172 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



and contracted at pleasure. By stretching out the arms 

 before the body they become like those of an orang-outang, 

 and by drawing them back they dwindle into half their 

 regular size. All these effects, which depend greatly on 

 the agility and skill of the performer, may be very much 

 increased by suitable distortions in his own features and 

 figure. The family likeness, which is of course never 

 lost in all the variety of figures which are thus produced, 

 adds greatly to the interest of the exhibition ; and we 

 have seen individuals so annoyed at recognizing their own 

 likeness in the hideous forms of humanity which were 

 thus delineated, that they could not be brought to con- 

 template them a second time. If the figure is inanimate, 

 like the small cast of a statue, the effect is very curious, 

 as the swelling and contracting of the parts and the sudden 

 change of expression give a sort of appearance of vitality 

 to the image. The inflexibility of such a figure, however, 

 is unfavourable to its transformation into caricatures. 



Interesting as these metamorphoses are, they lose in 

 the simplicity of the experiment much of the wonder 

 which they could not fail to excite if exhibited on a great 

 scale, where the performer is invisible, and where it is 

 practicable to give an aerial representation of the cari- 

 catured figures. This may be done by means of the 

 apparatus shown in Fig. 7,* where we may suppose A B 

 to be the reduced image seen in the reflecting surface 

 ABC, Fig. 13.f By bringing this image nearer the 

 mirror M N, Fig. 7, a magnified and inverted image of it 

 may be formed at a 6, of such a magnitude as to give the 

 last image in P Q the same size as life. Owing to the 

 loss of light by the two reflections, a very powerful illu- 

 mination would be requisite for the original figure. If 

 such an exhibition were well got up the effect of it would 

 be very striking. 



* Page 163. f Page 171. 



