of 1499, 1513, and 1518, and at
Oxford in 1637.

[14] Jean Buridan was born at Bethune about 1298, and died at Paris about
1358. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris and several
times held the office of Rector. As a philosopher he was classed among the
nominalists.

[15] So in the original.

[16] Baruch Spinoza, or Benedict de Spinoza as he later called himself, the
pantheistic philosopher, excommunicated from the Jewish faith for heresy,
was born at Amsterdam in 1632 and died there in 1677.

[17] Michael Scott, or Scot, was born about 1190, probably in Fifeshire,
Scotland, and died about 1291. He was one of the best known savants of the
court of Emperor Frederick II, and wrote upon astrology, alchemy, and the
occult sciences. He was looked upon as a great magician and is mentioned
among the wizards in Dante's _Inferno_.

"That other, round the loins
So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot,
Practised in every slight of magic wile." _Inferno_, XX.

Boccaccio also speaks of him: "It is not long since there was in this city
(Florence) a great master in necromancy, who was called Michele Scotto,
because he was a Scot." _Decameron_, Dec. Giorno.

Scott's mention of him in Canto Second of his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_,
is well known:

"In these fair climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!"

Sir Walter's notes upon him are of interest.

[18] These were some of the forgeries which Michel Chasles (1793-1880) was
duped into buying. They purported to be a correspondence between Pascal and
Newton and to show that the former had anticipated some of the discoveries
of the great English physicist and mathematician. That they were forgeries
was shown by Sir David Brewster in 1855.

[19] "Let the serpent also break from its appointed path."

[20] Guglielmo Brutus Icilius Timoleon Libri-Carucci della Sommaja, born at
Florence in 1803; died at Fiesole in 1869. His _Histoire des Sciences
Mathematiques_ appeared at Paris in 1838, the entire first edition of
volume I, save some half dozen that he had carried home, being burned on
the day that the printing was completed. He was a great collector of early
printed works on mathematics, and was accused of having stolen large
numbers of them from other libraries. This accusat