The Belgian born Merlin was known in eighteenth-century London for the ingenious devices exhibited at Merlin's Mechanical Museum, including complex mechanical toys and household devices, sickroom supplies such as an innovative wheelchair and an adjustable wheeled bed, and musical instruments both whimsical and practical. Merlin's best known patron would probably have been Dr. Burney, who commissioned from him a pianoforte with an extended keyboard for playing duets.