"The emperor, having heard this strange narrative, replied pleasantly, If at the time when you sought war, you could not find it, a season is now coming in which you will find wars enough. I therefore give you this advice: not to place yourself either in the rear of the army, or in the front, but to keep among those who support the centre; for I have long had knowledge of the Turkish method in their wars." "f This was one of those counts, or barons, the petty tyrants of western Europe; men, who, when they were not engaged in general wars, (such as the ravaging of a neighbouring kingdom, the massacring of infidels, heretics, &c.) had no other method of filling up their leisure, than, through help of their vassals, by waging war upon one another. And here the humanity and wisdom of the church cannot enough be admired, when by her authority (which was then mighty) she endeavoured to shorten that scene of bloodshed, which she could not totally prohibit. The truce of God (a name given it purposely to render the measure more solemn) enjoined these ferocious beings, under the terrors of excommunication, not to fight from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, out of reverence to the mysteries accomplished on the other four days; the ascension on Thursday, the crucifixion on Friday, the descent to hell on Saturday, and the resurrection on Sunday." I hope a further observation will be pardoned, when I add, that the same humanity prevailed during the fourteenth century, and that the terrors of church power were then held forth with an intent equally laudable. A dreadful plague at that period desolated all Europe. The Germans, with no better reason than their own senseless superstition, imputed this calamity to the Jews, who then lived among them in great opulence and splendour. Many thousands of these unhappy people were inhumanly massacred, till the pope benevolently interfered, and prohibited by the severest bulls so mad and sanguinary a proceeding.h I could not omit two such salutary exertions of church power, as they both occur within the period of this inquiry. I might add a third, I mean the opposing and endeavouring to check that absurdest of all practices, the trial by battle, which Spelman expressly tells us that the church in all ages condemned. It must be confessed, that the fact just related concerning the unmannered count, at the court of Constantinople, is rather under Francis the First of France, and lord Herbert of Cherbury under James and Charles the First of England. f See Anna Comnena's History of her Father, fol. Gr. Lat. p. 300. See any of the church histories of the time, in particular an ingenious French book, entitled Histoire Ecclesiastique, in two volumes, 12mo. digested into annals, and having the several years marked in the Truculentum morem in omni ævo acriter insectarunt theologi, &c. See before, p. 455. against the order of chronology, for it happened during the first crusades. It serves however to shew the manners of the Latin, or Western laity, in the beginning of that holy war. They did not, in a succession of years, grow better, but worse. It was a century after, that another crusade, in their march against infidels, sacked this very city, deposed the then emperor, and committed devastations which no one would have committed, but the most ignorant as well as cruel barbarians. If we descend not at present to particulars, it is because we have already quoted so largely from Nicetas in a former chapter.* But a question here occurs, easier to propose than to answer. "To what are we to attribute this character of ferocity, which seems to have then prevailed through the laity of Europe?" Shall we say, it was climate, and the nature of the country? These, we must confess, have in some instances great influence. The Indians, seen a few years since by Mr. Byron in the southern parts of South America, were brutal and savage to an enormous excess. One of them, for a trivial offence, murdered his own child, (an infant,) by dashing it against the rocks. The Cyclopes, as described by Homer, were much of the same sort; each of them gave law to his own family, without regard for one another; and besides this, they were atheists and man-eaters. May we not suppose, that a stormy sea, together with a frozen, barren, and inhospitable shore, might work on the imagination of these Indians, so as, by banishing all pleasing and benign ideas, to fill them with habitual gloom, and a propensity to be cruel? or might not the tremendous scenes of Etna have had a like effect upon the Cyclopes, who lived amid smoke, thunderings, eruptions of fire, and earthquakes? If we may believe Fazelius, who wrote upon Sicily about two hundred years ago, the inhabitants near Etna were in his time a similar race.1 If therefore these limited regions had such an effect upon their natives, may not a similar effect be presumed from the vast regions of the north? May not its cold, barren, uncomfortable climate have made its numerous tribes equally rude and savage? If this be not enough, we may add another cause, I mean their profound ignorance. Nothing mends the mind more than culture, to which these emigrants had no desire, either from example or education, to lend a patient ear. We may add a further cause still, which is, that, when they had acquired countries better than their own, they settled under the same military form through which they had conquered; and were, in fact, when settled, a sort of army after a campaign, quartered upon the wretched remains of the ancient inhabitants, See part iii. chap. 5, and Abulpharagius, p. 282, who describes their indiscriminate cruelty in a manner much resembling that of their brother crusaders at Bezieres, and that nearly about the same time. See before, p. 502. 1 See Fazelius de Rebus seculis, l. ii. c. 4. by whom they were attended under the different names of serfs, vassals, villains, &c. It was not likely the ferocity of these conquerors should abate with regard to their vassals, whom, as strangers, they were more likely to suspect than to love. It was not likely it should abate with regard to one another, when the neighbourhood of their castles, and the contiguity of their territories, must have given occasions (as we learn from history) for endless altercation. But this we leave to the learned in feudal tenures. We shall add to the preceding remarks one more, somewhat singular, and yet perfectly different; which is, that though the darkness in Western Europe, during the period here mentioned, was (in scripture language) a darkness that might be felt, yet is it surprising that, during a period so obscure, many admirable inventions found their way into the world; I mean such as clocks, telescopes, paper, gunpowder, the mariner's needle, printing, and a number here omitted." It is surprising, too, if we consider the importance of these arts, and their extensive utility, that it should be either unknown, or at least doubtful, by whom they were invented. A lively fancy might almost imagine, that every art, as it was wanted, had suddenly started forth, addressing those that sought it, as Æneas did his companions: And yet, fancy apart, of this we may be assured, that though the particular inventors may unfortunately be forgotten, the inventions themselves are clearly referable to man; to that subtle and active principle, human wit, or ingenuity. Let me then submit the following query: If the human mind be as truly of divine origin as every other part of the universe, and if every other part of the universe bear testimony to its Author; do not the inventions above mentioned give us reason to assert, that God, in the operations of man, never leaves himself without a witness? CHAPTER XV. OPINIONS ON PAST AGES AND THE PRESENT-CONCLUSION ARISING FROM THE DISCUSSION OF THESE OPINIONS-CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE. AND now having done with the middle age, we venture to say a word upon the present. m See two ingenious writers on this sub- ribus; and Pancirollus, De Rebus perditis ject, Polydore Virgil, De Rerum Invento- et inventis. Every past age has in its turn been a present age. This, indeed, is obvious, but this is not all; for every past age, when present, has been the object of abuse. Men have been represented by their contemporaries not only as bad, but degenerate; as inferior to their predecessors both in morals and bodily powers. This is an opinion so generally received, that Virgil, (in conformity to it,) when he would express former times, calls them simply better, as if the term better implied former of course. Hic genus antiquum Teucri, pulcherrima proles, Æn. vi. 648. The same opinion is ascribed by Homer to old Nestor, when that venerable chief speaks of those heroes whom he had known in his youth. He relates some of their names-Perithous, Dryas, Cæneus, Theseus; and some also of their exploits-as how they had extirpated the savage Centaurs. He then subjoins, Κείνοισι δ ̓ ἂν οὔτις, Τῶν οἱ νῦν βροτοῖ εἰσιν ἐπιχθόνιοι, μαχέοιτο. "With these no.one Of earthly race, as men are now, could fight.” 'IA. A. 271. As these heroes were supposed to exceed in strength those of the Trojan war, so were the heroes of that period to exceed those that came after. Hence, from the time of the Trojan war to that of Homer, we learn that human strength was decreased by a complete half. Thus the same Homer: Ὁ δὲ χερμάδιον λάβε χειρὶ "Then grasp'd Tydides in his hand a stone, Hurl'd it." 'IA. E. 302. Virgil goes further, and tells us, that not twelve men of his time (and those, too, chosen ones) could even carry the stone which Turnus flung. Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent, Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus: Æn. xii. 899. Thus human strength, which in Homer's time was lessened to half, in Virgil's time was lessened to a twelfth. If strength and bulk (as commonly happens) be proportioned, what pigmies in stature must the men of Virgil's time have been, when their strength, as he informs us, was so far diminished? A man only eight times as strong, (and not, according to the poet, twelve times,) must, at least, have been between five and six feet higher than they were. But we all know the privilege claimed by poets and painters. It is in virtue of this privilege that Horace, when he mentions the moral degeneracies of his contemporaries, asserts, that "their fathers were worse than their grandfathers; that they were worse than their fathers; and that their children would be worse than they were;" describing no fewer, after the grandfather, than three successions of degeneracy. Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Od. 1. iii. 6. We need only ask, were this a fact, what would the Romans have been, had they degenerated in this proportion for five or six generations more? Yet Juvenal, subsequent to all this, supposes a similar progression; a progression in vice and infamy, which was not complete till his own times. Then truly, we learn, it could go no further. Nil erit ulterius, nostris quod moribus addat Posteritas, &c. Omne in præcipiti vitium stetit, &c. Sat. i. 147, &c. But even Juvenal, it seems, was mistaken, bad as we must allow his times to have been. Several centuries after, without regard to Juvenal, the same doctrine was inculcated with greater zeal than ever. When the western empire began to decline, and Europe and Africa were ravaged by barbarians, the calamities then happening (and formidable they were) naturally led men, who felt them, to esteem their own age the worst. The enemies of Christianity (for Paganism was not then extinct) absurdly turned these calamities to the discredit of the Christian religion, and said the times were so unhappy, because the gods were dishonoured, and the ancient worship neglected. Orosius, a Christian, did not deny the melancholy facts, but, to obviate an objection so dishonourable to the true religion, he endeavours to prove from historians, both sacred and profane, that calamities of every sort had existed in every age, as many and as great as those that existed then. If Orosius has reasoned right, (and his work is an elaborate one,) it follows that the lamentations made then, and made ever since, are no more than natural declamations incidental to man; declamations naturally arising, let him live at any period, from the superior efficacy of present events upon present sensations. There is a praise belonging to the past congenial with this censure; a praise formed from negatives, and best illustrated by examples. Thus a declaimer might assert, (supposing he had a wish, by exalting the eleventh century, to debase the present,) that |