240
DETERIORATION OE LATIN.
of the black slaves in the West Indies and America. Under
such circumstances, the great body of the population forms
a jargon for itself, and throws off the shackles of grammatical
laws.6 In the desolate or secluded parts of Italy7, where such
people lived as colonists, that Latin jargon became first esta-
blished, and the people gradually adopted the lingua vulgaris.
-Persons of rank continued to speak pure Latin; but they
learned it as the English learn English in their colonies, after
they have spoken the Creole dialect in their childhood. If men
like Tacitus and Pliny learned the vulgar idiom in their child-
hood, they undoubtedly spoke Oirlypure Latin among themselves ;
but correct Latin must with many persons have been something
acquired, as the High-German is acquired in our days by every
German of education.8 The use of the vulgar language must
have spread very quickly and widely. A language which is
decaying or growing poor, must enrich itself from ancient
books; hence the old Koman writers were now read chiefly
on account of their language, and the more ancient they were,
the greater was the value set upon them. This accounts for
the fact of Ennius, Plautus, and Naevius being studied so
much in those times : their works were more piquant also than
those of the classical writers Horace, Virgil, and Sencca had
probably despised those old authors ; but now they rose again
in favour. At this time Cicero was neglected, the preference
being given to Cato and Gracchus. It was a strange change;
but it can be easily accounted for.9 Hadrian himself was
a lover of antiquity, and his example contributed to this
6 Tho Wends in the neighbourhood of Liineburg, who were compelled to
speak German, formed a jargon of German.—N.
7 We can scarcely form a conception of the desolate condition of the more
remote parts of Italy, even as early as the reign of Augustus —N.
8 The German language has become much impoverished since the time of the
Thirty-years’ war, and any one who writes in high German, finds that words
are wanting for things for which the common language of the people has good
expressions, which however are not used in writing. This is felt more espe-
cially by persons born and brought up in Lower Saxony, for the people of
Upper Germany speak nearly as they write.—N.
y We have seen a similar change of taste in our own country; for there was a
time, at a very recent period of our literary history, when the early writcis were
regarded as the only models of perfection; when Walter von der Vogelwcide,
for example, was set up as the greatest poet, and the prose-writers of the six-
teenth century, such as the historian Zachanas Theobald, as perfect models of
-good prose. I lo^∖ e those men as much as any one, but I am far from considering
them as the models whom we should strive to imitate.—N.
A. GELLIUS. —FBONTO.
241
restoration of the antique; but his extraordinary partiality for
the Greeks contributed still more towards raising everything
Greek in public estimation.
The Greek language had no doubt been kept more alive in
Giccce than the Latin in Italy, and the people of Athens pro-
bably still continued to speak pure Greek. Greece, however,
was then poor in literary productions, and Hadrian’s partiality
for Greek writers, and the pensions he gave them unfortunately
called forth too many: poets, especially, were thus brought
into existence; the lyric Mesomedes, e.g., enjoyed a pension.
The pleasure which people at that time took in Ronan
archaeology and the ancient language, produced writers like
A. Gellius, who is a curious example of them. His work
must have been written in the reign of M. Aurelius. There
is something pleasing about him, and a great deal may be
learned from his work. I like him very much, but it is sur-
prising to see how ignorant he is even of the actual state of
things in which he lived; and this naturally excites our
mistrust in regard to his knowledge of the earlier times, and
with justice. He knows nothing of the Roman institutions;
what he writes about them is most ridiculous, and shews his
complete ignorance of the affairs of common life. He is one
of those men who, as Goethc says in his Faust, “ see the
world scarce on a holiday.” He does not possess the least
knowledge of antiquity; and has no idea of law, nor of
ordinary life. Respecting the colonies, for example, of which
there existed hundreds in his tin^e, he is perfectly ignorant,
and gives the most ludicrous definition of them.10 He is a
writer of the same kind as Cornelius Fronto, the instructor of
the emperor M. Aurelius, who made his illustrious pupil read
merely for the sake of words, and trained him in the art of
hunting after rare words, with which 'he was to produce effect.
Earlier rhetoricians had endeavoured to attain the same end by
subtle combinations and over-refinement of thought; but now
effect was to be produced by rare and antique expressions, and
the thoughts, though they were still trivial, were expressed in
more simple and chaste forms than in thetime of Seneca. Fronto1S
dislike to Seneca probably arose from a feeling that he was inca-
pable of such refinement. So far those rhetoricians were rational
enough. At a somewhat later period, there arose a peculiar
1°feeexw. IL
VOL. III. B