Visits with a Magician

"I was invited to see a whispering-gallery of a most curious and uncommon structure. To make the experiment of its powers, a young poet of a very modest appearance, desired to repeat a verse in it. He applied his lips to the wall, and whispered in a low voice, "Rura mihi et virguis placeant in vallibus amnes." The sound ran along the walls for some time in a kind of low whisper; but every minute it grew louder and louder, till at length it was echoed and reechoed from every part of the gallery, and seemed to be pronounced by a multitude of voices at once, in different languages, till the whole dome was filled with the sound. There was a strong smell of incense. The gallery was constructed by Fame.

I saw another who was making a charm for two friends, one of whom was going to the East Indies: they were lamenting that when they were parted at so great a distance from each other they could no longer communicate their thoughts, but must be cut off from each other's society. Presenting them with a talisman inscribed with four-and- twenty black marks, "Take this' she said; "I have breathed a voice upon it: by means of this talisman you shall still converse, and hear one another as distinctly when half the globe is between you, as if you were talking together in the same room." The two friends thanked her for such an invaluable present, and retired. Her name was Abracadabra.