[Footnote 13: This important political treatise was discovered in the
year 1823, by Angelo Maii, in the library of the Vatican. A treatise on
the Psalms covered it. This second treatise was written in the clear,
minute character of the middle ages, but beneath it Maii saw distinct
traces of the larger letters of the work of Cicero; and to the infinite
joy of the learned succeeded in restoring to the world one of the most
important works of the great orator.]
[Footnote 14: "Many bishops and abbots began to consider learning as
pernicious to true piety, and confounded illiberal ignorance with
Christian simplicity," says Warton. The study of Pagan authors was
declared to inculcate Paganism; the same sort of reasoning led others to
say that the reading of the Scriptures would infallibly change the
readers to Jews; it is amusing to look back on these vain efforts to
stop the effect of the printing-press.]
[Footnote 15: Agobard was Archbishop of Lyons, and one of the most
learned men of the ninth century. He was born in 779; raised to the
prelacy in 816, from which he was expelled by Louis le Debonnaire for
espousing the cause of his son Lothaire; he fled to Italy, but was
restored to his see in 838, dying in 840, when the Church canonized him.
He was a strenuous Churchman, but with enlightened views; and his style
as an author is remarkable alike for its clearness and perfect
simplicity. His works were unknown until discovered in the manner
narrated above, and were published by the discoverer at Paris in 1603,
the originals being bequeathed to the Royal Library at his death. On
examination, several errors were found in this edition, and a new one
was published in 1662, to which another treatise by Agobard was added.]
[Footnote 16: The celebrated minister of Philip II.]
[Footnote 17: One of the most curious modern discoveries was that of the
Fairfax papers and correspondence by the late J. N. Hughes, of
Winchester, who purchased at a sale at Leeds Castle, Kent, a box
apparently filled with old coloured paving-tiles; on removing the upper
layers he found a large mass of manuscripts of the time of the Civil
wars, evidently thus packed for concealment; they have since been
published, and add most valuable information to this interesting period
of English history.]