Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/875

Rh as Boetius calls them) on arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. The statement of Cassiodorus that he trans lated Nicomachus is rhetorical. Boetius himself tells us in his preface addressed to his father-in-law Symmachus that he had taken liberties with the text of Nicomachus, that he had abridged the work when necessary, and that he had introduced formulce and diagrams of his own where he thought them useful for bringing out the meaning. His work on music also is not a translation from Pythagoras, who left no writing behind him. But Boetius belonged to the school of musical writers who based their science on the method of Pythagoras. They thought that it was not sufficient to trust to the ear alone, to determine the prin ciples of music, as did practical musicians like Aristoxenus, but that along with the ear, physical experiments should be employed. The work of Boetius is in five books, and in a very complete exposition of the subject. It remained a text-book of music in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge till within comparatively recent times. It is still very valuable as a help in ascertaining the principles of ancient music, and gives us the opinions of some of the best ancient writers on the art. The manuscripts of the geometry of Boetius differ widely from each other. The latest editor, Godofredus Friedlein, thinks that there are only two manuscripts which can at all lay claim to con tain the work of Boetius. He has published the Ars Geometrice, in tvo books, as given in these manuscripts ; but critics are generally inclined to doubt the genuineness even of these. By far the most important and most famous of the works of Boetius is his book De Consolatione Philosophic. Gib bon justly describes it as &quot; a golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incom parable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author.&quot; It was a favourite book of the Middle Ages, and deserves to be a favourite still. The high reputation it had in mediaeval times is attested by the numerous translations, commentaries, and imitations of it which then appeared. Among others Asser, the instructor of Alfred the Great, and Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, commented on it. Alfred translated it into Angle- Saxon. Versions of it appeared in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Greek before the end of the 15th century. Chaucer translated it into English prose before the year 1382 ; and this translation was published by Caxton at Westminster, 1480. Lydgate followed in the wake of Chaucer. It is said that, after the invention of printing, amongst others Queen Elizabeth translated it, and that the work was well known to Shakespeare.

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