ot gainsay this position; being
aware, as I have observed both in this and in another work, that the
mere ignorance of these ages, striking as it is in comparison with
earlier and later times, has been sometimes exaggerated; and that
Europeans, and especially Christians, could not fall back into the
absolute barbarism of the Esquimaux. But what a man of profound and
accurate learning puts forward with limitations, sometimes expressed,
and always present to his own mind, a heady and shallow retailer takes
up, and exaggerates in conformity with his own prejudices.

The Letters on the Dark Ages relate principally to the theological
attainments of the clergy during that period, which the author assumes,
rather singularly, to extend from A.D. 800 to 1200; thus excluding
midnight from his definition of darkness, and replacing it by the break
of day. And in many respects, especially as to the knowledge of the
vulgate Scriptures possessed by the better-informed clergy, he obtains
no very difficult victory over those who have imbibed extravagant
notions, both as to the ignorance of the Sacred Writings in those times
and the desire to keep them away from the people. This latter prejudice
is obviously derived from a confusion of the subsequent period, the
centuries preceding the Reformation, with those which we have
immediately before us. But as the word _dark_ is commonly used, either
in reference to the body of the laity or to the general extent of
liberal studies in the church, and as it involves a comparison with
prior or subsequent ages, it cannot be improper in such a sense, even if
the manuscripts of the Bible should have been as common in monasteries
as Dr. Maitland supposes; and yet his proofs seem much too doubtful to
sustain that hypothesis.

There is a tendency to set aside the verdict of the most approved
writers, which gives too much of a polemical character, too much of the
tone of an advocate who fights every point, rather than of a calm
arbitrator, to the Letters on the Dark Ages. For it is not Henry, or
Jortin, or Robertson, who are our usual testimonies, but their immediate
masters, Muratori, and Fleury, and Tiraboschi, and Brucker and the
Benedictine authors of the Literary History of France, and many others
in France, Italy, and Germany. The latest who has gone over this rather
barren ground, and not inferior to any in well-applied learning, in
candour or good sense, is M. Ampere, in his Histoire Litteraire d