Art. III.

- 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.