JUGGLERS are a kind of people whose profession has not been often deemed either respectable or useful. Professor Beckmann, however, has undertaken their defence; and in a long and learned chapter in the third volume of his History of Inventions, pleads the cause of the practitioners of legerdemain; rope-dancers; persons who place their bodies in positions apparently dangerous; and of those who exhibit feats of uncommon strength. All these men he classes under the general denomination of Jugglers; and taking it for granted (surely upon no good grounds) that every useful employment is full, he contends, that there would not be room on the earth for all its present inhabitants did not some of them practise the arts of Juggling. "These arts (says he) are indeed not unprofitable, for they afford a comfortable subsistence to those who practise them; but their gain is acquired by too little labour to be hoarded up; and, in general, these roving people spend on the spot the fruits of their ingenuity; which is an additional reason why their stay in a place should be encouraged. But farther, it often happens, that what ignorant persons first employ, merely as a show, for amusement or deception, is afterwards ennobled by being applied to a more important purpose. The machine with which a Savoyard, by means of shadows, amused children and the populace, was by Liberkühn converted into a solar microscope; and, to give one example more, the art of making ice in summer, or in a heated oven, enables guests, much to the credit of their hosts, to cool the most expensive dishes. The Indian discovers precious stones, and the European, by polishing, gives them a lustre. "But, if the arts of juggling served no other end than to amuse the most ignorant of our citizens, it is proper that they should be encouraged for the sake of those who cannot enjoy the more expensive deceptions of an opera. They answer other purposes, however, than that of merely amusing: they convey instruction in the most acceptable manner, and serve as an agreeable antidote to superstition, and to that popular belief in miracles, exorcism, conjuration, sorcery, and witchcraft, from which our ancestors suffered so severely." Surely this reasoning, as well as the cause in which it is brought forward, is unworthy of the learning of Beckmann. It is indeed true, that jugglers spend their money freely, and that their arts afford them the means of subsistence; but it is very seldom, as our author must know, that they subsist either comfortably or innocently. Is it innocent to entice the ignorant and labouring poor, by useless deceptions, to part with their hard-earned pittance to idle vagabonds? or is the life of those vagabonds comfortable, when it is passed amid scenes of the most grovelling dissipation? Jugglers spend indeed their money, for the most part, on the spot where it is gained; but they spend it in drunkenness, and other seducing vices, which corrupt their own morals and the morals of all with whom they associate; and therefore their stay in a place should certainly not be encouraged. Could it be proved that the solar microscope would never have been invented, had not a Savoyard juggler contrived a similar machine to amuse children and the rabble, some stress might be laid on the service which such wretches have Jugglers have rendered to science: but where is the man that will suppose the philosophy of Bacon and Newton to rest upon the arts of juggling? or who considers the refinements of science as of equal value with the morals of the people? There is, at the moment in which this article is drawing up, a fellow exhibiting, before the windows of the writer's chamber, the most indecent scenes by means of puppets, and keeping the mob in a constant roar. Is he innocently employed? or will any good man say that there is not room for him in the armies which on the Continent are fighting in the cause of God and humanity? Our author endeavours to strengthen his reasoning by proving, which he does very completely, the antiquity of juggling. "The deception (says he) of breathing out flames, which at present excites, in a particular manner, the astonishment of the ignorant, is very ancient. When the slaves in Sicily, about a century and a half before our æra, made a formidable insurrection, and avenged themselves in a cruel manner for the severities which they had suffered, there was amongst them a Syrian named Eunus, a man of great craft and courage, who, having passed through many scenes of life, had become acquainted with a variety of arts. He pretended to have immediate communication with the gods; was the oracle and leader of his fellow slaves; and, as is usual on such occasions, confirmed his divine mission by miracles. When, heated by enthusiasm, he was desirous of inspiring his followers with courage, he breathed flames or sparks among them from his mouth while he was addressing them. We are told by historians, that for this purpose he pierced a nut-shell at both ends, and, having filled it with some burning substance, put it into his mouth and breathed through it. "This deception, at present, is performed much better. The juggler rolls together some flax or hemp, so as to form a ball about the size of a walnut; sets it on fire; and suffers it to burn till it is nearly consumed; he then rolls round it, while burning, some more flax; and by these means the fire may be retained in it for a long time. When he wishes to exhibit, he slips the ball unperceived into his mouth and breathes through it; which again revives the fire, so that a number of weak sparks proceed from it; and the performer sustains no hurt, provided he inspire the air not through the mouth but the nostrils. "For deceptions with fire the ancients employed also naphtha, a liquid mineral oil, which kindles when it only approaches a flame. (See NAPHTHA, Encycl.) Galen informs us, that a person excited great astonishment by extinguishing a candle and again lighting it, without any other process than holding it immediately against a wall or a stone. The whole secret of this consisted in having previously rubbed over the wall or stone with sulphur. But as the author, a few lines before, speaks of a mixture of sulphur and naphtha, we have reason to think that he alludes to the same here. Plutarch relates how Alexander the Great was astonished and delighted with the secret effects of naphtha, which were exhibited to him at Ecbatana. The same author, as well as Pliny, Galen, and others, has already remarked, that the substance with which Medea destroyed Creusa, the daughter of Creon, was nothing else than this fine oil. She sent to the unfortunate princess a dress besmeared with it, which burst into flames as soon as she approached the fire of the altar. The blood of Nessus, in which the dress of Hercules, which took fire likewise, had been dipped, was undoubtedly naphtha also; and this oil must have been always employed when offerings caught fire in an imperceptible manner. "In modern times, persons who could walk over burning coals or red-hot iron, or who could hold red-hot iron in their hands, have often excited wonder. But laying aside the deception sometimes practised on the spectators, the whole of this secret consists in rendering the skin of the soles of the feet and hands so callous and insensible, that the nerves under them are secured from all hurt, in the same manner as by shoes and gloves. Such callosity will be produced if the skin is continually compressed, singed, pricked, or injured in any other manner. Thus do the fingers of the industrious sempstress become horny by being frequently pricked; and the case is the same with the hands of fire-workers, and the feet of those who walk bare footed over scorching sand. "In the month of September 1765, when I visited (says our author) the copper-works at Awestad, one of the workmen, for a little drink-money, took some of the melted copper in his hand, and after shewing it to us, threw it against a wall. He then squeezed the fingers of his horny hand close to each other; put it a few minutes under his arm-pit, to make it sweat, as he said; and, taking it again out, drew it over a ladle filled with melted copper, some of which he skimmed off, and moved his hand backwards and forwards, very quickly, by way of ostentation. While I was viewing this performance, I remarked a smell like that of singed horn or leather, though his hand was not burnt. It is highly probable, that people who hold in their hands red-hot iron, or who walk upon it, as I saw done at Amsterdam, but at a distance, make their skin callous before, in the like manner. This may be accomplished by frequently moistening it with spirit of vitriol; according to some the juice of certain plants will produce the same effect; and we are assured by others, that the skin must be very frequently rubbed, for a long time, with oil, by which means, indeed, leather also will become horny." Our author then proves, in a very learned manner, that all these tricks were of high antiquity; that the Hirpi, who lived near Rome, jumped through burning coals; that women were accustomed to walk over burning coals at Callabala in Cappadocia, near the temple dedicated to Diana; that the exhibition of balls and cups (see LEGENDARIES, Encycl.) is often mentioned in the works of the ancients; that in the third century, one Firmus or Firmius, who endeavoured to make himself emperor in Egypt, suffered a smith to forge iron on an anvil placed on his breast; that rope-dancers with balancing poles are mentioned by Petronius and others; and that the various feats of horsemanship exhibited in our circuses passed, in the thirteenth century, from Egypt to the Byzantine court, and thence over all Europe.