The Call, Part Four: The Countess of Blessington's Magician

The Countess had a skrying crystal. Subsequently, either Richard Morrison, Philip Henry Stanhope, or both men, possessed said crystal. It was made for the Countess by her magician.

Who was that?

Although procured might be a better word than made, as we shall see, the answer first: it was John Varley, the Gore House Circle's resident astrologer.

To begin, a letter from the master of skrying, Frederick Hockley, to F. G. Irwin, a military officer and practicing skryer:

I will answer (your) last note first. Mr. Chevallier's Crystal is one of Burns' egg shaped 'Glass Receptables' as they were accurately termed in contradistinction to 'Crystals' which are made of natural rock crystal and beryl. All the so-called 'Crystals' I have seen at Burns being made of common glass are sheared and are very fatiguing to the eyes and indeed if much used would seriously affect them -- even with good 'seers' I would not advise you to buy it (of course this is confidential). My two factitious Crystals are made of powered Rock Crystal with Brass, the late Earl Stanhope gave Mr. Slater the Optician 4 (grains) of brass each for them. They were made expressly for me, but tho' great lenses they are by no means comparable to the real article -- my others are Rock Crystals.

I read this passage as suggesting both that there is a distinction to be made between skrying crystals and glass receptables (for ink? water? semen?), and between species of skrying crystal: there are both man-made skyring crystals (requiring powered rock crystal, brass and the skill of a glass-making optician) and natural skyring crystals, made of pure as-found rock crystal.

Judging by the NYT's coverage of the Morrison defamation suit, Morrison's crystal was of the latter variety. We have no description I'm aware of, of Philip Henry Stanhope's skrying crystal itself, but Hockley is clear, in his letter, that Philip Henry was involved in the production of man-made crystal using opticians (who were at the time both glass-makers and lens-grinders).

It seems to me -- and it's only a hunch, informed by stray bits of evidence -- that neither Morrison nor Stanhope were in the possession of the Countess of Blessington's skrying crystal.

John Varley, as I've mentioned in prior postings, is connected with both the Countess of Blessington and with the Stanhope family, and this connection has been noted before, by researchers and scholars working on the occult network operating in England in the first half of the nineteenth century.

What has not been noted -- at least not to my knowledge -- are three salient facts, that bear on the issue at hand. To wit:

1. Samuel Varley, John Varley's uncle, was an intimate friend and co-worker of Charles Stanhope, Philip Henry Stanhope's father. Samuel Varley actually lived and worked on the Stanhope estate at Chevening, and was the recipient of one thousand pounds when Charles Stanhope's will was proved: as much as Charles Stanhope left his mother in his will. Stanhope also left Samuel Varley "all my tools, machines and instruments, mathematical and astronomical, chymical and mechanical". And, further, Charles Stanhope was intent, in his will, that the money and the apparatus stay in the Varley family, indicating that should Samuel Varley predecease him, the money and instruments were to go to Samuel Varley's children.
2. Around 1800, Charles Stanhope and Samuel Varley laid out plans -- never realized -- to construct what would have been the largest optical telescope in the world at the time: 384 feet in length, with mirrored reflecting lens six feet in diameter, requiring all the engineering ingenuity those two men had to produce. And they had world-class skills: Stanhope is credited as the inventor of the iron-bed press, named for him, that revolutionized the production of books, and changed the economics of mass publishing beginning in the middle 1810s.
3. Cornelius Varley, Samuel Varley's nephew and John Varley's brother, was frequently in the workshops at Chevening, and was trained by his uncle in optics, becoming a skilled optician (in addition to a significant painter) with one optical invention (the so-called graphic telescope) and numerous improvements to the camera lucida, microscope and camera obscura to his credit. And Cornelius Varley was the recipient of all his uncle Samuel's trade secrets, which he bled into the pubic domain in the course of his life -- there are numerous reports of Cornelius' donations of "techniques" and "recipes" to the various scientific societies of which he was a member. And some of those -- not coincidentally -- had to do with the manufacture and use of brass.
4. Cornelius' son Cromwell Varley was both a world-famous telegraphy engineer and, not coincidentally, a Spiritualist of the first water, testifying -- as did our Emma -- before the Dialectical Society committee.

Cornelius Varley was in possession of Samuel Varley's trade secrets, and of the apparatus Samuel Varley and Charles Stanhope had constructed to build, among other things, their projected giant telescope, and he was a practicing optics engineer during his own lifetime.

It's almost a certainty, to my way of thinking, that Cornelius Varley made skrying crystals for his elder brother John, and that one of those crystals was the one given to the Countess of Blessington by her court magician, John Varley.

(As a side note, I refer interested readers to the telescope-viewing scene in Emma's Ghost Land, and ask them to re-read that scene with what we know about Stanhope and Varley's designs in mind...)