sooner understood what were his master's
designs against the Koran, than he took the
earliest opportunity of endeavouring to murder
him. The wound, fortunately, was not
mortal; and, before he could repeat the blow,
a pious anchoret, we are told, passed the spot
and assisted Raymond to disarm him. Raymond
refused to kill his assassin, and only
consented with reluctance that he should be
put in prison; where he strangled himself in
rage and fury.

When Raymond had recovered from his
wound, he remained a little while longer in
his beloved solitude, and then once more
began his wanderings. In twelve hundred
and seventy-six he founded a professorship in
the Convent of St. Francis, at Palmes, for the
Arabic language, to serve towards converting
the infidels. In twelve hundred and eighty-
one, he went to Paris, and there became
acquainted with Arnold of Villa Nova, or
Arnaud de Villeneve, one of the great
alchemists—a man whose immense reputation
filled all the age with wonder; in his
day he perhaps enjoyed more renown than
any other man ever did. Lully's genius for
science seems to have been developed by his
six years' solitude and his study of Arabic
manuscripts. For the present, his zeal to
convert the infidels slackened, and he became the
disciple of Arnold, and invented a new mode
of teaching and learning philosophy and the
sciences—afterwards called from him the
Lullian art. From Paris he went to Rome.
His object was to obtain from the Pope the
establishment of a college for the study of
the oriental languages, for the purpose of
propagating the true faith amongst the infidels;
but the Pope had just died, and he
could meet with no attention to his
desires. He was received with much
distinction, however, wherever he went, and
wrote and taught publicly. Disappointed at
Rome, he returned to Paris, continuing
always to teach philosophy. In twelve
hundred and ninety-one, he went to visit the
King of Majorca, at Montpellier, and there
he found his friend Arnold established at the
head of the faculty of medicine in that city.
He was well received, but his old longing to
convert the infidels came back upon him in
all its force—indeed it had never entirely
slumbered—and all the fame he obtained for
himself he only considered as the means to
further his great object. He set out once
more for Rome, and remained some months
at Geneva, where he wrote and taught and
disputed as was the fashion amongst learned
men of that time. When at length he
reached Rome, he could by no means
obtain from Nicholas the Second, who was
the then pope, the establishment he
desired for the study of the oriental languages;
and he considered that he ought to go
in person and preach the true faith to the
infidels. He went to Genoa and hired a
passage to Africa; but, when the vessel was
on the point of sailing he took a sudden panic
and let the vessel sail without him. His
remorse and regret threw him into a fever. He
looked upon himself as a Jonah, trying to
escape from the divine command. When he
recovered, he lost no time in repairing his
fault and sailed to Tunis. This sudden panic
in a man of such high courage and firm
purpose is remarkable, and may serve to make
us charitable in our judgments upon those
who seem for a time to fail. Lully's courage
never again faltered. On his arrival at Tunis,
he began to speak and to dispute with the
Mahomedan doctors, and was immediately
arrested for his pains and condemned to death;
but, a learned Arabian who loved him for his
science and learning, interceded for him, and
remonstrated with the sultan upon the scandal
it would be to slay so great a man. His
life was spared; but he was commanded to
leave Tunis without delay, under the penalty
of death if he returned.

He went to Genoa, and thence to Naples,
where he disputed against his master, Arnold,
denying the possibility of transmuting metals;
but nothing distracted his mind from his
earnest desire to convert the infidels; and he
used all his eloquence to prevail on Pope
Boniface the Eighth to encourage the study
of eastern languages; but the Pope had other
affairs on hand, and Raymond retired to
Milan, where the house in which he lived is
still to be seen. In thirteen hundred and
eight he went to Paris, and made
acquaintance with the famous Duns Scotus, and
practised alchemy; but his beloved infidels
prevented him from resting in this learned
leisure. He tried to get up a crusade, and to
persuade Ferdinand of Castile to join King
Philip of France for the recovery of the Holy
Land. To prove his own zeal, he once more
crossed from Spain to Africa, and landed
at Bona—Saint Augustin's old bishopric.
Here he had the satisfaction of converting
seventy of the followers of Averroes—a great
physician—more, we should imagine, by the
reputation he had acquired as a man of science
than from the superiority of his theology.
He went next to Algiers, where he also made
converts; but the persecution rose to such a
height that he was thrown into prison, and
had a bridle placed in his mouth. Some
accounts say that a padlock was fastened upon
his lips to prevent him from speaking, which
was only removed when he ate his food. At
the end of forty days, however, he was severely
bastinadoed, and then expelled from the
city. He had no road except through Tunis,
where sentence of death awaited him; but,
when he arrived, although he was thrown
into prison, the inhabitants were still deterred
by his reputation from putting him to death.
They contented themselves with trying if
they could not, in their turn, convert him;
but as they did not succeed, they shipped him
on board a vessel sailing for Genoa. He was
shipwrecked in sight of Pisa; and, although