120 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



a mountain in the east where the adamant is found, which 

 mountain (whether because of the lodestone in it or not, 

 lie carefully neglects to say) u by night emits a great light 

 and it does not appear in the face of day," he becomes ap- 

 prehensive. So with entire prudence, he makes it clear 

 that he, the poet, does not aver this, but that it is the 

 dictum of Physiologus an expedient which many writers 

 of later times found convenient to imitate when discussing 

 prohibited subjects in a way likely to arouse in their be- 

 half the solicitude of the Holy Inquisition. 



The intellectual movement in both literature and sci- 

 ence gained force rapidly as the i2th century advanced. 

 Schools sprang up over the continent, and letters were 

 cultivated nowhere better than in Normandy. Then the 

 Norman French the Langue d^oui gradually became 

 the vehicle of literary expression, and, with the reign 

 of Richard he of the lion heart and poet soul a new 

 era of literature intervenes, when the trouveres and 

 jongleurs come upon the scene and the indomitable 

 Norman spirit bursts forth in romances of chivalry and 

 honor and love: and when the beautiful legends of Arthur 

 of the round table and the "San Graal" are told by the 

 descendants of the fierce Berserkers, whose delight lay in 

 hearing over and again the bloody sagas of rapine and 

 massacre stridently shouted by the Skalds. 



In the month of September, 1157, two infants, born on 

 the same day, the one at Windsor, the other at St. Albans, 

 were confided to the care of good dame Neckam. The 

 first was Richard of England, son of King Henry; the 

 second, she herself, by the best of all rights, named Alex- 

 ander, 1 and afterwards he became commonly known as 

 Alexander of St. Albans. 



1 Wright, T. Alexander Neckam, lib. ii. London, 1863, quoting MSS. 

 James Coll., vii. 34. Wright's Latin text of Neckam's treatise and his 

 biographical introduction thereto, have been followed in the present 

 chapter. 



