33^ ■F'^^^ '3'7z</ Charatlcr of the Monk Roger Bacon. 



that he mentions the power and operations of glaffes on light^ 

 (if I * remember and underftand him aright,) rather explain- 

 incr thefe operations ah'eady in ufe, than as a difcovcry made 

 by himfelf. I think, however, that it is clearly a faft, that, 

 hke Sir Ifaac Newton, and Hke our Herrchel, the honour of 

 the prefent age, he made thofe arrangements which produced 

 the telefcope ; and that, like them, he applied his improve- 

 ments to aftronomical obfervations. He particularly men- 

 tions a previous trial which he made, as our common me- 

 chanic opticians do, of reading fmall writing at a very great 

 diftance. 



I do not mention the difcovery of ^zw//)Oxy<-/tfr as- imputed 

 to our monk, becaufe, although he f gives the mode of 

 making this powder; and defcribes its explofive and coruf- 

 cant power; and clearly points out that he had in his mind 

 a deftru(Slive ufe to which it might be applied in comhura- 

 i'lon, made to burn at a great difi:ance: yet he withhold:! 

 himfelf from explaining thn ufe ; and does not in any part 

 mention its explofion, as applied by the wjlrumentalily of 

 tubes to a projeilile force that was to throw the miflile wea- 

 pons of cogles or balls. Which application of it renders it 

 fpecitically gunpowder. His words are: " In omncm di- 

 llantiam, quam volumus, poflTumus arlificialiter componere 

 ignem coviburentein ex fale-petra et aHis/' What thefe other 

 articles are he mentions in another part of his works, namely, 

 fulphur and charcoal. 



I cannot reftrain myfelf from mentioning the idle, tradi- 

 tional ftory of friar Bacon's brazen head, which was to fpcak 

 and announce time, becaufe I think it founded in a real 

 though miftaken fa£l. From confidering what one may 

 elicit out of the nonfenfe of it, I have perfuaded myfelf that 

 it was an experiment in horology, and the model of a clock 

 meafuring time by the ofcillation of a pendulum, aad by 

 various movements in the face oi \h'\s head, (as is actually 

 the exifting fa6l in the clock at Bafle,) marking the divifiont^ 

 of time, together with a mechanifm that fnould announce 

 by found thofe divifions, which, in allulion to the face and 

 head, was called fpeaking ; fimilar to the crowing of the cock 

 on the clock at Strafbourg, or to the cuckoo on the wooden 

 clocks which the Germans fell about our ftreets. 



There remains ftill to be mentioned, inconteftably to his 

 unrivalled honour, that he was the (irfl difcoverer of the 

 error of meafuring time by a falfe period of the year; and 

 the firft projeftor of the reform of the calendar and oUici 



* Removed from my books, I quote from memory, 

 f In his tradt De becretis Optribus Aitis ct Naturse. 

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