Solomon's Secret Arts (89 page)

123.
“The Confession of Comte de Cagliostro,” in Parkyns Macmahon, ed.,
Memorial, or Brief, for the Count de Cagliostro, Defendant: against the King's Attorney General, Plaintiff: in the Cause of the Cardinal de Rohan, Madame de la Motte, and Others
(London, 1786), pp. 10–31.

124.
Iain McCalman,
The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
(London, 2003), chs 1–5; W.R.H. Trowbridge,
Cagliostro
(New York, 1910), pp. 49–73, for details on the second London trip; Évelyne Lever,
L'Affaire du Collier
(Paris, 2004).

125.
Hélène Maspéro-Clerc, “Samuel Swinton, Éditeur du
Courier de l'Europe
à Boulogne-sur-Mer (1778–1783) et Agent Secret du Gouvernement Britannique,”
Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française
, 57 (1985), pp. 527–31; McCalman,
Last Alchemist
, ch. 6; “Lucia,”
The Life of the Count Cagliostro
(London, 1787), pp. xxii–iii. “Lucia,” hitherto unidentified, may in fact be Lucy de Loutherbourg, wife of Cagliostro's most ardent supporter in England.

126.
For Gordon, see
ODBN
and Iain McCalman, “Mad Lord George and Madame La Motte: Riot and Sexuality in the Genesis of Burke's
Reflections on the Revolution in France
,”
Journal of British Studies
, 35 (1996), pp. 343–67; for Morande, Simon Burrows,
A King's Ransom: The Life of Charles Théveneau de Morande, Blackmailer, Scandalmonger and Master-Spy
(London, 2010).

127.
Copies of the Lodge minutes can be found in Bodl. Lib., Ms. Rylands d.2, pp. 138–40, with the
General Advertiser
article on pp. 151–7. For the
Morning Herald
advertisement and the Gillray print, see McCalman,
Last Alchemist
, pp. 169–72.

128.
An English translation of the “Letter” is in P.A. Malpas, “Cagliostro: A Messenger Long Misunderstood,”
The Theosophical Path
, 42, 1 (1932), pp. 101–20; an even longer version was worked into “Lucia,”
Life of Cagliostro
, pp. 9–54.

129.
“Anthony Pasquin” [John William],
Memoirs of the Royal Academicians
(London, 1796), pp. 80–1.

130.
McCalman,
Last Alchemist
, ch. 6.

131.
This is the main thesis of Dror Wahrman,
The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eigtheenth-Century England
(New Haven, Conn., 2004).

Chapter Nine: Prophets and Revolutions

1.
William Godwin,
St. Leon
, ed. William Brewer (Peterborough, Ontario, 2006). Godwin's source of alchemical information was Johann Heinrich Cohausen,
Hermippus Redivivus: or, The Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave
, ed. and trans. John Campbell (London, 1744). As his later
Lives of the Necromancers
(London, 1834) amply shows, Godwin was not an admirer of occult philosophy in general.

2.
In 1832, Scott's close friend the scientist and inventor Sir David Brewster would address a work debunking magic to him:
Letters on Natural Magic, Addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
(London, 1852).

3.
Joseph Taylor,
Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses, Developed
(London, 1814), p. vii; Sasha Handley,
Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth-Century England
(London, 2007), pp. 212–13.

4.
[Francis Barrett?],
The Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers
(London, 1815). Whether Barrett actually wrote this work remains unclear.

5.
John Parkins,
The Cabinet of Wealth, or The Temple of Wisdom
(Grantham, 1812), p. 5.

6.
See Gretchen Gerzina,
Black London: Life before Emancipation
(New Brunswick, N.J., 1995), ch. 5; Christopher Leslie Brown,
Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006), ch. 5.

7.
Emanuel Swedenborg,
A Treatise Concerning the Last Judgment, and the Destruction of Babylon … Originally Published at London in Latin, in 1758
(Boston, 1828), p. 63.

8.
Karl-Erik Sjödén,
Swedenborg en France
(Stockholm, 1985), ch. 1; H.M. Graupe, “Mordechai Schnaber-Levison: The Life, Works and Thought of a Haskalah Outsider,”
Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook
, 41 (1996), pp. 1–20. Levison, who published several medical tracts under the name “George Levison” while working at the General Medical Asylum in Welbeck Street, is noticed in
ODNB
. I have not been able to trace a copy of
A Plain System of Alchemy
.

9.
This very rare work, transcribed by Adam Maclean from a copy in the Helsinki University Library Rare Book Collection, is accessible at
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/spiritual_stone.html
.

10.
C.B. Wadström,
Observations on the Slave Trade, and a Description of Some Part of the Coast of Guinea, during a Voyage, Made in 1787 and 1788, in Company with Doctor A. Sparrman and Captain Arrehenius
(London, 1789).

11.
J.B. Wadström and Auguste Nordenskjöld,
Plan for a Free Community upon the West Coast of Africa, under the Protection of Great Britain; But Intirely Independent of All European Laws and Governments
(London, 1789), pp. iv, 31, 39–40. The best account of the Swedenborgian colonization plan is Deirdre Coleman,
Romantic Colonization and British Anti-Slavery
(Cambridge, 2005), ch. 2.

12.
Wadström and Nordenskjöld,
Plan for a Free Community
, pp. 43–4, 50.

13.
C.B. Wadström,
Plan for a Free Community at Sierra Leone, upon the Coast of Africa, under the Protection of Great Britain
(London, 1792); C.B. Wadström,
An Essay on Colonization, Particularly Applied to the West Coast of Africa
(2 parts, London, 1794–5).

14.
Olaudah Equiano,
The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings
, ed. Vincent Carretta (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1995), pp. 5–6, 15–20, 183–4, 189–91; also, Vincent Carretta,
Equiano the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man
(Athens, Ga., 2005).

15.
Equiano,
Interesting Narrative
, pp. 40, 43–4.

16.
Ibid.
, pp. 347–8; Carretta,
Equiano the African
, pp. 339–40, 345–50, 361–2. Hardy's trial was transcribed by Manoah Sibly in
The Genuine Trial of Thomas Hardy, for High Treason, at the Sessions House in the Old Bailey, from October 28 to November 5, 1794
(2 vols, London, 1795).

17.
William Blake, “The Little Black Boy,”
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
, in David V. Erdman, ed.,
The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake
(rev. ed., New York, 1988), p. 9. Blake's ties to “international Swedenborgians,” including Wadström, are noted in Robert Rix,
William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity
(Aldershot, Hants, and Burlington, Vt., 2007), ch. 5.

18.
The Astrologer's Magazine; and Philosophical Miscellany
, Sept. 1793, p. 52. The printer, William Locke of Red Lion Street, Holborn, was known for issuing musical works. He was declared bankrupt in November 1793: Exeter Working Papers in Book Trade History: The London Book Trades, 1775–1800, accessed at
http://bookhistory.blogspot.com/2007/01/london-1775–1800-l.html
.

19.
Frank O'Gorman, “The Paine Burnings of 1792–3,”
Past and Present
, 193 (2006), pp. 111–55.

20.
Stuart Semmel,
Napoleon and the British
(New Haven, Conn., 2004), pp. 101–4; and for an image of Napoleon as a benign conjuror,
ibid.
, pp. 48–9.

21.
John Martin,
Animal Magnetism Examined: in a Letter to a Country Gentleman
(London, 1790), p. 9.

22.
Patricia Fara, “An Attractive Therapy: Animal Magnetism in Eighteenth-Century England,”
History of Science
, 33 (1995), pp. 127–77; Patricia Fara,
Sympathetic Attractions: Magnetic Practices, Beliefs, and Symbolism in Eighteenth-Century England
(Princeton, 1994). The term “magnetist” was used by practitioners of animal magnetism at the time, and I have employed it here, although “magnetizer” is more conventional English.

23.
For Mesmerism in other parts of Europe, see Frank A. Pattie,
Mesmer and Animal Magnetism: A Chapter in the History of Medicine
(Hamilton, N.Y., 1994); Robert Darnton,
Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France
(Cambridge, Mass., 1968); Jessica Riskin,
Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment
(Chicago, 2002), ch. 6.

24.
J.B. de Mainauduc,
Proposals to the Ladies, for Establishing an Hygiæn Society, in England, to Be Incorporated with That of Paris
(London, 1785), p. 11.

25.
John Bell,
The General and Particular Principles of Animal Electricity and Magnetism, &c. in Which Are Found Dr. Bell's Secrets and Practice
(London, 1792), p. 23.

26.
John Bell,
New System of the World, and the Laws of Motion
(London, 1788), pp. 6, 51.

27.
For Gassner and Mesmer, see H.C. Erik Midelfort,
Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth-Century Germany
(New Haven, Conn., 2005), pp. 18–31.

28.
Wonders and Mysteries of Animal Magnetism Displayed
(London, 1791), pp. 17–18, 28.

29.
Mary Pratt,
A List of a Few Cures Performed by Mr. and Mrs. De Loutherbourg, of Hammersmith Terrace, without Medicine
(London, 1789), pp. 1, 10.

30.
Contemporary exposés of the principles of magnetism include
A True and Genuine Discovery of Animal Electricity and Magnetism: Calculated to Detect and Overthrow All Counterfeit Descriptions of the Same
(London, 1790), which was reprinted in
A Practical Display of the Philosophical System called Animal Magnetism
(London, 1790). See also the article in
The Times
, no. 1879, 12 Jan. 1791, probably by “Maria” (see note 46 below), which does not mention the “Crisis.”

31.
Martin,
Animal Magnetism Examined
, pp. 30–1.

32.
J.B. de Mainauduc,
The Lectures of J.B. de Mainauduc, M.D., Member of the Corporation of Surgeons in London
(London, 1798), vol. 1, p. 196. Only the first volume was published.

33.
Bell,
General and Particular Principles
, pp. 19, 60–1, 67–76. For Puységur, see Pattie,
Mesmer
, pp. 216–27; Michel Pierssens, “Le Merveilleux Psychique au XIXe Siècle,”
Ethnologie Française
, n.s. 23, 3 (1993), pp. 351–66; Henri F. Ellenberger,
The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychology
(New York, 1970), pp. 70–4. The comparison with Shakers was also made by the American Samuel Stearns in
The Mystery of Animal Magnetism Revealed to the World
(London, 1791), pp. 43–51.

34.
See Roy Porter,
Mind-Forg'd Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1987), ch. 4; Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull,
Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2001).

35.
William LeFanu, ed.,
Betsy Sheridan's Journal: Letters from Sheridan's Sister
(Oxford, 1986), pp. 123–4.

36.
Mainauduc,
Plan for an Hygiæn Society
, p. 10; Lefanu, ed.,
Betsy Sheridan's Journal
, p. 124.

37.
Fara, “Attractive Therapy,” pp. 142, 165 nn. 80–3, citing Royal College of Surgeons, Ms. 42. e.1; George Winter,
Animal Magnetism: History of; its Origin, Progress and Present State: its Principles and Secrets Displayed, As Delivered by the Late Dr. Demainauduc
(Bristol and London, 1801), pp. 14–15; Mainauduc,
Lectures
, pp. [xiii–xiv].

38.
Fara, “Attractive Therapy,” p. 163 n. 58, p. 166 nn. 85, 87, 91. Yeldall's first name is not known.

39.
John Holloway,
Animal Magnetism
, broadsheet ([London], [1790?]), in B.L., shelfmark C.142.2.17; Martin,
Animal Magnetism
, p. 17; Winter,
Animal Magnetism
, pp. 17–18.

40.
Pratt,
List of a Few Cures
, pp. 7–9.

41.
The Times
, nos 1253, 1259, 10, 17 Sept. 1789; Donna Andrews, “London Debates: 1789,”
London Debating Societies 1776–1799
, London Record Society 30 (1994), nos 1528, 1529, 1531, 1533, accessed at
http://www.british-history.ac.uk
.

42.
Elizabeth Inchbald,
Animal Magnetism
(Dublin, 1789), pp. 10, 34. The play was adapted from a French original.

43.
The Times
, no. 1059, 29 April 1788; LeFanu, ed.,
Betsy Sheridan's Journal
, p. 124.

44.
Martin,
Animal Magnetism
, p. 12; John Cue,
Goliath Slain with his Own Sword
(London, [1794]), p. 88.

45.
Fara, “Attractive Therapy,” p. 164 n. 67; [John Pearson],
A Plain and Rational Account of the Nature and Effects of Animal Magnetism
(London, 1790), p. 10, for Mainauduc being assisted by “several female pupils.”

46.
“Maria,”
The Secret Revealed: or Animal Magnetism Displayed. A Letter from a Young Lady to the Rev. John Martin
(2nd ed., London, [1791?]), p. 5. She was probably also the author of an article in
The Times
of 12 Jan. 1791, for which see note 30 above.

47.
Winter,
Animal Magnetism
, p. 18.

48.
Darnton,
Mesmerism
, pp. 68–70; Sjödén,
Swedenborg en France
, ch. 4.

49.
Martin,
Animal Magnetism
, p. 16;
Wonders of Animal Magnetism Displayed
, pp. 10–11.