The Life of Hugo Grotius. Charles Butler

in forming the rough and almost untuneable voices of their French and German pupils to the softness of the Gregorian song. They appear to have succeeded better with the Germans than the French. By these, their lessons were so soon and so completely forgotten, after the decease of Charlemagne, that Lewis the Debonnaire, his son, was obliged to request Pope Gregory IV. to send him from Rome, a new supply of singers to instruct the people.

      But music continued to prosper in Germany; it abounded in songs. Some were amatory, (münnelier); some were satirical, (cantica in malitiam); some heroic, (cantica in honorem,); some diabolical, (cantica diabolica.) These consisted of incantations, and of narratives of the feats of evil spirits.

      800–911.

      Vernacular poetry, and vernacular composition, of every kind, were almost wholly left to the vulgar; all, who aimed at literary eminence, wrote in the Latin language. Some discerning spirits became sensible that the German language was susceptible of great improvement, and excited their countrymen to its cultivation. Among these was Otfroid; he translated the Gospel into German verse. He describes, in strong terms, the difficulties which he had to encounter: "The barbarousness of the German language is," he says, "so great, and its sounds are so incoherent and strange, that it is very difficult to subject them to the rules of grammar, to represent them by syllables, or to find in the alphabet letters which correspond to them." It is however remarkable, that, although he complains of the dissonance of the German language, he never accuses it of poverty.

      While France and Germany continued subject to the same monarch, German was the language of the court, and generally used in every class of society. When the treaty of Verdun divided the territories of Charlemagne, the Romande, or Romançe language, a corruption of the Latin, superseded the German in every part of France: it was insensibly refined into the modern French, but the German continued to be the only language spoken in Germany.

      Great progress was made in architecture: the churches and palaces constructed by the direction of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Basilisc at Germani, the church of St. Recquier at Ponthieu, and many other monuments of great architectural skill and expense, belong to the age of Charlemagne, and bear ample testimony to the well-directed exertions of the monarch, and of some of his descendants, and to their wise and splendid magnificence.

I. 3.

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      Decline of Literature under the Descendants of Charlemagne.

      800–911

      I. 3. Decline of Literature under the Descendants of Charlemagne.

      That literature began to decline immediately after the decease of Charlemagne, in every part of his extensive dominions, and that its decline was principally owing to the wars among his descendants, which devastated every portion of his empire, seems to be universally acknowledged; yet there are strong grounds for contending that it was not so great as generally represented. Abbé le Beuf,^[003] in an excellent dissertation on the state of the sciences in the Gauls during the period which elapsed between the death of Charlemagne and the reign of Robert, king of France, attempts to prove the contrary; and the preliminary discourses of the authors of "l'Histoire Literaire de la France," on the state of learning during the ninth and tenth centuries, strongly confirm the abbé's representations. It is surprising how many works were written during these dark, and, as they are too harshly called, ignorant ages. It is more to be wondered, that while so much was written, so little was written well. The classical works of antiquity were not unknown in those times; the Latin Vulgate translation of the Old and New Testament was daily read by the clergy, and heard by the people. Now, although the language of the Vulgate be not classical, it is not destitute of elegance, and it possesses throughout the exquisite charms of clearness and simplicity. It is surprising that these circumstances did not lead the writers to a better style. They had no such effect; the general style of the time was hard, inflated and obscure. It should, however, be observed, that Simonde de Sismondi, as he is translated by Mr. Roscoe, justly observes, that "during the reign of Charlemagne, and during the four centuries which immediately preceded it, there appeared, both in France and Italy, some judicious historians, whose style possesses considerable vivacity, and who gave animated pictures of their times; some subtle philosophers, who astonished their contemporaries, rather by the fineness of their speculations than by the justness of their reasoning; some learned theologians, and some poets. The names of Paul Warnefrid, of Alcuin, of Luitprand, and Eginhard, are even yet universally respected. They all, however, wrote in Latin. They had all of them, by the strength of their intellect, and the happy circumstances in which they were placed, learned to appreciate the beauty of the models which antiquity had left them. They breathed the spirit of a former age, as they had adopted its language: we do not find them representatives of their contemporaries: it is impossible to recognize in their style the times in which they lived; it only betrays the relative industry and felicity with which they imitated the language and thoughts of a former age. They were the last monuments of civilized antiquity, the last of a noble race, which, after a long period of degeneracy, became extinct in them."

II. 1.

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      Boundaries and Devolution of the German Empire during the Saxon Dynasty.

      911–1024.

      We have mentioned that, on the death of Lewis, the son of Arnhold, the empire descended to Henry I. in the right of his mother. From him, it devolved through Otho, surnamed the Great, Otho II., and Otho III., to Henry II. the last emperor of the Saxon line.

      In this period of the German history, the attention of the reader is particularly directed to two circumstances,-the principal states, of which Germany was composed, the cradles, as they may be called, of the present electorates, and the erection of the principal cities and monasteries in Germany.