Pyrotechny in General.

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priest “ to burn proper perfumes.” This ceremony was con-tinued until the “ bell rang for morning prayers,” and thepriest a stripped off his gown and took up a wallet-full ofbooks,” declaring, “ that as often as he had entered magiccircles, nothing so extraordinary had ever happened to him!”How is it, in the language of professor Beckman, that “ inall periods of the world, priests have acted as jugglers tosimple and ignorant people?” # # # # *

T his same Benvenuto Celini , however, was a man of in-telligence. He wrote a work called the History of Jewelry;in which the first idea of phosphorescent mineral bodies is tobe found. This work was written in the beginning of the16th century. His life, although singularly marked, whatwith popes, priests, artists, and necromancers, presents asingular retrospect.

What was more absurd, and even profane, than the tricksof Joseph Balsamo , called II Conte Cagliostro, who withSchcepter, revived the study of the magical arts; and whowith invocations, friction, fumigations, and optical decep-tions astonished the ignorant of their day. Whether likeiEnea-, in his descent to hell, they made their way withtheir falchions through crowds of ghosts, or like Dios-corides, relied on the efficacy of herbs, or like Paracelsus ,carried an evil spirit in their canes, or wore a jewel likeShakspeare’s toad, which possessed marvellous virtues, oremployed the magic stone (agate) of the east, and invokedtheir urim and thummim ,—it is certain they worked upon :heimagination of the people. By the application of coninnimaculatum , (hemlockj consisted the ceremony of ordaininga Hierophant; by the hartshorn of Orpheus , they had a divineremedy for the passions of the body; and by a mixture ofnew mustard and olive oil , they could produce a symphony,which invoked the spirits, and, Pythonesis like, declare tothe people, that they “ had devils in their bellies!!'’'

Of the phial of Cagliostro , Cardan relates that he had thisphial twice exhibited to him, and complains bitterly of hav-ing seen nothing, after the anthem Sancte Michael , but somebubbles that issued from the bottom, though it was believedthat these bubbles were angels! He says, “ Nihil tamen om-nino vidi poste hanc invocationem nisi hulaspauculas quasdamex imo gutti fundo excestuantesP Anlus Gellius and Heromention tricks of this kind practised by the Egyptians. Ro­ ger Bacon , the alchymist , was excommunicated by the pope,and imprisoned ten years, for supposed dealings with thedevil.

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