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Rh manners. They imitated, or even outdid, some of the most licentious writers of antiquity in vile and obscene productions. They endeavored to resuscitate ancient life, and not in its best forms. The horrible crimes which are the worst blot on the history of antiquity, of Greece in particular, were made the subject of elegant verses. And the vices which were the curse of Greece and one of the causes of its downfall, began to rage like a dreadful plague in the cities of Italy, especially among the higher class of society.

One has only to recall the names of such humanists as Valla, Poggio, Becadelli and others, to understand how justly this class of writers is censured. Their writings have been called "an abyss of iniquity wreathed with the most beautiful flowers of poetry." It was against this flood of abomination that the zealous, but unfortunately impetuous and stubborn Savonarola directed his thundering eloquence, with only a temporary result. It can easily be imagined what influence this new paganism exerted on youth. What kind of moral safeguard could be expected from teachers of the stamp of Valla? No attempt was made to keep from the hands of the young books which in all ages have been proscribed as disastrous to morality. In the light of such facts the anxiety which Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, felt about dangers arising from the indiscriminate reading of the classics, is fully justified. Not a few of the humanists had lost all faith. Other defects of the majority of the humanists, especially their exorbitant