Читать книгу The Magician's Own Book, or, the Whole Art of Conjuring - George Arnold - Страница 6

Table of Contents

INCLUDING SLEIGHT OF HAND, WITH OBJECTS OR CARDS, WITH AND WITHOUT APPARATUS.

That there has been "Jugglery" in all ages of the world, the pages of history abundantly prove. The ancient religions of the heathen were mixed up with an extensive system of legerdemain, and were, more or less, tissues of trickery. Sleight of hand, tricks of the tongue by which the word was kept to the ear, but broken to the hope, and various miraculous deceptions, were the means by which the priests of Egypt, Greece, and Rome used to subjugate mankind. Happy ought we to be, in living in an age when humbug of every kind is sure to meet exposure by the daylight beams of truth.

The Eastern nations, from the earliest times, possessed, besides these religious jugglers, others who made a livelihood by going from place to place, and performing various tricks and feats by which the judgement was bewildered and the reason bamboozled; and even now the performers of the East infinitely exceed those of the West. In the Norman times the juggler was termed jongleur, or joculator, and united in one the minstrel, astrologer, and merry-andrew. In the fourteenth century, he seems to have become more entirely a performer of tricks and feats, and bore the name of Tregetour. The tregetours were adepts at every kind of sleight of hand, and by the assistance of machinery of various kinds, deceived the eyes of the spectators, and produced such illusions as were usually supposed to be the effect of enchantment, for which reason they were frequently ranked with sorcerers, magicians, and witches. Chaucer, who no doubt had frequently an opportunity of seeing the tricks exhibited by the tregetours of his time, says, "There I sawe playenge jogelours, magyciens, trageteours, phetonysses, charmeresses, old witches, and sorceresses;" and the old poet goes on to say to them, "Sometimes they will bring on the similitude of a grim lion, or make flowers spring up as in a meadow; sometimes they cause a vine to flourish, bearing white and red grapes, or show a castle built with stone, and when they please, they cause the whole to disappear:" and in another part of his work, he says:

"There saw I Coll Tregetour,

Upon a table of sycamour,

Play an uncouthe thynge to tell;

I sawe hym cary a wyndemell,

Under a walnot shale."—House of Fame, book iii.

The learned monarch, James I, was perfectly convinced that these and other inferior feats exhibited by the tregetours of his day, could only be performed by the agency of the "old gentleman," whom it is not polite to name. The profession had already fallen very low, and at the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the performers were ranked by the moral writers of that time, not only with ruffians, blasphemers, thieves, and vagabonds, but also with Jews, Turks, heretics, pagans, and sorcerers; and in more modern times, by way of derision, the juggler was called a mocus-pocus, or hocus-pocus, a term applicable to a pick-pocket, or a common cheat.

The following pages are not intended to make the young reader either a cheat or a trickster; there is nothing, perhaps, so utterly contemptible in every-day life, as trickery and deception, and we would caution our young master not to obtain by these amusements a love of deception, which is only allowable in such feats of amusement, and which is in no way culpable, when every one knows he is deceived. But we would advise him strongly to cultivate in his own mind the virtues of sincerity, straightforwardness, candor, openness, and truth; to shun subterfuge and deception as he would a venomous reptile; and to hate a lie as he would hate that same old gentleman whom we were too polite to name, and who is the father of it.

With this sage advice, we shall present a collection of amusing conjuring tricks.