literary language of Europe. The vernacular idiom in Italy was held in such contempt, that their youths were not suffered to read Italian books: their native productions; Varchi tells a curious anecdote of his father sending him to prison, where he was kept on bread and water, as a penance for his inveterate passion for reading Italian books! Dante was reproached by the erudite Italians for composing in his mother tongue, still expressed by the degrading designation of il volgare, which the 'resolute' John Florio renders to make common; and to translate was contemptuously called volgarizzare; while Petrarch rested his fame on his Latin poetry, and called his Italian nugellas vulgares! With us, Roger Ascham was the first who boldly avowed To speak as the common people, to think as wise men; yet, so late as the time of Bacon, this great man did not consider his Moral Essays as likely to last in the moveable sands of a modern language, for he as anxiously had them sculptured in the mar ble of ancient Rome. Yet what had the great ancients themselves done, but trusted to their own volgare? The Greeks, the finest and most original writers of the ancients, When Bayle projected his 'Critical Dictionary,' he observes Adam Ferguson, were unacquainted with every probably had no idea that he was about effecting a revolanguage but their own; and if they became learned, it lution in our libraries, and founding a new province in the was only by studying what they themselves had produced.' dominion of human knowledge; creative genius often is During fourteen centuries, whatever lay out of the pale itself the creature of its own age: it is but that reaction of classical learning was condemned as barbarism; in the of public opinion, which is generally the fore-runner of mean while, however, amidst this barbarism, another lite- some critical change,or which calls forth some wants which rature was insensibly creating itself in Europe. Every sooner or later will be supplied. The predisposition for people, in the gradual accessions of their vernacular genius, the various, but neglected literature, and the curious, but discovered a new sort of knowledge, one which more deep- the scattered knowledge, of the moderns, which had long ly interested their feelings and the times, reflecting the been increasing, with the speculative turn of inquiry, preimage, not of the Greeks and the Latins, but of themselves! vailed in Europe, when Bayle took his pen to give the A spirit of inquiry, originating in events which had never thing itself a name and an existence. But the great aureached the ancient world, and the same refined taste in thors of modern Europe were not yet consecrated beings, the arts of composition caught from the models of antiquity, like the ancients, and their volumes were not read from at length raised up rivals, who competed with the great the chairs of universities; yet the new interests which had ancients themselves; and Modern Literature now occu- arisen in society, the new modes of human life, the new pies a space which looks to be immensity, compared with spread of knowledge, the curiosity after even the little the narrow and the imperfect limits of the ancient. A things which concern us, the revelations of secret history, complete collection of classical works, all the bees of an- and the state papers which have sometimes escaped from tiquity, may be hived in a glass case; but those we national archives, the philosophical spirit which was hasshould find only the milk and honey of our youth; to obtening its steps and raising up new systems of thinking;

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