Mr. Roscoe, from whose Life of Cellini the preceding description is taken, draws a similar conclusion from the consolatory words addressed to the boy, and states that they “confirm him in the belief, that the whole of these appearances, like a phantasmagoria, were merely the effects of a magic lantern produced on volumes of smoke from various kinds of burning wood.” In drawing this conclusion, Mr. Roscoe has not adverted to the fact, that this exhibition took place about the middle of the 16th century, while the magic lantern was not invented by Kircher till towards the middle of the 17th century; Cellini having died in 1570, and Kircher having been born in 1601. There is no doubt that the effects described could be produced by this instrument, but we are not entitled to have recourse to any other means of explanation but those which were known to exist at the time of Cellini. If we suppose, however, that the necromancer either had a regular magic lantern, or that he had fitted up his concave mirror in a box containing the figures of his devils, and that this box with its lights was carried home with the party, we can easily account for the declaration of the boy, “that as they were going home to their houses in the quarter of Banchi, _two of the demons whom we had seen at the amphitheatre went on before us leaping and skipping, sometimes running upon the roofs of the houses, and sometimes upon the ground_.” The introduction of the magic lantern as an optical instrument supplied the magicians of the 17th century with one of their most valuable tools. The use of the concave mirror, which does not appear to have been even put up into the form of an instrument, required a separate apartment, or at least that degree of concealment which it was difficult on ordinary occasions to command; but the magic lantern, containing in a small compass its lamp, its lenses, and its sliding figures, was peculiarly fitted for the itinerant conjuror, who had neither the means of providing a less portable and more extensive apparatus, nor the power of transporting and erecting it.