a kind of people whose profession has not been often deemed either respectable or useful. Yet Professor Beckmann defends them, and pleads ably the cause of the practitioners of legerdemain, in the third volume of his History of Inventions, including rope-dancers, and such as exhibit feats of uncommon strength. He places all these under the general denomination of jugglers; and taking it for granted 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 art of juggling.

"These arts, he observes, are not unprofitable, for they afford a comfortable subsistence to those who practise them, which they usually spend upon the spot, and this he considers as a good reason why their stay in a place ought to be encouraged. He is also of opinion that 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 convey instruction in the most acceptable manner, and serve as an antidote to superstition. We scarcely think, however, that it is innocent to entice the labouring poor, by useless deceptions, to part with their hard-earned pittance to idle vagabonds, whose life cannot be comfortable, which is palled amidst scenes of the most grovelling dissipation.

Juggling is certainly of very great antiquity. The deception of breathing out flames was practised by some of the slaves in Sicily about 150 years before the commencement of the Christian era. It is, however, practised in modern times with much greater dexterity. The ancients made use of naphtha, a liquid mineral oil, which kindles when it only approaches a flame. According to Plutarch, Alexander the Great was astonished and delighted with the secret effects of naphtha, which were exhibited to him at Ecbatana. Wonder has been excited in modern times by persons who could walk over burning coals or red-hot iron, which is easily done by rendering the skin of the feet callous and insensible, so that the nerves under it are secured from injury. We are told by Beckmann, that the Hirpi, who dwelt near Rome, jumped through burning coals; that women were accustomed to walk over burning coals at Castrabala, near the temple dedicated to Diana; that the exhibition of balls and cups is often mentioned in the works of the ancients; and that the various feats of horsemanship exhibited in our circuses passed, in the 13th century, from Egypt to the Byzantine court, and thence over all Europe.