Memoir of Rev. John Prince, LL. D. 205 
His reputation was thus established amony the first philosophers 
and mechanicians of his age. He received the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Laws from the very respectable college at Providence, 
and was admitted to the several learned and philosophical societies 
of the country. 
t is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do justice to Dr. 
Prince’s claims upon the gratitude of the scientific world. His mod- 
esty and indifference to fame were so real and sincere, that it never 
occurred to him to take pains to eppelate to himself the improve- 
ments and discoveries he had ma 
Fortunately for the cause of science, his whole philosophical and 
literary correspondence has been preserved. All his own letters, 
and many of them are very elaborate and minute, containing full 
discussions, and, frequently, drawings executed by the pen, were 
carefully copied out into manuscript volumes. These manuscript 
volumes, which are eleven in number, are the monuments of his 
genius, and the only record of his contributions to the cause of sci- 
ence. It was his custom, when he bad made an improvement in 
the construction and use of a philosophical instrument, instead of 
publishing it to the world, to communicate a full description of it, 
by private letter, to the principal instrument makers in London. 
During his whole life, down to March 19th, 1836, the date of his 
last letter to Samuel Jones of London, be has, in this manner, been 
promoting the interests of science, while his agency, to a very great 
extent, has been unknown to the public. 
A long letter, occupying ten closely written pages, is found under 
the date af Noy. 3d, 1792, addressed to George Adams, of London, 
and containing a full description of an improved construction of the 
Lucernal microscope. On the 3d of July, 1795, he wrote another 
letter to Mr. Adams, describing still further improvements in the 
same instrument. ithout making any public acknowledgment 
of his obligations to Dr. Prince, Mr. Adams proceeded to construct 
Lucernal microscopes upon the plan suggested by him. Shortly 
after the death of Mr. Adams, which peiced in the latter part of 
1795, an article appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, signed by 
Jobn Hill, a distinguished cultivator of science, in which the impor- 
tance of these improvements was shown at large, and illustrated by 
a plate. The writer stated that he had procured bis instrument 
from Mr. Adams a short time before his death, and that Adams inti- 
mated to him at the time, that he had been indebted for some im- 
* 
