[197] Godwin's amusing _Lives of the Necromancers_ abound in
marvellous stories of the supernatural feats of these old students.
[198] Agrippa was the most fortunate and honoured of occult
philosophers. He was lodged at courts, and favoured by all his
contemporaries. Scholars like Erasmus spoke of him with admiration;
and royalty constantly sought his powers of divination. But in
advanced life he was accused of sorcery, and died poor in 1534.
[199] One of the most popular of our old English prose romances,
"The Historie of Fryer Bacon," narrates how he had intended to "wall
England about with brass," by means of such a brazen head, had not
the stupidity of a servant prevented him. The tale may be read in
Thoms' "Collection of Early English Prose Romances."
[200] The allusion here is to the automaton chess-player, first
exhibited by Kempelen (its inventor) in England about 1785. The
figure was habited as a Turk, and placed behind a chest, this was
opened by the exhibitor to display the machinery, which seemed to
give the figure motion, while playing intricate games of chess with
any of the spectators. But it has been fully demonstrated that this
chest could conceal a full-grown man, who could place his arm down
that of the figure, and direct its movements in the game; the
machinery being really constructed to hide him, and disarm
suspicion. As the whole trick has been demonstrated by diagrams, the
marvellous nature of the machinery is exploded.
[201] This brass duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M.
Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved
its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the
Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat
a tabor; and a flute-player who performed twelve tunes.
[202] This great charlatan, after many successful impositions, ended
his life in poverty in the hospital at Saltzbourg, in 1541.
[203] Similar popular fallacies may be seen carefully noted in R.
Burton's "Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England,
Scotland, and Ireland," 1684. It is one of those curious volumes of
"folk-lore" sent out by Nat. Crouch the bookseller, under a
fictitious name.
[204] Hall's postulate is, that God's work could not admit of any
substantial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers;
but "Herein the divell plays the double sophister; the sorcerer with
sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch's conceit and the beholder's
eyes." In a word, Hall believes in what he cannot understand! Yet
Hall will not believe one of the Catholic miracles of "the Virgin of
Louvain," though Lipsius had written a book to commemorate "the
goddess," as Hall sarcastically calls her. Hall was told, with great
indignation, in the shop of the bookseller of Lipsius, that when
James the First had just looked over this work, he flung it down,
vociferating "Damnation to him that made it, and to him that
believes it!"
[205] Thousands flocked to see this "miracle" in the middle ages,
and their presence brought great wealth to the abbey. It was
believed to have grown miraculously from the staff used by St.
Joseph. It appears to have been brought from Palestine, and merely
to have flowered in accordance with its natural season, though
differing with ours.
[206] Taylor, the water poet, in his "Wonders of the West," 1649,
says that a slip was preserved by a vintner dwelling at Glastonbury,
when the soldiers cut down the tree; that he set it in his garden,
"and he with others did tell me that the same doth likewise bloom on
the 25th day of December, yearly."
[207] Many of these tales of treasures in hills, are now reduced to
the simple facts of discoveries being made of coins and personal
ornaments, in tumuli of Roman and Saxon settlers in England. In the
British Museum is a gold breastplate found in a grave at Mold, in
Flintshire. The grave-hills of Bohemia have furnished the museum at
Vienna with a large number of gold objects of great size and value.
In Russia the dead have been found placed between large plates of
pure gold in the centre of such tumuli; and in Ireland very large
and valuable gold personal ornaments have been frequently found in
grave-hills.