[6]nor. MS. and P.
[An untoothsome Pear.] It is difficult to understand the intended use of this proposed instrument, but it is more likely to have been suggested from a feeling of humanity than from any other motive. A desperate and ferocious enemy, thus rendered helpless before being manacled, would assuredly be less dangerous than he could otherwise be considered; and it would not, therefore, be requisite to take his life, for personal safety; once thus secured he would be likely to listen to any terms of mercy.
A Chair made a-la-mode, and yet a stranger being perswaded to sit in’t, shall have immediately his armes and thighs lock’d up beyond his own power to loosen them.
[An imprisoning Chair.] In the “Memoirs, illustrative of the life and Writings of John Evelyn, F.R.S.” &c., edited by William Bray, 2 vols. 4to. 1819, occurs the Diary of his continental travels in 1644. On the 17th Nov., Evelyn being at Rome went to the “Villa Borghese, a house and ample garden on Mons Pincius.” In one of the chambers, he says, “are divers sorts of instruments of music; amongst other toys that of a satyr with so artificially expressed a human voice, with the motion of eyes and head, that it might easily affright one who was not prepared for that most extravagant sight. He showed us also a chair which catches any one who sits down in it so as not to be able to stir out, by certain springs concealed in the arms and back thereof, which at sitting down surprises a man on the sudden, locking him in by the arms and thighs, after a true treacherous Italian guise.”—Vol. i. p. 106–107.
M. de Blainville, in his travels, 1757, relates, in passing through Italy, and describing the Villa Borghese, raised under the Popedom of Paul V. uncle of Cardinal Scipio Borghese, that, “In the fourth room of the apartment, on the south side, called the room of the Three Graces, there stands a remarkable chair, said to have been formerly used to very evil purposes, by one of the Borghese family. The machine is very artfully contrived, and strangers who are not acquainted with the trick are infallibly caught, as in a trap, when they are prevailed upon to sit in this chair. By this stratagem the housekeeper gets a good many fees, which the enticed people are obliged to pay him for their deliverance out of captivity. In all appearance, these innocent deceits were the only thing intended by this piece of machinery.”—Vol. iii. page 34.
87.
A Brass Mold to cast Candles, in which a man may make 500. dozen in a day, and adde an Ingredient to the tallow which will make it cheaper, and yet so that the Candles shall look whiter and last longer.
[A Candle-mold.] This invention seems to include some recipe to whiten the tallow. When the idea of improving candle-moulds suggested itself, the Marquis had probably been over some manufactory, and on seeing the customary mode of candle-making, the present suggestion may have occurred to him. We have placed it among the few others (only nine in number), in his numerous list, as belonging to the Domestic Class, of which it is the last.
88.[R]