The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-20 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Cornelius Agrippa. By Henry Morley, author of
" Palissy the Potter," di.c. 2 vols. Chapman
and Hall.
There is something melancholy in the moral of
these memoirs. They record the life azid fortunes
of a scholar who declared the Vanity of Arts and
Sciences, of a courtier who bitterly confessed how
vain are the promises of kings, of a theologian who
was twice excommunicated by his Church, of one
who had the courage to save the life of a supposed
witch, and has yet been contemned for professing
magic. With vast and varied stores of learning,
good birth and position, an honourable nature and
affectionate disposition, Cornelius Agrippa died
penniless, disgraced, and forsaken, an exile, and a
wanderer. His life commenced under favourable
auspices. He was born at Cologne, in 1486, his
full title being Henry Cornelius Agrippa Von
Nettesheim, but he only retained the two names
by which he is best known. His family had been
for many generations in the service of the house
of Austria, and his first entry into life was in the
capacity of secretary to Maximilian the First,
Emperor of Germany. He was employed by him
on several missions, one of which, an adven-
turous exploit of his own planning, nearly
caused his death in Catalonia. On another
occasion he was despatched to the court of Henry
VIII., but this was some years later. He tra-
velled about France and Germany, studying deeply
languages, sciences, and various branches of learn-
ing, but most especially directing his energies to
questions of theology and philosophy. It was at
this time that, unfortunately for himself, he wrote
those three books of Occult Philosophy, or the
practice of Magic, upon which his enemies founded
their accusations. He was afterwards sent by the
Emperor to take part in the Italian War, was
taken prisoner by the Swiss, but was subsequently
released ; and, obtaining a scholarship, settled at
Casale and engaged himself in war and study.
One of the many disappointed wishes of Agrippa's
life was to found a settled home where he and his
family might enjoy their domestic happiness un-
molested. His early love of courts and adven-
tures was soon echausted, and, having married
a wife to whom he was much attached, he
wished for nothing better than to obtain some
position which would afford him independ-
ence, and where he could pursue his favourite
studies unmolested. A succession of accidents
broke up each establishment that he formed. In
this instance the battle of Marignano interfered.
He lost his manuscripts, and by the victory of the
French was reduced to beggary. For many sub-
sequent years his life tells the same tale ; a long
and weary waiting on the favour of princes, re-
ceiving flattering promises and valuable appoint-
ments, but never his rightful salary, constantly
besieging his patron and iniuential friends with a
family of young children to provide for, his misfor-
tunes were varied by his constant theological dis-
putes. These, indeed, were in a greatpart the
source of his other troubles. He received the offer
of the post of Physician to the Queen-Mother of
France, and gladly accepted it. • At the Court of
Francis I. he met with honour and consideration,
but no salary. After some time the Queen commis-
sioned him to exercise his astrological knowledge
for her. He expressed his vexation in a letter to
his friend the Seneschal of Lyons, regretting that
the Queen-Mother could find kiln no more worthy
employment. This letter was imprudently
shown to the Queen, and deeply offended
her. The unfortunate physician made another
mistake in prophesying the success of Bour-
bon. Louisa of Savoy, ambitious, avaricious,
and unscrupulous, was slow to forgive an affront.
Finding himself left to starve, Agrippa resolved to
leave France, but could obtain neither passports
nor funds. After many miserable months, he at
length contrived to get his family in safety to Ant-
werp. There he tried the patronage of another
monarch, Charles the Fifth, and, as usual, obtained
a place, but no pension. As usual, too, he gave
offence, the bitterness of his many disappoint-
ments escaping in his chief work " On the Vanity
of Arts and Sciences." This offended both the
Emperor and the monks, with whom he had al-
ready many quarrels. His complaints unheeded,
his works attacked, his name branded, he escaped
from threatened execution. to France, where be was
imprisoned by Francis for his quarrel with the
Queen-mother. Finally, on the intercession of a
few friends, he was released. Penniless and home-
less he was taken into the house of a gentleman
at Grenoble to die, being only in the forty-ninth
year of his age. Truly he had earned the right to
say all learning was vanity ! He was buried
in a convent of the Dominicans, and a bitter
and unchristian epitaph testified to the endur-
ing malice of his enemies. He left a family
of young children, but their fate is unknown.
His was not a character formed for success.
Always free spoken, giving his opinion
freely on men and things in an age when truth was
dangerous, and suffering persecution for his opi-
nions, and yet not openly embracing the party to
which he really belonged, he stood as it were be-
iween the two great opposing currents of the day
—resisting both, combining with neither. What
wonder that he suffered wreck ? What his bio-
grapher calls a defect of judgment prevented him
from leaving his own church ; thus he lost the sup-
port of the Reformers, while his open war on the
corruptions of the monks aroused their vengeance.
" All the neglect and contumely that he was con-
demned to bear while living—even all the power
of the calumny by which his memory has until this
day been overwhelmed, are traceable to the one
cause : that in the momentous struggle of his age
he laboured very righteously and bravely, but
alone. He was a solitary knight in the great battle,
and unluckily the side on which he called himself
a combatant was that against which he dealt all his
blows." Not the least interesting portion of the
work to the scholar will be the summary of
Agrippa's famous work on the "Uncertainty and
Vanity of Sciences and Arts." In speaking of it
the author observes, "The wide range of study
shown in the whole work it was not possible to
represent within these limits. Agrippa had tried
nearly every art that he found wanting—a courtier
in Austria, a soldier in Italy, a theologian at Dole,
a lawyer at Metz, a physician in Switzerland, an ex-
perimenterin optics and mechanics, a deeper se.archer
than perhaps any other man ofhisage into the philoso-
phy of theanthcieensetosr;otsstoufdethnot
aolohftheemCisateb, ter amla,ae of
sworn
possessor of
the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, and
among tongues,
of
fFrenh Italian, Spanish, and
English. net of his own German
n
taisowas not a reviler from without, but
only,
but
modernH
a satirist from within, of the unt,ertainties and.
varieties of the imperfect art and science of his
neithermight
he
takefame,
for n nor fortune,
motto of nor
good his
essay
day." After attaining all this learning, which
y
wihtietrelr words—" Nihil scire felicissima
viet h
t b ou ge ht b
a .t
This life forms the last of a series. Mr. Morley
purposed name,writing the lives of three scholars of the
same age, but differing in country, character, and
fortune. Bernard Palissy, the Potter of Saintes,
unknown and unheeded in his life, yet now the
most regarded of the three. Jerome Carden, the
Italian physioian and mathematician, who attained
honours, wealth, and dignities, now little known
or heeded • and Cornelius Agrippa, persecuted and
suffering during his career, and since frequently
stigmatised as necromancer and magician. These
three lives, of the French peasant, the Italian of
the middle class, and the German of noble birth,
display in three different aspects the life of a
scholar in the sixteenth century. The series is now
complete. The last biography will not perhaps be
.6
so popular as its predecessors, as its author kitaaa
boldly forward in support done who has bee:.
gdis-
paraged and traduced, but it is not less interesting.
The remarkable career, that premised
achieved so shouralitatnle,h readso andso bitter
expectations,
en_
at,,hisae.
tale of human suffering and fruitless appointed life and melancholy death
itleesinstructive or
that few lives of that epoch are mor
cause to thank
students of the present havef goodff accomplishing his
fsor endeavour,
reavsaouur,
more impressive in their mournful
Mr. Morley for so successfully, u_
disinterring the lives
arduous undertaking, and disinterring
scholars from
and writings of these thraett_ reality. The
had hidden them. At,
he h.
i;hawmhei c
thi
mt her that centuries
its acquired for himself
thedon
done
dustthem
or
du bsibenir v
thh.
ce
beefint
field
c:d f
literature, and dia.
a standing-Place "-Idea in a favourable light. We
meet him ha the same path,
again
the
living are well employed
for, if the powers
royal of the future, assuredly
in seeking theo
less worthy when Vioy strive to
ptrluaystedwheisshoawlln
their aim is n injustice that the past has rendered to
therem edevate iniuB