MODERN NECROMANCY. 153 



whole group would appear at once when the smoke was 

 uniformly diffused over the place occupied by the images. 



The " compositions which diffused noisome odours " 

 were intended to intoxicate or stupify the spectators, so 

 as to increase their liability to deception, or to add to 

 the real phantasms which were before their eyes others 

 which were the offspring only of their own imaginations. 

 It is not easy to gather from the description what parts 

 of the exhibition were actually presented to the eyes of 

 the spectators, and what parts of it were imagined by 

 themselves. It is quite evident that the boy, as well as 

 Agnolino Gaddi, were so overpowered with terror that 

 they fancied many things which they did not see ; but 

 when the boy declares that four armed giants of an enor- 

 mous stature were threatening to break into their circle, 

 he gives an accurate description of the effect that would 

 be produced by pushing the figures nearer the mirror, 

 and then magnifying their images, and causing them to 

 advance towards the circle. Although Cellini declares 

 that he was trembling with fear, yet it is quite evident 

 that he was not entirely ignorant of the machinery which 

 was at work, for in order to encourage the boy, who was 

 almost dead with fear, he assured them that the devils 

 were under their power, and that " what he saw was 

 smoke and shadow." 



Mr. Roscoe, from whose Life of Cellini the preceding 

 description is taken, draws a similar conclusion from the 

 consolatory words addressed to the boy, and states that 

 they " confirm him in the belief, that the whole of these 

 appearances, like a phantasmagoria, were merely the 

 effects of a magic lantern produced on volumes of smoke 

 from various kinds of burning wood." In drawing this 

 conclusion, Mr. Roscoe has not adverted to the fact, that 

 this exhibition took place about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, while the magic lantern was not invented by 



M 



