multiplying glass

plural multiplying glasses

1. A glass with a number of facets, causing an object to appear multiplied many times.

   When I look at a candle through a multiplying glass, I seem to see a dozen candles instead of one […]

   1846, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, New York: Harper & Brothers, Book 4, Chapter 1, p. 384

   2 more examples

   1694, N.H., The Ladies Dictionary, London: John Dunton, p. 95, […] ten to one but a Lady gets an Enemy when she refuses a Lover—who is generally so unreasonable an Animal, that he does not consider, One poor Woman can suffice at once but for one Man; whereas if a Fam’d Beauty, or Fortune, she can never content all Pretenders—unless she had as many Bodies as she has Faces when she looks in a Multiplying Glass.

   It may have one side, which must be convex, ground into little facets, like those of some jewels, while the other side is plain. Children know it by the name of a multiplying glass […]

   1776, Oliver Goldsmith, chapter 5, in A Survey of Experimental Philosophy, volume 2, London: T. Carnan and F. Newbery, page 284

   Synonyms: polyscope

2. obsoleteA magnifying glass.

   1631, Ben Jonson, The New Inn, London: Thomas Alchorne, Act I, Scene 1, poring through a multiplying glasse, / Vpon a captiu’d crab-louse, or a cheese-mite / To be dissected, as the sports of nature, / With a neat Spanish needle

   2 more examples

   Will he forgive that dim sight which I have of sin now, when sins scarce appeare to be sins unto me, and will he forgive that over-quick sight, when I shall see my sins through Satans multiplying glasse of desperation, when I shall thinke them greater then his mercy, upon my death bed?

   a. 1631, John Donne, “Sermon preached upon Whitsunday”, in LXXX Sermons, London: Richard Royston, published 1640, page 343

   For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses, (that is their Passions and Selfe-love,) through which, every little payment appeareth a great grievance; but are destitute of those prospective glasses, (namely Morall and Civill Science,) to see a farre off the miseries that hang over them, and cannot without such payments be avoyded.

   1651, Thomas Hobbes, chapter 18, in Leviathan, London: Andrew Crooke, page 94