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    rate , that bad a familiar spirit , whose help he used * to the disturbance of a lord , who had

    withheld his titles , causing a terrible noise to be heard every night in his castle . " Such a willing believer in the marvellous- as my author could

    easily receive from Jovius , that the celebrated " Cornelius Agrippa went always accompanied with an evil spirit , in the * similitude of a black dog , >? and that when the time of his death drew near , " he took off the enchanted collar from the Uog * s neck , and sent him away with these terms , * get thee hence thou cursed beast which hast utter * ly de&troved mef * neither was the

    dog . ever seen after . " JorUn , in his life of Erasmus , with whom -Agrippa corresponded , ( Anno 3520 , ) observes , that " Paul Jovins was either foolish enough to ^ entertain , or disingenuous

    enough to-pretend , a belief that Agrippa was a necromancer , and that his black dog , whom he used to call Monsieur , was a devil in masquerade , walking upon all fours / ' This scholar , of eminent

    mental accomplishments , or in the words of Erasmus , " ardentis ingenii , variae lectionis et multae

    memoriae , ' has been remarkably ill-used by his biographers . They have dwelt on his early roagical pretensions , but , so far as I have observed , have never recorded his later solemn recantation ^ It is now before me , at the end of the 48 th chapter ( De Praestigiis ) of bis last work , * ' De incertitudine et vanitate Sciential um , ' He regreis the vain occupations of his youth in his Three Books of 41 Occult Philosophy , ' * and warns others by his example from such injurious pursuits . 4 C V « ruih . d | e

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    magicis scripsi ego , juvenis ad hue , libros tres , airjplo satis volumine , quos de occulta pbilosophia

    nuncupavi , in quibus quicquid tune per curiosam adolescentiam erraturn est , nunc cautior hac palinodiam recant&tum volo ; permulturn enim temporis et rerum in his vanitatibus olkn contrivi .

    Tandem hoc profeci , quod sciam , quern its rationibus oporteat alios ab hac pernicie dehortari . " He then goes on to threaten with

    eternal fire , in the company of Jannes , Jambres , and Simon Magus , those who pretend to divine and prophecy , not according to the truth of God , but by the operation of evil spirits .

    I shall close these extracts from the u Theater of God ' s Judgments , " with the following account of a contemporary , or rather immediate predecessor , of Shakespeare , one so eminent in

    the same profession , that his works are just now reprinted among select specimens of the ancient English drama . The account in ch , xxiii * " On Epicures and Atheists , " is as fol « - lows :

    " One of our own nation , of fresh and late memory , called Marlow , by profession a scholar , brought up from his youth in the University of Cambridge , but by practice a play . maker and a

    poet of scurrility—fell to that outrage and extremity , that he denied Gad and his Son Christ , and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity , but also ( as it is ere *

    dibly reported ) wrote books against it , affirming our Saviour to be but a deceiver , and Moses but a conjurer and seducer of the people , and the Holy Bible to be "but-vain and idle stories , and

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    BaQk ^ Worrhm No * XII * 117

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1814, page 117, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2437/page/45/