a sect of scholastics, so named from Albertists their leader Albertus Magnus.

ALBERTUS MAGNUS, a Dominican friar, and afterwards bishop of Ratisbon, was one of the most learned men and most famous doctors of the 13th century. He is said to have acted as a man-midwife; and some have been highly offended that one of his profession should follow such an employment. A book entitled De Natura Rerum, of which he was reputed the author, gave rise to this report. In this treatise there are several instructions for midwives, and so much skill shown in their art, that one would think the author could not have arrived at it without having himself practised; but the advocates for Albert say he was not the writer thereof, nor of that other piece De Secretis Mulierum; in which there are many phrases and expressions, unavoidable on such a subject, which gave great offence, and raised a clamour against the supposed author. It must be acknowledged, however, that there are, in his Comment upon the Master of Sentences, some questions concerning the practice of conjugal duty, in which he has used some words rather too gross for chaste and delicate ears; but they allege, what he himself used to say in his own vindication, that he came to the knowledge of so many monstrous things at confession, that it was impossible to avoid touching upon such questions. Albert was certainly a man of a most curious and inquisitive turn of mind, which gave rise to other accusations brought against him. It is said that he laboured to find out the philosopher's stone, that he was a magician, and that he made a machine in the shape of a man, which was an oracle to him, and explained all the difficulties he proposed. He had great knowledge in the mathematics, and by his skill in that science might probably have formed a head with springs capable of articulating sounds, like to the machines of Boetius, of which Cassidorus has said, "Metals lowe; the birds of Diomedes trumpet in brass; the brazen serpent hisses; counterfeited swallows chatter, and such as have no proper note, from brass send forth harmonious music." John Matthaeus de Luna, in his treatise De Rerum Inventoribus, has attributed the invention of fire-arms to Albert; but in this he is confuted by Naude in his Apologie des Grandes Hommes. Albert died at Cologne in 1280. His works were printed at Lyons in 1651, in 21 volumes folio.