- The Life of Henry Cornelius Arjriirpa von Neltesheim, Doctor
and Knight, commonly known as a Magician. By Henry Morley, Author of 1 Palissy the Potter,' 'Jerome Cardan,' &c.?London, 1856. Two vols., pp. 304, pp. 332. In the fermentation preceding and accompanying the great events of the first half of the sixteenth century, Cornelius Agrippa occupied a position which fully justifies the choice of Mr. Morley in selecting his biography as illustrative of the times he lived in. In a purely medical point of view we learn but little from the work, but all who are interested in what bears upon the development of the human mind, will read the account of Agrippa's struggles and the analysis of his works with sympathy. In the middle ages, when natural science was mystified by the alchemist and by an admixture with a cabalistic theology, it is not surprising that a man who "began his life by mastering nearly the whole circle of the sciences and arts," should describe " Physic as another art of homicide, mechanical, though claiming the name of a philosophy." The biographer offers no temptations to the present generation to follow in the footsteps of Agrippa, so that it is needless to warn the medical reader against the influence of the scholar's scepticism?the very crudity of which is a sufficient antidote against the poison he might have infused in his own day. It is out of our province to inquire more fully into the features that characterize the doings or the writings of the great Magician, but those who desire an analysis of them, and who wish to know how they were received by his contemporaries, will find Mr. Morley's volumes an acceptable addition to their libraries.