17. In Upper Norton Street, London, in his 87th year, Claud Russell, Esq.

18. At Douglas Manse, in the 83d year of his age, the Rev. William M'Cubbin, upwards of fifty years minister of that parish, and, what is something singular, this is only the second vacancy in that parish for upwards of 100 years.

At the Pavilion, Brighton, of a consumption, Mr Charles Maxwell, one of the junior Pages of the Presence to his Majesty.

20. In Glamorganshire, of a rapid decline, occasioned by the bursting of a blood vessel, Eaton Stannard Barrett, Esq. so well known to the literary and political world as the author of "All the Talents" "The Heroine," &c.

At Edinburgh, Miss Isabella Stuart, daughter of the late John Stuart of Castleton, Esq. W. S.

22. At his house, Gayfield Place, Alexander Bonar, Esq. of Ratho, banker in Edinburgh.

In George's Square, Edinburgh, Margaret, wife of Colonel Munro.

23. At his house on Blackheath, Peter Lawrie, Esq. of Ernespie, Scotland, aged

At Upper Grosvenor Street, London, Patrick Crauford Bruce, Esq. of Glenelg. At his house in Sackville Street, London, aged upwards of 80 years, the celebrated Arthur Young, Esq. of Bradfield, near Bury, Secretary to the Board of Agriculture.

At London, John Grant, Esq. of Wallibon, in the island of St Vincent.

At Arcueil, in France, the residence of the Count Berthollet, Mr Blagden, Secretary of the Royal Society of London.

In the parish of Aiglish, in the vicinity of Killarney, at the very advanced age of

115 years, Theodore O'Sullivan, the celebrated Irish bard. This extraordinary man, who was a great composer in his native language, expired suddenly, on Wednesday last, whilst sowing oats in the field of one of his great-grandchildren, and retaining his faculties to the last moment! He is said to have sung to the plough one of his favourite lyrics, and actually breathed his last at the final stanza of his national melody. The deceased also followed the occupation of a cooper, and is said to have made a churn, from which butter was taken for the christening of his 26th great. grandchild.

At Chateauroux, in France, aged 75, the father of General Bertrand, so well known for his talents, his heroic devotion to Napoleon, and his exile. He has left a widow with two children, and a consider.

able fortune.

At Dindigul, Major E. P. Stevenson, of the 4th N. V. Battalion.

At Dublin, of a few moments illness, Daniel Donelly, the Hibernian pugilist.

At Rome, Sister Fortune Gioncarelli, of the Ursuline Order, in the 109th year of her age, and the 74th of her residence in the Convent.

At Belfast, in the 65th year of his age, Dr Denham, the celebrated Irish patriot.

At Up-Park Camp, in Jamaica, Lieutenant Hector Innes, of the 92d regiment, oldest son of the late Lieutenant Innes, of the 42d regiment.

At her house, St John Street, Mrs Philips, widow of Richard Elliston Philips, Esq. late one of the Commissioners of the Customs for Scotland.

A few days ago, in the 75th year of his age, Mr Edward Smith, of Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, who was one of the most singular characters in the kingdom. Until within a very few years, it was his constant practice to ride on a bull, and instead of smoking tobacco he had his hay salted, and smoked it instead of that plant. By his will he directed that his body should be carried to the grave by poor men, who were to be paid 5s. each; that the funeral should take place early in the morning, and that none of his relatives or friends should attend, or any mourning be worn by them on his account, under a forfeiture of their respective legacies.

At Drumboy, Ireland, Hr Henry Hamilton, at the advanced age of 104. Until within these two last years he had the use of all his faculties.

At Bristol Hotwells, the Dowager Countess of Granard.

At London, Lieutenant Colonel Handfield, formerly of the 22d regiment of foot.

Letter from John De Coverley ..................515 On the English Dramatic Writers who

preceded Shakespeare. No. VII.....517 German Reviews. No. II. 522 Extract of a Letter from Italy.................528 Explanatory Statement by the Author of "Remarks on Dr Brown's Physiology of the Mind" ......530 Parallel of London and Paris.......531 St Peter's Church, by Schiller..............532 Historical Notices of the Popular Superstitions, Traditions, and Customs of Tiviotdale. No. II. Scottish Imitation of a Passage in Tasso's Aminta ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈536 Ancient Condition of Edinburgh-Extracts from the Common-place Book of Mr Jonathan Oldbuck ----~--~537

533

Remarks on the late Published Life and Letters of Lady R. Russell..............543

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC
INTELLIGENCE.

Weights and Measures-Improvement
on Boats-New Acoustic Instrument
-Christianity in China-New Ex-
peditions-Soap from a Species of
Carabus-&c. &c. &c.

Works Preparing for Publication......~557 Monthly List of New Publications 558

LIFE OF THE WIZARD

Michael Scott.

Few names are surrounded with such an air of mystery and romance as that of the wizard Michael Scott; and it is, perhaps, rather an ungrateful task to strip this distinguished magician of his robes of gramarie, and to restore him to those sober regions which belong to authentic his tory, and which are peopled with more common-rate philosophers. But, after the severer hand of biography has removed from the canvas all the richer colours in which the credulity of the vulgar and the imagination of the last and greatest of the minstrels have invested him, it is some consolation to think that there will still be left the picture of no ordinary man.

Michael Scott, or, as he is sometimes denominated, Michael Mathematicus, was born in Scotland about the year 1214, in the commencement of the reign of Alexander II.,

one of the most brave and able monarchs who ever sat on the Scottish throne. Mackenzie informs us that the place of his birth was Balwirie, his paternal residence, in the shire of Fife, and he refers, not only to the works of Dempster and Boece, but to the more authentic pages of Leslie, as his authority for this assertion. It

Dempster says he died in the year 1291, having lived to extreme old age.— Hist. Eccles. B. xii. p. 494. Niceron says he died in 1291, aged about 77.-Vol. XV. p. 95.

+ Mackenzie, Vol. I. p. 197.

is, however, to be classed among the many inaccuracies of this biographical writer. Boece only remarks, that "the Michael Scott was reckoned most learned physician of his age, and knowledge, beloved and patronized during his lifetime, on account of such both by Alexander King of Scotland and Edward I. of England." Dempster simply transcribes the passage in Boece,

and the more classic

volume of Leslie + contains only a general encomium on the various talents of Michael Scott as a physician, an astronomer, and a magician. Not one of these historians have added a single syllable from which we may form even a conjecture of the birthplace of this remarkable man; and the learned Niceron, when he followed the authority of Mackenzie, and brought him into the world at Balwirie, in the county of Fife, was not aware of the perfection to which this author had carried the science of con

jectural biography. ‡

Dempster, indeed, so far from assigning to Michael an extraction from the Scotts of Balwirie, affirms that his name has been misunderstood; that he is not to be called Michael Scott, but Michael the Scot. "Cognomentum etiam Scoti non est familiæ sed nationis."

Leslaei Hist. B. vi. p. 220.

The mistake of Mackenzie has been transcribed by Dr Henry, in the 8th volume of his History of Britain, p. 220. He also quotes Dempster as his authority. It is thus that error is perpetuated by indolence, for neither Mackenzie, Niceron. nor Henry, could have consulted Demp. ster without detecting their mistake.

Michael, although no authority exists for transforming him into the Laird of Balwirie, was undoubtedly a Scotchman. This fact rests on the authority of the learned Bale. It is true, indeed, that Pitseus and Leland, with their usual nationality, have boldly affirmed that he was an Englishman, and born in the county of Durham; yet the tale appears from the first to have been discredited by every writer of authority, and it must be classed among the numerous and ridiculous fables which have been propagated by these authors.

Michael is said from his earliest years to have devoted himself to the cultivation of the sciences. In his native country, however, he could receive nothing but the bare rudiments of his education, as Scotland did not possess at this period any public seminaries for the education of youth. The casual lessons of some learned monk, and, perhaps, an introduction to the limited library of his convent, composed all the advantages the future astronomer and magician could enjoy at home, and for higher and more regular instruction it was necessary to seek the universities of the sister country, and the schools of France and Italy.

The University of Oxford at this time enjoyed a very high reputation. It had been endowed as far back as the ninth century by the Great Alfred. At a later period, Henry II. and Richard I. had conferred upon it some extraordinary privileges, and under the subsequent reign of John, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, 3000 students were contained within its colleges. Henry III., although in other respects a weak monarch, and deficient in that energy of character which his turbulent kingdom required, was a munificent patron of the university. New colleges were erected, additional immunities granted by pontifical and regal bounty, and Oxford, in the words of Mathew Paris, became the second school of the church in Europe.

To this famous university Michael

Scott repaired, where he devoted himself with intense application to philosophical pursuits.

Although, in this dark period of the Middle Ages, scarcely any studies deserving the name of real philosophy were cultivated either at Oxford or elsewhere, yet, in the midst of the jargon of the scholastic philosophy, the puerilities which infested the sciences of ethics and physics, and many other branches of human inquiry, soine real knowledge was to be found, and the love of truth and the spirit of investigation, although misdirected, was not extinguished. It was thus that the study of practical astronomy in those periods, even when confounded with the doctrines and made subservient to the purposes of judicial astrology, led to an accurate examination of the changes in the positions and conjunctions of the heavenly bodies, to a use of the quadrant and other astronomical instruments, and to an ardent cultivation of the sister science of geome try.

At the time when Michael Scott became a student of the University of Oxford, this last science was extremely popular. We learn this from the works of a contemporary author, Roger Bacon, a very extraordinary man, who appears to have possessed much of that freedom of thought, that pas sion for experiment, and that contempt for the received systems of philosophy, which re-appeared nearly four centuries afterwards in his great namesake, Lord Verulam. To the science of astronomy were united amongst the pursuits which were fashionable at this time, the study of the learned languages, embracing not only Latin,+ and although more rarely read, Greek, but the Hebrew and the Arabic, the sciences of logic, of

Anthony Wood, Hist. Oxf. Vol. I. p. 196. At this time, the most eminent scholar and lecturer at Oxford was Edmund Ryche, who became afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. One of his disciples was Roger Bacon. Ryche, according to Wood, read the Elenchs of Aristotle. Bracton, author of the Consuetudines Angliæ,Greathead, or Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln,-and Roger Bacon,-are to be num bered amongst the most celebrated contem porary scholars at the period when Michael Scott must have studied at the university. Henry's History, Vol. VIII. chap. 4.