JUGGLING. 
tint the Pythonefs Philiplzed ; to fignify that the was 
gained over by Philip’s prefents. 
The ceffation .of oracles is attefted by feveral profane 
authors; as Strafio, Juvenal, Lucan, and others. Plutarch 
accounts for it, by faying, that the benefits of the gods 
are not eternal as themfelves are; or that the genii, who 
prefided over oracles, are fubjeft to death ; or that the ex¬ 
halations of the earth had been exhaufted. It appears 
that the laft reafon had been alleged in the time of Cicero, 
who ridicules it in the fecond book of Divination, as if 
the fpirit of prophecy, fuppofed to be excited by fubter- 
raneous effluvia, had evaporated by length of time, as 
wine or pickle by being long kept 
Daniel difcovered the impofture of the priefts of Bel, 
who had a private way of getting into the temple to take 
away the offered meats, and who made the king believe 
that the idol confumed them. Mundus, being in love 
with Paulina, the eldefl of the prieftefles of Ifis, went and 
told her, that the god Anubis, being pafiionately fond of 
her, commanded her to give him a meeting. She was af¬ 
terwards fhut up in a dark room, where her lover Mundus, 
whom file believed to be Anubis, was concealed. This 
impofture having been difcovered, Tiberius ordered thofe 
deteftable priefts and priefteftes to be crucified, and with 
them Idasa, Mundus’s free woman, who had conducted 
the whole intrigue. He alfo commanded the temple of 
Ifis to be levelled with the ground, and her ftatue to be 
thrown into the Tiber; as to Mundus, the moft guilty 
perfon, he was only fent into banifhment. 
Theophilus, bifhop of Alexandria, not only deftroyed 
the temples of the falfe gods, but difcovered the cheats of 
the priefts, by fhowing that the lfatues, fome of which 
were of brafs, and others of wood, were hollow within, 
and led into dark paffages made in the wall. 
Lucian, in dsfcovering the impoltures of the falfe pro¬ 
phet Alexander, fays, that the oracles were chiefly afraid 
of the fubtilties of the Epicureans and Chriftians. The 
falfe prophet Alexander fometimes feigned himfelf feized 
with a divine fury, and by means of the herb fopeworr, 
which he chewed, frothed at the mouth in lb extraordi¬ 
nary a manner, that the ignorant people attributed it to 
the ftrength of the god he was poflefled by. He had long 
before prepared the head of a dragon made of linen,.which 
opened and fhut its mouth by means of a horfe-hair. He 
went by night to a place where the foundations of a tem¬ 
ple were digging; and having found water, either of a 
fpring, or rain that had fettled there, he hid in it a goofe- 
egg, in which he had enclofed a little ferpent that had 
been juft hatched. The next day, very early in the morn¬ 
ing, he came naked into the ftreet, having only a fcarf 
about his middle, holding in his hand a f'cythe, and 
tolling about his hair as the priefts of Cybeie; then, get¬ 
ting upon a high altar, he faid, that the place was hap¬ 
py to be honoured by the birth of a god. Afterwards, 
running down to the place where he had hid the goofe- 
egg, and going into the water, he began to ling the praifes 
of Apollo and .Asfculapius, and to invite the latter to 
come and fliow himfelf to men. With thefe words, he 
dips a bowl into the water, and takes out the myfterious 
egg, which had a god enclofed in it; and, when he had it 
in his hand, he began to fay that he held aiEfculaprus. 
Whilft all were eager to have a fight of this fine myftery, 
he broke the egg, and the little ferpent, ftarting out, twilt- 
ed iti’elf about his fingers. 
Two inftances more of ancient juggling we fhall juft 
mention, not beeaule there is any thing particular or im¬ 
portant in the fafts, but becaufe fome credit feemstoliave 
been given to the narration by the difcerning Cudworth. 
Philoitratus, in his life of Apollonius Tyanseus, informs 
ns that a laughing demoniac at Athens was cured by that ma¬ 
gician, who ejected the evil fpirit by threats and menaces; 
and the biographer adds, that the demon, at his depar¬ 
ture, is faid to have overturned a ftatue which ftood be¬ 
fore the porch where the cure was performed. The other 
inftance is of the lame magician freeing the city of Ephe- 
491 
fus from the plague, by (toning to death an old ragged 
beggar whom Apollonius called the plague, and who ap¬ 
peared to be a demon by his changing himfelf into the 
form of a fhagged dog. That fuch tales as thefe fhould 
have been thought worthy of the flighted: notice by the 
incomparable author of the Intellectual Syftem, is indeed 
a wonderful phenomenon in the hiftory of human nature. 
The whole ftory of Apollonius Tyanseus, as is now well 
known, is nothing better than a collection of the moft ex¬ 
travagant fables : but, were the narrative fuch as that cre¬ 
dit could be given to the jafts here related, there appears 
no necefiity in either Cafe for calling in fupcrnatural pow¬ 
er. The Athenians of that age were a fuperftitious peo¬ 
ple. Apollonius was a flirewd irnpoltor, long praftifed in 
the art of deceiving the multitude. For fuch a man it 
was eafy to perfuade a friend and confidant to aft the part 
of the laughing demoniac ; and without much difficulty the 
ftatue might be fo undermined as inevitably to tumble, 
upon a violent concuffion being given to the ground at the 
time of the departure of the pretended demon. The other 
cafe of the poor man at Ephefus, who was ftoned to death, 
is exaftly fimilar to that of thofe innocent women in our 
own country, whom the vulgar in the laft century were 
inltigated to burn for the fuppofed crime of witchcraft.. 
We have no reafon to fuppofe that an Ephefian mob was 
lefs inflammable or credulous than a Britifh mob, or that 
Apollonius played bis part with lefs fkill than a Chriftian 
cjemonologift; and as the fpirits of our witches, who were 
facrificed to folly and fanaticifm, were often fuppofed to 
migrate from their dead bodies into the bodies of hares or 
cats accidentally pafling by, fo might this impoftor at 
Ephefus perfuade his cruel and credulous inftruments, that 
the fpirit of their viftim had taken polfeflion of the body 
of the fhagged dog. 
That juggling may not be fuppofed to lie among the 
artes deperditi, we fhall produce our “ modern inftances. ” 
i. Soon after the execution of king Charles 1 . a cam- 
million was appointed to furvey the king’s houfe at Wood- 
ftock, with the manor, park, woods, and other demefnes 
to that manor belonging ; and one Collins, under a feign¬ 
ed name, hired himfelf as fecretary to the commiffioners, 
who, on the i jth of Oftober, 164,9, met > and took up their 
refidence in the king’s own rooms. His majefty’s bed¬ 
chamber they made their kitchen, the council-hall their 
pantry, and the prefence-chamber was the place where they 
fat for the difpatch of bufinefs; his majefty’s dining-room 
they made their wood-yard, and flored it with the wood 
of the famous royal-oak from the High Park, which, that 
nothing might be left with the name of king about it, they 
had dug up by the roots, and fplit and bundled up into 
faggots for their firing. Things being thus prepared, they 
fat on the 16th of the fame month for the difpatch of bu- 
finel's ; and, in the midlt of their firft debate, there entered 
a large black dog (as they thought), which made a dread¬ 
ful howling, overturned two or three of their chairs, and 
then crept under a bed and vanifhed ; this gave them the 
greater furprife, as the doors were kept conltantly locked,, 
fo that no real dog could get in or out. The next day 
their furprife was increafed, when, fitting at dinner in a 
lower room, they heard plainly the noife of perfons walk¬ 
ing over their heads, though they well knew the doors 
were all locked, and there could be nobody there ; pre- 
fently afterthey heard alfo all the wood of the king’s oak 
brought by parcels from the dining-room, and thrown with 
great violence into the prefence-chamber; as alfo all the 
chairs, ftools, tables, and other furniture, forcibly hurled 
about the room ; their own papers of the minutes of their 
tranfaftions torn, and the ink-glafs broken. When all this 
noife had fome time ceafed, Giles Sharp, their fecretary, 
propofed to enter firft into thefe rooms ; and, in prefence of 
the commiffioners, of whom he received the key, he opened 
the doors, and found the wood fpread about the room, 
the chairs tofled about and broken, the papers torn, the 
giafs broken, (as has been faiid ;) but not the leaft track 
of any. human creature, nor the leaft reafon to fufped one, 
1 as 
