[194] The very remarkable passage here referred to by Humboldt is to be found in the Treatise, “De Cælo et Mundo.”
[195] Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 247.
[196] Among these, besides the celebrated speaking head, the account of which is too legendary to be depended on, we must reckon the mode of rendering sensible the phenomena of an earthquake, which he describes in his book on meteors, and which finds a place in most modern works on popular science; his automata made to move by means of mercury according to the method of Chinese toys; and the so-called magic cup, which is still preserved in the Museum of Cologne.
[197] Rutebœuf, the celebrated crusading minstrel of the thirteenth century, whose reckless sarcasm spared no one, not even St. Louis himself, endeavoured to console the defeated seculars by directing his most cutting satire against their opponents, in a piece entitled “La descorde de l’université et des Jacobins.” The poem contains many curious illustrations of the manners and studies of the Paris students, and it need hardly be said that the Jacobins fare but badly. When first the friars came into the world, he says, they took lodgings with humility, but now they are masters of Paris and Rome,
Et par leur grant chape roonde
Ont versé l’université.
[198] Ps. ciii. 13.
[199] Boll. Vita S. Thom. p. 712, n. 77.
[200] Institutions Liturgiques, tom. 1, 348.
[201] Frigerio, Vita di S. Tomaso, lib. ii. c. x.