Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/249

 11 8. X. SEPT. 26, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

243

presumably led to pass his libellous judg- ment, and whose splenetic attitude to his great contemporary is matter of history. If Scot dabbled in alchemistic experiments, Bacon wrote his ' Speculum Alchymise,' and \\ as condemned to confinement by a Chapter of his Order under his General, Jerome of Ascoli (afterwards Nicholas IV.), in 1278 " propter quasdam novitates suspectas." He, one would think, rather than Scot was (I* --erring of the uncomfortable quarters allotted by the poet to fraudulent magicians. As to his petty envy, unworthy of a son of St. Francis, a signal instance is supplied by Dr. JR. Mackay (' D.N.B.') thus :

" In another place (' Compendium Studii ') Bacon observes, with a touch of the jealousy of a rival scholar, ' Michael Scot, like Herman,' a fin-man bishop and scholar of the same period, ' ascribed to himself many translations. But it is certain that Andrew, a Jew, laboured more in them ; on which account Herman reported that Michael knew neither sciences nor languages.' "

I have no desire to belittle Bacon (least of all when Oxford has recently 10 June honoured his memory by celebrating his seventh centenary) ; I recognize his lin- guistic attainments and scientific know- ledge, and remember that he was regarded as the " finest flower of Oxford culture." But I also recall Prof. Adamson's verdict ('D.N.B.') that at one time he was "in no special sense a brilliant light in the scholastic firmament," while Scot was long famed as mathematician, physician, and scholar. As we also know, a less desirable renown attached itself to his " clarum et venerabile nomen."

" His great fame [observes Dr. Mackay again] and varied learning soon led to an accretion of legends round his name, which hid his real merits and transformed the man of science into a magician."

Like the proverbial snowball, this " accre- tion of legends " crescit eundo. Dante, him- self a Franciscan Tertiary, and so afire with a fellow-feeling, suffered his uninformed judgment to be unfairly biased by the petty jealousy of his great co -religious, and set th" hall rolling. Boccaccio gave it further impetus in the Ninth Tale of the Eighth l);iv of his ' Decameron ' thus :

" Dovete adunque sapere che egli non ha ancora guari che in questa citta [Florence] fu un gran maestro in nigromanzia, il quale ebbe nome Michaele Scotto perci6 che di Scozia era,"

And so it has wheeled on in perpetual motion through the intervening centuries to the days of our own great Wizard of the NoHh (Michael's not unworthy namesake),

who, in his ' Lay of the Last Minstrel r (Canto II. stanza xiii. 1. 2 seq. ), wrote :

In these far climes it was my lot To meet the wondrous Michael Scott ; A wizard, of such dreaded fame,

and explains (note O)* the reference so :

"Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie flourished during the 13th century, and was one of the am- bassadors sent to bring the Maid of Norway to Scotland, upon the death of Alexander III. By a poetical anachronism, he is here placed in a later era [middle of sixteenth century]. He was- a man of much learning, chiefly acquired in foreign countries. He wrote a commentary upon Aristotle, printed at Venice in 1490 ; and several treatises upon natural philosophy, from which he appears to have been addicted to the abstruse studies of judicial astrology, alchemy, physio- gnomy, and chiromancy. Hence he passed among his contemporaries for a skilful magician. .... Dante also mentions him as a renowned! wizard, ' Inf.,' cant. xxmo. A personage, thus- spoken of by biographers and historians, loses- little of his mystical fame in vulgar tradition. Accordingly, the memory of Sir Michael Scott survives in many a legend ; and in the south of Scotland, any work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed, either to the agency of Auld Michael r of Sir William Wallace, or of the devil. Tradi- tion varies concerning the place of his burial ; some contend for Home Coltrame, in Cumber- land ; others for Melrose Abbey. But all agree, that his books of magic were interred in his- grave, or preserved in the convent where he died."'

On this Dr. Mackay (loc. cit. ) observes :

" Michael Scot belonged to the family of the- Scots of Balwearie, near Kirkaldy in Fife. Sir Walter Scott erred in identifying him with Sir- Michael Scot of Balwearie, who, with Sir David. Wemyss of Wemyss, was sent to fetch the Maid of Norway to Scotland in 1290."

Scott's error of identification was obviously due to similarity of name and epoch and identity of family. But that both Gary and Plumptre should have tacitly accepted it as- genuine history is almost incredible. Says Gary, after quoting Boccaccio's allusion :

" I make no apology for adding the following- curious particulars extracted froni the notes to Mr. Scott's ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' a poem in which a happy use is made of the superstitions- relating to the subject of this note."

The " curious particulars " and the " super- stitions " of which Scott made " a happy use " were mistakenly assigned by him to the wrong man, though correct when predi- cated of the right one. Good Sir Walter perpetrated a double anachronism one designedly and lawfully, the other un- critically, since, as Dante's victim died circa

as " Note 2 C." Mine bears no date, but belongs, apparently, to the early forties. The " Advertise- ment" states that it was printed "from tho Author's interleaved copy of 1831."
 * In the "Author's Edition" this is given