Well it were if rewards and mercy alone could regulate the commonwealth; but since punishments are sometimes necessary, let them at least be rendered terrible, by being executed but seldom; and let justice lift her sword rather to terrify than revenge. HENRY HALLAM Introduction to the Literature of Europe The full volume of this work, "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries," was published about 1837, and is a vast accumulation of facts, but is lacking in organic unity, in vigour, and vitality. Hallam's spelling of proper names has been followed throughout this epitome. (Henry Hallam, biography; see Vol. XI, p. 255.) _I.--Before the Fifteenth Century_ The establishment of the barbarian nations on the ruins of the Roman Empire in the West was followed by an almost universal loss of classical learning. The last of the ancients, and one who forms a link with the Middle Ages, is Boëthius, whose "Consolation of Philosophy" mingles a Christian sanctity with the lessons of Greek and Roman sages. But after his death, in 524, the downfall of learning and eloquence was inconceivably rapid, and a state of general ignorance, except here and there within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, lasted for five centuries. The British islands led the way in the slow restoration of knowledge. The Irish monasteries, in the seventh century, were the first to send out men of comparative eminence, and the Venerable Bede, in the eighth century, was probably superior to any other man whom the world at that time possessed. Then came the days when Charlemagne laid in his vast dominions the foundations of learning. In the tenth century, when England and Italy alike were in the most deplorable darkness, France enjoyed an age of illumination, and a generation or two later we find many learned and virtuous churchmen in Germany. But it is not until the twelfth century that we enter on a new epoch in European literary history, when universities were founded, modern languages were cultivated, the study of Roman law was systematically taken up, and a return was made to a purer Latinity. Next, we observe the rise of the scholastic theology and philosophy, with their strenuous attempt at an alliance between faith and reason. The dry and technical style of these enquiries, their minute subdivisions of questions, and their imposing parade of accuracy, served indeed to stimulate subtlety of mind, but also hindered the revival of polite literature and the free expansion of the intellect. Dante and Petrarch are the morning stars of the modern age. They lie outside our period, and we must pass them over with a word. It is sufficient to notice that, largely by their influence, we find, in the year 1400, a national literature existing in no less than seven European languages--three in the Spanish peninsula, the French, the Italian, the German, and the English. _II.--The Fifteenth Century_