PREFACE. IX 



correct and impartial account of almost every work 

 that holds any importance either among the discove- 

 ries or mere elementary assistances of science. If we 

 add to this, three articles in the Magazine of Popular 

 Science, by the Editor of this volume, we shall have 

 enumerated, we believe, every published contribution 

 to the subject. It may, however, be mentioned, that 

 Mr. Hunter discovered that John Field and John 

 Dee adopted the Copernican system as early as 1556 ; 

 and Professor De Morgan has shown that Robert 

 Recorde was a convert to the heliocentric theory at 

 nearly the same period. But these discoveries seem 

 to have attracted little attention from scientific men, 

 either on account of that lamentable apathy towards 

 matters of history which is too frequently character- 

 istic of the lover of demonstration, or perhaps, let us 

 hope, from a want of some general channel of com- 

 munication, such as the Historical Society of Science 

 now affords. 



The letters of Sir Charles Cavendish, which are, 

 with two or three exceptions, now published for the 

 first time, will, we think, enable the reader to form a 

 tolerably correct idea of the extent to which the study 

 of analytical science was then carried in England. If 

 we give a glance at the state of this branch of science 

 a short time anterior to that period, we shall be rather 

 at a loss to account for the number and success of its 

 English cultivators, who seern to have arisen on a 

 sudden and at the same time with efforts sufficient to 

 produce works equalling, if not surpassing, those of 

 their continental neighbours. 



