"This will be enough for the purpose. When anyone who pleases can circulate new revelations of this kind, uninterrupted and unattended to, new revelations will cease to be a good investment of eccentricity. I take it for granted that the gentlemen whose names are mentioned have nothing to do with the circulars or their doctrines. Any lady who may happen to be entrusted with a revelation may nominate her own pastor, or any other clergyman, one of her apostles; and it is difficult to say to what court the nominees can appeal to get the commission abrogated.
"March 16, 1865. During the last two years the circulars have continued. It is hinted that funds are low; and two gentlemen, who are represented as gone 'to Bethelem asylum in despair,' say that Mrs. Cottle will 'spend all that she hath, while Her Majesty's ministers are flourishing on the wages of sin.' The following is perhaps one of the most remarkable passages in the whole:—
"Extol and magnify Him (Jehovah, the everlasting God, see the Magnificat and Luke i. 45, 46-68-73-79), that rideth (by rail and steam over land and sea, from his holy habitation at Kirkstall Lodge, Psa. lxxvii. 19, 20), upon the (Cottle) heavens as it were (September 9, 1864, see pages 21, 170), upon an (exercising, Psa. cxxxi. 1), horse-(chair, bought of Mr. John Ward, Leicester Square)."
[Horace Walpole's Chattels saved by a Talisman.]
In the spring of 1771, Walpole's house in Arlington Street was broken open in the night, and his cabinets and trunks forced and plundered. The Lord of Strawberry was at his villa when he received by a courier the intelligence of the burglary. In an admirable letter to Sir Horace Mann he thus narrates the sequel:—"I was a good quarter of an hour before I recollected that it was very becoming to have philosophy enough not to care about what one does care for; if you don't care there's no philosophy in bearing it. I despatched my upper servant, breakfasted, fed the bantams as usual, and made no more hurry to town than Cincinnatus would if he had lost a basket of turnips. I left in my drawers 270l. of bank-bills and three hundred guineas, not to mention all my gold and silver coins, some inestimable miniatures, a little plate, and a good deal of furniture, under no guard but that of two maidens.... When I arrived, my surprise was by no means diminished. I found in three different chambers three cabinets, a large chest, and a glass case of china wide open, the locks not picked, but forced, and the doors of them broken to pieces. You will wonder that this should surprise me when I had been prepared for it. Oh! the miracle was that I did not find, nor to this hour have found, the least thing missing. In the cabinet of modern medals, there were, and so there are still, a series of English coins, with downright John Trot guineas, half-guineas, shillings, sixpences, and every kind of current money. Not a single piece was removed. Just so in the Roman and Greek cabinet; though in the latter were some drawers of papers, which they had tumbled and scattered about the floor. A great exchequer chest, that belonged to my father, was in the same room. Not being able to force the lock, the philosophers (for thieves that steal nothing deserve the title much more than Cincinnatus, or I) had wrenched a great flapper of brass with such violence as to break it into seven pieces. The trunk contained a new set of chairs of French tapestry, two screens, rolls of prints, and a suit of silver stuff that I had made for the king's wedding. All was turned topsy-turvy, and nothing stolen. The glass case and cabinet of shells had been handled as roughly by these impotent gallants. Another little table with drawers, in which, by the way, the key was left, had been opened too, and a metal standish that they ought to have taken for silver, and a silver hand-candlestick that stood upon it, were untouched. Some plate in the pantry, and all my linen just come from the wash had no more charms for them than gold or silver. In short I could not help laughing, especially as the only two movables neglected were another little table with drawers and the money, and a writing box with the bank-notes, both in the same chamber where they made the first havoc. In short, they had broken out a panel in the door of the area, and unbarred and unbolted it, and gone out at the street-door, which they left wide open at five o'clock in the morning. A passenger had found it so, and alarmed the maids, one of whom ran naked into the street, and by her cries waked my Lord Rommey, who lives opposite. The poor creature was in fits for two days, but at first, finding my coachmaker's apprentice in the street, had sent him to Mr. Conway, who immediately despatched him to me before he knew how little damage I had received, the whole of which consists in repairing the doors and locks of my cabinets and coffers.
"All London is reasoning on this marvellous adventure, and not an argument presents itself that some other does not contradict. I insist that I have a talisman. You must know that last winter, being asked by Lord Vere to assist in settling Lady Betty Germaine's auction I found in an old catalogue of her collection this article, 'The Black Stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits.' Dr. Dee, you must know, was a great conjuror in the days of Queen Elizabeth and has written a folio of the dialogues he held with his imps. I asked eagerly for this stone; Lord Vere said he knew of no such thing, but if found, it should certainly be at my service. Alas, the stone was gone! This winter I was again employed by Lord Frederic Campbell, for I am an absolute auctioneer, to do him the same service about his father's (the Duke of Argyle's) collection. Among other odd things he produced a round piece of shining black marble in a leathern case, as big as the crown of a hat, and asked me what that possibly could be? I screamed out, 'Oh Lord, I am the only man in England that can tell you! It is Dr. Dee's Black Stone!' It certainly is; Lady Betty had formerly given away or sold, time out of mind, for she was a thousand years old, that part of the Peterborough collection which contained natural philosophy. So, or since, the Black Stone had wandered into an auction, for the lotted paper is still on it. The Duke of Argyle, who bought everything, bought it. Lord Frederic gave it to me; and if it was not this magical stone, which is only of high-polished coal, that preserved my chattels, in truth I cannot guess what did."
At the Strawberry Hill sale, in 1842, this precious relic was sold for 12l. 12s., and is now in the British Museum. It was described in the catalogue as "a singularly interesting and curious relic of the superstition of our ancestors—the celebrated Speculum of Kennel Coal, highly polished, in a leathern case. It is remarkable for having been used to deceive the mob, by the celebrated Dr. Dee, the conjuror, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth," &c. When Dee fell into disrepute, and his chemical apparatus and papers and other stock-in-trade were destroyed by the mob, who made an attack upon his house, this Black Stone was saved. It appears to be nothing more than a polished piece of cannel coal; but this is what Butler means when he says:—
Kelly did all his feats upon
The devil's looking glass—a stone.