CHAPTER X. The Legend of Michael Scot—Conclusion

THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT—CONCLUSION

The attachment of Michael Scot to his master, the Emperor Frederick II., may be conceived as acting in a double sense to procure him his mysterious fame. With the Guelfs, who bitterly opposed that great monarch and his followers, it of course became a reason for believing him to have practised the blackest of arts. With the Ghibellines, on the other hand, who formed the imperial party, and saw a very Arthur in their famous leader, it served to confirm his character as a Mage and man of mysterious might.

Commencing then with one of the first, and certainly the most famous of the authors who have spoken of Scot in this romantic and legendary style, the observation just made will enable us to understand without much difficulty the sense of Dante’s reference to the magician. The poet represents himself as reaching the fourth division of the eighth infernal circle, when Virgil draws his attention to one of those who suffer there, and says:

‘Michele Scotto, fù, che veramente Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco.’

Dante was a Ghibelline, and must therefore be supposed to have known well the tradition of commanding supernatural power woven by his party about the name of Scot. There is, however, a strong element of contempt and reproof in his lines, and this must be explained by a point of view which was peculiar to himself. The Commedia, and especially the Inferno, where this passage occurs, is nothing if not a retrospect of the past. In it Dante calls up the mighty dead and subjects them to review; his principle of judgment being largely, but by no means solely, drawn from political considerations. Even more decidedly was it moral, and thus, while in not a few instances he displays the working of party-spirit, in others he permits himself to part altogether with the current Ghibelline views.

His reference to Michael Scot, then, is undoubtedly a case of the latter kind. As a seer whose attention was fixed on the past he was naturally impatient of those who pretended to unfold the future. Scot, as the author of prophetical verses, seemed to Dante a fair object for censure, as one who had degraded the sacred art of the bard to serve the purpose of a charlatan. He placed him with Amphiareus, with Teiresias and the other diviners, who, because they sought to pry into the future, appeared to the poet with their heads turned backward in punishment of their presumption. An additional proof that this was in fact the reason for Dante’s harsh dealing with Scot may be seen in the Dittamondo of Fazio degli Uberti. This poem, composed towards the end of the fourteenth century, was modelled on the Divine Comedy, and expressly formed to expound it. Here are the lines which correspond in the Dittamondo to those of Dante relating to Michael Scot:

‘In questo tempo che m’odi contare Michele Scotto fù, che per sua arte Sapeva Simon Mago contraffare, E se tu leggerai nelle sue carte Le profezie ch’ei fece, troverai Vere venire dove sono sparte.’

Here the reader will observe that the prophetical writings of Scot are distinctly mentioned, and we are not left, as by Dante, to infer, merely from the company in which we find him, the view that was taken by the poet of his character and fame.

It was to reinforce this unfavourable judgment based on other grounds that Dante adopted the legend already popular regarding Scot’s magical studies. In doing so he gave the matter a turn which widely separated his version of the tale from the prevailing Ghibelline stories, told no doubt with bated breath, but told on the whole to Scot’s credit. In thus dealing with the legend Dante made use of a distinction well known to the Arabs, and now becoming familiar also in the West: that, namely, which divided the art of magic into the real and the illusory; called by Eastern magicians Er Roóhhánee and Es Seémiya. The former was noble magic, and acted in power upon high spirits, subduing them to the magician’s will; being either white or black according to the purpose that was sought by their aid. The latter, on the other hand, produced no real effects whatever on material things, but moved altogether in the sphere of mind. At its highest it gave a mastery, which was perhaps hypnotic, over the senses of those whom the magician sought to delude. At its lowest it was the art of the juggler and his apes, cheating eye and ear by tricks like those which have survived to form our modern conjuring entertainments. Here the apparatus of the higher magic was still used, but so as to be degraded and distorted from its original purpose. The circle now served to secure the mage, not from the assaults of supernatural beings, but from the indiscreet approach of too curious spectators. The brazier with its cloud of dense and stupifying smoke served to affect the senses of the subject; the strange sound of recited spells to impress his imagination; the magic mirror to fix his attention, till he became the wizard’s captive and obedient to his every suggestion. This was the art of glamour, as it used to be called, which, in one sphere, seemed to change a ruinous and cobweb-hung hall into a bower of delight; in another, made visions of distant places and future times appear in mirrors or crystals; in yet another, provided the philtres which provoked love, the ligatures which restrained it, and even dealt in that accursed spell of envoutement which promised to procure for jealousy and hatred all their wicked will.

Such then were the magiche frode of which Dante accuses Scot, and it is easy to see that the sting of the verse lies just here; in the unreality it attributes to this magician’s art, much as if the poet had called him in plain prose, ‘no mage, but a common juggler.’ Resenting Scot’s pose as a prophet, and persuaded of the futility of such dreams in comparison with the splendid and enduring certainties of his own art, Dante used that gift with cruel force to convey a similar accusation regarding the romantic fame of the philosopher, holding him up to the world as no mighty master of mysterious power, but, in this too, a mere impostor.

The anonymous Florentine, in his comment on the Divine Comedy, softens the matter a little, and at the same time imports into it a confusion of thought very difficult to unravel, when he says: ‘This art of magic may be employed in two ways; for either magicians compose by cunning certain bodies, all compact of air, which yet appear substantial, or else they show things having the appearance of reality but not in truth real, and in both these ways of working was Michael a great master.’ There is an attempt here to vindicate for Scot a higher place than that of the mere charlatan, but the commentator’s distinction is one not readily or clearly to be apprehended, and we may greatly doubt if it ever entered his author’s mind.

The hint thus given was speedily acted upon. For to it, no doubt, we owe the numerous tales regarding Michael Scot of which Benvenuto da Imola and the anonymous Florentine speak. Landino gives a specimen, as follows. During the philosopher’s residence in Bologna he used to invite his friends to dinner, but without making any preparation for their entertainment. When the hour struck, and the guests were seated at table, they found it nevertheless covered with the choicest viands. Their host would then explain that one dish came from the royal kitchen at Paris, another from that of the English king, and so on with the rest. Jacopo della Lana repeats the same story, but with certain variations. According to this commentator, Michael Scot always kept the best company, living in all respects as a gentleman and cavalier. In his tricks of the table he did not spare even his own master, but, while choosing his boiled meat from Paris, and his roasts from London, would always procure his entrées from the King of Sicily’s provision. The anonymous Florentine adds another tale to the same purpose, saying that his guests once asked Scot to show them a new marvel. The month was January, yet, in spite of the season, he caused vines with fresh shoots and ripe clusters of grapes to appear on the table. The company were bidden each of them to choose a bunch, but their host warned them not to put forth their hands till he should give the sign. At the word ‘cut,’ lo, the grapes disappeared, and the guests found themselves each with a knife in one hand, and in the other his neighbours sleeve. Francesco da Buti adds the significant note, ‘all this was nothing but a cheat; for they only seemed to feast, and either did not really do so, or else took the dishes for something quite other than they really were.’ This is enough to show that the sense we have given to Dante’s words is one which found favour in early times.

Boccaccio, commencing his lectures on Dante in the Church of San Stefano at Florence in October 1373, proceeded in them no further, unfortunately, than the seventeenth canto of the Inferno, so that we are deprived of his notes on the passage which refers to Michael Scot. In the Decamerone, however, he treats the subject in a passing way; making a citizen of Bologna speak of the magician’s residence in that town. Scot, he said, had performed many prodigies there, to the delight of sundry gentlemen his friends, and at their request had, on his departure, left behind him two scholars, who kept up fairly the traditions of his art. This seems to indicate that Boccaccio had in mind the stories told by the other commentators on Dante, and the tone of his novel supports the conjecture that he agreed with the great poet and with Da Buti, in regarding these prodigies as pertaining to the department of fictitious magic.

More interesting, perhaps, are the tales which involve Michael the magician with the fates of his great master, Frederick II. In the Paradiso degli Alberti, for example, we read how, at the feast given by the Emperor to celebrate his coronation at Rome, which had taken place on November 22, 1220, the company were entertained by a strange event. They were just in the act of washing their hands before sitting down to table in the great hall at Palermo. The pages were still on foot with ewers and basins of perfumed water and embroidered towels, when suddenly Michael Scot appeared with a companion, both of them dressed in Eastern robes, and offered to show the guests a marvel. The weather was oppressively warm, so Frederick asked him to procure them a shower of rain which might bring coolness. This the magicians accordingly did, raising a great storm, which as suddenly vanished again at their pleasure. Being required by the Emperor to name his reward, Scot asked leave to choose one of the company to be the champion of himself and his friend against certain enemies of theirs. This being freely granted, their choice fell on Ulfo, a German baron. As it seemed to Ulfo, they set off at once on their expedition, leaving the coasts of Sicily in two great galleys, and with a mighty following of armed men. They sailed through the Gulf of Lyons, and passed by the Pillars of Hercules, into the unknown and western sea. Here they found smiling coasts, received a welcome from the strange people, and joined themselves to the army of the place; Ulfo taking the supreme command. Two pitched battles and a successful siege formed the incidents of the campaign. Ulfo killed the hostile king, married his lovely daughter, and reigned in his stead; Michael and his companion having left to seek other adventures. Of this marriage sons and daughters were begotten, and twenty years passed like a dream ere the magicians returned, and invited their champion to revisit the Sicilian court. Ulfo went back with them, but what was his amazement, on entering the palace at Palermo, to find everything just as it had been at the moment of their departure so long before; even the pages were still going the rounds with water for the hands of the Emperor’s guests. This prodigy performed, Michael and the other withdrew and were seen no more, but Ulfo, it is said, remained ever inconsolable for the lost land of loveliness and the joys of wedded life he had left behind for ever in a dream not to be repeated. This tale appears also in the Cento Novelle Antiche, but in that collection the place of Michael Scot and his companion is taken by ‘three masters of necromancy.’

In the Pseudo Boccaccio we find another tale, referring to the later and less happy period of the imperial fortunes. The scene is laid in Vittoria, the armed camp which Frederick pitched so long before the walls of rebellious Parma. The Parmigiani had made a successful sally, forced the defences of Vittoria, and were plundering the place. A poor shoemaker of Parma, who made one of this expedition, was lucky enough to come upon the imperial tent itself. Entering, he found a small barrel, which he caught up and carried back to his home. On trial it proved to contain excellent wine, which the shoemaker and his wife drank from day to day, till at last it occurred to them to wonder why the supply never came to an end. They opened the barrel to see, and found within it a small silver figure of an angel with his foot planted on a grape, also of silver, from which flowed constantly the delicious wine they had so long enjoyed. ‘Now, this was made by magic art,’ continues the commentator, ‘and by necromancy, and it was Thales, otherwise called Michael Scot, who contrived it by his skill and power.’ Needless to add that, by this indiscreet curiosity, the charm was broken, and the generous wine flowed no longer to gladden the hearts of the shoemaker and his wife.

We have thus traced the development of the legend as far as the close of the fourteenth century. During the next hundred years no notable addition seems to have been made to it, nor does it appear to have attained any further expression of a remarkable kind in the region of pure literature. But the fifteenth century had by no means forgotten Michael Scot, nor the tales that embodied his mysterious fame. This, in fact, seems to have been the period when most of the magical works attributed to the philosopher’s pen were composed, and commended to the world under the reputation attaching to so great a name. Such are the spell, which exists in writing of this age, in the Laurentian Library of Florence, the Geomantia of the Munich Library, and, perhaps, the Cheiromantia. As, however, a tract on at least one of these latter subjects is attributed to Gerard of Cremona in the Vatican list, it is possible there may here have been only some not unnatural confusion between two authors who were closely associated in much of the literary work they accomplished in Spain.

To the sixteenth century belongs the mock-heroic poem entitled De Gestis Baldi, composed by the famous macaronic writer Teofilo Folengo, who wrote under the assumed name of Merlin Coccajo. A considerable passage in this curious production is devoted to Michael Scot, of whom the poet speaks in the following terms:

‘Ecce Michaelis de incantu regula Scoti, Qua, post sex formas, cerae fabricatur imago Demonii Sathan Saturni facta plumbo Cui suffimigio per serica rubra cremato Hac, licet obsistant, coguntur amore puellae. Ecce idem Scotus qui stando sub arboris umbra Ante characteribus designet millibus orbem. Quatuor inde vocat magna cum voce diablos. Unus ab occasu properat, venit alter ab ortu, Meridies terzum mandat, septentrio quartum. Consecrare facit freno conforme per ipsos Cum quo vincit equum nigrum, nulloque vedutum, Quem, quo vult, tanquam Turchesca sagitta, cavalcat, Sacrificatque comas eiusdem saepe cavalli. En quoque dipingit Magus idem in littore navem Quae vogat totum octo remis ducta per orbem. Humanae spinae suffimigat inde medullam. En docet ut magicis cappam sacrare susurris Quam sacrando fremunt plorantque per aera turbae Spiritum quoniam verbis nolendo tiramur. Hanc quicumque gerit gradiens ubicumque locorum Aspicitur nusquam; caveat tamen ire per altum Solis splendorem, quia tunc sua cernitur umbra.’

Here the legend is not only considerably enriched, but it has recovered much of its original tone. Michael Scot again appears rather as the mighty mage than as the adroit juggler which Dante had represented him to be. One would say Folengo had read the spell of Cordova, where a circle similar to that described by him is actually proposed. The use of magical images too, on which he insists, is the very art which the Arabian author of the Picatrix professes to teach.

These then, or such as these, must have been the ‘old wives’ tales’ spoken of by Dempster, who says that store of them passed current in his day. He was, like Michael Scot himself, a Scotsman long resident in Italy, who taught in the universities of Pisa and Bologna at the commencement of the seventeenth century: an origin and situation very favourable to the knowledge of these stories, both in their Italian and Scottish form. That they had at an early period become part of the romantic heritage of Scotland seems very certain. An anonymous author supplies us with the Italian view of the matter when he says that the great magician taught the Scots his art to such a degree ‘that they will not take a step without some magical practice,’ and adds that he introduced into Scotland the fashion of ‘white hose, and gowns with the sleeves sewed together.’

Perhaps the best known of these Scottish tales is that which relates how Michael Scot had a particular spirit as his familiar, and describes the difficulty he felt in discovering new tasks for his supernatural servant. Sir Walter Scott says that this story had made so deep an impression, that in his day any ancient work of unknown origin was ascribed by the country people either to Sir William Wallace, Michael Scot, or the devil himself. But, as commonly told, the legend refers to certain outstanding features of the country which are natural and not artificial; a fact which may possibly account for its persistence and survival in this form and not in the others. Michael is said to have commanded his spirit to divide Eildon Hill into three. The feat was accomplished in a single night, but, the magician’s instructions being very precise, and the spirit finding one of the peaks he had formed greater, and another less than the mean, accommodated the matter very skilfully by transferring what seems like a spadeful of earth, still visible as a distinct prominence on the sky-line of the hill. Next night brought the need for another task, and Michael gave orders that the river Tweed should be bound in its course by a curb of stone. The remarkable basaltic dyke which crosses the bed of the stream near Ednam is said to have been the result of this command. On the third night, finding his familiar still keen for employment, Scot bade him go spin ropes of sand at the river mouth. This task proved so difficult as to relieve the magician from further embarrassment. It is said to be still in progress, and the successive attempts and failures of the spirit are pointed out as every tide casts up, or receding, uncovers, the ever-shifting sands of Berwick bar.

Another Scottish story, borrowed perhaps from the relations between Michael Scot and Frederick II., and possibly suggested by the philosopher’s journey in 1230, speaks of a high commission he once held from the King of Scotland. Some Frenchmen, it is said, had commenced pirates, and had plundered Scottish ships. The King chose Michael as his ambassador, sending him to Paris to demand justice and redress. The magician, however, made none of the ordinary preparations for so considerable a journey, but opened his Book of Might and read a spell therein; whereupon his familiar appeared in the form of a black horse, just as Folengo describes him. In this shape the demon carried his rider through the air with incredible speed. When the channel lay beneath them, he asked Michael what words the old wives in Scotland muttered ere they went to sleep. A less adroit wizard would have simply repeated the Paternoster, and thus furnished the excuse sought by the demon, who would then have hurled his rider into the sea. Michael, however, contented himself by sternly replying; ‘What is that to thee? Mount Diabolus, and fly;’ and, the demon being thus outwitted and compelled, they presently arrived in Paris. Finding the French King unwilling to hear his representations, Scot asked him to delay giving a final refusal till he should have heard the horse stamp three times. At the first hoof-stroke, all the bells in Paris rang. At the second, three towers in the palace fell; and the horse had raised his foot to stamp once more, when the King cried, ‘Hold,’ and yielded him to do as his cousin of Scotland desired.

A more trivial and domestic tale is that which relates how Michael met and overcame the Witch of Falsehope. He was then residing at Oakwood Tower, and, hearing much talk of this woman’s craft, he set forth one day to prove her. The witch was cunning, and denied that she had any skill in the black art, but, when Scot absently laid his staff of power upon the table, she caught it to her and used it upon him with such effect that he became a hare; in which shape he was hotly coursed by his own hounds. Taking refuge in a drain, he had just time to reverse the spell and resume his own form before the hunt reached his hiding-place. Thus Michael returned to Oakwood with a high impression of his neighbour’s skill and malice, and fully resolved to have his revenge at the first opportunity. This occurred next harvest, when, under pretext of sport, he sent his servant to the witch’s house to beg some bread for the hounds. Met with the refusal that was expected, the man acted upon his master’s instructions by privately fixing to the door a scroll containing, amid magical characters, the following rhyme:

‘Maister Michael Scot’s man Socht breid and gat nane.’

Meanwhile the witch-wife had returned to her work; which was that of boiling porridge for the shearers. As soon, however, as Scot’s man had left the door, she began to run round the fire like one crazy, repeating as she ran the words of the spell. In a little the harvesters returned from the field to their dinner, but, as each passed the enchanted door, the spell took him, and he joined the dance within. Meanwhile Michael and his men and dogs stood not far off on the hill, whence they could command a full view of what went on. The last to leave the field was the goodman, who, suspecting something more than common from the attention Scot was paying to his house, was too cautious to enter immediately, as the rest had done. He went to the window, and through it beheld the orgy, now become terrible, and in the midst of all his wife, half dead from compulsion and exhaustion, dragged around the house and through the fire by the bewitched servants. Suspecting how matters stood, he went to Scot, who, relenting, told him how to remove the spell by entering the house backwards, and then taking the scroll down from the door. This he did, and the unearthly dance ceased, but it was long ere those who had taken part in it forgot the power of the magician, or ventured again to provoke his resentment.

The northern tales had much to say of Michael’s Book of Might, from which he learned his art, and of his burial-place, where it lay interred with him. Dempster tells us that, in his boyhood, it used to be said in Scotland that Scot’s magical works were still extant, but might not be touched for fear of the powerful demons that waited on their opening. This form of the legend belongs then to the latter part of the sixteenth century. In the beginning of the next age, and precisely in the year 1629, occurred the traditional visit of Satchells to Burgh-under-Bowness. This author declares that one named Lancelot Scot showed him in that place something taken from the works of the mighty magician:

‘He said the book which he gave me Was of Sir Michael Scot’s Historie; Which Historie was never yet read through, Nor never will, for no man dare it do. Young scholars have pick’d out some thing From the contents, that dare not read within. He carried me along the castle then, And shew’d his written Book hanging on an iron pin. His writing pen did seem to me to be Of harden’d metal, like steel or accumie, The volume of it did seem so large to me As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie. Then in the church he let me see A stone where Mr. Michael Scot did lie. I ask’d at him how that could appear: Mr. Michael had been dead above five hundred year? He shew’d me none durst bury under that stone More than he had been dead a few years agone, For Mr. Michael’s name does terrifie each one.’

It will be observed that Satchells hesitates here between the title of knighthood which had been bestowed on Scot for a century past on the authority of Hector Boëce, and the more authentic dignity of Master which was really his. He also antedates the philosopher’s lifetime by more than a hundred years; so that plainly what we have in these verses is legend and tradition rather than history.

This is probably the latest appearance in literature of the old stories concerning Michael Scot told in the old way. Naudè and Schmutzer presently came on the scene, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, with their critical defences of Scot, all too imperfectly informed regarding his real reputation. In our own age the poems of Sir Walter Scott and Rossetti, while serving to show that so great a name has not been forgotten, breathe, it is plain, an entirely different spirit. They are but the romantic and sentimental revival of tales that the poets and their world had already ceased to believe.

Changed habits of thought, reaching and affecting every class of society, make it useless now to seek in Scotland for any new developments of the legend of Michael Scot. This is not so certainly true, however, of the South of Europe; of Italy, Sicily, and Spain, where he was once a familiar figure. There the slow progress of education has left the common people still in possession of much legendary lore, and even of the living faculty by which in past ages such tales have been formed. To ascertain what an Italian story-teller in the present year of grace would make of the name and fame of Michael Scot were clearly a curious and interesting inquiry. It is one which, on actual trial, has yielded two tales differing considerably from any hitherto published. As these are certainly the very latest additions to the legend, they deserve a place here at the close of our collection. Freely rendered into English they run as follows:

‘Mengot was a notable astrologer and magician. Mengot was his true name, but he had many surnames besides; among which was that of Scotto. This name of Scotto was given him by a princess. One night the Prince, her husband, happened to be in a company where the talk turned on the virtue of women, and the Prince said he would put his hand in the fire if his wife were not faithful to him; so sure was he of her virtue. Then spoke up another of the company, who made light of the caresses and compliments with which women use to deceive, and told a tale for the Prince’s warning. “There was once a man,” said he, “who thought as you do, dear Prince; for he took his wife for a pattern of virtue, and would have pledged, not his hand only, but his very life that she was so. It happened, however, that he had a friend who knew of the wizard whom they call Mengot, dwelling without the Croce Gate of Florence, and having his house below the ground, closed by a flat stone of the field so as to be secret. Those who would inquire of him must pass to the place and cry ‘Mengot! Master Mengot! I seek a favour of thee, and, if thou tell me true, I shall not stint thy reward;’ whereupon he doth straightway appear. This then was what the friend of the too confident husband did, for he summoned Mengot, and, in presence of all, said to him: ‘Tell me the truth, and whether the wife of this gentleman deserves his confidence or not.’ After some thought, the wizard replied, ‘Do you wish a true answer, or one made to please? I should be sorry to hurt the husband’s feelings.’ When all desired to have the truth, Mengot told them that the lady in question had gone to a place in the Via Calzaiuoli where disguises were arranged, and that she would be found next day dressed as a servant in the course of carrying on a vulgar intrigue in the Ghetto. Now all this was verified; for the wizard told them even the very house in the Via delle Ceste where she would be found with her lover, and it proved to be exactly as he had said.” When this tale was done, all who heard it cried that Mengot should be summoned again, to see whether the Princess were faithful or not. So they called him, as had been done in the other case, but with the same result; for here also the Prince’s confidence had been misplaced, and that in a high degree. Then said the Princess, between rage and shame, “Hast thou scotched me this time; but next time I will scotch thee.” She straightway sought a witch, said to be more powerful than Mengot himself, and, telling what had happened, promised her gold by handfuls if she would revenge her on the wizard. The woman told her to be easy, for she would arrange the matter. She paid Mengot a visit as if to take his advice, and, stealing his magic rod, struck the ground three times, whereupon Mengot was turned into a hare, and fled from his habitation. Having foreseen, however, by his art that such danger might arise, Mengot had prepared a pool of enchanted water at his door. Into this he now leaped, and by its virtue was able to resume his proper form. The first thing he did was to seek the magic rod, and, finding it still in his house, he struck the witch on the head. She became a skinless cat, and in that form haunted the guilty Princess for her sins; while Mengot was ever afterwards distinguished by the name of Scot.’

The second tale is to this effect:

‘Michael Scotti the wizard was a mighty master of witchcraft. There came to him one day a young lady, richly dressed, and wearing a thick veil. She told him that she wished to become a witch that she might cast a spell upon the child of a man who had forsaken her for another woman, now his wife; for she said that to bewitch this child would be the best revenge she could have. Michael was willing to content her; but we must here remark that wizards and witches gain their power, either at birth or as a legacy from some dying person who has the gift. In either of these cases, when the wizard or witch takes the form of an animal, both body and soul are present wherever the form may appear. If, on the other hand, any one becomes a witch of her own desire, as in the case before us, her spirit may move and act under such a form, but her body lies all the while where she left it. But to our tale.

‘Michael accordingly took his Magic Book, and the skin of a cat, and kindling some hempen fibre in an earthen pot, he commenced to read his spells, which had such effect that the spirit of the young lady entered into the skin of the cat. In the form of that animal she then went about her business, while her body remained still in the chair where she was sitting. At her return the wizard read again in his book, whereupon the spirit of the new-made witch returned to her body as before. Michael gave her a book of this kind, and the skin he had used, and every night she turned herself into a witch, and became so wicked as to cast ill upon many children, and even on an infant brother of her own.

‘Thus the sorceress was hardly entered on her power ere she brought about the death of her rival’s child, and killed many others, but an end was presently put to these ill-doings. Her brother, whom she had bewitched out of jealousy, wasted away, and the parents were in despair, as none of the physicians whom they consulted could understand the case. One morning the child told them he had suffered much during the night from a cat, which leaped upon his bed, howled, and played the most frightful antics. They then began to suspect witchcraft, and resolved that the household should watch during the next night. On the stroke of twelve a cat was seen coming out of their daughter’s room. One of the servants gave chase, and another went into the room, fearing that the young lady had also been bewitched, and saw her lying on the bed as cold as marble. The cry arose that she was killed. The parents, mad with grief, made after the cat to destroy it, but with leaps and bounds, it kept them busy all night as if they had been huntsmen chasing a hare, and all in vain. As the bells began to sound for matins the cat ran into the young lady’s room, and the mother, beating her brow, exclaimed: “she who has bewitched my son is none other than his sister.” Rushing into the room they found her, no longer like a dead body, but all panting from the night-long chase. Her mother searched all the corners, and finding the book and earthen pot, bade throw them into the Arno. They then besought their daughter to undo the mischief she had wrought upon her brother, and so many more, and to promise she would never do the like again; but to nothing of this would she consent. Then they threw her out of window in fear and to the breaking of her bones. The servants came and took her up; laying her on her bed again; telling her to heal her brother. Not even in the last moments of life, however, would she repent. She could not die till Mengot had read for her a spell of loosing, and on him therefore she still lay crying. The servants told this to her parents, who bade put horses to the carriage and fetch the wizard, who was presently with them. First he commanded her to cure her brother, and then he read for her in his Magic Book that she might be loosed, and so she died. But when the skin and earthen pot were cast away, they sank straight underground. Thus the witch, who still came back every night to get the skin, and take the form of a cat, found all her magic art in vain; for Michael Scotti had taken her power away.’

‘Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne!’ To such vain and trivial conclusions has a reputation, justly renowned in its own day, been reduced in ours. Michael Scot, now become a troglodyte, lifts his head timidly and occasionally from a den in the Florence fields; he who, while alive, filled Europe with his fame, and, by his Averroës, ruled the schools of Padua as late as the seventeenth century. If a remedy is still to be had for this, the fruit of Guelphic rancour, it must be found in the direction we have sought to keep throughout these pages: that of a serious and impartial study of Scot’s life, and of those labours of his in philosophy and science which are so really, though remotely, connected with the intellectual attainments of our own times.

APPENDIX