Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/354

 332 THE DECLINE AN'D FALL tke eatkaii- The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple ^ad^* event, while hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spirit of the times. But the obstinate per- severance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiratkm ; that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and adverse experience : that the same confidence should have repeatedly grown from the same failures : that six succeeding genertitions should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them ; and that men of every condition should have staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate adventxire of possessing or recovering a tomb-sttme two thousand miles from their country. In a period of two centttries after the council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy I^nd ; but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some impending or recent calamity : the nations were moved by the authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings : their zeal was kindled, and their reasoa was silenced, by the voice of their holy orators ; and among these ci>«j*et er»Bd Bernard, •"- the monk or the saint, mav claim the most honourable Ml BeB«»nL place. About eight years before the iirst conquest of Jerusalem, he was bom of a noble family in Burgundy ; at the age of three-and-twenty, he buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in the primitive fervour cf the institution ; at the end of two years he led forth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux ^"^ in Champagne ; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the humble station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honours of these spiritual heroes. The meanest amongst them are distinguished by some energies ^ The most authentic information of St. Bernard most be,drawB firoai lus own writings, published in a correct edition by P^re Nfabtlloo [a vols^ ^66^ and reprinted at Venice 1750, in six volumes in folio. Whateew friendsliip ooald recollect, or superstition could add, is contained in the two Ktcs. by his disdples. in the -ith volume : wrhatever learning and criticism coold ascertain, may be faond in the prefaces of the Benedictine editor. [MabiUoa's cdOecdon ronirains 444 letters ; in Migne's Patr. Lat. vol. iSa there are 405. The life and worts have been translated into English by S. J. EaJes, iSSo. — Nean4er, Der beil^ Bemhaid end sein Zeitalter (new ed. i3oo) ; J. Cotter Morrison. TlW Life and Tiroes of St. Bern- hard of aair-anx (new ed. 1834). There are endless otber nioaogTaph&] ^Clairvaux, sumaraed the Valley of .Absy--- ■- ^'tnate amcMig the woods near B.ir-sur--Aube in Champagne. St. Bernard •. ih at the pomp of the dinrch and monasterj- : he would ask for the libran. , ^. .. . .^aow not whether be would be much edified by a ttm of 3oo muids (gn'r-Tth hogsheads), which afanost rivals that of Heidelberg (Melanges Tir^ d'one Grande Bebltoth^qae. torn. xhn. pL 15-20)-