followers, he heard the blast of a horn, and looking in the direction
from which the sound came, beheld a horseman riding very fast towards
them. The low size, and wild, shaggy, untrained state of the animal,
reminded Quentin of the mountain breed of horses in his own country; but
this was much more finely limbed, and, with the same appearance of
hardness, was more rapid in its movements. The head particularly, which,
in the Scottish poney, is often lumpish and heavy, was small and well
placed in the neck of this animal, with thin jaws, full sparkling eyes,
and expanded nostrils.
“The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse which
he rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Although
he managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet in
broad stirrups, something resembling a shovel, so short, that his knees
were well nigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. His dress was a red
turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume, secured by a
clasp of silver; his tunic, which was shaped like those of the
Estradiots, a sort of troops whom the Venetians at that time levied in
the provinces, on the eastern side of their gulf, was green in colour,
and tawdrily laced with gold; he wore very wide drawers or trowsers of
white, though none of the cleanest, which gathered beneath the knee, and
his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for the complicated laces which
bound a pair of sandals on his feet; he had no spurs, the edge of his
large stirrups being so sharp as to serve to goad the horse in a very
severe manner. In a crimson sash this singular horseman wore a dagger on
the right side, and on the left a short crooked Moorish sword, and by a
tarnished baldrick over the shoulder hung the horn which announced his
approach. He had a swarthy and sun-burnt visage, with a thin beard, and
piercing dark eyes, a well-formed mouth and nose, and other features
which might have been pronounced handsome, but for the black elf-locks
which hung around his face, and the air of wildness and emaciation,
which rather seemed to indicate a savage than a civilized man.
“Quentin rode up to the Bohemian, and said to him, as he suddenly
assumed his proper position on the horse, ‘Methinks, friend, you will
prove but a blind guide, if you look at the tail of your horse rather
than his ears.’
“‘And if I were actually blind,’ answered the Bohemian, ‘I could guide
you through any county in this realm of France, or in those adjoining to
it.’
“‘Yet you are no Frenchman born,’ said the Scot.
“‘I am not,’ answered the guide.
“‘What countryman, then, are you?’ demanded Quentin.
“‘I am of no country,’ answered the guide.
“‘How! of no country?’ repeated the Scot.
“‘No!’ answered the Bohemian, ‘of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an
Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may
chuse to call our people; but I have no country.’
“‘Are you a Christian?’ asked the Scotchman.
“The Bohemian shook his head.
“‘Dog,’ said Quentin, (for there was little toleration in the spirit of
Catholicism in those days,) ‘dost thou worship Mahoun?’
“‘No,’ was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither
seemed offended nor surprised at the young man’s violence of manner.
“‘Are you a Pagan then, or what are you?’
“‘I have no religion,’ answered the Bohemian.
“Durward started back; for, though he had heard of Saracens and
idolaters, it had never entered into his ideas or belief, that any body
of men could exist who practised no mode of worship whatsoever. He
recovered from his astonishment, to ask where his guide usually dwelt.
“‘Wherever I chance to be for the time,’ replied the Bohemian. ‘I have
no home.’
“‘How do you guard your property?’
“‘Excepting the clothes which I wear, and the horse I ride on, I have no
property.’
“‘Yet you dress gaily, and ride gallantly,’ said Durward. ‘What are your
means of subsistence?’
“‘I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, and have no other
means of subsistence than chance throws in my way,’ replied the
vagabond.
“‘Under whose laws do you live?’
“‘I acknowledge obedience to none, but as it suits my pleasure,’ said
the Bohemian.
“‘Who is your leader, and commands you?’
“‘The father of our tribe—if I chuse to obey him,’ said the guide—
‘otherwise I have no commander.’
“‘You are then,’ said the wondering querist, ‘destitute of all that
other men are combined by—you have no law, no leader, no settled means
of subsistence, no house, or home. You have, may Heaven compassionate
you, no country—and, may Heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no
God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic
happiness, and religion?’
“‘I have liberty,’ said the Bohemian—‘I crouch to no one—obey no one—
respect no one.—I go where I will—live as I can—and die when my day
comes.’
“‘But you are subject to instant execution, at the pleasure of the
Judge.’
“‘Be it so,’ returned the Bohemian; ‘I can but die so much the sooner.’
“‘And to imprisonment also,’ said the Scot; ‘and where, then, is your
boasted freedom?’
“‘In my thoughts,’ said the Bohemian, ‘which no chains can bind; while
yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your laws and
your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and your fantastic
visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in spirit when our limbs are
chained—You are imprisoned in mind, even when your limbs are most at
freedom.’
“‘Yet the freedom of your thoughts,’ said the Scot, ‘relieves not the
pressure of the gyves on your limbs.’
“‘For a brief time that may be endured; and if within that period I
cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief from my comrades, I can
always die, and death is the most perfect freedom of all.’
There was a deep pause of some duration, which Quentin at length broke,
by resuming his queries.
“‘Yours is a wandering race, unknown to the nations of Europe—Whence do
they derive their origin?’
“‘I may not tell you,’ answered the Bohemian.
“‘When will they relieve this kingdom from their presence, and return to
the land from whence they came?’ said the Scot.
“‘When the day of their pilgrimage shall be accomplished,’ replied his
vagrant guide.
“‘Are you not sprung from those tribes of Israel which were carried into
captivity beyond the great river Euphrates?’ said Quentin, who had not
forgotten the lore which had been taught him at Aberbrothock.
“‘Had we been so,’ answered the Bohemian, ‘we had followed their faith,
and practised their rites.’
“‘What is thine own name?’ said Durward.
“‘My proper name is only known to my brethren—The men beyond our tents
call me Hayraddin Maugrabin, that is, Hayraddin the African Moor.’
“‘Thou speakest too well for one who hath lived always in thy filthy
horde,’ said the Scot.
“‘I have learned some of the knowledge of this land,’ said Heyraddin.—
‘When I was a little boy, our tribe was chased by the hunters after
human flesh. An arrow went through my mother’s head, and she died. I was
entangled in the blanket on her shoulders, and was taken by the
pursuers. A priest begged me from the Provost’s archers, and trained me
up in Frankish learning for two or three years.’
“‘How came you to part with him?’ demanded Durward.
“‘I stole money from him—even the God which he worshipped,’ answered
Hayraddin, with perfect composure; ‘he detected me, and beat me—I
stabbed him with my knife, fled to the woods, and was again united to my
people.’
“‘Wretch!’ said Durward, ‘did you murder your benefactor?’
“‘What had he to do to burden me with his benefits?—The Zingaro boy was
no house-bred cur to dog the heels of his master and crouch beneath his
blows, for scraps of food—He was the imprisoned wolf-whelp, which at the
first opportunity broke his chain, rended his master, and returned to
his wilderness.’
“There was another pause, when the young Scot, with a view of still
farther investigating the character and purpose of this suspicious
guide, asked Hayraddin, ‘Whether it was not true that his people, amid
their ignorance, pretended to a knowledge of futurity, which was not
given to the sages, philosophers, and divines, of more polished
society?’
“‘We pretend to it,’ said Hayraddin, ‘and it is with justice.’
“‘How can it be that so high a gift is bestowed on so abject a race?’
said Quentin.
“‘Can I tell you?’ answered Hayraddin—‘Yes, I may indeed; but it is when
you shall explain to me why the dog can trace the footsteps of a man,
while man, the noble animal, hath no power to trace those of the dog.
These powers, which seem to you so wonderful, are instinctive in our
race. From the lines on the face and on the hand, we can tell the future
fate of those who consult us, even as surely as you know from the
blossom of the tree in spring, what fruit it will bear in the harvest.’”
JUGGLERS, THEIR ORIGIN, EXPLOITS, &c.
Those occupations which were of the most absolute necessity to the
support of existence, were, doubtless, the earliest, and, in the infancy
of society, the sole employments that engaged attention. But when the
art and industry of a few were found sufficient for the maintenance of
many, property began to accumulate in the hands of individuals, and as
all could no longer be engaged in the productions of the necessaries of
life, those who were excluded applied their ingenuity to those arts
which, by contributing to the convenience of the former, might enable
them to participate in the fruits of their labour; and several of these
have acquired a pre-eminence over the more useful avocations. A taste
for the wonderful seems to be natural to man in every stage of society,
and at almost every period of life; we, therefore, cannot wonder that,
from the earliest ages, persons have been found, who, more idle or more
ingenious than others, have availed themselves of this propensity, to
obtain an easy livelihood by levying contributions on the curiosity of
the public. Whether this taste is to be considered as a proof of the
weakness of our judgment, or of innate inquisitiveness, which stimulates
us to enlarge the sphere of our knowledge, must be left to the decision
of metaphysicians; it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that
it gave rise to a numerous class of persons, whom, whether performers of
sleight of hand, rope-dancers, mountebanks, teachers of animals to
perform extraordinary tricks, or, in short, who delude the senses, and
practice harmless deception on spectators, we include under the common
title of Jugglers.
If these arts served no other purpose than that of mere amusement, they
yet merit a certain degree of encouragement, as affording at once a
cheap and innocent diversion: but Jugglers frequently exhibit
instructive experiments in natural philosophy, chemistry, and mechanics;
thus, the solar microscope was invented from an instrument to reflect
shadows, with which a Savoyard amused a German populace; and the
celebrated Sir Richard Arkwright is said to have conceived the idea of
the spinning machines, which have so largely contributed to the
prosperity of the cotton manufacture in this country, from a toy which
he purchased for his child of an itinerant showman. These deceptions
have, besides, acted as an agreeable and most powerful antidote to
superstition, and to that popular belief in miracles, conjuration,
sorcery, and witchcraft, which preyed upon the minds of our ancestors;
and the effects of shadows, electricity, mirrors, and the magnet, once
formidable instruments in the hands of interested persons for keeping
the vulgar in awe, have been stripped of their terrors, and are no
longer frightful in their most terrific forms.
That this superstitious dread led to the persecution of many innocent
beings, who were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, is too well known
to require illustration: our own statute books are loaded with penalties
against sorcery; at no very distant period our courts of law have been
disgraced by criminal trials of that nature; and judges who are still
cited as models of legal knowledge and discernment, not only permitted
such cases to go to a jury, but allowed sentences to be recorded which
consigned reputed wizards to capital punishment. In Poland, even so late
as the year 1739, a Juggler was exposed to the torture, until a
confession was extracted from him that he was a sorcerer, upon which,
without further proof, he was immediately hanged; and instances in other
countries might be multiplied without end. But this, although it exceeds
in atrocity, does not equal in absurdity, the infatuation of the
tribunal of the inquisition in Portugal, which actually condemned to the
flames, as being possessed with the devil, a horse belonging to an
Englishman, who had taught it to perform some uncommon tricks; and the
poor animal is confidently said to have been publicly burned at Lisbon,
in conformity with his sentence, in the year 1601.
The only parts of Europe in which the arts of sorcery now obtain any
credit, is Lapland; where, indeed, supposed wizards still practise
incantations, by which they pretend to obtain the knowledge of future
events, and in which the credulity of the people induces them to place
the most implicit confidence. On such occasions a magic drum is usually
employed. This instrument is formed of a piece of wood of a semi-oval
form, hollow on the flat side, and there covered with a skin, in which
various uncouth figures are depicted; among which, since the
introduction of Christianity into that country, an attempt is usually
made to represent the acts of our Saviour and the Apostles. On this
covering several brass rings of different sizes are laid, while the
attendants dispose themselves in many antic postures, in order to
facilitate the charm; the drum is then beat with the horn of a
rein-deer, which occasioning the skin to vibrate, puts the rings in
motion round the figures, and, according to the positions which they
occupy, the officiating seer pronounces his prediction.
It is unfortunate that of all the books (and there were several) which
treated of the arts of conjuration, as they were practised among the
ancients, not one is now extant, and all that we know upon the subject
is collected from isolated facts which have been incidentally mentioned
in other writings. From these it would, however, appear, that many of
the deceptions which still continue to excite astonishment, were then
common.
A century and a half before our æra, during the revolt of the slaves in
Sicily, a Syrian of their number, named Eunus, a man of considerable
talent, who after having witnessed many vicissitudes, was reduced to
that state, became the leader of his companions by pretending to an
inspiration from the gods; and in order to confirm the divinity of his
mission by miracles, he used to breath flames from his mouth when
addressing his followers. By this art the Rabbi Barchschebas also made
the credulous Jews believe that he was the Messiah, during the sedition
which he excited among them in the reign of Adrian; and, two centuries
afterwards, the Emperor Constantius was impressed with great dread, when
informed that one of the body-guards had been seen to breathe out fire.
Historians tell us that these deceptions were performed by putting
inflammable substances into a nut-shell pierced at both ends, which was
then secretly conveyed into the mouth and breathed through. Our own
fire-eaters content themselves with rolling a little flax, so as to form
a small ball, which is suffered to burn until nearly consumed; more flax
is then tightly rolled round it, and the fire will thus remain within
for a long time, and sparks may be blown from it without injury,
provided the air be inspired, not by the mouth but through the nostrils.
The ancients also performed some curious experiments with that
inflammable mineral oil called Naphtha, which kindles on merely exposing
near a fire. Allusion is supposed to have been made to this in the story
of the dress of Herculus, when it is said to have been dipped in the
blood of Nessus. Many assert that it was with this substance Medea
destroyed Creusa, by sending to her a dress impregnated with it, which
burst into flames when she drew near the fire of the altar; and there
can be no doubt that it was used by the priests on those occasions when
the sacrificial offerings took fire imperceptibly.
The trial by Ordeal, in the middle ages, in which persons accused of
certain crimes were forced to prove their innocence by walking blindfold
among burning ploughshares, or by holding heated iron in their hands,
was probably little else than a juggling trick, which the priests
conducted as best suited their views. The accused was committed to their
care during three entire days previous to the trial, and remained in
their custody for the same space after it was over; the Ordeal took
place in the church under their own immediate inspection; they not only
consecrated, but heated, the iron themselves; mass was then said, and
various ceremonies were performed, all calculated to divert the
attention of the spectators; and when the operation was over, the part
which had been exposed to the fire was carefully bound up and sealed,
not to be opened until the end of the third day; doubtless, therefore,
the time before the trial was occupied in preparing the skin to resist
the effects of the heat, and that afterwards in obliterating the marks
of any injury it might have sustained. That such was the fact has,
indeed, been acknowledged in the works of Albertus Magnus, a Dominican
friar, who, after the trial by Ordeal had been abolished, published the
secret of the art, which, if his account be correct, consisted in
nothing more than covering the hands and feet at repeated intervals with
a paste made of the sap of certain herbs mixed together with the white
of an egg.
This deception was, however, practised in times more remote than the
period to which we have alluded. There was anciently an annual festival
held on Mount Soracte, in Etruria, at which certain people called
_Hirpi_, used to walk over live embers, for which performance they were
allowed some peculiar privileges by the Roman senate; the same feat was
achieved by women at the temple of Diana, at Castabala, in Cappadocia;
and allusion is even made, in the Antigone of the Grecian poet
Sophocles, who wrote nearly five centuries anterior to our æra, to the
very species of Ordeal which has been just noticed.
In modern times, much notice has been excited by jugglers, who practised
deceptions by fire. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, one
Richardson, an Englishman, excited great astonishment at Paris, by
pretending to chew burning coals and to swallow melted lead, with many
other equally extraordinary feats; some of which are thus recorded in
Evelyn’s diary:—“October the 8th, 1672, took leave of my Lady
Sunderland, who was going to the Hague to my Lord, now ambassador there.
She made me stay dinner at Leicester House, and afterwards sent for
Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He, before us, devoured brimstone on
glowing coals, chewing and swallowing them. He melted a beere glasse and
eate it quite up; then taking a live coal on his tongue, he put on it a
raw oyster; the coal was blowne on with bellows till it flamed and
sparkled in his mouth, and so remained until the oyster was quite
boiled; then he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he dranke down
as it flamed.” Many of our readers must recollect Signora Girardelli;
and Miss Rogers, the American fire-eater, who was announced as having
entered a heated oven with a leg of mutton in her hand, and having
remained there until it was baked! This young lady exhibited all the
tricks usually performed by such persons; she washed her hands in
boiling oil, and then suffered aquafortis to be poured over them; but
below the oil, there, no doubt, was a quantity of water, the air from
which, when heated, forcing itself through the supernatant oil, gave it
the appearance of boiling, when in reality its temperature probably did
not exceed a hundred degrees of Fahrenheit; and when the hands were once
well coated with oil, there was no danger from the aquafortis. She had
also a ladle of melted lead, out of which she appeared to take a little
with a spoon and pour into her mouth, and then to return in the shape of
a solid lump; but in pretending to take the lead into the spoon, it was,
in fact, quicksilver that was received, through a dexterous contrivance
in the ladle, and this she swallowed, the solid lead having been
previously placed in her mouth. She, besides, repeatedly placed her foot
on a bar of hot iron; but the rapidity with which she removed it
scarcely allowed time to injure the most delicate skin, even had it not
been previously prepared: the cuticle of the hands and of the soles of
the feet may, however, be easily rendered sufficiently callous to
support a longer experiment. This effect will be produced if it be
frequently punctured, or injured by being in continual contact with hard
substances; repeatedly moistening it with spirit of vitriol will also at
length render it horny and insensible; and thus it is not uncommon to
see the labourers at copper-works take the melted ore into their hands.
The exhibition of cups and balls is of great antiquity, and depends
entirely on manual dexterity. It is mentioned in the works of various
ancient authors, one of whom relates the astonishment of a countryman,
who, on first witnessing the performance, exclaimed, “that it was well
he had no such animal on his farm, for under such hands no doubt all his
property would soon disappear.”
Feats of strength have been common to all countries in every age. More
than fifteen hundred years ago, there were persons who excited
astonishment by the since ordinary exhibition of supporting vast weights
upon the breast, and of even suffering iron to be forged on an anvil
placed upon it. But these were mere tricks: to support the former, it is
only necessary to place the body in such a position, with the shoulders
and feet resting against some support, as that it shall form an arch;
and as for the latter, if the anvil be large and the hammer small, the
stroke will scarcely be felt; for the action and reaction being equal
and reciprocal, an anvil of two hundred pounds weight will resist the
stroke of a hammer of two pounds, wielded with the force of one hundred
pounds, or of four pounds with the impetus of fifty, without injury to
the body.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a German, who
travelled over Europe under the appropriate name of Sampson, and who
rendered himself celebrated by the uncommon strength which he displayed:
among many other extraordinary feats, it is said, that he could so fix
himself between two posts, as that two or even more horses, could not
draw him from his position. The same exploit was attempted not many
years back, in this country, by a person who placed himself with his
feet resting in a horizontal posture against a strong bar; only one
horse was employed, and the man was enabled to resist the entire force
of the animal, until both his thigh bones suddenly snapped asunder.
Another had the temerity to try the same experiment, and, in like
manner, broke both his legs. These instances clearly show, that apparent
strength is often nothing more than a judicious application of the
mechanical powers to the human frame; and from the catastrophe attending
the two latter may be deduced the anatomical fact, that the sinews of
the arms possess a greater power of resistance than the largest bones of
the body.
Feats of tumbling, rope dancing, and horsemanship, were practised at
very early periods. Xenophon mentions a female dancer at Athens, who
wrote and read while standing on a wheel which revolved with the
greatest velocity; but the manner in which this was performed is not
explained. Juvenal seems also to have alluded to a similar performance
at Rome, in that passage where he says:
“_An magis oblectant animum jactata petauro,
Corpora quique solent rectum descendere funem,
Quam tu._” _Sat._ xiv. v. 265.
which, however, also wants explanation, although one of his most
judicious translators has rendered it
——“The man who springs
Light through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings.”
_Gifford._