Arts under the standing of M.A.; or Students in Civil Law or Medicine of not less than four or more than seven years' standing, not being graduates in either faculty, but having kept the Exercises necessary for the degree of Bachelor of Law or Medicine. The subject for the Essay proposed by the ViceChancellor for the year 1861 was :— "On the History of Greek Literature in England, from the Earliest Times, to the End of the Reign of James the First." Stories of ancient Greek learning in England: 1. Greek testi- monies; 2. Secondary, or Roman traditions; 3. Monastic tales. Traces in the early period of modern history-St Alban, Gildas, The Anglo-Saxon School. Austin, Wilfrid, Theodore and Adrian -their success. Benedict Biscop-Libraries. Aldhelm, Alcuin, Bede -his works-Translation of St John-his death. Deep rooting and consequent vitality of learning. Alfred-his schools-education of the laity. Temporary extinction of literature at the Conquest-the age of Glosses. Erigena-his treatise on the Verb. The Norman school. Spurious records of Croyland Abbey. Lan- franc and Anselm-religious controversies. Abandonment of Letters PAGE The Schoolmen. Rise of the dogmatic theology. Boethius-the Quadrivium and Trivium. Translations of Aristotle-the Arabians. Essential similarity between Realists and Nominalists. Futility of The pilgrims of learning and the early grammarians. Athelard- Revival of Greek studies in Italy. Richard Aungerville-Sir John The Restoration of Learning. English scholars in Italy-pupils of Guarini. Oxford-Cornelius Vitelli. Grocyn-Selling-Linacre- Latimer-Lilye-More. Erasmus visits England-his Scotch pupils. Linacre tutor to Prince Arthur. Court of Henry VIII. Colet-Pace -Tunstal. Spirit of the Founders of Greek Study-reverence for antiquity-substitution of Grammar for Logic. Disputes at Oxford- the Trojans. Erasmus at Cambridge-Fisher-Croke-labours of Erasmus. Lupset-family of More-Vives-Calpurnius-attempted reform of Greek pronunciation. Linacre's Galen-Greek types in England. Education of youth-William of Wykeham-Winchester- Eton-St Paul's-other public schools. Sir Henry Savile the Eton Greek pronunciation-Roger Bacon's hints. Cheke and Smith at Cambridge-their lectures, travels, controversy with Gardiner, and victory. Progress of Greek study-appreciation of classical authors. Attempt to reform English spelling-its failure. Translations of the Bible-Tyndale-Coverdale-the Authorized Version-John Boys. Chapman's Homer. General spread of Greek learning, and consequent conclusion of its History, properly so called. Casaubon. 65 GREEK LITERATURE IN ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. "The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the Suns." Tennyson. THE history of Greek Literature in England is from first to last a conflict, a tale of oppression and resistance. It comprises a period of between nine and ten centuries, dating from the establishment of a school in Kent, A.D. 670, only 74 years after the second introduction of Christianity by the mission of Austin. Its proper close is the end of the sixteenth century; when it ceased to be the acquirement of men, and became part of the education of youth. It exhibits a checkered story of ardent pursuit alternating with dreary neglect; every long continued depression exciting reaction in its favour, while again and again its course was hindered and reversed by external violence and persecution. At last it triumphed over opposition; established itself as the object of intellectual ambition, and justified its high claims by opening wide the portals of knowledge, by destroying the fences of prejudice and superstition, and guiding the minds of men to the path of advancement and discovery along which they have to this day been pressing. Since that era no decline of knowledge has thrown us back upon the traces of the past; and we have now ceased even to fear a return of the Ages of Ignorance. Their failures were the price paid in the combat; we reap the harvest of their labours: they left us no apparent fruits, even of the most gigantic efforts, because they were engaged in a war of extermination, where success consigns to oblivion both the cause of the battle and the manner of the victory. What we have gained from the struggle is ours for ever, whether we profit by it or no; and no assault upon the foundations of our knowledge can fail to find its appropriate refutation in the armoury of ten centuries of conflict. Even if the foundations of the great deep of Barbarism were broken up once more, and waves of Asiatic or African savages could ruin the monuments of our society, we might expect them to receive from their captives the necessary impulse towards civilization long before the memory of the past had faded from the world. The respective benefits derived from Athens and from Rome by mankind have often been discussed. We are now well accustomed to hear that from the first came the spirit of inquiry and progress; from the second that of obedience to law and respect for authority. But of these the former alone is to be ascribed to literature; the Greeks influence us by their writings, the Romans by their deeds. The real contest between them which should hold the sceptre of antiquity, only commenced when the elder was politically extinct. The first phase of it was an easy complete victory for the literature of the subject race. Roman poetry was frozen in the bud; Roman philosophy never saw the light of day. Every development of thought in Italy found itself anticipated by a vigorous, venerable, and almost perfected predecessor. The good qualities of the Roman were shewn in the ready appreciation he gave to the Greek masterpieces. His fault, or misfortune, was and |
