TO THE READER. xiij

viv’d the Triumphs of the proudest Conquerors, and Sfillers ofhuman Blood ) Princes have been more renown’d for their Civilityto Arts and Letters, than to all their sanguinary Victories, subduingProvinces, and making those brutijh Desolations vi the IV or Id , tofeed a salvage and vile Ambition. Witness you Great Alexander,and you the Ptolemies, Cæsars, Charlemain, Francis the First ; theCosmo’s, Frederick’s, Alphonsus’s, and the rest of Learned Princes:

Since when all the Pomp and Noise is ended ; they are those littleThings in black ( whom now in scorn they term Philosophers andFops) to whom they must be obliged , for making their Names out-last the Pyramids, whose Founders are as unknown as the Headsof Nile • because they either deserved no Memory for their Vir-tues, or had none to transmit them , or their Actions to Posterity.

1S not our Royal Founder already panegyrized by all the Uni-versities, Academists, Learned Persons, divers Princes Ambassadors,and Illustrious Men from abroad ? Witness bestdes , the many ac.curate Treatises and Volumes of the most curious and useful Sub-jects, Medicinal, Mathematical, and Mechanical, dedicated to hisMajesty as Founder ; to its President, and to the Society, by thegreatest Wits, and most profoundly knowing of the European World,celebrating their Institution and Proceedings; Witness the dailySubmissions and solemn Appeals of the most Learned Strangers toits Suffrages, as to the f most able-, candid, and impartial Judges:Witness, the Letter? and Correspondencies from most Farts of thehabitable Earth, East and West-lndies, and almost from Pole toPole • bestdes what' they have received from the. very Mouths ofdivers Professors, Publick Ministers, great Travellers, Noblemen,and F er sons of highest Qualitywho have not only frequented theAssembly; but desired to be incorporated and. ascribed into theirNumber \,\fo little has his Majesty, ■ or the Kingdom been dimi-nished in, their Reputation, by the Royal Society, to the Reproachof our forstid'' Adversaries : Never had the Republick of Letters JoLearned and Universal # Correspondence as has been procuredand promoted by this Society alone ; as not only the casual Trans-actions of several Tears ( filled with Instances of the most curiousand useful Observations) make appear ; but {as I said ) the manyNuncupatory Epistles to be seen in the Fronts of Jo many LearnedVolumes -. There it is you will 'find CHARLES II. placed\among the, Heroes and Demi-Gods, for his Patrociny and Prote-ction : There you will fee the numerous Congratulations of themost Learned foreigners, celebrating the Happiness of their Insti-tution ; and that whilst other Nations are still benighted under thedusky Cloud, 1 such a refulgent Beam should gi ve qy a y t0 t jy tSblessed Isle : And certainly , it is not to be supposed that all theseLearned Persons, of so many , and divers Interests, as well as Coun-

^ tries,