John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1568"

Charlotte M. Yonge - "Life of John Coleridge Patteson"

Eva Stern - "The Little Immigrant"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1592"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Lives of the Necromancers

W >> William Godwin >> Lives of the Necromancers




The adventure being accomplished, Medea set out with Jason on his
return to Thessaly. On their arrival, they found Aeson, the father of
Jason, and Pelias, his uncle, who had usurped the throne, both old and
decrepid. Jason applied to Medea, and asked her whether among her
charms she had none to make an old man young again. She replied she
had: she drew the impoverished and watery blood from the body of Aeson;
she infused the juice of certain potent herbs into his veins; and he
rose from the operation as fresh and vigorous a man as his son.

The daughters of Pelias professed a perfect willingness to abdicate
the throne of Iolchos; but, before they retired, they requested Medea
to do the same kindness for their father which she had already done
for Aeson. She said she would. She told them the method was to cut the
old man in pieces, and boil him in a kettle with an infusion of
certain herbs, and he would come out as smooth and active as a child.

The daughters of Pelias a little scrupled the operation. Medea, seeing
this, begged they would not think she was deceiving them. If however
they doubted, she desired they would bring her the oldest ram from
their flocks, and they should see the experiment. Medea cut up the
ram, cast in certain herbs, and the old bell-wether came out as
beautiful and innocent a he-lamb as was ever beheld. The daughters of
Pelias were satisfied. They divided their father in pieces; but he was
never restored either to health or life.

From Iolchos, upon some insurrection of the people, Medea and Jason
fled to Corinth. Here they lived ten years in much harmony. At the end
of that time Jason grew tired of his wife, and fell in love with
Glauce, daughter of the king of Corinth. Medea was greatly exasperated
with his infidelity, and, among other enormities, slew with her own
hand the two children she had borne him before his face, Jason
hastened to punish her barbarity; but Medea mounted a chariot drawn by
fiery dragons, fled through the air to Athens, and escaped.

At Athens she married Aegeus, king of that city. Aegeus by a former wife
had a son, named Theseus, who for some reason had been brought up
obscure, unknown and in exile. At a suitable time he returned home to
his father with the intention to avow his parentage. But Medea was
beforehand with him. She put a poisoned goblet into the hands of Aegeus
at an entertainment he gave to Theseus, with the intent that he should
deliver it to his son. At the critical moment Aegeus cast his eyes on
the sword of Theseus, which he recognised as that which he had
delivered with his son, when a child, and had directed that it should
be brought by him, when a man, as a token of the mystery of his birth.
The goblet was cast away; the father and son rushed into each other's
arms; and Medea fled from Athens in her chariot drawn by dragons
through the air, as she had years before fled from Corinth.


CIRCE.

Circe was the sister of Aeetes and Pasiphae, and was, like Medea, her
niece, skilful in sorcery. She had besides the gift of immortality.
She was exquisitely beautiful; but she employed the charms of her
person, and the seducing grace of her manners to a bad purpose. She
presented to every stranger who landed in her territory an enchanted
cup, of which she intreated him to drink. He no sooner tasted it, than
he was turned into a hog, and was driven by the magician to her sty.
The unfortunate stranger retained under this loathsome appearance the
consciousness of what he had been, and mourned for ever the criminal
compliance by which he was brought to so melancholy a pass.


ORPHEUS.

Cicero [22] quotes Aristotle as affirming that there was no such man
as Orpheus. But Aristotle is at least single in that opinion. And
there are too many circumstances known respecting Orpheus, and which
have obtained the consenting voice of all antiquity, to allow us to
call in question his existence. He was a native of Thrace, and from
that country migrated into Greece. He travelled into Egypt for the
purpose of collecting there the information necessary to the
accomplishment of his ends. He died a violent death; and, as is almost
universally affirmed, fell a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of
the women of his native soil. [23]

Orpheus was doubtless a poet; though it is not probable that any of
his genuine productions have been handed down to us. He was, as all
the poets of so remote a period were, extremely accomplished in all
the arts of vocal and instrumental music. He civilised the rude
inhabitants of Greece, and subjected them to order and law. He formed
them into communities. He is said by Aristophanes [24] and Horace [25]
to have reclaimed the savage man, from slaughter, and an indulgence in
food that was loathsome and foul. And this has with sufficient
probability been interpreted to mean, that he found the race of men
among whom he lived cannibals, and that, to cure them the more
completely of this horrible practice, he taught them to be contented
to subsist upon the fruits of the earth. [26] Music and poetry are
understood to have been made specially instrumental by him to the
effecting this purpose. He is said to have made the hungry lion and
the famished tiger obedient to his bidding, and to put off their wild
and furious natures.

This is interpreted by Horace [27] and other recent expositors to mean
no more than that he reduced the race of savages as he found them, to
order and civilisation. But it was at first perhaps understood more
literally. We shall not do justice to the traditions of these remote
times, if we do not in imagination transport ourselves among them, and
teach ourselves to feel their feelings, and conceive their conceptions.
Orpheus lived in a time when all was enchantment and prodigy. Gifted
and extraordinary persons in those ages believed that they were endowed
with marvellous prerogatives, and acted upon that belief. We may
occasionally observe, even in these days of the dull and the literal,
how great is the ascendancy of the man over the beast, when he feels a
full and entire confidence in that ascendancy. The eye and the gesture
of man cannot fail to produce effects, incredible till they are seen.
Magic was the order of the day; and the enthusiasm of its heroes was
raised to the highest pitch, and attended with no secret misgivings.
We are also to consider that, in all operations of a magical nature,
there is a wonderful mixture of frankness and _bonhommie_ with a
strong vein of cunning and craft. Man in every age is full of
incongruous and incompatible principles; and, when we shall cease to
be inconsistent, we shall cease to be men.

It is difficult fully to explain what is meant by the story of Orpheus
and Eurydice; but in its circumstances it bears a striking resemblance
to what has been a thousand times recorded respecting the calling up
of the ghosts of the dead by means of sorcery. The disconsolate
husband has in the first place recourse to the resistless aid of
music. [28] After many preparatives he appears to have effected his
purpose, and prevailed upon the powers of darkness to allow him the
presence of his beloved. She appears in the sequel however to have
been a thin and a fleeting shadow. He is forbidden to cast his eyes on
her; and, if he had obeyed this injunction, it is uncertain how the
experiment would have ended. He proceeds however, as he is commanded,
towards the light of day. He is led to believe that his consort is
following his steps. He is beset with a multitude of unearthly
phenomena. He advances for some time with confidence. At length he is
assailed with doubts. He has recourse to the auricular sense, to know
if she is following him. He can hear nothing. Finally he can endure
this uncertainty no longer; and, in defiance of the prohibition he has
received, cannot refrain from turning his head to ascertain whether he
is baffled, and has spent all his labour in vain. He sees her; but no
sooner he sees her, than she becomes evanescent and impalpable;
farther and farther she retreats before him; she utters a shrill cry,
and endeavours to articulate; but she grows more and more
imperceptible; and in the conclusion he is left with the scene around
him in all respects the same as it had been before his incantations.
The result of the whole that is known of Orpheus, is, that he was an
eminently great and virtuous man, but was the victim of singular
calamity.

We have not yet done with the history of Orpheus. As has been said, he
fell a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of the women of his native
soil. They are affirmed to have torn him limb from limb. His head,
divided from his body, floated down the waters of the Hebrus, and
miraculously, as it passed along to the sea, it was still heard to
exclaim in mournful accents, Eurydice, Eurydice! [29] At length it was
carried ashore on the island of Lesbos. [30] Here, by some
extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, it found a resting-place
in a fissure of a rock over-arched by a cave, and, thus domiciliated,
is said to have retained the power of speech, and to have uttered
oracles. Not only the people of Lesbos resorted to it for guidance in
difficult questions, but also the Asiatic Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia;
and its fame and character for predicting future events even extended
to Babylon. [31]


AMPHION.

The story of Amphion is more perplexing than that of the living
Orpheus. Both of them turn in a great degree upon the miraculous
effects of music. Amphion was of the royal family of Thebes, and
ultimately became ruler of the territory. He is said, by the potency
of his lyre, or his skill in the magic art, to have caused the stones
to follow him, to arrange themselves in the way he proposed, and
without the intervention of a human hand to have raised a wall about
his metropolis. [32] It is certainly less difficult to conceive the
savage man to be rendered placable, and to conform to the dictates of
civilisation, or even wild beasts to be made tame, than to imagine
stones to obey the voice and the will of a human being. The example
however is not singular; and hereafter we shall find related that
Merlin, the British enchanter, by the power of magic caused the rocks
of Stonehenge, though of such vast dimensions, to be carried through
the air from Ireland to the place where we at present find them.--Homer
mentions that Amphion, and his brother Zethus built the walls of
Thebes, but does not describe it as having been done by miracle. [33]


TIRESIAS.

Tiresias was one of the most celebrated soothsayers of the early ages
of Greece. He lived in the times of Oedipus, and the war of the seven
chiefs against Thebes. He was afflicted by the Gods with blindness, in
consequence of some displeasure they conceived against him; but in
compensation they endowed him beyond all other mortals with the gift
of prophecy. He is said to have understood the language of birds. He
possessed the art of divining future events from the various
indications that manifest themselves in fire, in smoke, and in other
ways, [34] but to have set the highest value upon the communications
of the dead, whom by spells and incantations he constrained to appear
and answer his enquiries; [35] and he is represented as pouring out
tremendous menaces against them, when they shewed themselves tardy to
attend upon his commands. [36]


ABARIS.

Abaris, the Scythian, known to us for his visit to Greece, was by all
accounts a great magician. Herodotus says [37] that he is reported to
have travelled over the world with an arrow, eating nothing during his
journey. Other authors relate that this arrow was given to him by
Apollo, and that he rode upon it through the air, over lands, and
seas, and all inaccessible places. [38] The time in which he flourished
is very uncertain, some having represented him as having constructed
the Palladium, which, as long as it was preserved, kept Troy from
being taken by an enemy, [39] and others affirming that he was
familiar with Pythagoras, who lived six hundred years later, and that
he was admitted into his special confidence. [40] He is said to have
possessed the faculty of foretelling earthquakes, allaying storms, and
driving away pestilence; he gave out predictions wherever he went; and
is described as an enchanter, professing to cure diseases by virtue of
certain words which he pronounced over those who were afflicted with
them. [41]


PYTHAGORAS.

The name of Pythagoras is one of the most memorable in the records of
the human species; and his character is well worthy of the minutest
investigation. By this name we are brought at once within the limits
of history properly so called. He lived in the time of Cyrus and
Darius Hystaspes, of Croesus, of Pisistratus, of Polycrates, tyrant of
Samos, and Amasis, king of Egypt. Many hypotheses have been laid down
respecting the precise period of his birth and death; but, as it is
not to our purpose to enter into any lengthened discussions of that
sort, we will adopt at once the statement that appears to be the most
probable, which is that of Lloyd, [42] who fixes his birth about the
year before Christ 586, and his death about the year 506.

Pythagoras was a man of the most various accomplishments, and appears
to have penetrated in different directions into the depths of human
knowledge. He sought wisdom in its retreats of fairest promise, in
Egypt and other distant countries. [43] In this investigation he
employed the earlier period of his life, probably till he was forty,
and devoted the remainder to such modes of proceeding, as appeared to
him the most likely to secure the advantage of what he had acquired to
a late posterity. [44]

He founded a school, and delivered his acquisitions by oral
communication to a numerous body of followers. He divided his pupils
into two classes, the one neophytes, to whom was explained only the
most obvious and general truths, the other who were admitted into the
entire confidence of the master. These last he caused to throw their
property into a common stock, and to live together in the same place
of resort. [45] He appears to have spent the latter half of his life
in that part of Italy, called Magna Graecia, so denominated in some
degree from the numerous colonies of Grecians by whom it was planted,
and partly perhaps from the memory of the illustrious things which
Pythagoras achieved there. [46] He is said to have spread the seeds of
political liberty in Crotona, Sybaris, Metapontum, and Rhegium, and
from thence in Sicily to Tauromenium, Catana, Agrigentum and Himera.
[47] Charondas and Zaleucus, themselves famous legislators, derived
the rudiments of their political wisdom from the instructions of
Pythagoras. [48]

But this marvellous man in some way, whether from the knowlege he
received, or from his own proper discoveries, has secured to his
species benefits of a more permanent nature, and which shall outlive
the revolutions of ages, and the instability of political institutions.
He was a profound geometrician. The two theorems, that the internal
angles of every right-line triangle are equal to two right angles, [49]
and that the square of the hypothenuse of every right angled triangle
is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, [50] are
ascribed to him. In memory of the latter of these discoveries he is
said to have offered a public sacrifice to the Gods; and the theorem
is still known by the name of the Pythagorean theorem. He ascertained
from the length of the Olympic course, which was understood to have
measured six hundred of Hercules's feet, the precise stature of that
hero. [51] Lastly, Pythagoras is the first person, who is known to
have taught the spherical figure of the earth, and that we have
antipodes; [52] and he propagated the doctrine that the earth is a
planet, and that the sun is the centre round which the earth and the
other planets move, now known by the name of the Copernican
system. [53]

To inculcate a pure and a simple mode of subsistence was also an
express object of pursuit to Pythagoras. He taught a total abstinence
from every thing having had the property of animal life. It has been
affirmed, as we have seen, [54] that Orpheus before him taught the
same thing. But the claim of Orpheus to this distinction is ambiguous;
while the theories and dogmas of the Samian sage, as he has frequently
been styled, were more methodically digested, and produced more
lasting and unequivocal effects. He taught temperance in all its
branches, and a resolute subjection of the appetites of the body to
contemplation and the exercises of the mind; and, by the unremitted
discipline and authority he exerted over his followers, he caused his
lessons to be constantly observed. There was therefore an edifying and
an exemplary simplicity that prevailed as far as the influence of
Pythagoras extended, that won golden opinions to his adherents at all
times that they appeared, and in all places. [55]

One revolution that Pythagoras worked, was that, whereas, immediately
before, those who were most conspicuous among the Greeks as instructors
of mankind in understanding and virtue, styled themselves sophists,
professors of wisdom, this illustrious man desired to be known only by
the appellation of a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. [56] The sophists
had previously brought their denomination into discredit and reproach,
by the arrogance of their pretensions, and the imperious way in which
they attempted to lay down the law to the world.

The modesty of this appellation however did not altogether suit with
the deep designs of Pythagoras, the ascendancy he resolved to acquire,
and the oracular subjection in which he deemed it necessary to hold
those who placed themselves under his instruction. This wonderful man
set out with making himself a model of the passive and unscrupulous
docility which he afterwards required from others. He did not begin to
teach till he was forty years of age, and from eighteen to that period
he studied in foreign countries, with the resolution to submit to all
his teachers enjoined, and to make himself master of their least
communicated and most secret wisdom. In Egypt in particular, we are
told that, though he brought a letter of recommendation from
Polycrates, his native sovereign, to Amasis, king of that country, who
fully concurred with the views of the writer, the priests, jealous of
admitting a foreigner into their secrets, baffled him as long as they
could, referring him from one college to another, and prescribing to
him the most rigorous preparatives, not excluding the rite of
circumcision. [57] But Pythagoras endured and underwent every thing,
till at length their unwillingness was conquered, and his perseverance
received its suitable reward.

When in the end Pythagoras thought himself fully qualified for the
task he had all along had in view, he was no less strict in prescribing
ample preliminaries to his own scholars. At the time that a pupil was
proposed to him, the master, we are told, examined him with multiplied
questions as to his principles, his habits and intentions, observed
minutely his voice and manner of speaking, his walk and his gestures,
the lines of his countenance, and the expression and management of his
eye, and, when he was satisfied with these, then and not till then
admitted him as a probationer. [58] It is to be supposed that all this
must have been personal. As soon however as this was over, the master
was withdrawn from the sight of the pupil; and a noviciate of three
and five, in all eight years, [59] was prescribed to the scholar,
during which time he was only to hear his instructor from behind a
curtain, and the strictest silence was enjoined him through the whole
period. As the instructions Pythagoras received in Egypt and the East
admitted of no dispute, so in his turn he required an unreserved
submission from those who heard him: autos iphae "the master has said
it," was deemed a sufficient solution to all doubt and uncertainty. [60]

To give the greater authority and effect to his communications
Pythagoras hid himself during the day at least from the great body of
his pupils, and was only seen by them at night. Indeed there is no
reason to suppose that any one was admitted into his entire
familiarity. When he came forth, he appeared in a long garment of the
purest white, with a flowing beard, and a garland upon his head. He is
said to have been of the finest symmetrical form, with a majestic
carriage, and a grave and awful countenance. [61] He suffered his
followers to believe that he was one of the Gods, the Hyperborean
Apollo, [62] and is said to have told Abaris that he assumed the human
form, that he might the better invite men to an easiness of approach
and to confidence in him. [63] What however seems to be agreed in by
all his biographers, is that he professed to have already in different
ages appeared in the likeness of man: first as Aethalides, the son of
Mercury; and, when his father expressed himself ready to invest him
with any gift short of immortality, he prayed that, as the human soul
is destined successively to dwell in various forms, he might have the
privilege in each to remember his former state of being, which was
granted him. From, Aethalides he became Euphorbus, who slew Patroclus
at the siege of Troy. He then appeared as Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus, a
fisherman of Delos, and finally Pythagoras. He said that a period of
time was interposed between each transmigration, during which he
visited the seat of departed souls; and he professed to relate a part
of the wonders he had seen. [64] He is said to have eaten sparingly
and in secret, and in all respects to have given himself out for a
being not subject to the ordinary laws of nature. [65]

Pythagoras therefore pretended to miraculous endowments. Happening to
be on the sea-shore when certain fishermen drew to land an enormous
multitude of fishes, he desired them to allow him to dispose of the
capture, which they consented to, provided he would name the precise
number they had caught. He did so, and required that they should throw
their prize into the sea again, at the same time paying them the value
of the fish. [66] He tamed a Daunian bear by whispering in his ear,
and prevailed on him henceforth to refrain from the flesh of animals,
and to feed on vegetables. By the same means he induced an ox not to
eat beans, which was a diet specially prohibited by Pythagoras; and he
called down an eagle from his flight, causing him to sit on his hand,
and submit to be stroked down by the philosopher. [67] In Greece, when
he passed the river Nessus in Macedon, the stream was heard to salute
him with the words "Hail, Pythagoras!" [68] When Abaris addressed him
as one of the heavenly host, he took the stranger aside, and convinced
him that he was under no mistake, by exhibiting to him his thigh of
gold: or, according to another account, he used the same sort of
evidence at a certain time, to satisfy his pupils of his celestial
descent. [69] He is said to have been seen on the same day at
Metapontum in Italy, and at Taurominium in Sicily, though these places
are divided by the sea, so that it was conceived that it would cost
several days to pass from one to the other. [70] In one instance he
absented himself from his associates in Italy for a whole year; and
when he appeared again, related that he had passed that time in the
infernal regions, describing likewise the marvellous things he had
seen. [71] Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this circumstance affirms
however that he remained during this period in a cave, where his
mother conveyed to him intelligence and necessaries, and that, when
he came once more into light and air, he appeared so emaciated and
colourless, that he might well be believed to have come out of Hades.

The close of the life of Pythagoras was, according to every statement,
in the midst of misfortune and violence. Some particulars are related
by Iamblichus, [72] which, though he is not an authority beyond all
exception, are so characteristic as seem to entitle them to the being
transcribed. This author is more circumstantial than any other in
stating the elaborate steps by which the pupils of Pythagoras came to
be finally admitted into the full confidence of the master. He says,
that they passed three years in the first place in a state of
probation, carefully watched by their seniors, and exposed to their
occasional taunts and ironies, by way of experiment to ascertain
whether they were of a temper sufficiently philosophical and firm. At
the expiration of that period they were admitted to a noviciate, in
which they were bound to uninterrupted silence, and heard the lectures
of the master, while he was himself concealed from their view by a
curtain. They were then received to initiation, and required to
deliver over their property to the common stock. They were admitted to
intercourse with the master. They were invited to a participation of
the most obscure theories, and the abstrusest problems. If however in
this stage of their progress they were discovered to be too weak of
intellectual penetration, or any other fundamental objection were
established against them, they were expelled the community; the double
of the property they had contributed to the common stock was paid down
to them; a head-stone and a monument inscribed with their names were
set up in the place of meeting of the community; they were considered
as dead; and, if afterwards they met by chance any of those who were
of the privileged few, they were treated by them as entirely strangers.