The Life of Hugo Grotius: With Brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the NetherlandsButler, Charles
History
The Life of Hugo Grotius: With Brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands
Butler, Charles
Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645; Netherlands -- History
From the skirts of Germany and France two new kingdoms arose: the
kingdom of Lorraine, which comprised the countries between the Rhine,
the Meuse, and the Scheld; or the modern Lorraine, the province of
Alsace, the Palatinate, Treves, Cologne, Juliers, Liêge and the
Netherlands;--and the kingdom of Burgundy: This was divided into the
Cis-juranan, or the part of it on the east, and the Trans-juranan, or
the part of it on the west of Mount Jura. The former comprised Provençe,
Dauphiné, the Lyonese, Franche-comté, Bresse, Bugey, and a part of
Savoy; the latter comprised the countries between Mount Jura and the
Pennine Alps, or the part of Switzerland between the Reus, the Valais,
and the rest of Savoy.
Such was the geographical state of Germany at the close of the
Carlovingian Dynasty.
I. 2.
_State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne_.
So far as Literature depends upon the favour of the monarch, no æra in
history promised more than the reign of Charlemagne. His education had
been neglected; but he had real taste for learning and the arts, was
sensible of their beneficial influence both upon the public and the
private welfare of a people; and possessed the amplest means of
encouraging and diffusing them; his wisdom would suggest to him the
properest means of doing it, and the energy of his mind would excite
him to constant exertions.
[Sidenote: I. 2. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.]
Nothing that could be effected by a prince thus gifted and disposed, was
left untried by Charlemagne. He drew to him the celebrated Alcuin, Peter
of Pisa, Paul Warnefrid, and many other distinguished literary
characters: he heaped favours upon them; and a marked distinction was
always shewn them at his court. He formed them into a literary society,
which had frequent meetings. Their conversation was literary, he often
bore a part in it; and, what was at least equally gratifying, he always
listened with a polite and flattering attention while others spoke. To
establish perfect equality among them, the monarch, and, after his
example, the other members of this society, dropt their own and adopted
other names. Angelbert was called Homer, from his partiality to that
poet; Riculphus, archbishop of Mentz, chose the name of Damétas, from an
eclogue of Virgil: another member took that of Candidus; Eginhard, the
Emperor's biographer, was called Calliopus, from the Muse Calliope;
Alcuin received, from his country, the name of Albinus; the archbishop
Theodulfe was called Pindar; the abbot Adelard was called Augustine;
Charlemagne, as the man of God's own heart, was called David.
[Sidenote: 800-911]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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