Conspicuous in the vulgar prejudices is the suspicion attaching to the extraordinary discoveries of philosophy and science. Diabolic inspiration (as in our age infidelity and atheism are popular outcries) was a ready and successful accusation against ideas or discoveries in advance of the time. Roger Bacon, Robert Grostete, Albert the Great, Thomas of Ercildoun, Michael Scot--eminent names--were all more or less objects of a persecuting suspicion. Bacon may justly be considered the greatest name in the philosophy of the Middle Age. That anomaly of mediaevalism was one of the few who could neglect a vain and senseless theology and system of metaphysics to apply his genius to the solid pursuits of truer philosophy; and if his influence has not been so great as it might have been, it is the fault of the age rather than of the man. Condemned by the fear or jealousy of his Franciscan brethren and Dominican rivals, Bacon was thrown into prison, where he was excluded from propagating 'certain suspected novelties' during fourteen years, a victim of his more liberal opinions and of theological hatred. One of the traditions of his diabolical compacts gives him credit at least for ingenuity in avoiding at once a troublesome bargain and a terrible fate. The philosopher's compact stipulated that after death his soul was to be the reward and possession of the devil, whether he died within the church's sacred walls or without them. Finding his end approaching, that sagacious magician caused a cell to be constructed in the walls of the consecrated edifice, giving directions, which were properly carried out, for his burial in a tomb that was thus neither within nor without the church--an evasion of a long-expected event, which lost the disappointed devil his prize, and probably his temper. 'Friar Bacon' became afterwards a well-known character in the vulgar fables: he was the type of the mediaeval, as the poet Virgil was of the ancient, magician. A popular drama was founded on his reputed exploits and character in the sixteenth century, by Robert Greene, in 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay;' but the famous Dr. Faustus, the most popular magic hero of that time on the stage, was a formidable rival. While his cotemporaries denounced his rational method, preferring their theological jargon and scholastic metaphysics; how much the Aristotle of mediaevalism has been neglected even latterly is a surprising fact.[56] [56] The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have not exhibited the same impatience for a worthy edition of the works of Bacon with which Clement IV. expected a copy of the _Opus Majus_. His principal writings remained in MS. and were not published to the world until the middle of last century.