ASTRONOMY, ETC., OF SEVENTEENTH CENT. 221 



threshold of important discoveries. Indeed, it has been said of Hooke 

 that his brilliant endowments were so ill assorted that every one was 

 neutralized by some other one, just as his ingenuity was marred by 

 his versatility. Towards the close of his life, his disappointments 

 exacerbated his defects of temper to such a degree, that he seems to 

 have been brought to a state 

 bordering upon derangement. 

 His moroseness became ex- 

 treme, and at last he refused to 

 communicate his discoveries to 

 the Royal Society, or to the 

 public. Nevertheless, it is re- 

 lated of Hooke that for the 

 last two or three years of his 

 life he sat night and day at a 

 table, so engrossed with his 

 inventions that he never un- 

 dressed or even went to bed. 

 It is undoubtedly the fact that 

 he had an inordinate desire for 

 fame, and laid claims of priority 

 to many great discoveries of his 

 time; and probably from having 

 pushed his speculations lurther 

 than appeared in his published 

 papers, he may in many cases 

 have appeared the actual dis- 

 coverer of results which his 

 rivals were the hrst to perfect 

 and publish. When Huyghens' 

 application of the pendulum to 

 clocks, and his idea of the 

 cycloidal checks (p. 208) were 

 announced, Hooke immediate- 

 ly claimed these for his own in- 

 ventions. The spiral spring to 

 which the balance-wheel of the 

 watch is attached, as already 



explained in connection with Huyghens, has also been claimed as an 

 invention of Hooke's. He certainly improved the diving-bell and the 

 air-pump, and introduced mo-re precision into the construction of as- 

 tronomical instruments. His ingenious contrivances in certain details 

 of machinery need not here be described. Indeed, so multifarious 

 were Hooke's inventions and researches in almost every department 

 of physical science, that his name appears in connection with most of 

 the chief discoveries of his time. He seems to have been the only 



FIG. 106. RECOMPOSITION OF. LIGHT 

 BY A LENS. 



