The Lives of the Conjurors

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3

THE

LIYES OF THE CONJURORS.

THE

LIVES OF THE CONJURORS.

BY

THOMAS FEOST,

AUXHOB 07

" GIBOXrS LUTE AND OIBOXTS OBLEBSITIES," " THE OLD SHOWMEN
AND THE OLD LONDON FAIBS/* ETO.

LONDON :

TIN8LET BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.

1876.

IJJI Bight* Be99rved.^

VBUrXBD BT SATLOB AHD OO,,
LITTLS QT7SBV WtMET, UVCOLir'S ZW VIBLS8.

733344

r-

PREFACE.

The present volume closes the series of works on
the entertaining classes which I contemplated when
writing Circus Life and Circus Celebrities, the
greater part of which was written before The Old
Showmen and the Old London Fairs was commenced,
though the publication of the latter work preceded
that of the former. In embracing within the
present volume the lives of the conjurors of every
period and every country, while the record of
shows and showmen is confined to London and the
suburban districts, (which may now be said to
embrace a circle of twenty miles across,) and that
of circuses is limited to the United Kingdom, with
a glance across the Atlantic, I have been influenced
by considerations arising from the nature of the
subjects, and concerning which it seems desirable

5 to say a few words on the present occasion.

Modem conjuring receives so much illustration
and elucidation from the similar exhibitions of
antiquity and the middle ages that a relation of the
lives and feats of conjurors, commencing with
Neve, would have not only been as imperfect a
record as was presented by Godwin, but have been

vi Preface.

deficient of the interest whicli is imparted to the
subject by the light thrown upon the marvels exhi-
bited by conjurors of our own day by the knowledge
of those performed by the magicians of the ancient
and medidBval worlds. For this reason, I have given
the present work a more comprehensive character,
in respect of time and place, than I gave its prede-
cessors in the series, feeling confident that this
mode of treating the subject will commend it to
the approval both of the conjuring fraternity and
the thousands whom they entertain.

It will be obvious, I think, that this method
could not be adopted in relating the history of
fairs, and of the shows of all kinds which attend
them. Fairs and their amusements, from Seville to
Nijni-Novgorod, and fi-om St. Petersburg to Giur-
gevo, would have required several volumes for
their description ; and another reason for the non-
production of a work so comprehensive was fur-
nished by the impracticability of giving it European
acope on the plan required for a description of the
shows that excited the wonder or the risibility of
the fair-goers of past centuries. Materials exist
for the history of very few even of the British fairs,
while the fairs formerly held in and around the
metropolis may be regarded as fairly representative
of the whole of them.

These considerations, and the limitation of my

Preface. vii

record of shows and showmen to those who attended
the old London fairs, are a sufficient answer to
the critics who reminded me that the fairs of
Bristol and Glasgow had escaped my observation, —
that I had not mentioned David Prince Miller, —
that I had forgotten Bamum when stating that no
showman had ever published his memoirs, etc. In
the treatment of circuses they did not operate^
because the circuses in existence at any one period
between the Channel and the Grampians may be
counted on the fingers ; while the number of eques-
trian companies that have at any time been tempo-
rarily located in the metropolis is so much smaller
that the subject could not be satisfactorily treated
within limits more contracted than the British
shores.

Fewer omissions will, I think, be found in the
present work than in its immediate predecessor, in
which, as I did not aim at being the Geneste of
equestrianism, it was unnecessary to record the
name of every rider, acrobat, gymnast, etc., who
ever performed in the arena of a circus. Even in
that work, however, the critics have instanced only
Keller, the exhibitor of 'posea plastiques, whom my
researches have failed to discover in a circus*
David Prince Miller they will find in his proper
place, though he did not figure among the showmen
at fairs which he never professionally attended.

viii Preface.

I have said nothing concerning the manners and
habits of conjurors, simply because there is nothing
to be said. There are so few conjurors, as com-
pared with circus performers, or members of the
theatrical profession, that they do not contract
those peculiarities of manner, language, and dress
by which individuals of other classes of entertainers
may almost invariably be distinguished. Perform-
ing singly, and each being (except occasionally in
London or Paris) the only conjuror in the town in
which he is temporarily located, they have few
opportunities of association, and those peculiarities
which are the product of gregariousness are, in con-
sequence, not developed. The conjuror, again, is
very seldom trained to the profession from his
youth, as the majority of circus artistes^ and not a
few members of the theatrical profession are; and
this being the case, as it has been with all the most
eminent performers of legerdemain, they carry into
the profession the habits and manners of the section
of society in which they have been born. With
this remark, I commit the following pages to the
judgment of the public, trusting that their readers
will find them as interesting as the entertainments
which they chronicle.

T. FROST.

Long IHtton, May 2Uh, 1875.

THE LIVES OF THE
CONJUEOKS.

CHAPTEE I.

Beginnings of the Black Art — Who the First Conjurors
were — ^Apparitions of the Pagan Deities — ^Religious Mys-
teries of the Ancient World— 'How the Phantasms were
Produced — ^Ancient Magic Mirrors — Corruption and Abo-
lition of the Mysteries.

c

The investigation of the early history of the
wonder-creating arts which have received the
names of necromancy and magic carries us back to
the infancy of science. That the priests of the old
world should have been the first to exhibit those
marvels which in modem times have become an
ever-popular amusement need not surprise us^ since
they alone^ in the earliest ages^ possessed the
scientific knowledge and skill which were required
for their production. As Egypt was the cradle of

B

The Lives of the Conjurors.

the sciences, so it is in Egypt that we find the
first instances of the practice of the arts by which
the senses of the observer have been, from time
immemorial, deluded and imposed upon.

That the practitioners of magic had attained a
high degree of skill as early as the epoch of the
Pharaohs is shown by the Biblical account of the
wonders which they were able to display in com-
petition with Aaron. "We read in that remarkable
narrative that ^^ Aaron cast down his rod before
Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a
serpent. Then Pharaoh called the wise men and
the sorcerers : now the magicians of Egypt, they
also did in like manner with their enchantments.
For they cast down every man his rod, and they be-
came serpents : but Aaron^s rod swallowed up
their rods.^' The trial of skill between the Hebrew
and the Egyptian magicians was well contested at
the outset, and in its progress must have been one of
intense and growing interest to the people of both
nationalities. When Aaron touched the water of
the Nile with his rod, and the river became blood,
" the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchant-
ments ; ^^ and when the Hebrew priest waved his
wand over the waters of the land, and evoked a
plague of frogs, "the magicians did so with their
enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land

The Lives of the Conjurors,

of Egypt/' But they failed in their attempt to
produce lice upon man and beast, and thereupon
abandoned the contest.

The necromancers of the race of Israel became,
at a later period, as well acquainted with the means
of producing optical delusions as those of the hea-
then nations around them. The story of the raising
of the spirit of Samuel by the witch of Bndor, at
the command of Saul, ' corresponds remarkably
with the similar accounts of such apparitions pre-
served by Jamblichus. The witch saw " gods as-
cending out of the earth,'' and added, " An old
man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle."
The chronicler, evidently a firm believer in the
supernatural character of the apparition, does not
throw the faintest scintillation of light upon the
modus operandi; but some illumination may be
gained by comparing the vision with the similar
appearances produced by the priests and magicians
of the pagan world.

Pliny mentions that, in the temple of Herakles at
Tyre, there was a pedestal made of a consecrated
stone, " from which the gods rose." Asklepius
was often exhibited to his worshippers, in his
temple at Ephesus, in a similar manner; and the
temple at Enguinum, in Sicily, was another place
equally celebrated for such visions or apparitions,

B 2

The Lives of the Conjurors.

by which the senses of the people were deluded and
their minds subjected to priestly influence. Jam-
blichus informs us that the ancient magicians
caused the gods to appear among the vapours dis-
engaged by fire ; and the sorcerer Maximus made
the statue of Hecate laugh, while in the midst of
the smoke of burning incense. We shall find
smoke and vapour in the records of similar mani-
festations down to our own time.

Imperfect as are the accounts of these apparitions
which have been preserved, we can trace in them
the elements of an optical illusion. Their character
is so admirably depicted in a passage of Damascius,
quoted by M. Salverte, that there is no difficulty in
determining the means by which they were pro-
duced. " In a manifestation which ought not to be
revealed," he says, '^ there appeared on the wall of
the temple a mass of light, which at first seemed to
be very remote; it transformed itself, in coming
nearer, into a face evidently divine and supernatural,
of a severe aspect, but mixed with gentleness, and
extremely beautiful. According to the institutions
of a mysterious religion, the Alexandrians honoured
it as Osiris and Adonis.^' Whether the magic
lantern was known to the ancients is uncertain,
the invention of that instrument being involved in
doubt; but to some appliance of the kind this
account evidently points.

The Livis of the Conjurors.

The most remarkable exhibitions of this kind
were given, however, in connection with the secret
rites which were called mysteries, because they
were reserved for the more virtuous and intelligent
of the people, and could not be participated in
without a solemn initiation and an engagement to
secrecy. Except in Egypt, where the priests were
philosophers, and taught in the latter capacity, to
those at least who were mentally capacitated to
receive and appreciate them, doctrines different to
those which they instilled into the masses, the
mysteries were under the direction of the State,
represented in those of Eleusis by the bddlev^,
who presided over their celebration, the priests
filling only subordinate offices, and having no share
in the direction of the rites and spectacles. This
circumstance, together with their institution by the
great legislators, the antagonism to the popular
creed of the secrets revealed in them, and the
countenance which they received from philosophers
who rejected that creed, show that the mysteries
were designed as a counterpoise to sacerdotal
influence.

It appears from passages of the ancient works
in which the mysteries are mentioned, that great
circumspection was exercised in the admission of
aspirants, all being excluded who were not free-

The Lives of the Conjurors.

bom citizens of the State in which, they were
celebrated, and of irreproachable character. Ori-
ginally, none but princes, generals, and the priests
were admitted to the Isiac mysteries, unless when
an exception was made in favour of some distin-
guished foreign legislator or philosopher, as in the
case of Pythagoras; and Ezekiel says that they
were celebrated in the temple at Jerusalem by
"seventy men of the ancients of the house of
Israel/' During the declension in repute of the
Eleusinian mysteries, all persons who presented
themselves for initiation were admitted, except
slaves and those whom the Greeks termed bar-
barians; but in the first ages of the institution
they were limited to citizens of Athens and their
wives.

The mysteries were not celebrated everywhere,
but only in such places as were especially sacred
to the divinity upon whose worship they had been
engrafted ; and when the gods of one nation were
adopted by another, according to the intercom-
munity of worship which prevailed in the middle
and latter ages of paganism, the mysteries were
not always adopted along with the public rites.
The worship of Dionysus, under the name of
Bacchus, was established in Rome long before the
introduction of the mysteries associated with it.

The Lives of the Conjurors.

These seem to have been identical with those of
Orpheus, celebrated by the Thracians. The Sera-
pic and Isiac mysteries were introduced into Italy
during the middle period of the empire.

It appears from Ezekiel (chap. 8) that the Isiac
mysteries had been introduced at Jerusalem in the
time of that prophet, whose description of them
agrees, so far as it goes, with the accounts which
have come down to us from the Greek writers.
Plutarch tell us that the Egyptian temples '^ in one
place enlarge and extend into long wings and
fair open aisles; in another sink into dark and
secret subterranean vestries : '' and Ezekiel de-
scribes the Isiac mysteries as being celebrated in a
secret subterranean within the temple. Concerning
these mysteries, which were the oldest of which
any account has been preserved, and were origin-
ally celebrated only at Memphis, much information
may be gathered from the Metamorphosis of
Apuleius, a Platonist philosopher of the time of
Severus. Whether this unique and curious romance
was written before or after the accusation of sorcery
against which the author so ably defended himself
before the pro-consul of Africa is not certainly
known; but the hypothesis that it was written
afterwards receives strong support from the fact
that his accusers did not refer to it, which, from the

8 The Lives of the Cofijurors.

many passages which they might have quoted from
it in support of the charge, they would scarcely
have failed to have done if it had then been
written.

Apuleius stated in his defence, that he had been
initiated into almost all the mysteries, and in the
celebration of some of them had borne the most
distinguished offices. The knowledge thus acquired
is dimly shadowed forth in the Metamorphosis,
his oath of secrecy preventing a fuller revelation.
The hero of the story is a young man addicted to
profligacy and magic, and who, by the use of
an unguent received by mistake from the female
attendant of a sorceress, and by which he expects
to be transformed into an owl, is metamorphosed
instead into an ass. In this form, he endures much
suffering, but Isis, in answer to his prayers, reveals
to him in a dream the means by which the magical
transformation may be reversed. Having regained
his proper form, he is initiated in the mysteries of
Isis, and thereafter lives a virtuous and happy life.

The Egyptian mysteries were the most famous
until they were eclipsed by those of Demeter,
celebrated every fourth year by the Spartans and
Cretans, and every fifth year by the Athenians.
Concerning these more is known than of any other
of the mysteries ; but they all appear to have had

The Lives of the Conjurors.

a considerable resemblance to each other^ as well
in the secrets revealed as in the mode of their
revelation. When the candidates for initiation
had performed the preliminary rites, — when they
had bathed in the sea, and put on robes of white
linen, symbolical of their repentance of their sins, —
when they had taken the oath of secrecy, — they
were nshered by night into a dark vault, there
to await the moment when the veil should be
withdrawn which policy had drawn around the
national worship.

Darkness was as necessary to the exhibition of
the pagan mysteries as to the representation of the
dissolving views at the Polytechnic ; and it served
besides to stimulate curiosity and inspii'e awe.
Euripides makes Dionysus say, that the mysteries
were celebrated by night, because there is in dark-
ness a peculiar solemnity, which fills the mind
with religious awe. While the aspirants stood in a
dense throng, absorbed in curiosity, wonder, and
awe, no sound broke the solemn stillness — ^no glim-
mer of light irradiated the profound gloom. All at
once hghtning flashed athwart the gloom, and
thunder rolled heavily through the subterranean
chamber. The awe of the assembled aspirants
increased to a vague terror. Again the lightning
flashed, more vividly than before ; and then all was

lo The Lives of the Conjurors.

dark again, and seemed darker for the momentary
illumination.

A pause of awe-inspiring silence succeeded, and
then a faint light was discernible at the farther end

«

of the mystic chamber. Gradually that faint glim-
mer increased until the wall seemed a curtain of
light. Then the hierophant sang one of the hymns
attributed to Orpheus, and of which only a fragment
pf one has been preserved; and upon the illumi-
nated wall or curtain appeared that phantasmagorial
procession of the fabled divinities of the national
creed which is alluded to by several ancient writers.
Proclus says that " the initiated meet many things
of multiform shapes and species, which show the
first generation of the gods.'^ Dion Chrysostom
speaks of ^'a certain mystic dome, excelling in
beauty and magnificence, where the initiated sees
many strange sights, and hears in the same manner
a multitude of voices, — ^where darkness and light
alternately affect his senses, and a thousand other
uncommon things present themselves before him.^'
Oelsus gives a similar description of the shows
introduced in the Bacchic mysteries; and Pletho,
speaking of the Mithraic mysteries, says *' phan-
tasms of a canine figure, and other monstrous shapes
and appearances,^' were presented before the ini-
tiated. Apuleius states that the celestial and infernal

The Lives of the Conjurors. 1 1

deities all passed in review before the spectators^
and that a hymn was sung to each by the h^ero-
phant ; and allusions to these spectacles may be
found in the works of Claudian, Lucian, and The-
mistius. As all the divinities and semi-divinities
of Olympus and Tartarus passed slowly before the
wondering spectators, the chant of the hierophant
informed them that all those stories of the gods
which constituted the vulgar belief were mere ima-
ginings of the poets, and proclaimed the power
and glory of the One True God.

That this was the teaching of the State in the
mysteries is indicated by numerous passages in the
ancient writers, as well as by the fragment of one
of the Orpheic hymns preserved by Clemens, who
says that the poet, ^' after he had opened the
mysteries, and sang the whole theology of idols,
recants all he has said and introduces truth/' The
hymn, in literal prose, is as follows : — " I will
declare a secret to the initiated ; but let the doors
be closed against the profane. Attend carefully to
my song, for I shall speak of important truths.
Suffer not, therefore, the former prepossessions of
your mind to deprive you of that happy life which
the knowledge of these mysterious truths will pro-
cure you. But look on the Divine Nature, inces-
santly contemplate it, and govern well the mind

12 The Lives of the Conjurors.

and the heart. Go on in the right way, and see
the Sole Ruler of the world. He is One, and
of himself alone ; and to that One all things owe
their being. He operates through all, and was
never seen by mortal eyes, but himself sees every-
thing.^^

As Varro observes, in a fragment preserved by
Augustine, *' there were many truths which it was
not advantageous to the State should be generally
known, and many things which, though false, it
was expedient that the people should believe ; and
therefore the Greeks veHed their mysteries in
the silence of their sacred enclosures.^' Pytha-
goras, who was initiated in the mysteries of Diony-
sus, as well as in those of Isis, says, as quoted by
Jamblichus, that he was taught in them the unity of
the First Cause ; and Chrysippus says, " that it is a
great privilege to be admitted to the mysteries,
wherein are delivered right and just notions con-
cerning the gods, and which teach men to compre-
hend their nature .''

Plane and concave mirrors are supposed to have
been the principal instruments by which the heathen
gods were made to appear in the manner which has
been described. It has been clearly shown by various
writers that the ancients made use of mirrors of
silver, steel, and an alloy of copper and tin, similar

The Lives of the Conjurors. 13

to those now used for reflecting specula. It is
probable, from a passage in Plbay, that glass
mirrors were made at Sidon ; but it is obvious that,
unless the objects presented to them were illumi-
nated by a very strong light, the images which they
gave must have been very faint and imperfect. The
silver mirrors, which were commonly used, and
which are superior to those made of any other metal,
were, therefore, probably those most generally em-
ployed by the ancient magicians.

Aulus Gellius mentions a property of the ancient
mirrors which has been a source of considerable
perplexity to his commentators. He says that
there were specula which gave no images of objects
in some places, but recovered their property of
reflection when placed in another. Salverte thought
that Aulus Gellius was not sufficiently acquainted
with the matter, and was mistaken in his hypothesis
that the phenomenon depended on the place, instead
of the position, of the mirror; but, as Sir David
Brewster observes, in his admirable Letters on
Natural Magic, '^ this criticism is obviously made
with the view of supporting an opinion of his own,
that the property in question may be analogous to
the phenomenon of polarised light, which, at a certain
angle, refuses to suffer reflection from particular
bodies. If this idea has any foundation, the mirror

14 The Lives of the Conjurors.

must have been of glass, or some other body not
metallic; or, to speak more correctly, there must
have been two such mirrors, so nicely adjusted not
only to one another, but to the light incident upon
each, that the effect could not possibly be produced
but by a philosopher thoroughly acquainted with
the modern discovery of the polarisation of light
by reflection. Without seeking for so profound an
explanation of the phenomenon, we may readily
understand how a silver mirror may instantly lose
its reflecting power in a damp atmosphere, in con-
sequence of the precipitation of moisture upon its
surface, and may immediately recover it when trans-
ported into drier air/'

The plane mirror is one of the simplest in-
struments of optical illusion, and its use pro*
bably preceded that of the concave mirror. Its
applicability to the purposes of the magician arises
from the singular fact that, if two persons take up
a mirror and one of them places himself as much
on one side of a line perpendicular to the centre of
it, as the other does on the other side, they each
see each other reflected on it, but not themselves.
Therefore, if an apartment be divided by two
partitions placed at right angles to each other, and
a person stand on one side of one partition, and look
through an opening in the partition facing him, at

The Lives of the Conjurors. 1 5

about five feet from the floor, at a mirror placed
behind it, at an angle of forty-five degrees to the
partition, he will see not himself, but any person or
figure placed at the corresponding point on the
other side of the partition which divides them.
The eflFect of this and similar illusions is greatly
increased when the figures exhibited are illuminated
by a strong light, and the apartment in which the
spectators stand is darkened.

But, however skilfully plane mirrors may be
combined, the illusions produced by them are
less eflFective than those produced by the use of
an elliptical concave mirror and a large lens, the
former being so disposed that any object placed
in one focus of the ellipse is shown in an inverted
form in the other focus. If the apparatus is pro-
perly adjusted, the image appears to be suspended
in the air, so that, the figure and the mirror
being concealed from the spectators, the effect
must appear almost supernatural. To eflFect this
illusion, the figure is placed before the mirror, on
a level with its lower edge, and a diminished and
inverted image being produced in the other focus,
a large lens is placed between this image and the
transparent screen or curtain upon which the
image is to be shown in the natural position. If
the figure is to be exhibited of the natural size.

1 6 The Lives of the Conjurors.

^1^ 1 1— ■ ■ — ■ 1 1 I 111 I ■ , „ . _■■■■■■■ — ■ ■■■ ■ •*. I

the lens should magnify the image ill the same
proportion as the mirror diminishes the figure.

Sir David Brewster observes, in the work before
quotedy that ^' those who have studied the effects of
concave mirrors of a small size, and without the
precautions necessary to ensure deception, cannot
form any idea of the effect produced by this class
of optical apparitions. When the instruments of
illusion are themselves concealed; when all ex-
traneous lights but those which illuminate the real
object are excluded; when the mirrors are large
and well polished and truly formed, the effect of
the representation on ignorant minds is altogether
overpowering; while even those who know the
deception, and perfectly understaod its principles,
are not a little surprised at its effects. The in-
feriority in the effects of a common concave mirror
to that of a well-arranged exhibition is greater
even than that of a perspective picture hanging in
an apartment to the same picture exhibited under
all the imposing accompaniments of a dioramic
representation/'

The corruption and perversion of the mysteries
from their original purpose led at length to their
abolition. The mysteries of Dionysus ceased to be
celebrated long before those of Demeter, for their
suppression in Greece is mentioned by Cicero,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 17

in whose time^ and long afterwards, tlie latter were
celebrated in their original purity. The mysteries
of Demeter, whose worship had been introduced
in Italy at a very early period in the name of Ceres,
were regulated anew by Adrian. Valentinian, when
he undertook the amendment of the laws and
institutions of the empire, determined to suppress
the mysteries, on account of the abuses and cor-
ruptions which had crept into them : but when
orders to that effect were sent to the pro- consuls,
Pr89textatius, who then governed Greece in that
capacity, reported that the suppression of the
Bleusinian mysteries would cause the Greeks to live
henceforth " a. comforfcless, lifeless life,^^ and might
be expected to result in serious disorders. In
consequence of this representation, the mysteries
of Demeter were excepted from the imperial edict,
on the condition that those who regulated and pre-
sided over their celebration should undertake to
restore their original purity and order. The reprieve
was only temporary, however, and in the reign of
the elder Theodosius the Eleusinian mysteries were
suppressed by an imperial edict.

CHAPTEE II.

The Secular Practice of Magic among the Ancients—
Zoroaster and the Magi — ^Wondrous Stories of the Greek
Magicians — Separation of the Soul from the Body — Simon
Magus — An Ancient Fire-king — ^Animated Statues — Trans-
formation — The Flower Trick known to the Ancients — The
Magic Sickle — Elymas, the Sorcerer — ^Apollonius of Tyana
— The Oracle of Abonotica.

The care tliat was taken by the sacerdotal order to
conserve to themselves all the scientific knowledge
of their age could not prevent inquiry and disco-
very on the part of the more acute intellects among
the secular classes. The phenomena of the uni-
verse could not be concealed from observation^ and,
though they were to the masses only sources of
wonder, the more active minds reasoned as well as
observed, and, rejecting the cosmogonic fables of
the poets and the priests, sought for their causes in
natural laws. Philosophy soon trod close on the

The Lives of the Conjurors^ 19

heels of priestcraft, though the professors of both
had for centuries but a feeble glimmer upon their
minds of the light that was one day to illuminate
the moral world.

The ignorance and credulity of the early genera-
tions of mankind aflForded a strong temptation to
the vain and unprincipled among the first students
of science to pretend to supernatural power, while
they caused it to be attributed to many who would
have been content to be regarded simply as investiga-
tors of the mysteries of nature. Hence, throughout
the ancient world, philosophy and magic were twin
sisters, and were often mistaken for each other.
The words magic and magician are said, indeed, to
be derived from the title of Magus, applied to the
Persian philosopher, Zoroaster, and the appellation
of Magi or Magians, borne by his disciples.

Very little information has come down to us con-
cerning the earliest of the magicians to whom that
character is assigned by ancient authors. Tiresias,
a blind man, who lived about the time of the
Theban war, is said to have raised the dead by
magical arts, and to have launched terrific menaces
against the spirits whom he invoked when they
were tardy in executing his commands. Abaris*
a Scythian, whose epoch is variously stated, is also
mentioned as a reputed magician.

c 2

20 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Magical powers were attributed to the philoso-
pher Pythagoras, who was perhaps not nnwiUing
to possess the influence and distinction which he
thus acquired. He is known to have studied as-
tronomy and medicine in his native island of Samos,
and afterwards to have travelled into Asia, and
resided many years in Egypt. On his return to
Samos, he fell under the displeasure of the tyrant,
Polycrates, and removed to the south of Italy,
where he formed a new school of philosophy, and
passed the remainder of his life. One of his doc-
trines was the metempsychosis, or transmigration of
souls, which, if it be true that he visited India, may
have been derived from the Gymnosophists. He
enforced his teaching of this theory by pretended
personal experience, asserting that he remembered
having fought at the siege of Troy, and been slain
by Menelaus.

Many strange stories are told by ancient authors
in confirmation of the magical powers which he was
supposed to possess. He is said to have once met
some fishermen on the coast between Sybaris and
Orotona, and offered to tell them the exact number
of the fish in their net. The fishermen, who did
not know him, undertook to do whatever he told
them, if he could do so ; upon which he told them
the number correctly, and commanded them to let

The Lives of the Conjurors. 21

the fish escape into the sea. The men obeyed, and
then received from the philosopher fall payment
for the haul they had abandoned.

On another occasion he encountered a bear,
the ravages of which among their flocks had been a
source of much loss and anxiety to the Daunians,
whom he astonished by stroking the animal, and
feeding it with maize and acorns. After enjoining
it never to injure any living creature again, he
parted from it, and the bear was never known to
eat animal food afterwards. There is a somewhat
similar story of an ox, which he found eating beans
in a field near Tarentum, but which, on his whisper-
ing into its. ear an injunction to abstain from beans,
never touched pulse afterwards, and was known for
years as the sacred ox of Pythagoras. Even more
wonderful than this is the story of the eagle which
he called down from its flight, and which is said to
have alighted upon his shoulder, and suffered him
to caress it.

One of the powers most commonly pretended to
by the ancient Greek magicians was that of separa-
ting the soul from the body during life, as Shelley
represents that of lanthe to have been freed by the
touch of Queen Mab, when

It stood
AH beautiful in naked purity,

22 The Lives of the Conjurors.

The perfect semblance of its bodily frame,

Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace.

Each stain of earthliness

Had passed away : it re- assumed

Its native dignity, and stood

Immortal amid ruin.

Upon the couch the body lay

"Wrapt in the depth of slumber :

Its features were fixed and meaningless,

Yet animal life was there,

And every organ yet performed

Its natural functions.

Bpimenides is the first who is mentioned as
having possessed this power, but we are not asked
to believe of him, or of others who are said to
have possessed it, that the spirit and its mortal
frame were visible at the same time, as those of
lanthe are pictured by the poet. Herodotus tells
us of Aristeas, a native of the little island of Pro-
connessus, that he one day fell down, as if dead ;
but, on the return of his family to the room in
which he had fallen, and from which they had
hurried to procure assistance, he had disappeared.
A traveller who had just arrived from Oyzicus met
him at the same moment at the ferry. Seven years
afterwards he returned to. his native island, but
again disappeared in the same mysterious manner as
before. There seems nothing remarkable in these

The Lives of the Conjurors. 23

disappearances^ which the police of modem times
can match with scores of similar instances ; and we
may dismiss as fiction the story of the re-appearance
of Aristeas, three hundred and forty years after-
wardSj at Metapontum^ and his final flight in the
form of a crow.

Unless we suppose that Aristeas was the proto-
type of the mystery-creating gentlemen of the
present day, who disappear from their wonted
circles for secret reasons, to turn up again months
or years afterwards, it must be conceded that he
was an inferior performer to Hermodorus, who
simulated death, and pretended that his soul had,
during the trance, visited distant places, of which
he gave his friends detailed accounts, the accuracy
of which they were probably unable to test. It
is recorded by an ancient author that his body was
burned during one of these trances, and that his
soul afterwards returned, to find that its material
habitation had been destroyed in its absence.
What it did in this distressing and unparalleled
situation we are not told.

Concerning Simon Magus, who, as we read, in
the Acts of the Apostles (chap. viii. ver. 9), ^' used
sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria,
giving out that himself was some great one,^^ Cle-
mens of Alexandria and Anastasius, a monk of the

24 The Lives of the Conjurors.

convent at the foot of Mount Sinai, have recorded
many extraordinary particulars. These writers
inform us that he could render himself invisible,
pass through rocks and mountaius, throw himself
from precipices, and into blazing fires, without
sustaining any injury, fly through the air like a bird,
transform himself into the semblance of various
animals, and do many more of those wonderful
acts which '' must be seen to be believed/^ Some
of these feats are not to be regarded with absolute
incredulity, however, whatever halo of the marvel-
lous may be diflRised around them by the supersti-
tious credulity of a dark age. The sorcerer of
Samaria may have been rendered invisible by
means similar to those by which Mrs. White, alias
Miss Katie King, imposed upon the deluded be-
lievers in Spiritualism ; and withstood fire by the
same means as Chabert, Josephine Girardelli, and
other performers of fiery feats in modern times.

Many other marvels are related of Simon by the
monkish chroniclers of old world wonders. He
could animate statues, transform himself into the
semblance of a sheep, a goat, or a serpent, and
cause furniture and domestic utensils to move, and
plants to spring up whenever he pleased. Truly,
*' there is no new thing under the sun,^' since the
sorcerer of Samaria practised table-turning, and

The Lives of the Conjurors. 25

performed the flower-trick of the Indian conjurors,
in the time of the Apostles. He is also said
to have made a sickle which, wielded by an invisible
hand, performed twice as much work as could be
done in the same time by a reaper of mortal mould.
Strange figures attended him wherever he went, and
were said to be spirits which had departed from the
forms they had once tenanted.

Clemens says that the unworthy motive by which
Simon was animated in pretending to become a
Christian, and which prompted him to oflFer money
to the Apostles for the power of curing the sick by
laying his hands on them, was the desire to be
able to achieve by the mere will the wonders which
he had hitherto performed by means of incantations
and mystical ceremonies. He may have been either
a self-deluded believer in his own supernatural
powers, who regarded the Apostles as adepts of a
higher order ; or he may have supposed them to be
impostors of his ovm class, practising by methods
unknown to him. It is difficult, in this and many
other instances, to determine how much the ancient
magicians were themselves blinded by superstition,
and how near they approached to the modern
wonder-workers of the Polytechnic and the Egyp-
tian HaU.

Concerning Blymas no more is known than we

26 The Lives of the Conjurors.

read in the Acts of the Apostles (chap, xiii.) ; but
his connection with Sergius Paulus argues him a
magician of greater repute than the unnamed pro-
fessors of " curious arts '' who burned their books,
as recorded in a subsequent chapter of that history.

Apollonius of Tyana has been reckoned among
the magicians of the ancient world, but there is
little known concerning him that warrants his in-
clusion. His repute as a professor of the Black
Art rests chiefly upon the story that, having vainly
warned his friend Menippus not to marry a beautiful
woman by whom he had been fascinated, he went
to the wedding feast, and, after telling the bride-
groom that everything which he beheld was imreal,
caused the guests and the banquet to vanish,
leaving him alone with his astonished friend and
the trembling bride. The lady resisted his power
only for a time, for she too vanished, after confess-
ing that she was a vampire.

During the prevalence at Ephesus of a terrible
pestilence, he denounced to a crowd of the inhabi-
tants of that city a decrepit old beggar as an enemy
of the gods, and the cause of the visitation from
which Ephesus was suffering. The beggar was
thereupon stoned to death with so much vigour
that he was buried under a mound of the missiles
hurled at him by his infuriated assailants; but.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 27

upon the stones being removed, the corpse was
found to have disappeared, or rather to have been
transformed into a large black dog.

ApoUonius afterwards went to Eome, where he
was accused of conspiring with Nerva against the
emperor, Domitian; but his innocence of the
charge was established upon his trial, and he was
liberated. He was ordered not to quit Some ; but
he disappeared, and, as he was seen at Puteoli
immediately afterwards, he was supposed to have
used magical arts for the achievement of his eva-
sion. He returned to Bphesus, where a life which
extended to nearly a hundred years reached its
end.

The last of the heathen magicians of this period
was Alexander of Abonotica, in Paphlagonia.
This man, who was of very humble origin, but of
imposing appearance, and fruitful in the resources
of artifice, had, for some purpose which the authors
who have mentioned him do not acquaint us with,
made a journey into Macedonia, and procured, in
the neighbourhood of Pella, a serpent of unusual
size. On his return to his native town, he an-
nounced bhe coming advtot of Asklepius, and,
after a su£Bicient interval to allow the rumour to
spread, led a wondering and expectant crowd into
the enclosure of a temple, where he produced from

28 The Lives of the Conjurors.

the moat a goose's ^%^y into which he had previ-
ously introduced a young serpent. On his reveren-
tially breaking the shell, the little reptile wriggled
out, and coiled about his fingers as he held it up to
the gaze of the wonder-stricken crowd, who at
once jumped to the conclusion that the god of
medicine was incarnate in the serpent, and that
their fellow-citizen was a prophet.

This was only the first step in a scheme which
Alexander had devised for profiting by the super-
stitious credulity of his countrymen. He bore the
serpent to his house, and soon afterwards announced
that Asklepius would answer the questions of all
who might resort to him for advice or information.
A crowd of inquirers rushed to consult the oracle,
and were received by Alexander with the serpent
which he had brought from Macedonia coiled about
his neck, and a mask of a human face fitted to its
head. At kis ordinary seances, the questions of
inquirers were written and enclosed in a sealed
envelope ; and the responses were delivered a few
days afterwards, in the same envelope, with the
seal apparently unbroken. But there were also
special seances, at which vivd voce responses were
made by an assistant in another room, through the
medium of a speaking tube, so arranged that the
answers seemed to proceed from the mouth of the
serpent.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 29

This seems to have been one of the best contrived
of the impostures of the secular magicians of.
ancient times, though it must be admitted to gain
in the comparison by the circumstantiality with
which it has been related. The palm would perhaps
have to be awarded to Simon Magus if the marvels
which that clever Samaritan is said to have per-
formed had been as fully related, and upon as good
authority. A little more information concerning
his animated statues, his magic sickle, and his yi-
stantaneous production of plants would be very
interesting.

We learn from this survey of the ancient practice
of the Black Art, that the Asiatic magicians were
more skilfal than those of Greece; and that the
secular practitioners, though some of them at-
tained a remarkable degree of proficiency, never
rivalled the priests in those optical illusions which
made the temples of Memphis and Bleusis famous
all over the ancient world. These points of difier-
ence are readily explicable. Asia was the cradle
of the human race, and the practice of magic arose
&om the observation of natural phenomena as
naturally as that of astrology from the study of the
starry heavens. The priests caught the first glim-
merings of the light of science, and had the
advantage of their sacerdotal character in meeting

so The Lives of the Conjurors.

the competition of rivals who did not possess
it.

The priests had, moreover, another great advan-
tage in having such imposing and admirably
contrived media for the exhibitions of their skill
as the vast temples of antiquity, with their dimly
lighted halls, their dark recesses, and their subter-
ranean vaults and passages. Only in large and
specially contrived buildings could those optical
an^ acoustical illusions be exhibited which have
been described in the preceding chapter. The
scientific apparatus of those days was much more
cumbrous than the instruments and appliances of
modem times; and, indeed, it was not untU
the middle of the seventeenth century that the
conjuror obtained, in the imperfect magic lan-
tern of Earcher, a means of imposing upon the
senses of the wondering spectators which could be
conveniently carried about, and fitted up in any
building wherever there might be a prospect
of an appreciative gathering and corresponding
gains.

CHAPTEE III.

Merlin, the Enchanter — The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan —
Optical Illusion shown by Santabaren — Brazen Head of
Silvester II. — Lightning Produced by Gregory VII. — The
Brazen Head of Bishop Greathead — Michael Scot — Friar
Bacon and Friar Bungay — Story of the Brazen Head —
Competition with Vandermast, the German Conjuror —
Persecution of Bacon by the Pope — ^Albert Groot — Raymond
Lully — Zeito, the Bohemian Conjuror. *

The knowledge of the Black Art, as what we
understand by magic was long deemed to be, was
carried to Italy by Greek and Egyptian professors,
sacerdotal and secular, and thence spread gradually
over tbe whole of Europe. The Merlin of legendary
lore is the first British magician who is mentioned
by name, but he probably gained his great renown
by surpassing his predecessors of the Celtic race ;
for other enchanters are said to have been consulted
by Vortigem before Merlin was known, and it is

32 The Lives of the Conjurors.

probable that, as in the case of some other famous
conjurors of the dark ages, tradition has associated
with his name some of the wonder-creating feats of
his predecessors and contemporaries.

The earliest mention of Merlin occurs in the
chronicles written in the eleventh century, and it
should not surprise us to find, in records which so
largely mingle fiction with facts, that the slight
foundation afforded by the little that is really known
about the enchanter is in danger of being crushed
and buried under the superstructure of romance
which has been raised upon it by tradition and the
minstrels. It is a diflScult task, at this time of day,
to separate even a few grains of fact from such a
mass of fiction ; but, on the principle that there is
no smoke without fire, we may accept as truth the
statement that Merlin was born at Carmarthen, ac-
quired the repute of a great magician, and
was often consulted by Vortigern and his suc-
cessors.

The story of his life, as told by the monkish
chroniclers of the eleventh century, is less brief and
more wonderful. We are told that Vortigern, when
defeated by the Saxon invaders of the country,
consulted certain enchanters, who advised the con-
struction of a great tower, which should defy the
attacks of the enemy. In accordance with this

The Lives of the Conjurors. 33

advice, the tower was commenced; but it was
found every morning that the work of the preceding
day had been unavailing, the whole having sunk
into the earth during the night. In this dilemma,
Vortigem again had recourse to the enchanters, who
were probably at their wits* ends ; for, after con-
ferring together, they informed the king that the
foundations of the tower must be cemented with the
blood of a human being who had been bom without
the agency of a human father.

It must have been calculated that this condition
could not be secured ; but Vortigem caused inquiries
to be made for such a prodigy all through Britain^
and they resulted in the discovery, at Carmarthen,
of a man of reputed supernatural paternity, who was
immediately hurried to the British camp. This was
Merlin, who, on being taken before Vortigern,
who must have been curious concerning a being so
exceptional, availed of the opportunity to assure the
king that the enchanters knew nothing about the
matter, and that the real cause of the subsidence of
the tower works was the existence beneath the
foundations of a subterranean lake, in which lived
two dragons, whose nightly conflicts produced
disturbances of the earth above their retreat.

According to the legend, the truth of Merlin^s
statement was tested by excavating, when the won-

D

34 The Lives of the Conjurors.

derful lake was discovered, and the dragons
destroyed. Merlin not only saved his life, but be-
came from that time the chief adviser of Vortigem,
and afterwards of his successors, Ambrosius and
Uther Pendragon. Having studied magic, he was
able to perform many wonderful works ; for, even
at a much later period, a bridge could not be built
across a ravine — as at Aberystwith — without being
regarded by the ignorant and superstitious masses
as the work of the devil. Merlin had the credit in
after ages of having caused the enormous stones
composing the Druidical circles on Salisbury Plain
to be brought through the air from Ireland by his
familiar demons.

His magical arts were not always exerted in a
good cause, however, for he is said to have trans-
formed Uther Pendragon into the semblance of the
Duke of Cornwall, in order to enable him to seduce
the latter^s wife. The duke being afterwards slain
in battle, his widow became the wife of Uther.
There is that retributive justice which is more often
found in romance than in reality in the story of
Merlin^s passion for the Lady of the Lake, a super-
natural beauty of the Naiad kind, who figured in
the masque with which the Earl of Leicester enter-
tained Elizabeth on the occasion of her visit to
Kenilworth Castle.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 35

Merlin, we are told, had conceived the design of
surrounding Carmarthen with a wall of brass, the
sections of which were to be forged by demons^
who worked incessantly beneath the earth. His
passion for the nymph of the lake prompting him
to journey into Warwickshire, he enjoined the
demons not to desist from labour during his absence,
and rode off — unless, indeed, he flew on a dragon, as
might be expected from so potent a master of the
Black Art. Arrived at Kenilworth, the Lady of the
Lake showed him a vault, with which some tremen-
dous mystery was connected, and taught him the
spell by which its long-closed portals might be
opened. He entered ; the doors closed behind him
with a fearful clang, and, as they would not yield
again to the same charm, the vault proved his grave.
The demons continued to labour at their subter-
ranean forge, but Merlin never returned ; and it was
believed for centuries afterwards that the sound of
their hammers could be heard in the still hours of
the night.

There is an interval of nearly three hundred
years between Merlin and the next great magician,
the impostor Haschem, commonly called Mokanna,
from the veil of silver gauze which he constantly
wore to conceal his diabolically ugly features. As
the leader of many thousands of deluded fanatics,

d2

36 The Lives of the Conjurors.

who regarded him as an incarnation of Allah, he
raised a great ferment in the province of Khorasan
in the year 785 ; but his claim to be regarded as a
magician rests upon a marvel which he is said to
have worked when defeated by the Moslems, and
forced to retreat into the town of Neksheb, and
which obtained for him the name of Sazendah Mah,
or the moon-maker,

While shut up in that town, where he eventually
committed suicide, he kept alive the hopes of his
deluded followers for two months by assuring them
that it was written in the Book of Fate, that the
star. of Islam should wane when the moon should
rise every night from a well in the town, which was
esteemed holy; and causing a luminous body,
having the appearance of the full moon, to rise
every night from the wqU, thus encouraging the
belief that the prophecy was about to be fulfilled.
The illusion forms a striking incident in Moore's
story of The Veiled Prophet of Khorascm : —

** They tamed, and, as he spoke,
A sudden splendour all axound them broke,
And they beheld an orb, ample and bright,
Bise from the Holy Well, and cast its light
Hound the rich city and the plain for miles, —
Flinging such radiance o'er the gilded tiles

The Lives of the Conjurors. 37

Of many a dome and fair-roofed imaret,

As autumn suns shed round them when they set."

D^Herbelot, who gathered from Oriental sources
the particulars which he gives of the impostor'a
career and fate, throws no light upon the mode in
which the mock-moon was produced, and hazards
no conjecture on the subject.

Among the more remarkable examples of the
necromancy of the middle ages, the deception
practised upon the Greek Emperor, Basil, by the
patriarch, Theodore Santabarpn, must be men-
tioned. It is said that the emperor, inconsolable
for the loss of his son, had recourse to the
patriarch, who had the repute of a worker of
miracles. The ecclesiastical magician exhibited
to him the image of his beloved son, magnificently
attired; the youth rushed towards him, threw
himself into his arms, and immediately disappeared.

Salverte observes that this illusion, which es-
caped the researches of Godwin, could not have
been wrought by the aid of a youth who resembled
the young prince, and was attired like him. The
existence of such a person, betrayed by so remark-
able a resemblance, and by the trick of the exhi-
bition, could not have failed to be discovered and
denounced, even if we could explain the vanishing

38 The Lives of the Conjurors.

of the image at the moment of the embrace for
which the fond father longed. Basil must have
been shown the aerial image of a picture of his son,
which, as it was moved nearer to the concave mirror,
seemed to advance into his arms. The powers of
the concave mirror have been frequently availed of
in this manner in exhibiting the image of an absent
or deceased friend or relative. For this purpose, a
strongly illuminated picture or bust is placed before
the mirror, which, by the aid of a lens, gives a dis-
tinct aerial image of the figure. If the background
is blackened, so thlit there is no light about the
figure but what falls on it, the effect is the more
striking and complete.

As in all exhibitions with concave mirrors the
size of the aerial image is to that of the real object
as their distances from the mirror, the magician
Diay» by varying the distance of the object, increase
or diminish the size of the image. In doing this,
however, the distance of the image from the mirror
is changed at the same time, so that it quits the
position most suitable for its exhibition. This
defect may be removed by simultaneously changing
the place both of the mirror and the object, so that
the image may remain stationary, expanding itself
gradually to a gigantic size, or growing smaller by
degrees until it vanishes.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 39

Benno charges several of the mediaaval Popes
with sorcery^ but there were only two of the suc-
cessors of Peter by whom magic can fairly be said
to have been practised, and the grounds of the
allegation are slight even in their cases. Silvester
n., who died in 1003, was originally a monk of
Fleury, in Burgundy, and then bore the name of
Gerbert. Love of science, and a desire to study
Arab lore, led him to Cordova, where he remained
several years, and attained ^ great proficiency in
astronomy and geometry. To him is ascribed the
introduction into Europe of the Arabic numerals.
Leaving Cordova for Paris, he was appelated by
Hugh Capet preceptor to his son, Eobert, and after-
wards Archbishop of Rheims; but, a dispute
arising as to the validity of this preferment, he
resigned it, and went to Germany, where he found
a friend and patron in Otho III. Subsequently he
became Archbishop of Ravenna, and another step
seated him on the Pontifical throne.

The practice of magic by this fortunate monk
rests on the authority of William of Malmesbury,
who credits him with a degree of proficiency in the
Black Art that enabled him to make many disco-
veries of hidden treasure, and to construct a brazen
head, which answered the queries addressed to it,
like the Sphinx which Stodare exhibited a few years

40 The Lives of the Conjurors.

ago at the Egyptian Hall. On one occasion, we
are told, lie obtained access, by magical arts, to an
enchanted palace underground. Its splendour
exceeded that of any earthly palace, but it disap-
peared in a puff of smoke on being touched.

The other triple-crowned magician was Gregory
VII., who also studied astrology. Mornay says
that he could produce thunder and lightning by
shaking his arm. Something of this kind is
mentioned by Eoger Bacon in his Discovery of the
Miracles of Art, Nature, and Magic; and the
solution may perhaps be found in the Chinese
jSre-works with which we have been made familiar
of late years, and which are used by the famous
pantomimist, Fred. Evans, in his demon ballets.

An interval of a century and a half separates the
latest of the Pontifical conjurors from the first
English professor of the Black Art, after Merlin,
of whom historians have preserved any particulars.
Eobert Greathead, who became Bishop of Lincoln
in 1235, and was one of the most learned men
of that age, was the son of very poor parents,
so poor, indeed, that he was only rescued from
beggary by the benevolence of a wealthy citizen,
who, observing his handsome and intelligent-
looking countenance when he gave him an alms,
sent him to school, and afterwards to the University

The Lives of the Conjurors. 41

of Cambridge. From thence lie removed to
the famous seats of learning on the Isis and
the Seine, acquiring, in addition to the Greek
and Hebrew languages, the fullest knowledge of
geometry, mathematics, astronomy, and optics that
the professors of that day could impart.

Gower says that he was profoundly skilled
in magic, and that he made a brazen head, to
serve as an oracle. This was a very persistent idea
of the magicians of the middle ages, though none
of them seem to have worked it out very success-
fully. It was perhaps suggested by the oracles
of antiquity, associated in their minds with the
colossal head of Memnon, from which vocal sounds
were said to emanate at sunrise.

Michael Scot, who was nearly contemporaneous
with Greathead, had the repute of a sorcerer, and
was held in awe by the ignorant and superstitious
masses oh account of his supposed magical powers
and communings with beings of the invisible world.
Hence his inclusion amongst the necromancers by
Godwin ; but he does not appear to have made any
pretensions to magic, his reputed proficiency in
which arose from his knowledge of Greek and
Arabic, the characters of which were mistaken for
cabalistic signs, and his addiction to the study of
chemistry, astrology, and chiromancy.

42 The Lives of the Conjurors.

While Eobert Greathead was pursuing his
studies at Cambridge, there was bom, in Somerset-
shire, one of the most remarkable men of his time,
if we judge him by the power of his mind, but
concerning whose life we possess very few par-
ticulars that are well authenticated. According
to the Fcumous History of Friar Bacon and Friar
Bungay f the earliest extant edition of which
bears the date of 1661, Eoger Bacon was a farmer's
son, who became a Franciscan friar, and, studying
magic more than divinity, became so famous for his
proficiency in the Black Art that the king, being
on a visit at a nobleman's house in Oxfordshire,
sent for him, requesting an example of his skill.
We are not told what king this was, but it
must have been either Henry III. or Edward I. —
probably the former. The friar entertained the
king with the harmony of invisible musicians,
filled the apartment with the most delicious perfume,
and introduced many strangers, who came, none
knew how or whence, and some of whom danced,
while others, who wore the semblance of Russians,
Poles, Armenians, and Hindoos, presented valuable
furs. The king was so pleased with this entertain-
ment that he presented the friar with a costly jewel.

While pursuing his studies at Oxford, Bacon
became intimately acquainted with the friar Bungay,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 43

who was almost as proficient in magic as himself,
though he does not figure in the records of scientific
research. These two conjurors constructed a brazen
head, concerning which we are told, in the history-
just referred to, that '^ in the inward parts thereof
there was all things like as is a natural man^s head/^
Unable to give their handiwork the power of speech,
they resolved to invoke the aid of Satan ; and, with
this desperate resolve, proceeded to a wood, in the
deepest dingle of which they drew a magic circle,
and pronounced an awful incantation. The devil
appeared, in the form assigned to him by Anglo-
Saxon ignorance and superstition; but declared
that he did not possess the power for which the
Franciscans gave him credit. Upon being rebuked
by Bacon for falsehood, and threatened with
bonds, his Satanic majesty informed them that the
vapour of six of the most pungent simples known
would cause the head to speak in a month : adding,
that their labour would be in vain if they did not
hear the voice themselves.

The friars dismissed the fiend, and returned to
their laboratory, where they prepared the needful
decoction, and watched its effects night and day
for three weeks. Being then overpowered by som-
nolence. Bacon's servant. Miles, was set to watch
the brazen head, with strict injunctions to call the

44 The Lives of the Conjurors.

two friars in the event of any articulate sounds
proceeding from it. Miles tried to keep himself
awake by singing, but he did not succeed ; and
when he was awakened by hearing the head pro-
nounce the words, ^^ Time was,^^ he thought such
a brief utterance too insignificant for notice, and
went to sleep again. Presently the words, ^^ Time
is,^^ issued from the brazen lips; but Miles
thought the remark as unworthy of attention as
that which had preceded it. Then came the final
utterance. ^^ Time is past ! ^^ upon which lightning
flashed and thunder rolled, and the brazen head
fell upon the floor, and was broken to pieces. The
friars rushed in at the noise, and Bacon, in his rage
at the disaster, would have severely chastised the
negligent Miles, if his brother Franciscan had not
restrained him.

Bacon and Bungay afterwards accompanied the
king on an expedition to France, where the former
fired a town with a powerful burning-glass, and, in
the confusion which ensued, the English troops took
the place by assault. Negotiations for peace followed
this event, and, at a friendly meeting of the rival
monarchs, the French king introduced a German
magician, named Yandermast, and invited Bacon
and Bungay to a trial of skill with him. The
challenge being accepted, Vandermast raised the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 45

spirit of Pompey, and Bacon responded by opposing
to it the shade of Julius Cassar. The apparitions
fought, and Pompey was vanquished.

Bungay then gave a sample of his skill by pro-
ducing the semblance of the Hesperidian tree, with
its golden fruit hanging temptingly from the
branches. Vandermast thereupon summoned Her-
akles to pluck the fruit from the tree ; but Bungay
raised his hand wamingly, and the phantom hesi-
tated. Vandermast threatened in vain; and Her-
akles, at the bidding of Bungay, caught up the
German, threw him upon his shoulder and disap-
peared with him.

The friars never took any money for these ex-
hibitions of their skill, but on their return to England
a report was spread that the king had given Ba>con
a large sum, and certain robbers were induced by
it to effect a burglarious entrance into his abode.
The friar, to their astonishment, not only gave each
of them a hundred pounds, but invited them to
regale themselves, commanding Miles to play the
tabor while they supped. Having partaken to
their content of the good things placed before
them, the robbers began to dance ; but soon foijnd
themselves constrained to continue dancing as long
as Miles played, and to follow wherever he led.
Miles left the house, followed by the dancing

46 The Lives of the Conjurors.

thieves, whom he led through fields, over hedges
and ditches, until a bridge was reached from which
the knaves danced into the river, where they floun-
dered about until they were neariy drowned.
Scrambling at length to the bank, they fell down
exhausted, and MUes, taking from them the money
which his master had given them, left them wet
and weary, to vow they would never again rob a
magician.

Vandermast, who had not forgiven the English
conjurors his defeat before the French court, came
to England in search of them, and met Bungay in
Kent. After playing some ludicrous tricks upon
each other, they agreed to a competition, to be con-
ducted secretly, and met for that purpose in a very
secluded spot. A magic circle being drawn, Van-
dermast produced in it a dragon, which pursued
Bungay round the ring, breathing flames and sul-
phurous smoke. The friar then produced the sem-
blance of the sea-monster to which Andromeda was
exposed, and Vandermast suffered in his turn, being
drenched with water, which the creature spurted
from its capacious jaws. The dragon being slain
by a phantom St. George, evoked by Bungay, and
the sea-monster by the shade of Perseus, summoned
by Vandermast, the English magician next called
up Achilles and a band of Greeks, to whom the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 47

German opposed Hector and an equal number of
Trojans. A phantom fight ensued; Hector was
slain, and the Trojans fled. A terrible thunder-
storm now arose, and on the following day the
corpses of the rival magicians were found in the
wood, seared and blackened by lightning.

From this legendary account, in which it is
difficult to discriminate between fact and fiction,
let us turn to what is really known concerning
Roger Bacon. He was bom in Somersetshire,
in 1214, studied at Oxford and Paris, and became a
friar of the Franciscan order. A little tower, over-
looking Folly Bridge, which spans a branch of the
Isis, on the road from Oxford to Abingdon, was
pointed out for centuries as Friar Bacon's study.
It was demohshed, however, about forty years ago,
when a new bridge replaced the moss-grown struc-
ture from which so many generations had looked
curiously at the mouldering tower. He acquired a
large amount of scientific knowledge, which is
evidenced by his works; and he was conversant
with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic.

His brother Franciscans accused him of magical
practices, and carried their accusation to Pope
Clement IV., by whose orders he was prosecuted
and imprisoned. He repudiated such practices, as
the Franciscans understood them, in his remarkable

48 The Lives of the Conjurors.

treatise on the Miracles of Art, Nature and Magic,
in reference to the raising of spirits, and the making
of charms and cabalistic figm*es. '^ Yet herewithal
we must remember/' he says, '^that there are
many books commonly reputed to be magical, but
have no other fault than discovering the dignity of
wisdom.^'

Some light is thrown upon the mode in which
some of the wonders attributed to him may have
been performed by the knowledge of optics and
chemistry which is displayed in this work. ^^ Glasses
and perspectives,'' he says, ^^may be framed, to
make one thing appear many, one man an army, the
sun and moon to be as many as we please ; '' and
he adds, '^ It is folly to seek the eflfecting that by
magical illusions which the power of philosophy can
demonstrata'' He mentions also ''the making
thunder and lightning in the air; yea, with a
greater advantage of horror than those which are
produced by nature. For a very competent quan-
tity of matter rightly prepared (the bigness of one's
thumb) will make the most hideous noise and co-
ruscation." He is said to have invented a magic
lantern, but it was probably some improved arrange-
ment of concave mirrors, by means of which he may
have produced some of the optical illusions ascribed
to him.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 49

'.rhe following passages from the work already
quoted attest his wondrous intellect^ and the extent
of his insight of the physical and mechanical
sciences^ in the most satisfactory and indisputable
manner.

« It is possible to make engines to sail withal, as
that either jfresh or salt water vessels maybe guided
by the help of one man, and made sail with a
greater swiftness than others will which are full of
men to help them.

*' It is possible to make a chariot move with an
inestimable swiftness (such as the cwrms falcati
were, wherein our forefathers of old fought), and
this motion to be without the help of any living
creature.

" It is possible to make engines for flying, a man
sitting in the midst whereof, by turning only about
an instrument, which moves artificial wings made
to beat the air, much after the fashion of a bird'a
flight.

" It is possible to invent an engine of a little
bulk, yet of great efficacy, either to the depressing
or elevation of the very greatest weight, which
would be of much consequence in several accidents :
for hereby a man may either ascend or descend any
walls, delivering himself or comrades from prison ;
and this engine is only three fingers high and four
broad. E

50 The Lives of the Conjurors.

^^ A man may easily make an instmment, whereby
one man may, in despite of all opposition, draw a
thousand men to himself, or any other thing which
is tractable.

" A man may make an engine whereby, without
any corporeal dangers, he may walk in the bottom
of the sea, or other water. These Alexander (as
the heathen astronomer assures us) used to see
the secrets of the deep.

^^Such engines as these were of old, and are
made even in our days. These, all of them (ex-
cepting only that instrument of flying, which I
never saw or know any who hath seen it, though I
am exceedingly acqilainted with a very prudent
man who hath invented the whole artifice), with
infinite such like inventions, engines, and devices,
are feasible, as making of bridges over rivers with-
out pillars or supporters.'^

Roger Bacon may be regarded, indeed, as the
precursor of his great namesake in the vast field of
experimental philosophy. He claimed for observa-
tion an equal rank with reason in the investigation
of the natural phenomena of the universe; and
this claim alone, which was sufficient to cause him
to be regarded by his contemporaries as an empiric,
warrants his being placed at the head of all the
philosophical writers of the middle ages. Like

The Lives of the Conjurors. 51

them, however, he had a firm belief in the philoso-
pher's stone and the elixir of life. He did not
profess to have ever succeeded in converting the
inferior metals into gold, but he followed Gebir,
the Arabian pharmacopolist, in regarding aqua,
regia — gold dissolved in nitro-hydro-chloric acid —
as the long-sought elixir which possessed the power
of indefinitely prolonging the term of human life.

He brought this matter under the attention of
the Pope, Nicholas IV., informing his holiness —
upon what authority does not appear — that an old
man, while ploughing a field in Sicily, had found a
golden phial, containing some yellow liquid, which,
believing it to be dew, he drank. He thereupon
regained the appearance and vigour of his youth,
and, abandoning the plough, entered the service of
the King of Sicily, in which he remained eighty
years. The colour of the solution of gold being
bright yellow, and Gebir having pronounced that
preparation to have this extraordinary power of
rejuvenation. Bacon's faith in the elixir was con-
firmed by this story, and he may be supposed to
have taken many a dose of the golden water, in
the belief that he was taking a renewed lease of
existence.

The invention of gunpowder has been ascribed to
him; but, though that explosive mixture was un-

E 2

52 The Lives of the Conjurors.

known in Europe until it was introduced by the
Moors about the middle of the fourteenth century,
it seems to have been known to the Chinese before
the Christian era, and Bacon probably derived his
knowledge of it from his researches in Arabic lore.
He does not, indeed, claim the invention for him-
self ; for he asserts that the supposed thunder and
lightning which terrified the army of Alexander
when besieging Oxydrakes, and which were
ascribed to magic, were produced by gunpowder.
How far he was acquainted with the secret of
mixing the components of gunpowder is uncertain.
In his instructions for its production, he expresses
charcoal by a long word of his own coining, luruvo-
povircanutriet ; and, while some writers have sug-
gested that he did so in order to prevent a sub-
stance so dangerous from being made by the unini-
tiated, others have thought that he used the word
to conceal his ignorance of the ingredient.

A more distinguished contemporary of Bacon
than Bungay and Vandermast was Albert Groot,
who was born at BoUstadt, in Suabia, in 1193, and
died in 1282, two years before the learned friar of
Oxford. He studied medicine at the university of
Padua, and afterwards taught it at Cologne and
Paris ; but resigned his professorship on becoming
a brother of the Dominican order. He travelled

The Lives of the Conjurors. 53

through Germany as provincial of that order, and
was afterwards appointed Bishop of Ratisbon.

Qroot added to the study of medicine and theology
that of the sciences which constitute the foundation
of what has been called natural magic. Becker says
that, when he entertained the King of the Romans
(William, Earl of Holland), at Cologne, he produced
the verdure and genial atmosphere of summer,
though the season was winter, the banquet being
prepared in a garden; and tKat the earl was so
much pleased with the transformation that he gave
his entertainer a grant of land for the Dominican
convent. After the ^banquet, the verdure dis-
appeared, and the air again became chill.

Other authors inform us that Groot made a
brazen man, which was the work of his leisure dur-
ing thirty years ; and that the automaton not only
acted as an oracle, but served its constructor as a
mechanical attendant. It became in time so garru-
lous, however, that its loquacity disturbed Groot^s
fellow-student, the famous Thomas Aquinas, who,
in a fit of rage, broke it to pieces with a hammer.
Another account of this wonder is, that Groot suc-
ceeded in forming a veritable living man, by his
profound knowledge of anatomy and physiology ;
but, this being deemed incredible, some of those
who have related the story invented the man of

54 The Lives of the Conjurors.

brass, and substituted it for the more wonderful crea-
tion.

A theologian, a physician, a chemist, an astrono-
mer, a magician, and a man of the world, as he was
in his own time, Groot is, at the present day, more
widely known, perhaps, by the name of Albertus
Magnas, as the mediaeval magician than as a scien-
tific writer. His treatises on chemical subjects are,
however, numerous, and show him to have possessed
no insignificant amount of scientific knowledge.
He describes the chemical water-bath, the alembic,
and various lutes ; gives experiments with arsenic,
sulphur, and red lead ; and shows himself acquainted
with the properties of alum and caustic alkali, the
refining of gold and silver by means of lead, the
mode of determining the purity of gold, and the
separation of the precious metals from the ore by
amalgamation— a word which, however, waited to
be coined by his pupil and brother Dominican, the
canonised Thomas Aquinas.

That, along with these glimmerings of the light
of science, he should have held some errors was
naturally to be expected. He adopted the theory
of Gebir, that all the metals are various combinations
of mercury and sulphur, an idea which, it must be
remembered, was only exploded in the last century
by Lavoisier. Chemists of the present day count

The Lives of the Conjurors. 55

elementary substancea by the score ; but mediaeval
ideas upon the subject have been held down to our
own time. It was at one time a favourite hypothesis
of Davy, that the metallic and all other elements
are compounds of hydrogen with some unknown
base, in different proportions ; and he laboured hard
to prove it.

Raymond LuUy has been classed by some authors
among the magicians of the middle ages, but upon
very slight grounds. He was bom at Majorca, in
1235, and entered the military service of James I.,
King of Arragon, to whom his father was seneschal ;
but he abandoned the pursuit of arms, and became
a student of theology and medicine at the university
of Paris. He is said to have been at one time a
pupil of Roger Bacon, which, with his chemical
knowledge, — for he produced no fewer than sixteen
treatises on chemical subjects, — ^may have given
rise to the reports which associated his name with
the Black Art. He subsequently became a Minorite
monk, and travelled through Italy, Germany, and
England, advocating missions for the conversion of
the Mahomedans and heathens of Asia and Airica.
He afterwards visited Cyprus, Armenia, and Syria,
for the purpose of preaching the Gospel ; and, ac-
cording to one account, was stoned to death,
while preaching on the coast of Africa. But other

56 The Lives of the Conjurors.

accounts represent him to have died a natural death
at Majorca^ in 1815.

The list of mediasval magicians closes with Zeito,
the chief conjuror of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia,
at the close of the fourteenth qentury. Duhavius
relates that, on the occasion of the marriage of this
monarch with Sophia, daughter of the Elector
Palatine of Bavaria, the bride's father, knowing the
deUght which Wenceslaus took in exhibitions of
conjuring and juggling, invited to Prague all the
adepts in those arts whom he could collect, with a
view to a grand performance before the Bohemian
court. A dispute arising between Zeito and one of
the German conjurors, the former, who was a little
deformed man, with a very large mouth, ended it
by swallowing his rival, rejecting his boots only,
which were very dirty. He then withdrew, but in
a short time returned, accompanied by the man
whom he had swallowed.

He then showed several transformations, chang-
ing his features and stature as well as his costume ;
glided over the ground in a marvellous manner,
without moving his feet ; and drove a team of barn-
door fowls, harnessed to a car, as fast as the king's
horses could draw the royal chariot. During the
banquet he transformed the hands of many of the
guests into the hoofs of horses and the cloven feet of

The Lives of the Conjurors. 57

— - ■

oxen, and caused the antlers of deer to appear upon
their heads, to the great amusement of those who
were not the subject of his pranks. Upon another
occasion he is said to have transformed a handful of
wheat into a herd of hogs, which he drove to the
market and sold for a good price, enjoining the
buyer not to let them drink at the river as he drove
them home. This caution the purchaser neglected,
and the hogs became grains of com again, as soon
as their snouts touched the water.

The conjurors of the Bast seem, in the meanwhile,
to have maintained their ancient fame. Sir John
Mandeville, who travelled through a large portion
of the Asiatic continent between the years 1322
and 1356, says of the Tartar conjurors whom he
saw at the court of the Grand Khan, that ^' they
make the appearance of the sun and the moon in
the air j and then they make the night so dark that
nothing can be seen; and again they restore the
daylight, and the sun shining brightly. Then they
bring in dances of the fairest damsels of the world,
and the richest arrayed. Afterwards they make
other damsels to come in, bringing cups of gold full
of the milk of divers animals, and give drink to the
lords and ladies ; and then they make knights
joust in arms full lustily, who run together, and in
the encounter break their spears so rudely that the

58 The Lives of the Conjurors.

splinters fly all about the hall. They also bring in
a hunting of the hart and the boar, with hounds
running at them open-mouthed; and many other
things they do by the craft of their enchantments
that are marvellous to see/^

^^Be it done by craft or by necromancy, 1 wot
not/^ says Mandeville, in his characteristically
cautious and guarded manner. The bad repute of
our earliest English author for ^^ drawing the long
bow ^^ hardly warrants our disbelief of his descrip-
tion of what he saw on this occasion, which is not
more wonderful than what we are told by a con-
temporary Mahomedan traveller, concerning the
conjurors of India, and by our own countryman,
Chaucer, respecting those of England at the same
period. Ibn Batuta says that he saw two conjurors
perform before the Mogul court at Delhi, one of
whom assumed the form of a cube, and rose into
the air, where he remained suspended. The other
took off one of his slippers, and struck the ground
with it, upon which it rose into the air, and became
motionless, at a short distance from the cube. He
then touched the other^s neck, upon which he de-
scended to the ground, and re-assumed his natural
form.

Chaucer tells us that the conjurors of his day
were able, in a large hall, to produce '* water, with

The Lives of the Conjurors. 59

boats rowed up and down upon it. Sometimes they
will bring in the similitude of a grim lion, or make
flowers spring up in a meadow; sometimes they
cause a vine to flourish, bearing white and red
grapes ; or show a castle built with stone ; and
when they please they cause the whole to disappear/'
He tells us, too, of " a learned clerk, who showed to
a friend forests filled with wild deer, where he saw
a hundred of them slain, some with hounds and
some with arrows; the hunting being finished, a
company of falconers appeared upon the banks of a
fair river, where the birds pursued the herons, and
slew them. He then saw knights jousting upon a
plain, and the resemblance of his beloved lady
dancing, which occasioned him to dance also.'*
But "when the master that this magic wrought
thought fit, he clapped his hands together, and all
was gone in an instant.'^ Here we can again discern
some arrangement of concave mirrors.

When we consider how marvellous the decep-
tions of modem conjurors must seem to those whose
mechanical and scientific knowledge does not enable
them to form any conception of the modus operandi
from known physical laws, we may readily under-
stand the mingled fear and wonder with which such
feats were regarded in a much less enlightened age.
Things which must have seemed to them impos-

6o The L ives of the Conjurors.

sible, unless performed by supernatural power, may
well have filled tbem with fear as well as wonder,
and it is not surprising that many, even among the
educated and better informed, regarded as real what
the least educated spectator of the present day
would know to be illusory. This must be borne in
mind when we read of the wonders of the ancient
and medisBval magicians, the accounts of which we
must interpret by the Hght of modem science, re-
jecting only the false light in which they were
regarded in ages of feeble and partial mental illu-
mination.

CHAPTER IT.

Cornelius Agrippa — Phantoms shown in his Magic Mirror —
Faust — ^Legends concerning him — More Phantoms — The
Decapitation Trick at Frankfort — The Enchanted Palace
and the Fairy Garden— Sabellicus — ^Magic at Bome —
Conjurations of a Sicilian Priest — The Devils in the
Coliseum.

The long interval of time which separates Groot
and Zeito from Agrippa and Faust witnessed an
intellectual awakenings and a degree of scientific
progress, which, while they prepared the way for
greater triumphs of the conjuror, as conjuring is
understood at the present day^ had, for the time,
the eflfect of bringing the Black Art into disrepute.
While the magician was believed to perform his
wondrous feats by the aid of evil spirits, he was
regarded with awe ; for the upper classes were, as a
rule, as ignorant and superstitious as the masses ;
but, with the awakening of the spirit of inquiry.

62 The Lives of the Conjurors.

and the wider diffiision, upon however homoeopathic
a scale, of the knowledge which had hitherto been
confined to the clergy, the position of the magician
underwent a change. He ceased to be regarded
with awe as a minister of Satan, and was not yet
begun to be welcomed as the entertainer of an
idle hour.

Philosophy repudiated him, and religion placed
him under a ban. From the time of Roger Bacon
the philosopher stepped in advance of the magician,
who from that followed at a respectful distance,
picking up what crumbs of science he could, and
turning them to his own account. Learned men
there had been before the monk of Oxford; men
who had laboriously studied the works of Aristotle
and Pliny and Avicenna; but Roger Bacon was
unquestionably the first scientific man, the first
original inquirer of the long period of mental dark-
ness which followed the dissolution of the ancient
schools of philosophy. That period closed with the
invention of printing, in the fifteenth century, but
two centuries passed before the progress of mental
enlightenment relieved the conjuror, no longer re-
garded as either a philosopher or a prophet, from
the risk of being burned as a wizard.

Cornelius Agrippa may be regarded as the con-
necting link between the magicians of antiquity and

The Lives of the Conjurors. 63

the dark ages and the conjurors of modem times.
He was born in 1486, and at an early age displayed
an acute intellect and great aptitude for the acquisi-
tion of languages and abstruse learning. He ob-
tained great repute as a chemist and astrologer,
applied himself zealously to the search for the
philosopher's stone, and wrote a learned disquisition
on magic. After experiencing many vicissitudes,
and being several times persecuted and imprisoned
for sorcery, his reputation for learning caused him
to receive invitations and oflTers of patronage almost
simultaneously from the King of England (Henry
VIII.), the Princess Margaret of Austria, the
Chancellor of the Empire, and an Italian marquis.
He accepted the lady's oflTer, and resided at Vienna
until her death, when he obtained the appointment
of physician to the Princess Louisa of Savoy, mother
of Francis I.

It is uncertain whether the stories concerning
Agrippa which are related by Nash in the Adventures
of Jack Wilton are to be regarded as facts, or as
incidents of fiction. On the one hand, it may be
urged that Nash is the sole authority for them ; on
the other, that the magic mirror was known to the
magicians of antiquity, and is supposed to have
been improved by Roger Bacon. The magic mirror
figures so frequently in the memorabilia of the

64 The Lives of the Conjurors.

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that we may well
believe the incidents related by Nash to have really
occurred, although German authors of the time do
not mention them.

According to this narrative, the Earl of Surrey
met Agrippa at the court of the Elector of Saxony,
where, Erasmus and others being also present, the
magician raised the phantom of Cicero, as he ap-
peared in the rostrum, in the act of pronouncing
the oration for Eoscius. The oration, or a portion
of it, was delivered by the phantom, in the exact
words which have come down to us. If this story
rests upon a soUd foundation of fact, the art of the
ventriloquist must have aided the devices of the
magician ; for a speaking-tube could not have been
used in this case, as it was by Alexander of Abono^
tica, and, in modem times, in the illusion of the
Invisible Girl.

On another occasion, Agrippa showed Surrey the
phantom of his beloved Geraldine, weeping on her
bed, in his magic mirror. To Sir Thomas More he
exhibited the destruction of Troy ; to the Earl of
Essex, Henry VIII. and the nobles of the English
court hunting in Windsor Forest ; and to Charles
v., the phantoms of Gideon, Solomon, and other
persons of Biblical fame.

Whether Nash had any authority for these inci-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 65

dents or not, they are more credible than some of
the stories concerning Agrippa which Delvio and
Jovias relate as facts. The former tells us, for
instance, that the magician, while residing at Lou-
vain, had a student of the imiversity of that city
lodging in his house, who, impelled by a desire to
learn the nature of his host's secret researches,
prevailed upon his hostess to give him the key of
Agrippa's study. Shutting himself up in that
mysterious apartment, he seated himself in the
magician's chair, opened a book at random, and
began reading aloud some cabalistical jargon, which
lie could not understand, but which chanced to be
a charm for raising a demon. As he pronounced
the last words of the incantation, the demon whom
lie had unconsciously evoked stood before him, and
demanded for what purpose he had been summoned.
The student being too much terrified to reply, the
demon became infuriated, strangled the unhappy
young man, and cast his corpse upon the floor.

On the return of Agrippa, whose absence from
home had furnished the opportunity for a gratifica-
tion which was attended with such a tragical result,
he found demons capering about the house, and in-
dulging in fantastic gambols upon the roof, though
invisible to other eyes than his own. Having com-
pelled them to desist, and dismissed them to the infer-

p

66 The Lives of the Conjurors^

nal regions, with the exception of the chief among
them, he demanded of that superior imp the cause of
their outbreak. On learning it, Agrippa commanded
the demon to re-animate the corpse of the student,
and show him in the market-place, that it might be
seen that he was living. The demon obeyed, and
the student walked through the market-place, but
fell down as soon as his diabolical attendant left
his side, and was immediately found to be dead.
Marks of strangulation being found upon his neck,
an excited crowd proceeded to Agrippa^s house at
the heels of the officers of justice ; but the magician
contrived to escape, and to elude the search that
was made for him.

It is Delvio also who tells us that Agrippa, when
travelling, paid the* inn -keepers with whom he
lodged with money which, in a few days afterwards,
was found to have changed into shells and chips
of horn. This story is told of some other magicians.
Jovius says that Agrippa was always accompanied
by an imp in the form of a black dog, and that,
on his death-bed, he removed from the animaPs
neck a collar studded with brass nails, which formed
a necromantic formula, and bade his familiar depart
from him. The dog, it is said, left the house
immediately, plunged into a neighbouring river,
and was never seen again.

The Lives of the Conjurors, 67

Wier, who was for several years the attendant
of Agrippa, assures his readers that this dog was
no demon, but a favourite and faithful companion
of his master. But, as every sorcerer was supposed
to have a familiar demon, the ignorant and super-
stitious came to the conclusion that the dog must
be Agrippa's, and attributed to it the knowledge
which his master possessed of everything that passed
in the world, not being able to comprehend how
so much could otherwise be known to a man who
seldom left his study. Wier says that Agrippa had
correspondents in all parts of Europe, and it was
from them he gained the knowledge of events which
so greatly puzzled the ignorant.

Agrippa died in 1534, and Faust — the subject of
so many wild legends, and the hero of almost as
many dramas and romances — ^must have died a few
years later, if, as is supposed, the extraordinary
narrative first published in 1587 appeared about
fifty years after his death. This strange history
purports to have been partly written by himself,
and to have been completed by his servant, Wag-
ner ; but there can be no doubt that it was written
after his death, and that the author, whoever he
was, collected all the marvellous tales concerning
Faust which were then floating about Germany, as
was done in England by the author of the equally

p 2

68 The Lives of the Conjurors.

questionable history of Friar Bacon and Friar Bun-
gay-

According to this narrative, Faust was the son

of a peasant in the duchy of Weimar, and was
educated at the university of Wittenberg by the
bounty of a wealthy uncle. He was intended for
the priesthood, and graduated in divinity; but,
lapsing into irreligion, abandoned his theological
studies for chemistry and medicine, and these in
their turn for magic and necromancy. Bemg by
nature restless, sensual, and ambitious, he aimed
at objects which he could not obtain by study, and
resolved to invoke the aid of the devil for their
accomplishment. For this purpose, he proceeded
at night to a spot where four roads met in an
extensive forest, and, having drawn a magic circle,
pronounced the incantation prescribed by the books
which he had consulted.

Lightning immediately flashed around him, and
thunder rolled menacingly over his head. As the
reverberations died away, strange music floated on
the air, and was followed by the clash of weapons,
as if many men were engaged in hostile conflict
close at hand. As these startling sounds ceased,
a griffin appeared, then a dragon, and finally a fiery
pillar, with the semblance of a man on the top,
who seemed to be burning. The man leaped from

The Lives of the Conjurors. 69

the pillar, and fiery globes, like large balls of red-
hot metal, floated round the circle.

Faust being undismayed by these terrific appari-
tions, Satan himself at length appeared, in the form
of a monk, and, after a brief colloquy with the
bold student, agreed to meet him at his lodging
in Wittenberg. The appointment was kept, and
a compact was then entered into, by which Fausfc
was to have all his desires gratified during the
term of twenty-four years, on the condition of
renouncing the Christian religion and submitting
himself to Satan everlastingly at the expiration
of the term. Faust signed the contract with his
blood, and Satan gave him the demon Mephisto-
pheles to be his constant attendant and the minister
of all his desires.

Faust had now abundant wealth, fared sumptu-
ously, and abandoned himself to a Ufe of luxury
and sensual pleasures. Attended by Mephisto-
pheles, he travelled over the greater part of Europe,
and many regions of Asia and Afidca, his familiar
demon doing his best to ^* annihilate time and
space '^ by taking him on his back, and flying with
him through the air. His adventures in the
Sultan's palace at Constantinople, which he entered
by being rendered invisible, and then closed
against its imperial tenant and his guards and

70 The Lives of the Conjurors,

attendants, by surrounding it with a dense fog,
throw those of Don Juan far into the shade.

On his return to Germany, he met the Emperor,
Charles V., at Innspruck, and for his entertainment,
raised the phantom of Alexander. At Erfurt,
where he lectured on Homer, he made the figures
of the deities and heroes of ancient Greece pass
before the eyes of the astonished spectators. At
Frankfort he found four itinerant conjurors, who cut
off each other^s heads, and replaced them; and
he observed that they had by them a vessel con-
taining a liquid which they pretended was the
elixir of life, and into which the heads were dipped
as they were successively severed from the bodies.
In this vessel they placed a lily-bud, which ex-
panded into full blossom when it had been a few
moments in the liquid. Faust having rendered
himself invisible, quietly watched the exhibition
until the moment when the fourth head was cut
off, and dexterously broke the flower from its stalk.
This rendered the charm inoperative, and the horri-
fied conjurors found themselves unable to restore
the head of their unhappy companion to his
shoulders.

The love of mischief which was displayed in
this prank appears in several of Faust^s adventures,
some of which have a suspiciously close resemblance

The Lives of the Conjurors. "ji

to stories whicli are told of other magicians. On
one occasion, he asked permission of a churKsh
peasant to ride on his waggon, and, being refused,
pronounced a conjuring formula, on which the
horses fell down as if dead, and the wheels, de-
taching themselves from the waggon, flew through
the air in the direction of the town which the peasant
had quitted an hour before. Having enjoyed the
fellow^s terror for awhile, he revived the horses by
sprinkling some sand upon them, and told the
waggoner that he would find the wheels at the
gates of the town he had come from, one at each of
the four gates, where the wondering and awe-
stricken man found them.

On his return to Wittenberg, he entertained his
former college companions with a banquet, spreading
the table with every delicacy, and regaling them with
the richest wines. Some of his guests wishing to
behold Helen, he conjured before their admiring
eyes the beautiful Greek, as he had raised Alex-
ander for the entertainment of the emperor.
Marlow has altered this incident in his tragedy by
making Mephistopheles raise Helen, between two
Cupids, for the gratification of Faust solus.

We next find Faust on a visit to the Prince of
Anhalt, whose hospitality he returns by inviting his
host and hostess to a castle which he had erected

72 The Lives of the Conjurors.

by magic on an island in the midst of a lake near
Dessau. Aquatic birds of various kinds floated on
the water, and perching birds of brilliantly coloured
plumage flew from tree to tree. There were five
towers and two gates to the castle, the latter open-
ing into a spacious court-yard. Crossing a lofty
haU, and traversing a passage with many apart-
ments on the right and the left, Faust conducted his
guests to the banqueting-room, where the table
was spread with the most delicious viands, the
richest wines, and a profusion of gold plate, which
he professed to have borrowed from the Pope for
that occasion. As they were returning to their own
palace, the prince and princess looked back, and

«

saw the magic castle disappear in a flash of fire
and a pufi* of smoke.

Returning to Wittenberg, he again entertained
his former fellow-students at Christmas, when,
though snow covered the fields around the city,
the gardens of Faust displayed verdure and
blossoms, as if it had been summer. Boses
bloomed, and exhaled their wonted fragrance;
and ripe fruit hung from the vines and fig-trees.
Faust is represented at this time, when his end was
drawing near, as surrounding himself with every
luxury, and indulging inordinately in sensual plea-
f«ures. He had seven or eight mistresses, selected

The Lives of the Conjurors. 73

from among the most beautiful women of the dif-
ferent countries he had visited; and was served
in a magnificence unsurpassed at the courts of the
greatest sovereigns.

As the dreaded end of his term of power ap-
proached, he became melancholy, often avoided the
society of his mistresses and friends, and ceased to
invoke the aid of Mephistopheles. On the eve of
the impending catastrophe, he invited his old
friends to a farewell banquet, after which he con-
fessed to them his compact with Satan, and, at
parting with them, just before midnight, mingled
expressions of despair with beseechings for their
prayers. They had scarcely left him when a violent
thunder-storm arose, and, as the midnight hour
boomed upon the air, horrid cries and sounds like
the hissing of serpents proceeded from the magi-
cian^s house. On the following morning his friends
returned, but Faust had disappeared, and the walls
and floor of the apartment in which they had left
him were splashed with blood. A corpse, sup-
posed to be Faust's, dismembered, and with the face
so frightfully mangled that the features were un-
recognisable, was found in a distant field. The
priests refused it religious rites, and it was privately
interred amidst the ruins of an ancient temple of
Mars.

74 The Lives of the Conjurors.

This legendary history of Faust mingles the
impossible so profusely with the credible that it has
been doubted whether such a person had a real ex-
istence. But there is no reason to doubt that a
stratum of fact underlies these wild romancings,
though what we really know of the magician is very
little. Gressner refers to him as a contemporary,
and Melancthon mentions him in his letters. Wier
informs us that he was bom at Cundling, near
Cracow, but was educated at Wittenberg, as set
forth in the marvellous history of 1587. Many of
the stories related of him may be true, as he was
probably an itinerant conjuror, and may have ex-
hibited the phantoms which he is said to have raised
at Innspruck, Erfurt, and Wittenberg by means of
optica] apparatus of the kind used by Cornelius
Agrippa.

Naude, who recorded in his history the names of
all the most distinguished magicians who had ever
lived, mentions Faust only incidentally, however, as
being referred to in the announcement of a conjuror
who called himself ^^ the most accomplished Geor-
gius Sabellicus, a second Faustus, the spring and
centre of the necromantic art, an astrologer, a ma-
gician, consummate in chiromancy, and in agro-
mancy, pyromancy, and hydromancy, inferior to
none that ever lived." Nothing is known of this

The Lives of the Conjurors. 75

Sabellicos^ who blows his trumpet so loudly, to
confirm the high eulogium which he pronounced
upon himself.

Benvenuto Cellini seems to have dallied with
magic in the intervals of his artistic labours, and
relates, in his interesting auto-biography, a necro-
mantic adventure in which he played an active part.
Becoming acquainted while at Eome with a Sicihan
priest, who, he says, was a man of genius, and well
versed in Latin and Greek authors, the magic art
Tvas one day the subject of their conversation, and
the artist observed that he had all his life felt
a desire to become acquainted with its mysteries •
The priest rejoined that, if he had resolution enough
to endure a scene of necromancy, he might be
satisfied ; and, after some further conversation, they
greed to meet one evening in the ruins of the
Coliseum, each accompanied by a friend.

On the appointed evening, Cellini, accompanied
by an intimate acquaintance named Vincenzio
Romoli, met the priest and another student of
the Black Art ; and they proceeded to the Coliseum,
where the priest, " according to the custom of necro-
mancers, began to draw circles upon the ground,
with the most impressive ceremonies imagioable;
he likewise brought hither assafoetida, several
precious perfimaes, and fire, with some compositions

76 The Lives of the Conjurors,

also which diffiised noisome odours. As soon as he
was in readiness, he made an opening to the circle,
and having taken us by the hand ordered the other
necromancer, his partner, to throw the perfumes
into the fire at the proper time, entrusting the care
of the fire and perfumes to the rest ; and thus lie
began his incantations. This ceremony lasted
above an hour and a half, when there appeared
several legions of devils, insomuch that the amphi-
theatre was quite filled with them.'' The priest
then told Cellini that he might ask something
of the demons; but, upon the artist desiring the
presence of his Sicilian mistress, the magic spells
were found inoperative, and the spirits were
dismissed, the priest observing that the presence of
a pure boy was necessary.

On the next occasion, Cellini was accompanied,
therefore, by a boy about twelve years of age, who
was in his service, and by two friends, Agnolino
Gaddi and the before-mentioned Romoli. On
reaching the Coliseum, the priest made his pre-
parations as before, but with even more impres-
sive ceremonies, and more careful attention to
the drawing of the circle. Then he placed in
Cellini's hands a pintaculo, or magic chart, and
bade him turn it as he should direct; and to
Romoli and Gaddi he committed the care of the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 77

fire and the perfumeB. '' Having began/' con-
tinaes the artist^ ''to make his tremendons in-
vocations^ he called by their names a multitude
of demons^ who were the leaders of the several
legions^ and questioned them^ by the power of the
eternal^ uncreated god, who lives for ever, in
the Hebrew language, as likewise in Greek and
Latin ; insomuch that the amphitheatre was ahnost
in an instant filled with demons more numerous
than at the former conjuration/'

Cellini was again disappointed, the priest being
able only to obtain from the demons an assurance
that he should see lus mistress within a month.
They were then exhorted by the magician to stand
firm, as the demons were a thousand more in
number than he had intended to evoke, and also
the most dangerous of their kind. The boy
trembled violently, as he grasped Cellini's hand,
saying that he saw a million of fierce men,
threatening to destroy them, and that four armed
giants of immense stature were endeavouring to
get within the magic circle. The artist says that
they were all trembling with fear, the necromancer
as well as the rest ; but that, to calm the fears of
the boy, he assured him that what they saw was
but smoke and shadows, and that the demons were
under their power.

78 The Lives of the Conjurors.

The smoke of the burning perfumes slowly
dispersed, and the demons as gradually dis-
appeared, their numbers diminishing as they
receded from view. Then Cellini and his friends
quitted the circle, and proceeded towards their
homes, the priest declaring that, though he had
often entered magic circles, nothing so extraordi-
nary had ever happened as the scene which they
had witnessed that night. As they went along, the
boy said that he saw two of the demons leaping and
skipping before them, sometimes upon the ground,
and sometimes upon the roofs of the houses. The
priest gave no attention to them, however, but
endeavoured to persuade Cellini to join him in
demanding of the demons, on a future occasion,
that they should discover to them the treasures of
the earth, by which means they should acquire
opulence and power, while ^^ these love-afiFairs were
mere follies, from which no good could be expected.*'

Sir David Brewster, who quotes Cellini's narra-
tive, explains that the demons seen in the Coliseum
'^were not produced by any influence upon the
imaginations of the spectators, but were actual
optical phantasms, or the images of pictures or
objects produced by one or more concave mirrors
or lenses. A fire is lighted, and perfumes and
incense are burnt, in order to create a ground for

The Lives of the Conjurors. 79

the images, and the beholders are rigidly confined
within the pale of the magic circle. The concave
mirror and the objects presented to it having been
so placed that the persons within the circle could
not see the aerial image of the objects by the rays
directly reflected from the mirror, the work of de-
ception was ready to begin. The attendance of the
magician upon his mirror was by no means ne-
cessary. He took his place along with the spec-
tators within the magic circle. The images of the
devils were all distinctly formed in the air imme-
diately above the fire, but none of them could be
seen by those within the circle.

"The moment, however, the perfumes were
thrown into the fire to produce smoke, the first
wreath of smoke that rose through the place of one
or more of the images would reflect them to the
eyes of the spectators, and they would again dis-
appear if the wreath was not followed by another.
More and more images would be rendered visible
as new wreaths of smoke arose, and the whole
group would appear at once when the smoke
was uniformly difiused over the place occupied
by the images.'^ The " compositions which diffused
noisome odours,^^ were intended, he thought, to
intoxicate or stupefy the spectators, and thus
increase their tendency to deception, or add to the

8o The Lives of the Conjurors.

pliantasms before their eyes others which existed
only in their own excited imaginations. But when
the boy declared that four armed giants were
threatening to enter the circle, he gave a cor-
rect description of the eflTect that would be pro-
duced by moving the figures nearer to the
mirror, and thus magnifying their images, and
causing them to advance towards the circle.

However it may have been with Romoli and
Gaddi, and notwithstanding Cellini's assertion that
both the necromancer and himself trembled with
fear, the artist's remark that the demons were
under their power, and that what they saw was
smoke and shadows, shows that he was not entirely
ignorant of the means by which the appearances
were produced. Roscoe has recorded his belief, from
the description of the scene, and the assuring words
addressed to the boy by Cellini, ^^ that the whole
of these appearances, like a phantasmagoria, were
merely the efiTects of a magic lantern produced on
volumes of smoke from various kinds of burning
wood.'* But this explanation overlooks the impor-
tant fact that the exhibition took place about the
middle of the sixteenth century, while there is no
evidence that the magic lantern was known until
nearly a century afterwards, when it was invented
by Kircher.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 8i

The appearances described by Cellini could
certainly have been produced by means of the
magic lantern, if such an instrument had then been
in existence ; but no other means of explanation are
required than such as are known to have existed in
Cellini's time, namely, concave mirrors and lenses*
If the necromancer fitted up his concave mirror in a
box, which contained also the lights and the figures
of the demons, the remarkable aflsertion of the boy,
that he saw two of the demons running and
skipping before them as they went home, ia
accounted for by the box being carried with them*

G

CHAPTEE V.

Persecution of Conjurors — John Dee — Visions in the Magic
Mirror — ^Invocation of a Corpse — ^Attack on Dee's house by
a Mob— Brandon, the Juggler — Jannes and Jambres—
Conjuring Tricks of the sixteenth century — The Decapita-
tion Trick — Jean Cantares — A Samoied Conjuror — ^Indian
Conjurors at the Court of Jehangire — Dr. Lamb — The
Magic Tree — Invention of the Magic Lantern — English
Conjurors of the seventeenth century.

DuEiNG the latter lialf of the sixteenth century, and
throughout the seventeenth, the professors of magic
were compelled by the ban under which they had
been placed by the series of Papal edicts initiated by
that of Innocent in 1484 to ^^ do their spiriting
gently/' The spread of the Eeformation in northern
and central Europe had no efiTect in rendering the un-
happy wight who was accused of sorcery less liable
to be imprisoned and exposed in the pillory, happy
if he escaped the stake and faggot. The statutes
of Henry VIII. against conjuration, witchcraft, false

The Lives of the Conjurors. 83

prophecies, and demolition of crosses provided the
penalty of death for such oflTences ; but the amend-
ing Act of Elizabeth's reign, while it confirmed and
strengthened past legislation on the subject, limited
the punishment to the pillory.

It would have been easy for conjurors to have
avoided bringing themselves under the operation of
this law, if the people had been less ignorant, and
therefore less accessible to the suggestions of
superstition. But there were few persons in those
days who could see the simplest conjuring trick
performed without a sensation of awe mingling with
their wonder, and there was in every assembly some
weak-minded person ready to declare that such
things could be done only by the aid of the devil.
Reginald Scot states that a juggler was, in the reign
of Elizabeth, condemned as a wizard, and would
have been pilloried but for the interposition of the
Earl of Leicester.

Some of the aspirants to necromantic fame un-
doubtedly brought the law upon them by foolish
practices, in which they indulged simply because
they shared in the prevalent ignorance and super-
stition. Thus, Kelly, the profligate and unprincipled
assistant of Dee, disinterred the newly buried
corpse of a man, under the influence of the belief
that he could, by necromantic ceremonies and

o 2

84 The Lives of the Conjurors^

incantations, compel it to answer questions and
foretell events. And Dee, though as well educated
as any man of his time, was, with regard to some
matters, as weak and superstitious as his assistants.

John Dee was born in London in 1527, and
received his education at Cambridge, where he
devoted himself to the acquisition of scientific
knowledge with great assiduity. While studying
at this university, he superintended the production of
one of the comedies of Aristophanes, and intro-
duced among the machinery an artificial beetle,
which flew up to the scenic Olympus, with a man on
its back, carrying a basket of provisions. The
astonished spectators ascribed this feat, which
theatrical mechanists of the present day would
regard as a very ordinary one, to the art of the
necromancer ; and Dee was subjected to so much
annoyance through this suspicion that he left Cam-
bridge, and retired to the continent.

Astrology and alchemy entered so largely into
the scientific studies of the sixteenth century that
it does not surprise us to find a man of Dee's un-
doubted learning making them his principal study ;
or to learn that, upon the accession of Elizabeth,
the Earl of Leicester was sent to consult him as to
the aspect of the stars, in order that an auspicious
day might be fixed on for her coronation. In 1571,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 85

when te was taken ill at Louvain^ the Queen sent
over two physicians to attend him ; and when he
subsequently settled at Mortlake, she visited his
house^ to view his collection of natural curiosities
and mathematical and philosophical instruments.
Elizabeth employed him to defend by his pen her
title to the countries which English explorers had
then discovered in distant parts of the world \ and
he also received most advantageous oflfers from the
Czar and several successive Emperors of Germany.

Dee was one of those enthusiasts of science who,
in those days, having their pride of intellect in-
flamed, and their imaginations excited by the
illumination of their minds in a degree then rare,
thought nothing impossible for them, and indulged
the wildest dreams of the Rosicrucians. He occu-
pied himself with the search for the philosopher's
stone, and was haunted by the belief in the
possibility of communicating with the spirits of
the invisible world. He tells us, in his curious
Memoirs, that one day in November, 1582, as he
was praying in his museum, there appeared to him
an angel, who gave him a convex piece of black
stone, highly polished, which presented visions to
the observer, and emitted sounds, by which he was
enabled to hold intercourse with spirits.

How far Dee was deluded in this matter by some

86 The Lives of the Conjurors.

trickster, availing of the learned doctor's willing-
ness to believe whatever was most marvellous
in science, is a problem which cannot now be
solved. He seems to have fully believed in the
wonderful black stone, but it is to be observed that,
according to all accounts extant, it was his assist-
ant, Kelly, who saw, or pretended to see, the spirits
that appeared in the speculum, and reported what
he saw and heard to Dee, who sat at a table apart,
and recorded the minutes of the spiritual secmce.
A folio volume of these notes was published by
Casauban, and much of the like stuff remains in
MS. in the library of the British Museum, with the
waxen tablets, stamped with mathematical and as-
tronomical signs, which Dee used in his incanta-
tions.

Kelly was a profligate and unscrupulous scoun-
drel, who had been, previously to his connection
with Dee, convicted of perjury and punished with
the pillory and the loss of his ears. After many
disagreements between the magician and his as*
sistant, arising from the latter's unconscientious
disposition and overbearing manners, they sepa-
rated in 1589, and both led for several years a
wandering and vagabond life in various parts of
Europe. In 1595, Kelly was arrested by order of
the Emperor Eodolph II., who himself studied

The Lives of the Conjurors. 87

astrology and alchemy, and is supposed to have
adopted this measure to detain the adventurer,
whom he believed to have really discovered the art
of turning lead and copper into gold. Kelly made
an attempt to escape by twisting his sheets into a
rope, and descending from a window, but, being a
very heavy man, his weight broke the rope, and ho
fell to the ground, breaking both his legs, and
receiving internal injuries so severe that he died
shortly afterwards.

Dee was at this time in great poverty, and peti-
tioned the Queen for the means of returning to
England ; these being given to him, he came over,
had an audience of Elizabeth at Bichmond, and
again resided at Mortlake. He fell into disrepute,
however, when it was discovered that he could not
make gold, having, according to his own statement,
parted with the power of transmutation to Kelly,
and that Ms new assistants, not possessing the easy
unscrupulousness and fertile imagination of Kelly,
could see nothing in the magic speculum. Neglected
by his former patrons, and his house wrecked
and his books and apparatus destroyed by a riotous
mob, he fell into poverty, relieved at intervals by a
little pecuniary aid from the Queen, and died in
1608.

Dee's magic mirror subsequently passed into the

88 The Lives of the Conjurors.

collection of curiosities formed by the Earl of Peter-
borough, in whose catalogue it is described as '^ the
black stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his
spirits/' From this collection it passed into the
possession of Lady Elizabeth Germaine^ and thence
into the hands of the Duke of Argyle, whose son.
Lord Frederick Campbell, presented it to Horace
Walpole. On the dispersion of the Strawberry
Hill collection in 1842, when it again changed
owners, it was described in the catalogue as ^'a
singulaiiy interesting and curious relic of the
superstition of our ancestors, in the celebrated
speculum of Kennel coal, highly polished, in a
leathern case/'

Scot mentions among the most expert conjurors
of the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor
Brandon and two others, who appear to have
worked together under the names, probably as-
sumed, of Jannes and Jambres.

"What wondering and admiration there was,''
he says, "at Brandon, the juggler, who painted on the
wall the picture of a dove, and, seeing a pigeon sitting
on the top of a house, said to the King, ' So now your
grace shall see what a juggler can do, if he be his
craft's master ; ' and then pricked the picture with
a knife so hard and so often, and with so effectual
words, as the pigeon fell down from the top of the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 89

house stark dead. I need not write any furtlier
circumstance to show how the matter was taken;
what wondering was thereat, — ^how he was pro-
hibited to use that trick any further, lest he should
employ it in any other kiud of murder ; as though
he whose picture soever he had pricked must needs
have died, and so the life of all men in the hands of
a juggler, as is now supposed to be in the hands
and wills of witches/'

This author, whose work on demonology and
witchcraft was published in 1584, enumerates the
tricks performed by the itinerant conjurors of the
latter half of the sixteenth century, which comprise
many that still evoke wonder and admiration. The
list includes swallowing a knife ; thrusting a knife
through the head of a fowl, and restoring the bird
to life \ burning a card, and afterwards producing
it from the pocket of a bystander; conveying a
coin from one pocket to another ; converting money
into counters, or counters into money ; conveying
money into another person's hand; making a coin
sink through a table or vanish from a handkerchief;
tying a knot, and undoing it by the power of
words; taking beads from a string, the ends of
which are held fast by another person ; removing
com from one box to another ; turning wheat into
flour by the power of words ; burning a thread and

go The Lives of the Conjurors.

making it whole again; puUing innumerable rib-
bons from the mouth ; thrusting a knife into the
head or arm ; putting a ring through the cheek ;
and cutting off the head of a person, and afterwards
restoring it to its former position. This last trick
holds a conspicuous place among the more remark-
able conjuring feats of the present day which were
performed by itinerant conjurors three hundred
years ago, when it was sometimes called "The
decollation of St. John the Baptist.'' As shown in
the engraving in Malcolm's work on the amuse-
ments of the people, it was performed upon a table,
which had in it two circular openings, one to
enable the confederate who submitted to the opera-
tion to conceal his head, the other, which cor-
responded to a similar opening in the dish in which
the head seemed to be placed, to receive the head
of another confederate, who was concealed beneath
the table in a sitting position. Before pretending
to sever the head, the performer showed an ordi-
nary carving knife to the spectators around, who
were prevented by a sleight-of-hand trick from
observing the substitution for it of the knife
actually used, and which had a semi- circular open-
ing in the blade to fit the neck.

Scot concludes his enumeration and commentary
with a recommendation to his readers to visit Jean

The Lives of the Conjurors. 91

Cantares^ a Frenchman residing in the parish of St.
Martin, — ''in conversation a honest man, and he
will show as much and as strange actions as these,
who getteth not his living thereby, but laboureth
for the same with the sweat of his brow, and
nevertheless hath the best hand and conveyance of
any man that liveth this day/^

Europeans were at this time becoming ac-
quainted with distant parts of the globe, and learn-
ing something concerning the conjurors and
jugglers of remote regions of Asia. Eichard John-
son, who sailed with Stephen Burrough to the
Gulf of Oby in 1556, and kept a journal of the
voyage, described what he had seen done in a tent
by an old Samoied priest, which he thought very
wonderful, though he evidently suspected some
imposture. The priest, who wore a white fillet
round his head, and whose countenance was con-
cealed by a veil of chain-mail, ornamented with the
teeth of beasts and fishes, commenced the perform-
ance by beating a kind of kettledrum, and singing
in a loud, rough voice, while the native auditors
joined in the chorus. During the singing of this
hymn or incantation, the priest seemed to pass
gradually into a state of frenzy, and on its conclusion
fell down as if dead.

After a little while he arose, and, as the account

92 The Lives of the Conjurors.

proceeds, ^^ took a sword of a cubit and a span long
(I did mete it myself), and put it into his beUy,
but no wound was to be seen (tbey continuing in
their sweet song still). Then he put the sword
into the fire till it was warm, and so thrust it into
the slit of his shirt, and thrust it through his body,
as I thought; the point being out of his shirt
behind, I laid my finger upon it, then he puUed
out the sword and sat down. This being done,
they set a kettle of water over the fire to heat, and
when the water doth seeth, the priest beginneth to
sing again, they answering him ; for so long as the
water was in heating they sat and sang not. Then
they made a thing being four square, and in height
and squareness of a chair, and covered with a gown,
very close the forepart thereof, for the hinder part
stood to the tent side. The water still seething on
the fire, and this square seat being ready, the priest
put oflF his shirt and the thing like a garland which
was on his head, with those things which covered
his face ; and he had on yet all this while a pair of
hose of deer's skins, with the hair on, which came
up to his buttocks. So he went into the squs^e
seat, and sat down like a tailor, and sang with a
strong voice or hallowing.

^^ Then they took a small line made of deer's
skins of four fathoms long, and with a final knot

The Lives of the Conjurors, 93

the priest made it fast about his neck and under
his left arm^ and gave it unto two men standing on
both sides of him, which held the ends together.
Then the kettle of hot water was set before him in
the square seat (at this time the square seat was not
covered), and then it was covered with a gown of
broad cloth, without lining, such as the Russes do
wear. Then the two men which did hold the ends
of the line, still standing there, began to draw, and
drew until they had drawn the ends of the line stiff
and together, and then I heard a thing fall into the
kettle of water which was before him in the tent.
Thereupon I asked them that sat by me in the
tent what it was that fell into the water that stood
before him ; and they answered me that it was his
head, his shoulder, and left arm, which the line had
cut oflF, — I mean the knot which I saw afterward
drawn hard together. Then I rose up, and would
have looked whether it was so or not ; but they
laid hold on me, and said that if they should see
him with their bodily eyes, they should live no
longer." When they had chanted and shouted for
some time, ^^ the priest lifted up his head, with his
shoulder and arm, and all his body, and came forth
to the fire.^^

Greater wonders than this were reported from
India. Sir Thomas Roe, who visited that country

94 The Lives of the Conjurors.

in 1615^ charged with a mission from the East
India Company to the Emperor Jehangire, saw
many conjurors and jugglers there ; but his atten-
tion was much absorbed by commercial transactions
and the intrigues of the court of Ajmere^ that he
gives no account of their feats. Jehangire himself,
however, relates that he once witnessed the per-
formances of some Bengalee conjurors and jugglers,
whose fgats were so remarkable that he ascribed
them without hesitation to supernatural power.
The conjurors were desired to pi'oduce, upon the
spot, and from seed, ten mulberry trees. They
immediately planted ten seeds, which in a few
minutes produced as many trees, each, as it grew
into the air, spreading forth its branches, and yield-
ing excellent fimit. In like manner, apple, fig,
almond, walnut, and mango trees were produced, all
yielding fruit, which Jehangire assures us was of
the finest quaUty.

But this was not all. "Before the trees were
removed,^' says the imperial author, " there appeared
among the foliage birds of such surprising beauty,
in colour and shape, and melody of song, as the
world never saw before. At the close of the opera-
tion, the foliage, as in autumn, was seen to put on
its varied tints, and the trees gradually disappeared
into the earth from which they had been made to

The Lives of the Conjurors. 95

spring/' Major Price stated, many years ago, that
lie had himself witnessed similar feats in India, but
that a sheet was employed to cover the process.
'^ I have, however,^' he adds, ^' no conception of the
means by which they were accomplished, unless the
jugglers had the trees about them in every stage,
from the seedling to the fruit/'

" One night,'' continues Jehangire, " and in the
very middle of the night, when half this globe was
wrapped in darkness, one of these seven men
stripped himself almost naked, and having spun
himself round several times, he took a sheet, with
which he covered himself, and from beneath the
sheet drew out a splendid mirror, by the radiance
of which a light so powerful was produced as to
illuminate the hemisphere to an incredible distance
around ; to such a distance, indeed, that we have
the attestation of travellers to the fact, who declared
that on the night on which the exhibition took
place, and at the distance of ten days' journey, they
saw the atmosphere so powerfully illuminated as to
exceed the brightness of the brightest day they had
ever seen.

" They placed in my presence a large cauldron,
and, partly filling it with water, threw into it eight
of the smaller maunds of Irak of rice ; when,
without the application of the smallest spark of fire.

96 The Lives of the Conjurors,

the cauldron began to boil, and in a little time they
took off the lid, and drew from it nearly a hundred
platters full, each with a stewed fowl at the top.
They produced a man whom they divided limb from
limb, actually severing his head from the body.
They scattered these members along the ground,
and in this state they laid for some time. They
then extended a sheet over the spot, and one of the
men went beneath it, and in a few minutes came out,
followed by the individual supposed to have been
cut into joints, in perfect health and condition, and
one might have safely sworn that he had never
received any injury/^

Here we have the Palingenesia of Dr. Lynn per-
formed more than two hundred and fifty years ago.
The rest of the feats which so astonished the Mogul
Emperor seem to have been optical deceptions.
" They caused,'^ he says, '^ two tents to be set up,
one at the distance of a bow-shot from the other,
the entrances being exactly opposite; they raised
the canvas all round, and desired that it might be
particularly observed that the tents were empty.
Then, fixing them to the ground, two of the men
entered, one into each tent. Thus prepared, they
said they would undertake to bring out of the tents
any animal we chose to mention, whether bird or
beast, and set them in conflict with each other.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 97

Khaun-e-Jahaun^ with a smile of incredulity, re-
quired them to show us a battle between two
ostriches. In a few minutes two ostriches of the
largest size issued, one from each tent, and attacked
each other with such fury that blood was seen
streaming from their heads ; they were so equally
matched, however, that neither could get the better
of the other, and they were therefore separated by
the men, and conveyed within the tents. They
continued to produce from either tent whatever
animal we chose to name, and before our eyes set
them to fight in the manner I have attempted to
describe ; and although I have exerted my utmost
invention to discover the secret of the contrivances
it has been entirely without success.

'^ They were fiirnished with a bow and about fifty
steel-pointed arrows. One of the men took the
bow, and shooting an arrow into the air, the shaft
stood fixed at a considerable height; he shot a
second arrow which flew straight to the first, to
which it became attached, and so with every one of
the remaining arrows to the last of aU, which strik-
ing the sheaf suspended in the air, the whole imme-
diately broke asunder, and came at once to the
earth.

'^ They produced a chain fifty cubits in length,
and in my presence threw one end of it towards the

H

gS The Lives of the Conjurors.

sky, where it remained as if fastened to something
in the air. A dog was then brought forward, and,
being placed at the lower end of the chain, imme-
diately ran up, and, reaching the other end, disap-
peared in the air. In the same manner a hog, a
panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent
up the chain, and all disappeared at the upper end.
At last they took down the chain, and put it into a
bag, no one ever discerning in what way the animals
were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious
manner described.^'

There was living at this time one Dr. Lamb, an
amateur of the Black Art, concerning whom a story
is told by Baxter which is very characteristic of the
author and the time in which he lived. Lamb is
said to have invited two friends to his house, and
there amused them by causing a tree to grow, and
three little men to appear and cut it down with little
axes. One of the spectators picked up two or three
chips of the tree and carried them home, where he
had no sooner arrived than a violent storm arose.
^' You have been to Dr. Lamb's,'' said his wife, as
she shrank from the lightning flash, and trembled
at the rolling thunder. He acknowledged the fact,
related what he had seen, and produced the chips.
His wife insisted that it was the bringing of these
chips into the house which had raised the storm ;

The Lives of the Conjurors. 99

and Baxter gravely relates that, on these memorials
of Lamb's feat being thrown out of the window, the
storm ceased immediately. Lamb rendered himself
so unpopular by his indulgence in conjuring as a
pastime that in 1640 an ignorant and brutal mob
rose on him, and murdered him.

The invention of the magic lantern by Kircher,.
about the middle of the seventeenth century, sup-
plied conjurors with one of the most valuable
instruments of the craft. The concave mirror,
which does not appear to have been always, or even
usually, fitted up as there is reason for believing the
instrument which Cellini saw exhibited at Bome
was, required for its display a separate apartment,,
or at least a means of concealment which could not
always, on ordinary occasions, be commanded \ but
the magic lantern, with its lenses, its lamp, and its
slides, could be fitted up in a small compass, and
was much better adapted therefore to the require-
ments of the itinerant conjuror who had not the
means either of providing a less portable and more
expensive apparatus, or of transporting and erecting
it.

According to the rude representations of it which
are extant, Earcher's lantern was of large size, and
consisted of a box, fitted with a door on one side, a
chimney at the top to carry oflF the smoke from the

H 2

lOO The Lives of the Conjurors.

lamp^ and^ in the fronts a tube containing a lens^ and
a frame to hold the pictures to be exhibited^ which
were painted on glass. Oil was the iUuminating
medium^ and the light was concentrated upon the
picture by means of a reflector of polished steel.

The magfic lantern does not appear, however, to
have been often used by conjurors until a consider-
able time after its invention. Ady, whose curious
pamphlet entitled A Candle in the Da/rh, was pub-
lished in 1656, as an antidote to the demoralising
influence of the belief in diabolism and witchcraft,
mentions among the conjuring tricks of his time
some which are not included in Scot's enumeration
of 1584, but they include no optical illusions.
These require a room for their exhibition, and the
conjurors whom Ady describes generally exercised
their art at fairs and markets. It is a bad time for
professors of the Black Art when the people have
lost their reverence for them as persons exercising
supernatural power, and have not learned to regard
them as harmless entertainers.

Ady mentions the tricks of drawing wine from
the forehead, or from a post, and writing red and
blue with the same ink. The first is a common one
which has been performed in the streets of London
by itinerant conjurors of the present day ; but I do
not remember ever to have seen the last. Ady says

The Lives of the Conjurors. lOi

that it was performed by rubbing a portion of the
paper with fresh lemon peel, drying it, and writing
with ink made of stone blue. On the prepared
portion of the paper the writing appeared bright
red, and on other parts blue, which, says our
author, ^^ causeth great admiration in the beholders
to see a man with one pen and one and the same
ink write red and blue."

Ady's description of the mod/us opercmdi of the
conjurors of the seventeenth century is worth read-
ing for its quaintness, and for the sake of compari-
son with the performances of our own time. He
says : —

"A juggler, knowing the common tradition and
foolish opinion that a familiar spirit in some bodily
shape must be had for the doing of strange things,
beyond the vulgar capacity, he therefore carrieth
about him the skin of a mouse stopped with feathers,
or some like artificial thing, and in the hinder part
thereof sticketh a small springing wire of about a
foot long, or longer, and when he begtus to act his
part in a fair or a market, before vulgar people, he
bringeth forth his imp, and maketh it spring from
him once or twice upon the table, and then catcheth
it up, saying. Would you be gone ? I will make
you stay and play some tricks for me before you go;
and then he nimbly sticketh one end of the wire

I02 The Lives of the Conjurors.

upon his waist, and maketh his imp spring up three
or four times to his shoulder, and nimbly catcheth
it, and pulleth it down again every time, saying.
Would you be gone ? In troth, if you be gone I
can play no tricks or feats of activity to-day \ and
then holdeth it fast in one hand, and beateth it with
the other, and slyly maketh a squeaking noise with
his lips, as if his imp cried, and then putteth his imp
in his breeches, or in his pocket, saying, I will make
you stay, would you be gone ?

''Then begin the silly people to wonder and
whisper ; then he showeth many slights of activity
as if he did them by the help of his familiar, which
the silliest sort of beholders do verily believe,
amongst which he espyeth one or other young boy
or wench, and layeth a tester or shilling in his hand
wetted, and biddeth him hold it fast ; but whilst the
said boy or silly wench thinketh to enclose the piece
of silver fast in the hand, he nimbly taketh it away
with his finger, and hasteneth the holder of it to
close his hand, saying. Hold fast, or it will be gone,
and then mumbleth certain words, and crieth by the
virtue of Hocus, pocuSj hay passe, prestor, be gone ;
now open your hand, and the silly boy or wench,
and the beholders, stand amazed to see that there is
nothing left in the hand, and then for the confirma-
tion of the wonder a confederate with the juggler

The Lives of the Conjurors. 103

standeth up among the crowd (in habit like some
countryman or stranger that came in like the rest of
tlie people), saying, I will lay with you forty shillings
you shall not convey a shilling out of my hand.
It is done, saith the juggler ; take you this shilling
in your hand. Tea, marry (saith he) and will hold
it so fast as if you get it from me by words speak-
ing, I vdU say you speak in the devil's name ; and
with that he looketh in his hand in the sight of all
the people, saying, I am sure I have it ; and then
claspeth his hand very close, and layeth his other
hand to it also, pretending to hold it the faster, but
withal slily conveyeth away the shilling into his glove,
or into his pocket, and then the juggler crieth, flay
passBy presto vade, jubeo, by the virtvs of hocus
pocas, ^Us gone. Then the confederate openeth his
hand, and in a dissembling manner faineth himself
much to wonder, that all that are present may like-
wise wonder.

'^ Then the juggler calleth to his boy, and biddeth
him bring him a glass of claret wine, which he
taketh in his hand and drinketh, and then he taketh
out of his bag a fonnel made of tin or latine, double,
in which double device he hath formerly put as
much claret wine as wiQ almost fill the glass again,
and stopping this fonnel at the little end with his
finger, tumeth it up that all may behold it to be

I04 The Lives of the Conjurors.

empty, and. then setteth it to his forehead, and
taketh away his finger, and letteth the wine run
into the glass, the silly spectators thinking it to be
the same wine which he drank to come again out of
his forehead. Then he saith. If this be not enough,
I will draw good claret wine out of a post. And
then taketh out of his bag a wine-gimblet, and so
he pierceth the post quite through with his gimblet,
and there is one of his boys on the other side of the
wall with a bladder and a pipe, and conveyeth the
wine to his master through the post, which his
master (vintner like) draweth forth into a pot, and
filleth it into a glass, and giveth the company to
drink.

'^ Another way it is very craftily done by a
Spanish borachioy that is, a leather bottle as thin and
lithe as a glove, the neck whereof is about a foot
long, with a screw at the top instead of a stopple ;
this bottle the juggler holdeth under his arm, and
letteth the neck of it come along to his hand under
the sleeve of his coat, and with the same hand
taketh the tap in the fasset that is in the post, and
yet holdeth the tap half in and half out, and
.crusheth the bottle with his arm, and with his other
hand holdeth a wine-pot to the tap, so that it
seemeth to the beholders that the wine cometh out
of the tap, which yet cometh out of the bottle,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 105

and then he giveth it among the company to drink^
and being all drunk up but one small glass at the
last, he calleth to his boy, saying, Oome, sirrah, you
would fain have a cup ; but his boy maketh answer
in a disdainful manner. No, master, not I ; if that
be good wine that is drawn out of a post, I will lose
my head.

''Yea, sirrah, saith his master, then your head
you shall lose ; come, sirrah, you shall go to pot for
that word; then he layeth his boy down on the
table on a carpet, with his face downward, com-
manding him to lie still. Then he taketh a linen
cloth, and spreadeth it upon the boy's head broad
upon the table, and by slight of hand conveyeth
under the cloth a head with a face, limned so like
his boy's head and face that it is not discerned
from it ; then he draweth forth his sword or
falchion, and seemeth to cut off his boy's head;
but withal it is to be noted, that the confederating
boy putteth his head through a slit in the carpet,
and through a hole in the table made on pm-pose,
yet unknown to the spectators, and his master
also by slight of hand layeth to the boy's shoulder
a piece of wood made concave at one end like a
scuppit, and round at the other end like a man's
neck with the head cut off; the concave end is
hidden under the boy's shirt, and the other end ap-

1 06 The L tves of the Conjurors.

peareth to the company very dismal (being limned
over by the cunning limner), like a bloody neck, so
lively in shew that the very bone and marrow of
the neck appeareth, insomuch that some spectators
have fainted at the sight hereof.

^^ Then he taketh up the false head aforesaid by
the hair, and layeth it in a charger at the feet of
the boy, leaving the bare bloody neck to the view
of the deluded beholders, some gazing upon the
neck, some upon the head, which looketh gashfol,
some beholding the corpse tremble like a body new
slain. Then he walketh to the table, saying to the
head and the seeming dead corpse. Ah ha, sirrah,
you would rather lose your head than drink your
drink? But presently he smiteth his hand upon
his breast, saying. To speak the very truth in cool
blood, the fault did not deserve death ; therefore I
had best set on his head again. Then he spreadeth
his broad linen cloth upon the head, and taketh it
out of the charger, and layeth it to the shoulders of
the corpse ; and by slight of hand conveyeth both
the head and the false neck into his bag, and the
boy raiseth up his head from under the table. Then
his master taketh away the linen cloth that was
spread upon him, and saith. By the virtue of
}iocfus pocus^ and Fortunatus his night cap, I wish
thou mayest live again. Then the boy riseth up

The Lives of the Conjurors. 107

safe and well^ to the admiration of the deluded
beholders/^

The origin of the formulas used by conjurors in
their tricks^ and which Scot alludes to in the phrase
'' by the power of words/^ cannot be traced. The
words liocus pocus first occar in a pamphlet printed
in 1641, the author of which, enumerating the
sights of Bartholomew fair, mentions '^ hocus pocus,
with three yards of tape or ribbon in his hand,
showing his art of legerdemain/^

Ady, writing fifteen years later, says, in referring
to the copjurors of the first half of the seventeenth
century, — ^^ I will speak of one man moro excelling
in that craft than others, that went about in King
Jameses time, and long since, who called himself
the King's Majesty's most excellent Hocus Pocus ;
and so was he called because at playing every trick
he used to say. Hocus pocus tontus talontus, vade
celerite jiibeo, a dark composition of words, to blind
the eyes of the beholders, to make his trick pass
the more currently without discovery, because when
the eye and the ear of the beholder are both
earnestly busied, the trick is not so easily dis-
covered, nor the imposture discerned.

''The going about of this fellow,'' says Ady,
''was very usefiil to the wise, to see how easily
people among the ancient heathen were deceived in

io8 The Lives of the Conjurors.

times and places of ignorance, for in these times
many silly people (yea, and some also that think
themselves wise), will stand like Pharaoh and his
servants, and admire a juggling imposture, or like
the silly Samaritans (Acts viii. 10), who did so
much admire a seducing juggler as they said. He
was the great power of God, until they saw the
true and real miracle of Philip v. 6, And others
again, on the contrary, wiU stand aflfrighted, or run
out of the room scared, like fools, saying. The
devil is in the room, and helpeth hiTn to do such
tricks ; and some saying absolutely. He i^ a witch,
and ought to be hanged/'

It is no small testimony to the intelligence of
the conjurors of that day that they contrived to
escape hanging, while so many thousands of igno-
rant and weak-minded persons were hanged,
drowned, or burnt on the absurd charge of witch-
craft. Lamb was an amateur, and fell a victim to
an ebullition of popular fury ; and, from the acces-
sion of James I., in the first year of whose reign
sorcery was made a capital oflfence, none of the pro-
fessors of the Black Art seem to have su£fered the
penalty. A practised hand may have been con-
cerned in the tricks played in a weaver's house at
Glenluce, in Wigtonshire, about the time when
Ady was trying to infuse a little common sense into
the populsir mind ; but it was not detected.

I

The Lives of the Conjurors. 109

Sinclair, who tells the Glenluce story in his
Satan* 8 Invisible World Discovered, mnst have been
one of those whom Ady alludes to as persons " who
think themselves wise,'' though he was professor of
philosophy in the university of Glasgow. He
relates that strange sounds were heard, and strange
sights seen, in the weaver's house, and that the
minister was sent for to exorcise the evil spirit
that was supposed to have taken up its abode there-
in. The reverend gentleman went to the house,
and conjured the spirit to say what and whence he
•was.

" The foul fiend replied," says Sinclair, " that he
"was an evil spirit, come from the bottomless pit of
hell to vex this house, and that Satan was his
father. And presently there appeared a naked
hand, and an arm from the elbow down, beating
upon the floor until the house did shake again;
and also he uttered a most fearful and loud cry,
saying, ' Come up, my father — come up. I will
send my father among you : see, there he is behind
your backs ! ' Then the minister said, ' I saw,
indeed, a hand and an arm, when the stroke was
given, and heard.' The devil said to him, ' Saw
you that ? It was not my hand; it was my
father's : my hand is more black in the loof [palm] .
Would you see me,' says the foul thief, ' put out the

no The Lives of the Conjurors.

candle^ and I shall come butt the house [into the
outer room] among you Kke fire-balls /^^

The minister failed to exorcise the demon, whose
hand one day snatched a plate of porridge from
the weaver's wife. ^' Give me back the plate ! ''
cried the poor woman ; and the plate was thereupon
flung at her head, though no one was near, and
she saw not how it was done. We shall meet
with the hand and arm without a body again, more
than two hundred years later, in the back drawing-
rooms of certain believers in the spiritualism which,
in the latter half of the nineteenth century, has
taken the place of the witchcraft of the seventeenth.

CHAPTER VI.

A New Era in Conjuring — ^Neve and his Book — Story of
an Indian Fakeer — ^Fawkes and Pinchbeck — The Younger
Yeates — The Kecreations of Oomus — Jonas — ^A Conjuror's
Challenge — The Pigeon Trick— Small Fry of the Profes-
sion — Boaz—Cosmopolita — ^Ray— George HI. and the Con-
juror — Social Position of Conjurors in the Last Century.

The dense ignorance which prevailed during the
seventeenth century on the subject of conjuring, ss
the word is now understood, would be scarcely
credible at the present day, if instances did not
even now occur at intervals to show that there are
still minds which the light of knowledge has not
yet penetrated. The efforts of Scot and Ady to
dispel the foul mist of superstition were unavailing.
Books did not reach the masses in those days, and
hence, though the antidote of the former author
was administered in the last quarter of the sixteenth
century, and that of the latter in the middle of the
seventeenth, the beginning of the eighteenth found

112 The Lives of the Conjurors.

people as ready to drown a wizard as their ancestors
had been.

Porta had, in the meantime, endeavoured to en-
lighten his countrymen on the subject by pub-
lishing his treatise on natural magic, in which the
real character of the conjuror, as a public enter-
tainer, was, for the first time, fairly set forth.
^' There are,'' he says, '' two kinds of magic : one
is infamous and unhappy, because it concerns it-
self with foul spirits, and consists of enchantments
prompted by wicked curiosity; and this is called
sorcery, an art which all learned and good men
detest, and which is unable to yield any truth of
reason and nature, but stands merely upon fancies
and imaginations, such as vanish presently away,
and leave nothing behind them. The other sort
is natural magic, which all excellent wise men
admit and favour, and receive with great applause."

A book which was published in 1716, by Bichard
Neve, whose name is the first which we meet with
in the conjuring annals of the eighteenth century,
bears traces of the lingering fear of diabolical
agency which still infected the minds of the people.
Having stated, in his preface, that his book con-
tained directions for performing thirty-three leger-
demain tricks, besides many arithmetical puzzles
and many jests. Neve says, — ^^ I dare not say that

The Lives of the Conjurors. 113

I liave here set down all that are or may be per-
formed by legerdemain^ but thou hast here the most
material of them : and if thou rightly understandest
these^ there is not a trick that any juggler in the
world can show thee, but tiou shalt be able to con-
ceive after what manner it is done, if he do it by
slight of hand, and not by unlawful and detestable
means, as too many do at this day/'

He then proceeds to describe the sort of man the
operator must be : — " First, He must be one of a
bold and audacious spirit, so that he may set a good
face upon the matter. Secondly, He must have a
nimble and cleanly conveyance, for if he be a bungler
he discredits both himself and his art : and there*
fore he must practise in private till he be perfect ;.
UauB promptus fadt ; and by that means, his tricks
being cunningly handled, he shall deceive both the
eye, the hands, and the ear ; for oftentimes it falls
out in this art, dec&ptio visus decepUo tactics, et de^
ceptio auditus. Thirdly, He must have none of his
trinkets wanting when he is to use them, least he be
put to a non-plvs. Fourthly, He must also have his
terms of art; namely, certain strange terms and
emphatical words, to grace and adorn his actions,
and to astonish the beholders. And these odd
kinds of speeches must be various, according to the
action he undertakes ; as, Sey, fortuna, furia, nun^

1 14 The Lives of the Conjurors.

— ■ - - _ . . -

qudm credo, pass pass ; when came you, sirrah ? Or
this way, Hey, Jack, come aloft for your master^s
advantage. Or otherwise, Ailif, easily zaze, hit, met
mertaty SatumuSy Jupiter y MarSy Soly VenuSy Mercfwryy
Lima. Or thus, Doroctiy Micocti, et Benarocti^ velu
baroctiy AsmarocU, Ronnsee, Faronsee, hey pass pass,
etc. Fifthly, and lastly. He must have such gestures
of body as may lead away the spectators' eyes from
a strict and diligent observation of his manner of
conveyance."

During the interval between the publication of
Neve's work and the advent of the famotis Pawkes,
Hamilton's travels in India made the reading por-
tion of the public acquainted with the tricks of the
fakeers, or reUgious mendicants, of that country,
some of whom have exhibited remarkable feats,
though they are much more frequently impostors
than legitimate conjurors. One of these fellows
boasted that he would appear at Amadabant, a town
about two hundred miles from Surat, within fifteen
days after being buried, ten feet deep, at the latter
place. The Governor of Surat resolved to test the
fellow's powers, and had a grave dug, in which the
fakeer placed himself, stipulating that a layer of
reeds should be interposed between his body and
the superincumbent earth, with a space of two feet
between his body and the reeds. This was done^

The Lives of the Conjurors, 115

and the grave was tlien filled up, and a guard of
soldiers placed at the spot to prevent trickery.

A large tree stood ten or twelve yards from the
grave, and beneath its shade several fakeers were
grouped around a large earthen jar, which was
filled with water. The officer of the guard, sus-
pecting that some trick was to be played, ordered
the jar to be moved; and, on this being done by the
soldiers, after some opposition on the part of the
dirty fellows assembled round it, a shaft was dis-
covered, with a subterranean gallery from its bottom
to within two feet of the grave. The impostor was
thereupon made to ascend, and a riot ensued, in
which he and several other persons were slain.

This trick has been repeated several times in
India, under diflferent circumstaxices, one of the
most remarkable instances being that related by an
engineer officer named Boileau, who was employed
about forty years ago in the trigonometrical survey
of that country. I shall relate this story in the
officer's own words, premising that he did not wit-
ness either the interment or the exhumation of the
performer, but was told that they took place in the
presence of Bsur Lai, one of the ministers of the
Muharwul of Jaisulmer.

^^ The man is said, by long practice, to have ac-
quired the art of holding his breath by shutting the

t2

1 16 The Lives of the Conjurors.

months and stopping the interior opening of the
nostrils with his tongue; he also abstains from
solid food for some days previoos to his interment^
so that he may not be inconvenienced by the con-
tents of his stomachy while put up in his narrow
grave ; and, moreover, he is sewn up in a bag of cloth,
and the cell is lined with masonry, aud floored with
cloth, that the white ants and other insects may
not easily be able to molest him. The place in
which he was buried at Jaisulmer is a small building
about twelve feet by eight, built of stone ; and in
the floor was a hole, about three feet long, two and
a half feet wide, and the same depth, or perhaps a
yard deep, in which he was placed in a sitting pos-
ture, sewed up in his shroud, with his feet turned
inwards towards the stomach, and his hands also
pointed inwards towards the chest. Two heavy slabs
of stone, five or six feet long, several inches thick,
and broad enough to cover the mouth of the grave,
so that he could not escape, were then placed over
him, and I believe a little earth was plastered over
the whole, so as to make the surface of the grave
smooth and compact. The door of the house was
also built up, and people placed outside, that no
tricks might be played, nor deception practised.

^^ At the expiration of a full month, the walling
of the door was broken, and the buried man dug

The Lives of the Conjurors. 117

» ■

out of the grave ; Trevelyan's moonshee only run-
ning there in time to see the ripping open of the
bag in which the man had been enclosed. He was
taken out in a perfectly senseless state, his eyes
closed, his hands cramped and powerless, his stomach
shrunk very much, and his teeth jammed so fast
together that they were forced to open his mouth
with an iron instrument to pour a little water down
liis throat. He gradually recovered his senses and
the use of his limbs ; and when we went to see him
he was sitting up, supported by two men, and con-
versed with us in a low, gentle tone of voice, saying
that we ' might bury him again for a twelvemonth,
if we pleased.' '' The narrator adds, that this re-
markable individual was said, after these experi-
ments, to feel some anxiety concerning the proper
performance of the functions of his stomach and
bowels.

Fawkes must have been before the public as
a showman and conjuror long before 1732, in which
year SetchePs print of Bartholomew fair must
liave been published, in which Fawkes's show
occupies a conspicuous place, with its pictures
of juggling and acrobatic feats, and the great
conjuror performing one of his tricks. In the same
year, Fawkes performed in a room in James Street,
near the Haymarket,* where he exhibited the

1 1 8 The Lives of the Conjurors.

ingenious flower-trick of the Indian conjurors, re-
produced nearly a century and a half later by
Stodare, and more recently by Dr. Lynn, at the
Egyptian Hall. I infer the earlier practise of
Fawkes from the fact that he died in 1732, when
he was credited with the accumulation of ten
thousand pounds by the exercise of his profession.

Fawkes's show and paraphernalia passed at his
death into the possession of his son and his late
partner, a clever mechanician named Pinchbeck,
whose musical clock and cyclorama were among the
chief attractions of the exhibition. They continued
to attend the fairs held in and around London, and
their advertisement for the Southwark fair of
1733 mentions, among the items of their pro-
gramme, '' the diverting and incomparable dexterity
of hand, performed by Mr. Pinchbeck, who causes a
tree to grow out of a flower-pot, on the table, which
blossoms and bears ripe fruit in a minute ; also
a man in a maze, or a perpetual motion, where
he makes a little ball to run continually which would
last was it for seven years together only by the
word of command. He has several tricks entirely
new, which were never done by any other person
than himself.^'

Pinchbeck had at this time a shop in Fleet
Street, known by the sign of the Musical

The Lives of the Conjurors. 119

Glock^ where he displayed and sold his mechanical
curiosities ; and he also speculated, in conjunction
with Fawkes, in exhibitions and entertainments of
various descriptions, including marionettes and
wax-work. The latest advertisement which I have
been able to discover in which Pinchbeck^s name
appears relates to the Bartholomew fair of 1742.
He probably retired from the profession shortly
« afterwards, for in 1746 the name of Fawkes appears
in conjunction with that of Warner, as proprietors
of a theatrical booth. This connection was of
very brief duration, however, for in the following
year we find Warner in partnership with the
elder Teates.

The younger Yeates attended the fairs with
his father, in whose show we first find him exhibit-
ing his "incomparable dexterity of hand ^^ in 1733,
on Southwark Green. An advertisement of 1735
informs us that they " continue to entertain the
public every evening, at the Royal Exchange, with
their inimitable performances,^' commencing with
" Yeates junior's dexterity of hand, in which he's in
general allow'd to surpass all who now appear
in Great Britain." In 1737 we find them in
Smithfield during Bartholomew fair, but the younger
Yeates left his fother's show soon afterwards to
seek the favours of fortune on his own account.

f

120 TAe Lives of the Conjurors.

with what success my researches have not en-
abled me to state.

There was a long interval between the last
performance of Pinchbeck and the appearance
of Comus, a French conjuror, who commenced his
'^ physical, mechanical, and mathematical recrea-
tions '' in a large room in Panton Street at Christ-
mas, 1765. There were probably humble professors
of the art frequenting the fairs, or '^ pitching
in market-places and on village greens, but their
names and performances have not been recorded.
Comus announced that his stay in London would be
limited to fifteen days, but he prolonged it to three
months, giving two performances daily, at twelve
and six, and charging five shillings for admission.
It may be inferred, therefore, that he found his visit
profitable.

Comus did not announce to the public the wonders
which he would perform until the last weeks of his
stay in London. In his first advertisement he
merely observes that '^ his operations are so sur-
prisingly astonishing that they would appear super-
natural in an age and a nation less instructed.'^ A
month later he informed the public that they were
*' performed in so singular a manner that, notwith-
standing the surprising relations given thereof by
the nobility and gentry, to whom the Sieur Comns

The Lives of the Conjurors. 121

returns his sincere thanks for their kind reception,
he would be afraid to pass for an impostor, if
he gave a ftdl detail of his operations ix) the public/'
He had recourse to French, however, for a short
paragraph in which he ventured to state that he
had a machine which enabled two persons to com-
municate their thoughts to each other by an
instantaneous and invisible operation.

It was not until the last week of February, 1 766,
that he repeated this announcement in English,
adding that he also showed, at each performance,
^^his learned mermaid, the enchanted clock, the
metals, an operation of caperomancy, the box with
figures, the incomprehensible picket, a perpetual
magnetic motion, and many others too tedious to
mention/' In March, he announced that '^ out of
a real sense of gratitude for the kind reception he
had met with from the public,'' he would show
'^ several new operations, never before exhibited by
him ; " but he did not specify them.

He returned to Paris at the close of his Londoti
engagement, the success of which induced him to
repeat it the foUowing spring, when he performed
in a large room in Great Suffolk Street. There is
no information as to his movements between this
date and 1770, when he again visited London, per-
forming first at a room in Cockspur Street, and

122 The Lives of the Conjurors.

afterwards near Exeter Change, reducing his charge
for admission to half-a-crown. He had now, how-
ever, a formidable rival in Jonas, who, though he
had appeared almost simultaneously with Comus,
had not then obtained so much repute.

The first public performances of Jonas of which
I have been able to discover any record were given
'' at Art^s Museum, five doors from Mr. KnchbecVs,
the bottom of the Haymarket.'' But, as he an-
nounced himself as well known to the nobility and
gentry, they had probably been given previously at
private houses, like those fire-eating feats of which
we read in the diary of Evelyn. Like Comus, Jonas
did not describe his performances in his public
announcements ; and, unlike the French conjuror,
he charged only half-a-crown for admission.

It is unknown whether Jonas followed his foreign
rival to Paris, or made a tour of the provincial towns ;
but in 1768 we find him performing three times
a week at the Angel and Crown, in Whitechapel.
Later in the year, he was announced to perform at
the Bank Cofiee-house ; but the exhibition was pro-
hibited by the Lord Mayor. There was, however,
another Jonas in the field ; and in 1 769 the original
conjuror of that name challenged his namesake and
rival to a public competition by three successive ad-
vertisements in the Oazetteer. His rival did not

The Lives of the Conjurors. 123

respond publicly^ but^ as lie states in repeating his
challenge the fourth time, ''took him on a nonplus
that he could not be ready.'' There is no record of
the trial of skill having taken place, and the
challenge may, like some similar affairs of our own
day, have been given only for the purpose of at-
tracting attention to the conjuror's performances.

The original Jonas, now performing ''at a large
and commodious room at a stationer's, next the
Boot and Crown, facing the new buildings by Exeter
Change, in the Strand," thereupon advertised
himself as " the famous Jonas (who is the real and
only Mr. Jonas)." He reduced the admission fee
to a shilling, and announced that he would " per-
form the pidgeon, by giving leave to any gentleman
to hang a live pidgeon on a string, and Mr. Jona&
will cut the head off by cutting on the shadbw, so
that the body shall fall on the ground, and the head
shall remain on the string. Mr. Jonas will stand
at a distance from the live pidgeon, as a surprise to
the spectators. Also several other curious decep-
tions."

These performances were repeated in the following
year, at the same place, and during the greater
part of 1771 at a room in Chandos Street. In the
autumn of that year, Jonas took the house. No. 60, ^
Houndsditch, where, besides attending private

124 The Lives of the Conjurors.

parties, he gave liis performances every evening in
the drawing-room. The public intimations of them
are brief and vague, however being limited to '' his
amazing dexterity of hand with watches, money,
€ards, and particulariy with a basin of water, never
exhibited before in this kingdom \ and many other
curiosities too tedious to mention/'

Early in the following spring, Jonas engaged a
room at the comer of Jermyn Street and St. James's
Street, and announced that he would exhibit his
'^ astonishing dexterity and deceptions, with his new
grand apparatus, which he has lately got from
abroad, such as never was attempted before in this
kingdom,'' at the same time raising his price to two
shillings. These performances were given twice
daily, four days a week, and on Saturday evenings
at the conjuror's house in Houndsditch.

At the beginning of 1 773, Jonas opened a new
exhibition room in James Street, Covent Garden,
giving only an evening performance, and raising
the admission fee to half-a-crown. The celebrated
Breslaw had at this time become a formidable com-
petitor with him for the highest honours of the
profession, and conjurors of inferior ability were
starting into a brief notoriety, soon to be passed in
the race of fame, and driven to exercise their de-
ceptive talent in provincial towns. Whether Jonas

The Lives of the Conjurors. 125

retired from the profession with a fortune, as
Fawkes and Pinchbeck had done before him, and
Flockton and others after him, I have not been
able to discover ; but he drops out of the record at
this time.

Among the small fry of the profession there was
one who called himself Boaz, and another who as-
sumed the name of Gosmopolita, both announcing
themselves as having come from Paris. The latter
engaged a room in Bow Street, and charged five
shilhngs and half-a-crown for admission; but he
proved a failure, and after a few weeks was heard
of no more. Another was Ray, who, however, had
once the honour of performing before the royal
family, of which occasion an amusing anecdote is
related. Ray desired the Queen to say cockalorum
as the charm upon which, as he pretended, the
success of his grand deception depended. The
Queen hesitated, upon which the King, who wa&
eager to witness the conjuror's great trick, turned
to her, and said, good humouredly, '' Say cockalo-
rum, Charlotte ; say cockalorum.^'

The social position of the professional conjuror
was at this period even more dubious than that of
the actor. The prejudice against his art and its
professors which had been bom of ignorance and
superstition was dying out with the process of men*

126 , The Lives of the Conjurors.

tal enlightenment ; but lie was ranked, in common
with the juggler, the posturer, and the tumbler, as
a vagrant, and in his provincial ramblings was some-
times in danger of being treated in that character
with the stocks. He might be patronised by the
upper classes, and even by the royal family ; but
he was not admitted into good society, or even re-
garded as a respectable character. They were often
confounded with fortune-tellers, and suflTered in
repute by the error.

A newspaper of the period informs its readers,
for instance, that ^' a man in the shamefol disguise
of a conjuror, with a large wig, a hat of extraor-
dinary size, and an old night-gown on,^' was com-
mitted to prison, charged with having used subtle
craft to deceive and impose upon his Majesty^s
subjects \ and adds that '^ the mischiefs which these
impostors cause to the public are as shocking as
they are inconceivable, and persons, foolishly desi-
rous of being acquainted with ftiture events relative
to themselves, establish a credulity in their own
minds, to which nothing appears improbable that
these conjurors relate.'' Two hundred years had
elapsed since Scot published his work on diabolism
and witchcraft, and more than a century since a
translation of Porta's treatise on natural magic
appeared ; but the human mind had not yet recog-
nised and renounced the errors of its infancy.

CHAPTEE VII.

Gonjnriiig Entertainments in the Last Century — Breslaw —
The Coxyuror and the Mayor — Breslaw's " Last Legacy "
— ^Flockton — Conjurors at the Fairs — ^Lane — Robinson —
Katterfelto— His Black Cat, and its Vanishing Tail — Pinetti
and His Book — Clairvoyance Ninety Years Ago — The Con-
juror of the Royal Circus — ^Decremps — ^Astley as a Con-
juror — ^Invention of the Gun Trick — The Automaton Chess-
player.

The conjuring entertainments which were presented
to the wondering eyes of our grandfathers and
grandmothers were conducted upon a scale^ and in
a manner, very different to those of the present
day. The conjuror of the last century, though he
blew his trumpet as loudly as any prestidigitateur
of our own time that ever set up his paraphernalia
on the stage of a London theatre, could not hope
to obtain audiences large enough to fill Covent
Gkirden theatre, or even the smallest temple of the

128 The Lives of the Conjurors.

dramatic Muses whicli the metropolis then contained.
He hired a first-floor room of some house within
a radius of half a mile from Charing Cross, fitted
up his stage at one end, procured as many chairs
as the room would hold, and lighted it with wax
candles. He did not placard the metropolis with
large coloured bills, or announce the details of his
performance ; but was content with advertising
his exhibition, often very briefly, in the daily news-
papers. More often than otherwise, too, he did
not venture to depend for success upon his own
performances alone ; but interwove them with other
entertainments, such as a concert, a mechanical
exhibition, or posturing and tumbling feats.

Thus, the celebrated Breslaw informed the public,
in one of his earliest announcements, that he had
had the honour of appearing lately before their
Majesties and the Boyal Family, and most of the
nobility and gentry, " with universal applause,^' and
that he would exhibit his "astonishing dexterity
and deception, in the grandest manner, at his
commodious house, the third door from Mr. Pinch-
beck's, in Cockspur Street, facing the lower end
of the Haymarket.'^ Advertisements in the daily
papers conveyed the further information that the
room was "prepared with pit and boxes in the
most elegant and grand manner,^' and illuminated

The Lives of the Conjurors. 129

with wax candles. The charge for admission was
five shillings and half-a-crown, and the programme
comprised ^^ new amazing performances with pocket-
pieces, rings, sleeve-buttons, purses, snuff-boxes,
swords, cards, hours, dice, letters, thoughts, *num-
bers, watches, particularly with a leg of mutton/^

Breslaw, according to Caulfield, was superior to
Fawkes, " both in tricks and impudence,^^ of which
quality he may be considered to have given a
tolerable example when, having promised to give
one night^s receipts to the poor of Canterbury,
where he was then exhibiting his skill, he told the
mayor that he had divided the money amongst his
company, — for, like his predecessors, he gave a
variety entertainment, — ^^than whom none could
be poorer/^ He once met with a defeat, however,
from an unexpected quarter. He was exhibiting
a mimic swan, which floated on real water, and
followed his motions, when the bird suddenly be-
came stationary. He approached it more closely,
but the swan did not move.

There is a person in the company," said he,

who understands the principle upon which this
trick is performed, and who is counteracting me.
I appeal to the company whether this is fair \ and
I beg the gentleman will desist."

The trick was performed by magnetism, and the

cc

130 The Lives of the Conjurors.

counteracting agency was a magnet in the pocket
of Sir Francis Blake Delaval.

Breslaw gave liis entertainment in Cockspur
Street with great success for nine successive seasons;
but after 1773 it was sometimes given on alternate
evenings at other places, — in 1774, in the large
ball-room of the King's Arms, near the Royal
Exchange; in 1776, at Marylebone Gardens; and
in 1779, at the Bang's Head, near the Mansion
House.

In 1776, Breslaw reduced the admission fee to
half-a-crown for all parts of the room in Cockspur
Street, and to two shillings at Marylebone Gardens.
His conjuring entertainment was at this time inter-
larded between the first and second parts of a
vocal and instrumental concert ; and this plan was
adhered to in the three following seasons. In 1777
he introduced his " new sympathetical bell, magical
clock, and experiments on pyramidical glasses.''
He was always absent from the metropolis during
a portion of each year, when he made a tour of
the provincial towns.

After exhibiting his tricks in London for eight
years successively, he seems to have found it ne-
cessary to apply a stronger stimulus than before
to the popular organ of wonder, and in 1779 his an-
nouncements gave a fuller view of his performances.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 131

'^ Between the diflferent parts/' says one of his
advertisements of this year, ''Mr. Breslaw will
discover the following deceptions in such a manner,
that every person in the company shall be capable
of doing them immediately for their amusement.
First, to tell any lady or gentleman the card that
they fix on, without asking any questions. Second,
to make a remarkable piece of money to fly out of
any gentleman's hand into a lady's pocket-hand-
kerchief, at two yards distance. Third, to change
four or five cards in any lady's or gentleman's hand
several times into diflferent cards. Fourth, to make
a fresh egg fly out of any person's pocket into a
box on the table, and immediately to fly back again
into the pocket."

If we add to this announcement one of the pro-
grammes of this period, we shall have before us
the materials for forming a good idea of the con-
juring entertainments of the latter half of the last
century. — ''1. Mr. Breslaw will exhibit a variety
of new magical card deceptions; particularly, he
will communicate the thoughts from one person to
another, afljer which he will perform many new
deceptions with letters, numbers, dice, rings, pocket-
pieces, etc. etc. 2. Under the direction of Sieur
Changee, a new invented small chest, consisting
of three divisions, will be displayed in a most ex-

E 2

132 The Lives of the Conjurors.

traordinaiy manner. 3. The famous Rossignol, from
Naples, will imitate various birds, to the astonish-
ment of the spectators. 4. Mr. Breslaw will exhibit
several new experiments on six different metals,
watches, caskets, gold boxes, silver machineries,
etc. etc."

Breslaw seems to have made a continental tour,
or to have unusually prolonged his provincial tour,
during the two years preceding 1782, when we find
him residing first at No. 57, and afterwards at No.
10, Haymarket, offering to teach the art of legerde-
main on reasonable terms, and giving his entertain-
ment on alternate evenings at a room in Panton
Street and one in Comhill, the admission fee at
both places being two shillings. The programme
was now as follows :r — '^ I. Mr. Breslaw will display
many new invented card deceptions, too numerous
to insert. II. A satirical lecture on Heads will be
delivered by the celebrated Miss Eosomond. III.
Two favourite songs, by a young lady j and several
deceptions, by a pupil of Mr. Breslaw's. IV. Mr,
Breslaw will exhibit a variety of new deceptions
with letters, numbers, dice, pocket-pieces, rings,
silver medals, gold boxes, caskets, machineries,
etc. etc., particularly with a new grand apparatus
and experiments, to the astonishment of the spec-
tators."

The Lives of the Conjurors. 133

Breslaw retired from the profession after this
season, and in 1784 published his Last Legacy^
explanatory of his conjuring tricks and apparatus,
which he dedicated to Sir Ashton Lever. It
appears from his preface that the public mind
had received little or no enUghtenment on the
subject of conjurors and conjuring during the
seventy years which had elapsed since the publica-
tion of Novels book j for he observes that '^ the
knowledge which the book conveys will wipe away
many ill- grounded notions which ignorant people
have imbibed. Some imagine that many deceptions
cannot be performed without the assistance of
the gentleman of the cloven foot, long since
distinguished by the appellation of Old Nick, from
whence the original of this amusing science gained
the name of the Black Art. Indeed, some ages
back, when learning was confined to a few, self-
interested and designing persons pretended to
enchantment and to hold intelligence with super-
natural beings, and, by their skill in chemistry
and mathematics, so worked upon the senses that
many were brought to believe in conjuration.^'

Plockton, better known as a successful showman
than as a conjuror, used to perform some conjuring
tricks on the outside of his show, to attract an
audience; and, with Lane, Robinson, and other

134 The Lives of the Conjurors.

small fiy of the profession, attended the fairs in and
around London for a quarter of a century. In 1769
he gave a variety entertainment for some time at
Hickford's Concert Room, Panton Street ; but con-
juring does not appear to have then been included
in his programme. The fees for admission ranged
from sixpence to two shillings. The same prices
were charged in 1780, when he prefaced an
exhibition of fantoccini with a conjuring entertain-
ment at a room in the same street, probably
the same that was afterwards occupied by Breslaw.

Flockton is said to have been a poor conjuror,
but he contrived, by means of his wonderful clock,
his fantoccini, and his performing monkey, to
accumulate five thousand pounds, the whole of
which he divided at his death between the various
members of his company, who had travelled from
fair to fair with him for many years. He died at
Peckham, where he always resided in the winter,
in 1794. He bequeathed his show, and the proper-
ties pertaining to it, to Gyngell, who had latterly
performed the conjuring business, and a widow
named Flint ; but within a year after his death the
whole interest in the show was possessed by the
former.

Of Robinson, the conjuror, there is no record but
the name, which is mentioned in a newspaper report

The Lives of the Conjurors. 135

of the visit of the Duke and Dachess of Gloucester
to Bartholomew fair in 1778. One of Lane^s bills
is preserved in Bagford^s collection of notabilia
relating to that fair, now in the library of the
British Museum ; and his feats are therein shown to
have been varied by posturing and dancing by
lis two daughters. All that can be gathered con-
cerning Lane's tricks, however, is contained in the
following morsel of doggrel rhyme :—

" It will make you laugh, it will drive away gloom,
To see how the egg it will dance round the room ;
And from another egg a bird there will fly,
Which makes the company all for to cry,
*0 rare Lane ! cockalorum for Lane ! well done, Lane !

You are the man !' "

Another of the conjuring fraternity was Katter-

felto, whom Cowper described as —

" With his hair on end at his own wonders,
Wondering for his bread."

He was the son of a Prussian colonel of hussars,
and had been travelling as a conjuror on the conti-
nent, for sixteen years, and had, according to
his own account, the honour of appearing before the
Empress of Russia, the Queen of Hungary, and the
Kings of Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland,
when he made his bow to a London audience, in the
spring of 1781, at Cox's Museum, Spring Gardens.

136 The Lives of the Conjurors.

The admission fee here was two shillings for front
seats^ and one shilling for those at the back.

Katterfelto, whatever his pretensions to skill and
dexterity as a conjuror may have been, was the first
of the profession, since the time of Faust and
Agrippa, to give a philosophical character to his
entertainments, and avail of the resources aflforded
by science for the purpose of illusion. He com-
menced with a philosophical lecture, which occupied
an hour, and was followed by an entertainment
of two hours* duration, a different lecture and series
of experiments being given on each evening of the
week.

His lectures and experiments ranged, according
to his advertisement, over the sciences of mathe-
matics, optics, magnetism, electricity, chemistry,
pneumatics, hydraulics, hydrostatics, and — to com-
plete the list with some of those hard words in
which conjurors delight — ^proetics, stynacraphy, pa-
lenchics, and caprimancy. His scientific knowledge
was probably more varied than profound, and some
of the sciences of which he discoursed were,
comparatively speaking, yet in their infancy.
Hydrostatics awaited Oersted, and electricity the
experiments of Franklin. But enough was known
for the exhibition of many interesting experiments,
and Katterfelto may have been able to instruct
while he amused his audiences.

The Lives of the Conjuron^. 137

Legerdemain, or dexterity of hand, had hitherto
been the chief ingredient in the performances of the
conjurors of the eighteenth century ; but Katter-
felto aimed at the achievement of a celebrity
peculiar to himself as a revealer of conjuror^s
secrets, and a Tiota bene to his advertisements of
1 781 runs as follows : — " As many ladies and gen-
tlemen lose their fortunes by cards and dice, and
the public in general much imposed upon by a
person who shows variety of tricks in dexterity of
hand by confederacy, Mr. Katterfelto will, after his
philosophical lecture, discover and lay ^pen those
various impositions, for the benefit and satisfaction
of the public."

Katterfelto removed in the summer of 1782 to
No. 22, Piccadilly, alleging that there was not light
enough in Spring Gardens for the exhibition of
his great solar microscope. He at the same time
raised his prices by dividing the room into throe
compartments, the charges for seats in which ranged
from one shilling to three shillings. His lecture
was now extended over two hours, after which an
hour was devoted to '^ some of his other various
arts,^' including an exposure of the tricks ''by
which many persons lose their fortunes by cards,
dice^ billiards, and B. 0. table."

Early in the following year, he removed to No.

138 The Lives of the Conjurors.

24, Piccadilly, and combined with the display of the
entomological wonders of the microscope the exhi-
bition of a black cat, which he used as much in his
advertisements as in the lecture-room. He had
recourse very largely to the insertion of paragraph
advertisements, which, though he wrote them him-
self, and paid for their insertion, had the appear-
ance of being items of news, or editorial comments.
On one occasion he informed the public, in this
manner, that the Queen of Prance had written to
him, requesting to be favoured with a sight of his
wonderful cat; on another, that he had presented
Marie Antoinette with one pf the said cat^s pro-
geny. One of his bond-fide advertisements of this
year runs as follows, and explains by its heading
the poetical commentary of Cowper, quoted in a
preceding page : —

" Wonderful and Astonishing Wonders ! Won-
ders ! Wonders ! and Wonders ! are to be seen
THIS DAY by the Solar Microscope, and may also
the BLACK CAT have nine times nine lives !

" KATTBRFELTO is sorry to find that writers in
the newspapers have several times, and particularly
within the last fortnight, asserted that he and his
Black Cat were Devils. On the contrary, Kattbb-
FELTO professes himself to be nothing more than
a Moral and Divine Philosopher, a Teacher in

The Lives of the Conjurors. 139

Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; and that
neither he nor his Black Cat bear any resemblance
to Devils, as they are represented in the print-
shops ; and assures the Nobility and Public, that
the idea of him and his Black Cat being Devils
arises merely from the astonishing performances of
Kattebfelto and his said Cat, which, both in the
day^s and at the night's exhibition, are such as to
induce all the spectators to believe them both to be
Devils indeed ! — the Black Cat appearing in one
instant with a tail, and the next without any, and
which has occasioned many thousand pounds to be
lost in wagers on this incomprehensible subject.'^

Though the conjuror's name appears in the fore-
going advertisement without a prefix, he more
frequently used one, ringing the changes, however,
on Ifr., T)r,y and Col, In one, he announced the
benefit of the black cat, and many of his advertise-
ments of this year are headed with the wish,
'' May the Black Cat have nine times nine lives ! ''
In July he performed before the Court at Windsor
Castle, George III. being as pleased with a con-
juring performance as the youngest members of his
family.

Katterfelto continued to perform at the same place
throughout 1784, announcing himself, moreover, as
the inventor of phosphorus matches, and selling

140 The Lives of the Conjurors.

them, wholesale and retail, at the place of exhibition.
In 1785 he made a tour through the provinces,
displaying his wonders, in some towns with success,
and in others meeting with losses and crosses, and
encountering in rural centres the risk of being
arrested and imprisoned as a vagrant and an im-
postor, as once actually happened to him at
Shrewsbury.

The next name with which the records of con-
juring present us is that of Pinetti, an Italian who
came to London in 1784, with the reputation of
having performed before several crowned heads on
the continent, and received certificates of merit in
their royal hand-writing. He engaged the Hay-
market theatre for the winter season, and announced,
in a larger advertisement than the conjurors of
that day were wont to issue, that he would, '^ with
his consort, exhibit most wonderful, stupendous,
and absolutely inimitable, mechanical, physical, and
philosophical pieces, which his recent deep scrutiny
in those sciences, and assiduous exertions, have
enabled him to invent and construct : among which
Signora Pinetti will have the special honour and
satisfaction of exhibiting various experiments of
new discovery, no less curious than seemingly
incredible, particularly that of her being seated
in one of the front boxes, with a handkerchief over

The Lives of the Conjurors. 141

her eyes, and guessing at everything imagined and
proposed to her by any person in the company.

This is the first instance which I have been
able to discover of what has since received the
name of clairvoyance being introduced in a con-
juring entertainment, for which purpose it was
so much used by Anderson and Robert-Houdin
more than half a century afterwards. Considering
the slowness with which conjurors seem to have
availed of Kircher^s invention, perhaps from appre-
hensions of being regarded as sorcerers, the quick-
ness of Pinetti to turn to account the system to
which Mesmer^s name has been applied evinces
boldness in the adoption of new ideas which few
of his professional brethren displayed in their art.

Pinetti, who seems to have been a well-educated
man, and was a member of the Royal Academy of
Sciences at Bordeaux, as well as a Knight of the
German Order of St. Philip, published, just before
Christmas, " at the special request of several ama-
teurs and connoisseurs of distinction,^' a book
explaining thirty-three of his tricks and experi-
ments, those being selected from his programme
which, as he states, 'i not being prejudicial to him,
will afford them the greatest amusement and satis-
faction .'' Two editions, English and French, were
published, each selling at five shillings, and obtain-

\

142 • The Lives of the Conjurors.

able only from the author, who resided at No. 10,
Haymarket, the house in which Breslaw lodged
two years previously. The ''elegant copper-plate
engravings ^' with which it was advertised as illus-
trated are a frontispiece and a vignette on the
title-page, both of an allegorical character, and
designed for the glorification of the author.

Pinetti performed several times before George
m. and the royal family, and received his Majesty's
autograph in a letter of commendation. Early in
1785 he emulated the feat with which Cornelius
Agrippa is credited, and anticipated the ingenious
artist who constructed the automaton flying tra-
pezist which puzzled visitors to the Polytechnic a
few years ago, by producing a life-sized automatic
figure, which, in acrobatic costume, performed all
the feats of the best rope-dancers of the age.

The season closed on the 4th of February, when
the programme was announced as follows : — '' Act I.
All the most favourite, surprising, and pleasing
Philosophical, Physical, and Mechanical Pieces, as
well exhibited, as others not yet seen, and which
will not fail to afiect the minds of the spectators
with wonder and admiration. .Act II. — The repeti-
tion of the prodigious performance of the Rope-
dancing Automaton Figure, of the size of a Man !
The particulars of which performance, without

The Lives of the Conjurors. 143

inspecting it, (as is confessed by all who have seen
it,) being received almost with incredulity, he
thinks most proper to leave in silence. Act III.
The new, truly most superb, majestic, amazing,
and also seemingly incredible grand spectacle of
the Venetian Beautiful Pair, which Mechanical
Figure, being attired in character, and holding the
balance in hands, dances and exhibits upon the
Tight Rope, with unparalleled dexterity and agility,
and in a manner far superior to any exhibited by
the most capital professors, all most difficult o-nd
prodigious Feats of Activity, Leaps, Attitudes,
Equilibriums, Antics, etc. etc.. absolutely beyond
imagination and proper description. Signor Pi-
netti being certain of having never exaggerated
in his advertisement, the candid public will, he
hopes, as constantly believe him, that he never
departs from, but adheres always to truth only.'^

Pinetti left London shortly afterwards, first re-
ducing the price of the English edition of his book
to half-a-crown ; and commenced at Paris a suc-
cessful continental tour. At Easter he was suc-
ceeded in London by a conjuror calling himself
Signor Spinetti, who was engaged by Hughes to
perform at the Royal Circus in the pantomime of
The Talisrrum of Oresma/nes, Two automatons were
introduced in this entertainment, one of which

144 The Lives of the Conjurors.

postured on the tight rope, in the form of a monkey,
while the other imitated the singular performances
of the famous Learned Pig.

Pinetti's departure from Paris is said to have
been hastened by the publication of a work entitled
ha Magie Blcmche JDhoilee, an English translation
of which appeared immediately afterwards under
the title of The Gonjuror Unmasked, "If/' says
the preface to the latter, " M. Pinetti ever intended
to keep his promise in giving to us a complete solu-
tion of all his tricks, this book will save him that
trouble ; and we promise for a certainty that it will
operate as a spring to the industry of performers in
that art by compelling them to some new inventions
to deceive and amuse us/' It may be doubted whether
Pinetti ever made the promise referred to, having
regard to his statement concerning his book, namely,
that he had revealed only those secrets of the art
the publicity of which would not be prejudicial to
him ; and the preceding assertion of the translator
is probably a mere boast. The author of the book
was a Frenchman named Decremps, and it is em-
bellished with a frontispiece representing a conjuror
performing the feat of burning a card, throwing the
pack into the air, firing a pistol, and nailing the
same card to the wall.

Pinetti on leaving Paris, travelled through Prance

The Lives of the Conjurors. 145

and Italy, performing with great success in all the
principal towns. He was in Italy several years,
but always avoided going to Rome, where magic
was held in horror, and so clever a conjuror as
Knetti could scarcely have avoided arrest by the
familiars of the Inquisition, and a long imprison-
ment. On leaving Italy, he travelled through Austria
and Poland; and in 1796 passed into Russia, where
he contracted a fever, and died at a village in
Volhynia.

The publication of The Conjuror Unmasked was
followed closely by the appearance of another, en-
titled Natural Magic, which reveals Philip Astley,
the famous equestrian, in two characters in which he
is not generally known to have appeared, namely,
those of a conjuror and an author. The book not
only bears his name on the title-page, opposite a
poor copy (with only a slight variation of the fore-
ground) of the frontispiece of Decremps ; but con-
tains an anecdote of his military experiences, in
which he claims to have invented the famous gun
trick, with which the name of Anderson was so long
associated.

While his regiment was in Germany, two of Hs
comrades quarrelled, and determined to fight with
pistols. He acted as second to one of them, and
wishing to prevent the eflfusion of blood, devised a

14^ The Lives of the Conjurors.

trick to prevent casualties, and induced the second
of the other man to assent to its execution. Tin
tubes were made to fit the barrels of the pistols, in
which they moved freely; and the bullets were
dropped into these tubes upon charges of powder.
At the moment of handing the weapons to the
duellists, the tubes were dexterously withdrawn,
with the balls in them ; so that only blank charges
were fired. The principals were so dissatisfied with
the results, however, that they fired three times at
each other before they could be induced to abandon
their sanguinary designs, and consider their honour
appeased. This incident suggested to Astley his
pistol trick, performed in the same manner, and
differing fi'om De Linsky^s and Anderson^s similar
performance in the buUet being shown on the point
of a knife.

In the same year that the conjuring books of
Decremps and Astley were published, namely, 1785,
the celebrated automatic chess-player was first ex-
hibited in London, having previously been shown
in various cities of Germany and France. It had
been invented about fifteen years before by a Hun-
garian noble, the Baron von Kempelen, who had
until then, however, declined to permit its exhibi-
tion in public. Having witnessed some experiments
in magnetism by a Frenchman named Pelletier,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 147

performed before the Court of Maria Theresa,
Kempelen had observed to the Empress that he
thought himself able to construct a piece of
mechanism the operations of which would be far
more surprising than the experiments they had
witnessed. The curiosity of the Empress was ex-
cited, and she exacted a promise from Kempelen to
make the attempt.

The result was the automatic chess-player,
which the inventor exhibited six months after-
wards, to the admiration and astonishment of the
Empress and all the Court. He was urged to ex-
hibit it in public, but decUned, refused several
liberal offers for its purchase, and even took part
of the mechanism to pieces. In this imperfect
condition it remained for several years, until, on the
occasion of a visit made by the Grand Duke Paul
of Russia and his consort to the Austrian Court,
the Empress expressed a wish for its exhibition
for their gratification. In five weeks it was
repaired, and the imperial visitors were so de-
lighted by its performances, that they urged
Kempelen to permit its public exhibition, with
which request he at last complied.

The automatical character of Kempelen's inven-
tion has been doubted ; and there were circum-
stances connected with its exhibition which might

L 2

148 The Lives of the Conjurors.

fairly give rise to suspicion. The figure was of
the size of life^ dressed as a Turk^ and seated
behind a square piece of cabinet work, two feet and
a half high, three feet and a half long, and two
feet wide. It was fixed upon casters, so as to
run over the floor, and satisfy beholders that there
was no access to it from below. On the top, in the
centre, was a fixed chess-board, towards which the
eyes of the figure were directed. Its right hand
and arm were extended towards the board, and its
left, somewhat raised, held a pipe.

Four doors, two in the front, and two in the back,
were opened, and a drawer in the bottom, contain-
ing the chess-men and a cushion, used to support
the arm of the figure while playing, was pulled out.
Two lesser doors were also opened in the body of
the figure, and a candle was held within the
cavities thus displayed. The spectators expressing
themselves satisfied with this inspection, the
exhibitor wound up the machinery, placed the
cushion under the arm of the figure, and challenged
any gentleman present to play.

The Turk always chose the white men, and
made the first move. The fingers opened as the
hand was extended towards the board, and the
piece was deftly picked up, and removed to the
proper square. After a move made by the human

The Lives of the Conjurors. 149

player^ the automaton paused for a few moments as
if contemplating the game. On giving check to
the king, it made a movement with its head. If a
false move was made by its opponent, it tapped on
the table impatiently, replaced the piece, and
claimed the move for itself. If the human player
hesitated long over a move, the Turk tapped
sharply on the table. At the close of the game, it
moved the knight, with its proper motion, over each
of the sixty-four squares of the board in turn,
without missing one, and without ever returning to
the same square.

The mind fails to comprehend any mechanism
capable of performing with such accuracy move-
ments which require knowledge and reflection \ and
various conjectures have been oflTered as to the
means by which the moves of this seeming au-
tomaton were made. The accounts of the exhibition
snggest human intervention more than they favour
the pretensions of the inventor to have produced
an automaton, though it is obvious that the operator
must have been a dwarf. Beckman says indeed
that a boy was concealed in the figure, and prompted
by the best chess-player whose services the
proprietor could obtain. This is confirmed
by Robert-Houdin, who says that the original
player was a deformed Russian, named Worousky.

150 The Lives of the Conjurors.

According to Beckman^ the player in London
was Lewis.

It is to be observed, that the doors were opened
separately, and that no variation ever occurred in
the order in which they were opened and closed.
The machinery was always at rest when shown to
the spectators, and careftdly concealed from view
while in motion, rendering it impossible to ascertain
how far it was really connected with the movements
of the figure. In winding it up, the key always
performed the same number of revolutions, what-
ever might have been the number of moves made
in the course of the game. More than sixty moves
were sometimes executed without the mechanism
requiring to be wound up, though it was once
observed to be wound up when no move at all had
been made. All these circumstances seem to be
opposed to the supposition that the mechanism pos-
sessed any power of governing the movements of
the figure, according to the varying conditions of a
game of chess ; or that it served any other purpose
than that of throwing dust in the eyes of the
spectators.

On the death of the Baron von Kempelen, in
1819, the automaton was sold to an exhibitor named
Maelzel, and again visited London, creating almost
as much wonder as it had done thirty-four years

The Lives of the Conjurors. 151

previously. It was observed, however, that the
automaton was now frequently defeated, which had
never happened in 1785. This circumstance has
been held to still further weaken its claim to be
reaUy automatic, it being argued that it was less
likely that a machine of wood and metal should
forget its cunning than that the invisible player of
1819 should be less skilful than his predecessor of
1785. Perhaps, however, its powers were impaired
by age. After experiencing many and various
changes of fortune, and being owned successively by
Napoleon I. and Prince Eugene Beauhamais, the
automaton travelled to America, where it realised
for its exhibitor even greater profits than it had done
in Europe. It perished at length in the fire which
consumed the theatre in which it was exhibited in
Philadelphia in the summer of 1854.

CHAPTEE VIII.

Suocessors of Pinetti — Heniy — Conntis — The Vanishing Lady
— Melyille — Cagliostxo— Rollin — ^A Coiyuror on the Scaf-
fold — Comus the Second — Coinage of Hard Words —
Another Clairvoyant Conjuror —Improvement of the Magic
Lantern— Bobert's Optical Illusions — Raising the Dead—
Philipstal's Phantasmagoria — Moritz — Bologna — Moon —
EUiston and the Conjuror — ^A Conjuror's Law Suit.

The death of Pinetti furnished a London journal-
ist with a theme for a witticism which, though
ill-timed, was conceived in the professional humour
of the conjuror. " Poor Pinetti, laid in his coffin,
finds death is no conjuror,'* wrote the humourist ;
" and that he never suffers to escape, by sleight of
hand, the bird which he once confines in his
box/'

His immediate successors as entertainers of that
portion of the British public which delights in the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 155

exhibition of conjuring tricks were Henry and
Connns^ the former of whom claimed to be the
original inventor of inflammable air fireworks, with-
out smoke, smell, or noise, though the nature and
composition of this class of pyrotechnics appear
to have been known early in the sixteenth cen-
tury. Henry, who styled himself Professor of
Natural Magic, exhibited them, with many other
experiments in what may be called the magic of
science, at the Lyceum, and afterwards at Astley's
Amphitheatre, in 1788. Like several of his pre-
decessors in the profession, he realised a consider-
able fortune by its exercise.

Connus arrived from Paris in the following
spring, and gave, at No. 31, Haymarket, a perform-
ance of which I have found no other account than
is contained in his advertisements, in which he an-
nounced that he would, ^' by slight of hand, convey
his wife, who is five feet eight inches high, under
a cup, in the same manner as he would balls ; he
will also exhibit an infinite number of other tricks
too tedious to mention.'*

He also attended private parties. He afterwards
returned to Paris, and repeated his visit to London
in the spring of 1 790, performing in the same place
as before.

Between the two appearances of Connus in Lon-

154 The Lives of the Conjurors.

don, an entertainment was given in the metropolis
by John Melville, who, under the assumed name
of Scotcianus, undertook to show and explain, or,
as he termed it, to expose the manner in which
conjuror^s tricks were performed. Whether his
elucidations were genuine and satisfactory to his
audiences, contemporary records do not inform us ;
but I am disposed, as far as the exercise of the con-
juror^s art is concerned, to agree with Butler that —

** The pleasure is as great
/ In being cheated as to cheat."

The notorious Giuseppe Balsamo, better known
by his assumed name of Cagliostro, and who has
been the hero of two or three romances, was about
this time performing his mummeries in London,
after rendering his name famous, and no less in-
famous, in almost every other European capital.
He was at this time a middle-aged man, having
been bom in 1743, at Palermo. His parents were
in lowly circumstances, but some of the family were
in a better position, for he is said to have escaped
the penalty of some of his early misdeeds through
the exercise of their influence in his favour. He
was educated, at first, in the seminary of St. Roch,
in his native city; and in his fourteenth year entered,
as a novice, a monastery of the Order of Mercy at

The Lives of the Conjurors. 155

Cartagirone, where lie was taught the elements of
medicine and chemistry by the apothecary.

Having been chastised on several occasions for
the mischievous and unseemly pranks which he
played upon the monks, he at length absconded,
and, returning to Palermo, soon became unfavour-
ably known to the police and the magistrates.
From forging orders of admission to the theatre
lie proceeded to robbing an uncle, for which oflTence
lie was prosecuted, but was discharged on the
ground of iusufficient evidence. He was equally
fortunate in escapiag the consequences of an accusa-
tion of murder ; and his forgery of a will, which he
committed for a bribe, was not discovered until
several years afterwards, when he had left the
city.

Growing bolder by impunity, he planned with
some of his dissolute acquaintances a fraud of a
singular character upon a wealthy goldsmith named
Murano, whom he induced to give him sixty ounces
of gold by pretending to be able to show him a vast
treasure, which he alleged to be concealed in a cave
near the city. On the deluded goldsmith going
with him to the cave, he performed some mum-
meries, which Murano supposed to be magical rites,
but which were followed by the appearance of
Salsamo's accompUces in the guise of demons. By

1 56 The Lives of the Conjurors.

these fellows the goldsmith was cufiFed and cud-
gelled until he fled, leaving the rogues to laugh at
his folly, and divide their ill-gotten gains. Murano
vowed revenge, however; and Balsamo learning
that, deeming recourse to the laws imprudent, he
meditated murder, left the city as secretly as he
could, and proceeded to Messina, whence he
embarked for Alexandria.

Whatever his views were at this time, he did not
remain long in Egypt, but proceeded to Valetta,
where he obtained employment in the laboratory of
the Grand Master of the Order of Malta. We next
find him at Naples, where he married Lorenza
Feliciani, a young woman of great beauty, but as
profligate as himself. After travelling through
Italy and Germany under various names, sometimes
assuming the title of count, aud sometimes calling
himself a physician, but always combining the
characters of a conjuror and a quack, he arrived in
1780 at Strasburg, where he pretended to be able
to restore the aged to the freshness and vigour of
youth. His wife aided the imposture by pretend-
ing that she was sixty years of age, and had a son a
veteran in the service of Holland, although she was
really only in her twenty-first year.

From Strasburg they proceeded to Paris, where
they obtained as many dupes as in the capital of

The Lives of the Conjurors. 157

Alsace \ but Balsamo, becoming implicated in the
affair of the diamond necklace which Cardinal de
Rohan wished to present to the Queen, was ar-
rested, and confined for some time in the Bastille.
On obtaining his liberation, he was ordered to leave
France, and thereupon came to London, where he
remained two years. On leaving this country, he
proceeded through Switzerland to Italy, where,
while residing in Rome, he was arrested and com-
mitted to the castle of St. Angelo on the ridiculous
charge of being a freemason. So great was the
horror in which the Pope and the priests held all
secret societies, and which seems as strong at the
present day as it was a century ago, that Balsamo
was condemned to be imprisoned for life, and died
in the fortress of St. Leo in 1795.

Another famous conjuror of this period was
Rollin, grandfather of the late political celebrity of
that name, who was Minister of the Interior in the
Provisional Government of 1848. After accumulat-
ing a fortune by the exercise of his profession, and
purchasing the chateau of Fontenay-aux-Roses, in
the department of the Seine, Rollin incurred the
suspicions of the Committee of Public Safety in
1 793, and suffered death by the guillotine. On the
warrant for his execution being read to him, he
turned to those about him with a smile, and ob-

158 The L ives of the Conjurors.

served, '^ That is the first paper I cannot conjure
away/' He left two sons, each of whom, after the
fall of Robespierre, planted a cedar in the courtyard
of the paternal mansion, where the trees have since
grown to magnificent dimensions. .

A second Comus — ^for he can scarcely have been
identical with the French conjuror of that name
who was contemporary with Jonas — appeared early
in June, 1793, at No. 28, Haymarket, as then an-
nounced '^for one week only,*' but prolonged his
stay for '^ a few nights more,*' until the middle of
July, charging half-a-crown for admission. He had
previously made the tour of the provincial towns
with considerable success. His programme was
divided into three parts, the first of which consisted
of an exhibition of magical watches and sympathetic
clocks, and the others of the tricks which now con-
stituted the ordinary repertoire of the conjuror;
but, after the first week, he condensed the latter
into the opening part, exhibited in the second the
invisible agent for the interchange of thought
which had been a leading feature of the entertain-
ment of the original Comus, and comprised in the •
third '^various uncommon experiments with his
Enchanted Horologium, Pyxidees Literarum, and
many curious operations in Rhabdology, Stegano-
graphy, and Phylacteria, with many wonderful per-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 159

formances on the grand Dodocahedron, also Charto-
mantic Deceptions and Kharamatic Operations.
To conclude with the performance of the Tereto-
paest Figure and Magical House; the like never
seen in this kingdom before, and will astonish
every beholder/'

Comus was a skilful coiner of the hard words so
much affected by conjurors, and some of the pro-
ductions of his mint would puzzle a Cambridge
professor of Greek. It may be well, therefore, to
inform the reader that his Thaumaturgic Horolo-
gium was, as subsequently described by him, a
self-acting machine — the only one then existent, —
-which, '' by the means of an Alhadida moving on a
Cathetus, discovers to the company the exact time
of the day or night by any proposed watch, though
the watch may be in any gentleman's pocket, or
five miles distant, if required ; it also points out the
colour of any lady or gentleman's clothes, by the
wearer only touching it with a finger, and is further
possessed of such occult qualities as to discover
the thoughts of one person to another, even at an
unlimited distance.*'

The Pyxidees Literarum is described as ^'an
operation never attempted before by mankind, as
follows : — ^He gives any person in company a sealed
letter, together with an empty box ; he then desires

i6o The Lives of the Conjurors.

tliem to fix their thoughts on any person's name in
the whole world, which being done, a piece of blank
writing paper may be burnt to ashes and put into
the box ; the letter may then be opened, and there
will be found wrote therein the name of the person
who was thought on ; also, on opening the box, the
ashes will instantly change into paper, with curious
writing thereon, which, being read, will incon-
testably prove that there are possible means of
procuring a knowledge of future events/'

The Steganographical Operation reminds us of
clairvoyance, being described as " the art of imbib-
ing any person's thoughts in an instant, by the
assistance of an invisible agent, by which means
the Sieur Comus writes in one room any word,
sentence, or whole letter which any person shall in
another room, and the handwriting so exact that,
when compared, it is impossible to distinguish any
difference."

The Teretopaest Figure was described as auto-
matic, but, as it appeared on a tabled bowed to the
audience, and then vanished, reappearing and dis-
appearing any number of times, a yard above the
table, the description may be doubted. It may
fairly be suspected to have been a child, made to
appear in that position and vanish at will by the
aid of a concave mirror, which some of the con-

The Lives of the Conjurors. i6i

juror's advertisements show him to have pos-
sessed.

Comus made a provincial tour during the latter
part of the summer and beginning of autumn,
returning to the Haymarket in November, when he
added to his exhibition the figure of a swan, which
swam in water and discovered any name thought of
by any person present, without its communication
to the conjuror, or even his presence in the room.
He also transferred, as if by enchantment, a ring
from a lady's finger into a gentleman's snuflT-box,
from which, on the box being opened, it passed
mysteriously into a sealed letter, and, on the letter
being opened, to the lady's finger again. He pro-
longed his stay in the metropolis on this occasion to
the end of May, exhibiting during the last month a
'^ marvellous mirror,'' wherein were seen the cards
thought of by any of the spectators.

After a summer tour of the provinces, he re-
turned to the Haymarket again in the first week of
November, with — in addition to his former decep-
tions, including the magic mirror, — the trick of
conjuring from a person's hand a guinea, which
•was immediately found sealed up in seven enve-
lopes, which were locked up in seven iron caskets.
The season was brought to a close earlier than

M

1 62 The Lives of the Conjurors.

before, however, and Comus did not appear in
London afterwards.

Some improvements had, since Kircher's time^
been made in the magic lantern. Robert, a French
conjuror of the Cagliostro type, introduced the
direct shadows of living objects, which imitated the
appearance of those objects on a dark night, or by
moonlight. An idea of the nature of the seances of
this modem sorcerer may be formed from an
account which appeared in a Paris journal, TJAmi
des Lois, in 1798.

^^ I found myself,'* says the writer, '^ with some
sixty persons in a well-lighted apartment. A pale
weazen-faced man entered the room, and, after
extinguishing the wax lights, said, ' Citizens, I am
not one of those impudent charlatans who promise
more than they can perform. I have assured the
world, through the Journal de Paris, that I can
raise the dead; and I will raise them. Those of
the company present who may desire the reappear-
ance of persons whom they have loved, and whose
life has terminated, have but to speak; I will obey
their commands.'

^^ A moment of silence followed, and then a man
in great disorder, with bristling hair and sad eyes,
said, ' As I have been unable to re-establish the
creed of Marat, I desire at least to see his spirit/

The Lives of the Conjurors. 163

M. Robert then poured upon a lighted brazier two
glasses of blood, a phial of vitriol, and two drops of
alcohol, and threw on two numbers of the Journal
of Free Men, whereupon there arose before us, little
by little, the phantom of a man of low stature, livid
and hideous, armed with a dagger, and wearing on
its head the red cap of the Eevolution. The man
with the dishevelled hair instantly recognised it as
Marat, and strove to embrace it ; but the phantom
gave a hideous leer and vanished.

" A young man desired to see the apparition of a
woman whom he had tenderly loved, and showed
her miniature to the magician, who threw upon the
brazier some swalloVs feathers, a dozen dried
butterflies, and a few grains of phosphorus. We
presently saw the phantom of a young woman, with
her hair floating over her shoulders, fixing her gaze
upon her lover, and regarding him with a tender
and melancholy smUe/'

Sir David Brewster, in his interesting work on
natural magic, has some remarks on the app^ica-
bility of the concave mirror to the purposes of the
magician, which show that Robert's exhibition may
have been worked with some such arrangement,
and also throw light upon the manner in which the
cards were shown by Comus in his magic mirror.
''Concave mirrors,'* he observes, "are distinguished

m2

164 The Lives of the Conjurors.

by their property of forming in front of them, and
in the air, inverted images of erect objects, or erect
images of inverted objects, placed at some distance
beyond their principal focus. If a fine transparent
cloud of blue smoke is raised, by means of a
chafing-dish, around the focus of a large concave
mirror, the image of any highly illuminated object
will be depicted, in the middle of it, with great
beauty. A skull concealed from the observer is
sometimes used to surprise the ignorant ; and when
a dish of fruit has been depicted in a similar man-
ner, a spectator, stretching out his hand to seize it,
is met with the image of a drawn dagger, which
has been . quickly substituted for the fruit at the
other conjugate focus of the mirror/'

In 1802, Philipstal produced an exhibition, under
the name of the Phantasmagoria, which produced
the most startling efiects upon the spectators. Sir
David Brewster, who witnessed it in Edinburgh,
described it as follows: — ^'The small theatre of
exhibition was lighted only by one hanging lamp,
the flame of which was drawn up into an opaque
chimney or shade when the performance began.
In this ^ darkness visible,' the curtain rose, and
displayed a cave, with skeletons and other terrific
figures in relief upon its walls. The flickering
light was then drawn up within its shroud, and

The Lives of the Conjurors. 165

the spectators in total darkness found themselves in
the middle of thunder and lightning. A thin trans-
parent screen had, unknown to the spectators, been
let down after the disappearance of the light, and
upon it the flashes of lightning, and all the subse-
quent appearances, were represented. This screen,
being halfway between the spectators and the cave
which was first shown, and being itself invisible,
prevented the observers from having any idea of
the real distance of the figures, and gave them the
entire character of aerial pictures.

"The thunder and lightning were followed by
the figures of ghosts, skeletons, and known indivi-
duals, whose eyes and mouths were made to move
by the shifting of combined slides. After the first
figure had been exhibited for a short time, it began
to grow less and less, as if removed to a great dis-
tance, and at last vanished in a small cloud of light.
Out of this same cloud the germ of another figure
began to appear, and gradually grew larger and
larger, and approached the spectators, untH it at-
tained its perfect development. In this manner
the head of Dr. Franklin was transformed into a
skull; figures which retired with the freshness of
life came back in the form of skeletons, and the
retiring skeletons returned in the drapery of flesh
and blood. The exhibition of these transmutations

1 66 The Lives of the Conjurors.

waa followed by spectres, skeletons, and terrific
figures, which, instead of receding and vanishing as
before, suddenly advanced upon the spectators,
becoming larger as they approached them, and
gradually vanished by appearing to sink into the
ground. The efiect of this part of the exhibition
was naturally the most impressive. The spectators
were not only surprised, but agitated, and many of
them were of opinion that they could have touched
the figures.'^

In 1804, the phantasmagoria was exhibited in
London by a German named Moritz, who had pre-
viously been known as a^ performer of feats of
strength and agility, in conjunction with the postur-
ing of his wife and the acrobatic performances of
his children. This entertainment was presented by
them at the Eoyal Circus in the autumn of 1796,
and during the winter of the following year at the
old Eoyalty. They then appear to have returned
to the continent, but re-appeared at the Royalty,
then under Astley's management, in the autumn of
1801.

Moritz made his first appearance in London as a
conjuror in the beginning of 1804, when he com-
bined his legerdemain with the posturing and turn-
bling feats of his family, and concluded it with
the exhibition of the phantasmagoria, as already

The Lives of the Conjurors. 167

mentioned. This entertainment was given, by per-
mission of the Lord Mayor, at the King^s Arms,
Change Alley, Comhill; and had previously, ac-
cording to the announcement of the entertainer,
been presented before the Court at Windsor Castle,
and most of the Courts of Europe.

In the following year, the phantasmagoria was
exhibited at the Lyceum, by an Italian named
Bologna, who combined it with hydraulic experi-
ments and the exhibition of two automatons, a
swan that displayed all the motions of a real bird,
and a figure in Turkish costume, that performed
conjuring tricks with cards. The optical portion
of the entertainment consisted of spectral illusions,
and the biUs— one of which is preserved in the
extensive Banks collection of noiabilia, in the
library of the British Museum, — ^were embellished
-with a rude head-piece, representing the conven-
tional ghost rising, with outstretched arms, from a
flaming caldron.

Bologna was one of the minor entertainers of
that day, whose performances were generally given
at public-houses in the provincial towns, and the
suburbs of the metropolis. Another of the number
was Moon, of whom Eaymond tells an amusing
anecdote. The conjuror arrived in Salisbury one
night, at a very late hour, during EUiston^s engage-

1 68 The Lives of the Conjurors.

ment at the theatre of that city, and took up his
quarters at the same inn. Stratford, the manager,
had accompanied EUiston to the inn on leaving the
theatre, and, after a bottle of wine had been drunk,
proposed to call up the landlord to take a hand
with them at loo. Moon at that moment entered
the room, and was immediately invited to sit down
with them.

^^ I should be most happy to do so, gentlemen,^'
said the conjuror, whom neither of the gentlemen
had ever seen before, " but, unfortunately, the state
of my purse — '^

'^ Never mind ! '^ cried actor and manager toge-
ther. ^^ We'll lend you a few guineas.^'

Moon's hesitation disappeared immediately, and
he sat down, expressing the sense which he felt of
the kindness and good fellowship of gentlemen to
whom he was a stranger. Five guineas were
advanced to him to begin with, and play was com-
menced with exuberant spirits. Elliston and
Stratford soon found themselves losers ; Moon paid
them the five guineas he had borrowed, and still the
run of luck was against them. When they rose
firom the table, neither of them had a guinea
left.

'' You will give us our revenge ? '' said EUis-
ton.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 169

" With pleasure ! ^' returned the conjuror.

^' I shall be in Salisbury again this day week/'
observed Elliston.

^^ I am sorry/' said Moon, ^' to be obliged to dis-
appoint you, but I am engaged that night at
Devizes, to cut a cock's head oflF."

^' Out a cock's head oflf!" repeated the actor,
regarding the conjuror from head to foot. ^^ Have we
been playing, then, with a decapitator of the sultan
of the dung-hill ? Who are you, sir ? "

Moon handed a card to Elliston, who read aloud,
with his characteristic solemnity of countenance
and voice, — '^ Mr. Moon, ihe celebrated conjuror,
whose dexterity in command of the ca/rds is unani"
TTumsly acknowledged, will undertake to convey the
contents of any gentleman's purse into his {Mr.
Moon's) pockets with surprising facility. He will
also cut a cocVs head off without injuring that noble
bird."

As Elliston raised his eyes to the countenance of*
the conjuror, upon which a faint smile played,
the latter bowed, and withdrew from the room,
leaving the actor and Stratford regarding each
otheir with looks that cannot be described, and
only a Cruikshank could portray.

We must now return to Moritz, who, in the
autumn of 1807, terminated at Cambridge a

170 The Lives of the Conjurors.

successful tour of the provinces ; and, coming to
London, opened a little theatre in Catherine Street,
called the Temple of ApoUo, with a variety enter-
tainment, consisting of legerdemain, feats of strength
and agility, tight rope and slack wire performances,
a learned dog and a perfonning goldfinch, and the
phantasmagoria. The conjuring consisted of the
usual tricks with cards, the cooking of a pan-
cake in a hat, the burning and restoration of a
lady's handkerchief, etc., with which modem wizards
have made the public tolerably familiar. The phan-
tasmagorial scenes included representations of the
raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor, the ghost
scene in Hamlet, the incantation scene in Mac»
hethy and the transformation of Louis XVI. into a
skeleton.

The wire performer of Moritz's company during
his stay at Cambridge, and for a few weeks after
he opened the Temple of ApoUo, was a married
woman named Price, whose nom de thedi/re was
Signora Belinda. Before coming to London, an
agreement was drawn up, whereby Belinda was
engaged for three months, at the advanced weekly
salary of two guineas and a half; but at the end of
the fourth week of this term some dispute arose
between them, the precise grounds of which cannot
be gathered from the reports of the day, but which.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 171

after an interchange of remarks more vigorons than
polite, resulted in the fair wire performer being
summarily dismissed.

Belinda, after vainly seeking an engagement at
Astley's and the Royalty, obtained one with Mr,
Ingleby, the conjuror, who was then performing at
the Lyceum. Moritz engaged for the wire per-
formance Lucinda Saunders, probably a daughter
of Abraham Saunders, the showman ; and Belinda
thereupon sued him in the Court of Common Pleas,
for damages for wrongful dismissal. The agree-
ment was proved by a clown who had witnessed it,
and was not disputed ; but it was shown by the
evidence for the defence that Belinda had used
offensive language, and struck Moritz with her
xunbrella, and it was urged by the defendant's
counsel that she had accepted her discharge by
engaging herself to Ingleby. The judge. Sir James
Mansfield, held the dismissal to have been justified
by Belinda's conduct, and the jury found a verdict
for the defendant.

A curious illustration of the lengths counsel will
sometimes go in making the most of their client's
case was afforded in the course of this trial. Ser-
jeant Best, who defended Moritz, having described the
wire performer as a taU, powerful woman, Serjeant
Shepherd, who was on the other side, said that Be-

172 The Lives of the Conjurors.

linda was only four feet in height, while the defendant
was a man of Heraklean size and strength, and
argued from the contrast that the assault could not
have been worth mentioning. Moritz then stood
up in the court, with a comic gesture, and instead
of the Herakles described by Serjeant Shepherd,
he was seen to be a man of low stature and slight
form.

Belinda is said to have been prompted to this
litigation by Ingleby, who had opened at the same
time as Moritz, and for some time maintained a
warm rivalry with him. Moritz having called
himself King of all the Conjurors, and challenged
'^ any man in the world, and especially that lump of
a/rrogcmce at the Lyceum,^' for three hundred
guineas, to imitate his magical deceptions without
confederacy, Ingleby assumed the title of Em-
peror of all the Conjurors, and puflFed himself
in the newspapers after the manner of Katter-
felto.

" The conjuror of Catherine Street,^' says one of
the earliest newspaper criticisms of a conjuring
performance which I have been able to discover,
" draws, by some magic art, multitudes to his
exhibitions. It is astonishing to see the crowds of
fashionables who flock every night to the Minor
Theatre, where they are pleased with the delusions

The Lives of the Conjurors. 173

practised upon them^ and always applaud the more^
the less they comprehend/' Moritz did not continue
the rivalry beyond the spring of 1808, however, after
which Ingleby was left for some time in undis-
puted possession of the field.

CHAPTER IX

Successors of Moiitz — Val — Ingleby — ^Decapitation and Re-
animation of a Fowl — ^Boiling a Fowl, and Restoring it to
Life— The Count de Grisy — The Conjuror and the Car-
dinal — A Page Sawn in Halves — A Fatal Mistake —
Cucchiani — The Speaking Head — The Invisible Girl —
Gyngell, the Showman — The Gun Trick Again— Fatal
Accident to an Indian Juggler — ^De Linsky— A Terrible
Catastrophe.

Inqlebt and Moritz had been preceded as conjurors
by a Frenchman named Val, who made his first
appearance in London in the spring of 1803, at
Willis's Booms, charging seven shillings for ad-
mission. One of the journals of the daypronomices
him superior to Pinetti ; and, though the newspaper
critiques of that period were so frequently written
to order as to aflFord no criterion of a performer's
ability in his profession, his success may be re-
garded as some evidence that he was a conjuror of

The Lives of the Conjurors. 175

no mean order. He resided during his stay in
London at No. 27, Leicester Square, and attended
private parties, including those of Lord Nelson,
Lady Mansfield, ^^ where,^^ as a newspaper of the
day informs us, ^\ there was a most brilliant circle
of fashion and beauty to witness his astonishing
experiments,^' and Sir William Farquhar, at which
he had the honour of performing before the Prince
of Wales.

When he had been three weeks before the public,
it was announced, in a paragraph which reads
suspiciously like an advertisement, (and journalists
did not bracket the significant ^^ Advt,'' at the end
of such paragraphs in those days,) that he would
shortly take his departure for St. Petersburg, where
he was said to have an establishment, having
obtained a pension from the Czar. But he con-
tinued to give his performance, without any reduc-
tion of charge, and in the same place for nearly four
months afterwards. It is to be presumed, therefore,
that he found his venture remunerative.

If the newspapers may be trusted, there can be
no doubt of it. ^' Willis's Eooms,'' says one of the
scribes, ^^are metamorphosed into the Temple of
Fashion, as often as M. Val, surnamed the Unigite,
gives specimens of his most extraordinary art ;
nor is it astonishing they should become the

176 The Lives of the Conjurors.

favourite lounge of polite society, while tliis wonder-
working man, like a magnet, attracts all to that
centre ; in eflTect, it is strictly impossible to form to
one's self a correct idea of M. VaPs performance,
without being a witness of his surprising dexterity ;
and even then the spectators think themselves
transported into fairy-land, and surrounded by all
the delusions of inoflTensive magic, not knowing
which to admire most, Uie grand variety of decep-
tions and rare experiments, or the performer's
happy talent of exhibiting/'

At the close of June, he left London for the
continent, and seems to have taken Berlin and
Vienna in his route to St. Petersburg, and to have
passed the winter in the Austrian capital, purposing
to return to London in the spring of 1804. Moritz
was the focus of attraction to London seekers of
amusement in that season, however, and so con-
tinued until his star waned before the rising efinl-
gence of his rival, Ingleby.

Ingleby made his first appearance in London
towards the close of 1807, when he engaged the
Lyceum, and performed every evening, the admis-
sion fee ranging from one shilling to four shillings.
He did not present a variety entertainment, like
Moritz, but a Miss Young gave a slack wire per-
formance between the parts. He at first assumed

The L tves of the Conjurors. 177

the title of King of all Conjurors, but, on finding
that this was borne by Moritz, he issued the
following egotistical announcement, early in 1808 :
— ^^Mr. Ingleby, the greatest man in the world,
most respectfully informs the Nobility, Gentry, and
Public in general, that, in consequenee of his
superior excellence in the Art of Deception, he
lias had conferred upon him, the last week, the
title of Emperor of all Conjurors by a numerous
assemblage of Gentlemen Amateurs, and particu-
larly through the amazing trick of cutting a fowFs
Lead off, and restoring it to life and animation, for
no man knows the real way but himself/'

The trick upon which Ingleby prided himself,
and which we have seen in the travelling repertoire
of the conjuror Moon, was a very simple one. Two
cocks, alike in plumage, were used, one of which
"was held in readiness, but concealed from the
spectators, while the other was placed upon the
operating table, on which its head was actually
severed from the body. Then, while it was
being examined by the audience, the body was
quickly removed, and the living fowl substituted for
it, with its head concealed under its wing. As
soon as the head was returned to the table, the
conjuror passed it to an attendant, pronounced
a few cabalistic words, and slipped the head of

N

178 The Lives of the Conjurors.

the living bird from tinder its wing, upon which
the cock struggled to its feet. If it crowed, the
applause bestowed upon the operator was all the
more enthusiastic.

Another feat of Ingleby's was probably per-
formed in an equally simple manner. A fowl
was boiled for twenty minutes in sight of the
spectators, and, on being taken out of the boiling
water, and received a touch of the conjuror^s wand
it ran round the stage several times, to the amaze-
ment of every beholder.

Ingleby, who resided when in London at No. 12,
Craven Buildings, Drury Lane, gave private per-
formances at the houses of the nobility and gentry,
his charge for which was ten guineas. He made
the tour of the provincial towns during the summer,
and returned to the metropolis in December, still
accompanied by Miss Young, and re-opened the
Lyceum for the winter season. Early in 1809, he
varied the entertainment by engaging a German
rope-dancer, an infant musician, and a whistling
man, who imitated the notes of various singing
birds, and accompanied the orchestra in an over-
ture. Towards the close of the season, ventrilo-
quism and the musical glasses were added to the
programme.

The summer was again passed in the provinces^

The Lives of the Conjurors. 179

and in the first week of October, Ingleby opened
the Minor Theatre, (formerly the Temple of Apollo,)
Catherine Street, for the winter season, the popu-
larity of his performances continuing unabated.
Miss Young repeated her slack wire performance
between the parts, and Ingleby advertised himself
and her as "the only conjuror and slack wire
dancer in the world/' This manifest extravagance
was shortly afterwards moderated into ''the first
conjuror, and the first wire dancer in Europe/'
Early in the following spring, the entertainment
was varied by other performances, and he associated
with himself in the conjuring business another
wizard with the singular now, de thMtre of Signior
Blue Beard, whose real name I have not been able
to discover.

" Mr. Ingleby," says one of his advertisements
of this period, '' begs leave to observe, that there
are numbers of wandering people performing at
Bartholomew fair, and some in the Metropolis, and
other parts of England, saying they will expose the
method of cutting the fowl's head off; yes, for
a very good reason, because they cannot do it with-
out exposing it ; but if they come to the Minor
Theatre, they shall see the Emperor execute it with-
out exposition, in the first style of superlative
excellence."

N 2

i8o The Lives of the Conjurors.

The season terminated in April, and Ingleby
again became a wanderer. He does not appear to
have visited London again, and the fact of his dying,
in the summer of 1832, at Enniscorthy, a small and
poor town in Ireland, renders it probable that
he was less fortunate, or less provident, than most
of the conjuring fraternity, and continued his
professional wanderings until his death. He left a
young widow, but no children are mentioned in the
newspaper announcements of his decease, and it
was incidentaUy mentioned in one of his paragraph
advertisements of 1809 that he had then no male
issue. The Master Ingleby who took part in the
performances in the following year was probably,
therefore, a nephew of the conjuror, and may have
been the performer who travelled some years
afterwards under the extraordinary name of Ingleby
Lunar. "^

An equally clever conjuror of this period, but
who never visited London, was Torrini, whose real
name was De Grisy, under which he originally ap-
peared. He was the only son of a French loyalist
noble, the Count de Grisy, who was ruined by
the great political and social revolution of the last
century; and, being thrown by the results of
that event upon his own resources, studied medicine,
and endeavoured to establish himself in that pro-

The Lives of the Conjurors. i8i

fession at Florence. Failing in that attempt,
he removed to Naples, where he became intimately
acquainted with the famous Pinetti, and learned to
perform aU his tricks and deceptions. Having
given several amateur performauces, and won great
applause from the friends who witnessed them,
he was persuaded by Pinetti to give a public exhibi-
tion at an entertainment for the benefit of a charity,
which was to be attended by the royal family
and many of the Neapolitan nobility. This
performance, though it was a lamentable failure,
was, he always asserted, the cause of his adopt-
ing conjuring as a profession.

Pinetti performed most of his feats of legerde-
main by the aid of confederates, two or three
of whom were among the spectators on this
occasion, their assistance having been promised to
De Grrisy as an encouragement to the undertak-
ing. One of the tricks was the borrowing of
a ring, which, after being fired from a pistol, was to
be found in the mouth of a fish. From a score
of rings oflFered to him for this purpose, De Grisy
selected one of gilt copper, set with paste gems,
from one of Pinetti's confederates, to whom it was
returned when taken from the fish.

''What is this, signer?'' said the confederate,
regarding first the ring, and then the performer.

1 82 The Lives of the Conjurors.

*
with an air of surprise, sharpened with resentment.
'' I gave you a gold ring, set with brilliants, and
you return me worthless copper and paste/'

De Grisy was astounded by this assertion, but
concealed his surprise and vexation under the
readiest excuse he could devise.

''Be at ease, signer,'' said he. ''Tour ring
indeed seems to be only gilt copper and worthless
stones, but it will return gradually to its proper
and original appearance. That is what we call
the imperceptible transformation." A more signal
discomfiture was to come. There was a card trick,
in the performance of which a card was to be
" forced,'* as it is termed, upon the king ; and this
card, on being drawn from the pack by the royal
fingers, was found to be inscribed with an insulting
remark. The king, greatly offended, fi'owned
portentously as he tore up the card; and De
Grisy, appalled and mortified by this second
contretemps, rushed from the stage, and ran home.
Pinetti then appeared in his place, made an apologe-
tic speech, and continued the performance to
its conclusion.

De Grisy always maintained that the disasters of
that night had been prepared for him by Pinetti,
who feared in him a successful rival, and he declared
to Robert-Houdin, many years aifterwards, that his

The Lives of the Conjurors. 183

resentment of the Italian's treachery, and his resolve
to be revenged, was the motive for his adoption
of the profession. He determined to follow Pinetti,
and overcome him wherever he performed by
the superiority of his own performances. Before
he was able to set out on his professional tour,
Finetti had gone from Naples to Lucca, and thence
to Bologna. Having ascertained that his next
town would be Modena, De Grisy anticipated
him there, and, having taken the wind out of
the great conjuror's sails, proceeded to Parma.
There Pinetti encountered him, and a spirited
rivalry ensued, which was continued in the
principal cities of Lombardy and Venetia. Pinetti at
length left Italy, and his rival proceeded to Rome,
where no public conjuring entertainment had ever
been given.

On his applying for permission to perform in
Rome, he was desired to give a private exhibition
before the Pope, and a singular circumstance
afforded him the means of giving to this trial per-
formance immense edaU He was one day in a
watchmaker's shop, when a gorgeously liveried
servant of one of the cardinals then resident in
Home came in for a watch which had been sent
there to be repaired. It was a large, old-fashioned
watch, made by Breguet, the famous Parisian horo-

184 The Lives of the Conjurors.

logist^ and had tlie cardinars arms engraved on the
back.

'^His Eminence/' the watchmaker observed to
De Grisy, '' values it at ten thousand francs ; but
a young scamp of this city oflTered me yesterday
a perfectly similar watch of the same maker for a
tenth part of that sum/'

'' Indeed ! '' exclaimed the conjuror, a brilliant
idea occurring to him. *^ If you know where to find
that young scamp, I should like to be the purchaser
of the watch myself.''

The watchmaker had no doubt of his ability to
find the scampish possessor of the watch ; and the
conjuror on the day l^efore his appearance before
Pius VII. and a select party of cardinals and officers
of the papal household, received a watch which,
having had the arms of the aforesaid Cardinal
engraved on the back^ was a perfect fa<;-simile of
the one in the Cardinal's possession.

De Grisy prefaced his performance by a brief
address, designed to show the harmlessness of the
''white magic" which he professed; and, after a
few simple examples of his art, asked for the Pope's
autograph. Pius wrote on a card — '' I have much
pleasure in stating that M. the Count de Grrisy is
an able and amiable magician." The card was
then made to disappear, and was afterwards found

The Lives of the Conjurors. 185

in a sealed envelope. The conjoror then asked
for a watch, and the Cardinal who owned the turnip-
like Breguet, afid was very proud of it, oflFered his
own.

" Be very careful with it, monsieur,'' said he, as
he handed it to the conjuror. '' I prize that watch
very highly ; it was made by Breguet.''

''Your Eminence may rest assured that, what-
ever I do with the watch, it shall be restored to
you in its present condition,'' returned De Grisy.
'' Does it go 7 " he asked after examining it for a
few moments ; and he held it to his ear, appearing
to listen. ''It has stopped," he added, and im-
mediately stooping down, he gave it a smart rap on
the floor.

" What are you doing, monsieur ? " exclaimed
the Cardinal, surprised out of his dignity for a
moment. " Ton will injure my watch irretrievably
— a watch which I value at ten thousand francs."

"Patience, monseigneur," said De Grisy, in a
tone of polite deprecation. " Tour watch shall not
be injured."

But at the next moment he dropped it into a
mortar, and began pounding it with a pestle, the
owner fuming visibly, and the Pope seeming to
enjoy the rage and vexation which his Eminence
strove to repress, but could not conceal. Then the

1 86 The Lives of the Conjurors.

conjuror dropped some nitrate of strontia into the
mortar, and a red glow immediately made the
magician's temple resemble a pantomime retreat of
kobolds. Presently he ceased to pound, and gazed
earnestly into the fiery glow. The Pope, impelled
by curiosity, approached the table, and looked into
the mortar, but could see nothing but the red fire.
De Grisy availed of the opportunity to slip the
fac-simile of the destroyed watch into the Pope's
pocket.

'' Your Eminence's watch has disappeared," said
he, gravely addressing the Cardinal, as the red
glow faded out. '' But I can as easily cause it to
re-appear in another place as to vanish from the
mortar. Will your Holiness obUge me by feeling in
your pocket for it ? "

The Pope did so, and produced the watch, the
sight of which caused him some mental confusion
as well as surprise. He expressed his satisfaction
with the entertainment, and on the following day
sent De Grisy a gold snuflF-box, enriched with
brilliants.

De Grisy married a beautifril Italian girl, the
sister of his attendant, Antonio Torrini, and shortly
afterwards proceeded to Constantinople, where he
obtained permission to erect a temporary theatre^
and received an invitation to perform before the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 187

Saltan. For this occasion he devised a deception
which I believe has not been repeated since.
Having borrowed a valuable jewel with which the
Sultan Selim had adorned himself^ he handed it
to his brother-in-law, who attended him in the
costume of a page of the Court of Louis XV,
While he pretended to prepare for his next trick,
the jewel was pocketed by the page, who replied
to the conjuror's application for it with a laugh.

" Scoundrel ! '' cried De Grisy, with simulated
rage, ''you have stolen the jewel of his Sublime
Highness ; but you shall suflfer for it ! '^

In another moment the page was thrown down,
and thrust into a long box; and the conjuror,
kneeling upon the lid, began to saw through the
box, while the spectators regarded the scene with
a horror mitigated only by the reflection that the
seeming murder could not be real. Antonio's
groans ceased before the box was sawn through,
but the conjuror completed his work, and covered
the two halves of the box with a large cone of
wicker-work, over which he threw a black cloth,
embroidered in silver with cabalistic signs. Bengal
lights were then lighted by invisible agency, the
cloth and the wicker cone were removed, and the
page appeared on the same spot, sound and smiling,
with the Sultan's jewel on a salver. But this

1 88 The Lives of the Conjurors.

was not the only marvel, for he had been multiplied
into two, another page, resembling him in height
and features, and wearing a similar dress, standing
by his side. The second page was the conjuror^s
wife. The Sultan sent a complimentary letter to
De Grisy on the following day, accompanied by the
jewel which had figured in the entertainment.

On leaving Constantinople, De Grisy proceeded
to MarseiUes, but finding that another conjuror,
named Ollivier, was giving in the chief towns of
France an entertainment comprising his own tricks,
he travelled through Switzerland and Germany.
For sixteen years he conjured with success in
various parts of Europe, but at the end of that
time his fame began to wane, and he discerned
the necessity of introducing some startling novelty.
Unfortunately, he determined to present the gun
trick in a new form, himself representing William
Tell, and shooting from the head of his son an
apple, from which he afterwards took a bullet,
supposed by the spectators to be the ball fired
from the rifle. He was performing this trick at
Strasburg when, by some fearful mistake, the
leaden bullet was fired from the gun, and the
unfortunate youth fell dead upon the stage.

This horrible event produced temporary insanity
in the unhappy conjuror, who recovered his reason

The Lives of the Conjurors. 189

only to undergo his trial for homicide, which re-
sulted in his conviction and six months' imprison-
ment. His wife died during his incarceration, and
the poor conjuror, on his release from prison, would
have been friendless and destitute but for the
exertions of Torrini. Taking that name to conceal
his identity with the convicted homicide, he set
out for Basle with as much of his apparatus as had
not been sold or pawned during his imprisonment ;
and, after a short tour in Switzerland, returned to
France, and died at Lyons from a fever.

Gucchiani, an Italian conjurer, appeared in Lon-
don in the autumn of 1814, at an exhibition room
in Spring Gardens, which had previously been the
locale of the automaton chess-player, and other pro-
digies of art and nature. He performed the usual
tricks with cards and coins, and caused a ball to
appear black or red at will, and to vanish and
return without any visible agency. He revisited
London in 1 825, accompanied by his wife, and gave a
series of performances at the little theatre in
Catherine Street, (then called the Harmonic,) which
evinced considerable progress on the part of the
conjuror during the interval since his former ap-
pearance.

He had now a mysterious head, resembling a
bust of Napoleon, which answered, in any language.

1 go The Lives of the Conjurors.

■ !!■■■ -I 1

questions put by any of the spectators. The
illusion was probably eflTected by means similiar
to those adopted by Charles in the mystery of the
Invisible Girl, aided perhaps by an optical illusion,
similar to that which helped so largely to mystify
the beholders in the case of Stodare^s Sphinx,
The former illusion, which was exhibited about
this time in Paris, was eflfected by a very simple
piece of mechanism, consisting of four wooden
uprights, connected by cross rails at the top and
bottom, and having bent wires springing from
them, and meeting over the centre of the open
space within the frame. The wires supported by
as many narrow ribbons a hollow copper ball, with
which were connected the mouth-pieces of four
trumpet-shaped tubes, the mouths of which were
directed outward. This was all that was seen by
the audience, who were allowed to examine every
part of the mechanism. The frame seemed to
serve no other purpose than to support the ball,
which, and the trumpets, communicated with no-
thing which could convey sound.

On a question being asked by any person in the
room, the lips being close to the mouth of either
of the trumpets, an answer was returned from
an unknown quarter, the voice resembling that of
a child, and distinctly heard by those who listened

The Lives of the Conjurors. 1 9 1

at either or all of the trumpets. The invisible
speaker conld reply in several languages, sang with
much taste and skill, and made the most lively
and appropriate remarks on persons among the
audience. Mysterious as all this seemed, the
means by which the illusion was eflfected were very
simple. In two of the upper rails of the frame
opposite to the mouths of the trumpets, there were
orifices communicating with a tube which entered
and descended the upright in which the rails
were fixed, and passed under the floor into another
room, in which sat the invisible performer, who
was not a child, but a clever and well-educated
woman. Through a small aperture in the partition
she could survey the audience, and make the
observations which enabled her to reply to their
questions, in the appropriate manner which created
80 much wonder.

Cucchiani also performed the interesting flower-
trick, causing any plant desired by the spectators
to grow in a few minutes. Between the parts of
his performance his wife recited passages from
French comedies, and some juggUng and balancing
feats were exhibited by a young French lady, named
Bisse. Cucchiani resided during this second season
in London at No. 8, Spur Street, Leicester Square,
and, besides attending private parties, gave lessons
in the mysteries of his art.

iQii The Lives of the Conjurors.

Gucchiani was succeeded in Londgn^ on the
occasion of Ids first visit, by the showman, Gyngell,
who has been mentioned in a former chapter as the
successor of Flockton. Gyngell gave a variety
entertainment at the Bam Inn, West Smithfield,
in the autumn of 1815, for one night only, charging
one shilling for admission. The programme em-
braced card tricks and experiments in hydraulics
and hydrostatics, performing dogs and birds, tum-
bling and slack wire feats, and the musical glasses.
Early in the following year, when the fair season
had not commenced, he engaged the Harmonic
Theatre for his entertainment, and remained til}
the end of March, the admission fee ranging from
one shilling to three shillings. During the latter part
of the season, the programme was varied by the
introduction of fantoccmiy Chinese shadows, and a*
panorama of London.

Gyngell afterwards presented this entertainment
at the King^s Head, Islington, and that once famous
place of cockney resort. White Conduit House ;
and in 1821 appeared, with some of his clever
family, at Vauxhall Gardens. Joseph Gyngell,
his brother, was a wire-walker of some celebrity in
his day ; his eldest son, also named Joseph, was
a good juggler and balancer \ Horatio, his second
son, besides being a dancer, was a self-taught

The Lives of the Conjurors. 193

painter of considerable ability ; George, the young-
est son, was a pyrotechnist; and Louisa, his
daughter, a very beautiful young woman, was a
graceful tight-rope-dancer.

Gyngell, the showman, died in 1833, and was
buried in the parish church-yard of Camberwell,
which, two years later, received the remains of his
brother. Louisa Gyngell was better known as
Madame Louise Irvine, her husband's name being
Irving. In 1837 she performed in the pantomime
at Govent Garden, where she had the misfortune to
fall from the rope, breaking one of her legs, in
an ascent from the stage to the gallery.

In 1814 some clever Indian jugglers performed
in London, at a room in Pall Mall, and repeated
their performances during the three following years
in the principal towns of the United Kingdom.
One of their feats was the gun trick, in which one
of the performers pretended to catch between his
teeth a leaden bullet fired from a pistol. By a
terrible fatality, the poor fellow lost his life while
exhibiting this trick at a place of amusement in
Dublin. The pistol was, according to custom,
handed to a young gentleman, one of the company,
for the purpose of firing; and it seems that the
one actually loaded with powder and ball was, by
inadvertence, substituted for the weapon prepared

194 "^f^ Lives of the Conjurors.

for the trick. The bullet crashed through the
head of the unfortunate conjuror, who, to the
surprise and horror of aU present, fell dead upon
the stage.

A similar and yet more sad catastrophe darkened
the latter years of the conjuror De Linsky, who
enjoyed a considerable repute on the continent at
the beginning of the present century. On the 10th
of November, 1820, he gave a performance at
Arnstadt, in the presence of the family of Prince
Schwartzburg-Sondershauser, and wished to bring
it off with as much edat as possible. Six soldiers
were introduced, who were to fire with ball cartridges
at the young wife of the conjuror, having previously
rehearsed their part, and been instructed to bite off
the bullet when biting the cartridge, and retain it
in the mouth. This was trusting too much to
untrained subordinates, and the result justified the
apprehensions of Madame Linsky, who is said to
have been unwilling to perform the part assigned to
her in the trick, and to have assented reluctantly by
the persuasion of her husband.

The soldiers, drawn up in a line in the presence
of the spectators, presented their muskets at
Madame Linsky and fired. For a moment she
remained standing, but almost immediately sank
down, exclaiming, '^ Dear husband, I am shot ! *'

The Lives of the Conjurors. 195

One of the soldiers had not bitten off the bullet^
and it had passed through the abdomen of the
unfortunate woman, who never spoke after she feU,
and died on the second day after the accident.
Many of the spectators fainted when they saw her
fall, and the catastrophe gave a shock to Linsky
which, for a time, impaired his reason. He had
recently lost a child, and his unfortunate wife was
expecting soon to become a mother again when this
terrible event deprived her of life.

o 2

CHAPTER X.

A New Series of Conjurors — Chalon — Transformation of a
Bird into a Young Lady — Comillot — Comte, the Ventrilo-
quist — ^Louis XVIII. and the Conjuror — Girardelli — A
Novel Nomenclature— The Two Blitzes — Sullivan — Ball —
Hoare — Ingleby Lunar — Conjurors at the Fairs — Keyes
and Laine — Frazer-^Capelli — ^De Berar's Phantasmagoria
— Conjurors in India — Suspension in the Air — The Basket
Trick — The Enchanted Water Jar — Magical Transforma-
tions.

A NEW series of conjurors commenced towards the
close of 1820 with the Swiss professor, Chalon, who
then opened the St. James's Theatre, whence he
removed in the following year to the Adelphi. His
chief deception was the transformation of a bird
into a young lady. Between the parts some anti-
podean feats were performed by an acrobat named
Davoust, with a second exhibition of whose agility
the entertainment concluded.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 197

Chalon was followed in 1822 by Oomillot, a pupil
of the celebrated Pinetti, who engaged the exhibi-
tion room in Spring Gardens, charging half-a-crown
for admission. He performed only three evenings
in each week, combining chemical experiments with
feats of legerdemain. In the following spring he
removed to the Waterloo Rooms, Pall Mall, reduc-
ing his charge to one shilling and two shillings, and
performing daily at twelve, one, two, three, and
four, and on alternate eveniugs at eight. '^ The day
and evening exhibitions,'^ his advertisements in-
form us, "are so arranged as to combine in each
performance the most magnificent hydraulic and
astonishing chemical experiments, illusions in natural
philosophy, and extraordinary feats of dexterity.
The much admired Pythoness of Delphos will be
introduced, and a variety of amusements never
before introduced in this country .''

Early in October he opened the little theatre in
Catherine Street, as the Theatre of Variety, which
was (probably for the first time) lighted with gas,
while " a curious revolving gas lantern '^ was dis-
played over the entrance. The admission fee ranged
at this place from one shilling to three shillings, and
the programme comprised, besides conjuring, a
dioramic representation of sunrise in the arctic
regions, a cycloramic storm and shipwreck, shiging

198 The Lives of the Conjurors.

and dancing, and the performances of a Chinese
juggler.

Another French conjuror of this period, but who
never visited England, was Comte, who was as
famous for his ventriloquial powers as for his skill in
legerdemain. Many anecdotes are current among
continental conjurors of the consternation which
Comte created on various occasions by the exercise
of his powers as a ventriloquist oflF the boards. He
once overtook near Nevers a man who was beating
an overladen ass, and, throwing his voice in the
direction of the poor brute's head, reproached the
fellow for his cruelty, causing him to stare at the
ass for a moment in mingled surprise and awe, add
then take to his heels. On another occasion, being
in the market-place of M&con, he inquired the
price of a pig which a peasant woman had for sale,
and pronounced it extortionate, a charge which the
owner, with much volubility, denied.

"I will ask the pig>'' said Comte, gravely.
'' Piggy, is the good woman asking a fair price for
you ? ''

''Too much by half,'' the pig seemed to reply.
'' I am measled, and she knows it."

The woman gasped and stared, but she was equal
to the occasion.

*' Oh ! the villain," she exclaimed. '* He has

The Lives of the Conjurors. 1 99

bewitched my pig ! Police, seize the sor-
cerer I '*

The bystanders rushed to the spot, but Comte
slipped away as quickly as he could, and left the
affair to the intelligence of the police.

On one occasion the possession of this strange
power was the means of saving Comte's life. He
was denounced by some ignorant Swiss peasants in
the neighbourhood of Priburg as a sorcerer, set
upon and beaten with sticks, and was about to be
thrown into a limekiln when he raised such a
horrible yell, which appeared to proceed from the
kiln, that the fellows dropped him, and fled precipi-
tately from the spot.

On the occasion of his performing before Louis
XVm., he asked the King to draw a card from the
pack, at the same time '^ forcing '* the King of
hearts, which Louis drew. The card being replaced,
and the pack shuffled, Comte presented the King
with a card as the one drawn.

'^ I fancy you have done more than you intended,*'
said Louis with a smile. '^I drew the king of
hearts, and you have given me a portrait of
myself

^'I am right, sire," returned Comte. "Your
Majesty is king of the hearts of all your faithful
subjects.^

a

200 The Lives of the Conjurors.

He then placed the card in the midst of some
flowers in a vase, and in a few moments the bust of
Louis rose from the bouquet.

ComiUot was succeeded in London by Cucchiani,
as abeady mentioned, and Girardelli, a nephew and
pupil of Chalon, and probably a relative of the
famous fire-resisting woman, Josephine Girardelli,
who exhibited her wonderful powers in 1814 at a
room in New Bond Street. Girardelli performed,
during the spring and summer of 1825, in most of
the provincial theatres of Great Britain, and at
many private parties of the nobility and gentry.
He was the first of the profession to introduce in
his bills and programmes that sonorous nomencla-
ture which excites the imagination without convey-
ing any suggestion even of its meaning, and which
has been so liberally indulged in by the most famous
conjurors that have amused the present generation.
" The Egyptian Caryatides, or Powers of Bacchus ;
The Apples of Belzebub ; The Box of Paradise ;
Flora and Bacchus ; '^ are a few examples culled
from one of Girardelli^s bills.

Among the deceptions of this conjuror were the
restoration to life of a dead bird (not Ingleby's
trick, but a chemical device) ; the dancing and
speaking coins which answered any questions pro-
posed by the spectators, correctly accompanied any

The Lives of the Conjurors. 201

piece of music, and divined the thoughts of any
person present; and the transfer of any article
borrowed from the audience to any part of the
theatre. He appears to have retired from the
profession at the close of the season of 1825, one of
his bills having appended to it an intimation that the
whole of his apparatus, with his professional secrets,
would be disposed of for three hundred guineas.

Cucchiani and Girardelli were succeeded by a
rush of conjurors, native and foreign, whose names
are now forgotten, and the records of whose enter-
tainments must be sought in collections of bills,
such as Bagford's, now in the library of the British
Museum, and the larger one made by the late Mr.
Lacey, the theatrical bookseller, of the Strand.
The first, and probably the best, was the elder
Blitz, who came to England with the repute of
having performed before several continental courts,
and exhibited his dexterity at the Coburg Theatre
(now the Victoria) during Lent, 1826.

Early in the following autumn Blitz junior, who
had travelled with his father, and assisted him in
his performances, appeared at the Rotunda, in
Blackfriars Road, and, though a foreigner, and
using the prefix of Signer, called himself '^ the
young English necromancer,'' and, with a corre-
sponding display of ignorance and bombast, declared

202 The Lives of the Conjurors.

that " long experience had proved that his Imperial
Cabalistical Powers had entitled him to the appella-
tion of Emperor and Grand Arch Master of all
Conjurors/' His tricks were of the ordinary kind
shown by all conjurors, and concluded with the gun
trick, performed with a marked bullet, which, on
the gun being fired, he showed in his hand.

Next came Sullivan, an Irish American, who
performed in the club-rooms of various public-houses
in the metropolis during the autumn and winter,
having probably passed the summer in wandering
through the provinces from fair to fair. This
worthy copied the bills of the younger Blitz, appro-
priating verbatim the whole of the introductory
paragraph which has been quoted. He was a clever
balancer, but his conjuring tricks comprised nothing
that was novel. Of course he burned cards, and
restored them ; cut oflF a bird's head, and put it on
again ; pounded a watch in a mortar, and returned
it to the owner uninjured; fired a wedding-ring
from a pistol, and brought it back again ; and made
and cooked a pancake in a hat, without spoiling the
chapeau : but these tricks were already in the
repertoire of every conjuror who exhibited at a
country fair. Like Blitz, he concluded with the
gxm trick, but he did it with a knife, after the
manner of Astley.

The Lives of the Conjurors, 203

Of the same calibre was Ball, who gave a similar
performance, in similar places, at the same period,
after wandering through the country during the
summer, as testified by his list of aristocratic
patrons, which shows him to have performed at
Wobum Abbey, Baling Park, York, etc. The names
of Lords Castlereagh and Palmerston appear in this
list, which jumbles, in a ludicrous manner, the Duke
of Norfolk and Squire Cook, Lord Dundas and
T. Smith, Esq., the Archbishop of York and
Counsellor Wigester. He styled himself the Sieur
Ball, the Autocrat of all Necromancy and Legerde-
demain, and professed to have been patronised by
all the crowned heads of Europe.

Hoare, another conjuror of this class, perambu-
lated the suburbs of London, and the villages within
five or six miles, besides performing at private
parties, at this time, and for a dozen years after-
wards. In 1826 he performed before the Lord
Mayor and a large party at the Mansion House,
and on various occasions during the two following
years he exhibited his tricks at the assemblies of
the Duchess of Wellington, the Duke of Argyle,
the Earl of Liverpool, and others of the nobility.
Besides the ordinary deceptions of his tribe, Hoare
threw up a pack of cards, fired a pistol at
them, and afterwards showed, pierced with a

ao4 The Lives of the Conjurors.

bullet, any card previously selected by a spec-
tator.

Ingleby Lunar, who has been incidentally men-
tioned in a former chapter, was also travelling at
this time, and visited all the principal towns in the
three kingdoms. He was assisted in his perfor-
mances by a lady whom he called Madame Lunar,
and by several performing birds. His statement
that he had performed before most of the European
Courts may be doubted, since he never specified
them, or gave dates, though he enumerated in his
bills the times and places at which he had exhibited
his dexterity to many of the nobility, not forgetting
a performance before George IV. at the Pavilion,
Brighton, in 1825.

He appears to have been entirely uneducated,
if we may judge from the following paragraph of a
bill issued by him in 1836, when he performed on
several successive Tuesday evenings at a public-
house in Shoreditch : —

"Mr. I. Lunar, has in modem times acquired
more celebrity than any of the ancient Magicians,
and rendered himself in those places through which
he passed, more famous than Memus- Cyrus, mighty
son, or the witch of Endor did in the habitation
of old. He has had the honour; since his return
from the Continent, to perform at the Universities

The Lives of the Conjurors. 205

of Oxford and Cambridge, at three diflFerent periods
in each place, the mother of wonder, the nurse that
gives snck to the saplings of Genius was pleased
to complete by her approbation that fame he is so
anxious to immortalize. If Jones had merit, —
Penetty astonished — Breslaw pleased — ^Boax ex-
cited wonder — ^what shall be said of Lunar ? who to
all the knowledge they possessed adds the inex-
haustible combination of his own genius assisted
by all the advantages which travel, profundity of
thought, and philosophical experiments can give.
It is therefore no wonder that a certain Nobleman
called him the King of Magic, and a crowned head,
wonderfully astonished, pronounced him the total
Eclipse of all Conjurors ! '^

Then there were the Bartholomew fair conjurors,
Keyes and Frazer, the former of whom had a partner
named Laine, and an Italian named Capelli. The
conjuring tricks of the Englishmen were sometimes
combined with posturing, tumbling, and rope danc-
ing ; while Capelli exhibited, in addition to his
feats of legerdemain, a learned dog and a irawpe
of performing cats of remarkable intelligence and
docility. This exhibition was subsequently given
at the Cosmorama Rooms, Regent Street.

Legerdemain was, for a time, however, thrown
into the shade by the optical illusions made

2o6 The Lives of the Conjurors.

popular by the improvements eflFected in the magic
lantern by Philipstal, and shortly afterwards elabo-
rated by Cross into the apparatus for showing the
dissolving views which have since become such a
popular entertainment. As applied to the produc-
tion of the phantom ship in a drama dealing with
the weird story of Captain Vanderdecken, the ap-
paratus attracted crowded audiences to the Adelphi
Theatre ; while the phantasmagorial exhibitions on
the plan of PhiUpstal descended to the fairs, and
excited the wonder of the masses. In 1833, they
appeared at Bartholomew fair, where a Frenchman
named De Berar startled the crowds that flocked
to see his optikali illusio by the presentation of
Death on the pale horse, and various other objects
inspiring horror or awe.

There was another phantasmagorial exhibition at
a house in Giltspur Street, where the public were
invited to witness ^' the raising of the devil ; '^ and
a third in Long Lane.

While the conjuring art seemed to be declining in
Europe, Indian conjurors were exhibiting in their
own land the marvels which have since attracted
wondering crowds to the temples of magic which
their imitators have set up in the capitals of the
West. The aerial suspension was performed half a
century ago at Madras by an old Brahmin, with no

The Lives of the Conjurors. 207

better apparatas than a piece of plank^ which^ with
four legs, he formed into an oblong stool ; and upon
which, in a litfcle brass socket, he placed, in a per-
pendicular position, a hollow bamboo, from which
projected a kind of crutch, covered with a piece of
common hide. These properties he carried with
him in a little bag, which was shown to those who
went to see him exhibit. The servants of the house
held a blanket before him, and when it was with-
drawn he was discovered poised in the air, about
four feet from the ground, in a sitting attitude, the
outer edge of one hand merely touching the crutch,
with the fingers deliberately counting beads, and
the other hand and arm held up in an erect posture.
The blanket was then held up before him, and the
spectators heard a gurgling noise, like that occa-
sioned by wind escaping from a bladder or tube, and
when the screen was withdrawn he was again
standing on the floor or ground.

This performer died at Madras in 1830, without
imparting to any one the secret of the trick, which
was said, however, by a knowing native, to be
effected by holding the breath, clearing the tubular
organs, and a peculiar mode of respiration. This
explanation is too vague to be satisfactory, besides
suggesting the question. Why, then, employ ap-
paratus ? The mystery was supposed to have been

2o8 The Lives of the Conjurors.

solved when Sheshal, called tlie Brahmin of the Air,
exhibited the trick at Madras in 1832. It was
observed that his stool was ornamented with two
inlaid brass stars^ and it was suggested that one of
these might conceal a socket for a steel rod passing
through the bamboo, and that another rod, screwed
to the perpendicular one, and concealed by the piece
of hide, might be connected with mechanism of the
same metal passing up the sleeve, aud down the
back, and forming a circular seat. The conjecture
was probably not very far from the truth.

About this time also, the Eev. Hobart Gaunter,
who was travelling in India with some friends, saw
the famous basket trick performed in the open air,
at a village twelve miles from Madras ; and, regard-
ing it as an illusion unprecedented in the annals of
juggling, wrote an account of it so graphic and
interesting that I cannot refrain from describing it
in his own words.

'^ A stout ferocious-looking fellow stepped for-
ward,'^ he says , '^ with a common wicker basket of
the country, which he begged we would carefully
examine. This we accordingly did; it was of the
slightest texture, and admitted the light through a
thousand apertures. Under this fragile covering
he placed a child about eight years old, an interesting
little girl, habited in the only garb which nature had

The Lives of the Conjurors. 209

provided for her, perfect of frame and elastic of
limb — a model for a cherub, and scarcely darker
than a child of southern Prance. When she was
properly secured, the man, with a h)wering aspect,
asked her some question, which she instantly an-
swered, and as the thing was done within a few feet
from the spot on which we were seated, the voice
appeared to come so distinctly from the basket, that
I felt at once satisfied there was no deception.

'^ They held a conversation for some moments,
when the juggler, almost with a scream of passion,
threatened to kill her. There was a stem reality in
the whole scene which was perfectly dismaying;
it was acted to the life, but terrible to see and hear.
The child was heard to beg for mercy, when the
juggler seized a sword, placed his foot upon the frail
wicker covering under which his supposed victim
was so piteously supplicating his forbearance, and
to my absolute consternation and horror, plunged it
through, withdrawing it several times, and repeating
the plunge with all the blind ferocity of an excited
demon. By this time his countenance exhibited an
expression fearfiilly indicative of the most frantic of
human passions. The shrieks of the child were so
real and distracting that they almost curdled for a
few moments the whole mass of my blood : my first
impulse was to rush upon the monster, and fell him

p

2IO The Lives of the Conjurors.

to the earth ; but he was armed and I defenceless.
I looked at my companions — they appeared to be
pale and paralysed with terror ; and yet these feelings
were somewhat neutralised by the consciousness that
the man could not dare to commit a deliberate
murder in the broad eye of day, and before so many
witnesses ; still the whole thing was appalling.

^^ The blood ran in streams from the basket ; the
child was heard to struggle under it ; her groans
fell horridly upon the eai*; her struggles smote
painfully upon the heart. The former were gradually
subdued into a faint moan, and the latter into a
slight rustling sound ; we seemed to hear the last
convulsive gasp which was to set her innocent soul
free from the gored body, when to our inexpressible
astonishment and rehef, after muttering a few caba-
listic words, the juggler took up the basket ; but no
child was to be seen. The spot was indeed dyed
with blood ; but there were no mortal remains, and,
after a few moments of undissembled wonder, we
perceived the little object of our alarm coming
towards us from among the crowd. She advanced
and saluted us, holding out her hand for our dona-
tions, which we bestowed with hearty good-will;
she received them with a most graceful salaam, and
the party left us, well satisfied with our more than
expected gratuity. What rendered the deception

The Lives of the Conjurors. 211

the more extra»ordinary was, that the man stood aloof
from the crowd dm'ing the whole performances-
there was not a person within several feet of him/'

On another occasion, our author witnessed some
clever tricks performed by Indian conjurors before
a rajah and the European visitors at his court, the
more remarkable of which he describes as follows :
— '^ One of the men, taking a large earthen vessel,
with a capacious mouth, filled it with water and
turned it upside down, when all the water flowed
out ; but the moment it was placed with the mouth
upwards, it always became full. He then emptied
it, allowing any one to inspect it who chose. This
being done, he desired that one of the party would
fill it; his request was obeyed. Still, when he
reversed the jar, not a drop of water flowed, and
upon turning it, to our astonishment, it was empty.

^^ These and similar deceptions were several times
repeated; and so skilfully were they managed
that, although any of us who chose were allowed to
upset the vessel when full, which I did many times,
upon reversing it there was no water to be seen,
and yet no appearance of any having escaped. I
examined the jar carefully when empty, but de-
tected nothing which could lead to a discovery of
the mystery. I was allowed to retain and fill it
myself, still, upon taking it up, all was void within ;

p2

212 The Lives of the Conjurors.

yet the ground around it was perfectly dry, so tbat
how the water had disappeared, and where it had
beei; conveyed, were problems which none of us
were able to expound. The vessel employed by the
juggler upon this occasion was the common earth-
enware of the country, very roughly made ; and in
order to convince us that it had not been especially
constructed for the purpose of aiding his clever
deceptions, he permitted it to be broken in our
presence ; the fragments were then handed round
for the inspection of his highness and the party
present with him.

'^The next thing done was still more extra-
ordinary. A large basket was produced, under
which was put a lean hungry Pariah female dog;
after the lapse of about a minute, the basket was
removed, and she appeared with a litter of seven
puppies. These were again covered, and, upon
raising the magic basket, a goat was presented to
our view ; this was succeeded by a pig in the full
vigour of existence, but which, after being covered
for the usual time, appeared with its throat cut ; it
was, however, shortly restored to life under the
mystical shade *of the wicker covering. What
rendered these sudden changes so extraordinary
was that no one stood near the basket but the
juggler, who raised and covered the animals with

The Lives of the Conjurors. 213

it. When he concluded, there was nothing to be
seen under it; and what became of the different
animals which had figured in this singular decep-
tion was a question that puzzled us all.

" A man now took a small bag full of trap-balls,
which he threw one by one into the air, to the
number of thirty -five; none of them appeared to
return. When he had discharged the last, there
was a pause of full a minute; he then made a
variety of motions with his hands, at the same time
grunting forth a kind of barbarous chant ; in a few
seconds, the balls were seen to fall, one by one,
until the whole of them were replaced in the bag ;
this was repeated at least half-a-dozen times. No
one was allowed to come near him while this inte-
resting juggle was performed.^^ This feat closely
resembles one of those performed by the Bengalee
jugglers before Jehangire. After another of the
party had swallowed a live snake, and some clever
balaacing tricks had been exhibited by a woman, a
cloth was spread upon the ground ; after a minute
or two, it gradually rose, and, on its being raised,
three pine-apples were discovered growing, and were
cut and presented to the spectators.

CHAPTER XI.

A New £ra in the Histoiy of Gonjaiing Entertainments— r
Jacobs, the Ventriloquist and Improvisatore — ^The Chinese
Eing Trick — ^An Incident of a Tripe Supper — Tnk Turned
into Water containing Gold Fish — The Inexhaustible Bottle
— The Vanishing Page — Suspension by Ether — ^Imitators of
Jacobs — Ching Lau Lauro— Testot — Sutton — ^The Speaking
Automaton — ^A Yoimg Lady Found in a Pie — Law — ^Buck
—Miller.

The change which commenced about forty years
ago in the decorations of the conjuror's temple of
enchantment^ and the quantity and quality of the
apparatus used in the performance of his wonders^
marks an epoch in the history of magical entertain-
ments. The conjurors who amused us or our
fathers in the first quarter of the present century
worked with apparatus and paraphernalia as limited
and as simple as those which are shown in the
firontispieces of the books of Decremps and Astley^

The Lives of the Conjurors. 215

published in the last quarter of the eighteenth.
The conjuror stood in a curtained alcove, behind a
table covered with a green cloth, upon which were
a pack of cards, a dice-box, a bottle and a funnel,
a little box containing hemp or canary seed, an old
pistol, and two or three eggs. What display was
made by Breslaw, and other masters of the art in
the last century, there are no means of ascertain-
ing j but the frontispieces of the books of Decremps
and Astley, and the ruder embellishments of the
bills of Ball and others, show that the apparatus
and decorations used by conjurors before the advent
of Anderson and Jacobs were, as a rule, of the
simplest description.

Jacobs was a native of Canterbury, and com-
menced the public exercise of the conjuring profes-
sion at an early age, visiting Dover, Brighton,
Bath, and other provincial towns during the summer
and autumn of 1834. He made what I believe was
his first appearance in London in the following
spring at the assembly room of the ^ Horns Tavern,'
Kennington. There was little novelty in the con-
juring portion of his entertainment at this time, and
it was generally thought that he was a better ven-
triloquist than a conjuror, his best illusion being
the puzzling ring trick, which had been recently
introduced into Europe by a Chinese juggler, and

2 1 6 The L ives of the Conjurors.

consists in the dexterous manipulation of a number
of metallic rings, apparently without any opening
in them, but capable of being rapidly separated and
re-united in the hands of the conjuror. His ven-
triloquial powers were of a high order, however,
and his improvisation of songs on themes supplied
by the audience was an entertainment as novel in
this country as it was amusing.

Most of the provincial towns were visited by him
during this early period of his career, and in 1839
he had the honour of performing before the Princess
Augusta, at a juvenile entertainment given by
her royal highness at Brighton. In the following
spring, he engaged the large room of the ' Crown
and Anchor Tavern,' in the Strand, repudiating the
appellation of conjuror or magician, and styling
• himself an illusionist. " The practice,'* he ob-
served, ''of endeavouring to impose a belief in
magic on the credulity of those who witness sleight-
of-hand by professors of the art has, notwithstand-
ing the enlightened state of the age, but too long
prevailed; and, by throwing into disrepute such
absurd attempts, Mr. J. has been enabled on all
occasions to afford his patrons the greatest satisfac-
tion.'' To this repudiation he added the announce-
ment that " the Gun Trick, being a more wonder-
ful than pleasing experiment, which has excited so

The Lives of the Conjurors^ 217

much curiosity, though performed in the same
simple manner as other sleight-of-hand tricks, will
not be introduced in his entertainment/^

The performances thus announced were not well
attended ab first, and, if they were more successful
at a later period of the season, that result was due
to the entertainer's powers as a ventriloquist and
invprovisatore^ rather than to his conjuring, though
his tricks of legerdemain were very neatly per-
formed. Jacobs began himself to be convinced
that a conjuror is nothing if he only amuses, and
fails to inspire wonder. On resuming his provincial
rambles, he announced " incomprehensible wonders
of ancient necromancy and modem magic,'' called
the place of performance his Theatre Magique, and
showed upon his stage and operating table signs of
the transformation that was in progress.

During this tour an amusing incident occurred.
While he was performing at Grantham, he was
invited to sup with the members of the local tripe
club ; and, in the course of tbe evening, while one
of the company was making a long and dull speech,
he interrupted it by throwing his voice to the door,
and imitating a drunken rustic, who appeared to be
endeavouring to force his way into the room, while
a waiter was trying to keep him out. The chair-
man rose and advanced to the door, swearing that

21 8 The Lives of the Conjurors.

lie would throw the fellow downstairs, and stared in
ludicrous astonishment on finding nobody there.
He returned to the table wondering, but the
harangue of the prosy member was brought to an
end, and the joke was the source of much merri-
ment during the remainder of the evening.

Jacobs returned to London early in 1841, and
gave his entertainment at the Strand Theatre until
the commencement of the dramatic season at
Easter, when he again betook himself to the pro-
vinces. He engaged the Strand for the ensuing
winter season, opening at Christmas, when, though
he varied his entertainment with the feats of Rous-
seau, the French equilibrist, and the Patagonian
Wonders, he deemed it expedient to style himself
the great Modem Magician, and the theatre a
Temple of Necromancy, and to make almost as
lavish a display of glittering apparatus as had been
done by Anderson. His programmes were sprinkled
thickly with tricks designated by sonorous and in-
comprehensible names, such as the Bird of Para-
dise, the Vases of Divination, the Miraculous
Obelisk, Pandora's Box, the Grand Cross of St.
John, and the Bottles of Bacchus ; and he who had
begun by repudiating luicus pom-s^ and even the
name of conjuror, now used the language of

The Lives of the Conjurors. , 219

mystery, and made a display of tbe paraphernalia
of magic beyond most of his predecessors.

The chief novelty which these performances
introduced to London sight-seers was the ring and
pistol trick of Torrini, and probably of Pinetti.
Disused and forgotten tricks are often revived by
conjurors, and oflTered as new, just as Parisian
modistes revive portions of the costume of the four-
teenth or fifteenth century, and call them new
fashions ; and this is more often done by the most
famous and successful of the profession who have
studied the history of magic, than by the humble
performers at fairs and markets, who seldom know
more of the art than they have learned from their
instructors.

From this time Jacobs continued to pursue with
success the path which had been struck by Ander-
son, and each recurring season saw his temple of
magic more gorgeously decorated, and his ap-
paratus more ghttering and elaborate. New decep-
tions became necessaiy for the maintenance of his
repute, however, and in 1846 he performed the
trick of turning ink into transparent water in which
gold-fish swam. The trick of producing succes-
sively three or four glass bowls of water, contain-
ing gold-fish, from beneath a shawl or a cloak,
which had been introduced by a Chinese conjuror.

220 The Lives of the Conjurors.

was performed by him, four years later, with the
addition of afterwards throwing the shawl on the
floor, and then, on raising it again, disclosing live
ducks or rabbits.

None of this conjuror^s tricks were original,
indeed, though he performed some which had not
been witnessed in this country before. Among the
other tricks which he added to his repertoire at the
same time as the gold-fish deception were the
inexhaustible bottle, the vanishing page, and the
suspension by ether, as it was called, all of which
had previously been performed by Robert-Houdin.
Jacobs exhibited these tricks at the ' Horns
Tavern,^ Kennington, in 1850, and afterwards in
Manchester, and other towns in the provinces.

Early in 1853, he again engaged the Strand
Theatre, but for twelve nights only, after which he
gave his performances for a short time in the little
marionette theatre at the Adelaide Grallery. No
novelties were produced, and, after another tour in
the provinces, Jacobs embarked for America.

Returning to the period of this conjuror^s first
appearance, we find several imitations of his enter-
tainment, which, though not of the first order, if
regarded as an exhibition of legerdemain, afforded
an agreeable variety. The juggler who, under the
name of Ching Lau Lauro, gave a posturing and

The Lives of the Conjurors. 221

balancing performance in the opening scene of the
third act of Tcym and Jerry at the Ooburg, in 1828,
appeared seven years later as a conjuror and ven-
triloquist at the theatres and assembly-rooms of
many provincial towns, varying his entertainment
with buflTo songs. In 1836 he substituted some
gymnastic feats for the musical portion of his pro-
gramme, and concluded his performance by sitting
in the air, apparently upon nothing, like the
Brahmin of Madras.

Notwithstanding his name, I am as doubtful
whether Ching Lau Lauro was a veritable native of
the flowery land as I am whether a juggler of the
present day, who appears with a brown face and an
Oriental garb, is an Asiatic; and another of the
profession, with a strangely compounded Anglo-
Italian name, who does the Chinese rings trick very
dexterously, is an Italian. The desire to seem
what they are not clings closely to entertainers of
all kinds and degrees, manifesting itself among
operatic a/rtistes of British birth, who Italianise
their names, or prefix foreign forms of address to
them, as well as among jugglers and conjurors,
acrobats and gymnasts, who delight in foreign
names and titles, which many of them are unable
to correctly pronounce.

During the summer of 1838, Ching, as he was

222 The Lives of the Conjurors.

usually called^ performed at most of the theatres in
the north of England^ dividing his entertainment
into three parts, the first consisting of conjuring
tricks, the second of ventriloquism and imitations of
birds, and the third of juggling and gymnastic
feats, concluding with the aerial suspension. He
afterwards made a continental tour, returning to
England in the beginning of the following year,
when he performed at several places in the suburbs
of London.

During the first tour of Ching Lau Laui*o as a
conjuror, Testot, a French professor of the art, who
had gained some repute in his own country, and
performed before Louis Philippe, who gave him a
certificate of his approbation, came to England, and
performed in most of the large provincial towns.
The most notable features of his entertainment
were the metamorphosis of a bird into a young
lady, originally exhibited by Chalon; and the
walking and speaking coins, a very simple decep-
tion> though one which always creates wonder,
and which had been performed ten years previously
by Girardelli. He visited this country again in
1843, when he extended his tour to the most
northern towns of Scotland.

The Celestial and the Frenchman were succeeded
in 1836 by Sutton, who was also a ventriloquist,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 223

but, instead of making his exliibifcion of the power
a distinct portion of his entertainment, as Jacobs
and Ching had done, made it subservient to his con-
juring deceptions. He had an automaton, which
he used to explain and illustrate the oracles of
antiquity the responses delivered by himself ven-
triloquially, appearing to proceed from the figure.
His control of the vocal organs was so complete
that he could hold a lighted candle before his
mouth in this performance without aflfecting the
flame by his breath.

Sutton had little genius for original tricks, which
indeed, are rarely produced, and require for their
production an amount of study and research which
few of the profession can devote to them, and a
development of constructiveness which few of them
are gifted with; but he displayed tact and inge-
nuity in devising variations of the great tricks of
modern conjurors, and giving them the air of
novelty. Thus, he availed of the idea of the popu-
lar trick of the inexhaustible bottle in the production
of a shower of sweets from a cornucopia ; and he
varied the vanishing trick by causing a young lady
to disappear and afterwards serving her up in an
enormous pie.

After performing with success for two years in
the provinces, Sutton appeared at the beginning of

224 The Lives of the Conjurors,

1838 at the Strand Theatre, where the juvenile
violinists, Viotti and Lindley Collins, gave a musi-
cal entertainment between the first and second
parts of his programme. In the spring he proceeded
to America, and performed for some time at the
City Saloon, New York, in conjunction with Strain,
the balancer and fire-eater. He made a successful
tour of the principal cities of the United States, and
then returned to Europe.

Conjurors were springing up at this time as
numerously as they had done ten years previously.
The advent of Jacobs was followed within three
years by the performances of Ching, Testot, Sutton,
Law, Buck, Miller, and Anderson. Law, who per-
formed at the London Tavern in 1836, gave a
ventriloquial performance between the two parts of
his conjuring entertainment. Buck was a French-
man, who was engaged to perform in a variety en-
tertainment given, during the winter season of 1837,
at the Strand Theatre. There was nothing re-
markable in the illusions which he presented, which
recall the programmes of Breslaw; but the com-
bination of his performances with those of Bamo
Samee, the Ravels, and the Collins family afforded
an agreeable entertainment.

Buck re- visited England in the summer of 1851,
when he had the honour of performing before the

The Lives of the. Conjurors. 225

Queen and the royal family, and during that year,
and the two following years, performed successfully
in the great provincial towns. His programme
comprised no startling novelties, but he showed
some of the best tricks of his predecessors in a
satisfactory manner, including the gun trick, the
conversion of ink into water, and the vanishing
lady. He performed during this tour one hundred
nights in Manchester, sixty in Newcastle, seventy-
eight in Hull, and a hundred and forty in Bristol.

Miller, whose strange adventures and vicissitudes
were related by himself in his Life of a Showman^
was a conjuror of the fair-frequenting class during
the greater part of his varied life. He relates an
amusing anecdote of a failure he once had in per-
forming the common trick of cooking a pancake in
a hat. He was performing before a private party
at Kelso, and among the company was an elderly
gentleman, who sat close to the operating table,
and caused some discomposure to Miller and his
attendant by the closeness of his observation of
their motions, and the grimaces and chuckUngs in
which he indulged whenever he discovered, or
thought he had discovered, the mode in which any
of the tricks were performed. The pancake trick
is done by secretly introducing into the hat a ready
cooked and hot pancake in a tin dish, and above

Q

226 The Lives of the Conjurors,

tbis a gallipot. The batter is prepared, in sight of
the spectators, in a similar gallipot, just as much
smaller than the other as to fit closely into it. The
contents of the smaller gallipot are poured into the
larger one, and both are withdrawn together ; and
the conjuror, after pretending to cook the pancake
over a lamp or candle, presents it on the tin dish.

Miller's attendant was so much confused and
distracted by the watching, grimacing, and chuck-
ling of the old gentleman that he omitted to place
the gallipot in the hat which a gentleman of the
party had lent for the purpose, and Miller poured
the batter upon the pancake before he discovered
the omission. He was not so ready-witted as
Eobert-Houdin showed himself on similar occasions,
nor was his attendant so equal to the emergency as
the French conjuror's ministering imp proved in
the face of such a disaster. They could only stare
in bewilderment at the spoiled hat until Miller, re-
covering from his confusion, confessed his failure,
explained the manner in which the trick is done,
and threw the blame upon the inquisitive and
chuckling old gentleman.

Proceeding from Kelso to Glasgow, where the
fair was about to be held. Miller found Anderson,
thereafter to be known as the Wizard of the North,
with a large and handsomely decorated show, the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 227

charge for admission to whicli was sixpence*
Miller, whose show was smaller and less preten-
tions, charged only a penny; and, finding that
Anderson intended to perform the gun trick, in-
cluded that deception in his own programme. His
show was crowded at every performance, and at
the close of the fair he found himself in possession
of seventy pounds, a larger sum than he had ever
taken before.

It was the ambition of both the conjurors to
become the manager of a theatre, and they attained
it a few years afterwards. Miller obtaining posses-
sion of the Adelphi, Glasgow, and Anderson building
the City Theatre, in the same city. Both were
ruined by the speculation ; Miller through the want
of sufficient capital to carry on the undertaking,
and Anderson by the burning of his theatre, as will
be related in the next chapter. Miller resumed his
wandering life as a conjuror, and died in 1873.

Q 2

CHAPTEE Xn.

John Henry Anderson — His Early Wanderings and Adven-
tures — ^A Conjuror's Perils Among the Ignorant — ^The Wi-
zard's Umbrella — ^Anderson in a Scrape — Unfortunate Spe-
culation at Glasgow — Burning of the Theatre — ^An Adven-
ture in St. Petersburg — Second Sight — An Imperial Wizard
— A Conjuror's Devices — ^Exposure of the Spirit-Happers
— The Mask Ball at Covent Garden — ^Another Conflagra-
tion.

John. Henry Anderson, who now claims our at-
tention, and who attained a world-wide renown as
the Wizard of the North, was bom in Aberdeen-
shire, and was the son of an operative mason.
Losing both his parents while a child, he became
his own pilot on the voyage of life at the early age
of ten years, in the capacity of call-boy to the
theatrical company then performing on the northern
circuit, under the management of Mr. Ryder.
Natural aptitude for the performance of juggling
tricks, and for the construction of curious pieces of

The Lives of the Conjurors. ^29

mechanism^ led him^ at the age of seventeen^ to
adopt the profession of conjuror, his only knowledge
of which was derived from an evening's observation
of the performance of Ingleby Lunar.

His earliest performances were given in the small
towns of the north of Scotland, and his first ^^ hit '*
was made while performing in the Farmers' Hall,
at Brechin, in the spring of 1837. Lord Panmure,
who was entertaining a party of friends at Brechin
Castle at the time, invited the young conjuror, not
only to exhibit his skill to the guests, but to dine
with them, an invitation which was the source of
much trouble of mind to Anderson, though the
result was very much to his advantage. Unac-
quainted as he was with the code of etiquette
adopted by the upper ten thousand, he could scarcely
fail to commit many offences against it, and many a
laugh has been excited by his recital of the solecisms
of which he was guilty during and after dinner.
The kindness of his host and hostess^ and the polite
good humour of their other guests, spared him any
serious unpleasantness, however, and his exertions
in entertaining the company with all the best tricks
of his then limited repertoire, were rewarded with a
fee of ten pounds ^nd the following flattering testi-
monial: —

230 The Lives of the Conjurors.

'' Sir, — Our party here last night witnessed your
performance with the greatest satisfaction ; and I
have no hesitation in saying that you far excel any
other necromancer that I ever saw, either at home
or abroad.

^^ Panmueb/'

Anderson was now richer than he had ever been
before, and this unexpected accession of capital gave
him, in its prudent use, a new impetus on the path
of fame. He had already assumed the imposing
title of the Wizard of the North, which he after-
wards claimed to have received from Sir Walter
Scott, and by which he was ever afterwards known.
The story is, as told by Anderson himself, that the
great novelist said to him, after a performance at
Abbotsford, "They call me the Wizard of the
North, Mr. Anderson, but the title should be borne
by you.'' But, as Scott suffered his first attack of
paralysis at the beginning of 1830, and was a phy-
sical and mental wreck from that time until his
death in 1832, it is not easy to reconcile this story
with Anderson's statement that his performances
were confined to the north of Scotland until a period
subsequent to his exhibition at Brechin Castle in
1837.

It was a good name to conjure with, however.

The Lives of the Conjurors, 231

and with that on his banner^ Lord Panmure's testi-
monial in his pocket, and new and more elaborate
apparatus, Anderson conmienced that saccessfol
tour of the three kingdoms which preceded his
first appearance in the metropolis. He performed
a hundred nights at Edinburgh, in the Waterloo
Eooms, 1837 ; and during the two following years
visited all the principal towns in Scotland and the
north of England, and the chief cities of Ireland.
In 1838, afber performing forty nights in the Mon-
teith Booms, in Glasgow, to crowded houses, he
erected a building called the Temple of Magic,
seated for two thousand spectators, and performed
in it for a hundred nights. In the following year,
he performed a hundred and twenty nights at the
Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh, and then returned to
his Temple of Magic at Glasgow, for a season of four
months.

Early in 1840, he came to London, and made his
first appearance before a metropolitan audience at
the Strand Theatre. His programme contained
some new tricks, or tricks which appeared in a new
garb, like old gems re-set ; and was well sprinkled
with examples of the Girardellian nomenclature,
such as Pluto's Bottle, the Goblets of Ptolomey,
the Silver Cups of Herculaneum, the Pompeian
Yase, Flora's Bouquet, and the Bottle of Asmodeus.

232 The Lives of the Conjurors.

One of his tricks anticipated by more ttan thirty
years one of the most b^wilde^ing, though very
simple, deceptions of the so-called spiritual pheno-
mena. He produced a piece of paper, on which
three or four gentlemen wrote their names, or any
word or sentence, one of them afterwards burning
the paper. Anderson then produced a basket of
eggs, sprinkled the ashes of the paper over the eggs
with the gravity of a mediaeval magician, and then
requested a gentleman to select an egg from the
basket. On the Q^'g being broken, a perfect fac-
simile of the burned writing was found in the in-
side.

Another of his tricks savoured of the so-called
second-sight. He produced a small box, in which
four gentlemen each deposited some small aiiicle,
unseen by the conjuror. One of them held the box,
and Anderson, looking at it through a telescope,
described the articles deposited, which were after-
wards found in another box, while the one in which
they had been placed vanished from the holder's
hand. The entertainment closed with the gun
trick, of which Anderson claimed to be the sole
inventor, though he can fairly be said only to have
performed it in a diflFerent manner to his prede-
cessors. " The extraordinary mystery of the trick,"
he said, ^' is not eflFected by the aid of any accom-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 233

plice, or by inserting a tube in the muzzle of the
gun, or by other conceivable devices, (as the public
frequently, and in some instances correctly imagine,)
but any gentleman may really load the gun in the
usual manner, inserting himself a marked real leaden
ball ! The gun being then fired off at the Wizard,
he will instantly produce and exhibit the same
bullet in his hand/' The bullet was not, however,
a '^ real leaden ball," but one made of an amalgam
of tinfoil and quicksilver, which is as heavy as lead,
but is dispersed in firing.

Anderson displayed a collection of apparatus lar-
ger and more handsome than had ever been witnessed
before, and which he described as ^^ a most gor-
geous and costly apparatus of solid silver, the mys-
terious mechanical construction of which is upon a
secret principle, hitherto unknown in Europe/'
During four months Anderson exhibited his marvels
to crowded houses, and then removed to the St*
James's Bazaar, in St. James's Street, which he
converted, at considerable expense, into an elegant
little Temple of Magic, in which he performed two
months longer. Here he introduced two or three
new tricks of a remarkable character. Two ladies
stood at opposite sides of the saloon, each holding
a small casket. In one of these a wedding ring
was placed, and was immediately afterwards found

234 TAe Lives of the Conjurors.

in tte other, before shown to be empty. The
caskets were closed again, and on being re-opened
the ring had disappeared, to be found in an orange
which had been all the time suspended by a ribbon
through its centre.

Another was called the Cabinet of Confiicius.
The conjuror exhibited a cabinet of antique ap-
pearance, in which were three drawers and three
compartments with glazed fronts. Three cards
were taken indiscriminately from the pack, and
placed in the upper drawer, from which they were
a moment afterwards found to have vanished. The
other two drawers were shown to be also empty.
They then re-appeared in, and again disappeared
from, either of the drawers, at the demand of the
spectators; and afterwards, on the doors of tlie
cabinet being closed for a moment, and again
opened, one was seen at the glazed front of each
of the upper compartments. Then, at a wave of
the conjuror's wand, they leaped out of the turrets
ornamenting the top of the cabinet. There was a
similar, and more bewildering trick, in which
figured a handkerchief and one of the Uttle animals
(cavies) improperly termed Guinea pigs ; but it was
so complicated and incomprehensible as absolutely
to defy intelligible description.

Early in August, Anderson left the metropolis

The Lives of the Conjurors. 235

for DubKn, and, after a successful season in the
Hibernian capital, visited Cork, Limerick, and
Belfast. It was in the course of this tour, I believe,
that he met with a ludicrous adventure at one of
the little inns which the Irish guide-books dignify
with the name of hotels. The only portion of his
baggage which was taken from the vehicle in which
he travelled was a large box containing the rabbits,
cavies, and pigeons which lent their aid to his de-
ceptions; and the strange sounds which issued
therefrom so puzzled the man who carried it into
the house that he felt constrained to relieve his
mind by communicating to the hostess the subject
of his bewilderment. The conclusion was arrived
at that the Sassenach guest was a man of mystery,
and the discovery of the inscription. Great Wizard,
of the North, engraved on a silver plate inlaid on
the ivory handle of his umbrella, spread consterna-
tion and horror throughout the establishment.

The hostler and the chambermaid were admitted
to the council, and the conmion idea of a wizard
being the same as when Dame Alice Kyteler was
prosecuted for sorcery in the thirteenth century, it
was resolved to call to their assistance the parish
priest. The reverend gentleman went to the inn,
but, having witnessed Anderson's performances
during a visit to Dublin, he did not deem the case

236 The Lives of the Conjurors.

one foi' bell, book, and candle. He failed, however,
to convince tte ignorant and superstitious people
of the inn that their guest was a harmless wizard ;
no one in the house >?70uld venture near Anderson
while he remained in it. When his supper was
ready, he heard a tap at the door, and on opening
it found the tray on the mat, and no one near;
when he wished to retire, another tap responded to
his summons, and he found on the mat a chamber
candlestick and a piece of paper inscribed with the
number of his room, which he had to find as he
could. His breakfast was served in the same mys-
terious manner as his supper, and the hostess was
probably surprised in an agreeable manner when
she found that the money which he left on the table
did not bum her hand, nor change in a few days
into lead.

Early in the following summer, Anderson again
appeared before a London audience, performing
for three months at th'e Adelphi. Several new
tricks of a very ingenious character were introduced.
In one a silver vase and three silver cups were
placed on the table, and a second silver vase, filled
with seed, was handed to a spectator. At the
conjuror's command the seed disappeared, re-appear-
ing in either of the cups, at the choice of a
spectator; disappearing again, to re-appear in

The Lives of the Conjurors. 237

the vase on the table, and then returning to the
vase in which it was originally contained.

Another trick was performed with three silver
goblets, the first containing comfits, the second
empty, and the third filled with water. The
first being covered with a silver cover, the water
passed fi*om the full goblet to the empty one ; and
on the cover being lifted from the goblet which had
contained the comfits, the confectionery had disap-
peared, re-appearing in the second goblet, from
which the water returned invisibly to its former
receptacle. Anderson '^ rang the changes '^ in
a similar manner with a rabbit and some oranges,
nsing a silver vase and two boxes with sliding
drawers ; and also with a couple of dice, two silver
cases, and five hats borrowed from the spectators.

A campanological performance by the Lancashire
bell-ringers varied the entertainment at the
Adelphi, and also at Brighton, Southampton,
Nottingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and other
provincial towns, to which Anderson proceeded
on the termination of his London season. He
returned to the Adelphi at Easter, 1842, still accom-
panied by the bell-ringers, and varied his entertain-
ment farther by presenting a concert and a ballet.
Jfo new tricks of any importance were introduced
in the conjuror's portion of the entertainment

238 The Lives of the Conjurors.

during this season, on the conclusion of which
Anderson made another provincial tour.

During this tour he met with a remarkable
adventure. One day, towards the conclusion
of an engagement at Elgin, he visited Forres,
a town twelve miles distant, to make arrange-
ments for repeating his performance there, in the
vicinity of the ^^ blasted heath '' on which, accord-
ing to tradition, Macbeth met the witches. Having
made the requisite arrangements, he was directed
by the printer to the residence of an elderly widow,
who had apartments to let, which, proving suitable,
were taken for one week.

" Ye'U excuse me, sir,'' said the widow, when he
was about to depart, '' but I maun tell ye I'm a
puir widow, and a' that I hae to live by is what I
get by lettin' my apartments. Ither folk hae
engaged 'em, saying I might expect 'em on a
certain day ; but they didna come, sae I was disap-
pointed. It's an old sayin', that 'burnt bairns
dre^d the fire.' Ye are a stranger, although a
decent lookin' man, and ye may do the same ; sae I
hope ye winna object to pay half o' the rent afore-
hand."

Anderson niade no objection, but at once handed
four half-crowns to the old lady. At that moment
he remembered that he must see the printer

The Lives of the Conjurors. 239

again before he left Forres, and, as the day, which
had threatened to be a wet one, was fine, he left
his umbrella with the widow, whose good opinion
the payment in advance of one moiety of the week's
rent had quite secured. But, unfortunately, the
widow read the words, Qreai Wizard of the North
on the handle of the umbrella when Anderson had
left her; and he observed, on his return, that
she trembled and changed colour as she regarded
him intently from head to foot, without venturing
to approach him.

" Save us !'' she faintly ejaculated. " Wha are ye?'^

''I am a rather notorious character,^' Anderson
replied, with a smUe, " and I have no doubt, although
you have never seen me before, that you have heard
of me. My name is Anderson, and I am known as
the Wizard of the North."

" A weezard, are ye ? '' said the aflFrighted widow*
" Then, for the love o' guidness, gang oot 0' my
house I I wadna lodge ye for ae night under my
roof nae for a' the world. For the love o' heaven,
gang awa, and tak your umbrella alang wi' ye.''

As the Elgin coach was shortly to pass the house,
Anderson did not pause to explain or remonstrate,
but stepped at once towards the door ; when the
widow cried, '' Stap ! Dinna leave ought belanging
to ye wi' me ; tak your siller wi' ye, and never let
me see your face again.^

i>

240 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Hastily taking the four half-crowns from her
purse, she threw them upon the floor, screaming
that they burned her fingers, and immediately
fell back in a swoon of terror. In her fall, her
head struck a stool, slightly lacerating her cheek ;
and on several of the neighbours hurrying in, on
hearing her scream and fall, they found her bleeding,
and apparently lifeless. The women cried out that
the stranger had murdered the widow, and the men
seized Anderson^s arms, to prevent his escape.

At that moment the coach was driven up, and the
driver, seeing a crowd about the widow's house,
pulled up, and inquired the cause of the commotion.

On being told that a murder had been committed,
the guard leaped down, and, looking through the
window, recognised Anderson, whom he had seen
several times in Elgin. The coach started again,
and Anderson, finding that he was in an awkward
position, as the old lady gave no signs of life,
demanded to be taken before a magistrate at once.
This he was told was impossible, as there was no
magistrate within seven miles, and all that could be
done was to lodge him in the town gaol until the
next day.

To the gaol the conjuror was taken, therefore,
between a couple of constables, who were com-
mendably prompt in making their appearance. The

The Lives of the Conjurors. 241

coacli went on to Elgin, where tlie guard lost
no time in spreading the news of the Wizard's
arrest, and, going to the Assembly Rooms, told
the audience, who were just growing impatient at
the conjuror's non-appearance, that "they might
conjure for themselves that night, for there would
be no'^Wizard, as he was where he would not get
out with all his magic ; he was in Forres gaol, for
murdering an old woman/' A thrill of horror ran
through the crowded auditory; then a murmur
arose, and loud demands were made for the return
of the money paid at the doors. This was done ;
and nothing was talked of at Elgin that night but
the horrible murder at Forres.

On the following morning, Anderson was con-
ducted to the residence of the magistrate, where
the widow, who had recovered in the course of the
night, told as much of the tragi-comical story as she
knew. The gentleman who administered justice in
that remote district smiled at the old lady's
narrative, reproved the witnesses for their hastiness,
and at once discharged Anderson, with an expres-
sion of regret for the inconvenience and loss to
which his detention had subjected him. The news
of the denouement of the affair reached Elgin as
soon as Anderson, for whom it proved an excellent
advertisement, bringing crowds to the Assembly

24- The Lives of the Conjurors.

Booms, and inducing him to prolong his stay-
in that toYHi several nights beyond the term he
had intended.

He re-appeared at the Adelphi at Easter, 1843,
with the same repertoire as in the preceding year,
and still attended by th^ Lancashire bell-ringers.
Towards the close of the season, the entertainment
was varied by the vocal performances of the
Virginia Minstrels. This was announced as An-
derson^s last season in London, in consequence
of a special engagement in St. Petersburg, and an
intended continental tour; but, after a series of
performances in the large towns of the north of
England, he again returned to the Adelphi at
the following Easter, when Mr. Raymond, assisted
by his wife and Miss Lindley, gave an entertainment
called -4 yi Hov/r in Ireland between the parts of the
conjuring performances.

Anderson had now realised a considerable for-
tune, a large portion of which he invested in
a theatrical speculation upon which his mind had
long been set, namely, the erection of a theatre at
Glasgow for dramatic performances. The result
was most unfortunate, the theatre being destroyed
by fire before its owner had recovered the money
he had expended in its construction. Rendered
desperate by the heavy loss with which he was

The Lives of the Conjurors. 243

threatened, Anderson, who was only partially
insured, would have rushed into the flames, in the
hope of saving some of his property, if he had not
been restrained. Becoming calmer, he hurried to
the bridge, from which he watched the progress of
the conflagation until the flames sank to a dull
glow for the want of combustible materials to
maintain them.

As soon as his mind had recovered its equanimity,
he set out for Hull, whence, after performing there
with success for several nights, he embarked for
Hamburg. From that city he proceeded to St.
Petersburg, performing on his way at Copenhagen
and Stockholm. Arrived in the Russian capital, he
engaged the Alexandrisky theatre, where he had a
very successful season.

He had not been long in St. Petersburg when,
being one night at a mask ball at the Bolshoi
theatre, accompanied by Mr. Maynard, he happened,
in the crowd, to jostle a gentleman in the uniform
of a Russian general, to whom he immediately
offered an apology. It was very coldly received,
and Anderson experienced a vague feeling of un-
easiness on learning from his companion that the
gentleman he had jostled was the Czar, and that he
had increased the offence by the apology, it being
contrary to Russian court etiquette to address the

B 2

244 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Czar on such occasions. He wondered whether he
should be arrested on leaving the theatre^ or taken
from his hotel in the dead of nighty clapped into a
hibitka, and hurried off to Siberia; and when, on
the following morning, a letter, sealed with the
imperial arms, was brought to him by a gorgeously
liveried lacquey, he thought the dreaded moment
had arrived.

The letter contained the Emperor^s command for
a private performance at the Winter Palace, at
which the Empress, and all the Grand Dukes and
Grand Duchesses then in St. Petersburg, were
present. Nicholas was more perplexed by the
exhibition of the so-called second sight than by
any other of the conjuror's feats, and more so than
at first after requiring Anderson to describe the
watch which he had in his pocket, and being told
that it was ornamented with a circle of one hundred
and twenty brilliants round the face, and a portrait
in enamel of the Emperor Paul at the back, which
he acknowledged to be correct. Anderson added,
that the watch carried by the Empress did not go,
which was also the fact, it being a very old one, a
relic of the first Czar Peter, and worn only as a
horological curiosity. On the conclusion of the
performance, Nicholas examined the conjuring appa-
ratus, expressed admiration of the ingenuity dis-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 245

played in its construction, and, observing that he
had in his youth been an amateur conjuror, exhibi-
ted a trick which he had learned while travelling
among the Khirgis.

On the termination of his engagement in St.
Petersburg, Anderson proceeded to Moscow, and
afterwards to Vienna, Berlin, and all the principal
cities of central Europe. Returning to England, he
performed in 1846 at Covent Garden, and in 1848
at the Strand Theatre, with several new deceptions.
He had, at the latter period, a formidable competitor
in the famous Robert-Houdin, who was performing
at the St. Jameses Theatre, and the rivalry prompted
him to the use of extraordinary means of publicity.
Having long ago exhausted language in advertising,
he now appealed to the eyes of the public by sending
through the streets a cavalcade, consisting of four
cars covered with coloured bills and pictorial repre-
sentations of his principal feats, followed by twenty-
four men bearing banners, on each of which was a
letter three feet high, the series forming the words,
'^The celebrated Anderson,^ ^ on one side, and
'' The Great Wizard of the North " on the other.

He did not attract, however, as he had done
before, and terminating his London season earlier
than on previous occasions, he set out for the
provinces. After visiting most of the large towns.

246 The Lives of the Conjurors.

lie embarked at Liverpool for a professional tour of
the United States^ which he carried out with the
greatest success. He terminated a long engage-
ment at the Melodeon, Boston, in October, 1852,
afterwards performing one night at the Howard
AthensBum in that city, for the benefit of the
Scotch Charitable Society, not as a conjuror, but in
the character of Rob Roy, in the dramatic version of
Scott^s romance.

After performing in all the principal cities of the
Union, he returned to Europe in the autumn of
1853, and announced a final tour of six months
preparatory to his retirement from the profession.
Commencing where he had first performed as a
conjuror at the outset of his career, he received the
command of the queen to give a private exhibition
at Balmoral, and proceeded for that purpose to the
inn at Crathie, in the vicinity of her Majesty's
highland residence. There the superstition of his
host involved him in an adventure which must have
forcibly reminded him of his imprisonment at
Forres eleven years previously. An old man who
had known Anderson when a boy, and was aware of
the superstitious tendencies of the innkeeper^s
mind, amused himself by exciting the latter's fears
on account of his guest.

"Do ye ken wha yon is?'' he inquired in a

The Lives of the Conjurors. 247

mysterious tone, as he directed the innkeeper^s
attention to Anderson.

" Indeed, na/^ returned the host. ^^ He'll be ane
o' they touring gentlemen come to see the country,
I suppose.^'

^'Ye're wrang, mon — ^ye're wrang,'' said the
mischievous wight. " That's the Great Wizard of
the North — no less ! ''

^^Weezard!'' exclaimed the innkeeper, dilating
his eyes widely as they turned from his informant to
the conjuror, and back to the former. " Is it a real
weezard ye mean ? ''

" He is all that,'' replied the old man gravely.
^' He can conjure your money out o' your pocket
into his own, or turn it into lead wi' a touch ; bum
a handkerchief, and make it whole again ; and do
all the maist wonderfu' things that ever ye heard
tell o' in your bom days. Locks and bolts winna
hand him, they say, nor bullets harm him."

" Guidness preserve us ! " gasped the innkeeper.

After much cogitation on what he had heard, he
resolved to request the wizard to leave the house ;
but as there was no other inn within a considerable
distance, Anderson declined to comply with the
request, and resolutely maintained his ground. Not
knowing what to do in this situation, the innkeeper
was fain to content himself with the precaution of

248 The Lives of the Conjurors.

securing a considerable sum which he happened to
have in the house, in notes of the Bank of Scotland,
in one of the pillows of his bed. Unfortunately the
influx of guests drew so heavily on the resources of
the establishment that the chambermaid had to
remove one *of the pillows from her master^s room
for the accommodation of a guest, and happened to
take the one containing the notes. The innkeeper,
on discovering his loss, at once suspected and
accused Anderson of having conjured the pillow
away, and threatened him with arrest. The
chambermaid, on .learning the subject of the
altercation, remembered the transfer of the pillow,
and running to the room to which it had been
removed, discovered the notes. An awkward
apology followed, and Anderson was allowed to
depart.

He closed his performances at Glasgow by
engaging the largest hall he could hire for the
last night, and giving a silver cup to be competed
for by the audience as a prize for the best conun-
drum. The place was crowded, and, as the collec-
tion of conundrums (numbering more than a thou-
sand) was afterwards published, and every contri-
butor probably invested a shilling in the purchase
of a copy, Anderson found the device so profitable
that he repeated it on several other occasions.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 249

At the close of the summer of 1855 he returned
to London, and opened the Lyceum with a pro-
gramme embracing several novel features. The
trick of the inexhaustible bottle was presented in a
new form, the contents of the bottle being made to
change at wUl, and the bottle finally proving to be
filled with cambric handkerchiefs perfectly dry ; the
aerial suspension trick illustrated, in appearance, the
possibility of sleeping unsupported in the air ; and
the money of the spectators was made to fall, like
the golden shower on the couch of Danae, into a
glass casket suspended in the sight of all, though
its lid was closed and locked, and the key was in
the possession of a spectator.

But the great attraction was his exposure of the
spirit-rapping imposture of the Spiritualists. " It
was during my American tour,^^ he stated, in a long
announcement of the opening of the Lyceum, ^^ that
I became acquainted with the facts of Spiritualism,
or pretended communication with the shades of the
departed through the agency of table-rapping
media. I had an opportunity of seeing the dire
effects produced in that country by the belief in a
delusion so absurd, yet so fraught with danger. I
vigilantly watched the practices of its professors,
and marked the fate of many of their dupes. I
saw that an imposition which had originated

250 The Lives of the Conjurors,

amongst unprincipled adventurers had become the
very religion of the superstitious and credulous;
— that it was believed in by tens and hundreds of
thousands ; — that it was causing to many of its
victims a life of nervous agony and mental torture ;
— ^that from having been the faith of fools^ it had
become the fatal folly of many a man of intellect
and repute. In the United States alone, the alarm-
ing number of seven thousand five hundred lunatics
have been sent to the asylums of that country, —
lunatics whose lunacy had been wholly caused by
their belief in Spiritual Manifestations. To dis-
cover the mechanism of an imposture so disastrous
in its results I regarded as being my duty, and so
successful was I that the exposures I gave were
death-raps to the table-rappers in all the cities
wherein I had an opportunity to give them. I
caused my table to rap as loudly and as intelligently
as theirs, while I hesitated not to reveal the nature
and modvs operandi of the ' spirits ' which produced
its rappings."

This exposure, which was rendered most oppor-
tune by the presence in London of some of the
most noted media of the United States, who were
giving their spiritualistic secmces in Belgravian
drawing-rooms, would have been sufficient of itself
to attract crowds to the Lyceum ; but Anderson did

The Lives of the Conjurors. 25 j

not deem it expedient to rely solely upon it, or upon
the memory of his former fame. He had been
absent seven years from the metropolis, and during
that time London sight-seers had witnessed the
performances of fiobert-Houdin, Hermann, Robin,
Frikell, arid Bosco. Accordingly he " billed ^^ the
dead walls and hoardings of London and the
suburbs for weeks before with every form of what
I once heard a pretentious bill-sticker term " exter-
nal paper-hanging/^ In one place was a simple
announcement, in another a lithographic portrait of
the conjuror, in a third a series of pictorial repre-
sentations of his principal tricks. Hostile manifes-
toes, professing to emanate from the Spiritualists,
also appeared on the walls, repudiating all connec-
tion with Anderson, and predicting the ultimate
triumph of the spirit-rappers.

"The excitement," says the leading journal of
the day following the opening of the Lyceum, "was
extraordinary. The boxes and stalls were at once
filled with a fashionable audience, and the pit barri-
cades were forced in, so that the patrons of this
part of the house, inconvenienced by the struggle,
began their evening in a somewhat sulky mood, and
even threatened a tumult when Mr. Anderson made
his appearance. However, after a few words of
conversation between the professor and the leaders

252 The Lives of the Conjurors.

of the malcontents, all angry feeling subsided, and
never did an entertainment of the sort pass off with
more perfect good-humour/*

When the Couch of Mesmer, the Casket of
Croesus, and the Bottle of Bacchus had successively
excited the wonder of the spectators, Anderson
proceeded to the exposure of spirit-rapping. Sus-
pending two glass bells from the ceiling, placing a
table on a platform extended across the centre of
the pit^ and setting up an automaton figure on the
stage, he made each in turn answer every question
that he put as to the number of letters composing a
given word, or the number of pips on a card drawn
from the pack. The bells answered by ringing, the
table by raps, and the automaton by signs. The
means by which the replies were obtained was not
stated. Anderson merely informed the audience
that they were purely mechanical, and not more so
than those employed by the Spiritualists, whom he
denounced as impostors. He affirmed that while in
New York he had defied a spirit-rapper to get out
of the table he had constructed any sound that
could not be traced to a natural cause, and that,
although he had staked a large sum of money on
the result of the challenge, the Spiritualist had
failed to elicit any sound at aU. This part of the
entertainment was distinguished from the rest by

The Lives of the Conjurors. 253

the grave tone with which the conjuror expatiated
on the mischief done by pretended spirit media,
and was received with applause equally serious.

Towards the close of the season Anderson issued
the following amusing " squib '^ as a means of
attracting to the Lyceum those who had not yet
witnessed his performances^ and at the same time
announcing the opening of Oovent Garden, which
he had engaged for the winter : —

"Bbwabb op the Lyceum! Strange Conduct
OF Peofbssor Anderson. To the Wom-en of Eng-
land ! — Ladies, — We have a complaint to make,
which is of a very distressing nature. We are two
poor widows, — leastwise, we have no husbands,
which is owing to the scandalous behaviour of Mr.
Anderson, the wicked Wizard of the Lyceum. Our
names are Mrs. Margaret Wilson and Mrs. Dorothy
Jones j and our husbands were a trowsers maker,
which was Mr. Wilson, and a tin-plate worker,
•which was Mr. Jones. Last Monday night, we
went to the Lyceum playhouse, to see the Wizard
we had heard so much talk about, and our husbands
paid 28. each, which was paid to the man at the pit
door to let us in. With a good deal of scrambling,
which pretty nearly spoiled a new dress, which was
only bought three weeks ago, we got good seats.
We saw a great deal which pleased all of us very

254 ^'^^ Lives of the Conjurors.

mucli, and we were astonished that any man
conld be so clever, as to do things which seemed
impossible, but which was done before onr very
eyesight. Our husbands wanted to know how ihi%
was done, and how ihai could in any way be \ and
when some stuff was given by the Wizard out of a
bottle, (which we wouldn't have tasted for the world,
because we knew it to be poison, or something of
that sort), they (which was our husbands) would
drink some, and actually said it was good brandy
and good rum.

^^By-and-by, Mr. Anderson (Professor as they
call him, though we don't know whether he pro-
fesses his wickedness or not) brought forward a
large basket sort of thing, which he put on a table.
Then he took a pretty little boy, (one of the dearest
little fellows, with such sweet curly ringlets), and
put him on the table, covered him with a basket,
and said some of his gibberish. When he took
the basket away, the dear little fellow was gone
— Heaven knows where I — though we could see
clean under the table. Then he put a boy, and
then a girl, and they both went ! Our husbands
(like stupid stubborn men, as they always were)
wanted to see if the Wizard could send them
away, and asked to go upon the stage. We
persuaded them not to, because we knew something

The Lives of the Conjurors. 255

awM would happen. They persisted, however,
like men always will. Mr. Wilson went up first,
and was made away" with under the basket; and
then Mr. Jones went up, and was made away
with too, like a foolish man, which he always was.
We waited for them to come back, but were
horrified to find they didn^t. The people were
going out, and we supposed our husbands had gone
out too; and we went out, and looked for them,
but they were not to be found. We went home
and^ waited, but they didn^t come, and we both
knew they wouldn^t stay out of their own accords,
which would be as much as his life was worth to
Mr. Wilson.

"They never came home all night! In the
morning we tried to see the villainous Wizard, but
could not. We found him in the afternoon, and
he told us he'd see about it. See about it, in-
deed ! — when we have both of us got children —
little ones, too young to do anything — and have to
look to our husbands for every bit of bread ! He
gave us a sovereign each, and said it was all right.
Well, we waited all Tuesday, and down to three
o'clock on Wednesday, and then went again, but
could not see him, which was most provoking. On
Thursday we did get to see him, and all the horrible
man could do to comfort us was to say that he was

256 The Lives of the Conjurors.

very sorry, but that, our husbaaids had gone down
too far y and that he didn^t know when he could find
the time to get them back, being so busy in getting
ready his grand pantomime, which he is to open the
Covent Garden playhouse at Christmas with, and
which he is to give us orders for. This was all very
fine, and we told him so ; but all the redress we
could get was a promise that, until he could find time
to get our husbands up again, (poor fellows ! — ^where
in the earth are they ?) he will pay us a pound a
week each to be quiet. Which is all nonsense ; be-
cause a pound a week isn^t a husband, which we
say as women who feel what we are saying, and
speak our minds.

"What we want is. Ladies, for you to get us
justice and our husbands. We have no money to
go to law, and we are poor, weak, unprotected
women — not exactly widows, which is all the worse.
We have got a printer to print this, in the hope that
some kind Christian ladies will get us a lawyer, to
see us righted. Which is the prayer of. Ladies,
yours respectfully,

" Maegaebt Wilson, 49 Pullwood^s Rents, Holborn.
" Dorothy Jones, same place, but second floor/'

The conjuror laid down his wand on Christmas
Eve, and opened Covent Garden for the dramatic

The Lives of the Conjurors. 257

- — ■ - ■ ■ J — — — *

season on " Boxing-night/' to a crowded house. The
scenery of Beverley, and the unrivalled pantomimic
action of Flexmore and Barnes, made the pantomime
a great supcess. The musical drama of i2o& Roy^
with Anderson as the hero, was played before the
pantomime, except for a few nights, when it was dis-
placed for the production of an amusing 'piece de
cvrconstance, entitled What does he want ? in which
Anderson introduced a portion of his conjuring
entertainment, and Mr. Leigh Murray, '^ made up ''
as Mr. Charles Mathews, appeared as a rival con-
juror, and performed some tricks announced as '^ en-
tirely his own,'* and in respect of the performance
of which the audience were "requested to order
from the nearest dairy a large supply of the ' milk
of human kindness. '''

After a highly successful season of sixty nights,
which could not be prolonged on account of the
theatre being required by Mr. Gye for the Italian
opera season, Anderson proposed to give as much
eclat as possible to its termination by closing with
^' a grand carnival benefit and dramatic gala,''
extending over two days and nights, and comprising
a conjuring entertainment, an opera, a drama, the
pantomime, a burletta, a melo-drama, and a mask
ball. Mr. Gye, who was on the continent, forbade
the ball as soon as he became aware of Anderson's

s

258 The Lives of the Conjurors.

intentions, but afterwards gave a reluctant consent
on receiving Anderson's remonstrances, and his
representation, of the cost and forwardness of his
preparations.

The entire monster programme was carried out,
therefore, and all went off well until the last
moment. At a quarter to five on the morning of
the 5th of March, 1856, Anderson directed the
orchestra to play the national anthem, and the gas-
man to lower the gas. As the gas-man proceeded
to execute this order, he perceived flames through
crevices in the roof, and became aware that fire was
raging in the carpenter's shop above. Pieces of
plaster and flakes of burning wood fell at the same
time among the reveUers, and a rush was immediately

made for the doors.

«

A scene of indescribable conftision ensued, but
fortunately no lives were lost. The flames spread
rapidly, and by seven o'clock nothing remained of
the theatre but the bare and blackened walls. An-
derson saved the treasury chest, containing the
receipts of the two days, but he lost the greater
part of his conjuring apparatus, which was insured,
however, for two thousand pounds, — ^a sum short, it
was said, of its actual value.

Anderson obtained new apparatus, and repeated
at Sadler's Wells, during several weeks of the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 259

foUowing summer, the conjuring entertainment
whicli had been so successAil at the Lyceum, and in
the provinces. He afterwards went abroad, and
did not appear in London again until 1864, when,
and in the following year, he presented at St. James's
Hall a new entertainment, embracing second-sight,
the aerial suspension, and further anti-spiritualistic
performances, in antagonism to the notorious
Brothers Davenport. In all these additions to his
repertory he was assisted by his daughters.

If the Brothers Davenport had come before the
public as acknowledged conjurors, their rope-tying
feats, and the wonders they performed in their
cabinet while they were supposed to be securely
bound, would have puzzled the public without
exciting opposition or disapprobation; but the
latter half of the nineteen thcentury is far too late
in the development of the human mind for men to
present themselves before a public audience,
claiming to perform such tricks by supernatural
aid. I have related elsewhere the history of the rope-
tying trick, and have only to say in this place that,
while Anderson gave a clever expose of the tricks
for which the Davenports claimed the character of
spiritual phenomena, the rope feat was not satis-
factorily performed by Miss Lizzie Anderson, whose
sex and youth prevented her &om being tied by the

82

ii6o The Lives of the Conjurors.

gentlemen who volunteered to secure her in a
manner whicli would have been a test of her ability
to extricate herself when tied as male performers of
the trick were.

Anderson did not perform in London after 1865.
He made another foreign tour^ which extended^ I
beHeve^ to India and Australia ; and died about two
years ago.

CHAPTER Xm.

Imitators of Anderson — ^Wizards from all Quarters— Young —
De Saurin— Cunningham — Doward — Pennington — Foreign
Conjurors in England— ^-Mooty Moodaya — Oriental Con-
juring — Louis Dobler — Instantaneous Illmnination of Two-
Hundred Candles — The transfixed Card — ^The Magician's
Kitchen— Philippe Talon— The Gold-Fish Trick— Her-
mann.

Anderson had many imitators^ even in the earlier
portion of his professional career^ as soon as he had
achieved distinction. Wizards appeared from every
point of the compass, until, finding that their titles
availed them little in the absence of the advantages
possessed by Anderson, they confessed his superi-
ority by adopting the distinctive title which he had
assumed, or pretending to be the Great Wizard,
from the Adelphi.

Impostures of this kind are far from unfrequent
among the fourth-rate entertainers of every class

262 The Lives of the Conjurors.

who go the round of the provincial music-halls and
assembly-rooms. The managers of places of amuse-
ment in the country are sometimes deceived them-
selves, when they are unacquainted with the personal
appearance of the performers whom they suppose
themselves to be engaging, and respond to the
advertisements of the impostors, instead of making
engagements through the medium of agents in the
metropolis. That there should be two or more
entertainers of the same name should not surprise
us; but, considering how rarely the professional
name is the same as the true patronymic, the fact
of one of them being a performer of some eminence
may be taken as the motive of the others in adopt-
ing the same name.

Conjurors are not so numerous, however, as to be
able to assume the name of a distinguished member
of the profession without immediate detection ; and
the frauds which disreputable wonder-workers have,
in some instances, committed upon the public, as
well as upon a brother practitioner, have been con-
fined to the assumption of his distinctive title, or
the piracy of his announcements. The most auda-
cious instance which I have met with is that of a
conjuror named Young, — ^not Mr. Wellington
Young, I beg the reader to observe — who was per-
forming before schools and private parties in the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 263

neighbonrliood of London, during the time Ander-
son was making his first tour in Scotland. In the
spring of 1840 he performed for a few nights at
the Salutation Tavern, at Hammersmith, and then
called himself the Enchanter of the East. He was,
I believe, tolerably expert in the performance of
feats of dexterity ; but all his tricks were the same
that Anderson was performing at the Strand Theatre,
and bore the same n^mes in his bills.

I have not seen an earlier bill of Anderson's, but
the fact that Young assumed the title of the Great
Wizard of the North during a provincial tour which
he made in the following summer may be regarded
as sufficient evidence as to which of them was the
plagiarist. Young visited Brighton, and other
towns in the southern counties, in three successive
summers, always bearing his own name, but over-
shadowing it with the much bolder type in which
he announced himself as the Great Wizard of the
North, from the Adelphi Theatre, and copying
Anderson's bills, even to the introduction of fac-
similes of the woodcuts representing the most
remarkable tricks, with the negro attendant regard-
ing the conjuror with well-dissembled wonder and
admiration.

De Saurin, who styled himself the Wizard of the
West, and also performed at Brighton, Worthing,

264 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Portsea, and other towns on the south coast in the
summer of 1842, did such of Anderson's tricks as
did not require elaborate and costly apparatus, but
many of these tricks had been done before Ander- •
son's time, and De Saurin neither assumed the
great conjuror's title, nor copied his bills. He did
not even perform the gun trick, which Young
paraded in his bills, as the great feat which had
caused so much sensation in the metropolis.

Another conjuror of this period, named Cunning-
ham, presented the same entertainment, with the
addition of the gun trick. So also did Doward,
but without the concluding delusion which made
Anderson so famous. Both these performers made
the circuit of Scotland and the northern counties of
England, seldom performing more than two nights
in each town or village. The southern counties of
England were travelled for several years, with
winter visits to the suburbs of the metropolis, by a
conjuror named Pennington and his wife, who
styled themselves respectively the Wizard of the
"World and the only Female Illusionist in the
World.

Pennington, though he declared himself '^ quite
certain his unrivalled illusions cannot be accom-
plished by any other professor, whether from the
East, the West, the North, or the South," per-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 265

formed no tricks tliat were not being exhibited at
the same time by at least half-a-dozen itinerant
conjurors, his programme being the same as
Cunningham^s, though an air of novelty was sought
to be given to it by the use of such terms as
Theban occultamacy, Aladdinnic enchantment,
Memphian cryptology, exemplified invulnerability,
vital vegetation, Frankensteinian project, etc. The
only novel feature of his entertainment was a series
of 'pose% plastiques, presented by himself and his
wife.

But between the first appearance of Anderson at
the Strand Theatre and the advent of Robert-
Houdin at the St. James's the metropolis had been
visited by several foreign conjurors of great merit.
The first of these was Mooty Moodaya, a native of
Madras, who came to England in the summer of
1840, and presented, at the Olympic Theatre, an
entertainment of a novel and peculiar kind. Jug-
gling and balancing feats were more prominent in
his performance, however, than conjuring tricks ;
and the third part consisted of a pantomimic sketch
called The Wild Hmiter, in which he represented
the hunter, and two other natives of India his
followers. Some curious tricks were performed in
this sketch by a mongoose. He afterwards exhi-
bited at Southampton, and other provincial towns..

266 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Nearly two years later came Louis Dobler, a
young German of prepossessing appearance and
gentlemanly manners, who had gained a good
repute as a conjuror on the continent, and per-
formed before the Courts of Berlin, Vienna, and
St. Petersburg. He engaged the St. James's
Theatre for his performances in London, and, though
unable to speak English, achieved a considerable
success. "Herr Dobler,'' said the critic of the
leading journal, " is not one of the common genus of
jugglers or conjurors, who, by a series of card,
dice, or ball tricks, creates momentary amazement,
which vanishes immediately ; but his illusions are
of such a surprising character that they carry the
mind of his audience with him throughout his per-
formance, so inexplicable are the mysteries he
practises. He is most pleasing in manner, prepos-
sessing in appearance, and, moreover, is habited in
the style which we are taught to believe appertains
to those who are supposed to have dealings with
familiar spirits. Anderson, ^ the Great Wizard of
the North,' who figured at the Strand, and who
was followed by Jacobs, another celebrated conjuror,
was an artiste, possessed considerable ability in
the transformation of oranges into cocoa-nuts, and
<3ould at pleasure and with little assistance, produce
a plum pudding from the hat of one of his auditory,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 267

besides standing up as a target^ and facing the fire
of his deadly enemy ; but lie was unequal to Herr
Dobler, Jacobs can in no manner be compared to
him, for though he could extemporise and ventrilo-
quise to increase the mirth of an audience, there
was wanting in his magic that finish which gives
double effect to that of Herr Dobler/'

The German conjuror presented an array of glit-
tering and elaborate apparatus such as had never
been seen before, except on the stage occupied by
Anderson. On the tables and cabinets on which
the cabalistic implements and vessels were arranged
stood two hundred wax candles, which, on the
rising of the curtain, were unlighted; but on
Dobler^s appearance, in the costume of a German
student of the fifteenth century, and discharging a
pistol, they burst simultaneously into illumination.
With this sensational introduction, the conjuror
proceeded to execute the marvels promised in his
programme.

The first that attracted marked attention was
the bottle trick, performed in a new mode. Filling
a common wine bottle with water, he transformed
the water into a collection of the wines of various
countries, and poured out a glass of each in suc-
cession. Then, when all the wine had been emptied,
he broke the bottle, and extracted from it a silk

268 The Lives of the Conjurors.

handkerchief^ the property of a gentleman in the
pit, who had previously seen it deposited on a table
at the back of the stage. A pack of cards was
then handed to a gentleman, who, having taken
note of one, handed them back to the conjoror,
by whom they were flung into the air, and the
selected card pierced with a small sword as they
fell confusedly towards the stage.

Dobler then obtained a watch from a lady in the
stalls, placed it apart, and presented the owner
with a ball enveloped in a towel. He then placed
an orange in a small silver vase, which stood on
one of the tables. The ball was afterwards found
in the vase, and the orange in the towel held by
the lady; and upon the orange being cut open,
the watch was found in it. Two handkerchiefs pre-
sented by persons in the stalls were enclosed in
vases, and immediately underwent an invisible
transit from one to the other. Upon the conjuror
firing a pistol, they were found to have both dis-
appeared, and, upon looking up in the direction of
his aim, they were seen dangling from the ceiling.
Another shot brought them down, almost into their
owners' laps.

Dobler's '^ gipsies' wonder kitchen,'' a very simple
trick, but which, when well managed, never fails
to draw immense applause, puzzled the spectators

The Lives of the Conjurors, 269

more tlian anything else. An iron pot was sus-
pended from a tripod, and several pigeons, prepared
for cooking, were placed in it, with sufficient water
to boil them. Fire was then applied by means of
a spirit lamp placed beneath the pot, and, when
the culinary operation was supposed to be com-
pleted, the lid was raised, and as many living pigeons
flew out of the pot as there had been dead ones
placed in it.

Another novel trick was the miraculous washing,
in which eight or ten handkerchiefs, borrowed for
the occasion, were, to all appearance, immersed in
water, put through the process of ablution, and
thrown into the rinsing tub. The conjuror then
fired a pistol, and, on opening a box on another
table, and which had previously been shown to be
empty, discovered the handkerchiefs, dried, ironed,
and as neatly folded as if they had just come from
the laundress. After this came the cornucopia trick,
which Dobler performed with an old hat, from
which, after first exhibiting it in a state of utter
inanity, and trampling it under his feet, he produced
an apparently inexhaustible supply of tiny bouquets
of flowers, which he threw to the ladies jn stalls,
pit, and boxes ; and with this floral shower brought
his entertainment to a close.

Dcbler performed before the Queen and the

270 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Royal family at Windsor Castle shortly afber his
arrival in this country^ and on the conclusion of his
London season made a successfol tour of the prin-
cipal towns of the midland and northern counties^
and extended it to Edinburgh and Glasgow. TTia
last performance at the St. Jameses Theatre was
signalised by the presentation to every occupant
of the stalls and boxes of a copy of the following
farewell verses, in German and English : —

Forth from my German land I came,

Th6 pilgrim's staff alone I bore ;
Stranger alike in speech and fame,

I sought proud Albion's friendly shore.

Some happy months have passed — ^I find

Farewell as cordial waits me now
As first I found your welcome kind ;

Let warmest thanks my debt avow.

You judged my humble toil to please
With such a gentle voice and smile,

The stranger scarce were more at ease
K bom upon your honoured Isle.

tVith sorrow then my eye must view

The parting which this night must bring ;

And even a tear may gem, like dew,
The latest " floral gifts " I fling.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 271

My hand this channed verse has traced —
*Tis what my heart must long contain, —

Prayer — ^in your memories to he placed,
And hope — ^that we may meet again !

In the summer of 1845, three years after the
departure of Dobler, a French conjuror appeared
at the St. James's, and afterwards at the Strand,
under the name of Philippe. His true name was
Philippe Talon, under which he had been, prior
to his adoption of the conjuring profession, engaged
in the confectionery trade. He was bom at Alais,
near Nismes, and, going to Paris, as many pro-
vincials do, in the hope of making a fortune, or
at the worst realising a competency, proved the
truth of the adage that ^^all that glitters is not
gold,'' and betook himself to London. There he
was equally unsuccessftd, and removed, by a singu-
lar choice, to Aberdeen.

It is well known that the Scotch confectioners
manufacture quantities of sugared almonds, comfits,
etc., far in excess of the requirements of their
own country; and Talon soon found that success
was precluded by the number of native competitors
who possessed more capital. Failure stared him
in the face for the third time, and, despairing of
success in trade, he resolved to turn conjuror. He
was a tolerable performer of ordinary tricks, and

272 The Lives of the Conjurors.

knew that the most brilliant snccesses of the craft
are attained by very simple means. Bnt how was
he to get rid of his unsaleable stock of confec-
tionery? After revolving this matter in his mind
for some time^ he hit upon a capital device.

There was a theatrical company performing in
Aberdeen^ bnt drawing so badly that the receipts
failed to pay their salaries, and they were, from the
manager to the call-boy, in the same plight as the
poor Frenchman. Talon proposed that two or
three more performances should be given, and that
every person entering the theatre should receive
with the check a packet of confectionery and a
ticket entitling him or her to participate in a lottery
drawing for a sum of fifteen pounds. The announce-
ment of this scheme produced crowded houses, and,
after the final performance. Talon found that he had
cleared ofi* his stock of confectionery, and was the
possessor of a sum of money more than sufficient
to provide himself with a modest set of conjuring
apparatus.

He now assumed the name of Philippe^ under
which he travelled through Scotland and England^
visiting all the principal towns, at first performing
only the ordinary tricks of all the itinerant conjurors,
but gradually extending his repertoire, and improv-
ing his manipulation by study and practice. Return.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 273

ing to Scotland in 1840, he erected a temporary
theatre in Glasgow for a prolonged stay, after
which he made a second tour of the principal towns
in the north of England. From Liverpool he pro-
ceeded to Dublin, and, while performing in that
city, learned the gold-fish trick and the'rings puzzle
fix)m a Chinese juggler who was exhibiting his feats
there at the same time.

In the summer of 1841, he proceeded to Paris,
and had a very successful season at the Salle
Montesquieu. The repute which he acquired by
these performances obtained him an engagement at
one of the principal theatres in Vienna, on the con-
clusion of which he returned to Paris, and gave a
second series of performances at the Bonne Nouvelle
Bazaar. Among his most remarkable tricks were
two which Dobler performed in London shortly
afterwards, and which he may have seen the German
conjuror perform while in Vienna. This, however,
is conjecture only ; and it may be that the idea of
the tricks in question originated with both conjurors
independently.

This is the more probable, as one of them was
new only in the manner of its performance, namely,
the trick called by Philippe the hat of Portunatus.
The other, which he called the kitchen of Parafara-
garamus, was almost identical with the gipsies'

T

274 ^^ Lives of the Conjurors,

wonder kitchen of Dobler, with the exception that
Philippe added vegetables to the contents of the
caldron, which, after the pigeons had flown out,
was shown to be empty, the water and vegetables
having disappeared. Another trick, which seems
to have been his own invention, was the borrowing
of two handkerchiefs from the audience, which the
conjuror, after firing a blunderbuss, found in the
inside of two sugar loaves, which had been standing
on a table, in sight of the audience, wrapped in the
coarse dark paper used by the refiners for packing,
as if they had just been brought from a grocer's
warehouse.

The chief attractions of Philippe's entertainment
in London were the gold-fish trick and a trio
of ingeniously contrived automatons. One of the
automatons was a miniature Harlequin, who jumped
out of a box, smoked a pipe, accompanied the
orchestra by whistling, blew out a candle, and
assumed a variety of droll attitudes, to the great
amusement of the spectators. Worthy companions
of the Harlequin were two dolls, attired in the
latest fashion, who brought from a toy confectioner's
shop everything asked for by the audience,* firom
bonbons to liqueurs, and in lavish profusion.

The gold-fish trick, now exhibited by every
conjuror who astonishes London sight-seers at the

The Lives of the Conjurors, 275

Egyptian Hall^ was at that time a novelty,
not having been performed by Jacobs until five
years later. Philippe threw a shawl in the air, to
show that it enclosed nothing, and, catching it
as it descended, wrapped it round him. In an in-
stant he withdrew it, and discovered at his feet a
glass globe, brimful of water, in which four gold
fish were swimming. In a few moments the process
was repeated, and another bowl, similarly filled, was
produced. He then stepped forward to a platform
between the orchestra and the stalls, and there dis-
covered a third globe of fish ; and returning to the
stage, without the least apparent communication
with anything or anybody, brought to light, in the
same mysterious manner, half-a-dozen live ducks,
and, finally, a couple of geese which walked gravely
about the stage.

Philippe did not make such a profuse display
of glittering paraphernalia as Anderson did, but
his deceptions were performed with the neatness
and finish that distinguished Dobler's perform-
ances, and he was the first conjuror who exhibited
with bare arms. He followed the example set by
Dobler of appearing in a fancy dress, instead of the
evening dress usually worn by conjurors of the
nineteenth century; and performed in a gorge-
ously decorated velvet robe, confined at the

T 2

276 The Lives of the Conjurors.

waist by a girdle with firinged ends. Bracelets
adorned his wrists, and his head-gear consisted of
a tall cone, surmounted by an ornament resembling
in form the caudal fin of a fish.

Anderson was preceded at the Adelphi in 1848
by Hermann, a native of Hanover, who styled him-
self premier prestidigitateur of Prance, and first
professor of magic in the world. He gave a series
of morning performances, assisted by his wife, who
exhibited the second-sight deception, which was
then helping so much to make the fame of Robert-
Houdin on the continent. Though this delusion
had been exhibited more than sixty years before by
Pinetti's wife, it was new to this generation,
and proved sufficiently attractive to induce Ander-
son to include ifc in his programme at a later period.

Puzzling as it proves to those who are unac-
quainted with the secret communication maintained
with the clairvoyant by the Prospero of the occa-
sion, it is really very simple, as will be shown in the
next chapter.

CHAPTEB XIV. .

Jean Eugene Bobert-Houdin — ^Amateur Conjurors and
Continental Mountebanks — Carlosbach — Castelli — Bobert's
Connection with Torrini — The Pancake Trick — Exhibition
of the Automaton Penman — Second Sight — Engagement at
Brussels — ^An Unrehearsed Trick on tlie Frontier — ^A Card
Trick at St Cloud — A Boyal Duchess Puzzled — Suspen-
sion by Ether — ^Engagement in London — Transformation of
the Queen's Glove — The Conjuror among the Arabs — The
Gun Trick — How to draw Blood from a Stone.

Jean Eugene Eobbet, who must now be introduced
to the reader, to whom he is probably better known
by the more familiar name of Robert-Houdin, which
he assumed on embracing the profession of conjuror,
was bom in 1805, at Blois, where his father was
a watchmaker of good repute. He received his
education at the college of Orleans, his father
intending him for one of the learned professions ;
but he displayed much greater aptitude for the
construction of puzzle toys and mills turned by
mice than for law or medicine, and on leaving the

278 The Lives of the Conjurors.

college, at the age of eighteen, frankly declared to
his parents that he wonld rather be a watchmaker
than either an advocate or a physician.

Finding, however, that his father had set his
mind on making him one or the other of the latter,
he accepted the appointment of clerk to a local
solicitor, in whose office, if he did not amuse him-
self after the manner of Dick Swiveller, he studied
mechanical contrivances more than the Code Napo-
leon. Finding that he had no aptitude for either
law or medicine, his father consented to his learning
the art and mystery of watchmaking, in which he
soon made rapid progress. The bent of his mind
received a bias towards magic, however, from wit-
nessing the performances of an itinerant conjuror
and mountebank, named Carlosbach ; and a book of
conjuring tricks coming into his hands by accident
soon afterwards, he studied it until he could perform
most of them, and had acquired so strong a taste
for the practice of legerdemain that he took lessons
of a fellow-townsman who united the character
of an amateur conjuror with the profession of chiro-
podist.

When he had acquired a competent knowledge
of his father's business, he removed to Tours, and
was working there as an operative watchmaker
when an accident made him acquainted with the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 279

famous Torrini. Under the influence of tlie belief
that an attempt had been made to poison him, he
left Tours abruptly, and hurried towards Blois j but
he fell down on the road, became insensible, and on
the return of consciousness found himself prostrated
by fever and delirium, and in the care of Torrini
and his brother-in-law, who had found him lying
on the road while on their way to Angers. There
seems reason for believing that the attempt to
poison him existed only in his imagination, and
that he was sufiering at the time from the premoni-
tory symptoms of the insanity by which he was
attacked a few years afterwards.

Whatever the facts were, he travelled with
Torrini for some time, even after he considered
himself to have recovered his health and strength,
before he returned to Blois. At the fair of Angers
he saw a conjuror who, though a native of Nor-
mandy, called himself Castelli, and who announced
that he would eat a man alive, in view of the
spectators assembled in his show. Two victims
offered themselves, one of whom was rejected as not
being fat enough ; the other being in good condi-
tion, the Norman smacked his lips, rubbed his
hands, produced pepper and vinegar, turned down
his victim^s collar, and bit the man's neck. The
volunteer roared, and leaped off the stage ; and the

28o The Lives of the Conjurors.

conjuror, after vainly calling for another victim,
expressed, with grave irony, his regret at the
unavoidable disappointment of the spectators.

Torrini taught Robert some of his tricks, and
employed him in repairing an automaton, an occu-
pation which was congenial to his tastes. When
this work was completed, Torrini fell ill, and the
young watchmaker found himself constrained by
gratitude to remain with him until he was suf-
ficiently recovered to be able to perform. The
conjuror's illness continued, however, until his
resources were so nearly exhausted that his brother-
in-law, the true Torrini, sought counsel of Robert,
and it was determined between them that the latter
should give a conjuring performance at Aubusson
for the benefit of the common treasury.

This was Robert's first public performance, and
he escaped a failure only through the presence of
mind and readiness of resource of Antonio Torrini.
He was performing the common trick of cooking a
pancake in a hat, when, either from nervousness, or
through his attention being diverted from the culi-
nary operation while talking to the audience, he
singed and greased the crown of the hat by placing
it in too close contact with the lighted candle over
which he was pretending to cook the pancake. On
the completion of the operation, he threw the hat

The Lives of the Conjurors. 281

to the side of the stage^ and proceeded with his
next trick, thongh horribly perplexed as to what
was to be done with the spoiled chapeau. Pre-
sently he saw Antonio making a sign to him, and
received from the Italian his own hat, with a
whispered injmiction to tell the owner of the
spoiled hat to look in the crown, in which a note
was pinned, begging him to keep the secret, and
promising him a new hat on the following day.

When Torrini was able to perform kgain, Robert
parted company with him, and returned to Blois,
where he resumed his occupation of watchmaking.
On his marriage with Mdlle. Houdin, the daughter
of a Parisian watchmaker, he removed to the capi-
tal, where he was employed for several years by his
father-in-law. His hankering after the magician's
wand displayed itself, however, as strongly as ever.
He formed the acquaintance of Comte, the conjuror
and ventriloquist, tod Roujol, a manufacturer of
conjuring tricks and mechanical puzzles, whose
shop in the Bue Bichelieu was then the rendezvous
of all the conjurors who, from time to time, were in
Paris. But, before he became famous, either as a
conjuror or a mechanist, misfortune came upon him
in the form of lingering illness and mental aliena-
tion, and reduced him to absolute poverty.

On his recovery, he braced himself manfully to

282 The Lives of the Conjurors.

the task of retrieving his position, and for some
time worked hard in devising and constructing
automatic figures ; and especially the famous auto-
maton penman, for which he was awarded a silver
medal by the judges of the Paris Exhibition of
1844. Before he received this recognition of his
ingenuity, his wife had died, and he had married
again. His success as a mechanist enabled him, in
the summer of 1845, to open a Temple of Magic in
the Valois Grallery, at the Palais Eoyal. There, in
the following year, he introduced the mystery of
second sight, which was exhibited by Bmile, his
eldest son, now an intelligent lad of fourteen or
fifteen.

The difficulty which even the most astute ex-
perienced in their endeavours to solve the mystery
of this performance added greatly to the conjuror's
fame. The public saw a boy seated on the stage,
blindfolded, and heard him describe minutely every
article which the auditors produced from their
pockets, or any portion of their attire which they
mentioned; and nobody suspected, in the face of
the wonders of mesmeric phenomena, which many
eminent medical practitioners were ready to vouch
for, that the boy was only the mouthpiece of the
keen-eyed conjuror who stood behind him.

The fame acquired in Paris by Robert-Houdin,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 283

which was the name assumed by the conjuror in hia
professional character, procured him an engagement
at the Park theatre at Brussels, at the close of a
very successful season at the Palais Eoyal, and he
set out for the Belgian capital with his family. On
the frontier an amusing incident occurred. The
Belgian officers of customs demanded the duties
payable on the conjuring apparatus, and Bobert
refused payment, contending that it was not mer-
chandise, and, as part of his personal equipment,
was exempt from duty.

'* But how am I to know that you are telling me
the truth ? ^' said the official, regarding him doubt-
ftdly.

'^ Emile,'' Robert called to his son, who, during
the altercation, was amusing himself by the road-
side, ^'convince this gentleman that we are con-
jurors ; tell him what he has got in his pocket.^^

At the same time, taking advantage of the cus-
toms officer^s eyes being turned from himself to the
boy, he quietly examined the contents of the man's
pocket, and telegraphed to Bmile the result of the
inspection.

'^ A blue striped handkerchief, a spectacle case,
and a lump of sugar,'' said the boy.

" There ! " exclaimed the conjuror triumphantly,
^' what did I tell you ?

ii

284 The Lives of the Conjurors.

The astounded official expressed himself satisfied
that they were conjurors, and allowed the apparatus
to pass duty free.

The Brussels engagement proved a failure, how-
ever, and resulted in a loss to Robert-Houdin, who
had accepted it on the . sharing system. On his
return to Paris, he re-opened his Temple of Magic
for the season of 1847, and added to his programme
the trick of the vanishing page, in which Emile was
covered with a wicker cone, and, on the firing of a
pistol, was found to have disappeared, to appear a
moment afterwards at his father^s side.

It was during this season that Robert-Houdin
performed before Louis Philippe and the royal
family of France at the chateau of St. Cloud. On
this occasion he devised, and successfully executed,
an astounding, but very simple, deception. The
King having drawn three cards from the paok, and
returned them, the conjuror undertook to convey
them, invisibly and instantaneously, either beneath
one of the candelabra on the mantel, to the dome of
the Invalides, or the box of the last orange-tree on
the right of the avenue. Louis Philippe, as the
conjuror had foreseen, chose that the cards should
be conveyed to the last-mentioned place, observing
that the mantel was too near, and the Livalides
inconveniently distant. An attendant was then

The Lives of the Conjurors. 285

despatched to the orangery, and a gardener called
to search for the cards, which were found in the
earth, in the place indicated, enclosed in a rusty
iron box, together with a parchment document,
stating that they were placed there in 1786 by
Count Cagliostro, in anticipation of a trick to be
performed before Louis Philippe of Orleans in the
next century. As if to verify this statement, it
bore the seal of Cagliostro, which had been given
to Eobert-Houdin by Torrini.

The astonishment created by this trick was weU
sustained by the second-sight exhibition, which
derived additional edat from Emfle Robert cor-
rectly describing a diamond pin, enclosed in a case,
which the Duchess of Orleans placed in the con-
juror's hands, but forbade him to open. Robert-
Houdin contrived to obtain a glimpse of the pin,
without being observed, and the astonishment of
the royal party was unbounded.

During the autumn season Eobert-Houdin intro-
duced the trick of the inexhaustible bottle, and
also the '^ suspension in equilibrium l)y atmospheric
air, through the action of concentrated ether/' as
he pretended, which pretence so deceived the
public that complaints were made in the journals
that the health of the boy, Eugene Robert, was
suffering from his beiug nightly subjected to the ethe-

286 The Lives of the Conjurors.

real influence. Though the trick had been per-
formed, in another form, centuries before by the
conjurors of India, the public mind was so filled
with the quackery of mesmerism, that they were
prepared to believe the possibility of a person
sleeping in the air, without other support than the
upright rod on which Eugene's right elbow rested,
rather than to suspect the existence of concealed
mechanism.

The revolution which drove Louis Philippe from
the throne preluded a bad time for public enter-
tainers, not only in France, but over the greater
part of the continent; and Bobert-Houdin accepted
an invitation from Mr. Mitchell to perform at the
St. James's Theatre, on the sharing system, on the
three nights weekly on which the theatre was not
occupied by the French comic opera company,
which, as well as Franconi's circus troupe, had also
sought a refuge in London from the amusement-
suspending operation of political commotions. The
second sight and the ethereal suspension proved as
attractive in London as in Paris, and the conjuror
had the honour of performing before the Queen,
the Prince Consort, and a crowd of the nobility at a
fete given in the grounds of Sir Arthur Webster's
mansion at Fulham for the benefit of a charity.

On the termination of his engagement in Lon-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 287

don, Robert-Houdin visited Manchester, Liverpool,
Brigliton, Worcester, Cheltenham, Bristol, and
Exeter, perfonning to crowded houses. Returning
to London for a second series of performances at
the St. James's Theatre, he received a summons to
perform before the royal family at Buckingham
Palace, where he evoked a furore of applause by
turning the Queen's glove into a bouquet, which he
placed in a vase, sprinkled with water, and again
transformed into a garland, the flowers of which
arranged themselves so as to form the name of
Victoria.

Again leaving London for a professional tour in
the eastern counties, he was induced to give a per-
formance at Hertford, where, by one of those
vagaries of public taste and opinion for which it is
often diflScult to find any reason, he had only five
' auditors. Before these he went through the whole
of his programme, however, and on the conclusion
of the entertainment invited them to the stage.
His auditors, thinking they were to assist in an-
other trick, complied with the invitation, and were
then told to turn their faces towards the orchestra.
In another moment the conjuror clapped his hands,
and, on turning round, his auditors saw the centre
table cleared of the conjuring apparatus, and spread
with a capital supper, of which they were invited to

288 The Lives of the Conjurors.

partake. An hour or two passed very pleasantly,
and we may be sure that that supper with Robert-
Houdin lingered long in the memories of those who
partook of it.

Crowded houses at Cambridge compensated for
this failure, nor was there any reason to complain of
the attendances at Bury St. Edmunds, Ipswich,
and Colchester. ^'I have only three souvenirs of
those five towns,^' he used to say ; '^ the failure at
Hertford, the enthusiastic reception from the
students at Cambridge, and the nuts at Colchester.'*
In explanation of the last reminiscence, the reader
must be informed that it was the custom of the
Colchesterians to fill their pockets with nuts when
visiting any place of amusement, in order to find
occupation for their jaws during the entertainment.
Entertainers were apt to find the custom annoying,
for so prevalent was it that the manager of the
theatre informed Robert-Houdin that he had seen
actors cracking nuts while engaged on the stage.

Returning to London, Robert-Houdin was pre-
paring to start for Prance, when he received and
accepted an offer from Mr. Knowles, the manager
of the Manchester theatre, for a tour through
Scotland and Ireland. This tour caused his return
to Paris to be deferred until the autumn of 1849,
after which he rested for some time on his laurels.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 289

enjoying the repose whioli he had so well earned by
his late exertions. Having made arrangements
with a young Englishman named Hamilton, who
was his pupil and friend, to give his entertainment
in Paris, he devoted the following summer to a
provincial tour, for the recruitment of his health,
and in the beginning of 1852 commenced a tour
through Germany. '

After performing at Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden,
Homburg, Aix-la-OhapeUe, and Spa, he was en-
gaged to perform in Berlin for six weeks, which, in
consequence of the attractiveness of his perform-
ances, was prolonged to three months. In the
following spring he was again engaged by Mr*
Mitchell for a series of performances at the St.
James's Theatre, and had the honour of performing,
for the third time, before the Queen and the royal
family, on the occasion of the birthday of the
Princess Louisa.

At the termination of his engagement ¥rith Mr.
Mitchell, he repeated his entertainment, for a
hmited number of nights, at Sadler's Wells, and
afterwards at several of the provincial towns. Re-
turning to his native country once more, he de-
voted, his attention for some time to the mechanical
studies which had always been his most favourite oc-
cupation, and in 1855 obtained a Paris exhibition

IT

ago 5^ Lives of the Conjurors.

medal for new appKcations of electricity to meclia-
nism.

In the following year lie resumed his profession
of conjuror, and visited Algiers, where, on account
of the religious scruples of the native population,
he substituted for the inexhaustible bottle a vase
containing an apparently unlimited supply of con-
fectionery, and also coflTee. The most notable fea-
tures of his Algerian programme, however, were his
box trick, the gun delusion, and the vanishing
Arab. In the first electricity was used, the spec-
tators being invited to try iheir strength by endea-
vouring to lift a box from the stage, and a powerful
Arab, who volunteered for the purpose, being, after
many vain efforts, tlirown upon his back.

In the exhibition of the gun trick, he substituted
for his own person an apple on the point of a knife,
afterwards dividing the apple, and extracting from it
the marked bullet. The Arabs were much sur-
prised by this trick, and stiU more when one of them
was invited to the stage, and concealed under a
wicker cone, and, on the cone being removed, was
found to have vanished. With a cry of dismay, the
greater part of them turned, and fled from the room,
unable to persuade themselves that Eblis had not
something to do with what they had seen; and
when they met at the entrance the man whom they

The Lives of the Conjurors. 291

had seen disappear so mysteriously a moment be-
fore, they could only open their eyes widely, and
exclaim '^ Mashallah ! "

He afterwards performed, in the interior, before
an audience consisting almost entirely of Arabs,
when, after he had elicited expressions of wonder
and admiration by performing the gnn trick, an old
Arab, who perhaps had some suspicion of the true
nature of the trick, said : — ^' The Prank is doubtless
a powerftil magician ; but wiU he suffer me to fire
at him with one of my own pistols ? ''

'^ Tes,^^ replied Eobert-Hotidin, " but I must first
invoke the powers that assist me/'

He prepared for the test of the following day by
fabricating a couple of bullets of wax and lamp-black,
one of which he punctured as soon as the exterior
had become firm, and allowed the still soft and
warm composition in the interior to run out through
the orifice. He then filled up the void with blood,
and closed the opening with a morsel of the com-
position.

Thus prepared, he, on the following night, of-
fered a saucerftil of leaden bullets for the inspection
of the sceptical Arab, who, after satisfying himself
that they were really made of lead, handed his
pistols to the conjuror. The experiment was a new
one, and Bobert-Houdin confessed afterwards that

u 2

29a The Lives of the Conjurors.

lie trembled as he dexterously contrived to slip
one of his prepared bullets into the pistol, and, after
ramming it down upon the powder with the ramrod,
handed it back to the Arab.

'* Now fire I '' he exclaimed, folding his arms.

The Arab fired, and the conjuror, to the former's
amazement, not only remained erect, but took from
his mouth a leaden bullet, which the doubter was
satisfied was one of those which he had examined.

'^ Bah ! '* exclaimed Robert-Houdin, as he loaded
the other pistol. ^'Tou cannot use your own
weapons. See here! You have been unable to
draw blood from me ; but I will draw blood from
yonder wall.'*

He fired at the wall, upon which a stain of blood
was immediately seen. The Arabs crowded to the
wall, stared at the blood, and touched it with their
fingers. Their amazement deepened into awe, and
one and all acknowledged that the Frank was a
more powerful magician than any of their own
people.

On returning to Prance, Robert-Houdin com-
menced the composition of his memoirs, which were
published ii^ 1858, and an English translation of
which, in two volumes, appeared in the following
year. In the concluding paragraph, he promised
the pubUc another work, the subject of which was to

The Lives of the Conjurors. 293

be legerdemain and its professors ; but the work
never appeared. In 1861, however, he published
Les Tricheries des Ghrecs Devoilee, an English version
of which appeared two years later, under the title
of The Sha/rper Detected and Exposed.

CHAPTEE XV.

Optical Illiisions — Bobin's Ghosts and Phantom Fight —
Automaton Calculator — ^Wiljalba Frikell — ^Wanderings in
Three Quarters of the Globe — Conjuring without Appara-
tus — OrginskiKosenfeld — ^De Linsld — Chinese Conjurors—
Bosco — ^A Conjuror with a Dozen Languages — The Vanish-
ing Card — ^Malcolm — ^Behind the Scenes with a Wizard —
Inglis — ^Hambujer.

Optical illusions, which had for a long while been
absent from the conjuror's repertory, made a con-
siderable figure in the entertainment with which
Bobin presented the Parisians in 1847. I am un-
acquainted with the particular apparatus with which
he worked, but the description of his apparitions
and his phantom fight suggest something like the
means used fifteen or sixteen years afterwards by
Mr. Pepper at the Polytechnic. He came to Lon-
don in 1857, and leased the house 232, Piccadilly,
(afterwards the Myriographic Hall,) which he fitted

The Lives of the Conjurors. 295

up as an elegant little place of amusement^ under
the name of the Salle de Robin. There, during two
seasons, optical illusions were cleverly and success-
fully combined with legerdemain and the exhibition
of an automaton calculator. The trick of the vanish-
ing lady was performed with the aid of Madame
Eobin, who assisted her husband in his perform-
ance; and the marvellous results of the gipsy
cookery — a trick which Robin claimed to have im-
ported from Spain, and exhibited in London for
the first time — evoked as much wonder as when
they were shown by Dobler.

In 1852, however, Anderson, Jacobs, Buck, and
Rosenfeld were performing in London, and, with
Robin, constituted a larger amount of conjuring
talent than the metropolis could furnish with paying
audiences. At the close of his second season, there-
fore, Robin disposed of the lease and fittings of his
elegant little saloon, and returned to Paris.

Wiljalba Prikell, who also made his first appear-
ance in London in 1851, is the next claimant of our
attention. He was bom in 1818, at Scopio, a vil-
lage in Finland, on the borders of Lapland. His
parents being in good circumstances, he was well
educated, completing his studies at the High School
of Munich, which he did not leave until 1840, when
in his twenty-second year. He practised legerde-

296 The Lives of the Conjurors.

main while studying, as his parents hoped, for one
of the learned professions, and read all the works
on the subject that he could obtain; and, on the
completion of his collegiate career, the love of travel,
combined with his conjuring proclivities, induced
him to set out on a tour through eastern and
southern Europe as a professor of the Black Art.

He travelled through Germany, Hungary, Wal-
lachia, and Turkey, and thence proceeded to Egypt,
where he had the honour of performing before Me-
hemet Ali, who awarded him a gold medal for his
proficiency in the magical art. Returning to Europe,
he visited Greece, Italy, and Spain, and afterwards
proceeded to India. In all the countries which he
visited, he took care to see the performances of all
the conjurors whom he found engaged in the exer-
cise of their profession, and devoted much time to
the study and practice of the means of dispensing
with apparatus.

^^ The use of compUcated and cumbrous apparatus,"
he observed in the preface to his Lessons in Magie^
" to which modem conjurors have become addicted,
not only greatly diminishes the amount of astonish-
ment they are enabled to produce, — a defect which
is not compensated by the external splendour and
imposing effect of such paraphernalia, — but the use-
ful lesson, how fallible our senses are, by means the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 297

most ordinary and at everybody's command, is en-
tirely lost. It has been my object in my perform-
ances to restore the art to its original province,
and to extend that to a degree which it has, I be-
lieve, never yet hitherto reached. I banish all such
mechanical and scientific preparatives from my own
practice, confining myself for the most part to the
objects and materials of every-day life. The
success which I have met with emboldens me to
believe that I have followed the right path.''

On his return to Europe from the East, he tra-
velled through Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, and
performed before the royal families of those countries.
The Czar presented him with a valuable diamond
ring, and the Kling of Denmark decorated him with
the order of the Dannebrog. In 1851 he came to
London, as already stated, and performed at the
Hanover Square Rooms, and afterwards at the St.
James's Theatre. The absence of apparatus was a
novelty, though it is probable the greater part of
his auditors would have been impressed in a greater
degree by such a lavish display of glittering ap-
paratus as had been made by Anderson and Jacobs.
His broken German and a comical peculiarity of
manner caused him to be described in PtmcA as
'^ a comic Charles Mathews y " and, as he did not
follow the examples of Dobler and Philippe in the

298 The Lives of the Conjurors.

matter of costume, the critic of the same facetious
publication compared him to ^^ a monster raven in
full dress for an evening party.''

Frikell, like his predecessors in the art, had the
honour of performing before the Queen and the
royal family, during his stay in this country. He
was succeeded in London by Anderson, Jacob, Buck,
and Rosenfeld, the last of which quaternion alone
has to be noticed in this chapter. Orginski Rosen-
feld was a Polish conjuror, and performed in the
spring of 1852 at Crosby Hall. His ability was not
equal to his pretensions, for, though he claimed to
have won ^' the admiration of millions of persons
throughout the whole of the continent,'' and to have
obtained the name of the modem Faustus, he per-
formed only the old tricks which Ball and Blitz had
exhibited a quarter of a century before, with the
addition of second sight and^ the inexhaustible
bottle.

In 1853, Mr. B. T. Smith, who was then lessee
of Drury Lane, to fill up a gap before Easter, en-
gaged De Linski, who was announced as the Great
French Wizard, though his name is suggestive
rather of a Polish origin. He came credited with
the reputation of having presented his entertainment
^'in all the continental cities, and before all the
Crowned Heads of Europe, with distinguished

The Lives of the Conjurors. 299

snccess ; '' but his performances fell flat upon minds
tliat had been surfeited with all the good things
of the magician's repertory for several successive
seasons by such masters of the profession as Ander-
son, Dobler, Philippe, Robert-Houdin, Robin, and
Priken.

At the same season of the following year, Mr.
Smith engaged for twelve nights a troupe of Chinese
conjurors, jugglers, and acrobats, who had achieved
remarkable successes in their progress to meet the
sun. They had enjoyed for several years the honour
of being the chief performers at the Court of Pekin,
but, being suspected of a leaning towards the
Christian faith, and perhaps compromised in some
degree with the party of progress in China, they
found it necessary for their safety to leave the
Flowery Land, and seek the smiles of fortune in
other climes. They proceeded in the first instance
to Hong Kong, where they performed upwards
of two hundred consecutive nights. They then
crossed the Pacific, and gave exhibitions of their
skill at San Francisco, and the principal towns and
gold-fields of California.

They afterwards crossed the American continent,
and performed with great success at the Broadway
theatre. New York. During their engagement in
that city, their performances were witnessed by

300 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Anderson^ who estimated their skill so highly that
he made arrangements with them for a series of
exhibitions in England. They accompanied him to
Liverpool, where the novelty of their performances,
and the sensational character of the knife-throwing
feat (afterwards performed at some of the music-
halls by the Brothers Nemo) drew crowded houses.

At Drury Lane they were introduced in an enter-
tainment called The Feast of the Dragon, and were
supposed to exhibit before the Emperor and the
Lnperial Court of Pekin. They numbered eight
performers, including women and boys, and their
feats were of a varied character, embracing tum-
bling, juggling, balancing, fire-eating, besides con-
juring, a specimen of a Chinese concert in the
shape of a quartet for a gong, cymbals, and a couple
of stringed instruments, which was more curious
than agreeable, and an attempt at a Chinese ballet,
which provoked more laughter than admiration.
The juggling was excellent, but the conjuring por-
tion of the entertainment presented nothing remark-
able, the feat of producing from beneath a table-
cloth a basin filled to the brim with water, there
being no visible or conceivable means of its con-
veyance from any source, having been anticipated
by Philippe.

Tuck Quy and party were succeeded by Bosco, a

The Lives of the Conjurors. 301

natiye of Lombardy^ where he was bom in 1823.
Like Frikell^ he received a liberal edncation^ and
studied medicine^ in which he obtained a diploma ;
bat his professional prospects being injnred by his
participation in the reyolntionaiy movement against
the Austrian domination in 1848^ he was led by the
success of his performances as an amatem* conjuror
to make legerdemain his profession. Travelling
through Piedmont and Switzerland^ and afterwards
visiting the principal towns of Germany^ he at
length reached Berlin^ where he had the honour of
performing before the King of Prussia and the
royal fS^mily.

From Berlin he ventured to proceed to Vienna^
where also, his antecedents being forgotten or
unknown, he performed before the Imperial Court.
Another tour of Germany brought him in 1854 to
the Bhine again, and he travelled westward untQ
Paris was reached, and he was invited to exhibit his
skill before the Emperor, who presented him with
the cross of the Legion of Honour.

Bosco had as remarkable an aptitude for lan-
guages as for legerdemain, and was a most accom-
plished linguist, having acquired French, Spanish,
German, Polish, Bussian, Hungarian, Servian,
Wallachian, and Turkish, in addition to Italian
and Latin. Most conjurors are content to address

302 The Lives of the Conjurors,

a foreign audience in their own language^ and I
once heard an Indian professor of the art disconrse
fluently in Hindustanee while performing a trick
before an English audience. Dobler could speak
only German, and the broken English of Frikell
was little more intelligible. Robert-Houdin could
speak only French, and when an auditor in the pit,
while he was performing at Manchester, desired
him to speak English, his attempts to render him-
self intelligible in that language proved almost as
amusing as his tricks.

Bosco determined to learn English before he pre-
sented himself before an English audience, and
with that view resided two months at Falmouth,
employing his time as a dancing-master while
studying the language, and thus ^^ killing two birds
with one stone.^' He made his first appearance in
this country as a conjuror at Falmouth, and after
performing in several other towns in the western
counties, came to London. Magic had had a long
run of popular favour by this time, however, and
more novel and sensational feats were required to
stimulate sight-seers than the new professor could
present. He afterwards made another provincial
tour, which he extended northward to Aberdeen.
The royal family was at that time at Balmoral,
where Prince Frederick William of Prussia was a

The Lives of the Conjurors. 303

guest, and through him Bosco obtained an invitation
to exhibit his skill before the Court.

Bosco was fond of performing conjuring tricks
with the semi-publicity of a tavern-bar or a railway-
carriage, as well as in private apartments, when in
the society of friends. Ampng those with whom
he became acquainted while in London was the
vocalist known as the Black Malibran, at whose
apartments, near the Princesses Theatre, he once
produced a common wooden picture frame, contain-
ing a glass, covered at the back with brown paper.
Having requested the lady to examine it, and to
draw a card, retaining the frame in her hands, he
threw a handkerchief over it, pronounced a cabalis-
tic formula, made a pass over it, and then, taking
the firame into his own hands, waved it in the air,
and removed the handkerchief. The card drawn by
the lady then appeared in the centre of the frame,
but a repetition of the magic ceremonies caused it
to vanish. The secret of the trick was that there
were two glasses, and that the frame was hollow at
the top and bottom, forming receptacles for sand of
the same colour as the paper at the back. The
card was forced, and its duplicate already affixed to
the inner glass, appearing and disappearing as the
waving of the frame caused the sand to fall into the
lower receptacle, or to spread over the card.

304 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Bosco was the last of the great conjurors by
whom the public had been amused for twenty years.
The superior style of the entertainments which they
presented^ and the succession of startling feats
which compelled the wonder and admiration of
those who witnessed them, made them a popular
means of amusement during that period; but
sight- seers began at length to regard the bills of a
new conjuror with comparative indifference, and to
to ask, with Solomon, ^^ Is there anything whereof
it may be said. See, this is new ? "

There was no response. Anderson carried his
tricks to other lands, and Dobler, and Philippe, and
Hermann, and Robert-Houdin, and Robin, and
FrikeU, and Bosco did not repeat their visits to our
shores. The minor performers who perambulated
the provinces were puzzled to produce an entertain-
ment that would attract remunerative audiences.
Malcolm, who performed at several places in the
suburbs of the metropolis in 1857, and had pre-
viously made the tour of the provinces, and had the
honour of performing before the royal family,
claimed to be ^'the first and only one who, with a
thorough knowledge of the art of magic, conceived
the idea of admitting the public, as it were, * behind
the scenes,^ and who, after accomplishing the experi-
mental deceptions, explains to the audience the

The Lives of the Conjurorsj^ 305

secret macMnery, or manipulation, by whicli they
are effected/^ But even this, in spite of the claim
put forth, was not a new idea, as has been shown in
a previous chapter.

Hambujer, a Danish professor of the magic art,
performed, like Prikell, without apparatus, and,
like Philippe, with bare arms. He also disclaimed
confederacy, and' consequently exhibited only the
tricks which do not require the aid of confederates
for their success. He never performed in London,
I believe, but a manuscript note on the margin of a
book in the library of the British Museum credits
him with considerable sldll. He performed in 1859
at the Eotunda, Dublin, where also, in the same
year, Inglis appeared, combining conjuring with a
ventriloquial entertainment.

CHAPTER XVI.

Wellington Young — Professor Logrenia — The Table-Sappers
and Clairvoyants — ^Louisa Miller — ^Professor Sinclair — The
Blooming Orange Tree — Optical Illusions at the Poly-
technic — Silvester's Ghost — ^The Ghost at the Music-halls —
Revival of MedisBval Magic — The Skeleton in the Cabinet —
The Vanishing Man and the Speaking Head-— Alfred Sto-
dare — The Sphinx — The Mysterious Hand — The Shade of
Socrates — ^Another Automaton Chess-player.

DuEiNa the last ten years of the time when Ander-
son and his foreign rivals had possession of the
London theatres temporarily given up to the pro-
fessors of magic, two or three native conjurors gave
very good entertainments at the minor places of
amusement in the suburbs of the metropolis and
the provincial towns. Foremost among these illu-
sionists was Mr. Wellington Young, who in 1846
had the honour of performing before the Queen and
the Prince Consort, and the family and friends of

The Lives of the Conjurors. 307

the Duke of Norfolk, at Arundel Castle. His name
was met with, from time to time, in the columns of
provincial journals, during several following years,
when he engaged the town-hall or assembly-room
of a south of England market-town for his enter-
tainment j but, as the critics of the country news-
papers invariably pronounce every conjuror who
visits their town the extinguisher of his prede-
cessors, and the equal, if not the superior, of
Anderson and Bobert-Houdin^ the quotation of
their eulogia would not help us in the smallest
degree to a judgment of Mr. Wellington Young's
merits.

During the winter and early spring months, he
performed, as most of the minor members of the
profession do, chiefly before schools and private
parties. Conjurors are addicted to the use of
stilted and extravagant language in their announce-
ments, and not at all deficient in self-appreciation
of their merits ; and Wellington Young was not an
exception to the general rule. Without detracting
in the slightest degree from his merits as a conjuror,
which I believe were rather above than below the
average, it may be observed that, at the time when
Bobin and Frikell were performing in the metropolis,
and Bobert-Houdin and Anderson were not yet for-
gotten^ there was at least no excess of modesty in the

X 2

3o8 The Lives of the Conjurors.

claim of Mr. Wellington Young to be ''the acknow-
ledged first professor of natural magic of the day ;**
while we can only smile at his invitation to the
nobility and gentry to witness his entertainment at
a school-room in the vicinity of the Elephant and
Castle.

His practice seems to have been to make no
charge for admission at the doors on such occasions^
but to issue free transferable tickets^ accompanied
by programmes of the entertainment^ to as many
residents of the neighbourhood as the room would
accommodate. '' The talent displayed in this enter-
tainment/^ he explained, '' being calculated only for
a select audience, no one can be admitted but those
who receive this invitation, with the annexed ticket,
the distribution of which is extremely limited. The
proprietors of shops (those who are invited) are re-
quested not on any account to allow this circular to
be placed in their windows, which would give more
publicity than required, the object being to secure
one class of audience, that it may approximate to a
private party. And as the principal families only
are invited, it is necessary that this ticket be pre-
sented at the door, which is the only means of
securing a genteel party, to which end every pre-
caution is taken. Each ticket will admit any num-
ber in one party the bearer may introduce. No

The Lives of the Conjurors. 309

charge for admission^ bat a collection in silyer will
be made during the evenings to which each person
is expected to contribute^ in order that those parties
who honour Mr. Young with their presence may
judge for themselves before they are called upon to
subscribe to his efforts."

Another of these announcements states that ^' in
no part of the room will less than siKpence be
received." The entertainment was really a good one,
and included the inexhaustible bottle and the sus-
pension in air. On the retirement of Bobin^ his
elegant saloon in Piccadilly was engaged for a
limited number of nights by Wellington Young,
who afterwards performed for some time at the
Marionette theatre, formerly the Adelaide Gallery.
One of the London critics pronounced him ^^ a worthy
successor to the Houdins, Doblers, and Philippes ; "
and the Jthenceum noticed his performances in the
following terips : —

*' While the Rappites are blundering over their
spirit-manifestations, and getting up conversations
between the seen and the unseen world by the
clumsy contrivance of knocking on a table, or on
the floor, — why should not the spirits who have
knuckles or toes have tongues as organs of articu-
lation ? — there is at the Salle Robin, in Piccadilly,
an exhibition of ' Magique Physique and Legerde-

3IO The Lives of the Conjurors.

mam^^ in whicli^ while no pretence is made to the
supernatural^ things are done which we challenge
the rappers, and eke Lieut. Morrison, to perform or
to expound. Can the American jugglers bring
down a spirit in the shape of a real live Guinea pig,
as Mr. Wellington Young does ? — make an old hat
yield a whole treasury of toys ? — put cards into
Lieut. Morrison's pocket against his will, and read
them there ? — or play with edged tools, and not
hurt their rappers after the surprising fashion of
the Indian Oak-ka? Can they bring our defunct
grandmother to us in the form of an old umbrella,
or take her out of a bottle ? — which it is quite
clear to us that Mr. Wellington Young could if he
tried. If not, we recommend our readers to prefer
the conjuring at the Salle Eobin, where a host of
impossible things are done by possible means, —
where the power of that ^trieksy spirit,' Mr. Young,
to tell the character of the card that we have
secretly drawn is proclaimed aloud in the plam,
unambiguous vernacular, not insinuated by the
prevarication of a shuffle with the toes."

At the Salle Bobin and the Marionette theatre,
Mr. Young did not depend upon a silver collection,
but made a regular charge for admission, ranging
from sixpence to two shillings. In the spring of
1854, he performed for several nights at the Victoria,

The Lives of the Conjurors. 3 1 r

-■ -

then under the direction of Miss Vincent, afterwards
Mrs. Crowther.

Another very creditable entertainer of the same
class was Professor Logrenia, who was several times
engaged, at holiday seasons, to give his entertain-
ment at the Polytechnic. Combining his conjuring
sometimes with minstrelsy of the burnt cork charac-
ter, and sometimes with dissolving views, he was
a popular entertainer more than twenty years, and
down to the present time, for his name still figures,
with those of Mr. Wellington Young, and Professors
Sinclair, Devono, Beaumont, Burmain, and De
Vere, in the list of conjurors now entertaining the
public. He assumed the title of Emperor of the
Necromancers and Great Demonstrator of Ancient
and Modem Magic, and in 1854 performed for
several nights at Sadler's Wells, on which occasion
he was pronounced by the Era^ " decidedly an
accomplished artiste in the science of mystery,
something really above the ordinary grade of mystic
professors.'^

His repertory included the gold-fish trick, the
conversion of ink into water, the prolific hat, and
the mysterious production of hot cofiee, a la Soyer,
which, with amusing illustrations of the spirit-
rapping imposture, brought his entertainment fully
up to the level of the time. Some of his soirees

I

312 The Lives of the Conjurors.

rnysterieusesj about twenty years ago, were given
in conjunction with Miller, the veteran showman
and conjuror, whose daughter, Louisa, gave an
exhibition of the mystiery of cla/irvoyance as puzzling
as it was amusing.

Professor Sinclair was less remarkable as a con-
juror than as a ventriloquist and a performer on
what he called the aerial flutina, ^^an instrument
which, in his hands, reminds his auditors of the
enchanting music of fairyland," we are told, though
it is not easy to conceive, how his auditors could
be reminded by his flutina performances of what
they had not heard. This statement is thrown into
the shade, however, by the Hibernian announce-
ment, that " Tom Thumb," the American dwarf,
who assisted at some of Sinclair's soirees fantas-
UqueSf '^ after an absence of ten years from England,
is now making the tour of France, Spain, Germany,
and Bussia, and will hold his levee, positively for
the above days only."

Besides playing several airs, he produced on the
aerial flutina imitations of the bells, trumpet, and
organ; and this portion of the entertainment was
extended in 1855 by the performances of Herr
Sangermann and Signer Bicardo, of the organo-
phonic band, which had previously performed at
the St. Jameses theatre. Sinclair's conjuring was

The Lives of the Conjurors. 313

of the ordinary scliool-treat cliaracter^ his most
remarkable feat being a more advanced develop-
ment of the flower trick in the production of an
orange-tree^ which expanded its leaves and pro-
duced blossoms, which were succeeded by ripe
fruit, equal in beauty and flavour to the golden
globelets of the Azores.

There was a dead calm in the world of magic
for several years after the departure of Anderson
for other lands. The resources of legerdemain
were for the time exhausted, and the entertainers
of the public were compelled to have recourse to
physical phenomena for hints for the production
of wonders novel and startling enough to be widely
attractive. The dim records of ancient and medi-
asval magic were explored for illusions such as
made famous the names of Bacon and Bungay,
Agrippa and Faust; and the result, after a few
years, was the supersession of inexhaustible bottles
and prolific hats by phantoms that seemed as
tangible as they were distinctly visible^ speaking
heads unattached to bodies, and mysterious hands
that wrote words upon paper without being con-
nected with arms.

The invention of the ghost illusion has been
claimed by more than one person, and it is probable
that more than one inventive mind was occupied

314 The Lives of the Conjurors.

with the idea at the same time. The germ of it
may have been found in the phantoms evoked by
Eobin, or it may have been suggested by observa-
tion of constantly occurring phenomena by one
sufficiently acquainted with optical apparatus to
turn the idea to good account. Be this as it may^
Mr. Silvester claims to be the inventor of the
original ghost illusion, first produced at the Poly-
technic, and commonly called Pepper's ghost, fix)m
the popular scientific lecturer who so long directed
that institution; while Messrs. Poole and Young
and Mr. Gompertz claim respectively for their
phantascope and spectroscope an independent ori-
gin, and a character the originality of which is not
affected by the previous production of a similar
illusion at the Polytechnic.

The effects introduced in the various entertain-
ments combining dissolving views and vocal illustra-
tions with a recital of some popular story, for which
the Polytechnic has so long been famous, exceeded
anything of the kind ever shown before; and
juveniles, and even children of a larger growth,
have rubbed their eyes in wonder, and asked them-
selves whether they were awake or dreaming, when
they saw the figure of the unfortunate Amy Bobsart
advance along the corridor, and fall through the
trap-door, or the roc drop the boulder on the raft

The Lives of the Conjurors. 315

of Sinbad. In those illusions, however, the spec-
tators knew that they were looking at a picture,
magnified by a powerful oxy-hydrogen microscope,
and thrown upon a white curtain; and they were
puzzled only by the movement imparted to the
figures. But the ghosts were a puzzle from begin-
ning to end.

The wondering spectators saw figures appear and
disappear, not gradually, as in the dissolving views,
but instantaneously, upon a stage arranged as for
a drama; and other figures pass through these,
though apparently not less real, as if they were
as unsubstantial as vapour. And the apparitions
not only moved about the stage, looking as tangible
as the actors who passed through them, and from
whose profiered embrace or threatened attack they
vanished in an instant, but spoke Dr sang with
voices of unmistakable reality.

The illusion proved too great an attraction to
be long confined to the Polytechnic. By arrange-
ment with Mr. Pepper, who purchased the patent
rights of Mr. Silvester, it was produced at several
of the metropolitan music-halls, while others pro-
duced it with the apparatus of Messrs. Poole and
Young, or of Mr. Gompertz. The most successful
of the ghost entertainments were produced at the
London Pavilion and the Canterbury, and of these

3x6 The Lives of the Conjurors.

two the palm should^ I think^ be awarded to the
former. It represented a dream after a visit to
the opera^ in which the 'prima donnay the principal
danseuae of the ballet^ and a flower-girl appear
successively to the dreamer, who, on attempting to
snatch a kiss from the &ir vendor of camellias, is
disappointed by her immediate vanishing. Of these
four characters, the gentleman alone was on the
stage, the others being '^ ghosts,'^ — otherwise, reflec-
tions of Miss D^Auban in the various assumptions,
for which her vocal and Terpsichorean talents
eminently qualified her. The Canterbury entertain-
ment was a fairy spectacle, the most striking
feature of which was a combat between a wander-
ing prince and an ogre, only the representative of
the former being on the stage.

These extraordinary effects depend upon the
optical law, that when a ray of light is reflected
on a plane surface, the reflection takes place in
a plane perpendicular to the reflecting surface, and
the incidental and reflected rays make equal angles
with this surface. If we look at an ordinary mirror,
we perceive that objects are reproduced apparently
at the same distance behind the glass as they are
before it. In the ghost illusion, unsilvered plate-
glass is used, which may seem quite a different
thing ; but if, when travelling by railway, we look

The Lives of the Conjurors. 317

at the glass sash of the carriage while passing
through a tunnel, we see ourselves and our fellow-
travellers reproduced as distinctly as in a mirror,
and, as in that case, at exactly the same distance
beyond the glass as we are in front of it.

This is a simple illustration of what was a
startling mystery when '^Pepper's ghost '* first
astonished London. In the production of this
illusion in a theatre or music-hall, the figure to
be reproduced is placed below the level of the
stage, and strongly illuminated by the oxy-hydrogen
or other powerful light. A large sheet of plate-
glass is placed on the front of the stage, at an
angle regulated by the distance between the figure
below and the spectator, so that the reflected image
shall appear to the audience to be behind the
glass, at a distance which will permit an actor
on the stage to apparently walk through the
phantom, pierce it with a sword, etc. As the actor
cannot see the ghosts, these movements require
very nice management. The floor of the stage
is marked for certain positions, and the mechanical
arrangements must allow the person who represents
the ghost to see the actors on the stage, and
also his own reflection. The auditorium is darkened,
and the glass cannot, if properly arranged, be
detected by the spectators.

3i8 The Lives of the Conjurors.

In the progress of this invention, Mr. Silvester
condacted his experiments in a garden, situate in
one of the southern suburbs of the metropolis,
where they produced some unintended and incon-
venient effects. Some of the neighbours saw
strange figures appear and disappear in a manner
of which they knew no example, except in ghost
stories ; and from gazing and shuddering they soon
proceeded to whispering and shaking their heads.
Vague rumours of awful mysteries to be witnessed
in Mr. Silvester's garden were wafted about the
neighbourhood. The infection spread, and crowds
began to assemble in the road, and the heads of
the more daring to dot the waU of the garden to
watch for the appearance of the fearsome things
that walked there. The intervention of the police
soon became necessary, and Mr. Silvester found
it advisable to raise his ghosts under conditions
involving no alarm to the nerves of persons suscept^
ible of the promptings of superstition.

The ghost illusion was followed at some of the
metropolitan music-halls by an entertainment equally
puzzling, and the inventors of which did not dis-
close their names. The names even of the actors
in it did not appear in the programmes. These
were three in number, the characters represented
being a German officer, his servant, and a comrade

The Lives of the Conjurors. 319

of tlie latter. The officer goes out to attend a ball^
first giving directions to his servant to brush his
clothes, empty a hamper of wine, and clean his
pistols. Karl opens a wardrobe to take out his
inastei*'s clothes, and finds it occupied by a human
skeleton ! He closes the doors in affiight, and
when he again ventures to open them the skeleton
has disappeared. Having brushed the clothes, he
proceeds to execute his second task; but, being
unable to resist the temptation to drink some of the
wine, becomes intoxicated.

In this condition he receives a visit from a
comrade, with whom he quarrels, and, angry words
being succeeded by blows, he runs oflF to procure
a sword, determined to annihilate his adversary on
the spot. The latter takes refuge in the empty
hamper, and the next moment Karl rushes on,
sword in hand, to find that his enemy has dis-
appeared. After vainly searching the apartment,
he thinks of the hamper, which he probes relent-
lessly with the sword. Having glutted his rage,
he raises the lid of the hamper; it is vacant — the
man has vanished ! In the midst of his wonder
at this mysterious disappearance, his comrade
appears in the gaUery, from which he leaps to
the stage. Joy at finding that he has not com-
mitted a murder takes the place of rage in Karl's
breast, and they become friends again.

320 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Karl tlien prodnces the pistol case^ but starts
with horror when, on opening it, he finds that it
contains, not the weapons, but his master's head I
The lips move, and a hollow voice informs him that
his master has quarrelled at the ball with a rival,
and in a hostile encounter has been slain. Before
the horror-stricken man has recovered from his
fright, his master returns, alive and well, and
informs him that he has contrived all that has oc-
curred in order to frighten him, and thus cure him
of his addiction to the bottle. In real life, the
disclosure would be likely to neutralise the influ-
ence of the trick ; but Karl vows that he will never
drink to excess again, and the horrors and mys-
teries of the night are brought to a satisfactory con-
clusion.

These entertainments had imparted to the pubUc
mind a new zest for conjuring performances of the
mysterious and semi- scientific order when a new
magician appeared at the Egyptian Hall, which has
since that period become as famous for conjuring
entertainments as it was formerly for panoramas,
and subsequently for monstrosities. Mr. Alfred
Stodare, the new aspirant for public favour, was a
well-educated Frenchman, and produced a pro-
gramme well spiced with sensational, and therefore
highly attractive, feats. Among them was the

The Lives of the Conjurors. 321

Indian basket trick, performed with a young lady,
who entered a lar&re basket, into which the coniuror
tW a sword, and fro^ which, on its being
opened, she was found to have vanished, to re-
appear among the spectators. He also performed
the trick of the instantaneous growth of flowers.

Stodare's greatest marvel, however was the
mysterious Sphinx. Upon what appeared to be
an ordinary three-legged table, standing in the
centre of the stage, a head stood, reminding the
spectator of the famous brazen head ascribed to
Boger Bacon. The spectator, seeing only a head,
and feeling satisfied that there was an open space
between the table and the stage, was amazed when
the eyes and lips moved, and the tongue spoke.
The secret was in the legs of the table, which were
connected by two mirrors, extending from the
back legs, and meeting at the front leg. If a
spectator is ignorant of the existence of a mirror,
he has no means of distinguishing reflected objects
from real ones, nnless they appear in nnnatural
positions. It is obvious, therefore, that, by a proper
arrangement of duplicate pictures of the part of the
stage or SQene hidden by the table, a reflection of
those duplicates may be made to appear in the
mirrors beneath the table, and thus lead the spec-
tator to imagine that he sees beyond the table

Y

322 The Lives of the Conjurors.

whereas he sees only a reflected image of the back
part of the stage or scene. The triangular space
enclosed by the mirrors contained the body and
limbs pertaining to the head on the table.

The speaking head at the Egyptian Hall was
followed^ in 1868^ by the mysterious hand at the
Polytechnic, which, unconnected with an arm
or body, wrote given words upon paper. The
Spiritualsts have shown their dupes so-caUed spirit-
hands and spirit-writing, but modem conjurors
very properly and fairly disclaim all pretensions to
supernatural aid, and, if they do not acquaint as
with the precise modibs operandi^ they exhibit their
marvels simply as exemplifications of the arcana of
physical science and mechanical ingenuity. The
inventor of the mysterious hand claimed for it
nothing more than was claimed for the sphinx of
the Egyptian Hall.

The agency by which the hand was made to
write has been conjectured to have been electrical j
but the secret has not been divulged, and the
modus opercmdi can be conjectured only from the
nature of the phenomenon. The hand reposed on
the centre of a table, looking like one of Dr. Elahn^s
wax models. On a word being given by a spec-
tator, the exhibitor placed a slip of paper under
the pen held by the waxen fingers, and pronounced

The Lives of the Conjurors. 323

!■! Ml I II - w— ■nrr-i— 1 rr*

the word rather loudly. The pen then began to
move, and the word was written in a somewhat
cramped hand. Sometimes it was illegible — some-
times wrongly spelled. Sometimes the exhibitor
tore up the paper without showing it, and repeated
the word more loudly than before. The exhibition
was strongly suggestive of a concealed operator.

Since the original '' ghost '' made its successful
debuty under the auspices of Mr. Pepper, several
similar optical illusions, aU produced by new ap-
plications of the same scientific laws, have been
exhibited at the Polytechnic, One of the most re-
markable illustrated a lecture on the discoveries
of Sir David Brewster, on the conclusion of which
the curtain rose on the interior of an antique dwell-
ing, in which a Greek invoked the shade of So-
crates. The head of the philosopher appeared float-
ing in the air, without a body, or any other visible
means of support ; and, in answer to a question
propounded by the Greek, delivered a rhymed
speech of about a dozen lines, with a mobility of
feature which left no doubt of its animation. While
the ^^ ghosts '' puzzled the world by rendering an
absent person visible, the new illusion amazed the
spectator by rendering invisible a portion of a per-
son of whose bodily presence there could be no
doubt. On the disappearance of Socrates, Sir

Y 2

3^4 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Joshua Reynolds's famous group of cherubs was
exlubited, and the chubby faces united in singing a
chorus.

In 1870 another automaton chess-player^ or what
was professed to be automatic^ was exhibited at
the Crystal Palace. It was a close imitation of
Kempelen's famous mechanism^ and like the Hun-
garian baron's, the figure was that of a fierce-looking
Turk, life-size, and attired in a rich Oriental cos-
tume. Hajeeb, as he was called, sat cross-legged
upon a chest, which ran upon casters, so as to be
easily moved over the floor, to showthat there was
no communication from below. There were doors
in the chest, and also in the back and breast of the
figure, which were opened to enable visitors to see
the interior ; but no candle was introduced, as men-
tioned in the accounts of the exhibition of Kempe-
len's figure. The inspection revealed nothing but
a complex arrangement of cords, wheels, and
pulleys.

Before commencing a game, the doors were all
closed and locked, and the machinery wound np
with a key such as is used for winding a large
clock. The sound produced by the operation was
similar to that which accompanies the winding of
horological mechanism. Then a cushion was placed
under the right arm of the figure, the chessmen were

The Lives of the Conjurors. 325

set by the attendant^ and the game began. The
first move was always made by the Turk^ and he
invariably made choice of the white men^ its play
corresponding in both particulars with that of
Kempelen's figure. The chess-board was raised a
little above the level of the chest by a circular
pedestal of wood, ostensibly for the purpose of
enabling ELajeeb to reach more easily the farther
side of the board; but the figure had the power of
bending forward from the hips, during which
motion, and also that of the arm, the sound of hinges
or joints could be heard.

When he took a man, the Turk dropped it into
the attendant's hand and placed its own on the
vacant square. On giving check, it bent its head ;
on giving checkmate, it placed the fore-finger on
the mated king, and nodded three times ; when
mate was given or announced by its opponent, it
signified its abandonment of the game by removing
its king, and placing it in a horizontal position at
the side of the board. K his opponent made a
wrong move, he shook his head and replaced the
piece ; if this occurred a second time, he removed
the piece, and availed of the laws of the game to
move ; and on a third wrong move he swept the
board with his arm, and ended the game. On
the conclusion of a game, the figure, like Kempe-

3 a6 The L ives of the Conjurors.

len^s, moved a knight over all the sixty-four
squares of the board without touching any
square twice^ the attendant placing a white
counter upon each square as it was touched^
and the feat being performed in the short space
of one minute.

This was the closing marvel of the last decade.

CHAPTER XVII.

Signor Bubini — ^The Indian Basket Trick — ^Beheading a
Lady — The Fakeer of Oolu — ^A Lady Floating in Air —
Professor Beamnont — ^Doings of the SpiritiLalists — Miss
Katie King — ^Her Confession of Lnposture — Mr. Maskelyne
—His Exposure of the Brothers Davenport — ^Anti-spirit-
ualistic Seances at the Egyptian Hall — ^The Automaton
Whist-Playei>— Dr. Lynn— The Corded Box Trick—
Palingenesia— Professor De Vere.

Colonel Stodabe was succeeded at the Egyptian
Hall by Signor Rubini, who, besides being a
tolerably neat performer of the ordinary conjuring
deceptions of the present day, also . performed the
Indian basket trick, and revived the old decapitation
feat. These startling illusions were exhibited by
the new aspirant to public favour, however, in a
manner which entirely deprived them of the element
of sensationalism. A young lady stepped into a
large wicker basket, and the conjuror closed the
lid. He then took a sword, and, with as much

328 The Lives of the Conjurors.

nonchalance as coolness^ thrust it into the basket
twice. The lady had probably already left the
basket; but, however this may have been, she gave
no sign of her presence. The lid was then raised^
and she was found to have disappeared.

The decapitation trick was performed with the
same entire absence of an endeavour to give an air
of reality to the operation, as was done by the old
performers of the illusion, and by the Indian
exhibitors of the basket trick. The young lady
seated herself, very composedly, in a large easy-
chair, and leaned against the cushioned back with
no other manifestation of emotion than she would
have displayed if about to have her hair dressed.
Rubini, hovering about the chair more like a hair-
dresser than an executioner, covered the young
lady's head with a shawl, to spare, as he explained,
the feelings of the spectators; and then went
through the semblance of separating the head from
the body. The shawl was removed, and what ap-
peared to be a headless trunk remained on the chair.
But the young lady had disappeared, for she showed
herself a moment afterwards, with her head on her
shoulders, though her headless double stiU occupied
the chair.

The disappearance of the living lady from the
chair was very cleverly contrived, and constituted

The Lives of the Conjurors. 329

the best feature of the trick ; bat this might have
been introduced in another deception^ not involving
any shock to the nerves of the more sensitively
organised of the spectators^ the sparing of which is
the only reason that can be pleaded for performing
feats of this description in a manner which is neither
sensational nor burlesque. There are some persons
who would rather not witness the performance of
the decapitation and the basket trick, and probably
a larger number who would feel a sensation of horror
if they saw the former performed as it was by
conjurors of the Elizabethan period, or the latter
as travellers have seen it performed in India. But,
if we regard the subject from this point of view, the
question may be asked. Why perform such tricks at
all ? K the conjuror^s aim is only to raise a laugh^
why does he not crack a joke, and let the trick
alone ? There is, however, another course. If he fears
to harrow the feelings of his audience, he can do the
business in a burlesque manner. But it would be
better to omit the trick than to pretend to cut off
a woman's head as coolly as he would carve a fowl.
After Bubini, we had, at the Oxford Music-hall,
'^ the Fakeer of Oolu,'' in whom the knowing ones
recognised Mr. Silvester, who is much less like a
fakeer than the juggler known as Dugwar is like a
veritable Asiatic. The principal feature of Mr.

330 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Silvester^s entertainment was the revival of the
aerial suspension trick, which he considerably
improved and elaborated. The Indian performers
of this trick exhibited themselves sitting, cross-
legged, in the air, with no other visible support
than the branch rod upon which one hand rested,
Robert-Houdin developed it into an apparent
sleeping in the air, with one hand supporting the
head, and the elbow of the same arm resting on the
top of an upright rod. Mr. Silvester contrived, by
an improvement of the mechanism employed, to
exhibit the young lady who acted as his medium
''floating in the air,^^ as the announcements expressed
it ; to speak more correctly, revolving, while in a
recumbent posture, around the rod which furnished
the means of support.

Professor Beaumont afterwards exhibited this

4

trick at the Surrey Gardens, then under the
management of Mr. Strange. The people who
never learn, who repeat, parrot-like, the wisdom
of their grandmothers, and retain all their lives
a happy confidence in the infallibility of the
vox populiy raised their voices against these ex-
hibitions, as they did in Paris when the trick was
originally exemplified by Eugene Robert-Houdin.
To the credit of the London press it must be said
that it did not join in the cry, as the Parisian.

The Lives of the Conjurors. 33 1

journals did; but perhaps sometliiiig must be

allowed^ in this age of rapid enlightenment, for the

quarter of a century which had elapsed since the

wonder-loving Parisians were mystified by Robert-

Houdin.

'' What a shame ! '* was often murmured at the

Oxford, and at the Surrey Gkbrdens. ^* That poor

young woman is being slowly murdered, as surely as

if a daily dose of poison was inftised into her food.

When she leaves here, she will be Uke a dead thing.

Every time she exhibits is a day taken from her

life — ^another nail knocked into her coffin ! It is a

shame that such things are allowed to be done.''

Some amount of mischief may have been done by
Mesmerists, and a great deal has undoubtedly been
wrought by so-called Spiritualists ; but a broad and
readily recognised line separates the conjuror from
the quack. The former honestly avows that he is
going to take advantage of the fallibility of our
senses to perform a seeming impossibility by means
which we cannot detect, but which he acknowledges
to be derived from the natural laws by which the
universe is governed. The latter pretends to be
the medium of a supernatural power, and attempts,
not merely to illude the senses, but to impose upon
the understanding.

It is one of the most curious features of the

33^ The Lives of the Conjurors.

extraordinary delusion which, during the last thirty
yearsj has taken possession of so many minds^ that
it has found votaries, chiefly amongst the more
highly educated classes. That the scheming knaves
who direct the imposture, the wire-pullers of Spirit-
ualism, should as a matter of preference, mark for
their dupes those whose purses are well-filled is not
surprising ; but that the best-educated sections of
society should fiimish the largest proportion of dupes
is a fact which cannot be accounted for by the pre-
ference of the " mediums'' for such subjects, and
which may well suggest a doubt as to the potency of
education in the development of the intellect.

Whenever the Spiritualists have ventured to ex-
hibit their mysteries before the public, they have in-
■ variably been detected, exposed, and ignominiously
driven from the field. The discomfiture of the
notorious Brothers Davenport will be remembered
by many of my readers; but it may not be so
generally known that the gentleman by whom it waa
given was Mr. Maskelyne, the clever conjuror now
performing at the Egyptian Hall. During the pro-
vincial tour made by the Davenports on the
termination of their London season at the Hanover
Square Booms, they gave a morning seance at
the Town-hall, Cheltenham, on which occasion Mr.
Maskelyne acted as one of the committee appointed

The Lives of the Conjurors. 333

by the andience for the independent investigation
of the phenomena presented. In the semi-darkness
which the Spiritualists find necessary for their mani-
festations^ spirit-hands were seen^ bells were rang
by invisible means^ tambourines flung ont of the
cabinet in which the Davenports were supposed to
be securely bounds and an air of Lover's was played
very indifferently upon a violin and a guitar.

The doors of the cabinet were then opened^ and
the Davenports were seen^ with their hands and feet
bounds as when they were closed. Again they were
shut up^ and the various noises were repeated ; but^
in the midst of the wonder evoked by them^ a piece
of drugget which had been used to exclude the light
fell from one of the windows^ and Mr. Maskelyne
was thus enabled to see Mr. Ira Davenport eject the
instruments^ and inmiediately re-secure himself with
the ropes. As the representative of the audience^
Mr. Maskelyne^ in the discharge of his duiy^ an-
nounced what he had seen^ and some disturbance
ensued. A doctor of divinity^ who was also on the
platform^ declared that he had seen nothing of the
kind^ and considerable controversy ensued ; but the
evidence of one credible person who has witnessed
any occurrence is worth that of a dozen who have
not seen it^ and whose testimony can prove
nothing.

334 The Lives of the Conjurors.

More recent attempts to impose upon the public
have resulted in similar exposures and defeats, the
efforts of Anderson towards which have been ably
seconded during the last two years by Dr. Lynn and
Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke. Nothing has ever
been done at Spiritualistic seances, even when held
in the obscurity and privacy of a beUever's drawing,
room, with the gas lowered, other than is done by
those gentlemen, who ridicule the idea of spiritual
intervention in conjuring tricks, and honestly declare
themselves to be no more than entertainers of the
public with legerdemain and natural magic. The
latest device of the Spiritualists was the claiming of
the Egyptian Hall conjurors as ''mediums,'* but the
conjurors repudiate the connection.

It is perhaps too much to expect that the
" mediums '' will follow the example of Miss Katie
King, and confess their misdoings, so long as dupes
with heavy accounts at their bankers can be foimd.
Outsiders who have occasionally dropped in at pri*
vate secmces with the spirits may have seen a certain
charming and mysterious ''fair one with golden
locks*' who so often appeared at Spiritualistic
gatherings, when the gas had been lowered, and de-
lighted them with her agreeable manners and
conversation. Though believed by the dupes to be
a spirit, she was acknowledged to be tangible ; for

The Lives of the Conjurors^ 335

she allowed her fnends to grasp her hand^ and ladiea
to embrace her, though she pulled the whisker of a
gentleman who wished to obtain like evidence of
her substantiality. That young lady was then
known as Miss Katie King, which was supposed ta
be the name she had borne while in the flesh.

After a season the idolised fair one was missed
from her accustomed haunts, but appeared in
Philadelphia in just as much time as would have
sufficed for a voyage across the Atlantic. It is a
fact, however, that the name of Miss Katie King
does not appear in the passenger Ksts of any of the
steamers. In the City of Brotherly Love, where
she soon had as many admirers as in London, she
kissed the bald head of Mr. Eobert Dale Owen, and
gave him a lock of her golden hair. The Illinois
senator, who has adopted the mummeries into which
his father, the philanthropist of New Lanark and
Harmony Hall, subsided in his declining years, ha»
given an account of his interviews with Katie which
is a good example of the many similar exhibitions
of the last dozen years.

He saw Katie on one occasion gradually disappear^
the head fading first, then the body, last the feet.
On another occasion she appeared only eighteen
inches high, but in a few seconds raised herself to
her full height. Once she floated in the air, as

336 The Lives of the Conjurors.

Mr. Home used to do. Many more marvels were
exhibited, one of which was thought conclusive of
her spiritual character. Katie said that an English
friend wanted to write. Mr. Owen marked a sheet
of paper, which was handed into the cabinet
from which Katie was wont to emerge. In a
few minutes it appeared suspended in the air, while
a small white hand, which was attached to no
arm, wrote upon it. The paper was passed out, and
was found to contain a message from the late
Frederick Robertson, of Brighton. Next day it
was compared with the handwriting and signature
of that eminent preacher at the Franklin Library,
and found to be exactly similar.

Miss Katie King has since confessed that she
is no spirit, but a widow with two children, and
that her name is White. She played her part
for gain j was concealed in the cabinet, and glided
fit)m it when the gas was turned down. She
was made to fade away by having several black
crape veils thrown over her, one afler another^
as the appearance of fog or mist is produced in
theatres by lowering curtains of blue gauze. The
handwriting of Frederick Eobertson was obtained
from the Franklin Library the day before; the
paper handed in by Mr. Owen was qaickly
changed for another, on which his m&rk was in-

The Lives of the Conjurors. 337

stantly copied; and Katie seemed to trace letters
on what was a message already written.

Jolm Nevil Maskelyne, the unmasker of the
Davenports, is a descendant of Nevil Maskelyne, the
astronomer, and is a native of Cheltenham. Like
Anderson and Bobert-Hondin, he manifested a
remarkable aptitude for mechanical invention at
a very early age, and, as he grew older, showed
a decided taste for intricate mechanism. At the
age of thirteen, he was apprenticed to a watchmaker
and jeweller in his native town, and soon became an
adept at his business. When he had devoted three
years to its acquisition, he was able to execute the
most difficult works with masterly skill. He made
few acquaintances, and passed little of his time
in their society, employing most of his leisure in the
construction of mechanical apparatus, devising
optical illusions, and inventing conjuring tricks.

Before he was seventeen, he often entertained a
party of friends for an hour or two with conjuring
tricks and illusions, many of which were of his own
contrivance. Whenever a conjuring entertainment|
or a mechanical exhibition, was announced, he
was sure to be one of the spectators, watching the
performer, and studying the mechanism exhibited,
with an intelligent attention which was seldom
unrewarded. The feats of the Brothers Davenporti

338 The Lives of the Conjurors.

differing as they did from everything of the kind
which had been exhibited before, greatly interested
him, and, when the Brothers visited Cheltenham, he
was more puzzled by them than by anything which
he had ever seen or heard of before. The part
which he played in the detection of their attempts to
humbug the public with their pretension to super-
natural aid has been already related.

Convinced of the ^posture, and unpeUed by
a strong desire to vindicate himself, and to com-
plete the unmasking of the Davenports, Mr.
Maskelyne constructed a cabinet similar to theirs,
practised their tricks, and, with the assistance of
Mr. Cooke, now his partner in the conjuring enter-
tainment presented at the Egyptian HaU, produced a
complete exposition of the entire performance.
Their first public exhibition proved an immense hit ;
the room was crowded and the notices of the local
press were most favourable. Offers of lucrative
engagements came to the new entertainers from
all parts of the country, and they saw their way at
once to a successful career. After much study, and
many experiments, they produced their mysterious
tr9.nsformation scene, to which Mr. Maskelyne
adapted some optical illusions and mechanical con-
trivances which had occupied much of his leisure
while working at watchmaking; and this scene

The Lives of the Conjurors. 339

has never failed to create the utmost astonish-
ment^ leading the Spiritualists to claim the
conjurors as " mediums," and declare that their feats
are performed by supernatural agency.

After performing before crowded and gratified
auditories in the largest halls of the provincial towns,
Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke brought their enter-
tainment to the metropolis, locating it first at St.
James's Hall, and afterwards at the Egyptian Hall.
Having given their entertainment for so long a
time in the metropoHs, almost without a break, their
programme has necessarily undergone many changes
since it was first produced \ but its leading feature
has always been the exposure of the tricks and
baseless pretensions of the Spiritualists. Tightly
bound in their cabinet by gentlemen who volunteer
from among the audience to ensure the security of
the ropes and the unaltered condition of the
knots, they have contrived to elude the vigilance of
the watchers, and perplex all beholders, by the
celerity with which they perform, by acknowledged
trickery, all the feats which the so-called "mediums ^^
accomplished, as they pretend, by supernatural aid*

Under the most stringent tests of sealed fasten-
ings and flour held in his hands, Mr. Maskelyne
contrives to remove his coat and vest, and throw
them out of the cabinet, while the coat of any one

z 2

340 The Lives of the Conjurors.

who may oflTer to assist in the performance appears
suddenly on the back of the bound conjuror. How
this is eflfected is a problem of exceedingly difficult
solution. No less puzzling are the feats of Mr.
Goohe^ who, while apparently deprived of the power
to move head, hand, or foot, drinks a glass of water,
drives nails into wood, and cuts devices out of paper
with a pair of scissors, completing the wonderment
of the spectators by extricating himself from his
bonds, and the meshes of a net in which he is enve-
loped, without the most astute beholder being able
to suggest any feasible hint of the means by which
the feat is accomplished.

The feature most recently introduced into their
programme is the automaton whist-player, which is
as far in advance of any similar piece of mechanism
as their cabinet business is of the rope-tying tricks
of Professor Redmond, exhibited several years ago
at Astley's, and afterwards at the London Pavilion.
Psycho, as this wonderful automaton has been
named, is the joint invention of Mr. Maskelyne and
Mr. John Algernon Clarke, and was first exhibited
before the Prince of Wales and a party assembled
at Sandringham, at the beginning of 1875. It is a
figure twenty-two inches in height, habited in an
Oriental costume, and sitting cross-legged upon a
small box or pedestal ; and, besides being too small

The Lives of the Conjurors. 341

to contain a dwarf or a boy, may be inspected
through openings in the body, and in the box upon
which it is seated.

Mr. Maskelyne allows any person present to
ascertain for himself that the narrow interior of the
pedestal is filled with intricate machinery, and that
no spaces about it, or the table upon which it
stands, are hidden by mirrors, or other optical con-
trivances, as in the case of Mr. Stodare's sphinx.
To convince the audience that the figure and its
pedestal are perfectly isolated from any external
control, Mr. Maskelyne places them upon a cylinder
of thin transparent glass, which is submitted to the
closest scrutiny before being set, and stands clear
away fi*om the curtained recess at the back, and
from all the surroundings, in the centre of the
stage. There is no attachment of any kind, the
automaton standing free on the glass cylinder \ and
persons from the audience are allowed to watch as
closely as possible around the figure while it is
being exhibited, and to re-examine the interior
when they please.

Under these stringent conditions, Psycho proceeds
to exhibit his powers successively as an arithmetical
calculator, a whist-player, and a conjuror. Any
numbers proposed by the audience are added, sub-
tracted, multiplied, or divided, with the readiness

34* The Lives of the Conjurors.

and accuracy of a Zerah Colbum. The figure
shows the product or remainder, as the case may
be, one figure at a time, by opening a little door,
and sliding the figure in front of the aperture by a
movement of the left hand. All suspicion of con-
federacy or pre-arrangement is dispelled by the
mode in which the result of the calculation is
arrived at.

Any three gentlemen amoug the audience are
then invited to step upon the platform, and play a
game at whist with Psycho. They seat themselves
at a side table, and proceed to cut for partners,
and to deal the cards, those of the automaton being
placed upright upon a quadrant holder, so as to be
within the sweep of his right hand, with which,
after surveying them with seeming intelligence, he
lifts the card proper to be played, according to the
circumstances of the game. He holds up each card
that he plays in full view of the spectators, and
then puts it down in front of the quadrant ; and he
will hold up any card as often, as desired by any
person among the audience. He shakes hands
with his partner at the conclusion of the game,
which, if he happens to have hands of average
goodness dealt to himself and partner, he generally
wins, unless matched against very scientific players.

A series of card tricks, performed by Psycho

The Lives of the Conjurors. 343

under the strictest conditions, testify still further to
the skill which has been displayed in the construc-
tion of the automaton, and in the concealment of
the agency employed. On a card being drawn
from the pack, the figure indicates the suit and
rank; or number of spots, by striking a bell. On a
card being privately marked, and the pack shuffled,
it instantly finds the marked card, and holds it up,
without, it would seem, the possibility of substitution
or deception. The pack is shuffled again, and,
while Mr. Maskelyne holds it behind him, in full
view of the audience, Psvcho names all the cards in
succession, though the conjuror himself has not
seen even the backs of them.

Psycho is, for the present, a puzzle to all who
liave witnessed the exhibition. The critic of the
leading journal observes that it would be unsafe to
predict how long the "dynamic mystery'' will
remain unsolved, in an age when the most extra-
ordinary performances of conjurors are understood
by many persons outside the profession; but ho
adds that " for complete novelty of the effects pro-
duced this new automaton outdoes everything
which has appeared^ since the subtle inventions of
Brobert-Houdin.'' Another metropolitan critic re-
marks that, "unless the visitor to the Egyptian
Hall can come to the desperate conclusion that Mr.

344 l^he Lives of the Conjurors,

Maskelyne has gone beyond Professor Tjmdall,
and discovered the faculty of memory developed in
the movements of clockwork, a problem is here
submitted to the public which seems to be inex-
plicable/'

Psycho is certainly as great a puzzle as Charles's
invisible girl and Stodare's speaking head were
before the construction of the former, and the
optical deception of the latter, became known.
Neither of these were automatic, however, and
Psycho, as an automaton, far excels both Vaucan-
son's flute-player and Kempelen's chess-player.
Vaucanson's automaton, which was exhibited before
the French Academy of Sciences in 1738, imitated
with marvellous exactitude the movements of the
fingers, lips, and tongue of a human flutist, but,
like a barrel-organ or a musical box, it executed
only the particular airs which it was arranged to
play. The powers of Psycho are not so limited,
and its smallness precludes the possibility of such a
deception as was practised by Kempelen, and the
successive owners of the so-called automaton chess-
player.

Mr. Maskelyne has received many communica-
tions, some illustrated by diagrams, as to the
manner in which the effects are or might be pro-
duced; but he does not admit the soundness of

The Lives of the Conjurors. 345

any of the theories which his correspondents have
advanced. Professor CliflTord, who enjoys a special
reputation for abiUty in the solution of the problems
involved in conjurors* tricks, and is said to have
found out every one by which London audiences
have been puzzled, has failed, I am informed, to
elucidate the mystery of Psycho. Many other
gentlemen of penetrative intellect, and conversant
with physical and mechanical principles, have gone
to the Egyptian Hall, and, after a keen scrutiny of
the invention, have been equally unsuccessful.

An American gentleman, who had played a game
with Psycho, and won it, though more intent on
watching the glass cylinder than on his cards, left
the Hall with the idea that he had found out the
secret. The great care which Mr. Maskelyne takes
to prove the complete isolation of the figure, so far
as electrical force is concerned, by placing it on a
glass cylinder had impressed him with the idea that
therein was the secret involved. Glass is a non-
conductor only in the same sense that air is^ and
neither can prevent the action of one magnet upon
another. If an electro-magnet is brought into the
vicinity of a ship's compass, it is not prevented from
deflecting the needle firom its northward direction
by the fact that the two needles are encased in glass,
or that a yard or more of atmosphere is between

J46 The Lives of the Conjurors.

them. If, therefore, a powerful magnet was fixed
in the floor beneath Psycho, and connected by wires
with a concealed operator, it would command the
movements of a corresponding magnet in Psycho's
machinery.

This ingenious gentleman visited the Egyptian
Hall again, taking with him a small pocket-compass,
and so certain did he feel that this must be the
solution of the mystery that he had a plan ready for
applying the test in such a manner as not to expose
the conjuror's secret. Having ascertained the
exact north point of the room, so that he might be
able to discover any alteration that might take
place when the magnet was brought close to the
figure, he contrived to get his card conveyed to Mr.
Maskelyne, with a request to be allowed to apply
the magnet, and a promise that it should be done
secretly. The permission was immediately given,
in a public manner, and he stepped to the stage,
-and applied the needle to every part of the figure,
then working. The needle was not agitated in the
slightest degree, and the Psychic force remains as
great a mystery as before.

Without attempting to solve this mystery, which
is probably evolved from very simple means, I pro-
ceed to notice Dr. Lynn, who, for more than two
years, has divided with Messrs. Maskelyne and

The Lives of the Conjurors. 347

Cooke the attention of the wonder-seeking public.
It has become somewhat difficulty after such a series
of clever conjurors as we have seen since the advent
of Anderson, for even the most ingenious of the
profession to invent new tricks of a kind that will
draw full houses for hundreds' of nights ; but Dr.
Lynn has presented the cream of the entertainments
of his predecessors, and some new combinations of
old devices which have at least the appearance
of novelty. The gold-fish trick, the second sight,
the rope-tying feat, the decapitation, the instanta-
neous growth of flowers, the basket trick, and the
aerial suspension are, as the reader has seen, none
of them new ; but Dr. Lynn is probably the only
conjuror who has exhibited the whole of them, and
he, besides, performs some of them in a manner
which, like a new flower or ribbon on an old bonnet,
gives them an air of freshness which they would not
otherwise possess.

Li the second-sight exhibition. Dr. Lynn reads
any words written by a spectator in any language,
however careftilly they may be concealed from his
scrutiny. He expands the decapitation trick into
the so-called palingenesia, and performs the basket
feat with two baskets, the young lady who assists
in it passing from one to the other, unseen by the
spectators, though they have an apparently full view

348 The Lives of the Conjurors.

beneath and around the wicker appliances. The
deception thus performed is certainly more puzzling
than when conducted in the manner of Signer
Bubini ; but spectators may ask themselves why the
young lady, if able to leave one basket unseen by
the conjuror, should immediately enter another.
The suspension trick diflTers from Mr. Silvester's
only in being performed by two yoiHig ladies at the
same time.

The palingenesia, which was introduced into
Dr. Lynn's programme, in the autumn of 1874,
consists in removing the left arm and left leg, and
finally the head, of a man, the limbs being deposited
upon a chair, and the head handed round by the
conjuror in a black cloth. These successive opera-
tions are performed in a curtained recess, and the
restoration is not effected in sight of the audience,
the curtain being drawn, and the man walking round
from the back. To London wonder-seekers this
trick, however performed, is a novelty ; but it was
performed in India two or three centuries ago. The
high-sounding name chosen by Dr. Lynn might be
just as appropriately applied to the basket-trick,
g&neda being derived from genedi, signifying birth
or creation. "And then, you see,'* as a punster
observed in explanation of the word, '' there is a,pal

The Lives of the Conjurors. 349

The most remarkable feature of Dr. Lynn's
entertainment is the corded box tricky in which a
man, tied up in two sacks by a committee of gentle-
men from the audience, not only extricates himself
from them in a moment, but passes into a box
secured with cord, and placed in another, also
corded and locked, A^hich is enclosed in a third box,
secured in a simUar manner. Almost as puzzling,
though less novel, is the conjuror's modification of
the rope-tying trick. A man is bound with copper
wire to iron staples, firmly fixed in a stool. A cur-
tein is then drawn ai-ound lum, and a ring, previously
examined by the committee, is no sooner thrown
into the alcove than it is found on either of the
bound arms, as the audience may select; while,
though secured by ligatures less tractable than those
used by the Brothers Davenport, the operator
appears in an instant divested of his coat, and in
another replaces it on his back, without giving the
committee the least clue to the solution of the
mystery.

Though his apparatus is less elaborate than that
of Anderson and Eobert-Houdin, Dr. Lynn does
not agree with Frikell in discarding it altogether^
and stiU less in the Finnish conjuror's disregard of
the art of language. " He is," to quote the words
of one of his London critics, '^ a most accomplished

350 T^ Lives of the Conjurors.

master of the whole art of humbugs and he does his
humbugging with such ease and neatness^ such self-
possession and invulnerable effironteiy^ that one
must envy the man if he experiences only half the
pleasure in cheating his audience that his audience
does in being cheated. From the moment he
comes to the front with his wand^ this plump
magician keeps the attention of all in the room
enchained; his restless eyes sparkle from side to
side, his nimble tongue patters with the rapidity of
a Wheatstone transmitter^ and his magpie fingers
are diving into the secrets of unconscious pockets.
There have been other wizards with powers as
great, possibly greater, in their peculiar lines ; but
the speciality of Lynn, in which he excels all of
them, is his marvellous talkee-talkee. He cracks a
joke, tells an anecdote, or bandies repartee, always
eflFective, and all this time he is working his won-
ders, for his running fire of remark is less to tickle
the listeners than to divert their notice from the
trick he is performing. He deludes the most watch-
ful spectator all the while with his conversation,
and, as he lucidly explains, ' that's how it's done.' "
There remains to be said only -a few words con-
cerning Professor de Vere, who, during the past
summer, has been amusing, with his tricks of
legerdemain, the thousands of visitors to Cremome

The Lives of the Conjurors. 351

Gardens. Mr. de Vere has for several years attended
private parties in all parts of the kingdom^ and
given lessons in magic^ besides manufacturing con-
juring tricks and apparatus of every description,
from the most simple deception of the drawing-room
to the most elaborate and complex mechanism of
the leading professors of the art. He gave his
entertainment before the Prince of Wales on two
occasions in 1865, twice before the Princess of
Wales and a distinguished party in 1869, before
several other members of the royal family at
Windsor Castle in 1870, the Empress Eugenie and
the Prince Imperial of France at Chislehurst in
1871, and the King of the Belgians and the Shah of
Persia in 1873.

His continental engagements have ranged from
the Th^tre de la Gaiety, Paris, and the The&tre des
Fantaisies Parisiennes, Brussels, to the Jardins des
Eaux Min^rales, St. Petersburg; and his programme,
illustrated by M. Ernest Griset, has appended to it
a testimonial from M. Offenbach, given at the ter-
mination of a three months' engagement at the
Guiete, then under that famous composer's direction.
During the autumn of 1874, he made a professional
tour through France and western Germany, varying
his programme by the introduction of the aerial
suspension trick, with chromatic lime light effects.

35^ The Lives of the Conjurors.

His repertory comprises many of the best tricks
of the conjnrors of the present day^ and inclndes
one of those anti-spiritnalistio performances which
antipathy to hnmbug has done so much to render
popular of late years. The performer's wrists are
securely fastened by two individuals from the
audience to iron staples^ the knots being sealed or
sewn through as these volunteer assistants may
require^ and his feet are tied together at the ankles.
While in this apparently helpless condition a series
of bewildering eflTects are produced. A bell is rung,
a handkerchief knotted, the performer's coat taken
off, a glass of wine drank, a whistle and a tam-
bourine played; finally, the performer disappears,
and immediately shows himself in another place.

There seems no reason to suppose that conjuring
entertainments of a high order, and conducted in a
legitimate manner, will ever lose their popularity.
Regarded with reverence and awe in the early ages
of the world, as a being invested with supernatural
power, and with fear and horror in after centuries
as a wretch who had made a compact with Satan, it
is only in comparatively recent times that the
conjuror has taken his legitimate place as an enter<-
tainer. He is no longer exposed to the risk of
being imprisoned as an impostor and a vagrant, as
Katterfelto was at Shrewsbury; and it is only in

The Lives of the Conjurors, 353

places remote from the centres of intelligence, and
among the most ignorant of the people, that he is
in any danger of snch ludicrous, and yet unpleasant,
adventures as befel Anderson on more than one
occasion. And the more the progress of education
and the development of the intellect enable all
classes of the people to regard him in his legitimate
character, the less tolerant will his auditors become
of imposture, and the more will his ingenuity be
tasked in the production of mysteries involving the
application of the resources of physical and me-
chanical science. Future generations may continue
to applaud the evolution of a globe of gold fish
from a yard of black cloth, or the development of a
geranium from a pot of earth under a hat ; but the
highest honours of the profession will be awarded
to those who produce, in the best manner, illusions
such as Silvester's ghost and Stodare's sphinx, or
such marvellous examples of constructive ingenuity
and skill as the automata exhibited by Jean Bobert-
Eoudin and John Nevil Maskelyne.

2 A

INDEX.

PAOB-

Aaron and the Egyptian enchanters 2-

Abaris, a reputed magician ....... 19

Aerial suspension in the fourteenth century . .58

Agrippa, Cornelius, and his magic mirror .... 62

Alb^us Magnus, see Groot.

Alexander of Abonotica^ and his oracle 27

Anderson, the Wizard of the Nordi 228

Anderson's magic cabinet 234

„ „ goblets and vases 236

ApolloniuB of Tyana, a reputed magician .... 26

Apparitions of &e pagan deities 3

Aristeas, strange stories about 22

Astley, the equestrian, a conjuror' 145

Automaton chess-player, Kempelen's 146

„ „ at the Crystal Palace 824

„ rope-dancer, Finetti's 142

„ whist-player, Mr. Maskelyne's .... 34Q

Bacon, Roger, and the deril 42

Ball, the conjuror 203

„ trick of an Indian conjuror 213

Balsamo, see CagUostro.

Basket trick, as performed in India 208

Beaumont, Professor, the conjuror . .311, 830

Blitz, the elder and the younger 201

Boaz, the conjuror 125

Bologna, the illusionist . 167

356

Index.

BoBCO, the Italian conjuror 300

Brandon and the pigeon trick 88

Breslaw, the conjuror 128

Buck, the French conjuror 224

Bungay, the aBsodate of Boger Bacon 42

Burmain, Professor, the conjuror 311

Burying aliye in India 114

Oagliostro, the conjuror and quack 155

Cant words used hy conjurors .... 103, 107, 113

Gapelli, the Italian conjuror 205

Carlosbach, the German mountebank 278

Castelli, the French coiguror ...... 279

Cellini and the deyils 75

Chalon, the Swiss conjuror 196

Charles, constructor of the inyisible girl .... 190

Chinese conjurors and jugglers 299

Ching Lau Lauro, the Chinese conjuror .... 220

Clairvoyance, first exhibition of 140

Comte, the French conjuror and yentriloquist . . . 198

Comus, the French conjuror 120

* „ the second, and his hard words 158

ConnuB, the French conjuror 153

Conjuring entertainments a hundred years ago . 127

„ tricks of the sixteenth century 89

Conjurors in the seventeenth century lOO

„ low status of, a century ago 125

Cooke, Mr., the partner of Mr. Maskelyne .... 338

Comillot, the French conjuror 197

Cosmopolita, a pretender to the art 125

Cuochiani, the Italian conjuror 189

Cunningham, the conjuror 264

Davenport, the Brothers, the spiritualists . . . 259, 332

Decapitation trick in the sixteenth century .... 70

„ „ of Signor Bubini 327

Dee and his magic speculum 85

Devono, Professor, the conjuror 311

Dissolving views at the Polytechnic 814

Dobler, the German conjuror 266

Dabler*s bottle trick 267

„ magic laundry 269

Doward, the conjuror 264

Eleusinian mysteries, the 8

Elymas, the sorcerer 25

Endor, the witch of 8

English conjurors in the fourteenth century .... 58

Index. 357

Faust, and his conjurations 67

Fawkes and the flower trick * . 117

Fish and ring trick of Torrini 181

Flockton, the conjuring showman 133>

Frazer, the Bartholomew £Eiir coxyuror ..... 205

Frikell, the Finnish conjuror 295

Ghost illusion of the music-halls 313>

Girardelli, the Italian conjuror * 200

Gold-fish trick, the puzzling 219, 273, 276

Gompertz, inventor of the spectroscope 314

Greathead's, Bishop, brazen head 40

Gregoiy YII., a reputed magician 40

Ghrisj, Count de, see Torrini.

Groot and his mechanical man 53-

Gun trick, &tal accidents arising from . 188, 198, 194

„ „ invention of the, by Astley ' 14&

„ „ of Torrini 188

„ „ of Anderson 232

„ „ of Bobert-Houdin 290

Gjngell, the conjuring showman 192

Hambujer, the Danish conjuror ...*.. 305

Hamilton, the assistant of Bobert-Houdin .... 289
Henry, inventor of inflammable air fireworks . . .153

Hermann, the German conjuror 27&

Hermodorus, death simulated by 23

Hoare, the conjuror . 203

Hocus pocus, origin of 107

Indian conjurors at the Court of Jehangire .... 94

„ juggler, death of an 193

Ingleby, the conjuror 171, 176

„ Lunar, and Mme. Lunar ..... 180, 204

luglis, the conjuror and ventriloquist 305

Invisible girl, exhibition of the 190

Isiac mysteries, the 6

Jacobs, the conjuror and ventriloquist 215

Jannes and Jambres, the conjurors 87

Jonas, the conjuror .... .... 122

Katterfelto and his fieunous cat 135

Eelly, the assistant of Br. Bee 88

Kempelen, the inventor of the automaton chess-player . 146

Keyes, the Bartholomew &ir conjuror 205

King, Miss Katie, the spiritual medium 334

Kircher's magic lantern 99

358 Index.

PA OS-
Lamb and his magio tree 98

Laine, the Bartholomew fair conjuror ?X)5

Lane, the conjuror . . ' 184

Law, the conjuror and ventriloquist ..... 224

Linski, De, the Polish conjuror 298

Linsky, De, the Russian conjuror 194

Logrenia, Professor, the conjuror .....'. 311

Lully, a reputed magician 55

Lynn, Dr., the conjuror . * 346

Maelzel, exhibitor of the automaton chess-player . . . 150

Magic mirrors of the ancients .12

„ cookery of the conjurors .... 268, 273, 295

MaJcolm, the conjuror 304

Maskelyne, Mr., the conjuror 332, 337

Mazimus, the sorcerer ........ 4

MediGBval magic, reviyal of 313

Melville, the revealer of conjurors* secrets .... 154

Merlin, the enchanter .31

Miller, the conjuror and showman .... 225, 312

„ Louisa, the clairvoyante 812

Mokanna, the veiled prophet of Elhorasan .... 35

Moon, the conjuror 167

Mooty Moodaya, the Indian juggler 265

Moritz, the German conjuror ..... 166, 16^
Mysterious hand, the, at the Polytechnic .... 322

Neve's instructions for a conjuror 112

Nicholas I., an amateur conjuror 245

Ollivier, the French conjuror 18S

Palingenesia in the seventeenth century .... 96
„ as performed by Dr. Lynn .... 348

Pancake trick, failures in the 225, 280

Papal edicts against magic 82

Pennington, the Wizard of the World 264

Phantasoope, invention of the 314

Phantasmagorial exhibitions 162, 167, 205

Philippe, see Talon.

PhilipstaJ, inventor of the phantasmagoria .... 164

Pinchbeck, the partner of Fawkes 118

Pinetti, the famous Italian conjuror .... 140, 181

Porta on magic 112

Price's, Mrs., action against MoritE 170 '

Psycho, the automaton whist-player 340

Pythagoras, strange stories about 20

Index. 359

PAOB

Quy, the Chinese conjuror 300

Bay, the conjuror, and G-eorge III 125

Kedmoud, and the rope trick 340

King and fish trick of Torrini 181

Bobert, the French conjuror 162

„ -Houdin, the French mechanist and conjuror 277

Bobin, the French illusionist 294

Bobinson, the conjuror 135

Bollin, the French conjuror 157

Bosenfeld, the Polish conjuror 298

Bubini, Signer, the conjuror 327

SabeUicuB, a conjuror of the sixteenth century ... 74
Samoied conjuror in the sixteenth century .... 91

Santabaren, the Greek patriarch 37

Saurin, De, the Wizard of the West 263

Scot, Michael, a reputed magician 41

Second-sight exemplified . . 140, 232, 244^ 276, 282

Sheshal, the Brahmin of the Air . . . . . 208

Silvester II. and his brazen head ...... 39

„ Professor, the conjuror 318,329

Simon Magus, the sorcerer 23

Sinclair, Professor, the conjuror .311

Sinclair's magic orange tree 313

Socrates, the shade of^ at the Polytechnic .... 323

Sphinx, the^ at the Egyptian Hidl / 321

Spinetti, the conjuror . . 143

Spiritualism in the seventeenth century 109

„ exposed by Anderson 249

„ „ by Mr. Maskelyne ..... 332

Spirit-writing exempUfied by Anderson 232

Stodare, Colonel, the French conjuror 320

Sullivan, the American conjuror 202

Suspension trick, the aerial ... 58, 206, 249, 285, 330
Sutton, the conjuror and ventriloquist 222

Talon, the French conjuror 271

Talon's automata 274

Tartar conjurors of the fourteenth century .... 57

Testot, the French conjuror 222

Tiresias, a blind magician .19

Torrini, the French conjuror 180

„ and the Cardinal's watch 183

Transformation of a bird into a woman 196

Trick of making one man two . . 1 87

360 Index.

PAOB

Yal, th6 Erenoh conjuror 174

Vandermast, a German magiciaii *44

Vanishing page, trick of the . . 187, 220, 223, 295

Ventriloquists, pranks of 198, 217

Vere, Professor de, the conjuror 311, 350

Water, Indian triclLS with a jar of 211

Wedding-ring trick of Anderson 233

Yeates, the conjuror 119

Toung, the Enchanter of the East 262

,, Mr. Wellington, the conjuror ' . 306

Zeito, a Bohemian necromancer 56

Zoroaster and the Magi 19

THE END.

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