brerium, to protect his head from the blow of a stone, of not more than two ounces, which was to be, as he believed, the cause of his death, and having taken it off at the elevation of the host a stone of that weight fell from the roof of the church, which killed him. One version of the story charges him with lifting his helmet in mockery or hypocrisy, as he, like the emperor, was accused of infidelity. The Scottish tradition, on the other hand, which has gained circulation from its adoption by Scott in the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ brought him back to his native country, where, especially in the south, ‘any work of great labour or antiquity is ascribed either to Auld Michael, Sir William Wallace, or the Devil,’ and, though tradition varied between Holmcultram and Melrose Abbey, ‘it was agreed that his Books of Magic were interred in his grave, or preserved in the convent where he died’ (Lay, canto ii. and notes). His death was attributed to his supping the broth of a ‘breme’ sow (i.e. a sow in heat), and not to the fall of a stone, as in the Italian legend. The wonders worked by him through diabolic agency, which he invoked by drawing a circle with his magic wand, and sometimes accomplished by invisible rides through the air on a demon horse, or through the sea on a demon ship, grew with time and the invention of story-tellers. Perhaps one of these tales of his ride on a jet-black horse as envoy to the king of France from Scotland, when the first stamp of his steed rang the bells of Notre-Dame, the second threw down the palace towers, and, to avoid the third, the king granted all he asked, may have contributed to his erroneous identification with Sir Michael Scott, the ambassador to Norway in 1290.
A novel called ‘Sir Michael Scot’ was published by Allan Cunningham in 1828, and Coleridge projected a drama on his life which he deemed a better theme than Faust.
Of those works attributed to Michael Scot which appear to be genuine, the following have been printed: 1. ‘Liber Physiognomiæ Magistri Michaelis Scoti,’ 1477, of which there are, it is said, eighteen editions in all, Latin, German, and Italian. It is sometimes entitled ‘Liber de Secretis Naturæ,’ and bound up with a work attributed to Albertus Magnus, ‘De Secretis Mulierum,’ which accounts, as well as Scot's character as a magician, for the opinion that he dealt with forbidden subjects, or at least subjects better left to medical science. Scot's work contains a treatise on generation, as well as one on physiognomy. The former is worthless; the latter is a curious anticipation of the line of inquiry since pursued by Lavater and others, and, like Lavater, it differs from phrenology in treating not the head only, but all parts of the body as significant of character. 2. A translation into Latin of Aristotle's work on natural history, ‘De Animalibus,’ of which Scot probably made two versions, one entitled ‘De Animalibus ad Cæsarem’ and the other ‘Tractatus Avicennæ de Animalibus.’ It is included in the edition of Aristotle's works published at Venice in 1496, with the title ‘Aristotelis Opera Latinè versa, partim è Greco partim ex Arabico, per viros lectos, et in utriusque Linguæ prolatione peritos, jussu Imperatoris Frederici II.’ There seems to have been a separate print of this in 1493, and there are eight manuscripts of it in the Royal Library, Paris, and one in the Vatican, the colophon of which has been already mentioned. 3. ‘Quæstio Curiosa de Natura Solis et Lunæ,’ printed in ‘Theatrum Chemicum,’ vol. v., Strasburg, 1622: a work on alchemy and the philosopher's stone. 4. ‘Mensa Philosophica, seu Enchiridion in quo de quæstionibus memorabilibus et variis ac jucundis hominum congressibus agitur,’ Frankfurt, 1602, 12mo; Leipzig, 1603, and frequently reprinted and published in English, under the title of ‘The Philosopher's Banquet,’ 1614; but this work is attributed by others to Theobald Anguilbert, an Irish physician, under whose name it was published in Paris in 1500.
Whether the treatise on the ‘Sphere of Sacrobosco’ [see Holywood, John] is by Michael Scot is not certain, but his authorship is assumed by Kästner in his ‘History of Mathematics,’ where it is noted under the title ‘Eximii atque excellentissimi Physicorum Motuum Cursusque Syderii investigatoris Mich. Scotti super Auctorem Sphæræ, cum quæstionibus diligenter emendatis incipit Expositio perfecta, Illustrissimi Imperatoris D.D. Frederici precibus,’ Bologna, 1495. This work is also attributed to Michael Scot in Sir Robert Sibbald's manuscript ‘Historia Literaria Gentis Scotorum,’ Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
The following works are still in manuscript:—
I. Astronomy.—1. ‘Astronomia’ or ‘Liber Particularis,’ Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Canon Misc. 555, attributed in the colophon to ‘Michael Scot, Astrologer to the Lord Frederick, Emperor of Rome.’ 2. ‘Liber Introductorius,’ Bodl. MS. 266, has the colophon, ‘Expliciunt judicia secundum scientiam Michaelis Scoti grandis astrologi quondam Imperatoris Frederici de terrâ Teutonicâ,’ and the preface says it was the second book composed by
