Discipline; both of them bearing the same character of being the standard books of reference for subjects of this nature, and both reprinted. Dom. Sainte Marthe having occasion to require aid for the compilation of the Gallia Christiana, Martenne was ordered by the superiors of St. Germain des Prés to visit most of the monasteries of the Benedictine confraternity in France, accompanied by Dom. Durand, in order to search for documents in illustration of the great book just named. They performed this task with so much activity and zeal, that, besides bringing back with them to Paris more than 2,000 documents for the Gallia Christiana, they collected materials for five folio volumes, consisting of other documents and rare papers. These Martenne published under the title of Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum; to which another volume, making the sixth, of similar documents, was also added. These two learned Benedictines published besides an account of their literary travels under that title; and the two quarto volumes that resulted have been a storehouse for French antiquaries ever since. These fellow-labourers, not content with this display of their learning, and the good service they had thereby rendered to the world of letters, afterwards published another collection of old writers and documents upon historical and religious subjects, which they justly styled Amplissima Collectio, it being in nine folio volumes. Dom. Martenne was concerned in several others of the great literary undertakings of the Benedictines, and died in the midst of numerous projected works A.D. 1739, aged eighty-five.

DOM. BERNARD DE MONTFAUCON, one of the brightest stars of an illustrious galaxy of learned men, was of noble birth, and first saw the day at the château of Soulage in Languedoc, A.D. 1655. His father's usual residence was at the château of Roquetaillade. He was not intended originally for the church, but, on the contrary, was brought up to the honourable profession of arms, entered the regiment of Perpignan, and served in its ranks with distinction during two campaigns. The death of his parents, and of a superior officer upon whom his hopes of promotion much depended, induced

him to leave the army, and some other events having occurred to render him tired of society, he resolved to enter a monastery, and in 1676 he became one of the Benedictine order. He had made the ancient languages his deep study, and he soon edited various works on ecclesiastical antiquities and history; among others, a new edition of the works of St. Athanasius. In 1698 he determined to go into Italy, accompanied by a religious brother, Dom. Paul Brioys, in search of manuscripts and rare works; and on his return, after an absence of three years, published his Diarium Italicum; a work that has been translated into English, and was published at London in 1712. This curious book gives an account of the principal libraries of Italy and their contents, and is still a most useful book of reference for Italian travellers. In 1706 he published a collection of unedited Greek authors upon ecclesiastical subjects, in two folio volumes; and many other smaller works came out from his study about the same period. In 1708 appeared his Palæographia Græca, in folio, a work illustrating, by a considerable number of plates and learned dissertations, the whole history of Greek writing, with the variations of the Greek characters from the earliest times down to the present. This was almost the first work written upon the subject, and it has served as the textbook for all students of this branch of Greek literature, until the same topic has been taken up only a few years ago by some modern scholars, and new light thrown upon it. In 1719 he was named one of the members of the Académie Française, and in the same year sent forth to the world his Magnum Opus, L'Antiquité Expliquée, in ten folio volumes, with a supplement of five more, making in all fifteen enormous folio volumes. Of the importance of this great book to the antiquarian and the historical world it is hardly possible to speak too highly. Its object was to lay before the public a vast series of objects of ancient art, of architecture, of sculpture, &c. and to illustrate the whole by plates, executed in the highest style which the age admitted of. This the learned author effected most completely; and it is to this very book that the founda

tion of all our most important branches of archæological knowledge at the present day may be ascribed. The obligations of the continental antiquary to Montfaucon are immense; and his work will stand the test of future ages, as one of the most astonishing, and certainly one of the most extensive, monuments of antiquarian research ever made by one man. This large work was reprinted almost immediately in France, and it has been translated into English and republished at London: the price is still from fifteen to twenty guineas, and it is likely to increase rather than to sink in value. Dom. Montfaucon followed up this great undertaking by another of the same nature, the Monuments of the French monarchy, in five folio volumes, with a great number of plates and illustrations and in 1739 came out his last work, the Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manuscriptarum,-being a compendious account of the contents of nearly all the MS. libraries of note with which he was acquainted, in two folio volumes. This most indefatigable writer died suddenly in the abbey of St. Germain des Prés, A.D. 1741, aged 86. Independently of the works enumerated above, there is a whole host of papers and memoirs upon all kinds of subjects by his pen in various collections; and to give an idea of the variety of his objects of research, we may mention that the title of one of his papers is that of Objects to be examined into in a Journey to Constantinople and the Levant. In the world of letters there are few who have been able to bring forward such proofs of unremitting labour as Dom. Montfaucon.

DOM. PERNETTY took a line of reading far different from most of his colleagues; for he has left us an excellent work on America and the Americans, a Mythological Dictionary, a Collection of Greek and Egyptian Fables, &c. He died as late as 1801.

DOM. POMMERAYE was an indefatigable recorder of ecclesiastical antiquities, and produced Histories of three Abbeys at Rouen, a History of the Archbishops of the same diocese, and a History of the magnificent Cathedral of that most interesting city-all ponderous tomes, and in the antiquary's eye worth their weight in gold.

DOM. RIVET DE LA GRANGE was the principal author of the Literary History of France, of which he edited the first nine volumes. This is a most valuable and learned work, to which we have not as yet any sufficiently good parallel in England. All the authors of France, with their works, are there classed and passed in review; and this too with a display of learning and candour infinitely creditable to the authors. Many brethren of the Benedictine order contributed to this work.

DOM. THIERRY RUINART was born at Rheims, A.D. 1657, and entered the Benedictine order at twenty years of age. He placed himself under the guidance and tuition of Dom. Mabillon, and helped that learned author in several of his works. The first work of his own that he published, and for which he is best known, was the Acta Martyrum, in folio, in which he contended, in opposition to Mr. Dodwell, that the number of early Christian martyrs was very large; and his arguments on that side of the question are supported by great learning and knowledge of ancient documents. In 1699 he published a new edition of the works of Gregory of Tours; and he afterwards aided Mabillon in compiling and publishing the Acts of the Benedictine Saints, in two volumes, folio; and after Mabillon's death he wrote and published his Life, which is an interesting piece of literary and ecclesiastical biography. Dom. Ruinart was the author of numerous theological works, less known than those mentioned above. He died A.D. 1709.

DOM. CLAUDE DE VIC, who was born at Sorèze, A.D. 1687, though not such a voluminous writer as some of the great men mentioned above, was yet intimately connected with them in their labours, and is, in particular, well known to historians and antiquaries as being joint author with Dom. Vaissette of the great History of Languedoc. This work, like almost all other literary productions of the Benedictines, is a standard work; it is the great authority for all that concerns the early history of that part of France; and now that it is re-appearing in a new edition, we know all that has been preserved of the history and traditions of a country peculiarly rich in important events and remarkable

places. Dom. Vic had the agreeable task, during a lengthened residence at Rome, of having to search the libraries on behalf of his fellow-labourers at home; and he had the good fortune to be of considerable use to his friends in this manner. He was much looked up to by literary men of his day, and he died at the comparatively early age of 53, in A.D. 1734.

DOM. SAINTE MARTHE was the principal author of a great work already named, the Gallia Christiana, of which he was considered responsible for 11 folio volumes. All the learning of the order is shewn forth in this work, which, as may be imagined, was beyond the compass of any single person's industry. Sainte Marthe, therefore, had several assistants, but his name nevertheless takes precedence. He also published a life of Pope Gregory I. and an edition of his works.

DOM. TASSIN was a main contributor to another great book on palæography and diplomatic matters, called the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, which was intended to serve as a Supplement and a continuation to Mabillon's magnum opus. It is in six 4to. volumes; and, like its predecessor, may be pronounced as indispensable to the professional historian and antiquary. While upon this subject, we may mention that if any body not aware of the importance of such subjects would see to what a highly interesting and practical use it may be turned, he should consult Mr. Westwood's elaborate work, entitled the Palæographia Sacra, lately published in London; or Mr. Henry Shaw's Specimens of Ancient Illuminated MSS., both splendid books of their kind and readily accessible. Dom. Tassin also wrote the Literary History of the Congregation of St. Maur, a most interesting book, and quite apropos to our subject.

Besides the learned men whose names we have rehearsed above, there were numerous others who applied themselves to Hebrew and Arabic, and who explored the works of those languages with the same success that attended their brethren in different pursuits. The Benedictine character stands deservedly high in this as in other branches of human knowledge. Others wrote upon topics of natural

history and physiology; some upon medicine; some on natural philosophy; but their numbers were less considerable, and their works were not of the same importance.

The theological writers of the order comprehended almost every member of it; but it is not intended on the present occasion to go into an enumeration of their labours: we will only remark that they distinguished themselves principally as editors and commentators; and that among other valuable services in theological literature, they gave to the world a nearly complete edition of all the Greek Fathers.

We have reserved, however, to the last the mention of one of the greatest of the Benedictine labours, as being unfortunately that very one upon which we have, the least satisfactory information as to the names of its authors. The work itself is of such a nature that we may not unreasonably infer a great number of compilers to have been employed upon it; we might almost say that it is the result of the united labours of the whole order. Every reader of the immortal pages of Gibbon or Sismondi, all who know any thing about the labour of making original researches in historical matters, will recognise the work alluded to, L'Art de Vérifier les Dates. This is the great collection of chronological tables, the great summary of all history, ancient as well as modern, the great multum in parvo, for which, if the Order produced nothing else, the thanks of all subsequent scholars would be voted unanimously. It may be truly said that no book ever held so important a place in modern historical literature as this. It contains a most exact summary of the history of all nations ; so exact, that to detect an error in it may, commonly speaking, be called an impossibility. The decisions of this book are always looked upon as final; he who possesses a copy of it has indeed a treasure. Several editions of this splendid work have appeared; the old ones are not now to be purchased in a complete state except at a great price, twenty-eight guineas for the eight folio volumes, of which it consists; even the new edition in 4to. is not much cheaper, being twenty-four guineas for ten volumes. The last

BRAVE old Nuremberg has greatly declined from its former glory. Fitter type, perhaps, than any other German city of Germany's sad eclipse in these late years of cowardice, discord, and disgrace. Illustrious alike in the history of art, of religion, of commerce, and of politics, Nuremberg is now, we believe, chiefly known as a manufacturer of toys. Germany also, once so earnest, the birth-place of Luther, and the grand scene of Luther's reformation, seems no longer able to do anything but play, half as a dilettante and half as a poltroon, with what two or three hundred years ago would have kindled a universal flame of valour and enthusiasm. Our hope is, that as Germany cannot sink much lower without becoming a second Byzantine empire, an abyss of corruption, feebleness, and lies, the hour of its redemption may be near, through the immense rebound from its present ignobleness and ignavity. When that hour comes the city of Albert Dürer may perhaps recover its former splendour and influence, cease to place a large Protestant population in the grasp of a bigoted popish prince, and, instead of manufacturing toys, may think it is better to be, as in the valiant time, the mother of poets, painters, and heroes.

Some six hundred years ago a Bohemian family, called Behaim, settled in Nuremberg. Notable members has that family been fruitful in, even down to our own days: for, if attracted to Nuremberg by its antiquities and associations, you will find that there are still Behaims here. The greatest of the race was he of whom we propose to give a brief account. But two others would have commanded the world's attention and applause, even if Martin Behaim had not achieved distinction among those who sought a name in the same age and in the same path as Columbus.

Matthias Behaim gave, in 1343, a translation of the Bible into German, which is carefully preserved as something more than a curiosity, as something sacred-in the university of Leipsic.

Michael Behaim, one of the most celebrated of the German Meister

singers, was born in 1421 and died in 1490. He is said to have endeavoured, with success, to introduce the songs of the people into the courts of the princes where he passed his life. His productions, besides their poetic merit, have an additional and abiding interest, as relating to the events of his period and illustrative of its manners. His Buch von Den Wienern was published at Vienna in 1843, and enabled the Viennese to see what a poet had to say about their fathers in the fifteenth century.

Martin Behaim, the subject of our sketch, was born at Nuremberg in 1436, and thus in the same year as Columbus. He appears to have had learned and gifted masters: but when Beroaldo the elder is mentioned among them this seems improbable, as Beroaldo was a much younger man, and taught only in Italian cities or at Paris: remote parts for a young German student, destined to be a merchant, to be likely to repair to. Best known as a cosmographer, Behaim had, from his early years, applied himself with diligence to cosmography and navigation. In connection with his commercial pursuits we find him in 1457 at Venice, and in the years from 1477 to 1499 at Mechlin, Antwerp, and Vienna. How he prospered as a seller of cloth we are not informed; but his heart was, no doubt, more in those dreamings, darings, and movements, which led to the discovery of America. At Antwerp he became acquainted with some Flemings who had settled as colonists at Pico and Fayal, two of the Azores. There is reason to believe that his intercourse with them led to a journey which he undertook in 1480 to Portugal, which became thenceforth the chief theatre of his exertions. That in Portugal Columbus and Behaim met and communicated their nautical plans to each other is likely enough, though we have no evidence on the subject. The rich, sympathetic, and magnanimous character of Columbus must always have been strongly drawn toward men of kindred spirit. Behaim was not long in attracting the attention of King John the Second, who commissioned him to make an astrolabium, and to calculate de