eventeenth century its vigour and purity have undergone a tacit decay,
and yielded, perhaps in every country, to increasing commercial wealth,
more diffused instruction, the spirit of general liberty in some, and of
servile obsequiousness in others, the modes of life in great cities, and
the levelling customs of social intercourse.[794]

[Sidenote: Literature.]

It is now time to pass to a very different subject. The third head under
which I classed the improvements of society during the four last
centuries of the middle ages was that of literature. But I must apprise
the reader not to expect any general view of literary history, even in
the most abbreviated manner. Such an epitome would not only be
necessarily superficial, but foreign in many of its details to the
purposes of this chapter, which, attempting to develop the circumstances
that gave a new complexion to society, considers literature only so far
as it exercised a general and powerful influence. The private
researches, therefore, of a single scholar, unproductive of any material
effect in his generation, ought not to arrest us, nor indeed would a
series of biographical notices, into which literary history is apt to
fall, be very instructive to a philosophical inquirer. But I have still
a more decisive reason against taking a large range of literary history
into the compass of this work, founded on the many contributions which
have been made within the last forty years in that department, some of
them even since the commencement of my own labour.[795] These have
diffused so general an acquaintance with the literature of the middle
ages, that I must, in treating the subject, either compile secondary
information from well-known books, or enter upon a vast field of
reading, with little hope of improving upon what has been already said,
or even acquiring credit for original research. I shall, therefore,
confine myself to four points: the study of civil law; the institution
of universities; the application of modern languages to literature, and
especially to poetry; and the revival of ancient learning.

[Sidenote: Civil law.]

The Roman law had been nominally preserved ever since the destruction of
the empire; and a great portion of the inhabitants of France and Spain,
as well as Italy, were governed by its provisions. But this was a mere
compilation from the Theodosian code; which itself contained only the
more recent laws promulgated after the establishment of