GILBERT'S PHILOSOPHIA NOVA. 319 



died in 1612. That lie intended to publish the book is 

 clear; nevertheless, he departed, as its author had done, 

 with his purpose unfulfilled. 



In 1626 Bacon succumbed to the results of his ill-timed 

 experiment in preserving chickens with snow, and be- 

 queathed all his papers saving his collection of speeches 

 and letters to his literary executors, Sir John Constable 

 and William Bosvile the latter better known as Sir Will- 

 iam Bos well, sometime British Agent with the States of 

 the United Provinces. The Bacon manuscripts were sent to 

 Boswell's residence at the Hague, and there lay until Bos- 

 well, who died in 1647, confided them to the editorial care 

 of Isaac Gruter, who culled from them nineteen essays and 

 fragments, including the Cogitata et Visa, the Descriptio 

 Globo Intellectualis, Thema Coeli and others, and pub- 

 lished them all together in 1653. Among the papers 

 which thus came into his hands, Gruter found the two 

 manuscripts of William Gilbert, of Colchester, which Wil- 

 liam Gilbert, of Melford, had prepared, and these he edited 

 and issued as before stated, in 1651. * 



Gruter is unable to decide whether the treatises, thus 

 brought to light, were written before or after the De Mag- 

 nete. Mr. James Spedding, the learned biographer of 

 Bacon, is of opinion that they were produced before 1604 

 u as the new star of 1572 is mentioned by itself, whereas 

 later writers, as Bacon and Galileo, always couple it with 

 the star in Ophiuchus first seen in i6c>4;" 2 and also con- 

 jectures that they are of later date than 1600, on the some- 

 what inconclusive authority of Bacon's remark 3 concerning 

 Gilbert as one. who, "having employed himself most as- 

 siduously in the consideration of the magnet, immediately 

 established a system of philosophy to coincide with his 

 favorite pursuit. " When the Meteorology was written is 



J The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. by Spedding, Ellis and Heath, Vol. 

 II., 196, Vol. V., 187, Boston, i8b2. 

 2 Ibid. 

 8 Novuni Organum, i., 5^. 



