THE LAST DAYS OF MICHAEL SCOT 169 



with the prophecies, both general and personal, we 

 can find no better explanation than that which bids 

 us see in the whole what indicates a case of ecstatic 

 melancholy such as would seem to be the sad heritage 

 of not a few finer natures sprung of the stock from 

 which Michael Scot descended. We hear the same 

 sad note in the strange jingle he wove so long before 

 in the preface of his Physionomia : ' Nos ibimus 

 ibitis, ibunt. Omnia pereunt, praeter amare Deum,' 

 and one would fain hope that in his frequent fits of 

 depression Scot may have indeed found rest in what 

 he thus declares to be the only abiding portion of 

 the soul. The wild account of his illness at Cordova, 

 and of the dreams which then visited him is not to 

 be neglected in this connection. Perhaps the cloud 

 then first fell which in after-years returned upon 

 him with such redoubled gloom. Thus the traits of 

 Scot's youth fit well the picture we are now con- 

 strained to form, and the whole gives promise that 

 here at last we may have touched upon the man 

 liimself as he was, physically, mentally, and spiri- 

 tually. A slight worn body spent with arduous 

 study, like a sheath which the sword has almost 

 broken through ; a soul possessed with the sense of 

 Divine j^hings, yet sad, and subject to strange illu- 

 sions ; a conscience morbidly awake and painfully 

 scrupulous ; a mind to which almost every branch 

 of knowledge was familiar, and not incapable of 

 striking out here and there in a path of its own : if 

 these be not Michael Scot, scholar in the court and 

 courtier in the schools, then it may safely be said 

 that no indications exist which can ever reveal to 

 us this striking personality as he Hved and moved 

 in the world. 



