[941] Biog. Univ. art. Sigonio.
[942] Lipsii Opera Critica. His style is abusive, as usual in this age. Quis autem ille suaviludius qui latere se posse censuit sub illâ personâ? Male mehercule de seculo nostra judicavit. Quid enim tam dissimile ab illo auro, quam hoc plumbum? ne simia quidem Ciceronis esse potest, nedum ut ille.... Habes judicium meum, in quo si aliqua asperitas, ne mirere. Fatua enim hæc superbia tanto nomini se inserendi dignissima insectatione fuit.
Decline of taste and learning in Italy. 36. Several other names, especially from the Jesuit colleges, might, I doubt not, be added to the list of good Latin writers by any competent scholar, who should prosecute the research through public libraries by the aid of the biographical dictionaries. But more than enough may have been said for the general reader. The decline of classical literature in this sense, to which we have already alluded, was the theme of complaint towards the close of the century, and above all in Italy. Paulus Manutius had begun to lament it long before. But Latinus Latinius himself, one of the most learned scholars of that country, states positively in 1584, that the Italian universities were forced to send for their professors from Spain and France.[943] And this abandonment by Italy of her former literary glory, was far more striking in the next age, an age of science, but not of polite literature. Ranke supposes that the attention of Italy being more turned towards mathematics and natural history, the study of the ancient writers, which do not contribute greatly to these sciences, fell into decay. But this seems hardly an adequate cause, nor had the exact sciences made any striking progress in the period immediately under review. The rigorous orthodoxy of the church, which in some measure revived an old jealousy of heathen learning, must have contributed far more to the effect. Sixtus V. notoriously disliked all profane studies, and was even kept with difficulty from destroying the antiquities of Rome, several of which were actually demolished by this bigoted and barbarous zeal.[944] No other pope, I believe, has been guilty of what the Romans always deemed sacrilege. In such discouraging circumstances we could hardly wonder at what is reported, that Aldus Manutius, having been made professor of rhetoric at Rome, about 1589, could only get one or two hearers. But this, perhaps, does not rest on very good authority.[945] It is agreed that the Greek language was almost wholly neglected at the end of the century, and there was no one in Italy distinguished for a knowledge of it. Baronius must be reckoned a man of laborious erudition; yet he wrote his annals of ecclesiastical history of twelve centuries, without any acquaintance with that tongue.
[943] Tiraboschi, x. 387.
[944] Ranke, i. 476.
[945] Id. 482. Renouard, Imprimerie des Aides, iii. 197, doubts the truth of this story, which is said to come on the authority alone of Rossi, a writer who took the name of Erythræus, and has communicated a good deal of literary miscellaneous information, but not always such as deserves confidence.
Joseph Scaliger. 37. The two greatest scholars of the sixteenth century, being rather later than most of the rest, are yet unnamed; Joseph Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon. The former, son of Julius Cæsar Scaliger, and, in the estimation at least of some, his inferior in natural genius, though much above him in learning and judgment, was perhaps the most extraordinary master of general erudition that has ever lived. His industry was unremitting through a length of life; his memory, though he naturally complains of its failure in latter years, had been prodigious; he was, in fact, conversant with all ancient, and very extensively with modern literature. The notes of his conversations, taken down by some of his friends, and well-known by the name of Scaligerana, though full of vanity and contempt of others, and though not always perhaps faithful registers of what he said, bear witness to his acuteness, vivacity, and learning.[946] But his own numerous and laborious publications are the best testimonies to these qualities. His name will occur to us more than once again. In the department of philology, he was conspicuous as an excellent critic, both of the Latin and Greek languages; though Bayle, in his own paradoxical, but acute and truly judicious spirit, has suggested, that Scaliger’s talents and learning were too great for a good commentator; the one making him discover in authors more hidden sense than they possessed, the other leading him to perceive a thousand allusions which had never been designed. He frequently altered the text in order to bring these more forward; and in his conjectures is bold, ingenious, and profound, but not very satisfactory.[947] His critical writings are chiefly on the Latin poets; but his knowledge of Greek was eminent; and, perhaps, it may not be too minute to notice as a proof of it, that his verses in that language, if not good according to our present standard, are at least much better than those of Casaubon. The latter, in an epistle to Scaliger, extols his correspondent as far above Gaza, or any modern Greek in poetry, and worthy to have lived in Athens with Aristophanes and Euripides. This cannot be said of his own attempts, in which their gross faultiness is as manifest as their general want of spirit.
[946] The Scaligerana Prima, as they are called, were collected by Francis Vertunien, a physician of Poitiers; the Secunda, which are much the longest, by two brothers, named De Vassan, who were admitted to the intimacy of Scaliger at Leyden. They seem to have registered all his table-talk in commonplace books alphabetically arranged. Hence, when he spoke at different times of the same person or subject, the whole was published in an undigested, incoherent, and sometimes self-contradictory paragraph. He was not strict about consistency, as men of his temper seldom are in their conversation, and one would be slow in relying on what he has said; but the Scaligerana, with its many faults, deserves perhaps the first place among those amusing miscellanies, known by the name of Ana.
It was little to the honour of the Scaligers, father and son, that they lay under the strongest suspicions of extreme credulity, to say nothing worse, in setting up a descent from the Scala princes of Verona, though the world could never be convinced that their proper name was not Burden, of a plebeian family, and known as such in that city. Joseph Scaliger took as his device, Fuimus Troes; and his letters, as well as the Scaligerana, bear witness to the stress he laid on this pseudo-genealogy. Lipsius observes on this, with the true spirit which a man of letters ought to feel, that it would have been a great honour for the Scalas to have descended from the Scaligers, who had more real nobility than the whole city of Verona. (Thuana, p. 14). But unfortunately the vain, foolish, and vulgar part of mankind cannot be brought to see things in that light, and both the Scaligers knew that such princes as Henry II. and Henry IV. would esteem them more for their ancestry than for their learning and genius.
The epitaph of Daniel Heinsius on Joseph Scaliger, pardonably perhaps on such an occasion, mingles the real and fabulous glories of his friend.