326 Dr. Moll on the Invention of Telescopes, 



inasmuch as it is much more difficult to work and to select 

 crystal than glass. 



The 6th of October following, mention is made again in 

 the Acts of the States, of the subject of telescopes : 



October, 1608. 



' The Commissioners of the Provinces who have examined 

 the instrument made by John Lippershey, spectacle-maker, 

 and who have communicated with him, report that the instru- 

 ment is likely to be of utility to the state, and that in conse- 

 quence they offered to the inventor to make such an instru- 

 ment of rock-crystal for the state, at the price of three hundred 

 florins, payable immediately, and six hundred florins more 

 when the instrument is completed arid approved of. Resolved, 

 to authorise these gentlemen, as is done by the present, to 

 come to a final conclusion with Lippershey, about the making 

 of the said instrument, and to limit him a time within which 

 the instrument is to be completed and delivered in good order. 

 And then the States are to deliberate whether a privilege or an 

 annual pension is to be granted to the petitioner, under condi- 

 tion, that he will promise to make no such instruments, but 

 with the consent of the States.' 



Whilst these transactions were taking place with Lippershey, 

 Metius, the second competitor, handed in his petition the 17th 

 of October. Having gone so far with Lippershey, the States 

 were perhaps at a loss how to dispose of Metius's claim. They 

 contented themselves with giving him some empty words of 

 encouragement, and some vague promises for the future. 

 After this time nothing more was done by Metius to attract 

 public notice. He doggedly refused to show his telescopes to 

 anybody, not even to Prince Maurice, and least of all to his 

 brother, the Professor of Franeker. Perhaps Jacob Metius 

 was disgusted with the little encouragement he received, and 

 it is not unnatural to suppose, that a man of his eccentric 

 habits, having once failed in his object, could not make up his 

 mind to make a second attempt. 



The petition of Metius appears, however, to have had some 

 influence on the manner in which the petition of Lippershey 

 was disposed of. 



