Tigris to the monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked for medals and manuscripts." A new blood circulated in the veins of Christian nations, and the new inventions which arose created murmurs of revolutions, and foretokened the dawn of a public opinion. The silent subterranean working of the masses engendered the marvelous changes which soon transpired over the whole brightened face of humanity. Whether our attention is fixed on the political or religious history, on the literary progress, the jurisprudence, or the artistic excellence of the age, no century is loftier, richer, or more instructive for modern society than the sixteenth, none more exuberant with life and ennobling advancement. All that has since been perfected in the realm of literature then received much of its primary form and spirit. From the auspicious hour when the Nibelungen became the Iliad of the North, Germany and France were perpetually progressive. Successive developments of life suffered decay, but no vital principle can ever be annihilated; superannuated forms perish inevitably, but in order only to reproduce a higher type of perpetuated excellence. When inferior nations and tribes disappear after having done the work of precursors, a more useful race is certain immediately to appear, and transmit the torch of divine effulgence which, in the sublime career appointed to be run, had dropped, by superseded hands. There is no death except into a higher life. The last language formed in Europe was the aggregated wealth of all linguistic treasures before accumulated, and is destined eventually to control, if not to absorb every other. All mediævalism blossomed for the West, and the English vernacular was its maturest fruit.