290 Travels in Italy 



those experiments, which it is their duty to make, let others who 

 are wiUing convert such machines to use. Half these imple- 

 ments grow good for nothing from rest; and before they are 

 used demand to be new arranged. You show me abundance of 

 tools, but say not a word of the discoveries that have been made 

 by them. A prince, who is at the expense of making such great 

 collections of machines, should always order a series of experi- 

 ments to be carrying on by their means. If I were Grand Duke 

 of Tuscany I should say, " You, Mr. Fontana, have invented 

 a eudiometer; I desire that you will carry on a series of trials 

 to ascertain every circumstance which changes the result, in 

 the qualities of airs, that can be ascertained by the nitrous test; 

 and if you have other inquiries, which you think more important, 

 employ some person upon whom you can depend." — And to 

 Mr. John Fabbroni, " You have made five trials on the weight 

 of geoponic soils, taken hydrostatically ; make five hundred 

 more, and let the specimens be chosen in conjunction with the 

 professor of agriculture. You have explained how to analyse 

 soils — analyse the same specimens." When men have opened 

 to themselves careers which they do not pursue, it is usually 

 for want of the means of prosecuting them ; but in the museum 

 of a prince, in such cabinets as at Florence or Bologna, there 

 are no difficulties of this sort, — and they would be better em- 

 ployed than in their present state, painted and patched, like 

 an opera girl, for the idle to stare at. What would a Watson, 

 a Milner, or a Priestley say upon a proposal to have their labora- 

 tories brushed out clean and spruce ? I believe they would kick 

 out the operator who came on such an errand. In like manner, 

 I hate a library well gilt, exactly arranged, and not a book out of 

 its place; I am apt to think the owner better pleased with the 

 reputation of his books than with reading them. Here is a 

 chamber for machines applicable to mechanics ; and the country 

 is full of carts with wheels two feet high, with large axles ; what 

 experiments have been made in this chamber to inform the 

 people on a point of such consequence to the conduct of almost 

 every art ? I have, however, a greater quarrel than this with the 

 Institute. There is an apartment of the art of war and fortifica- 

 tion. Is there one of the machines of agriculture, and of such 

 of its processes as can be represented in miniature? — No: nor 

 here, nor any anywhere else have I seen such an exhibition : yet 

 in the king's library at Paris the art of English gardening is 

 represented in wax-work, and makes a plaything pretty enough 

 for a child to cry for. The attention paid to war and the neglect 



