pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 86
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 86 | THE ORANGE-TREE TRICK left breast. It is said that this is Sir Robert Walpole, who was Prime Minister while Fawkes was at the height of his success, and who was one of the conjurer's great admirers. Hogarth also placed Fawkes in one of his engravings as the frontispiece of a most diverting brochure on "Taste," in which he belittles Burlington Gate. This makes the third portrait from my collec- tion herewith reproduced. According to an article contributed by Mons. E. Ray- naly in the Illusionniste of June, 1903, the orange tree next appeared in the répertoire of a remarkable peasant conjurer, whose billing Mons. Raynaly found among "Affiches de Paris." This performer was billed as the Peasant of North Holland, and gave hourly performances at the yearly fairs at Saint-Germain. It is more than possible that he purchased this trick from Fawkes or Pinchbeck, having seen it at the Bar- tholomew Fair in England. He featured the orange tree as follows: "He has a Philosophical Flower Pot, in which he causes to grow on a table in the presence of the spectators trees which flower, and then the flowers fall, and fruit appears absolutely ripe and ready to be eaten." His posters are dated I746-47 and 1751. The next programme on which the mysterious tree ap- pears is a Pinetti handbill, dated in London, 1784, when the following announcement was made: "Signore Pinetti will afterwards present the assembly with a Tree called Le Bouquet-philosophique composed of small branches of an orange-tree, the leaves appearing green and natural. He will put it under a bottle, and at [69 ] |