The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

ptiant.

Tu CRIMEAN BANQUET on Wednesday was a
magnificent success, and in every respect worthy of
the traditional hospitality of Ireland. The banquet
hall was handsomely fitted up for the occasion. By
noon hundreds of ladies and gentlemen crowded the
gallery to the topmost seats. At half-past twelve
the troops were marched in, and by one p.m. 3,409 men
had taken their seats at the tables placed in the body
of the hall. The spectacle of so vast a military
assemblage, the decorations of the tables, the bright
colours of the flags round the wall, the brilliancy of
the military trophies, the groups of cannon and shot,
and the radiating piles of lances, muskets, and sabres,
completed a coup•d'oeil at once unique and magnifi-
cent. About twenty minutes past one his Excellency
the Lord Lieutenant, accompanied by Lord Seaton,
Lord Gough, and attended by a brilliant staff, entered
the hall. A procession, headed by the Lord Mayor
and corporation, was formed and marched to the
head of the table, when the Lord Mayor took the
chair. Grace was said, and dinner commenced. At
two p.m. the first Oast, " Her Majesty the Queen,"
was proposed and received with enthusiastic cheers.
Then followed in rapid succession those of the Lord
Lieutenant, the Royal Family, the Emperor of the
French, and the heroes of the Crimea, the two latter
proposed in eloquent speeches by General Lord
Gough and Mr. Isaac Butt, M.P. According to pre-
vious arrangement, a non-commissioned officer of the
artillery, cavalry, and infantry, a petty officer of the
navy, and a non-commissioned officer of royal marines,
returned thanks on behalf of their respective
branches of the service. Sergeant Bruce, of the
Royal Artillery, Sergeant-Major Woodin, of the 17th
Lancers, Quartermaster-Sergeant Lefong, 77th Regi-
ment, had each returned thanks in a few manly
words, when the boatswain's mate of the Hogue,
John Poulton, jumped on the table, and, making his
way to the top, blew such a call from his pipe as
took the whole audience by surprise and created
hearty laughter. Jack then made a characteristic
speech
May it please your Excellency, my lords, ladies, gentle.
men, all round, we feel highly honoured for the kindness
you have bestowed upon us in inviting us to this grand
banquet in acknowledgment of our services in the Crimea ;
and should any foreign nation ever again be at war with
great Britain they will find the '' wooden walls of Old
England " and the tars that man them able to hold their
rights, and that in them lies the best safety and the
noblest means of defence of the country. We are ready
to fight our battles over again to prevent any foe or
stranger invading our coasts, and for the protection of
our rights and liberties, and all that we love. May the
British flag fly triumphantly over every sea, as it has always
done—the Queen and the navy for ever.
Great cheering followed this speech, during which
the gallant tar retired from his conspicuous position,
waving one of the miniature union-jacks taken from
off the dinner table. The dinner as on the most
liberal scale, and, to give some notion of the con-
sumption of 3,500 men, we subjoin the list, viz.:-
250 hams, 231) legs of mutton, 500 meat pies, 100
venison pasties, 100 rice puddings, 200 plum-
puddings, 200 turkeys and geese, 250 pieces of beef,
weighing in all upwards of 3,0001b5.; three tons of
potatoes, 2,000 loaves, 100 capons and chickens, and
six ox-tongues. The potatoes and the plum-
puddings were brought in hot; the rest of the dinner
was cold. To each man was supplied a quart of porter
and a pint of the choice port wine given by Mr. Bren-
nen. Several other toasts followed, and about four
p.m.the proceedings terminated, and the men, having
left the hall with the utmost regularity, were mus-
tered outside, and marched to their respective des-
tinations :

The finale of the proceedings (says a local paper) of
this most interesting day -was in keeping with all the
preceding stages, and was alike creditable to the soldiers
individually and characteristic of the occasion. The
crowds of people which lined the streets cheered the
gallant fellows as they proceeded homewards, and many a
laugh and joke was passed. A jolly tar full of fun might
be seen exchanging his hat for a soldier's shako, to
the grea► amusement of the spectators; and when the
good old port exhibited its effects upon some young heads
it was a source of the highest enjoyment to the spectators.
The recognitions were frequent and most cordid. One of
the 17th shook hands and embraced an 88th man. and
when the fervour of their meeting in a degree subsided,
" Jack," says one, "do you remember the day you cut
the ball out of my arm and the piece of shell out of my
leg ?" The most perfect satisfaction was evidenced by
every one of the men as to the manner in which they
were received. One sturdy soldier being asked if he were
satisfied said, "If they gave us the same treatment in
the Crimea we would never have left it." One fine
young soldier, a Limerick man, had received n►ne
wounds ; four of them were still open, and yet he was
not invalided,

r OCTOBER 25, 1856.

Yiteratart.

The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa Von Net-
tesheim. By Henry Morley. Two Vols.
London : Chapman and Hall.
BALLADMONGERS have not unseldom done
injury to great names by perpetuating the
calumnies invented to dishonour them. Ma-
licious legends have been preserved in verse
which else would have perished. The great-
ness which lived in a twilight time is most
open to this kind of abuse, and the diabolical
spirit, fostered by religious antagonism, of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has handed
down to us, stained with every crime, names
and deeds which in a better age would have
been surrounded with the golden haze of my-
thical reverence, and been invested with attri-
butes of divinity. The dark Gothic spirit
still casts its shadow on our literature. Faust
is in league with the devil, and Goethe owes
his fame to a conception of character which
might have originated with an atheistical
monk. Southey's ballad of " Cornelius Agrippa"
is of the coarsest texture of fiendish legends.
Many Of our readers must recollect the terror
with which in their childhood tney listened to
the commencement :

Cornelius Agrippa went nut one day.
The reputation of the reputed sorcerer has
been signally neglected ; and we must acknow-
ledge our obligations to Mr. Morley for having
placed before us an intelligent and authentic
record of his career. The biography is need-
lessly minute, and it is occasionally obscure. It
is wanting in breadth of view and picturesque-
ness of language, but it has the great, and in
such books the primary merit, of presenting
information only to be obtained by consider-
able research. We cannot exactly say that the
" Life of Cornelius Agrippa" is an interesting
book, but we can very decidedly say that it is a
valuable addition to biographical literature,
and that the world will be something the
wiser for its publication.
Cornelius Agrippa was born at Cologne on
the 14th of September, 1486, three years later
than Martin Luther. His family was •noble.
The Von Nettesheims were attached to the
service of the Emperor, and were persons of
hereditary consequence. Cornelius received
the name of Agrippa, according to Mr. Morley,
because he came with his feet foremost into
the world, the term being compounded from
the labour of the woman and the feet of the
child. Cornelius was educated at the Cologne
University, was patronised by the archbishop,
and at an early age taken into the service of
the Emperor Maximilian. So clear a dawn
augured a splendid day. It was early clouded,
and went down in storm.

In his youth Cornelius distinguished him-
self equally by his adventurous spirit and his
devotion to learning He was a faithful sol-
dier of the Empefor at the same time that he
was a doctor of divinity. Scholarship had
most charms for him, and when the ardour of
youth was passed he gave himself up to the
study of the various branches of learning then
known He first exercised his pen to establish
the superiority of woman's nature to that of
man. He was not without a motive. He de-
sired to gain the favour of the Princess Mar-
garet, the daughter of Maximilian, and after-
wards the well-known Duchess Regent of the
Netherlands. Mr. Morley gives a lengthened
analysis of this curious production. It is
full of the strange fancies which mark the dog-
matic treatises of the period. Perhaps the
fervour of his convictions on the excellence of
the female character conduced to his own
marriage, as in this year, 1509, he married a
noble young lady of Geneva, with whom he
was completely happy. The world smiled
brightly for him at this time. But he was
already suspected by the Church as not free
from the taint of strange doctrines. He was
a Cabalist, and the composition of his books
on magic, which he set about with great
earnestness, deepened the suspicion. He was
a marked man, and never wholly freed him-
selffrom the taint which the Franciscan Friar
Catilmet sueceeded in fastening on him.
His books of occult philosophy attempt to
reduce all theories of magic to a system.