heavenly bodies, of producing miraculous cures upon the bodies of our fellow-men, or afflicting them with disease and death, of calling up the deceased from the silence of the grave, and compelling them to disclose "the secrets of the world unknown."

Having put our readers on their guard respecting the drift of the work before us, we shall proceed to give them some idea of its substance and character, and of the kind of amusement which they may expect from the history of Necromancy.

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After a well-written introduction containing many excellent observations, Mr Godwin proceeds to treat of the ambitious nature of man, as evinced in his desire to penetrate into futurity, and even to command and control future events. He is thus led to treat of Divination, Dreams, Astrology, Oracles, Necromancy, Alchymy, Sorcery and Witchcraft, and various analogous subjects. He then gives what he calls Examples of Necromancy and Witchcraft from the Bible,' and treats in succession of the Necromancers of Greece and Rome. The next topics of discussion are the Revolution produced in the history of Necromancy ' and Witchcraft upon the establishment of Christianity;' the history of Necromancy in the East-during the dark agesduring the Communication of Europe and the Saracens'-and during the Revival of Letters. He then terminates his work with an account of the Sanguinary Proceedings against Witch'craft,' and of the Quacks who in cool blood undertook to ' overreach mankind.' Under these various heads, an immense diversity of subjects pass before our author's notice; and hence all of them are treated very superficially, and without any of that fulness of detail which can alone gratify curiosity. But beside this defect in the work, there is another, which we cannot reprobate too severely. In his account of individual necromancers, he records the most silly and unfounded stories, which he himself believes to have been mere inventions of the vulgar; and the reason which he assigns for perpetuating such absurdities, is, that they present us with a striking picture of the temper and credulity of the times in which the necromancer lived.

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In order that our readers may judge of the nature and force of this criticism, we shall extract the principal portion of the account of Cornelius Agrippa, a man of extraordinary genius and learning, and distinguished by the vast variety of his accomplishments. After a brief notice of his life, Mr Godwin proceeds as follows:

، He enters, however, into the work I am writing, principally on account of the extraordinary stories that have been told of him on the subject of magic. He says of himself, in his Treatise on the Vanity of

Sciences, "Being then a very young man, I wrote, in three books, of a considerable size, Disquisitions concerning Magic.'

The first of the stories I am about to relate is chiefly interesting, inasmuch as it is connected with the history of one of the most illustrious ornaments of our early English poetry, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who suffered death at the close of the reign of King Henry VIII. The Earl of Surrey, we are told, became acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa at the court of John George, elector of Saxony, On this occasion were present, beside the English nobleman, Erasmus, and many other persons eminent in the republic of letters. These persons showed themselves enamoured of the reports that had been spread of Agrippa, and desired him before the Elector to exhibit something memorable. One entreated him to call up Plautus, and show him as he appeared in garb and countenance when he ground corn in the mill. Another before all things desired to see Ovid. But Erasmus earnestly requested to behold Tully in the act of delivering his oration for Roscius. This proposal carried the most votes. And, after marshalling the concourse of spectators, Tully appeared, at the command of Agrippa, and from the rostrum pronounced the oration, precisely in the words in which it has been handed down to us," with such astonishing animation, so fervent an exaltation of spirit, and such soul-stirring gestures, that all the persons present were ready, like the Romans of old, to pronounce his client innocent of every charge that had been brought against him." The story adds, that, when Sir Thomas More was at the same place, Agrippa showed him the whole destruction of Troy in a dream. To Thomas, Lord Cromwell, he exhibited, in a perspective glass, King Henry VIII. and all his lords hunting in his forest at Windsor. To Charles V. he showed David, Solomon, Gideon, and the rest, with the Nine Worthies, in their habits and similitude, as they had lived.'-Pp. 323-5.

If the preceding story about Cicero has the slightest truth in it, Agrippa must have himself personated the Roman orator; and as he had filled the situation of advocate and orator to the city of Metz, it is probable that he possessed the powers of public speaking which the story ascribes to him. With regard to Sir Thomas More's dream, nothing is more likely than that he should have dreamt of the destruction of Troy, without the exercise of any other magical art than that of Agrippa having made it the subject of conversation on the preceding day. The exhibitions which are said to have been made to Lord Cromwell, Charles V., and of the Fair Geraldine to Lord Surrey (a story which we have not extracted), are said to have been done with a perspective and magic glass; and if they ever were made, they must have been only images obtained from pictures by the optical contrivances of the day.

We cannot pass by the story related by our author, on the authority of Jovius, respecting the attendant devil who is said to have accompanied Agrippa in all his travels, in the shape of

black dog:-'When he lay on his deathbed, he was earnestly exhort❝ed to repent of his sins. Being in consequence struck with a deep 'contrition, he took hold of the dog, and removed from him a 'collar studded with nails, which formed a necromantic inscription; at the same time saying to him," Begone, wretched animal, which has been the cause of my entire destruction." It is added, that the dog immediately ran away, and plunged itself in the river Soane, after which it was seen no more.'

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The most perfect specimen of necromancy with which we are acquainted, and the most arrant and groundless falsehood that ever was published, is given by Mr Godwin, as told of Agrippa by Delrio, in his Disquisitions on Magic.'

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Agrippa had occasion one time to be absent for a few days from his residence at Louvain. During his absence he intrusted his wife with the key of his museum, but with an earnest injunction that no one on any account should be allowed to enter. Agrippa happened at that time to have a boarder in his house, a young fellow of insatiable curiosity, who would never give over importuning his hostess, till at length he obtained from her the forbidden key. The first thing that attracted his attention was a book of spells and incantations. He spread this book upon a desk, and thinking no harm, began to read aloud. He had not long continued this occupation, when a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. The youth took no notice, but continued reading. Presently followed a second knock, which somewhat alarmed the reader. The space of a minute having elapsed, and no answer made, the door was opened, and a demon entered. "For what purpose am I called?" said the stranger, sternly. "What is it you demand to have done?" The youth was seized with the greatest alarm, and struck speechless. The demon advanced towards him, seized him by the throat, and strangled him, indignant that his presence should thus be invoked from pure thoughtlessness and presumption.

At the expected time, Agrippa came home, and, to his great surprise, found a number of devils capering and playing strange antics about, and on the roof of his house. By his art, he caused them to desist from their sport, and with authority demanded what was the cause of this novel appearance. The chief of them answered. He told how they had been invoked and insulted, and what revenge they had taken. Agrippa became exceedingly alarmed for the consequences to himself of this unfortunate adventure. He ordered the demon, without loss of time, to reanimate the body of his victim, then to go forth, and to walk the boarder three or four times up and down the market-place, in the sight of the people. The infernal spirit did as he was ordered, showed the student publicly alive, and, having done this, suffered the body to fall down-the marks of conscious existence being plainly no more. time it was thought that the student had been killed by a sudden attack of disease; but presently after, the marks of strangulation were plainly discerned, and the truth came out. Agrippa was then obliged suddenly to withdraw himself, and to take up his residence in a distant province,' -Pp. 326-7,

For a

That this and all the preceding stories about Agrippa are fabrications most injurious to his memory, cannot be doubted. Wierus, who lived for many years in constant attendance upon Agrippa, tells us in his book De Prestigiis Demonum, that the formidable black dog, already mentioned, was an innocent animal which he had often led by a string, and which was sometimes permitted to eat and sleep with his master. He also adds, that the extensive correspondence of Agrippa with every quarter of the globe, was the true source of that extraordinary intelligence which the vulgar imputed to supernatural power. Naudé, too, in his Apology for Great Men accused of Magic, states it to be his firm conviction, that the fact of Agrippa having written a book on the Rules of Magic, is the only ground for fastening the imputation of being a magician, upon that illustrious cha

fracter.'

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Mr Godwin, who states these facts himself, is compelled to add his own doubts of the truth of the stories which he has contributed to perpetuate.

Without believing, however, any of the tales of the magic practices of Cornelius Agrippa, and even perhaps without supposing that he seriously pretended to such arts, we are here presented with a striking picture of the temper and credulity of the times in which he lived. We plainly see, from the contemporary evidence of Wierus, that such things were believed of him by his neighbours; and at that period it was sufficiently common for any man of deep study, of recluse habits, and a certain sententious and magisterial air, to undergo these imputations. It is more than probable, that Agrippa, by a general silence and mystery, gave encouragement to the wonder of the vulgar mind. He was flattered by the terror and awe which his appearance inspired. He did not wish to come down to the ordinary level; and if to this we add his pursuits of alchymy and astrology, with the formidable and various apparatus supposed to be required in these pursuits, we shall no longer wonder at the results which followed. He loved to wander on the brink of danger, and was contented to take his chance of being molested, rather than not possess that ascendency over the ordinary race of mankind, which was evidently gratifying to his vanity.'-P. 329.

With regard to the alchymy and astrology alluded to in the preceding passage, and the formidable and various apparatus supposed to be required in these pursuits,' they will assuredly not help him in fixing upon Agrippa the character of a necromancer. Agrippa was certainly an alchymist. He was a skilful chemist, who occasionally went astray in search of the art of transmuting the baser metals into gold. He did not try to conjure silver from lead, or gold from copper; nor did he attempt, with the wand of his sorcery, to smite the brilliant diamond from the lugubrious

charcoal. He was guided in his researches by the principles of science, however rashly and hopelessly they might be applied. The torch which conducted him was a ray of the purest light, but it was unfortunately part of a sunbeam that had lost its

way.'

We are at a loss to understand what Mr Godwin means by the formidable apparatus' by which the alchymist and the astrologer inspired the vulgar with awe and terror. The alchymist must certainly be supplied with a furnace and a few crucibles, and perchance with a pair of bellows, none of which are very aweinspiring articles. What apparatus the astrologer could have had, we cannot even conjecture; unless it be the scale and compasses with which he projected his horoscopes.

That Agrippa was an astrologer, has been very rashly inferred from his having calculated the nativity of the Constable Bourbon. Had Sir Isaac Newton calculated the nativity of Queen Caroline, which he would, no doubt, have done to gratify her majesty, it would have been an unjust accusation to have charged him with necromancy, or even a belief in astrology; but we have positive evidence that Agrippa did not believe in astrology. When he was residing at Lyons, as physician to Louisa of Savoy, mother of Francis I., she requested him to predict, on astrological principles, the issue of the war which was then carrying on between her son and the Constable Bourbon. Agrippa not only did not comply with this harmless request, but, to use the words of one of his biographers, he reprobated the curiosity of the 'lady as idle and impertinent, and refused to debase his understanding on so ignoble a subject.' When his mistress was informed that Agrippa had actually calculated the nativity of her enemy, and refused the same courtesy to her son, she dismissed him from her service, and stopped his pension. Had Mr Godwin been aware of these facts, he could never have maintained that Agrippa was an astrologer. He might as well have asserted that a martyr to Christianity was an infidel, because he was once a heathen; or that a pious logician was an atheist, because he had once questioned the à priori argument.

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The celebrated Roger Bacon is treated nearly in the same manner as Agrippa; although Mr Godwin acknowledges him to have been one of the rarest geniuses that have existed on earth.' He is dismissed, however, in two pages and a half, but not without receiving the necromantic brand; and this mark is fixed upon him, on the authority of the following slanderous tale of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungy, which, as Mr Godwin himself seems to admit, has no other foundation than the fact of Bacon's having attempted to make a speaking head,