Anne Ford it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the "viol di gambo". Ford gave a performance at Spring Gardens in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, "Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses". The instrument was comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by Marianne Davies. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the
Paris in the 18th century played no important role in the scientific revolution or the Enlightenment. The school of law taught only religious law, and the medical school had little prestige, since doctors, until the mid-18th century, were considered in the same professional category as barbers. The university shrank from about sixty colleges in the early 17th century to thirty-nine in 1700. In 1763, the twenty-nine smallest colleges were grouped together in the college Louis-le-Grand, but altogether it had only 193 students. On 5 April 1792, without any loud protest, the University was closed. Following its closing, the chapel of the Sorbonne was stripped for