its simplicity suits its matter well. On the one hand, we cannot
forget it is a translation, but the translation, on the other hand, is
from the mediaeval Latin of an Englishman into English.

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a student is to place
himself in the mental attitude of a man of the Middle Ages towards
nature; yet only by so doing can he appreciate the solutions that the
philosophers of the time offered of the problems of nature. Our author
affords perhaps the simplest way of learning what Chaucer and perhaps
Shakespeare knew and believed of their surroundings--earth, air, and
sea. The plan on which his work was constructed led Bartholomew in
order over the universe from God and the angels--through fire, water,
air, to earth and all that therein is. We thus obtain a succinct
account of the popular mediaeval theories in Astronomy, Physiology,
Physics, Chemistry, Geography, and Natural History, all but
unattainable otherwise. The aim of our chapter on Science has been to
give sufficient extracts to mark the theories on which mediaeval
Science was based, the methods of its reasoning, and the results at
which it arrived. The chapter on Medicine gives some account of the
popular cures and notions of the day, and that on Geography resumes
the traditions current on foreign lands, at a time when Ireland was at
a greater distance than Rome, and less known than Syria.

In the chapter on Mediaeval Society we have not perhaps the daily life
of the Middle Ages, but at least the ideal set before them by their
pastors and masters--an ideal in direct relationship with the everyday
facts of their life. The lord, the servant, the husband, the wife, and
the child, here find their picture. Some information, too, can be
obtained about the daily life of the time from the chapter on the
Natural History of Plants, which gives incidentally their food-stuffs.