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France, Spain, Germany, and Russia, and will hold his levée, positively for the above days only."
Besides playing several airs, he produced on the aerial flutina imitations of the bells, trumpet,
and organ; and this portion of the entertainment was extended in 1855 by the performances of
Herr Sangermann and Signor Ricardo, of the organophonic band, which had previously
performed at the St. James's theatre. Sinclair's conjuring was of the ordinary school-treat
character, his most remarkable feat being a more advanced development of the flower trick in
the production of an orange-tree, which expanded its leaves and produced blossoms, which were
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Lives of Conjurors--Chapter XVI
succeeded by ripe fruit, equal in beauty and flavour to the golden globelets of the Azores.
There was a dead calm in the world of magic for several years after the departure of Anderson
for other lands. The resources of legerdemain were for the time exhausted, and the entertainers
of the public were compelled to have recourse to physical phenomena for hints for the production
of wonders novel and startling enough to be widely attractive. The dim records of ancient and
medieval magic were explored for illusions such as made famous the names of Bacon and
Bungay, Agrippa and Faust; and the result, after a few years, was the supersession of
inexhaustible bottles and prolific hats by phantoms that seemed as tangible as they were
distinctly visible, speaking heads unattached to bodies, and mysterious hands that wrote words
upon paper without being connected with arms.
The invention of the ghost illusion has been claimed by more than one person, and it is probable
that more than ode inventive mind was occupied with the idea at the same time. The germ of it
may have been found in the phantoms evoked by Robin, or it may have been suggested by
observation of constantly occurring phenomena by one sufficiently acquainted with optical
apparatus to turn the idea to good account. Be this as it May, Mr. Silvester. claims to be the
inventor of the original ghost illusion, first produced at the Polytechnic, and commonly called
Pepper's ghost, from the popular scientific lecturer who so long directed that institution; while
Messrs. Poole and Young and Mr. Gompertz claim respectively for their phantascope and
spectroscope an independent origin, and a character the originality of which is not affected by
the previous production of a similar illusion at the Polytechnic.
The effects introduced in the various entertainments combining dissolving views and vocal
illustrations with a recital of some popular story, for which the Polytechnic has so long been
famous, exceeded anything of the kind ever shown before; and juveniles, and even children of a
larger growth, have rubbed their eyes in wonder, and asked themselves whether they were
awake or dreaming, when they saw the figure of the unfortunate Amy Robsart advance along the
corridor, and fall through the trap-door, or the roc drop the boulder on the raft of Sinbad. In
those illusions, however, the spectators knew that they were looking at a picture, magnified by a
powerful oxy-hydrogen microscope, and thrown upon a white curtain; and they were puzzled
only by the movement imparted to the figures. But the ghosts were a puzzle from beginning to
end. The wondering spectators saw figures appear and disappear, not gradually, as in the
dissolving views, but instantaneously, upon a stage arranged as for a drama; and other figures
pass through these, though apparently not less real, as if they were as unsubstantial as vapour.
And the apparitions not only moved about the stage, looking as tangible as the actors who
passed through them, and from whose proffered embraced or threatened attack they vanished in
an instant, but spoke or sang with voices of unmistakable reality.
The illusion proved too great an attraction to be long confined to the Polytechnic. By
arrangement with Mr. Pepper, who purchased the patent rights of Mr. Silvester, it was produced
at several of the metropolitan music-halls, while others produced it with the apparatus of Messrs.
Poole and Young, or of Mr. Gompertz. The most successful of the ghost entertainments were
produced at the London Pavilion and the Canterbury, and of these two the palm should, I think,
be awarded to the former. It represented a dream after a visit to the opera, in which the prima [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]