fifteenth century. But a Greek psalter
written in Latin characters at Milan in the 9th century was sold some
years ago in London. John of Salisbury is said by Crevier to have known
a little Greek, and he several times uses technical words in that
language. Yet he could not have been much more learned than his
neighbours; since, having found the word ousia in St. Ambrose, he was
forced to ask the meaning of one John Sarasin, an Englishman, because,
says he, none of our masters here (at Paris) understand Greek. Paris,
indeed, Crevier thinks, could not furnish any Greek scholar in that age
except Abelard and Heloise, and probably neither of them knew much.
Hist. de l'Univers. de Paris, t. i. p. 259.

The ecclesiastical language, it may be observed, was full of Greek words
Latinized. But this process had taken place before the fifth century;
and most of them will be found in the Latin dictionaries. A Greek word
was now and then borrowed, as more imposing than the correspondent
Latin. Thus the English and other kings sometimes called themselves
Basileus, instead of Rex.

It will not be supposed that I have professed to enumerate all the
persons of whose acquaintance with the Greek tongue some evidence may be
found; nor have I ever directed my attention to the subject with that
view. Doubtless the list might be more than doubled. But, if ten times
the number could be found, we should still be entitled to say, that the
language was almost unknown, and that it could have had no influence on
the condition of literature. [See Introduction to Hist. of Literature,
chap. 2, Sec. 7.]

[916] Nemo est qui Graecas literas norit; at ego in hoc Latinitati
compatior, quae sic omnino Graeca abjecit studia, ut etiam non noscamus
characteres literarum. Genealogiae Deorum, apud Hodium de Graecis
Illustribus, p. 3.

[917] Mem. de Petrarque, t. i. p. 407.

[918] Mem. de Petrarque, t. i. p. 447; t. iii. p. 634. Hody de Graecis
Illust. p. 2. Boccace speaks modestly of his own attainments in Greek:
etsi non satis plene perceperim, percepi tamen quantum potui; nee
dubium, si permansisset homo ille vagus diutius penes nos, quin plenius
percepissem. id. p. 4.

[919] Hody places the commencement of Chrysoloras's teaching as early as
1391. p. 3. But Tiraboschi, whose research was more precise, fixes it at
the end of 1396 or beginning of 1397, t. vii. p. 126.

[920] Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 102; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p.
43.

[921]