JUGGLERS.

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levity, when manumitted from the bonds of restraint, thanwhen tied down to dull matter of fact. The effects of themalice of state jugglers may be seen in this: that a jugglerof Poland was tortured in Portugal , in the year 1739, till heconfessed that he was a sorcerer, when he was hanged. Hadthat book, which Celsus wrote against the Persian Magi,been preserved, it is probable our present inquiry mighthave been abridged. The same Celsus was a character-dis-tinguished for acuteness of intellect, a shrewd and pointedmode of expression, who generally condemned all mentaldelusion, and abhorred every thing he thought like decep-tion.

Religious Deceptions. — By the art of employing thoseballs, which the Sicilian revoiter Eunus used, about 112years before the Christian era, as recorded by Florus , in.19, 4, or that by which modern jugglers use to produceflames from the mouth, by means of burning tow, did therabbi, Bar-Cocheba, in the reign of Hadrian , persuade, inthat instance, the credulous Jews to believe he was thelooked-for Messias. 3 Also the Emperor Constantine expe-rienced a religious dread, at the time Valentinian informedhim that he had seen one of the body-guard breathing outflames of fire in the evening.

For deceptions with this element the ancients employed,it is believed, a fine liquid mineral oil, called naphtha,which kindles when the flame only approaches it. Galen hassaid, that great astonishment w r as excited when a light beingextinguished, and held against a wall, the former ignitionwas revived in all splendour; but, he says, the wall hadbeen rubbed with sulphur: how'ever, it is conjectured, thathe having but just before been speaking of a mixtureof naphtha and sulphur, that he must have meant this wasthe composition with which the wall had been anointed.

Plutarch relates how Alexander the Great was astonishedand delighted at Ecbatana, with the secret effects of naphtha.That same author, with Galen, Pliny , and others, have re-marked, that the dress which Medea presented to Creusa,the daughter of Creon, for her to marry Jason iu, wasanointed with naphtha, which took fire the moment sheapproached the flames of the altar. The robe which Xessusgave to Dejanira , and which she iinprovidently sent to herhusband Hercules , for him to perform sacriflce in, had,doubtless, been covered with naphtha, as well as with the

See Davie’s Dictionary, i. p. 450, article Barcochzbas.