Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! Creation widen’d in man’s view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal’d
Within thy beams, O sun! …
No: I simply picture you as desiring to realise our own literature, its depths and values, mile above mile deeper and deeper shining, with perchance a glimpse of a city celestial beyond, or at whiles, on a ladder of values, of the angels—the messengers—climbing and returning.
V
Well, now, I put it to you that without mental breeding, without at least some sense of ancestry, an Englishman can hardly have this perception of value, this vision. I put to you what I posited in an earlier course of lectures, quoting Bagehot, that while a knowledge of Greek and Latin is not necessary to a writer of English, he should at least have a firm conviction that those two languages existed. I refer you to a long passage which, in one of those lectures, I quoted from Cardinal Newman to the effect that for the last 3,000 years the Western World has been evolving a human society, having its bond in a common civilisation—a society to which (let me add, by way of footnote) Prussia today is firmly, though with great difficulty, being tamed. There are, and have been, other civilisations in the world—the Chinese, for instance; a huge civilisation, stationary, morose, to us unattractive; “but this civilisation,” says Newman, “together with the society which is its creation and its home, is so distinctive and luminous in its character, so imperial in its extent, so imposing in its duration, and so utterly without rival upon the face of the earth, that the association may fitly assume for itself the title of ‘Human Society,’ and its civilisation the abstract term ‘Civilisation.’ ”
He goes on:
Looking, then, at the countries which surround the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, I see them to be, from time, the seat of an association of intellect and mind as deserves to be called the Intellect and Mind of the Human Kind.
But I must refer you to his famous book The Idea of a University to read at length how Newman, in that sinuous, sinewy, Platonic style of his, works it out—the spread, through Rome, even to our shores, of the civilisation which began in Palestine and Greece.
VI
I would press the point more rudely upon you, and more particularly, than does Newman. And first, for Latin—
I waive that Rome occupied and dominated this island during 400 years. Let that be as though it had never been. For a further 1,000 years and more Latin remained the common speech of educated men throughout Europe: the “Universal Language.” Greek had been smothered by the Turk. Through all that time—through the most of what we call Modern History, Latin reigned everywhere. Is this a fact to be ignored by any of you who would value “values”?
Here are a few particulars, by way of illustration. More wrote his Utopia, Bacon wrote all the bulk of his philosophical work, in Latin; Newton wrote his Principia in Latin. Keble’s Lectures on Poetry (if their worth and the name of Keble may together save me from bathos) were delivered in Latin. Our Vice-Chancellor, our Public Orator still talk Latin, securing for it what attention they can: nor have
The bigots of this iron time
Yet call’d their harmless art a crime.
But there is a better reason why you should endeavour to understand the value of Latin in our literature; a filial reason. Our fathers built their great English prose, as they built their oratory, upon the Latin model. Donne used it to construct his mighty fugues: Burke to discipline his luxuriance. Says Cowper, it were
Praise enough for any private man,
That Chatham’s language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe’s great name compatriot with his own.
Well then, here is a specimen of Chatham’s language: from his speech, Romanly severe, denouncing the Government of the day for employing Red Indians in the American War of Independence. He is addressing the House of Lords:
I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church—I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this noble lord [Lord Suffolk] frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleet: against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion—the Protestant religion—of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us—to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage—against
