[3] Hakluyt, II. 88.



SECTION V.

_Travels of John Erigena to Athens, in the Ninth Century_[1].

John Erigena, of the British Nation, descended from noble progenitors, and
born in the town of St. Davids in Wales; while the English were oppressed
by the cruel wars and ravages of the Danes, and the whole land was in
confusion, undertook a long journey to Athens, and there spent many years
in the study of the Grecian, Chaldean, and Arabian literature. He there
frequented all the places and schools of the philosophers, and even visited
the oracle of the sun, which Esculapius had constructed for himself. Having
accomplished the object of his travels, he returned through Italy and
France; where, for his extraordinary learning, he was much favoured by
Charles the Bald, and afterwards by Lewis the Stammerer. He translated into
Latin, in 858, the books of Dionysius the Areopagite, concerning the
Heavenly Hierarchy, then sent from Constantinople. Going afterwards into
Britain, he became preceptor to Alfred, King of England, and his children;
and, at the request of that prince, he employed his leisure in translating
the Morals of Aristotle, and his book called the Secret of Secrets, or of
the Right Government of Princes, into Chaldaic, Arabic, and Latin;
certainly a most exquisite undertaking. At last, being in the abbey of
Malmsbury, where he had gone for his recreation, in the year 884, and
reading to certain evil-disposed disciples, they put him to death.