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ably known as a most profound and original thinker on moral and metaphysical subjects, in an age when these departments of philosophy were especially under the control of routine and authority. We read, too, of a brazen head made by one of Bacon's patrons and most intimate friends, the celebrated Robert Grostete, or Greathead, Bishop of Lincoln, a prelate of great genius and learning, but who had made himself obnoxious by his independent conduct, not only to the general body of the clergy, of whose corrupt manners he was a severe censor, but to the reigning Pope Innocent IV himself, some of whose impositions he had resisted with a boldness that might surprise those who have so read the history of the Roman Catholic Church as to have ga thered no other notions with regard to it except that of the unlimited authority of its head, and the uniform and unquestioning obedience of its inferior members. Bishop Greathead, often called Robert of Lincoln, wrote several works, which still exist, both in theology and science; and was distinguished, like his friend Bacon, for his philosophical as well as his mathematical knowledge. Lastly, we may mention the complete man of brass made by the famous Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, of which it is recorded that it was so fond of talking that Thomas Aquinas, while a pupil of Albert's, one day knocked it to pieces as a disturber of his studies. Albert was a contemporary of Friar Bacon's, and like him long enjoyed the reputation of profound skill in the art of magic. He was undoubtedly a very extraordinary man. The extent and variety of his attainments seem to have been wonderful, for the age in which he flourished; and his industry and fertility as a writer must be regarded as almost unparalleled if he really composed the whole of that immense mass

seventeenth century, under the title of his collected Works, in twenty-one volumes folio. A large portion of these consists of Commentaries on Aristotle, whose works, however, he knew only through the medium of the wretched Latin translations then existing.

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Attached as Friar Bacon was to those vain speculations, known under the names of the sciences of astrology and alchemy, he was so far from ever pretending to operate by supernatural means, that one of his works, his Treatise on the Miracles of Art and Nature,' to which we have already referred, is written principally for the purpose of proving the nullity or absurdity of what was called the Art of Magic, and exposing the tricks of its professors. In the beginning of this little work, after enumerating the various methods by which these impostors pretended to perform their wonders, he affirms, that no true philosopher did ever regard to work by any of these ways.' And immediately after, nothing can be more sensible than the manner in which he expresses himself on the subject of charms, spells, &c. Without doubt,' says he, there is nothing in these days of this kind, but what is either deceitful, dubious, or irrational, which philosophers formerly invented to hide their secret operations of nature and art from the eyes of an unworthy generation.' The domination which he imagined the heavenly bodies to possess over human affairs, was certainly an absurd dream; and so was his other favourite fancy about the tincture which possessed the power of curing all diseases, and turning everything into gold: but neither of them proceeded upon the idea of anything like supernatural or magical agency. The moral influence which he attributed to the stars, he conceived to be as truly a law of nature as that which directed their motions, or retained them in their orbits; and one, the operation and effects of which equally admitted of being made

matter of calculation and science. In the same manner, his universal solvent was merely one of the yet undiscovered essences or compounds of natural chemistry, the expectation of ever finding which might be wild and unwarrantable enough, and the properties ascribed to it such, in fact, as nothing existing did actually possess: but still there was not necessarily anything magical, either about the supposed nature of the substance itself, or the manner in which it was to be applied, or even the processes and experiments by which it was sought to be discovered. It is quite true that some of the other cultivators of these visionary sciences professed to avail themselves of the aid of spells or spirits, or other supernatural means, in prosecuting their researches; but Bacon never did. The worst that can be said of him is, that his language, when he is speaking of the subject, is occasionally somewhat mystical-which arises, in a great part, it is but fair to observe, merely from his employment of the peculiar and technical phraseology of which the sciences in question, as well as all others, have their share. Nothing, therefore, could be more undeserved than the opprobrium to which he was exposed as a student of necromancy, or as one who ever even professed to work enchantments. It has been said that this calumny only arose many years after his death, and that he himself never was annoyed by it; but both his history and his writings, we cannot help thinking, prove the contrary. In his book on Old Age, he distinctly complains of being hindered from making such experiments as he would have wished, by the rumours of the vulgar.' And in various other passages we find him alluding to the difficulties and dangers which philosophy had to encounter from the same cause. is gratifying, however, to observe, that in whatever spirit this accusation may have been originally

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brought against him, and with however much af fected horror his name may have long been regarded by his brother churchmen, who used to nail his books, we are told, to the shelves of their libraries, and to allow them to remain in that state covered with dust, and a prey to the moths and worms, he seems even, in his character of a magician, to have been a favourite with the people in general. In 'The Famous History of Friar Bacon,' instead of being represented as in league with the powers of evil, we find him, on various occasions, opposing and foiling them in a style that would do honour to any legendary saint in the calendar; and when his fellow conjurers, Bungey and Vandermast, are consigned, at the close of their career, to the usual fate of persons of their craft, he is, by an extraordinary piece of indulgence on the part of the chronicler, released from the dreadful penalty by being made, in a fit of repentance, to burn his books of magic, to turn anchorite, and to study divinity. Everything that is told of him, too, speaks in favour of the kind and generous manner in which he used to dispense his enchantments; and, upon the whole, he is represented to us, in point of moral character, very much in the same light in which his own writings, so evidently the produce of a simple, benevolent, and philosophic spirit, would lead us to regard him. He was, indeed, a genuine lover of knowledge and philosophy, for which he was ever ready to suffer all things,-preferring them infinitely to all things. He unfolds to us, in short, very clearly, what manner of man he must have been, by a single remark: when speaking of one of his projects or contrivances, he calls it, with delightful enthusiasm,‘ an invention of more satisfaction to a discreet head, than a king's crown.'

CHAPTER XII.

Professors of Optical Discovery.-Dollond; Ramsden; Herschel; Thomas Phelps and John Bartlett; Fraunhofer; Palitzch.

THE truth, as we have already remarked, with regard to many of the inventions mentioned by Friar Bacon, probably is, that he had rather deduced them as possibilities from the philosophical principles in which he believed, than actually realised them experimentally. Among others, certain optical instruments to which he attributes very wonderful powers existed merely, there can be little doubt, as conceptions of his mind, and had never been either fashioned or handled by him.

The invention of spectacles, however, may be consid ered as having been traced, on evidence of unusual clearness in such matters, to about the time of the death of Bacon. By the testimony of more than one contemporary writer this useful contrivance is assigned to a Florentine named Salvini degl' Armati; although he, it is said, would have kept the secret to himself, had it not been for another subject of the same state, Father Alexander de Spina, who, having found it out by the exertion of his own ingenuity and penetration, was too generous to withhold from the world so useful a discovery. This was about the close of the twelfth century. From this time magnifying, or burning, lenses continued to be made of various sizes. But nearly three hundred years more elapsed before any additional discovery of much importance

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