Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/167

 medieval Latin verse continues to live only as a pedantic and attenuated survival from the moment that either Norman French, or medieval English poetry comes into fashion. Into these fields of investigation I do not now propose to intrude. I shall have done something to reconcile myself with the perfunctory and superficial way in which alone my irksome duty on these occasions can be discharged, if I have called your attention to the literary side of a period of our history which, although it may be the fashion to regard it as obscure and barbarous, still contains the germination and early growth of institutions which are vital portions of our national existence. An age so important as that of Henry II in constitutional growth could not be an age of barrenness and deadness in any department of culture, altogether; that it was not is amply proved not only by the remains of literary work which are still preserved to us, but by the glimpse they give us into circles of scholar-like activity, a highly stimulated growth of literature, and an extent of education which we ought to be the last to undervalue.