philosopher was secretly disposed not to reject all the reveries of the occult philosophers. It is certain that he had listened with complacency to the universal elixir, which was to preserve human life to an indefinite period; and one of his disciples, when he heard of his death, persisted in not crediting the account. His own vortices displayed the picturesque fancy of a Rosacru sian; and moreover, likewise, he was calumniated as an atheist. Père Mersenne not only defended his friend, but, to clear the French philosopher of any such disposition, he attacked the Rosacrusians themselves. Too vehement in his theological hatreds, he dared to publish too long a nomenclature of the atheists of his times *; and among Machiavel, Cardan, Campanella, and Vanini, appears the name of our pious Fludd. Mersenne expressed his astonishment that James the First suffered such a an to live and to write.

On this occasion, Fludd was more fortunate than Dee. He obtained an interview with his learned sovereign, to clear himself of "the Frier's scandalous report." He found his majesty "regally learned and gracious; excellent and subtile in his inquisitive objections, and instead of a check, I had much grace

*This list appeared in some Commentaries on Genesis, but was suppressed in most of the copies; the whole has, however, been recovered by Chauffepié in his Dictionary.

and honour from him, and I found him my kingly patron all the days of his life." Mersenne, notwithstanding the odium he cast on the personal character of Fludd, was willing to bribe the Heresiarch, for he offered to unite with him in any work for the correction of science and art, provided Fludd would return to that Catholic creed which his ancestors had professed. "I tell this to my countrymen's shame," exclaims Fludd, "who, instead of encouraging me in my labours, as by letters from Polonia, Suevia, Prussia, Germany, Transylvania, France and Italy, I have had, do pursue me with malice, which, when a learned German heard of, it reminded him of the speech of Christ, that no man is a prophet in his own country.' Without any bragging of my knowledge, be it spoken, I speak this feelingly; but a guiltless conscience bids me be patient."

6

The writings of Fludd are all composed in Latin; it is remarkable that the works of an English author, residing in England, should be printed at Frankfort, Oppenheim, and Gouda. This singularity is accounted for by the author himself. Fludd, in one respect, resembled Dee; he could find no English printers who would venture on their publication. When Foster insinuated that his character as a magician was so notorious, that he dared not print at home, Fludd

tells his curious story: "I sent my writings beyond the seas, because our home-born printers demanded of me five hundred pounds to print the first volume, and to find the cuts in copper; but beyond the seas it was printed at no cost of mine, and as I could wish; and I had sixteen copies sent me over, with forty pounds in gold, as an unexpected gratuity for it." It is evident, that throughout Europe, they were infinitely more inquisitive in their occult speculations than we in England, and however this may now seem to our credit, certainly our incuriosity was not then a consequence of our superior science, for he whose mighty mind was to give a new and enduring impulse to the study of nature, who was to teach us how to philosophise, and was now drawing us out of this dark forest of the human intellect into the lucid expanse of his creative mind, was himself still fascinated by magical sympathies, surmised why witches eat human flesh, and instructed us in the doctrine of spirits, angelic or demoniac. Bacon would have elucidated the theurgy of Dee, and the imaginative mysticism of the Rosacrusian.

BACON.

In the age of Elizabeth the English mind took its first bent; a new-born impulse in the nation everywhere was working out its religion, its legislation, and its literature. In every class of genius there existed nothing to copy; everything that was to be great was to find a beginning. Those maritime adventurers in this reign who sailed to discover new regions, and those heroes whose chivalric spirit was errant in the marshes of Holland, were not more enterprising than the creators of our peaceful literature.

Among these first INVENTORS-our epical SPENser, our dramatic SHAKESPEARE and JONSON, our HOOKER, who sounded the depths of the origin of law, and our RAWLEIGH, who first opened the history of mankind— at length appeared the philosopher who proclaimed a new philosophy, emancipating the human mind by breaking the chains of scholastic antiquity. He was a singular being who is recognised without his name.

Aristotle, in taking possession of all the regions of knowledge, from the first had assumed a universal monarchy, more real than that of his regal pupil, for he had subjugated the minds of generation after gene

ration Through a long succession of ages, and amid bi erties and new religions, the writings of the igity Starrite, however long knovi by mutliated and fail version, were synaly studied by the Mahometan Arabian and the Rabbinie Hebrew, and, during the sebolastic ages, were even placed by the side, and sometimes above, the gospel; and the ten extegories, which pretended to classify every object of busan apprehension, were held as another revelation. Centuries succeeded to centuries, and the learned went on translating, commenting, and interpreting the sacred obscurity or the autocratical edict of a genius whose lofty omniscience seemed to partake in some degree of divinity itself.

But from this passive obedience to a single encyclopedie mind, a fatal consequence ensued for mankind. The schoolmen had formed, as Lord Bacon has nobly expressed himself, "an unhallowed conjunction of divine with human matters;" theology itself was turned into a system, drawn out of the artificial arrangements of Aristotle; they made their orthodoxy dependent on "the scholastic gibberish *;" and to doubt any

* The Abate ANDRES, in his erudite "Origine &c. d'ogni Letteratura," gives this remarkable description-"i GHIRIBIZZI della Dialettica e Metafisica d'Aristotele." As we are at a loss to discover the origin of the term gibberish, and as it is suitable to the present occasion, may we conjecture that we have here found it ?—xii. 26.