early part of the class or Whig theory human intelligence. re are more than wider point of view grandfathers could a growing reaction of the last century, last thousand years prison. It is true hat this enlightenside it progressed er Scott feels himologize to pedantry itecture. And no - mingled with the omanticism in Art y of facts by men ental came to the ct, and gradually ife of the Middle - world of Europe e then than now, tupendous speed, as the age which wherein we live. puzzles to us; we sympathize with ave no wish (not d start from the is characteristic eas in the beginters were for the at the present g the life of the

Middle Ages are more commonly to be found in the ranks of those who are pledged to the forward movement of modern life; while those who are vainly striving to stem the progress of the world are as careless of the past as they are fearful of the future. In short, history, the new sense of modern times, the great compensation for the losses of the centuries, is now teaching us worthily, and making us feel that the past is not dead, but is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.

To my mind, therefore, no excuse is needful for the attempt made in the following pages to familiarize the reading public with what was once a famous knowledgebook of the Middle Ages. But the reader, before he can enjoy it, must cast away the exploded theory of the invincible and wilful ignorance of the days when it was written; the people of that time were eagerly desirous for knowledge, and their teachers were mostly singlehearted and intelligent men, of a diligence and laboriousness almost past belief. This 'Properties of Things' of Bartholomew the Englishman is but one of the huge encyclopedias written in the early Middle Age for the instruction of those who wished to learn, and the reputation of it and its fellows shows how much the science of the day was appreciated by the public at large, how many there were who wished to learn. Even apart from its interest as showing the tendency of men's minds in days when Science did actually tell them 'fairy tales,' the book is a delightful one in its English garb; for the language is as simple as if the author were speaking by word of mouth, and at the same time is pleasant, and not lacking a certain quaint floweriness, which makes it all the easier to retain the subject-matter of the book.

Altogether, this introduction to the study of the Medieval Encyclopedia, and the insight which such vii

works give us into the thought of the pa for knowledge, make a book at once useful; and I repeat that it is a hope times when students of science find th towards the historical aspect of the wo show that their minds have been enl narrowed, by their special studies, a d too apt to mar the qualities of the seek facts in what must now, I would hop just-passed epoch of intelligence, domi politics, and the self-sufficiency of empir

WILL

ERRATA.

Page 15, line 3 from bottom, for 'Esttil' read 'Est til.' Page 31, line 22, the word 'air' at end of line comes at Page 34, line 3, for 'eclypse' read' eclipse.'

Page 34, line 19, for 'needfull' read 'needful.'

Page 38, last line, for 'movable' read 'moveable.' Page 48, line 2 from bottom, for 'noyfull' read 'noyful. Page 56, line 9, for 'p. 21' read ‘p. 27.'

Page 70, line 8, for 'he' read 'it.'

Page 142, line 10, after 'Misalath Astrologus' insert 'p an Arab astrologer of the eleventh century.

MEDIEVAL LORE.

til.'

nes at beginning.

oyful.'

rt 'probably Messahala, tury.'

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE book which we offer to the public of to-day was one of the THE BO
most widely read books of medieval times. Written by an AND ITS
English Franciscan, Bartholomew, in the middle of the thirteenth OBJECT.
century, probably before 1260, it speedily travelled over Europe.
It was translated into French by order of Charles V. (1364-81)
in 1372, into Spanish, into Dutch, and into English in 1397.
Its popularity, almost unexampled, is explained by the scope of
the work, as stated in the translator's prologue. It was written
to explain the allusions to natural objects met with in the Scrip-
tures or in the Gloss. It was, in fact, an account of the properties
of things in general; an encyclopædia of similes for the benefit of
the village preaching friar, written for men without deep-al-
most without any--learning. Assuming no previous information,
and giving a fairly clear statement of the state of the knowledge
of the time, the book was readily welcomed by the class for which
it was designed, and by the small nucleus of an educated class
which was slowly forming. Its popularity remained in full
vigour after the invention of printing, no less than ten eaitions
being published in the fifteenth century of the Latin copy alone,
with four French translations, a Dutch, a Spanish, and an
English one.

The first years of the modern commercial system gave its death