WATTON'S SHIP-SWABBER ``FROM THE
INDIES.''--RICHARDSON, 1667--DE
HEITERKEIT, 1713.--ROBERT POWELL, 1718-
1780.--DUFOUR, 1783.--QUACKENSALBER, 1794.
The earliest mention I have found of a public fire-eater in England is in the correspondence of Sir Henry Watton, under date of June 3rd, 1633.He speaks of an Englishman ``like 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 Iobserv'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 REALMERIT 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 famousMR.POWELL, FIRE-EATER, FROMLONDON:
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 most of the Nobility and Quality in the Kingdom.
He intends to sup on the following articles: 1.He eats red-hot coals out of the fire as natural as bread.2.He licks with his naked tongue red-hot tobacco pipes, flaming with brimstone.3.He takes a large bunch of deal matches, lights them altogether; and holds them in his mouth till the flame is extinguished.4.
