It was to reinforce this unfavourable judgment based on other grounds that Dante adopted the legend already popular regarding Scot’s magical studies. In doing so he gave the matter a turn which widely separated his version of the tale from the prevailing Ghibelline stories, told no doubt with bated breath, but told on the whole to Scot’s credit. In thus dealing with the legend Dante made use of a distinction well known to the Arabs, and now becoming familiar also in the West: that, namely, which divided the art of magic into the real and the illusory; called by Eastern magicians _Er Roóhhánee_ and _Es Seémiya_.[299] The former was noble magic, and acted in power upon high spirits, subduing them to the magician’s will; being either white or black according to the purpose that was sought by their aid. The latter, on the other hand, produced no real effects whatever on material things, but moved altogether in the sphere of mind. At its highest it gave a mastery, which was perhaps hypnotic, over the senses of those whom the magician sought to delude. At its lowest it was the art of the juggler and his apes, cheating eye and ear by tricks like those which have survived to form our modern conjuring entertainments.[300] Here the apparatus of the higher magic was still used, but so as to be degraded and distorted from its original purpose. The circle now served to secure the mage, not from the assaults of supernatural beings, but from the indiscreet approach of too curious spectators. The brazier with its cloud of dense and stupifying smoke served to affect the senses of the subject; the strange sound of recited spells to impress his imagination; the magic mirror to fix his attention, till he became the wizard’s captive and obedient to his every suggestion. This was the art of _glamour_, as it used to be called, which, in one sphere, seemed to change a ruinous and cobweb-hung hall into a bower of delight; in another, made visions of distant places and future times appear in mirrors or crystals; in yet another, provided the philtres which provoked love, the ligatures which restrained it, and even dealt in that accursed spell of _envoutement_ which promised to procure for jealousy and hatred all their wicked will. Such then were the _magiche frode_ of which Dante accuses Scot, and it is easy to see that the sting of the verse lies just here; in the unreality it attributes to this magician’s art, much as if the poet had called him in plain prose, ‘no mage, but a common juggler.’ Resenting Scot’s pose as a prophet, and persuaded of the futility of such dreams in comparison with the splendid and enduring certainties of his own art, Dante used that gift with cruel force to convey a similar accusation regarding the romantic fame of the philosopher, holding him up to the world as no mighty master of mysterious power, but, in this too, a mere impostor.