The above are but examples of a much larger number of points which the archaeologist may discover in the Letters. But even these will suffice to show that the study of Sidonius is not altogether unprofitable to archaeological research.
The preceding pages have sketched in outline the |cxvi life of Sidonius and the surroundings in which it was passed. But the conditions under which he grew to manhood will be imperfectly understood unless something is said of the system under which the young Gallo-Roman was prepared for his career. For the education which the boy Sidonius received, the typical education of his class and time, exerted a lasting influence upon the man. It coloured his whole outlook upon the world, not always to his advantage, since his very loyalty to academic ideals obscured those natural powers of observation which he certainly possessed. It controlled his literary prospects, determined his interests, and created the astonishing style which seemed to him worth so many vigils, but to us is like a faded finery, hampering the free movement of his thought. Some idea of the intellectual training which produced such strange results is thus essential to our purpose.
The education of the young Gallo-Roman in the fifth century differed but little from that which his father and grandfather had received. The whole training was rooted in traditions no longer vital; it was essentially bookish, uninterested in facts, almost exclusively absorbed in words. Before all other things it set Grammar and Rhetoric; in many schools these two subjects represented almost the whole curriculum. Law had of course to be learned by candidates for the bar; |cxvii philosophy was studied perhaps more as an accomplishment and a discipline of the mind, than for the problems with which it was properly concerned; there was some musical instruction, perhaps more of a theoretical than of a practical nature. But for most youths education meant a proficiency in the Latin classics, a knowledge of the structure of the Latin language, and of the art of speaking before an audience upon a given subject. The interest was directed not to the synthesis of life, but the antithesis of clauses. Science, as we understand the term, was practically unknown; the mathematics, the geography, the astronomy of the schools had as much relation to mythology as to fact. The interesting letter on the death of the rhetor Lampridius shows that even on the most brilliant products of the late Roman schools, astrologers could still exert their baneful influence (VIII. xi. 9). Perhaps the decline in the study of Greek prejudicially affected the power and inclination to observe or think naturally. That language was still taught in Gaul; Sidonius noted the fluency of Lampridius in both Greek and |cxviii Latin; and at Narbonne there were men of culture who appreciated Greek poetry. But the Theodosian Code shows that the Latin grammarians received higher salaries than the Greek, enjoyed a higher position, and probably instructed larger classes. Their lectures consisted for the most part in commentaries on classical authors, chiefly the Roman poets. Style was analysed; the vocabulary of each writer examined; metaphors and expressions were carefully discussed. Points of etymology and antiquarian knowledge were raised, and pursued along the by-paths of erudition; it was a golden age for commentators. Not all, however, was learned trifling. Some of the criticism upon Virgil and Homer was acute and penetrating, as, for example, the fifth book of the Saturnalia of Macrobius.
The great text-book in the schools of the fourth and fifth century was Virgil. To Sidonius, as to Augustine, he is the prince of poets. Terence was evidently popular in Gaul; the Letters allude to his characters, and in the passage on the home-education of Apollinaris, Sidonius reads the Hecyra with his son, uncertain which delights him most, the fine style of the author, or the youthful grace and ardour of the boy. The influence of Horace is also evident in our author; he is second to Virgil among the poets. The opulent and elaborated |cxix style of Statius naturally commended him to such a society as that of fifth-century Gaul; he had been popular with Ausonius; and his influence on Sidonius as poet is undeniable. It is the same with Claudian; the Panegyrics which charmed the ears of an Avitus or an Anthemius owe him much, but the splendour of the original is gone. Among prose-writers, not Cicero, but the younger Pliny was the favourite. In the introductory Letter of the fifth book, Sidonius acknowledges him as his master; and in a later book again refers to this professed allegiance. Pliny, the agreeable letter-writer, was the inevitable model of a society in which correspondence with friends was a main interest of existence: no less inevitable was the reproduction of his mannerisms rather than his excellences by purely imitative writers. In his introductory epistle to Constantius, Sidonius quotes as a warning the nickname given to Julius Titianus for his sedulous efforts to reproduce the style of Cicero: he was called 'the ape of orators' (pratorum simia). Yet he and his own contemporaries fell into the same error; they were apes of the second great Roman letter-writer, caricaturing their master by accentuating all his faults. Features of Sallust's style were distorted by them in the same manner. |cxx
Grammatical criticism of the classics was followed by specialized study of the great orators, with a view to proficiency in public speaking: this was the course of Rhetoric. The rhetor was a more important person in society than the grammarian. But, as noted above, he professed an art which, except in the Church, had little prospect of great or serious audiences; it was divorced from real life; it was the accomplishment of the speech-room. The training was still, no doubt, a good one; rhythm, prosody, voice-production, division of the subject, were all thoroughly taught, and proved their value when there was a worthy occasion for their use. But most opportunities were hardly worth the taking; the speaker eulogized the great dead or the Epigoni of the present; he took part in academic displays or competitions before small circles, in which ancient or unreal issues were treated in the style of the class-room declamation. An unbounded respect for certain models, a good memory with an endless stock of figures, metaphors and mythological examples always at command----these, and not the power to read hearts and |cxxi sway them to a genuine emotion, were the essentials of oratorical success. These were the qualities which carried Ausonius, the rhetor of Bordeaux, to the highest office in the State. The enthusiasm for letters which such promotion implies is laudable in itself; but in the time of Roman decadence the reward fell to an artifice which sterilized instead of fertilizing the mind, and drove hearts capable of valiant action into channels of sentimental retrospect. The fine flower of all this education was the panegyric, and it was an artificial flower.
It has been already noted that the Church was beginning a new education of her own (p. lxxvi), and that in some cases boys were placed under a religious teacher, as Sidonius' own brother studied under Faustus at Lerins. But as a rule, sacred learning would seem to have been neglected in the schools attended by wealthy pupils. Some of the great families were probably still pagan: others appear to have shown little zeal for the religion which they nominally professed; the old mythology dominated literary culture. Perhaps Sidonius was never really grounded in the study of the Scriptures till after his consecration. Only after that event do his letters show a familiarity with |cxxii Holy Writ; examples and illustrations derived both from the Old and New Testament then accompany or displace the mythological figures dear to his earlier years. By the side of Triptolemus, we hear of Joseph. Moses, Aaron, and Solomon, Joshua, the Gibeonites, and the people of Nineveh are introduced in illustration. The Church is the spiritual Sara; Philosophy is the fair woman captured from the enemy and espoused by the captor; the story of Peter and Simon Magus points its obvious moral. St. Luke is quoted as a believer in the advantage of long descent.
In no capacity did this scholastic education so harm Sidonius as in that which it was designed to advance---- his quality as man of letters. He was too good a pupil of his peculiar masters to be anything but a bad writer. The curse of the rhetorical tradition clung to him like a chronic disease; it destroyed the originality of a genius never too spontaneous. In an age when it was improper for a literary man to be himself, he thought too faithfully of the proprieties. His age was just to him: he had the reward of his obedience. The society whose conventions he defended saw in him the mirror of contemporary writers; in his heart, he |cxxiii himself was sure that the vote of posterity was won. Though, soon after his death, a Ruricius might whisper a doubt, it was long before the general verdict turned against him. The Middle Ages approved; and even after Petrarch's misgivings, the voice of admiration continued to be heard. But the Renaissance grew critical, the eighteenth century dared to attack. If the value of Sidonius really lay in his style and diction, as he himself believed, then his credit would indeed be dead beyond resuscitation. Hardly any Latin author has received so short a shrift at the hands of modern criticism as this professed champion of the Roman tongue. When good Latinity was once more understood, our author's pedestal became a pillory; and the works of every writer upon style, from Horace to Boileau, provided missiles wherewith to pelt him. Gibbon, preferring his prose to his 'insipid verses', pays it a back-handed compliment after his manner. Even those who uphold particular merits are forced to draw upon the arsenal of epithets forged against the affected and the turgid writer. The most recent critics are the most severe of all. Hodgkin says that Sidonius has achieved nothing beyond a fifth-rate position as a post-classical author; Dill sees in him one of the most tasteless writers who ever lived. In the matter of depreciation the last word has been spoken; nothing fresh can now be said. The Latin style of Sidonius is condemned as finally as the French style of Voiture. |cxxiv
But the position of Sidonius no longer depends on his manner; his style is to-day brushed aside as a tiresome veil, obscuring what he has to say. He refused to write history; he survives as the historian malgré lui. Though he missed one of the great opportunities in literature; though he failed to record much that was most worth recording in the world about him, and instead of the new drama of his times preferred to transmit for the hundredth time the vapid and worn-out stories of Greek mythology, he has yet preserved for us facts enough to constitute him a chief authority on the century in which he lived. His literary fate is indeed a paradox; he is one of those men whose parergon alone is valued, and who are esteemed for the very part of their work which they themselves deemed least important. By a careful sifting of the Letters and the Poems, modern writers have extracted much material which, classified and co-ordinated, has thrown useful |cxxv light on one of the darkest periods of history; on many points, Sidonius is the sole source of information. Nor is his mannerism always with him. The Letters which yield most with least trouble are precisely those in which an eager personal interest in his subject, or the pressure of a busy life, or some unexpected necessity for haste have forced the writer to abandon his preoccupation with style and tell his business in a natural way. At such times he speaks directly: tam nunc dicit tam nunc debentia dici. The most efficient cause of plainer writing |cxxvi was probably the stress of episcopal work; to this our debt is large. We are infinitely relieved when amid the familiar affectations we come upon the stilus rusticans or the sermo usualis for which he apologizes as a degradation of his pen. We almost lose sympathy with him in his personal troubles, as soon as it appears that it is misfortune which has simplified his diction. Appreciating to the full the honourable solicitude of Sidonius for the purity of Latin, and his ever-present fear of Celtic or Teutonic encroachments, we are willing to condone any intrusions from the vulgar tongue to be rid for a while of the alliterations, the inversions, the forced antitheses, and to see the meaning quickly in a simple dress. What we want of Sidonius is plain fact, and it is pleasant to admit that occasionally we get it without too much exasperation; sometimes the actor removes the mask and speaks in unaffected tones. Let it therefore be recorded to his credit that he does not always offend, and that not once or twice, but many times, he writes in a manner worthy of Roman literature at an earlier day. Let it also be remembered that his |cxxvii subject-matter is often well presented; when his narrative interests him, he can tell a story brightly and with effect. Nor should we overlook the fact that Sidonius has a gift for portraiture, which frequently lends animation to his pages. Sometimes a character is sketched in a few sentences, as in the case of Paeonius the parvenu, the malicious old Athenius, the lively veteran Filimatius who plays ball with the younger men (V. xvii), and Himerius the model priest (VII. xiii). At other times the description is at greater length, and details are drawn with a free hand. We have amusing pictures of the young fortune-hunter Amantius (VII. ii), and of Ger-manicus the juvenile sexagenarian (IV. xiii), who dresses in the fashion, who will hear nothing of age except the increased respect it brings, and grows more boyish every day (non iuvenescit solum sed quodammodo repuerascit). We have the interesting sketch of Vectius the country gentleman, whose girdles are of exquisite design, who hunts, hawks, and entertains his friends, but listens to the Psalms at meals, and is more priestly in spirit than many of those who wear priests' garments (IV. ix). We have the memoir of Claudianus Mamertus who does all the hard work for his brother St. Mamertus, to which allusion has been made above (p. lxxxi); we have the reminiscences of Lampridius, the quicktempered rhetor, murdered by his slaves (VIII. xi). In other cases classes of men are portrayed with the same precision; for instance, informers, or popularity-hunting candidates for municipal appointments (XV. xix). A writer possessing such penetration and such graphic |cxxviii powers as these deserves something more than an untempered ridicule.
Yet the counts in the indictment are sufficiently numerous. First and foremost there is the mania for antithesis, and plays on words which degenerate into the most lamentable of puns, for paronomasia, antonomasia, and all the other obliquities of language which sound like the infirmities which they are. A critical examination of Sidonius' work resembles literary pathology; his language is often diseased language, which could only regain a semblance of health by a free use of the knife. It calls aloud for amputation of the platitudes, pomposities, and verbal conceits which the euphuist himself would renounce as foolish. It is unnecessary to dwell long on a subject which has its pathetic side, yet concrete instances must be adduced in evidence.
First, we may take examples of the ruling passion for antithesis. The abuse of this is persistent, and sometimes verbal oppositions are cumulated with almost incredible pertinacity, as, for instance, in the description of Ravenna (I. viii). Sidonius pits against each other the words novus and vetus or antiquus, until the staleness of the trick infuriates. Thus novus clericus, peccator antiquus (IX. ii); novo exemplo amicitiarum vetera iura (VII. vi. l), in famillari vetusto novum ius potestatis (V. xviii). But no glaring contrast of word or sense, however elementary, comes amiss; for instance: pingues caedibus gladii, macri ieiuniis praeliatores (VII. vii. 3); confitetur repulsam qui profitetur offensam (VII. ix); pharetras sagittis vacuare, lacrimis oculos implere (V. xii); Cuius parva tuguria magnus hospes implesti (III. ii); Itinerum longitudinum, brevitatem dierum, &c. (III. ii. 3). |cxxix
And so on, and so on. The reader who desires more of this misplaced ingenuity will find instances on every other page. Plays upon words are no less common. Inferre calumnias, deferre personas, afferre minas, auferre substantias (V. vii); scientia fortis, fortior conscientia (IX. iv); at non remaneamus terrent quibus terra non remanet (IX. iii); iuste iusta solventes (III. iii. 8); indidit prosecutionibus, edidit tribunalibus, prodidit partibus, additit titulis, &c. (VIII. vi. 7); seu sic sentiente concordia, seu sic concordante sententia (IV. xxv. 5); inconsulte consultat. (VIII. ix. 13); praedae praedia (IV. xxv. 2); suspicere iudicium, suscipere consilium (IV. xxii. 1). The changes are continually rung upon such words as dicere and ducere, suspicere despicere, orare perorare, ambiendus ambitiosus, providere praevidere, &c. The list of such things is endless, but we are not yet at the worst; we have to endure puns from which a schoolboy would recoil. A proper name like Faustus, Perpetuus, or Rusticus is seldom allowed to escape: let two of them represent the series: Perpetua durent culmina Perpetui (IV. xviii----this to be carved on the wall of a church); rusticans multum quod nihil rusticus (VIII. xi. 6, cf. Rusticus ). It is pardonable for a man once in a way, in intimate conversation, to indulge a weakness of this kind, but how can a bishop be forgiven who puns for publication, and in work carefully revised not only by himself but by his friends? From a long list we may cite the following specimens: non tam honorare censor quam censetor onerare (VIII. viii); honoris . . . oneris (IX. ii); ex more . . . ex amore (IX: iv. 1); classicum in classe cecinisse (VIII. vi. 13); Aptae fuistis, aptissime defuistis |cxxx (IX. ix)----perhaps the worst of all. It is time to draw the. veil over faults which it is impossible to condone; we may conclude with the following instances of paronomasia and antonomasia. Leges Theodosianas calcans, Theudoricianasque proponens (I. ii. 3); flumen in verbis, fulmen in clausulis (IX. vii); inter perfectos Domini quam inter praefectos Valentiniani (VII. xii. 4).
The reader may be spared illustration of the overloaded interminable sentences;. or of the strings of illustrative instances and persons, sometimes eight or ten where two would have sufficed, till the tail is out of all proportion to the kite; or of the mannerism which declares for silence on things which might be praised, and then enumerates them to the bitter end; or of the labouring of points till they are, so to speak, hammered blunt; or the tautologies recalling the 'which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest or seest' of Armado: to insist on these things is to waste time; there is no possible defence. We may pass to other features, not reprehensible in themselves, but made so by immoderate or tasteless use. The metaphors of Sidonius for the most part are familiar, and worn in service. The world is a threshing-floor, spiritual exhortation a harrow. Life is like a river; a literary career is a sea-voyage; the mind of man is a sea, suddenly disturbed by the squall of adverse tidings. Silence is a curb; evil tongues are like barbed hooks. Verse written in sorrow is like the song of swans, or the music of very tense strings (VIII. ix. 4). A king's favour is a flame, which illuminates afar, but in neighbourhood consumes (III. iii. 9). A friendship not maintained is like a |cxxxi sword that rusts if not frequently polished. The schools of Lyons resemble a mint, in which youthful natures are struck on a philosophical die (IV. i. 3). Where originality is attempted, the result is often either crude or over-intricate. As an example of the latter fault we may take the passage comparing the scion of a clerical family to a rosebush, for if he be not holy he stands amid all the roses armoured in the thorns of his sin (IV. xiii. 4); or that comparing Lupus, the generous discoverer of hidden talent, to the sun, whose searching rays will detect and draw up a moisture hidden deep under ground (IX. xi. 9); again, that which likens an author who is always writing but never publishes, to a dog who only snarls but never barks out (VII. iii. 2). Sometimes we find similitudes extraordinary to our taste, like the mysticus adeps et spiritalis arvina, which recalls the startling similitudes of a Crashaw or a Donne (VI. vi. 2). It is not surprising to find that Sidonius will mix metaphors with any man. Salsi sermonis libra (III. ii. 1); lacrimis habenas anima parturients laxavi (IV. xi. 7); manum linguae porrigis (IV. i. 3); quibus . . .faece petulantiae lingua polluitur infrenis (III. xiii. 2), may suffice to show his quality. There are other defects or affectations, not immediately concerned with words, but equally due to the same imitative contentment with bad rhetorical tradition. There is the tiresome realism which insists upon elaboration of unessential details offensive to the finer sense----what Chaix has called la manie de tout |cxxxii peindre; there is the parade of erudition which, if less obtrusive than the determined pedantry of Cassiodorus, is yet a weariness to the reader; there are the hyperbole in flattery, the perverse preference of the inappropriate, the joy in 'combinations of confused magnificence'. We cannot more justly stigmatize the work of Sidonius at his worst than by continuing the criticism from which the last phrase was quoted, a criticism directed against certain English poets of the seventeenth century, but equally applicable to our author of the fifth. For his style too is marred 'by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery and hereditary similes'. The thing could not be better said.
The result of all these artifices, applied with an unshrinking hand, is that Sidonius is often hard to construe. Ruricius, his younger contemporary and |cxxxiii partial imitator, was the first to complain of his obscurity, Petrarch confessed that he often found him unintelligible; and the most accomplished modern editors of his text admit that he presents some problems which they cannot be sure of having solved. While diffuseness is his besetting sin, some of his phrases are condensed to the point of impenetrability, and his constructions are rendered obscure by the imperfect development of his thought. Petrarch wondered at the audacity of his style; yet, as Baret has remarked, when it is examined, it is found that in prose he has fewer direct irregularities than Tacitus, and, in verse, than Virgil. It is rather a certain strange exotic character, instinctively felt, but not easily defined, which characterizes our author's work, compared not only with that of the golden age, but with that of a late writer like Symmachus. He is 'heteroclite' ; his cadences have an unfamiliar ring; when they are read aloud, they strike us as differing not in degree, but in kind from those of the classical authors. Were it not that an early critic has given blunt utterance to the suspicion, |cxxxiv we should hardly dare to hint that some subtle Celtic influence had really affected his manner, and that, unknown to himself, the older Gaul was secretly revenged upon this son of hers who had only ears for an Italian idiom. Is it merely a fancy that indigenous turns of thought have been unconsciously adopted by this champion of the classics? Do we witness the first movement towards the changes which were to issue in the Romance language in the South of France? Various indications seem to point that way. The synthetic structure of the older Latin tends to pass into analysis: the conjunctions quia or quod replace the complementary infinitive; the abstract replaces the concrete term. Prepositions grow more indispensable to inflected cases; the genitive is used in a manner which is almost French. The reader of the Latin text will discover a number of words or turns of expression used in a mediaeval or modern way. In one place, if not in two, the word familia is employed in the French, in place of the old Latin sense (VI. vii). Vir litterarum is homme de lettres; |cxxxv nebula de pulvere is nuage de poussière. Baret records a number of these peculiarities, and gives a list of the archaisms and neologisms in the text. We may note a few favourite or peculiar words: e. g. tumultuarius, used of rapid or impromptu composition; lenocinari, to coax or flatter; fatigatio, chaff or banter; eventilare, to go over, or search through; humanitas, hospitality; piperatum, 'piquant' or caustic. To some words Sidonius appears to give a new sense; thus it is hard to avoid the conclusion that more than once he employs toreuma where toral is alone appropriate. In his complimentary formulae he is as a rule correct and Roman; though he is fond of abstract terms like celsitudo or Sanctitas tua as honorific appellations. His superscriptions give the name of his correspondent in the dative, with the addition of suo, if the person is a friend, or of the title domino papae if he is a bishop. Sidonius does not employ the affectionate modes of address adopted by Ruricius, e. g. domino pectoris sui Lupo; domino animae suae Pomerio; domino venerabili, admirabili, et sanctis omnibus aequiparando Sidonio. As a rule, the letter ends with a Vale; but when the correspondent is a bishop, the formula is: memor nostri esse dignare, domine Papa. In one instance he closes with an ora pro nobis (VII. xii----to Ferreolus).
So much for the more obvious characteristics which |cxxxvi mar the style of Sidonius; we have now briefly to estimate his merits as a letter-writer. It need hardly be said that he cannot be placed in the first rank; he is not, as his friends averred, a second Pliny, far less a second Cicero. But he touches so many sides of contemporary life; he lived through such momentous times; he is so exceptional in speaking with two voices, first as man of letters, nobleman and high official, then as a prominent Churchman, that in spite of his deterrent style, he has an interest somewhere for almost every reader. In most things but the cultivation of brevity, he is superior to his predecessor Symmachus, whose letters seldom touch either great or entertaining issues, but are written to discharge the obligations of a punctual correspondent, and are often brief as memoranda, and of an unsurpassed aridity. It will be more easy to understand the level on which Sidonius should be placed if we consider a few of the gifts which make the letter-writer, and then ask whether he possessed them. The master in this art must not be argumentative, or his letters become treatises; he must not always be serious, or they may insensibly change to sermons. He must know, as one of the greatest of the craft has said, how |cxxxvii to approach great matters by their small side---- prendre les grandes choses par les petits cotes. If he confines himself chiefly to questions of public concern, he must be doubly careful to be individual, terse, and vivid; above all, he must have the light touch, and the latent gaiety, which never permit the tale to drag. He must be skilled in expression; things must be put, they will not put themselves. But the art must be so concealed that what he writes affects us like the prompt phrases of an unpremeditated conversation. He must be catholic in taste and subject. He must interest most men and not a few; the greatest letter-writers play upon an instrument of many strings. And, in the modern view, at any rate, his letters should be often intimate, revealing the writer's own mind, and telling something of his private life. We thus require of the perfect correspondent much that even the greatest of the ancient letter-writers cannot give. They are mostly Romans; and Roman manners entailed reticence on intimate things; hence a certain preoccupation with intellectual themes and public affairs, which tends to reduce the human interest of their letters. It is not that human interest is absent; there is evidence enough, especially in the case of Cicero, to prove the contrary. But it is often too much in the background, and a correspondence which is too objective is not letter-writing at its very best: it is one-sided; it lacks the perfect balance. For these reasons, even the first among the ancients will sometimes disappoint a modern reader familiar with the achievement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but approaching the classics for the first time. In many ways Cicero is almost modern; his lively |cxxxviii sympathies bring him nearer to natural unreserve than any letter-writer of antiquity; he stands in a class by himself. But if we are conscious of a something wanting when reading Cicero, with all his ardour, his mobility, his colour and conciseness of phrase, it is inevitable that the same deficiency in the less admirable Sidonius should cause a more conspicuous void. The studied care for form which makes the agreeable Pliny sometimes tire, is exaggerated in his last disciple until all spontaneity is lost. And while the manner is frequently repellent, the matter often wearies in its turn; there is too much laudation of obscure literary efforts, too little talk of home affairs, of country life, of details of travel, of the natural beauties of southern France. Nature is overlooked, or regarded, as it were, with the eyes of a duke or cardinal of the Renaissance, seated at a comfortable point of vantage and with quotations from Virgil nearer to his lips than true feeling to his heart. When Sidonius visited Rome in the time of Anthemius, his route followed the Flaminian Way from Rimini; and the latter part of it was the wonderful hundred and fifty miles beginning at Foligno, the stage which travellers from northern Europe used to cover before the days of railways. Goethe followed it when he first approached Rome; Shelley came down it in 1818, and felt the charm to the full. But of that charm the Gallo-Roman |cxxxix poet is silent, betraying no interest in these things, and assuming none in his correspondent. He has nothing to say of Spoleto, or the falls of the Velino; we should never guess that he had seen Soracte from Civita Castellana, or looked from Castelnuovo across the valley of the Tiber towards the distant Alban hills. And on his river journey down the Ticino and the Po, though the song of the birds in the bulrushes gives him pleasure, his thoughts are soon diverted to Tityrus and the metamorphosis of Phaethon's sisters. For these and other reasons Sidonius cannot be placed very high among the masters who have expressed themselves through the medium of letters. It is in vain to seek in his pages the unstudied brilliance of Mme de Sévigné, the wit and vivacity of Voltaire, the light irony of Horace Walpole, or the natural gaiety of Cowper. We feel that Sidonius would never christen a path or copse 'La Solitaire' or 'La Sainte Horreur'; or stay alone in the woods all day for sheer love of verdure. His is not the art to throw off a likeness in half a dozen words, or to resume an affair of State in a pair of sentences; nor is it his to make a hearthside event like the escape of a pet hare an absorbing and complete adventure. In edification, he lacks the winning simplicity, the amiable grace of St. Francis of Sales. He cannot restrain his scholarship like Gray, or expand in confidences like Lamb. His humour often strikes us |cxl as forced; he has compliments like those of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, but less adroitly turned. In fine, he was the victim of an artificial training; he lived in times not of renaissance but of dissolution; his was an age more eager for epistolary honours than any other, but more obviously debarred by circumstance from their attainment.
Though we are not primarily concerned with Sidonius as poet, the inclusion in the Letters of some dozen epigrams and short pieces compels us to ask whether Gibbon's contemptuous phrase is deserved. Were these verses all that remained to us, there could be but one answer; ' insipid ' is a temperate epithet for some among them. Of the two impromptu epigrams, one on the imputed satire (I. xi. 14), the other on Filimatius' towel (V. xvii. 10) we can only say that, like other couplets written against time, they should not |cxli have been exposed to time's revenge. The epitaphs, elegies, and church inscriptions have the mechanical correctness to be expected of one whose mind was continually exercised by questions of metre. But they are mostly written out of good nature, or out of kindness of heart, motives which in all ages have often left the imagination uninspired. In truth, some of them come near to deserving the title of naenia epltaphistarum which their author almost feared for them himself. The poet's reputation cannot, however, be judged by these secondary efforts; it rests upon the Carmina, the twenty-four poems issued in 468, and chiefly upon the three panegyrics in honour of Avitus, Majorian, and Anthemius. In these more ambitious works, which challenge, if unsuccessfully, a comparison with Claudian and Statius, we find the same faults so conspicuous in the writer's prose, with others added----the glittering antitheses, the far-fetched metaphors, the forced emphatic utterance, the unquestionable facility, the lack of emotional inspiration, the tiresome parade of knowledge, making whole parts read 'like versified chapters out of Livy'. But though over the greater part hangs the curse of an implacable memory that cannot forget the Schools, though Pegasus is ever reined to the manège, the whole achievement cannot fairly be dismissed as bad because the bad preponderates. It may be that here, as in the stilted periods |cxlii of the Letters, the ear is arrested by unfamiliar rhythms and strange sonorities; here, too, a breath of barbarism has passed. But where the author feels his conscious power, there is dexterity, opulence and movement, there is a pageantry of changing form and colour to which the name of poetry cannot be denied. There are narrative passages which seize and hold the interest; for example, the description of the Vandals, or of the Roman army crossing the Alps. Parts of the Panegyric of Majorian advance with an ardour worthy their theme, while here and there flash out gnomic phrases after the glittering style of Lucan. The declamatory manner of these hexameters, so far removed from the suave Virgilian grandeur, admits of frequent brilliance in description; the effect is that of historical painting on a large scale by a skilful but uninspired master. Some of the pieces on less ambitious subjects are not without occasional grace. The verses to Majorian, pleading for remission of the triple tax, strike a light vein with more success than the humour of the Letters would lead us to expect; but the Epithalamia would damage any reputation. Sidonius is at his best in the rhetorical vein; he is the rhetor through and through. In his never-failing fluency, his adroit use of mythology and proverbial wisdom, he is the natural successor of Ausonius, and takes his place after him among the poets of the Roman decadence.
The literary reputation of Sidonius long survived his death. Ruricius of Limoges, in some respects |cxliii a pupil, refers to him in eulogistic terms, though conscious, as we have seen, of a certain obscurity in his style; so does Avitus of Vienne, another late writer of letters. Gregory of Tours praises his eloquence and power of improvisation. Cassiodorus regards him as a master; Ennodius and Fortunatus are his frank admirers; Jornandes had clearly read his poems. Savaron has illustrated his popularity during the Middle Ages, when John of Salisbury, Abelard, and other scholars were familiar with his works, and mediaeval writers sought to imitate his manner. But in the fourteenth century, the growing familiarity with Classic models reacted unfavourably upon his reputation. We have already noted that Petrarch was critical; and the Renaissance more critical still. Politian was unimpressed by his style; Vives called his prose ridiculous (absurdissima); Casaubon is severe, though Scaliger can still find words of praise. The editions of Savaron and Sirmond revived an interest in his works; but with the eighteenth century he finally lost credit as a writer of Latin, while securing a permanent place as an authority for the history of his times. From Tillemont and Gibbon to Amédée Thierry, Guizot and more recent historians of his age, |cxliv all have rendered homage to his involuntary merit, while one man of letters at least, Chateaubriand, has borrowed material from his pages (p. xciii above). Despite his chastisement as stylist, Sidonius has not fared ill at the hands of the posterity to which he entrusted his fame. Though his periods will never be recited either for pleasure or instruction, neither his name nor his work is forgotten; and in our greater libraries, while men pursue research, the Letters and the Panegyrics will always hold their undisputed place.
Of Sidonius as a man it is almost unnecessary to speak; the Letters prove his noble qualities, and those written after his entry into the Church reflect the saintliness which won him the honour of canonization. His chief fault, a defect of his ambitious early life, was an over-readiness to flatter where flattery, if given at all, should not have come from him. There were times when he too conveniently forgot the antecedents of the great, or their connexion with men whom honour forbade him to conciliate. Majorian was the comrade and the nominee of that Ricimer who had murdered Avitus; Sidonius forgets the fact too soon. Theodoric II had murdered his own brother; Sidonius, perhaps for a political end, appears oblivious of all save the royal virtues. Such flexibility is unworthy of the man who was to write the stern letter of rebuke to Graecus; nor was it a true part of the nature which trials and disillusions proved to be really his. This is the worst charge which can be brought against him; his other failings are little weaknesses which make him real to us, and which he never seeks to conceal. Thus |cxlv he sometimes appears too lenient towards unworthy action: for instance, towards the deception of the young adventurer Amantius; but he confesses with a charming frankness that he does not like censorious rigour (VII. iv 3). His literary vanity is now and then accentuated by false modesty (VII. iii, IX. xiii); but as a rule his simple confidence disarms resentment. When he assured his friend Fortunatus that the appearance of his name on the superscription of one of the Letters would ensure its immortality, he was probably more serious than not; after all, he spoke the truth, for the name of Fortunatus is preserved (VIII. v). He probably had no objection to being called a second Pliny (IX. i), and was quietly convinced that his critics were in the wrong. But no doubt he discounted the eulogy which he received; much of it was complimentary verbiage, belonging to the etiquette of his day; and he himself was so profuse of it to others, that he can have been under no illusion as to its current value. The age allowed a great latitude in exaggeration; but it must be admitted that Sidonius availed himself of it upon occasion to an extent which is revolting to modern sentiment. His letter to Claudianus Mamertus reaches the limit of extravagance, and with all allowance for the influence of an eulogistic time, we cannot read it |cxlvi without continual irritation. When we are told that the subject of his praise can hold his own with the first names in every field, with Orpheus, Aesculapius, Archimedes, Vitruvius, Thaïes, Euclid, Chrysippus, and all the greatest Fathers of the Church as well, credulity is too obviously taxed, and we wish that Sidonius had remembered more often the gnomic saying which he ascribes to Symmachus: ut vera laus ornat, ita falsa castigat. Nevertheless it must be remembered that eulogies almost as absurd have been perpetrated in periods very near our own. Thus Prior, in his Carmen Saeculare so grossly flattered William III that, in Johnson's phrase, he exhausted all his powers of celebration. We may dismiss the present subject by once more applying to Sidonius the words of the same critic, and say of him that in these matters he 'retained as much veracity as can be properly exacted from a writer professedly encomiastic'. Again, Sidonius was quickly moved, and sometimes allowed his temper to impair his dignity. He 'blazes out' when views are expressed which controvert a pet opinion; and when more seriously offended, does not confine himself to words. The apparently innocent disturbers of his grandfather's grave feel the weight of his fists or the lash of his whip (III. xii); he explodes at the |cxlvii carelessness of a slave who lost some letters, and will not speak to him for days (IV. xii. 2).
But these are the small defects of great qualities. The most affected of writers is the most natural of men. Though uncommunicative about his home, he says enough to show that he was a good father of his family, affectionate to his wife, solicitous for the health and welfare of his children. There is real charm in the passage, already noted, in which he describes himself as sitting reading with his son, distracted between delight in the boy's ardour, and in the fine passages of the poets (IV. xii); there is real regret when in later years the enthusiasm of the young Apollinaris waned (V. xii).
He was a loyal friend. Mention has been made of his fidelity to Arvandus in the dangerous hour of disgrace (V. vii). Similar qualities are apparent in the letter on the death of Lampridius, another friend to whose faults he was by no means blind. At a time when his own anxieties were great, he exerts himself to the utmost at the Burgundian court to foil the informers who had brought Apollinaris into danger (V. vii). A large number of the Letters illustrate his anxiety for the health and prosperity of those for whom he felt regard, or his sympathy with them in their misfortunes. When he became bishop, this fellow feeling was extended to a wider circle, and Claudianus Mamertus bears the highest possible testimony to the unselfishness of his life, when he complains that Sidonius is so busy attending to those who have no real claim upon him, that he finds too little time to answer |cxlviii the letters of old associates. He, too, like this venerated friend, 'remembered through good and evil the necessities of the human lot.' He was generous alike in the distribution of gifts and in the sentiment which is always ready to recognize the qualities of others. Gregory of Tours relates, in a passage often quoted, how he gave away his silver plate to relieve distress, and how, when Papianilla insisted on the recovery of the silver, the poor were compensated in other ways. An example of his kindly thought for others is seen in VII. xvi, where he sends the winter cowl to Chariobaudus. He is ever ready to encourage the literary efforts of younger men (II. x, IX. xi), and even to lend them most precious volumes in his library, a supreme test of human kindness. He was capable of tolerance towards those whose religious views he most detested; the Letters concerning the two Jews Gozolas and Promotus exhibit him in a pleasing light, and his dictum that a man may be a Jew and yet be sound in judgement does credit to his breadth of vision. He was sociable and friendly, possessed of tact and patience, accommodating affairs to men in a manner which would have won the approval of his favourite Horace. Nor was he devoid of humour; though the examples of his wit which have come down to us are sometimes tiresome, he was probably |cxlix good company when in the mood. Throughout the Letters he appears as the kindly intermediary who endeavours to help others in the practical difficulties of life. As bishop, his benevolence is always active. We see him receiving a truant son and bringing about a reconciliation with the injured father (IV. xxiv); securing the remission of interest on an old debt for the advantage of an orphaned family (IV. xxiv); persuading a delinquent husband to return to his wife (VI. ix). But he never countenanced favouritism. He saw clearly that reward should only follow efficient service, and expressly opposed the plea that promotion should go by seniority (VII. ix; VIII. vii). He was a man of insight and common sense, upon whom people relied for good advice. Many reflections and maxims in the Letters attest his practical wisdom. He insists that the safeguard of enduring friendship lies in community of likes and dislikes (III. i); he sees that self-depreciation may be pushed to the verge of folly (IX. iii. 7); he knows that the most bitter family quarrels are those which arise over the division of estates (IV. i), and that at a Burgundian court, as at most others, proximity to kings is dangerous (III. ix).
He was a patriot both as Roman and Arvernian. In the earlier part of his career we find him always urging the strenuous life for the credit of the Roman name. We have seen that more than once he rebukes the men of family who allow all interest to centre in their estates or pleasures, while the imagines of trabeated |cl ancestors look down on their degeneracy (I. vi); even philosophy is not accepted as an excuse for inactive contemplation (VI. vi). He did not despair of the empire even in the days of Julius Nepos; he thought that if only patriotism were fairly rewarded, as good men would appear to show it as in the great days of the past (III. viii). When Auvergne was attacked by Euric, his spirit was worthy of Roman tradition at its best. Both during the siege of Clermont and after it, he evinced a courage and a fortitude which proved him worthy of his ancestors. It is unnecessary to dwell upon this crisis of his life; his nature issued from it confirmed in strength and refined as by fire. He possessed to the full the moral strength which enables men to overcome old prejudice in the service of a changed ideal. The exclusive magnate who chose his acquaintances with such care became the friend of all men; the proud noble could beg for the Church (III. i; VIII. iv). He was consistent in his loyalty to his new profession, and resolutely maintained the dignity of the priesthood even against the high worldly rank which he never ceased to respect (IV. xiv; VIII. vii). He was sincerely humble in his sense of his own unworthiness to be the shepherd of others at a time when he felt the need of guidance for himself: in his Letters to Lupus and other bishops after his election to the see of Clermont, the language is emphatic but the contrition is sincere (V. iii; VI. i; VII. vi). The devotion which in earlier years had perhaps depended much on formality of observance was now the guiding principle of his life; the reputation for piety which he gained among |cli his contemporaries and immediate successors is sufficient proof of his sincerity. History records no career precisely comparable to this. Conspicuous alike for his rank and literary celebrity, Sidonius was in many ways the first personage in his native land, yet he fulfilled his arduous and unfamiliar duties in a spirit of abnegation equal to that of colleagues trained to the renunciations of monastic life. In the evil days which fell upon his country, he never abandoned his people; when his own fortunes were darkest, he rejoiced that others escaped affliction (IV. ii). If Sidonius failed of greatness as a writer, he surely attained it as a man.
There are extant more than sixty manuscripts containing the whole or the greater part of the works of Sidonius, and some twenty containing a small part of them. Out of this large number, Lütjohann, when editing the text for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, selected six as of superior importance, some of these having affinities to a few other manuscripts, which for this reason were occasionally employed. The six manuscripts are:
1. Codex Laudianus, (Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. 104) 9th or 10th century. Known as L. Related to this book are Parisinus 1854 of the 10th century, known as N, and Vaticanus 1783, 10th century, known as V.
2. Marcianus. (Marcian Library, Venice, 554.) 10th century. Known as M. |clii
3. Laurentianus. (Laurentian Library, Florence, Plat. XLV. 23.) 11th-12th century. Known as T.
4. Matritensis. (Madrid.) 10th-11th century. Known as C. (Related to this is Vaticanus 3421, 10th century.)