One of the most remarkable personalities serving as an exponent of Spiritualism was Daniel Dunglas Home, the Napoleon of necromancy, and the Past Grand Master of Mediums. His career reads like a romance. He lived in a sort of twilight land, and hob-nobbed with kings, queens and other people of noble blood. "Something unsubstantial, ghostly, Seems this Theurgist, In deep meditation mostly Wrapped, as in a mist. Vague, phantasmal and unreal, To our thoughts he seems, Walking in a world ideal, In a land of dreams." He wound his serpentine way into the best society of London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and St. Petersburg--"always despising filthy lucre," as Maskelyn remarks, "but never refusing a diamond worth ten times the amount he would have received in cash, or some present, which the host of the house at which he happened to be manifesting always felt constrained to offer." This thaumaturgist of the Nineteenth Century was born near Edinburg, Scotland, on March 20, 1833, and came of a family reported to be gifted with "second sight." His father, William Home, was a natural son of Alexander, tenth Earl of Home. Strange phenomena occurred during the medium's childhood. At the age of nine he was adopted by his aunt, Mrs. McNeill Cook, who brought him to America. He began giving séances about the year 1852. Among the notable men who attended these early "sittings" were William Cullen Bryant, Professors Wells and Hare, and Judge Edmonds. Home had a tall, slight figure, a fair and freckled face--before disease made it the color of yellow wax--keen, slaty-blue eyes, thin bloodless lips, a rather snub nose, and curly auburn hair. His manners, though forward, were agreeable, and he recited such poetry as Poe's "Raven" and "Ulalume" with powerful effect. He was altogether a weird sort of personage. His principal mediumistic manifestations were rappings, table-tipping, ghostly materializations, playing on sealed musical instruments, levitation, and handling fire with impunity. In 1855 he launched his necromantic bark on European waters. No man since Cagliostro ever created so profound a sensation in the Old World. He wrote his reminiscences in two large volumes, but little credence can be given them, as they are full of extravagant statements and wild fantasies. The London _Punch_ (May 9th, 1868), printed the following effusion on the medium, a sort of parody on "Home, Sweet Home:" Through realms Thaumaturgic the student may roam, And not light on a worker of wonders like _Home_. Cagliostro himself might descend from his chair, And set up our _Daniel_ as Grand-Cophta there-- _Home, Home, Dan. Home_, No medium like _Home_. Spirit legs, spirit hands, he gives table and chair; Gravitation defying, he flies in the air; But the fact to which henceforth his fame should be pinned, Is his power to raise, not himself but the wind!-- _Home, Home, Dan. Home_, No medium like _Home_.