PART II. A counter influence. CHAP. V. old theological notion of the approaching end of the world; and the dreary spectacle of the unfinished structure of King's College chapel,-which from the death of Henry VI until within a few years of that of Henry VII was almost abandoned by the workmen,--might well seem, to the Cambridge of those days, to give a tacit sanction to such forebodings. But in the midst of all this lethargy and depression, one startling event, the significance of which could be in some measure grasped by all, stood out in bright contrast to the general gloom. It was hard to believe that the Old World was about to perish, when the genius of the navigator had just revealed the existence of the New. By that discovery as it were an electric shock was sent through the whole of Europe and the preconceived ideas of the ancient world; and the faces of men, long bent with eager but wearying gaze to where the light, of ancient tradition gleamed dimly in the east, were suddenly turned to greet the tale of wonder borne upon the breeze that blew freshly over the western main. Continued progress of the new learning in Italy. It is probable that, very early in his Cambridge course, Fisher had heard of the great library which duke Humphrey had bequeathed to Oxford. He must also certainly, we should imagine, have heard how bishop Gray's valuable collection had been left to Balliol College. But the interest that a few isolated occurrences like these might awaken would soon be merged in a far deeper curiosity, as the intense and almost servile admiration with which Italian scholarship now began to be regarded in England plainly indicated, that it would be impossible much longer to ignore additions to learning and literature compared with which the New Aristotle seemed insignificant. Those few of our countrymen who, in the earlier part of the century, had been found among the hearers of Guarino, were now represented by a long array of names which will shortly claim more lengthened notice at our hands. Italy herself was fully sustaining the reputation she had acquired. Guarino, Valla, and Bruni, it is true, had passed away. Argyropulos, if still living, was in extreme old age; but his chair at Florence was ably filled by PART II. Chalcondyles, an illustrious Athenian,-the teacher of Grocyn CHAP. V. and Linacre. His laborious zeal had just given to the world Demetrius les. d. 1511. that great glory of early typography, the Florence Homer Chalcondyof 1488',—a volume whose antique splendour recalls to us the b. 1424. change, so ably touched by a living poetess, that had come His edition to pass since the days of Petrarch,— 'No more, as once in sunny Avignon, The poet-scholar spreads the Homeric page, Stirr'd by the warmth of old Ionian days.' of Homer. Politianus. b. d. 1494. lanea. Gaza. Trapezun Politian, the rival of Chalcondyles, had been appointed in Angelus 1483 to the chair of both Greek and Latin in the same city, : 1454. and the appearance of his Miscellanea, in 1489, was justly His Miscelregarded as marking an era in the progress of Latin criticism. Theodorus Gaza, the protégé of Bessarion, had died in. Theodorus 1479, after teaching with eminent success at both Rome and d. 1479. Ferrara: to him belongs the honour of having been the first to appreciate the varied excellences of Plutarch and the satiric genius of Aristophanes. His rival, Georgius Trapez- Georgius untius, whose morose vindictive nature contrasted strongly tius with the modest worth of Gaza, after forfeiting the favour of d. 1485. Nicholas v by a series of worthless and dishonest translations from the Greek Fathers, and that of Bessarion by a singularly venomous attack on Plato and his philosophy, had ended at Rome his long and unhappy career; leaving behind him however a manual of logic that, as an effort at an eclectic His Logic. system, attained to considerable popularity at the universities, and was introduced at Cambridge after the fall of Duns Scotus. At Messana, in the land which had once 1 Boerner, pp. 181-91; Hody, pp. 211-26. See the glowing description of the typographical beauties of the volume in Maittaire, Annal. Typograph. 1 183; and for facsimile of p. 1, plate 35 in Humphrey's Hist. of Printing. 2 Plutarchum Chæronensem, præter ceteros scriptores Græcos in deliciis habuit Gaza... Magnifice idem ille de Aristophane, comicorum prin cipe, existimabat, et omnibus quot- Ibid., 105-20; Hody, 102–35. b. 1396. PART II. Constar.tine d. 1500 (?). Barbarus. monymus. CHAP. V. reflected so much that was most splendid and imposing in the old Hellenic civilization, Constantine Lascaris was reviving with signal success the ancient admiration for the Hermolaus masterpieces of Greek literature'. Hermolaus Barbarus, at Venice, was rendering valuable service by the restoration of the text of different Greek authors, and his reputation as an elegant Latinist was second to that of none of his time. Nearer George Her- home, the Spartan, George Hermonymus, at Paris, was assisting, though in a somewhat mercenary spirit, and if the account of one of his pupils is to be trusted, with but small ability, the efforts of Reuchlin, Budæus, and Erasmus, to gain a knowledge of the Greek tongue. The purely technical treatment of that language had also been considerably developed. The little grammar by Chrysoloras, owing to its admirable terseness and simplicity, still held its ground, but in respect of scholarship had been altogether thrown into the shade by the appearance, in 1495, of the treatise by Greek gram- Theodorus Gaza,-a production which competent judges at Chalcondy- once recognised as superior to all other manuals of the kind, stantine Las- which Budæus praised as a masterpiece of the grammarian's art, and which Erasmus translated to his class at Cambridge and Richard Croke to his class at Leipsic. As a mean between this and the work of Chrysoloras, Chalcondyles had compiled his Grammatica Institutiones Græcæ; while Con mars of Theo dorus Gaza, caris. 1559. Prantl speaks of the treatise 1 Jerome of Ragusa in his Eulogia liam navigans Messanæ perpetuam sedem fixit, cæli salubri temperie, soli amœnitate, humanissimis civium moribus allectus, quodque frequens esset navium appulsus Messanam ex Oriente, unde suorum litteræ ultro citroque perferrentur facilius.' See Boerner, pp. 170-80. 2 Boerner, p. 195, n. 4; Geiger, Johann Reuchlin, p. 17. 3 Id tamen plerique vere notarunt, provectioribus et Græcarum litterarum gnaris magis illam inservire quam Græca discere incipientibus; et librum primum, brevitate nimia obscuriorem, quartum vero, qui est de structura sermonis et variis dicendi modis, et in quo Apollonium maxime secutus est Gaza, prioribus longe esse difficiliorem.' Boerner, pp. 130-1. 4 Hanc eo composuisse videtur PART II. stantine Lascaris had also put forth a treatise, less elaborate CHAP. V. than that of Theodorus, but, in the opinion of Erasmus, second to it alone in merit1. with which of the new learning was regarded at Cambridge. We can hardly be in error in supposing that the master Sentiments of Michaelhouse and his contemporaries at Cambridge were the progress frequently receiving intelligence respecting the new studies that were slowly fighting their way in the continental universities, but there is also good reason for believing that the intelligence created, in the first instance, much more alarm than emulation. They could not have failed at the same time to be aware, that those cities where the new learning most flourished were also becoming the centres of a yearly more faintly disguised infidelity and a yearly more openly avowed licentiousness'. The religious tone which the example of Nicholas v had imparted to the circle of scholars whom he patronised had passed away; and the idea of a reconciliation between Christian dogma and the doctrines of the Academy, similar to that which the schoolmen had attempted on the appearance of the New Aristotle, had, after a brilliant effort at Florence, been contemptuously abandoned. The scientific Progress of scepticism of the Averroists was now reinforced by the philosophic scepticism of the Platonists. Universal doubt and distrust of all authority appear to have been the prevailing sentiments of those who gave the tone to public thought; and concurrently, as is almost invariably the case, the public morality, General dewhich had already seemed at its worst, manifested a yet further nation of the decline. Machiavelli, no squeamish censor, openly declared Testimony of that Italy exceeded all other nations in irreligion and de- and Savonapravity. The young Savonarola, when he fled to the Dominican convent at Bologna, declared in his letter to his father, that he could no longer endure the 'enormous wickedness' of his countrymen,—the right of virtue everywhere despised, consilio ut auditorum suorum Græcas literas ab ipso discentium consuleret utilitati, ita videlicet comparatum, ut et plenior sit 'Epwrhpari Chrysoloræ et intellectu facilior institutionibus Gaza.' Ibid. p. 187. 1 Inter Græcos grammaticos nemo non primum locum tribuit Theodoro Gaza, proximum mea sententia Const. Lascaris sibi jure suo vendicat.' * Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Re- 3 Ibid., 341-65. See also Von Raumer, Geschichte der Pädagogik, 1 55-6. 4 Discorsi, 1 12 (quoted by Burckhardt, p. 342). scepticism in Italy. pravity Machiavelli rola. PART II. CHAP. V. of vice everywhere in honour'. To facts like these, that could not but awaken the alarm of the more earnest and conFeelings of scientious leaders of the university, must be added those porters of the apprehensions which aroused the hostility of a far more the sup traditional learning. numerous and prejudiced section, actuated only by a dull antipathy to all change. Both sections again were united by a common jealousy, as they became aware that the Humanists were waging a war of something like extermination against all those studies to which their own best years had been devoted, and wherein whatever academic reputation they possessed had been acquired. They must expect, if teachers of the new school once gained a footing in Cambridge, to have all those subtle distinctions, in which they had so long delighted, treated as the creations of a perverted ingenuity,— those latent meanings of Scripture which they had laboured to evolve, characterised as unauthorised tamperings with the plain and literal sense, their great oracle disparaged,—their own efforts at interpreting his thought described as vain and nugatory,—each of them, in fine, would be called upon to confess 'After a search thus painful and thus long 'Behold these men,' had been the cry of Petrarch at the very 1 The position of Savonarola with reference to the Humanists in Italy is worthy of note, as illustrating the entirely different spirit in which the revival of learning was there carried on from that which characterised the scholarship of Germany and England. When he became prior of St. Mark he kept entirely aloof from the court of Lorenzo; and the scheme of government that he drew up during his short supremacy as ruler of the destinies of Florence, was merely a somewhat servile transcript of the political theory of Aquinas. Of the Italian Humanists Burckhardt truly observes, Dass Menschen von einem so beschaffenen Innern nicht taugen, um eine neue Kirche zu bilden, ist unläugbar, aber die Geschichte des abendländischen Geistes wäre unvollständig ohne die Betrachtung jener Gährungszeit der Italiener, während sie sich den Blick auf andere Nationen, die am Gedanken keinen Theil hatten, getrost ersparen darf.' Ibid. p. 443-4. |