ROGER BACON. 149 



favour of Pope Clement IV., and also some encouragement in 

 the prosecution of his studies ; but this could not have lasted 

 long, as that tope died soon after, and then we find our author 

 under fresh embarrassments from the same cause as before; 

 but he became in more danger as the general of his order, 

 having heard his cause, ordered him to be imprisoned. This 

 is said to have happened in 1278; and to prevent his 

 appealing to Pope Nicholas III., the general procured a 

 confirmation of his sentence from Rome immediately, but it is 

 not very easy to say on what pretences. It is certain that his 

 sufferings for many years must have brought him low, since he 

 was sixty-four years of age when he was first put in prison, and 

 deprived of the opportunity of prosecuting his studies, at least 

 in the way of experiment. That he was still indulged in the 

 use of his books appears very clearly from the great use he 

 made of them in the learned works he composed. 



He was not released from prison till the latter end of the 

 reign of Pope Nicholas IV., when he owed his freedom to the 

 interposition of some noblemen. He returned to Oxford, 

 where, at the request of his friends, he composed "A Com- 

 pendium of Theology," which seems to have been his last work, 

 and of which there is a copy in the royal librar}'. 



He spent the remainder of his days in peace, and died in the 

 college of his order on the nth of June, 1292, as some say, or 

 in 1294, as others assert, and was interred in the Church ot 

 the Franciscans. The monks gave him the title of "Doctor 

 Mirabilis," or the " Wonderful Doctor," which he deserved in 

 whatever sense the phrase is taken. 



He was certainly the most extraordinary man of his time. 

 He was a perfect master of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and has 

 left posterity such indubitable marks of his critical skill in them, 



