knows the relative value of his powers, and of the results produced by them. A self-consciousness of this kind is not in itself in any way repugnant to the spirit of Christianity; it is nothing but the grateful acknowledgment of God's loan of talents. It is also true that the vaunted modesty of great minds, from Socrates downward, is too often assumed, and the merest affectation. But the total want of sympathy with the ignorance of the mass of mankind which our author everywhere betrays, is essentially opposed to the teaching of Him who thanked God that He had revealed unto babes the things that He had hid from the wise and prudent.

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CHAPTER III.

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY.'

Rudolph Peiper has published a handy text with variants, &c., in the 'Biblioteca Teubneriana.' Leipzic, 1871. The vol. of Migne containing the 'De Cons.' is lxiii.

IT is a relief to turn from these gloomy details of suffering and death to the famous work for which we are indebted to that short year of prison life. My excuse for disregarding the probable chronological order, and taking the Consolation of Philosophy' before the religious tracts, lies in the obvious connection of that book with the sad story with which we have been occupied, in its indisputable authenticity, and in the larger insight it affords us into the character and mental attitude of the writer. For while, for reasons that shall presently appear, I cannot bring myself to see in the Consolation' Boe

thius's confession of faith, or a tacit rejection of Christianity; while I look upon both it and the dogmatic chapters rather in the light of prolusiones, though of very different scope, and composed under very different circumstances,-yet it has for us the higher value in that it contains a fairly systematic, and in some measure original, scheme of philosophy. The recollection of earlier studies and modes of thought is so palpable in the various themes of the Consolation,' that the book may well stand as the summary of Boethius's metaphysic; and there are gleams of spontaneity amid its general artificial constraint, which are noticeably absent from the other writings of the great Roman translator. Thus the most important as well as the most grateful duty of the student of Boethius is to make himself early acquainted with this, his author's most characteristic utterance. To this end I purpose giving a short analysis of the five books: I shall then proceed to examine the philosophical system it encloses, endeavouring to show how far it was borrowed from existing systems, and to what extent it was influenced by that religion in which its founder was born and bred.

BOOK I.

As Boethius lay in prison, longing for death to come and set him free from the misery of premature old age, and beguiling the weary hours with versewriting, the favourite accomplishment of his happier days,1 a mysterious visitor stood suddenly before his tear-dimmed eyes. It is a woman, whose gleaming glance and bright complexion are in strange contrast with the years her generally venerable appearance proclaims, a form belonging to a bygone time. Her stature is beyond description wonderful, for now she raises her head to knock against the sky, and now she shrinks to the common measure of men. She is clothed in a robe of her own weaving, whose gossamer web has stood the wear of ages, though there are rents in it that tell of rough usage at the hands of ignorant men. On the lower hem is woven a π, on the upper a 0,2 and they are connected by a series of lines arranged like the steps of a ladder. In her right hand is a book, in her left a sceptre. The sight of the Muses who are

1 It is tantalising to read in the Anecdoton Holderi of a Carmen Bucolicum by the same hand that penned the De Consolatione.

2 Standing for θεωρητική and πρακτική. Boethius himself renders these two words by speculativa and activa respectively, in the first dialogue on the Isagoge of Porphyry.

waiting and weeping at the prisoner's bedside rouses her wrath, and she chases them away with words of contumely. Such sirens as they are not the fitting consolers of one who has been brought up under the shadow of the Porch and the Academy. She substitutes for their enervating elegies a sublimer strain of her own, gently reproving her hearer for his gloom and depression, and promising to cure him of his sickness. But first he must recognise who she is, and pronounce her name. Boethius gazes at her, but a strange lethargy binds his tongue, and it is not until she has wiped away his tears with gentle hand that he knows her for his beloved mistress Philosophy, the nurse of his early years and his oldest friend. He marvels at her deigning to leave her serene habitation in order to visit a poor prisoner; but she assures him that she has never yet abandoned those who truly love her. Anaxagoras and Zeno and Plato all enjoyed the consolation of her presence in their distress. But the physician must know the full extent of the patient's wound, ere she can lay on him her healing touch; and so she listens attentively to his story of the injustice and the wrong that have brought him to his present pass. The memory of his woes inspires Boethius; he cries aloud on God, the ruler