504 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



having retired one night in good health, was found in the 

 morning a heap of ashes. 1 To this he added other equally 

 gruesome instances, of a poor woman in Paris who, having 

 drunk alcohol for years, u contracted a combustible dispo- 

 sition," and of a Polish gentleman who, over-indulging 

 in brandy, exhaled flames and was consumed. As Miles 

 had already linked together people who sparkled and 

 glowed mysteriously and people who emitted fire when 

 electrified, it remained simply for Rolli to suggest the 

 connection between combustible people and mysteriously 

 sparkling people; and of the latter, research in the ancient 

 books reveals plenty of instances. 



There is Kusebius Nierembergius telling how all the 

 limbs of the father of the Emperor Theodoric exhibited 

 lambent luminosity, and Bartholinus affirming the same 

 of Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua; Licetus asserting that 

 Antony Cianfio, a bookseller of Pisa, when he changed his 

 garments "shone all over with great brightness;" Cardan 

 relating that a friend of his, in like circumstances, "shot 

 forth clear sparkles of fire;" Kircher describing a Roman 

 grotto which possessed the capability of causing fire to 

 "evaporate" from the heads of visitors; Father d'Ovale 

 averring with equal recklessness the existence of moun- 

 tains in Peru on the summits of which not only men, but 

 beasts, became luminous; and Castro's story of the won- 

 derful arms of a Veronese countess, which needed only 

 the gentle friction of a cambric handkerchief to become 

 resplendent. 



"These flames," remarks the alarming Rolli, "seem 

 harmless, but it is only for want of proper fuel;" and then 

 he proceeds to relate how similar sparkles reduced to ashes 

 the hair of a young man; depicts graphically the discom- 

 forts of a Spanish lady who perspired explosively, and 

 crowns all with a quotation from Albertus Krantzius to 

 the effect that in the time of the crusades " people were 



1 This is the story upon which Dickens bases the episode of the death 

 of Krook in Bleak House. 



