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Cap. 3.]
old priests to conceal, and when concealment was impracticable to des-troy their apparatus, some specimens of their machinery have come down.In the fifteenth or early part of the sixteenth Century, an eolipilic idol ofthe ancient Germans was found in making some excavations, and is webelieve still extant. A figure of it is inserted in the second volume ofMontfaucon’s Antiquities. It is made of a peculiar species of bronze andis between three and four feet in height, and the body two and a half incircumference. Its appearance is very uncouth. It is without drapery,with one knee on the ground, the right hand on the head, and the left,which is broken off, rested upon the thigh. The cavity for the liquidholds about seven gallons, and there are two openings for the escape ofthe vapor, one at the mouth and the other in the forehead. Theseopenings were stopped with plugs of wood, and the priests had secretmeans of applying the fire. It appears from Weber and other German writers on the subject that this idol was made to express various passionsof the deity it represented, with a view to extort offerings and sacrifi-ces from the deluded worshippers ; and that the liquid was inflarnmable.When the demands ofthe priests were not complied with, the ire of the godwas expressed by sweat (steam) oozing from all parts of his body ; andif the people still remained obdurate, his fury became terrible : marmars,bellowings, and even thunderbolts (the wooden plugs) burst from him;flashes or streams of fire rushed from his mouth and head, and presentlyhe was enveloped in clouds of smoke; when the people, horror stricken,consented to comply with the requisitions. It is very evident from theaccounts that the priests had the means of rapidly increasing or diminish-ing the intensity of the fire, as the disposition of the worshippers requiredthe idolto express approbation or displeasure. It further appears that themonks in the middle ages made use of this idol, and found it not the leasteffectual of their wonder-working machines. It was in fact in this man-ner chiefiy that the great body of ecclesiastics then maintained their in-fluence over the multitude. The very same devices which their prede-cessors had found effectual in the temples of Osiris, Ceres, and Bacchus,were repeated; and such images of the heathen gods and goddesses ashad escaped destruction were converted into those of Christian saints,and being repaired were made to perform the same miracles which theyhad done before in pagan Greece and Rome. Monks , as we have beforeobserved, were then the most expert mechanicians, and some of theirmost elaborate productions were imitations of ancient androidii—andthe speaking heads of Bacon , Robert of Lincoln, Gerbert and Albertus,were considered proofs of an intercourse subsisting between their ownersand spirits, as much so as in the cases of Orpheus and Odin , and othermagicians of old.
The name of the German idol is written differently : Puster, Pluster,Plusterich, Buestard, Busterich, are all names given to it and the deity itrepresents. The name is said to be derived from the Saxon verb pusten,to blow—or puster, a bellows : this shows its connection with the eolipileas a “ fire blower ; and it is probable that from these eolipilic idols thet exra JEnlist, “ a pretender to inspiration,” is derived. (See DictionaryTrevoux. Art. Puster.) This ancient steam idol was, A. D. 1546, placedfor safe keeping in the fortress of Sunderhausen, where it remained dur-ing the last Century.
How singulär that steam should have been among the motive agentsof the most ancient idols of Egypt (as the Statue of Memnon and others)and in some of the deified images of Europe ! That it should formerlyhave been employed with tremendous effect to delude men, to lock them