498 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



Ill fact, with Bose the language of ordinary narrative 

 seems to have become inadequate for the expression of his 

 electrical achievements ; and hence he followed the ex- 

 ample of Leibnitz, who celebrated the discovery of phos- 

 phorus in pompous Latin verse, and became the author of 

 the first of electrical poems. 1 Its opening canto is dedi- 

 cated to Frederica Louise, Margravine of Brandenburg, and 

 it epitomizes other people's discoveries; but the second 

 part, under the frankly egotistical motto, "mine mea sola 

 cano," is entirely devoted to the celebration of his own. 

 By judicious degrees he proceeds from things remarkable 

 to things surprising, reaches the explosion of powder, 2 and 

 then winds up with the announcement of an achievement 

 calculated to throw the discoveries of every one else com- 

 pletely in the shade. He had found out, he said, how to 

 reproduce, around any one's cranium, the halo or glory 

 with which the old painters encircled the heads of saintly 

 personages. It was necessary simply to place the indi- 

 vidual on a cake of pitch and electrify him from a large 

 globe, when a lambent flame, rising from the pitch, would 

 first spread around his feet, and then gradually rise to his 

 head, until the whole body would appear bathed in a 

 heavenly glow ; or if he were seated in a chair suspended 

 by silken ropes, "a continual radiance or corona of light 

 appears encircling his head." 3 



In Germany this astonishing claim was accepted, and 

 Bose certainly exhibited people with flames about them. 

 In England, however, where jealousy of both Gallic and 



A* j 



! B6se: Die Elektrizitat, nach ihrer Entdeckung tmd Fortgang mit 

 poetischer feder entworffen. Wittenberg, 1744. 



2 " Des Pulvers donnernd Schwartz wird auf zwolf Zoll belebt, 



Das es dem Metall, und denen Fingern klebt. 



Doch schmeltz es. Sieh dich fur. Lass deine Funcken strahlen. 



Es fangt, blitzt, donnert, ziindt, und knallt zu tausend mahlen." 



3 " Wie man die Heiligen, ja selbst die Engel mahlt, 



Wie das gemeine Volck von einem Irrwisch prahlt, 



So steht mein Held alsdenn in einem Schimmer-Glantze, 



In einem feurigen. fast fiirchterlichen Kratitze." 



