an
LITERATURE.
of images, contributed to this event. Hence the clerey were more solicitous to please the people by the elegant and splendid execution of works of this nature: nor were their efforts unsuc- cessful.
Sepulchral architecture, io particular, was advanced to much perfection m the present period. The monuments were adorned with statues, and with figures in basso and alto re- lievo, and the public taste in this respect called forth the abilities of the sculptor and the statuary. It is to the honour of our country that the English artists were of equal reputation with those of other kingdoms, and were occasionally employed by foreign princes. Thomas Colyn, Thomas Holewell, and Thomas Poppehowe, were engaged to make the alabaster tomb of John the Fourth, Duke of Brittany. The work was executed by them in London, after which they carried it over, and erected it in the ca- thedral of Nantes. Of five artists who were appointed to construct the monument of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and to adorn it with images, four were natives of England. The images, besides a large one representing the earl, were thirty-two in number. In an age when almost eveiy person of rank and wealth had a monument erected to his memory, with his effigies upon it, either in &ee-stone, marble, or metal, it was impossible but that the zeal and emulation of the artists must have been excited, and some degree of improvement be hence com- municated to their arts.
At this period the pay of a labourer was three- pence per day ; a quarter of wheat was sold for five shillings to five shillings and sixpence ; a quarter of malt, four shillings ; clotbmg for a servant for a year, four shillmgs ; a quarter of oats, two shillings ; a flitch of bacon, one shilling and eightpence ; a yard of cloth for a shepherd, one shilling ; two gallons of ale, threepence.
The countess of Anjou paid for a copy of the Homilies of bishop Haiman, two hundred sheep, fire quarters of wheat, five quarters of barley, and five quarters of millet. Picolimini relates, that eighty golden crowns were demanded for a small part of the works of Plutarch, and sixteen golden crowns for a few tracts of Seneca.
The revival of Greek literature in Italy is dated from this time, when Europe could boast of fifty universities. Italy had above five hundred associations like our societies, called academies, for general or particular pursuits. Petrarch, Boccacio, and Cnrysoloras, was then dead ; but Poggio and Aretin still flourished with the elder Medicis, and Chalcocondvles, Pope Nicholas V. Pulci, and Boiardo soon followed in their illus- trious train. Long before the fall of Constanti- nople,* the love of classical literature had been gradually reviving ; — ^that event increa.sed it, by compelling a great number of learned Greeks to seek shelter in Italy. But it could not be g^ti-
- Constantiiiople, the capital of the Oreek empin vna
bdcen by the Becond Mahomet, in May, USS. The beaatiKil Irene vluise (Ue was diamatised by St. JohnaoD, waiooe of the captives.
fied, till the manuscripts, which lav buried and neglected, were brought to light. The researches of literary men were chiefly directed to this point ; every part of Europe and Greece was ransacked; and, the glorious end considered, there was some- thing sublime in this humble industry, which often recovered a lost author of antiquity, and gave one more classic to the world. This occu- pation was caried oq with enthusiasm, and a kind of mania possessed many who 'exhausted their fortunes in distant voyages and profuse prices. The acquisition of a province would not have given so much satisfaction as the discovery of an author little known, or not known at all. Some of the half-witted, who joined in this great hunt, were often thrown out, and some paid high for manuscripts not authentic. In reading the cor- respondence of the learned Italians of these times, their adventures of manuscript hunting are very amusing : and their raptures, their congratula- tions, or at times their condolence, and even their censures, are all immoderate. It is curious to obser\-e that in these vast importations into Italy of manuscripts from Asia, John Aurispas, who brought many hundreds of Greek manuscripts, laments that he had chosen more profane than sacred writers ; which circumstance was owing to the Greeks, who would not so easily part with theological works, but they did not highly value profane writeis !
These manuscripts were discovered in the ob- scurest recesses of monasteries ; they were not always imprisoned in libraries, but rotting in dark unfrequented comers with nibbish. It required not less ingenuity to find out places where to grope in, than to understand the value of the acquisition. It sometimes happened that mann- scripts were discovered in the last agonies of existence. Papirius Masson found, in the house of a bookbinder at Lyons, the works of Agobart ; the binder was on the point of using the manu- scripts to line the covers of his books. A page of the second decade of Livy it is said was found by a man of letters in the parehment of his battle- dore, while he was amusinghimself in the country. He hastened to the maker of the battledore — but arrived too late ! The man had finished the last page of Livy — about a week before. The original manuscript of Justinian's code was discovered by the Pisans, accidentally, when they took a city in Calabria ; that vast code of laws had been in a manner unknown from the time of that emperor. This curious book was brought to Pisa ; and when Pisa was taken by the Florentines, was transfer- red to Florence, where it is still preserved. The most valuable copy of Tacitus, oi whom so much is wanting, was discovered in a monastery of Westphalia. It is a curious circumstaiice in literary history, that we should owe Tacitus to this single copy ; for the Roman emperor of that name bad copies of the works of his illustrious ancestor placed in all the libraries of the empire, and every year had ten copies transcribed ; but the Roman libraries seem to have been all des- troyed, and the imperial protection availed no- thing against the teeth of time.
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