long time, who believe in magic, witches, and supernatural appearances; but the statement is hardly true, seeing how easily the country people fall a prey to the first cheat who chooses to invest himself with supernatural powers. We have sufficiently ridiculed the superstitions of the ancients, and numberless instances may be adduced which are a shame to their intelligence, and which gives, so to speak, a denial to the stories we have heard of their high state of civilization. But I believe, if we were to make a collection of all the stories of ghosts, of mysterious appearances, of communications between the living and the departed, of the discoveries of hidden treasures, &c., &c., which have taken place even since the Revolution, before whose power so many dark things have been brought to light, the collection would hardly be less bulky than that of the ancient superstitions now happily passed away."
Robertson then goes on to take great credit to himself for showing the world that all the superstitions concerning ghosts, spectral appearances, and other illusions of a similar nature, were to be easily accomplished, by simply studying natural laws. He appears first to have begun his optical experiments with the solar microscope, and we hear of his landlord taking an action against him to recover damages for having pierced the doors of his rooms with innumerable holes. He studied the subject both theoretically and practically for many years, in company with his friend Villette, and at last announced a public séance at the Pavillon de l'Echiquier at Paris. A multitude of advertisements and prospectuses, written in the high-flown style of the time, were issued, and distributed throughout the city. The newspapers of the day are full of accounts of the extraordinary impression made on the minds of the Parisians by Robertson's wonderful exhibition. The old-fashioned word magic lantern was quite abandoned, and the new
