NOTE GGGGG.—PAGE 433. "EverywJiere well received.'"—The Mendicants-strayed everywhere—begged, lived on little, and were everywhere well received. Subtle, eloquent, and able men, they dis-charged a multiplicity of worldly commissions with discre-tion. Europe was filled with their activity. Messengers, preachers, and at times diplomatists, they were then what the post and press now are.—Michelefs France. NOTE IIIIHHH.—PAGE 435. " Slipped a ring."—Procida offered the ambitious Peter of Arragon, the crown of Sicily, which that monarch might justly claim by his marriage with the daughter of Main-froy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who from the scaffold had cast a ring to his heir and avenger.—Gibbon. NOTE IIIIL—PAGE 437. " Friar Bacon."—Though an extraordinary man, could not entirely free himself from the prejudices of his times. He believed in the philosopher's stone, and in astrology. There are to be found in his writings new and ingenious views on optics, on the refraction of light on the apparent magnitudes of objects, on the magnified appearance of the sun and moon when in the horizon. He also states that thunder and lightning could be imitated by means of salt-petre, sulphur, and charcoal. Hence he had already an idea of gunpowder. NOTE JJJJJ.—PAGE 440. " Albertus Magnus."—During the year 1280, died the celebrated Albert the Great, of the Order of Preaching Friars, less known as a monk than a magician. The pro-digious diversity of his learning, and the1 taste which he had for experiments in alchemy, which he himself called magi-cal operations, caused a superhuman power to be attributed to him. Besides the automaton which St. Thomas de Aquinas, his disciple, broke with a club, it is affirmed that Albert entertained William, Count of Holland, at a miracn- NOTES. 495