332 Dr. Moll on the Invention of Telescopes. 



The Capucin friar, Uheita*, attributes also the first invention 

 to Lippershey, whom he calls Lippensum. This is certainly no 

 great alteration of the original name, not greater than that 

 which is made by the English author of the Life of Galileo, who 

 chooses to translate Borel's name into Italian, and calls him 

 Borelli. According to the version of Rheita, the invention 

 dates from 1609, when Lippershey happened to place a convex 

 before a concave, and discovered, by chance, that the weather- 

 cock of a neighbouring church, and other objects, were magni- 

 fied. He placed his glasses in a tube, and amused the visiters 

 of his shop by showing them the weather-cock magnified, and 

 larger than it could be seen with the unassisted eye. The 

 Marquess of Spinola, happening to be at the Hague at the time, 

 to negotiate about the truce, saw this new instrument, bought it, 

 and gave it to the Archduke Albert of Austria, the Spanish 

 Governor of Belgium. 



In the mean time, persons of high station (proceres) heard 

 of the circumstance, and that other similar instruments had 

 been constructed by the maker. The inventor was forced to 

 sell his instrument for a great price ; but he was prohibited 

 from making or selling any more of them. In this manner, 

 says the worthy friar, this noble and capital invention would 

 have remained in obscurity, and hidden perhaps for ever, if it 

 had not been transferred, by the will of God, to the court of 

 Brussels, and made known there. 



The Capucin friar is mistaken in the dates, bringing the 

 invention to 1609 instead of 1608. But, besides, the Marquess 

 of Spinola was not at the Hague in 1609. He left that city the 

 30th of September, 1608, together with the other Spanish mi- 

 nisters. That he left the Hague a little before Lippershey pre- 

 sented his petition to the States ; but the Marquess, residing 

 at the Hague, certainly could not see an apparatus which a 

 spectacle-maker had erected in his shop at Middelburg ; but, at 

 all events, there is a possibility that Spinola, residing at the 

 Hague in September, 1608, heard of the invention, and pro- 

 duced a telescope for the Archduke. 



* Oculus Enoch and Eliae, p. 337. 

 (To be continued.) 



