Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/363

 Roger: Letires Ciassiques d' Ansoiie a Alcidn 353 educator Alcuin labored so effectively to meet the needs of Frank and Saxon learners. The book does even more ; for it goes back of the period of its nominal commencement, and considers the scheme of study as laid out by Quintilian. Thence it advances, noting the abandoned threads of classic discipline, and following those which merely decayed and did not break. The literary skill of Boissier or the constructive imagination of Ozanam would be needed to make a discussion of Latin education in these centuries interesting or especially suggestive. M. Roger is but fair-minded and painstaking. He is occupied with a time of literary decay, and one as to which our information on the topic of Latin studies is so unsatisfactory that a work like the one before us necessarily be- comes a thesis on the paucity of our veritable knowledge upon the sub- ject of the book. Nor would the author's modesty lay claim to having exhausted such information as may be had. One notes that his treatment of classical education in Italy is inadequate. He refers to Giesebrecht"s De Littcraniin Stitdiis apud Italos, etc., but appears unacquainted with Novati's InAnsso del Pensiero Latino sopra la Civilta Italiana del Medio Evo (1899) and Salvioli's Istrusione Pubblica in Italia nei Secoli VIII, IX e X (1898). Again, in what the author has to say of Fortunatus, one might have expected a reference to W'ilhelm Meyer's Der Gelegen- heitsdichtcr Vcnantius Fortunatus (Abliandlungcn d. kgl. Gescllschaft der IVisscnsch. cii Gottingen, phil.-hist. Kl., n. f.. Bd. I'., No. 5, 1901) ; and some reference, when discussing Caesarius of Aries to Carl F. Arnold's elaborate monograph, Caesarius von Arclate und die gallische Kirche seiner Zeit (1894). In general, however, AI. Roger's learning is sufficiently exhaustive; and while on many branches of his subject he has little to oft'er that is novel, we think that he has made an important contribution to the dis- cussion of Latin letters in Ireland during the fifth and following cen- turies. This is a- matter on which there has been enough genial general- izing; but we know of no such thorough investigation of the somewhat squalid data as M. Roger has presented. His theme is not the entire history of the Irish schools, but is confined to the sixth and the first half of the seventh century, when the Irish were " les representants les plus actifs de la culture classique dans I'Europe occidentale " (p. 202). With the close of the seventh century, the centre of interest passes, as he says, to Great Britain, where Aldhelm, Bede, Egbert, and Alcuin take up the torch of learning, and prepare " le programme du futur enseignement des ecoles carolingiennes " (ibid.). M. Roger seems to express the kernel of his thesis when he says : " Au lieu de considerer I'histoire de la culture classique en Irlande, du iv' au ix" siecle, comma un mouvement provenant d'une impulsion unique, il faut y distinguer des epoques differentes, caracterisees par la diversite des influences subies, et ne pas rechercher une solution, qui explique a la fois la teinture