The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; and the Latin literature partook of the superiority.The Roman poets have decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion of love.There is no subject which they have treated with so much success.Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Horace, and Propertius, in spite of all their faults, must be allowed to rank high in this department of the art.To these I would add my favourite Plautus; who, though he took his plots from Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting female characters at Rome.
Still many evils remained: and, in the decline of the great empire, all that was pernicious in its domestic institutions appeared more strongly.Under the influence of governments at once dependent and tyrannical, which purchased, by cringing to their enemies, the power of trampling on their subjects, the Romans sunk into the lowest state of effeminacy and debasement.
Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious and unrepining degradation, formed the national character.Such a character is totally incompatible with the stronger passions.Love, in particular, which, in the modern sense of the word, implies protection and devotion on the one side, confidence on the other, respect and fidelity on both, could not exist among the sluggish and heartless slaves who cringed around the thrones of Honorius and Augustulus.At this period the great renovation commenced.
The warriors of the north, destitute as they were of knowledge and humanity, brought with them, from their forests and marshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness and knowledge a curse,--energy--independence--the dread of shame--the contempt of danger.It would be most interesting to examine the manner in which the admixture of the savage conquerors and the effeminate slaves, after many generations of darkness and agitation, produced the modern European character;--to trace back, from the first conflict to the final amalgamation, the operation of that mysterious alchemy which, from hostile and worthless elements, has extracted the pure gold of human nature--to analyse the mass, and to determine the proportion in which the ingredients are mingled.But I will confine myself to the subject to which I have more particularly referred.The nature of the passion of love had undergone a complete change.It still retained, indeed, the fanciful and voluptuous character which it had possessed among the southern nations of antiquity.But it was tinged with the superstitious veneration with which the northern warriors had been accustomed to regard women.Devotion and war had imparted to it their most solemn and animating feelings.It was sanctified by the blessings of the Church, and decorated with the wreaths of the tournament.Venus, as in the ancient fable, was again rising above the dark and tempestuous waves which had so long covered her beauty.But she rose not now, as of old, in exposed and luxurious loveliness.She still wore the cestus of her ancient witchcraft; but the diadem of Juno was on her brow, and the aegis of Pallas in her hand.Love might, in fact, be called a new passion; and it is not astonishing that the first poet of eminence who wholly devoted his genius to this theme should have excited an extraordinary sensation.He may be compared to an adventurer who accidentally lands in a rich and unknown island; and who, though he may only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquires possession of its treasures, and gives it his name.The claim of Petrarch was indeed somewhat like that of Amerigo Vespucci to the continent which should have derived its appellation from Columbus.The Provencal poets were unquestionably the masters of the Florentine.But they wrote in an age which could not appreciate their merits; and their imitator lived at the very period when composition in the vernacular language began to attract general attention.Petrarch was in literature what a Valentine is in love.The public preferred him, not because his merits were of a transcendent order, but because he was the first person whom they saw after they awoke from their long sleep.
Nor did Petrarch gain less by comparison with his immediate successors than with those who had preceded him.Till more than a century after his death Italy produced no poet who could be compared to him.This decay of genius is doubtless to be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influence which his own works had exercised upon the literature of his country.Yet it has conduced much to his fame.Nothing is more favourable to the reputation of a writer than to be succeeded by a race inferior to himself; and it is an advantage, from obvious causes, much more frequently enjoyed by those who corrupt the national taste than by those who improve it.
Another cause has co-operated with those which I have mentioned to spread the renown of Petrarch.I mean the interest which is inspired by the events of his life--an interest which must have been strongly felt by his contemporaries, since, after an interval of five hundred years, no critic can be wholly exempt from its influence.Among the great men to whom we owe the resuscitation of science he deserves the foremost place; and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constitutes his most just and splendid title to the gratitude of posterity.He was the votary of literature.He loved it with a perfect love.He worshipped it with an almost fanatical devotion.He was the missionary, who proclaimed its discoveries to distant countries--the pilgrim, who travelled far and wide to collect its reliques--the hermit, who retired to seclusion to meditate on its beauties--the champion, who fought its battles--the conqueror, who, in more than a metaphorical sense, led barbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the Capitol the laurel which his magnificent victory had earned.