rmy and turbulent, was favorable to
experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been
suddenly aroused from a state of torpor and rest, and to have put
forth new energies in every department of life. The material and the
political, the moral and the social condition of society was subject
to powerful agitations, and passed through important changes.

Great _discoveries and inventions_ had been made. The use of movable
types, first ascribed to a German, of Mentz, by the name of Gutenberg,
in 1441, and to Peter Schoeffer, in 1444, changed the whole system of
book-making, and vastly increased the circulation of the Scriptures,
the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable works, which, by
the industry of the monkish copyist, had been preserved from the
ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had
been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used
on the field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of
war and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. The
polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ages, and not
practically applied to the mariner's compass until 1403, had led to
the greatest event of the fifteenth century--the discovery of America
by Christopher Columbus, in 1492. The impulse given to commerce by
this and other discoveries of unknown continents and oceans, by the
Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the English, and the French,
cannot be here enlarged on. America revealed to the astonished
European her riches in gold and silver; and Indian spices, and silks,
and drugs, were imported, through new channels, into all the countries
inhabited by the Teutonic races. Mercantile wealth, with all its
refinements, acquired new importance in the eyes of the nations. The
world opened towards the east and the west. The horizon of knowledge
extended. Popular delusions were dispelled. Liberality of mind was
acquired. The material prosperity of the western nations was
increased. Tastes became more refined, and social intercourse more
cheerful.

[Sidenote: Revival of the Arts.]

Art, in all its departments, was every where revived at this epoch.
Houses became more comfortable, and churches more splendid. The
utensils of husbandry and of cookery were improved. Linen and woollen
manufactures supplanted the coarser fabrics of the dark ages. Music
became more elaborate, and the present system of notation was adopted.
The g