[20]. Ibid., bk. ii, ch. 89.
[21]. Ibid., bk. ii, ch. 85. “In verbis et herbis et lapidibus multam esse virtutem compertum est a diligentibus naturarum investigatoribus. Certissimum autem experimentum fidem dicto nostro facit.”
[22]. Preface, p. xii in vol. xxxiv of the Rolls Series.
[23]. My information concerning Michael Scot is mainly derived from his biography (Edinburgh, 1897) by Rev. J. Wood Brown, who has studied the manuscript copies of Scot’s works in various European libraries and has succeeded in dispelling much of the uncertainty which previously existed concerning the events of Scot’s career and even the dates of his life. Of Scot’s works the Physionomia exists in printed form; indeed, eighteen editions of it are said to have been issued between the years 1477 and 1660.
[24]. The poem is printed in Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, vol. xviii, (1878) p. 486.
[25]. The part of the manuscript containing the experiment was written between 1450 and 1500, Brown thinks, but purports to be a copy “from a very ancient work.” If spurious, its fabricator at least shows considerable familiarity with Scot’s life. See Brown, pp. 18–19. The recipe is given in full in the appendix of Brown’s book.
[26]. De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae, ch. 7. Contained in the Appendix of vol. xv of the Rolls Series, edited by J. S. Brewer, London, 1859.
[27]. Opus Maius, vol. ii, pp. 204–221. Edited by J. H. Bridges, Oxford, 1897–1900. On page 210 et seq. Bacon gives an elaborate recipe for an elixir vitae.
[28]. Opus Minus, Rolls Series, vol. xv, pp. 373–4.
[29]. Bridges, Opus Maius, vol. i, pp. 137–139.