The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

C.NTO I.] THE LAST MINSTREL. 51
XI.
Of noble race the Ladye came,
Her father was a clerk of fame,
Of Bethune's line of Picardie: l
He learn'd the art that none may name,
In Padua, far beyond the sea.2
Men said, he changed his mortal frame
By feat of magic mystery;
For when, in studious mood, he paced
St. Andrew's cloister'd hall,3
His form no darkening shadow traced
Upon the sunny wall!4
of Cranstoun, seeking his life. Nevertheless, the same Cranstoun, or perhaps his son, was married to a daughter of the
same lady.
I See Appendix, Note E.
2 Padua was long supposed, by the Scottish peasants, to be
the principal school of necromancy. The Earl of Gowrie,
slain at Perth, in 1600, pretended, during his studies in Italy,
to have acquired some knowledge of the cabala, by which,
he said, he could charm snakes, and work other miracles;
and, in particular, could produce children without the intercourse of the sexes.-See the Examination of Wemyss of Bogie
before the Privy Council, concerning Gowrie's Conspiracy.
3 [First Edition-" St. Kentigerne's hall."-St Mungo, or
Kentigern, is the patron saint of Glasgow.]
4 The shadow of a necromancer is independent of the sun.
Glycas informs us, that Simon Magus caused his shadow to
go before him, making people believe it was an attendant
spirit. —HEYWOOD'S Hierarchie, p. 475. The vulgar conceive, that when a class of students have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged to run through
a subterraneous hall, where the devil literally catches the
hindmost in the race, unless he crosses the hall so speedily,