"This book of the worthy Church-Counsellor is rather a singular one: it is not a history of Magic,
but a sort of spiritual periodical, or magazine of infernal science, supported in a great measure
by[Pg 2] contributions from persons of a ghostly turn of mind, who, although they affect
occasionally to write in a Sadducee vein, are many of them half-believers at heart, and would not
walk through a churchyard at night, except for a consideration larger than we should like to pay.
The field over which it travels is too extensive, for us to attempt to follow the author throughout
his elaborate subdivisions. Dante divided hell, like Germany, into circles; and Mr. Horst,
adopting something of a similar arrangement, has parceled out the territory of the Prince of the
Air into sundry regular divisions, by which its whole bearings and distances are made plain
enough for the use of infant schools. It is only at one of the provinces of the Inferno, however,
that we can at present afford to glance; though for those who are inclined to make the grand tour,
the Counsellor may be taken as an intelligent travelling companion, well acquainted with the
road. In fact his work is so methodical and distinct, and the geography of the infernal regions so
clearly laid down, according to the best authorities, from Jamblichus and Porphyry down to
Glanvil and the Abbé Fiard, that the whole district is now about as well known as the course of
the Niger; and it must be the travelers own fault if he does not find his exit from Avernus as
easy as its entrance has proverbially been since the days of Virgil."