habiliments of "charwomen," and to pass
themselves off as dressmakers. There is an
old man with unshaven beard and seldom
washed face, who lives in more comfortable
style with his son, in Southwark (the favoured
district of the conjurors), who, to keep up
appearances, has "Engineer," hugely
engraved on a great brass plate over the door;
who casts nativities, and foretells events of the
future, for three or five shillings, as the appearance
of the visitor will warrant him in
demanding; receives all his votaries sitting at a
terribly littered table of dirty papers, with a
well-smoked clay pipe beside him.—Passing to
a higher grade, the "agent," or arranger of
matters, legal, pecuniary, or domestic, only
practises the black art for the love he bears
it and to oblige his friends, but never refuses
a few shillings fee, out of respect to the
interests of the science. Nearly all his
customers are people of title.

But the most successful of these astrological
conjurors is the possessor of a certain MAGIC
CRYSTAL; to the surface of which he pretends
to call up angels, constellations, and heroes of
the past, with all of whom familiar conversations
are held, to the amazement of large
parties of fashionables assembled in elegant
salons. Were the rank and numbers of the
persons weak enough to be deluded by such
exhibitions to be divulged, the revelation would
not be credited by the sane part of the world.
The Magic Crystal, during the London season
last past, became the wonder, the talk, and—
with not a few—the belief. Some account
of the antecedents of Magic Crystals will not
be without interest:—

Those who have passed any time in India,
will have become acquainted with the use made
of round masses of rough hewn polished glass,
designated Divining Crystals, and bear testimony
to the superstitious awe with which they
are regarded. The High Priest of the Bhuddist
and Hindoo Temples in former times, when
arrayed in the consecrated garments for the
festivals, had one of these round knobs—about
the size of a large pendant drop of a
chandelier, or the top of a beadle's staff—
suspended from his neck by a chain of great
value, and of dazzling brilliancy. It was
through the agency of this crystal that he
was supposed to hold communion with the
spirit or spirits to whom he and his followers
accorded devotion and made intercessions;
and the glass, acting as did the famed oracle
of Delphi, gave orders and commands, and
settled all great questions that might be
submitted to its spiritual master. The priest,
although he might be a pattern of purity, and
the quintessence of all that was good, having,
however, the sin of being in years, and not
able perhaps to keep from the spirit
inhabiting the crystal all the transactions of his
youth, could not hold direct communication
with it; to arrange this, a certain number of
boys (and sometimes, in some of the temples,
young damsels) were retained, who, never
having mixed with the world, could not be
supposed to be in any way contaminated by
its vices. These alone were said to be capable
of beholding the spirit when he chose to
make his appearance in the divining glass,
and interpreting to and fro the questions
put, and answers received. Although it
was not every boy or "seer" to whom was
permitted the gift of spiritual vision, yet in
later times, when divining crystals multiplied,
little ragged boys would run after the passers
in the streets and offer to see—anything that
might be required of them—for an anna, or
even a cake or sweetmeat. In Egypt, the
Divining Glass is superseded by putting a blot
of thick black fluid into the palm of a boy's
hand, and commanding him to see various
people and things, of which practice Lane,
in his "Modern Egyptians," gives some
curious disclosures.

Divining mirrors were not confined to the
East. Dr. Dee was the first English
impostor who vaunted the possession of one
of these priceless treasures. He had for the
"seer" one Kelly, an Irishman, and to this,
doubtless, was attributable the impression
that prevailed among the astrologers and
amateur spirit hunters, that when the spirits
condescended to speak, they always gave
speech with a very strong spice o' the
brogue. This "beryl," as it is called, was
preserved amongst the Strawberry Hill
curiosities, and fell under the hammer of George
Robins at the memorable sale. It proved to
be a globe of cannel-coal. In Aubrey's
Miscellany there is an engraving of another
larger crystal, and there is with it (as also in
other works produced about the same period)
many wonderful stories; yet notwithstanding
the magic capabilities of these mirrors, they
went out of fashion until the beginning of
the present year.

This revival and its consequences is like a
page out of a silly romance. The story, if
told by a disinterested historian, would
require authentication as belonging to the year
1850. We therefore turn, by way of voucher,
to a publication—which on any other occasion,
it would require an apology to our readers
for quoting—called "Zadkiel's Almanac for
1851." At page 46 of that farrago, after
referring to the existence of Magic Crystals at
the present day, the writer says:—"One of
large size (four inches in diameter) was a few
years since brought over by a friend of Lady
Blessington; after the sale of whose effects it
recently fell into the hands of a friend of
mine; and, having tested its powers, I have
resolved on giving my readers an account of
this wonderful mode of communicating with
the spirits of the dead. The crystal is
spherical, and has been turned from a large mass
of pure rock crystal. I have been shown
some few others, but, with the exception of
one shown me by Lord S.,* they are all much

* For which his lordship, we are told, paid Zadkiel's
friend £50.