Orthographia.]

(5) Some other works, chiefly of a grammatical kind[90], which have
now perished, together with the exegetical treatises already named,
occupied the leisure hours of the old age of Cassiodorus. At length,
in the ninety-third year of his age, the veteran statesman, nobleman,
and judge crowned his life of useful service by writing for his
beloved monks his still extant treatise 'De Orthographia[91].' He
tells us that the monks suddenly exclaimed, 'What doth it profit us to
study either those works which the ancients have composed or those
which your Wisdom has caused to be added to the list, if we are
altogether ignorant how we ought to write these things, and on the
other hand cannot understand and accurately represent in speech the
words which we find written?' In other words, 'Give us a treatise on
spelling.' The venerable teacher gladly complied with the request, and
compiled from twelve grammarians[92] various rules, the observance of
which would prevent the student from committing the usual faults in
spelling. It is no doubt true[93] that this work is a mere collection
of excerpts from other authors, not arranged on any systematic
principle. Still, even as such a collection, it does great credit to
the industry of a nonagenarian; and it seems to me that there is much
in it which a person who was studying the transition of Latin into the
Lingua Volgare might peruse with profit. To an epigraphist especially
it must be interesting to see what were the mistakes which an
imperfectly educated Italian in that age was most likely to commit.
The confusion between _b_ and _v_ was evidently a great source of
error, and their nice discrimination, to which Cassiodorus devotes
four chapters, a very _crux_ of accurate scholarship. We see also from
a passage in the 'De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum[94]' that the
practice of assimilating the last letter of the prefix in compound
words, like i_l_luminatio, i_r_risio, i_m_probus, though it had been
introduced, was as yet hardly universal; and similarly that the monks
required to be instructed to write qui_c_quam for euphony, instead of
qui_d_quam.

[Footnote 90: They were a compilation from the 'Artes' of Donatus,
from a book on Etymologies (perhaps also by Donatus), and from a
treatise by Sacerdos on Schemata; and a short Table of Contents of the
Books of Scripture, prepared in such a form as to be easily committed
to memory.]

[Footnote 91: Ad amantissimos o