Master Virgil

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECOND-VIRGIL AND THE DEVIL Some ten or fifteen years before the close of the twelfth century there appeared in the most notable treatise of the time a paragraph which presented the Roman poet Virgil not only in the guise of a mechanical inventor, but also in a guise which to later ages seemed that of a...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECOND-VIRGIL AND THE DEVIL Some ten or fifteen years before the close of the twelfth century there appeared in the most notable treatise of the time a paragraph which presented the Roman poet Virgil not only in the guise of a mechanical inventor, but also in a guise which to later ages seemed that of a magician. The occasion which Alexander Neckam, the foster brother of Richard I. of England, in his work upon the nature of things, seized as affording a pretext for relating a series of improbable anecdotes was an argument in behalf of schools and education. In addition to other examples of men who had been useful to the world, because of their studies, he cited that of Virgil. It was learning which enabled Virgil to relieve the city of Naples from a pest of leeches which infested the water, and this he did by placing a golden leech in one of the wells. The virtue of this image was shown many years afterward; for when it was taken out with the settlings of the well, an infinite army of leeches again plagued the city. In order to aid the dealers in fresh meat, who found it impossible to keep their wares untainted any length of time, Virgil constructed shambles, using the virtues of some unknown herbs by which flesh could be kept clean and wholesome, even for a period offive hundred years. Learning it was that enabled this renowned poet to surround his garden with an immovable atmosphere, and to construct a bridge of air, by the use of which he was carried to any place he wished. At Rome, likewise, he built a noble palace in which every country known was represented by a wooden image, holding in its hand a bell. Whenever the people of any country ventured to plot treason against the majesty of the Roman Empire, the image of the traitorous nation began at once to ring its bell. The...