The continental kingdoms which had risen on the ruins of the Western Empire kept up some intercourse with those eastern provinces where the ancient civilisation, though slowly fading away under the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct barbarians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocletian and Constantine, where the public buildings were still adorned with the sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious pedants, themselves destitute of taste, sense, and spirit, could still read and interpret the masterpieces of Sophocles, of Demosthenes, and of Plato. From this communion Britain was cut off. Her shores were, to the polished race which dwelt by the Bosphorus, objects of a mysterious horror, such as that with which the Ionians of the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla and the city of the Laestrygonian cannibals. There was one province of our island in which, as Procopius had been told, the ground was covered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could inhale it and live. To this desolate region the spirits of the departed were ferried over from the land of the Franks at midnight. A strange race of fishermen performed the ghastly office. The speech of the dead was distinctly heard by the boatmen, their weight made the keel sink deep in the water; but their forms were invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which an able historian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of Simplicius, and of Tribonian, gravely related in the rich and polite Constantinople, touching the country in which the founder of Constantinople had assumed the imperial purple. Concerning all the other provinces of the Western Empire we have continuous information. It is only in Britain that an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and Totila, Euric and Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and Brunechild, are historical men and women. But Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus At length the darkness begins to break; and the country which had been lost to view as Britain reappears as England. The conversion of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the Church had been deeply corrupted both by that superstition and by that philosophy against which she had long contended, and over which she had at last triumphed. She had given a too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Roman policy and Gothic ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. Some things also which at a later period were justly regarded as among her chief blemishes were, in the seventh century, and long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should encroach on the functions of the civil magistrate would, in our time, be a great evil. But that which in an age of good government is an evil may, in an ago of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that mankind should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public opinion, than by priestcraft: but it is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendancy. Such a class will doubtless abuse its power: but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in corporeal strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they had purchased by guilt, who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances and incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some writers who, while they boasted of liberality, were in truth as narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which, however deformed by superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities previously governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists.
同类推荐
热门推荐
鬼帝绝宠:皇叔你行不行
前世她活的憋屈,做了一辈子的小白鼠,重活一世,有仇报仇!有怨报怨!弃之不肖!她是前世至尊,素手墨笔轻轻一挥,翻手为云覆手为雨,天下万物皆在手中画。纳尼?负心汉爱上她,要再求娶?当她什么?昨日弃我,他日在回,我亦不肖!花痴废物?经脉尽断武功全无?却不知她一只画笔便虐你成渣……王府下人表示王妃很闹腾,“王爷王妃进宫偷墨宝,打伤了贵妃娘娘…”“王爷王妃看重了,学仁堂的墨宝当场抢了起来,打伤了太子……”“爱妃若想抢随她去,旁边递刀可别打伤了手……”“……”夫妻搭档,她杀人他挖坑,她抢物他递刀,她打太子他后面撑腰……双重性格男主萌萌哒冷漠的人,谢谢你们曾经看轻我:我是射手座女孩
射手座女孩,音乐专业女生寇韵在一次音乐比赛中输给了同校的柴婧、沈晴,她的男友江朗也移情别恋,喜欢上了柴婧。失意中的寇韵却意外得到与业内著名的新皇公司签约机会。在这里,她遇见了比自己先签约新皇的沈晴,沈晴的父亲是著名的沈氏集团主席,处处刁难她,而寇韵为了自己的音乐梦想,默默忍受、努力打拼。而慧眼识寇韵的新皇音乐总监王御在背后支持她,而且爱上了这个独立自强、具有音乐才华的女孩。两个人的感情,却遭到了沈晴的阻挠。寇韵能否实现自己的音乐梦想,她和王御的爱情能否受得住考验?沈晴作为王御的哥哥王宇的头牌艺人,又怎样落入了王宇的圈套,成为他谋夺新皇的工具。新皇集团王氏一家,又有着怎样的一个惊天秘密……