"Sometimes a bold rope-dancer is to be seen, who walks on the rope, till at last he breaks his leg, or falls headlong; or a daring Turkish juggler who lies on the ground, and allows himself to be struck on the chest by a great hammer, as if he were an anvil; or by a jerk, tears up a big pile which has been driven by force into the ground, whereby he obtains a good sum for his journey to Mecca.
"Sometimes a baptized Jew makes his appearance, who bawls and cries out, till at length he collects a few people, when he begins to preach about his conversion; whereby one comes to this conclusion, that he has become a crafty vagrant instead of a pious Christian.
"In short there is no market-place, either in village or town, where some of these fellows are not to be found, who either perform divers facetious juggling tricks, or sell various drugs.
"These are the tricks of charlatans, strollers, and jugglers, and other idle people, whereby they get on in the world."
Here ends the narrative of Garzoni. Numberless light-footed people also of the same class thronged into the German market towns. But besides the old traders and jugglers, a new class of strollers had come into Germany, harmless people of far higher interest for these days, the wandering comedians. The first players that made a profession of their performances came to Germany from England or the Netherlands, towards the end of the sixteenth century. They were still accompanied with rope dancers, jumpers, fencers, and horsebreakers; they still continued to furnish the courts of princes and the market-places of great cities with clowns and the favourite figure of jack-puddings, and soon after, the French "Jean Posset," on bad boarded platforms still continued to excite the uproarious laughter of the easily amused multitude. Shortly after, the popular masques of the Italian theatre became familiar in the south of Germany and on the Rhine. At the same time that the regular circulation of newspapers commenced, the people received the rough beginnings of art; the representation of human character and the secret emotions of restless souls by the play of countenance, gestures, and the deceptive illusion of action.
It is remarkable also, that almost precisely at the same period, the first entertaining novels were written for the people. And these spontaneously invented pictures of real life had reference to the strolling people; for the adventures of vagrants, disbanded soldiers, and in short all those who had travelled in foreign countries, and had seen there an abundance of marvels, and undergone the most terrible dangers with almost invulnerable bodies, were the heroes of these imperfect creations of art. Shortly after the war, Christoph von Grimmelshausen wrote 'Simplicissimus,' 'Springinsfeld,' 'Landstörzerin Courage,' and the 'Wonderful Vogelnest,' the heroes of which are gathered from strollers; these were followed by a flood of novels describing the lives of rogues and of adventurers.
The war had rendered the existence of the settled population joyless, their manners coarse, and their morals lax. And the craving for excitement was general. Thus at first these modes of representation allured, by bestowing what was wanting to this ungenial life. They endeavoured with much detail to represent either an ideal life of distinguished and refined persons, under entirely foreign conditions, such as antique shepherds, and foreign princes without nationalities; this was done by the highly educated; or they tried at least to ennoble common life, by introducing into it abstractions not less coarse and soulless, virtues and vices, mythological and allegorical figures; or they caught endless materials from the lowest circles of life, to whom they felt themselves superior, but in whose strange mode of life there was something alluring: they depicted strollers or represented clowns and fools; and this last development of art was the soundest. Thus these rough families of jugglers, buffoons, and rogues were of the utmost significance to the beginning of the drama, theatrical art, and novels.
But besides the numerous companies, who wandered about either modestly on foot or in carts, vagrants of higher pretensions rode through the country, some of them still more objectionable. To be able to prognosticate the future, to gain dominion over the spirits of the elements, to make gold, and to renew the vigour of youth in old age, had for many centuries been the longing desire of the covetous and inquisitive. Those who promised these things to the Germans were generally Italians or other foreigners; or natives of the country, who had, according to the old saying, been thrice to Rome. When the new zeal for the restoration of the Church brought good and bad alike before the tribunal of the inquisition in Italy, the emigration of those whose lives were insecure must have been very numerous. It is probably from the life of one of these charlatans that the adventures of Faust have been gathered and formed into the old popular tale. After Luther's death, it is evident that they penetrated into the courts of the German princes. It was an adventurer of this kind, "Jerome Scotus," who, in 1593, at Coburg, estranged the unhappy Duchess Anna of Saxe Coburg from her husband, and brought her into his own power by villainous means. Vain were the endeavours of the Duke to obtain the extradition of Scotus from Hamburg, where he lived long in princely luxury. Five-and-thirty years before, the father of the Duke Johann Friedrich, the Middle-sized, was long deluded by an impudent impostor, who gave herself out to be Anne of Cleves (the wife who had been selected for Henry VIII. of England), and promised him a great treasure of gold and jewels if he chose to protect her. Another piece of credulity bore bitter fruits to the same prince, for the influence which Wilhelm of Grumbach, the haggard old wolf from the herd of the wild Albrecht of Brandenburg, gained over the Duke, rested on his foolish prophecies concerning the Electoral dignity and prodigious treasures. A poor weak-minded boy who was maintained by Grumbach, had intercourse with angels who dwelt in the air-hole of a cellar, and declared themselves ready to produce gold, and bring to light a mine for the Duke. It may be perceived from judicial records, that the little angels of the peasant child had a similarity, unfavourable to their credibility, to our little old dwarfs.
There was at Berlin, about the time of Scotus, one Leonhard Turneysser, a charlatan, more citizen-like in his occupation, who worked as gold maker and prepared horoscopes; he escaped by flight the dismal fate, which almost always overtook his fellows of the same vocation who did not change their locality soon enough. The Emperor Rudolph also became a great adept, and amalgamated in the gold crucible both his political honour and his own Imperial throne. The princes of the seventeenth century at least show the intense interest of dilettanti. During the war the art of making gold became very desirable. At that period, therefore, the adepts thronged to the armies; the more needy the times, the more numerous and brilliant became the stories of alchemy. It was proposed by an enthusiastic worshipper of Gustavus Adolphus, to make gold out of lead; and in the presence of the Emperor Ferdinand III. many pounds of gold were to be made, by one grain of red powder, from quicksilver; a gigantic coin also was to be struck from the same metal. After the peace, the adepts resided at all the courts; there were few dwellings where the hearth and the retorts were not heated for secret operations. But every one had to beware how he trifled with the reigning powers, as the paws of the princely lions might be raised against him for his destruction. Those who could not make gold were confined in prison, and those who were under suspicion, yet could fabricate something, were equally put in close confinement. The Italian Count Cajetan was hanged in a gilded dress, on a gallows at Küstrin the beams of which were adorned with cut gold; the German Rector von Klettenberg was beheaded at Königstein, where fourteen years before, Böttiger was kept in strict cloistral confinement, because he had produced innocent porcelain instead of gold. There is no doubt that it was the case with the adepts and astrologers, as it ever has been with the leaders of a prevailing superstition, that they were themselves convinced of the truth of their art; but they had strong doubts of their own knowledge, and they deceived others as to their success, either because they were seeking the means to attain to greater results, or because they wished to appear, to the world, to understand what they considered of importance. These however were not the worst of the lot.
The most mischievous of all were, perhaps, the skilful impostors, who appeared in Germany, France, and England, with foreign titles of distinction, shining with the glimmer of secret art, sometimes the propagators of the most disgraceful vices, shadowy figures, who by their worldly wisdom and the limited intercourse of nations were enabled to bring themselves into notoriety. Their experience, their deceptions, their secret successes, for a long period overpoweringly excited the fancies of Germans. Even Goethe considered it worth his while to repair to the spot and set on foot serious investigations as to the origin of Cagliostro.