Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - The Original Classic Edition. Mackay Charles

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      MEMOIRS

       OF

       EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS.

       VOLUME I.

       [Illustration: THE BUBBLERS' ARMS--PROSPERITY.]

       LONDON:

       OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,

       227 STRAND.

       1852.

       MEMOIRS

       1

       OF

       EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS

       AND THE

       MADNESS OF CROWDS.

       BY CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D.

       AUTHOR OF "EGERIA," "THE SALAMANDRINE," ETC.

       ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.

       VOL. I.

       N'en deplaise a ces fous nommes sages de Grece, En ce monde il n'est point de parfaite sagesse;

       Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgre tous leurs soins

       Ne different entre eux que du plus ou du moins.

       BOILEAU.

       LONDON:

       OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,

       2

       227 STRAND.

       1852.

       LONDON:

       PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN,

       Great New Street, Fetter Lane.

       CONTENTS.

       THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.

       John Law; his birth and youthful career--Duel between Law and

       Wilson--Law's escape from the King's Bench--The "Land-bank"--Law's gambling propensities on the continent, and acquaintance with the Duke of Orleans--State of France after the reign of Louis XIV.--Paper money instituted in that country by Law--Enthusiasm of the French people at the Mississippi Scheme--Marshal Villars--Stratagems employed and

       bribes given for an interview with Law--Great fluctuations in

       Mississippi stock--Dreadful murders--Law created comptroller-general

       3

       of finances--Great sale for all kinds of ornaments in Paris--Financial difficulties commence--Men sent out to work the mines on the Mississippi, as a blind--Payment stopped at the bank--Law dismissed from the ministry--Payments made in specie--Law and the Regent satirised in song--Dreadful crisis of the Mississippi Scheme--Law,

       almost a ruined man, flies to Venice--Death of the Regent--Law obliged

       to resort again to gambling--His death at Venice

       THE SOUTH-SEA BUBBLE.

       Originated by Harley Earl of Oxford--Exchange Alley a scene of great excitement--Mr. Walpole--Sir John Blunt--Great demand for

       shares--Innumerable "Bubbles"--List of nefarious projects and bubbles--Great rise in South-sea stock--Sudden fall--General meeting of the directors--Fearful climax of the South-sea expedition--Its effects on society--Uproar in the House of Commons--Escape of Knight--Apprehension of Sir John Blunt--Recapture of Knight at Tirlemont--His second escape--Persons connected with the scheme examined--Their respective punishments--Concluding remarks

       THE TULIPOMANIA.

       Conrad Gesner--Tulips brought from Vienna to England--Rage for the tulip among the Dutch--Its great value--Curious anecdote of a sailor and a tulip--Regular marts for tulips--Tulips employed as a means of speculation--Great depreciation in their value--End of the mania

       4

       THE ALCHYMISTS.

       Introductory remarks--Pretended antiquity of the

       art--Geber--Alfarabi--Avicenna--Albertus Magnus--Thomas Aquinas--Artephius--Alain de Lisle--Arnold de Villeneuve--Pietro d'Apone--Raymond Lulli--Roger Bacon--Pope John XXII.--Jean de Meung--Nicholas Flamel--George Ripley--Basil Valentine--Bernard of Treves--Trithemius--The Marechal de Rays--Jacques Coeur--Inferior adepts--Progress of the infatuation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Augurello--Cornelius

       Agrippa--Paracelsus--George Agricola--Denys Zachaire--Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly--The Cosmopolite--Sendivogius--The Rosicrucians--Michael Mayer--Robert Fludd--Jacob Bohmen--John Heydon--Joseph Francis

       Borri--Alchymical writers of the seventeenth century--Delisle--Albert

       Aluys--Count de St. Germain--Cagliostro--Present state of the science

       MODERN PROPHECIES.

       Terror of the approaching day of judgment--A comet the signal of that day--The prophecy of Whiston--The people of Leeds greatly alarmed at that event--The plague in Milan--Fortune-tellers and

       Astrologers--Prophecy concerning the overflow of the Thames--Mother

       Shipton--Merlin--Heywood--Peter of Pontefract--Robert

       Nixon--Almanac-makers

       FORTUNE-TELLING.

       5

       Presumption and weakness of man--Union of Fortune-tellers and Alchymists--Judicial astrology encouraged in England from the time of Elizabeth to William and Mary--Lilly the astrologer consulted by the

       House of Commons as to the cause of the Fire of London--Encouragement of the art in France and Germany--Nostradamus--Basil of

       Florence--Antiochus Tibertus--Kepler--Necromancy--Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Arnold Villeneuve--Geomancy--Augury--Divination: list of various species of divination--Oneiro-criticism (interpretation of dreams)--Omens

       THE MAGNETISERS.

       The influence of imagination in curing diseases--Mineral

       magnetisers--Paracelsus--Kircher the Jesuit--Sebastian Wirdig--William Maxwell--The Convulsionaries of St. Medard--Father Hell--Mesmer, the founder of Animal Magnetism--D'Eslon, his disciple--M. de

       Puysegur--Dr. Mainauduc's success in London--Holloway, Loutherbourg, Mary Pratt, &c.--Perkins's "Metallic Tractors"--Decline of the science

       INFLUENCE OF POLITICS AND RELIGION ON THE HAIR AND BEARD.

       Early modes of wearing the hair and beard--Excommunication and outlawry decreed against curls--Louis VII.'s submission thereto the

       cause of the long wars between England and France--Charles V. of Spain and his courtiers--Peter the Great--His tax upon beards--Revival of

       beards and moustaches after the French Revolution of 1830--The King of

      

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