cupy a chair at Heidelberg, under the patronage of the elector of the Palalinate and the enlightened Von Dalberg, bishop of Worms. He settled at Heidelberg in 1482, where, by his prelections, writings, and conversation, he did much to revive and cultivate a taste for ancient literature, and to awaken a repugnance to the long-established scholastic barbarism. He resided much with the bishop at Worms, where he delivered lectures, as well as in Heidelberg. At the request of the elector, he drew up for his use an abridgment of ancient history. At the age of forty he commenced the study of theology, and with that view put himself under the instruction of a learned Jew, to acquire the Hebrew language, in which he made considerable progress. He deplored, we are told by Melancthon, the darkness of the church, and objected in particular to the corruptions of the mass, the celibacy of the clergy, and the doctrine of the monkish divines on the subject of justification. His principal work was his treatise "De Inventione Dialectica," in three books, which he wrote with great rapidity in the course of a journey which he undertook with the bishop of Worms, in 1485, to Rome. He died at Heidelberg the same year, soon after his return from Rome. His funeral oration was pronounced by John Reuchlin. He was the oracle of German learning in his time, not only for his personal erudition, but also on account of his extensive and precious library of ancient literature. His works were collected and published at Cologne in 1539, cura Alardi. Erasmus regarded him with the highest admiration. "There is nothing," he exclaimed, "produced by that man which has not something of a divine quality in it." In several places of his writings, he calls Agricola "a divine man." But Erasmus was peculiarly proud of him as his countryman, and as the master of Alexander Hegius, his own first instructor. The reader will find a highly interesting account of Agricola, and of other early promoters of classical culture in Germany during the 15th century, in "Meiner's Lebensbescreibungen," vol. ii.—P. L.
AGRIPPA, a Roman patrician, renowned for his wisdom, disinterestedness, and valour, was consul in 502 b.c., gained a signal victory over the Sabines, was the first Roman general that obtained the honour of a solemn triumph, and was mainly instrumental, by his weight of character and powers of persuasion, in effecting a reconciliation between the patricians and plebeians, when the latter had quitted the city, and repaired to the Sacred Mount; on which occasion he is said to have rehearsed the apologue of the stomach and the revolted limbs.—E. M.
AGRIPPA, an ancient astronomer, celebrated for having observed in Bithynia, a.d. 92, as recorded by Ptolemy, that the moon was in conjunction with the Pleiades.
AGRIPPA, a philosopher of antiquity, meriting honourable mention in the history of Scepticism. We know him only as the author of "Five Reasons for Doubt," a work quite superior to that of Pyrrho, and evincing a keen insight into the laws and conditions of the human intelligence. The purely relative value of first principles,—the necessity and, at the same time, the impossibility of any absolute criterion,—the subjective character of all human evidence,—in a word, all that the genius of scepticism has been able to conceive, or to produce in its subtlest and most profound arguments, is summed up by Agrippa in a severe, exact, and powerful body of propositions. (See Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, and Eusebius.)—J. P. N.
AGRIPPA, an eminent Italian architect and engineer, author of several dissertations, now extremely rare, on subjects of mechanical science, was born at Milan in the sixteenth century.
AGRIPPA, Caius, second son of Agrippa Vipsanius and of Julia, was adopted, together with his elder brother Lucius, by Augustus, and died in Lycia at the age of twenty-four, deeply and universally regretted, his death being the consequence of a poniard wound treacherously inflicted by Lullius, governor of the town of Artogete.
AGRIPPA, Henry Cornelius, a man of considerable literary and scientific attainments, and, if we believe some authors, a great magician, who flourished during the sixteenth century. He was born at Cologne on the 14th of September, 1486. His family was ancient and noble, and had long been employed by the princes of the house of Austria. He entered, as a private secretary, very young, into the service of the Emperor Maximilian, and fought with distinction in his Italian wars. Not content with having been knighted for his valour, he sought university honours, and took the degrees of Doctor of Laws and Doctor of Medicine. He visited France in 1507, Spain in 1508, and read lectures at Dole in 1509. To please Margaret of Austria, he composed a "Treatise on the Excellence of Women;" but he did not publish it, for fear of the monks, with whom he had an implacable feud. Shortly afterwards he spent some months in England, and occupied himself in illustrating the Epistles of St. Paul. On his return to Cologne, he read public lectures on nice questions of divinity; after which he went to Italy to join the army of the Emperor Maximilian, and taught theology publicly at Pavia and Turin. At this time he was married to a lady of noble family and a sweet disposition, to whom he alludes in his letters in the warmest terms. She died in the year 1521, and was buried at Metz, where he resided a considerable period, and held some of the most honourable offices in the corporation. A strange controversy forced him to quit it. He refuted the monkish notion that St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin, had three husbands; and he protected from persecution and horrible death a poor woman who was accused of witchcraft. Such an assault on the prejudices of the age excited against him a host of enemies, and he retired, as he tells us, without reluctance from a city which was the cruel stepmother of learning and the sciences. After a short sojourn in his native place, he removed with his family to Geneva. Disappointed in the expectation which he had formed of receiving a pension from the duke of Savoy, he began to practise physic at Fribourg in Switzerland, but the year following he went to Lyons, and obtained a pension from Francis I. The queen-mother appointed him her physician, but he never had an opportunity of attending her; and just when he hoped he had made his fortune, he found that he had lost both his pension and his patroness. It is said that he received orders from his royal mistress to consult the stars about the future affairs of France, that he freely complained of being employed in such impertinent follies, and that the queen was extremely piqued. Thus abandoned by the court, he murmured and threatened; but at last, after some delay, he proceeded to the Low Countries. On his demanding a passport for that purpose, the duke of Vendome, instead of signing the document, tore it to pieces, and protested that he would never encourage a conjuror. In the year 1529, he became historiographer to the Emperor Charles V., and published, by way of introduction, the history of that monarch's government. Soon after, he pronounced the funeral oration over Margaret of Austria. Meanwhile, his enemies secretly accused him of blasphemy and irreligion. Two treatises that he published in 1530, one on the "Vanity of the Sciences," and the other on "Occult Philosophy," furnished the pretext for this imputation. But Cardinal Campeggio, the legate of the pope, and Cardinal de la Marck, the bishop of Liege, spoke in his favour. Their kind offices could not procure him one farthing of the salary attached to his historical office, nor prevent his being imprisoned at Brussels in the year 1531. Liberated from gaol, he visited the archbishop of Cologne, to whom he dedicated his "Occult Philosophy." His debts drove him from that city, and the inquisitors attacked his book. He stayed at Bonn till 1535. That year he resolved to return to Lyons. He was imprisoned In France for a libel against Francis the First's mother, but having been freed from his confinement, he went to Grenoble, where he died in the same year. He married twice after the death of his first wife. Though a great admirer of Martin Luther, because he opposed the tyranny which the mendicant friars exercised over the consciences of mankind, Agrippa lived and died in the Roman catholic communion. There is no proof that he was addicted to magic. His familiar letters breathe the language of Christianity; and it is strange. If he were an illustrious magician, that he was so often in want of bread. A story is told, that upon his travels he used to pay money at the inns, which at the time seemed good, but which turned out in a few days to be mere pieces of horn and shell;—and that he had a favourite dog which ate at his table and lay at his bed, but which vanished after his death, being a devil in disguise. These calumnies were, in all probability, invented by the Dominicans, whose legends he had vehemently exposed. His theological language savours of the more modern doctrine of the Quietists. His works were published at Lyons in two volumes 8vo, and are, for the most part, so dull, that they are now altogether forgotten. His supposed love of alchemy, astrology, and necromancy, have made his adventures a favourite theme for the novelist; and strange stories of his wand and his mirror, which brought before the spectator visions of the absent and the dead, have often been repeated by the writers of poetical romance.
