A visit to the ‘Mundus tenebrosus’ with Samuel Pordage

Back again to Samuel Pordage’s Behmenist poem of 1661, Mundorum explicatio, his explanation of the worlds of Wrath and Love. Much of the poem consists of a lengthy contrast between a black magician and a practitioner of theurgical magic. My set of extracts with commentary will focus on the evil magician, as it all touches on witchcraft.

The episode of the black magician getting the full endorsement of Lucifer as his representative on earth involves Lucifer prompting the process, the temptation of the bad magus into wicked use of magic, and then, once he is far enough involved or corrupted, a very elaborate visit to hell, where the Faust figure (Faustus is alluded to as one of the mages that had trodden this way before) sees what is going off in hell, learns about the familiar spirits of witches (‘Teter spirits’, Pordage mysteriously calls them). On his visit, the origin of hell is explained, by way of theodicy, and the dark adept finally meets Lucifer (a most unsavoury presence), who grants him the right to eat the fruit of the Tree of Death.

Pordage, a wordy writer, spins it out, but his easy couplets are not hard to read, and I will quote quite a few extracts. Here’s how he starts, with a striking proposition to the reader:

   Suppose the mighty Prince of darknesse wou’d 
   Himself incarnate, vail with with fleshly Hood 
   His Stygian Face; to shew the power, and might 
   Of the vast Kingdom of Æternal Night, 
   Upon this Earth: He finds a man propense 
   From genial starres to ill; a mind immense 
   After abstruser prying; piercing Wit 
   Grave look and studious; such a Man is fit 
   For this his high design.
   Himself incarnate, vail with with fleshly Hood 
   His Stygian Face; to shew the power, and might 
   Of the vast Kingdom of Æternal Night, 
   Upon this Earth: He finds a man propense 
   From genial starres to ill; a mind immense 
   After abstruser prying; piercing Wit 
   Grave look and studious; such a Man is fit 
   For this his high design.

A good start, this, though it’s a promise unfulfilled, we do not get to hear any more about Lucifer incarnating himself in a man’s body for some dire purpose. What happens when Lucifer has identified a suitable adept is that he sends agents from his hellish recruitment agency. Ceremonial magic is required by Lucifer, in his familiar role as the ape of God:

   He fastings, vigils, doth command him; nor 
   Lesse prayers than the other World requires, 
   Washings, and Ceremoies he desires: 
   And also that he should be Celebate, 
   Thus like an Ape he God doth imitate 
   In all his biddings, th’ better to beguile 
   Man, with his high deceits, and cunning vile. 

The black magician has to carry on like this for some years, until

         at the last he [Lucifer] doth bequeath 
   To him the fruits of the black Tree of Death. 

To this purpose, a solemn invitation from Lucifer is delivered by a prince among devils:

   My soveraign Leige, hath sent me unto you 
   His faithful servant, with his leave to shew 
   Our Kingdom’s glory

The adept of the dark arts is delighted, and is ready to leave the instant he hears about his opportunity. The theme is B-text Faustian, really: that rather surprising eagerness (in the circumstances) to get a preview of hell and its torments. It is explained to the evil mage that he doesn’t need a traveller’s staff, for the journey will be in the spirit:

        only make fast your Closet door 
   That none may enter to disturb you: for 
   Your Body here shall lye: Then shall you see, 
   How nimble Spirits without Bodies be. 

So, it is the demonologist’s notion of the ecstatic journey of the witch. Pordage has already explained to us that the “Man whose Soul’s drench’d in the Stygian pool; / Thinks not Hell’s worst deformed spirits foul.” 

 On his visit to hell, the magician is not going to be given any reaction to what he sees: in effect, he’s simply there to be expounded to by his demonic cicerone, as Pordage gives his (or maybe his father’s) view of what Hell is. A Behmenist theodicy operates here in which God is both Wrath (by his first) and Love (by his second) principle. Lucifer and his fellow fallen angels simply preferred wrath to love, and, leaving heaven, populate a Hell God never intended to create, but which comes into being through the fiery wrath of the fallen angels who are present, as sparks are generated off a cold grindstone, as Pordage has the expository demon explain.

But what was of interest to me here was the way this evil Dante figure and his guide see all the lesser devils thronging outside hell proper. These are, it is explained to the epopt of black magic, the evil spirits that have commerce with witches:

   These palpable dark clouds they enter; where 
   He doth a thousand shreeks, and howlings hear, 
   Cursings, Blasphemings, swearing, murmuring voyces, 
   Bellowing, with a thousand ugly noyses …

With a slight shudder of demonic class odium, the evil spirit guiding the adept explains:

              What you did hear 
   Caus’d was by Spirits that inhabit there, 
   Who sporting were together: Teter haggs 
   In th’ outward World feed these with shriv’led baggs, 
   The which they suck …

The OED is no help with ‘Teter’, though it seems clear that Pordage is applying the word to those aged female witches that feed demonic familiar spirits through supernumerary teats. Immediately afterwards, the informant tells the visitor about the sexual relations such lower spirits have with the hags:

 There dwell the Incubi, 
   And Succubi; deformed Spirits lye 
   By millions there; those who desire to feed 
   On humane morsels; such who shed their seed 
   Into old Haggs: and these are those which they 
   Call down to their assistance: these obey 
   To teter charmes, oyntments, perfumes, and these 
   Appear to them in various shapes

The last reference is to familiar spirits in a variety of forms. What is difficult to measure here is the author’s attitude. Pordage is completely committed to the spirit world: there’s no doubt about that. This whole episode of the black magician visiting hell will be mirrored by an honorific account of the upwards spiritual journey undertaken by the true magus. Pordage believes spirits are everywhere.

The hellish informant is matter-of-fact about familiar spirits (he or it simply would be). What Pordage thought about witchcraft is the point here, the point where all these airy dreams of massively populated elements and other worlds coincide with the real human world with the most potential to do harm.

The passage that follows immediately on from the last quotation is the usual jumble of trivial and more serious malefice that witches, aided by such spirits can produce:

                             and please 
   Them with their antic Tricks: make hoggs to dance 
   On hinder feet, platters to skip, and prance, 
   With such like sports; make Cows, and Cattel languish, 
   And mortal men strike too with pain, and anguish: 
   And these old haggs command, unlesse they are 
   By the other World resisted, then they dare 
   Not do’t. These are our slaves, we them command, 
   And when we need them on our errands send. 

‘These’ lower spirits are commanded, we seem to be told, by both the hags and the more princely sorts of devils: a limit to the commands of the witches is implied in that reference to resistance from ‘the other World’, which one supposes means good in general. It seems to be left ambiguous whether the commands to the spirits of the superior devils can be resisted with equal success.

The informant now turns (after talking about familiars, demoniality and malefice) to the nocturnal ecstatic flight (the adept has arrived at hell by just such means, but has a superior evil spirit as his pilot):

   In these th’ old Haggs delight, for often they 
   (Such power they have) their Bodies do conveigh 
   From place, to place; and often meet their sp’rights, 
   Their Bodies left: where fed with grosse delights, 
   They back return: These are our Prince’s slaves 
   Who bring him many Souls, when that the graves 
   Their Bodies take: But oft times these do flye, 
   And tear in pieces as in sportful play 
   Those whom they serv’d, when that their date is out… 

The last part of the passage is about the familiar spirit finally turning on the witch it has notionally served.

Being from further up the diabolic hierarchy, the demon talking wants it known that old hags certainly cannot command princely devils of his type. It’s a re-write of Mephostophilis explaining to Faustus about who is really in charge:

   Now we are Princes, and alas but flout 
   Those pouting Witches, when with charms they think 
   To call us down t’obey their dreiry wink. 
   No, we stir not, but when our mighty Prince 
   Imposes his Commands; then wend we hence 
   Into the World. When that you do return 
   These Sp’rites you heard shall all obey your charm; 
   Nay we; and if our Prince that power gives, 
   But yet that power has no man that lives: 
   For to call down, an Angel of his Throne, 
   He first with him must have high union. 

The silent and undaunted black magician then gets a tour of the torments hell has for the wicked. It’s the usual extreme cold/extreme heat treatment, the kind of thing a set of damned Swedes might take to:

         presently they are arriv’d upon 
   The burning Banks of fiery Plegeton. 
   In here they souse them: Cries, and shrieks they make, 
   But hard-heart Devils can no pity take: 
   Over, and over here they plunge them, then 
   To cold-stream’d Styx they bear them back agen, 
   And thus by turns these torments, with delight 
   They give...

Before we get to the centre of hell and meet Lucifer, the devilish tour guide pauses for an exposition of how all this gruesome mechanism of punishment was set up. There is a God, he solemnly assures the magician, and God involves two principles, Wrath and Love. Hell is just an accidental by product of His wrath: God did not create hell or devils out of that divine anger: the fallen angels generated it out of their own nature after their fall:

   Think not that God in Wrath did us create, 
   Or that for damned Souls he made this state, 
   For to torment them in: He did not Will 
   That there a Hell should be: or any ill. 
   Thus then it came. God from Æternity 
   Did generate two Principles, which be 
   Contrary to each other. God alone 
   Cannot (but by these Principles) be known. 
   These generate he did Æternally, 
   Both in, and by himself, a mysterie 
   Not to be comprehended. Neither tho 
   Is God; yet he’s the Root from whence they flow: 
   This Principle in which we make abode 
   Is call’d the first: An ang’ry, zealous God 
   And full of Wrath, Vengeance, and Ire, here 
   To mortal Men, and us he doth appear. 
   In th’other Principle of Love, and Light, 
   To men he doth appear quite opposite: 
   The nature of our Principle is this, 
   It full of raging, anxious prickling is, 
   An harsh, sour, tart, fell, eager essence, and 
   Of bitterness, and stinging full; we stand 
   In this. The other Principle is quite 
   Another nature, to this opposite, 
   We know no more of that: this I can tell 
   That accidentally is the cause of Hell. 

The narrative pauses again for another analeptic account of Lucifer’s fall:

   Our Prince more bright, than your light-giving Sun 
   In glorious Rays of Heavn’ly Light out-shon 
   All other Angels, sat upon the Throne 
   Of God, and like a God himself did reign. 
   Out of both Principles compos’d we were, 
   As Man’s Soul is; and other Angels are: 
   The first recluded was, and we were made 
   I’th second, there we should for aye have stay’d: 
   But our brave Prince (I must commend him for’t) 
   Did bravely Lord it in a Kingly sort 
   Over the heart of God; that meekness scorn’d, 
   Did higher fly, and his high Spirit turn’d 
   Into the fiery property; that Rage 
   And fiery flash which Love could not assuage 
   He there begat. We as our Master did, 
   Raged as he; and so defiance bid

   To Love 

And from here Pordage goes to his notion of how Hell generates itself:

       that great rage, and burning of the Wrath, 
   This Fire you see we live in then hurst forth, 
   Which from our selves proceeds, and which is made 
   By that strong enmity which doth invade 
   Us, 'gainst the adverse Orb of Light: and know 
   This Fire doth from bitter harshness grow; 
   As when you rub your flint upon a wheel 
   Which turneth round, and is compos’d of Steel, 
   You see from bitter grating Fires proceed, 
   So our harsh grating Spirits Fire breed, 
   Which is the same you see; This is the pain 
   That we, and all the damned in remain.

Does this theology, which must be Behmenist in its basic outlines, absolve God? If it does, it does so at the cost of some diminishment to the divine omnipotence. If the principles of Wrath and Love start with God, and apply in different degrees to all beings, God seems unable to control the consequences of His own nature. Pordage’s talkative, well-meaning God often seems to be doing His best with outcomes He didn’t intend, and the gruesome sadism of Hell looks out of control

There follows Pordage’s major invention, the vision of the Tree of Death in Hell, on which the black magician feeds to complete his installation as hell’s number one magician on earth. First, we finally meet Lucifer, who is bearing up quite well and holding on to some dignity despite his unfortunate appearance:

                                  Great Lucifer 
   A sable Crown upon his head did bear, 
   One hand a Scepter held, the other bore 
   A hissing Snake, upon his back he wore 
   Nothing but griesly hair, more black than Night, 
   Under his supercilious brow a Light 
   Like burning coals came from his saucer eyes: 
   His rugged cheeks like Rephean Rocks did rise, 
   With dented Vallies: every time he spoke 
   From’s hellish mouth came clouds of pitchy smoak, 
   Which intermixed were with flakes of fire. 
   His breast beset with hair as stiffe as wire, 
   Bore two great duggs, from whence like spring-lets fell 
   Ereban Nectar , or the milk of Hell, 
   More black than pitch, and bitterer then soot 
   It was, from whence unto h’s cloven foot 
   He was beset with hair, a shaggy Beast 
   Thus sat in state to entertain his guest. 
   Behind his Throne Hel’s Armes were plac’d which were 
   A Dragon guils, with wings erect i’th’ ayr, 
   A wreathed tail, his mouth flames proper yield, 
   Holding a Banner, in a sable Field. 
   Earth’s solid Globe was on the other part 
   Pourtrai’d; where stood grim Griesly Death, his Dart 
   Piercing a tender Lamb, who yields his breath 
   And Life, unto the cruel stroke of Death.

Pordage makes all his supernatural beings voluble, so Lucifer is given plenty to say, interrupted by an infernal belch:

   Welcome my Son unto these glowing parts, 
   I have considered thy great deserts, 
   For which I did permit that thou might’st see, 
   My Kingdom’s Glory, and my Majesty. 
   Here is a Throne, and here a Crown lies by 
   For thee, when it shall be thy destiny 
   To leave the prison of thy Soul: I do 
   In the meantime my power confirm on you; 
   Thou shalt my great Magitian be, and show 
   Strange uncouth Wonders in the Orb below. 
   Hau---Let this blast imbue thy fetid Soul, 
   Accept my power, and let none controul 
   Thy might, and force. Go to the Tree of Death, 
   Eat of the fruit, and so confirm my Breath: 
   Choose what thou pleasest, there is choice, nay all 
   If thou canst use them in the earthly Ball, 
   For our great Glory. Our great Mysteries 
   When thou hast eaten, thou wilt better prize: 
   When thou shalt be confirm’d: Love then shall fly, 
   None in thy Heart shall ever reign but I. 
   This said, he nodded to the Prince that brought 
   Him thither, who conceiv’d his Princes thought: 
   Doing obeisance both withdrew: and strait 
   Towards the Tree of Death they ambulate. 

So, having been given the Satanic nod for the go-ahead, they amble over to The Tree of Death, and Pordage gives it the full works descriptively:

   Thorow the midst a pitchy stream 
   (The which from Styx and other Rivers came) 
   Runs; this they follow till they saw it shoot 
   Its sooty waters, at the very Root 
   Of the mortiferous Tree; in there it fell 
   Conveighing thither all the dregs of Hell. 
   By which that Tree is nourished: He now 
   Lifts up his eyes, and that strange Tree doth view. 
   The trunck more hard than solid steel, for mosse, 
   With filthy spawn of Toads inclosed was, 
   Poyson of Asps instead of shining gum, 
   Thorow the bark from every limb did come. 
   Thrice fifty Cubits scarce could close about 
   Its mighty bole: on every limb stretch’d out 
   Hung crawling Vipers, sucking with delight 
   The juyce of Henbane , and of Aconite 
   From off the leaves, which gave a filthy stink, 
   And were more black than Pitch, or blackest ink. 
   An horrid blast arising from the ground 
   Concusse the leaves, which make a dryery sound 
   In their forc’t Kissing: Bitterer then soot 
   Mixed with Gall, and Wormwood’s juyce, the fruit 
   Was, which thick sparsed here, and there did grow, 
   In sundry colours on each sable bow. 
   A while he views this Tree: Hel’s horrid Fiend 
   From’s smoky throat at last these words doth send. 

   Seest thou this stately Tree, those Fruits I wis 
   Are our Ambrosia; and our Nectar is 
   That humid juice you see; no other food 
   But what grows here our Prince esteemeth good. 

The Tree of Death closely follows the characteristics of the trees in Paradise: it has no seasons, but bears its horrible fruit continuously:

   No Winter with its nipping frosts bereaves 
   This lurid Tree of there his sable leaves: 
   Nor leaves, nor blossoms adds the spring unto’t: 
   Nor yellow Autumn robs it of its Fruit, 
   It thus continues as it is, and tho 
   We daily feed thereon it doth not grow 
   Barren of Fruit, for tho we cul apace 
   Others supply straitway their vacant place, 
   And should we off the Fruit we see now pull, 
   Next moment renders it again as full. 
   We need not fear but here is choyce enough, 
   For every Prince hath here his several bough. 
   Yon’ fair-spread arm whose fruit so rarely dy’d, 
   Spec’t like the Peacock’s tail, yields food for Pride . 
   Yon Snake-betwisted bow, Toad-specled fruit 
   Doth best the slavering Chaps of Envy sute. 
   Yon’ sire-coloured Pome loves mighty wrath : 
   Lust thinks that jetty Apple better worth. 
   Yon’ mighty Limb which beareth Apples thrice 
   As big as all the rest, Loves Avarice ; 
   Yon’ juicy Fruit which liquor doth express 
   Thorow the skin loves beastly Drunkennesse . 
   And those two thick fruit-pressed limbs close by, 
   Belongs to wantonness, and gluttony . 
   On that feeds sloth, and that arm which you there 
   Behold doth serve the Table of despair. 
   Yon’ strange-shap’d Fruit, which on that bow you see, 
   Is suck’d upon by foul-mouth’d Perjury: 
   It’s endless to name all: Rare Fruit beside 
   All these, we have upon the other side. 

As in Pordage’s account of the Temptation of Eve, the devil is keen to draw attention to the tempting nature of the fruit itself:

   Step hither, look! here’s gallant Fruit indeed; 
   Here ‘tis, and if you please, that you shall feed; 
   These are the Fruits will ope your dimmer eyes, 
   Will make you subtle, and exceeding wise. 
   These, these will shew the virtue of this Tree; 
   And I will tell you what those Apples be. 
   Seest that fair one with Crimson-circles deckt, 
   And here and there with Characters bespec’t? 

After that rather tedious passage about the fruit the tree bears for allegorical qualities like Perjury, Envy, Lust, there is rather more interest in the fruit which the Tree of Death bears for the ambitious academic, in more or less any subject discipline:


   Should’st thou eat that as good a linguist strait 
   Should be, as he that seven years had sat 
   Poring on books, enduring cold, and pain 
   A Language, or some Rhetorick to gain: 
   The juice of this fine fruit did Herod lick, 
   When he a God was styl’d for’s Rhetorick. 
   And that round apple, which hangs dangling there, 
   Will make you be a cunning Sophister. 
   Yon apple which is so variegate, 
   Will make you cunning in mechanicks strait. 
   This Apple here which hangs so fair to view; 
   With Mathematick cunning will imbue; 
   See what Cylindres, and Rhomboides 
   What Quadrats, Diagramms, Isoce’les 
   With other lines, and figures printed in 
   Black, red, and yellow streakes upon the skin; 
   These shew its Nature. But yon with a Star 
   So fairly mark’d, makes an Astrologer : 
   Should’st thou eat this which hangeth over us 
   More cunning then was Æsculapius 
   Thou’ldst be; and skilfull too in Chiron’s art 
   If that, which hangeth on that bow a th’ wart. 
   But yon fair fruit which takes up so much room, 
   Will make you know before what is to come: 
   Of this did Baalam often feed, when he 
   Did by our divination Prophesie? 
   In former time this Apple was in use 
   Much, when Delphean Priests did suck the juice: 
   And on the next they fed, when they in verse 
   Their Oracles did usually reherse. 

   But yon five Apples which I shew you now, 
   And which do triumph on the upper bough, 
   Shall be thy food: See here I’ll reach them down, 
   Make much of them, for now they are thine own, 
   Well may’st thou prize them, Heav’n nor Earth such fruit 
   Can give, which may so well thy nature suit. 
   These with thee take, and feed upon below: 
   But first to thee I will their virtues show. 

   This purple colour’d one more cold than Ice, 
   Or Riphæan snow, extinguish in a trice 
   Will that Scintilla Love hath plac’d in thee: 
   Then shalt thou wholly from his chains be free. 
   Floods of temptations, nor whole streams of sin, 
   Nor pleasures, which the World may draw you in, 
   Are strong enough to dout that little spark, 
   Which closely gloweth in thy hollow ark. 
   Well may they cloak it that it may not flame, 
   But ‘tis this fruit that must put out the same. 
   This next although more black than pitch it be, 
   Will firmly glew together Hell, and thee: 
   A thousand chains shall sooner break, than this 
   Resolve thee, of so strong a nature ‘tis. 
   With all Hel’s Peers, and our great Prince you wil 
   By it hold highest Correspondence still. 
   By this third, snaky-colour’d one, below 
   Thou shalt most strange-amazing Wonders do. 
   Th’ Eternal flames which wend above the sky, 
   Unto the Earth thou may’st call by and by: 
   The Hyperborean sconce thou mayst command, 
   To oestuate the Sea to Mountains; and 
   Mayst at thy bidding Taurus rend in twain: 
   Or Atlas fling into the Western main. 
   This reddish one bespotted thus with jet, 
   The lock’d gates of thy senses ope will set; 
   Your quicker eyes although on Earth you stand 
   Shall pierce the Centre of our darker Land: 
   Then shall you see us when you please, and know 
   How that your Prince, and we your Brothers do: 
   Our shriller voices shall assault your ear: 
   Your nose shall smell the sulphur of our Sphear: 

   And our hot breaths, feel blowing in your face; 
   Our Kingdom’s dainties tast in every place, 
   Banquet and deeply drink with us: so you 
   May be on Earth, and in our Kingdom too. 

The final fruit of the Tree of Death loops us back to witchcraft as described by Pordage earlier in the poem: it is a ‘Teter’ fruit, that enables you to call up evil spirits. Simon Magus and Doctor Faustus were previous consumers, the fruit having of course regenerated after they had partly glutted themselves upon it. And this is the one the unnamed, never un-nerved magician takes and eats, so completing his investiture into his role as chief magician of hell:

   By this last teter one, all evil Sprites 
   That b’longs to Hell, to please you with delights 
   You when you please may call, nay if you will 
   Ten thousand Legions shall attend you still. 
   All that belongs toth’ Necromancy Art, 
   And Conjuration ‘twill to you impart; 
   That at your beck from hence you may adjure, 
   The blackest Fiend to be your servitour. 
   Jannes and Jambres, Simon and Faustus eat 
   (Tho not to fill them) of this pretious meat. 
   See now what power thou’rt indued with, 
   By these rare fruits pluck’d from the Tree of Death: 
   The gold of In’d, nor Peru, not the Seas 
   Rich Treasure purchase may such Fruits as these, 
   The fabuliz’d Hesperian fruit of old, 
   Were dirt to these, although they were of Gold. 
   Come now thou great Magitian thou shalt go 
   Unto the Body, which remains below; 
   Our Pomp, and Power, thou hast seen, and I 
   To you our Kingdom’s nature did descry: 
   You need no conduct hither now, for when 
   You please, you may come visit us agen. 
   This said: he strait his body reassumes, 
   And thus Hel’s great Magitian becomes. 

Pordage’s poem would probably have been more important if the teachings of Boehme had taken off in England like, say, Methodism did. He has no obvious poetic merits beyond fluency. His vocabulary occasionally throws up some quirky latinate monstrosity – ‘pinguitude’, ‘anguiferous’, ‘ambulate’, ‘mortiferous’. It’s interesting that the various rival brands of Christianity in the 17^th century produce competing Creation-Fall poems: Pordage’s Behmenism, Lucy Hutchinson’s Calvinism, alongside Milton’s epic, which Anglican orthodoxy, braced by the music of Haydn and the criticism of Johnson and Addison could accept (though attentive readers can spot where the cracks have been papered over).

How to Vanish a Glass of Beer: Hocus Pocus, 1634

My colleague and friend Professor Adam Roberts, who writes novels and updates his blogs by prestidigitation

http://punkadiddle.blogspot.com/

draws my attention to

http://www.bookride.com/2009/08/hocus-pocus-1.html

an account of “the object of great desire by collectors of conjuring books - it is the first devoted exclusively to magic as a performing art”, Hocus Pocus Junior The anatomy of legerdemain. Or, The art of iugling set forth in his proper colours, fully, plainly, and exactly; so that an ignorant person may thereby learn the full perfection of the same, after a little practise.

I was delighted to hear of this book, new to me, as 1634 is such an appropriate year for such a work to have appeared: the year of Heywood and Brome’s The Late Lancashire Witches, a play which certainly put some conjuring tricks with carefully prepared props onto the London stage, and the year of Milton’s Comus (“Thus I hurl / My dazling Spells into the spungy ayr, / Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, / And give it false presentments.”)

Hocus Pocus Junior is, by and large, hocus pocus itself: if you bought a copy, you had bought chapters 22 to 34 of Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft. Here are the tricks with cup and balls, coins (“the best piece for conveyance is a Tester, but with practice all will be alike”, this practice-minded redactor tells us, as Scot did before him), pieces of lace, along with instructions on how to construct trick boxes and other props.

Just how word-for-word the two texts can be is shown in two passages describing the same trick of palming a coin

Hocus Pocus Junior:

How to convey money out of one of your hands into the other by Legerdemaine.

FIrst, you must hold open your right hand, and lay therein a Tester, or some big peece of money, then lay thereupon the top of your long left finger, and use some words of Art, and upon the sudden, slip your right hand from your finger, wherewith you held downe the Tester, and bending your hand a very little, you shall retaine the Tester still therein, and suddenly drawing your right hand thorow your left, you shall seem to have left the Tester there, especially when you shut in due time your left hand. Which that it may more plainly appeare to be truly done, you may take a knife, and seeme to knocke against it, so as it shall make a great sound: but instead of knocking the peece in the left hand (where none is) you shall hold the point of the knife fast with the left hand, and knock against the Tester held in the other hand, and it will be thought to hit against the money in your left hand. Then after some words of Art pronounced, open your hand, and when nothing is seen, it will bee wondered at, how the Tester came removed.

Text in Scot:

To Convey Money out of one of your hands into the other by Legierdemain.

FIrst you must hold open your right hand, and lay therein a Testor, or some big piece of Money: then lay thereupon the top of your long left finger, and use words, and upon the sudden slip your right hand from your finger wherewith you held down the Testor, and bending your hand a very little, you shall retain the Testor still therein, and suddenly (I say) drawing your right hand through your left, you shall seem to have left the Testor there, specially when you shut in due time your left hand. Which that it may more plainly appear to be truly done, you may take a Knife, and seem to knock against it, so as it shall make a great sound, but instead of knocking the piece in the left hand (where none is) you shall hold the point of the Knife fast with the left hand, and knock against the Testor held in the other hand, and it will be thought to hit against the Money in the left hand. Then use words, and open your hand, and when nothing is seen, it will be wondred at how the Testor was removed."

The only difference is that Hocus Pocus Junior is instructing a would-be performer, so he is a little more emphatic about the ‘words of art’. At the start of his tract, the later writer outlines the basic requirements for successful performance: presence, speed, and well-timed misdirection:

“The Definition, or description of the Operator,

First, he must be one of an impudent and audatious spirit, so that hee may set a good face upon the matter.

Secondly, he must have a nimble and cleanly conveyance. Thirdly, hee must have strange termes, and emphaticall words, to grace and adorne his actions, and the more to astonish the beholders.

Fourthly, and lastly, such gestures of body as may leade away the spectators eies from a strict and diligent beholding his manner of conveyance.”

As Hocus Pocus Junior instructs a performer, we get to hear the rather rakish performance patter of the 17^th century stage conjurer: when a ball is found – surprise – to be under a cup: “do you see Gentlemen, they are snug’d like a young man and a Maid in bed together”, or an anecdote in which a simple trick of making coins seem to pass through a table top made acceptable by being framed as a retelling of a Faustus-like gulling of ordinary folk, in this case for a night’s free lodging and sex:

“Now sirs it was my fortune as I was travelling, to be benighted, and so forced to seeke for lodging, and as it happened, I tooke into an house of entertainment, where calling for my Ostesse, I drew my stocke, and said, what must I give you mine Ostesse for my meat, drinke, and lodging this night? My friend, quoth she, you must give me three French Crownes; with that I uncovered my boxe, and set it upon the Table (it must be done with the mouth of the boxe downward) tooke my boxe from off the Counters, and delivered her three from the top, saying, there they are; and casting my eye aside, I spyed a pretty lasse comming down the staires; Sweet-heart, said I to her, what shall I give thee to lye with thee this night?”

Hocus Pocus Junior also has various Latin magic words of command. These come to him from the original ‘Hocus Pocus’, whose performance routine is described in Thomas Ady’s sceptical tract (against too ready belief in witchcraft), A candle in the dark (1655):

“The first is profitably seen in our common Juglers, that go up and down to play their Tricks in Fayrs and Markets, I will speak of one man more excelling in that craft than others, that went about in King James his time, and long since, who called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was he called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery, because when the eye and the ear of the beholder are both earnestly busied, the Trick is not so easily discovered.”

When Hocus Pocus Junior ends his account of how to perform these deceptions, he partly seeks to gain the credit of a ‘coney-catching’ pamphlet: his reader will have a notion of how all tricks are performed. But there is also a belated acknowledgement of the other means by which tricks might be performed, tricks that no-one can penetrate, because the confederate of the performer is the devil himself:

“If thou rightly understand this, there is not a trick that any jugler in the world can shew thee, but thou shalt bee able to conceive after what manner it is performed, if he doe it by a slight of hand, and not by an unlawfull and detested meanes. That there are such it is not to be doubted of, that doe work by unlawfull means, and have besides their own naturall endowments the assistance of some familiar.”

I leave with Thomas Ady’s brilliant account of just how far 17^th century performers were willing to go in playing with fire, a juggler equipped with a spring-loaded artificial ‘familiar spirit’, who keeps popping up into view, part the naughty puppet in the vein of Rod Hull’s ‘Emu’, part credible diabolic imp:

“First, A Jugler knowing the common tradition, and foolish opinion that a familiar Spirit in some bodily shape must be had for the doing of strange things, beyond the Vulgar capacity, he therefore carrieth about him the skin of a Mouse stopped with feathers, or some like Artificial thing, and in the hinder part thereof sticketh a small springing Wire of about a foot long, or longer, and when he begins to act his part in a Fayr, or a Market before Vulgar people, he bringeth forth his Impe, and maketh it spring from him once or twice upon the Table, and then catcheth it up, saying, would you be gone? I will make you stay and play some Tricks for me before you go, and then he nimbly sticketh one end of the Wire upon his waste, and maketh his Impe spring up three or four times to his shoulder, and nimbly catcheth it, and pulleth it down again every time, saying, Would you be gone? in troth if you be gone I can play no Tricks, or Feats of Activity to day, and then holdeth it fast in one hand, and beateth it with the other, and slily maketh a squeeking noyse with his lips, as if his Impe cried, and then putteth his Impe in his breeches, or in his pocket, saying, I will make you stay, would you be gone? Then begin the silly people to wonder, and whisper, then he sheweth many slights of activity as if he did them by the help of his Familiar, which the silliest sort of beholders do verily beleeve; amongst which he espyeth one or other young Boy or Wench, and layeth a tester or shilling in his hand wetted, and biddeth him hold it fast, but whilst the said Boy, or silly Wench thinketh to enclose the peece of silver fast in the hand, he nimbly taketh it away with his finger, and hasteneth the holder of it to close his hand, saying, Hold fast or it will be gone, and then mumbleth certain words, and crieth by the vertue of Hocus, Pocus, hay passe prestor, be gone; now open your hand, and the silly Boy or Wench, and the beholders stand amazed to see that there is nothing left in the hand.”

As for the glass of beer? It's easy enough, but you will get wet: "Though you spill a part of the Beere, it is no matter, neither is it any disgrace unto it; besides you may put it off very well."

An alchemical coin: the rose noble of Edward III

I am to lecture, for the first time in some years, on Ben Jonson. Starting to think about The Alchemist made me think of one of the coins I would dearly love to own, but could never afford, an Edward III rose noble.

William Camden mentions this about the reputation of this wonderful medieval coin in the early modern period:

“The first gold that K(ing) Edw. 3. coyned, was in the yeare 1343, and the peeces were called Florences, because Florentines were the coyners, as Easterlings of Sterling money: Shortly after he coyned Nobles, of noble, faire & fine gold, the penny of gold; afterward the Rose Noble then current for 6, shillings 8. pence, & which our Alchimists do affirme (as an unwritten verity) was made by projection or multiplication Alchimicall of Raymond Lully in the Tower of London, who wold prove it as Alchmically, beside the tradition of the Rabbies in that faculty, by the inscription; for as upon the one side there is the kings image, in a shippe to notifie that he was Lord of the seas, with his titles, set upon the reverse a crosse floury with Lioneux, inscribed Jeus autem transiens per medium eorum ibat. Which they profoundly expound, as Jesus passed invisible & in most secret manner by the middest of Pharisees, so that gold was made by invisible and secret art amidst the ignorant. But other say that text was the onely Amulet used in that credulous warfaring age to escape dangers in battailes.”

Remaines concerning Britaine (1636), p.187.

The inscription on the edge of the reverse does indeed spell out:

“IhC . AVTEm . TRAIICIEIIS . P . mEDIVm . ILLORVm . IBAT”

which is from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

28. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. 29. And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. 30. But he passing through the midst of them went his way.

No wonder this mysterious inscription caused the coin to acquire a magical aura, as amulet or product of transmutation. Thomas Warton in his The History of English Poetry touches on the alchemical poetry of the period, and mentions Lully as having used false promises to Edward III: “Norton's heroes in the occult sciences are Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Raymond Lully, to whose specious promises of supplying the coinage of England with inexhaustible mines of philosophical gold, king Edward the third became an illustrious dupe.”

Jonson knows about Lully: Nano’s song in Volpone contains an allusion to his ownership of the elixir (though nothing compared to Scoto’s oil):

Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,

That to their books put med'cines all in,

But known this secret, they had never

(Of which they will be guilty ever)

Been murderers of so much paper,

Or wasted many a hurtless taper;

No Indian drug had e'er been famed,

Tabacco, sassafras not named;

Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir,

Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir.

He wanted to believe: Elias Ashmole edits poems of alchemy

When the virtuoso Elias Ashmole got married for the second time, to the older but wealthier Lady Mainwaring, it was so as to “be enabled to live to my selfe & Studies, without being forced to take paines for a livelyhood in the world”. Thus tenured, and without any teaching or examining to interrupt, he devoted himself to abstruse research. He was a student of alchemy, astrologer, collector, student of heraldry, and was the first known Englishman known inducted into the Masons.

I am lost in the wondrous lumber contained in his Theatrum chemicum Britannicum· Containing severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philosophers, who have written the hermetique mysteries in their owne ancient language. / Faithfully collected into one volume, with annotations thereon (1652).

As the title indicates, it is an anthology of poems about alchemy, including Chaucer’s ‘The Canon Yeoman’s Tale’, generously included by the all-believing editor for its exposure of fraudulence. Ashmole contributes a rhapsodic introduction. In this first extract, he is talking about the variety of philosopher’s stones. I didn’t know there were quite many varieties, all of which increase perfection in value or knowledge:

“And first, of the Minerall Stone, the which is wrought up to the degree onely that hath the power of Transmuting and Imperfect Earthy Matter into its utmost degree of Perfection; that is, to convert the basest of Metalls into perfect Gold and Silver; Flints into all manner of Precious Stones…

…Next, to come to the Vegitable, magicall, and Angelicall Stones …

By the Vegitable may be perfectly known the Nature of Man, Beasts, Foules, Fishes, together with all kinds of Trees, Plants, Flowers &c, and how to make them Grow, Flourish & bear Fruit; how to encrease them in Colour and Smell, and when and where we please …

By the Magicall or Prospective Stone it is possible to discover any Person in what part of the World soever, although never so secretly conealed or hid; in Chambers, Closets, or Cavernes of the Earth: For there it makes a strict Inquisition … Nay more, It enables Man to understand the Language of the Creatures, as the Chirping of Birds, Lowing of Beasts &c

Lastly, as touching the Angelicall Stone, it is so subtill… that it can neither be seene, felt, or weighed; but Tasted only … It hath a Divine Power, Celestiall, and Invisible, above the rest; and endowes the possessor with Divine Gifts. It affords the Apparition of Angells, and gives the power of conversing with them, by Dreams and Revelations: nor dare any Evill Spirit approach the Place where it lodgeth.”

Besides his Prolegomena to the alchemical texts, Ashmole provides a set of explanatory notes, which also allow him to expatiate on his enthusiasms. He had some of John Dee’s manuscripts, delivered to him after being found in a secret compartment in a piece of furniture that had once belonged to Dee. The following is a very famous anecdote about a reputed projection of precious from base metal. I have seen it strangely transmuted into an account of Kelly turning part of a shovel into gold. But here it is in an authentic 17^th century form, with suitably mystical provenance for the ‘Elixir’:

“ 'Tis generally reported that Doctor Dee, and Sir Edward Kelly were so strangely fortunate, as to find a very large quantity of the Elixir in some part of the Ruines of Glastenbury-Abbey, which was so incredibly Rich in virtue (being one upon 272330) that they lost much in making Projection, by way of Trialls; before they found out the true height of the Medicine.

And no sooner were they Masters of this Treasure, then they resolved to Travell into Forraigne Parts … And whether they found it at Glastenbury (as is aforesaid) or howsoever else they came by it, 'tis certain they had it: for at Trebona in Bohemia (whither they were come to dwell) Sir Edward Kelley made Projection with one small graine thereof (in proportion no bigger then the least graine of sand) upon one Ounce and a Quarter of Common Mercury, and it produced almost an ounce of most pure Gold … for a nearer and later Testimony, I have received it from a credible Person, that one Broomfield and Alexander Roberts, told him they had often seen Sir Ed: Kelly make Projection, and in particular upon a piece of Metall cut out of a Warming pan, and without Sir Edwards touching or handling it, or melting the Metall (onely warming it in the Fire) the Elixir being put thereon, it was Transmuted into pure Silver: The Warming-pan and this piece of it, was sent to Queen Elizabeth by her Embassador who then lay at Prague, that by fitting the Piece whence it was cut out, it might exactly appear to be once part of that Warming-pan. The aforesaid Person hath likewise seen in the hands of one Master Frye and Scroope, Ringes of Sir Edward Kellyes Gold, the fashion of which was onely Gold Wyre, twisted thrice about the Finger: and of these fashioned Rings, he gave away, to the value of 4000l. at the Marriage of one of his Servant Maides. This was highly Generous, but to say truth he was openly Profuse, beyond the modest Limits of a Sober Philosopher.”

My illustration comes from the anthology, which Ashmole had richly illustrated. In one of his notes he reports his engraver begging everyone's pardon "for giving the Gryphons hinder feete, those cloven ones of a hogge, instead of the ungued pawes of a Lion" during Ashmole's absence from the press, for our author cared deeply about getting all these imaginary things exactly right.