MICHAEL of Balwirie,** a renowned Scottish worthy of the thirteenth century. This singular man made the tour of France and Germany, and was received with some distinction at the court of the Emperor Frederic II. Having travelled enough to gratify his curiosity or his vanity, he returned to Scotland, and gave himself up to study and contemplation. He was skilled in languages; and, considering the age in which he lived, was no mean proficient in philosophy, mathematics, and medicine. He translated into Latin, from the Arabic, the history of animals by the celebrated physician Avicenna. He wrote a book concerning the Secrets of Nature, in which he treats of generation, physiology, and the signs by which we judge of the temperaments of men and women. We have also a tract of his on the Nature of the Sun and the Moon. He there speaks of the grand operation, as it is termed by alchymists, and is exceedingly solicitous about the projected powder, or the philosopher's stone. He likewise wrote what he calls *Mensa Philosophica,* a treatise replete with astrology and chiro-mancy. He was much admired in his day, and was even suspected of magic; and he had Roger Bacon and Cornelius Agrippa for his panegyrists.

**Scot, Reginald,** a judicious writer in the sixteenth century, was the younger son of Sir John Scot of Scotshall, near Smeethe, in Kent. He studied at Hart Hall in the University of Oxford; after which he retired to Smeethe, where he lived a studious life, and died in 1599. He published the Perfect Platform of a Hop-Garden; and a book entitled the Discovery of Witchcraft, in which he showed that all the relations concerning magicians and witches are chimerical. This work was not only censured by King James I in his Daemonology, but by several eminent divines; and all the copies of it that could be found were burned.