g of that
system, an institution to which we are mainly indebted for refinement
of sentiment, and humane and generous demeanour, in the eleventh. Out of
these grew the originality and the poetry of romance.

These were no mean advancements. But perhaps the greatest debt which
after ages have contracted to this remote period, arose out of the
system of monasteries and ecclesiastical celibacy. Owing to these a
numerous race of men succeeded to each other perpetually, who were
separated from the world, cut off from the endearments of conjugal and
parental affection, and who had a plenitude of leisure for solitary
application. To these men we are indebted for the preservation of
the literature of Rome, and the multiplied copies of the works of the
ancients. Nor were they contented only with the praise of never-ending
industry. They forged many works, that afterwards passed for classical,
and which have demanded all the perspicacity of comparative criticism to
refute. And in these pursuits the indefatigable men who were dedicated
to them, were not even goaded by the love of fame. They were satisfied
with the consciousness of their own perseverance and ingenuity.

But the most memorable body of men that adorned these ages, were the
Schoolmen. They may be considered as the discoverers of the art of
logic. The ancients possessed in an eminent degree the gift of genius;
but they have little to boast on the score of arrangement, and discover
little skill in the strictness of an accurate deduction. They rather
arrive at truth by means of a felicity of impulse, than in consequence
of having regularly gone through the process which leads to it. The
schools of the middle ages gave birth to the Irrefragable and
the Seraphic doctors, the subtlety of whose distinctions, and the
perseverance of whose investigations, are among the most wonderful
monuments of the intellectual power of man. The thirteenth century
produced Thomas Aquinas, and Johannes Duns Scotus, and William Occam,
and Roger Bacon. In the century before, Thomas a Becket drew around him
a circle of literary men, whose correspondence has been handed down to
us, and who deemed it their proudest distinction that they called each
other philosophers. The Schoolmen often bewildered themselves in their
subtleties, and often delivered dogmas and systems that may astonish
the common sense of unsophisticated understandings. But such is man.
So great is his persevering labour, his inv