prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of fortune, and
endowed with learning, or at least with language. From the terror
or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of Thessalonica and
Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom, curiosity, and wealth. The
synod introduced into Florence the lights of the Greek church, and the
oracles of the Platonic philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the
union, had the double merit of renouncing their country, not only for
the Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be possessed,
however, of the private and social virtues: he no longer hears the
reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and the consideration which
he acquires among his new associates will restore in his own eyes
the dignity of his character. The prudent conformity of Bessarion was
rewarded with the Roman purple: he fixed his residence in Italy; and the
Greek cardinal, the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected
as the chief and protector of his nation: [102] his abilities were
exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France;
and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the
uncertain breath of a conclave. [103] His ecclesiastical honors diffused
a splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and service: his
palace was a school; as often as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he
was attended by a learned train of both nations; [104] of men applauded
by themselves and the public; and whose writings, now overspread with
dust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to
enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century;
and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore
Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius
Chalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools of
Florence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of Bessarion,
whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of
their envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure:
they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and
manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since they
were confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards,
of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris [105] will deserve an
exception. His eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommended
him to the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternately
employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted them
to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most successful
attained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance
in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of
their country: their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved for
the national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsistence; and
they sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satire
on Virgil's poetry, and the oratory of Tully. [106] The superiority of
these masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and
their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they
had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of their
ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, [107] which they introduced, was
banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of the
power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes,
which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been the
secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than
minute and unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in
verse. The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments
of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their
treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit,
are still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the Byzantine
libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of some
author, who without his industry might have perished: the transcripts
were multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the
text was corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of
the elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of style
evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza selected
the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their natural
histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine and
experimental science.
[Footnote 102: See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136--177.)
Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whom
I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of his
learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of the
vith tome.]
[Footnote 103: The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavist
refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: "Nicholas," said he, "thy
respect has cost thee a hat, and me the tiara." *
Note: * Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75) considers that
Hody has refuted this "idle tale."--M.]
[Footnote 104: Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus,
Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, Nicholas
Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri (says Hody, with the pious
zeal of a scholar) (nullo Êvo perituri, p. 156.)]
[Footnote 105: He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his
honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century, (A.D. 1535.)
Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he
founded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris, (Hody, p. 247--275.)
He left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and their
numerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage
in the xiiith century with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange,
Fam. Byzant. p. 224--230.)]
[Footnote 106: Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against
Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no
better names than GrÊculus ineptus et impudens, (Hody, p. 274.) In our
own times, an English critic has accused the ∆neid of containing multa
languida, nugatoria, spirit˚ et majestate carminis heroici defecta; many
such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed
of owning, (prÊfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]
[Footnote 107: Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of
ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii. p. 235.) The modern
Greeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and confound three vowels, (h i
u,) and several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which
the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university of
Cambridge: but the monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the
bleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or
a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who
asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge
of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is
difficult to paint sounds by words: and in their reference to modern
use, they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may
observe, that our peculiar pronunciation of the O, th, is approved by
Erasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.)]
Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more curiosity
and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by a
venerable Greek, [108] who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis.
While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, some
beneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegant
philosophy: his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect, and
his sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and
sometimes adorned with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The
dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a
sage; and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system
inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The
precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and liberal
inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions
and errors of their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct
the dry, dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet
so opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may
be balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be
produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were
divided between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought
under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removed
in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophical
debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel of
grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for Plato, protected the
national honor, by interposing the advice and authority of a mediator.
In the gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the
polite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly dissolved;
and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the
more powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church and
school. [109]
[Footnote 108: George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer,
the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the times. He visited
Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus.
See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius.
(Bibliot. GrÊc. tom. x. p. 739--756.)]
[Footnote 109: The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
illustrated by Boivin, (MÈm. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p.
715--729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259--288.)]
I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet it must
be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by the ardor of the
Latins. Italy was divided into many independent states; and at that time
it was the ambition of princes and republics to vie with each other in
the encouragement and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the
Fifth [110] has not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin
he raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the man
prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons
which were soon pointed against the Roman church. [111] He had been the
friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became their patron;
and such was the humility of his manners, that the change was scarcely
discernible either to them or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance
of a liberal gift, it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof
of benevolence; and when modest merit declined his bounty, "Accept it,"
would he say, with a consciousness of his own worth: "ye will not always
have a Nicholas among you." The influence of the holy see pervaded
Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of
benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from
the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty
manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and wherever the original could
not be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for
his use. The Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for
superstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more precious
furniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign
of eight years he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his
munificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon,
Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo's
Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and
Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greek
church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imitated by a
Florentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and without
a title. Cosmo of Medicis [112] was the father of a line of princes,
whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of
learning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated
to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and
London: and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported
in the same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo
rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the
literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit
to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonic
academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcocondyles and
Angelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris returned from
the East with a treasure of two hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which
were as yet unknown in the libraries of Europe. [113] The rest of Italy
was animated by a similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid
the liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive property
of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece were soon capable
of transmitting and improving the lessons which they had imbibed. After
a short succession of foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided;
but the language of Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the
natives of France, Germany, and England, [114] imparted to their country
the sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
Rome. [115] In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the
gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the Greek authors,
forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been illustrated on those
of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or Gaza might have envied the
superior science of the Barbarians; the accuracy of BudÊus, the taste
of Erasmus, the copiousness of Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the
discernment of Reiske, or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the
discovery of printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has
been applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate and
multiply the works of antiquity. [116] A single manuscript imported from
Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each copy is fairer than
the original. In this form, Homer and Plato would peruse with more
satisfaction their own writings; and their scholiasts must resign the
prize to the labors of our Western editors.
[Footnote 110: See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary authors,
Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905--962,) and Vespasian of
Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267--290,) in the collection of Muratori; and
consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46--52, 109,) and Hody in the
articles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, &c.]
[Footnote 111: Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, that
the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the muftis, and
that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken by
the magicians themselves, (Letters on the Study of History, l. vi. p.
165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]
[Footnote 112: See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis,
in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows a due measure
of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, the dukes of Milan,
Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice has deserved the least from
the gratitude of scholars.]
[Footnote 113: Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the preface
of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at Florence, 1494.
Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek orators, apud Hodium,
p. 249) in Atho ThraciÊ monte. Eas Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit.
Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius ille Medices in GrÊciam ad inquirendos
simul, et quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable
enough, that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]
[Footnote 114: The Greek language was introduced into the university of
Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by Grocyn, Linacer, and
Latimer, who had all studied at Florence under Demetrius Chalcocondyles.
See Dr. Knight's curious Life of Erasmus. Although a stout academical
patriot, he is forced to acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at
Oxford, and taught it at Cambridge.]
[Footnote 115: The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a monopoly
of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the Greek scholiasts
on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,) cave hoc facias, ne
_Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et pauciores in Italiam ventitent,
(Dr. Knight, in his Life of Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]
[Footnote 116: The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was established at
Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty considerable works
of Greek literature, almost all for the first time; several containing
different treatises and authors, and of several authors, two, three, or
four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot. GrÊc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet
his glory must not tempt us to forget, that the first Greek book, the
Grammar of Constantine Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that
the Florence Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical
art. See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]
Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in Europe were
immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were marked with the
rudeness and poverty of their manners. The students of the more perfect
idioms of Rome and Greece were introduced to a new world of light and
science; to the society of the free and polished nations of antiquity;
and to a familiar converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime
language of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to
refine the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast; and the
first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of strangers in
the midst of their age and country. The minute and laborious diligence
which explored the antiquities of remote times might have improved or
adorned the present state of society, the critic and metaphysician were
the slaves of Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud
to repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and some
Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of Homer and
Plato. [117] The Italians were oppressed by the strength and number of
their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the deaths of Petrarch and
Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin imitators, who decently repose
on our shelves; but in that Êra of learning it will not be easy to
discern a real discovery of science, a work of invention or eloquence,
in the popular language of the country. [118] But as soon as it had been
deeply saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics of
Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous emulation; and in
Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the pleasing reign of poetry
and fiction was succeeded by the light of speculative and experimental
philosophy. Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the
education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be
exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor
may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate,
the works of his predecessors.
[Footnote 117: I will select three singular examples of this classic
enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho said, in
familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a short time
mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the Koran, for a
religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium,
tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted the Roman academy, which had
been founded by Pomponius LÊtus; and the principal members were accused
of heresy, impiety, and _paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p.
81, 82.) 3. In the next century, some scholars and poets in France
celebrated the success of Jodelle's tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival
of Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,
Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56--61.) Yet the spirit
of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the sportive play of
fancy and learning.]
[Footnote 118: The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we cannot
place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci
and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. ii. p.
174--177.)]
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--Part I.
Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--Reign And Character Of
Amurath The Second.--Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary.--
His Defeat And Death.--John Huniades.--Scanderbeg.--
Constantine PalÊologus, Last Emperor Of The East.
The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared and
celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian schools. [1]
The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his ancestors, surpassed
the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer
blamed the exclamation of an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation,
not of men, but of gods. Those gods, and those men, had long since
vanished; but to the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin
restored the image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the
consuls and CÊsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides
the curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessed
that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined to
reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable beauties
of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native country, her fairest
daughter, her Imperial colony; and the Byzantine patriot expatiates
with zeal and truth on the eternal advantages of nature, and the more
transitory glories of art and dominion, which adorned, or had adorned,
the city of Constantine. Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds
(as he modestly observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are
delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of
their children. "Constantinople," says the orator, "is situate on a
commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the Archipelago and
the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas, and the two continents,
are united for the common benefit of nations; and the gates of commerce
may be shut or opened at her command. The harbor, encompassed on all
sides by the sea, and the continent, is the most secure and capacious
in the world. The walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared
with those of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and
lofty structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A broad
and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the artificial
island may be encompassed, like Athens, [2] by land or water." Two strong
and natural causes are alleged for the perfection of the model of new
Rome. The royal founder reigned over the most illustrious nations of the
globe; and in the accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans
was combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities have
been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties are mingled
with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants, unwilling to remove
from their natal spot, are incapable of correcting the errors of their
ancestors, and the original vices of situation or climate. But the free
idea of Constantinople was formed and executed by a single mind; and the
primitive model was improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and
successors of the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with
an inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches, aqueducts,
cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes, were adapted to
the greatness of the capital of the East. The superfluity of wealth was
spread along the shores of Europe and Asia; and the Byzantine territory,
as far as the Euxine, the Hellespont, and the long wall, might be
considered as a populous suburb and a perpetual garden. In this
flattering picture, the past and the present, the times of prosperity
and decay, are art fully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape,
from the orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre
of its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures were
demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt for lime, or
applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the place was marked by
an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size was determined by a broken
capital; the tombs of the emperors were scattered on the ground; the
stroke of time was accelerated by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant
space was adorned, by vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold
and silver. From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and colossus of
Justinian, [3] and the church, more especially the dome, of St. Sophia;
the best conclusion, since it could not be described according to its
merits, and after it no other object could deserve to be mentioned. But
he forgets that, a century before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus
and the church had been saved and supported by the timely care of
Andronicus the Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified
St. Sophia with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary, were
crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was speedily repaired;
the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor of every rank and age;
and the poor remains of riches and industry were consecrated by the
Greeks to the most stately and venerable temple of the East. [4]
[Footnote 1: The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor John
PalÊologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical student, (ad
calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107--126.) The superscription
suggests a chronological remark, that John PalÊologus II. was associated
in the empire before the year 1414, the date of Chrysoloras's death.
A still earlier date, at least 1408, is deduced from the age of his
youngest sons, Demetrius and Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_
(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 244, 247.)]
[Footnote 2: Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
circumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kai
paraplein kai periplein.) But what may be true in a rhetorical sense of
Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of Athens, five
miles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any navigable
streams.]
[Footnote 3: Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of
Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and inconsistent.
The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon; and the sculptor gave
him the true proportions of an equestrian statue. That of Justinian was
still visible to Peter Gyllius, not on the column, but in the outward
court of the seraglio; and he was at Constantinople when it was melted
down, and cast into a brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]
[Footnote 4: See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in Nicephorus
Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was propped by Andronicus
in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in 1345. The Greeks, in their
pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and holiness of the church, an
earthly heaven the abode of angels, and of God himself, &c.]