330 Dr. Moll on the Invention of Telescopes. 



by the trials which he made, still the difficulty of making them 

 is not great.' 



The same day the President writes to the Minister Sully : 

 * The bearer of this letter is a soldier from Sedan, who 

 belongs to the prince's company, and who is held very in- 

 genious in many inventions and artifices of the war. He has 

 also made, a few days ago, an engine (un engin), in imitation 

 of that which has been made by a spectacle -maker of Middel- 

 burg, to see at a distance. He will show it to you, and make 

 you some for your sight. I requested the first inventor to 

 make me two, one for the king, and one for you; but the States 

 prohibited him from making any but for themselves. They 

 ordered some themselves to give them to me, that I may send 

 them to you, which I will do the first day.' 



The king's reply is very remarkable, being written about a 

 year before that prince was murdered at the instigation of the 

 Jesuitical faction. He writes thus the 8th of January, 1609 : 



1 1 shall see with pleasure the glasses which you mention in 

 your letter, though at present I am more in want of such that 

 can show me things near me, than of those which show distant 

 objects.' 



Having thus shown what are the respective claims of Metitis 

 and Lippershey, we must now consider those of a third pre- 

 tender to the honour of the invention. This person was also 

 a spectacle-maker of Middelburg, called Zacharias Tansz, and 

 he has, more generally than Lippershey, been considered as the 

 original inventor. The information of what we know about 

 him must be wholly derived from Borel's book on the invention 

 of telescopes. William Boreel, who appears to have been 

 very anxious about this matter, being himself a native of 

 Middelburg, had all the persons then living, and knowing 

 something on the subject, examined before the magistrates in 

 1655. Their depositions are given in Borel's book ; but the 

 originals of these depositions have not been found in the records 

 of the town of Middelburg, although a very diligent search was 

 made for them. In these documents, the places and houses in 

 which both Lippershey and Zacharias Tansz lived, are fre- 

 quently mentioned. These houses have since been taken 



