shall be when George, the son of George, shall reign. When the forests of Delamare shall wave their arms over the slaughtered sons of Albion. Then shall the eagle drink the blood of princes from the headless cross (query, corse?). Now haste thee home, for it is not in thy time these things shall be. A Cestrian shall speak it and be believed.” The farmer left the cavern, the iron gates closed, and though often sought for, the place has never again been found.’[292] Arthur, the King of Faery, has dropped out of these legends in the course of their transmission to modern times, but in another story, told of the Eildon Hills, his sister, the Fata Morgana, still lives and reigns; for she is no doubt the _Faery Queen_ with whom Thomas Rhymer spent so many years underground ere he returned with the gift of prophetic truth. In the Scottish legend, which makes Michael Scot have much to do in forming these hills to their present shape, we seem to see him occupying his natural place in the myth as that Merlin whose art composed and maintained the magic kingdom of Avalon, where Arthur sleeps with Morgana till the hour of his return. The fertile fancy of these ages ran to the formation of other points of likeness. Merlin had his Vivien, who betrayed him to his loss of life and power by a spell of his own composing. So Michael was said to have loved a beautiful woman, who, Delilah-like, left him no peace till he told her the poison which alone had power over his charmed life: the broth of a breme sow, of which accordingly he died, taking it confidently from his false leman’s hand.[293] Michael too, like Merlin, had his _Book of Might_; for the same fancy which materialised Frederick’s heretical tendencies, and made them objective in the supposed work _De Tribus Impostoribus_, soon did the like by those diabolical arts in which Scot was said to have excelled. It is possible that some reference to this may have been intended in the book which is held by the magician in the S. Maria Novella fresco. The plan of these paintings in the Spanish chapel at Florence was drawn out with great care by Fra Jacopo Passavanti, a learned monk of that convent. He has left a series of Lenten sermons, collected and enlarged by himself, and published under the title of _Lo Specchio di vera Penitenza_.[294] The last two chapters of this work are devoted to the reproof of magical arts; a subject which the author would seem to have studied closely. He may have been influenced in this direction by S. Augustine’s _De Civitate Dei_, which he translated into Italian. More than one passage of the _Specchio_ may be cited as illustrating the frescoes of the Spanish Chapel. He tells us, for example, that the devil is said to be able to teach science to his disciples in an incredibly short space of time, however rude and ignorant they may be. For this purpose he has given them a book called the _Ars Notoria_,[295] the same which is so severely condemned by Aquinas.