"This frantic humour continued from twelve till four, and then the Greeks first set out in a procession round the sepulchre, followed by the Armenians, and marched three times round it with their standards, streamers, crucifixes, and embroidered habits; and towards the end of the procession, a pidgeon came fluttering into the cupola over the sepulchre, at which the people redoubled their shouts and clamours, when the Latins told the English gentlemen, that this bird was let fly by the Greeks, to deceive the people with a belief that it was a visible descent of the Holy Ghost. The procession being over, the suffragan of the Greek patriarch, and the principal Armenian bishop, approached the door of the sepulchre, cut the string with which it was fastened, and breaking the seal, entered, shutting the door after them, all the candles and lamps within having been before extinguished in the presence of the Turks. As the accomplishment of the miracle drew near, the exclamations were redoubled, and the people pressed with such violence towards the door, that the Turks could not keep them off with the severest blows. This pressing forward was occasioned by the desire to light their candles at the holy flame as soon as it was brought out of the sepulchre. The two miracle-mongers had not been above a minute in the sepulchre, when the glimmering of the holy fire was seen through some chinks in the door, which made the mob as mad as any in bedlam; then presently came out the priests, with blazing torches in their hands, which they held up at the door of the sepulchre, while the people thronged with extraordinary zeal to obtain a part of the first and purest flame, though the Turks laid on with their clubs without mercy. Those who got the fire immediately applied it to their beards, faces, and bosoms, pretending that it would not burn like an earthly flame; but none of them would endure the experiment long enough to make good that pretension. However, so many tapers were presently lighted, that the whole church seemed in a blaze, and this illumination concluded the ceremony."
Maundrel afterwards observes, that the Latins take great pains to expose this ceremony as a shameful imposition, and a scandal to the Christian Religion: but the Greeks and Armenians, lay such stress upon it, that they make the pilgrimages chiefly on this account; and their priests have acted the cheat so long, that they are forced now to stand to it, for fear of endangering the apostacy of the people. They entertain many absurd ideas respecting the miraculous power of the holy fire. Even the melted wax of the candle, which had been lighted by it, is covered over with linen, and designed for winding-sheets; "for they imagine," says Maundrel, "that if they are buried in a shroud, smutted with this celestial fire, it will secure them from the flames of hell!"
Before concluding this article, we shall mention a subject highly interesting in optics, which, in some of its forms, was employed by the old magicians; we mean the phantasmagoria. The exhibitions of this kind, when first got up, drew the attention of Europeans, and particularly the French, who greatly improved the apparatus and machinery, and varied the forms and appearances. The principles of the phantasmagoria are described in every work on Natural Philosophy, which treats of optics. The Dictionnaire de l'Industrie, Encyclopedie Méthodique, Biot's Traité de Physique, in French and in English, the different treatises on philosophy and optics, particularly Dr. Smith's, the Cyclopedias, &c. contain either a description, or the principles of it. The third volume of Biot, especially, is full on the subject of optics. With regard, however, to the narrative and explanation of the appearance of the phantoms, and other figures, a subject which immediately concerns us, the account given by Mr. Nicholson, (Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chymistry, and the Arts, vol. i, p. 147.) is the most interesting. Connected with this optical illusion, is the imitation of lightning and thunder, which, from the account, appears also to have been performed.
The phantasmagoria may be considered nothing more than an application of the magic lantern, the invention of which is attributed to Roger Bacon, who was a contemporary with Vitellio, a native of Poland, who published a treatise on optics, in 1270. John Babtista Porta, of Naples, who discovered the camera obscura, having formed a society of ingenious persons at Naples, which he called the Academy of Secrets, wrote the Magia Naturalis, containing his account of this instrument, and, it is said, the first hint of the magic lantern. Kircher, it is known, received his first information of the magic lantern from this book, and afterwards improved it.
Adams (Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, vol. ii, p. 232. Appendix by the English editor) very justly observes, that persons, unacquainted with the principles of optics, have been surprised at the great illusion of their sight, by an artificial construction of many optical instruments, exhibited by showmen and others: such, for instance, as the optical and dioptrical paradox; the endless gallery; the animated balls by simple reflection; phantoms; causing the appearance of a flower from its ashes; the optical perspective box, and the cylindrical mirror: to which we may add, the enchanted bottle; the enchanted palace; the magic lantern; the magician's mirror; the perspective mirror; the camera obscura; distorting and oracular mirror; the diagonal opera glass, &c. &c.; all which may be seen in Smith's School of Arts.
We may also remark, that optical exhibitions sometimes accompany those of fire, when performed on a small scale. In the phantasmagoria, for instance, whether before, or at the time the exhibition commences, as well as after, thunder and lightning, if well imitated, produces a good effect.
The mechanism of the phantasmagoria is concealed from the spectators, who have only before their eyes a screen of gauze or gummed muslin posited vertically, which serves as the ground of a picture, where the images are depicted by reason of the transparency. The apartment is deprived of all light, except that which proceeds from an apparatus hid behind the screen. At the moment when the operation commences, a spectre appears (as a skeleton, the head of a celebrated person, &c.), at first extremely small, but which afterwards increases rapidly, and thus seems to advance at a great rate towards the spectators. And when the scene passes before them in a room representing a cave hung with black, a solemn silence being occasionally interrupted by mournful sounds from an appropriate musical instrument, it is not easy for an observer to defend himself from the impression of terror, at the sight of an object, in itself formed to produce the illusion, and which finds in the imagination a place already prepared for the reception of phantoms.
The instrument placed behind the gauze screen is in fact a peculiar construction of the magic lantern: only in the former, it is necessary that the lenses should run over a much greater space, and that the instrument may be susceptible of approaching to, and receding from, the frame of gauze, in such manner, that each luminous pencil may be depicted there in a single point. The general construction is this: In a square box, a lamp is placed, the luminous rays proceeding from which, are reflected by a conical mirror, towards an orifice made in the box. At this orifice is placed a tube, blackened within, and composed of several tubes which slide one into another, like those of a pocket telescope. This tube is furnished with two bi-convex lenses of about five inches diameter; one of these is fixed, the other is at the outer extremity of the tube, and is separated from the former in proportion as the tube is lengthened by the aid of a hooked lever situated along the tube, between the lamp and the lenses. A groove is properly adapted to the tube, destined to receive transparent figures; lastly, the box rests upon a table moveable on four wheels, that slide in two channels perpendicularly to the frame on which the images are depicted. It is manifest, that we may augment or diminish the dimensions of the images, and consequently make the spectre appear more or less near to the spectator, by separating farther, or by bringing nearer together, the two lenses; but then the focus of the diverging rays, which proceed from the same point of the transparent body, will be no longer upon the screen; we must, therefore, cause the machine so to recede or approach, that the two motions, being duly combined, the image may be distinctly formed.
These phantasmagoria are furnished with a great number of transparencies, in each of which, several changes may be made by slackening their springs. Thus we may change at every instant, the form, the magnitude, and the distance of the spectres, as they appear to the spectator.