[222] Migne, Pat. Lat. 171, col. 1428. This volume of Migne also contains the poems criticized and (some of them) edited by Hauréau in the book already referred to.
[223] Hildebert, Epis. i. 1 (Migne 171, col. 141).
[224] Hildebert, Ep. i. 22 (Migne 171, col. 197).
[225] A technical illustration from Roman law.
[226] Hildeberti, Ep. ii. 12 (Migne 171, col. 172-177). Compare Ep. i. 17, consoling a friend on loss of place and dignities. Hildebert’s works are in vol. 171 of Migne’s Pat. Lat. A number of his poems are more carefully edited by Hauréau in Notices et extraits des MSS., etc., vol. 28, ii. p. 289 sqq.; and some of them in vol. 29, ii. p. 231 sqq. of the same series. The matter is more conveniently given by Hauréau in his Mélanges poétiques d’Hildebert de Lavardin. On the man and his writings see De servillers, Hildebert et son temps (Paris, 1876); Hebert Duperron, De Venerabilis Hildeberti vita et scriptis (Bajocis, 1855); also vol. xi. of Hist. lit. de la France; and (best of all) Dieudonné, Hildebert de Lavardin, sa vie, ses lettres, etc. (Paris, 1898).
[227] It is well known that the great Latin prose, in spite of variances of stylistic intent and faculty among the individual writers, was an artistic, not to say artificial creation, formed under the influence of Greek models. Cicero is the supreme example of this, and he is also the greatest of all Latin prose writers. After his time some great writers (e.g. Tacitus, Quintilian) preserved a like tradition; others (e.g. Seneca) paid less attention to it. And likewise on through the patristic period, and the Middle Ages too, some men endeavoured to preserve a classic style, while others wrote more naturally.
[228] Even as it is necessary, in order to appreciate some of the methods of the Latin classical poetry, to realize that their immediate antecedents lay in Greek Alexandrian literature rather than in the older Greek Classics.
[229] See Taylor, Classical Heritage, chapter viii.
[230] A palpable difficulty in judging mediaeval Latin literature is its bulk. The extant Latin classics could be tucked away in a small corner of it. Every well-equipped student of the Classics has probably read them all. One mortal life would hardly suffice to read a moderate part of mediaeval Latin. And, finally, while there are histories of the classic literature in every modern tongue, there exists no general work upon mediaeval Latin writings regarded as literature. Ebert’s indispensable Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters ends with the tenth century. The author died. Within the scope of its purpose Dr. Sandys’ History of Classical Scholarship is compact and good.
[231] Ante, Chapter X.