Mr. Pearsall traces the origin of this machine to Spain, and in connexion with the Inquisition. He says, “In the year 1835, I met at Liege with a very well educated and accomplished man of letters; he was a Frenchman by birth, and had been attached to the court of Joseph Buonaparte, when he was promoted by his brother Napoleon to be king of Spain. There, my informant told me, that he had an opportunity of inspecting the chamber of the Inquisition at Madrid, and that, among other instruments with which it was provided, he found an image of the Virgin Mary, composed partly of wood and partly of iron. This engine was called ‘_Mater Dolorosa_,’ and with it was administered the last and severest degree of torture. Its ordinary position was that of a woman standing erect, with her arms crossed on her bosom; but there was a contrivance by which she was made to expand her arms, and then the inside surfaces of them were seen to be garnished with a number of small points or stilettoes. The person to be tortured was placed opposite to her, breast to breast, and then her arms were brought round his back, and by means of a powerful screwing implement made to grasp him tightly, so as to inflict great pain, and to render it impossible that he could fall from her gripe. Whilst she held him thus firmly, a trap-door was opened under his feet, so as to cause him to hang in agony over an abyss. In this position he was importuned to confess his guilt, while the arms of the machine were slowly and gradually screwed tighter and tighter, till life was squeezed out of his body. The corpse was then released, and fell through the trap-door into a sort of _oubliette_. Now, I am much inclined to think that the machine in the possession of Baron Diedrich was made to do its inhuman duty somewhat in the same manner as the machine in the Spanish Inquisition.” Priestly cruelty in Spain appears to have derived this instrument from the invention of this kind by Nabis, tyrant of Sparta. See Hampton’s Polybius, vol. ii., p. 291. Mr. Pearsall remarks, “Perhaps, also, the merit of having invented the Virgin is due to the genius of Spain; and it is by no means impossible that it was thence transplanted into Germany during the reign of Charles V., who was monarch of both countries. According to M. de Pfeffel, (_Abrégé de l’Histoire d’Allemagne_, p. 414) there were great tumults in Germany during the years 1531 and 1532, and continual quarrels at Nuremberg, between the Protestants and Catholics. ‘In 1532 was published,’ says he, ‘the famous Criminal Code of the Empire, which was the most severe and the least observed in Europe.’ In 1533 the Iron Virgin was, according to the Chronicle cited by Siebenkees, constructed at Nuremberg.