524

HISTOBY OF PHYSICAL ASTEONOMY.

ment of Lipperliey in military reconnaissances ; and tlieir formal approvalof it already referred to, when taken in connexion with this circumstance,implies that it possessed a considerable magnifying power.

We have seen how quickly the Dutch telescopes passed into France and Italy. If we are to believe the German astronomer, Simon Marius ,he commenced astronomical observations in the year 1609, with a telescopewhich he procured from Holland. Telescopes were also imported intoEngland soon after their invention. The late Professor Rigaud found, byan inspection of the manuscripts of Harriot, the celebrated mathema-tician, that even as early as July, 1609, he had been making observationsof celestial phenomena with one of these instruments. This fact tendsvery much to disprove the assertion that the telescopes originally made inHolland were totally unfit for scientific purposes, for it can hardly bedoubted that the one which Harriot used was obtained from that country.On the 6tli of July, 1010, Sir Christopher Heyden thus writes toCamden, the famous antiquarian:—“ I have read Galilseus, and, to beshort, do concur with him in opinion, for his reasons are demonstrative;and, of my own experience, with one of our ordinary trunks I have toldeleven stars in the Pleiades , whereas no age ever remembers above seven,and one of them, as Virgil testifieth, not always to be seen.”* Therecan be no doubt that the expression—“ one of our ordinary trunks ”—refers to the Dutch telescopes which were in common use in England, asdistinguished from the superior telescopes of Galileo recently importedfrom Italy .

In a letter dated Tra’venti in Caermarthenshire, Feb. 0, 1010, Sir'William Lower thus writes to Harriot:—■“ I have received the perspectivecylinder that you promised me, and am sorrie that my man gave you notmore warning, that I might have also the two or three more that youmentioned to chuse for me. Henceforward he shall have orders to attendyou better, and to defray the charge of this and others, for he confessetlito me that he forgot to pay the workman.

“ According as you wished, I have observed the moone in all his changes.In the new manifestlie I discover the earthshine a little before the di-cliotomie; that spot which represents unto me the man in the moone(but without a head) is first to be seene. A little after, neare the brimme ofthe gibbous parts towards the upper corner appeare luminous parts likestarres; much brighter than the rest; and the whole brimme along looks likeunto the description of coasts in the Dutch books of voymges. In the fullshe appeares like a tart that my cooke made me last weeke; here a vaine ofbright stuffe, and there of darke, and so confusedlie all over. I mustconfesse I can see none of this without my cylinder; yet an ingeniousyouuge man that accompanies me here often, and loves you, and thesestudies much, sees manie of these things, even without the helpe of theinstrument, but with it sees them most plainlie—I mean the young Mr.Protheroe.” *

We have deemed it proper to dwell at some length upon the earlyhistory of the Dutch telescopes, because those instruments have beenthrown into unmerited oblivion by the splendour of Galileo ’s discoveries.We cannot reasonably avoid the conclusion, when the subject is takeninto complete consideration, that, even although the last-mentioned philo-sopher had never lived, the Dutch telescopes would have been gradually

Supplement to Bradley’s Miscellaneous Works, p. 27.

f Ibid., p. 42.