Note. Ladies and Gentlemen Electrified.
All went well for a time, and the Temple was nightly crowded with silly people who paid their half-guineas, for the shilling of the advertisements only just admitted to the “body of the hall.” Sometimes there were magnificent illuminations and Elysian promenades for both ladies and gentlemen, to which persons in masks were also admitted. “The enchanting glory of these seemingly magical scenes,” said the advertisements, “will break forth about seven, and die away about ten o’clock; during which time Oriental odours and ætherial essences will perfume the air, while the hymænal sopha blazes forth with the plenitude of the soft lambent celestial fire.” Having opened such scenes to the eyes of the wondering world, the Doctor thus addresses his contemporaries in another advertisement:—
TEMPLE OF HEALTH AND HYMEN,
PALL MALL,
Near the King’s Palace.
IF there be one human Being, rich or poor, Male or Female, or of the doubtful Gender, in or near this great Metropolis of the World, who has not had the good Fortune and the Happiness of hearing the celebrated Lecture, and of seeing the grand celestial Bed, the magnificent electrical Apparatus, and the supremely brilliant and unique Decorations of this magical Edifice, of this enchanting Elysian Palace!—where Wit and Mirth, Love and Beauty—all that can delight the Soul and all that can ravish the Senses—will hold their Court, this, and every Evening this week, in chaste and joyous Assemblage—let them now come forth, or for ever afterwards let them blame themselves and bewail their irremediable Misfortune.
But the most important feature of Dr Graham’s establishment was the Celestial Bed. This wonder-working piece of furniture was made by one Denton,[39] a tinman, who lived in Coventry Street, and subsequently kept a bookseller’s shop in High Holborn, and it was said to have cost £12,000. It was beautifully carved and gilt, covered with silk damask, supported by twenty-eight glass pillars, and surmounted by a richly carved and gilt canopy, from which crimson silk curtains with fringe and tassels were suspended. Graham pretended that married couples without children might have heirs by sleeping in this bed, for which privilege he demanded one hundred pounds per night; and such is the folly of wealth, that persons of high rank were named who had acceded to these terms. This modern Æsculapius sold also for half a guinea a “Treatise on Health,” which was intended to render marriages happy, and entered into full particulars of the means to ensure this great and important object. After a long list of preliminary and necessary preparations, the principal of which was the utmost attention to cleanliness, the writer insisted on certain regulations. He recommended particularly the practice of early hours for rising and for retiring to rest. He advised that in bed-chambers the light, especially that of the moon, should not be excluded by curtains. He confessed he could give no sufficient reason for this predilection for the lunar rays, but observed that there are a thousand things in nature which exist without our being able to explain the reasons of their existence. He also advised married people to sing sometimes. “Music,” said he, “softens the mind of a happy couple, makes them all love, all harmony; their bodies, their souls unite, their existence is melted into a single being, which yields itself up with rapture to divine transports, and loses itself in an Elysium of bliss. In this state, this incessantly progressive enjoyment, the happy couple imagine themselves raised above this world, and become inhabitants of a superior region.” Thus he continued, till coming at last to the principal part of his discourse: “When the preliminary regimen which I have just described has been scrupulously observed and followed, and a new vigour has been acquired by drinking of the divine balm, which for the benefit of the human race, I have concocted with my own hand, and which, however, costs only a guinea a bottle, and when all these means have not proved sufficient for arriving at the end proposed, the last must then be absolutely applied to, that most extraordinary expedient which I alone possess, and which cannot fail. This agent is a most marvellous celestial bed, which I call magnetico-electric; it is the first, the only one in the world, or that ever existed. It is placed on the second floor, in a large and elegant hall, on the right hand of my orchestra, and immediately before my charming hermitage. In a neighbouring closet is placed a cylinder by which I communicate the celestial fire to the bed-chamber, that fluid which animates and vivifies all, and those cherishing vapours and Oriental perfumes, which I convey thither by means of tubes of glass. The celestial bed rests on six massy and transparent columns; coverings of purple, and curtains of celestial blue surround it, and the bed-clothes are perfumed with the most costly essences of Arabia: it is exactly similar to those that adorn the palaces in Persia, and to that of the favourite sultana in the seraglio of the Grand Turk. This bed is the fruit of the most laborious industry, and of the most indefatigable zeal. I will not mention the sums it has cost me: they are immense. I shall only add that I have omitted none of those precautions which decency and delicacy have a right to exact. Neither I, nor any of my people, are entitled to ask who are the persons that rest in this chamber, which I have denominated the Holy of Holies. This bed is never shown to those who come only to view the accessory parts. This precaution is as proper as it is delicate; for is there a being frigid enough to resist the influence of that pleasure, of those transports which this enchanting place inspires? It furnishes the grossest imagination with the means of refining its enjoyments, of multiplying its pleasures, and of carrying them to their highest degree. But the consequences are cruel; such dangerous refinements on the pleasures of the senses abridge the period of life, and relax the springs both of body and mind. Persons, however, who would penetrate to this throne of pleasure, are intreated to signify their desire to me in writing, and having appointed the night, and enclosed a bank-bill for fifty pounds, I shall furnish them with an admission ticket.” Ultimately, as the demand decreased, the price was reduced to twenty-five pounds, and it is said that even less was at times taken.
It is not to be supposed that Graham’s contemporaries, except the weakest and most idiotic, believed in the marvellous effects attributed to this bed, or supposed that the Doctor had any motive in making his statements other than those which generally actuate quacks, and lead them into exaggerations. He and certain rich voluptuaries worked very well together with regard to this couch, as may be gathered from various satirical allusions in newspapers of the time, caricatures, &c. It is certain that spendthrifts and men of pleasure were the most profitable customers of the great empiric. The more the “Holy of Holies” began to be visited, the more did Graham add to the luxury and magnificence of the place; but in the month of March 1784 the farce was played out, the Temple of Health was shut, and all the furniture and apparatus put up for public sale. All the paraphernalia which had cost so much money, and with which he was identified—the superb temple of Apollo, the immense electrical machine, the instruments of music which played incessantly, and even the famous celestial bed itself—all fell in one common ruin under the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer.
In a note which serves as a supplement to the description of the Celestial Bed, the Doctor adds: “Nothing is more surprising than the truly divine energy of this celestial and electric fire, which fills every part of the bed, as well as the magnetic fluid, both of them calculated to give the necessary degree of strength and exertion to the nerves. Besides the melodious tones of the harmonica, the soft sounds of a flute, the charms of an agreeable voice, and the harmonious notes of the organ, being all joined, how can the power and virtue of such a happy conjunction fail in raising sentiments of admiration and pleasure in the soul of the philosopher, and even of the physician?”
According to the advertisements, the descriptive exhibition of the apparatus in the daytime was conducted by an “officiating junior priest.” This office was filled by a young medical man named Mitford, afterwards well known as, among other things, father of the celebrated authoress. Graham’s expenses were very heavy, and when after a time his advertisements failed to draw he fell into poverty, and it is said died in very straitened circumstances near Glasgow.
[39] This Denton was a man of great mechanical skill, who made some very curious automaton figures. He was afterwards tried for coining, and acquitted on that charge, but was found guilty on a second count of having implements of coining in his possession. For this crime he was executed at Tyburn, on which occasion Dr Graham was present.