"The third of whom I am to speak is Diodorus Siculus."
"You have put a tail on his name, Professor," added the magnate.
"That is as much a part of his name as the rest of it, as used by scholars. It means that he was born in Sicily. Very little is known about him beyond what he told himself. He lived in the time of Julius Cæsar and Augustus, and for a long time in Rome. He travelled in Europe and Asia for material. He wrote a history of the world from the creation to the time of Julius Cæsar. Some of the volumes are lost, and some of them are still read.
"Diodorus was deficient in the qualifications of a historian; and about all that is valuable in his writings is the mass of facts he gives, from which he was not competent to make the proper deductions. The material he gathered is valuable; but the thirty years he spent in the composition of his works have not purchased for him the literary reputation of Herodotus, or even of Strabo."
"I am very much obliged to you for your lecture, and I hope others besides myself have profited by it," said Mr. Woolridge.
The professor bowed, and took some manuscript from his pocket.