John Henry Anderson was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, July 14, 1814. He began life as an actor. After witnessing a performance in England by Signor Blitz, his mind was struck with the resources of magic as a means of entertaining the public, and adding to his own exchequer. So he abandoned the histrionic stage for conjuring, though he occasionally performed in melodrama as a side issue. He was very fine in the title rôle of “Rob Roy,” and as William, in “Black-eyed Susan.” His professional sobriquet in his early career was that of the “Calidonian Necromancer.” On one occasion he gave an exhibition {172} of his skill at Abbotsford, and the genial Sir Walter Scott said to him, “They call _me_ the ‘Wizard of the North,’ but this is a mistake—it is you, not I, who best deserve the title.” Mr. Anderson was not slow in adopting the suggestion of the Wizard of the Pen, and ever after called himself the Great Wizard of the North. [Illustration] [Illustration] He displayed a great collection of apparatus, which he described as “a most gorgeous and costly apparatus of solid silver, the mysterious mechanical construction of which is upon a secret principle, hitherto unknown in Europe.” He claimed to have been the inventor of the gun trick, but this was not so, as Torrini and others exhibited it on the Continent in the latter {173} part of the 18th century. All that Anderson did was to invent his own peculiar method of working the illusion. “The extraordinary mystery of the trick,” he said, “is not effected by the aid of any accomplice, or by inserting a tube in the muzzle of the gun, or by other conceivable devices (as the public frequently, and in some instances, correctly imagine), but any gentleman may really load the gun in the usual manner, inserting, himself, a marked real leaden ball! The gun being then fired off at the Wizard, he will instantly produce and exhibit the same bullet in his hand.” The marked leaden bullet, however, was exchanged for one composed of an amalgam of tinfoil and quicksilver, which was as heavy as lead, but was broken into bits and dispersed in firing. He once played a private engagement at the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, before the Czar Nicholas and a brilliant audience of Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses. His exhibition of second sight was an excellent one. He was asked by the Czar to describe the watch he had in his pocket. To the profound astonishment of the Emperor, Anderson announced that it was encircled with one hundred and twenty brilliants around its face, and a portrait on enamel of the Emperor Paul at the back. He also said that the watch carried by the Empress did not go, which was a fact, it being a very old one, a relic of Peter the Great. It was only worn as an ornament. The wizard never claimed supernatural powers. He undoubtedly obtained his information about the chronometers from some member of the Czar’s household, and worked upon the imagination and credulity of the spectators.