University of Virginia Library

From the Latin of Marbod, Bishop of Rheims (twelfth century). For the original leonine hexameters, Moribus esse feris, prohibet me gratia veris, see Archbishop Trench's learned and beautiful volume, “Sacred Latin Poetry,” Introduction, p. 47. It was a favourite notion of the author of Cosmos that the love of scenic beauty and the capacity of deriving a moral enjoyment from its contemplation were sentiments unknown to the ancients, and that we must ascribe their existence among us to the æsthetic influences of Christianity and the poetry of the cloister. If this were so, these verses of Marbodius, which breathe a genuine sweetness and delicacy hard to reproduce, might be cited as a brilliant illustration; but the fact appears to have been otherwise. See “Congal,” p.233.