Fergil, or Virgilius, as he is usually called, was another great Irish geometer, who eventually became Archbishop of Salzburg and died in 785. He taught the sphericity of the earth and the doctrine of the Antipodes, a truth which seems also to have been familiar to Dicuil. St. Boniface, afterwards Archbishop of Mentz, evidently distorting his doctrine, accused him to the Pope of heresy in teaching that there was another world and other men under the earth, and another sun and moon. "Concerning this charge of false doctrine, if it shall be established," said the Pope, "that Virgil taught this perverse and wicked doctrine against God and his own soul, do you then convoke a council, degrade him from the priesthood, and drive him from the Church." Virgil, however, seems to have satisfactorily explained his position, for nothing was done against him. These instances help to throw some light upon a most difficult subject--the training given in the early Irish Christian schools, and the cause of their undoubted popularity for three centuries and more amongst the scholars of Western Europe. [1] Here are a few lines from the well-known Adonic poem which he, at the age of 68, addressed to his friend Fedolius-- "_Extitit ingens_ _Impia quippe_ _Causa malorum_ _Pygmalionis_ _Aurea pellis,_ _Regis ob aurum_ _Corruit auri_ _Gesta leguntur._ _Munere parvo_ _Cœna Deorum._ * * * * * _Ac tribus illis_ _Maxima lis est_ _Fœmina sœpe_ _Orta Deabus._ _Perdit ob aurum_ _Hinc populavit_ _Casta pudorem._ _Trogugenarum_ _Non Jovis auri_ _Ditia regna_ _Fluxit in imbre_ _Dorica pubes._ _Sed quod adulter_ _Juraque legum_ _Obtulit aurum_ _Fasque fides que_ _Aureus ille_ _Rumpitur aure._ _Fingitur imber_." Dr. Sigerson in "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 407, prints as Jubainville also does, the whole of this noted poem, and points out that it is shot through and through with Irish assonance. "Not less important than its assonance," writes Dr. Sigerson, "is the fact that it introduces into Latin verse the use of returning words, or burthens with variations, which supply the vital germs of the rondeau and the ballad." I am not myself convinced of what Dr. Sigerson considers marks of _intentional_ assonance in almost _every_ line. His chief remaining works are a Monastic Rule in ten chapters; a book on the daily penances of the monks; seventeen sermons; a book on the measure of penances; a treatise on the eight principal vices; five epistles written to Gregory the Great and others; and a good many Latin verses. His life is written by the Abbot Jonas, a contemporary of his own. [2] P. 122.