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 abbe’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.

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.