United States or Monaco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Oxford's tryals should be entered upon Saturday last. We hear that the Duchess of Argyle is wt child. I doe not hear yt the Divisions at Court are any thing abated or of any appearance of the Dukes having any thing of his Maj: favour. I heartily wish the present humours at Court may not prove an encouragmt to watchfull and restles enemies.
Coventry and Povy and I, I did not think fit to expose them to view now, but put it off till Saturday, and so with good content rose. Thence I to the Half Moone, against the 'Change, to acquaint Lanyon and his friends of our proceedings, and thence to my Lord Chancellor's, and there heard several tryals, wherein I perceive my Lord is a most able and ready man.
I was not my self present at any of the Tryals, excepting one, viz. that of George Burroughs; had I been one of his Judges, I could not have acquitted him: For several Persons did upon Oath testifie, that they saw him do such things as no Man that has not a Devil to be his Familiar could perform."
Let me add, that having made divers Tryals with that Blew substance, which in Painters shops is call'd Litmase, we have sometimes taken Pleasure to observe, that being dissolv'd in a due proportion of fair Water, the Solution either oppos'd to the Light, or dropp'd upon White paper, did appear of a deep Colour betwixt Crimson and Purple; and yet that being spread very thin on the Paper and suffer'd to dry on there, the Paper was wont to appear Stain'd of a Fine Blew.
But finding it difficult to wean my self from the love of revenge, I spent half the night very pensively; and rising by day-break, to ease me of my grief, and thoughts of my injury, I rov'd about every where, till at last going in to a publick gallery, very wonderful for several sorts of excellent painting; I saw some by Zeuxy's hand, that had not yet yielded to the injuries of time: And, not without an awful reverence, behold others by Protogenes, which tho' they were first tryals, yet disputed for exactness, even with nature it self: but on the other side viewing a celebrated piece drawn by Apelles; I even ador'd the work of so great a master: 'twas so correctly finisht to the life, you'd have sworn it an image of the soul too.
And I know not, Pyrophilus, whether I might not add, that even the Motion of the Small Parts of a Visible Object may in some cases contribute, though it be not so easie to say how, to the Producing or the Varying of a Colour; for I have several times made a Liquor, which when it has well settled in a close Vial, is Transparent and Colourless, but as soon as the Glass is unstopp'd, begins to fly away very plentifully in a White and Opacous fume; and there are other Bodies, whose Fumes, when they fill a Receiver, would make one suspect it contains Milk, and yet when these Fumes settle into a Liquor, that Liquor is not White, but Transparent; And such White Fumes I have seen afforded by unstopping a Liquor I know, which yet is it self Diaphanous and Red; Nor are these the only Instances of this Kind, that our Tryals can supply us with.
Their statements are all based upon a pamphlet, The Full Tryals, Examination, and Condemnation of Four Notorious Witches at the Assizes held at Worcester on Tuseday the 4th of March.... Printed for I. W. What seems to have been the first edition of this brochure bears no date. In 1700 another edition was printed for "J. M." in Fleet Street.
Secondly, That you may not think it strange, that I often content my self to rub upon a piece of White paper, the Juice of Bodies I would examine, since not onely I could not easily procure a sufficient Quantity of the juices of divers of them; but in several Cases the Tryals of the quantities of such Juices in Glasses would make us more lyable to mistakes, than the way that in those cases I have made use of.
The Wonders of the Invisible World. Being an account of the tryals of several witches lately executed in New-England. By Cotton Mather, D.D. To which is added a farther account of the tryals of the New England Witches. By Increase Mather, D.D., President of Harvard College. London: John Russell Smith, Soho Square. 1862.
There is an Experiment, Pyrophilus, which though I do not so exactly remember, and though it be somewhat Nice to make, yet I am willing to Acquaint You with, because the thing Produc'd, though it be but a Curiosity, is wont not a little to please the Beholders, and it is a way of turning by the help of a Dry Substance, an almost Golden-Colour'd Concrete, into a White one, the Several Tryals are not at present so fresh in my Memory to enable me to tell you Certainly, whether an Equal onely or a Double weight of Common Sublimate must be taken in reference to the Tinglass, but if I mistake not, there was in the Experiment that succeeded best, Two parts of the Former taken to One of the Latter.