A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

I am not acquainted with everything that concerns the trial by ordeal, when persons accused were obliged to prove their innocence by holding in their hands red-hot iron; but I am almost convinced that this also was a juggling trick of the priests, which they employed as might best suit their views. It is well known that this mode of exculpation was allowed only to weak persons, who were unfit to wield arms, and particularly to monks and ecclesiastics, to whom, for the sake of their security, that by single combat was forbidden. The trial itself took place in the church entirely under the inspection of the clergy; mass was celebrated at the same time; the defendant and the iron were consecrated by being sprinkled with holy water; the clergy made the iron hot themselves; and they used all these preparatives, as jugglers do many motions, only to divert the attention of the spectators. It was necessary that the accused persons should remain at least three days and three nights under their immediate care, and continue as long after. They covered their hands both before and after the proof; sealed and unsealed the covering: the former, as they pretended, to prevent the hands from being prepared any how by art; and the latter to see if they were burnt.

Some artificial preparation was therefore known, else no precautions would have been necessary. It is highly probable that during the first three days the preventive was applied to those persons whom they wished to appear innocent; and that the three days after the trial were requisite to let the hands resume their natural state. The sacred sealing secured them from the examination of presumptuous unbelievers; for to determine whether the hands were burnt, the last three days were certainly not wanted. When the ordeal was abolished, and this art rendered useless, the clergy no longer kept it a secret. In the thirteenth century an account of it was published by Albertus Magnus, a Dominican monk299. If his receipt be genuine, it seems to have consisted rather in covering the hands with a kind of paste than in hardening them. The sap of the Althæa (marsh-mallow), the slimy seeds of the flea-bane, which is still used for stiffening by the hat-makers and silk-weavers, together with the white of an egg, were employed to make the paste adhere; and by these means the hands were as safe as if they had been secured by gloves. The use of this juggling trick is very old, and may be traced back to a pagan origin. In the Antigone of Sophocles, the guards placed over the body of Polynices, which had been carried away and buried contrary to the orders of Creon, offered, in order to prove their innocence, to submit to any trial: “We will,” said they, “take up red-hot iron in our hands, or walk through fire300.”

The exhibition of balls and cups, which is often mentioned in the works of the ancients as the most common art of jugglers, is also of great antiquity. It consists in conveying speedily and with great dexterity, while the performer endeavours by various motions and cant phrases to divert the attention of the simple spectators from observing his movements too narrowly, several light balls, according to the pleasure of any person in company, under one or more cups; removing them sometimes from the whole; and conveying them again back in an imperceptible manner. In general, three leaden cups are used, and as many balls of cork; and to prevent all discovery by their slipping from the thumbs of the juggler, or making a noise, as he must lay hold of them with much quickness, the table before which he sits is covered with a cloth.

These small balls were by the ancients called calculi; and the cups acetabula, or paropsides. Casaubon301 has already quoted most of those passages in ancient authors which relate to this subject; and they have been repeated by Bulenger302; but neither of these writers makes mention of the fullest and clearest description given in the letters of Alciphron303. We have there an account of a countryman who came to town, and was conducted by a merchant to the theatre, where he saw with great astonishment the exhibition of cups and balls. “Such an animal,” says he, “as the performer I would not wish to have near me in the country; for in his hands my property would soon disappear.” The art of oratory, because it deceives the auditors, is frequently compared to that of balls and cups. From the Latin word gabata, mentioned by Martial, together with paropsides, the French have made gobelets and hence their common expressions jouer des gobelets, and joueur des gobelets, which they use when speaking of jugglers.

In all ages of the world there have been men who excited great wonder by extraordinary strength. Instances of this have been already collected; but they do not belong to my present subject304. I can, however, prove that above fifteen hundred years ago there were people who, by applying a knowledge of the mechanical powers to their bodies, performed feats which astonished every ignorant spectator; though it is certain that any sound man of common strength could perform the same by employing the like means. Of these one may say with Celsus, “Neque hercule scientiam præcipuam habent hi, sed audaciam usu ipso confirmatam.”

About the beginning of the last century, such a strong man, or Samson, as he called himself, a native of Germany, travelled over almost all Europe; and his pretended art has been mentioned by so many writers, that we may conclude it had not been often exhibited before; and that it was then considered as new. His name was John Charles von Eckeberg; he was born at Harzgerode in Anhalt; and at that time was thirty-three years of age. When he fixed himself between a couple of posts, on any level place, two or more horses were not able to draw him from his position; he could break ropes asunder, and lift a man up on his knee while he lay extended on the ground. But what excited the greatest astonishment was, that he suffered large stones to be broke on his breast with a hammer, or a smith to forge iron on an anvil placed above it.

This last feat was exhibited even in the third century, by Firmus or Firmius, who, in the time of Aurelian, endeavoured to make himself emperor in Egypt. He was a native of Seleucia in Syria; espoused the cause of Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra; and was at length executed publicly by order of the emperor Aurelian. It is of this Firmus, and not of another, who a century after was overcome in Africa by the father of the emperor Theodosius, that Vopiscus speaks where he relates that he could suffer iron to be forged on an anvil placed on his breast. For this purpose he lay on his back; but he put himself in such a position, by resting with his feet and shoulders against some support, that his whole body formed an arch; so that he seemed rather to be suspended than to lie at full length305. This art, which is explained and illustrated by Desaguliers306 and Professor Kuhn307 of Dantzic, has now become so common that it is often exhibited without occasioning much surprise.

In the works of the ancients, rope-dancers are frequently mentioned. The passages where they occur have been collected by various authors, though never completely; and I am inclined to think that those who have seen many performers of this kind would be able to clear up some that are obscure. I have seen many myself; but I have forgot the greater part of what I observed; and there are other reasons also which prevent me from undertaking that task: I dread the reproach of “multum agendo nihil agis.” That I may not, however, pass over this subject entirely, I shall present the reader with what follows308. We meet with various appellations given to rope-dancers, which do not, as some have imagined, point out different kinds, but allude only to new-invented arts, leaps, or dexterities, which, while recommended by novelty, were much wondered at, though they were afterwards imitated by all. To these belong the schœnobatæ, oribatæ, neurobatæ, petaminarii, funambuli, &c. Some of the ancient rope-dancers seem to have used a balancing-pole, or at least to have had weights in their hands to preserve an equipoise309. It is certain also that rope-dancers were not wanting in the middle ages. In the year 1237 they were very common in Italy310; and in 1393 there were some of them at Augsburg, who exhibited their dexterity on the rope, and received from each spectator three German halfpence311.

To place men upon the shoulders of each other in such a manner that every row consists of a man fewer, till they form a pyramid ending in a single person, upon whose head a boy often stands with his feet upwards, is likewise an ancient piece of dexterity. This exhibition is varied many ways; and on that account it is difficult to form even conjectures respecting it, especially as the description given of it by a Roman poet is very unintelligible312.

I am however still less acquainted with an art in which hoops and wheels were employed by the petauristæ, who excited great astonishment among the populace. The first part of the art may have consisted in nothing more than the varied contortions and tumbling which we still see practised by children trained for that purpose. Cilano explains a well-known passage of Manilius, as if the performers had darted through suspended iron hoops, made often red-hot. Of this I entertain less doubt than how we ought to understand the corpora jactata petauro of Juvenal313; and the corpora valido excussa petauro of Manilius314, which many have attempted to explain already. At any rate this wheel was different from that upon which a female dancer, as mentioned by Xenophon, wrote and read while it turned round with great velocity315.

The art of exhibiting various feats of horsemanship, which has been practised so much in modern times, seems to have come first from the East. At any rate, those performers in that way who, in the thirteenth century, were at the Byzantine court, and who travelled all over Europe, came from Egypt. They could stand on the horses when at a gallop; mount and dismount while on full speed at the chase; tumble on horseback, and do many other things equally extraordinary316. At the end of the sixteenth century, an Italian, who had learned this art while a slave in Turkey, went about exhibiting his dexterity in various parts of Europe. Montagne saw him at Rome in 1581317; and the year following he was at Paris318. Some of these feats were performed by the ancient desultores.

Whether the ancients taught horses, dogs, birds, and other animals, to perform various tricks which are frequently exhibited at present for money, I do not know; but it is certain that what they made the elephant, which undoubtedly is the most sagacious and tractable of all animals, perform, exceeds everything yet known of the kind. Without repeating what has been so often related, I shall only mention the elephant which walked upon a rope backwards and forwards, as well as up and down; and which Galba first caused to be shown to the Roman people. After this, so much confidence was placed in the dexterity of the animal, that a person sat on an elephant’s back while he walked across the theatre upon a rope extended from the one side to the other. Lipsius, who has collected the testimonies, thinks they are so strong that they cannot be doubted319.

The training of horses to obey a private signal, imperceptible to the most attentive spectator, and to perform actions which appear, to those unacquainted with the art, to display rational faculties, I have never found mentioned in the works of the ancients. That the Sybarites however taught their horses to dance to the sound of music, is asserted by a variety of authors320. In the sixteenth century, dogs trained in the like manner excited great wonder321.

In the year 1766, an Englishman, named Wildman, made himself much known by taming or training bees, in such a manner that they not only followed him wherever he went, but settled even on his face and hands without stinging him, and seemed as if obedient to his orders322. Some years after, a person who practised the like art, travelled about through Germany, and gave himself out to be Wildman; but M. Riem proved that he was not Wildman, and published the secret by which he acquired so much power over these insects323. I cannot say whether the ancients were acquainted with this art; but I shall here remark, that it was known in the kingdom of Galam, at Senegal, a hundred years before Wildman; for when Brue, a Frenchman, was there in 1698, he was visited by a man who called himself the king of the bees324. “Let his secret,” says that traveller, “consist in what it may, this much is certain; that they followed him wherever he went, as sheep do their shepherd. His whole body, and particularly his cap, was so covered with them that they appeared like a swarm just settled. When he departed they went along with him; for besides those on his body, he was surrounded by thousands which always attended him325.”

In modern times, persons destitute of arms and hands, or who have these limbs formed very imperfectly, but who possess the art of supplying that want by the use of their feet and toes, show themselves sometimes for money; and as they entertain the spectators by exciting their wonder, they deserve from them that support which they are not able to obtain in any other manner. Instances of such people who had acquired this art, have been very common within the last two centuries326; but in the works of the ancients I have found only one. An Indian king, named Porus, sent to the emperor Augustus an embassy with presents, among which were some rare animals, and a man without arms, who with his feet, however, could bend a bow; discharge arrows; and put a trumpet to his mouth and blow it. Dio Cassius confesses that he did not know how this was possible; but Strabo refers for his authority to Nicolaus of Damascus, who saw all the presents as they passed through Antioch327. Had this deformed person, whom Strabo compares to a Hermes, travelled about, according to the modern practice, as a show, he would have been better known, and in all probability his example would have induced others to imitate his art328. Manilius says, however, that there were people, who, in playing at ball, could use their feet with as much dexterity as their hands, who could catch the ball with them, and again throw it back; but the poet, perhaps, did not allude to the small hand-ball, but to the large one which is struck with the fist, and which may be stopped also by the foot. Besides, the passage is read and explained different ways329.

Figures or puppets, which appear to move of themselves, were employed formerly to work miracles; but they could hardly be used for that purpose at present in any catholic country of Europe, though they still serve to amuse the vulgar. Among these are the marionettes330, as they are called, the different parts of which are put in motion imperceptibly by a thread. Of a still more ingenious construction are those which are moved by the turning of a cylinder, as is the case in the machines with which some of the old miners in Germany earn a livelihood; but the most ingenious of all are those which are kept in continual movement for a certain time, by the help of wheels with a weight or spring. The latter are called automata; and, when they represent human figures, androides. Under the former general name are comprehended our watches, the most useful of all, and also jacks331, with many others. The latter appellation is given to small puppets, which, when their inner works have been wound up, run upon the table or pavement, and as they advance move their head, eyes, and hands. They have been exhibited sometimes under the name of courrante Margarethe, which gave rise perhaps to the word marionette.

The proper marionettes are very old. They were common among the Greeks, and from them they were brought to the Romans. They were known by the name of neurospasta, and were much used at their shows. Aristotle speaks of some which moved their head, eyes, hands and limbs in a very natural manner332. They are mentioned with equal precision by Galen, Xenophon, Antoninus, Horace, Gellius, and others. To these belong the phalli, which were carried round during the festivals of Osiris and Bacchus, and of which one member only, that properly meant by the name, and which was almost as large as the whole body, moved upon certain threads being pulled333. Count Caylus has given an engraving of the body of a small puppet, made of ivory or bone; but he requires too much when he desires us to consider that fragment, merely on his word, as a piece of Greek or Roman antiquity. He at least ought to have informed us where it was found, and by what means he procured it. In regard to such articles, it is as easy to deceive as to be led into an error; and objects of bone are certainly of no great duration334.

The question concerning the antiquity of automata, properly so called, which are moved by wheels, weights and springs, I shall leave to those who have read the works of the ancient mathematicians, and who may be desirous of writing on the history of mechanics. As far as I know, the ancients were not acquainted with the art of making them, unless some propositions of Ctesibius, mentioned by Vitruvius, allude to that subject. When clocks were brought to perfection, some artists added to them figures, which at the time of striking performed various movements; and as they succeeded in these, some attempted to make, detached from clocks, single figures, which either moved certain limbs, or advanced forward and ran. In the middle of the sixteenth century, when Hans Bullmann335, a padlock-maker at Nuremberg, constructed figures of men and women which moved backwards and forwards by clock-work, beat a drum, and played on the lute according to musical time, they excited universal astonishment as a new invention. It was about the same period that watches came into use. The accounts however which speak of much older automata deserve to be examined with more attention.

The most ancient of all are undoubtedly the tripods constructed by Vulcan336, which being furnished with wheels, advanced forwards to be used, and again returned to their places. But what was impossible to the gods of Homer? An unbeliever might conjecture that these tripods, which are mentioned also by Aristotle337, and which perhaps were only a kind of small tables or dumb-waiters, had wheels so contrived that they could be put in motion and driven to a distance on the smallest impulse, like the fire-pans in our country beer-houses, at which the boors light their pipes.

That Dædalus made statues which could not only walk, but which it was necessary to tie, in order that they might not move, is related by Plato338, Aristotle, and others. The latter speaks of a wooden Venus, and remarks that the secret of its motion consisted in quicksilver having been poured into it. What the author here means I cannot comprehend; but I do not imagine that this Venus threw itself topsy-turvy backwards, like the Chinese puppets. However this may be, it is astonishing that the Chinese should have fallen upon the invention of giving motion to puppets by means of quicksilver, and in so ingenious a manner, that Muschenbroek339 thought it worth his while to describe their whole construction, and to illustrate it by figures. But before this method was known in Europe, Kircher had an idea of putting a small waggon in motion by adding to it a pipe filled with quicksilver, and heating it with a candle placed below it340. The account of Aristotle is more mysterious, for he does not inform us how the quicksilver acted.

Callistratus, another writer, who was the tutor of Demosthenes, gives us to understand that the statues of Dædalus were made to move by the mechanical powers341. But what has been asserted by Palæphatus, and by Gedoyn342, Banier, Goguet, and others among the moderns, is most probable. The first statues of the Greeks were imitations of those of the Egyptians, for the most part clumsy figures, with their eyes shut, their arms hanging down close to the body on each side, and their feet joined together. Those made by Dædalus had their eyes open, as well as their feet and hands free; and the artist gave them such a posture, that they seemed either reclining, or appeared as if ready to walk or to run. As Anacreon343, struck with wonder, exclaimed when he saw a waxen image of his favourite object, “Begone, wax, thou wilt soon speak!” the astonished Greeks in like manner cried out, when they beheld the statues of Dædalus, “They will soon walk.” The next generation affirmed that they really walked; and their posterity, adding still to what was told them, asserted that they would have run had they not been bound.

Equally imperfect is the account given of the wooden pigeon constructed by Archytas of Tarentum. We are informed that it flew; but when it had once settled, it could not again take flight. The latter is not incredible; but even if we allow that aërostatic machines were then known, it is impossible to believe the former. At present one cannot determine with any probability, what piece of mechanism gave rise to this relation344. The head of Albertus Magnus, which is said not only to have moved, but to have spoken, is too little known for any opinion to be formed concerning it. The construction of it must have been very ingenious and complex, if it be true that he was employed upon it thirty years345.

In the fourteenth and following centuries, automata, as I have said, were frequently made. Among these was the iron fly of John Müller or Molitor, or, as he is sometimes called, Regiomontanus, which is said to have flown about; and his artificial eagle, which flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian on his arrival at Nuremberg, June the 7th, 1470. None of the contemporary writers, however, though they often speak of this very learned man, make the least mention of these pieces of mechanism; and it is probable that the whole tale originated with Peter Ramus346, who never was at Nuremberg till the year 1571. J. W. Baier347 endeavours to prove that the above-mentioned fly, moved by wheel-work, leaped about upon a table; and that the eagle perched upon the town-gate, stretched out its wings on the emperor’s approach, and saluted him by an inclination of its body. We know that Charles V., after his abdication, amused himself during the latter period of his life with automata of various kinds348.

The most ingenious, or at least the most celebrated automata, were those made by Vaucanson, which he exhibited publicly at Paris, for the first time, in 1738. One of them, which represented a flute-player sitting, performed twelve tunes, and, as we are assured, by wind issuing from its mouth into a German-flute, the holes of which it opened and shut with its fingers. The second was a standing figure, which in the like manner played on the Provençal shepherd’s pipe, held in its left hand, and with the right beat upon a drum or tambour de Basque. The third was a duck, of the natural size, which moved its wings, exhibited all the gestures of that animal, quacked like a duck, drank water, ate corn, and then after a little time let drop behind it something that resembled the excrement of a duck349. These pieces must have been often imitated. I saw some of the like kind in the year 1764, at the palace of Zarsko-Selo, near Petersburg, and was told that they had been purchased from Vaucanson350. As far as I can remember, the tambourin was damaged. I saw there also a regiment of soldiers, which went through their exercise, moved by wheel-work351.

In the year 1752, one Du Moulin, a silversmith, travelled about through Germany with automata like those of Vaucanson. In 1754, he wished to dispose of them to the margrave of Bayreuth; but he was obliged to pawn them in Nuremberg, at the house of Pfluger, who offered to sell them for 3000 florins, the sum lent upon them. They were afterwards purchased by counsellor Beireis, at Helmstadt, who kindly showed them to me. It is much to be regretted that the machinery of them is greatly deranged; the flute-player emits only some very faint tones; but the duck eats, drinks, and moves still. The ribs, which are of wire, had been covered with duck’s feathers, so as to imitate nature; and as these are now lost, one can see better the interior construction; respecting which I shall only observe, that the motion is communicated by means of a cylinder and fine chains, like that of a watch, all proceeding through the feet of the duck, which are of the usual size. Nicolai352 says that Du Moulin came to Petersburg in 1755, and died at Moscow in 1765. It is probable that he made the automata which I saw in Russia. Those which he left behind him at Nuremberg seem either not to have been completed, or to have been designedly spoiled by him; for they appeared to have defects which could not be ascribed to any accident. M. Beireis however has begun to cause them to be repaired.