The “wondrous wizard,” was tutor and astrologer at Palermo to Frederick II., settled at Toledo 1209–20, and translated Arabic versions of Aristotle’s works and Averrhoes’ commentaries, returned to the Imperial Court at Palermo, and refused the proffered archbishopric of Cashel (1223). His translation of Aristotle was seemingly used by Albertus Magnus, and was one of the two familiar to Dante…. Dempster (1627) may be right in maintaining that “Scotus” was the name of his nation, not of his family, in which case he would be probably an Irishman; but by Boece (1527) he was falsely identified with a Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie in Fife, who went on embassies to Norway in 1290 to 1310. Camden (1580) asserts that he was a Cistercian monk of Holme Cultram in Cumberland; and Satchells that in 1629 he had examined at Burgh-under-Bowness a huge tome held to be his grimoire.

  That other one who is so spare about the loins, was Michael Scott, who verily knew the trick of the impostures of magic.

  “You must know then, my dear master,” quoth he, “that there was lately a necromancer in this city called Mr. Michael Scotus, because he was a Scotchman, who had great honour shown him by many of the gentry, few of whom are now living; and he, being about to quit this place, at their request left it in charge with two of his disciples, that they should always be ready to serve those people who had honoured him.”

  In our endeavours to estimate the talents of a sage of the thirteenth century, we must beware of looking at his attainments through the medium of our own times. He must be compared with men of his own age; his powers must be determined by the state of science in the countries where he lived, and wrote, and became celebrated. Appealing to such a criterion, the Scottish Wizard is entitled to no ordinary rank amongst those who were then esteemed the philosophers and scholars of Europe. He was certainly the first who gave Aristotle in a Latin translation to the learned world of the West. He was eminent as a mathematician and an astronomer—learned in the languages of modern Europe—deeply skilled in Arabic, and in the sciences of the East; he had risen to high celebrity as a physician—and his knowledge of courts and kings, had recommended him to be employed in a diplomatic capacity by his own government. Nor has he been cheated of his fame. If we look to older authors, he lives in the pages of Roger Bacon, of Picus Mirandula, of Cornelius Agrippa. If we ask for his historical immortality, he is commemorated by Lesley and Buchanan,—if for his poetic honours, has not Dante snatched him from oblivion, and the last of the minstrels embalmed him in the imperishable substance of his first and most romantic poem?—nay, if he seeks for more popular and wider honour, even here he may not complain, whilst his miracles and incantations are yet recorded beside the cottage fire by many a grey-headed crone, and his fearful name still banishes the roses from the cheeks of the little audience that surround her.

  The extant writings of Scot are universally admitted to give him no claim to remembrance, comparable in any degree with that which belongs to his contemporary, Roger Bacon.

  From Malcolm Ceannmor to Alexander III. not a solitary poet or scholar appears to break the monotonous sterility of two hundred years. Michael Scot, an apparent exception, is half a mystery and half a myth, but he was not a product of the Scottish Church, and the works that have been ascribed to him were written in foreign lands.

  He may well therefore have died while on the borders of Scotland. This idea agrees curiously with the fact that Italy has no tradition of his burial-place, while on the other hand northern story points to his tomb in Melrose Abbey, Glenluce, Holme Coltrame, or some other of the great Cistercian foundations of that country. Satchells, who visited Burghunder-Bowness in 1629, found a guide named Lancelot Scot, who took him to the parish church, where he saw the great scholar’s tomb, and found it still the object of mysterious awe to the people there. The resting-place of Michael Scot will never now be accurately known, but there is every reason to suppose that it lies not far from that of his birth, in the sweet Borderland, amid the green hills and flowing streams of immemorial story.