Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/245

 Pope Sylvester, who actually imported from Spain the use of the Arabian numerals, was supposed to have learned there the magic for which he was stigmatised by the ignorance of his age. William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. cap. 10.—There were public schools, where magic, or rather the sciences supposed to involve its mysteries, were regularly taught, at Toledo, Seville, and Salamanca. In the latter city, they were held in a deep cavern; the mouth of which was walled up by Queen Isabella, wife of King Ferdinand. D'Autun on learned Incredulity, p. 45.—The celebrated magician Maugis, cousin to Rinaldo of Montalban, called by Ariosto, Malagigi, studied the black art at Toledo, as we learn from L'Histoire de Maugis D'Aygremont. He even held a professor's chair in the necromantic university; for so I interpret the passage, "qu'en tous les sept ars denchantement, des charmes et conjurations il n'y avoit meilleur maistre que lui; et en tel renom qu'on le laissoit en chaise, et l'appelloit en maistre Maugis." This Salamancan Domdaniel is said to have been founded by Hercules. If the classic reader enquires where Hercules himself learned magic, he may consult, "Les faicts et processes du noble et vaillant Hercules," where he will learn, that the fable of his aiding Atlas to support the heavens, arose from the said Atlas having taught Hercules, the noble knight errant, the seven liberal sciences, and, in particular, that of judicial astrology. Such, according to the idea of the middle ages, were the studies, "maximus quæ docuit Atlas."—In a romantic history of Roderic, the last Gothic king of Spain, he is said to have entered one of those enchanted caverns. It was situated beneath an