quam concavæ citharæ blanda resultatio. Hinc etiam appellatam æstimamus chordam, quod facile corda moveat: ubi tanta vocum collecta est sub diversitate concordia, ut vicina chorda pulsata alteram faciat sponte contremiscere, quam nullam contigit attigisse. The foundation at Squillace was nearly contemporary with St Benedict's at Monte Cassino; the character was not the same. The great St Benedict. Benedictine house had not at first the love St of learning which later became inseparable from the order. St Benedict had small regard for grammar or rhetoric, and the Latin of the Benedictine Rule has no pretence to beauty, nor even to correctness. Gregory, himself a Benedictine monk, does not go beyond the principles of the Founder in his contempt for Donatus. Cassiodorus is on the other side, and though much of his eloquence may be futile, he at least helped to preserve the tradition of the humanities in a time when they were threatened. Venantius The poetry of Venantius Fortunatus 1 is contained in eleven miscellaneous books (interspersed Fortunatus. with prose) and in four books of a longer poem on the life of St Martin. The dedication of his poems to Pope Gregory the Great (in a prose epistle) looks as inopportune in style as it well could be, if its rhetorical blazes are contrasted with St Gregory's repeated disapproval of these vanities. It is as unfortunate, one would think, 1 Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici Opera Poetica, ed. Leo, Pedestria, ed. Krusch, 1881 (Mon. Germ. Hist., iv.) Cf. W. Meyer, Der Gelegenheitsdichter Venantius Fortunatus, 1901. as Malvolio's cross-garterings. But Fortunatus, though he could write panegyrics on Chilperic and Radegund, not to speak of Brunehild, could not dissemble his sincere affection for fine language, and in his case, as in some others in the Middle Ages, the wonderful. words are often the true expression of the man's nature—not merely something learned, but the proper utterance of a lively, showy mind. There is humour in Fortunatus which gives the torrent of epithets sometimes a touch of comedy. This comes out in his prose dedication in his satire on the manners of Germany. "Ubi mihi tantundem valebat raucum gemere quod cantare apud quos nihil disparat aut stridor anseris aut canor oloris, sola sæpe bombicans barbaros leudos arpa relidens: ut inter illos egomet non musicus poeta sed muricus deroso flore carminis poema non canerem sed garrirem, quo residentes auditores inter acernea pocula salute bibentes insana Baccho judice debaccharent." The taste of Fortunatus is unrestrained, but it is redeemed by his gusto, to use the sensible old term of criticism that recognises how much life may do, rules or no rules, for a work of art. Artificiality, brazen rhetoric, all the faults of "a swollen and puffy style," are exemplified in Fortunatus, but they lose their offence, or great part of it, because the author's delight is so sincere and innocent—as when he praises another poet for the things he himself admired most in his own writings (III. 18 to Bishop Bertechramn) :— "Ardua suscepi missis epigrammata chartis It is impossible to be seriously offended with so simple-minded an enjoyment of declamation, and Fortunatus escapes by the same licence as some of the poets whom Ancient Pistol admired, and some of a later time. It may be remarked that Fortunatus is seldom affected or artificial in thought; his conceits are not of the hyperbolical metaphorical kind, but for the most part "turns upon words," such as were in favour in Greek rhetoric, and afterwards in the style of Euphues. "Pictavis residens qua sanctus Hilarius olim Natus in urbe fuit notus in orbe pater." He is exceedingly fond of the epithets coruscant and sidereal; these are characteristic: "Lucida sidereo cœli strepit aula tumultu Laudibus et Domini concutit astra fragor." "Aurea tecta micant, plebs aurea fulget in aula The same favourite words appear together in the prose preface of his Third Book, to Bishop Felix of Nantes: "Igitur cum considerarem dicta singula de more tubarum clangente sermone prolata et sidereo quodammodo splendore perfusa, velut coruscantium radiorum perspicabili lumine mea visi estis lumina perstrinxisse, et soporantes oculos quos mihi aperuistis tonitruo clausistis corusco." Fortunatus writes on many different subjects. His pompous epithalamium (in hexameters) on Sigebert and Brunehild is interesting on account of its poetical respect for Cupid and Venus, who speak the praises of the king and queen in a manner more classical, or more like the fashion of the Renaissance, than was common in the Dark Ages. Theodulfus, for example, in the time of Charlemagne, refers to Cupid as the demon of adultery "Est sceleratus enim mochiæ demon et atrox ". and uses mythological terms with caution, but Fortunatus can do without the allegorical theory which was supposed to justify Christian poets in their transactions with Gentile deities. His poem on the Moselle is much inferior to Ausonius, but not because he is indifferent to the beauties of nature: his descriptive passages are not all mere rhetoric. There are some very pleasant light poems of his addressed to his friends, gracefully mock-heroic, like that on his friend Gogo (vii. 4). What is Gogo doing? Is he watching the salmon-nets of Rhine, or walking by the Moselle, or hunting the buffalo in the Forest of Arden? Clouds and winds be messengers between Gogo and his Fortunatus. Again to Lupus, Duke of Champagne (vii. 8), in a rather more serious tone, he tells how the thought of his noble friend is refreshing to him, like shade and cool water to a wayfaring man in the summer heat when he rests, and remembers the poetry that he knows, Homer or Virgil or David. Lupus in another poem is praised more conventionally for his military exploits. One couplet ("coruscant" again) is worth quoting as a sort of analogue in a different style to the phrases of German poetry where the iron mail, the "grey shirt," of the fighting man is alluded to: "Ferratæ tunicæ sudasti pondere victor Et sub pulverea nube coruscus eras." The name that is always associated with Fortunatus and his poetry is that of St Radegund; the poetical record of their friendship preserved in the verses of Fortunatus is not the largest part of his works, nor perhaps the best, but it always keeps a value of its own, associations of gentleness and grace, not without some reflections of tragedy from the sorrows of the royal house of Radegund's birth, and the cruelties of the time. Generally, there is little in Fortunatus to recall the facts of Frankish history: the treacheries and murders written about by Gregory of Tours do not interfere with his humanities and civilities, his descriptions of castles and basilicas, his compliments and courtly poems. But he wrote the sorrows of Galsuintha, the unhappy Spanish princess, Brunehild's elder sister, the wife of Chilperic, the victim of her husband and Fredegund. Galsuintha, passing through Poitiers on her sad journey, touched the heart of Radegund, herself an exiled princess. The meeting of the two ladies is described by Fortunatus, and though |