here is, for instance, a paragraph
attributed to Ruysbroek, in p. 275, vol. i., which, whether true or
false--and we believe it to be essentially true--is so inexpressibly
important, both in the subject which it treats, and in the way in
which it treats it, that twenty pages of comment on it would not have
been misdevoted. Yet it is passed by without a word.

Going forward to the age of the Reformation, the book then gives us a
spirited glimpse of John Bokelson and the Munster Anabaptists, of
Carlstadt and the Zurichian prophets, and then dwells at some length
on the attempt of that day to combine physical and spiritual science
in occult philosophy. We have enough to make us wish to hear more of
Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Behmen, with their alchemy, "true
magic," doctrines of sympathies, {309} signatures of things, Cabbala,
and Gamahea, and the rest of that (now fallen) inverted pyramid of
pseudo-science. His estimate of Behmen and his writings, we may
observe in passing, is both sound and charitable, and speaks as much
for Mr. Vaughan's heart as for his head. Then we have a little about
the Rosicrucians and the Comte de Gabalis, and the theory of the
Rabbis, from whom the Rosicrucians borrowed so much, all told in the
same lively manner, all utterly new to ninety-nine readers out of a
hundred, all indicating, we are bound to say, a much more extensive
reading than appears on the page itself.

From these he passes to the Mysticism of the counter-Reformation,
especially to the two great Spanish mystics, St. Theresa and St. John
of the Cross. Here again he is new and interesting; but we must
regret that he has not been as merciful to Theresa as he has to poor
little John.

He then devotes some eighty pages--and very well employed they are--
in detailing the strange and sad story of Madame Guyon and the
"Quietist" movement at Louis Quatorze's Court. Much of this he has
taken, with all due acknowledgment, from Upham; but he has told the
story most pleasantly, in his own way, and these pages will give a
better notion of Fenelon, and of the "Eagle" (for eagle read vulture)
"of Meaux," old Bossuet, than they are likely to find elsewhere in
the same compass.

Following chronological order as nearly as he can, he next passes to
George Fox and the early Quakers, introducing a curious--and in our
own case quite novel--little episode concerning "The History of Hai
Ebn Yokhdan," a medieval Arabian romance, which o