words magnify and magic having a common source and LITTLE 

 a similar meaning. Magicians wore big square glasses, JOURNEYS 

 and by their aid, some of them claimed to see things 

 at great distance ; and also to perceive things stolen, 

 hidden, or lost. Occasionally, the magician would per- 

 suade his customer to try on the glasses, and then 

 even common men could see for themselves that there 

 was something in the scheme goodness me ! The use 

 of spectacles were at first confined entirely to these 

 wonder-workers or men who magnified things for- 

 ever. During the Fifteenth Century, public readers 

 and the priests occasionally wore spectacles. To read 

 was a miracle to most people, and a book was a mys- 

 terious and sacred thing or else a diabolical thing. 

 The populace would watch the man put on his " specil- 

 lum," and the idea was everywhere abroad that the 

 magic glasses gave an ability to read ; and that anybody 

 who was inspired by angels, or devils, who could get 

 hold of spectacles, could at once read from a book. 

 QWe hear of one magician, who, about the year 1500, 

 made a box with a glass cover that magnified the con- 

 tents. This great man would catch a flea and show it 

 to the people. Then he would place the flea in the box 

 and show it to them, and they would see that it had 

 grown enormously in an instant. The man could make 

 it big or little, by just taking off and putting on the 

 cover of the box! This individual worked wonders for 

 a consideration, but fate overtook him and he was 

 smothered under a feather-bed for having too much 

 wizard in his cosmos. A wizard, be it known, is a male 



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