How to make a Brazen or Stone-head, in the midst of a great Field or Garden, so artificial and natural, that though a man speak never so softly, and even whispers into the ear thereof, it will presently open its mouth, and resolve the Question in French, Latine, Welsh, Irish or English, in good terms uttering it out of his mouth, and then shut it untill the next Question be asked.
[A Brazen head.] In a MS. list of five Inventions,
“Life, Times, &c.” page 316, the present article is briefly stated to be:—“A brass head capable to receive at the ear a whisper, and the mouth thereof to render answer in any language to the interrogator.”
In “The famous History of Frier Bacon,” [1630?] a black letter quarto of 24 leaves unpaged, the fifth article relates, “How Frier Bacon made a brazen head to speak, by the which he would have walled England about with brass.” He and Friar Bungey, it is stated, “with great study and pains so framed a head of brass, that in the inward parts thereof there was all things like as in a natural man’s head.”
The same account may be read at length in the modernised edition of “Early English Prose Romances,” edited by W. J. Thoms, F.S.A., first volume, 12mo. 1858, page 205. The unfortunate head only survived to speak thrice, and then fell to pieces!
See also “Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana,” London, Printed for Robert Triphook, 1816, 4to. Vol. I.
In the “Inventions or Devices,” by William Bourne, 1578, “The 113th Device is, as touching the making of strange works, as the brazen head that did seem to speak, or birds of wood or metal made by art to fly, and birds made of wood or metal to sing sweetly at certain hours appointed, &c., which the common people doth marvel at.” He then proceeds to say:—
“As touching the making of any strange works that the world hath marvelled at, as the brazen head that did seem to speak: and the serpent of brass for to hiss: or a dove of wood for to fly: or an eagle made by art of wood and other metal to fly; and birds made of brass, tin, or other metal to sing sweetly, and such other like devices, some have thought that it hath been done by enchantment, which is no such thing, but that it hath been done by wheels, as you may see by clocks, that do keep time, some going with plummets, and some with springs, as those small clocks that be used in tablets to hang about men’s necks. And as the brazen head, that seemed for to speak, might be made by such wheel work, to go either by plummets or by springs, and might have time given unto it, that at so many hours’ end, then the wheels and other engines should be set to work: and the voice that they did hear may go with bellows in some trunk of brass or other metal, with stops to alter the sound, may be made to seem to speak some words, according unto the fancy of the inventor, so that the simple people will marvel at it. And for to make a bird or fowl, made of wood or metal, with other things made by art, to fly, it is to be done to go with springs, and so to beat the air with the wings, as other birds or fowls do, being of a reasonable lightness, it may fly: and also to make birds of metal to sing very sweetly, and good music, it may be done with wheels, to go at any hour or time appointed by plummets, and then to have pipes of tin or other fine metal, to go with bellows, and the pipes to have stops, and to go with a barrel, or other such like device, and may be made to play or sing what note that the inventor shall think good when he doth make it; and also there may be divers helps to make it to seem pleasant unto the ears of the hearers, by letting the sound or wind of the pipes pass through or into water, for that will make a quavering as birds do, &c. And also you may make a small puppet, either like a man or woman, to seem to go by wheels and springs, and shall turn and go circular, according unto the setting of the wheels and springs, and also the birds made to fly by art, to fly circularly, as it shall please the inventor, by the placing of the wheels and springs, and such other like inventions, which the common people would marvel at, thinking that it is done by enchantment, and yet is done by no other means but by good arts and lawful.”
Thomas Tymme, in 1612, published “A Dialogue Philosophicall,” written in the form of a Dialogue between Philadelph and Theophrast. In the third chapter, the former observes:—“I have heard and read of many strange motions artificiall, as were the inventions of Boetius, in whose commendation Cassiodorus writeth thus: you know profound things and shew mervailes, by the disposition of your Art, mettals doe lowe in sundrie formes: Diomedes picture of brasse, doth sound a trumpet loude: a brasen serpent hisseth: birds artificiall, sing sweetly. Very strange also was the moving of the Images of Mercurie: The brasen head which seemed to speake, made by Albertus Magnus: the Dove of wood, which the Mathematician Architas, did make to flie, as Agellius reporteth. Dedalus strange Images, which Plato speaketh of: Vulcans selfe-movers, whereof Homer hath written: the Iron fly, made at Noremberge, which being let out of the Artificers hand, did as it were flie about by the guests that were at the Table, and at the last, as though it were weary, returned to his masters hand againe. In which Citie also an artificiall Eagle was so ordered to flie aloft in the ayre toward the Emperour coming thither, that it did accompany him a mighty way.”—Page 63.
It is mentioned in Evelyn’s Memoirs, that when in Italy, in 1644, he visited the Villa Borghese at Rome, where he saw the figure of a satyr, that “artfully expressed a human voice.”—See Note, [Article 86.] And in his Diary, he records:—“13 July, 1654. We all dined at that most obliging and universally curious Dr. Wilkins’s, at Wadham College [Oxford]. He had contrived a hollow statue, which gave a voice, and uttered words by a long concealed pipe that went to its mouth, whilst one speaks through it at a good distance.” He also entertained his visitors with “many other artificial, mathematical, and magical curiosities.”