ed to
give the figure motion, while playing intricate games of chess with
any of the spectators. But it has been fully demonstrated that this
chest could conceal a full-grown man, who could place his arm down
that of the figure, and direct its movements in the game; the
machinery being really constructed to hide him, and disarm
suspicion. As the whole trick has been demonstrated by diagrams, the
marvellous nature of the machinery is exploded.

[201] This brass duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M.
Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved
its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the
Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat
a tabor; and a flute-player who performed twelve tunes.

[202] This great charlatan, after many successful impositions, ended
his life in poverty in the hospital at Saltzbourg, in 1541.

[203] Similar popular fallacies may be seen carefully noted in R.
Burton's "Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England,
Scotland, and Ireland," 1684. It is one of those curious volumes of
"folk-lore" sent out by Nat. Crouch the bookseller, under a
fictitious name.

[204] Hall's postulate is, that God's work could not admit of any
substantial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers;
but "Herein the divell plays the double sophister; the sorcerer with
sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch's conceit and the beholder's
eyes." In a word, Hall believes in what he cannot understand! Yet
Hall will not believe one of the Catholic miracles of "the Virgin of
Louvain," though Lipsius had written a book to commemorate "the
goddess," as Hall sarcastically calls her. Hall was told, with great
indignation, in the shop of the bookseller of Lipsius, that when
James the First had just looked over this work, he flung it down,
vociferating "Damnation to him that made it, and to him that
believes it!"

[205] Thousands flocked to see this "miracle" in the middle ages,
and their presence brought great wealth to the abbey. It was
believed to have grown miraculously from the staff used by St.
Joseph. It appears to have been brought from Palestine, and merely
to have flowered in accordance with its natural season, though
differing with ours.

[206] Taylor, the water poet, in his "Wonders