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gian Dynasty, we shall find them combined in 954-987 Richer or Richerius. The son of a personage 960-966 not so elevated in station as to be entangled Peculiar over-much in public business, nor so inferior in for his task. rank as to be an unworthy companion of the Monarch, Richer's father became the living record of the facts and recollections which he related to his son.

The son was equally competent to execute the task. Yearning for knowledge, and embued with traditionary information which he alone could attain, he was fully fitted, both by talent and acquirement to employ the teaching; and, at that period of life when the powers of memory are most vivid, and the mind most matured, he was called upon to be the Historiographer of an expiring race, by the most pre-eminent amongst his contemporaries, one whose name stands so high in the annals of science-though so dubious as to moral desert.

when Arch

requests

compose a

History of

France.

When Gerbert of Aurillac, (of whom more here- Gerbert after), famed, or defamed, as Pope and Magician, Rheims had attained the Primatial Seat of the Gauls, he Richer to requested Richerius to compose a History of the complete Monarchy from its foundation.-Richerius declined the labour. It appeared to him that he could not make any useful addition to the works of his predecessors, and he, therefore, preferred confining himself mainly to the more recent portions, his father's times and his own. Had it not been for Richer's sagacious diligence, any approximation to the real history of this eventful period could never

960-966

954-987 have been known.-"Tynt is tynt !"-" Verloren ist verloren!"-Lost history, like lost languages, never can be recovered by any process in the nature of induction.

Gerbert supplies Richer with mate

rials.

Gerbert-no one else could have done the deed-gave over his correspondence to Richerius. Gerbert was constantly involved in machinations, on behalf of others and of his own self, and it is sometimes difficult to avoid the suspicion that he occasionally betrayed one party tine State by co-operating with another. We possess his dence. Their own letters, or letters under his name, others

The Gerber

Papers and
Correspon-

value and

obscurity.

The one
manuscript
of Richerius;

which were dispatched or exchanged to or between the most eminent personages of his time, including the Sovereigns: but we are rarely enabled to distinguish whether he speaks in his own person, or in the person of the party whose name is prefixed; nor whether he acts as agent or as principal;-nor whether the letters were confided to him by the writers; nor whether he obtained the documents honestly or by collusion. This singular collection has been long known under the title of Epistolæ Gerberti, and has proved a torture to the wits of the erudite.Crabbed-enigmatical,-the inexplicable hint,a phrase in conventional gergo,-names in secret characters. The obscurity has encreased their interest. Much labour has been bestowed upon their elucidation, but with indifferent success.

The original of Richer's history exists as he autograph & left it: autograph and holograph: never used holograph. during the nine hundred and odd years which

have elapsed since his era and our own, but by 954-987 one scholar, famous Abbot Trithemius in the fifteenth century.

It is amusingly instructive to observe how the old Monk went to work upon his task. He proceeded economically. For the most part his manuscript is a palimpsest: the membranes of various qualities, and the leaves of unequal sizes. Here, are interlineations in larger characters-and there, interpolations in the margin; some portions in exceedingly small and delicate letters, penned, perhaps, when the sun was shining brightly, others again, in large Pica, written when the smoky lamp was burning dimly. The text has been most carefully corrected and re-corrected, enlarged and improved by the author. But, if Richer's additions are important, the subtractions are even more so, and his concealments more striking than his disclosures. Sometimes a word or a paragraph has been erased, and the scalpel employed so earnestly, that not a letter can be traced.

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Considerable breaks and Peculiar cha

halts are found in the narrative, assuredly not for want of knowledge. These occur wholly during the reign of Lothaire, to the extent, in the aggregate, of nearly twenty years, and, very generally, at the precise nick of time when we are peculiarly anxious to receive full information.

Richer's conduct as an historian was unquestionably dictated by prudence, though combined with a higher principle than prudence. Enriched with materials for composition; and fully able to

racter of Richer's

mind discorrections,

closed by his

&c. of the manuscript.

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954-987 employ them, he was endued with the rare virtue of silence. The periods omitted would have necessitated the narration of occurrents which it would have grieved him to record. This is the more evident, because in one very remarkable instance, when he had commenced a chapter which must have contained matters bearing painfully upon the moral character of individuals who are amongst the most prominent in this history, and thereby enabling us to form a more correct judgment concerning the more immediate motive causes of the revolution, he baulks us by his conscientiousness, and taking up his shears, he snips off the remainder of the page. This is one of the numerous examples, when a pentimento is far more instructive than the Artist's completed composition. No passage can be really suppressed, but by casting it in the fire.

After the death of Lothaire, the narrative expands. Richerius appears to have emboldened himself to his task, and to have worked with more confidence. Yet his reticences do not cease, and we can discern them again in connection with the scandalous subject which must have filled the chapter we have lost. sion of Gerbert to the See of

Upon the accesRheims, the hisprobably, inter

tory terminates. Infirmity
rupted Richer's labours. But the parchment
is not exhausted, and he still employed him-
self in collecting memoranda for the continua-
tion of the useful task. He transcribes two
letters from his Patron Gerbert, which the

learned editor who disentombed the manuscript, has, in consequence of some nicety of arrangement, withheld or postponed. Then follow some few miscellaneous jottings,-words written to try his pen,-a sketch intended for a letter addressed to some friend, concerning a medical treatise which that friend had lent him in the course of the year: and, amongst other notices, one of peculiar interest to us, which, whilst testifying that the affairs of Normandy continued to attract his attention, affords at the same time a grotesquely forcible testimony of the permanently enduring contemptuous feeling which the old Carlovingian Frenchmen entertained against the mongrel Pagans.

51. The fragmentary character possessed by Carlovingian history at this era, when the antient fabric was crumbling into ruins, often necessitates a departure from chronological order. We must occasionally groupe our personages; and, amongst these personages, none requiring to be more distinctly individualized than the Prelates, who, acting very different parts, contributed, each in his position, to the Capetian triumph.

954-987

960-962

961

Death of

of Rheims.

Shortly after that Lothaire, having reduced Dijon, had given so hard a blow to the Verman- Archbishop dois family, the wearying career of Artaldus came to a close. The ecclesiastical Provinces of Rheims and Sens were forthwith synodically convened. The Capet, who possessed much

VOL. II.

3 E

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