le
he felt himself shackled in the spirit of examination which he carried
into the most sacred subjects by any respect for popular notions or
received systems or great authorities. My MS. copy of this
extraordinary work, which came from Heber's Collection, is contained
in two rather thick folio volumes.]

[Footnote 12: Few authors are better deserving of an extended
biography, a desideratum which, in an age characterised by its want of
literary research, is not likely to be soon supplied, than Thomas
Erastus, whose theological, philosophical, and medical celebrity
entitle him to rank with the greatest men of his century. At present
we have to collect all that is known of his life from various
scattered and contradictory sources. John Webster, in his _Displaying
of Supposed Witchcraft_, contrary to the usual candour and fairness of
his judgments, speaks slightingly of Erastus. There was, however, a
sufficient reason for this. Erastus had shown up the empiricism of
Webster's idol Paracelsus, and was in great disfavour with the writers
of the Anti-Galenic school.]

[Footnote 13: I cannot concur with Mr. Hallam in the extremely low
estimate he forms of the literary merit of Bodin's _Demomanie_, which
he does not seem to have examined with the care and impartiality which
he seldom is deficient in. Like all Bodin's works, it has a spirit
peculiarly his own, and is, in my opinion, one of the most
entertaining books to be found in the circle of Demonology.]

In his treatise _De Lamiis_, published in 1577, 8vo., he defends
nearly all the absurdities of the system with a blind zealotry which
in such a man is very remarkable. His book has accordingly taken its
place on the same shelf with Sprenger, Remigius, Delrio, and De
Lancre, and deserves insertion only in a list which has yet to be made
out, and which if accurately compiled would be a literary curiosity,
of the singularly illogical books of singularly able reasoners.
What was left unaccomplished by the centurions of literature came
ultimately from the strangest of all possible quarters; from the
study of an humble pupil of the transmuter of metals and prince
of mountebanks and quacks--the expounder of Reuchlin _de verbo
mirifico_, and lecturer in the unknown tongues--the follower of
Trismegistus--cursed with bell, book and candle, by every decorous
Church in Christendom--the redoubted Cornelius Agrippa; who, if he
left not to his pupil Wierus the secret of the philosophe