CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA 
 
 VON NETTESHEIM, 
 
 DOCTOR AND KNIGHT, 
 
 ommonlg fenoton as a JWagictan. 
 
 BY HENRY MOELEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF u PAIJSST THE POTTER," " JEROME CABDAK," 6tC. 
 
 CORKELIVS 
 
 KEDTESHEYZn. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCLVI. 
 
 [The right of Translation is reserved.']
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS narrative completes a design, upon the execu- 
 tion of which many hours of recreation have been occu- 
 pied. It was not intended to produce an indefinite series 
 of the Lives of Scholars of the Sixteenth Century, but 
 it was thought possible, by help of the free speech about 
 themselves, common to men of genius in that age, for the 
 lives of three men to be written, in whose histories there 
 might be shown, with a minuteness perhaps not unim- 
 portant to the student or uninteresting to the miscella- 
 neous reader, what the life of a scholar was in the time of 
 the revival of learning and the reformation of the Church. 
 These biographies it never was proposed to unite under a 
 common title; each, it was felt, must make or miss its 
 own way in the world. They are, no doubt, the issue of 
 a single purpose, but they are not necessary to each other, 
 and there is no reason why the possessor of one should 
 possess all, or incur the penalty of owning a book marked 
 as a fragment on the title-page or cover.
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 It may be convenient, however, to some readers, and 
 will be certainly a satisfaction to the writer, briefly to in- 
 dicate what the intention was that has been carried out as 
 well as power served in the writing of the trilogy of lives 
 now brought to a conclusion. It was desired that of the 
 three lives each should be in itself worth telling, and in 
 itself an addition of some new and well-authenticated 
 matter to the available stores of minute information that 
 give colour and life to history. It was desired that they 
 should treat not of political heroes, but of scholars, living 
 in the same age of the world, although no two of the same 
 country. It was desired, too, that they should be not 
 only representatives of separate nations of Europe, but 
 also of separate and absolutely different careers of study. 
 Palissy was a Frenchman, with the vivacity, taste, and 
 inventive power commonly held to be characteristic of his 
 nation ; Cardan was an Italian, with Italian passions ; but 
 Agrippa was a contemplative German, According even to 
 the vulgar notion, therefore, they were characteristic men. 
 Palissy was by birth a peasant; Cardan belonged to the 
 middle class; Agrippa was the son of noble parents, born 
 lo live a courtier's life. All became scholars. Palissy learnt 
 of God and nature ; and however men despised his know- 
 ledge, his advance was marvellous upon the unknown paths 
 of truth ; he was the first man of his age as a true scholar, 
 though he had heaven and earth only for his books. No 
 heed was paid to the scholarship of Bernard Palissy, but 
 the civilised world rang with the fame of the great Italian 
 physician, who had read and written upon almost every-
 
 PREFACE. Y5 
 
 thing, Jerome Cardan. Hampered by a misleading scholar- 
 ship, possessed by the superstitions of his time, bound down 
 by the Church, Cardan, with a natural wit as acute as that 
 of Palissy, became the glory of his day, but of no day 
 succeeding it. The two men are direct opposites, as to 
 their methods and results of study. In a strange place of 
 his own between them stands Agrippa, who began his life 
 by mastering nearly the whole circle of the sciences and 
 arts as far as books described it, and who ended by de- 
 claring the Uncertainty and Vanity of Arts and Sciences. 
 The doctrine at which he arrived was that, in brief, fruit- 
 ful must be the life of a Palissy, barren the life of a 
 Cardan; since for the world's progress it is needful that 
 men shake off slavery to all scholastic forms, and travel 
 forward with a simple faith in God, inquiring the way 
 freely. 
 
 More might be said to show, but it is enough to have 
 suggested, what has been the purpose of these books. A 
 time has come when it ia out of the question to suppose 
 that any reasonable student, not directed by some special 
 purpose, can, or ought to, trouble himself with the careful 
 reading of such extinct literature as the works of Cardan 
 or Agrippa. It remains, therefore, that these men, and 
 others like them influential in their time, types of a most 
 important age in the world's history, should as men, 
 though not as names, be forgotten altogether, or remem- 
 bered only by the aid of any one who will do what is 
 attempted in the book now offered to the reader. 
 
 I believe that there is here told for the first time the
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 exact story of Cornelius Agrippa's life, by the right know- 
 ledge of which only it is possible to understand his cha- 
 racter. His works include a large pile of old Latin letters, 
 written by him and to him, in every year of his life be- 
 tween the twentieth and almost the last. Under these his 
 pulse still beats ; from these, by help of his other works 
 and a sufficient knowledge of the day when they were 
 written, it is possible to gather the whole story of his 
 aspiration, toil, and sorrow. I have endeavoured in this 
 book not only to narrate his life, but also to give a view 
 of the true purport and spirit of his writings. I hope 
 there is no sentence in the narrative for which authority 
 cannot be shown. I know that there is no discoverable 
 incident that has been kept back or altered in significance 
 to suit a theory as to the character portrayed. Before his 
 death, Cornelius Agrippa was the victim of the calumnies 
 of priests, because he denounced their misdoing. They 
 made good use of the fact that he had in his youth written 
 a volume upon Magic ; and to this day he has come down 
 to us defiled by their aspersions. In subsequent literature, 
 when he has been mentioned, it has been almost always 
 with contempt or ridicule. He was scarcely in his grave 
 when Rabelais reviled him as Herr Trippa. Butler jests 
 over him in Hudibras, and uses the Church legend of his 
 demon dog: 
 
 "Agrippa kept a Stygian pug, 
 I' th' garb and habit of a dog, 
 That was his tutor, and the CUP 
 Eead to th' occult philosopher, 
 And taught him subtly to maintain 
 All other sciences are vain."
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 While in our own day Southey writes a ballad on another 
 of the monkish tales against him. It is that about the 
 youth who was torn to pieces by the fiends when con- 
 juring in Agrippa's study with one of his books : 
 
 " The letters were written with blood therein, 
 And the leaves were made of dead men's skin." 
 
 I wish to show how the man really lived, what the 
 man really wrote, of whom these stories have so long 
 been current. 
 
 The woodcut portrait on the title-page to this volume 
 is copied from that issued by Cornelius himself with the 
 first complete edition of his Magic. The inscription 
 round it appears in his collected works. The emblem 
 on the title-page of the second volume is from a contem- 
 porary book, the " Margarita Philosophica." 
 
 London, October, 1856.
 
 CONTENTS TO VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS . . . \ . . $ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 TREATS OF A BAND OP YOUNG CONSPIRATORS . . . .15 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 THE PLOT AND ITS ISSUE . .34 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 How CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, BESIEGED IN A TOWER NEAR VILLA- 
 RODONA, VANISHED WITH ALL HIS COMPANIONS IN ARMS THE 
 END OF THE CATALONIAN ADVENTURE 47 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CORNELIUS A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY 58 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA WRITES A TREATISE TO PROVE WOMAN THE 
 BETTER HALF OF MAN IN THE SAME YEAR HE TAKES A WIFE 95 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA WRITES THREE BOOKS OF MAGIC AN AC- 
 COUNT OF THE PRINCIPLES OF MAGIC CONTAINED IN THE 
 FIRST OF THEM . 113
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. PAGE 
 OF THE PKACTICE OF MAGIC AS DESCRIBED IN THE BEST OF THE 
 FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT SCIENCE 137 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHAT is CONTAINED IN CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S SECOND BOOK or 
 OCCULT SCIENCE 164 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 ON THE THIRD AND LAST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY . . 188 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Two MONKS 209 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 CORNELIUS IN LONDON 226 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 
 SERVICE IN THE FIELD WITH THE COUNCIL AT PISA . . .254 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 DOCTOR AND KNIGHT-AT-ARMS 263 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 BEGGARY . 290
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 AT COLOGNE, on the 14th of September, I486 1 , there 
 was born into the noble house of Nettesheim a son, whom 
 his parents called in baptism Henry Cornelius Agrippa. 
 Some might, at first thought, suppose that the last of the 
 three was a Christian name likely to find especial favour 
 with the people of Cologne, the site of whose town, in days 
 of Roman sovereignty, Marcus Agrippa's camp suggested 
 and the colony of Agrippina fixed. But the existence 
 of any such predilection is disproved by some volumes 
 filled with the names of former natives of Cologne. 
 There were as few Agrippas there as elsewhere, the use 
 of the name being everywhere confined to a few indivi- 
 duals taken from a class that was itself not numerous. A 
 child who came into the world feet-foremost was called 
 
 1 Ep. 26, Lib. vii. Opera (Lugduni, 1536), Tom. ii. p. 1041, where he 
 says to the senators of Cologne : " Sum enim et ego civitate vestra oriundus, 
 et prima pueritia apud vos enutritus." 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 an Agrippa 1 by the Romans, and I know not what ex- 
 ceptions there may have been to the rule that all persons 
 who received this word as a forename were Agrippas 
 born. Since ancient writers upon medicine and science 
 long ranked as the best teachers of the moderns, the 
 same use of the word Agrippa was retained till many 
 years after the date with which this chapter commences. 
 The Agrippas of the sixteenth century were usually sons 
 of scholars, or of persons in the upper ranks, who had 
 been mindful of a classic precedent; and there can be 
 little doubt that a peculiarity attendant on the very first 
 incident in the life here to be told was expressed by the 
 word used as appendix to an already sufficient Christian 
 name. 
 
 The son thus christened became a scholar and a subject 
 of discussion among scholars, talking only Latin to the 
 world. His family name, Von Nettesheim, he never 
 latinised, inasmuch as the best taste suggested that if a 
 Latin designation was most proper for a scholar he 
 
 1 The word itself was invented to express the idea, being compounded 
 of the trouble of the woman and the feet of the child. So Aulus Gellius 
 explains it (Noct. Attic. Lib. xvi. cap. 16) : " Quorum in nascendo non 
 caput, sed pedes primi exstiterant (qui partus difficillimus segerrimusque 
 habetur) ; AGRIPPJE appellati, vocabulo ab egritudine et pedibus conficto." 
 The following passage from a medical writer who was of authority in the year 
 1700, shows that the original use of the word was not then obsolete : " Casus 
 est periculosissimus, quando pedibus primb prodit infans, ita ut etiarn manus 
 deorsum versus inclinent : nam sic fit, ut egresso tempore orificium uteri 
 internum circa collum iterum se stringat, ita ut foetus extra uterum, caput 
 autem ejus adhuc in utero haereat, et reddat partum difficilem. Tales foBtus 
 dicuntur AGKIPP^E." Michaelis Ettmulleri Collegium Practicum Doctrirude, 
 sect, vii. cap. i. art. 2. Op. (Frankfort-on-M. 1708), Tom. ii. pars 1, p. 
 1015.
 
 VON NETTESHEIM. 3 
 
 could do, or others could do for him, nothing simpler 
 than to set apart for literary purposes that half of his 
 real style which was already completely Roman. Henry 
 Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim became therefore to 
 the world what he is also called in the succeeding narrative 
 Cornelius Agrippa. 
 
 This is the only member of the family of Nettesheim 
 concerning whom any records have been left for the in- 
 struction of posterity. Nettesheim, or Nettersheim, itself 
 is a place of little note, distant about twenty-five miles to 
 the south-west of Cologne, and at about the same distance 
 to the south-east of Aix-la-Chapelle that is to say, in the 
 direction of the EifFelberg. It lies in a valley, through 
 which flows the stream from one of the small sources of 
 the Roer. The home of the Von Nettesheims, when they 
 were not personally attached to the service of the emperor, 
 was at Cologne, where many nobles lived on terms not 
 altogether friendly with the merchants and the traders of 
 the place. The ancestors of Cornelius Agrippa had been 
 for generations in the service of the house of Austria ; his 
 father had in this respect walked in the steps of his fore- 
 fathers, and from a child Cornelius looked for nothing 
 better than to do the same 1 . 
 
 Born in Cologne did not mean then what it has meant 
 
 1 "Et pater et avi et atavi et tritavi Csesarum Romanorum Austria- 
 corumque Principum a longo sevo ministri fuerunt. Horum vestigia et ego 
 insecutus, Divo Maximiliano Csesari et pace et bello non segniter inservavi." 
 Ep. 18, Lib. vi. (Op. Tom. ii. p. 971). Elsewhere, after a fuller recital, he 
 speaks of himself as " D. Maximiliano Csesari a prima setate destinatus." 
 Ep. 21, Lib. vii. 
 
 B2
 
 4 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 for many generations almost until now, born into the 
 darkness of a mouldering receptacle of relics. Then the 
 town was not priest-ridden, but rode its priests. For 
 nearly a thousand years priestcraft and handicraft have 
 battled for predominance within its walls. Priestcraft 
 expelled the Jews, banished the -weavers, and gained 
 thoroughly the mastery at last. But in the time of Cor- 
 nelius Agrippa handicraft was uppermost, and in sacred 
 Cologne every trader and mechanic did his part in keep- 
 ing watch on the archbishop. Europe contained then 
 few cities larger, busier, and richer, for the Rhine was a 
 main highway of commerce, and Cologne great enough 
 to be called the daughter of the Roman Empire was 
 enriched, not only by her manufacturers and merchants, 
 but, at the same time also, by a large receipt of toll. 
 
 The temporal government of this city had been placed 
 in the hands of churchmen from a very early time 1 . In 
 the year 953 the rule over the town of bishops, subject 
 to imperial control, began with Archbishop Bruno 2 , 
 brother to Otto the First and Duke of Lorraine. To the 
 imperial brother of this archbishop, Cologne was indebted 
 
 1 A local handbook Koln undBonn mitihren Umgebungen, Koln, 1828 
 compiled from the best authorities accessible to a scholar on the spot, con- 
 tains a good historical sketch of the relations between Cologne and its 
 archbishop, drawing for information on a public report against the inde- 
 pendence of the city, addressed to the Kurfilrst, and published at Bonn in 
 1687 with the title Securis ad radicem posita, oder grundlicher Bericht, loco 
 libelli, worin der Stadt Colin Ursprung und Erbawung klarlkh dargestellt ist, 
 &c. The document itself I have not seen. 
 
 2 Biblioiheca Coloniensis. . . . Josephi Hartzheim, fol. Colon. 1747, 
 p. 40, for his eulogy; but the little handbook just mentioned draws the 
 spirit of his life from a work printed in 1494, entitled Chronica von der 
 Mligen Stat van Coelkn.
 
 BORN IN COLOGNE. 5 
 
 for various immunities and privileges; but the chief efforts 
 of Bruno and his successors had in view the extension of 
 their personal authority. They succeeded so well in the 
 attainment of this object, that, after the tenth century, 
 they had absolute rank as masters of the town. Their 
 subjects were even at that time noted for prosperity as 
 merchants ; educated among the luxuries of city life, they 
 were without experience in the affairs of war, " about 
 which they discoursed over their banquets and their wine 
 when the day's trade was over 1 . " 
 
 It was one ^of the archbishops, Philip von Heinsberg, 
 who, towards the close of the twelfth century, enclosed 
 the city and a part of the adjacent country within walls. 
 Very few years before that time the citizens had made a 
 weak attempt at the establishment of an independent 
 representative constitution, by which their archbishop 
 was to be shut out from interference in affairs that did 
 not concern his spiritual office. Commerce is the most 
 powerful antagonist to despotism, and in whatever place 
 both are brought together one of them must die. Co- 
 logne, in the middle ages, had become a great com- 
 mercial port. Its weights and measures were used through- 
 out Europe 2 . By the Rhine, one of the two great 
 European highways, there was conveyed that main part 
 
 1 " Colonienses ab ineunte estate inter urbanas delicias educati, nullam in 
 bellicis rebus experientiam habebant, quidquid post venditas merces inter 
 vinum et epulas de re militari disputari solitas." Lambert von Aschaffen- 
 burg in Pistorius (Rerum Germanicarum Veteres jam primum publicati Scrip- 
 tores, Frankfort, 1607). 
 
 2 Fischer's Geschichte det teutschen Handels, vol. ii. p. 235.
 
 6 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 of the traffic between east and west which passed through 
 Venice to the Netherlands. At Cologne all merchandise 
 that passed paid toll both to the town and the right 
 reverend lord of the town ; and it not only paid a direct 
 toll, but had to be transhipped into vessels owned by 
 the local merchants, who thus were enriched by the 
 monopoly which made them masters of the Rhine. While 
 prosperity was secured in this manner to its merchants, 
 the manufacturers and traders of Cologne took excellent 
 advantage of the opportunities for commerce offered them 
 by the position of their town. They began early to form 
 strong guilds, and with trade and commerce the arts 
 flourished J . Except Nuremberg, there is no city in Ger- 
 many able to show a series of works of art, dating from 
 the earliest times to the sixteenth century, so perfect as 
 that which may still be studied here. The goldsmiths 
 and painters of the place had an extended reputation. 
 In the " Parcival" of Wolfram von Eschenbach, written 
 before 1215, the Cologne painters are referred to as 
 notorious for their great skill 2 ; and the Cologne builders 
 were in even more renown. It is proper, also, to mention 
 in the narrative that among the scholars of Germany one, 
 who before the time of Cornelius Agrippa was known as 
 
 1 F. C. J. Fischer's Geschickte des teutschen Handels, 8vo, Hanover, 1793, 
 vol. i. pp. 945-947. 
 
 2 Praising a knight's great beauty, he says 
 
 "Von. Cbllen noch von Mastricht 
 Nicht ein Schildrer entwarf ihn bass" 
 
 the conception of a painter from Cologne or Maestricht being assumed as 
 an ideal of beauty by this poet, who was the greatest of the Minnesingers.
 
 THE LIFE OF COLOGNE. 7 
 
 the most famous of magicians, belonged to the same city; 
 for there, in the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus 
 taught, and it is there that he was buried. 
 
 Prosperous Cologne, then, did not submit humbly to 
 episcopal direction. A shrewd and active archbishop, 
 Conrad von Hochstetten 1 the same who, in 1248, laid 
 the foundations of the cathedral secured to the town 
 fresh privileges from the emperor; but was at more trouble 
 to secure his own supremacy among the townspeople. 
 He began the attempt to do so, like a wise churchman, 
 by promoting strife between the resident nobles and the 
 citizens, but soon found himself driven to the necessity of 
 putting armour on, and leading troops against his stub- 
 born flock. At the last he triumphed only by effecting 
 an alliance with the tradesmen, and subduing with their 
 aid the power of the nobles. Conrad died master of the 
 town ; but his nephew and successor, Engelbert, who 
 vigorously carried on his policy, was involved soon in 
 another outbreak of the civil war, for three of the leading 
 nobles had been kept in prison, and their companions in 
 arms engaged in a new struggle to wipe out their dis- 
 grace. Finally they got possession, not of the town only, 
 but also of the person of the archbishop, whom they im- 
 prisoned for three years in the castle of Nydeck, and occa- 
 sionally hung out in an iron cage for public mockery 2 . 
 
 Peace was soon afterwards established in the town, but 
 not on a sure basis. The increased influence of the trades 
 
 1 Fischer's Geschichte des teutschen Handels, vol. ii. p. 235. 
 
 2 Pistorius, Rer. Germ. Vet. Script. (Frankf. 1607), pp. 260, 261.
 
 8 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 caused the establishment of a new system of corporate go- 
 vernment in the year 1321; but the representatives were 
 chosen from the noble families. Not quite thirty years 
 later there was a devilish persecution of the Jews in many 
 parts of Europe; and the Jews of Cologne, alarmed by 
 the sufferings to which others of their race had been ex- 
 posed, withdrew into their houses, with their wives and 
 children, and burnt themselves in the midst of their pos- 
 sessions. The few who had flinched from this self-immo- 
 lation were banished, and their houses and lands, together 
 with all the land that had belonged to Cologne Jews, 
 remained as spoils in the hands of the Cologne Christians. 
 All having been converted into cash, the gains of "the 
 transaction were divided equally between the town and 
 the archbishop. Twenty years later, Jews were again 
 suffered to reside in the place, on payment of a tax for the 
 protection granted them. 
 
 In 1369 the city was again in turmoil, caused by a dis- 
 pute concerning privileges between the church authorities 
 and the town council. The weavers took occasion to ex- 
 press their views very strongly as the maintainers of a 
 democratic party, and there was once more fighting in 
 the streets. The weavers were subdued; they fled to the 
 churches, and were slain at the altars. Eighteen hundred 
 of them, all who survived, were banished, suffering, of 
 course, confiscation of their property, and Cologne being 
 cleared of all its weavers who had carried on no incon- 
 siderable branch of local manufacture their guild was
 
 THE LIFE OF COLOGNE. 9 
 
 demolished *. This event occurred twenty years after the 
 town had lost, in the Jews, another important part of its 
 industrial population, and the proud city thus was passing 
 into the first stage of its decay. 
 
 In 1388 an university was established at Cologne, 
 upon the model of the University of Paris. Theology 
 and scholastic philosophy were the chief studies cultivated 
 in it, and they were taught in such a way as to win many 
 scholars from abroad 2 . Eight years afterwards, church- 
 men, nobles, and' traders were again contesting their re- 
 spective claims, and blood was again shed in the streets. 
 The nobles, assembled by night at a secret meeting, were 
 surprised, and the final conquest of the trading class was 
 in that way assured. Again, therefore, a new constitu- 
 tion was devised; and this was the constitution that con- 
 tinued still to be in force during the lifetime of Cornelius 
 Agrippa. At the head of the temporal government were 
 six burgomasters, acting in pairs, who formed three 
 double mayors, ruling in rotation, and retiring upon the 
 presidency of the exchequer at the conclusion of their 
 term of office. The citizens were classed into two-and- 
 twenty liveries, electing thirty-six councilmen, who added 
 to their body thirteen aldermen to preside over the several 
 judicial courts the petty criminal court, court of appeal, 
 &c. Each livery placed also at its head a deputy the 
 banner-master and the banner-masters acted for the 
 
 1 Gesckichte des Ursprungs der Stdnde in Deutschland. Von Karl Die- 
 trich UUman. Frankf. an der Oder, 1806-8. B. 3, pp. 140-149. 
 - See Hartzheim.
 
 10 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 citizens as their immediate representatives in all impor- 
 tant deliberations 1 . I have expressed the idea of this 
 constitution by the use of such English terms as are most 
 nearly indicative of the various offices appointed ; and the 
 facility with which this can be done shows that Cologne 
 achieved for itself a municipal government of a tolerably 
 perfect kind. Jurisdiction in the high criminal court, 
 and the power over capital conviction, remained with the 
 archbishop, whose court was to be composed wholly of 
 nobles born within the city. Having achieved so much, 
 the townspeople proceeded by their representatives to the 
 formation of a body of statutes and the complete defining of 
 their own judicial system; and accordingly, in 1437, town 
 and archbishop having mutually consented to the scheme 
 perfected in this way, it was confirmed to them as an 
 addition to their privileges by the Emperor Frederic. By 
 this arrangement the archbishop owned himself mastered, 
 for he consented to hold two pakces in Cologne, with the 
 condition that, when he entered the town, he was to 
 bring with him only a small suite, and that he was to 
 remain within the city walls not longer than for three 
 days at a time. Cologne was confirmed in its indepen- 
 dence of all external authority, except that of the emperor, 
 and the inhabitants agreed to swear fidelity to their arch- 
 bishop on condition of his swearing fidelity to them. The 
 decay of the place was thus arrested, and for a hundred 
 
 1 This account, and much else, I take from the little handbook'^ofe und 
 Bonn, the author of which here founds his narrative on the contemporary 
 chronicle of Gottfried Hagene, published in Brewer's Vaterldndischer Chronik 
 for 1825.
 
 COLOGNE IN AGEIPPA'S TIME. 11 
 
 years, under archbishops of the house of Meurs, this 
 adjustment of the old dispute remained in force. Such 
 was the position of affairs in Cologne during the lifetime 
 of Cornelius Agrippa. I am convinced that the spirit 
 either of a place or person is expressed less truly by 
 elaborate description than even by the very simplest 
 biographic sketch. It is for this reason that I have told 
 in as few words as possible the previous life of a town 
 which is to be the central point of interest, so far as con- 
 cerns places, in the present narrative. 
 
 In size and general appearance, Cologne at the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century differed not much from the 
 Cologne of our own day. The place had reached the 
 highest point of its prosperity during the lifetime of 
 Cornelius Agrippa. The great changes wrought by the 
 discovery of the New World and of a sea-road to India, 
 by the revolution in the art of war, and by the revival of 
 letters, soon made the daughter of the Empire almost 
 obsolete as a commercial port, a fortress, or a seat of learn- 
 ing. The destruction of her commerce had already been 
 hastened by an increased greediness for taxes levied upon 
 merchandise. Then, as the trade of the town declined, 
 the spirit that had beaten down the worldly despotism of 
 the Church departed with it, and the archbishops trampled 
 out in their own way what little life was left. There are 
 signs now of a revival, but ten years since the city lay dead 
 on the Rhine, retaining perfectly the shape of the great 
 mart through which the traffic of half Europe passed three 
 centuries ago. Nearly as large as it now is it was then.
 
 12 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Now, it is of no mean size in comparison with the great 
 seats of commerce which have grown while it has moul- 
 dered. Then, when a scanty population yielded ham- 
 lets inhabited by dozens, provincial towns by hundreds, 
 capitals by but a few thousands, Cologne, issuing her 
 own coinage, and a foremost member of the Hanseatic 
 League, was indeed not unworthy to be flattered by suc- 
 cessive sovereigns of Germany, and favoured as the 
 daughter of their empire. 
 
 In this city Cornelius Agrippa was born, as it has been 
 said, of a family belonging to the noble class. His parents 
 at his birth were probably not very far advanced in life, 
 at any rate they continued to reside in Cologne, and to 
 maintain a home which he occasionally visited for some 
 time after he had himself reached years of discretion 1 . 
 The Von Nettesheims, as nobles of Cologne, were likely 
 in those days to be on more cordial terms with the arch- 
 bishop than with the burghers, and they were engaged 
 directly in the service of the emperor. In both respects 
 the life of Cornelius was influenced by his position, and it 
 may not be considered fanciful to suppose that the cha- 
 racter of the town, as it has been here briefly suggested, 
 acted in more than a slight degree upon his own character 
 in childhood and after life. In his first years, and to the 
 very last, he had a rare aptitude for study, and was dis- 
 tinguished for his power of retaining knowledge once 
 acquired. Cologne being an university town, he had but 
 
 1 " Sed quoties reversus sum in vestram urbem, meam autem patriam 
 . . . . -rix inveni . . . . qui me diceret Ave." Ep. 26, Lib. vii. p. 1041.
 
 BOYHOOD IN COLOGNE. 13 
 
 to acquire the studies of the place, and these may have 
 sufficed in determining his bias for scholastic theology. He 
 was born soon after the discovery of printing, and the use 
 made in Cologne of that discovery shows well enough 
 what was the humour of the students there. The first 
 Cologne printer was Ulrich Zell, who began his labours 
 in or about the year 1463. Between that year and the 
 year 1500, the annals of typography 1 contain the titles 
 of as many as five hundred and thirty books, issued by 
 him and by other printers in the town, but among these 
 there are to be found only fourteen Latin classics, and 
 there is not one volume of Greek. The other works con- 
 sisted wholly of the writings of ascetics, scholastics, canon- 
 ists, &c., including the works of Thomas Aquinas, and of 
 Albertus Magnus. Of this sort were the springs at which 
 as a boy Cornelius Agrippa was compelled to slake his 
 thirst for knowledge. Among writers of this description 
 it was only natural that he should find the eager fancy of 
 youth satisfied best with the wonderful things written by 
 the magicians, and accordingly he states that at a very 
 early age he was possessed with a curiosity concerning 
 mysteries 2 . 
 
 But there were successful studies of another kind for 
 which also Cornelius was remarkable in youth. He 
 
 1 Annales Typographic^ ab artis inventce origine ad annum MJ)., post 
 MaiUairii Denisii aliorumque .... euros. Opera Georgii Wolfg. Sanzer 
 (Norimb. 1793), Tom. i. pp. 274-348. 
 
 - "... Qui ab ineunte aetate semper circa mirabilium effectuum et plenas 
 mysteriorum operationes curiosus intrepidusque extiti explorator." Ep. 23, 
 Lib. L Op. Tom. ii. p. 703.
 
 14 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 became versed in many European languages, and it is 
 most probable, that while the position of Cologne as a 
 halting-place on one of the great highways of European 
 traffic must have caused the gift of tongues to be appre- 
 ciated by its merchants, the unusual opportunities there 
 offered for its acquisition surely would not be neglected 
 in a family like that of Nettesheim, which sought to rise 
 by the performance of good service to an emperor whose 
 daily business, now war and now diplomacy, was being 
 carried on in many lands. 
 
 After some years of home-training, subject to the in- 
 fluences here discussed, the age arrived at which youths 
 destined to serve princes were considered fit to be pro- 
 duced at court. Cornelius Agrippa was then taken from 
 beneath the friendly shade of the Archbishop of Cologne, 
 to bask in light as an attendant on the Emperor of 
 Germany.
 
 SENT TO COURT. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TREATS OP A BAND OF YOUNG COSSPIBATORS. 
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA served the Emperor of Germany 
 at first as a secretary, afterwards for seven years as a 
 soldier 1 . The distinct statement of this fact, and the 
 impossibility of otherwise accounting for the time, compels 
 us to interpret strictly the accompanying assertion that he 
 entered, while still very young, into the imperial service. 
 If it were not so, we might suppose that at the age of 
 nineteen he was perfecting his studies at the University of 
 Paris, and that the wild scheming, presently to be de- 
 scribed, naturally arose there out of the enthusiasm of 
 youth in the hot blood of a few students. It would 
 in that case have to be said that after leaving Paris 
 he first entered the service of a court, by which his 
 designs were countenanced as leading to a chivalrous 
 adventure, from which some political advantage might, 
 perchance, arise, and no great harm could follow. 
 
 The master of the young diplomatist was Maximilian the 
 
 1 " Maximiliano a prima aetate destinatus aliquandiu illi a minoribus 
 secretis fui, deinde in Italicis castria septennio Uliua stipendio militayi." 
 Ep. 21, Lib. viL Op. Tom. ii. p. 1021.
 
 16 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 First, a prince at whose court chivalry was much in favour, 
 and from whom bold enterprises had at all times ready 
 praise. As emperor it had not seemed to him beneath 
 his dignity to fight a duel 1 in the presence of his lords, 
 and to give evidence therein of prowess that was said 
 by his courtiers to be stupendous. A daring man at 
 arms undoubtedly he was, but he was more than that. 
 There were fine qualities in Maximilian that must have 
 given him strong hold upon the minds of the young men 
 under his influence. Late in development, he was nine 
 years of age before he could speak clearly, and when he 
 was twelve his father thought it possible that he would die 
 a fool. When, however, the time came for his mind to 
 ripen, it had a distinct flavour of its own. He had been 
 ill taught in his youth by Peter, Bishop of Neustadt, a 
 pedant, who worried him with dialectics; and, forasmuch 
 as he did not take to them with a good grace, beat him 
 sorely. " Ah," said Maximilian, at dinner, one day, after 
 he had been crowned King of Rome (this happened in 
 the birth-year of Cornelius Agrippa), " if Bishop Peter 
 were alive to-day, though we owe much to good teachers, 
 he should have cause to repent that he had ever been my 
 master." But in spite of all bad teaching, Maximilian 
 contrived to educate himself into the power of conversing 
 fluently and accurately in Italian, French, and Latin, as 
 well as in his native German ; and while he readily con- 
 fessed himself to have been ill brought up, he valued 
 
 1 The duel was with Claude de Batre, and the prowess, says Cuspinian, 
 "conspectu stupendum."
 
 "KAISER MAX." 17 
 
 learning, and was liberal to men of letters. He caused 
 search to be made for genealogies and local annals ; he 
 took pleasure in entertaining questions of philosophy and 
 science, even himself conducting some experiments. The 
 master of the young Agrippa was also, according to the 
 humour of his time, a sharp arguer upon nice questions 
 in theology. In his latter years he was glad often to 
 discuss privately with learned men, and acquire know- 
 ledge from them. , It may even be said that he was, him- 
 self, a member of the literary body. He professed to 
 despise poetry, yet it was he who wrote in verse the 
 allegorical, " Dewrdank," wherein he represented himself 
 as having overcome envy and curiosity. He wrote also 
 " The Gate of Honour," to induce all learned men in 
 Germany to preserve ancient chronicles from loss. He 
 founded on his own story the narrative of " The White 
 King," illustrated with honourable reference to, and pic- 
 tures of, almost every trade followed by his subjects ; 
 and finally, some of the finest woodcuts ever executed 
 were designed from his dictation, to represent his ideal of 
 a triumph 1 , which should sweep before the eyes of all 
 posterity upon a pictured page, and celebrate the glories 
 of his reign. " His bent," says his secretary, Cuspinian, 
 " was to scholarship, but, having been ill taught, he chose 
 war for his profession 2 ." 
 
 It is absolutely certain that the young son of the house 
 
 1 Kaiser Maximilian's Triumph. 
 
 2 The sketch of Maximilian in this chapter is chiefly founded upon details 
 given in Joanni Cuspiniani . . . . de Ccesaribus atque] Imperatoribut lio- 
 manis (Basle, 1561), pp. 602-615. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 of Nettesheim, who being a scholar by taste began service 
 to his imperial master as a secretary, who was curious 
 about the mysteries of nature, relished keenly all the nice 
 points of theology, was versed in languages, and as am- 
 bitious as the emperor himself, was not a youth whom 
 Maximilian would overlook. Already disposed to smile 
 upon a new retainer who was noticeable among courtiers 
 for the extent of his attainments and his assiduity in 
 study, the emperor would quickly have discovered that the 
 young Cornelius Agrippa had a spirit not bound wholly 
 to books, but that he could enter heartily into his master's 
 relish for bold feats of arms. 
 
 There are men to whom it is natural from childhood 
 upwards to assume the tone of a leader, and in whom the 
 excess of self-reliance represents the grain of an otherwise 
 amiable character. It is so subtly combined with every- 
 thing they say or do as to appear but rarely in the 
 offensive form of violent or obvious self-assertion ; it is not 
 displayed by them, but it is felt by others in whom the 
 same element of character is more weakly developed. 
 They are not by any means necessarily great or able men 
 who go through the world as centres of their great or 
 little circles with this spirit in them, but it must be a 
 very great man indeed who can keep any one of them 
 within the circumference of a circle whereof he is not the 
 centre. Cornelius Agrippa had a disposition of this kind, 
 and as a youth, it might be said, there was some reason 
 for his self-reliance, since, if not by his rare abilities, yet 
 by his advantageous position near the emperor, and his
 
 CORNELIUS WITH THE EMPEROR. 19 
 
 activity of character, there seemed to be assured to him an 
 enviable future. And yet clouds gather about the face 
 of many a day that gives the 'brightest promise in its 
 morning. 
 
 In Cornelius Agrippa the emperor his master appears 
 to have seen nothing but promise. The quick perceptions 
 of the learned youth, his acquaintance with foreign lan- 
 guages, his daring and his self-reliance, were no doubt the 
 qualities by which he was commended most to Maximilian's 
 attention, and there was no time lost in making use of 
 them. Cornelius, even at the age of twenty, was em- 
 ployed on secret service by the German court, and the 
 very enthusiasm of his character, and of his period of life, 
 seems to have been reckoned upon as the edge proper to 
 such a tool as the state made of him. 
 
 The relation in which the young Von Nettesheim stood 
 to the emperor, and the character of the influence that 
 may have been exerted on him in the court of Austria, 
 will be sufficiently indicated by adding to what has been 
 already said the little sketch of Maximilian's character 
 and habits left by Cuspinian, his confidential secretary. 
 Though not a perfect picture of the emperor, it shows 
 him, as we now desire to see him, from a secretary's point 
 of view. 
 
 It is well known that Maximilian was a prince in diffi- 
 culties very often, that the imperial exchequer was more 
 apt to weigh as a load upon his mind than upon his 
 pocket, yet, says Cuspinian, he never allowed to be 
 touched the gold, silver, and hereditary jewels left him by 
 C2
 
 20 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 his ancestors, for they were the inheritance due to his 
 heirs. Ferdinand, after his father's death, was amazed 
 when he saw what was in the treasury. Maximilian was 
 a square-built man, with good health, capable of enduring 
 heavy labour; he wrote sometimes far into the night, 
 broke a lance often in jest with his princes, or in earnest 
 with his foes. He was frugal in his repasts, "and so 
 clean" (for emperors then ate meat with their fingers) 
 " that nobody could see him dining or supping without 
 pleasure." He drank little between meals, and at table 
 drank only three times. He was of good morals, but loved 
 to dine or dance in company with honest ladies, not be- 
 having to them as proud princes do, but accosting them 
 with modest reverence. He had a singular love of music, 
 " and," says his indignant secretary, " musical professors, 
 instruments, &c., sprang up at his court like mushrooms 
 after a shower. I would write a list of the musicians I 
 have known if I were not afraid of the size of the work. 
 He revived the art of war, introduced new machines, and 
 was the only general of his time. Some say that he was 
 too fond of hunting, by which he was taken into great 
 danger while following the wild goat up the highest rocks. 
 He spent largely on dogs, hunters, and huntsmen ; but 
 that," Cuspinian adds, " is royal sport. Kings cannot walk 
 in squares and streets (as common people do, who sharpen 
 for themselves their hunger by that exercise), but must 
 follow the chase of wild beasts to improve their bodies. 
 This emperor was affable in his manners, he set at their 
 ease those people who conversed with him, and as he had
 
 EMPEROR AND SECRETARY. 21 
 
 a good memory, pleased them by showing knowledge of 
 their names and their affairs. He did not mind asking 
 mean persons for their opinion on mighty things." He 
 was likely, therefore, to flatter greatly, by his show of con- 
 fidence and frankness, a young scribe whose temper and 
 abilities he meant to turn to some account. Once, when 
 there was a conspiracy against him in his camp, he went 
 into the tent of the chief conspirator, and sat down cheer- 
 fully to dinner with his wife. Many enemies he subdued 
 by kindly speech, and sometimes (hints the secretary) paid 
 his soldiers' wages with it. He turned no ear at all to 
 slander, and bade Cuspinian cease from addressing him 
 with words of flattery, reminding him of the proverb, 
 " Self-praise makes a stinking mouth." 
 
 Such a man as this was master to Cornelius Agrippa ; 
 surely an Austrian diplomatist as well as a brave soldier 
 and not unenlightened prince. Even his secretary and 
 admirer, when he tells of the match-making feats by 
 which Maximilian laboured to extend the influence of his 
 own family, talks half-con tern ptuously of " the marrying 
 house of Austria." With all his chivalry and all his 
 mother's southern blood (she was a Portuguese), Maxi- 
 milian was an Austrian born, son of an Austrian father. 
 The diplomatic service of the Austrian court, at every 
 period of history, has been what it is now and ever will 
 be, slippery and mean. It may spend the energies of a 
 fine mind upon base labour ; delude, when necessary, its 
 own agents into the belief that they do brave deeds and 
 speak true words, though they are working out designs
 
 22 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 contrived upon no honourable principle. In this way 
 some use may have been made of the fresh spirit of the 
 youth, whom we are now to find, at the age of twenty, 
 with the cares of a conspirator upon him. 
 
 It is not at all possible that this conspiracy, of which 
 the precise nature can only be inferred from overt acts, 
 distinctly originated at the court of Maximilian, although 
 it was fostered there. It related to the affairs of Spain, 
 :and the political events of the time appear to throw some 
 doubtful light upon its meaning. Ferdinand of Spain, 
 the widower of Isabella, was excluded from the crown of 
 Castile after his wife's death, that inheritance having 
 passed with his daughter Joanna as a dower to her hus- 
 band Philip, one of the marrying house of Austria, the 
 son of Maximilian. Ferdinand had made a vain effort to 
 retain some hold upon his authority over the Castilians ; 
 but he was repelled by them, and referred to his own 
 kingdoms of Aragon and Naples. Suddenly, in Sep- 
 tember, 1506, news of the death of Philip startled 
 European politicians. He was a young man of eight- 
 and-twenty, upon whose death no person had yet begun 
 to speculate ; over-exertion in a game of ball, at an enter- 
 tainment given by his favourite Don Manuel, led, it is' 
 said, to this unexpected issue. A wide field was at once 
 opened for Austrian diplomacy. Those nobles of Castile 
 who had most actively opposed the claims of Ferdinand 
 against his son-in-law, partly in self-defence, maintained 
 their opposition. Ferdinand, when the event happened, 
 was not in Spain ; he was engaged upon a journey to his
 
 THE MISSION OF COBNELIUS. 23 
 
 Neapolitan dominions. The country, therefore, fell into 
 confusion, for the widowed queen Joanna, overwhelmed 
 with an insane grief, refused to perform any act of govern- 
 ment ; and Maximilian of Austria had lost no time in 
 urging strongly upon Ferdinand his own right to be 
 regent of Castile. From the distracted country several 
 Spanish nobles came to Maximilian's court, Manuel him- 
 self among the rest, where they continually urged upon 
 the Austrian more measures against Ferdinand than he 
 considered it worth while to take. 
 
 It appears to have been during this period of excite- 
 ment and political uncertainty that Cornelius von Nettes- 
 heirn, then twenty years of age, was sent to Paris, perhaps 
 in company with a superior diplomatist, but probably 
 alone. His unusual power as a linguist 1 his learning, 
 which was of an extent far beyond his years the quick- 
 ness of his parts, which in some sense was as valuable as 
 an older man's experience marked him out subsequently, 
 while he was still very young, as a fit agent to be sent 
 abroad on confidential missions 3 . France had been hostile 
 to the son of Maximilian, and war against France had 
 been declared by Philip only a short time before his 
 death. The business of Cornelius at Paris was, I think, 
 
 1 "II savait parler huit sortes de langues, &c. &c. &c., d'oii je ne 
 m'ctonne que Paule Jove 1'appelle Portentosum Ingenium, que Jacques 
 Gohory le met inter clarissima sui sseculi lumina, que Ludwigius le nomme 
 Venerandum Dom. Agrippam, literarum, literatorumque omnium mira- 
 culum." Apoloyie pour tons les Grands Personnages qui ont este faussement 
 soupq&nnez de Magie. Par G. Naudc, Paris. La Haye, 1653, pp. 406, 
 407. 
 
 2 Defensio Propositionum de Beat. Anna Monoyamia. Op. Tom. il 
 p. 596.
 
 24 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 simply in accordance with his duty as a clever scribe, to 
 take trustworthy note of what he saw and heard. A 
 political crisis had occurred, affecting intimately the in- 
 terests of Maximilian, and the relations of the emperor 
 with France were thereby placed in a most difficult 
 position. While doing whatever else was needful, Maxi- 
 milian may, very likely, have considered it worth while 
 to send to the French capital one of the young men 
 belonging to his court, who could for a short time take 
 a quiet post of observation as a scholar in the University, 
 and make himself the master of more knowledge than 
 would be communicated to him in the schools. Foremost 
 among young pundits was Cornelius von Nettesheim, a 
 person apt in every respect for such a purpose. He might 
 go to his own home in Cologne, and proceed thence, as a 
 studious youth, to Paris. After a short residence there, 
 it was, indeed, in the first instance, to his father's house 
 that he returned l . 
 
 Cornelius was engaged on secret service more than 
 once ; but all his great or little diplomatic secrets were 
 well kept, though on his own affairs he was, in his pub- 
 
 1 Ep. 2, Lib. i. p. 682. The letters of Agrippa are in the second volume 
 of the Lyons edition of his works, already referred to, and published in his 
 lifetime "per Beringos Fratres," in and about the year 1532. It was 
 printed and reprinted by them, probably often, certainly once. My own 
 copy is undated, and shows, by comparison with that in the British Museum, 
 that although precisely alike both as to general appearance and as to 
 paging, and issued about the same time by the same printer, the whole of 
 the type must have been distributed and set up afresh in the interval 
 between the issue of one book and of the other. The second volume of this 
 issue is the book of which the page is given in all notes referring to 
 Agrippa' s letters.
 
 CORNELIUS AT PARIS. 25 
 
 lished works, abundantly communicative. It is left for 
 us, then, 'to construct what theory we can upon his 
 business at this period in Paris. We know only that he 
 was there at the time described, and that he made himself 
 while there the centre of a knot of students, members 
 with him, as it will afterwards be seen, of a secret asso- 
 ciation of theosophists, and bent upon a wild and daring 
 enterprise that was in several respects very characteristic 
 both of the age of the schemers, and of the age of the 
 world in which they lived to scheme. 
 
 The disturbances in Castile had extended to Aragon 
 and Catalonia. The Catalonians, since their annexation 
 to the crown of Aragon, had frequently caused trouble 
 by their independent spirit, had established one successful 
 revolt, and were at this period violently excited in many 
 places against the oppression of the nobles. From the 
 district of Tarragon they had chased at least one of their 
 local masters, the Sefior de Gerona ; and this gentleman, 
 while holding from King Ferdinand the authority which 
 he appears to have abused, must have had something of 
 the traitor in his composition, for we find him among 
 other Spaniards at the court of Maximilian, by whom 
 the interests of Ferdinand were at this time especially 
 
 At Paris, Cornelius met with the young Spaniard, who, 
 perhaps, was then upon his way to Germany ; and by the 
 conversation of Juanetin de Gerona 2 , the bold spirit of 
 
 1 Ep. 4, Lib. i. p. 683. 
 
 1 lanotus Bascus de Charona ia the Latin form.
 
 26 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 enterprise was stirred within him. In concert with some 
 other students he devised a plan, not merely for the re- 
 storation of Juanetin to his own domain itself a student's 
 freak of tolerable magnitude, but for the achievement, 
 by a stroke of wit, of some more serious adventure, which 
 seems to have included the mastering of Tarragon 1 itself, 
 and the maintenance of that stronghold against the people 
 of the district. Upon the information of the Senor de 
 Gerona, Cornelius Agrippa based his plans ; the Spaniard 
 had doubtless contributed to the plot suggestions of ad- 
 vantage that might be secured to Maximilian by the 
 enterprise. In the emperor's discussion with King Fer- 
 dinand he was to be helped in some wild way by the 
 young soldier-scribe against the Catalonians. It is certain 
 that Cornelius Agrippa had in view nothing more than 
 the advantage of his master, except the renown that was 
 to follow from the magnitude of his success, if he suc- 
 ceeded 3 . While the idea was fresh with him he must 
 have made its purport known to a friend at court, whom 
 he calls Galbianus, who most strongly urged him to pursue 
 it, and partook of his enthusiasm 3 . 
 
 After a few months, early in 1507, Cornelius went from 
 Paris to his own home at Cologne, his absence from the 
 University being considered only temporary 4 . The chief 
 friend whom he left behind, as faithful lieutenant, to com- 
 
 1 The Latin form used by Agrippa is Arcona. 
 
 2 " Neque diffido .... me clarissimo hoc facinore immortalem gloriam 
 nobis paraturum." Ep. 4, Lib. i. p. 683. 
 
 3 " Qui in hunc labyrinthum mihi dux fuisti" Loc. cit. 
 
 4 Ep. 1 and 2, Lib. L
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH LANDULPH. 27 
 
 plete the necessary preparations, was an Italian, r who 
 studied medicine in Paris, Blasius Cassar Landulphus. 
 He lived to be a professor in the University of Pavia 1 , 
 and wrote upon " The Cures of Fevers," with some other 
 matter, a book published at Venice in 1521, and re- 
 published at Basle in 1535, with again other matter added 
 to it. 
 
 We find him with a fever of his own still to be cured, 
 a man ripe for excitement, who has hitherto, as he says, 
 been leading an unsettled life, writing from Paris, on 
 the 26th of March, to his accepted chieftain at Cologne, 
 that he can send no pleasanter tidings than news of the 
 success of their business, so often desired. He writes in a 
 tone of strong affection for Cornelius ; and hints at a wish 
 also, now and then expressed between them, that after 
 all the accidents of fortune he had suffered, Providence 
 might find him business near his friend in Germany: 
 " For you know that I plant a foot not altogether fearless 
 on the soil of Paris, though I have repelled with a divine 
 shield the various bites and blows of serpents, and the 
 greedy wolves who were armed against me seem only to 
 have heaped coals on their own heads. Take these 
 matters in brief: I would have written more at large, 
 my sweetest Agrippa, of what is in my mind, and of the 
 course of my life and business in hand, but those things, 
 on account of the danger of our present letters and con- 
 sidering the time, I put aside. Do you hasten your 
 return as much as you can 2 ." 
 
 1 Jocher's Gelehrten Lexicon. Theil 2, p.. 2242 (ed. Leipzig, 1750). 
 
 2 Ep. 1, Lib. i. p. 681.
 
 28 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 The tone of this letter shows how strong an ascendancy 
 Cornelius Agrippa had established over its writer; it was 
 the ascendancy undoubtedly of friend over friend, but the 
 young diplomatist seems also to have strengthened his 
 position with suggestions of a means of settlement in life 
 that might perhaps be discovered for Landulph in Ger- 
 many. A month after the receipt of his friend's letter, 
 addressed to him at Cologne, Cornelius thus answered it 1 : 
 
 " Your letter written on the twenty-sixth of March, 
 my most faithful Landulph, I received joyfully on the 
 twentieth of May. It grieves me much to have been so 
 long absent from you, and to miss the enjoyment of your 
 most faithful companionship; but I do not in absence 
 follow you with the less care, or yield to any one in love 
 for you: so that I am capable of neglecting nothing that 
 concerns the defending and amplifying of your honour, 
 or the augmentation of your worldly welfare. Day and 
 night solicitous on your account, I now again vehemently 
 and faithfully warn you to leave your present place of 
 residence, and to leave straightway; for the time is near 
 when you will either be glad that you left or sorry that 
 you stayed. Take these matters in brief: for I cannot 
 safely venture to commit to this letter all that I should 
 wish you to know. I am glad, however, that you have 
 lately overcome the wiles of so many serpents, so many 
 Lycaons. Yet it is safer to fly from such animals than 
 vanquish them, for even when dead they are hurtful, and 
 retain the poison with which often they undo their victors. 
 1 Ep. 2, Lib. L p. 682.
 
 OTHER CONSPIRATORS. 29 
 
 My happy position in life is matter of mutual satisfaction 
 to us, for whatever good fortune may have befallen me is 
 common to you also, since our friendship is of a kind that 
 suffers nothing to be proper to one of us only. I await 
 here the commission and command of a certain great Jove, 
 with whom I shall some day have it in my power to be 
 not a little useful to you. I am living here, and am to 
 return again to France, where I shall see you. Meantime 
 salute in my name Messieurs Germain, Gaigny, and 
 Charles Foucard, M. de Molinflor, and Juanetin Bascara, 
 Senor de Gerona. The happiest farewell to you. From 
 Cologne, the twentieth of May, 1507." 
 
 Of the friends here saluted, Germain 1 was a spirited law 
 student, who became afterwards an advocate at Forcal- 
 quier, in Provence. He published, nine-and-twenty years 
 after this date, the " Very brief History of Charles V., 
 ejected and paid out by the peasants of Provence," and 
 wrote also a macaronic satire. Gaigny 3 , or Gagnee, was a 
 Parisian born, afterwards known as a good theologian and 
 linguist, as well as a tolerable Latin poet. Nineteen years 
 subsequent to this date he became procurator for France in 
 his native University, five years later its rector, and fifteen 
 years later still thirty-nine years after the present date 
 its chancellor, which office he held till he died three 
 years after his election. He also, it seems, had indulged 
 in wild schemes in his youth, though he lived to be known 
 chiefly as a scholiast on the New Testament, and was made 
 
 1 Jocher's Gekhrten Lexicon in Adelung's Fortsetzung (Leipzig, 1787). 
 Theil 2. 
 
 2 Jocher. Theil 2, p. 826.
 
 30 COKNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 first almoner to the king Francis I. The last person 
 named in the list, Juanetin Bascara de Gerona, was the 
 young Catalonian nobleman of whom we have already 
 spoken. Landulph speaks again 1 : 
 
 "The letter that you wrote me on the twentieth of 
 May, Henry Cornelius, ever to be most regarded by me, 
 I received right joyfully, and read on the sixteenth of 
 June : for which I can scarcely thank you enough, espe- 
 cially for that part wherein you faithfully and vehemently 
 exhort me that I shall be glad to have left my first resi- 
 dence, or led to penitence for still abiding there. Certainly, 
 with a warning of that kind, I hold you to have pro- 
 phesied by some divine oracle according to the aim of 
 my own intention, which during a long course of days I 
 have been whispering to myself quietly. I will expect 
 your return, upon which we will, as it was formerly 
 resolved between us, visit Spain, and finally seek my 
 native Italy. For should the eagle chance to fly across 
 the Alps, I hope that we may count for something there 
 among the other birds. M. Molinflor salutes you. Juanetin 
 has been absent for some months, and is not yet returned. 
 Farewell. From the University of Paris. In the year 1507, 
 on the day above mentioned." 
 
 Landulph, therefore, who had nothing to wait for but 
 the coming of Agrippa, answered his friend's letter in- 
 stantly. The absence of Juanetin referred, no doubt, to 
 the business in hand. We hear of him next at the 
 court of Maximilian. 
 
 1 Ep. 3, Lib. i. p. 82.
 
 YOUTHS OF THE PALACE. 31 
 
 Nine months have elapsed ; perhaps Cornelius has half- 
 repented of his plan, some of the motives to it may be 
 failing, when suddenly we find his credit with his court 
 staked on success. The matter has been talked about, 
 and he is forced on the adventure. On the road to it 
 he writes thus to a comrade still at court 1 : 
 
 " You see, my Galbianus, how dangerous it is to make 
 any rash boasts before those youths of the palace, who 
 blab whatever they hear to their princes and kings, and 
 hunt up for them pleasure in our perils. But they, 
 as soon as they have begun to believe anything of our 
 mysteries, desire us speedily to bring them to the proof by 
 deeds; and they make their demand upon us with entreaties 
 that blend hard and soft together, so that we may easily 
 understand how those services which are not obtained from 
 us by high words will be compelled by force and violence. 
 I own that thus far this our fortune is superne rnulier 
 formosa; but who can discern her tail ? We quaff honey 
 so mixed with gall that we are unable to judge whether it 
 be sweet or bitter. I own that thus far promises are 
 great, and there are great rewards proposed : but against 
 these are to be set threats and dangers. Have I not 
 warned you from the beginning not to lead us into any 
 labyrinth from which we could not escape at our own 
 pleasure ? You, nevertheless, wish to talk big, an orator 
 more bold than prudent ; and the Senor de Gerona, by 
 his credit, has so enforced faith in your words, and sug- 
 gested to the king so great an opinion of us, that there is no 
 
 1 Ep. 4, Lib. i. p. 683.
 
 32 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 way left of drawing back from what we have begun. Now, 
 therefore, I am forced at my own great peril to redeem 
 your promises on my behalf, hard bound by so inevitable a 
 necessity of danger, that if I were to draw aside, or if the 
 event should happen otherwise than you have convinced 
 yourself it will, we all shall have lost for ever not our 
 object only, but our fame also and credit ; we shall have 
 enemies instead of helpers, accusers instead of promoters, 
 anger instead of thanks, and be enriched with persecution 
 for our payment. 
 
 " But if, indeed, we obey, and the matter chance to 
 issue well, it is doubtful whether in place of reward we 
 may not be destined to new perils ; of which perils, rising 
 to the level of our skill, we may at last perish. Thus it 
 may happen that the blow prepared for the head of 
 another may fall on ourselves, unless, indeed, others are 
 destitute of contrivances equal to ours, or better, or at 
 least not by us to be foreseen. 
 
 " But this I write to you, not because I seek to turn 
 back, but that I may signify to you that I am ready 
 boldly to take chance of life or death. Nor do I doubt 
 that, unless fate or some evil genius stand in the way, 
 I shall prepare for us immortal glory by this brilliant 
 action, needing no other forces than you only, of whom 
 I have often heretofore experienced that you are a faithful 
 comrade. In this trust I now approach the risk and 
 venture, holding already in my grasp that golden branch 
 of the tree difficult to climb. If you are by my side, it 
 readily will suffer itself to be plucked, otherwise I could
 
 ON THE ROAD TO SPAIN.. 33 
 
 not prevail or wrench it off, even with hard steel : but I 
 should cast myself as a bone to Cerberus, by whom, 
 nevertheless, I would rather be devoured, than like Pro- 
 metheus be eaten piecemeal in a struggle with incessant 
 dangers. You, therefore, who counselled me to enter on 
 so great an enterprise, who were my leader into this maze, 
 will see that you take as much pains in leading me out, 
 and restoring me to myself, as you spent in urging me 
 thereinto. Farewell, and, returning with the bearer of 
 this, let us have your presence here, so that straightway 
 we may deliberate and put our plan in execution. From 
 the Palace of Granges, April, 1508." 
 
 The palace and lands of Granges, or Gran gey, on the 
 borders of Franche Comte, belonged then to a quasi-inde- 
 pendent lord. They are distant about eight miles from 
 Chatillon-sur-Seine, but a geographical fact far more 
 important to this narrative is, that they are a third of 
 the way in a perfectly direct line from Cologne to Tar- 
 ragona. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 34 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PLOT AND ITS ISSUE. 
 
 To Galbianus, who had returned to court after visiting 
 Granges, in obedience to the summons of his friend, there 
 came Agrippa's servant, Stephen, bringing verbal tidings 
 and a letter from his master, dated at a place still nearer 
 to the point of action 1 . In it Galbianus is reminded 
 again that chiefly to him and Juanetin the writer is in- 
 debted for the service upon which he is engaged. " Did I 
 not foretel you long since," he adds, " that so it would be, 
 that when we thought to depart free we should prove 
 to have sold our liberty for misty names of rank, that 
 under the pretext of honours and employments we should 
 be appointed to the worst of perils, and that new work 
 would be set before us whereof death is the hire. Let it 
 content us to have enjoyed this kind of lot once ; why 
 should we tempt fortune more? Juanetin, so far as I see, 
 
 1 Ep. 5, Lib. i. p. 684. I do not name the place in the text, because I 
 cannot identify it. The letter dated only with the year is written from 
 Arx Vetus. The nomenclature is so barbarous in many of these letters that 
 I almost fear Arx Vetus may have been Agrippa's Latin for Clennont in 
 Auvergne !
 
 IN THE SAME BOAT WITH CHARON. 35 
 
 would rather please the king with our dangers than abate 
 in any of his desires out of regard for our well-being. By 
 Jove, I fear the omen of that Acherontine name" (he 
 Latinised his friend Charona) ; " our Charon may some 
 day be tumbling us into the Styx. Do you there- 
 fore straightway put your mind into his counsels, and 
 whilst your hand is near, however the boat may turn, 
 compel it to the right shore, before our Charon can 
 run it to the left.- See therefore how you may deaden 
 by some means the strokes of Juanetin, or shorten them, 
 or be ready with a stout pull of your own at the right 
 season : otherwise, while we must obey the decision of one 
 angry king, we may offend an entire people, and even 
 have those young men of the court in no benignant mood to- 
 wards us. Do you not remember, my Galbianus, how those 
 youths passed their opinions upon us while they schemed 
 against our independence, telling the king that if he sent us 
 off it might happen that our work would recoil upon his own 
 head, and that the discomfiture carried among enemies he 
 himself at last might suffer ; with more in the same vein. 
 See whether we ought up to this point to submit our 
 heads to their counsels, and by an odious subservience pre- 
 cipitate ourselves into greater dangers than humanity itself 
 could bear; let one fit of insanity suffice for us. But with 
 a profligate conscience to wish to continue in such cruel 
 devices, which after all have more in them of crime than 
 of high daring, and for the sake of the rage of one ill- 
 advised prince to expose ourselves to universal hatred, 
 would be utterly impious and mad. Nothing of this sort 
 D2
 
 36 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 was agreed between us at the palace of Granges. I wish 
 now to remind you of our deliberations there, and to 
 assure you of this my opinion, according to which we 
 must depart hence while all is well, or else I will throw 
 myself into some place where I shall be found of nobod} r , 
 and then you will all see how you can get on without me. 
 You will learn the rest from Stephen. Farewell, and 
 reply to me at once by the same messenger." From 
 (Clermont?)1508. 
 
 However it may have pleased his wit when put before 
 him hypothetically, it is quite evident that the enterprise 
 to which he is committed, when it has actually to be faced, 
 pleases Agrippa's wit no better than his conscience. The 
 court of Austria has forced the young man on a work of 
 which the main features are cruelty and treachery. The 
 scheme of treachery his own cunning either suggested or 
 perfected; but what had amused him as an exercise of 
 ingenuity in thought, revolts him as a crime now that he 
 finds himself upon the brink of action. The revulsion of 
 feeling is assisted, evidently in no small degree, by a near 
 view of the perils to be braved for an unworthy purpose. 
 Noticeable also in this letter is the impatience of forced 
 action, the restless desire for independence, often hereafter 
 to be manifested and too seldom asserted with success. 
 
 In this case, the effort to shake off his duty of obedience 
 to the emperor's command was unsuccessful. His mes- 
 senger returned, bringing no favourable response to his 
 expostulation. No way of retreat was opened. The work 
 was to be done.
 
 TARRAGONA. 37 
 
 Tarragon 1 is a province broken up by mountain chains 
 that come as spurs from the adjacent Pyrenees. The town 
 of Tarragon stands like a citadel upon a rock; and on 
 
 1 The identification of places in the narrative of this Spanish adventure, 
 though at first sight difficult, may be considered, I think, certain. Vallis 
 Rotunda, Arx Nigra, and Arcona were the names to be interpreted. There 
 is no town answering directly to the name with which Barcelona and Va- 
 lencia can be associated as is necessary in the story. This fact, and the 
 whole texture of the narrative which belongs naturally to what Mr. Ford 
 calls " the classical country of revolt," pointed to Catalonia. " Hispanic pete 
 Tarraconis arces," Terra Arcona must have been Agrippa's construction of 
 the word Tarragona. In the Diccionario de Espana of Pascual Madoz, we 
 find etymologies enough to justify the rough assumption of Cornelius. It 
 is from the Phoenician tarah and gev, a citadel and strong, says one 
 authority. It is Hebrew, says another, and means good land for buyers. 
 It is from Tarraco, or Tabal, of the family of Noah, says one ; no, says 
 another, Tarraco was an Egyptian chief who landed here; wrong, says a 
 third, it is Terra Aeon, the land of the Phoenician Aeon. Says another, it 
 is Latin, and was called the Place of Fights, Terra Agonum, by the Scipios, 
 because it cost them so much fighting to subdue the natives of that soil. 
 Having assumed that Cornelius read Terra Arcona, and meant by Arcona 
 Tarragona, the rest of the names fit perfectly with this interpretation. Pre- 
 cisely where we might expect to find Vallis Rotunda, we find Villarodona ; 
 and "Janotus Bascus de Charona" suggests straightway De Gerona, 
 Gerona being a Catalonian town, of which the bishopric was subject to 
 the see of Tarragon, a place to which a governor of the district about Tar- 
 ragon, as Janotus was, might naturally belong, and the naming of men of 
 standing by their towns having been at that time the rule in Catalonia. 
 We then find that at a very short distance from Gerona is Bascara, to 
 which place we may attribute, though with less absolute certainty, the 
 origin of the name Bascus; and for Janotus, I have felt reasonably 
 safe in putting Juanetin, since in a history of the Guerra de Catalonia, 
 which refers to the same century, I find that, and no other name among the 
 Catalonians answering to Janotus. Error in such points is unimportant. 
 Of the essential facts I feel no doubt, that Arcona is Tarragon ; Charona, 
 Gerona ; and Vallis Rotunda, Villarodona. Having identified Arcona with 
 Tarragon, it was a satisfaction to be led straightway to the meaning of 
 " Arx Nigra," which is a locality important to the narrative. In the ac- 
 count of the fortifications of Tarragon, by Senor Madoz (Diccionario de 
 Enpaila'), reference is made to the Fuerte Negro ; and we have also its locality 
 defined. Everything, therefore, tallies with Agrippa's narrative.
 
 38 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 the summit, near to the archbishop's palace, within walls 
 supposed to have been raised by the ancient Celts, is the 
 Black Fort the Fuerte Negro. The seizure of this fort, 
 by a treacherous device, seems to have been the opening 
 act of the adventure. It was successfully accomplished ; 
 but as Cornelius only alludes to the attempt in writing to 
 a friend who knows its details, we must be content simply 
 to know that it succeeded. After remaining for a certain 
 time within the Fuerte Negro, Cornelius was sent with 
 others to garrison the house of Juanetin at Villarodona, 
 and protect it from the wrath of an excited people. The 
 small town of Villarodona, in the province of Tarragon, 
 and district of Vails, lies on a pleasant slope by the river 
 Gaya. The mountains of Vails, which are not very 
 notable, were known long after the sixteenth century as 
 an unpeopled wilderness 1 . 
 
 After many days spent in discussion of their perilous 
 position, the conspirators in the house of Juanetin learnt 
 that their associate Landulph, who had gone back upon 
 some mission, had recrossed the Garonne and was upon 
 his way to Barcelona 2 . For sufficient reasons it was 
 
 1 ... .* Pueden decirse despoblados. Madoz, loc. cit. 
 
 2 Ep. 10, Lib. i. pp. 687-695 is the authority for this and the succeeding 
 details. It is very remarkable that this most striking narrative, coherent 
 in every part, giving names of places and people, and describing a thing so 
 extremely credible as a Catalonian tumult, should have been neglected by 
 all writers. Because the Lyons printers (whose edition of Cornelius was 
 unauthorised, and sometimes mutilated, in submission to the priests), be- 
 cause these " Bering! fratres," misunderstanding the first sentence, and re- 
 garding their author simply as a magician, put an absurd commentary in 
 the margin, to this day nobody, in speaking of Agrippa, has referred to 
 these adventures beyond saying that he " went to Spain," and adding, or
 
 ST. JOHN'S EVE AT VILLARODONA. 39 
 
 judged most prudent that Juanetin should at once repair 
 to Barcelona, and there meet his friend. To Villaro- 
 dona Barcelona was the nearest port, its distance being 
 about forty miles. Leaving, therefore, Cornelius Agrippa 
 captain of the garrison, the Serior de Gerona set out on 
 his journey. He had determined that he should be back 
 by the festival of John the Baptist ; and for that day a 
 feast was accordingly appointed by him, to which he had 
 bidden sundry of his friends, the Prior of St. George's 
 Monastery, and a 'Franciscan priest who was a member of 
 his family, with many others. Whether Juanetin did at 
 Barcelona see Landulph, and whether anything was planned 
 by them, the little garrison at Villarodona never knew. 
 The master of the house did not return. The day of the 
 appointed dinner-party was at hand ; and when the sun 
 had set upon the eve of it, Cornelius, expecting still in 
 vain the absent man, and pondering the cause of his delay ; 
 anxious, beset with terrible suspicions, uncertain how to 
 act; with his mind, as he says, disturbed by presage of the 
 coming ill and dread of the approaching night, revolved 
 in his mind many conflicting counsels. At last he retired 
 to rest ; but when all in the castle were asleep, night not 
 being far advanced, the abbot's steward came, for whom, 
 when he had given the password to the sentries, the 
 drawbridge was let down, and the gate opened. He 
 summoned Cornelius Agrippa, Perotti the Franciscan, 
 
 not adding, that he was engaged there in efforts to make gold. A stupid 
 man scribbles a stupid note upon the margin of a letter, and the letter is a 
 dead letter for three hundred years in consequence.
 
 40 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and two other of Gerona's relatives, to tell them that on 
 his way home from Barcelona their chief had been way- 
 laid by a savage crowd of rustics, and that, two of his 
 followers being killed, he with the others had been bound 
 hand and foot, and carried up the mountains. 
 
 " Take heed," added the messenger, " to the danger 
 that is threatening yourselves, unless you can be strongly, 
 suddenly prepared. Meet instantly, and hasten to take 
 wise thought for your affairs here and your very lives !" 
 
 The receivers of these tidings were astonished and 
 alarmed; they had no counsel that sufficed to meet the 
 suddenness of the exigency and the greatness of the 
 threatened peril no one doubting that the castle would 
 be soon surrounded by a hostile people. " And I, too," 
 says Cornelius, " the counsellor of so many enterprises, who 
 had recentlv been master of so many plots, was wanting 
 to myself." All, therefore, agreed in begging that the 
 abbot's steward, who had told them of the danger, would 
 also tell them, if he could, in what way to avert it. 
 
 Said he : " You must either escape by making a well- 
 managed sally, or you must fortify the castle, and that 
 strongly, against the seditious rustics ; probably in a few 
 days they will separate for want of any guiding head, or 
 else be put down by the rough hand of the king." 
 
 Now the country being in arms, it seemed impossible 
 to escape by breaking through the watches of the pea- 
 santry; and for a few men to defend against numerous 
 besiegers a place that was already in ruins, was an 
 undertaking perilous indeed. But there was an old
 
 AT BAY IN THE MARSHES. 41 
 
 half-ruined tower three miles distant, situated in one of 
 those mountain wildernesses which, as it has been 
 said, characterise the district of Vails. The tower stood 
 between Villarodona and Tarragon, in a craggy, ca- 
 vernous valley, where the broken mountains make 
 way for a gulf containing stagnant waters, and jagged, 
 inaccessible rocks hem the place in. At the gorge by 
 which this place is entered stood the tower, on a hill 
 which was itself surrounded by deep bogs and fishers' 
 pools, while it also was within a ring of lofty crags. 
 There was but one way to this tower, except when the 
 ground was frozen, and we speak now of events happening 
 at midsummer, the midsummer of the year 1508. The 
 way among the pools was by a narrow path of stone, 
 hedged with turf walls. The site of the tower made 
 it inexpugnable in summer time. It was tenanted by a 
 poor bailiff of the abbot's, who was set in charge over the 
 fishponds ; the abbot's steward, therefore, told his friends 
 that they should occupy and fortify that mountain hold. 
 
 The advice seemed Rood, and was adopted instantly. 
 Pack and baggage were brought out, with every accessible 
 provision for munition or victualling. Conveying all that 
 was most precious and necessary on their horses' backs, 
 and themselves bearing the burden of their powder and 
 artillery, the little band marched under cover of a dark 
 night, as silently as possible, by devious and unfrequented 
 ways, to the appointed place. Having entered the tower, 
 they entrusted their horses, which they had no means of 
 keeping by them, to the steward's care. He rode away
 
 42 CORNELIUS AGKIPPA. 
 
 with them, and not long afterwards day broke St. John 
 the Baptist's festival the day appointed for the banquet to 
 which he who bade the guests had not returned; and his 
 bold soldiers, says Cornelius, had been transformed into 
 bats, flitting out of daylight to their cavern. 
 
 They had not fled too soon. At early dawn on that 
 day the armed peasantry was already assembling about 
 the walls of the abandoned dwelling of Juanetin. Some 
 bringing ladders scaled the crumbling battlements, others 
 beat with strong axes at the doors; the house was seized, 
 and everything it contained scattered in wreck, destroyed, 
 or carried away by the people. That was the festival. 
 The people ran from hall to chamber in vain search for 
 the companions of their enemy. The women and children, 
 who had been left quietly asleep, woke in alarm, but knew 
 not what to say. They could not help the search, which 
 was maintained most fiercely for The German. Under 
 that name was sought Cornelius Agrippa, for from all 
 quarters had corne the rumour that he had been the 
 author of the atrocious counsel of the cruel deed, that it 
 was he whose arts had caused the fall of the Black Fort, 
 impregnable by violence, the miserable massacre of the 
 garrison, and the subversion of the public liberty. Troops 
 of peasantry descending from the mountains filled the 
 valley; everywhere were to be heard the shouts of an 
 angry host of men eager to put an end to the 'conspiracy 
 against their public rights. The hiding place of the con- 
 spirators becoming known, the flood of wrath poured 
 down towards the tower, but the strength of the position
 
 BESET BY THE POPULACE. 43 
 
 was then felt. With a barricade of overthrown waggons 
 that had been used by the bailiff, the sole path to the 
 besieged was closed, and behind this barrier they posted 
 themselves with their arquebuses, of Avhich one only 
 sufficed to daunt a crowd of men accustomed to no 
 weapons except slings or bows and arrows. After suffer- 
 ing some slaughter, the peasantry discovered that the tower 
 was not to be stormed, and altering their design, they 
 settled down with dogged perseverance to beset the place, 
 and by a strict siege starve the little garrison into sur- 
 render. 
 
 There were, indeed, among the besiegers, says Agrippa, 
 some whose experience of sedition had been great, pro- 
 fessing that they still abided by their customary loyalty 
 towards the king. By the help -of these the abbot himself, 
 who always had enjoyed a high repute among the people, 
 while the storm of rebellion was raging called at Tarragon 
 a public meeting, pointed out to those who gathered round 
 him the futility of their efforts, the emptiness of their pur- 
 pose, and persuaded them against disloyalty towards the 
 king ; he urged also the restoration of Juanetin and the rais- 
 ing of the siege laid to the tower. But his labour for his 
 friends was vain. If by the abbot here mentioned is meant 
 the Archbishop of Tarragon, it was Don Gonzalo Fernandez 
 de Heredia, who held that office between the years 1489 
 and 1511. The vicinity of the Black Fort to the arch- 
 bishop's palace would compel that dignitary, if he was 
 not absent, to a strong feeling for or against the party of 
 Gerona, and the veneration of the people for the abbot,
 
 44 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 as well as the course of proceeding taken by him, would, 
 in a slight degree, favour the opinion that under this name 
 Cornelius referred to the archbishop himself. Archbishop 
 or not, and from the sequel of the narrative I think not, 
 he pleaded to deaf ears ; the peasantry, risen in arms, 
 scarcely allowed the upholders of the king's authority to 
 speak, replying promptly that their wrath was not against 
 the king, but against Juanetin and his tyranny, whereby 
 they had been lorded over savagely, contrary to all former 
 usage, and vexed with slavery beneath intolerable burdens, 
 so that under the name and form of the protection of the 
 king they had been robbed of the liberty inherited from 
 their forefathers. With many threats of vengeance they 
 urged the wresting from them of the Fuerte Negro, 
 clamouring with the bitterest accusations against the 
 Senor de Gerona and Cornelius Agrippa; against the one 
 as the betrayer of his country, and against the other as 
 the man who by detestable contrivances had robbed them 
 of their fortress and their liberty ; against both as men 
 who had moved the king to cruel exercise of his authority, 
 and to so atrocious a use of his victory, that their blood, 
 they asserted, and their lives would not content him. 
 A liberty, regained by force of arms, they would not 
 barter for the flattery of cheating words, but they would 
 acknowledge the king for their master upon those con- 
 ditions under which he had held rule over their elders : 
 to the lowest slavery he ought not to compel them, and 
 they would not be compelled. All with one voice cried, 
 touching Juanetin and his colleagues in the tower, that
 
 IN A CATALONIAN REVOLT. 45 
 
 they would rather take the enemies delivered into their 
 possession, than dismiss them to become a second time 
 avengers. Surely, they said, they ought not to prefer the 
 safety of these people to their own; and added, proudly, 
 that in their being loose they had more matter for fear 
 than in the anger of the king, that more help could be 
 got out of their death than out of the king's promises. 
 They who had lost relations at the massacre in the Black 
 Fort laboured especially to keep alive the fury of the 
 people. All being agreed in urgent accusation against 
 Juanetin de Gerona, all determined not to suffer the 
 escape of his companions closely beset in the tower, the 
 abbot, or archbishop, parted at dusk from the men whose 
 wrath he had been utterly unable to appease. 
 
 The Catalonians in those days were bold asserters of 
 their rights, and very ready to chastise the nobles who 
 opposed them. Not many years had elapsed since they 
 had forcibly set up a prince of their own choosing, and 
 forty years afterwards a famous Catalonian war was the 
 result of the high value set by them on public liberty. 
 The sympathies of Englishmen can only be against Cor- 
 nelius and his associates. Juanetin de Gerona was a 
 double traitor, probably ; a traitor to his country, as the 
 people said, because in the name of the King of Aragon 
 he became its oppressor. But if he was not playing a 
 double game, how was it that, while professing to recover 
 Ferdinand's authority, he used the help offered him by 
 Maximilian? There was so much bold treachery and 
 petty meanness forming, in the sixteenth century, a part
 
 46 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 of the routine of statecraft, the relations between what is 
 done and what is meant become often so complex, that it 
 needs the wit of a sixteenth century diplomatist fairly to 
 understand the significance of many an action not directly 
 labelled with its meaning. Be it enough for us here to 
 know that the young Cornelius Agrippa suffered in Spain 
 merited discomfiture ; that, as he approached his under- 
 taking there, he came to see it in its true light, as a 
 matter not of glory, but of shame, and would have 
 removed his hand from it had he been able. Self- 
 conscious, ambitious as he was, much as he yearned, out 
 of the largeness of his mind and its self-occupation, for a 
 perfect independence, it has been seen how he allowed 
 his course to be determined by the pressure from without. 
 Self-conscious without being fully self-possessed, ambi- 
 tious, powerful, yet failing in that lofty reach of power 
 which makes poverty a source of wealth, discomfiture the 
 root of triumph, already we perceive how he may here- 
 after should he venture on an independent path be 
 hindered by the opposition he begets.
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE MOUNTAIN HOLD. 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, BESIEGED IN A TOWER NEAR VILLARODONA, 
 
 VANISHED WITH ALL HIS COMPANIONS IN ARMS THE END OF THE 
 
 CATALONIAN ADVENTURE. 
 
 PERILOUS weeks were being passed by the adven- 
 turers within the mountain hold. More formidable than 
 the actual conflict was the famine consequent on their 
 blockade. Perrot, the keeper of the fish-ponds, and 
 erewhile the solitary occupant of that old tower among the 
 rocks and marshes, taking cunning counsel with himself 
 to help his guests and to get rid of them, explored with 
 indefatigable zeal every cranny in the wall of rock by 
 which they were surrounded. Clambering among the 
 wastes, with feet accustomed to the difficulties . of the 
 mountain, he hoped that perchance he might be the dis- 
 coverer of some route worthy, at least, to be tried by men 
 who fled from an extremer peril. At length a devious 
 and rugged way, by which unconquerable obstacles of 
 crag and chasm were avoided and the mountain top was 
 to be reached, this friendly peasant found. Looking 
 down from the heights he saw how, upon the other side, 
 the mountain rose out of a lake, known to him as the
 
 48 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Black Lake, which has an expanse of about four mile?, 
 and upon the farther shore of which his master's abbey 
 stood. Attempting next the difficult descent upon that 
 other side, he boldly struck into a gorge by which the 
 mountain snows had poured a torrent down. But Per- 
 rot, at the lake, was still far from the abbey; and, to men 
 without a boat, the water was a barrier yet more im- 
 passable than the steep mountain. He retraced his way, 
 therefore, and by sunset reached the tower, where an 
 assembly of the garrison was held to hear the result of 
 his explorations. The judgment upon it, of course, was 
 that escape was impossible, unless the boat could be 
 obtained, of getting which there was no hope, unless a 
 letter could be carried through the midst of the besiegers 
 to the abbot's hand. 
 
 Now the besieging army'of the peasants posted and kept 
 constantly relieved strong guards upon every path into 
 the valley, and allowed no person either to go in or pass 
 out on any pretence whatever. Moreover, from the tower 
 no path could be reached except by the one narrow lane 
 across the marshes, barricaded as before described; and to 
 prevent a sally by the doomed band of conspirators, the 
 outlet by this lane was the point best guarded, and, 
 indeed, held by an overwhelming force. The perplexed 
 conspirators, in council, saw no hope for themselves, 
 except through any further help Perrot might furnish; 
 him they besought accordingly, and he informed them 
 that there was a way, known to himself only, by which 
 the marshes could be forded ; but that such knowledge
 
 DESPAIR A STRATAGEM. 49 
 
 was in this case of no use, because, once across them, 
 there were still guards posted upon every path out of the 
 valley. 
 
 Under these desperate circumstances the ingenuity of 
 young Agrippa was severely tested, and he justified the 
 credit he had won for subtle wit. The keeper of the 
 fish-ponds had a son, who was a shepherd-boy. Cornelius 
 took this youth, disfigured him with stains of milk- 
 thistle and juice of other herbs, befouled his skin and 
 painted it with shocking spots to imitate the marks of 
 leprosy, adjusted his hair into a filthy and unsightly 
 bunch, dressed him in beggar's clothes, and gave him a 
 crooked branch for stick, within which there was scooped 
 a hollow nest for the concealment of the letter. Upon 
 the boy so equipped a dreadful picture of the outcast 
 leper the leper's bell was hung, his father seated him 
 upon an ox, and, having led him during the darkness of 
 the night across the marshes by the ford, deposited him 
 before sunrise on dry ground, and left him. Stammering, 
 as he went, petitions for alms, this boy walked without 
 difficulty by a very broad road made for him among the 
 peasantry. Even the guards set upon the paths regarded 
 his approach with terror, and, instead of stopping at their 
 posts to question him, fled right and left as from a snake 
 that could destroy them with its evil eye, and flung alms 
 to him from a distance. 
 
 So the boy went upon his errand, safely, and, returning 
 next day at about the first watch of the night to the 
 border of the marsh, announced his return by ringing of 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 the bell. His father, on the bullock, crossed the ford to 
 bring him in, and, as he came with the desired answer, 
 there was great rejoicing by Cornelius and his com- 
 panions. 
 
 They spent the night in preparation for departure. To- 
 wards dawn they covered their retreat by a demonstration 
 of their usual state of watchfulness and desperation, fired 
 several guns, and gave other indications of their presence. 
 This done, they set forth, in dead silence, carrying their 
 baggage, and were guided by Perrot to the summit. 
 There they lay gladly down among the stones to rest, 
 while their guide descended on the other side and 
 spread the preconcerted signal, a white cloth, upon a 
 rock. When he returned, they ate the breakfast they 
 had brought with them, all sitting with their eyes towards 
 the lake. At about nine o'clock in the morning two 
 fishermen's barks were discerned, which hoisted a red 
 flag, the abbot's signal. Rejoicing at the sight of this, 
 the escaped men fired off their guns in triumph from the 
 mountain-top, a hint to the besieging peasantry of their 
 departure, and, at the same time, a signal to the rescuers. 
 Still following Perrot, they descended, along ways by him 
 discovered, to the meadows bordering the lake, entered 
 the boats, and before evening were safe under the abbot's 
 roof. The day of this escape was the 14th of August. 
 They had been suffering siege, therefore, during almost 
 two months in the mountain fastness. 
 
 To the peasants an escape like this seemed a pure 
 miracle, and it produced among them much anxiety, for
 
 ESCAPE OVER LAKE AND MOUNTAIN. 51 
 
 they misdoubted whether the same cunning arts which 
 opened unknown ways out of the tower, might not by a 
 strange road bring suddenly an army of the king's into 
 their midst, to plague the whole valley with fire and 
 sword. Insecure, as they believed, by night or day, 
 many seceded from the work of insurrection ; but the 
 leaders of it, who had scattered the goods of Juanetin, 
 had taken him and kept him prisoner, abided firmly by 
 their purpose, for they thought no safety possible if he 
 were free. They dreaded not only confiscation, exile, but 
 they doubted also whether life even would be spared to 
 them and theirs if the Seiior de Gerona were restored to 
 power. 
 
 Cornelius Agrippa being safe could quit the scene, and 
 quitted it without waiting to see how the difficulty would 
 be solved between the Catalonian peasants and their 
 master. It perplexed him -much that he had no tidings 
 of his friend Landulph, who either had been or was to 
 have been at Barcelona ; and the abbot counselled him, 
 in his perplexity, to go to court again, where the favour 
 he had formerly enjoyed would be regained, and he could 
 easily repair his shattered fortune. He declared, how- 
 ever, that he had no mind to risk being again sent upon 
 hazardous missions, and remained several days in the 
 abbey, doubtful as to the course which he should next 
 pursue, and not very cheerfully disposed to trust himself 
 in travel to the unknown temper of the people. 
 
 The German youth then found a friend in an old man, 
 E2
 
 52 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Antonius Xanthus 1 , whose advice was, that he should 
 take heart, go into strange countries and among strange 
 people, see the world, feel his way in it, and spread his 
 sails for any gale of fortune ; that he should constitute 
 himself, in fact, knight-errant and adventurer, with not 
 the discovery of a lady or a giant, but of his comrade 
 Landulph, for a special object of desire. "Moderate 
 your concern," said the old man, " explore the shores of 
 Spain, look for your friend in his own Italy, and I will 
 go as your companion on the way." 
 
 The person thus offering his companionship was an un- 
 lettered old man, who had seen much of the rough side of 
 the world, and appeared to Cornelius worthy of especial 
 patronage. Though he was no philosopher, he had a vast 
 store of experience. Captured by Djem, the unfortunate 
 brother of Bajazet the Second, he had once served as an in- 
 terpreter among the Turkish galleys ; he had lived to a great 
 age, filling his mind constantly with every-day knowledge, 
 and was therefore useful as a travelling companion in strange 
 regions. It was his merit also to be faithful and silent 
 one who might safely be admitted to a knowledge of the 
 mysteries in which Cornelius indulged, and who was 
 content to be instructed and sworn into the league of 
 which Cornelius and Landulph were important members. 
 
 With this singular companion and his servant Stephen, 
 the young courtier, after a stay of nine or ten days at the 
 
 1 Ep. 8 and 10, Lib. i. pp. 686, 694, for this and for what follows until 
 the next reference.
 
 THE JOURNEY OUT OF SPAIN. 53 
 
 abbey 1 , on the 24th of August, 1508, went forth to 
 seek an independent fortune in the world. Of course 
 their first visit was to Barcelona, where they hoped to 
 find some clue to the position of Landulph; but after 
 spending three days in the town, nothing discovered, 
 they proceeded to Valentia. There dwelt a most prac- 
 tised astrologer and philosopher, Comparatus Sara- 
 cenus, the disciple of Zacutus, but from him also no 
 information could be had. The travellers then sold 
 their horses, and sailed from Valentia for Italy. By 
 way of the Balearic Islands and Sardinia they went to 
 Naples, where they were disheartened by their ill success, 
 and determined to pass forthwith into France. They took 
 ship, therefore, at Naples for Leghorn, and travelling to 
 Avignon, there halted. In that town they learnt, after a 
 few days, from a travelling merchant, that the person of 
 whom they sought tidings was at Lyons. 
 
 At once, therefore, on the 17th of December, to 
 Landulph at Lyons, Cornelius wrote, from Avignon, a 
 letter, expressing joy at his friend's safety, and giving 
 tidings of his own happy escape ; for since the Italian left 
 Villarodona to procure help for his friends, neither had 
 been certain whether the other was alive or dead. From 
 Villarodona itself Cornelius had dated two epistles to his 
 friend 1 , urging him to make all speed in his embassy, 
 and by putting a prompt end to their dangers, put an end 
 also to the state of compulsion under which he lived ; but 
 whether those letters might not have been written to a 
 1 Ep. 6 and 7, Lib. i. pp. 685-6.
 
 54 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 dead man or a captive lie had no opportunity of know- 
 ing. Writing from Avignon, Cornelius expressed briefly 
 the magnitude of the danger recently escaped, announced 
 that all was well with him again, and added, " Nothing 
 now remains but that, after so many dangers, we insist 
 upon a meeting of our brother combatants, and absolve 
 ourselves from the oaths of our confederacy, that we may 
 recover our old state of fellowship and have it un- 
 molested." He undertook to advise two confederates in 
 Aquitaine, MM. de Bouelles 1 and Clairchamps, of their 
 safety in Avignon and Lyons, while he left to Landulph 
 the business of sending word to Germain de Brie and 
 another delegate in Burgundy, as well as Fasch and 
 Wigand \ who were at Paris. 
 
 Of the associates here mentioned some only were men 
 active enough to produce work remembered by posterity. 
 Charles de Bouelles, or Bovil, born at Sancourt, in Ver- 
 mandois, studied at Paris, and travelled afterwards in 
 Italy, Germany, and Spain. At Noyon he became a 
 canon and professor of theology, and he died in the 
 middle of the sixteenth century. He had already, in 
 1503, published a book on metaphysics and geometry, 
 the quadrature of the circle, and the cubication of the 
 sphere. When republished in 1510, a year or two after 
 the present mention of him as one of Cornelius Agrippa's 
 fellow-searchers after wisdom, the character of the work 
 showed that he also must have been at that time an active 
 inquirer into curiosities of knowledge. It contained 
 1 Ep. 9, Lib. i. p. 687.
 
 ASSOCIATES REJOINED IN FRANCE. 55 
 
 recently-written books on Sense, on Nothing, on Genera- 
 tion, on Wisdom, on the Twelve Numbers, Letters upon 
 the Quadripartite Work, and so forth. Later in life he 
 wrote a good deal of theology, something of language, a 
 book on the utility of arts, and collected three books of 
 common proverbs. 
 
 Germain de Brie, native of Auxerre, became known as 
 a canon of Paris, who was a good linguist, and wrote 
 excellent Greek verse. He translated some of the works 
 of Chrysostom, arid produced before he died, in 1550, 
 Anti-Morum, the fruit of a controversy with Sir Thomas 
 More. Of the other friends I find no trace, unless but 
 that is not in the least likely Wigand was the Domini- 
 can Wirt or Wigandus who quarrelled about the Im- 
 maculate Conception, attacked the Minorites, supported 
 his views with false miracles, and was burnt at Berne 
 in 1509. 
 
 Cornelius, then, having arranged concerning these 
 associates, therewith commended himself to his dearest 
 friend, who on receipt of his letter, twenty days after- 
 wards, namely, on the 9th of January, 1509, began his 
 reply 1 with " Alleluia ! Alleluia ! Alleluia ! " and a com- 
 parison of his joy to that of Mary Magdalen or the 
 apostles when they learnt the resurrection of the Lord. 
 He is unable to express the energy of his congratulations, 
 and has also to relate how he had made inquiry for his 
 friend across the Pyrenees, by sea and land, by lake and 
 river, field, city, and town ; how he had looked for him 
 
 1 Ep. 9, Lib. i. p. 687.
 
 56 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 through the entire kingdom of Navarre, through Gascony 
 and Aquitaine ; had learnt nothing from De Bouelles and 
 Clairchamps at Toulouse, and then had hastened to Lyons 
 in the belief that, among the merchants of every tongue 
 and clime by which that mart was visited, he might 
 obtain some news of his friend's fate. The search, so 
 vaunted, it will be observed, was only made on the 
 straight road to France, the home of the conspiracy. At 
 Lyons, said Landulph, he was panting to embrace his 
 friend again, and when Agrippa came there, they could 
 talk more at ease about the renewal of their confedera- 
 tion. He gave information of the movements of some 
 comrades, and parted with the expression of a wish that 
 his friend might live long, and a belief that his fame 
 would surpass even his labours. He had asked in the 
 course of this letter for a full account of the escape, 
 which Cornelius sent, adding a hope that Landulph 
 might be able to visit him at Avignon and talk their 
 secrets over, since, being detained by the exhaustion 
 of his funds till he could make some money 1 , he 
 
 1 He says : " Sumptuum tenuitate coacti Avenione nos, instructa solida 
 nosti-a chrysotoci officina tantisper manere, et in opere perseverare oportebit, 
 quoadusque longioris iteneris nova fomenta excubemus." Which manner 
 of speaking gets a marginal note from the commentator to the following 
 effect : " Hoc loco fateri videter apertissime, chrysopseam se exercuisse cum 
 sociis foedere sibi adjunctis, ob quam saepius apud principes libertatis jac- 
 turam ferine fecisset, captivumque fuisse ob hanc rem detentum in Valle 
 rotunda." In a former letter, when expecting honour from the expedition, 
 he said metaphorically that he seemed already to hold " that golden branch 
 of the tree difficult to climb," meaning success, the marginal note was 
 " Chymica paratam arte putat arborem, de qua Paracelsus, Lib. de natura 
 rerum." Now, as to the likelihood of young Agrippa's taking it into his head
 
 AT AVIGNON. 57 
 
 could not leave for Lyons until after the lapse of a little 
 time. 
 
 to stop at Avignon till he had made, literally till he had created, money 
 enough to carry him on further, we shall see that in a book written about 
 this time he says, " apertissime," that to make an ounce of gold out of an 
 ounce of gold is the extreme limit of his conjuring. And the letter, which, 
 by misreading one sentence, under the influence of a general idea that it is 
 a magician who writes, the commentator seems to have warned all subse- 
 quent readers against noticing, tells a true chapter of life surely " aper- 
 tissime" enough.
 
 58 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CORNELIUS A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY. 
 
 THE secrets to be talked over between Cornelius and 
 his friend related to that study of the mysteries of know- 
 ledge in which the Theosophists assisted one another. 
 Secret societies, chiefly composed of curious and learned 
 youths, had by this time become numerous, and numerous 
 especially among the Germans. Not only the search after 
 the philosopher's stone, which was then worthy to be pro- 
 secuted by enlightened persons, but also the new realms 
 of thought laid open by the first glance at Greek litera- 
 ture, and by the still more recent introduction of a study 
 of the Hebrew language, occupied the minds of these 
 associated scholars. Such studies often carried those who 
 followed them within the borders of forbidden ground, 
 and therefore secrecy was a condition necessary to their 
 freedom of inquiry. Towards the close of the sixteenth 
 century such associations (the foundation of which had 
 been a desire to keep thought out of fetters) were de- 
 veloped into the form of brotherhoods of Rosicrucians : 
 Physician, Theosophist, Chemist, and now, by the mercy 
 of God, Rosicrucian, became then the style in which a
 
 
 THE CONFEDERATIONS OF THEOSOPHISTS. 59 
 
 brother gloried. The brotherhoods of Rosi crucians are 
 still commonly remembered, but in the social history of 
 Europe they are less to be considered than those first 
 confederations of Theosophists, which nursed indeed mys- 
 tical errors gathered from the Greeks and Jews, but out 
 of whose theories there was developed much of a pure 
 spiritualism that entered into strife with what was out- 
 wardly corrupt and sensual in the body of the Roman 
 Church, and thus prepared the way for the more vital 
 attacks of the Reformers. When first Greek studies were 
 revived, the monks commonly regarded them as essen- 
 tially adverse to Roman interests, and the very language 
 seemed to them infected with the plague of heresy. In 
 the Netherlands it became almost a proverb with them 
 that to be known for a grammarian was to be reputed 
 heretic. Not seldom, indeed, in later times, has John 
 Reuchlin, who, for his Greek and Hebrew scholarship 
 was called, after the manner of his day, the Phoenix of 
 Germans, and who was the object of an ardent hero- 
 worship to men like Cornelius Agrippa, been called also 
 the Father of the Reformation 1 . Certainly Luther, 
 Erasmus, and Melancthon had instruction from him ; 
 by him it was that Schwartzerd had been taught to call 
 himself Melancthon ; and many will remember how, after 
 his death, Erasmus, in a pleasant dialogue, raised his old 
 friend to the rank of saint, and prayed to him, " Oh, 
 
 1 He is so called on the title-page of an English adaptation of Mayer- 
 hofTs JteucMin und seine Zeit, Berlin, 1830 The Life and Times of John 
 Reuchlin, or Capnion, the Father of the German Reformation. By Francis 
 Barham, Esq. Whittaker and Co. 1843.
 
 60 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 holy soul, be favourable to the languages; be favourable 
 to those that love honourers of the languages ; be pro- 
 pitious to the sacred tongues." But Reuchlin for the 
 taste of smoke in it, Reuchlin quasi Reekie, his name 
 was turned into the Greek form, Capnio Reuchlin, or 
 Capnio, never passed as a reformer beyond detestation of 
 the vices of the priesthood. Like Cornelius, who began 
 his life before the public as a scholar by an act of homage 
 to his genius, Reuchlin loved liberty and independence, 
 cherished the idol of free conscience, but never fairly 
 trusted himself to its guidance. To the last an instinct of 
 obedience to the Church governed his actions, and the 
 spiritual gold he could extract from Plato, Aristotle, or the 
 wonderful Cabala of the Jews, was in but small proportion 
 to the dross fetched up with it from the same ancient 
 mines. 
 
 A contemporary notion of the Reformation, not with- 
 out some rude significance in this respect, is said to 
 have been obtruded upon Charles V. by a small body of 
 unknown actors, who appeared before him in 1530, when 
 he was in Germany. He had been dining with his 
 brother Ferdinand, and did not refuse their offer to pro- 
 duce a comedy in dumb show. One dressed as a scholar, 
 labelled Capnio, brought before the emperor a bundle of 
 sticks some crooked and some straight laid them down 
 in the highway, and departed. Then entered another, 
 who professed to represent Erasmus, looked at the sticks, 
 shook his head, made various attempts to straighten the 
 crooked ones, and finding that he could not do so, shook
 
 THE DAWN OF FREE INQUIRY. 61 
 
 his head over them again, put them down where he 
 found them, and departed. Then came an actor, labelled 
 Luther, with a torch, who set all that was crooked in the 
 bundle blazing. When he was gone entered one dressed 
 as an emperor, who tried in vain to put the fire out with 
 his sword. Last came Pope Leo X., to whom, grieving 
 dismally over the spectacle before him, there were two 
 pails brought ; one contained oil, the other water. His 
 holiness, to quell the fire, poured over it the bucket- 
 ful of oil,, and while the flame attracted all eyes by the 
 power, beyond mastery, with which it shot up towards 
 heaven, the actors made their escape undetected 1 . 
 
 Now, it was over the crooked sticks of Capnio, and 
 many other matters difficult of comprehension, that Cor- 
 nelius and his confederates were bent in curious and 
 anxious study. " The bearer of these letters," said Lan- 
 dulph, in excusing himself on the plea of illness, from a 
 winter journey to his friend at Avignon 2 " the bearer 
 of these letters is a German, native of Nuremberg, but 
 dwelling at Lyons ; and he is a curious inquirer after 
 hidden mysteries, a free man, restrained by no fetters, 
 who, impelled by I know not what rumour concerning 
 you, desires to sound your depths." That the man him- 
 self might be sounded, as one likely to have knowledge 
 of some important things, and that if it seemed fit, he 
 should be made a member of their brotherhood, was the 
 
 1 Johann Reuchlin und seine Zeit. Von Dr. Ernst Theodor Mayerhoff. 
 Berlin, 1830. Pp. 79, 80, in note. He cites the story from Majus. 
 
 2 Ep. Corn. Agr. 11, Lib. i. p. 695.
 
 62 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 rest of the recommendation of this person by Lanclulph 
 to his friend Agrippa. 
 
 At Lyons were assembled many members of his league, 
 awaiting the arrival of the young soldier-philosopher. His 
 early taste for an inquiry into mysteries had caused him 
 to take all possible advantage, as a scholar, of each change 
 of place and each extension of acquaintance among learned 
 men who were possessors of rare books. He had searched 
 every accessible volume that might help him in the prose- 
 cution of the studies that had then a fascinatiop, not for 
 him only, but for not a few of the acutest minds in 
 Christendom. At that time there was, in the modem 
 sense, no natural science ; the naturalists of ancient Greece 
 and Rome being the sole authorities in whom the learned 
 could put trust. Of the miraculous properties of plants 
 and animals, and parts of animals, even at the close of the 
 sixteenth century, careful and sober men placed as accepted 
 knowledge many extravagant ideas on record. At the 
 beginning of the century, when a belief in the influences 
 of the stars, in the interferences of demons, and in the 
 most wonderful properties of bodies, was the rule among 
 learned and unlearned Luther himself not excluded from 
 the number an attempt to collect and group, if it might 
 be, according to some system, the most recondite secrets 01 
 what passed for the divine ordering of nature, was in no 
 man's opinion foolish, though in the opinion of the greater 
 number criminal. Belief in the mysteries of magic, not 
 want of belief, caused men to regard with enmity and 
 dread researches into secrets that might give to those by
 
 IN ARMS A MAN, IN SCHOLARSHIP A TEACHER. 63 
 
 whom they were discovered subtle and superhuman power, 
 through possessing which they would acquire an influence, 
 horrible to suspect, over their fellow-creatures. Detach- 
 ing their search into the mysteries of the universe from 
 all fear of this kind, the members of such secret societies as 
 that to which Cornelius belonged gathered whatever fruit 
 they could from the forbidden tree, and obtained mutual 
 benefit by frank exchange of information. Cornelius had 
 already, by incessant search, collected notes for a complete 
 treatise upon magic, and of these not a few were obtained 
 from Reuchlin's Hebrew-Christian way of using the Cabala. 
 From Avignon, after a short stay, Cornelius Agrippa 
 went to Lyons 1 , and remaining there some weeks, com- 
 pared progress with his friends, and no doubt also for- 
 mally divested himself of any further responsiblity con- 
 nected with the Spanish enterprise. Towards the end of this 
 year, a friend at Cologne, Theodoric, Bishop of Cyrene 2 , 
 wrote, expressing admiration of him, as of one among so 
 many thousand Germans who at sundry times and places 
 had displayed in equal degree power to labour vigorously 
 as a man at arms as well as man of letters. Who does not 
 know, the bishop asks, how few of many thousands have 
 done that? He envies those who can thus earn the wreath 
 of Mars without losing the favour of Minerva, and calls 
 the youth " in arms a man, in scholarship a teacher." To 
 escape the soldier's life of bondage seems to be now the 
 ambition of the scholar. With the world before him, in 
 the twenty-third year of his age, well born, distinguished 
 1 Ep. 12, Lib. i. p. 696. * Ep. 12, Lib. L p. 700.
 
 64 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 among all who knew him for the rare extent of his attain- 
 ments, Cornelius, attended by his servant Stephen, quitted 
 his friends at Lyons, and rode to Authun, where he was 
 received in the abbey of a liberal and hospitable man, phy- 
 sician, theologian, and knight by turns, M. Champier, 
 who, having been born at Saint Saphorin-le-Chateau, near 
 Lyons, was called Symphorianus Champier, or Campegius, 
 and who, not content with his own noble ancestry, assigned 
 himself, by right of the Campegius, to the family of the 
 Campeggi of Bologna, and assumed its arms. He studied 
 at Paris Litera humaniora, at Montpellier medicine, and 
 practised at Lyons. He lived to obtain great fame, 
 deserving little, and losing after his death all. It was not 
 until five years after this visit from Cornelius Agrippa 
 that Symphorianus, acting as body physician to the Duke 
 of Lorraine, was knighted on the battle-field of Marig- 
 nano. Among his writings, those which most testify his 
 sympathy with the inquiries of Cornelius, are a book on 
 the Miracles of Scripture, a Life of Arnold of Villeneuve, 
 and a French version of Sibylline oracles. This Cham- 
 pier then sympathised with the enthusiasm of the young 
 theosophist, and under his roof the first venture of Cor- 
 nelius before the world of letters seems to have been 
 planned. In the last week of May 1 , we find that he has 
 sent Stephen to fetch De Brie from Dole, has summoned 
 Antonius Xanthus from Niverne, and wishes, in associa- 
 tion with Symphorianus, to arrange a meeting with Lan- 
 dulph, at any convenient place and time. He has some- 
 1 Ep. 12, Lib. i. p. 696.
 
 PREPARATION FOR SUCCESS AT DOLE. 65 
 
 tiling in hand concerning which he wishes to take counsel 
 with his comrades. A few days afterwards he and Landulph 
 are at Dole together ; and while Cornelius has left Dole for 
 a short time to go to Chalon (sur Saone), his friend sends 
 word to him that he has engaged on his behalf the interest 
 of the Archbishop of Besan^on (Antony I., probably not an 
 old man, since he was alive thirty years afterwards 1 ), who 
 desires greatly to see him, and boasts that he can give in- 
 formation of some things unknown perhaps even to him. 
 The archbishop is impatient to see the person who has 
 stored up from rare books, even those written in Greek 
 and Hebrew, so great a number of the secrets of the 
 universe. Landulph, to content him, antedates the time 
 appointed for his friend's return, and while reporting this, 
 adds that there arc many at Dole loud in the praise of 
 Cornelius, and none louder than himself 2 . The influence 
 of his associates is evidently at work on his behalf among 
 the magnates of the town and university of Dole, and 
 learned men in the adjoining towns of Burgundy, for it 
 is at Dole that he has resolved to make his first public 
 appearance as a scholar, by expounding in a series of 
 orations Reuchlin's book on the Mirific Word 3 . At 
 Chalon, however, Cornelius fell sick of a summer pesti- 
 lence 4 , from which he was recovering on the eighth of 
 
 1 Zedler's Universal Lexicon, Art. Besanqon. 
 * Ep. 13. Lib. i. p. 696. 
 
 8 H. C. Agr. Expostulate .... cum Joanne Catilineti. Opuscula ed. 
 1532. Mense Maio. fol. D. iii. 
 4 Ep. 14. Lib. i. p. 696. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 July. As soon as health permitted he returned to Dole, 
 where there was prepared for him a cordial reception. 
 
 Dole is a pretty little town, and at that time possessed 
 the university which was removed in after years to Be- 
 sanon. Its canton was called, for its beauty and fertility, 
 the Val d' Amour; and when Besangon was independent 
 of the lords of Burgundy Dole was their capital. A 
 pleasant miniature capital, with not four thousand inhabi- 
 tants, a parliament, a university, a church of Notre Dame 
 whereof the tower could be seen from distant fields, a 
 princely residence, Dole la Joyeuse they called it until 
 thirty years before Cornelius Agrippa declaimed his 
 orations there ; but after it had been, in 1479, captured 
 and despoiled by a French army, it was called Dole la 
 Dolente. 
 
 Mistress of Dole and Burgundy was Maximilian's 
 daughter, Margaret of Austria, who, in this year of 
 Agrippa's life, was twenty-nine years old. She was already 
 twice a widow. When affianced twice once vainly to 
 France, a second time to Spain, and likely to perish in a 
 tempest before reaching her appointed husband she had 
 wit to write a clever epitaph upon herself. Her Spanish 
 husband died almost after the first embrace, and she had 
 since, after four years of wedded happiness, lost her true 
 husband, Philibert of Savoy. She was twenty-four years 
 old when that happened, and resolved to make an end of 
 marrying. In 1506, after the death of Archduke Philip, 
 her father Maximilian being guardian of his grandson 
 Charles the Fifth, made Margaret his governor over the
 
 EXPOUNDING REUCHLIN. 67 
 
 Netherlands, and appointed her to rule also over Bur- 
 gundy and the Charolois. Thus she came to be, in the 
 year 1509, mistress at Dole. A clever, lively woman, 
 opposed strongly to France, and always mindful of the 
 interests of that house of Austria to which the family of 
 young Agrippa was attached, Margaret was well known 
 for her patronage of letters and her bounty towards 
 learned men. It would be, therefore, a pleasant transfer 
 of his loyalty, Agrippa thought, from Maximilian to 
 Margaret, if he could thereby get rid of what he regarded 
 as camp slavery under the one, and earn the favour of 
 the other in the academic grove. To earn Margaret's 
 good-will and help upon the royal road to fortune was 
 one main object of Cornelius when he announced at Dole 
 that he proposed to expound Reuchlin's book, on the 
 Mirific Word, in orations, to which, inasmuch as they 
 were to be delivered in honour of the most serene Prin- 
 cess Margaret, the whole public would have gratuitous 
 admission l . 
 
 Poor boy ! he could not possibly have made a more 
 genuine and honest effort, or one less proper to be used 
 by evil men for the damnation of his character. Mar- 
 garet was the princess to whom of all others he was able 
 to pay unaffected homage, and Reuchlin, then the boast 
 of Germans, was the scholar of whom before every other 
 he, a German youth, might choose to hold discourse to 
 the Burgundians. Of Reuchlin, JEgidius, chief of the 
 
 1 Dedication prefixed to the treatise De NoUUtate Faminece Sexus. 
 Opuscula ed. 1532. Mense Maio. fol. A. i. 
 
 P2
 
 68 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Austin Friars, wrote \ that he " had blessed him and all 
 mortals by his works." Philip Beroaldus, the younger, 
 wrote to him : " Pope Leo X. has read your Pytha- 
 gorean book, as he reads all good books, greedily ; then 
 it was read by the Cardinal de' Medici, and I am ex- 
 pecting next to have my turn." This book, which had 
 been read by the Pope himself with eager pleasure, was a 
 wonder of the day, and was in the most perfect unison 
 with the whole tone of the boy's mind ; he really under- 
 stood it deeply, it was most dear to him as a theosophist, 
 and he was not to be blamed if he felt, also, that of all 
 books in the world there was none of which the exposition 
 would so fully serve his purpose of displaying the extent 
 and depth of his own store of knowledge. 
 
 Mainly upon what was said and written by Cornelius 
 Agrippa in this twenty-third year of his age has been 
 founded the defamation by which, when he lived, his 
 spirit was tormented and the hope of his existence 
 miserably frustrated, by which, now that he is dead, his 
 character comes down to us defiled. This victim, at least, 
 has not escaped the vengeance of the monks, and his 
 crime was that he studied vigorously in his salad days 
 those curiosities of learning into which, at the same time, 
 popes, bishops, and philosophers, mature of years, inquired 
 with equal faith and almost equal relish, but less energy 
 or courage. For a clear understanding of the ground, 
 and of the perils of the ground, now taken by Cornelius 
 
 1 Quoted from Mayenhoff, whom Mr. Barbara oddly enough here trans- 
 lates, " JSgidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustio."
 
 DE YERBO MIRIFICO. 69 
 
 Agrippa, little more is necessary than a clear notion of 
 what was signified by Reuchlin's book on the Mirific 
 Word ; but what has to be said of Reuchlin and his book, 
 as well as of other matters that will hereafter concern the 
 fortunes of Cornelius, requires some previous attention to 
 a subject pretty well forgotten in these days by a people 
 rich in better knowledge ; we must recal, in fact, some of 
 the main points of the Cabala. 
 
 The traditions, or Cabala, of the Jews 1 are contained in 
 sundry books, written by Hebrew Rabbis, and consist of 
 a strange mixture of fable and philosophy varying on a 
 good many points, but all adhering with sufficient accuracy 
 to one scheme of doctrine. They claim high and remote 
 origin. Some say that the first Cabala were received by 
 Adam from the angel Raziel, who gave him, either while 
 he yet remained in Paradise, or else at the time of his 
 expulsion, to console and help him, a book full of divine 
 wisdom. In this book were the secrets of nature, and by 
 knowledge of them Adam entered into conversation with 
 the sun and moon, knew how to summon good and evil 
 spirits, to interpret dreams, foretel events, to heal, and to 
 destroy. This book, handed down from father to son, 
 came into Solomon's possession, and by its aid Solomon 
 became master of many potent secrets. A cabalistical 
 
 1 This account of the Cabala is derived from German sources, among 
 which the chief are Brucker's Historia Philosophies and the Kabbah Denu- 
 data, a collection of old cabalistical writings arranged and explained by 
 Christian Knorr von Rosenroth. The Germans of our own time have 
 resumed investigation of the subject, and a volume has been published 
 on the Religions Philosophic des Sohar, by D. H. Joel, Leipsic, 1849. The 
 subject has also been discussed at large by more than one French Orient- 
 alist. It has obtained little distinct notice in England.
 
 70 CORNELIUS AGBIPPA. 
 
 volume, called the Book of Raziel, was, in the middle 
 ages, sometimes to be seen among the Jews. 
 
 Another account said that the first cabalistical book 
 was the Sepher Jezirah, written by Abraham; but the 
 most prevalent opinion was, that when the written law 
 was given on Mount Sinai to Moses, the Cabala, or mys- 
 terious interpretation of it, was taught to him also. Then 
 Moses, it was said, when he descended from the moun- 
 tain, entered Aaron's tent, and taught him also the secret 
 powers of the written word; and Aaron, having been 
 instructed, placed himself at the right hand of Moses, 
 and stood by while his sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, who 
 had been called into the tent, received the same in- 
 struction. On the right and left of Moses and Aaron then 
 sat Ithamar and Eleazar, when the seventy elders of the 
 Sanhedrim were called in and taught the hidden know- 
 ledge. The elders finally were seated, that they might 
 be present when all those among the common people who 
 desired to learn came to be told those mysteries; thus the 
 elect of the common people heard but once what the San- 
 hedrim heard twice, the sons of Aaron three times, and 
 Aaron four times repeated of the secrets that had been 
 made known to Moses by the voice of the Most High. 
 
 Of this mystical interpretation of the Scripture no 
 person set down any account in writing, unless it was 
 Esdras ; but some Jews doubt whether he did. Israelites 
 kept the knowledge of the doctrine by a pure tradition ; 
 but about fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 Akiba, a great rabbi, wrote the chief part of it in that
 
 THE CABALA. 71 
 
 book, Sepher-jezireh, or the Book of the Creation, which 
 was foolishly ascribed by a few to Abraham. A disciple 
 of the Rabbi Akiba was Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, who 
 wrote more of the tradition in a book called Zoar. 
 
 The truth probably is, that the literature of cabalism, 
 which is full of suggestions derived from the Neoplatonics 
 of Alexandria, began with the Jews of Alexandria under 
 the first Ptolemys. In the book of Simeon ben Schetach 
 it went to Palestine, where it at first was little heeded; but 
 after the destruction of Jerusalem it gained importance, 
 and then Rabbis Akiba and Simeon ben Jochai extended 
 it. It is indisputable that Aristotle had been studied by 
 the writer of the Sepher-jezireh, the oldest known book 
 of the Cabalists. The Cabala went afterwards with other 
 learning to Spain, and that part of it at least which deals 
 with Hebrew anagrams cannot be traced to a time earlier 
 than the eleventh century. Many rabbis Abraham 
 ben David, Saudia, Moses Botril, Moses bar Nachman, 
 Eliezer of Garmiza, and others have written Hebrew 
 books for the purpose of interpreting the system of the 
 Cabala; but it was, perhaps, not before the eighth cen- 
 tury that it had come to receive very general attention 
 from the Jews. 
 
 The Cabala consisted of two portions, the symbolical 
 and the real; the symbolical Cabala being the means by 
 which the doctrines of the real Cabala were elicited. 
 
 In the Hebrew text of the Scriptures, it was said, there 
 is not only an evident, but there is also a latent meaning; 
 and in its latent meaning are contained the mysteries of
 
 72 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 God and of the universe. It need scarcely be said that 
 a belief in secret wisdom has for ages been inherent in the 
 Oriental mind, and in the Scriptures, it was reasoned by 
 the later Jews, all wisdom must be, of necessity, contained. 
 Of divine authorship, they cannot be like ordinary works 
 of men. But if they were taken only in their natural sense, 
 might it not be said that many human works contain 
 marvels not less surprising and morality as pure. No, it 
 was said, as we have entertained angels, and regarded 
 them as men, so we may entertain the words of the Most 
 High, if we regard only their apparent sense and not their 
 spiritual mystery. And so it was that through a blind ex- 
 cess of reverence the inspired writings were put to super- 
 stitious use. 
 
 The modes of examining their letters, words, and sen- 
 tences, for hidden meaning, in which wholly consisted the 
 symbolical Cabala, were three, and these were called Ge- 
 mantria, Notaricon, Themura. 
 
 Gemantria was arithmetical when it consisted in applying 
 to the Hebrew letters of a word the sense they bore as 
 numbers, letters being used also for figures in the Hebrew 
 as in Greek. Then the letters in a word being taken as 
 numbers and added up, it was considered that another 
 word, of which the letters added up came to an equal sum, 
 might fairly be substituted by the arithmetical gemantria. 
 Figurative gemantria deduced mysterious interpretations 
 from the shapes of letters used in sacred writing. Thus, 
 in Numbers x. 35, ^ means the reversal of enemies. This 
 kind of interpretation was known also by the name of
 
 SYMBOLICAL CABALA. 73 
 
 Zurah. Architectonic geraantria constructed words from 
 the numbers given by Scripture when describing the 
 measurements of buildings, as the ark, or temple. 
 
 By Notaricon more words were developed from the 
 letters of a word, as if it had consisted of so many abbre- 
 viations, or else first and last letters of words, or the first 
 letters of successive words, were detached from their 
 places and put side by side. By Themura, any word might 
 be made to yield a mystery out of its anagram ; these 
 sacred anagrams were known as Zeruph. By the same 
 branch of the symbolical Cabala three systems were fur- 
 nished, in accordance with which words might be trans- 
 formed by the substitution of one letter for another. The 
 first of the systems, Albam, arranged the letters of the 
 alphabet in two rows, one below another; the second, 
 Athbath, gave another couple of rows ; the third, Ath- 
 bach, arranged them by pairs in three rows, all the pairs 
 in the first row being the numerical value ten, in the 
 second row a hundred, in the third a thousand; any one 
 of these forms might be consulted, and any letter in a 
 word exchanged for another standing either in Albam, 
 Athbath, or Athbach, immediately above it or below it, 
 or on the right hand of it or the left. 
 
 This was the symbolical Cabala, and the business of it 
 was to extract, by any of the means allowed, the hidden 
 meaning of the Scriptures. The real Cabala was the 
 doctrine in this way elicited. It was theoretical, explain- 
 ing divine qualities, the ten sephiroth, the fourfold caba- 
 listical worlds, the thirty-two footprints of wisdom, the
 
 74 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 fifty doors to prudence, Adam Kadmon, &c. ; or it was 
 practical, explaining how to use such knowledge for the 
 calling of spirits, the extinguishing of fires, the banning 
 of disease, and so forth. 
 
 The theoretical Cabala contained, it was said by 
 Christian students, many references to the Messiah. Its 
 main points were: 1. The Tree; 2. The Chariot of 
 Ezekiel ; 3. The Work of Creation ; 4. The Ancient of 
 Days mentioned in Daniel. It concerns us most to un- 
 derstand the Tree. The Chariot of Ezekiel, or Maasseh 
 Mercabah, was a description of prefigurements concerning 
 ceremonial and judicial law. The doctrine of Creation, 
 in the book Levischith, was a dissertation upon physics. 
 The Ancient of Days treated of God and the Messiah in 
 a way so mystical that cabalists generally declined to 
 ascribe any meaning at all to the direct sense of the words 
 employed. Of these things we need say no more, but of 
 the Cabalistical Tree it will be requisite to speak in more 
 detail. 
 
 It was an arrangement of the ten sephiroth. The 
 word Sephiroth is derived by some rabbis from a word 
 meaning to count, because they are a counting of the 
 divine excellence. Otherwise it is considered an adapta- 
 tion of the Greek word Sphere, because it represents the 
 spheres of the universe which are successive emanations 
 from the Deity. 
 
 In the beginning was Or Haensoph, the eternal light, 
 from whose brightness there descended a ray through the 
 first-born of God, Adani Kadmon, and presently, depart-
 
 THEORETICAL CABALA. 75 
 
 ing from its straight course, ran in a circle, and so formed 
 the first of the sephiroth, which was called Kethei, or the 
 crown, because superior to all the rest. Having formed 
 this circle, the ray resumed its straight course till it again 
 ran in a circle to produce the second of the ten sephiroth, 
 Chochma, wisdom, because wisdom is the source of all. 
 The same ray of divine light passed on, losing gradually, 
 as it became more distant from its holy source, some of its 
 power, and formed presently, in like manner, the third of 
 the sephiroth, called Binah, or understanding, because 
 understanding is the channel through which wisdom 
 flows to things below the origin of human knowledge. 
 The fourth of the sephiroth is called Gedolah or Chesed, 
 greatness or goodness, because God, as being great and 
 good, created all things. The fifth is Geburah, strength, 
 because it is by strength that He maintains them, and be- 
 cause strength is the only source of justice in the world. 
 The sixth of the sephiroth, Thpereth, beauty or grace, 
 unites the qualities of the preceding. The four last of 
 the sephiroth are successsively named Nezach, victory; 
 Hod, honour; Jesod, or Schalom, the foundation or 
 peace ; and finally, Malcuth, the kingdom. Each of the 
 ten has also a divine name, and their divine names, 
 written in the same order, are Ejeh, Jah, Jehovah, (pro- 
 nounced Elohim), Eloah, Elohim, Jehovah (pronounced 
 as usual), Lord Sabaoth, Jehovah Zebaoth, Elchai (the 
 living God), Adonai (the Lord). By these circles our 
 world is surrounded, and, weakened in its passage through 
 them, but able to bring down with it powers that are the
 
 76 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 character of each, divine light reaches us. These sephi- 
 roth, arranged in a peculiar manner, form the Tree of the 
 Cabalists ; they are also sometimes arranged in the form 
 of a man, Adam Kadmon, according to the idea of the 
 Neoplatonics that the figure of the world was that of a 
 man's body. In accordance with another view derived 
 from the same school, things in this world were supposed 
 to be gross images of things above. Matter was said by 
 the cabalists to have been formed by the withdrawal of 
 the divine ray, by the emanation of which from the first 
 source it was produced. Everything created was created 
 by an emanation from the source of all, and that which 
 being most distant contains least of the divine essence is 
 capable of gradual purification ; so that even the evil 
 spirits will in course of time become holy and pure, and 
 be assimilated to the brightest of the emanations from Or 
 Haensoph. God, it was said, is all in all ; everything is 
 part of the divine essence, with a growing, or perceptive, 
 or reflective power, one or all, and by that which has one 
 all may be acquired. A stone may become a plant ; a 
 plant, a beast ; a beast, a man ; a man, an angel ; an 
 angel, a creator. 
 
 This kind of belief, which was derived also from the 
 Alexandrian Platonists led to that spiritual cabalism by 
 which such Christians as Reuchlin and Agrippa profited. 
 It connected them by a strong link with the divine 
 essence, and they, feeling perhaps more distinctly than 
 their neighbours that they were partakers of the divine 
 nature, and might, by a striving after purity of soul and
 
 CHRISTIAN CABALISTS. 77 
 
 body, win their way to a state of spiritual happiness and 
 power, cut themselves off from all communion with the 
 sensuality that had become the scandal of the Church of 
 Rome, and keenly perceived, as they expressed strongly, 
 their sense of the degraded habits of the priests. It was 
 in this way that the Christian Cabalists assisted in the 
 labours of the Reformation. 
 
 Little more has to be said about their theory, and that 
 relates to the Four Cabalistical Worlds. These were placed 
 in the four spaces between the upper sephiroth. Between 
 the first and second was placed Aziluth, the outflowing, 
 which contained the purest beings, the producers of the 
 rest. Between the second and third sephiroth was the 
 world Briah, or the thrones, containing spirits less pure, 
 but still not material. They were classed into wheels, 
 lightnings, lions, burning spirits, angels, children of God, 
 cherubim. Their prince was called Metatron. The 
 world in the next interspace, called Jezireh, angels, ap- 
 proached more nearly to a material form ; and the fourth, 
 Asiah, was made wholly material. From this point 
 density increases till our world is reached. Asiah is the 
 abode of the Klippoth, or material spirits striving against 
 God. They travel through the air, their bodies are of 
 dense air, incorruptible, and they have power to work in 
 the material world. With Catoriel, Adam Belial, Esau, 
 Aganiel, Usiel, Ogiel, Thomiel, Theumiel, for captains, 
 they fight in two armies under their chiefs Zatniel and 
 Lilith. Their enemies are the angels, who contend against 
 them with two armies, led by Metatron and Sandalphon.
 
 78 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Lilitli is the begetter of the powers striving against 
 light. 
 
 The nature of man's soul, said Cabalists, is threefold 
 vegetative, perceptive, intellectual each embracing each. 
 It emanates from the upper sephiroth, is composed of the 
 pure elements for the four elements, either in their pure 
 and spiritual or their gross form, enter into all things is 
 expansive, separates after death, so that the parts return 
 each to its own place, but reunite to praise God on the 
 sabbaths and new moons. With each soul are sent into 
 the world a guardian and an accusing angel. 
 
 Now, as the creative light runs round each upper 
 world before coming to ours, it comes to us charged with 
 supernal influences, and such an idea lies at the foundation 
 of cabalistical magic. By what secret to have power over 
 this line of communication with superior worlds it is for 
 practical cabalism to discover. 
 
 The secret consisted chiefly in the use of names. God, 
 it was said, gave to all things their names ; He could have 
 given no name that was not mystically fit; every such 
 name, therefore, is a word containing divine power, and 
 especially affecting that thing, person, or spirit to which 
 it belongs. The Scripture tells us that there are names 
 written in heaven ; why, it was said, should they be 
 written there, if they be useless. Through the knowledge 
 of such divine names, it is affirmed, Moses overcame the 
 sorcerers of Egypt, Elias brought fire from heaven, Daniel 
 closed the mouths of lions. But of all names by which 
 wonders can be wrought, the Mirific Word of Words
 
 THE MIRIFIC NAME. 79 
 
 (here we come to the main thought of Reuchlin's book, 
 and to the central topic of the oratory of Cornelius) was 
 the concealed name of God the Schem-hammaphoraseh. 
 Whoever knows the true pronunciation of the name Je- 
 hovah the name from which all other divine names in the 
 world spring as the branches from a tree, the name that 
 binds together the sephiroth whoever has that in his 
 mouth has the world in his mouth. When it is spoken 
 angels are stirred by the wave of sound. It rules all crea- 
 tures, works all miracles, it commands all the inferior 
 names of deity which are borne by the several angels that 
 in heaven govern the respective nations of the earth. The 
 Jews had a tradition that when David was upon the 
 point of fighting with Goliath, Jaschbi, the giant's brother, 
 tossed him up into the air, and held a spear below, that 
 he might fall upon it. But Abishai, when he saw that, 
 pronounced the holy name, and David remained in the 
 air till Jaschbi's spear no longer threatened him. They 
 said, also, that the Mirific name was among the secrets 
 contained in the Holy of Holies, and that when any 
 person having entered that shrine of the temple learnt the 
 word of power, he was roared at as he came out by two 
 brazen lions, or bayed by brazen dogs, until through 
 terror he lost recollection of it. Some Jews accounted 
 also by a fable of this nature for our Saviour's miracles. 
 They said that, having been admitted within the Holy of 
 Holies, and having learnt the sacred mystery, he wrote it 
 down upon a tablet, cut open his thigh, and having put 
 the tablet in the wound, closed the flesh over it by utter-
 
 80 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 ing the name of wonder. As he passed out the roaring 
 lions caused the secret to pass from his mind, but after- 
 wards he had only to cut out the tablet from his thigh, 
 and, as the beginning of miracles, heal instantly the wound 
 in his own flesh by pronouncing the Mirific Word. Such 
 Jewish details were, of course, rejected by the Christian?, 
 who accepted the essential principles of the Cabala. 
 
 As the name of all power was the hidden name of 
 God, so there were also names of power great, though 
 limited, belonging to the angels and the evil spirits. To 
 discover the names of the spirits, by applying to the 
 Hebrew text of Scripture the symbolical Cabala, was to 
 acquire some of the power they possessed. Thus, it being 
 said of the Sodomites that they were struck with blind- 
 ness, the Hebrew word for blindness was translated into 
 Chaldee, and the Chaldee word by one of the symbolical 
 processes was made to yield the name of a bad angel, 
 Schabriri, which, being written down, was employed as a 
 charm to cure ophthalmia. A common mode of conjura- 
 tion with these names of power was by the use of amulets, 
 pieces of paper or parchment on which, for certain pur- 
 poses, certain names were written. At his first entrance 
 into the world such an amulet, with the names " Senoi, 
 Sansenoi, Semongeloph," upon it, was slipped round the 
 neck of the new-born child, so that the infant scarcely 
 saw the light before it was collared by the genius of 
 superstition. 
 
 Another mode of conjuration consisted in the use, not 
 of names, but of the Psalms of David. Whole volumes
 
 JOHN REUCHLIN. 81 
 
 were written upon this use of the Psalms. The first of 
 them, written on doeskin, was supposed to help the birth 
 of children ; others could, it was thought, be so written as 
 to make those who carried them invisible ; others secured 
 favour from princes ; others extinguished fires. The 
 transcription of a psalm for any such purpose was no 
 trifling work, because, apart from the necessary care in 
 the formation of letters, some having a mystical reason for 
 being larger than others, it was necessary for the copyist, 
 as soon as he had written down one line, to plunge into a 
 bath. Moreover, that the charm might be the work of a 
 pure man, before beginning every new line of his manu- 
 script, it was thought necessary that he should repeat the 
 plunge. 
 
 Such were the mysteries of the Hebrew Cabala, 
 strangely blending a not unrefined philosophy with basest 
 superstition. It remains for us to form some just opinion 
 of the charm they had for many Christian scholars in the 
 first years of the sixteenth century. Reuchlin, or Capnio, 
 was of such scholars the leader and the type ; as such, in- 
 deed, he was accepted by the young Cornelius Agrippa. 
 He was the greatest Hebrew scholar of his day, and had 
 become so by his own natural bent. Born at Pfortzheim, 
 of the poorest parents, two-and-thirty years before Agrippa 
 came into the world, taught Latin at the town-school, 
 and winning in his youth a ducal patron by his tunable 
 voice as chorister in the court chapel at Baden, by his 
 quick wit, and his serene, lively, amiable temper, he never 
 afterwards lacked powerful assistance. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 The life of Reuchlin 1 is the story of the origin of 
 Greek and Hebrew studies among learned Europeans. 
 He was sent with the Margrave's son, afterwards Bishop 
 of Utrecht, to Paris. The fall of Constantinople, in 1453, 
 had caused fugitive Greeks to betake themselves to many 
 European cities, where they sometimes gave instruction in 
 their language. Reuchlin, at Paris, learned Greek from a 
 Spartan, who gave him instruction also in caligraphy, and 
 made him so clever a workman with his pen, that he could 
 eke out his means and buy books with money earned as a 
 Greek copyist. He studied Aristotle with the Spartan. 
 Old John Wessel, of Groningen, a disciple of Thomas a 
 Kempis, taught him Hebrew, and invited him to a direct 
 study of the Bible. At the age of twenty he was en- 
 gaged by publishers to write a Latin dictionary, which 
 he called Breviloquus. At the age of twenty he taught 
 Greek publicly, laying his main stress on a study of the 
 grammar ; the good sense he spoke emptied the benches 
 of the sophisters around him, and produced complaints 
 from old-fashioned professors. It was then urged that all 
 the views disclosed in Greek books were essentially op- 
 posed to the spirit and belief of Rome. The monks had 
 no commerce with the language; and when they came to 
 a Greek quotation in a book that they were copying, 
 were used to inscribe the formula " Graeca suntj non le- 
 guntur." Reuchlin maintained his ground, at twenty- 
 
 1 This sketch is drawn chiefly from Mayerhoff, with reference also to 
 Jteuchlin's Leben und die, Denkwiirdigkeiten seiner Vaterstadt, von Siegm. 
 Fr. Gehres, Carlsruhe, 1815, where the citation is not direct from Keuch- 
 lin's works. Mr. Barham's book has also been before me.
 
 REVIVAL OF GREEK STUDIES. 83 
 
 five wrote a Greek grammar, lectured at Poictiers, and 
 was made licentiate of civil law. His notion of law 
 studies was expressed in a formula that has been applied 
 in other terms to other things : In his first year the young 
 lawyer knows how to decide all causes, in the second be- 
 gins to be uncertain, in the third acknowledges that he 
 knows nothing, and then first begins to learn. In the 
 last of these stages of progress the licentiate of Poictiers 
 repaired to Tubingen, and practised as an advocate with 
 such success that he made money and married. At Tu- 
 bingen, Reuchlin won the confidence of Eberhard of the 
 Beard, became his private secretary and one of his privy- 
 councillors, and went with him to Rome in 1482, his age 
 then being eight-and-twenty. At Rome he distinguished 
 himself as an orator before the Pope, and was considered 
 to speak Latin wonderfully well for a German. After 
 his return to Germany, John Reuchlin remained with 
 Eberhard in Stuttgard, became assessor of the Supreme 
 Court at the age of thirty, and a year afterwards was 
 elected proctor for the body of the Dominicans through- 
 out all Germany, which unpaid office he held for nearly 
 thirty years. At the age of thirty-one he received at 
 Tubingen his doctorate, and in the year following, that is 
 to say, in the year of Cornelius Agrippa's birth, he was 
 sent with two others to Frankfort, Cologne, and Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, on the occasion of the coronation of Maximilian 
 as Roman emperor. Then it was that Maximilian first 
 became acquainted with him. Reuchlin had then a house 
 at Stuttgard, and was known as a great cultivator of the 
 G2
 
 84 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 learned languages, while he was also high in the favour of 
 his own prince, and in constant request as a practitioner 
 of law. In 1490 he was sent to Rome on another mission, 
 and on his way through Florence enjoyed personal inter- 
 course with Giovanni Pico di Mirandola, the scholar who, 
 although a determined antagonist to the astrologers, was 
 a great friend to cabalism and the introducer of the 
 cabalistic mysteries into the favour of Italian scholars. 
 By him Reuchlin was further stimulated to the love of 
 Hebrew lore. When, two years afterwards, Reuchlin 
 was at Linz on state business with the Emperor Frede- 
 ric III., it was something, indeed, that the base-born 
 scholar was raised to the dignity of count palatine, but it 
 was more to Reuchlin that the court physician was a 
 learned Jew, Jehiel Loans, who perfected his intimacy 
 with the Hebrew. His aim then was, above all thing?, 
 first to study the original text of the Old Testament, and 
 secondly to read the writings of the Cabalists. The 
 emperor, whose life was then about to close (he died 
 while Reuchlin was at Linz), saw here another way of 
 gratifying the agreeable and kindly scholar, for he not 
 only made Reuchlin a count palatine (his arms were a 
 golden altar, from which smoke arose, with the inscrip- 
 tion " Ara Capnionis"), but he also presented to him a 
 very ancient Hebrew Bible, written carefully on parch- 
 ment, a treasure then worth three hundred gold crowns, 
 which is to be seen still in the library of the Grand Duke 
 of Carlsruhe, where it is regarded as the oldest of its kind 
 in Europe. With the knowledge imparted by Jehiel
 
 THE STUDY OF HEBREW. 85 
 
 Loans, and the actual text in which all mysteries lay 
 hidden, Reuchlin went home enriched as much as he had 
 been ennobled. Hebrew writing was at that time very 
 rare, and was to be met with chiefly in the hands of 
 Jews. At Hebrew Reuchlin laboured, collecting He- 
 brew books and works expounding the Cabala, whenever 
 possible ; and eventually he gave life in Germany, as 
 Giovanni Pico di Mirandola was giving life in Italy, 
 to the cabalistical philosophy, the great impulse to this 
 German revival being the publication of the book on the 
 Mirific Word. It first appeared at Basle, in the year 
 1495, the author's age then being forty-one. It was not 
 published at Tubingen till 1514. The book was regarded 
 as a miracle of heavenly wisdom. Philip Beroaldus told 
 of the Pope's enjoyment, and wrote word also to its 
 author that he had caused not only men of letters, but 
 even statesmen and warriors, to betake themselves to 
 studying the mysteries of the Cabala. 
 
 The death of Reuchlin's patron, Eberhard the elder, 
 soon after his elevation to the rank of duke in 1495, was 
 followed by a period of misrule in the little state. One 
 of the first acts of Eberhard the younger was to release 
 his favourite, a dissolute priest, named Holzinger, from 
 the prison in which he had been kept by the good counsel 
 of Reuchlin; and for the further discomfiture of the 
 scholar this man was appointed chancellor over the uni- 
 versity of Tubingen. Reuchlin of course resigned. He 
 had been long wanted at Heidelberg, and went there to 
 be cherished by a new patron in the Elector Palatine.
 
 86 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 He showed, as usual, his lively energy by the establish- 
 ment of a Greek chair, which the monks pronounced upon 
 the spot to be a heresy ; and by venting his wrath against 
 Holzinger in a Latin comedy, denouncing dissolute priests, 
 which he called Sergius, or the Head of the Head. It 
 was written to be acted by the students. A Latin comedy 
 was then a rare thing in the land ; and the news that John 
 Reuchlin had written one was noised abroad. Prudent 
 friends' counselled him to beware of such unscrupulous and 
 powerful enemies as he would make if he attacked abuses 
 of the priesthood; he submitted to advice, and as he was 
 notoriously answerable for a comedy, and gossip must be 
 satisfied, he suddenly composed a substitute for that first 
 written. When, therefore, the day of the performance 
 came, it was found that the Greek professor had composed 
 a comedy against abuses in his own profession; it was a 
 castigation of dishonest advocates. Scenica Progymnas- 
 tica the piece was called. 
 
 After two years of misrule Eberhard the younger took 
 its consequences; he was then deposed, and Holzinger, 
 the monk, sent back to prison. " When the bricks are 
 doubled, Moses comes," said Reuchlin, and returned to 
 his old post at Tubingen. Hitherto his life of study had 
 not been unprofitable, nor, much benefit as he received 
 through patronage, was it a life wanting independence. 
 "Whatever," he says 1 , "I spent in learning, I acquired 
 by teaching 1 ." 
 
 1 " Nam universam stipem quam discendo impend!, docendo acquisivi." 
 Preface to the De Rudiinentis Hebraicis.
 
 POSITION AND CHARACTER OF REUCHLIN. 87 
 
 % 
 
 An anecdote of this good-humoured scholar may be 
 here interpolated, which displays his character in half a 
 dozen points of view. He was detained once in an inn 
 when it was raining very heavily, and of course had his 
 book with him. The rain had driven into the common 
 room a large number of country-people, who were making 
 a great noise. To quiet them Reuchlin called for a piece 
 of chalk, and drew with it a circle on the table before 
 which he sat. Within the circle he then drew a cross, 
 and also within it, on the right side of the cross, he 
 placed with great solemnity a cup of water, on the left he 
 stuck a knife upright. Then placing a book doubtless a 
 Hebrew one within the mysterious circle, he began to 
 read, and the rustics who had gathered round him, with 
 their mouths agape, patiently waited for the consequence 
 of all this conjuration. The result was that Reuchlin 
 finished comfortably the chapter he was reading without 
 being distressed even by a whisper of disturbance. 
 
 In the year 1502 Reuchlin was elected to the post of 
 general judge of alliance under the terms of the Suabian 
 league. His office was to adjudicate in all matters of 
 dispute among confederates and vassals, concerning the 
 interests of the emperor as Archduke of Austria, the 
 electors and princes. There was a second judge for 
 prelates, counts, and nobles, a third for imperial cities. 
 This post he held during eleven years ; he was holding it, 
 therefore, at the time when the young Cornelius Agrippa 
 undertook to comment publicly at Dole upon his book 
 concerning the Mirific Word, Reuchlin then being fifty-
 
 88 CORNELIUS AGR1PPA. 
 
 five years old, and at the summit of his fame, high, also, 
 in the good esteem of Maximilian. Three years before 
 this date, notwithstanding the great mass of legal business 
 entailed on him by his judicial office, Reuchlin had, to 
 the great help of all students, published a volume of the 
 Rudiments of Hebrew, which included both a grammar 
 and a dictionary 1 . This book, he wrote, " cost me the 
 greatest trouble, and a large part of my fortune 2 ." Cor- 
 nelius no doubt had learnt his Hebrew by the help of 
 it, and was already deep in studies -which a few years 
 afterwards brought the monks of Cologne into array 
 against Reuchlin himself, their hostility somewhat embit- 
 tered by an inkling of the Latin comedy that was not to be 
 quite suppressed. Cornelius, however, was the first to feel 
 the power of such enemies. By the Epistolas Obscurorum 
 Virorum the monks were destined to come off much 
 worsted from their battle against Reuchlin and the scholars 
 who defended his fair fame. Of their fortune in the battle 
 fought against Cornelius Agrippa it is one part of this his- 
 tory to tell. 
 
 Reuchlin wrote at a later period (1517) a book upon 
 the cabalistic art. If it is written God created heaven 
 
 1 The volume in three books, De Rudimentis Hebratcis, was printed by 
 Thomas Anshelm, of Pfortzheim, in a handsome quarto of 620 pages." The 
 prefatory address, " Ad Dionysium Fratrem suum germanum," contains a 
 brief autobiographical sketch. Though the book is written in Latin, in- 
 terspersed with Hebrew letters and words as they are discussed, the paging 
 is inverted, so that the volume begins at the end, in Hebrew style. The 
 last words are " Exegi monumentum sere perennius nonis Martiis Anno 
 M.D.VI. 
 
 2 J. Reuchlin, Phorc. LL. Dr. in Septem Psalmos Pasnitentiales Hebraicos 
 Interpretatio, &c., in preface.
 
 
 REUCHLIN'S CABALISM. 89 
 
 and earth, he interpreted that to mean spirit and matter, 
 the spirit consisting of the angels and ministers by whom 
 the ways of man are influenced. Magic, he said, dealt 
 with evil spirits, but the true Cabala only with the 
 good. He believed in astrology; and so, indeed, did 
 Luther and Melancthon ; Giovanni Pico di Mirandola at 
 Florence, while adopting the Cabala, was very singular in 
 his hostility to a belief in influences of the stars. His own 
 faith in cabalism Reuchlin enforced thus: God, out of love 
 to his people, has revealed the hidden mysteries to some 
 of them, and these could find in the dead letters the living 
 spirit. For Scripture consists of single letters, visible 
 signs, which stand in a certain connexion with the angels, 
 as celestial and spiritual emanations from God. By the 
 pronunciation of the one, the others also are affected ; but 
 with a true Cabalist, who penetrates the whole connexion 
 of the earthly with the heavenly, these signs, rightly 
 placed in connexion with each other, are a way of putting 
 him into immediate union with the spirits, who through 
 that are bound to satisfy his wishes 1 . 
 
 In his book called Capnio, or the Mirific Word, ex- 
 pounded at Dole by Cornelius Agrippa, Reuchlin placed 
 the Christian system in the centre of old heathen philoso- 
 phies, considering many of the doctrines of Pythagoras 
 and Plato as having been taken from, not introduced into, 
 the wisdom of the Cabalists. The argument is stated in 
 the form of dialogue, which is immediately preceded by a 
 summary of its intention that may very well suffice 
 
 1 This passage is quoted through Mayerhoff, loc. cit., p. 100.
 
 90 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 here for a summary of its contents 1 : " Receive, then, in 
 this book the argument on the Mirific Word of three 
 philosophers, whom I have feigned to be holding such 
 dispute among themselves as the controversies proper to 
 their sects would occasion, as to the best elucidation of 
 the hidden properties of sacred names. Out of which, 
 great as they are in number and importance, occasion will 
 at last be the more easily afforded for selecting one name 
 that is above all names supremely mirific and beatific. 
 And thus you may know the whole matter in brief. 
 Sidonius, at first ascribed to' the school of Epicurus, but 
 found afterwards, nullius jurare in verba magistri^ an un- 
 fettered philosopher, travels about to satisfy his thirst for 
 knowledge, and after many experiences enters Suabia, 
 where he meets in the town of Pfortzheim" (Reuchlin's 
 birthplace) "two philosophers Baruch, a Jew, and 
 Capnio" (Reuchlin himself), " a Christian, with whom he 
 disserts upon many systems, and presently upon the know- 
 ledge itself of divine and human things, upon opinion, 
 faith, miracles, the powers of words and figures, secret 
 operations, and the mysteries of seals. In this way question 
 arises concerning the sacred names and consecrated cha- 
 racters of all nations which have anything excellent in 
 their philosophy, or not unworthy in their ceremonies ; an 
 enumeration of symbols is made by each speaker zealously 
 on behalf of the rites cherished in his sect, until at last 
 
 1 Johannis Reuchlin, Phorcen. LL. Doctoris de Verio Mirifid. Libri Tres. 
 Ed. Colonise, 1532, fol. A iiii.
 
 REUCHLIN EXPOUNDED BY CORNELIUS. 91 
 
 Capnio, in the third book, collects out of all that is holy 
 one name, Jehosua, in which is gathered up the virtue and 
 power of all sacred things, and which is eternally, su- 
 premely blessed." 
 
 Here was a vast theme for the oratory of a youth of 
 twenty-three, and it was one also that enabled him to dis- 
 play the whole range of his learning. The newly recovered 
 treasures of Greek literature ; the study of Plato, that had 
 lately been revived by Marsilius Ficinus in Italy ; the study 
 of Aristotle, urged and helped in France by Faber Stapu- 
 lensis (d'Etaples), appeared to bring the fullest confirma- 
 tion of the principles of the Cabala to men ignorant, as all 
 were then, of the Greek source of more than half the later 
 mysticism of the Hebrews, which attributed to itself an 
 origin so ancient. That he had acquired so early in his 
 life Hebrew and Greek lore, that he was deeply read in 
 studies which were admired from afar only by so many 
 scholars of his day, and, thus prepared, that he discussed 
 mysteries about which men in all ages feel instinctive 
 curiosity, and men in that age reasoned eagerly, would 
 alone account sufficiently for the attention paid to the 
 young German by the university of Dole. Moreover, 
 while fulfilling his own private purpose, he appealed also 
 to the loyalty of the Burgundians, by delivering his 
 orations to all comers gratuitously, for the honour of the 
 Princess Margaret, their ruler, and opening them with 
 her panegyric. The young orator being also remarkable 
 for an effective manner of delivery, the grave and learned
 
 92 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 men who came to his prelections honoured him by diligent 
 attendance. 1 The exposition was made from the pulpit of 
 the gymnasium, before the parliament and magistracy of 
 Dole, the professors and the readers of the university. 
 Simon Vernet, vice-chancellor of the university, dean of 
 the church, and doctor in each faculty, was not once 
 absent. The worthy vice-chancellor, or dean, appears, 
 indeed, to have taken an especial interest in the fame of 
 their visitor. He had himself a taste for public declama- 
 tion, and to a friend who was urging on Cornelius that he 
 should seek durable fame rather by written than by spoken 
 words, expressed a contrary desire on his behalf. He pre- 
 ferred orator to author 2 . When Cornelius had complied 
 with the request of another friend, who wished to translate 
 into the vernacular his panegyric upon Margaret, praising 
 his oratory for the perfect fitness of each word employed 
 in it, and its complete freedom from verbiage, and desiring 
 that through a translation the illustrious princess might 
 be informed how famously Cornelius had spoken in her 
 honour, and so be the more disposed to reward him with 
 her favour, the translation came back with a note, saying 
 that the vice-chancellor had been its censor and corrector 3 . 
 Vernet was diligent, in fact, on the young scholar's behalf, 
 and his interests were seconded by the Archbishop of 
 Besangon. Not a syllable was whispered about heresy. 
 The friend who urged Cornelius, in spite of the dean's 
 
 1 Libellus De Nobilitate et Prcec. Fcem. Sex. in preface. The same autho- 
 rity covers the next fact or two. 
 * Ep. 18. Lib. i. p. 698. 3 Ep. 16. Lib. i. p. 697.
 
 LECTURING BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF DOLE. 93 
 
 contrary counsel, to become an author, gave a familiar 
 example from his own experience of the vanity of spoken 
 words. He had declaimed publicly from memory, and 
 without one hitch, upwards of two thousand two hundred 
 verses of his own composition, yet, because they were not 
 printed, earned only a temporary local fame. Of the value 
 of the written word evidence very soon afterwards was 
 enclosed to Cornelius by that other friend who had trans- 
 lated his oration. Zealous to do good service, he had 
 caused a copy of the panegyric to proceed, by way of 
 Lyons, on the road to royal notice, and delighted the 
 aspirant after patronage by enclosing to him flatteries from 
 John Perreal, a royal chamberlain 1 , probably the same 
 learned Frenchman who became known twenty or more 
 years later as Johannis Perellus, translated into Latin Gaza 
 on the Attic Months, and wrote a book about the Epacts 
 of the Moon. 
 
 To the youth flushed with triumph as a scholar there 
 came also reminders of the military life he was so ready to 
 forsake. A correspondent sent him news of a defeat of the 
 Venetians by the French, near Agnadello, the first fruits 
 of the discreditable league of Cambray. The French, 
 it will be remembered, won this victory while Maximilian, 
 their new ally, was still perplexed by the dissatisfaction of 
 his subjects evidenced during the late diet at Worms. 
 Agrippa's friend wished to have in return for his news 
 any knowledge that his relation to the emperor might 
 
 1 Ep. 18. Lib. i. p. 698.
 
 94 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 give him of intentions that might be disclosed at an 
 approaching diet 1 . His real intentions were to break a 
 pledge by marching against the Venetians ; his fate, to 
 retire ere long, defeated, from before the walls of Padua. 
 He was renewing with his enemy, the King of France, the 
 treaty of Cambray, and sending a messenger to Spire to 
 burn the book in which he had recorded all the injuries 
 and insults suffered by his family, or empire, at the hands 
 of France. Cornelius cared little for France or Padua ; 
 his hopes as a scholar were with Margaret at Ghent, 
 though she, too, being another member of the league, 
 could have employed him as a soldier. Other hopes, as 
 a man, he was directing towards a younger and a fairer 
 mistress. He desired not only to prosper but to marry. 
 
 The little university of Dole favoured the young man 
 heartily. His prelections had excited great attention, and 
 procured for him the admiration of the neighbourhood. 
 From the university they won for him at once the degree of 
 doctor in divinity, together with a stipend 2 . 
 
 1 Ep. 19. Lib. i. p. 699. 
 
 - Defensio Propositionum de Beatce Anna Monogamid, &c. Op. Tom. ii. 
 p. 596.
 
 DOCTOR AND SUITOR TO THE FAIR. 95 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA WRITES A TREATISE TO PROVE WOMAN THE BETTER 
 HALF OF MAN IN THE SAME YEAR HE TAKES A WIFE. 
 
 ANGLING for private patronage was in the sixteenth 
 century correlative to the habit not very uncommon in 
 these days of using baits to catch the public favour. Men 
 who once lived by the help of princes now owe their 
 support to the whole people, and the pains bestowed upon 
 a cultivation of the good-will of the people in these days 
 are neither less nor more to be reprehended than the 
 pains taken by scholars of past time to procure a safe 
 means of subsistence through the good-will of a prince. It 
 may be said, with a fair approximation to the truth, that 
 as much as a man may do now with the intention of de- 
 serving popularity, and not discredit himself in his own 
 eyes or those of the great number of his neighbours, he 
 might have done with as little discredit in the sixteenth 
 century with the design of earning favour from the great. 
 We have seen how, in the case of Reuchlin, a poor cho- 
 rister was fostered at first by small princes of Germany, 
 afterwards even by the emperor, and enabled to develop 
 into a great Hebrew scholar, when one patron died having
 
 96 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 another ready to befriend him, and enjoying dignity and 
 wealth with a complete sense of independence. That age 
 was, in fact, as far removed as this is from the transition 
 period, during which the patronage of letters by the great, 
 extinct as a necessity, survived as a tradition, and the 
 system that had once been vigorous and noble became 
 imbecile and base. 
 
 Nobody at Dole was ignorant that the design of Cor- 
 nelius Agrippa was to earn the patronage of Margaret, 
 a liberal encourager of learning. Nobody considered it 
 dishonourable to seek this by showing that it was de- 
 served. The prevalent feeling was so far removed from any 
 such impression, that from many quarters the young man 
 was urged to magnify his claim on Mai-garet's attention 
 by devoting not only the orations, but also some piece of 
 writing to her honour. Even the cordial vice-chancellor, 
 desirous to advance the interests of the young orator, set 
 aside his predilection for the" spoken word, and was among 
 the foremost in admonishing Cornelius to write. Not slow 
 to profit by advice that ran the same course with his incli- 
 nations, the new Doctor of Divinity set himself to display 
 his powers as a theologian in the true manner of the day, 
 and with theological acuteness to combine a courtier's 
 tact, by dedicating to the most conspicuous example of 
 his argument a treatise on the Nobility and Pre-excel- 
 lence of the Female Sex. As I have hinted, too, there 
 was a private example of it known to his own heart. 
 
 Before following him into this new field of study, there 
 is a private letter to be read a letter of recommendation
 
 QUESTIONS OF PATRONAGE. 97 
 
 sent from a friend of Cornelius at Chalon, one of the 
 mystical brethren perhaps, by a servant of the person re- 
 commended l . 
 
 " The bearer of these is the page of a certain nobleman 
 in Chalon, sent to fetch you hither, because his master is 
 in want of help and counsel: he is rich, and does not 
 spare his money. I have warned you of this for your 
 gain's sake : but just attend to what counsel I wish to 
 give you on this subject, for I desire to promote equally 
 your honour and profit. If, then, you can come hand- 
 somely dressed, so come, it will bring you trust and 
 advantage " (perhaps the young scholar was a little negli- 
 gent of his attire), " for you are not ignorant how much 
 respect and confidence is put on, if I may say so, with a 
 comely garment, especially in the opinion of those pur- 
 blind people who see only outsides of men. And if you 
 come directly you are wanted it will be much to your 
 hurt : therefore dissemble if you can, make excuses, put 
 off your coming to another time : meanwhile I will pro- 
 mote your interests. But if this nobleman, more greedy 
 to have you, goes to Dole for you himself, mind this, that 
 though you may know everything, be able to do every- 
 thing, do nothing, promise nothing, unless after re- 
 iterated urging. Only let yourself be forced to receive 
 favours. Even if you are in want of anything, dissemble 
 the want. The man grows warm, and when the iron 
 glows is the right time for striking. Understand these 
 matters secretly, the affair is yours, the counsel yours ; you 
 1 Ep. 20. Lib. i. p. 699. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 hold the reins of your own fortune. I will not be wanting 
 to you with my help as the occasion serves. Farewell." 
 
 Angling for patronage shown from another point of 
 view! mean arts used by mean spirits to compel the 
 favour of the rich and base. But to secure the favour of 
 the rich and noble the arts used were not to be accounted 
 mean. 
 
 Now let us trace in a brief summary the argument for 
 the Nobility of the Female Sex and the Superiority of 
 Woman over Man, written at Dole, in the year 1509, by 
 a Doctor of Divinity, aged twenty-three l . He sets out 
 with the declaration that when man was created male and 
 female, difference was made in the flesh, not in the soul. 
 He quotes Scripture to show that after the corruption of 
 our bodies difference of sex will disappear, and that we 
 shall all be like angels in the resurrection. As to soul, 
 then, man and woman are alike ; but as to everything 
 else the woman is the better part of the creation. 
 
 In the first place, woman being made better than man, 
 received the better name. Man was called Adam, which 
 means Earth ; woman Eva, which is by interpretation 
 Life. By as much as life excels earth woman there- 
 fore excels man. And this, it is urged, must not be 
 thought trivial reasoning, because the Maker of those 
 creatures knew what they were before He named them, 
 
 1 Henrici Cornelii Agrippw de Nobilitate et Prcecellentia Foeminei Sexus, ad 
 Margaretam Augustam Austriacorum et Burgundionwm Principem, &c. &c. 
 An. M.D.XXXII. Mense Maio. The outline is made from this, the first, 
 edition. The publication of the work was delayed for reasons that -will 
 afterwards appear.
 
 TREATS OF THE PRE-EMINENCE OF WOMAN. 99 
 
 and was One who could not err in properly describing 
 each. We know, and the Roman laws testify, that 
 ancient names were always consonant with the things 
 they represented, and names have been held always to 
 be of great moment by theologians and jurisconsults. 
 It is written thus of Nabal : " As his name is, so is he ; 
 Nabal is his name, and folly is with him." (1 Samuel, 
 xxv. 25.) Saint Paul, also, in his Epistle to the He- 
 brews, speaks of his Lord and Master, as " made so much 
 better than the .angels, as he hath obtained a more 
 excellent name than they." (Heb. i. 4.) The reader's 
 memory will at once supply the next passage of Scripture 
 quoted, I do not like to cite it. Agrippa then dilates, as 
 well he may, on the immense importance of words, 
 according to the practice of all jurists ; he tells how 
 Cyprian argued against the Jews that Adam's name was 
 derived from the initials of the Greek words meaning 
 east, west, north, and south : dvaroXfj, Svat?, apKTis, /leo-i/ijS/nos, 
 because his flesh was made out of the earth, though that 
 derivation was at variance with Moses, who put only three 
 letters in the Hebrew name. For this, however, adds 
 Agrippa, Cyprian was not to blame, since, like many 
 saints and expounders of the sacred text, he had not learnt 
 the Hebrew language. 
 
 Upon the word Eva it is further maintained that it 
 suggests comparison with the mystic symbols of the Ca- 
 balists, the name of the woman having affinity with the 
 ineffable Tetragrammaton, the most sacred name of the 
 Divinity ; while that of the man differed entirely from it. 
 H2
 
 100 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 All these considerations, however, Agrippa consents to 
 pass over, as matters read by few and understood by 
 fewer. The pre-eminence of the woman can be proved 
 out of her constitution, her gifts, and her merits. 
 
 The nature of woman is discussed, however, from the 
 theologian's point of view. Things were created in the 
 order of their rank. First, indeed, incorruptible soul, 
 then incorruptible matter, but afterwards, out of that 
 matter, more or less corruptible things, beginning with the 
 meanest. First minerals, then herbs, and shrubs and trees, 
 then zoophytes, then brutes in their order, reptiles first, 
 afterwards fishes, birds, quadrupeds. Lastly, two human 
 beings, but of these first the male, and finally the female, 
 in which the heavens and the earth and their whole 
 adornment were perfected. The divine rest followed, 
 because the work was consummated, nothing greater was 
 conceived ; the woman was thus left the most perfect and 
 the noblest of the creatures upon earth, as a queen placed 
 in the court that had been previously prepared for her. 
 Rightly, therefore, do all beings round about her pay to 
 this queen homage of reverence and love. 
 
 The difference between the woman and the man is yet 
 more strongly marked, says the deeply read theologian, 
 because the man was made like the brutes in open land 
 outside the gates of paradise, and made wholly of clay, 
 but the woman was made afterwards in paradise itself; 
 she was the one paradisaical creation. Presently there 
 follow Scripture arguments to show that the place of their 
 birth was a sign to men of honour or dishonour. The
 
 TREATS OF THE PRE-EMINENCE OF WOMAN. 101 
 
 woman, too, was not made of clay, but from an influx 
 of celestial matter ; since there went into her composition 
 nothing terrestrial except only one of Adam's ribs, and 
 that was not gross clay, but clay that had been already 
 purified and kindled with the breath of life. 
 
 The theological demonstrations Cornelius next confirms 
 by the evidence of some natural facts equally cogent and 
 trustworthy, which were held in that day by many wise 
 men to be equally true. It is because she is made of 
 purer matter that -a woman, from whatever height she 
 may look down, never turns giddy, and her eyes never 
 have mist before them like the eyes of men. Moreover, 
 if a woman and man tumble together into water, far away 
 from all external help, the woman floats long upon the 
 surface, but the man soon sinks to the bottom. Is there 
 not also the divine light shining through the body of the 
 woman, by which she is made often to seem a miracle of 
 beauty. Then follows a clever inventory of all a woman's 
 charms of person, written with due reserve, which might 
 be here translated, if the English language had the terse- 
 ness of the Latin. In short, woman is the sum of all 
 earth's beauty, and it is proved that her beauty has some- 
 times inspired even angels and demons with a desperate 
 and fatal love. Then follows a chain of Scripture texts 
 honouring female beauty, which all lead up to the twenty 
 thousand virgins, solemnly celebrated by the church, and 
 the admiration of the beauty of the Virgin Mary by the 
 sun and moon. 
 
 Texts follow that must be omitted, and then the argu-
 
 102 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 ment takes anatomical grounds of the most ingenious 
 character, and hows how every difference of structure 
 between the man and the woman gives to woman the 
 advantage due to her superior delicacy. Even after death 
 nature respects her inherent modesty, for a drowned 
 woman floats on her face, and a drowned man upon his 
 back. The noblest part of a human being is the head; 
 but the man's head is liable to baldness, woman is never 
 seen bald. The man's face is often made so filthy by a 
 most odious beard, and so covered with sordid hairs, that 
 it is scarcely to be distinguished from the face of a wild 
 beast; in women, on the other hand, the face always re- 
 mains pure and decent. For this reason women were, by 
 the laws of the twelve tables, forbidden to rub their 
 cheeks lest hair should grow and obscure their blushing 
 modesty. But the most evident proof of the innate 
 purity of the female sex is, that a woman having once 
 washed is clean, and if she wash in second water will not 
 soil it ; but that a man is never clean, though he should 
 wash in ten successive waters, he will cloud and infect 
 them all. 
 
 Some other marvellous peculiarities I must omit, and 
 pass to Agrippa's appreciation of the woman's predomi- 
 nance in the possession of the gift of speech, the most ex- 
 cellent of human faculties, which Hermes Trismegistus 
 thought equal to immortality in value, and Hesiod pro- 
 nounced the best of human treasures. Man, too, receives 
 this gift from woman, from his mother or his nurse ; and 
 it is a gift bestowed upon woman herself with such libe-
 
 TREATS OF THE PRE-EMINENCE OF WOMAN. 103 
 
 rality that the world has scarcely seen a woman who was 
 mute. Is it not fit that women should excel men in that 
 faculty, wherein men themselves chiefly excel the brutes? 
 
 The argument again becomes an edifice of Scripture 
 text, and it is well to show the nature of it, though we 
 may shrink from the misuse of sacred words, because it is 
 well thoroughly to understand how Scripture was habitu- 
 ally used by professed theologians in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and from this light example to derive a grave lesson, 
 perhaps, that may be, even to the people of the nineteenth 
 century, not wholly useless. 
 
 Solomon's texts on the surpassing excellence of a good 
 woman of course are cited, and a cabalistic hint is given 
 of the efficacy of the letter H, which Abram took away 
 from his wife Sarah, and put into the middle of his own 
 name, after he had been blessed through her. Benedic- 
 tion has come always by woman, law by man. We have 
 all sinned in Adam, not in Eve; original sin we inherit 
 only from the father of our race. The fruit of the tree 
 of knowledge was forbidden to man only, before woman 
 was made; woman received no injunction, she was created 
 free. She was not blamed, therefore, for eating, but for 
 causing sin in her husband by giving him to eat; and she 
 did that not of her own will, but because the devil tempted 
 her. He chose her as the object of temptation, as St. 
 Bernard says, because he saw with envy that she was the 
 most perfect of creatures. She erred in ignorance because 
 she was deceived ; the man sinned knowingly. Therefore 
 our Lord made atonement in the figure of the sex that had
 
 104 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 sinned, and also for more complete humiliation came in 
 the form of a man, not that of a woman, which is nobler 
 and sublimer. He humbled himself as man, but overcame 
 as a descendant of the woman ; for the seed of the woman, 
 it was said, not the seed of man, should bruise the serpent's 
 head. He would not, therefore, be born of a man ; woman 
 alone was judged worthy to be the earthly parent of the 
 Deity. Risen again, he appeared first to women. Men 
 forsook him, women never. No persecution, heresy, or 
 error in the Church ever began with the female sex. They 
 were men who betrayed, sold, bought, accused, condemned, 
 mocked, crucified the Lord. Peter denied him, his dis- 
 ciples left him. "Women were at the foot of the cross, 
 women were at the sepulchre. Even Pilate's wife, who 
 was a heathen, made more effort to save Jesus than any 
 man among believers. Finally, do not almost all theolo- 
 gians assert that the Church is maintained by the Virgin 
 Mary? 
 
 Aristotle may say that of all animals the males are 
 stronger and wiser than the females, but St. Paul writes 
 that weak things have been chosen to confound the strong. 
 Adam was sublimely endowed, but woman humbled him ; 
 Samson was strong, but woman made him captive; Lot 
 was chaste, but woman seduced him ; David was religious, 
 but woman disturbed his piety; Solomon was wise, but 
 woman deceived him ; Job was patient, and was robbed 
 by the devil of fortune and family; ulcerated, grieved, 
 oppressed, nothing provoked him to anger till a woman 
 did it, therein proving herself stronger than the devil.
 
 TREATS OF THE PRE-EMINENCE OF WOMAN. 105 
 
 Peter was fervent in faith, but woman forced him to deny 
 his lord. Somebody may remark that all these illustra- 
 tions tend to woman's shame, not to her glory, Woman, 
 however, may reply to man as Innocent III. wrote to some 
 cardinal, " If one of us is to be confounded, I prefer that 
 it be you." Civil law allows a woman to consult her own 
 gain to another's hurt; and does not Scripture itself often 
 extol and bless the evil deeds of the woman more than the 
 good deeds of the man. Is not Rachel praised who de- 
 ceived her father? JRebecca, because she obtained fraudu- 
 lently Jacob's benediction? Is not the deceit of Rahab 
 imputed to her as justice? Was not Jael blessed among 
 women for a treacherous and cruel deed? What could 
 be more iniquitous than the counsel of Judith ? what more 
 cruel than her wiles? what worse than her perfidy? Yet 
 for this she is blessed, lauded, and extolled in Scripture, 
 and the woman's iniquity is reputed better than the 
 goodness of the man. Was not Cain's a good work when 
 he oifered his best fruits in sacrifice and was reproved for 
 it? Did not Esau well when he hunted to get venison 
 for his old father, and in the mean time was defrauded of 
 his birthright, and incurred the divine hate? Other 
 examples are adduced, and robust scholars, ingenious 
 theologians, are defied to find an equal amount of evidence 
 in support of the contrary thesis, that the iniquity of the 
 man is better than the goodness of the woman. Such a 
 thesis, says Agrippa, could not be defended. 
 
 From this point to the end Agrippa's treatise consists 
 of a mass of illustrations from profane and Scripture
 
 106 COKNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 history, classified roughly. Some are from natural history. 
 The queen of all birds, he says, is the eagle, always of the 
 female sex, for no male eagles have been found. The 
 phoenix is a female always. On the other hand, the most 
 pestilent of serpents, called the basilisk, exists only as a 
 male ; it is impossible for it to hatch a female. 
 
 All evil things began with men, and few or none with 
 women. We die in the seed of Adam and live in the 
 seed of Eve. The beginning of envy, the first homicide, 
 the first parricide, the first despair of divine mercy was 
 with man ; Lamech was the first bigamist, Noah was the 
 first drunkard, Nimrod the first tyrant, and so forth. Men 
 were the first to league themselves with demons and dis- 
 cover profane hearts. Men have been incontinent, and 
 had, in innumerable instances, to each man many wives at 
 once ; but women have been continent, each content with 
 a single husband, except only Bathsheba. Many women 
 are then cited as illustrations of their sex in this respect, 
 or for their filial piety, including Abigail, Lucretia, Cato's 
 wife, and the mother of the Gracchi, the vestal Claudia, 
 Iphigenia. If any one opposes to such women the wives 
 of Zoilus, Samson, Jason, Deiphobus, and Agamemnon, 
 it may be answered that these have been unj ustly accused, 
 that no good man ever had a bad wife. Only bad hus- 
 bands get bad wives, or if they get a good one, are some- 
 times able to corrupt her excellence. If women made the 
 laws, and wrote the histories and tragedies, could they 
 not j ustly crowd them with testimony to the wickedness 
 of men. Our prisons are full of men, and slain men
 
 TREATS OF THE PRE-EMINENCE OF WOMAN. 107 
 
 cumber the earth everywhere, but women are the be- 
 ginners of all liberal arts, of virtue, and beneficence. 
 Therefore the arts and virtues commonly have feminine 
 names. Even the corners of the world receive their 
 names from women : the nymph Asia ; Europa, the 
 daughter of Agenior ; Lybia, the daughter of Epaphus, 
 who is called also Aphrica. 
 
 Illustrations follow of the pre-eminence of women in 
 good gifts, and it is urged that Abraham, who by his 
 faith was accounted just, was placed in subjection to 
 Sarah his wife, and was told, " In all that Sarah hath said 
 unto thee, hearken unto her voice." (Gen. xxi. 12.) 
 
 There follows a host of other illustrations of the excel- 
 lence of woman, drawn from all sources ; among others, 
 illustrations of her eminence in learning. "And," adds 
 Agrippa, " were not women now forbidden to be literary, 
 we should at this day have most celebrated women, whose 
 wit would surpass that of men. What is to be said upon 
 this head, when even by nature women seem to be born 
 easily superior to practised students in all faculties ? Do 
 not the grammarians entitle themselves masters of right 
 speaking ? Yet we learn this far better from our nurses 
 
 and our mothers than from the grammarians For 
 
 that reason Plato and Quintilian so solicitously urged a 
 careful choice of children's nurses, that the children's 
 language might be formed on the best model. Are not 
 the poets in the invention of their whims and fables, the 
 dialecticians in their contentious garrulity, surpassed by 
 women ? Was ever orator so good or so successful, that
 
 108 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 a courtesan could not excel his powers of persuasion? 
 What arithmetician by false calculation would know how 
 to cheat a woman in the payment of a debt ? What 
 musician equals her in song and in amenity of voice? 
 Are not philosophers, mathematicians, and astrologers 
 often inferior to country-women in their divinations and 
 prediction?, and does not the old nurse very often beat 
 the doctor ? " Socrates himself, the wisest of men, did 
 not disdain to receive knowledge from Aspasia, nor did 
 Apollo the Theologian despise the teaching of Priscilla. 
 
 Then follows a fresh stdng of illustrations by which we 
 are brought to a contemplation of the necessity of woman 
 for the perpetuation of any state, and the cessation of the 
 human race that may be consequent on her withdrawal. 
 Through more examples we are brought then to consider 
 the honour and precedence accorded by law and usage to 
 the female sex. Man makes way for woman on the public 
 road, and yields to her in society the highest places. 
 Purple and fine linen, gold and jewels are conceded as the 
 fit adornments of her noble person, and from the sump- 
 tuary laws of the later emperors women were excepted. 
 Illustrations follow of the dignity and privileges of the 
 wife, and of the immunities accorded to her by the law. 
 Reference is made to ancient writers, who tell how, among 
 the Getulians, the Bactrians, and others, men were the 
 softer sex, and sat at home while women laboured in the 
 fields, built houses, transacted business, rode abroad, and 
 went out to do battle. Among the Cantabrians men 
 brought dowries to their wives, brothers were given in
 
 TREATS OF THE FEE-EMINENCE OF WOMAN. 109 
 
 marriage by their sisters, and the daughters of a house- 
 hold were the heirs. Among the Scythians, Thracians, 
 and Gauls, women possessed their rights, but among us, 
 said Agrippa, " the tyranny of men prevailing over divine 
 right and the laws of nature, slays by law the liberty of 
 woman, abolishes it by use and custom, extinguishes it by 
 education. For the woman, as soon as she is born, is from 
 her earliest years detained at home in idleness, and as if 
 destitute of capacity for higher occupations, is permitted 
 to conceive of nothing beyond needle and thread. Then 
 when she has attained years of puberty she is delivered 
 over to the jealous empire of a man, or shut up for ever in 
 a shop of vestals. The law also forbids her to fill public 
 offices. No prudence entitles her to plead in open court." 
 A list follows of the chief disabilities of women, " who are 
 treated by the men as conquered by the conquerors, not 
 by any divine necessity, for any reason, but according to 
 custom, education, fortune, and the tyrant's opportunity." 
 A few leading objections are then answered. Eve was 
 indeed made subject to man after the fall, but that curse 
 was removed when man was saved. Paul says that " Wives 
 are to be subject to their husbands, and women to be 
 silent in the church," but he spoke of temporal church 
 discipline, and did not utter a divine law, since " in Christ 
 there is neither male nor female, but a new creature." 
 "We are again reminded of the text subjecting Abraham 
 to Sarah, and the treatise closes then with a short re- 
 capitulation of its heads. " We have shown," Agrippa 
 says, " the pre-eminence of the female sex by its name, its
 
 110 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 order and place of creation, the material of which it was 
 created, and the dignity that was given to woman over 
 man by God, then by religion, by nature, by human 
 laws, by various authority, by reason, and have demon- 
 strated all this by promiscuous examples. Yet we have 
 not said so many things but that we have left more still 
 'to be said, because I carne to the writing of this not 
 moved by ambition, or for the sake of bringing myself 
 praise, but for the sake of duty and truth, lest, like a 
 sacrilegious person, I might seem, if I were silent, by an 
 impious taciturnity (and as it were a burying of my talent) 
 to refuse the praises due to so devout a sex. So that if 
 any one more curious than I am should discover any 
 argument which he thinks requisite to be added to this 
 work, let him expect to have his position not contested 
 by me, but attested, in as far as he is able to carry on this 
 good work of mine with his own genius and learning. 
 And that this work itself may not become too large a 
 volume, here let it end." 
 
 Such was the treatise written by Cornelius at Dole for 
 the more perfect propitiation of the Princess Margaret. 
 Many years elapsed before it was printed and presented 
 to the princess; doubtless, however, the youth read the 
 manuscript to his betrothed very soon after it was written. 
 Towards the close of the year a friend in Cologne wrote 
 to Agrippa of the impatience of his parents for their son's 
 return, but at the close of November another friend in 
 Cologne, Theodoric, Bishop of Cyrene, asking as an espe- 
 cial favour for his views upon judicial astrology so hotly
 
 MARRIES. Ill 
 
 opposed by Pic di Mirandola, says that his expressions on 
 the subject had appeared to him ambiguous when they 
 conversed together 1 . Probably he had then been offering 
 to the embrace of his parents not a son only, but a son 
 and daughter, for it is said to have been in the year 1509, 
 when all was honour for him in the present, all hope in the 
 future, that Cornelius von Nettesheim married Jane Louisa 
 Tyssie 3 , of Geneva, a maiden equal to him in rank, remark- 
 able for beauty, and yet more remarkable for her aspirations 
 and her worth. She entered with her whole soul into the 
 spirit of her husband's life, rejoiced in his ambition, and 
 knew how to hold high converse with his friends 3 . The 
 marriage was in every respect a happy one ; there was a 
 world of gentleness and loving kindness in Agrippa's heart. 
 We shall have revelation of it as the narrative proceeds. 
 The tenderness of his nature mingles strangely, sadly, with 
 his restlessness, his self-reliance, and his pride. 
 
 So, full of hope and happiness, at the age of twenty- 
 three, he took to wife a maiden who could love him for 
 his kindliness, and reverence him for his power. He was 
 no needy adventurer, but the son of a noble house, who 
 was beginning, as it seemed, the achievement of the 
 highest honours. He was surrounded by admirers, already 
 a doctor of divinity, hereafter to attain he knew not what. 
 Fostered by Maximilian's daughter, what might not his 
 intellect achieve ? 
 
 1 Ep. 21. Lib. i. p. 700. 
 
 2 Thevet. Portraits et Vies des ffommes Ilhistres (ed. Paris, 1584), Tom. ii. 
 p. 542. " II espousa Mademoiselle Louyse Tyssie, issue de fort noble 
 maison, 1'an de son aage vingt et trois, et de salut, mil cinq cens et neuf." 
 
 3 She is made in this character the subject of verses by Agrippa's friends.
 
 112 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Poor boy, even in that year of hope the blight was 
 already settling on his life ! While he was writing praise 
 of womanhood at Dole to win the smiles of Margaret, 
 Catilinet, a Franciscan friar 1 , who had been at the 
 adjacent town of Gray when Reuchlin was expounded, 
 meditated cruel vengeance on the down-chinned scholar. 
 At Ghent, as preacher before the Regent of the Nether- 
 lands and all her court, Catilinet was to deliver in the 
 Easter following the Quadragesimal Discourses. Against 
 the impious Cabalist he was preparing to arouse the wrath 
 of Margaret during those same days which were spent 
 by the young student in pleasant effort to deserve her 
 kindness. 
 1 Expost. contra Catilinet, and Preface to the De Nob. et Prcec. F. S.
 
 STUDENT OF MAGIC. 113 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CORNELIUS AQRIPPA WRITES THREE BOOKS OF MAGIC AN ACCOUNT OF 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF'MAGIC CONTAINED IN THE FIRST OF THEM. 
 
 STILL in the year 1509 and in the first months of the 
 year 1510, in that year of activity, twenty-third only of 
 his life, which set a stamp upon his subsequent career, 
 and is the most important date in this biography, Cor- 
 nelius A grippa, with the courage of youth and the am- 
 bition of youth, compiled into a system all the lore he 
 had been gathering, and wrote his Books of Magic 1 . 
 Magical studies were for the most part discouraged in 
 those days, not by enlightened scepticism, but by ignorant 
 credulity and superstitious fear. Only a few men of that 
 age had stepped very far in intellect before their time, 
 and to the number of these Cornelius did not belong. 
 But the part of his own time which he represented (I 
 leave out of account its foremost pioneers) was certainly 
 the best part. Truth was better served, the right of free 
 
 1 They had not only been submitted to the Abbot Trittenheim, but had 
 been read and were criticised by him on the 8th of April, 1510, in a letter 
 which is both included in the correspondence and prefixed to all editions of 
 the work itself. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 CORNELIUS XGRIPPA. 
 
 inquiry was more manfully asserted, by the writing of 
 those books, which seem to us so full of error and ab- 
 surdity, than by that spirit in the priests and in the popu- 
 lace which caused the writer of them to be looked upon 
 with a vague dread and with aversion. 
 
 We must know now what the young man wrote, and 
 in what spirit it was written. To a comprehension of 
 the meaning of Agrippa's life, and to a just opinion of 
 his right place in the history of literature, a careful sur- 
 vey of these books of magic is essential. In this chapter, 
 therefore, and in the three chapters which succeed it, 
 an attempt is made to represent them, of course very 
 much reduced in scale, but still with enough fulness of 
 detail to suggest their scope and spirit. Such a sketch, 
 too, may not be without an adventitious use, by showing 
 how much wisdom may have once gone to the begetting 
 of ideas for which even the ignorant are now either pitied 
 or reviled ; that it is man*s reason of yesterday which has 
 become his superstition of to-day. 
 
 Before passing to the following scheme of Cornelius 
 Agrippa's Treatise upon Magic, as representing, at the 
 period of his life which we have now reached, an im- 
 portant feature in its author's mind, it may be well to 
 say, that we must imagine ourselves looking over it as it 
 lies finished on its author's desk. It is, in the years 
 1509-10, a manuscript and not a book 1 . 
 
 1 There were translations into most languages of these Books of Occult 
 Science within the century and a half succeeding their first publication. 
 The best of the English translations (Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 
 written by Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Counsellor to Charles the Fifth,
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 115 
 
 Every inferior is governed by its superior, and receives, 
 transmitted through it, the influence of the First Cause 
 of all. There is a threefold world an elementary, a 
 celestial, and an intellectual and these three parts of the 
 universe Cornelius intends to treat in his Three Books of 
 Mastic. Wise men conceive it in no way irrational to 
 ascend by degrees through each world to the Author of 
 All Worlds, and not only to admire the more exalted 
 things, but to draw down their virtues from above. 
 They search, therefore, the powers of the elementary 
 world, by studying physics and the many combinations 
 of things natural ; they inquire into the harmonies of the 
 celestial world, by studying the mysteries of numbers and 
 proportion, and applying to a contemplation of the stars 
 the rules discovered by astrologers. Finally, they ratify 
 and confirm this knowledge by a study of the intelli- 
 gences working in the world, and of the sacred mysteries. 
 Upon these matters Cornelius says that he intends to 
 treat. " I know not," he adds, " whether it be an un- 
 pardonable presumption in me, that I, a man of so little 
 judgment and learning, should, in my very youth, set 
 upon a business so difficult, so hard, and intricate, as this 
 is. Wherefore, whatsoever things have here been already, 
 
 Emperor of Germany, and Judge of the Prerogative Court. Translated by 
 J. F. London, 1651.) is not very complete, and contains numerous blun- 
 ders ; but I have had it before me while making the succeeding abstract, 
 and, as far as the sense allowed, when using Agrippa's words, have often 
 made use of its old-fashioned phraseology. The first Book of Occult 
 Science was issued before the rest, and it is to the first edition of it (Henrici 
 Cor. Agrippce ab Nettesheym a Cansiliis et Arckivis Inditiarii sacra Ccesarece 
 Majestatis. De Occulta Philosophm Libri Tres (ending suddenly at Book I.). 
 Antwerp, Joan. Graphaeus, February, 1531) that succeeding notes refer. 
 12
 
 116 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and shall afterwards be said by me, I would not have any 
 one assent to them, nor shall I myself, any further than 
 they shall not suffer reprobation of the universal Church 
 and congregation of the faithful 1 ." 
 
 In the second chapter, Magic is defined and lauded as 
 the whole knowledge of nature, the perfection of all true 
 philosophy. For there is no regular philosophy that is 
 not natural, mathematical, or, theological, one teaching 
 the nature of those things that are in the world, another 
 teaching the quantity of bodies in their three dimen- 
 sions, and the motion of celestial bodies, and the last 
 teaching what God is, what the mind, what an intelli- 
 gence, what an angel, what a devil, what a soul, what 
 religion, what sacred rites and mysteries, instructing us, 
 also, concerning faith, miracles, the virtues of words and 
 figures, the secret operations and mysteries of seals. 
 These three principal faculties Natural Magic joins and 
 comprehends ; there is no true magic apart from any one. 
 Therefore, this was esteemed by the ancients as the 
 highest and most sacred philosophy. Cornelius cites a 
 roll of names, and adds, " It is well known that Pytha- 
 goras and Plato went to the prophets of Memphis to 
 learn it, and travelled through almost all Syria, Egypt, 
 Judaea, and the schools of the Chaldeans, that they might 
 not be ignorant of the most sacred memorials and records 
 of magic, as also that they might be imbued with divine 
 things 2 ." 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil. ed. cit. ad fin. cap. i. B. (Pagination is by the lettering 
 of sheets.) 
 ' Ibid. ed. cit. B 2.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 117 
 
 The next four chapters, of which two are general and 
 two are special, open the discussion upon natural philosophy 
 with an account of the four elements, Fire, Earth, Water, 
 Air, whereof by transmutation and union all inferior 
 bodies are compounded. None of the sensible elements 
 are pure, but more or less mixed, and they are convertible 
 into each other ; thus earth being dissolved produces water, 
 which being evaporated becomes air, and kindled air is fire, 
 and out of fire may come earth or stone, as is proved in 
 the case of thunderbolts. Between the four elements there 
 are many relations of likeness and unlikeness. Thus fire 
 is hot and dry, earth is dry and cold, water is cold and 
 moist, air is moist and hot; so that only fire and water? 
 earth and air, are perfect contraries. Plato assigns to each 
 three qualities: as to the fire, brightness, thinness, motion; 
 to the earth darkness, thickness, quietness ; to the others 
 other combinations of these qualities, while by them all 
 these qualities are possessed in contrasted proportions. 
 
 But beyond such necessary considerations, not less ne- 
 cessary is a knowledge of the fact that there are three 
 separate states in which the elements exist. First, they 
 are pure, distinct, and incorruptible, in which state they are 
 the secondary causes of all natural operations. Secondly, 
 they are compounded and impure, but capable of being 
 resolved by art into their perfect form. Thirdly, they are 
 elements that were from the beginning interchangeable 
 and twice compounded. They are in this last form known 
 as the infallible medium, or soul of middle nature, through 
 which proceed all bindings, loosings, transmutations, and
 
 118 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 which are operative in all mysteries, both mundane and 
 divine. 
 
 We treat now separately of the power of each element. 
 
 Fire, it will be found, is spread abroad in the heavens, 
 and the heat of it is sensible in the water and the 
 earth. In itself it is one, but in that which receives it 
 manifold. Whatever lives, lives by reason of the enclosed 
 heat. The infernal fire parches and makes barren; the 
 celestial fire drives away spirits of darkness, and our custo- 
 mary fire of wood drives them away, because it is the 
 vehicle of that superior light, and comes through it from 
 the Father of Lights. As, therefore, the spirits of darkness 
 are stronger in the dark, so good spirits are more powerful 
 in the light, not only of the sun, but of our common fire. 
 Therefore it was ordained, by the first ceremonies of reli- 
 gion, that there should be lighted candles or torches 
 wherever worship was performed, and hence the symbol 
 of Pythagoras, You must not speak of God without a 
 jight 1 . Also for the driving away of evil spirits fires were 
 kindled near the corpses of the dead ; and the great 
 Jehovah himself commanded that with fire all sacrifices 
 should be offered. 
 
 But in the earth are the seeds of all things. Take as 
 much of it as you please, wash it, purify it, let it lie in the 
 open air, and it will, being full of heavenly virtues, of 
 itself produce plants, worms and living things, stones and 
 bright sparks of metal. If at any time earth shall be 
 purified by fire, and reduced by a convenient washing to 
 1 De Occ. Phil. ed. cit. C.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 119 
 
 simplicity, it is the first matter of our creation, and the 
 truest medicine that can restore or preserve us. 
 
 Water is the seminary virtue of all things. Only earth 
 and water, Moses teaches, can bring forth a living soul; 
 and Scripture testifies that herbs did not at first grow, 
 because God had not caused it to rain upon the earth. 
 Such is the efficacy of this element of water, that without 
 it spiritual regeneration cannot be accomplished; very 
 great, also, is the virtue of it, when it has been consecrated 
 to religious worship. 
 
 Air is a vital spirit passing through all beings, filling, 
 binding, moving. The Hebrew doctors, therefore, reckon 
 it not as an element, but count it as a medium, or glue, 
 joining all things together, or as the resonant spirit of the 
 world's instrument It receives into itself the influences 
 of celestial bodies, and transmits them readily. As a 
 divine mirror, it receives into itself the images of all things, 
 and retains them. Carrying them with it, and entering 
 into the bodies of men and other animals through their 
 pores, as well when they sleep as when they wake, it 
 furnishes the matter for strange dreams and divinations. 
 Hence they say it is, that a person passing by the spot 
 whereon a man was slain, or where the carcase has been 
 recently concealed, is moved with fear and dread; because 
 the air in that place being full of the dreadful image of 
 manslaughter, doth, being breathed in, move and trouble 
 the spirit of the passer-by with the like image, whence it is 
 that he comes to be afraid. For by everything that makes 
 a sudden impression nature is astonished. By the natural
 
 120 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 images of trees and castles formed on clouds, by the rain- 
 bow, and by a strange way of reflecting writing back 
 into the sky, together with a moonbeam falling on it, as 
 well as by a reference to the echo, these matters are 
 further illustrated. Of air in motion, or the winds, 
 Agrippa speaks next, using chiefly the poetical descrip- 
 tions to be found in Ovid, for these early writings of his 
 are embellished liberally with quotations from the poets. 
 
 After the four elements there come to be discussed the 
 four kinds of perfect compounds 1 generated by them: 
 stones, metals, plants, and animals. Though each contains 
 all four, in each one element predominates : earth in the 
 stone, water in metals (as chemists find to be true, who 
 declare that they are generated by a viscous water, or 
 waterish quicksilver); with air plants have so much 
 affinity, that unless they be abroad in it they give no in- 
 crease, and fire is not less natural to animals. Then in 
 each, according to its kind, and even in parts of each, the 
 degrees of preponderance are varied. Thus in plants the 
 roots resemble the earth, by reason of their thickness, and 
 the leaves water, because of their juice; flowers the air, 
 because of their subtilty, and the seeds the fire, by reason 
 of their multiplying spirit. In animals the bones resemble 
 the earth, flesh the air, the vital spirit fire, the humours 
 water. Nay, even in the soul itself, according to Augustine, 
 the understanding will resemble fire, reason the air, imagina- 
 tion water, and the senses earth. The senses, too, are so 
 divisible ; for he sight is fiery, acting only by the help of 
 1 Z> Oce. Phil. ed. cit. cap. vii.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 121 
 
 fire and light; the hearing is airy, for a sound is made by 
 striking of the air; the smell and taste resemble water, for 
 they act not without moisture; and lastly, the feeling is 
 wholly earthy, taking gross bodies for its object. So, too, 
 with man's character, for as the elements are the first of 
 all things, so all things are of and according to them, and 
 they are in all things, and diffuse their virtues through 
 them. 
 
 For, in the exemplary as in the corporeal world, by 
 the consent of Platonists, all things are in all. The 
 elements are to be found everywhere, here feculent and 
 gross, in celestials more pure and clear, but in super- 
 celestials living and blessed. There are earthy, fiery, 
 watery, airy angels, devils, stars; the elements exist, 
 also, in the Great Source of all. 
 
 The first or secondary qualities of things, natural, 
 elementary, or mixed, depend immediately upon the 
 first virtues of the elements contained in them, or the 
 proportion of their mixture 1 . 
 
 But there are in all things occult virtues 2 , and the 
 consideration of these opens up a new division of the 
 subject. For the occult virtue does not proceed from 
 any element, but is a sequel of its species and form ; so 
 that, unlike the operation of an element, its being little 
 in quantity (hear this, all homoeopathists !) is of great 
 efficacy, because these virtues, having much form and 
 little matter, can do much ; but an elementary virtue, 
 having much materiality, requires more matter for its 
 1 De Occ. Phil. ed. cit. cap, ix. Ibid. cap. x.
 
 122 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 acting. The universe abounds in examples of these 
 qualities, called occult, because their causes lie beyond 
 the reach of human intellect; philosophers attain to them 
 by the help of experience alone. Thus, in the stomach 
 the meat is digested by heat, which we know; but it is 
 changed also by a secret virtue which we know not ; for 
 truly it is not changed by heat, because then it should 
 rather be changed by the fireside than in the stomach. 
 To this class belong, therefore, all accredited marvels 
 which are past all ordinary comprehension. There was 
 no lack of them when Cornelius Agrippa wrote, and it 
 is hard to see how, without some such theory as this of 
 occult powers, any rational attempt could be made to 
 bring them into harmony with other knowledge. For 
 we are, by this time, well assured that nothing is in- 
 credible by reason of its being marvellous ; we call things 
 incredible only when they oppose themselves to what we 
 know to be the universal laws. When those laws re- 
 mained yet for the most part undiscovered, and the eyes 
 of students, dazzled by the newly-opened glories of Greek 
 literature, had no means of perceiving that its science was 
 less ripe than its philosophy, and that its philosophy was 
 not as perfect as they knew its poetry to be, it was im- 
 possible to refuse credence to records left by the Greek 
 sages, of their wide experience or knowledge. Nothing 
 was yet known to refute their theories, and the wisest 
 man could, as a mere scholar, do no more, till the old 
 records of experience were practically tested by a genera- 
 tion or two, and found wanting, than accept the au-
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 123 
 
 thority of Plato, Aristotle, and bring their opinions into 
 harmony with those then held to be indisputable by the 
 Christian world. If it was right to make any attempt at 
 all to form what was then known or believed of the uni- 
 verse into a comprehensive and coherent system, there 
 was no better way of doing it than this. 
 
 At the basis of the theory of occult virtues, as stated 
 by Cornelius Agrippa, lies the Platonic 1 notion of supe- 
 rior ideas. Everything below has a celestial pattern, and 
 receives from its own idea operative powers through the 
 
 1 Many parts of this philosophy are modifications of the doctrine to be 
 found in the Timaeus. The basis of the next following assertions, for ex- 
 ample, may be found in the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of that exposi- 
 tion of the views of Plato on the constitution of the physical world ; still 
 more distinctly, however, in that later treatise on The Soul of the World and 
 Nature, which its writer founded upon the Timceus of Plato, and palmed on 
 the old philosopher himself, Timaeus the Locrian. In Cornelius Agrippa's 
 time this treatise of Timaeus the Locrian was considered genuine, and it 
 had been at least twice within ten years translated into Latin. Pliny's 
 Natural History, the translated De Mundo Liber, and some of the other 
 works of Apuleius, contain more of the doctrine and opinion expressed by 
 Agrippa ; and he had read the most famous of the Alexandrian Platonics, 
 constantly quoting Plotinus, Porphyry, and lamblichus, but Proclus sel- 
 dom. To the authorities here cited Aristotle must, of course, be added, 
 and modifications by him of opinions cited from Plato (6 yevvaio s nXarwv) 
 and the Pythagoreans. Also the Orphic Hymns, and sundry books pro- 
 fessing to be by disciples of Pythagoras. Also the books ascribed to the half- 
 mythical Egyptian sage, Mercurius, or Hermes Trismegistus, of which the 
 most important, Poemander, was one of the first things that came up with the 
 revived study of Greek, a translation of it into Latin having been published 
 at Venice by Marcilius Ficinus in 1483, and eight years afterwards re- 
 printed. Other information was obtained from Avicenna, whose works had, 
 in 1490, been published at Venice, translated into Latin "a Magistro 
 Gerardo Cremonensi." Finally, it will be enough to name one only among 
 the many later writers in whom Cornelius found congenial speculations, 
 Albertus Magnus of Cologne, among whose works the De Ccelo et Mundo, 
 De Secretis Naturce, De Virtutibus Herbarum, &c., furnished a good deal of 
 material for these Books of Occult Science.
 
 124 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 help of the Soul of the World. For ideas not only give 
 rise to the thing seen, but to the virtue that is in it, and 
 things of the same kind vary in degree of power, not 
 through any variation in the first idea, but through the 
 various impurities and inequalities according to the 
 desert of the matter into which it is infused. And soul 
 being the primum mobile, as we say, when one man acts 
 upon another, or the loadstone on the iron, that the soul 
 of one thing went out and went into another thing, alter- 
 ing it or its operations, so it is conceived that some such 
 medium is the spirit of the world, called the quintessence, 
 because it is not composed of the four elements, but is a 
 fifth essence, a certain first thing Avhich is above them 
 and beside them. This spirit exists in the body of the 
 world, as the human spirit in the body of a man ; and as 
 the powers of a man's soul are communicated to the 
 members of the body by his spirit, so, through this mun- 
 dane spirit or quintessence, are the powers of the soul of 
 the world diffused through all things ; and there is nothing 
 so base that it contains not some spark of its virtue, but 
 there is most virtue in those things wherein this spirit 
 does most abound. It abounds in the celestial bodies, and 
 descends in the rays of the stars, so that things influenced 
 by their rays become conformable to them so far forth in 
 nature. By this spirit, therefore, every occult property is 
 conveyed into herbs, stones, metals, and animals, through 
 the sun, moon, planets, and through stars higher than 
 the planets. If we can part spirit from matter, or use 
 only those things in which spirit predominates, we can
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 125 
 
 obtain therewith results of great advantage to us. The 
 alchemists attempt to separate this spirit from gold and 
 silver, because, rightly separated and extracted, it will 
 have power to convert into gold or silver any other metal 
 into the substance of which it shall be properly projected. 
 Cornelius says that he has done this himself, but that he 
 could never produce more gold in this manner "than 
 the weight of that was out of which we extracted the 
 spirit 1 ." The extent of his conjuring was, therefore, that 
 out of an ounce of. gold he could make an ounce of gold, 
 by a long chemical process. 
 
 By what has been said we see how it will happen that, 
 apart from the virtues common to its species, every indi- 
 vidual person or thing may possess peculiar properties, 
 because, from the beginning, it contracts, together with its 
 essence, a certain wonderful aptitude both for doing and 
 for suffering after a particular manner, partly through 
 the influences of the celestial bodies streaming down 
 from particular configurations, partly through the agree- 
 ment of matter that is being generated to the concep- 
 tions of the soul of the world. But from a Divine 
 Providence these influences proceed as their first cause, 
 and by it they are distributed and brought into a peculiar 
 harmonious consent. The seal of the ideas is given to the 
 governing intelligences, who, as faithful officers, sign 
 all things entrusted to them with ideal virtue. " Now the 
 
 1 Et nos illud facere novimus, et aliquando vidimus, sed non plus auri 
 fabricare potuimus, nisi quantum erat illud auri pondus, de quo spiritum 
 axtraximus. De Occ. Phil ed cit. E 3 ad fin. cap. xiv.
 
 126 COENELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 first cause, which is God, although He doth by Intelli- 
 gences and the Heavens work upon these inferior things, 
 doth sometimes (these media being laid aside, or their 
 officiating being suspended) work those things imme- 
 diately by Himself, which works are then called miracles. 
 And the reasons of these operations can by no rational 
 discourse, no magic, or occult or profound science what- 
 soever, be found out, or understood, but are to be learned 
 and inquired into by divine oracles only 1 ." 
 
 These first principles having been laid down, seven 
 chapters follow on the various means of discovering occult 
 virtues of things. As they proceed from the spirit of the 
 world, and are too subtle to be apprehended by the senses, 
 they can " no otherwise but by experience and conjecture 
 be inquired into by us 2 ." We see at once how errors 
 like those now denounced as superstition might most justly 
 and honestly seem truth at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, when Greece and Rome furnished the learned 
 with both science and philosophy, when to principles more 
 or less resembling those above detailed^were joined records 
 of experience, utterly corrupt with fable, yet accredited 
 by the most cultivated scholars that the world up to that 
 epoch had known. Things now incredible were stated 
 by them positively, believed by all their countrymen, 
 and, as before said, up to the time when Cornelius was 
 
 1 Op. cit. ad fin. cap. xiii. 
 
 2 Ibid. cap. xvi. Quae a nobis non aliter quam experientia et conjec- 
 tura indagari possunt.
 
 HIS FIKST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 127 
 
 writing, uncorrected by the mass of opposite experience 
 that has been since acquired. It is proper that we should 
 not travel from this point of view in looking through a 
 book which was an attempt to show the reasonable origin 
 of that whole system of belief whereof many a shred is 
 still religiously preserved in Europe. 
 
 Now as to the experience of signs by which the cha- 
 racter of occult powers may be detected. In the first place 
 like turns to like, and virtues may come by way of simili- 
 tude. Whatsoever -hath long stood with salt becomes salt. 
 The nutritive virtue in an animal turns into animal sub- 
 stance, herb, and grain. Fire moves to fire, water to 
 water, and he that is bold moves to boldness, and it is 
 well known among physicians that brain helps the brain 
 and lung the lungs. Therefore, if we would obtain any 
 property or virtue, let us look for things or animals in 
 which such property or virtue is most largely contained, 
 and use them, or the parts of them in which the property 
 especially resides. Take, to promote love, some animal 
 that is most loving, as a dove or sparrow, and take it at 
 the time when these animals have this affection most 
 intense. To increase boldness, look for a lion or a cock, 
 and take of these, heart, eyes, or forehead. After the same 
 manner doth a frog make one talkative, and the heart of 
 a screech-owl, that is talkative of nights, laid over the heart 
 of a woman when she is asleep, is said to make her utter 
 all her secrets. Animals that are long-lived conduce to 
 life, as is manifest of the viper and snake ; and it is well
 
 128 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 known that harts renew their old age by the eating of 
 snakes 1 . 
 
 And the power of one thing can be given to another, 
 as the power of the loadstone may be given to the iron ; 
 and the looking-glass used by a woman who is impudent 
 will deprive of modesty another woman who looks often 
 into it. For the same reason rings are put for a certain 
 time into the nests of sparrows or swallows, which after- 
 wards are used to procure love and favour 3 . 
 
 There are also between things that are different enmities 
 and friendships. So in the elements fire is an enemy to 
 water, air to earth, yet they agree among themselves. So 
 among celestial bodies Mercury, Jupiter, the Sun, and 
 Moon are friends to Saturn ; Mars and Venus enemies to 
 him. All the planets, except Mars, are friends to Jupiter; 
 all, except Venus, enemies to Mars ; Jupiter and Venus 
 love the Sun, but Mars and Mercury, as well as the 
 Moon, hate him. All love Venus except Saturn. Mercury 
 has Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn for his friends, and the 
 same friends has also the Moon, but the Moon is not a 
 friend to Mercury, neither is the Sun or Mars, while 
 Mars agrees with Mercury in his return of hatred to the 
 Moon. There is another kind of enmity among the stars, 
 namely, when they have opposite houses. And of what 
 sort the friendships and enmities of the superiors be, such 
 are the inclinations of things subjected to them among 
 their inferiors. There are many such concords and dis- 
 cords. The dove loves the parrot, the vine loves the elm, 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil. Lib. L cap. XT. ed. cit. E 4. * Cap. xvL
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 129 
 
 the olive-tree the myrtle. The emerald draws riches ; the 
 agate, eloquence. If any one eats passion-flower he shall 
 die of laughing. We learn, from the use made of them 
 by the brutes, virtues of many things. The sick magpie 
 puts a bay-leaf into her nest and is recovered. The lion, 
 if he be feverish, is recovered by the eating of an ape. By 
 eating the herb ditany, a wounded stag expels the dart 
 out of its body. Cranes medicine themselves with bul- 
 rushes, leopards with wolfsbane, boars with ivy; for be- 
 tween such plants and animals there is an occult friend- 
 ship !. 
 
 But there are inclinations of enmities 2 of which we may 
 make use. As a thing angrily shuns its contrary, or drives 
 it away out of its presence, so acts rhubarb against bile, 
 or treacle against poison, amethyst against drunkenness, 
 topaz against covetousness and all animal excess. Mar- 
 joram loathes and destroys cabbage; cucumbers hate oil, 
 und will run themselves into a ring lest they should touch 
 it. Mice and weasels do so disagree, that it is said mice 
 will not touch cheese if the brains of a weasel be put into 
 the rennet. Nothing is so much an enemy to snakes as 
 crabs ; wherefore, also, when the sun is in Cancer snakes 
 are tormented. 
 
 There are properties that belong only to individuals 3 , 
 idiosyncrasies ; as when a man trembles at a cat, or 
 fattens upon spiders. Avicenna says there was a man 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil cap. xviL * Cap. xviii. ed. cit. F 2, 3. 
 
 Cap. xix. 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 living in his time whom no poison hurt, and that what- 
 ever venomous thing bit him itself perished. 
 
 Again, virtues that are natural and common to a species 
 are contained sometimes in the whole substance, some- 
 times only in a part 1 . The civet cat hath this in its whole 
 substance, that dogs by the mere contact with its shadow 
 cease to bark, but it hath in its eyes only the power to 
 make whoso beholdeth them stand still and amazed. So 
 in a man's body it is only the little bone, called by the 
 Hebrews Luz, which fire cannot destroy or time corrupt, 
 and which is the seed of the new body that shall spring 
 up in the resurrection. 
 
 Finally, there is a distinction to be made between 
 powers that exist only during the life of the thing opera- 
 tive and those which remain in force after its death 3 . It 
 is only when alive that the Echinus can arrest the course 
 of ships. They say also, that in the colic, if a live duck 
 be applied to the stomach it takes away the pain, and 
 the duck dies. Generally, parts of animals that are used 
 should be taken from the animal while it still lives and is 
 in fullest vigour. The right eye of a serpent being applied 
 relieves watering of the eyes, if the serpent be let go alive, 
 and the tooth of a mole will be a cure for toothache, if it 
 was taken from a living mole who was allowed to run 
 away after the operation. Some properties remain, how- 
 ever, after death, attached to things in which some part 
 of the idea remains. So it is that herbs, when dried, re- 
 tain their virtue, and the skin of a wolf corrodes the skin 
 1 De Occ. Phil. cap. xx. 2 Cap. xxi
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 131 
 
 of a lamb, and acts upon it not only by contact of sub- 
 stance; for a drum made of the skin of a wolf being 
 beaten will cause that a drum made of a lamb's skin shall 
 not sound. 
 
 These points having been determined, the next thirteen 
 chapters 1 are devoted to an exposition of the influences 
 of celestial bodies. Things are solary or lunary, jovial, 
 saturnine, martial, or mercurial, according to the nature 
 of strong impressions that have been communicated. Ac- 
 cording to the doctrine of the Arabians, certain parts 
 of the body, specified by them, are ruled over by each 
 planet. Let us be content to name the Sun, who rules 
 over the brain and heart, the thigh, the marrow, the right 
 eye, and the spirit ; also the tongue, the mouth, the rest 
 of the organs of the senses, as well internal as external ; 
 also the hands, feet, legs, nerves, and the powers of imagi- 
 nation. A royal domain, truly, but in many places en- 
 joyed only with divided sway. Two or more planets may 
 be set in government together over one part of the body. 
 Then, again, as saith Hermes, there are seven holes in the 
 head of an animal, distributed to the seven planets. Also 
 among the several signs of the Zodiac is each living body 
 parcelled out for government, and there is the same re- 
 lation between the parts as between signs or planets ruling. 
 The agreement of the triplicity in the case of Pisces and 
 Virgo accounts for the fact that, by putting the feet into 
 hot water, one may sometimes relieve pain in the belly. 
 The plants also are classed under signs and planets, and 
 1 De Occ. Phil. cap. xxiL-xxxr. 
 K2
 
 132 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 in case of any disease help may be generally found by 
 using things under the same sign as the part affected. 
 Again, not only are the characters of men determined 
 by the planets under which they have been born, but 
 according to their character trades also are to be classed 
 under celestial signs ; as old men, monks, and others 
 under Saturn ; barbers, surgeons, soldiers, executioners, 
 and butchers under Mars. 
 
 Now, it is very hard to know what star Or sign every- 
 thing is under. It is known sometimes through the 
 imitation of the superior figure, as in the case of the sun 
 in the blossom of the marigold, or the fruit of the lotus. 
 Sometimes it is known by imitation of the rays of the 
 superior, by its colour, odour, or effects. So gold is 
 solary by reason of its splendour, and its receiving from 
 the sun that which makes it cordial. Balsamic plants 
 are solary, including Libanotis, called by Orpheus the 
 sweet perfume of the sun. The baboon, also, is solary, 
 because he barks twelve times a day, that is, every hour, 
 and marks smaller intervals of time in a way that caused 
 his figure to be carved by the Egyptians on their 
 fountains 1 . 
 
 Among lunary things are the earth, water, all moist 
 things, especially those that are white; silver, crystal, and 
 
 1 " Solaris cst Emocephalus qui per singulas boras duodecies in die latrat, 
 et equinoctii tempore duodecies per singulas boras mingit : idem et in nocte, 
 unde ilium in hidrologiis sculpebant ^Egyptii." De Occ. Phil. cap. xxii. 
 ed. cit. G 4. Hermes Trismegistus, or a writer in his name, taught 
 that the common division of time was suggested to man by the habits of 
 this sacred animal.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 133 
 
 all those stones that are white and green. Amongst 
 plants the selenotrope, which turns to the moon, as doth 
 the heliotrope towards the sun, and the palm-tree, which 
 sends forth a bough at every rising of the moon. Among 
 lunary animals are such as delight to be in man's com- 
 pany; and the'panther, which it is said has a spot upon 
 its shoulder waxing and waning as the moon doth. Cats 
 also are lunary, whose eyes become greater or less accord- 
 ing to the course of the moon. Lunary also are am- 
 phibious animals, and those which are equivocally gene- 
 rated, as mice sometimes are bred from putrefaction of 
 the earth, wasps are bred of the carcases of horses, bees 
 of the putrefaction of cows, small flies of sour wine, and 
 beetles of the flesh of asses 1 . 
 
 Saturnine 2 are again earth and water, and, among 
 other things, the heavy metals, such as gold and lead; 
 plants whereof the juices stupify, also the yew and 
 passion flower ; among animals all that creep, live apart, 
 are dull, or gross, or those that eat their young; also such 
 birds as have long necks and harsh voices. 
 
 Jovial 3 are the air, the blood, and spirit; things sweet 
 to the taste and with a piquant flavour. Gold is under 
 Jupiter as well as Saturn. Jovial are gems with airy 
 colours; lucky trees, such as the oak, beech, hazel, apple, 
 pear, and so forth ; all manner of corn, raisins, liquorice, 
 and sugar; such animals as are stately, wise, and of mild 
 disposition ; such as are gentle, such as are devout peli- 
 
 De Occ. Phil. cap. xxiv. foL H. * Cap. xxv. Cap. xxvi.
 
 134 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 cans and storks, for example. The eagle is under Jupiter 
 especially. 
 
 Martial 1 are fire and all things sharp, or of a burning, 
 bitter taste that causes tears. Among humours, bile ; 
 among metals, iron and red brass ; all red and sulphurous 
 things, diamond, bloodstone ; poisonous or prickly plants, 
 or plants that sting ; animals that are bold, ravenous, or 
 warlike ; offensive things, as gnats ; and those which are 
 called fatal birds, as the screech-owl or kestrel. These, 
 and other such things, are all ruled by Mars. 
 
 Venus 3 rules air and water, over blood and spirit, over 
 things sweet, unctuous, delectable, over silver and brass, 
 over all fair, white, and green gems, over violets and 
 maidenhair, over all sweet perfumes and fruits, especially 
 pomegranates, which the poets say were in Cyprus first 
 sown by Venus. It is this planet, also, that rules over 
 all things prone to love. 
 
 Mercurial 3 are water and animal spirit ; among hu- 
 mours, those which are mixed ; among metals, quicksilver 
 and tin ; artificial stones, also, and glass ; and things of a 
 mixed nature, as, among plants, those that have much- 
 indented leaves or flowers of divers colours ; among ani- 
 mals, such as are quick, clever, and inconstant. 
 
 It will have been observed that the same thing is often 
 ruled by many stars in the great distribution of all sub- 
 lunary things among the planets 4 . Thus in fire the light 
 is solary, the heat is martial, the surface of its stream 
 
 1 Cap. xxvii. 2 Cap. xxviii. 3 Cap. xxix. 
 
 * Cap. xxx.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 135 
 
 lunary and mercurial. Every planet rules and disposes 
 that which is like to it. All beauty, for example, is from 
 Venus, and all strength from Mars ; therefore in plants 
 the flower is from Venus, and from Mars the wood ; in 
 gems, the fair surface is from Venus, and from Mars the 
 hardness; and so of other planets, as when it is said of 
 stones or gems that the weight or clamminess is of Saturn, 
 the use and temperament of Jupiter, the life from the 
 Sun, the occult virtue from Mercury, the common use 
 from the Moon; or of plants, that the root is from Saturn, 
 the fruit from Jupiter, the seed and bark from Mercury, 
 and the leaves from the Moon. 
 
 Moreover, all the kingdoms and the provinces of earth 1 
 are found to be distributed under the several planets and 
 celestial signs. Britain, France, Germany, Judaea, and 
 other places, are thus under Mars with Aries; the Sun 
 with Leo governs Italy, Phoenicia, and Chaldea; Mercury 
 with Virgo, Greece, Assyria, and Babylon. " These," 
 says Cornelius, after citing a sufficient number, " we 
 have in this manner gathered from Ptolemy's opinion, 
 to which, according to the writing of other astrologers, 
 many more might be added. But he who knows how 
 to compare these divisions of provinces according to the 
 divisions of the stars, with the ministry of the ruling 
 Intelligences and blessings of the tribes of Israel, the lots 
 of the apostles and typical seals of the sacred Scripture, 
 shall be able to obtain great and prophetical oracles con- 
 
 1 Cap. xxxi.
 
 136 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 cerning every region, of things to come 1 ." At any rate, 
 there was a good deal to be done before one could be 
 qualified to prophesy. 
 
 After having learned the influences of the planets, there 
 are still the influences of the signs of the Zodiac and of the 
 fixed stars to be studied 2 . The same principle extends 
 throughout. The earthly ram is under the celestial ram, 
 the ploughman's ox under the heavenly Taurus. The starry 
 Ursa governs bears, and dogs are under Sirius. Apuleius 
 has also assigned particular herbs to signs and planets, as the 
 pimpernel to Sagittarius, the dock to Capricorn, marigold 
 to the Sun, peony to the Moon, agrimony to the planet 
 Jupiter. Again, we know by experience that asparagus 
 is under Aries, and garden-basil under Scorpio ; for of 
 the shavings of rams' horns sown comes forth asparagus, 
 and garden-basil rubbed between two stones produceth 
 scorpions 3 . 
 
 But no inferior is ruled by one superior only, whether 
 star or planet. Topaz is under the sun and the star 
 Elpheia. Emerald is under Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, 
 and the star Spica. 
 
 Here ends the detail of the theory of nature, upon 
 which were based, so far as concerned natural things, the 
 arts of sorcery and divination. From theory to practice, 
 therefore, the young student passes. 
 
 1 Occ. Phil ed. cit H 4. Cap. xxxii. 
 
 * Jamque etiam experientia cognoscimus, Asparagos subesse Arieti, et 
 Basilicon Scorpioni. Nam seminata rasura cornu arietis nascuntur Aspa- 
 ragi, et Basilicon contritum inter duoa lapides gignit scorpiones. Cap. 
 xxiL H4.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 137 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE PRACTICE OF MAGIC AS DESCRIBED IN THE REST OF THE FIRST 
 BOOK OF OCCULT SCIENCE. 
 
 EVERY star has its peculiar nature and property, the 
 seal and character of which it impresses through its rays 
 upon inferior things subject to it, and of the several stars 
 which govern one thing, the star having chief rule will 
 set its seal the most distinctly 1 . Thus marigold, being 
 solary, shows in its root, when cut, the characters of the 
 sun; so, also, in the bones, especially the shoulder-bones, 
 of animals, whence there has arisen a kind of divination 
 by the shoulder-blades. Now, these characters, or seals, 
 retain in them the virtues of the stars whence they pro- 
 ceed, and can operate with those virtues upon other 
 things on which they are reflected. But as the number 
 of the stars is known only to God, and of the diversity of 
 seals and operations man is able, with his brief experience 
 and finite intellect, to understand only a few, we speak 
 only of the signs that are upon man, who is the com- 
 pletest image of the universe. 
 
 Ancient sages, who inquired into the occult properties 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil cap. xxxiiL
 
 138 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 of things, set down in writing images of stars, their seals 
 and characters as they appear in plants, in joints or knots 
 of boughs, and in members of animals. We set down 
 here that part of this divine writing which was discovered 
 by the ancient cheiromancers in the hands of men. These 
 are called divine letters, because being the seals or charac- 
 ters of planets, by them, according to the Holy Scripture, 
 is the life of men writ in their hands. Here follow, there- 
 fore, successively, line under line, the divine letters of 
 Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and the 
 Moon: 
 
 Wv3 
 
 tX.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 139 
 
 Now, whoso desires to receive virtue from any part of 
 the world, or any star 1 , should bring himself under its in- 
 fluence by the use of those things that belong thereto; as 
 whoso would prepare wood to receive flame should cover 
 it with sulphur, pitch and oil. In this way, by applying 
 together and combining wisely many things conformable 
 to one idea, a singular gift is infused by the idea into that 
 combination, by means of the soul of the world. With 
 solary things, therefore, bring down virtues from the sun, 
 and as all solar properties are not in one thing, but one 
 solary thing will contain one property especially, another 
 another, so to bring down the greatest effect, we must 
 combine things all of them solary, but which attract the 
 solar influence in diverse ways. This rule applies in every 
 case 2 . Wonderful effects may be produced by the union 
 of mixed things, and a more noble form drawn from 
 above, if congruity be properly observed 3 . The like 
 happens in nature by unions that take place between 
 bodies through what the Greeks call sympathies ; divine 
 powers being thus drawn down, for nature is the great 
 magician 4 . " So we see that when nature has framed the 
 body of the infant, by this very preparative she presently 
 draws down the spirit from the universe. This spirit is 
 then the instrument to obtain of God the understanding 
 and mind in the soul and body, as in wood the dryness is 
 fitted to receive oil, and the oil being imbibed is food for 
 the fire, the fire is the vehicle of light. By these examples 
 
 1 Cap. xxxiv. * Cap. xxxv. 3 Cap. xxxvi. 
 
 Cap. xxxvii. fol. K.
 
 140 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 you see how by certain natural and artificial preparations, 
 we are in a capacity to receive certain celestial gifts from 
 above. For stones and metals have a correspondency with 
 herbs, herbs with animals, animals with the heavens, the 
 heavens with intelligences, and those with divine properties 
 and attributes and with God himself after whose image 
 
 and likeness all things are created For this is 
 
 the band and continuity of nature, that all superior virtue 
 doth flow through every inferior with a long and continued 
 series, dispersing its rays even to the very last things : and 
 inferiors, through their superiors, come to the very su- 
 preme of all. For so inferiors are successively joined to 
 their superiors : that there proceeds an influence from 
 their head, the first cause, as a certain string stretched out, 
 to the lowermost things of all : of which string if one end 
 be touched, the whole doth presently shake: and such a 
 touch doth sound to the other end: and at the motion of 
 the inferior the superior also is moved, to which the 
 other doth answer: as strings in a lute well tuned 1 ." 
 
 Not only vital, but also angelical and intellectual gifts 
 may be drawn from above 3 , as Mercurius Trismegistus 
 and Saint Augustine, in his eighth book, " De Civitate 
 Dei," relate that an image rightly made of certain proper 
 things, appropriated to any one certain angel, will pre- 
 sently be animated by that angel. Celestial spirits may, 
 in this way, be invoked by men who are of a pure mind, 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil. K 2. I have preserved the punctuation in this passage 
 to show the use of the colon before semicolons were invented. 
 
 2 Cap. xxxviii.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 141 
 
 humble themselves, and pray secretly. And by foul and 
 profane men, who use such arts profanely, no man is 
 ignorant that evil spirits may be raised 1 . 
 
 Now, there are bindings 2 , as of a mill, that it can by 
 no force whatever be turned round ; or of a robber, that 
 he shall not steal in any place ; or of fire, that it cannot 
 burn ; and these and many like wonders are worked by 
 methods that have next to be detailed. First, there are 
 sorceries as that of which Saint Augustine reports, who 
 heard of some women sorcerers that were so versed in these 
 kind of arts, that, by giving cheese to men, they could 
 presently turn them into working cattle, and, the work 
 being done, restored them into men again 3 . 
 
 Now, I will show you what some of the sorceries are 4 . 
 
 1 Cap. xxxix. * Cap. xl. * Cap. xli. 
 
 4 Cap. xlii. The most wonderful, necessarily omitted from the text, is 
 that described in the commencement of this chapter : " Sanguis menstruus, 
 qui quantas in veneficio vires habeat, videamus : Nam ut dicunt, acescunt 
 ejus superventu must a novella, vitis ejus tactu in perpetuum Uuditur : ste- 
 rilescunt tactae fruges, moriuntur insitae, exuruntur hortorum germina, et 
 fructus arborum decidunt, speculorum fulgor aspectu ipso hebetatur, et 
 acies ferri in cultris tonsoriis eborisque nitor praestriguntur, etiam ferrum 
 rubigine protinus corrumpitur : ses etiam contactum, grave virus diri odoris 
 accipit, et eruginem : in rabiem aguntur gustato eo canes, atque insanabili 
 veneno morsus infigitur, alvei apum emoriuntur, tactisque alveariis fugiunt, 
 linaque cum coquuntur nigrescunt: eques si sint gravidae contacto eo abor- 
 tum patiuntur, abortion etiam facit illitum pregnantibus. Asinae non con- 
 cipiunt tot annis quot grana hordei eo contacta comederint, cinisque pan- 
 norum menstruorum si quis eum aspergat lavandis vestibus purpuram 
 mutat, floribus colorem adimit. Ferunt tertianas quartanasque febres fugari 
 menstruo in lana arietis nigri in argento brachiali incluso. Praeterea ter- 
 tianis quartanisque efficacissimum dicitur, plantas segri cum eo subterlini : 
 multoque efficacius ab ipsa muliere etiam ignoranti : sic et comitiales impetus 
 morbosque sanari. Inter omnes autem convenit si aqua potusve formidetur a 
 morsu canis, supposita tantum calici lacinia menstruo tincta statim metum 
 eura discuti. Praeterea ferunt nudatas in mense si segetem ambiant, erucas, 

 
 142 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 The civet cat abounds with them : for, as Pliny reports, 
 the posts of a door being touched with her blood, the arts 
 of jugglers and sorcerers are so invalid that the gods 
 cannot be called up. Also that they who are anointed 
 with the ashes of the ankle-bone of her left foot, being 
 decocted with the blood of a weasel, shall become odious 
 to all. The same is done with the eye, being decocted. 
 Also, it is said, that the straight gut is administered 
 against the injustice and corruption of princes. Also, it is 
 said, that the sword with which a man is slain hath won- 
 derful power in sorceries : for, if the snaffle of the bridle, 
 or spurs, be made of it, they say that with these any 
 horse, though never so wild, may be tamed ; and that if a 
 horse should be shod with shoes made with it, he would 
 be most swift and fleet, and never, though never so hard 
 rode, tire. But yet they will that some characters and 
 names be written upon it. They say also, if any man 
 
 ac vermiculos, scarabaeosque, ac cantarides, et noxia quaeque decidere, 
 cavendum vero, ne id oriente sole faciant, sementem enim arescere. Similiter 
 abigi grandines, turbinesque, ac contra fulgura prodesse, horum plura 
 Plinius ipse recitat. Illud scias majus venenum esse si decrescente Luna 
 accidat, sed vim eius maiorem esse si in silente Luna contingat, si vero in 
 defectu Luna? Solisve evenit, irremediabile fieri : Maximi vero ac potentissimi 
 vigoris esse, quando purgatio ilia primis annis evenit, atque in virginitate 
 prima sit, id quoque convenit tune ei : nam tactis omnino postibus domus, 
 irritum in ea fit omne maleficium. Praeterea ferunt quod fila vestis con- 
 tactae, ne igne quidem vincuntur, atque si in incendium projiciantur, non 
 dilatari amplius : dicitur quoque quod si radix Peoniss cum castoreo et 
 litura pannorum menstruosorum detur patienti, sanari morbum comitialem. 
 Prseterea si stomachum cervi cremaveris, vel assaveris, adjungasque de 
 pannis menstruosis suffitus, eo balistas nib.il proficere ad venationem: 
 capillos etiam mulieris menstruosaj, si sub fimo ponantur generari serpentes, 
 ac etiam si crementur fugari eorum odore serpentes, tanta vis ejus veneficii 
 est, ut etiam venenosis sit venenum."
 
 HIS FIKST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 143 
 
 shall dip a sword, wherewith men were beheaded, in 
 wine, and the sick drink thereof, he shall be cured of his 
 quartan. 
 
 Some suffumigations 1 or perfumings, also, that are 
 proper to the stars, are of great force for receiving celestial 
 gifts under the rays of the stars, inasmuch as they work 
 strongly on the air and breath. Wherefore the inhaling 
 of such vapours was wont to be used by soothsayers to 
 affect their fancy and dispose them for reception of the 
 influences which those vapours draw : so they say that 
 fumes made with linseed and neabane seed and roots of 
 violets and parsley make one to foresee things to come. 
 Great things can suffumigations do in the air, as the liver 
 of a chameleon, being burnt on the top of the house, doth, 
 as it is manifest, raise showers and lightnings. There are 
 also suffumigations under opportune influences of the stars 
 that cause the images of spirits forthwith to appear in the 
 air or elsewhere. The author gives several recipes ; this 
 part of his work consisting mainly of a compilation of 
 those secrets by which wonders were said to be worked, 
 gathered from all sources and given to the world. " The 
 fume of the burnt hoof of a horse drives away mice, the 
 same doth the hoof of a mule, with which also, if it be 
 the hoof of the left foot, flies are driven away. And they 
 say, if a house be smoked with the gall of a cuttle-fish, 
 made into a confection with red styrax, roses, and aloe 
 wood, and if then there be some sea-water or blood cast 
 into that place, the whole house will seem to be full of 
 1 Cap. xliii. L 2.
 
 144 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 water or blood ; and if some earth of ploughed ground 
 be cast there, the earth will seem to quake. 
 
 Now, with such vapours anything can be infected, as 
 the poisonous vapour of the plague being retained for two 
 years in the walls of a house can infect the inhabitants, 
 and as the contagion of plague or leprosy lying hid in a 
 garment doth long after infect him who wears it. There- 
 fore were certain suffumigations used to images, rings, 
 and such-like instruments of magic, as Porphyry saith, 
 very effectually. So they say, if any one shall hide gold, 
 or silver, or any other precious thing, the moon being in 
 conjunction with the sun, and shall fumigate the place 
 with coriander, saffron, henbane, smallage, and black 
 poppy, of each a like quantity, bruised together and 
 tempered with the juice of hemlock, that which is 
 so hid shall never be found, or taken away, and that 
 spirits shall continually keep it ; and if any one shall 
 endeavour to take it away, he shall be hurt by them, 
 and shall fall into a frenzy. And Hermes saith, that 
 there is nothing like the fume of spermaceti for the 
 raising of spirits ; wherefore, if a fume be made of that 
 and lignum aloes, pepperwort, musk, saffron, red styrax, 
 tempered together with the blood of a lapwing, it will 
 quickly gather airy spirits together, and if it be used about 
 the graves of the dead, it gathers together spirits, and the 
 ghosts of the dead. 
 
 But as often as we direct any work to the sun 1 , we 
 must make suffumigations with solary things ; if to the 
 1 Cap. xliv. L 4.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 145 
 
 moon, with lunary things, and so of the rest. And we 
 must know, that as there is a contrariety and enmity in 
 stars, and spirits, so also in suffumigations unto the same. 
 So there is a contrariety betwixt aloes wood and sulphur, 
 frankincense and quicksilver; and spirits that are raised 
 by the fume of aloes wood are laid by the burning of 
 sulphur. As Proclus gives an example in a spirit, which 
 was wont to appear in the form of a lion, but by the 
 setting of a cock before it, vanished away, because there 
 is a contrariety betwixt a cock and a lion. 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, to know of what substances 
 the fumes are appropriated to each planet, and a list of 
 some of them is given by the young magician in another 
 chapter. He then passes, in his forty-fifth chapter, to an 
 account of eye-waters, ointments, and love-spells. Our 
 spirit is the subtle vapour of the blood, and by applying 
 to the body substances which mingle with that vapour 
 subtle vapour of their own, the natural powers of the spirit 
 take part in the virtues brought down by the collyrium or 
 unguent used. Very great is the power of a collyrium 
 or eye- water, because the sight perceives more purely than 
 the other senses, and agrees more than any other sense 
 with the fantastic spirit, as is apparent in dreams, when 
 things seen present themselves to us oftener than things 
 heard, or anything coining under the other senses. Where- 
 fore it is possible by eye- waters to give apparent external 
 perception to images conceived within the mind, and 
 images of spirits so formed can be made visible in the air, 
 " as," says the youth, " I know how to make of the gall 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 of a man, and the eyes of a black cat, and of some other 
 things." They are the passions and the delusions of 
 maniacal and melancholy men that can by these means be 
 induced. But great, also, is the power of fascination, 
 which comes from the spirit of a witch 1 , by its flow out 
 of the eyes in a pure, lucid, subtle vapour, generated of 
 the purer blood, by the heat of the heart. And as the 
 vapour from blear eyes falling upon eyes that are sound 
 may corrupt them, so may the motions and imaginations 
 of one spirit be poured through the eyes and be the vehi- 
 culum of that spirit through the eyes of him that is 
 opposite. Whence Apuleius saith, " thy eyes sliding down 
 through my eyes, into mine inward breast, stir up a most 
 vehement burning in my marrow." Thus love may be 
 lit by the rays of the eyes only, and the witch uses her 
 power of fascination which she makes intense by mingling 
 with those rays the power of colly ria and ointments, using 
 martial eye- waters to strike with fear, saturnine to procure 
 sickness or misery, and so forth. Upon the same principle 
 can use be made of potions. 
 
 Upon the same principle, also, are made charms which 
 may be worn upon the body, bound to any part of it, or 
 hung about the neck 2 , changing sickness into health, or 
 health into sickness, and rendering those who wear them 
 terrible or gracious, acceptable or abominable, to their 
 neighbours. In like manner, we see that the torpedo 
 being touched afar off with a long pole doth presently 
 stupify the hand of him that toucheth it. So they say, 
 
 1 Cap. 1. N 1, 2. - Cap. xlvi. M 2.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 14Y 
 
 that if a starfish be fastened with the blood of a fox and a 
 brass-nail to a house gate, in that house evil medicines can 
 do no hurt. It is necessary that we know the certain rule 
 of alligation and suspension namely, that they be done 
 under a certain and suitable constellation, and that they be 
 done with wire or silken threads, with hair or sinews of 
 certain animals. And things that are to be wrapped up 
 must be wrapped in leaves, skins, or fine cloth, chosen 
 according to the suitableness of things ; as if thou wouldst 
 procure the solary. virtue of anything, this being wrapped 
 up in bay-leaves or skin of a lion, hang it about thy 
 neck with a golden thread, or silk of a yellow colour, 
 whilst the sun rules in the heavens ; so shalt thou be 
 endowed with the solary virtue of that thing. But if 
 thou dost desire the virtue of any saturnine thing, thou 
 shalt in like manner take that thing whilst Saturn reigns, 
 and wrap it up in the skin of an ass, or in a cloth used at 
 a funeral, especially if thou desirest it for sadness, and 
 with a black thread hang it about thy neck. 
 
 Like to this, also, is the use of rings 1 . When any star 
 ascends fortunately, take a stone and herb that are under 
 that star, make a ring of the metal that is congruous 
 therewith, and in that fix the stone with the herb under 
 it. We read in Philostratus larchus, that a wise prince 
 of the Indies gave seven rings made after this manner, 
 marked with the names and virtues of the seven planets, 
 to Apollonius, of which rings he wore every day one, 
 distinguishing them according to the names 'of the days, 
 
 1 Cap. xlvii. M 2. 
 L2
 
 148, CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and by the benefit of them lived one hundred and thirty 
 years, as also always retained the beauty of youth. 
 
 There are also virtues that belong to places 1 . Look 
 for the footmark of a cuckoo in that place where he hath 
 first been heard, and if his right foot be marked about 
 and the footstep digged up, there will no fleas breed in 
 that place where it is scattered. Particular places are 
 appropriated to each star. To Saturn foul or gloomy 
 places, churchyards, caves, or fens. To Jupiter privi- 
 leged places, as consistories, tribunals, schools. To Mars 
 fiery and bloody places, such as fields of battle, bake- 
 houses, or shambles. To the sun light places, the serene 
 air, palaces and thrones. To Venus, pleasant fountains, 
 green meadows, and wherever those under her rule resort. 
 To Mercury, shops, warehouses, exchanges. To the 
 moon, wildernesses, woods, rocks and mountains, waters 
 and sea-shores, highways and granaries for corn. In seek- 
 ing to draw virtue from any star or planet, collect things 
 suitable in a place suitable. Stand also, while doing any 
 work of this kind, in a suitable position, for the four 
 corners of the earth belong to this matter. Thus, they 
 that are to gather a saturnal, martial, or jovial herb, 
 must look towards the east or south, partly because they 
 desire to be oriental from the sun, or partly because their 
 principal houses namely, Aquarius, Scorpio, Sagittarius 
 are southern signs, so also are Capricorn and Pisces. 
 In any solary work, also, we must look towards the east 
 or south, but rather towards the solary body and light. 
 
 1 Cap. xlviii. M 3.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 149 
 
 In labouring under the other planets, look, for the opposite 
 reasons, in the opposite directions. 
 
 Because of the subtlety of light 1 and its quick passage 
 into bodies, and especially into man through the eyes, 
 great is the power of light to mar or make enchantments. 
 Therefore, enchanters have a care to cover their enchant- 
 ments with their shadow. By artificial lights of many 
 kinds and colours, properly confected, strange things may 
 be made to appear. They say that if, when grapes are 
 in flower, any one shall tie a bottle of oil to the grape- 
 vine, and so leave it till the fruit is ripe, that oil being 
 thereafter lighted in a lamp, a vision of grapes is produced. 
 Such force also is in sepia, that it, being put into a lamp, 
 makes blackamoors appear. It is also reported, that a 
 candle made of some saturnine things, if being lighted it 
 be extinguished in the mouth of a man newly dead, will 
 afterwards, as often as it shines alone, bring great sadness 
 and fear upon them that stand about it. 
 
 Of colours of lights and of all colours it should be 
 known that there are to each planet certain colours that 
 are proper. These Cornelius details. 
 
 The fifty-first chapter of the first book of Occult 
 Science contains notes of various conditions that, if they 
 be observed, will produce wonderful results. Thus, if a 
 man have ague, let all the parings of his nails be put into 
 pismires' caves, and they say that that which began to 
 draw the nails first must be taken and bound to the neck, 
 and by this means will the disease be removed. Also 
 
 1 Cap. xlix. M 4.
 
 150 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 they say that a man's eyes being washed three times with 
 the water wherein he has washed his feet will never 
 be sore. And a little frog climbing up a tree, if any one 
 shall spit in his mouth, and then let him escape, is said 
 to cure the cough. It is a wonderful thing, but easy to 
 experience, that Pliny speaks of, " If any one shall be sorry 
 for any blow that he hath given another afar ofi^ or nigh 
 at hand, if he shall presently spit into the middle of the 
 hand with which he gave the blow, the party that was 
 smitten shall presently be freed from pain." This, we are 
 told, hath been approved of in a four-footed beast that 
 hath been sorely hurt. Some there are that, in the same 
 way, aggravate a blow before they give it (as to this day 
 do our pugilists and our spade-labourers). Also they say, 
 that if any one shall measure a dead man with rope, first 
 from the elbow to the biggest finger, then from the 
 shoulder to the same finger, and afterwards from the head 
 to the feet, making those measurements three times, if 
 any one afterwards be measured with .the rope in the 
 same manner, he shall not prosper, but be unfortunate 
 and fall into misery and sadness. 
 
 Countenance, gesture, gait, and figure of the body 1 , 
 conduce to the receiving of celestial gifts, and expose us 
 to the superior bodies, and produce certain effects in us, 
 no otherwise than as in hellebore, which, when thou 
 gatherest, if thou pullest the leaf upward, it draws the 
 humours upward and causeth vomiting ; if downward, 
 it causeth purging, by drawing the humour downward. 
 1 Cap. lii. N 3, 4.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 151 
 
 A pleasant face spreads joy around, a gloomy face dis- 
 comfort ; certain characters are formed by the disposition 
 of the heavens, whether martial, mercurial, saturnine. 
 And the heavens produce, not only characters, but shapes. 
 For Saturn rules a man to be of a black and yellowish 
 colour, lean, crooked, of a rough skin, with great veins, 
 hairy all over his body, little eyes intent upon the ground; 
 a frowning forehead, a thin beard, great lips; a heavy 
 gait, striking his feet together as he walks. But Jupiter 
 signifies a man to be of a pale colour, darkish red, a 
 handsome body, good stature, bold, with great, large- 
 pupilled eyes that are not altogether black, short nostrils 
 not equal, large front teeth, and curly hair. Thus upon 
 the features, and the marks and lines upon the face and 
 body, are founded physiognomy, metoposcopy, and cheiro- 
 mancy, arts of divination not to be slighted or condemned 
 when prognostication is made by them, not out of super- 
 stition, but by observation of the harmonies and cor- 
 respondences of all parts of the body. And whosoever, 
 in gesture, countenance, or passion, with a due regard to 
 fitness of opportunity, makes himself accordant to any 
 one of the celestial bodies, by so much as his accordance 
 is made greater can receive from them the larger gifts. 
 
 The treatise turns, in the next place, to divination, by 
 means of auguries and auspices 1 , lightning and prodigies. 
 To a compilation of the belief and practice of the ancients 
 Agrippa finds matter to add. There is Michael Scot's 
 twelvefold division of auguries ; six on the right hand, 
 1 Cap. liii.-lvi. 0-P 4.
 
 152 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 which he calls Fernova, Fervetus, Sonnasarnova, Sonna- 
 sarvetus, Confert, Emponenthem ; and six on the left 
 hand, which are Confernova, Confervetus, Scassarnova, 
 Scassarvetus, Viarum, Herrenam. When a flying bird 
 alights on the right-hand side of any one, then it is Con- 
 fernova, a good sign. When a man or bird passing you 
 stops to rest on the left-hand side, then it is Scassarvetus, 
 and an evil sign. There is divination from the cry or 
 song of any bird, and there is divination also from its 
 nature. Swallows, because when they are dying they 
 provide a place of safety for their young, portend a great 
 patrimony, or legacy, from the death of friends. A spar- 
 row is a bad omen to one that runs away, for she flies 
 from the hawk and makes haste to the owl, where she is 
 in as great danger. There are like omens from all other 
 animals. If a snake meet thee, take heed of an ill-tongued 
 enemy ; for this animal hath no other power but in his 
 mouth. Meeting of monks, declares Cornelius, is com- 
 monly accounted an ill omen, and so much the rather if 
 it be early in the morning, because these kind of men live 
 for the most by the sudden death of men, as vultures do 
 by slaughter. 
 
 The ancients did also prognosticate from sneezings, be- 
 cause they thought they proceeded from a sacred place 
 namely, the head, in which the intellect is vigorous and 
 operative. Whence also, whatsoever speech cornes un- 
 awares into the mind of a man rising in the morning is a 
 
 Now there is, as saith William of Paris, in most animals
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 153 
 
 an instinct of nature more sublime than human apprehen- 
 sion, and very near to prophecy. This manifestly appears 
 in some dogs, who know by this instinct thieves and men 
 that are hid. In like manner vultures foresee future 
 slaughter in battles, and gather themselves together into 
 places where they foresee that the heaps of carcases will 
 be. The animal world also is distributed among the 
 stars. 
 
 There are, moreover, presages to be obtained out of the 
 elements. From , colours, motions, forms, and celestial 
 congruities of earth, water, air, and fire, there are drawn 
 those four famous kinds of divination : Geomancy, Hydro- 
 mancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy 1 . 
 
 In the next chapter upon the revival of the dead 2 , the 
 sleeping for many years together, as it is said that Epi- 
 menides slept fifty years, and gave rise to the proverb 
 against sluggards, to outsleep Epimenides, of these things, 
 and of long-continued abstinence from food, Cornelius 
 says that they are hard to be believed, but that they are 
 to be credited, inasmuch as they are certified abundantly 
 by approved historians. He accumulates in evidence of 
 this a great number of cases. 
 
 Divination by dreams 3 that are not vain dreams, but 
 caused by the celestial influences in the fantastic spirit, 
 mind, or body, properly disposed, is not to be carried on 
 by the one common rule provided in astrology, because 
 dreams come by use to divers men in divers manners. It 
 is proper that each man should note carefully his own 
 
 Cap. Ivii. P 4. 2 Cap. Iviii. Q. 3 Cap. lix. Q 8.
 
 154 COKNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 manner of dreaming, remembering that dreams are most 
 efficacious when the moon passes over that sign which 
 was in the ninth number of the nativity, or revolution 
 of that year, or in the ninth sign from the sign of per- 
 fection. 
 
 There is also a prophetic madness falling upon men 
 who are awake, and so great is the force of melancholy 1 
 in some persons that it sometimes draws celestial spirits 
 down into men's bodies, by whose presence and instinct, 
 antiquity testifies, men have been made drunk, and spoken 
 most wonderful things. And this, it is thought, may 
 happen in three ways, according to a threefold apprehen- 
 sion of the soul, imaginative, rational, and mental. When 
 the mind is forced by melancholy beyond the bonds of 
 the members wholly into one of these, if it be into the 
 first, an ignorant man may become suddenly an artist ; 
 and if a prophet, prophesier of disturbances among the 
 elements ; but if it be with the second he may become 
 suddenly a philosopher, physician, orator ; and if a pro- 
 phet, prophesies mutations of kingdoms and the work of 
 man in ages yet to come. 
 
 The few remaining chapters of this first book of 
 Occult Philosophy, treat of the nature and power of 
 the human mind and passions. Man 2 was created, not 
 by God immediately, but by the heavenly spirits under 
 his command; and when these mixed the elements to 
 make a body servant to the soul, they built it up with all 
 its meaner parts in lower places, and the highest still the 
 
 1 Cap. Ix. Q 4. - Cap. Ixi,
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 155 
 
 best. As in the case of the external senses, the eyes, 
 which have the uppermost place, are the most pure, and 
 have affinity with fire and light; the ears next below 
 have an affinity to air ; the nostrils are of middle nature 
 and watery; below them the mouth, more like to the 
 nature of water ; and over the whole body the touch, 
 which is compared to the grossness of earth. But the 
 interior senses are, according to Averroes, divided into 
 four: (1.) Common sense, which collects and perfects the 
 impressions brought in from without; (2.) Imagination, 
 which takes and retains impressions, and presents them 
 to (3.) Fancy, which judges what the things are, of which 
 representations are thus brought to it, forms opinions 
 upon them, and gives them to (4.) Memory to keep. 
 Common sense and imagination occupy the two front 
 chambers of the brain ; Fancy, or the cogitative power, 
 takes the middle and the highest place ; and memory is 
 lodged in the hindmost chamber. There are three appe- 
 tites and four passions of the soul. The Appetites are 
 1, natural, an inclination of nature to its end, as of a 
 stone to fall ; 2, animal, which the sense follows, and it is 
 subdivided into irascible and concupiscible ; 3, rational 1 , 
 the will, which is free by its essence, and from the depra- 
 vities of which the four Passions proceed, namely, Oblec- 
 tation, which is a disposition to effeminacy ; Effusion, 
 which is a melting and pouring of the whole mind into 
 an enjoyment ; Vaunting, and Envy. These passions are 
 
 1 Plato's division of the soul was into rational, irascible, and concupiscible. 
 Bepublic, Lib. iy. cap. xvi.
 
 156 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 movements the result of apprehensions 1 , which are of 
 three sorts, sensual, rational, and intellectual ; and over 
 passions following the sensual apprehension Fancy is the 
 ruler 2 , but according to the nature of the passions Fancy 
 acts in producing sensible mutations in the accidents of 
 the body. So in joy the spirits are forced outwards, in 
 fear drawn back, in bashfulness moved to the brain ; 
 anger produces heat, fear cold, sadness a sweat and bluish 
 whiteness ; anxiety induces dryness and blackness, and 
 how love stirs- the pulse physicians know who can discern 
 therefrom the name of her that is beloved. So Naus- 
 tratus knew that Antiochus was taken with the love of 
 Stratonica. And how much vehement anger, joined 
 with great audacity can do, Alexander the Great shows, 
 who, being surrounded in a battle in India, was seen to 
 send forth from himself lightning and fire. 
 
 Now the passions produce changes in the body, by way 
 of imitation 3 , as when he who sees another gape, gapes 
 also ; and William of Paris knew a man upon whom any 
 purgative draught would take effect at sight. So Cyppus, 
 after he was chosen king of Italy, dwelt for a whole night 
 upon the vivid recollection and enjoyment of a bull-fight, 
 and in the morning was found horned, no otherwise than 
 by the vegetative power being stirred up by a vehement 
 imagination, elevating corniferous humours into his head. 
 By this action of the Fancy (so great is the rule of the 
 soul over the body) men are stirred to move from place 
 to place, made able to weep at pleasure, to simulate the 
 1 Cap. bdi. * Cap. Ixiii. * Cap. bdiii.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 157 
 
 voices of birds, cattle, dogs, or of neighbours ; and 
 Augustine makes mention of some men who would move 
 their ears at their pleasure, and some that would move 
 the crown of their head to their forehead, and could draw 
 it back again when they pleased. 
 
 But the passions, following the fancy when they are 
 most vehement, can not only change their own body, but 
 can transcend so much as to work also on another body, 
 to produce wonderful impressions on its elements, and 
 remove or communicate disease 1 . So the soul, being 
 strongly elevated, sends forth health or sickness to sur- 
 rounding objects ; and Avicenna believed that with a 
 strong action of the fancy in this manner one might kill 
 a, camel. Such is the known action of the parent on the 
 unborn child. We see how a diseased body, as in the 
 case of plague, will spread disease. The like is true of a 
 diseased mind. And ever of bad something bad, of good 
 something good, is derived from them that are nigh, and, 
 like the smell of musk, adheres for a long time. There- 
 fore it is well to avoid immoral company, to be much 
 near the rich and fortunate when seeking to be wealthy, 
 or with the virtuous when seeking to do well. Now the 
 passions act most powerfully when the influence of the 
 celestials is co-operative with them, and by conforming 
 our minds strongly to the nature of a star 2 , we can in- 
 crease their power by attraction to them of the virtues of 
 that star, as to a fitly-prepared receptacle. And they can 
 act strongly only by help of a strong faith ; therefore we 
 1 Cap. Ixv. 2 Cap. Ixvi.
 
 158 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 must in every work, of whatever sort, if we would prevail 
 in it, hope and believe strongly. Physicians own that a 
 belief in them is more potent for cure than even medicine, 
 and by a strong belief in their own power of curing, they 
 give new strength to their remedies. Therefore, whoever 
 works in magic must have belief strong always, be credu- 
 lous, and nothing doubting. Distrust and doubting dis- 
 sipate and break the power of the worker's mind, whence 
 it comes that he is frustrated of the desired influence of 
 the superiors. 
 
 Let, therefore, every one who would work in magic 
 study to conform himself in such manner to the outer 
 universe as that he shall assimilate to himself the powers 
 he desires, and be in right union with celestials, or with 
 minds of other men; and every one that is willing to 
 work in magic must know the property, virtue, measure, 
 order, and degree of his own soul among the powers in 
 the universe 1 . The superior binds the inferior, and the 
 inferior is subject to the superior 3 . Thus a lion is afraid 
 of a cock, because the presence of the solary power is 
 more agreeable to a cock than to a lion; loadstone draws 
 iron because it hath a superior degree of the celestial 
 bear. Words 3 are of power in proportion to the worthi- 
 ness of the tongue speaking, the influence of the voice, 
 and virtue of the speaker ; and they are of most efficacy 
 which express the greater things as intellectual, celestial, 
 supernatural. They are of efficacy, also, in proportion to 
 the worthiness and holiness of the language in which they 
 
 1 Cap. Lxvii.' 2 Cap. Ixviii. 3 Cap. Ixix.
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 159 
 
 are spoken. The essence of things signified lies in their 
 proper names 1 . Adam first named things, knowing the 
 influences of the heavens and the properties of all below, 
 so that he named them perfectly in right accordance with 
 their natures and their powers. Every name is signifi- 
 cative by the celestial harmony, or by imposition of man ; 
 when both significations meet in any name, the power 
 then is double, being at once natural and arbitrary, and 
 great is its influence if uttered with a faithful meaning 
 and belief, in proper place and time. 
 
 The power of sentences 2 exceeds that of words, inasmuch 
 as they are more full of mind and purpose. In composing 
 verses, or phrases, to attract the power of a star, set forth 
 and extol what is congenial to it, vilify what is in anta- 
 gonism to it ; invoke it by enumeration of its qualities, 
 and of the things that it is able to perform or has per- 
 formed. Thus Psyche in Apuleius prays to Ceres, by 
 her fruitful right hand, by the joyful ceremonies of 
 harvests, by the quiet silence of her chests, by the winged 
 dragons her servants, by the furrows of the Sicilian 
 soil, by the snatching waggon, by the clammy earth, by 
 the cellar-stairs at the light nuptials of Proserpina, &c., 
 &c. Stars, also, should be called upon by their own 
 names and by the names of the intelligences ruling over 
 them, and verses so framed should be spoken with signi- 
 ficance and animation, with gesture, motion, and affection 
 in full harmony, and with a blowing or breathing upon 
 the words as they pass out, so that they may be over- 
 1 Cap. Ixx. * Cap. Ixxi.
 
 160 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 flowed with the whole virtues of the inner soul. And 
 from the use of sentences so formed, even by writing or 
 pronouncing any of them backwards, there proceed un- 
 usual effects. The succeeding chapter on the power of 
 such enchantments is composed chiefly of illustrations 
 quoted out of Apuleius, Lucan, Virgil, Ovid, and Ti- 
 bullus. 
 
 A written word or sentence has more power than a 
 spoken one 1 . It is the last and most emphatical expres- 
 sion of the mind. Therefore it is ordered by magicians 
 that to give force to the expression of the will, when they 
 gather a herb, make a figure, or do any work, they not 
 only think and say, but also write why that is done 3 . 
 
 Now there have been given to man mind and speech : 
 the speech in divers languages not formed by chance, but 
 from above, having proper characters whereby they agree 
 with things superior and celestial; but before all figures 
 and in writing, the letters of the Hebrews are in matter, 
 form, and spirit, the most sacred 3 . They were formed 
 after the figures of the stars, and the profoundest Hebrew 
 Mecubals do undertake by the figure of their letters, the 
 form of characters, and their signature, simpleness, compo- 
 sition, separation, crookedness, directness, defect, abound- 
 ing, greatness, littleness, crowning, opening, shutting, 
 order, transmutation, joining together, revolution ot 
 
 1 Cap. Ixxiii. 
 
 ~ So Virgil, of this duty of expression : 
 
 "Necte tribus nodis ternos Amarylli colores, 
 Necte Amarylli modo, et, Veneris, die, vincula nodo." 
 
 3 Cap. Ixxiiii.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF PLATO. 161 
 
 letters and of points and tops, and by the supputation of 
 numbers, by the letters of things signified to explain all 
 things, how they proceed from the first cause, and are 
 again to be reduced into the same. Moreover, they 
 divide the letters of their Hebrew alphabet into twelve 
 simple, seven double, and three mothers, which, they say, 
 signify, as characters of things, the twelve signs, seven 
 planets, and three elements, for they account air no ele- 
 ment but as the glue and spirit of the rest. With a dis- 
 cussion of these letters and an illustrative table the first 
 book of Occult Philosophy is closed, the last topic being 
 the occult use of the letters when employed as repre- 
 sentatives of number. Upon this topic the writer touches 
 very lightly, and so passes from studying the power of 
 natural things in his first book to the direct consideration 
 of the power that belongs to numbers in his second. 
 
 We must not pause to dwell long on the spirit of the 
 scheme of nature he detailed. Little disguised by Hebrew 
 admixture, and little perverted by the speculations of the 
 Platonists of Alexandria, Philo the Jew, Plotinus, and 
 lamblichus, whom the young student quotes most fre- 
 quently, we have again the Attic Moses, Plato, speaking 
 through a young and strong heart to the world. Very 
 great was the influence of Plato in this period of wakening 
 to thought. Nothing was known by experience of nature, 
 for little had been learnt since the time when Plato, 
 theorising upon nature, owned it to be impossible to arrive 
 at any certain result in our speculations upon the creation 
 of the visible universe and its authors ; " wherefore," he 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 CORltfELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 said, " even if we should only advance reasons not less 
 probable than those of others, you should still be content 1 ." 
 In this spirit alone Cornelius Agrippa taught his age. 
 There are these marvels well accredited ; there is this 
 cumbrous and disjointed mass of earthly, sensible ex- 
 perience, which there is no way of explaining left to me 
 but one. I accept the marvels, foolish as they seem ; 
 they are as well accredited as things more obviously true. 
 With God all things are possible. In God all things 
 consist. I will adopt Plato's belief, that the world is 
 animated by a moving soul, and from the soul of the 
 world I will look up to its Creator. I cannot rest content 
 with a confused mass of evidence ; I will animate with 
 my own soul, and a faith in its divine origin, the world 
 about me. I will adopt the glorious belief of Plato 2 , that 
 we sit here as in a cavern with our faces held from looking 
 to the cavern's mouth, down which a light is streaming 
 and pours in a flood over our heads, broken by shadows 
 of things moving in the world above. We see the 
 shadows on the wall, hear echoes, and believe in all as 
 the one known truth of substance and of voice, although 
 these are but the images of the superiors. I also will 
 endeavour to climb up out of the cave into the land 
 flooded with sunlight. I connect all that we see here 
 with Plato's doctrine of superior ideas, I subdue matter 
 to spirit, I will see true knowledge in apparent foolish- 
 ness, and connect the meanest clod with its divine 
 Creator. I will seek to draw down influences, and to fill 
 
 1 Timceus, section ix. * Politeia, Lib. vii. cap. i. ii.
 
 ASPIRATION. 163 
 
 my soul with a new strength imparted by the virtue of 
 ideas streaming from above. The superior manifest in 
 the inferior 1 is the law of nature manifested in the thing 
 created. My soul is not sufficient for itself; beyond it 
 and above it lie eternal laws, subtle, not having substance 
 or form, yet the cause of form and substance. I cannot 
 hope to know them otherwise than as ideas ; to unborn 
 generations they will be revealed, perhaps ; to me they 
 are ideas, celestial influences, working intelligences. I 
 believe in them, and 'I desire to lay open my soul to their 
 more perfect apprehension. They are not God, though 
 God created them ; they are not man, though they have 
 by divine ordainment formed him. The more I dwell 
 upon their qualities, the more I long for the divine, the 
 more shall I be blessed by the reception of their rays. 
 The more intensely I yearn heavenward, the more shall 
 I bring down heaven to dwell in my soul. 
 
 So we may hear, if we will, the spirit of the young 
 inquirer pleading to us from across the centuries, and if 
 our own minds ever yearned for an escape from the delu- 
 sions of the grosser sense and the restriction set by crowds 
 on free inquiry, there is no true heart that will not say, 
 You laboured well, my brother. 
 
 1 See this explanation of Platonic doctrine admirably enforced in a work 
 published while these sheets are passing through the press, the late Pro- 
 fessor Butler's Lectures mi the History of Ancient Philosophy. 
 
 
 M2
 
 164 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHAT IS CONTAINED IX CORNELIUS AGKIPPA's SECOND BOOK OF OCCL'LT 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 ARITHMETIC and geometry are, in a certain sense, u 
 part of the first principles of magic. To show this is the 
 object of the second book of Occult Science 1 . After a 
 chapter 2 , which points out the wonders that have been 
 achieved by those who have made only a mechanical use 
 of the principles of mathematics, Cornelius proceeds to 
 discuss their more recondite mysteries and powers. He 
 treats first of Numbers, by the proportion of which, as 
 saith Severinus Boethius, all things were formed 3 . If 
 there are so many occult virtues in natural things, what 
 marvel if in numbers, which are pure and commixed only 
 
 1 The second and third books of Occult Philosophy appeared first at 
 Cologne, preceded by a new edition of the first book, in July, 1533, as 
 " Henrici Cornelli Agrippce ab Nettesheim et Consiliis et Archivis Indltiarii 
 sacrce Ccesarece Majestatis : De Occulta Philosophia, Libri Tres." There is a 
 portrait on the title-page which, inasmuch as it is authenticated by the fact 
 of its having been issued by himself, is the one chosen for transfer to the 
 title-page of this biography. This, being the first of the Books II. and 
 III., is the edition cited in succeeding notes. 
 
 - De Occ. Phil. Lib. ii. cap. i. p. xcix. c. 3 Cap. ii. p. ci.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 165 
 
 with ideas in the divine mind, there should be found 
 virtues greater and more occult. Even time must con- 
 tain the mystery Number, so also does motion or action, 
 and so, therefore, must all things that move, act, or are 
 subjected to time. But the mystery is in the abstract 
 power of number, in its rational and formal state 1 , not in 
 the expression of it by the voice, as among people who 
 buy and sell. The power of numbers has been taught 
 not only by the best philosophers, but also by Catholic 
 doctors, Jerome, Augustine, Origen, Ambrose, Gregory 
 of Nazianzen, Athanasius, Basil, Hilary, Bede. It is 
 asserted also in nature, by the herb called cinquefoil, or 
 five-leaved grass ; for this resists poison, and bans devils 
 by virtue of the number five, and one leaf of it taken in 
 wine twice a day cures the quotidian, three the tertian, 
 four the quartan fever. There is also a wonderful expe- 
 rience, that every seventh son born to parents who have 
 not had daughters, is able to cure the king's evil by touch 
 or word alone. The Pythagoreans profess that they can 
 discern many things in the numbers of names ; and if 
 there did not lie herein a great mystery, St. John had not 
 said in the Revelations, "He that hath understanding let 
 him compute the number and name of the beast." 
 
 Now Unity 2 is not a number, but the common measure 
 and original of numbers; multiplied by itself it produceth 
 nothing but itself; if divided it is not cut, but multiplied 
 into parts, each of which still is unity, not more nor less. 
 Therefore some call it concord or friendship, being so 
 
 1 Cap. iii. p. cii. 2 Cap. iiii. p. ciii.
 
 166 COKlJTELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 knit that it cannot be divided ; but Martian, according to 
 the opinion of Aristotle, calls it Cupid, or desire, because 
 as one only and beyond itself having nothing, it bewails 
 and torments itself. From one all things proceed, of one 
 all things partake. In the exemplary world there is one 
 God, and his name lod is written with one letter ; in the 
 intellectual world there is one supreme intelligence, the 
 soul of the world ; in the celestial world one king of 
 stars, the sun ; in the elemental world one subject and 
 instrument of all virtues, natural and supernatural, the 
 philosopher's stone ; in the lesser world one first living 
 and last dying, chief member of the body, the heart ; 
 in the infernal world there is one Prince of Rebellion, 
 Lucifer. 
 
 Two 1 is the first number, because it is the first express- 
 ing multitude ; it is the first procreation, the first form of 
 parity and equity. It is called the number of science, and 
 of man, the other and the lesser world ; also the number 
 of charity, of marriage, and society, as it was said, They 
 twain shall be one flesh. And Solomon teaches it is 
 better that two be together, and woe be to him that is 
 alone, because when he falls he hath not another to help 
 him. Two is sometimes also regarded as the number of 
 confusion and uncleanness, especially unhappy to astro- 
 logers when it occurs under a saturnine or a martial influ- 
 ence. Unclean beasts went by twos into the ark. Unity, 
 it is said, was God; duality was a devil; therefore, say 
 
 1 Two to ten occupy for each number a chapter, and extend, therefore, 
 to cap. xiii. p. cxxxL
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 167 
 
 the Pythagoreans, two is not a number, but a confusion of 
 unities. This number, it is also reported, will cause 
 fearful goblins to appear to men travelling by night. 
 There is a divine name of two letters, and it may here at 
 once be said that there is a divine name answering as to 
 its letters to each number up to twelve, and to each 
 number a certain set of things answers in the scale of 
 worlds under the divine or exemplary, namely, the intel- 
 lectual, celestial, elementary, lesser, and infernal. 
 
 Three is a holy, powerful, incompounded number of 
 perfection. It is the number of the trinity. Three com- 
 prehends all time past, present, and future ; all space 
 length, breadth, and thickness. There are three states of 
 existence for a man under nature, law, and grace ; there 
 are three heavenly virtues Faith, Hope, Charity; there 
 are the three worlds Intellectual, Celestial, and Ele- 
 mental; and in man the lesser world three parts, 
 which correspond to them Brain to the Intellectual, 
 Heart to the Celestial, and the viler parts to the Ele- 
 mental. 
 
 But the Pythagoreans preferred before all others, as the 
 fountain of nature, the number four, called the Tetractis, 
 and by it they swore. It signifies solidity, and the 
 foundations of all things are laid foursquare. There are 
 four elements, four corners of the earth, four seasons, four 
 qualities of things heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. 
 Most nations have written the divine name with four 
 letters. There are four evangelists, and in Revelations
 
 168 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 there are said to be four beasts full of eyes standing round 
 about the throne. 
 
 The number five is of no small power, inasmuch as it 
 is composed of the first even and the first odd (unity not 
 being regarded as a number) ; but odd is male, and even 
 female. Therefore this is the number of wedlock, as the 
 Pythagoreans say ; and they call it also the number of 
 justice, because it divides ten, the number which contains 
 all others, in an even scale. There are five senses, there 
 were five wounds, and five is a number associated inti- 
 mately with the cross. By this number evil demons are 
 expelled, and poison is made harmless. The five-lettered 
 name of the Deity is the name of omnipotence. Under 
 the rule of nature, the divine trigrammaton the three- 
 lettered name was used; under law, the tetragram- 
 maton ; but under the rule of grace, the pentagram. 
 
 Six is the number of perfection ; having this perfection 
 in itself, shared by no other, that by the assemblage of its 
 half, its third part, and its sixth part, three, two, one, it 
 is made perfect. Therefore it is connected with produc- 
 tion, and is called the sign of the world, for in six days 
 the world was made complete. It is also the number of 
 labour and servitude : for six days shalt thou labour, for 
 six years shalt thou till the earth, and for six years the 
 Hebrew slave obeyed his master. There are six tones 
 also in all harmony, namely, five tones and two semi-tones 
 making one tone, which is the sixth. 
 
 Very many are the powers of the number seven, for it 
 consists of unity and six, of two and five, of three and
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 169 
 
 four, and absorbs into itself the dignity of its components. 
 Pythagoreans have entitled it the vehicle of life, for it con- 
 tains body and soul; the body is of four elements, spirit, 
 flesh, bone, and humour, affected Avith four qualities, 
 choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic; but the soul 
 is triple, made of reason, passion, and desire. Again, from 
 the moment of conception all the stages of man's life are 
 performed by sevens, and with the completion of the tenth 
 seven he has reached the appointed number of his years. 
 The extreme heighf to which man can attain is seven feet. 
 There are seven main parts of the body; beyond seven 
 hours life cannot go on without breath; beyond seven 
 days life cannot go on without food. The seventh days in 
 disease are critical. The moon, the seventh of the planets, 
 and the nearest to us, observes always this number in her 
 courses. The sacred power of this number is great; it is 
 the oath number, and among the Hebrews to seven meant 
 to swear. It is also the number of blessing and of rest, 
 for on the seventh day He rested who blessed it. It is 
 also the number of purification, as was seen when Elijah 
 bade the leper wash seven times in Jordan, and the 
 seventh year was set aside for penitence and remission of 
 sins. Seven is the number of the petitions in the Lord's 
 Prayer, and it is the number not only of prayer, but also 
 of praise, as says the prophet, " Seven times a day will I 
 praise thee." This number is allied to twelve, for out of 
 three added to four comes seven, but out of three multi- 
 plied by four comes twelve. A very long list has, of 
 course, to be cited of the sacred things and mysteries
 
 170 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 associated by the ancients generally and in Scripture witli 
 the number seven. There are seven planets, seven wise 
 men, seven openings in a man's head, seven angels stand- 
 ing before the throne Zaphkiel, Zadkiel, Raphael, 
 Camael, Haniel, Michael, Gabriel. 
 
 Eight is, according to the Pythagoreans, the number of 
 justice and plenitude. If divided it forms perfect and 
 equal halves, and if twice divided there is still equality in 
 its division; therefore it is the number of justice. This 
 number also represents eternity and the consummation of 
 the world, because it follows seven, which is the symbol 
 of this life and time. Therefore, also, it is the number of 
 blessedness ; and eight is the number of those who are 
 declared blessed, namely, the peacemakers, those who 
 hunger and thirst after righteousness, the meek, the per- 
 secuted for righteousness' sake, the pure in heart, the 
 merciful, the poor in spirit, they that mourn. 
 
 Nine is the number of the muses, and of the moving 
 spheres that sing in harmony together. Calliope is at- 
 tached to the outer sphere, or primum mobile, Urania to 
 the starry heaven, Polyhymnia to Saturn, Terpsichore to 
 Jupiter, Clio to Mars, Melpomene to the Sun, Erato to 
 Venus, Euterpe to Mercury, Thalia to the Moon. There 
 are nine orders of blessed angels, and the number has 
 occult relation to the highest mysteries, for it was at the 
 ninth hour that the Holy Spirit came. Astrologers ob- 
 serve nine years in a man's life ; and nine has also relation 
 to imperfection, incompleteness, as wanting one of ten, 
 as St. Augustine interpreted concerning the ten lepers.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 171 
 
 Nor are we to suppose that there is no meaning in the 
 length of nine cubits ascribed to Og, King of Basan, who 
 is the type of the devil. 
 
 Ten is called the complete number, because there 
 is no counting beyond it except by combinations formed 
 with it and with the other numbers, of which every 
 one may be obtained out of it by some form of de- 
 composition. Therefore the ancients called their sacred 
 ceremonies denary, initiation being preceded by ten days 
 of abstinence. There were ten chords to the psalter, and 
 ten instruments of music to which psalms were sung. 
 The first effluence of the One source of all was ternary, 
 then denary into the ten sephiroth, and there are in all 
 tens the trace of a divine principle. 
 
 The number eleven is not sacred, but twelve is divine 1 . 
 Eleven exceeds the number of the commandments, and 
 falls short of twelve, which is of grace or perfection ; yet 
 sometimes it hath from God a gratuitous favour, as in the 
 case of him who was called to the vineyard in the eleventh 
 hour. Twelve is the number of signs in the Zodiac, of 
 chief joints in the body of a man, of the tribes of Israel, 
 of the Apostles, and of the gates of the Heavenly Jerusa- 
 lem. Of the numbers above twelve 2 the mysteries are 
 evolved on a like principle, and determined also by a 
 reduction of them to their elements as multiples of the 
 first ten. Cornelius describes the most important from 
 which it will suffice to select eighteen and twenty as un- 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil. Lib. ii. cap. xiiii. ed. cit. p. cxxx. 
 2 Cap. xv. p. cxxxvi.
 
 172 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 fortunate, because in the former Israel served Eglon, King 
 of Moab, in the other, Jacob served and Joseph was sold; 
 twenty-two as the fulness of wisdom, for it is the number 
 of the Hebrew letters and the number of the books of the 
 Old Testament; twenty-eight as a number favoured by 
 the moon; forty as the number of expiation, for in the 
 time of the Deluge it rained forty days, the children of 
 Israel were detained forty years in the wilderness, the 
 destruction of Nineveh was put off during forty days, 
 forty days fasted Moses, and Elias, and the Lord. Fifty 
 signifies remission and liberty. The number a hundred, 
 in which the lost sheep was found, is holy, and because it 
 consists of tens, shows a complete perfection ; but the 
 complement of all numbers is a thousand, which is the 
 cube of the number ten, signifying a complete and abso- 
 lute perfection. Plato in his Republic also celebrates two 
 numbers, which are not disallowed by Aristotle in his 
 Politics, namely, the square and cube of twelve, which 
 last number, 1728, is fatal: to which when any city or 
 commonwealth hath attained it shall decline. And let 
 thus much suffice for numbers in particular. 
 
 Certain gestures used by the magicians, seemingly ab- 
 surd, are meant to express numbers by notation on the 
 body 1 . Cornelius gives a set of rules from Bede, and 
 refers to others in the Arithmetic of Brother Luca de 
 Burgo. They are of this kind: when you would ex- 
 press one, bend the little finger of the left hand over 
 the palm ; when you would express a thousand, put the 
 
 1 Cap. xvi. p. cxxxviii.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 173 
 
 left hand on the breast, the fingers pointing towards 
 heaven ; when expressing sixty thousand, hold the left 
 thigh with the left hand, fingers downwards. The next 
 chapter is on the various notes of numbers used among 
 the Romans, with which is set the notation commonly 
 used with magical characters a cross to represent ten, a 
 small horizontal line touching its lower limb to represent 
 another five ; short upright strokes for units ; a circle for 
 a hundred ; and the same circle placed over any of the 
 before-mentioned signs to represent that number of hun- 
 dreds. The next two chapters 1 describe the notation 
 by letters of Greeks, Hebrews, and Chaldeans, and in- 
 clude the depiction of a peculiar system of marks used for 
 notation in two very ancient books of the astrologers and 
 magicians. 
 
 By extracting the significance of numbers from the 
 letters in a name, occult truths may be discovered 2 , as was 
 shown by the Pythagoreans. This is the science of Arith- 
 mancy. If you desire to know the horoscope of any one, 
 compute his name and that of his father and mother, add 
 them and divide by twelve; if the remainder be one, he is 
 under Leo ; if two, under Aquarius, &c. Let no one 
 marvel at these mysteries. The Most High created all 
 things by number, measure, and weight, and nothing 
 that was done was casual, but all was by a certain divine 
 rule. 
 
 Moreover, the Pythagoreans have attributed certain 
 numbers to each god or planet, and each element 3 ; one 
 
 1 Cap. xviii. and xix. - Cap. xx. p. cxliii. 3 Cap. xxi. p. cxliiii.
 
 174 
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 to the sun, two to the moon, three to the three fortunate 
 planets, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, and so forth ; eight to air, 
 five to fire, six to earth, and twelve to water. Each of 
 the seven planets has also a sacred table 1 , endowed with 
 many great celestial virtues, representing the divine order 
 of numbers impressed upon it by the superior Idea acting 
 through the soul of the world, and the most sweet harmony 
 of their celestial rays, which can be expressed only by 
 images that represent the supramundane intelligences, 
 and can be informed by them with their power. The 
 sacred tables for each planet are then given with the 
 sacred seals or signs of itself, its intelligence, and its 
 demon or spirit. The tables are in squares, progressively 
 enlarging ; we take as an illustration the third, that of 
 Mars: 
 
 11 
 
 24 
 
 7 
 
 20 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 25 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 
 21 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 Beside this is placed a version of it in the Hebrew nota- 
 tion, and beneath it these figures, the seals of Mars, 1, of 
 its intelligence, 2, and of its demon, 3 : 
 
 Cap. xxii. pp. cxlv.-cliii.
 
 175 
 
 Now, if these sacred tables and characters are engraven 
 at a time when the planet is auspicious on an iron plate, or 
 sword, it makes a man powerful in war and judgment, ter- 
 rible to enemies ; and if they be engraved upon cornelian, 
 it arrests a flow of blood ; but if the tables and characters 
 be drawn when Mars is inauspicious on a plate of red 
 brass, such a plate causes discord among men and beasts, 
 drives away bees, pigeons, or fish, stops mills, deprives 
 men of fortune in the chase, and compels the enemies of 
 its possessor to submit themselves to him. 
 
 From arithmetic we turn to geometry. Partly from the 
 mystery of numbers, partly from the mystery of form, 
 arises the power of geometrical figures. The circle 
 answering to unity and ten, the largest and most perfect 
 of lines, being indeed infinite, is judged to be most fit 
 for bindings and conjurations ; whence they who adjure
 
 176 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 evil spirits are wont to environ themselves with a circle. 
 A pentangle hath also great command over evil spirits, 
 through the power of the number five, and through the 
 mystery of its double set of angles, inner and outer. The 
 Egyptians and Arabians affirmed the power of the cross, 
 which they said is inspired with the strength of the stars, 
 which strength results from the straightness of angles and 
 rays ; and stars are then most potent when they occupy 
 four corners of the heaven, and unite to make a cross by 
 the projection of their rays. The figure of a cross hath 
 also a great correspondency with the most potent numbers, 
 five, seven, and nine. It is also the rightest figure of all, 
 containing four right angles. The power of these signs, 
 let it always Be remembered, is not in the things them- 
 selves, but in the reflexion from them as it were by echo 
 of the higher powers, which they attract by their cor- 
 respondency and harmony. We must not pass over here 
 the figures which Pythagoras and his followers assigned 
 to the elements and the heavens a cube to the earth, 
 a pyramid to fire, a dodecahedron to the heavens, and so 
 forth. By such knowledge many wonderful things may 
 be done with glasses ; and I have learnt, adds Cornelius, 
 how to make glasses by which any one may see what he 
 pleases at a very great distance 1 . 
 
 From geometry we turn to the harmony of music ; and, 
 in the first place, a chapter of recorded marvels 2 illustrates 
 
 1 " Et ego novi ex illis miranda conficere, et specula in quibus quis videre 
 poterit qusecunque voluerit a longissima distantia." 
 9 Cap. xxiv. p. civ.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 177 
 
 the mighty power of sound. Then follows the ancient 
 theory concerning the harmonious tones and motions of 
 the heavens, with a slight discussion on the music of the 
 voice, which carries subtle soul with it into the souls of 
 others, the mechanism of the voice, the music of instru- 
 ments, and the air as a condition necessary to the per- 
 ception of all sound by human ears. After this we are 
 told what sound and harmony is correspondent with each 
 star 1 . Saturn, Mars, and the Moon, have more of voice 
 than music : and to Saturn belong hoarse, heavy, and slow 
 words and sounds ; to Mars, rough, sharp, and menacing 
 ones; while there is observed by the Moon a mean between 
 the two. Jupiter, the Sun, Venus, and Mercury, possess 
 harmonies : those of Jupiter are grave, sober, and yet 
 pleasant ; those of Mercury, more careless, various, merry, 
 and pleasant, with a certain boldness. The ancients, who 
 used four strings only, assigned them to the four elements ; 
 the bass was earth, then followed water and fire, and air 
 was the treble. This part of the book goes very minutely 
 into the correspondence of the musical laws with all the 
 harmonies of nature, explains the belief that a harmonious 
 set of musical intervals will denote the distances between 
 the planets, and discovers also a musical harmony in the 
 relations of the elements to one another. A chapter of 
 some length, illustrated with seven woodcuts 2 , then dis- 
 plays some of the proportion and harmony in a man's 
 body ; and a chapter follows that, upon the harmony of 
 the soul. Man is the most perfect work of God, the sum 
 
 1 Cap. xxvi. p. clviii. 2 Cap. xxvii. p. clx. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and image of the lesser world ; in whom, therefore, with 
 the most perfect harmony, are contained all numbers, 
 measures, weights, motions, and elements. On the number 
 of his fingers has arithmetic been built ; measures and 
 proportions were invented from his very joints ; temples 
 and palaces, by divine order the Ark of Noah, have been 
 constructed in proportion to man's body, which is the 
 microcosm, or lesser world, that images the macrocosm, 
 or whole fabric. There is no sign or star that has 
 not correspondence with some part of man. The whole 
 measure tends to roundness ; yet again, let a man stretch 
 out his arms, and his feet, head, and hands touch the four 
 sides of a perfect square. Let him stand within the cir- 
 cumference of a circle, with his feet so much parted and 
 his arms so much raised as that feet, fingers, and head 
 touch its circumference, then by these parts is there de- 
 scribed within that circle a perfect pentagon. Man is next 
 shown in various other positions, which display the geo- 
 metrical and arithmetical harmony of his proportions. A 
 very minute detail of proportions follows, which descends 
 even to such particulars as that the second joint of the 
 middle finger is in length equal to the distance from the 
 lower lip to the bottom of the chin. There are also 
 proportions of solid form, proportions of musical harmony, 
 proportions of weight (in a sound man, eight of blood, 
 four of phlegm, two of choler, one of melancholy). 
 
 The motions, also, of the members of men's bodies answer 
 to the celestial motions, and every man hath in himself the
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 1Y9 
 
 motion of his heart, which answers to the motion of the sun, 
 and, being diffused through the arteries into the whole body, 
 signifies by a most sure rule, years, months, days, hours, 
 and minutes. Moreover, there is a certain nerve found 
 by the anatomists about the nod of the neck, which being 
 touched doth so move all the members of the body, that 
 every one of them stirs according to its proper motion; 
 by which like touch Aristotle thinks the members of 
 the world are moved by God. The application of the 
 same rule of harmony to the several parts of the mind is 
 made on the same principle, but with less fulness of 
 detail. 
 
 We turn next to the harmonies of the celestial bodies. 
 No magical work is to be undertaken without observa- 
 tion of them 1 , and particularly, in all works, of the moon, 
 also of Mercury the messenger between the higher and 
 the lower gods, who when he is with the good increases 
 goodness, and when with the bad increases evil. "When 
 planets are most powerful in exaltation, or triplicity, or 
 term, or face and how to observe and know the temper 
 of the fixed stars, Cornelius discusses in the next two 
 chapters, after which we get specially to the sun and 
 moon, and to their magical considerations 2 . They rule the 
 heavens, and all under them ; the sun, lord of the elements, 
 the moon, mistress of increase and decrease. The sun is 
 consonant to God ; in its essence is the Father imaged, in 
 its light the Son, and in its heat the Holy Ghost. But the 
 
 1 Cap. xxix. p. clxxi. 2 Cap. xxxii. p. cxliiii. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 moon, as the receptacle of heavenly influences, and as it 
 were the wife of all the stars, is nearest to the earth, on 
 which she pours the superior influences which she hath re- 
 ceived; and by this planet, on account of her familiarity 
 and propinquity, a stronger influence is exercised on the 
 inferiors that here receive her power in a stream. 
 
 Now to the moon, measuring the whole zodiac in twenty- 
 eight days, there were appointed by the wise men of the 
 Indians and most ancient astrologers twenty-eight man- 
 sions 1 , and in each the moon obtaineth some especial 
 power. The first is called Alnath, or the Ram's Horns ; 
 its beginning is from the head of Aries, and it causes dis- 
 cords, journeys. The second is Allothaim, or Albochan, 
 the Ram's Belly; its beginning is from the twelfth degree 
 of the same sign, fifty-one minutes, twenty-two seconds ; 
 it conduces to the finding of treasures, the retaining 
 of captives. In this manner Cornelius goes on to define 
 the whole twenty mansions, in which lie hidden many 
 secrets of the wisdom of the ancients, by the which they 
 wrought wonders on all things that are under the circle of 
 the moon ; and they attributed to every mansion its re- 
 semblances, images, and seals, and its presiding intelli- 
 gences, and they did work by the virtue of them after 
 divers manners. 
 
 It is necessary, also, to observe the true movements of 
 the heavenly bodies in the eighth sphere, and to take 
 note of the planetary hours 2 , the hours of a day being 
 apportioned successively by astrologers to planets, begin- 
 
 2 Cap. xxxiii. p. cxlv. - Cap. xxxiiii. p. cxlvi.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 181 
 
 ning with the one that is lord of the day. Thirteen 
 chapters 1 follow on the images by which power may be 
 drawn from planets, stars, signs of the zodiac, and houses 
 of the moon. All images are powerful ; St. Thomas 
 Aquinas says, in his book De Fato, that even garments, 
 houses, fountains, do by their form receive a certain quali- 
 fication from the stars. So certain, images on seals, ring?, 
 glasses, do bring certain powers down, and that most effica- 
 ciously, if such seals, rings, or glasses be made at a fit 
 time of material fitly chosen. The stars in the heavens 
 form traceable images that have been set down by the 
 Egyptians, Indians, and Chaldeans, who have for this 
 reason placed twelve general images in the circle of the 
 zodiac. The pictures of such signs acting in suitable 
 triplicities, are powerful : thus, Cancer, Scorpio, and 
 Pisces, because they constitute the watery and northern 
 triplicity, prevail against dry and hot fevers. Then there 
 are also thirty-six images placed in the zodiac according 
 to the number of its faces ; Cornelius describes each, and 
 states what its power is. Thus, in the first face of Aries, 
 ascends the image of a black man, clothed in a white 
 garment, large-bodied, reddish-eyed, strong, and display- 
 ing anger. This image signifies and causes boldness, for- 
 titude, loftiness and shamelessness. Each planet has a 
 variety of images, and for the power of each image it is 
 proper to depict it on a stated sort of stone, metal, &c. Each 
 image so depicted represents and exerts one of the virtues 
 of the planet. Thus, Saturn ascending, draw upon a Ipad- 
 
 1 Cap. xxxv.-xlvii. pp. clxxvi.-clxxxix.
 
 182 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 stone Saturn as a man -with a stag's face, and camel's 
 feet, carrying a scythe in his right hand, a dart in his left, 
 and sitting on a dragon ; that image was expected to be pro- 
 fitable for the lengthening of life. An image of Saturn 
 on cast metal, as a beautiful man, was promised to foretel 
 things to come. The Egyptians and Phoenicians did use 
 also a certain image 1 , the head and tail of the dragon of 
 the moon (cause of its eclipses), to introduce, where it was 
 worn, anguish, infirmity, and misfortune. They made 
 also images for every mansion of the moon; as, for 
 example, in the first, for the destruction of some one, they 
 made in an iron ring the image of a black man in a 
 garment of hair and girdled, casting a small lance with his 
 right hand ; they sealed this in black wax, and perfumed 
 it with liquid storax, and wished some evil to come. Cor- 
 nelius specifies in the same way the images used for the 
 other twenty-seven mansions. He adds the images used 
 to obtain virtue from the chief of the fixed stars, or con- 
 stellations : as, under the Pleiades, they made the image 
 of a little maiden, or the figure of a lamp ; its power was 
 said to increase the light of the eyes, to raise winds, as- 
 semble spirits, reveal secret things. 
 
 There are other figures formed out of arrangements of 
 stars which are ascribed to elements, planets, and heavenly 
 signs, which have like power to that of images, and which 
 are described in books on Geornancy. Cornelius shows 
 some of them to his reader. 
 
 Two chapters follow upon the magical use of images 
 
 1 Cap. xlviii. p. clxxxix.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 183 
 
 not drawn after celestial figures 1 , but according to the 
 worker's thought : as when to procure love one makes 
 images embracing one another, to procure damage, broken 
 images of that which we would destroy, all which Albertus 
 Magnus describes in his Speculum. Such images are made 
 diversely and sometimes buried, sometimes hung on a tree 
 to wave in the wind, sometimes within a chimney to be 
 smoked, sometimes kept with the head downwards and 
 sometimes with the head up. The art of making these is 
 astrological. Thus, for gain, let there be made an image 
 under the ascendant of the nativity of the man, or under 
 the ascension of that place to which you would appoint 
 the gain, and you must make the lord of the second 
 house, which is in the house of substance, to be joined 
 with the lord of the ascendant in the trine or sextile, 
 and let there be a reception amongst them ; you must 
 make fortunate the eleventh and the lord thereof, and, if 
 you can, put part of the fortune in the ascendant or second; 
 and let the image be buried in that place, or carried from 
 that place, to which you would appoint the gain. 
 
 The next chapter 2 is on characters, deduced out of geo- 
 mantical figures from the true characters of the heavens, 
 which are the writing of the angels, Malachim, describing 
 in the sky all things to the man competent to read. There 
 are also characters not taken from celestials, but adapted, 
 as in the case of images lately described, to a thought of 
 them within the mind 3 . In this way, the characters of the 
 
 1 Cap. xlix. L, pp. cxci.-cxciiil - Cap. li. p. cxciiii. 
 
 3 Cap. lii. p. cxcvi.
 
 184 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Ram and Bull were taken from their horns, <yi ^, that of 
 Aquarius from waters, y, and so with the rest. And the 
 sign of Saturn was deduced from a sickle, that of Jupiter 
 from a sceptre, that of Mars from a bolt of war, of Venus 
 from a looking-glass, of Mercury from a wand. In the 
 same way characters have been formed to represent various 
 combinations of signs, stars, and natures. 
 
 Of all operations in occult science there is not one that 
 is not rooted in astrology 1 , of which science, since " huge 
 volumes are everywhere extant," Cornelius does not think 
 it necessary to detail the principles. By the use of dice 
 made under certain celestial influences future destinies may 
 be divined. Nor is it a blind chance that works in divi- 
 nation by lot 3 , by throwing cockles, opening a page of 
 Virgil, or in other ways. For, as the Platonists teach, 
 accident can be in no case the prime sufficient cause, we 
 must look higher, and find out, therefore, in these matters, 
 a cause which may know and govern the effect. Now this 
 is not material but immaterial, and may be in men's souls, 
 in departed spirits, in celestial intelligences, or in God 
 himself. The power of man's own mind strongly exerted 
 may control dead matter and direct the lot aright, but 
 lest such exertion proved too weak, the ancients were 
 used, before the casting of the lot, by sacred performances 
 to summon the divine intelligences to their aid. 
 
 Now the heavens cannot exercise so many influences as 
 a mere body, but they must be animated by a living soul, 
 and upon the soul of the world depends the vigour of 
 
 1 Cap. liii. p. cxcviii. - Cap. liiii. p. cxcix.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 185 
 
 inferior things. This doctrine has been held by the poets 
 and philosophers 1 , and is confirmed by reason 2 . The 
 World has a soul and, as it was said in the former book, 
 also a spirit. For it would be absurd to assume life in parts 
 of the world, as flies and worms, and to deny life and soul 
 to the entire world as a most perfect and noble body ; to 
 say that heavens, stars, elements give life and soul to 
 things below, yet themselves have not that which they 
 give. The soul of the world and the celestial souls partake 
 of the divine reason 3 . The -reason of terrene things is 
 in the earth, of watery things in the water, each part 
 works in its place, and hurts made in each are by itself 
 repaired. Shall we, having reason, say that souls higher 
 than ours have it not; and when, as saith Plato, the 
 world is made by very Goodness itself, as well as it was 
 possible to make it, shall we deny that it is endowed with 
 not only life, sense, reason, but also with understanding. 
 For the perfection of the body is the soul ; and that body 
 is more perfect which hath a more perfect soul. It is 
 necessary, then, seeing celestial bodies are most per- 
 fect, that they have also most perfect minds. They 
 partake, therefore, of an intellect and a mind. This also 
 the Platonists prove by the perseverance of their order 
 and tenor ; because motion is of its nature free, it may 
 easily swerve and wander now one way, now another, 
 unless it be ruled by an intellect and a mind, and that 
 also by a perfect mind foreseeing from the beginning the 
 best way and chief end. " For bodies resist not a most 
 1 Cap. lv. p. cc. 2 Cap. Ivi. p. cci. * Cap. Ivii. p. ccii.
 
 186 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 powerful soul, and a perfect mind doth not change its 
 counsel." So writes the youth; and who shall scorn him 
 if he saw a living soul bestowed by God where we see 
 what we are too apt to forget ourselves in thinking are 
 dead laws of divine ordinance ? Thus he goes on : " The 
 soul of the world, therefore, is a certain one thing filling 
 all things, bestowing all things, binding and knitting 
 together all things, that it might make one frame of the 
 world, and that it might be, as it were, one instrument, 
 making of many strings one music, sounding from three 
 kinds of creatures, intellectual, celestial, and incorruptible, 
 with one only breath and life." 
 
 Then follows a chapter on the Orphic names of the 
 celestial spirits ruling man 1 names, says Cornelius, not 
 "of evil deceiving spirits, but of natural and divine 
 powers, distributed to the world by the true God, for the 
 service and profit of man, who knows how to use them." 
 Then follows a chapter of the epithets and various names 
 given to each of the seven governors of the world, the 
 Planets, in magical speech 3 ; chiefly they are those used by 
 Latin poets. Finally, in the sixtieth and last chapter of 
 his second book of Occult Science, Cornelius shows how, 
 by his aspiration towards, and his invocation of, superior 
 things, man may ascend into the intelligible world, and 
 become like to the more sublime spirits and intelligences. 
 He represents man, as it were, ascending Jacob's ladder, 
 on which angels throng, striving to reach to the thoughts 
 and to the purity of those who are above it, at the very 
 
 1 Cap. Iviii. p. cciii. - Cap. lix. p. cciiii.
 
 HIS SECOND BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 187 
 
 gate of heaven ; seeking to strike one end of the chord of 
 harmony which runs through spiritual realms, each one 
 holier and purer than the last, and which shall vibrate at 
 length even with his thought before the throne of God. 
 He teaches that we must aspire upward, but even upward 
 only to the souls of things ; not to the visible glory of the 
 sun, the king of stars, but to the soul of it, and become 
 like to it, and comprehend the intelligible light thereof 
 with an intellectual sight, as the sensible light with a 
 corporeal eye. But while seeking this, his closing counsel 
 is, that " in the first place we must implore assistance from 
 the First Author, and pray not only with the mouth but 
 with a religious gesture and a supplicating soul also 
 abundantly, incessantly, sincerely that He would en- 
 lighten our minds, and remove the darkness gathering 
 upon our souls by reason of our bodies."
 
 188 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF THE THIRD AND LAST BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 EARNEST thoughts closed Cornelius Agrippa's Second 
 Book of Magic, and an earnest theme engages him 
 throughout the third. It is upon the secrets of religion. 
 He begins with an exaltation of piety 1 , passes then to an 
 enforcement of the rule of silence 2 , observed in all ages as 
 to the most sacred mysteries, and accepts the necessity of 
 a reticence on his own part as regards the most occult and 
 sacred of the truths that wisdom has discovered. The 
 student of magic must by the same rule secrete, and more 
 than that, must dignify himself 3 by a forsaking of all 
 sensual pleasures, and by seeking all means that encourage 
 high and holy contemplation, so that he may purify and 
 exalt his intellect, while he at the same time purifies and 
 subdues his flesh, avoiding contact with unclean things, 
 taking part with a true reverence and with a strong 
 faith in all rites of the Church, and labouring in all things 
 to become as meet as man may be for the companionship 
 of angels. Magical operations are ruled by Religion or 
 
 1 De Occ. Phil, Lib. iii. cap. i. (ed. cit) p. ccix. * Cap. ii. p. ccix. 
 3 Cap. iii. p. ccxi.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 189 
 
 by Superstition 1 . Religion is a steady contemplation of 
 divine things, and the uniting of oneself with God by 
 good works and household worship. It is obedience to 
 the Church as a mother, and to God as a father, from 
 whom all benefits are taken, as saith the Rabbi Henitia, 
 by theft if not with thanks. It is obedience to the 
 teacher of the nations, who said, " Whatsoever you shall 
 do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, giving thanks to him, and to God the Father by 
 him." Every religion has in it something good, for it is 
 directed to our Father and Creator; and though God 
 allows of one religion only, yet he leaves not unrewarded 
 those who have performed the chief duty of man, if not 
 in deed, yet in intention. Now worship that is different 
 from true religion, or that imitates its forms but contains 
 not its true meaning, is superstition, as in the excommu- 
 nication of locusts, and the baptism of bells. And by this 
 method, through a strong will and belief, Avonders may be 
 worked, superstition working by credulity as true religion 
 works by faith. But in superstition there is evil, and the 
 danger of yet more evil. If in this book superstitious 
 practices are described, they are here set down only as 
 records of error from which to elicit truth. 
 
 Religion has three guides 2 Love, Hope, and Faith. 
 Love is the chariot of the soul love brings us near to 
 God, gives power to our prayers. Belief that is faith is 
 above science, as belief that is credulity is below science. 
 It is the root of miracles, and there is nothing incredible 
 1 Cap. iiii. p. ccxiii. " Cap. v. p. ccxv.
 
 190 CORKELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 for him who believes all things to be possible with God. 
 Therefore, our mind being pure and divine, inflamed with 
 a religious love, adorned with hope, by faith directed, 
 placed on the height and summit of the human soul, 
 draws truth down from above. So we, though natural, 
 come to perceive things that are above nature, and by 
 religion alone a man may attain to power over spiritual 
 things and shall work miracles 1 . But if he works them 
 by the sole strength of his spiritual virtue, if he persevere 
 in such work, he cannot live long, but is absorbed by 
 the divine power. And whoso attempts this, being im- 
 pure, brings judgment down on his own head, and is 
 delivered over to the evil spirit to be devoured. No 
 wonders can be worked by him who knows not that there 
 is a supreme God 3 ; and among the heathens Jupiter was 
 the name of the great king who produced the soul of the 
 world, while other gods were secondary gods, or second 
 causes. Augustine and Porphyry testify that the Platonists 
 recognised three persons in God 3 the Father, the Son, or 
 first mind, and the Spirit, or soul of the world. Agrippa's 
 chapter on this subject contains a curious account of the 
 different forms of belief concerning the divine nature, re- 
 corded as having been entertained of old time in various 
 parts of the world, and of the references in them to the 
 Son and Spirit. The next chapter 4 devoutly states, in 
 words appointed by the Church, what is the creed of 
 " the catholic doctors and faithful people of God." 
 
 1 Cap. vL-p. ccxvi. 2 Cap. vii. p. ccxix. 3 Cap. viii. p. ccxxi. 
 4 Cap. ix. p. ccxxiii.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 191 
 
 The tenth chapter of the third book having identified 
 the heathen deities with attributes called by the Hebrews 
 Numerations, showing analogies between the Orphic 
 Hymns and the Cabala, proceeds to describe the ten 
 sephiroth and the ten divine names appertaining to them. 
 Then follows a cabalistical chapter on the divine names, 
 and the power of them, including notice of the mystical 
 properties of certain sacred words with which even the 
 Pythagoreans could heal diseases of the mind or body. 
 Also Serenus Samonicus delivers, among precepts of 
 physic, that if the word Abracadabra be written as is here 
 expressed, 
 
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 a 
 
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 b r | 
 
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 " 
 
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 d 
 
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 b 
 
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 r 
 
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 : 
 
 a 
 
 d 
 
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 d 
 
 
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 paper or parchment so inscribed, and hung about the 
 neck, will cure all kinds of fever. But Rabbi Hama, in 
 his book on Speculation, gives a sacred seal, composed of 
 divine names, more efficacious, since it cures all diseases
 
 192 
 
 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and heals all griefs whatsoever. The obverse and reverse 
 of it are as here depicted :
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 193 
 
 But all this must be written by a most holy man on the 
 purest gold or virgin parchment, with ink made of the 
 smoke of incense or of consecrated waxlights mixed with 
 holy water. It must be used with an infallible faith, a 
 constant hope, and a mind lifted to communion with 
 Heaven. Neither let any man marvel at this power of 
 sacred words, through which God worked in the creation. 
 The influence of divine names flowing through middle 
 causes into all inferior things 1 is next discussed, and it is 
 shown how modern -cabalists among the Hebrews cannot 
 work the marvels that their fathers worked, because all 
 things are now obedient to the one divine name, which 
 they do not recognise. The ascription in Scripture of 
 the names of limbs to the diverse and manifold powers that 
 abide in God is next illustrated 2 . Man, it is said, is 
 made in the divine image, with such limbs as representa- 
 tives of the divine powers, as signs between which there 
 is kept just order and proportion; whence the Mecubals 
 of the Hebrews say, that if a man capable of the divine 
 influence do make any member of his body clean and 
 free from filthiness, then it becomes the habitaculum and 
 proper seat of the secret limb of God and of the power 
 thereby designated. The next chapter is on the gods of 
 the ancients, as described by their philosophers, and de- 
 tails the several places and countries consecrated to them. 
 It is then shown 3 that the Catholic Church believes the 
 stars to be not themselves animated, but peopled by cer- 
 
 1 Cap. xiL p. ccxxxiiL * Cap. xiiL p. ccxxxiiii. 
 
 1 Cap. xv. p. ccxxxviiL 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 tain divine souls not free from the stain of sin. Upon 
 this topic various authorities are quoted. 
 
 But of intelligences, angels, and infernal or subter- 
 ranean spirits 1 , there are angels supercelestial, who work 
 only near the throne ; angels celestial, who rule over the 
 spheres, and are divided as to order and nature, according 
 to the stars over which they have rule. Finally, there is 
 a third class of angels, who are ministers of grace below, 
 attend invisibly upon us, protect us, help or hinder us, as 
 they consider fit. These are divided also into four orders, 
 according with the four elements and the four powers 
 mind, reason, imagination, and activity. There are angels 
 of places, as of woods and mountains, whence the heathen 
 drew ideas of gods; and there are angels diurnal, noc- 
 turnal, or meridional. There are as many legions of 
 these angels, it is said, as there are stars in heaven, and in 
 each legion as many spirits. Augustine and Gregory say 
 that an equal number of unclean spirits correspond to 
 them. Some other interpretations are given of their 
 number and nature; after which the youth writes again 
 an orthodox chapter, to correct any appearances of heresy, 
 inscribed " Of these according to the Theologians." The 
 next is a long chapter on the various or.ders of devils, 
 which, as the subject was a dangerous one in a book on 
 what would be denounced as the black art, is theological 
 throughout, but shows a difference of opinion among 
 theologians as to their origin and classification. Some 
 think they are all fallen from light, others describe them 
 
 1 Cap. xvi. p. ccxxxiiii.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 195 
 
 as all black, and arrange them in nine companies, to the 
 third of which belongs " that devil Theutus, who taught 
 cards and dice;" while of the six demons of the air, the 
 chief prince of the power of the air is "Meririm: he 
 is the meridian devil, a boiling spirit, a devil raging in 
 the south." Inquest is then held upon the bodies of 
 devils 1 . The next chapter is on the annoyance caused by 
 creatures of this sort, and upon the way of obtaining by 
 a pure and holy life the sympathy and aid of purer spirits 
 who excel them in authority and power. It is then 
 shown that, by paying regard to the kind of good genius 
 we desire, whether solary or jovial, or any other, we may 
 seek its special help, and have from it help only according 
 to the influences in connexion with which it exists. 
 
 Every man hath a threefold demon 2 : one holy, which 
 directs the soul and puts good thoughts into the mind; 
 one of nativity his genius descending from the stars 
 which ruled his birth: and some think that the soul as it 
 comes down into the body chooses and brings with it a 
 genius for guide : they who have a fortunate genius are, 
 it is said, born to good luck; the third demon that 
 attends a man is that of profession, namely, one pertaining 
 to the profession that he makes of sect or calling secretly 
 desired by his mind, and chosen when the mind is able to 
 take dispositions on itself. According to the nobleness of 
 the profession and a man's earnestness therein is the dignity 
 and power of his demon ; and should he change his pro- 
 fession, he must change his demon also. If a profession 
 
 1 Cap. xix. p. ccxh-fi. * Cap. xrii. p. cclii. 
 
 02
 
 196 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 suit my nature, then its demon agrees with my genius, and 
 my inner life is the more peaceable, my outer life more 
 prosperous. If I undertake a profession contrary to my 
 genius, I shall be troubled with disagreeing guides and 
 helpers. Let me know, therefore, my good genius and 
 what its nature is. Having found in what path it is 
 most able to lead me forward, let me direct my thoughts 
 chiefly to that. Jacob excelled in strength, Phineas in 
 zeal, Solomon in knowledge, Peter in faith, John in 
 charity, Magdalen in contemplation, Martha in officious- 
 ness. Follow not, however, the bent of thy genius if it 
 disagree with thy profession, when that is holiest and best 
 which the demon of nativity opposes, that mean which it 
 seeks. Follow the better path, and thou shalt at some 
 time perceive that it is well. 
 
 The means by which angels converse are called the 
 tongues of angels 1 by Saint Paul; we know not how they 
 speak, or how they hear, yet there is a spiritual body pos- 
 sessed by a demon, everywhere sensible, that can drink 
 knowledge in at every pore, as sponges drink in water. 
 Then follows a chapter containing the names of spirits 
 and their addresses ; that is to say, the names of the stars, 
 signs, elements, and corners of the heaven in which they 
 dwell as masters. 
 
 The twenty-fifth chapter is on the cabalistical method 
 of deducing names of angels out of Sacred Writ, and in- 
 cludes those tables used for the commutation of letters, 
 whereof the use is known already to the reader. A method 
 
 1 Cap. xxiii. p. ccliiii.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 197 
 
 is then explained of finding out the names of spirits from 
 the stars, by fitting the shape of a Hebrew letter over such 
 of them as it will cover. Some tables are then given and 
 explained, which show how to calculate the names of 
 spirits written in the sky, by a strange index compounded 
 of Hebrew characters and planetary or zodiacal signs 1 . 
 There is a way of naming spirits from the stars or signs 
 over which they are set, as from Aries, Ariel, which is 
 in other languages than Latin, Teletiel, Betuliel, Masniel, 
 and so forth, all these names being used, but those formed 
 from the most sacred languages most potent. 
 
 The next three chapters are upon sacred characters, 
 which contain, in a form mystical to us, divine knowledge 
 and power. They are ancient hieroglyphics, whereof 
 the origin is figurative; characters, or letters, found by 
 cabalists among the stars; as well as two other alpha- 
 bets used by them, one of them called Malachim, and one 
 the Passing of the River. They also divide the twenty- 
 seven Hebrew letters into three classes and nine chambers 
 representing mysteries, blend and again dissect them. 
 But let it be understood that spirits are pure intellect, 
 and cannot be marked with any figures, nor do any marks 
 we make belong to them, or draw them, as marks only; 
 but we take those marks to represent their spiritual 
 power, and by strong belief and veneration, growing to 
 ecstatical adoration of the pure intelligences we have so 
 expressed, we give life from our own soul to our material 
 expression, and, by undoubting hope and love, do in the 
 
 1 Cap. xxv. p. cclvL
 
 198 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 spirit and in truth receive the influences we desire. 
 Some of these characters have not been deduced by any 
 of the means aforesaid, but communicated by direct reve- 
 lation, as when the sign of the cross was shown to Con- 
 stantine with the inscription, " In hoc vince." 
 
 The summoning of good spirits is easier than the dis- 
 missal of them, and it is not difficult, by certain forms 
 and the use of herbs or music suitable, in places fre- 
 quented by them, to cause the spirits that are always 
 near the earth to appear. Such are the fairies of the 
 fields, the naiads of the streams, the nymphs of the 
 ponds and marshes, the dodonse who live in acorns, and 
 the paleae who lurk in fodder. They are easily allured, 
 most easily by those who are single-minded, innocent, 
 and credulous, wherefore they are seen most commonly 
 by children, women, and poor rustics. They are not 
 offensive to the good, but noxious to the wicked ; and all 
 the more evil sort may be made impotent by those who 
 meet them with a strength of right more perfect than 
 their strength of wrong. Of adjurations, of the spirits 
 corresponding to objects of old hero-worship, called ani- 
 mastical or by the Hebrew theologians, Issiin of mortal 
 and terrestrial gods, the next chapters speak 1 ; and then is 
 discussed the creation of man in the Divine image, a long 
 chapter, to which the theologians and cabalists contri- 
 bute something, Plato more the world the image of God, 
 and man the image of the world. The spirit of it has 
 been expressed already in this sketch of Agrippa's doc- 
 
 1 Caps. xxxuL-xaacy. pp. cclxxx.-cclxxxiii.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 199- 
 
 trine. In what way body and soul are joined by the 
 celestial vehicle in which the soul at first descends, and 
 which some call the chariot of the soul, is then explained 
 with curious minuteness. Then man's body having been 
 formed, and the soul joined to it, we are shown 1 what 
 gifts are streamed into it, through several planets, and 
 how the temperament, whether mercurial or jovial, is de- 
 termined. It is shown, also, what gifts come from the 
 thrones, what from the dominations, what from the che- 
 rubim, or rather, what through each of these from God. 
 
 Chapter the thirty-ninth treats of the origin of evil. 
 How can evil come from a good source? It does not, any 
 more than blear eyes are the fault of light, display the fault 
 of justice. Evil material receiving holy influences turns 
 them to its hurt; but this is due not to the error of the 
 superiors, but to the baser and corruptible material of the 
 inferiors; and the corrupt element in a man's soul is sin. 
 Only because of this can Saturn, with a holy ray, dispose 
 to anguish, obstinacy, blasphemy; or Mars excite to arro- 
 gance and wrath. If the ray worked on a pure soul, not 
 upon the sin in an impure one, nothing grievous would 
 arise out of its operation; Saturn would make sound 
 heads steadier, and Mars warm generous hearts. 
 
 Again, there is a divine character imprinted upon each 
 of us 2 , whereby we may work marvels. Animals shrink 
 from the bold front of man, and elephants have obeyed 
 even children. Therefore this character is imprinted on 
 man from the divine idea which the cabalists call Pahad. 
 
 1 Cap. xxxviii. p. ccxc. * Cap. si. p. ccxciii.
 
 200 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 That is the seal by which a man is feared. There is also 
 another seal imprinted upon some, by reason of which 
 they inspire love. That is called Hesed. 
 
 The next is the longest chapter in the whole work, 
 upon a topic that had been overlaid by the speculations 
 of all ages. It is entitled " What concerning man after 
 death ; diverse opinions." Perceptions of the truth pro- 
 bably exist in the opinions of the ancients. As he who 
 lives by the sword, shall, it was said, die by the sword, 
 so do the deaths of many answer to their lives, and so does 
 the state of all men after death. Yet do the cabalists 
 refuse the doctrine of Pythagoras, that souls which have 
 become bestial take bestial forms ; they say, on the con- 
 trary, that they return to earth in human frames, and 
 thrice have the opportunity of life thus granted them. 
 Sometimes the souls of the wicked reanimate their pol- 
 luted corpses, as places of punishment. Such power evil 
 spirits have. But when the body returns earth to earth, 
 the spirit returns to God that gave it, and this spirit is 
 the mind, the pure intelligence that was incapable of sin 
 while in the flesh, however sinned against by passions of 
 the soul and gross delusions of the body. Then if the 
 soul has lived justly it accompanies the mind, and soul 
 and mind together work in the world the righteous will 
 of God, partaking of his power. But the souls that have 
 done evil, parted after death from the mind, wander with- 
 out intelligence, subject to all the wild distresses of un- 
 regulated passion, and by the affinity they have acquired 
 for the grossness of corporeal matter, assimilate to them-
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 201 
 
 selves and condense, as in a fog, material particles, 
 through which they become sensible again of bodily pain 
 and discomfort. It is believed also that the souls of just 
 Christians preach to the souls of the just Pagans salvation 
 in the name of Christ. Of this tenor seems to be the 
 belief of Cornelius ; he speaks of manes, lares, and 
 lemures, but with those Christians who revel in gross 
 images of vindictive torture after death he shows no sym- 
 pathy at all. He sees the sorest punishment to the base 
 soul in its own baseness; and as to the literal interpreta- 
 tion of the fires of hell, he quotes with a marked approba- 
 tion these words of Augustine: "It is better to be in 
 doubt concerning secret things than to dispute about 
 them as uncertain. I do not doubt, for example, that we 
 are to believe that rich man to be in the heat of suffering, 
 and that poor Lazarus in the cool shade of joy; but what 
 I am to understand by that infernal fire, that bosom of 
 Abraham, that tongue of the rich, that finger of the poor, 
 that thirst of the tormented, that drop by which it can be 
 cooled, will scarcely be discovered by the patience of re- 
 search, never by the impatience of contention." 
 
 Souls after death remember the past, and retain accord- 
 ing to their nature more or less of attraction towards the 
 bodies they inhabited, or other flesh and blood. This is 
 most true of those souls whose bodies are unburied, or 
 were subject to violence ; as in the case of malefactors, and 
 about places of execution, or places where slain bodies 
 lie, many such spirits collect by choice, and more are 
 banned to them. Therefore, in evoking spirits of the
 
 202 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 dead 1 , such places are to be chosen, or churchyards or 
 other ground, to which these spirits most resort; and in 
 the incantation flesh and blood must be used, taken from 
 a person killed by violence, since it is with corporeal 
 vapours, also with eggs, milk, honey, oil, and flour, that 
 departed souls are drawn as by the renewal of a broken 
 link. Now they who use such conjurations, because they 
 perform wonders only by or upon corpses, are called 
 Necromancers; and there are two kinds of necromancy 
 necyomantia, when a corpse is animated ; scyomantia, 
 when only a shade is summoned. But for the reunion of 
 souls with bodies occult knowledge is required, to which 
 no man, except by the direct gift of Heaven, can attain. 
 
 The next chapter 2 is on the power of the soul, which 
 consists of mind, reason, and idolum. The mind, of 
 which the light proceeds from God, illuminates the 
 reason, which again flows into the idolum, the power 
 which gives life to the body, receives sensations, and pro- 
 cures for the thoughts bodily expression. In the idolum, 
 again, are two powers phantasy, before described, and 
 diffused natural sense. Now the mind only is, by nature, 
 divine, eternal; the reason is airy, durable; the idolum, 
 more corporeal, left to itself, perishes. And of the divine 
 light, which is communicated not to all men in the same 
 degree 3 , by efforts of pious aspiration some men have 
 obtained so full a ray, that it has poured through the 
 reason into the subtle substance of the idolum, and has 
 
 1 Cap. xlii. p. ccciiii. * Capi xuji p> cccyi 
 
 3 Cap. xliiu. p. cccis.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 203 
 
 become manifest in its more corporeal essence, as with a 
 visible radiance, so that the whole body, or the nobler 
 part of it, appears to shine. So shone the face of Moses 
 when he came down from the mountain; so have the 
 saints also been sometimes transfigured. Yet there are 
 some men altogether destitute of mind, and their souls 
 wanting the immortal part must perish, though they are 
 to be joined to their bodies again in the resurrection. 
 Happy is he who can increase the light of heaven in his 
 mind, for by it he can work marvels. Cornelius dwells 
 again on the power that grows out of holy purpose, 
 earnest striving, and shows by an instance how the soul 
 may rise superior to bodily concernment. Anaxarchus 
 being thrown into a stone basin, and pounded with iron 
 pestles by order of the tyrant of Cyprus, is said to have 
 cried "Pound away, pound away at my dress; you have 
 not yet bruised Anaxarchus." Thereupon the tyrant 
 ordering his tongue to be cut out, the philosopher imme- 
 diately bit it off and spat it into the tyrant's face. 
 
 Eight chapters follow 1 upon various forms of prophetic 
 power. There is such power by vacation of the body 
 when the spirit is enabled to transcend its bounds, and as 
 a light escaped from a lantern to spread over space ; and 
 there is the descent of a divine power imparting itself to 
 the mind. These forms of it are seen in prophetic fury, 
 in rapture, and in prophetic dreams. The fury is a 
 celestial illumination obtained by liberation of the mind 
 from the restrictions of the body; and the philosophers 
 
 1 Cap. xlv.-lii. p. cccs.-cccsxii
 
 204 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 have described four forms of it. One proceeds from the 
 muses. Each of the nine muses gives prophetic power to 
 a certain class of objects; the muses act severally through 
 the seven planets, the whole heaven of stars, and the 
 primum mobile, or universal sphere. The last gives power 
 to the most occult mysteries and intelligences; the lowest, 
 which acts through the moon, gives the prophetic powers 
 that are found sometimes even in stocks and stones. The 
 second of these furies proceeds from Dionysos, the third 
 from Apollo, and the fourth from Venus ; each is de- 
 scribed from the writings of the ancients. Then are de- 
 scribed rapture and ecstasy, which represent the power 
 of the soul by a continued yearning heavenward from a 
 pure body, to be carried out of its house in the flesh, to 
 stand apart from it for a certain time, pervading, as a 
 light pervades the air, all space, and with space compre- 
 hending all time also. Of prophetic dreams there are 
 four kinds: those which occur in the morning between 
 sleeping and waking, those which relate to another person, 
 those which include in the dream its own interpretation, 
 and, lastly, those which are repeated, as said Joseph, " for 
 that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is 
 because the thing is established by God, and God will 
 shortly bring it to pass." But with prophetical dreams 
 there is more or less of accidental and vain matter always 
 mixed; neither is any dream prophetical except by the 
 influence of the celestials, with whom alone is knowledge 
 of the future ; and he who would divine by dreams, must 
 sleep on a clean bed in a pure chamber that has been
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 205 
 
 exorcised and sanctified, his body must be free from the 
 vapours of gross food and from the distorting influence 
 of sin. Retiring so to rest he must pray for the counsel 
 he desires, and if his faith suffice he will obtain it. There 
 is a prophetical power also in the casting of lots and other 
 such observations, which the ancient fathers used, but 
 never lightly or irreverently, since they could obtain an 
 omen from on high, not from the dead matter used, but 
 by the power of pure souls desiring knowledge through it. 
 Thus it appears that sacred oracles can be received 
 only by those who have rightly disciplined their souls and 
 bodies, and who make use of all sacred rites appointed for 
 the strengthening of virtue. To show in what this disci- 
 pline consists is the remaining purpose of the book. The 
 spirit of it is that which we have seen animating the 
 whole body of doctrine. Man is the temple of the Deity : 
 he can attain to nothing worthy without striving step by 
 step upon the way to purity 1 , subduing all those powers 
 of the flesh that war against the soul, engaged in constant 
 contemplation of divine perfection, constant effort to 
 approach it. To purify himself he must become in all 
 things clean 2 , most clean of all in heart and soul. He 
 must not exceed the necessities of the body, he must be 
 abstinent from all that overclouds the mind, temperate in 
 all things, and dwell much apart from the animal crowd of 
 men in contemplation of celestial things, of angels and 
 intelligences, working out the will of God 3 . But the 
 
 1 Cap. liil p. cccxxii. Cap. liiii. p. cccxxffi. 
 
 Cap. Iv. p. cccxxv.
 
 206 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 chief part of inward purification is repentance 1 , as even 
 Seneca has said in Phyeste, that the man who repents is 
 almost innocent. There is also abundant evidence in 
 Scripture of the efficacy of almsgiving upon which the 
 philosophers appear to have said little or nothing. 
 
 Upon the consideration of these means of inward purifi- 
 cation follow a few chapters on extrinsic lielps, as by the 
 ministries of the church, baptism, exorcism, benediction; 
 and it appears certain that material things can become active 
 even on the soul, as with that fire in Sicily, whereof Wil- 
 liam of Paris witnesses that it doth cruelly hurt the souls, 
 but does not affect the bodies of those who approach it. 2 
 By vows and signs of adoration 3 the soul may be helped 
 if it be striving inwardly, but only when it is striving 
 Godward and towards things that are good. Prayer will 
 not extort from God what is unjust. Cornelius describes 
 next many recorded forms of oblation and sacrifice 4 . He 
 speaks of them as typical, as helps to prayer, because they 
 are a second prayer, the petition urged by the beseecher 
 first out of his heart and then in the form of an emblem 
 which encourages his heart, and adds expression to his 
 words. All heathen offerings have been abolished, and 
 their whole meaning is concentred in the emblem of the 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. There remain but two 
 true sacrifices that of our Lord on the Cross for the re- 
 mission of sin, and the sacrifice of a man's own heart, 
 pure and contrite, to the God by whom that offering is 
 not despised. 
 
 1 Cap. Ivi. p. cccxxvii. 2 Cap. Ivii. p. cccxxviii. 
 
 * Cap. Iviii. p. cccxxix. Cap. lix. p. cccxxxi.
 
 HIS THIRD BOOK OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 207 
 
 In the same spirit the youth treats of invocations and 
 rites 1 ; describes the modes of invocation 2 and of con- 
 secration, with the reason of them 3 ; describes how places 
 are sacred when they are of divine choice and ap- 
 pointment, consecrated by divine acceptance of man's pious 
 wish; and sacred mysteries are those things to which, as 
 is the case with sacred names and characters, the divine 
 power has communicated occult virtue. There are sacred 
 mysteries connected also with particular places and parti- 
 cular times, as with the days called black days by the 
 Romans 4 . The sixty-fourth chapter of the book, which 
 is the last, contains many observations upon rites and 
 forms, incense, and such matters, partly drawn from the 
 books of Moses, partly from the classics, and contains 
 many odd stories told upon the testimony of the ancients. 
 
 We know now the spirit in which all these things are 
 set on record by the young philosopher. He concludes 
 his chapter with an amplification of the warning, which 
 might be the text of his three Books of Occult Science, 
 " In all things have God before your eyes." He adds, how- 
 ever, formally, upon a last page, " The conclusion of the 
 whole work 5 ." It is to say that he has endeavoured so to 
 disperse his intention through it as to make it clear to the 
 wise, though it will remain a secret to the foolish. " For 
 you only I have written, whose souls are uncorrupted and 
 confirmed in a right way of life ; in whom a chaste and 
 modest mind, a faith unwavering, fears God and worships 
 Him; whose hands are removed from all wickedness and 
 
 1 Cap. Ix. p. cccxxxiiii. Cap. Ixi. p. cccxxxv. 
 
 3 Cap. Ixii. p. cccxxxvi * Cap. Ixiii. p. cccxxxviii. * P. cccxlvi.
 
 208 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 crime; who live with decency, sobriety, and modesty: for 
 you only shall be able to find the doctrine set apart for 
 you, and penetrate the Arcana hidden among many 
 riddles." To the malevolent and foolish, he adds, it will 
 be only a multiplication of confusion. "Let none be 
 angry with me because I have concealed the truth of this 
 science in a net of riddles, and dispersed it in sundry 
 places, for it is not hidden from the wise, but from the 
 depraved and wicked : and I have written it in language 
 that will of necessity keep it a secret from the ignorant, 
 but make it clearer to the cultivated intellect." 
 So the work ends.
 
 HOW FAR WAS CORNELIUS A CONJURER ? 209 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 TWO MONKS. 
 
 FROM the preceding sketch it has been intended that 
 the reader should obtain, within a narrow space, nearly as 
 true a knowledge of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books 
 of Occult Philosophy as would be got by reading them 
 in detail. They alone constitute him a conjurer; upon 
 them alone is based the popular impression fastened to his 
 name upon them, and upon calumnies invented by the 
 priests. In the outline of the books here given absurdities 
 have not been softened down, indeed they may have 
 been put forward unduly ; they mark, however, the 
 ignorance, not of the man, but of the age in which he 
 wrote, and of which he had compassed the false know- 
 ledge. All is put to a wise use; the science halts over 
 the earth, but the philosophy flies heavenward. Of 
 the three books, it may be said, generally, that the 
 first is Platonic, the second Pythagorean, the third 
 Cabalistical, but that the three philosophies are modified 
 and fused into one system, under the influence of a devout 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 study of the Gospel. The opinions ascribed to Pythagoras 
 were, of course, to be had only from Aristotle (who cites 
 Pythagoras but once, and refers constantly to the Pytha- 
 goreans) and from the fragments of Philolaus, which 
 Cornelius had probably not seen; but there were plenty 
 of forged Pythagorean treatises, and there was much 
 Pythagorean matter in the writings of those Alexandrian 
 Neo-Platonics, who, as before said, were drawn upon by 
 the founders of the Jewish Cabalism. In the writings, 
 therefore, of the Neo-Platonics, and especially of Plotinus 
 and lamblichus, whom Cornelius Agrippa studied well, 
 Ave find more than elsewhere of the groundwork of this 
 treatise on Occult Philosophy. Even the aspiration God- 
 ward, by contempt of the flesh, to which Cornelius gives 
 earnest Christian expression, was, in. a heathen form, the 
 doctrine of the Alexandrian philosophers. Plotinus would 
 not have his picture taken to perpetuate the memory of 
 his mere flesh, nor would he make known the time or 
 place of such a mean event as his own birth into the 
 world of matter. Cornelius did not adopt the doctrine in 
 this temper; but it is, nevertheless, right to remember 
 thnt it was the philosophy of Plato tempered in Egypt 
 with some orientalism, that upon the revival of Greek 
 studies awoke aspirations in the minds of scholars. This 
 taught them to rise above the gross and sensual delusions 
 of their time, and to compare the spiritual religion, which, 
 the new Platonists said, had been in all ages the soul of 
 true philosophy, with the degradation of all holiness by 
 ignorant and worldly monks, or with the appeals of the
 
 THE GREEK WAY INTO TROUBLE. 211 
 
 Church to base perceptions of the common people. So 
 there was a real danger in Greek to men like Reuchlin 
 and Agrippa; and in this sense the priests, who had an 
 interest in the continued abasement of the human mind, 
 found out instinctively, and rightly felt, that the Greek 
 language was hostile to the Latin Church that to learn 
 Greek was to set out on the high road to heresy. In the 
 Occult Philosophy, Cornelius Agrippa showed that he had 
 not only taken this Greek road, but had arrived also at 
 that point of opposition to corrupt things of the Church, 
 whither it led infallibly the boldest and most honest 
 minds. Therefore it was for all corrupt things of the 
 Church to stain him and his book with their own foul- 
 ness; branding the man's character with wild inventions, 
 and holding the book up for execration, as the impious 
 work of a practitioner of magic made over, soul and body, 
 to the devil. 
 
 But the work is not yet published. Only the spirit of 
 its teaching has been set forth by the young philosopher 
 in a few lectures before the University of Dole, on the 
 Mirific Word of Reuchlin. They are enough to raise a 
 monk to pitiless hostility against him ; but of this hostility 
 no sign is yet betrayed. 
 
 All prospers with Cornelius. Elected regent 1 by his 
 University of Dole flattered and praised by learned men 
 reverend, right reverend, and noble heartily believed in 
 by congenial friends blessed with the complete sympathy 
 of a young wife, good, clever, and beautiful he has been 
 
 1 JDefmtio Propoe. de Anna Monog. Op. Tom. il p. 596. 
 P 2
 
 212 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 happily putting the last touches to his Books of Philoso- 
 phy, and sent them off with a good heart to receive the 
 criticism of a lettered friend. 
 
 Of his personal appearance at this time, or any time, 
 there remains little description. His portrait shows that 
 he had a thoughtful and large-featured German face, in 
 which 1 the one thing most observed seems to have been 
 the placidity 1 . He was not only wise, but gentle, even 
 to the tender cherishing of dogs. His wife he honoured 
 as became a man who was the author of an essay upon 
 the Pre-eminence of "Woman, and the position held by her 
 in relation to him won for her the honour of his friends. 
 Several scraps of Latin verse, indited in her praise by 
 different acquaintances, are bound up with her husband's 
 writings 2 ; and, although not as poetical as they are mytho- 
 logical, they do unquestionably prove that Cornelius did 
 well, when on his way to France from Italy by way of 
 which country, as before said, he came from Spain he 
 stopped long enough at Geneva to give his heart in keep- 
 ing to Louisa Tyssie. Geneva lies close upon Burgundy, 
 and while Agrippa was at Dole, that town was at a dis- 
 tance from him very inconsiderable "to a youth in love, 
 with horses at command, and well inured to travel. He 
 had not so far to ride as Juno, for example, of whom to 
 this effect writes one of the young Frau von Nettesheim's 
 approving friends: 
 
 1 It is mentioned both by Schelhorn in the Amcenitates Literarice, and by 
 Paul Jovius in his Elogice. 
 
 ' Hilarii Bertulphi Ledii in Generosam Dominam Janam Loysiam Tytiam 
 em, E. C. A. conjugem, appended to the collected works.
 
 AGRIPPA'S WIFE. 213 
 
 When Juno called in upon Venus to borrow 
 
 Her girdle, containing all kindness and love, 
 Wherewith she might hope to get rid of her sorrow 
 
 By winning more tender attention from Jove, 
 Sighed Venus, more willing to help than to grieve, "Ah! 
 
 The thing you desire from my keeping is gone ; 
 It belongs now by right to a dame of Geneva 
 
 That's washed by the broad-flowing stream of the Rhone ; 
 Go to her, Jane Louisa, the notable wife 
 Of Henry Agrippa, the peace of his life." 
 
 In another strain another writes 1 : 
 
 Grave of Agrippa's cares, his rest, his bliss, 
 
 Jana Louisa, you his solace bright, 
 Whom as a sister all the Graces kiss, 
 
 And whom to crown the Muses all delight, 
 Justly did Heaven give to your caress 
 
 A wise, true man. Nobly you can unite 
 A zealous love with sober faithfulness. 
 
 Go on, and ever let him feel the might 
 Of your great faith, to guide him in his day. 
 
 Join kisses with him while ye see the light, 
 And share his fame when both have passed away. 
 
 The villanous monk Cutilinet is quietly compounding 
 his thunder while we follow the manuscript of the Occult 
 Philosophy to the hands of the friendly scholar whose 
 opinion was asked upon it. That scholar was the Abbot 
 John of Trittenheim, known to the learned as the Abbot 
 Trithemius, many years of Spanheim, afterwards of the 
 monastery of St. James, at Wurtzburg. There was scarcely 
 a scholar, or a patron of scholars, living in his day whose 
 life could be told without naming Trithemius. Scholars 
 and mighty nobles went on pilgrimages, princes sent 
 ambassadors to the poor monastery, which he made 
 
 1 Reverendi P. Magistri Aurel'd ab Aquapendente, Augustmiani Epiyramma
 
 214 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 famous by his love of books and the good use he made of 
 their contents. Cornelius had journeyed, like others, to 
 see Trithemius, had seen him, and talked to him about 
 magic, which the abbot studied, and of the wonders of 
 which he was perhaps even more credulous than his 
 young visitor. Among many pious works, Trithemius 
 published one or two touching on magical subjects, and 
 he was the first who told the wondrous tale of Dr. 
 Faustus, in whose conjurations he was a devout believer. 
 With this good man Cornelius had discoursed, imme- 
 diately after his return from Spain, about occult things, 
 and the undue discredit cast upon a study of them. Now 
 that he had endeavoured to remove some of that discredit 
 by showing in a book how worthy they were of attention, 
 his old talk with Trithemius suggested to him that he 
 could not do better than submit his treatise to the abbot's 
 criticism. 
 
 John of Trittenheim was a man forty-eight years old 
 at that time, and the founder of his own intellectual 
 fortunes. He was born at the place in the electorate of 
 Treves, from which he took his name ; his father was 
 John Eidenberg, and his mother was Elizabeth Longwi. 
 His father dying while he was still young, his mother, 
 after seven years of widowhood, married again. From 
 his stepfather the boy got no help at all, and at fifteen, 
 with a great craving for knowledge, he was scarcely able 
 to read. In spite of his father-in-law's menaces, he stole 
 some knowledge from a neighbour, and at last ran away 
 to feed upon the crumbs let fall at the great schools and
 
 TBITHEMIUS. 215 
 
 universities. He went to Treves and Heidelberg, and 
 having picked up some little knowledge in those places 
 and elsewhere, was travelling home on foot, twenty years 
 old, when a snowstorm drove him to seek shelter in the 
 Benedictine monastery of Spanheim. It was on the 25th 
 of January, 1482. There was no great temptation to go 
 on to his father-in-law's house which he could set against 
 the offers of the monks, who were a small set of men 
 ignorant and poor, made poorer by recent mismanage- 
 ment of affairs, and willing to have the help of a bright 
 youth in amending their condition. He remained with 
 them. On the second day of the next month he formally 
 became a novice ; towards the end of November professed 
 himself one of the body of the Spanheim Benedictines ; 
 and very soon afterwards was made their abbot. It was 
 to the gates of this poor monastery that John of Tritten- 
 heim attracted scholars, nobles, messengers from princes, 
 not only by the fame of his own learning, but also by the 
 famous library, consisting of two thousand books a rare 
 possession with which he enriched the place. How he 
 contrived to make so ample a collection will be best seen 
 from this fragment of one of the sermons preached by 
 him to the monks in their own chapel 1 : "There is no 
 manual work which, in my opinion, more becomes a 
 monk than copying books for devout reading and pre- 
 paring the materials required by those who write. For it 
 is allowable freely to interrupt with talk this sacred 
 
 i Trithemii Exhortations ad Monachal. Omelia, vii. De Lahore Mona- 
 chorum Manuali. (Ed. Argent. 1516, foL xvi. coL 2.
 
 216 COKNELIUS AGBIPPA. 
 
 labour, and to take thought at once for the refreshment of 
 the mind and of the body. We are urged also by neces- 
 sity to betake ourselves diligently to the copying of 
 books, if we desire to have at hand matter wherewith we 
 may mutually and usefully occupy ourselves in spiritual 
 study. For you see the whole library of this monastery, 
 which once was notable and large, was so scattered by 
 the clumsy monks who came before us, sold and alienated, 
 that there were not more than fourteen volumes found in 
 it by me. The industry, indeed, of the printer's art, 
 lately invented in our days at Mayence, produces to light 
 many volumes daily, but it is by no means possible for 
 us, who have hitherto been weighed down by the greatest 
 poverty, to buy them all. For which reason I admonish 
 and exhort all of you who do not go very willingly to 
 out-door labour, that you should work as industriously as 
 you can in copying books to the honour of God : because 
 as indolence is at war with the soul, so moderate labour is 
 a conservator of spiritual life." And to complete the 
 picture of the abbot and his men, this account of their 
 work is added from another of his writings 1 : " Let one 
 correct what another has written; let another ornament 
 with red what that person has been correcting; let this 
 one put the stops, another one the plans and pictures; 
 that one is to glue the sheets together, or to bind the 
 volume between boards; you shape the boards, and he 
 the leather ; some one else shall prepare the plates to orna- 
 
 1 Trithemius De Laude Scriptorum Manualium. (Quoted through Schel- 
 horn's Amcenitates Literarice, vol. vii. p. 285.
 
 COUNSEL ASKED OF TRITHEMIUS. 217 
 
 ment the binding; one can cut parchment, another clean 
 it, another by ruling lines adapt it for the copyist. An- 
 other makes the ink ; another takes charge of the pens." 
 
 The abbot's literary troop rebelled at last, in spite of all 
 his exhortation. Trithemius being summoned by Philip, 
 Count Palatine of the Rhine, to a conference at Heidel- 
 berg upon monastic business, the Spanheim monks re- 
 volted in his absence, made wild havoc in their famous 
 library, and so behaved, that, after visiting Cologne and 
 Spire in search of accurate intelligence and counsel, their 
 abbot abandoned books and monastery to the rebels, and 
 in October, 1506, received possession of the Abbey of St. 
 James, at Wurtzburg, where he lived during the remain- 
 ing ten years of his life. It was to Trithemius, then, 
 after he had removed to Wurtzburg, that Cornelius sent, 
 by special messenger, the manuscript of his Occult Philo- 
 sophy, together with this letter 1 : 
 
 " When I had some discourse with you lately, Reverend 
 Father, in your monastery at Wurtzburg, we conferred 
 much together about chemical matters, magic, cabalism, 
 and other things, which at the present time lie hidden as 
 secret sciences and arts. And, among the rest, it was a 
 great question with us why magic itself though formerly 
 by the common consent of all ancient philosophers it was 
 regarded as the first step upward, and was held always in 
 the highest veneration by the wise men and the priests 
 of old should have become, from the beginning of the 
 
 1 II. C. Agripp. Ep. 23, Lib. i. p. 702. Prefixed also to all editions of 
 the De Occ. PhiL
 
 218 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 growth of the Catholic Church, hated and suspected by 
 the holy Fathers, at length exploded by the theologians, 
 condemned by the sacred canons, and at last proscribed 
 by every sort of law." He records next, at some length, 
 his own opinion, that sects of false philosophers, abusing 
 the title of magicians and giving the name of magic to 
 profane and evil deeds, had caused good men to turn 
 with anger from words thus made infamous. Then he 
 goes on to say : " The case being so, I wondered much, 
 and, indeed, felt indignant, that up to this time no one 
 had arisen to vindicate so sublime and sacred a study 
 from the accusation of impiety, for as much as those whom 
 I have seen of the more recent writers, Roger Bacon, 
 Robert of York, Peter of Abano, Albertus Magnus, Ar- 
 nold of Villeneuve, Anselm of Parma, Picatrix of Spain, 
 Cecco, Asculo, Florentinus 1 , and many other writers of 
 obscurer name, when they have promised to treat of 
 
 1 Robert of York, a Dominican, lived about 1350, and wrote De Magia 
 Cceremoniali, on Alchemy, De Mysteriis Secretorum, and De Mirabllibus 
 Ekmentorum. None of these -works passed from MS. copies into print. 
 Peter of Abano, or Apono, -was born at that place, near Padua, in 1250. 
 He was, at Padua, the first professor of medicine. Among his works, fre- 
 quently printed, is a Heptameron, including Elucidarium Necromanticum, 
 Ekmenta Magica, &c. George Anselm, of Parma, was, in the fifteenth 
 century, a famous physician, mathematician, and astrologer. His Institutes 
 of Astrology are among the MSS. in the Vatican. In the year 1256, Pica- 
 trix of Spain compiled, from two hundred and twenty-four old books, a 
 Magical work, afterwards translated out of Arabic into Latin. It exists 
 only in MS. Cecco d'Ascoli. a learned philosopher, was burnt for his Astro- 
 logy as heretic at Florence in 1327. Nicolaus de Asculo, in the region of 
 Ancona, nourished 1330, was a Dominican, and wrote, besides theology, 
 comments on Aristotle, still in MS. Thaddaaus Florentinus was accounted, 
 in the thirteenth century, another Hippocrates among hia patients at Bo- 
 logna. He did not begin to study till the age of thirty.
 
 COUNSEL ASKED OF TRITHEMIUS. 219 
 
 Magic, have either supplied idle matter without any con- 
 necting system, or else have published superstitions not to 
 be received by honest men. Thus my spirit was aroused 
 within me, and through wonder and indignation I too 
 conceived the desire to philosophise, thinking that I 
 should produce a work not unworthy of praise inasmuch 
 as I have been from early years a curious and fearless 
 explorer of wonderful effects and the full working of 
 mysteries if I could vindicate against the ill words of 
 calumniators and restore that ancient Magic, studied by 
 all the wise, purged and freed from the errors of im- 
 piety, and adorned with its own reasonable system. Al- 
 though I have long pondered upon this, I never until 
 now have ventured to descend into this battle-ground. 
 But after we had exchanged speech at Wurtzburg on 
 these matters, your rare experience and learning, and your 
 ardent exhortation, gave me heart and courage. There- 
 fore, having selected the opinions of philosophers of tried 
 faith, and having purged of false opinions operations de- 
 tailed in the dark and reprehensible books of those who 
 have maligned the traditions of the Magi, dispelling the 
 shadows, I have just finished composing three Books of 
 Magic, in a compendium which I have called by a less 
 offensive title, Books of Occult Philosophy. These I 
 now submit to be examined by you as a censor who pos- 
 sess the fullest knowledge of those things, to be corrected 
 and judged: that if anything has been written in them 
 by me which may tend to dishonour nature, offend 
 Heaven, or be hurtful to religion, you may condemn the
 
 220 CORXELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 fault. But if the scandals of impiety have been purged 
 out, and you hold any tradition of the truth to be pre- 
 served in these books, as in Magic itself, let nothing be 
 kept hidden that can be made useful, while nothing is 
 approved that can do harm. For so I hope that in due 
 time these books, approved by your criticism, may be 
 worthy to appear before the public under happy auspices, 
 and not fear to endure the judgment of posterity. Fare- 
 well, and pardon me the boldness of this venture." 
 
 Trithemius kept the messenger till he had read the 
 manuscript, and then returned it with this answer 1 : 
 
 " Your work, most accomplished Agrippa, headed, On 
 the More Occult Philosophy, which you offered to me 
 for examination by the bearer of this, was received with 
 more pleasure than mortal tongue can tell or pen express. 
 I am led to the most admiration of the more than common 
 erudition which enables you, while still a youth, pene- 
 trating such secret recesses of knowledge, hidden from 
 many even of the wisest men, not only to bring light 
 into them fairly and truly, but even with propriety and 
 elegance. Wherefore I thank you in the first place for 
 your kindness to me, and if I am ever able, I will un- 
 doubtedly repay such kindness according to my strength. 
 Your work, which the wisest of men could not sufficiently 
 commend, I approve ; next, I ask, exhort, and beseech 
 you, as urgently as I can, that you continue as you have 
 begun, in upward striving, and do not*allow the excellent 
 strength of your intellect to become dull through want of 
 1 Everywhere printed after the preceding.
 
 TRITHEMIUS ADVISES CAUTION. 221 
 
 use; but always spend your toil on better and better 
 things, that you may demonstrate, by the divinest illus- 
 trations, the light of true wisdom, even to the ignorant. 
 Nor let the consideration of any clouds, about which 
 truth has been said, withdraw you from your purpose. 
 The weary ox treads with a heavy foot, and in the 
 opinion of the wise no man is truly learned who is 
 pledged to the rudiments of one study alone. But you 
 the Divinity has gifted with an intellect both large and 
 lofty. Do not, ' therefore, imitate the cattle, but the 
 birds : nor think that you are to delay over particulars, 
 but confidently urge your mind up towards universal 
 rules. For every man is thought learned according to 
 the fewness of the things of which he is ignorant. But 
 your intellect is fully apt for all, not reasonably to be 
 engaged upon a few things, and mean ones, but upon many 
 and high. This one thing only we warn you to abide 
 by the counsel of, speak of things public to the public, 
 but of things lofty and secret only to the loftiest and the 
 most private of your friends. Hay to an ox and sugar to 
 a parrot : rightly interpret this, lest you, as some others 
 have been, be trampled down by oxen. Happy farewell, 
 my friend; and if I can serve you in anything, command 
 me, and understand that what you wish done is done. 
 Moreover, that our friendship may acquire strength daily, 
 I earnestly beg that you will write often, and send me 
 now and then some of your lucubrations. Again fare- 
 well. From our monastery at Wurtzburg, April 8, 
 1510."
 
 222 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 A kind letter in the high epistolary style then common ; 
 a wise letter, too, as the reader cannot but have felt. You 
 have done worthily, it said; ever aspire, but know that 
 there are many heights to scale, and upon this height you 
 must needs tread very warily. As for your present in- 
 tention you must give it up. Publish these Books of 
 Occult Science, wise as they are, and there is no dolt who 
 will not have you down under his feet. 
 
 Cornelius was under foot already when the warning 
 reached him. Catilinet had made his rush. The Quadra- 
 gesimal Discourses were delivered, and the youth was 
 down. Trithemius was one monk, Catilinet was another. 
 Monks like Catilinet were unluckily the rule, monks 
 like Trithemius the exception. The good abbot, as we 
 have seen, had been in a minority at Spanheim, all the 
 monks under his rule had shaken themselves free of him, 
 scattered his books, and lapsed into their natural stupidity. 
 Trithemius was honoured of all learned men in Europe, 
 and he was Agrippa's friend; Catilinet was one of those 
 men whom John of Trittenheim figured as cattle, a Fran- 
 ciscan monk, the chief indeed of the Franciscan monks of 
 Burgundy, and for that reason, perhaps also for some 
 power of lung, was chosen to preach the Lent sermons 
 before Margaret at Ghent, but who, by no power of 
 brain, has left a mark, though but the merest scratch, 
 upon the annals of his time ; and he was Agrippa's enemy. 
 Many an unknown name is treasured for something in 
 ecclesiastical records and dictionaries, but the name of 
 this Catilinet I can find nowhere except here, as that of
 
 ATTACKED BY CATILINET. 223 
 
 the first ox who trampled on Cornelius Agrippa. I call 
 him ox according to the abbot's parable, not as a word of 
 abuse, but as a representative of that which treads heavily 
 over the earth in an appointed course, and is of the earth 
 earthy. Catilinet may have been, and I will take for 
 granted was, an honest man, who conscientiously believed 
 that there was heresy and danger in the Greek and 
 Hebrew studies through which young Cornelius Agrippa 
 won so much applause at D61e. He was the man who 
 defends against every hint of progress all established rule 
 and custom he is the ox, in fact, who cannot mount into 
 the air. Catilinet 1 , at the beginning of Lent, in the year 
 1510, was delivering at Ghent, before the Princess Mar- 
 garet, whose patronage Cornelius was seeking, certain 
 orations called the Quadragesimal Discourses. He at- 
 tacked with violence, and denounced before Margaret the 
 lectures, impious in his eyes, that had been delivered by a 
 forward youth in her Burgundian capital. He succeeded 
 in exciting Margaret to wrath against the cabalist, who was 
 supposed to have set Christianity aside, and sat at the feet 
 of those by whom the Saviour was crucified. Precisely so 
 did the monk Pfefferkorn, of Cologne, a year or two later, 
 denounce Reuchlin. It was a cry of the time, which 
 Catilinet is not to be considered morally to blame, but 
 simply ignorant, in having loudly uttered. 
 
 Nearly together came the news of this blow struck at 
 Ghent and the admonitory letter of Trithemius. What 
 
 1 Expostulate contra Catilinet., Op. Tom. ii. p. 510, and Dtfens. Prop, de 
 Anna Monoy., p. 596, for what follows.
 
 224 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 could be done? The Occult Philosophy, by which he 
 hoped to win a recognised place among scholars, was to be 
 put aside and shown only in secret to his nearest friends. 
 The warning against publishing it was, seeing the issue of 
 the far less questionable Dole orations, clearly wise. The 
 treatise upon the Pre-eminence of Woman, written for the 
 eye of Margaret, must also "be put aside. The hope of a 
 scholar's life, with Margaret for friend, must also be put 
 aside : and there remained to him only the barren honours 
 he had won at Dole. 
 
 I do not feel that here the difficulty was insuperable. 
 There are men who, when an ox blocks up the path on 
 which they travel, turn aside out of its way; and there 
 are other men who turn the ox into the hedge and travel 
 on. Catilinet might have been faced in Ghent itself, and 
 beaten to one side by a conflicting energy. A more 
 determined spirit than Cornelius possessed would not 
 have given up what seemed to be the best hope of a life 
 without a sturdy battle. But Cornelius was not deter- 
 mined. He was a brave man at arms, but as to his mind, 
 sensitive, gentle, and averse from strife. We shall find 
 him presently replying to the man who has disturbed 
 painfully the course of his whole life, in a calm tone of 
 purely Christian expostulation. Better would it have 
 been for his fame in this world if there had really been 
 sometimes, according to the fable of his enemies, a devil 
 at his elbow. 
 
 Now, therefore, it is conceded by him that he can 
 advance no further in the paths of pleasure. Farewell,
 
 CHECK. 225 
 
 scholarship ! Farewell, philosophy ! Farewell, kind 
 princess, for whose smiles he would have laboured 
 worthily. There is a wife to support, a family position 
 to maintain, and nothing left but the old way of life from 
 which he had endeavoured to escape. He must resume 
 his place among the young men of the court, and do such 
 work as may be found for him by Maximilian. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CORNELIUS IN LONDON. 
 
 MAXIMILIAN had plenty of employment on his hands. 
 The brave little republic of Venice, not to be crushed by 
 the iniquitous league of Cambray, was fighting strenuously 
 for its life against the banded forces of Pope, Emperor, 
 and King. There were distrusts and jealousies among 
 the allied plunderers, and there was, so far as Maximilian 
 the Emperor was concerned, trouble and discomfort at 
 home. His states at the diet of Worms declined to 
 guarantee him his expenses, and were not to be brought 
 into a love for the Italian war, though a bold orator had 
 been obtained from Louis, who declaimed to them at 
 length upon the infamies of Venice. He told them that 
 the Venetians ridiculed the Germans in their theatres; 
 charged a year's rent daily to a German for a house; 
 governed their own citizens with cruelty, driving them, 
 with the whips used on bullocks, to the galleys ; that they 
 were pirates, poisoners, and so forth 1 . Nothing of all 
 
 1 Hegewisch, Geschiehte der Regierung Kaiser Maximilians des Ersten. 
 Hamburg and Kiel, 1782.
 
 IN PALACE LIVERY. 227 
 
 this would induce Germany to back its Emperor with 
 money. Maximilian denounced the meanness of the 
 states in an Imperial Apology, but he continued poor. 
 Very few lines will show sufficiently what his position 
 was when young Cornelius resumed the palace livery. 
 
 At home, the Emperor's second wife, Bianca Maria, 
 daughter of Galeazio Sforza, who was less gentle than 
 fair, was wasting to the grave, within a year of death, 
 caused, some say, by her husband's very manifest dis- 
 relish of her temper others say, by her own too great 
 relish for snails, which she consumed till she destroyed her 
 powers of digestion. Abroad, the Emperor was in great 
 trouble about the Pope, who had become a faithless 
 member of the league, and, bent on having Italy for the 
 Italians, was not merely seceding from the foreigners 
 whose armies poured into Italian plains, but was becoming 
 anxious to expel the French by actual hostilities, and to 
 part Maximilian, if possible, from Louis. But whatever 
 might be promised him from Rome or Venice, Maximilian 
 felt that he could never receive from the hands of Italian 
 statesmen trustworthy security for the accomplishment of 
 his desire to hold Italian ground. His policy, then, was 
 to form stricter alliance with King Louis XII., to help 
 him to the utmost against Julius II., labouring in all this 
 not merely to secure his own imperial share of the Italian 
 spoil, according to the terms of the league of Cambray, 
 namely, Verona, Roveredo, Padua, Vicenza, Trevigi, and 
 the Friuli, but to accomplish a wild private scheme, 
 which was no other than the transfer of his own dominion 
 Q 2
 
 228 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 from an empire which he meant to abdicate in favour 
 of his grandson, to a papacy from which he meant that 
 Julius should be ousted 1 . 
 
 Now in the year 1510, when Cornelius Agrippa re- 
 sumed service at court, Louis of France was entering 
 into a formal alliance (that proved very short-lived) with 
 Henry VIII., then new to his dignity as King of Eng- 
 land. In this treaty the Emperor of Germany was in- 
 cluded as a friend of each of the contracting powers. For 
 the treaty's sake alone Maximilian would, no doubt, find 
 it necessary to send representatives to London ; they went 
 ostensibly, perhaps, on the occasion of the treaty, but 
 they had business of far more serious import entrusted to 
 them. For in his defection from the league of Cambray, 
 the Pope had carried with him Ferdinand of Aragon, 
 Henry VIII.'s father-in-law. In the very last Italian 
 campaign the Pope and King of Aragon had secretly 
 encouraged the Venetians to besiege Verona, the town by 
 which Maximilian set most store, and to maintain boldly 
 a contest in which the Emperor, without money enough 
 to pay his men, could obtain no solid advantage. On the 
 21st of February, 1510, Julius II. formally made peace 
 with Venice, showed open hostility to France, and made 
 some effort to induce Maximilian to follow his example. 
 The Pope, old as he was and infirm, put armour on to 
 take part bodily in the siege of Mirandola, and at the 
 close of it he was carried through the breach in military 
 
 1 Coxe's House of Austria and Hegewisch supply the foundation for the 
 few historical reminders necessary to the text.
 
 DESPATCHED TO LONDON. 229 
 
 triumph. Maximilian and Louis were thus forced into 
 a closer brotherhood of enmity against the Roman See. 
 To secure at least the neutrality of England was important 
 to them both. The young king of that country, about 
 nineteen years of age, and fresh to the throne, as husband 
 to Katherine of Aragon, might, if his father-in-law grew 
 a little warm over the quarrel, be induced to take part 
 with the Pope. To watch for any tendency of this sort, 
 and to establish quietly, as opportunity might serve, dis- 
 trust of the Pope and of his cause in Henry's mind, was 
 doubtless the "most secret purpose 1 ," which Cornelius 
 Agrippa speaks of in connexion with his London mission. 
 As a young theologian not very friendly to the papacy, 
 a courtier and a cavalier as well, Cornelius was added at 
 once to the English embassy. Thus it was that in the 
 late summer or autumn of the year 1510 he came to 
 what he entitles " the renowned emporium of England 2 ." 
 The London of that day was hardly larger than Co- 
 logne. Country roads branched from Charing-cross. Bay- 
 nard's Castle had not long been rebuilt as a beautiful 
 and commodious palace for the entertainment of great 
 princes and favoured nobles by the king. There was but 
 one bridge across the Thames. Fleet Ditch had just 
 been scoured, and was navigable for large boats laden 
 with fish and fuel up to Holborn Bridge. There was no 
 pavement on the Holborn-street, which led by the Bishop 
 
 1 Corn. Agrippze Defensio Prop, de Beatce Annas Monog. Op. Tom. ii. 
 p. 596. 
 
 2 Expost. contra Catilinet. ad fin.
 
 230 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 of Ely's palace and strawberry-beds, skirting the country, 
 to the open Oxford-road, and so away, passing the 
 hamlet of St. Giles. Chancery-lane, Fetter-lane, and Shoe- 
 lane, were unpaved and in a scarcely passable condition. 
 Leather-lane was such a back-lane to the fields as we 
 see still in many market-towns. The city had its walls 
 and gates, the cross in Westcheap was its newest orna- 
 ment. Though London was more populous eastward than 
 westward, in comparison with the metropolis of to-day, 
 Stepney, nevertheless, was still a town by itself, remark- 
 able for the pleasantness of its situation and the beauty 
 of its scenery, and chosen, therefore, as a place of resi- 
 dence by many persons of distinction. 
 
 Cornelius Agrippa, when in London, lodged at Stepney 
 as Dean Colet's guest 1 the wise and pure-hearted John 
 Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who was at that time engaged 
 over the foundation of St. Paul's School. Colet, beloved 
 of Erasmus, and decried of all who held by the abuses 
 of the Church, was very careful in the choice of guests 
 and house-companions. " We are all such as our con- 
 versation is," he used to say, " and practise habitually 
 what we often hear 2 ." We know Cornelius the better 
 
 1 " In Britanniam trajiciens apud Johan Coletum Catholicas doctrinse eru- 
 ditissimum, integerrimaeqiie vitse virum, in divi Pauli epist. desudavi,- et quse 
 nescivi illo docente multa didici, quamvis apud Britannos longe aliud, et 
 occultissimum quoddam tune agebam negotium." Defens. Prop, de B. A. 
 Monoff. Op. Tom. ii. p. 596. 
 
 2 This is placed by Erasmus with great honour among his adages. For 
 what is said in this chapter of Dean Colet, Erasmus, writing his friend's 
 life in the Epistle to lodocus Jonas, and elsewhere referring to him, is the 
 chief authority. But all that was said by Erasmus was brought together
 
 WITH. DEAN COLET AT STEPNEY. 231 
 
 when we learn that, while engaged on his court errand, 
 he was received into the household at Stepney by John 
 Colet and his venerable mother, and that he employed 
 his time, as we are both pleased and amused to learn, in 
 studying, under the influence of his host's enthusiasm, the 
 Epistles of St. Paul. Paul of all men, wrote Colet, seems 
 to me a vast ocean of wisdom and piety 1 . I laboured 
 hard, writes Cornelius of the time when he was Colet's 
 guest, at the Epistles of St. Paul. 
 
 The young Doctor Cornelius cares not to talk of the 
 amusements of the court in which he was required to take 
 some part. Henry VIII. was enjoying gala days, pleasing 
 himself with masks and tourneys. In the dress of a yeoman 
 of his guard he had been to the City on St. John's Eve, there 
 to see the pompous watch of the City guard, a nocturnal 
 procession like a lord mayor's show, which marched with 
 nine hundred and forty blazing cressets through streets 
 garnished with flowers, boughs, and lighted lamps. On 
 the following St. Peter's night he took his queen in state 
 to see the pomp repeated. He was masquing, too, now 
 as a Turk, now as a Robin Hood's man. In October, 
 1510, he had a tournament in Greenwich Park, and a 
 mock combat with battle-axes, in which he himself en- 
 gaged with one Giot, a tall German. A week or two 
 afterwards he went to Richmond, and proclaimed a 
 
 with whatever else could be discovered in the Life of Dr. John Colet, Dean 
 of St. Paul's, .... by Samuel Knight, D.D., Prebendary of Ely, 8vo, 
 Lond., 1724, to which book, therefore, it is sufficient to refer. 
 
 1 In a letter to the Abbot of Winchcomb, printed by Dr. Knight in the 
 Appendix to his Life of Colet.
 
 232 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 tournament on the 8th of November, in which he, with 
 Master Charles Brandon and Master Compton, was to 
 hold the ground during two days against all comers, with 
 spear at tilt on the first day, and at tourney with swords 
 on the second. Of course, he was royally victorious, and 
 Cornelius Agrippa was, no doubt, a witness of his prowess 
 among the Almaines, or Germans from the court of Maxi- 
 milian, whom we find to have been more particularly 
 entertained on this occasion. " The second night," Ho- 
 linshed tells us 1 , " were divers strangers of Maximilian 
 the emperor's court and ambassadors of Spain with the 
 king at supper. When they had supped, the king willed 
 them to go into the queen's chamber, who so did. In the 
 mean time the king, with fifteen other, apparelled in 
 Almaine jackets of crimson and purple satin, with long 
 quartered sleeves and hosen of the same suit, their bonnets 
 of white velvet, wrapped in flat gold of damask, with 
 vizards and white plumes, came in with a mummery, and 
 after a certain time that they had played with the queen 
 and the strangers, they departed. Then suddenly entered 
 six minstrels, richly apparelled, playing on their instru- 
 ments; and then followed fourteen persons, gentlemen, 
 all apparelled in yellow satin, cut like Almaines, bearing 
 torches. After them came six disguised in white satin 
 
 and green The first of these six was the king, the 
 
 Earl of Essex, Charles Brandon, Sir Edward Howard, Sir 
 
 Thos. Knevet, and Sir Henry Guilford. Then part of the 
 
 gentlemen bearing torches departed and shortly returned, 
 
 1 In the Chronicles under the year 1510.
 
 AT THE COURT OF HENRY VIII. 233 
 
 after whom came in six ladies, apparelled in garments of 
 crimson satin embroidered and traversed with cloth of 
 gold, cut in pomegranates and yokes, stringed after the 
 fashion of Spain. Then the six men danced with the six 
 ladies ; and after that they had danced a season, the 
 ladies took off the men's visors, whereby they were 
 known : whereof the queen and the strangers much 
 praised the king, and ended the pastime." 
 
 Glad of its ending was, no doubt, Cornelius Agrippa, 
 and most happy to return to a house where time was 
 passed in wiser occupation. There was nothing in a royal 
 mummery to be compared for beauty with the tall, well- 
 shapen form and spiritual face of Agrippa's host, one of 
 the handsomest as well as best men in the land. As for 
 the dean's mother, Dame Christian, who lived with him, 
 surely she was more royal than the king. " I knew in 
 England the mother of John Colet," says her favourite, 
 Erasmus 1 , in whose visits at Stepney she took rare delight, 
 "a matron of singular piety; she had by the same hus- 
 band eleven sons and as many daughters, all of which 
 hopeful brood was snatched away from her, except her 
 eldest son ; and she lost her husband, far advanced in 
 years. She herself being come to her ninetieth year, 
 looked so smooth and was so cheerful that you would 
 think she had never shed a tear, nor brought a child into 
 the world ; and (if I mistake not) she survived her son, 
 Dean Colet. Now that which supplied a woman with so 
 much fortitude was not learning, but piety to God." She 
 1 Ep. 16, Lib. xxii. ; but the above is Dr. Knight's translation.
 
 234 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 had lived with her husband, Sir Henry Colet, wealthy 
 City knight and twice lord mayor, in a mansion called the 
 Great Place, surrounded by a moat, nearly adjoining 
 Stepney Church. Afterwards she lived with her son 
 John in a smaller mansion within sight of the church, 
 that to which Cornelius went. It was bequeathed to 
 St. Paul's School as a country retreat for the masters 
 during times of pestilence, and now exists, in a half 
 remodelled state, as two ample houses, adorned with an 
 effigy of the dean, at one corner of White Horse-street 
 and Salmon-lane. 
 
 In this house host and guest studied the works of the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles. For the last four years the dean 
 had been vexed by complaints against his orthodoxy. The 
 Bishop of London, according to a divine of the next 
 generation 1 , was wise, virtuous, and cunning ; yet for all 
 these three good qualities he would have made the old 
 Dean Colet of Paul's a heretic for translating the Pater 
 Noster into English, had not the dean been helped by 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was in trouble, and 
 should have been burnt, said Latimer, if God had not 
 turned the king's heart to the contrary. 
 
 Dean Colet was a heretic, as most of the better class of 
 scholars in his day were heretics, not because he went beyond 
 the pale of the Church, but because there was manifest in him 
 the tendency of knowledge. After a seven years' training 
 in his youth at Magdalene College, Oxford, during which 
 period he studied logic and philosophy, and took degrees 
 
 1 Tyndal. Works, fol. Lond., 1573, p. 318.
 
 ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES. 235 
 
 in arts, he went abroad for further information, and spent 
 three or four years in France and Italy. At Oxford he 
 had become familiar with Cicero, and had read, in Latin, 
 Plato and Plotinus. Of Greek he knew nothing, because, 
 even in England, the university cry was Cave a Greeds, ne 
 fias hcereticus Learn Greek and turn heretic. At Paris, 
 Colet became acquainted with Budaeus, and was for the 
 first time introduced to Erasmus ; in Italy he joined his 
 countrymen, Linacre, Grocyn, Lilly, and Latimer, who 
 were at work on the heretical tongue, and acquired such 
 knowledge as to read the ancient fathers, Origen, Cyprian, 
 Ambrose, and Jerome ; also St. Augustine, of whom he 
 had but a mean opinion. He looked into Duns Scotus 
 and Thomas Aquinas, studied civil and canon law, and 
 did not neglect what English poetry there was. He had 
 early received rectories through family interest, and, while 
 away from home, was made Prebendary of York and 
 Canon of St. Martin's-le-Grand. On his return, after a 
 short stay with his parents at Stepney, he went to Oxford, 
 and there read, without stipend or reward, lectures on his 
 favourite subject, the Epistles of St. Paul, to a great 
 concourse. These lectures were continued during three 
 successive years, in one of which Erasmus came to Oxford 
 and renewed his friendship with John Colet. After re- 
 ceiving more preferment on account of his connexions, in 
 1504 Colet commenced D.D., and was made in the next 
 year, without any application made by him or on his 
 behalf, Dean of St. Paul's. He at once began to reform 
 the cathedral discipline. For the Latin lectures read to
 
 236 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 the clergy only, on scholastic theology, he substituted the 
 new practice of giving to all comers divinity lectures on 
 Sundays and festivals, preaching commonly himself in 
 Latin, indeed but with a grace and earnestness that, 
 from a man comely as he was, served as mute appeal even 
 to the hearts of the most ignorant. For the piety and acute- 
 ness of these lectures, he was renowned as one of the best 
 orators of his time. His beauty, his serenity, the venera- 
 tion inspired by his every word and gesture, increased 
 their effect 1 . By such means inquiry into Holy Scrip- 
 ture was substituted at St. Paul's Cathedral for an idle 
 school divinity. When Colet preached, he commonly 
 was to be found expounding the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 "which contain the fundamental doctrines of salvation, 
 and with which, We are told, he was to that degree ena- 
 moured that he seemed to be wholly wrapped up in 
 them." Colet expressed great contempt for religious 
 houses and the lives commonly led by monks; he set 
 forth the danger of an unmarried clergy, spoke angrily of 
 immorality and covetousness in priests, spoke against 
 auricular confession, warned against image worship, and 
 called irreverent the thoughtless, hurried repetition of a 
 stated quantity of psalm or prayer. He also collected 
 many passages from the Fathers which displayed modern 
 corruptions in the Church. He did not believe in purga- 
 tory. Such opinions, and his free way of expressing 
 them, made the good dean obnoxious to the clergy. But 
 
 1 PauliJovii. Descriptlo Britannia, Scotia, HibemvK et Orcadum, ed. 
 Venet., 1548, p. 45. Erasmus says of his friend " Accesserat his fortunaa 
 commodis corpus elegans ac procerum."
 
 JOHN COLET. 237 
 
 for the good sense of Archbishop Warham evil conse- 
 quences might have followed. As it was, when Agrippa 
 lodged with him, Colet was preparing to bestow his ample 
 fortune upon the foundation of a grammar school the 
 first in which the dreaded Greek was systematically taught 
 to English boys. He chose a friend who was a good 
 Greek scholar, William Lilly, for the first head master, 
 and MDX. was the date of foundation upon the inscrip- 
 tion on the school wall facing the cathedral. 
 
 We see, then, sympathy enough between Cornelius and 
 his host the dean. There was one aspiration common to 
 them both. Colet, we are told by Erasmus, had naturally 
 a spirit exceeding high and impatient of the least injury 
 and affront. He was also, by the same bent of nature, too 
 much addicted to love, and luxury, and sleep, and mightily 
 disposed to an air of freedom and jocoseness ; nor was he 
 wholly free from a delight in money. In company or 
 with ladies his joyous nature would break loose, there- 
 fore he preferred talking Latin with a friend, so that he 
 might avoid idle discourse at table. He ate only one 
 meal daily, and then but of one dish, taking a draught or 
 two of beer, and refraining commonly from wine, for 
 which he had, when it was very good, great relish. He 
 had always guests at table, few and fit, and though his 
 provision for them was frugal, yet was it in all its appoint- 
 ments very agreeable and neat. He did not sit long over 
 meat. His custom was that, after the first grace, a boy 
 with a good voice should read aloud a chapter out of an 
 epistle of St. Paul, or from the Proverbs. Then he would
 
 238 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 begin a pleasant conversation on some point in it, and if 
 the talk grew dull would change the theme. There 
 never was a man with a more flowing wit, and therefore 
 he delighted in companionship with lively people, but he 
 turned his light and cheerful stories always to a serious 
 and philosophic use. With a congenial friend he gladly 
 would prolong discourse until late in the evening. He 
 loved neatness and cleanliness in books, furniture, enter- 
 tainments, apparel, and goods, but he despised state, and, 
 for himself, wore only black clothes, though others of the 
 higher clergy walked in purple raiment. His upper gar- 
 ment was made of plain woollen, and in- cold weather he 
 had it lined with fur. His ecclesiastical income he spent 
 on the wants of his family and hospitality ; his private 
 estate, which was large, he put only to charitable uses, 
 finally devoting it, as before said, to the foundation of a 
 school. This school he did not, in the narrow spirit of so 
 many founders, open only to a certain section of the 
 people, but to the whole country, and he took thought to 
 provide in its first rules for the necessities of extension 
 and improvements, and for whatever changes of plan 
 might, by the progress of society, be made to appeal- 
 proper to its future rulers. Colet was a great lover of 
 little children, admiring the pretty innocence and sim- 
 plicity in them, and he would often observe how they had 
 been set before us by the Saviour for an example. Never- 
 theless, he shared the common notion of his time upon 
 the propriety of not sparing the rod on schoolboys, and
 
 ON THE WAY OF HERESY. 239 
 
 even suffered boys in his school, who were new comers, to 
 be flogged severely upon little provocation, for the mere 
 purpose of laying in their minds the foundation of what 
 was supposed to be a wholesome awe. 
 
 Such being Dean Colet's character, it will be seen that 
 he was able very perfectly to sympathise with the high 
 aspirations of Cornelius, and that he did what he could 
 to direct and purify them in accordance with his own 
 sense of all that was great and good, by setting the young 
 man to work on the Epistles of St. Paul. In a contempt 
 of all that was most clearly corrupt and unreasonable in 
 Church discipline, and a resolve to exercise freely the right 
 of independent study, whether at Greek or any other 
 branch of knowledge that was scouted by the ignorant, the 
 young German doctor could only have been strengthened 
 by his English host. Let us not omit here to remark how 
 insensibly, and as it were without volition of his own, the 
 life of Agrippa has begun to run in a strong current 
 against priestcraft. He has not merely roused against 
 himself as a student the bad spirit of monkery as re- 
 presented in the person of Catilinet, but no sooner 
 has he been turned back by Catilinet from the career 
 of his choice, and forced on a career of action, than 
 he is put on the high road to excommunication by the 
 Emperor, who happens to be struggling with the Pope. 
 As one of the Pope's antagonists, he is despatched to 
 England, and when there the friendship he wins is indeed 
 that of one of the best men of his time, but one against
 
 240 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 whom, nevertheless, suit had been opened by his bishop on 
 account of heresy, and who had been running great risk 
 of a martyrdom. 
 
 From Dean Colet's house Cornelius wrote a letter of 
 Expostulation on the subject of his condemned Exposition 
 of the Book on the Mirific Word, to John Catilinet, 
 Doctor of Theology, Provincial of the Franciscan Brothers 
 throughout Burgundy 1 . It is full of character, and won 
 for the writer, no doubt, Colet's respect, as it will that of 
 any reader. Considering the provocation and the disap- 
 pointment suffered, it is, though just a little caustic, mar- 
 vellously gentle. Thus it runs : 
 
 " It is the part of a Christian to do deeds of charity, and 
 to speak truth, which he who fails to do, wanders so far 
 from Christ as to become altogether undeserving of the 
 Christian name. I write this to you, good Father, moved 
 by that very charity and truth (in which we ought all to 
 be joined, as members of the same body, whose head is 
 Christ), not out of any false opinion, envy, or hatred, 
 which should be put far away from Christian men. I will 
 say, however, with your leave, that you, by many false- 
 hoods poured out before public assemblies, have not feared, 
 indeed have striven your utmost, to excite envy and hatred 
 against me upon a matter wherein I deserved no blame. 
 
 1 First published appended to the first edition of Agrippa's " De Nobilitate 
 et Prcecellentia Fteminel Sexus (Mense Maio, 1532), as Henrici Cornelii 
 Agrippse Expostulatio super Expositione sua in librum de Verbo Mirifico 
 cum Joanne Catilineti fratrum Franciscanorum per Burgundiam provincial! 
 ministro sacrae Theologize doctori." From this edition, fol. sig. D-D iiiL, it is 
 here translated.
 
 EXPOSTULATES WITH CATILINET. 241 
 
 I wonder, therefore, by what right, while I was far away 
 there in Burgundy, an unknown wayfarer, always harm- 
 less towards all, seeking of no one more than honour for 
 desert, you were moved to calumniate me, you who for 
 your calling's sake should, as Paul teaches the Romans 1 , 
 hate evil and cleave to good, be kindly affectioned towards 
 others, blessing and cursing not, overcome evil with good, 
 and as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men. 
 Truly you have not done what is worthy of your calling, 
 or of a Christian teacher, who should exhort the people in 
 the name of Christ to those things that are Christ's, to the 
 works of the spirit charity and peace, and the other 
 things which Paul recounts to the Galatians 2 . For he 
 who persuades to hatred, wrath, strife, rivalry, enmity, 
 does not persuade to things of the spirit but things of the 
 flesh, than which nothing should be more strange to the 
 Christian, and nothing more incongruous than for a 
 Christian doctor to teach and incite to them. For Christ, 
 the author of our religion, and the apostles, and the 
 whole sacred writings, as you must know better than I, 
 call us to peace and quietness. Therefore John the 
 Evangelist 3 reports Christ to have said to his disciples, 
 Peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you. And 
 Paul says to the Hebrews 4 , Follow peace with all men, 
 and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. 
 Not only to exhort men to this peace, but even to entreat 
 
 1 Romans, ch. 12. I cite the texts as they are cited by Agrippa in hi 
 margin. 
 
 2 Galatians, ch. 5. 3 John, ch. 4. 4 Hebrews, ch. 12. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 COENELIUS AGR1PPA. 
 
 them, ought to be your duty and also mine. Does not 
 the apostle say to the Ephesians 1 , Let no corrupt com- 
 munication proceed out of your mouth;. and a little after, 
 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and 
 evil speaking be put away from you? And in his epistle 
 to the Corinthians 2 , he so detests a railer, that he judges it 
 improper to sit at meat with him. In the same epistle, 
 not long afterwards 3 , he puts revilers among those who 
 shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. And he teaches 
 the same to the Colossians, saying, Put away anger, wrath, 
 malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your 
 mouth. Peter also 4 teaches, that he who would love life 
 and see good days, let him restrain his tongue from evil. 
 And .Tames 5 says, Speak not evil one of another, brethren. 
 Thus we are taught everywhere by the apostles to abstain 
 from maledictions and offences, which are seeds of ill-will 
 and discord of such kind as you have very recently been 
 scattering against me before a people and a prince, when, 
 a little before this last past festival of Easter, in Ghent, of 
 Flanders, before our most illustrious princess and all the 
 nobles of the court, called to deliver gravely and wisely 
 Quadragesimal discourses, you broke out, forgetful of 
 Christian modesty, and in full assembly interrupting the 
 Gospel of Christ, into open abuse and false calumny of me, 
 until you led many to hate me and wish me ill, through 
 false opinion. It is thus that even some who were 
 before friends of my name, now have their minds averted 
 
 1 Ephesians, ch. 4. 2 I. Corinthians, ch. 5. 3 I. Corinthians, ch. 6. 
 4 I. Peter, ch. 3. 5 James, ch. 4.
 
 EXPOSTULATES WITH CATILINET. 243 
 
 from me, so taught by your most false fancies and trucu- 
 lent lies, uttered in those much-talked-of assemblies, in 
 the which you employed against me maledictions and op- 
 probrious words of shame. For among other things you 
 called me before that numerous audience once and again a 
 Judaising heretic, who introduced into Christian schools 
 the most wicked, damnable, and prohibited art of the 
 Cabala, who, in contempt of the holy fathers and the 
 doctors of the Church preferred the rabbis of the Jews, 
 and twisted sacred letters to the arts of heresy and of the 
 Talmud. But I am a Christian; neither death nor life 
 shall separate me from the faith of Christ, and I prefer to 
 all others Christian teachers, although I do not despise the 
 rabbis of the Jews, and if, as it may be, I shall prove to 
 have erred, yet I desire not to be a heretic, nor do I 
 intend to Judaise, and it is so far from me to teach arts 
 damnable and prohibited, that I would not so much as 
 learn them. The sacred scriptures I nowhere distort, but 
 according to the divers expositions of divers doctors, take 
 them in divers ways for witness. I have not taught 
 heretical arts and errors of the Jews, but I have ex- 
 pounded, by long toil and vigils, the Christian and Catholic 
 book entitled, On the Mirific Word, of the Christian 
 Doctor John Reuchlin of Pfortzheim, not secretly in 
 closets, but in the public schools, before a public audience, 
 in public prelections which I held gratuitously in honour 
 of the most illustrious Princess Margaret, and of all that 
 was studious in Dole; nor were there wanting in my 
 audiences men who were most grave and learned, as well 
 B2
 
 244 CORNELIUS AGR1PPA. 
 
 the parliament of Dole, the venerable fathers of the sena- 
 torial rank, as also the masters in that University, the most 
 learned doctors, and the ordinary readers, among whom, 
 the reverend Vice-Chancellor Verner, conservator of the 
 church at Dole, dean, doctor in each faculty, did not omit 
 attendance at a single lecture. But you to whom I was 
 utterly unknown, who were never present at one lecture, 
 and never heard me elsewhere speaking privately about 
 these things who never, so far as I know, have seen me 
 yet have dared to utter against me an unjust opinion, that 
 had better been omitted, and might have been, and ought 
 to have been, not only because it is most false, but also 
 because it is not fit that a religious man should dissemi- 
 nate among most serious and sacred Christian congrega- 
 tions such calumnies and contumelies, and they altogether 
 misbecome the divine office of the preacher. For to 
 disperse contempt, cursing and hatred is not the work of 
 sincerity and speaking in the place of Christ, but in a 
 manner (I employ the words of Paul 1 ) to handle the word 
 of God deceitfully, which that great Apostle, set apart for 
 the Gentiles, says that he had never done, and which cer- 
 tainly ought never to be done by any one who seeks to be a 
 Christian teacher. You nevertheless have done this with- 
 out cause and without fault on my part, you have con- 
 trived evil against me, robbed me of my good reputa- 
 tion, blotted my good name with the impurity of your 
 hypocrisy, and out of the rancour of your mind have 
 borne false witness against me. For Christ says, in Mat- 
 1 II. Corinthians, ch. 4.
 
 EXPOSTULATES WITH CATILINET. 245 
 
 thew 1 : Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be 
 in danger of the council : but whosoever shall say, Thou 
 fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. But you have marked 
 me not with an uncertain reproach, or the name of folly, 
 but, suspicious beyond measure, on account of your igno- 
 rance of the word Cabalism, and want of information about 
 Hebrew dogmata, have called me heretic and Judaiser, 
 and have moreover adjudged me to the fire. But I rejoice 
 that I bear this burden for the sake of Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and am esteemed as a sheep to the slaughter, or 
 held worthy to suffer rebuke for that mirific word, the 
 name, I say, of Jesus. By that pentagram in Matthew 2 , 
 happiness is promised to those of whom all manner of evil 
 is said falselv, and who are persecuted for His name's sake. 
 And Peter calls those happy who are reproached for the 
 name of Christ. 
 
 " What part with the Jews have I who confess Christ 
 Jesus the son of God 3 , and most devoutly worship Him ? 
 What part with heretics have I who observe with my best 
 strength and teach the unity of the Church and its most 
 salutary precepts, and the rites of sacred councils and 
 canons by which faith is assured and cleansed from here- 
 tical iniquity ? Those by whom I was heard can know 
 those, I say, most upright and learned men can judge and 
 bear witness if ever anything was said by me offensive 
 to the Christian faith and Church, unless perchance you 
 mean to say that they shared with me my Judaising and 
 my heresy. For it would have been neither decorous nor 
 
 1 Matthew, ch. 5. - Matthew, ch. 3. 3 I. Peter, ch. 4.
 
 246 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Christian in them, hearing publicly, to have tolerated by 
 silence, to have consented with by not contradicting, 
 and, what is more/ to have approved by rewarding, what 
 it was base, Judaical, and heretical in me to have read ; 
 for this reading was the reason of their receiving me into 
 the college, and giving me an ordinary lectureship, the 
 position of regent, and a salary. This evil speaking is not 
 then against me only, but against the whole senate of the 
 parliament, and against the whole University of Dole. 
 See into what pit you have cast yourself, who while you 
 wished to cut me up with calumny have cheated with 
 false stories a princess, her nobles, and all her court have 
 exposed to ridicule a senate and an university have pro- 
 faned also the word of God. Was this preaching the 
 gospel of Christ before so illustrious a princess and court? 
 Was this the office of a pious and religious brother ? Is 
 it thus a brother is corrected ? Grant now that I, still a 
 youth, not yet twenty-three years of age, had brought 
 forward in my lectures some matter imprudently, and 
 was to be reprehended for it (though James says 1 , that if 
 any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man), 
 yet this ought to have been done far otherwise, and in a 
 more pious and Christian way than you adopted ; for 
 while you lived in the town of Gray, and journeyed fre- 
 quently to Dole, if I seemed to you to have spoken ill, or 
 to have interpreted childishly, why did you not come to 
 me, why did you not rebuke me, why did you not reason 
 with me of my error ? For heresy, for Judaism, you did 
 1 James, ch. 3.
 
 EXPOSTULATES WITH CATIUNET. 247 
 
 not check me to my face, but you wished at Ghent, in 
 Flanders, to deliver me over, lecturing at Dole, in Bur- 
 gundy, two hundred miles away, to the ill-will of all y 
 before the princess and her court, that by so exciting 
 against me the hate of the princess and her courtiers you 
 might indirectly (as it is said) cause my expulsion from 
 the whole of Burgundy. Who does not see here a 
 treachery laid open, calumny manifest, a spite detected? 
 Had I sinned, it would have become you to rebuke me in 
 another manner, and as Paul instructs in the Epistle to 
 the Galatians 1 , with these words : Brethren, if a man be 
 overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an 
 one in the spirit of meekness. And he says also to the 
 Thessalonians 3 , Count him not as an enemy, but admonish 
 him as a brother. This fraternal and evangelical manner 
 of admonition would have become you, a religious man 
 bearing the name of Brother, as having professed the 
 rule of the Franciscan brethren, and it would have been 
 of much advantage to me, while it would have preserved 
 for me the grace and favour of the princess and of others. 
 Spare me then, henceforward, I entreat; let there be an 
 end of reproaches and detraction; let there be an end of 
 the discourses that provoke to hate and cripple charity ; 
 exhort to mutual benevolence and concord those whom 
 you have made unfriendly to me'; restore to me the 
 wholeness of my reputation ; restore to me my good and 
 innocent name ; restore publicly what you have publicly 
 destroyed; restore to me those things which you have 
 1 Galatians, ch. 6. 2 Thessalonians, ch. 3.
 
 "248 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 snatched away by cruel fraud and wicked injustice. Go 
 not before you are reconciled with me, your brother in 
 J-esus Christ, with a stubborn heart resisting the divine 
 spirit, to celebrate the divine mysteries of the mass, and 
 eat the body of Christ to your own damnation. By that 
 holy sacrament I conjure you to restore, for we are both 
 Christians and members of Christ, as Paul says to the 
 Romans, one body in Christ ; to separate us and to make 
 dissension what is it but to divide Christ's body, and in this 
 body you are a noble and a chief member, who are doctor 
 of theology, and have made profession of the rule of St. 
 Francis. I also work in the same body, and though I am 
 but a mean member, yet I am a Christian, and learn daily 
 with pleasure from great masters, of whom you are one, 
 the things that belong to our religion, wherein undoubt- 
 edly I delight much ; let us, therefore, love one another. 
 In this, as the apostle says 1 , is the fulfilling of the law; 
 nothing is more excellent than truth and charity. For 
 the apostle writes to the Galatians 2 , If ye bite and de- 
 vour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one 
 of another. 
 
 "These few words I write to you, good father, not 
 moved by hatred, ill-will, or anger, but conscious of my 
 own innocence, in a good and pious temper, studious of 
 love ; and the charity that I am asking you to show; 
 the same I offer; which to refuse or to spurn this that I 
 have written can neither be a part of your profession or 
 your dignity; for he who refuses charity refuses God. 
 1 Romans, ch. 13. * Galatians, ch. 5.
 
 MONK AND CHRISTIAN. 249 
 
 For God, the evangelist witnesses 1 , is love. But if for 
 talmudical and cabalistical studies which you distrust, or 
 for any other things which may have been erroneously re- 
 ported to you by small, unskilful persons, or by persons 
 little friendly to me, you have concejved any suspicion 
 of me, I will both clear and justify myself to you most 
 amply. Farewell. From London, the famous emporium 
 of England. In the year 1510." 
 
 Excellent preaching to a rock. A letter running over 
 with the recent study of St. Paul, and in which there 
 is the Christian spirit scarcely less to be admired for the 
 drop or two of human bitterness infused into it. Still 
 there is the generous aspiration, the fond yearning upward 
 of a contemplative German youth, who knows that there 
 is vigour in his striving. With the vigour, weakness. 
 Every one must feel that with such letters as this which we 
 have just read it is vain for any man to hope to grapple 
 with the Catilinets of the world. Agrippa began life upon 
 enchanted ground, the disenchantment is at hand. Against 
 established form and rule his aspirations, noble as they are 
 and true in essence, certain as it is that they and many 
 others like them helped society to better days, seem to be 
 powerless. Everywhere he finds men treating accepted 
 opinions as if they were the height and depth of know- 
 ledge, using them in a thousand forms as arguments 
 against every far-reaching speculation. The day will 
 come when we shall find him, stung to the quick, hur- 
 riedly and angrily turning the tables upon the entire con- 
 1 I. John, ch. 4.
 
 250 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 ference of near-sighted pundits, and hunting them all 
 down with their own cry of Vanity, in the last years of 
 his vexation. The days of a simple aspiration are already 
 numbered, and the days of provocation are begun. 
 
 Having finished his appointed work in England, 
 Agrippa returned to Germany, and probably entitled to 
 a month or two of holiday joined his domestic circle in 
 Cologne. Maximilian would soon find for him fresh em- 
 ployment, since the Emperor was busy, and had need of all 
 heads and all hands that could be made available. Cologne 
 was to the young Agrippa but a place of rest for a few 
 months, where he could gossip at ease with his wife, his 
 father, and his mother. His parents, having given him 
 his taste for astronomy, could sympathise with at least 
 some part of his studies 1 . He was happy as a son and as 
 a husband, and found rest at home. 
 
 But inasmuch as an entire idleness is a great spoiler 
 of rest, Cornelius undertook also to amuse his more 
 learned fellow-townsmen by delivering the lectures called 
 Quodlibetal (or What-you-Will), on questions of Di- 
 vinity 3 . I do not know anything more than can be 
 guessed about these Quodlibetal divinity lectures at the 
 Cologne University. It is reasonable, however, to suppose 
 that they were like the Quodlibet books miscellanies 
 
 1 De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum, cap. xxx. De Astronomia 
 (ed. Septemb. 1532. p. 79): "Ego quoque hanc artem a parentibus puer 
 imbibi." 
 
 2 Ex Britannia autem recedens, apud Colonienses meos coram universo 
 studio, totoque Theologico coetu, Theologica placita (quaa vos vocabulo non 
 admodum Latino Quodlibeta dicitis) baud non Theologice declamavi." Def. 
 Prop, de Monog. B. Annas. Op. Tom. ii. p. 597.
 
 AT HOME IN COLOGNE. 251 
 
 meant to show, by the variety of topics treated and 
 the random way of treatment, a great range of agree- 
 able or useful reading. Whatever they may have been, 
 the Doctor of Dole delivered the Quodlibetal lectures 
 while upon this visit to his family, and he must have 
 heard much talk, too, upon interesting matters, for 
 the pronunciation against Reuchlin, on the part of the 
 Cologne theologians, was just then (1511) growing to a 
 head, and rabbinical books were the main topic of dis- 
 cussion in the University. Thus the case stood. One 
 Pfefferkorn, a Cologne Jew, turned orthodox priest, and 
 bitter, as most converts are, against the brotherhood he had 
 deserted, had, in the year 1507, exhorted Jews to "be- 
 come Christians in a book, published at Cologne, called a 
 Speculum. In 1509 another Jew, turned orthodox priest, 
 Victor von Carben, published, with the same object, also 
 at Cologne, a golden work, an Opus Aureum. In the 
 same year he held public disputations with the Jews (of 
 course discomfiting them) in the house of Hermann Hass 
 of Cologne, at Poppelsdorf. Pfefferkorn and his ally were 
 for the destruction of all Jewish literature as so much 
 blasphemy, and they attacked Reuchlin, of course, as the 
 chief upholder of the learning they contemned. Pfeffer- 
 korn and Reuchlin became chiefs in a great tilt before 
 the eyes of Europe. The matter in dispute was put thus 
 at the time in the form of what was called a double 
 Crinomenon : 
 
 I. Whether all Hebrew books, except the Bible, are to 
 be abolished, burnt ?
 
 252 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 Reuchlin denies. Pfefferkorn affirms. 
 
 II. Whether the Cabala propounded by Reuchlin be 
 contrary to the word of God ? 
 
 Pfefferkorn affirms. Reuchlin denies 1 . 
 
 In 1509 an order was extracted from Maximilian, then 
 in camp at Padua, to John Pfefferkorn of Cologne, com- 
 manding him to search out Jewish books and extirpate 
 them. In 1510 a like order was sent to Uriel, Archbishop 
 of Mayence, who forwarded to Pfefferkorn, from Aschaffen- 
 burg, a list of the books he had seized, and also, sensible 
 man, wrote to ask Reuchlin which he might properly de- 
 stroy after he had seized them. A month or two afterwards 
 instructions were obtained from Maximilian to Jacob Hoch- 
 straten, inquisitor of Cologne, Victor von Carben, priest, 
 and John Reuchlin, doctor of laws, informing them of the 
 powers conferred on Uriel, Archbishop of Mayence 2 , and 
 ordering them all to furnish him with counsel. In 1509 
 Pfefferkorn had attacked Reuchlin as a Cabalist and pro- 
 moter of blasphemy in his Handspiegel, to whom, on the 
 6th of October, Reuchlin replied by the publication of his 
 Augenspiegel. About this famous book, which they 
 eventually condemned and burnt, and about Reuchlin's 
 letters, on the same topic, to Conrad Koellin, then just 
 published, the theologians of his native town were mainly 
 
 1 This and the other notes on the controversy as it stood at this time in 
 Cologne I take from the Prodromus Historic^ Universitatis Coloniensis, quo 
 exhibetur Synopsis actorum et scriptorum a Facilitate Theologica pro EccL 
 Cath. et Republ. of Joseph Harzheim (4to, Cologne, 1759). 
 
 2 This Uriel is said afterwards to have died of regret, because when] he 
 once by chance caught the cellarer at Aschaffenburg stealing his wine, he 
 gave him a blow on the head with the cooper's adze that killed him.
 
 TO BATTLE. 253 
 
 occupied when young Agrippa, fresh from the stripes of 
 Catilinet, spent his holiday among them. There was no 
 escaping from the quarrel. If the young doctor turned 
 from priests to citizens he found among them other matter 
 for anxiety. The discontent of the townspeople with their 
 chief men was ripening towards rebellion, and only two 
 years afterwards the heads of senators were rolling in the 
 Grass-market 1 . 
 
 There was no rest for Cornelius he is now aged 
 twenty-five except in his own quiet communion with 
 wife and parents ; and from that he was sooii taken by 
 the summons to lay by his doctor's cap and, taking up his 
 sword, join instantly the army of the Emperor in Italy. 
 
 1 Mvtius de Germanorum Prima Orlglne . ... ad mensem Augustum anni 
 1530. Lib. xxx. p. 356.
 
 254 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SERVICE IN THE FIELD "WITH THE COUNCIL AT PISA. 
 
 SHINING in mail, Cornelius Agrippa is at Trent in the 
 spring or early summer of the year 1511, preparing to 
 escort some thousand of gold pieces to the camp of Maxi- 
 milian at Verona 1 . Doctor of divinity, he has resumed 
 field service ; and certainly a young doctor in arms is not 
 to be marvelled at in 1511, when the year preceding saw 
 an aged pope with harness on his back. The tastes of 
 Cornelius are not military. His friend at Trent is George 
 Neideck, the bishop, and from Trent he writes to his 
 early friend Landulph in the old patronising tone. Lan- 
 dulph has by this time acquired a wife, to whom 
 he refers by the perhaps pet name of Penthesilea ; 
 also a little boy, Camille, and a girl-baby, Prudence 3 . 
 Landulph, friend of Agrippa's youth, must really be 
 helped, since he is still waiting for a favourable open- 
 ing in life, living, apparently in no very satisfactory 
 manner, on his private means. The Eagles have crossed 
 
 1 Ep. 25, Lib. i. p. 705. 2 Ep. 34, Lib. L p. 709.
 
 JOINS THE CAMP AT VERONA. 255 
 
 the Alps. Agrippa joins them, and Landulph must join 
 them too. The ingenious soldier-scholar has again a 
 scheme by which he and his friend are both to compass 
 glory, praise, and profit. If Landulph, hastening by sail 
 and oar, will only meet Cornelius at the lodging of the 
 Bishop of Trent, in Verona, he will know the plan 1 . 
 What is the mystery? No more than that the learned 
 captain sees how he shall compass for himself and for his 
 friend a couple of Italian professorships 2 . 
 
 With a scheme; then, like this in his head, Cornelius 
 accompanied the chest of gold to Maximilian's Italian 
 head-quarters at Verona. Verona was one of the towns 
 promised him by the league of Cambray, and the one 
 upon the possession of which he laid most stress in all 
 public or underhand negotiations. The gold crowns 
 were, I suspect, French coin. On the 17th of November 
 in the preceding year, the exigencies of their relative 
 positions had caused Maximilian and Louis to execute, at 
 Blois, a treaty of strict mutual assistance. It was agreed 
 then that Maximilian should receive from France a 
 hundred thousand ducats in the spring for military use in 
 Italy, and was to cross the Alps in person with three 
 thousand riders and ten thousand foot, which were to join 
 twelve hundred lances and eight thousand foot supplied 
 by Louis. Maximilian, however, was a very much em- 
 barrassed prince. He could not raise the necessary men, 
 
 1 Ep. 25, Lib. i. 
 
 2 Ep. 30, Lib. i. p. 707. It is distinctly implied in the second sentence, 
 which should be compared with language used in the preceding letters.
 
 256 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and did not cross the Alps himself, but sent the money to 
 Verona, and despatched the Duke of Brunswick, late 
 in spring, with a small corps to overrun the Friuli. 
 Wretchedly supported by the Emperor, the little army at 
 Verona which sometimes had to exist a whole week 
 without bread or wine must have delighted in the 
 rumble of the wheels of the money-cart. It had and 
 Cornelius, who joined it, had nothing to do with the 
 Duke of Brunswick, who re-crossed the Alps again at the 
 approach of winter, and left to these permanent troops, 
 co-operating with the French, the burden of incessant 
 toil. Famine would now and then breed plagues among 
 them, which then spread beyond the German camp among 
 the Frenchmen. The cruel incidents of war were per- 
 petually present to men holding what was scarcely to be 
 called their own on hostile ground, and at all seasons 
 harassed by a busy enemy. When history may tell us 
 only now and then of an important battle during any 
 period of this long and murderous Italian struggle, which 
 began with nothing higher than a royal lust of plunder, 
 the contemporary chronicles are full of petty details 
 frightful to contemplate 1 . Because Cornelius was con- 
 templative, he was quite unfit to fight in such a cause at 
 such a time. He owed service to Caesar, and he paid it ; 
 required to fight, he showed that he possessed the physical 
 courage in which few men who are young and noble ever 
 
 1 Of the same period Anquetil writes, " Pendant ces arrangements la 
 guerre se faisait k entrance en Italie par petites actions, souvent plus meur- 
 trieres que les grandes batailles." A few points in tliis part of the narrative 
 rest upon the Chronique de Bat/art par le Loyal Serviteur, ch. xlvi.-xlix.
 
 HIS DISTASTE FOR WAR. 257 
 
 have been found deficient. He won in this year, 1811, 
 or the year following most likely the year following a 
 knighthood in the field. Nevertheless, he felt that he was 
 not in his own true position 1 . The salary paid to him (or 
 owing to him) for seven years from the Imperial govern- 
 ment was that of a soldier. " I was for several years," he 
 afterwards wrote, " by the Emperor's command, and by 
 my calling, a soldier. I followed the camp of the Emperor 
 and the King" (of France): "in many conflicts gave no 
 sluggish help : before my face went death, and I followed, 
 the minister of death, my right hand soaked in blood, my 
 left dividing spoil : my belly was filled with the prey, and 
 the way of my feet was over corpses of the slain : so I was 
 made forgetful of my inmost honour, and wrapped round 
 fifteenfold in Tartarean shade 2 ." So wrote the man of his 
 Italian war service, who rode out to it dreaming of glory 
 in the shape of a professor's chair at Pavia, and who, no 
 doubt, thanked heartily the Cardinal of Santa Croce, 
 when, towards the end of the first summer's campaign in 
 arms, he invited the young doctor Cornelius Agrippa to 
 a campaign, which proved but a very brief one, of a more 
 congenial sort, as member of the Council then about to 
 meet at Pisa 3 . The acceptance of this invitation was the 
 climax of Agrippa's opposition to the Pope. 
 
 1 See next chapter. 2 Ep. 19, Lib. ii. p. 736. 
 
 * Def. Prop, de B. Ann. Monog. Op. Tom. ii. p. 596. " Exinde a 
 Maximiliano Csesare contra Venetos destinatus, in ipsis castris, hostiles inter 
 turbas, plebemque cruentam, a sacris lectionibus non destiti, donee per 
 Reverendissimum Cardinalem Sanctae Crucis, in Pisanum Concilium re- 
 ceptus, nactusque si concilium illud prosperasset, egregiam illustrandorum 
 studiorum meorum occasionem." 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 The Council of Pisa was begotten at Tours of an 
 ecclesiastical assembly summoned by King Louis XII. and 
 attended by the Bishop of Gurk on the part of Maximi- 
 lian, to consider whether it was lawful in an Emperor and 
 King to resist Papal aggression. An affirmative answer 
 led to a revival in France of the pragmatic sanction of 
 Charles VII., diminishing Church patronage, and induced 
 a request on the part of the assembly that a general 
 Council might be summoned to meet at Pisa for the os- 
 tensible purpose of reforming ecclesiastical abuses. Maxi- 
 milian seconded warmly these proceedings, proposed for 
 Germany a similar pragmatic sanction, and in a manifesto 
 from his own hand said, " As there is evident necessity 
 for the establishment of due order and decency both in 
 the ecclesiastical and temporal state, I have resolved to 
 call a general council, without which nothing permanent 
 can be effected." A general council of German bishops 
 met, therefore, at Augsburg, but it refused in any way 
 to co-operate for the production of divisions in the 
 Church. It was but by a certain number of Italian and 
 French ecclesiastics, backed with the authority of Maxi- 
 milian and Louis, that the Council of Pisa was appointed 
 " to reform the churches in their head and in their limbs, 
 also to punish the openly guilty who had left no hope of 
 amendment and had long given great annoyance to the 
 Catholic Church." The formal summons of the Council 
 was signed by nine cardinals, of whom Bernardine Car- 
 vajal, the Cardinal of Santa Croce, was the first. They 
 grounded their right to issue such a summons partly on
 
 THEOLOGIST TO THE COUNCIL OF PISA. 259 
 
 their rank as head, limbs, and defenders of the Church, 
 partly on the necessity of such assemblies being held from 
 time to time and on the absence of all hope of right 
 ecclesiastical assistance from the Pope. They chose for 
 the place of meeting, Pisa, because it was a neutral spot, 
 against which, as a locality, the Pope could not justly 
 complain, and before their appointed council they required 
 Pope Julius himself to appear by the first day of Septem- 
 ber; but as nobody liked to serve the summons on his 
 Holiness, copies of it were affixed to the church doors in 
 Rimini and other great Italian towns. 
 
 To this schismatic council Julius appointed an opponent, 
 in a council summoned by himself to meet at Rome in 
 the church of the Lateran. Of the five Italian car- 
 dinals who had publicly insulted him he named three as 
 the most obdurate, the Cardinal of Santa Croce, spiritual 
 head of the opposing movement, being of course one, and 
 summoned them on pain of being stripped of all ecclesi- 
 astical preferment. The other two he simply warned 
 and summoned to the council in the Lateran. 
 
 Thus we see that Cornelius, in accepting the post of 
 Theologist to the Council of Pisa, was again fingering 
 the pitch of heresy with orthodox intentions. Bernardino 
 Carvajal, his patron, chose him not only because he was 
 an able, bold, young doctor, known to many of the 
 learned, though he had not yet published any writings, 
 as a person of great power and promise, but no doubt, 
 also, because he was a German. Not one German bishop 
 would consent to go to Pisa ; it was well as far as possible 
 S2
 
 260 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 to cover this deficiency, and in Cornelius he found a 
 doctor who would represent the German party. 
 
 Carvajal was a Spanish priest, and very active. His 
 brother had been ambassador, in Portugal, of Ferdinand 
 the Catholic. He had himself studied for the Church, 
 partly in Spain, partly in Italy, and being at the Papal 
 court, in Italy he had been made nuncio to Spain by 
 Innocent VIII. Ferdinand and Isabella then sent him as 
 ambassador to Rome. In 1493, Alexander VI. made him 
 Cardinal di Santa Croce, he being then Bishop of Cartha- 
 gena. He had before held the sees of Astorgas and 
 Badajoz, afterwards he held those of Siguenzia and Pla- 
 centia. Julius II. sent him to Germany as legate on 
 Italian business, and being at the court of Maximilian, 
 where he perhaps saw Agrippa, then being despatched 
 to England, Carvajal was led to forsake the Pope, and 
 to take the active part in subsequent affairs which placed 
 him at the head of the Church party, summoning its 
 chiefs to Pisa. He then held the see of Sabina, one of 
 the chief Italian bishoprics, having a cardinal's hat con- 
 nected with its mitre, and he was by this office the third 
 in rank of the Pope's six assistant bishops. 
 
 Consenting, then, to the offers of this chief, Cornelius 
 repaired to Pisa towards the close of summer, and in so 
 doing braved the terror of the Pope's excommunication. 
 For on the twenty-sixth of July, 1511, Pope Julius had 
 summoned to submission the three cardinals, Carvajal, 
 Cardinal of Santa Croce, William of Narbonne, and 
 Francis Cusentinus, their adherents, entertainers, and all
 
 LECTURES ON PLATO. 261 
 
 helpers whatsoever, on pain of anathema, as guilty of 
 heresy, schism, and lese majeste. Nevertheless the Council 
 was formed, and Cornelius Agrippa joined it. 
 
 Little was done. On the first of September the Council 
 opened, but was, as a Church assembly, overmatched 
 completely by the Papal power. The councillors were 
 mobbed by the rabble of the town, and, after meeting 
 twice in conclave, found it necessary to adjourn to Milan r 
 every man getting to Milan as he could, across a hostile 
 province. They made some faint attempts to resume 
 sittings in Milan, and did in the following year but 
 with that we have nothing here to do settle for a while 
 in France. Cornelius seems to have earned some credit 
 by displaying his ability of many kinds at Pisa. He 
 taught Plato in the University. He delivered also a 
 public Oration introductory to lectures upon Plato's 
 Banquet; the topic of the Oration being Love, divine 
 and human. His office, which is said to have been that 
 of Theologian to the Council 1 , ceased when Pisa was 
 abandoned. On the twenty-fourth of October, Carvajal 
 was deprived of his cardinalate and his see 2 . He was not 
 fully reinstated in his offices until the accession of the 
 next Pope, Leo X., under whose rule he prospered during 
 the remainder of his days. Cornelius returned to military 
 work from his brief theological excursion, with the formal 
 excommunication of the Pope declared against himself 
 and his discomfited associates. 
 
 1 In JBayle's Diet. ; but it is a guess of Bayle's. 
 
 Annales Ecdes. Od. Raynaldi. Tom. xi. p. 572, etseq.
 
 262 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Nevertheless he is not much distressed. We find him 
 not forsaken by his kind, for we next hear of him flattered 
 by a courtly friend, who finding from the barber that he 
 is still in Gravellona, lays at his feet, with a magnificent 
 humility, two bundles of home-grown asparagus 1 . We 
 also read a letter of thanks and encouragement to an in- 
 genious poet, who has forwarded to him for perusal some 
 extremely stinging satires on his Holiness 2 . 
 
 1 Ep. 26 and 27, Lib. i. - Ep. 28, Lib. i.
 
 EXCOMMUNICATED. 263 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DOCTOR AND KOTGHT-AT-ABMS. 
 
 THE war in Italy continued. Bologna had been taken 
 for the French. Towards Christmas, 1511, a torrent of 
 Swiss, carrying the great standard inscribed " Defenders 
 of the Church, and subduers of Princes," had been 
 poured by the Pope into the Milanese territory, had swept 
 the French and German troops before them, and had 
 marched upon the capital, from which they were diverted 
 by the wit rather than the arms of the new governor of 
 Milan, the gallant young Gaston de Foix, nephew to 
 Louis. The Pope had been industrious. Recovering 
 from a most dangerous illness, which prostrated him 
 when his opponents were first opening their Pisan 
 Council, he obtained the help not only of Ferdinand of 
 Aragon, but also of the son-in-law of Ferdinand, Henry 
 VIII. of England. What Maximilian had feared then 
 came to pass. With these princes were joined the 
 Venetians and some other Italian leaders, anxious to 
 expel the French. Spanish troops were approaching 
 on the side of Naples. Henry VIII., flattered by
 
 264 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 the title of Defender of the Faith, was preparing to 
 make a serious diversion by invading France. Maxi- 
 milian paused ; and, while he paused, the Pope plied 
 him with promises. The Emperor became cold in the 
 quarrel of the French. Nevertheless there were still his 
 German bands in Italy, and with them there was Cornelius 
 Agrippa. With Jacob von Empser for their leader, they 
 were at the command of the chivalrous young general 
 Gaston de Foix, who, hurrying to Bologna, took there 
 the Pope's forces by surprise, and raised the siege of the 
 town; then hastened to Brescia, and, after a fierce struggle, 
 wrested Brescia from the Venetians ; marched then to 
 Ravenna, and on Easter-day, in the year 1511, over- 
 threw the army of the Pope: but, when the battle was 
 won, perished in a hasty charge. With him though he 
 was but a youth of one or two and twenty fell for a time 
 the cause of France in Italy. Had he lived, he would 
 assuredly have taken Rome. He fell, and his successor in 
 command, when he had made himself safe in Ravenna, 
 waited for instructions to be sent from Paris. Maximilian 
 had deserted his ally. Before the battle of Ravenna, 
 orders had been issued for the departure of the German 
 troops out of the French army, but von Empser, their 
 leader, generously urged upon Gaston that France should 
 give battle, and use his services while he was still there to 
 offer them. From that date the defection of the Germans 
 went on rapidly. Maximilian was about to pass from 
 alliance with France into enmity, and to participate with 
 the King of England in the imminent invasion of the
 
 THE BATTLE OF RAVENNA. 265 
 
 territories of King Louis. Such changes of side, founded 
 upon motives rarely honourable, form throughout a notice- 
 able feature in the history of these Italian struggles. In 
 what way did they affect the fortunes of Cornelius 
 Agrippa ? 
 
 He seems to have released himself as much as possible 
 out of the whole web of state policy. Not only did he 
 remain in Italy, where he had found several learned 
 friends, many of them being persons of high social im- 
 portance, and where he had also obtained a patron in the 
 Marquis of Monferrat, but he seems also to have abided, 
 if he still served as a soldier, by the cause he had gone 
 thither to maintain, as long as he could do so without 
 formal disloyalty. In the summer of .the year 1512, 
 Maximilian allowed passage through the Tyrol to a body 
 of eighteen thousand Swiss, who were main instruments 
 in the expulsion of the French from Italy. Jacob von 
 Empser was still holding by the cause of France as if it 
 were his master's, and when news came of the descent 
 meditated by the Swiss and the Venetians, he was sta- 
 tioned with a little garrison in Pavia. Cornelius was in 
 Pavia too. The Swiss, Venetians, and troops of the Pope 
 advanced, numerous and powerful, against the wreck of 
 the French army, which was soon compelled to betake 
 itself also to Pavia for refuge. There it made speed to 
 add a bridge of boats to the stone bridge already existing, 
 with the intention of so opening for themselves a way of 
 flight, should further flight be necessary. All was done 
 that could be done in two days for defence of the town-
 
 266 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 walls and gates; but in two days the Swiss were at the 
 gates, and not long afterwards, by unknown means ob- 
 tained an entrance through the castle, and were in the 
 market-place. A deadly struggle then ensued ; many 
 united with the Chevalier Bayard to keep the enemy in 
 check while the retreat of the French army was com- 
 menced across the bridge of boats. Presently word came 
 that in small boats the Swiss were crossing, that escape 
 would soon be made impossible; and the retreat over 
 the bridge was hurried, under the protection of a body 
 of three hundred German soldiers, 'who defended the 
 approaches. The cavalry had already crossed, when a 
 misfortune happened. A long culverin, named Madame 
 de Fourly, taken as a trophy from the Spaniards at 
 Ravenna, was being dragged across, the bridge broke 
 under it, and the three hundred Germans were left in 
 the power of the enemy. Many plunged into the water 
 and were drowned, others were killed, some were made 
 prisoners 1 . Cornelius Agrippa was made prisoner 3 . 
 
 Reading Agrippa' s correspondence by the light of these 
 events, we come to the conclusion that, diverted by his 
 patron, William Palseologus, Marquis of Monferrat, from 
 active military duty, he was still keeping his mind on the 
 professorship, and labouring to push his fortunes as a 
 scholar, when the war had reached its crisis. Certainly 
 he was not at the battle of Ravenna, for that was fought 
 
 1 Chronique de Bayart, par le Loyal Serviteur, ch. 55. Memoires de 
 Fkurange, cap. 31. 
 
 2 Ep. 33, Lib. i. p. 708.
 
 THE FLIGHT FROM PAVIA. 267 
 
 on the eleventh of April, and upon- the sixth we find 
 Agrippa writing to Landulph 1 from the castle of a 
 learned friend, Bartholomew Rosati, at a little place 
 called Lavizaro, five miles from Novara, on the way to 
 Mortara. He was staying at Lavizaro when the present 
 of asparagus was sent by the friend in the adjoining little 
 town of Gravellona, who had learnt from the barber of 
 the district that he had postponed his intention of re- 
 turning instantly to Milan. He was still at Lavizaro, 
 meditating, not a hurried journey to Ravenna, but a 
 leisurely return to Milan, when writing to Landulph six 
 days before the battle : " Mind what I told you when I 
 quitted Milan; do not give up a certainty for an un- 
 certainty; nothing is more perilous than to rush without a 
 skilful leader into the house of Dsedalus. Heed my advice, 
 for our friendship compels me to be solicitous for the 
 safety and comfort of us both. Wait but a little while, till 
 I come back to Milan, and then I will show you the true 
 way to glory, long, long contemplated. Either yield 
 to my wish, or do nothing without telling me quietly 
 what you mean to do." The house of Daedalus, the maker 
 of the Labyrinth, was, possibly, the maze of European 
 politics, then, as we have seen, in a dangerously compli- 
 cated state, and Agrippa seems to have been afraid lest 
 his friend might commit himself to a search after fortune 
 in the midst of it. The answer of Landulph reported him 
 at Pa via, and thereupon, on the nineteenth of April 3 , 
 Ep. 29, Lib. i. pp. 706-7. 2 Ep. 30, Lib. i. p. 707.
 
 268 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 a week after the battle of Ravenna, Cornelius, who is still 
 at Lavizaro, expresses his great satisfaction, and adds, 
 "You have gone there as my precursor, for to betake 
 myself thither has been now for a long course of days my 
 secret meditation ; I will now carry out my thoughts and 
 soon be with you. When I am come you may set care 
 aside, for I will not cheat you with promises, but give you 
 a real help over your doubts where it is needed ; and so, 
 having put your affairs in prosperous condition, we will 
 take counsel as to what next shall be done." 
 
 The patron by whose help all difficulties in the way of 
 a convenient settlement at Pavia were to be conquered, 
 was William Palaeologus, Marquis of Monferrat. Mon- 
 ferrat, which sixty years afterwards became a duchy, was 
 then an ancient Lombard marquisate, close upon Pavia, 
 having not quite three hundred square miles of domain. 
 It was made a marquisate by Otho I. in the year 967, and 
 in 1305 the original main line died out, John the Just 
 leaving no nearer heir than the son of his sister Violante 
 by the Greek emperor Andronicus II. Thus the imperial 
 name of Palseologus came to be that of the Marquises of 
 Monferrat, the William who was Agrippa's patron being 
 descended from the son of Violante, Theodore Comnenus 
 Palseologus. William was the last of the race but one. 
 John George, his successor, who had been Bishop of 
 Casale, died in 1533 while making arrangements for his 
 marriage, and so the succession was thrown open to 
 dispute. It was generally at Casale, the most important 
 of his towns, that the Marquis of Monferrat had Agrippa's
 
 MONFERRAT CORNELIUS AT PAVIA. 269 
 
 company, but when Agrippa was at Lavizaro he was not 
 at a great distance from him. 
 
 Having written to Landulph that he intended joining 
 him at Pavia, Cornelius very soon followed his letter. 
 Before the close of the same month he is with his friend, 
 and sends a cabalistical book, with a little note, from 
 Pavia to a learned priest who had desired to borrow it. 
 The note is of a kind to prove that his mind has not been 
 changed by the attacks of Catilinet, or his experiences of 
 the theological discussions at Cologne. 
 
 " I send you," he says in it 1 , " venerable Father Chry- 
 sostom, that little cabalistical book you wished for : con- 
 cerning which I would not have you ignorant that this is 
 the divine science sublime beyond all human tracing, 
 which, if it become intelligible to you by continual re- 
 flection, will fill your entire mind abundantly with all 
 good things. The whole art is indeed sacred and divine, 
 and, without doubt, of efficacy: therefore, my Chrysostom, 
 while you are so eager to exercise yourself therein, cover 
 with silence the great mystery within the secret depths of 
 your religious heart, conceal it with a constant taciturnity ; 
 for it would be an irreligious act to publish to the know- 
 ledge of the multitude a language so full of the majesty 
 of Heaven. Farewell. Pavia, April 30, 1512." 
 
 Not very long afterwards, Agrippa being still at Pavia, 
 
 and Landulph having gone or been sent to Lavizaro, very 
 
 possibly to make some application to the Marquis of Mon- 
 
 ferrat, the storm flies towards the University town. The 
 
 1 EI>. 31, Lib. i. p. 707.
 
 270 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 German garrison is first put in, and then the whole camp 
 hurries to take shelter behind its walls. Affairs being in 
 this state, Landulph, writing from Lavizaro 1 , says : 
 
 " Greatest Agrippa, other self, anxious about your po- 
 sition, where you may be, what you may be doing, and 
 how you prosper among these tumults of war, unable to 
 reach you myself safely I write this letter that you may 
 know what I do and where I am, for I am here to watch 
 in person over my own welfare, which would perish were 
 I absent." (The welfare over which he watches, as his 
 own, includes that of his wife and his two little ones.) 
 " Ascertain whether Francis, the son of George Supersax, 
 is in the camp" (George auf der Flue, called Suprasaxus, 
 was a Wallachian chief, who obtained great fame for his 
 prowess in those wars, and, I think, at this time was in the 
 castle of St. Angelo, imprisoned by the Pope for worrying 
 a bishop. As soon as he was released, he fastened on 
 the same bishop again with a fresh relish. He had 
 twelve sons and eleven daughters. Of one of the sons, 
 then, Francis, wrote Landulph, Find out whether he is 
 in the camp at Pavia), " for he is my intimate friend. If 
 there be any other friends of yours there, tell me ; for this 
 is a time when friends are needed. I heard much of the 
 tumult at Pavia" (namely, the rush of the French troops 
 to the cover of its walls) ; " but however it may be, if 
 you are well, I am glad. Commend me to our common 
 acquaintance. I suspect that Pavia will not be the plea- 
 santest of dwelling-places, yet I would not have run away 
 1 Ep. 32, Lib. i. p. 708.
 
 PRISONER OF WAR. 271 
 
 from you so soon, but would have postponed everything 
 on your behalf, as I have done before, if you were not 
 relying on the friendship of the magnificent Lancelot 
 Lunate, who loves you before everything. As soon as 
 the road is safe I will make haste to come to you. La- 
 vizaro, June 24, 1512." 
 
 Before Landulph wrote next, his friend had been made 
 prisoner in the last struggle at Pavia. " Most excellent 
 Agrippa," runs the letter 1 , " Domitius brought me word 
 to-day that you had been captured by the Swiss, but had 
 regained your freedom without much difficulty, and re- 
 turned to Milan with the magnificent Lancelot : most 
 welcome news to me. He also bade me, in your name, 
 having heard that the Swiss are gone, make speed to join 
 you. Therefore, I wish to know what you propose doing : 
 Do you mean to be at Pavia, or with the Marquis of 
 Monferrat? I will not be wanting to you ; only tell me 
 what I am to do. Lavizaro, July 13, 1512." 
 
 The family of Lunate, which at this critical time yielded 
 a friend to Cornelius, belonged to Pavia, and was one of 
 considerable importance. Its last chief had been Bernar- 
 dine, successively apostolical protonotary and cardinal 
 deacon, who had been employed by Alexander VI. as a 
 legate in the struggles with his enemies at Rome. He 
 had died fifteen years before this time, aged only forty- 
 five. Of his successor, Lancelot, I know only that in 
 Agrippa's correspondence he is, whenever named, entitled, 
 as a noble, the Magnificent. 
 
 1 Ep. 33, Lib.-L p. 708.
 
 272 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 The dangers of travel, dreaded by Landulph, were at 
 that time serious, for they depended not only on the pre- 
 sence of so many hostile bands, but they were aggravated 
 by the fury of the Lombard people. Having suffered 
 from the licence of the French camp grievous wrongs, the 
 native peasantry fell savagely at last upon every French- 
 man not protected by the presence of an army. In this 
 year, 1512, fifteen hundred French soldiers and merchants 
 are said to have been massacred in detail, their goods 
 being also plundered, after the departure of the French 
 general, Trivulzio, from Milan. Houses and shops that 
 belonged to persons friendly to the French were broken 
 into and destroyed 1 . In a little house at Milan, Landulph 
 had established his small family. Thither he journeyed 
 one October day, accompanied by his brother Gian An- 
 gelo, who had but lately joined him, and he reached 
 Milan in time to find his home invaded by six Swiss 
 foot-soldiers, to whom it had been pointed out by a spy 
 as the house of a man favourable to the French. But 
 for his brother's help, he says, there would have been an 
 end of everything 3 . Landulph's family, however, was in 
 safe shelter within the castle of his friend at Lavizaro, 
 which contained a garrison of forty fugitives from Pa via. 
 In that town it may here be said that Galbianus, who had 
 been so active a promoter of the Catalonian enterprise 
 narrated at the outset of this history, was killed when 
 Cornelius was taken prisoner 3 . 
 
 1 Muratori, sub anno MDXII. - Ep. 35, Lib. i. p. 709. 
 
 3 Ep. 34, Lib. i. p. 708 ; and for the next citation.
 
 LANDULPH AXD AGRIPPA. 273 
 
 "Nothing," Landulph writes to Agrippa, "can be 
 clone in the midst of this confusion. If you were here, 
 the time would suit for doing something with the Marquis 
 of Monferrat." Now, Monferrat was in arms at the head 
 of his own vassals, waging, like other native princes, inde- 
 pendent war 1 ; on behalf of himself in the first instance, 
 and as far as Milan was concerned of Maximilian 
 Sforza. The cause of Sforza was that of the Emperor in 
 a great measure, but in no degree that of the King of 
 France. "We are all well," writes Landulph 2 , "except 
 my brother Francis, sick of fever. My son Camille, who 
 lives in you" (Cornelius had won the heart of his friend's 
 child), " our little daughter Prudence, and my wife Pen- 
 thesilea are well. Should Pavia prove unsafe, we must 
 find a better place. Take care of your health ; nothing is 
 fitter at a time like this than to rest under the trees 
 in this rich country, and care only about being well." 
 Thus he wrote to his friend in the ripe August weather. 
 But Agrippa was no man to sleep through the hot noon 
 of trial. He could live only by following his calling 
 as a soldier, and though his camp study was divine philo- 
 sophy, though all his hopes and efforts were bent on an 
 escape into a pure scholastic life, he yet knew that he had 
 bread to earn for wife and child 3 , and in the midst of 
 tumult and confusion he must strive to earn it. His 
 dependence now must be upon Monferrat and Milan. 
 
 There was an end for the present of the French in 
 Milan. By the close of the year, except here and there a 
 
 1 Muratori. 3 Ep. 34, Lib. i. s Ep. 49, Lib. i. p. 715. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 little garrison, not a French soldier maintained ground in 
 the duchy. The French being expelled, contest arose for 
 the possession of the soil. Emperor Maximilian desired 
 it, but the Pope was unwilling to favour his desire. At 
 the same time, nearly all the smaller chiefs of Italy chose 
 rather to have a man of their own standing than a lofty 
 monarch in the midst of them. By promises and bribes, 
 therefore, the negotiation ended in the Emperor's consent 
 that the duchy should be granted to its proper ruling fa- 
 mily; and, accordingly, on the twenty-ninth of December, 
 1512, Maximilian Sforza, who had been an exile from his 
 ninth year to his twenty-first, re-entered Milan as its duke. 
 He was escorted by a troop of Swiss, and their great orator, 
 the Cardinal of the Swiss town of Sion, Matthew Scheiner, 
 a man of the people, in succession street-singer, school- 
 master, curate, canon of the little town of Sion, who 
 poured the violence and obstinacy of his hatred to the 
 French into fierce words, and also was a man at all times 
 ready with the sword. He was, indeed, said to have 
 obtained his bishopric by threatening the chapter sword in 
 hand. This chief of the Swiss finally was made Cardinal 
 of Sion, in the Valais, to please his countrymen, over 
 whom he of all men had the greatest influence. The new v 
 duke, entering his capital so attended, was met as he 
 rode under the Pisan Gate by more than a hundred gentle- 
 men of Milan, attired in the colours of his livery ; and 
 preceded by this escort, he rode under numerous triumphal 
 arches to the ducal court there was a French garrison 
 still holding the castle and with the glad consent of the
 
 NEW MASTERS IN MILAN. 275 
 
 people was then formally hailed as Maximilian Sforza, 
 Duke of Milan, the authority being bestowed upon him in 
 distinct terms as the gift of the Swiss 1 . 
 
 While these changes were in progress, Cornelius 
 Agrippa was attaching himself formally as a retainer- to 
 the Marquis of Monferrat, whose cause having become 
 that of the Emperor could be espoused without disloyalty. 
 Towards the close of November (1512), he was settled at 
 Monferrat's chief town of Casale 2 . 
 
 In the February following, Pope Julius II. died, and 
 the cardinals making haste to avoid overt signs of the 
 Emperor's ambition, chose their Pope from the house of 
 the Medici, Leo X. Louis of France, having made peace 
 in Italy by a treaty with Venice, sought to be reconciled 
 with the new Pope, and offered both to abandon the 
 Council of Pisa still sitting in France and to become a 
 good, devout, and obedient son to the Holy See, if only 
 his Holiness would revoke the censures of his predecessors. 
 With the king, Leo temporised, but what the king did 
 not obtain readily, was graciously accorded to the humble 
 scholar. On behalf of Cornelius Agrippa, friendly re- 
 presentations had been made by Ennius Filonardus, 
 bishop of a little town in the Campagna, called Veroli, 
 and in the first year of the new pontificate, a kind letter 
 was sent to Cornelius Agrippa, from the hand of Leo's 
 secretary, Peter Bembo, himself a good scholar, not then 
 known as cardinal, but as the author of a book of love 
 
 1 Storia di Milano ; del Conte Pietro Verri, cap. xxi. 
 
 2 Ep. 37, Lib. i. p. 710. 
 
 T2
 
 276 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 dialogues, the Azolani, well studied by thousands of his 
 countrymen. Four months after his elevation to St. 
 Peter's Chair thus Leo revokes, by the hand of his secre- 
 tary, the anathemas of Julius 1 : 
 
 * " Beloved son, health to you and the apostolic bene- 
 diction. From letters of our venerable brother and nuncio, 
 Ennius, Bishop of Veroli, and from the speech of others, 
 we have learnt your devotion to the holy apostolic seat, 
 and your diligent care to maintain its safety and its free- 
 dom ; which information has been very welcome to us. 
 Wherefore we commend you greatly in the Lord, praising 
 that temper and courage ; we also exhort you to remain 
 in the same mind and obedience both towards the seat 
 itself and towards ourselves, ready to show, as occasion 
 offers, in all things your good desert, and that you are 
 received into the bosom of our paternal charity. Of these 
 things our before-named nuncio will speak to you more 
 fully. Given at St. Peter's at Rome, under the seal of 
 the Fisherman, on the eleventh of July, 1513. In the 
 first year of our Pontificate." 
 
 Reconciled formally to the head of the Church, Cor- 
 nelius was now free to pursue his design of winning way 
 as a philosopher at Pavia. He wore no scholar's dress, 
 for he was captain of a troop of soldiers, owning Maxi- 
 milian Sforza for their master 3 . The new duke was a 
 young spendthrift, who was not only at great charge 
 to maintain troops paying a hundred thousand ducats 
 
 1 Ep. 38, Lib. i. p. 710. 
 
 3 H. C. Agrippce Orationes, N. II. Op. Tom. ii. p. 1075.
 
 RECONCILED TO THE POPE. 277 
 
 yearly to the Swiss, seventy-four thousand to other men- 
 at-arms, as much among garrisons of castles, and so forth 
 but he also lavished costly favours on his table-com- 
 panions, among whom there was one who amused himself 
 especially, and no doubt paid to be entertained, with the 
 researches of Cornelius, Oldrado Lampugnano, who was 
 made by the duke Count of Rivolta 1 . Casale, Milan, and 
 Rivolta became, therefore, places at which it was profit- 
 able for Agrippa to employ himself. Louis of France, 
 while engaged in meeting the invasion of his territory by 
 Henry VIII. and the Emperor, who had combined by 
 treaty at Malines under the Princess Margaret's good 
 auspices, [to fight the French, Louis, thus occupied at 
 home, had sent an army to the Milanese when he heard 
 how ill the new duke sped in winning the affections of his 
 people. But if the Italians were learning to despise their 
 own prince, they had learnt to hate the foreigner ; and 
 the French army, beaten at Novara, was chased speedily 
 over the border. Except only this burst of war, in the 
 year 1513, there was little to demand Agrippa's service 
 as a soldier, either in that year or the next, which was a 
 year of general accommodation and pacification. Such 
 leisure, therefore, as the times afforded, was spent in the 
 cultivation of congenial friendships : that of Augustine 
 Ritius 3 , the astronomer; that of the more enlightened 
 bishops and priests living (as far too many did, away from 
 
 1 Verri, Storia di Milano. Cornelius is said to be living at Eivolta. 
 Ep. 41, Lib. i. p. 711. 
 
 2 Agrippa, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientianim, cap. xxx.
 
 278 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 their own sees) in Milan ; finally, that of the great lords, 
 who chose to derive intellectual amusement from his know- 
 ledge. Upon some of that political business of the duchy 
 with which the Swiss were from the beginning so in- 
 extricably bound, towards the end of the year 1513, or at 
 the beginning of the year 1514, Agrippa was sent to 
 Switzerland 1 , and there he became associated in the 
 public trust with Alexander Landi 2 , a man of good 
 
 1 Ep. 40, Lib. i. p. 711. 
 
 2 It is right to state here that this part of the narrative, so far as con- 
 cerns Alexander Landi and the Count of Rivolta, is not perfectly reliable. 
 Agrippa's letters tally, as the reader may perceive, most perfectly with 
 the other trustworthy records of the time, but I find in the forty-second 
 letter of the first book a sentence which would make Alexander Landi the 
 Count of Rivolta, and give the letters I ascribe to Landi to an unknown 
 friend. (Many of them, including nearly all Landulph's, are headed only 
 Amicits ad Agrippam, but in most cases the writer of each is obvious from 
 internal evidence.) Now against Alexander Landi's countship of Rivolta 
 have to be set these facts : that Count Verri, in his Storia di Milano, gives 
 Rivolta at this time to Oldrado Lampugnano ; that in Agrippa's corre- 
 spondence the Count of Rivolta is complained of as a man " qui nostras 
 vigilias in suam trahere debeat lasciviam," a notion of him very well ac- 
 cording with Verri's mention of Lampugnano as a creature of Sforza, and 
 not at all according with Agrippa's mention of Alexander Landi in his De 
 triplici ratione cognoscendi Dei, as one to whom the depths of his heart were 
 laid open in spiritual converse ; again, that I can find no note elsewhere of 
 a Landi of Placentia having been Count of Rivolta. There are other argu- 
 ments drawn from internal evidence upon which it would be tedious to 
 dwell. Considerations of this kind appear to justify the clearing up of 
 every difficulty by changing in the text of one of Agrippa's letters an 
 accusative into a dative in the case of a proper name, which may have 
 been written in a contracted form and developed incorrectly, as indeed it is 
 also misspelt (Laudum for Landum) by the printer. In Letter 42 (Book I.), 
 instead of " Nuperrime mihi relatum fuit, Alexandrum Laudum comitem 
 Ripaltse te Placentiae convenisse," &c., I read, " Nuperrime mihi relatum 
 fuit, Alexandra Lando, comitem Ripaltse," &c. The comic formality of the 
 " to me, Alexander Landi" would be quite in place here, for the letter, which 
 is not a long one, opens with a joke, and in this part the writer might be
 
 DESPATCHED TO SWITZERLAND. 279 
 
 family from Placentia, a friend, having like tastes with his 
 own. The Landis of Placentia yielded in the next gene- 
 ration a professor of medicine to Pavia, Bassiano Landi ; 
 and another of the house was Marquis of Casale, and a 
 writer upon jurisprudence. Alexander complained after- 
 wards of a betrayal by Cornelius of his learned secrets to 
 the Count of Rivolta. They were at the service of any 
 other of Agrippa's friends, but the Count of Rivolta, said 
 this new acquaintance, is a libertine unworthy to profit by 
 the scholar's vigils. As an associate of the young Duke 
 of Milan, he most probably deserved this character. 
 
 Complaint of this kind was no source of serious dis- 
 pute. Cornelius is busy in the house of Landi, at Pla- 
 centia, in August of the year 1514; he has some work to 
 do, and his friend writes to urge that he will get it done 
 with all speed, and then repairing to Milan, do what 
 has to be done there make, perhaps, the due report 
 and get his travelling expenses for an expedition to the 
 Papal court. Such an expedition is designed, and there 
 is no reason why they should not make it together. There 
 had also been an embassy from the Duke of Milan to the 
 German court, in which a friend of Agrippa's shared, who 
 would have been glad if the young scholar had been 
 associated with the party. 
 
 In the house at Placentia, Cornelius, as busy over his 
 own private study of the Cabalists and of Mercurius Tris- 
 
 glad to cover with half-joking phrase a word of complaint which is com- 
 plaint, but yet on which he does not wish to dwell unkindly. The change 
 here made may be wrong.
 
 280 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 raegistus as over any public matters, had amused himself 
 by sketching a large Mercury with charcoal upon one of 
 Landi's walls. Upon this freak followed some grim jest- 
 ing in his friend's next letter. Mercury is a flying god, 
 take heed that the black charcoal in your picture of him 
 be not ominous 1 . Your philosophy is under a mutable 
 and often unfriendly patron, and there does, indeed, go 
 fire and fagot to the tracing of it. May there come 
 nothing worse of the kind near your skin than a morsel 
 of cold charcoal between the fingers. Such was the pur- 
 port of the joke, that played with a real terror. But 
 Cornelius was very fearless. Cabalism, at any rate, was 
 likely to be received better at Pavia than at Cologne ; and 
 by the help of Mercury he was then hoping very quickly 
 to achieve the object kept so steadfastly in view since the 
 first day that he set out from Trent for the Italian wars. 
 
 And truly, when the summer of the next year came, 
 the year 1515, Cornelius, then twenty-nine years old, 
 seemed to have entered on the summer of his life. Lan- 
 dulph had gone before him to secure new friends 2 , and 
 Monferrat probably had influenced his brother-Marquis, 
 John Gonzaga, who was then at the head of the University 
 of Pavia. Such influence had probably been sought, and 
 could not have been slight, inasmuch as the two houses, 
 Monferrat and Gonzaga, intermarried soon after this time, 
 and for want of nearer heirs the domain, together with 
 the title of Monferrat, passed within twenty years into the 
 hands of the Gonzagas of Mantua. 
 
 1 Ep. 42, Lib. i. - Ep. 45, Lib. i.
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PAVIA. 281 
 
 At last, therefore, before the most illustrious Marquis 
 and the most excellent Fathers in the town and University 
 of Pavia, Cornelius stands forward as a scholar, and within 
 the precincts of the University displays his learning and 
 his deep research into occult science, especially as an 
 exponent of the Pimander of Hermes Trismegistus. His 
 introductory oration is among the printed works that 
 have come down to us 1 . He tells how, beset by cares 
 and heavy duties during the past three years of miserable 
 war, he has desired to find safe passage to some happy 
 shore across the sea of blood. To do this it was requisite 
 to find some duty, and a worthy one, but he could see 
 none better or less inconsistent with his profession of arms 
 than to interpret the mystery of a divine philosophy in 
 that most flourishing gymnasium. His natural bent had 
 been from early youth to a consideration of divine 
 mysteries, and he had never known a more delightful 
 spectacle for contemplation than the wise ordering of 
 nature. To learn these mysteries and teach them to others 
 had been at all times his chief ambition, as he had already 
 taught them to some students in the University of Pisa. 
 Nevertheless, he feared lest the consummate scholars 
 before whom he ventured to ascend the chair he then 
 was occupying might resent as insolent presumption or 
 temerity the attempt of a barbarian, a soldier in the dress 
 of strangers, still in the crude immaturity of life, to teach 
 matters so grave, that belonged rather to the practised 
 skill of the maturest doctors. 
 
 1 Oratio. II. habita Papia, &c. Op. Tom. ii. p. 1073.
 
 282 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Then he speaks confidently of his power to do that 
 which he has undertaken. For his youth he says, that 
 the young can sometimes discriminate as well as, or even 
 better than more aged persons ; that good wit comes by 
 intelligence, not lapse of time. He refers to the youth of 
 Samuel, Solomon, and Daniel. Neither must the illustrious 
 Marquis John Gonzaga, that brave general, wonder at 
 seeing in the pulpit, as professor of sacred letters, one 
 whpm he had known of late years as a captain over sol- 
 diers in the most fortunate Imperial camp, nor must that 
 pure audience reject as profane a man whose hands have 
 been imbrued in human blood. Among the old poets and 
 prophets, Pallas and Bellona were a single deity, and 
 there are many examples of men eminent alike in arts 
 and arms. To say nothing of Demosthenes, strenuous 
 orator, who in war cast his shield away and fled before 
 the enemy, there were unconquered Scipios and Catos, 
 innumerable Roman and Greek chiefs, above all there 
 was Julius Caesar, and there was Charlemagne. It was of 
 a centurion also that our Master said he had not found 
 faith equal to his in Israel. He adds, according to the 
 way of the time, more illustrations, and ends with the 
 golden sword which Jeremiah the prophet was seen to 
 present to Judas Maccabaeus, saying, Receive the holy 
 sword, a gift from God, wherewith to smite the adversaries 
 of my people. " With which words," says Agrippa, " my 
 unconquered Emperor did consecrate me also when, having 
 almost as a boy received the sword from his hands, I 
 became known as a not unsuccessful soldier." But is he
 
 LECTURES AT PAVIA. 283 
 
 a barbarian ? Barbarians, he urges, are rational beings, 
 who breathe God's air and receive His gifts ; as for his 
 foreign dress, the beard and tattered cloak do not make 
 the philosopher, and the cowl does not make the monk. 
 Wisdom resides not in the clothes. He has been urged, 
 he says, to prosecute the studies of his choice by many 
 hearers with most cogent reasons, counselled and helped 
 by friends who, with innumerable helpful kindnesses have 
 stimulated him to continue what he had begun. " The 
 Gospel, too," he adds, " compels me, lest I be convicted of 
 ingratitude towards both God and man, by burying the 
 talent that has been entrusted to me, or hiding my light 
 under a bushel, and at last fall under one curse with the 
 fig-tree that yielded not its fruit in the due season." 
 It is just to the young orator to remember that in his 
 days a proper or more than proper self-consciousness 
 passed commonly in the public addresses of the learned 
 into what we should now consider an improper self- 
 assertion. It was rare for a great scholar to be at once 
 self-conscious and self-contained. The purer aspirations 
 of Cornelius are mingled with a great deal of man's com- 
 moner ambition. For both his aspiration's and ambition's 
 sake, and for his wife's sake, he desired to achieve at 
 Pavia the object of his wishes; he has been once turned 
 aside by a harsh opposition to his effort to forsake the 
 military road to fame, and follow Jiappily the peaceful 
 bent of his true genius. Now he is twenty-nine years 
 old, and, whatever he may have written, he has published 
 nothing; he is bound still to the camp, and his heart,
 
 284 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 young still, but conscious of the rapid flight of life, is in 
 its own depths pleading nervously and piteously through 
 the words of this oration. May no Catilinet arise to cross 
 me here. Soldier and stranger as I am, my soul is that 
 of a true scholar ; I can learn and teach, and to do both 
 unhindered, living happily with wife and family, a scholar 
 among scholars, is the dear wish of my heart. Grave 
 doctors of Pavia, do not quench the fire upon the little 
 hearth that I have lighted among you. 
 
 Having endeavoured to remove objections likely to be 
 urged against himself, Cornelius briefly refers to the fit- 
 ness of the time for his discussions now that peace has 
 followed upon war, and days of liberty have been secured 
 to them by the courage and wisdom of that most uncon- 
 quered triumpher over his enemies, Hercules Maximilian 
 Sforza, eighth Duke of Milan. A passing compliment is 
 paid to John Gonzaga, and the subject of the lectures is 
 at last approached. They are upon Mercury or Hermes 
 Trismegistus, and will give the spirit of his dialogues on 
 the Divine Power and Wisdom. Cornelius explains first 
 who Hermes is, and, according to the teaching of the 
 Rabbi Abraham of Avenazre, identifies him with Enoch. 
 He gave laws to Egypt, was the first observer of the stars, 
 the author and inventor of Theology ; the author, too, in 
 a material sense, of twenty-six thousand five hundred and 
 twenty-five volumes C;f books, wherein were contained 
 stupendous mysteries. " When dying," adds Agrippa, 
 " it is said that he thus addressed those standing round 
 about him : ' Thus far, my children, driven from my own
 
 ON THE PIMANDER OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS- 285 
 
 country I have lived a pilgrim and an exile, now, how- 
 ever, I return in safety to my home. When after a little 
 time, the chains of the body being loosened, I shall have 
 departed from you, never weep for me as dead, for I re- 
 enter that best and happy city to which its citizens all 
 come through the corruption of death. For there God 
 only is the great Prince, who fills His citizens with 
 wonder-working sweetness.' But enough 'of the author. 
 We will now speak only of his book. Its title is, Pimander ; 
 or, Upon the Wisdom and Power of God. It is a book 
 most choice for the elegance of its language, most weighty 
 for the abundance of its information, full of grace and 
 propriety, full of wisdom and mysteries. For it contains 
 the profoundest mysteries of the most ancient theology, 
 and the arcana of all philosophy, which things it may not 
 be so much said to contain as to explain. For it teaches 
 us, what God is, what the world, what a mind, what each 
 sort of demon, what the soul, what the ordering of Pro- 
 vidence, what and whence the necessity of Fate, what the 
 law of nature, what human justice, what religion, what 
 sacred ceremonies, rites, temples, observances, and holy 
 mysteries ; it instructs us besides in the knowledge of 
 ourselves, on the soaring of the intellect, on secret prayers, 
 marriage with Heaven, and the sacrament of regenera- 
 tion." This sort of book Agrippa proposes to explain 
 and illustrate, partly theologically, partly philosophically, 
 partly dialectically and rhetorically, enumerating per- 
 tinent texts, authorities, examples, and experiences, and 
 confirming the doctrine of the book, as occasion offers, by
 
 286 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 the sanction of ecclesiastical and civil law. With the 
 unpublished books of Occult Philosophy among his papers, 
 and with the knowledge of the fact that in these lectures 
 he desires to prove his own accomplishments as a phy- 
 sician, a lawyer, and a theologian, we can conceive very 
 well what these lectures upon Hermes Trismegistus were. 
 He formally and carefully disclaimed the heresy of any 
 word that he might say contrary to the opinion of the 
 holy Church, and, with that reserve upon all points of 
 philosophy and doctrine that might happen to be touched 
 upon in the course of his demonstrations, he declared 
 himself ready at the commencement of each lecture to 
 reply to every question that had been asked verbally or in 
 writing, and answer every objection that had been made 
 at the conclusion of the last. But the questions and 
 objections must be put upon substantial grounds, and in 
 good faith be meant to correct error or increase know- 
 ledge. For at the same time he declared that of the 
 vain syllogisms of the dialecticians, who care not for 
 the matter discussed, but only for the disputation, who 
 grind truth to powder with their altercations, and, there- 
 after, care not by how light a wind it may be blown 
 away, of any idle puzzles contrived for him by persons of 
 this class he should take no notice whatever. 
 
 In this mood, then, Cornelius proceeded, and with 
 much applause, to sketch a Mercury before the University 
 of Pavia. His Mercury has lost, through later criticism, 
 the divine proportions he ascribed to it. The man him- 
 self is now regarded as a myth ; indeed there are reckoned
 
 DOCTOR UTRIUSQUE JURIS. 287 
 
 among the myths of Egypt generally two, and sometimes 
 three, fabulous persons of the name ; the oldest, known in 
 his own land as Thoyt or Thoth, being the first form of 
 the Hermes and Mercury of Greece and Rome. He was, in 
 brief, the inventor of all human knowledge, and the source 
 of the Hermetic Art of alchemists. The Hermes Tris- 
 megistus, so much honoured in the sixteenth century, 
 came, according to JElian, one thousand years later, in 
 the time of Sesostris, restored lost arts, taught observation 
 of the stars, and, having invented hieroglyphics, wrote 
 his wisdom upon pillars. Others bring even a third 
 Mercury upon the scene, and consider him to be but a 
 third manifestation of one deity, calling him Trismegistus, 
 not as thrice great, but thrice born to sinless life. There 
 was one Hermes only commonly referred to in the writings 
 of the Cabalist, and he was not the most ancient, old 
 myth as he was. For many of the books ascribed to him, 
 and certainly for the Pimander, we are indebted to the 
 Alexandrian philosophers, who combined Jewish, Greek, 
 and Christian opinions with fragments of Egyptian tradi- 
 tion, and produced in that way, by the manufacture of a 
 prophet, evidence apparently almost as old as man, in 
 favour of their tenets. Also because the name of Hermes 
 would give currency to any book, books written in that 
 name were very numerous. 
 
 The Mercury sketched by Agrippa proved auspicious, 
 leading him, not to martyrdom, but to the best fulfilment of 
 his hope. He was admitted by the University of Pavia 
 to its degree of doctor in each faculty. Doctor of Divinity
 
 288 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 before, he became then Doctor of Medicine and Law 1 . Soon 
 afterwards, in welcoming as orator for the University 
 an after-comer to the doctorate of law, we find him 
 expatiating upon jurisprudence, quoting Ulpian, and 
 speaking throughout the language of the lawyers 2 . Ere 
 long, too, we shall see him a practitioner of medicine. 
 Doctor of law, physic, and divinity, he has also before 
 this time earned a knighthood on the battle-field. 
 
 In what battle he won that distinction we are not 
 informed. He himself says, after telling of his acquisi- 
 tion of the dignity of Doctor "utriusque juris" and of 
 Medicine, as if by after- thought : "Before that time I 
 was a knight, which rank I did not beg for, borrow in 
 foreign travels, or secure by impudence and insolence at 
 the inthronisation of a king, but earned it by valour in 
 war, among the troops in open battle 3 ." 
 
 He has secured, therefore, the best honours attainable 
 in arts and arms. He is acquainted at this time with 
 eight languages, master of six. He is distinguished 
 among the learned for his cultivation of occult philosophy, 
 upon which he has a complete work in manuscript, and 
 though he has not yet committed anything to press, much 
 has been written by him upon which he hopes to rest a 
 title to fair fame. He is not now unprosperous. There 
 is a lull in war, during which he receives the pay to 
 which he is entitled for his military services, and can earn 
 money also as a teacher in the University. He has a wife 
 
 1 Ep. 21, Lib. vii. p. 1021. 
 
 2 Oratio. HI. Pro Quodam Doctorando. Op. Tom. ii. p. 1084. 
 
 3 Ep. 21, Lib. vii. p. 1021 ; and for what follows until the next reference.
 
 KNIGHT-AT-ARMS. 289 
 
 whom he loves dearly, and more than a single child. 
 With these he has settled in the town of Pavia. His wife's 
 father and her brother are there also. The father seems 
 to have been with the army, and to have shared some 
 of his son-in-law's responsibility in the matter of the 
 Council of Pisa, for a Franciscus of his name was sent to 
 the Pope on a mission from the Cardinal of Santa Croce 1 . 
 Cornelius thinks of his wife with the utmost tenderness. 
 " I give," he writes to a friend 2 , " innumerable thanks to 
 the omnipotent God, who has joined me to a wife after 
 my own heart ; a maiden noble and well-mannered, 
 young, beautiful, who lives so much in harmony with all 
 my habits, that never has a word of scolding dropped 
 between us, and wherein I count myself happiest of all, 
 however our affairs change, in prosperity and adversity 
 always alike kind to me, alike affable, constant; most 
 just in mind and sound in counsel, always self-possessed." 
 When he said that, it was after three years more of life 
 than have been yet accounted for, three years of severe 
 trial, among which the sorest, at the period of which we 
 now speak, was at hand. His Mercury proved truly a 
 winged god. The ripe fruit of his ambition, which 
 Agrippa counted himself happy to have plucked, crumbled 
 to ashes in his mouth. In a few months the fire was 
 quenched upon the little hearth at Pavia, and he who had 
 been at so much pains to kindle it went forth a beggar, 
 with no prospect of advancement in the world. 
 
 Annales Eccksiast. Odoric Rinaldi. Tom. xi. p. 581. 
 2 Ep. 19, Lib. ii. p. 736. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 290 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FORTUNE of war changed very suddenly the tenor of 
 Agrippa's life. The year 1515 opened with the death of 
 Louis XII. of France. Francis I., who succeeded him, a 
 youth of twenty-one, directed his attention promptly to 
 the Milanese. He raised a considerable army, which he 
 proposed to accompany, and did accompany, in person 
 into Italy. The hope of the duchy was entirely in the 
 Swiss, and the fomenter of their zeal, the Cardinal of 
 Sion, moving about the town in the brown dress of a 
 civilian 1 , was so much master there, that he could even 
 venture to put to the torture the duke's cousin, Ottaviano 
 Sforza, Bishop of Lodi, upon the most vague suspicion of 
 communication with the enemy. The Swiss attempted to 
 defend the passes of the Alps, but the French army eluded 
 them, and crossed in safety by a perilous way, over which 
 the enemy had set no watch. The Swiss retired to defend 
 Milan. 
 
 Francis had leagued himself with the Venetians. Empe- 
 
 1 The narrative in this chapter is generally made out by collation of 
 Agrippa's writings with Count Verri's Storia di Milano.
 
 THE BATTLE OF MARIGNANO. 291 
 
 ror Maximilian united with the Pope and King of Naples 
 to maintain Maximilian Sforza in his duchy, and the 
 smaller Italian chiefs opposed the prospect of a powerful 
 and active king for neighbour. When the French army 
 approached Milan, all the force available was mustered. 
 On the tenth of September, the Cardinal of Sion brought 
 a large body of Swiss into the town. The Duke of 
 Savoy, the Marquis of Monferrat, the Marquis of Saluzzo, 
 and others, prepared also for battle, and the ill-starred 
 Cornelius Agrippa was called to the field again. King 
 Francis had in succession occupied various towns, marched 
 to Binasco; had marched thence to Pavia. There was an 
 end of study. The new doctor took the written produce 
 of his labours with him into Milan, and, on the four- 
 teenth of September, met the French in arms at Marig- 
 nano. The battle, as the world knows, was as desperate 
 as it was, for the time, decisive in its issue. The Swiss, 
 fighting for Maximilian under the promise of eight hun- 
 dred thousand gold ducats if they won the day, fought 
 the day through ; when night closed the two armies lay 
 down on the battle-field to rise and end the struggle as 
 the light should serve them. On the following morning 
 the arrival of Venetian reinforcements secured victory to 
 the French ; the Swiss and the Italians were routed, and 
 Cornelius lost in the rout a pocket-full of manuscripts. 
 Among smaller writings and detached notes there were 
 thus lost his commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the 
 Romans, completed as far as the sixth chapter, besides a 
 small bundle of commentaries, as yet only roughly noted, 
 U2
 
 292 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 on his own Books of Occult Philosophy. There was a 
 pupil of his among the combatants, Christopher Schilling, 
 of Lucerne, who saw the sheets departing from their 
 owner, and, in the heat of battle, mindful of the cause of 
 scholarship, plunged forward to rescue them. Cornelius 
 heard afterwards of this, and that some papers had so been 
 saved; perhaps, therefore, his loss was not irreparable 1 . 
 
 His position otherwise was, by the victory of the French 
 at Marignano, rendered desperate. King Francis fixed 
 his military residence at Pavia, while Maximilian Sforza 
 made what terms he could, still holding the citadel of 
 Milan. Constable Bourbon was governor for Francis in 
 the town. On the eighth of October the citadel was 
 ceded to the French two years had not elapsed since 
 they last quitted it and Maximilian Sforza withdrew to 
 French soil upon a pension, glad, he said, to be quit of 
 slavery and the Swiss, the Emperor's caprices, and the 
 thieves of Spain. Sforza might so retire, the neighbouring 
 Italian princes might accept the stern arbitrement of war, 
 and ride, as they did on the eleventh of October, with 
 the Marquis of Monferrat among them, as the friendly 
 escort of King Francis, into his new capital of Milan. 
 Cornelius Agrippa was a German noble, owing strict alle- 
 giance to the Emperor. He could make no submission 
 to King Francis. His vocation was gone, therefore, as a 
 soldier; hostile to the new rule, he could no longer teach 
 at Pavia; his military pension ceased, and there was an 
 abrupt end of his lectures. 
 
 1 Ep. 14, Lib. ii. pp. 732, 733, for the preceding.
 
 PAPERS LOST OCCUPATION GONE. 293 
 
 King Francis proceeded next to make his new position 
 the more sure by coming to an understanding with the 
 Pope. Arrangements were signed at Viterbo on the 
 thirteenth of October, tending very much to the propitia- 
 tion of his Holiness; before the year was out the Con- 
 cordat was signed at Bologna, which obtained the friend- 
 ship of the Pope for Francis at the price of rights be- 
 longing to the Church in France. The more complete 
 success of Francis was but the more complete ruin to 
 Cornelius Agrippa. Doubtless there was a seed of war 
 sown by this seizure of Milan. Germany must resist, and 
 Italy become again a scene of military tumult. Here, 
 however, would be occupation for the future which the 
 scholar had no wish to share ; and in the present there 
 was absolutely nothing to be earned or done. 
 
 Immediately after the entry of King Francis into 
 Milan, Cornelius Agrippa made several applications to a 
 friend whom he had known at Pa via. The last only was 
 delivered duly, and was thus attended to 1 : " I see clearly 
 enough how you are perplexed by fortune ; but you must 
 bear this, like a brave man, bravely. I have assured your 
 safety with our prince" (Monferrat). " The rest is, that 
 you must go to him, say you are leaving for Casale, and 
 ask his excellency to give orders to Galeotti and Antonio 
 of Altavilla, the masters of his household, that they should 
 write to Casale to have you received, when you get there, 
 among the pensioners. I must remain here for two days, 
 detained by some business : shall find you afterwards at 
 1 Ep. 47, Lib. i. pp. 714, 715.
 
 294 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Pavia. Farewell. Commend me to your wife and other 
 friends. Milan, Oct. 16, 1515." 
 
 Help had from Monferrat, Cornelius, as we shall see, 
 strove to repay promptly with the scholar's coin. A 
 month afterwards he has been wandering up and down 
 the land in search of bread that may be eaten honestly, 
 has struck a little spark of hope, and hears thus from a 
 friend in Pavia of his wife's brave bearing and uncon- 
 quered love: "I went to your wife," the friend says 1 , 
 "and told her everything according to your order; she 
 replied that she was well treated by her parents and her 
 brother. When I offered any help she needed from my 
 service or my means, she made no other reply. I will 
 visit her again, and should she want anything within my 
 resources, and will tell me, I will succour her for you as if 
 she were my sister. Contrive that you come back soon, very 
 soon, for so asks, beseeches, and requires, your sweetest 
 wife, and I not less. From Pavia, Nov. 24, 1515." 
 
 At the same time Cornelius was writing thus to a 
 " most learned Augustine 2 :" " Either for our impiety, or 
 through the usual influence of the celestial bodies, or by 
 the providence of God, who governs all, so great a plague 
 of arms, or pestilence of soldiers, is everywhere raging, 
 that one can scarcely live secure even in hollows of the 
 mountains. Whither, I ask, in these suspected times, 
 shall I betake myself with my wife and son and family, 
 when home and household goods are gone from us at 
 Pavia, and we have been despoiled of nearly all that we 
 
 1 Ep. 48, Lib. i. p. 715. 2 Ep. 49, Lib. i. pp. 715, 716.
 
 WISDOM IS STRONGER THAN ALL. 295 
 
 possess, except a few things that were rescued. My spirit 
 is sore, and rny heart is disturbed within me, because the 
 enemy has persecuted my soul, and humbled my life to 
 the dust. I have thought over my lost substance, the 
 money spent, the stipend lost, our no income, the dearness 
 of everything, and the future threatening worse evils than 
 the present; and I have praised the dead rather than the 
 living, nor have I found one to console me. But turning 
 back upon myself I have reflected that wisdom is stronger 
 than all, and have said, Lord what am I that thou shouldst 
 be mindful of me, or that thou shouldst visit me with 
 mercy ? And I have thought much concerning Man in 
 this unwelcome idleness, and in the sadness of absence 
 from my children, and have discussed with myself as I 
 used with Landi of Placentia." Mindful of old talk with 
 Landi, he had, in fact, written a dialogue on Man, and 
 asked his friend Augustine to revise it, that it might be- 
 fit for presentation to the Marquis of Monferrat. He was 
 paying for the charity accepted. Augustine, in reply 1 , 
 bade him not grieve at a reverse of fortune that had tried 
 and purified his soul. He admired greatly the sublime 
 thoughts in his dialogue, "But this," he added, "I 
 would have counselled you, if you desire this work to be 
 safe from the strokes of those who strive to make a stag- 
 nant and immovable Theology obnoxious to every sign 
 of stir or change, you should have thrown the onus of it 
 on a man more learned than I am, and of weightier 
 authority." The dialogue on Man was then sent by 
 
 1 Ep. 50, Lib. i. p. 71tJ.
 
 296 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 Agrippa to the marquis, with a letter of dedication, 
 carefully saving the credit of his orthodoxy in one special 
 clause 1 . What argument was deficient in it, he said, 
 would be supplied in his forthcoming notes on the Pi- 
 raander. That Agrippa was at this time protected and 
 helped by the marquis is sufficiently clear from the last 
 words of the dedicatory letter, which entitle him " sole 
 refuge of the studious." 
 
 But Agrippa's effort to repay his patron's kindness was 
 not at an end. His spirit was disturbed, his heart was 
 overcharged, and he must find relief in earnest utterances. 
 After the dialogue on Man, he wrote at the same period, 
 and also for Monferrat 3 , a little treatise on " The Triple 
 way of Knowing God." The dialogue on Man was not 
 preserved, the other treatise has come down to us among 
 his works, and, short as it is, contains the essence of its 
 author's mind. It was a longing Godward from the 
 depths of suffering, full of an earnest aspiration, with 
 which, however, there had at last come to be joined a 
 bitter scorn of those who, never rising heavenward, pull 
 heaven down to their own sphere, and standing in the 
 churches and the monasteries bar the upward way. 
 
 " The voice of God cries out of heaven, from his sacred 
 mount: Contemplate my creatures, hear the angels, listen 
 to my Son, that ye may become just and pious." This, 
 says Agrippa, is the triple way of knowing God 3 . He 
 
 1 Ep. 51, Lib. i. pp. 717, 718. 2 Ep. 52, Lib. i. pp. 718, 719. 
 
 3 De Triplici Ratlone Coynoscendi Deum. Illustrissimo Excellentissi- 
 moque Sacri Roraani Imperil Principi, ac vicario, Gulielmo Palseologo,
 
 ON THE TRIPLE WAY OF KNOWING GOD. 297 
 
 divides his treatise into six chapters. In the first he 
 treats of the necessity of seeking to know God. In the 
 second, he states this triple way of knowing him. In the 
 third, fourth, and fifth, he treats successively of each of 
 the three ways, and in the last he sums up formally with 
 the creed of the Church, whereby to save himself from 
 risk of being taken for a heretic. 
 
 One passage will show the spirit of the chapter, which 
 points out the way of learning to know God through con- 
 templation of His works study of nature. " The human 
 soul (as Hermes says) seizes and penetrates all things; it 
 mingles by swiftness with the elements, penetrates the 
 depths of the great sea ; to it all things yield light, the 
 heavens do not overtop it, no dense mists of the air can 
 shroud its purposes in darkness, no density of earth im- 
 pede its action ; from the depths it can look up to no tall 
 wave by which it shall be overwhelmed. And elsewhere, 
 Cast your soul forth (he says), it will fly faster than you 
 can urge it. Command it to pass into the ocean, it is 
 there before your bidding, although' all the while never 
 departing from its home. Bid it fly up into the heavens, 
 and it needs no wings to mount, nothing shall stay its 
 course; the sun's hot ray, the ample space, the giddy 
 height, the influencing stars, shall not delay it; it shall 
 penetrate to the last region, visit all the heavenly globes, 
 and to what there is beyond them nothing hinders it from 
 
 Marchioni Montisferrati, Domino Suo Beneficentissimo, Henricus Cornelius 
 Agrippa beatitudinem perpetuam exoptat. (Opuscula : De Nob. et Prcec. 
 Fam. Sex., &c. &c., ed. 1532, Mense Maio, sig. fol. E vii.-G vu.)
 
 298 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 passing on. Think only of the power of the soul, its 
 courage and its swiftness. Therefore the man is inex- 
 cusable who knows not God. More inexcusable is he 
 who knowing God in any way, gives Him no worship 
 and no reverence." The second way of knowing God is 
 by the hearing of his angels, and the chapter which 
 explains this is entirely cabalistical. It expkins with an 
 undoubting faith the principle of that Cabala, which gave 
 to the Jews " as it were a shadow of the true knowledge 
 of God ; the true and perfect knowledge (as the whole 
 school of the Cabalists bears witness) was reserved for the 
 advent of the Messiah, in whom all things are perfected." 
 He says, as a Cabalist, " If you apprehend no more than 
 the literal sense of the Law, apart from the spirit of the 
 future light, truth and perfection, nothing is more ridi- 
 culous than the Law, or more like old women's fables and 
 mere wanton talk. Afterwards came Christ, the sun of 
 righteousness, the true light, shining truth, the true per- 
 fection of the life of all men who are believers in His 
 name. By Him the law was fulfilled, so that in a manner 
 we need not the mists of creation, or the shadows of the 
 Jewish law through which to perceive God, but have true 
 knowledge of Him by the light of faith in Jesus Christ.'' 
 We come thus to the final way of knowing God, that 
 through the Gospel. This chapter is the longest and the 
 best. It is bold, too ; all (except the last) are bold, but 
 this is boldest. "If you would be borne up," writes 
 Agrippa, "to the perfect doctrine of Christ, you must 
 pass over the doctrine of initiation, in which, namely, are
 
 NATURE THE CABALA CHRISTIANITY. 299 
 
 discussed the principles and grounds of divine wisdom, 
 the repentance from dead works, baptism, the sacraments, 
 imposition of hands, authority of absolution, resurrection 
 of the dead, eternal judgment, and the like, which all lie 
 in the bark of the tree of life, and are discussed in the 
 schools by scholastic Theologians, and are brought down 
 for disputation and discussion to the form of problems. 
 But those things which belong to better wisdom and more 
 perfect doctrine, namely, what is the gift of heaven, the 
 secret manna known to him only by whom it is received, 
 and what is the good word of God better than that which 
 is in parables delivered to the people, and what is the 
 mystery of the kingdom of heaven, all this is given to be 
 known only by those studying in secret. And what are 
 the powers of the future, what the origin and end of the 
 soul, and the ministration of angelic spirits, what the con- 
 dition and nature of that immense glory and happiness 
 which we expect, which neither eye hath seen, nor ear 
 heard, nor the heart of man conceived, all these things 
 are contained in the marrow and core of the Gospel, and 
 known only to the more perfect to whom is given the 
 knowledge of powers and virtues, of miracles and pro- 
 phecy, and other things upon the trace of which men 
 cannot come by their own strength, but only they who 
 are subject to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Where- 
 fore such persons are chosen and deputed to bear rule in 
 the Church, that they being illuminated by Faith, ac- 
 quainted with the will of God, instructed by the Gospel, 
 according to the words of Paul may be leaders of the
 
 300 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 blind, a light to those sitting in darkness, teachers of the 
 ignorant, masters of infant minds, having the form of 
 knowledge and truth in the Gospel, of which sort are in 
 the Church, pontiffs, bishops, prelates, doctors, and those 
 to whom is committed the cure of souls. . . . Wherefore, 
 if pontiffs, prelates, doctors, have not in them the pro- 
 phetic spirit of our divine wisdom, and have not proved 
 by its effect displayed in them their profession of a divine 
 power in the Church, certainly the spirit of such men 
 has not the light of the mind, its faith in Christ is weak, 
 and languishes because over the spirit the flesh dominates 
 too much. For which cause all they, as barren souls, shall 
 be judged and condemned as impious and unjust. He 
 who desires to know God, and merit truly the name of a 
 Theologian, must seek to hold communion with God, and 
 meditate upon His law by day and night. But there are 
 some who speak with tongues inflated with human know- 
 ledge, who do not blush to belie God in their life and 
 language, who by their own spirit impudently distort all 
 the Scripture into their own falsity, and narrow divine 
 mysteries to the method of human argument ; who having 
 arranged the Divine Word, adulterated with their glosses, 
 under heads of their own invention, establish their own 
 monstrous fancies, and by theft and rapine dare to usurp 
 the sacred name of Theology, wherein they give room only 
 for contentions and brawling disputations, of which Paul 
 writes to the Philippians: Some indeed preach Christ 
 even of envy and strife ; and some also of good will. . . . 
 Carnal and earthly is the entire doctrine of that ambitious
 
 PRELATES AND DOCTORS MAY BE BARREN SOULS. 301 
 
 race, arrogantly trusting in its own wit, thinking to know 
 God by its own strength, and to find the truth in every- 
 thing; these are men before whom nothing can be said 
 upon which they are not ready to make choice dispute, it 
 matters not whether on one side or another, and put for- 
 ward a provable opinion ; an astute race rich in the lite- 
 rature of other people, and at the same time relying 
 insolently on a certain artificial dialectic; though they 
 of themselves know nothing whatever, they wish to be 
 thought learned, therefore they dispute openly in the 
 schools, strong over little shifts with sophisms, calling and 
 thinking themselves wise. Miserably deceived! That 
 which they take to be their help is their impediment. . . . 
 True wisdom does not consist in clamorous disputes, but is 
 hidden in silence and religion through faith in our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, whereof the fruit is life eternal. Urban, the 
 Pope, writing to Charles, says : Not by dialectics has it 
 pleased God that His people should be saved; the king- 
 dom of heaven is with simplicity of faith, not wordy con- 
 tention. The inventor of this pestilent art is the devil; 
 he was the first cunning, pernicious sophist, who pro- 
 posed his little questions, invented disputations, and, as it 
 were, founded a school. Not content with having lost 
 himself, he discovered an art wherein others might be 
 lost, to the increase and propagation of hurt like his own. 
 Therefore, not suffering man to abide in simple faith, he 
 chose to propose a question upon the divine commands, 
 judging this to be the cleverest contrivance for the over- 
 throw of man. So he first approached Eve like a sophist,
 
 302 CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. 
 
 and invited her to a contest of argument by asking, 
 Why hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of 
 the garden ? .... In imitation of that old sophist, the 
 serpent, some of the more recent Theosophists arose, the 
 chiefs, authors, and propagators of so much that is in- 
 famous in this our age, whom innumerable other men of 
 the same sort daily follow to their misery. Hence has 
 arisen that horrid and entangled wood, that dark forest 
 of disputation, in which with sordid, weary labour, damn- 
 able work is done for little fruit ; in which nothing is 
 done by faith, hope, charity, in imitation of Christ, 
 neither by prayers and fastings, watching, seeking, 
 knocking that the gate of the armoury of divine know- 
 ledge may be opened, but like the Titans these men 
 warring against Heaven think that by the intricate 
 machines of sophistry the gate of sacred letters may 
 be burst for them." Cornelius goes on to reprove, with 
 equal emphasis, the habit of citing endless authorities, 
 from authors alike ancient and modern, for the purpose 
 of parade, by men whose only wit it is to produce 
 the wit of others. " Not so," he says, " did those early 
 theologians, men solid in wisdom, venerable in autho- 
 rity, holy in their lives, in whose writings citations are 
 simple and infrequent, occurring only when they are 
 required, and then chiefly from the Old Testament, the 
 Gospels, the apostles, or remote antiquity; they were not 
 boastful, though truly having trust in divine grace, con- 
 scious of their own wisdom, and the best of teachers, who 
 feared no man's criticism. They spoke truth, not flinch-
 
 MEN EEALLY DEVOUT MAY BE CALLED HERETICS. 303 
 
 ing before the face of man, and have bestowed upon us 
 largess from their own resources, imitating Christ, who 
 like a good master of the house produces what is good 
 and needful out of his own treasury, in all things ripening 
 for us the fruits of true religion and a saving faith." 
 Returning then to his deprecation of the new form of 
 Theology, he bewails the loss of a pristine simplicity. 
 " Nobody," he says, " with pious mind asks knowledge of 
 God ; we are all professors of ignorance ; we have a new 
 theology, new doctors, new doctrine, nothing ancient, 
 nothing holy, nothing truly religious, and, what is worse, 
 if there be any who devote themselves to this pristine 
 theology and religion, they are called mad, ignorant, 
 irreligious, sometimes even heretics, and (as Hermes says) 
 held to be hateful ; there is even peril of their lives 
 decreed against them, they are marked with contumely, 
 often put to death." 
 
 Bold speaking to the doctors of the Church, and yet 
 Cornelius takes heed never to break loose from their 
 company. The last chapter of the treatise declares God 
 to be known according to the most ecclesiastical of the 
 creeds used by the orthodox, and declares formally by 
 copious citation that in this creed believes Cornelius 
 Agrippa. His position with regard to the orthodox 
 Church, resembles that taken by Dean Colet in London ; 
 and, indeed, so great is in many respects the resemblance 
 between some of the language of this tract and the preach- 
 ing of Colet, that when we add a consideration of the fact 
 that up to this time Cornelius had of late been writing
 
 304 CORNELIUS AGEIPPA. 
 
 commentaries on St. Paul ; and that in this work, as in 
 the appeal to Catilinet, written in London, St. Paul is 
 cited with unusual frequency and earnestness, we may 
 fairly conclude that John Colet's influence was great over 
 Agrippa's mind, and the impression made on the young 
 scholar by residence within the Stepney household still 
 abides 1 . The complaints of heresy made against Colet 
 may have been in his mind when speaking of the shame 
 and peril to which they were exposed who sought the 
 restoration of a pristine theology. 
 
 Of this dissertation, written at Casale for the Marquis 
 of Monferrat, copies went to other . learned friends, and 
 there were not wanting influential persons ready to ad- 
 mire the work and honour the fine spirit of the man who 
 could apply himself to such writing for solace in the day 
 of trial. In the mean time, Cornelius was seeking a way 
 out of want, and the best hope of finding it depended on 
 the friendship of Monferrat. The marquis had great in- 
 fluence ; his good will was sincere ; he was a patron worthy 
 of respect. There was just reason for hope, then, that by 
 his assistance some new means of subsistence might be 
 found for a man well born and nobly bred, who, having 
 obtained his knighthood in the field and earned his doc- 
 torate in every faculty, was now, at the age of thirty, 
 ruined by the chance of war. 
 
 1 Compare p. 236. 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 C. WHITIXG, BEAPFORT HOUSE. STRAND.
 
 
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