Chaucer,
appears in his "Frankelein's Tale," where, minutely describing them, he
communicates the same pleasure he must himself have received from the
ocular illusions of "the Tregetoure," or "Jogelour." Chaucer ascribes
the miracle to a "naturall magique!" in which, however, it was as
unsettled whether the "Prince of Darkness" was a party concerned.

For I am siker that there be sciences
By which men maken divers apparences
Swiche as thise subtil tregetoures play.
For oft at festes have I wel herd say
That tregetoures, within an halle large,
Have made come in a water and a barge,
And in the halle rowen up and doun.
Sometime hath semed come a grim leoun,
And sometime floures spring as in a mede,
Sometime a vine and grapes white and rede,
Sometime a castel al of lime and ston,
And whan hem liketh voideth it anon:
Thus semeth it to every mannes sight.

Bishop Wilkins's museum was visited by Evelyn, who describes the sort of
curiosities which occupied and amused the children of science. "Here,
too, there was a hollow statue, which gave a voice, and uttered words by
a long concealed pipe that went to its mouth, whilst one speaks through
it at a good distance:" a circumstance which, perhaps, they were not
then aware revealed the whole mystery of the ancient oracles, which they
attributed to demons rather than to tubes, pulleys, and wheels. The
learned Charles Patin, in his scientific travels, records, among other
valuable productions of art, a cherry-stone, on which were engraven
about a dozen and a half of portraits! Even the greatest of human
geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci, to attract the royal patronage, created a
lion which ran before the French monarch, dropping _fleurs de lis_ from
its shaggy breast. And another philosopher who had a spinnet which
played and stopped at command, might have made a revolution in the arts
and sciences, had the half-stifled child that was concealed in it not
been forced, unluckily, to crawl into daylight, and thus it was proved
that a philosopher might be an impostor!

The arts, as well as the sciences, at the first institution of the Royal
Society, were of the most amusing class. The famous Sir Samuel Moreland
had turned his house into an enchanted palace. Everything was full of
devices, which showed art and mechanism in perfection: his coach carried
a travelling kitchen; for it had a fire-place and grate, with which he
could make a soup, broil cutlets, and r