thing except friendship. I know how they have treated thee at Oxford, and in good earnest I have been always sorry for it. Learning is not so plenty, that it should be put down; and from what I know of thy wonderful inventions, they are not those that the devil teaches his followers, but always of good service to the cause of Truth and the true Church. I pray thee do not distrust my motive. I come in friendly guise, unattended as thou seest, and with no desire but to be instructed in some of thy magic discoveries, and see what they may avail to science.”
“My discoveries are naught,” answered the friar, still keeping up the reserved manner he had worn since the entrance of his visitor. “Thou hast heard of the magic powder which has so frighted the learned magnates of the college that they drove me outside their walls. It is but a composition of simple substances, which, without any magic art, when touched with a spark, will give forth a semblance of lightning and thunder. If thou wishest, I can, in a few minutes, show thee the secret of it?’
“No, no, good friar,” returned the cardinal, shrinking away a little uneasily from the mortar in the corner, which Bacon approached. “I trust thy word, and I am no fool to believe stories of any wizard’s-craft. But there is an
