14 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS [1627. 



roundness of period assumed necessary for the style of 

 a courtly gentleman, confused and perplexed him. We 

 imagine the prosy writer, being conversationally sen 

 tentious ; perhaps painfully so to the ears of fashionable 

 society, delighting as it does in the trivialties of such 

 conversation as that which would principally charac 

 terise the Court of those days ; rendered perhaps only 

 the more irksome by his continuance in its fashionable 

 frivolities for three or more years. 



A very fair specimen of the mechanical knowledge 

 of the period, when Lord Herbert was finishing his 

 education, is afforded in the work of Henry Peacham, 

 published in 1627, entitled &quot; The Compleat Gentleman.&quot; 

 In his ninth chapter, treating of Geometry, he says : 

 u Out of Egypt, Thales brought it into Greece, where 

 it received that perfection we see it now hath. For by 

 means hereof are found out the forms and draughts of 

 all figures, greatness of all bodies, all manner of mea 

 sures and weights, the cunning working of all tools ; 

 with all artificial instruments whatsoever. All engines 

 of war, for many whereof (being antiquated) we have 

 no proper names 5 as, Exosters, Sambukes, Catapultes, 

 Testudos, Scorpions, &c. Petardes, Grenades, great 

 Ordinance of all sorts. 



&quot; By the benefit, likewise, of Geometry, we have our 

 goodly ships, gallies, bridges, mills, chariots and 

 coaches, (which were invented in Hungary, and there 

 called Cotzki), some with two wheels, some with more ; 

 pullies and cranes of all sorts. She (Geometry) also 

 with her ingenious hand rears all curious roofs and 

 arches, stately theatres, the columns simple and com 

 pounded, pendant galleries, stately windows, turrets, 

 &c. And first brought to light our clocks and curious 

 watches (unknown unto the ancients) lastly, our kitchen 

 jacks, even the ivheel-barrow. Besides whatsoever hath 



