THE "INVISIBLE COLLEGE. " 379 



bank;" and Lady Fanshawe delicately says that, while he 

 made scientific experiments, he had an ''infirmity of lying 

 about them." Still he is entitled to the credit of produc- 

 ing a philosophical work in the English language, which 

 unquestionably had no small effect in helping the onward 

 progress of his country in knowledge of natural science, 

 and of probably creating a renewed interest in the physical 

 phenomena of electricity and magnetism an accomplish- 

 ment which, although retarded by the errors which he 

 taught, was at least not neutralized by them. 



He figures prominently in the scientific literature of his 

 time, and occasionally his opinions are quoted with much 

 deference; but this was probably less due to their original- 

 ity and merit than to their author's rank and position. It 

 was a new thing for a u man of quality" to be interested 

 in such matters, and still more of an innovation for him to 

 pose as an authority thereon. But the fashion spread, and 

 to Digby is due the honor of leading in a path into which 

 not many years afterwards the king and all the court 

 rushed pell-mell. 



The example of the French societies, modeled, as I have 

 said, on the Italian ridotti, was soon followed in Kngland. 

 Shortly after the breaking out of the civil war, an assem- 

 bly of learned and curious gentlemen, "in order to divert 

 themselves from those melancholy sciences, applied them- 

 selves to experimental inquiries and the study of nature." 

 This was the so-called "Invisible College," which began 

 its meetings in 1645 ^ n Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood 

 Street, chiefly because there was an artisan in the house 

 able to grind glasses for telescopes and microscopes. 1 



It was the second scientific society instituted in England 

 the first being the little gathering of students and friends 

 which met, as already noted, in the house of Gilbert, hard 

 by St. Paul's. The new assemblage met to discuss pretty 



1 Boyle: Works, cit. sup. Thomson: Hist. Roy. Soc. London, 1812. 





