CAPELLA, MartianusMineus Felix, author of a curious encyclopaedic work on the liberal arts, was born in the north of Africa, and flourished probably towards the beginning of the 5th century a.d., or at least during the 4th century. There is, however, no direct evidence as to the exact epoch at which he lived, and the few references to the author contained in the work itself are not sufficiently definite to admit of any certain conclusion being drawn. He appears to have been a solicitor by profession and in easy circumstances. His work, entitled. Satyra de Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, is an elaborate allegory in nine books, written in a mixture of prose and verse. The style is heavy aud involved, loaded with metaphor and bizarre expressions, and verbose to excess. The first two books contain the allegory proper,—the marriage of Mercury to a nymph named Philologia. It is wrought out in great detail, but the original conception is not a happy one, and the execution is tasteless. The remaining seven books contain expositions of the seven liberal arts, which then comprehended all human knowledge. Book iii. treats of grammar, iv. of dialectics, v. of rhetoric, vi. of geometry, vii. of arithmetic, viii. of astronomy, ix. of music. These abstract discussions are linked on to the original allegory by the device of personifying each science as a courtieι of Mercury and Philologia. The work was a complete encyclopaedia of the liberal culture of the time, and it was in high repute during the Middle Ages. There is much interesting matter in it, and much erudition is displayed by the author, but the whole is executed in a clumsy, pedantic, and tasteless fashion....