In Germany, the school which had been established by Charlemagne at Fulda, and that at Paderborn, long flourished under the superintendence of Meinwerk. The author of the Life of that scholar, speaking of these establishments, says, “Ibi viguit Horatius, magnus atque Virgilius, Crispus et Sallustius, et Urbanus Statius.” During the ninth century, Rabin Maur, a scholar of Alcuin, and head of the cathedral school at Fulda, became a celebrated teacher; and profane literature was not neglected by him amid the importance of his sacred lessons. Classical learning, however, was first thoroughly awakened in Germany, by the scholars of Thomas A’Kempis, in the end of the fifteenth century. A number of German youths, who were associated in a species of literary fraternity, travelled into Italy, at the time when the search for classical MSS. in that country was most eagerly prosecuted. Rudolph Agricola, afterwards Professor of Philosophy at Worms, was one of the most distinguished of these scholars. Living immediately after the invention of printing, and at a time when that art had not yet entirely superseded the transcription of MSS., he possessed an extensive collection of these, as well as of the works which had just issued resplendent from the press. Both were illustrated by him with various readings on the margin; and we perceive from the letters of Erasmus the value which even he attached to these notes, and the use which he made of the variations. Rudolph was succeeded by Herman von Busche, who lectured on the classics at Leipsic. He had in his possession a number of the Latin classics; but it is evident from his letters that some, as for instance Silius Italicus, were still inaccessible to him, or could only be procured with great difficulty. The German scholars did not bring so many MSS. to light, or multiply copies of them, so much as the Italians, because, in fact, their country was less richly stored than Italy with the treasures bequeathed to us by antiquity; but they exercised equal critical acuteness in amending the errors of the MSS. which they possessed. The sixteenth century was the age which produced in Germany the most valuable and numerous commentaries on the Latin classics. That country, in common with the Netherlands, was enlightened, during this period, by the erudition of Erasmus (1467–1536). In the same and succeeding age, Camerarius (1500–1574), Taubmann (1565–1613), Acidalius (1567–1595), and Gruterus (1560–1627), enriched the world with some of the best editions of the classics which had hitherto appeared. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, classical literature had for some time rather declined in Germany—polemical theology and religious wars having at this period exhausted and engrossed the attention of her universities. But it was revived again about the middle of the eighteenth by J. Math. Gesner (1691–1761), and Ernesti (1707–1781), who created an epoch in Germany for the study of the ancient authors. These two scholars surpassed all their predecessors in taste, in a philosophical spirit, and in a wide acquaintance with the subsidiary branches of erudition: They made an advantageous use of their critical knowledge of the languages; they looked at once to the words and to the subject of the ancient writers, established and applied the rules of a legitimate interpretation, and carefully analysed the meaning as well as the form of the expression. Their task was extended from words to things; and what has been called Æsthetic annotations, were combined with philological discussion. “Non volui,” says Gesner, in the Preface to his edition of Claudian, “commentarios scribere, collectos undique, aut locos communes: Non volui dictionem poetæ, [pg A-19]congestis aliorum poetarum formulis illustrare; sed cum illud volui efficere poeta ut intelligatur, tum judicio meo juvare volui juniorum judicium, quid pulchrum, atque decens, et summorum poetarum simile putarem ostendendo, et contra, ea, ubi errâsse illum a naturâ, a magnis exemplis, a decoro arbitrarer, cum fide indicando.” J. Ernesti considers Gesner as unquestionably the first who introduced what he terms the Æsthetic mode of criticism[568]. But the honour of being the founder of this new school, has perhaps, with more justice, been assigned by others to Heyne[569] (1729–1811). “From the middle of last century,” it is remarked, in a late biographical sketch of Heyne, “several intelligent philologers of Germany displayed a more refined and philosophic method in their treatment of the different branches of classical learning, who, without neglecting either the grammatical investigation of the language, or the critical constitution of the text, no longer regarded a Greek or Roman writer as a subject for the mere grammarian and critic; but, considering the study of the ancients as a school for thought, for feeling, and for taste, initiated us into the great mystery of reading every thing in the same spirit in which it had originally been written. They demonstrated, both by doctrine and example, in what manner it was necessary for us to enter into the thoughts of the writer, to pitch ourselves in unison with his peculiar tone of conception and expression, and to investigate the circumstances by which his mind was affected—the motives by which he was animated—and the influences which co-operated in giving the intensity and character of his feelings. At the head of this school stands Heyne; and it must be admitted, that nothing has contributed so decisively to maintain or promote the study of classical literature, as the combination which he has effected of philosophy with erudition, both in his commentaries on ancient authors, and those works in which he has illustrated various points of antiquity, or discussed the habit of thinking and spirit of the ancient world.” From the time of Heyne, almost the whole grand inheritance of Roman literature has been cultivated by commentators, who have raised the Germans to undisputed pre-eminence among the nations of Europe, for profound classical learning, and all the delightful researches connected with literary history. I have only space to mention the names of Zeunius (1736–1788), Jani (1743–1790), Wernsdorff (1723–1793); and among those who still survive, Harles (born 1738), Schütz (1747), Schneider (1751), Wolf (1757), Beck, (1757), Doering (1759), Mitscherlich (1760), Wetzel (1762), Goerenz (1765), Eichstädt (1771), Hermann (1772).
While classical literature and topography were so highly cultivated abroad, England, at the revival of literature, remained greatly behind her continental neighbours in the elucidation and publication of the precious remains of ancient learning. It appears from Ames’ Typographical Antiquities, that the press of our celebrated ancient printers, as Caxton, Wynkin de Worde, and Pynson, was rarely employed in giving accuracy or embellishment to the works of the classics; and, indeed, so late as the middle of the sixteenth century, only Terence and Cicero’s Offices had been published in this country, in their original tongue. Matters had by no means improved in the seventeenth century. Evelyn, who had paid great attention to the subject, gives the following account of the state of classical typography and editorship in England, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, dated November 1666: “Our booksellers,” says he, “follow their own judgment in printing the ancient authors, according to such text as they found extant when first they entered their copy; whereas, out of the MSS. collated by the industry of later critics, those authors are exceedingly improved. For instance, about thirty years since, Justin was corrected by Isaac Vossius, in many hundreds of places, most material to sense and elegancy, and has since been frequently reprinted in Holland, after the purer copy; but with us still according to the old reading. The like has Florus, Seneca’s Tragedies, and near all the rest, which have, in the meantime, been castigated abroad by several learned hands, which, besides that it makes ours to be rejected, and dishonours our nation, so does it no little detriment to learning, and to the treasure of the nation in proportion. The cause of this is principally the stationer driving as hard and cruel a bargain with the printer as he can, and the printer taking up any smatterer in the tongues, to be the less loser; an exactness in this no ways import[pg A-20]ing the stipulation, by which means errors repeat and multiply in every edition[570].” Since the period in which this letter is dated, Bentley, who bears the greatest name in England as a critic, however acute and ingenious, did more by his slashing alterations to injure than amend the text, at least of the Latin authors on whom he commented. He substituted what he thought best for what he actually found; and such was his deficiency in taste, that what he thought best (as is evinced by his changes on the text of Lucretius), was frequently destructive of the poetical idea, and almost of the sense of his author.
I have thought it right, before entering into detail concerning the Codices and editions of the works of the early classics mentioned in the text, briefly to remind the reader of the general circumstances connected with the loss and recovery of the classical MSS. of Rome, and to recall to his recollection the names of a few of the most celebrated commentators in Italy, France, Holland, and Germany. This will render the following Appendix, in which there must be constant reference to the discovery of MSS. and the labours of commentators, somewhat more distinct and perspicuous than I could otherwise make it.
LIVIUS ANDRONICUS, NÆVIUS.
The fragments of these old writers are so inconsiderable, that no one has thought of editing them separately. They are therefore to be found only in the general collections of the whole Latin poets; as Maittaires Opera et Fragmenta Veterum Poetarum Latinorum, London, 1713. 2 Tom. fo., (to some copies of which a new title-page has been printed, bearing the date, Hag. Comit. 1721;) or in the collections of the Latin tragic poets, as Delrio’s Syntagma Tragœdiæ Latinæ, Paris, 1620, and Scriverius’ Collectanea Veterum Tragicorum, Lugd. Bat. 1620. It is otherwise with
ENNIUS,
of whose writings, as we have seen, more copious fragments remain than from those of his predecessors. The whole works of this poet were extant in the time of Cassiodorus; but no copy of them has since appeared. The fragments, however, found in Cicero, Macrobius, and the old grammarians, are so considerable, that they have been frequently collected together, and largely commented on. They were first printed in Stephen’s Fragmenta Veterum Poetarum Latinorum, but without any proper connection or criticism. Ludovicus Vives had intended to collect and arrange them, as we are informed in one of his notes to St Augustine, De Civitate Dei: But this task he did not live to accomplish[571]. The first person who arranged these scattered fragments, united them together, and classed them under the books to which they belonged, was Hier. Columna. He adopted the orthography which, from a study of the ancient Roman monuments and inscriptions, he found to be that of the Latin language in the age of Ennius. He likewise added a commentary, and prefixed a life of the poet. The edition which he had thus fully prepared, was first published at Naples in 1590, four years after his death, by his son Joannes Columna[572]. This Editio Princeps of Ennius is very rare, but it was reprinted under the care of Fr. Hesselius at Amsterdam in 1707. To the original commentary of Columna there are added the annotations on Ennius which had been inserted in Delrio and Scriverius’ collection of the Latin tragic poets; and Hesselius himself supplied a very complete Index Verborum. The ancient authors, who quote lines from Ennius, sometimes mention the book of the Annals, or the name of the tragedy to which they belonged, but sometimes this information is omitted. The arrangement, therefore, of the verses of the latter description (which are marked with an asterisk in Columna’s edition), and indeed the precise collocation of the whole, is in a great measure conjectural. Accordingly, we find [pg A-21]that the order of the lines in the edition of Paulus Merula is very different from that adopted by Columna. The materials for Merula’s edition, which comprehends only the Annals of Ennius, had already been collected and prepared at the time when Columna’s was first given to the world. Merula, however, conceived that while the great object of Columna had been to compare and contrast the lines of Ennius with those of other heroic poets, he himself had been more happy in the arrangement of the verses, and the restoration of the ancient orthography, which is much more antiquated in the edition of Merula than in that of Columna. He had also discovered some fragments of the Annals, unknown to Columna, in the MS. of a work of L. Calp. Piso, a writer of the age of Trajan, entitled De Continentiâ Veterum Poetarum, and preserved in the library of St Victor at Paris. In these circumstances, Merula was not deterred by the appearance of the edition of Columna, from proceeding with his own, which at length came forth at Leyden in the year 1595. The same sort of discrepance which exists between Columna and Merula’s arrangement of the Annals, appears in the collocation of the Tragic Fragments adopted by Columna, and that which has been preferred by Delrio, in his Syntagma Tragœdiæ Latinæ.
H. Planck published at Gottingen, in 1807, the fragments of Ennius’s tragedy of Medea. These comprehend all the verses belonging to this drama, collected by Columna, and some newly extracted by the editor from old grammarians. The whole are compared with the parallel passages in the Medea of Euripides. Two dissertations are prefixed; one on the Origin and Nature of Tragedy among the Romans; and the other, on the question, whether Ennius wrote two tragedies, or only a single tragedy, entitled Medea. A commentary is also supplied, in which, as Fuhrmann remarks, one finds many things, but not much:—“Man findet in demselben multa, aber nicht multum[573].”