ART. XI. M. MEUSEL's Guide to the History of Literature. [Article continued from Appendix to M. R. Vol. xxxvi. p. 536.]

CIR IRCUMSTANCES have concurred to delay the conclusion of our report of this useful performance, much longer than we could have wished: but we prefer the resumption of it, after this long interval, to the hiatus which would be occasioned by our suffering it to remain for ever incomplete. We shall proceed, therefore, in the same mode of analysis: but we perceive that we shall not be able, as we formerly hoped, to terminate our abstract in one article, without intrenching too far on the remaining pages of this Appendix. For a future supplement, therefore, or perhaps for one of our ensuing current numbers, the final division must be reserved.

The SIXTH SECTION, or PERIOD. From the Restoration of the Sciences to the present Time; i. e. from 1500 to 1800.

General State of Letters.-We are now to consider a portion of history the most interesting in the annals of mankind. The accounts of the former ages seem to regard a totally different class of Beings: but the events which we are at present to contemplate refer immediately to ourselves, and to our actual state of knowlege.-The vast strides which science made in this period had been already prepared, so far as regarded their external causes, chiefly towards the end of the period preceding; and the conquest of Constantinople, the discovery of America, that of a passage by the Cape of Good Hope, and, more than all, the invention of the art of printing, had largely contributed to the diffusion of learning and philosophy. The increased importance of the middle class of mankind excited a spirit of inquiry, which tended to secure their freedom. Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, were zealous in the liberation of mankind from the chains of spiritual bondage; and the keen satire of Erasmus, Hutten, and Nizolius, brought into deserved ridicule the false learning of the age.

During the confusion of foreign warfare and internal tumult, a plan for the extension of science was laid in England by Bacon, and the principal laws of nature were disclosed in Italy by Galileo. Newton, Bayle, Leibnitz, &c. united in establishing philosophy on the sure basis of experiment; and Frederick II., Buffon, Hutcheson, Helvetius, Rousseau, Voltaire, &c. ever preaching up reason, though even to them its primary principles were not yet clearly evident, were active in dispelling prejudice from the minds of men. The labours of Hume and of Kant, according to M. MEUSEL, have been most successful in APP. REV. VOL. XLV.

M m

tracing

tracing the limits of human intellect, and in pointing out the true basis of reasoning.

The principal Promoters of Learning were, in Italy, the Pope Leo X., Gregory XIII., Sextus V., Urban VIII. Benedict XIV., Clement XIV., and Pius VI. :-in Germany, Maximilian I, Ferdinand I., Maximilian II., Rudolphus II., Ferdinand IIL, Leopold I., Charles VI., Francis I., and Joseph II. :-in Por tugal, John V., and Pombal, prime minister under king Joseph Emmanuel:-in Spain, Cardinal Ximenes, Philip V., Ferdinand VI., and Charles III.:-in France, Francis I., Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV., XV., and XVI.:-in England, Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James I., Charles II., William III., George II and III. :-in Denmark, Frederick II., Christian IV., Frederick III., Christian V. and VI., and Frederick V.:-in Sweden, Gustavus I. and II., Christina, Frederick, Adolphus-Frederick, and Gustavus III. :-in Poland, Stephen Batheri, John Casimir, John Sobiesky, Augustus II. and III., and Stanislaus Augustus: -in Russia, Peter I., Elizabeth, and Catherine II. :-in Prussia, Frederick I. and II., Frederick-William III.:-and besides these, several German electors, princes, and others.

The Persons by whose Influence Learning was chiefly benefited were, Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Beza, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Grotius, Descartes, Conring, Puffendorf, Boyle, Bayle, Locke, Leibnitz, Newton, Thomasius, Wolf, Mosheim, Voltaire, Rousseau, Lessing, Franklin, and Kant.

Schools and Seminaries of Learning.-The progress of the sciences had a favourable influence on schools. Luther and Melanchthon particularly distinguished themselves by their op position to the systems of education then existing in the Ger man universities; and their example was followed by Joh. Amos Comnenius, Basedow, Rousseau, &c. Academies for the young nobility, the schools of the Jesuits, the electoral schools of Saxony, those of the monasteries at Würtemberg, &c. successively enjoyed great celebrity. We must not omit to mention, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the schools for the deaf and dumb established at Paris, Vienna, &c. nor the schools of industry now so generally prevalent.During this period, were established the following Universities; -in Italy, those of Messina, Milan, Parma, Mantua, Urbino: -in Portugal, Evora :-in Spain, Alcala de Henares (Complu tum), Granada, Compostella, Baeza, Ossuna, Osma, Orikuela, Barcelona, Cervera; and in Spanish America, Mexico, Lima, and Caracas in France, Rheinis, Douay, Besançon, Pont-aMousson, Sedan, Molsheim, Strasburg, and Pau:-in Ger many, Frankfurt on the Oder, Wittenburg, Marburg, Jena, Dillingen, Altdorf, Helmstädt, Grätz, Gresen, Rintela, Salz

burg,

burg, Bamberg, Duisburg, Innsbrück, Halle, Fulda, Göttingen, Erlangen, Eützow, Bonn, and Stuttgard:-in Switzerland, Geneva, and Lausanne, which, though properly speaking they are not universities, were however so called:-in the Netherlands, Leyden, Franeker, Gröningen, Utrecht, and Harderwyk-in Great Britain and Ireland, Edinburgh, New Aberdeep, and Dublin-in Hungary, Tyrnau:-in Silesia, Breslau: -in Poland and Lithuania, Wilna, Zamoscia, and Olyka:-in Prussia, Königsberg :-in Sweden, Abo:-in Russia, Dorpat, Kiow, and Moscow.-There were also founded in this period. a vast number of academical gymnasia, colleges, &c. too numerous to mention for these M. MEUSEL refers us to Lawätzen's Handbuck, Goetzii Geographia Academica, &c. The Jews established schools at Sapheta in Palestine, at Constantinople, and Saloniki; as well as in several parts of Germany, in Poland, in the Netherlands, and in England. The Turks too. have instituted eleven academies at Constantinople, each contisting of fewer or more colleges, out of which are supplied. the ministers of the church and state; more than 1600 youths are here instructed, at the expence of the grand Signior. The number of colleges, or schools of science, at Constantinople altogether exceeds 518, besides about 1255 inferior seminaries, in which reading, writing, and a sort of catechism, are taught. The number of Literary Societies formed during this interval is astonishing but the principal of them are so well known that it will not be necessary to particularize.

Libraries. In proportion as collections of books had been hitherto rare, so much the more interesting is M. MEUSEL' list of public libraries established in this period in almost every part of Europe: suffice it, however, for us to observe, in general, that not only every university is now possessed of one or more of them, but that almost every town of importance seems to partake of this invaluable benefit.

State of Philology.-During the former half of this period, philology constituted the great pursuit of the learned, as well as their principal source of distinction. It engrossed almost all the ability of Europe; and yet, (says M. MEUSEL,) the Germans had the reputation of combining with it the most true taste and philosophy.' In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the discovery of an universal philosophical language, with corresponding characters, (pasiphrasia aud pasigraphia,) exercised the talents of Wilkins, Leibnitz, Wolf, Solbrig, and others. The Jews in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries paid much attention to their Hebrew literature,-though chiefly, perhaps, to that which was Rabbinical. The first printed Hebrew Bible was published by Dan. Bomberg of Antwerp, at

་

Venice, 1518-and four subsequent editions of the same ap peared within the next twenty-four years. Bomberg also, in 1520, printed the Talmud, which called forth the severest censures from the Popes Julius III. and Paul IV. In the two following centuries, many learned Jews commented on their sacred books, and translated them into the pure German; as also into that dialect of it which was usually spoken by Jews. The most celebrated of these commentators were Gozel, Veibsch, (father and son), Mendelssohn, Euchel, Friedländer, and Wolfssohn. The Christians also, particularly the Protestants, have culti vated Hebrew literature, since the sixteenth century, with much greater diligence than formerly. At first, however, they all failed, owing to their copying too servilely the Jewish system of philology;-and it was not till the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, that they adopted the more rational plan of employing the other oriental languages to illustrate the Hebrew. They did not stop here: so naturally did the study of one tongue seem to lead to that of another, that grammars and lexicons of every dialect, in any way con. nected with the Scriptures, were soon published. This might indeed be called the age of language-learning; and the author has given us a kind of Catalogue raisonné, consisting of sixty pages, and containing the names of learned men of all countries, who have been eminent within the last three centuries for facilitating the acquisition, not only of the classical languages, but of every other language that is known to exist. For information so copious, and so detailed, we must refer to the work itself; since it would be impossible to do justice to it by any abstract.

State of Historical Knowlege. In this period, the study of history became very general; and history itself has derived great advantages from the increasing culture of classical literature, and from the more enlightened state of general philosophy. One of its chief improvements is due to Reinerus Reineccius, a German, (professor at Helmstädt towards the close of the sixteenth century,) who first introduced the practice of marginally citing his authorities: indeed, to the Germans in general, M. MEUSEL gives the preference for industrious compilation; though the French, he thinks, from the very beginning of this period, bore away the palm for historical composition. Various systems and compendia of Universal History were published at an early period, particularly by Carion, Melanchthon, Sleidan, Cluverius, Bossuet, and Cellarius; since whom Hübner, Zopf, Gatterer, Schroeckh, Swinton, Sale, Psalmanazar, Campbell, and Bower, together with Rollin and other French writers, have contributed to give to it a more methodical arrangement, as well

as to disseminate a better taste in the study of it. In Antient History, properly so called, little more had been done than to collect materials, until nearly the middle of the eighteenth century; since which time the Germans have to boast their Gatterer, Beck, Remer, and Eichhorn: the Grecian history has been written of late years with great ability by Stanyan, Mably, Goldsmith, Denina, Gast, Gillies, and Mitford ;-the Roman, by Hooke, Rollin, Crevier, Macquer, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Beaufort, Ferguson, and Stuart.-The History of the Middle Ages lay in deep obscurity even till late in the eighteenth century. One of the first and most clear-sighted authors, who undertook to inquire into the general state of the historical world during those ages, and thence to illustrate the events which occurred in them, was Robertson; (professor in the university of Edinburgh, 1793;) who, in the preface to his History of Charles V., has given a sketch of the progress of society in Europe, from the downfall of the Roman empire to the beginning of the sixteenth century. This department of history has thence assumed a very dissimilar form; men have learnt to inquire into the nature, the origin, and the secret causes of events, and to view many of them in a different light :- still, however, much remains to be done. Krause, Koch, and Remer, may on this head be perused with advantage.

The History of the Modern States of Europe has been recorded within the last century under every possible form of publication. Of compendious works, the best, according to M. MEUSEL, have been written by Germans;-though, at the same time, every nation has several of this description, which possess great merit. For particulars, our readers would do well to consult M. MEUSEL's list of authors.

The knowlege of Ecclesiastical History became so necessary at the reformation, that the learned of either party began to study it with greatly increased diligence, accuracy, and freedom; yet it must be confessed that, till very lately, since toleration has approximated the different religious parties, ecclesiastical history was seldom more than a furiously abusive enumeration of sects and heresies, stigmatizing as absurd and damnable whatever militated against that set of opinions which happened to be favoured by the writer.

The History of Learning has been much studied in Germany since the sixteenth century; Morkof, towards the end of the seventeenth, pointed out the right path, and has been followed. by Conring, Pasch, and others. Gesner, so early as 1545, published a genera! literary lexicon: among others, Konigmencke, Jöcher, and Adelung, have pursued the same path, and far

Mm 3

surpassed