was an excellent copy of classical Latin it was nothing else; it has no stylistic individuality.[1]
Turning from this famous biography, we will illustrate our point by quoting from the letters of him who stands as the type of the Carolingian revival, the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin. All praise to this noble educational coadjutor of Charlemagne; his learning was conscientious; his work was important, his character was lovable. His affectionate nature speaks in a letter to his former brethren at York, where his home had been before he entered Charlemagne's service. Here is a sentence:
"O omnium dilectissimi patres et fratres, memores mei estote; ego vester ero, sive in vita, sive in morte. Et forte miserebitur mei Deus, ut cujus infantiam aluistis, ejus senectutem sepeliatis."[2]
It were invidious to find fault with this Latin, in which the homesick man expresses his hope of sepulture in his old home. Note also the balance of the following, written to a sick friend:
"Gratias agamus Deo Jesu, vulneranti et medenti, flagellanti et consolanti. Dolor corporis salus est animae, et infirmitas temporalis, sanitas perpetua. Libenter accipiamus, patienter feramus voluntatem Salvatoris nostri."[3]
This too is excellent, in language as in sentiment. So is another, and last, sentence from our author, in a letter congratulating Charlemagne on his final subjugation of the Huns, through which the survivors were brought to a knowledge of the truth:
"Qualis erit tibi gloria, O beatissime rex, in die aeternae retributionis, quando hi omnes qui per tuam sollicitudinem ab adolatriae cultura ad cognoscendum verum Deum conversi sunt, te ante tribunal Domini nostri Jesu Christi in beata sorte stantem sequentur!"[4]
Again, the only trouble is stylelessness. In fine, an absence
- ↑ There was no attempt at classicism in the narrative in which he recounted the Translation of the relics of the martyrs Marcellinus and Peter from Rome to his own new monastery at Seligenstadt (Migne 104, col. 537-594). It was an entertaining story of a pious theft, and one may be sure that he wrote it more easily, and in a style more natural to himself than that shown in his consciously imitative masterpiece.
- ↑ Ep. vi. (Migne 100, col. 146).
- ↑ Ep. xxxii. (Migne 100, col. 187).
- ↑ Ep. xxxiii. (Migne 100, col. 187).
