That this rendering, despite its writer's pretensions, is far from perfect, will readily be seen from the following excerpt (ii. m. 5):—

"Tan buena era la vida de los premeros habitadores del mundo: que solamente querian aquellas cosas que eran necessarias a la vida e no querian superfluydad de vestes ni de viandas: ni de requezas," &c.

1

GERMANY.

SECTION XVI.-PETER OF KASTL.

Authorities. Pezius, 'Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novissimus ' ('Dissertatio Isagogica' in tomum iv. p. xxiv), 1723. Andreas, Chronicon Generale' (in Pezius, lib. cit.)

In the year 1401 Peter, Presbyter in Kastl, a Benedictine monk, is said to have written a translation of the 'De Consolatione.' Pezius, I know not on what grounds, suspects this to be the one which was printed, together with the Latin text and St

1 A worm has made its hole through the middle of this word in the B. M. copy. I have restored it to the best of my ability.

2 With the memory of a fatiguing chasse au renvoi fresh on me, I cannot resist entering a protest against Peiper's method of referring to Pezius. All the information he vouchsafes the unfortunate reader at this point is "Pezius's Anecd., p. xxiiii." Now, as the Anecdotorum Thesaurus is a vast work in six ponderous folios, to each one of which is prefixed an introductory dissertation, paged in

Thomas Aquinas's Commentary, by Coburger at Nuremberg in 1473. Peter seems to have been more successful as a literal translator than the Spaniard we have been discussing :

"O wie gar vil selig ist gewesen das vorder alter das sich liess benügen an den getrewen veldern, und nicht ward verderbet mit der tregen oder unertigen. überflüssigkeit, ungewont helte zeprechen das spat vasten mit der leichten aicheln . . . 25 Aber die inprünstig lieb zehaben das gut ist frayssamer dann das fewr des perges Ethna. Ach wer ist der erst gewesen unter den die gewollet haben das die gewicht des verborgen goldes und die edeln gesteyn solten verporgen beleiben. Wann der hat begraben hohgultig oder achtbar scheden."

I have little doubt that other Germans besides Notker and Peter of Kastl tried their hand on Boethius, but I have not been able so far to find a trace of them.

Roman numerals, it involved no little time, and the turning of many leaves, to realise that p. xxiiii meant the twenty-fourth page of the Dissertatio Isagogica in tomum quartum. While I am on this subject, I may perhaps be allowed to call attention to the same editor's description of the MS. of the Consolation and Tracts in the Rehdiger Library at Breslau. He calls it simply "Rehdigerianus " (op. cit., p. xiiii). Without doubt Thomas von Rehdiger (ob. 1576) was a great man, but strangers can hardly be expected to know instinctively that he founded a library (the Elisabeth-Bibliothek) in the town from which he took his name!

The beginning of the fifteenth century is in more than one way a convenient limit to set to this list of vernacular translations. But it must not be supposed that the story of Boethius's influence on medieval literature is nearly told yet. I protest I am appalled at the amount I have left unsaid. He had a host of imitators in Latin, some of whom, such as Bernard Silvester, Alain de Lille, John de Gerson, Alphonso de la Torre, cannot be passed over in silence without regret. Much might be written about Boethius and Dante, and perhaps an explanation offered of the statement in the 'Convito' that the Roman philosopher was not known to many ; 1 while to collect the references to Boethius in

the Roman de la Rose,' the great Ars Amoris' of the middle ages, would necessitate an appendix longer than that which I have devoted to Chaucer. The same, though in a less degree, would, I fancy, hold good of Gower. Lastly, it remains to be seen how far such combinations of verse and prose as the 'Vita Nuova,' the Ameto' of Boccaccio, or the Voir dit' of Guillaume de Machault, were inspired by the 'Consolation of Philosophy.' The subject is indeed fresher and altogether more attractive than that of the present chapter; but then it requires a

1 See Morris in Chaucer's Boëce, p. ii, note.

far wider knowledge of medieval literature than I can lay claim to. And I feel that I have already used enough paper and tried my reader's patience too far. One word, however, must be said, before taking leave of Boethius, touching his connection with scholasticism.

241

CHAPTER VII.

BOETHIUS AND THE SCHOLASTIC PROBLEM.

Authorities.-First and foremost, Hauréau s admirable 'Histoire de la Philosophie Scolastique' (Paris, 1850), tome i., to which I owe more than can be recorded here. I have also consulted Cousin, 'Histoire de la Philosophie au xviiie siècle,' 9me leçon; Prantl, 'Geschichte der Logik' (Leipzic, 1855-70); Maurice's 'Medieval Philosophy' (London, 1857); and the first Appendix to Grote's 'Aristotle on the Theory of Universals.'

I HAVE already hinted at the paramount influence exercised by Boethius in his writings other than the 'Consolation' on the philosophy of the middle ages known to us under the name of the scholastic philosophy. If we would have a clear conception of this much-abused and much-misunderstood term, we must go back to its literal meaning, being before all things careful to have our minds free from the