the mutual sympathy, better aspirations, and deep yearning after the really excellent in all human affections, as they have been implanted by God. These have ever preserved and do still preserve men, through the overruling mercy of a heavenly Father, in the midst of the darkest times, from the deep abyss into which ignorance would thrust them. We do not forget the light which the Church has been commissioned to bear in the midst of the world; nor will we deny that, in the times of her greatest faithlessness, she has still been compelled, in some one form or another, to hold it forth: nevertheless, it is rather to the goodness of God in maintaining that light in, it may be, illegitimate ways, than to any legitimate result of her own influence, rightly directed in the feudal times, that Christendom has emerged, such as she is, from her mad follies of mimes, mysteries, and mummings.

The mental condition of the middle classes of these ages did not stand high, but the heart was sound: there were tokens of its existence not to be mistaken, in the healthful beatings of honest affection and social union, in many an institution from which the ancient spirit is now gone, or of whose forms the head has taken possession to the dispossession of the heart, with about as much propriety, too, as he should manifest, who, hard and crabbed, lean and angular in his shape, should take a vain conceit to figure in the fitting garments of youthful, supple, and graceful beauty. Sir Francis, speaking of the ancient system of city apprenticeship, says

"So long as the engagement subsisted according to its pristine spirit, it rendered the master and the servant members of one household and family; the parties were united by the mutual obligation of protection and obedience; the mutual connection recognised better elements than those of mere profit and gain. He would be an unwise legislator for his fellow men, who would omit to take self-interest into consideration as a most powerful impelling motive; but a sorry ono is he who relies upon self-interest as affording any kind of security for diligence or industry, or for any quality to which the name of virtue can be ascribed. Whatever the political economist may urge to the contrary, unless men begin by bettering themselves, all his assumed receipts for bettering their condition are in vain.

"Motives infinitely more valuable than those of mere money or money's worth were engrafted upon the system of apprenticeship, so long as its spirit was properly observed. The admission into the guild, after the period of probation had concluded, was an attestation that, during the period of life when the human character is most susceptible of the influence of habit and example, the future citizen had conducted

VOL. XX.-E

himself with a due attention to diligence and morality. Gratitude towards a kind master-emulation excited by an able one-the necessity of conciliating a harsh superior-affection towards an infirm or needy parent-the wish to be married, to form that union which the Church so emphatically calls a holy state, and upon which the happiness of the individual, and through the individual the happiness of the State, so mainly depends-all these rendered the guild an unceasing source of moral renovation to the commonwealth."

It was the kindly heart, rather than the fertile mind, that originated such systems as these; and though the medal had its reverse, as Sir Francis acknowledges, yet it was one worthy to be borne on the breast of a nation ever distinguished for its open hand and stout courage. If the political economies of these modern times could allow of such a thing as the existence of hearts in the masses of humanity with which they deal, we question whether they would so often fail; but the curse of the day is a mechanical intellect-gigantic if you will -which never thinks its work is effectively done until the finer fibres of the human heart-the sensitive nerves, which expand at the warm handling of affection, as they shrink from the rough usage of the unfeeling-are all beaten out and flattened into one inert, senseless mass, ready for any other impression it may desire to give it. Whatever is beautiful in those visions of the past which the mind will sometimes call into being invariably stands connected with the associations of kindly feeling and warm, though rude, affection. Nor is this because the fancy would have it so, but because the memory, familiar with the history of the past, naturally leads the thought, though in a creative mood, instinctively to take the forms with which it is most familiar. Knighthood and chivalry, yeoman courage and city independence, come before us, it is true, with aspects of much ignorance, but with much bearing of honest truth and social love; and if the schoolmaster be wanting in the group, whilst we miss, it may be, the impress of his fluent knowledge, we are not wearied with the dull monotony of his inane pedantries.

We neither despise intellect nor knowledge-far from it; we are not so overstocked with either that we could afford to do so were we willing: but they have, in the composition of man's nature and the relations of life, their proper sphere and limits; and when they take the place of kindly affections, and seek to fill up that for which, in the intercourse of man with man, the heart alone was destined, we think (perhaps we speak a rank heresy against the creed of the times) they are to be mourned over as the sad abuses of God's good gifts, rather

than rejoiced in as great blessings. After all, you never will and never can have any system of government or of teaching, by which men are to be ruled or bettered in their condition, that will answer to the end proposed, which does not, in some sort, take some of its forms from the simple suggestions of the human heart-which does not reckon that hearts as well as minds are to be dealt with-which does not address itself in the language of experience to some one of the many facile entrances which the heart of man ever keeps open with a ready welcome for all who rightly come thereto. "No man knoweth

the things of a man (said the apostle), save the spirit of man which is in him;" and it was a touching, true, and beautiful answer which the psalmist returned-" When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek."

Concerning the dark ages much has been written pro and con. Into the literary contest Mr. Maitland has lately entered, and has brought his deep research and learning to bear upon the somewhat reckless assertions of Robertson, Henry, and others. We cannot altogether congratulate him on the issue: he has demolished a few of the outworks of exaggeration, but he has left the stronghold of concurrent testimony, as we think, untouched: he has set, it is true, a few brilliant stars in the moral hemisphere of these ages: he has relieved the darkness, but he has left the period, as he found it, one of night; and has but established what we think most were ready to allow-that to the general rule there were many brilliant exceptions. We do not think that he has dealt at all times fairly with his adversaries, nor that he is always happy in his instances. For his friend Meinwerc, Bishop of Paderborn, we have certainly no great respect; we rather apprehend that some of his doings would secure him a less favourable judgment at the Old Bailey, were he to practise them in our days and in our land, than they seem to elicit from this clever writer. His reasoning, in answer to the assertion that "persons of the highest rank and in the highest station could not read or write," seems to us inconclusive. The evidence that exists in support of this assertion, as generally true, is certainly, to say the least of it, in support of the probability of its truth; whilst none, that we know of, exists by which the error of it can be shown. We say "as generally true," because it is clear there were exceptions. Henry I. was a scholar, as his familiar designation of Beauclerc proves; so was Henry II. John could not be altogether ignorant of the contents of the books for which he gave a receipt to the Abbot of Reading;

nor would Henry III. have borrowed the " Exploits of Antiochia" from the Templars, for the use of his queen, unless she had desired to know what the volume related. Whether John and the queen read for themselves, or by their chaplains, we leave to others to settle.

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Mr. Maitland is a learned and pains-taking man, and if he could have found anything by searching which would have enabled him positively to confute Robertson, when he says the nobility could not write," he would not have spared trouble in the search, nor have hesitated triumphantly to produce his evidence. The reasons why men did not sign the chartularies which conveyed their gifts, as Mr. Maitland sets them down, are very ingenious; but they are, after all, conjectural and, if the whole case is to be argued on conjectural grounds, we see not why that which lies at the very threshold, which, considering the times, is the most probable, and to which almost all writers have given assent, should not be the first received. Of the four reasons which he deduces from Mabillon, the second, viz., physical inability-is admissible only in a few cases. Of the two last-viz., "an affectation of dignity, through which many high official persons chose that their names should be written by the notary," and "all persons, following the custom of great men, preferred to have their names written by the notary, that he might say of them what he liked, and to affix the sign of the cross, in token of their faith, instead of writing”—the first is rather far-fetched, and the second will scarcely stand. Doubtless, the sign of the cross affixed was a symbol of faith and a confirmation of the act; but it stood exactly where later jurisprudence has accounted a personal signature to be a better evidence of identity, as it most certainly is. It may have been affixed, as Mr. Maitland observes, by those who could write; but we apprehend, in that case, the signature would sometimes have been seen. At any rate, if the question is to be settled by probabilities, we think, as we have already said, that the probabilities are in favour of Robertson's assertion, rather than of the learned critic's attempted refutation. If the nobility of that day could have written, it is singular that there is no evidence in proof of it. Sir Francis Palgrave says

"So few persons amongst the laity, with the exception perhaps of the mercantile classes and the legists, were acquainted with the alphabet, that reading and writing acquired the name of "clergy." The term "clerk" became equivalent to "penman." Our common nomenclature still bears testimony to the lack learning of ancient times" (16).

The scene which he describes at page 122, for the purpose of explaining the phrase "benefit of clergy," is also confirmatory of this; whilst, at the same time, it places the Church in a better and truer light with reference to this custom than that in which she has generally been seen.

We perfectly agree with Mr. Maitland that the case, as regards the clergy, has been greatly exaggerated; but when he would lead us further, as he seems desirous of doing, till we admit by inference that the darkness of these ages was the exception and not the rule, we say it with all deference, he has undertaken as difficult a task as that which Horace Walpole proposed to himself in his "Historic Doubts" on the reign and character of Richard the Third. A graver condemnation lies against this clever writer for admitting, without explanation, the term "his altar," with reference to the particular saint to whom gifts might be offered. It may be an oversight, but it is one hardly allowable in a matter where the consequences are so serious, and when, unfortunately, such oversights characterise a school of men in the present day, whose real sympathies are too often expressed in the tolerance of doubtful phrases on the one side, which their jealous watchfulness would not suffer on the other. It might seem from these remarks that we are professing to review the very able work which Mr. Maitland has written. We would not do him such an injustice in such a form, nor ourselves so great a wrong for it is a work which cannot be so easily passed by, and to review it is a task not so easily despatched. In the elucidation of the subject before us, essays, which treat so directly upon it, naturally presented themselves to our recollection, and the free use we have made of their contents is simply a result of the important bearing they have on the settlement of the question, as to whether the ages which are commonly designated "dark" were really so or not?

That the middle ages should be dark was a natural consequence of the position in which the world was found from the sixth to the thirteenth century. When the Roman provinces were converted into barbarian kingdoms it was a legitimate result that civilization should receive a violent check; and that, though the barbarian invader might be somewhat humanized by what he found, he should, in a greater degree, animalize what he found by that which he brought in. Learning, the arts and sciences, and all that distinguished man in a higher condition of social existence than that from which they themselves emerged, were despised by these wild conquerors and considered marks of effeminacy; and there is no wonder