[198] Agrippa was the most fortunate and honoured of occult philosophers. He was lodged at courts, and favoured by all his contemporaries. Scholars like Erasmus spoke of him with admiration; and royalty constantly sought his powers of divination. But in advanced life he was accused of sorcery, and died poor in 1534. [199] One of the most popular of our old English prose romances, "The Historie of Fryer Bacon," narrates how he had intended to "wall England about with brass," by means of such a brazen head, had not the stupidity of a servant prevented him. The tale may be read in Thoms' "Collection of Early English Prose Romances." [200] The allusion here is to the automaton chess-player, first exhibited by Kempelen (its inventor) in England about 1785. The figure was habited as a Turk, and placed behind a chest, this was opened by the exhibitor to display the machinery, which seemed to give the figure motion, while playing intricate games of chess with any of the spectators. But it has been fully demonstrated that this chest could conceal a full-grown man, who could place his arm down that of the figure, and direct its movements in the game; the machinery being really constructed to hide him, and disarm suspicion. As the whole trick has been demonstrated by diagrams, the marvellous nature of the machinery is exploded. [201] This brass duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M. Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat a tabor; and a flute-player who performed twelve tunes. [202] This great charlatan, after many successful impositions, ended his life in poverty in the hospital at Saltzbourg, in 1541. [203] Similar popular fallacies may be seen carefully noted in R. Burton's "Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England, Scotland, and Ireland," 1684. It is one of those curious volumes of "folk-lore" sent out by Nat. Crouch the bookseller, under a fictitious name. [204] Hall's postulate is, that God's work could not admit of any substantial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers; but "Herein the divell plays the double sophister; the sorcerer with sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch's conceit and the beholder's eyes." In a word, Hall believes in what he cannot understand! Yet Hall will not believe one of the Catholic miracles of "the Virgin of Louvain," though Lipsius had written a book to commemorate "the goddess," as Hall sarcastically calls her. Hall was told, with great indignation, in the shop of the bookseller of Lipsius, that when James the First had just looked over this work, he flung it down, vociferating "Damnation to him that made it, and to him that believes it!"