els have
endeavored to use falsely against _even Rome_, to wit: the opposition of
the churchmen of those times to _classical learning_. This was
considered dangerous to true piety, and calculated to corrupt the pure
theology of the gospel, because the orators of Greece and Rome were
regarded as blind guides of erring reason and seducers to the paths of
sin and destruction. Virgil and Horace were looked upon merely as the
advocates of a profane and idolatrous mythology, and Cicero was regarded
as a vain declaimer, impiously elated with the talent of Pagan
eloquence, but the infidel charge that the church has always been in the
way of scientific education, _expressed in unqualified terms_, is simply
false in fact. That there was a time when she was opposed to classical
learning is a well attested fact, but she, at the same time, taught and
operated in universities and monasteries, as stated above. The first
dawnings of modern literature are seen in connection with the
cultivation of the language of Provence and the productions of the
Troubadours. The first great teacher in this connection was William,
Count of Poiton, a nobleman, distinguished by his powers in the
crusades. Many of the men of note who were in the crusades, were of his
character. Their writings upon the topics of war, gallantry, satire and
history, first roused Europe from her ignorance and lethargy, first
taught her to think and reflect and judge upon subjects of imagination.
The Troubadours sustained the middle place between Gothic ignorance and
Italian excellence, and literature is indebted to them for rearing the
first fruits of European genius and inspiring the moderns with the love
of poetry. Their influence and language spread over all the countries of
Europe. Their bards were in the courts of kings and the castles of
barons. The commencement of the crusades and the beginning of the
fifteenth century, mark the limits of their fame. Their romance had its
rise in the manners of chivalry, and fell into disrepute when chivalry
declined. In the fourteenth century men of intellectual genius in Italy
resolved to cultivate their own native language and to combine with its
grandeur the charms of imagination and the acquirements of classical
learning. The poetry of the Tuscan school, the works of Dante, Ariosto,
Boccio and Petrarch, have never yet been excelled by four succeeding
centuries of genius and literature. The way was open for the revival of
classical