ad
studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry, arithmetic, and music, (see
he preface to the Alexiad, with Ducange's notes)]

In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment of two
languages, which are no longer living, may consume the time and damp
the ardor of the youthful student. The poets and orators were long
imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our Western ancestors, devoid
of harmony or grace; and their genius, without precept or example, was
abandoned to the rule and native powers of their judgment and fancy. But
the Greeks of Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their
vulgar speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most
happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the sublime
masters who had pleased or instructed the first of nations. But these
advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate
people. They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers,
without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred
patrimony: they read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid
souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of
ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or
promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been added
to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient
disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next
servile generation. Not a single composition of history, philosophy, or
literature, has been saved from oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of
style or sentiment, of original fancy, or even of successful imitation.
In prose, the least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from
censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the orators, most
eloquent [112] in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from the
models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste and reason
are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and
intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false
or unseasonable ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves,
to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke
of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious
affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and
insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were silent and