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    they were entirely new . Ti p Skvcmi&fe tongues afeo owe &eir permajaemcv to a similar Undertaking , They even now acknowledge as their standard the translation of the Btbte made in the ninth century . The ear * liest literary productions of the Servian branch of the Slavonians are also ecclesiastical . Passing over the influence exerted over Scandinavian literature in a later

    age from its adaptation to the purposes of inculcating the Christian faith * we may notice more particularly the share which the conversion of the heathen , or lately heathen , German tribes had in the formation of their dialects into Jiterary and particularly poetic consistency . Amidst many circumstances which mark the prudent foresight and policy of Charlemagne , none is more distinguished than his determination to give practical use and importance to the popular tongue of the nations which composed the mass of his . empire . The old policy had been to adopt and diffuse as much as possible the Roman language and literature , in which the Emperor was not behind any of his contemporaries ; but he also saw the prudence of

    cultivating the native tongues of his people as the only means of civilizing those tribes whose revolts occupied the greater part of his reign . He is accordingl y recorded not only to have drawn around him and given honour to the bards , who sung the warlike deeds and martial histories of their forefathers , but to have commenced the reduction of his native language to the rules of grammar , *

    His successor Louis ( whom the French call " Debonnair , " and the Germans , more appropriately , " the pious" ) found the greater portion of northern Germany in that state of subjection to which the hard-earned victories of Charlemagne had reduced it ; and his efforts were mainly directed to the urviltzation and religious improvement of these unruly tribes by means of Christian instruction . Entertaining these views , he was scandalized at the looser rhymes which his predecessor had cherished , and conceived the deisign of working upon the known attachment of the Germans to the rhyming

    art , by adapting it solely to scriptural history and doctrine . He found the my thology and heroism of heathenism deepl y impressed on the minds of the people by the circumstance of their forming the subjects of popular songs , and the only plan for overturning the advantage thus gained by the old system was , as he conceived , to give a new direction to the passion , by associating it with subjects more congenial to their instructors' views , and by changing the fleeting elements of mere oral currency into the permanent character of a written language , capable of being resorted to for constant religious exercise .

    There are remains of several works thus formed for the use of the missionaries among the Germans , and written in the Francic , Nieder-deutsch and Alemannic dialects . But the most important of the labours which Louis caused to be executed was that of translating , or rather paraphrasing in verse , " ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ " " " - "' ' " ? ¦ - ' ' ' ' . — ¦ IF- " T- '< - 1 *»* At several provincial councils held in 813 , hq took care that the necessity of preaching in the vernacular tongues should be insisted upon . That held at Tours , decrees as the unanimous resolution of the council , that each bishop should have

    books or homilies compiled , placing the most important lessons of religion within reach of all . These works , it was directed , should treat of the eternal reward of the good and punishment of the wicked , of a futur e life , of the last judgment , of the good deeds which should be done , and the evil ones to be avoided , and should be translated into the common romance or French tongue , and the Theotisc or German , " that all might understand what was said . "

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    Revteti ?»—C 0 nybeafe * & Anglo-Saxon Poetry . 315

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 315, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/27/