The Miraculous Portrait

Get a large print (suppose of the king) with a frame and glass. Cut
the print out at about two inches from the frame all round; then with
thin paste fix the border that is left on the inside of the glass,
pressing it smooth and close; fill up the vacancy, by covering the
glass well with leaf-gold or thin tin-foil, so that it may lie close.
Cover likewise the inner edge of the bottom part of the back of the
frame with the same tin-foil, and make a communication between that
and the tin-foil in the middle of the glass; then put in the board,
and that side is finished. Next turn up the glass, and cover the
fore-side with tin-foil, exactly over that on the back part; and when
it is dry, paste over it the panel of the print that was cut out,
observing to bring the corresponding parts of the border and panel
together, so that the picture will appear as at first, only part of it
behind the glass, and part before. Lastly, hold the print horizontally
by the top, and place a little moveable gilt crown on the king's head.

Now, if the tin-foil on both sides of the glass be moderately
electrified, and another person take hold of the bottom of the frame
with one hand, so that his fingers touch the tin-foil, and with the
other hand attempt to take off the crown, he will receive a very smart
blow, and fail in the attempt. The operator, who holds the frame by
the upper end, where there is no tin-foil, feels nothing of the shock,
and can touch the face of the king without danger, which he pretends
is a test of his loyalty.

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