“Nothing can be more satisfactory than your explanation of this very extraordinary toy,” observed the vicar.
“I am now about to exhibit what I consider a great improvement in its construction, inasmuch as we thus get rid of the mirror, and enable two persons to witness the deception at the same time,” said Mr. Seymour. “For this purpose I have a spindle, at each end of which a disc is placed, and which I hold in my hand.” We deem it expedient to illustrate this arrangement by a wood-cut.
“By revolving the spindle, you perceive that both cards are made to turn round with equal velocity. Tom,” said his father, “look through the orifices of the disc, on my right hand, and Louisa, do the same on my left.” The children obeyed, and simultaneously expressed their wonder at what they witnessed. “The figures are all dancing!” cried Tom; “The horses are all prancing!” exclaimed Louisa.
“You have not yet told us the name of this toy,” observed the vicar.
“It has received several names,” answered Mr. Seymour, “as Phantasmascope, Phenakistiscope, &c. derived, as you no doubt perceive, from the Greek.”
It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the appearances thus produced may be infinitely varied--heads opening their mouths, and distorting their countenances; creeping serpents, and machinery in active operation, are amongst the subjects that have excited the greatest admiration.
The party now dispersed, not less gratified than they had been instructed by the lesson of the morning.
The mighty magician of the North has compared the course of a narrative to the progress of a stone rolled down hill by an idle truant boy, “which at first moveth slowly, avoiding by inflection every obstacle of the least importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws near the conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, making a rood at every spring, clearing hedge and ditch like a Yorkshire huntsman, and becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being consigned to rest for ever: even such,” says he, “is the course of a narrative; the earlier events are studiously dwelt upon; but when the story draws near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must have forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at length.”