nfinitely more minute. We should
find poetry and literature, those beautiful and delightful emanations of
the mind, the seeds of which have never been choked by all the follies
and miseries of humanity, take birth in the very heart of barbarism, and
charm the barbarians themselves by a new species of enjoyment. We should
find the source and true character of that poetical, warlike, and
religious enthusiasm which created chivalry and the crusades. We should
probably discover, in the wandering lives of the knights and crusaders,
the reflected influence of the roving habits of the German hunters, of
that propensity to remove, and that superabundance of population, which
ever exist where social order is not sufficiently well regulated for man
to feel satisfied with his condition and locality; and before laborious
industry has taught him to compel the earth to supply him with certain
and abundant subsistence. Perhaps, also, that principle of honour which
inviolably attached the German barbarians to a leader of their own
choice, that individual liberty of which it was the fruit, and which
gives man such an elevated idea of his own individual importance; that
empire of the imagination which obtains such control over all young
nations, and induces them to attempt the first steps beyond physical
wants and purely material incitements, might furnish us with the causes
of the elevation, enthusiasm, and devotion which, sometimes detaching
the nobles of the Middle Ages from their habitual rudeness, inspired
them with the noble sentiments and virtues that even in the present day
command our admiration. We should then feel little surprised at seeing
barbarity and heroism united, so much energy combined with so much
weakness, and the natural coarseness of man in a savage state blended
with the most sublime aspirations of moral refinement.

It was reserved for the latter half of the fifteenth century to witness
the birth of events destined to introduce new manners and a fresh order
of politics into Europe, and to lead the world towards the direction it
follows at present. Italy, we may say, discovered the civilization of
the Greeks; the letters, arts, and ideas of that brilliant antiquity
inspired universal enthusiasm. The long quarrels of the Italian
Republics, after having forced men to display their utmost energy, made
them also feel the necessity of a period of repose ennobled and charmed
by the occupations of the mind. The study of c