suffer noteworthy things to be obliterated by dust. For the arts would have perished, laws would have vanished, the offices of faith and religion would have fallen away, and even the correct use of language would have failed, had not the divine pity, as a remedy for human infirmity, provided letters for the use of mortals. Ancient examples, which incite to virtue, would have corrected and served no one, had not the pious solicitude of writers transmitted them to posterity.… Who would know the Alexanders and the Caesars, or admire Stoics and Peripatetics, had not the monuments of writers signalized them? Triumphal arches promote the glory of illustrious men from the carved inscription of their deeds. Thereby the observer recognizes the Liberator of his Country, the Establisher of Peace. The light of fame endures for no one save through his own or another's writing. How many and how great kings thinkest thou there have been, of whom there is neither speech nor cogitation? Vainly have men stormed the heights of glory, if their fame does not shine in the light of letters. Other favour or distinction is as fabled Echo, or the plaudits of the Play, ceasing the moment it has begun.
"Besides all this, solace in grief, recreation in labour, cheerfulness in poverty, modesty amid riches and delights, faithfully are bestowed by letters. For the soul is redeemed from its vices, and even in adversity refreshed with sweet and wondrous cheer, when the mind is intended upon reading or writing what is profitable. Thou shalt find in human life no more pleasing or more useful employment; unless perchance when, with heart dilated through prayer and divine love, the mind perceives and arranges within itself, as with the hand of meditation, the great things of God Believe one who has tried it, that all the sweets of the world, compared with these exercises, are wormwood."[1]
Hereupon, still addressing himself to his friend and patron, Thomas à Becket, John suggests that these recreations are peculiarly beneficial to men in their circumstances, burdened with affairs; and he puts his principles in practice, by launching forth upon his lengthy work of learned and philosophic disquisition.
To supplement this outline of John's appreciation of the Classics, it will be interesting to look into the literary interpretation of a classical poem, from the pen of one of his contemporaries. So little is known of the author, Bernard Silvestris, that he usually has been confused with his more famous fellow, Bernard of Chartres. We may refer to both
- ↑ Polycraticus, Prologus (Migne, Pat. Lat. 199, col. 385).
