VIRGIL AT SCHOOL. 53

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have had them told, on the whole, reasonably well,
though generally stupidly.
" What a pity we have not Solomon's books of science ! "
said John Tolman.
*' It is one of the greatest of pities that such books as
those were not kept. It seems as if people would have
built on such foundations, and that Science would have
marched from step to step, instead of beginning over and
over again. But we do have Pliny's Natural History, as
he chose to call it. ^ar from building on that as a foun-
dation, the Dark Ages simply accepted it And there are
blunders or sheer lies in that book, and in Aristotle's
books, and Theophrastus*s, and other such, which have
survived even to our day."

The children were peeping into the collection fix>m
which the Friar Bacon stories had been read, and they
lighted on these scraps about the supposed life of Virgil.
To the people of the Dark Ages Virgil was much more a
man of magic than a poet.
HOW VIRGILIUS WAS SET TO SCHOOL.
