A slight idea of the effects which might be expected from an ingenious piece of mechanism for creating and combining the various optical phenomena, and exhibiting them in connexion with musical sounds, may be obtained by a single observer, who looks into a fine Kaleidoscope, firmly fixed upon a stand, and produces with his two hands all the variations in form and colour which he can effect by such inadequate means, and which he considers appropriate to the musical piece that accompanies them. CHAPTER XXIII. HISTORY OF THE COMBINATIONS OF PLANE MIRRORS WHICH HAVE BEEN SUPPOSED TO RESEMBLE THE KALEIDOSCOPE. It has always been the fate of new inventions to have their origin referred to some remote period; and those who labour to enlarge the boundaries of science, or to multiply the means of improvement, are destined to learn, at a very early period of their career, that the desire of doing justice to the living is a much less powerful principle than that of being generous to the dead. This mode of distributing fame, injurious as it is to the progress of science, by taking away one of the strongest excitements of early genius, has yet the advantage of erring on the side of generosity; and there are few persons who would reclaim against a decision invested with such a character, were it pronounced by the grave historian of science, who had understood and studied the subject to which it referred. The apparent simplicity, both of the theory and the construction of the Kaleidoscope, has deceived very well-meaning persons into the belief that they understood its mode of operation; and it was only those that possessed more than a moderate share of optical knowledge, who saw that it was not only more difficult to understand, but also more difficult to execute, than most of the philosophical instruments now in use. The persons who considered the Kaleidoscope as an instrument consisting of two reflectors, which multiplied objects, wherever these objects were placed, and whatever was the position of the eye, provided that it received only the reflected rays, were at no loss to find numerous candidates for the invention. All those, indeed, who had observed the multiplication and circular arrangement of a fire blazing between two polished plates of brass or steel; who had dressed themselves by the aid of a pair of looking-glasses, or who had observed the effects of two mirrors placed upon the rectangular sides of a drawing-room, were entitled, upon such a definition, to be constituted inventors of the Kaleidoscope. The same claim might be urged for every jeweller who had erected in his window two perpendicular mirrors, and placed his wares before them, in order to be multiplied and exhibited to advantage; and for every Dutch toy-maker, and dealer in optical wonders, who had manufactured show-boxes, for the purpose of heaping together, in some sort of order, a crowd of images of the same object, of different