The Miracle Mongers and their Methods | Page 8

some swabber of a ship, come from
the Indies, where he has learned to eat fire as familiarly as ever I saw
any eat cakes, even whole glowing brands, which he will crush with his
teeth and swallow.'' This was shown in London for two pence.
The first to attract the attention of the upper classes, however, was one
Richardson, who appeared in France in the year 1667 and enjoyed a
vogue sufficient to justify the record of his promise in the Journal des
Savants. Later on he came to London, and John Evelyn, in his diary,
mentions him under date of October 8th, 1672, as follows:
I took leave of my Lady Sunderland, who was going to Paris to my
Lord, now Ambassador there. She made me stay dinner at Leicester
House, and afterwards sent for Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He
devoured brimstone on glowing coals before us, chewing and
swallowing them; he melted a beere-glass and eate it quite up; then
taking a live coale on his tongue he put on it a raw oyster; the coal was
blown on with bellows till it flamed and sparkled in his mouthe, and so
remained until the oyster gaped and was quite boil'd.
Then he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he drank down as it
flamed: I saw it flaming in his mouthe a good while; he also took up a
thick piece of iron, such as laundresses use to put in their smoothing-
boxes, when it was fiery hot, held it between his teeth, then in his hand,
and threw it about like a stone; but this I observ'd he cared not to hold
very long. Then he stoode on a small pot, and, bending his body, tooke
a glowing iron with his mouthe from betweene his feete, without
touching the pot or ground with his hands, with divers other prodigious
feats.
The secret methods employed by Richardson were disclosed by his
servant, and this publicity seems to have brought his career to a sudden
close; at least I have found no record of his subsequent movements.
About 1713 a fire-eater named De Heiterkeit, a native of Annivi, in
Savoy, flourished for a time in London. He performed five times a day

at the Duke of Marlborough's Head, in Fleet Street, the prices being
half-a-crown, eighteen pence and one shilling.
According to London Tit-Bits, ``De Heiterkeit had the honor of
exhibiting before Louis XIV., the Emperor of Austria, the King of
Sicily and the Doge of Venice, and his name having reached the
Inquisition, that holy office proposed experimenting on him to find out
whether he was fireproof externally as well as internally. He was
preserved from this unwelcome ordeal, however, by the interference of
the Duchess Royal, Regent of Savoy.''
His programme did not differ materially from that of his predecessor,
Richardson, who had antedated him by nearly fifty years.
By far the most famous of the early fire- eaters was Robert Powell,
whose public career extended over a period of nearly sixty years, and
who was patronized by the English peerage. It was mainly through the
instrumentality of Sir Hans Sloane that, in 1751, the Royal Society
presented Powell a purse of gold and a large silver medal.
Lounger's Commonplace Book says of Powell: ``Such is his passion for
this terrible element, that if he were to come hungry into your kitchen,
while a sirloin was roasting, he would eat up the fire and leave the beef.
It is somewhat surprising that the friends of REAL MERIT have not yet
promoted him, living as we do in an age favorable to men of genius.
Obliged to wander from place to place, instead of indulging himself in
private with his favorite dish, he is under the uncomfortable necessity
of eating in public, and helping himself from the kitchen fire of some
paltry ale- house in the country.''
His advertisements show that he was before the public from 1718 to
1780. One of his later advertisements runs as follows:
SUM SOLUS
Please observe that there are two different performances the same
evening, which will be performed by the famous

MR. POWELL, FIRE-EATER, FROM LONDON:
who has had the honor to exhibit, with universal applause, the most
surprising performances that were ever attempted by mankind, before
His Royal Highness William, late Duke of Cumberland, at Windsor
Lodge, May 7th, 1752; before His Royal Highness the Duke of
Gloucester, at Gloucester House, January 30th, 1769; before His Royal
Highness the present Duke of Cumberland, at Windsor Lodge,
September 25th, 1769; before Sir Hans Sloane and several of the Royal
Society, March 4th, 1751, who made Mr. Powell a compliment of a
purse of gold, and a fine large silver medal, which the curious may
view by applying to him; and before