188 LECTURE XX. 



was more and more generally adopted for about three centuries. Of the 

 architects of this school, two of the most celebrated were William of Sens, 

 and Walter of Coventry : the most elegant specimen of its performances 

 is, perhaps, King's College Chapel at Cambridge, which was founded by 

 Henry the Sixth, and begun in the year 1441. The Cathedral of Lincoln 

 appears to have been one of the earliest Gothic edifices : Westminster Abbey 

 was finished about 1285, the Minster of York was begun a few years after- 

 wards ; and it is difficult to determine which of these three buildings most 

 deserves the attention of the antiquary and the architect, or whether the 

 Cathedral at Canterbury may not be equal to either of them. 



In the midst of an age of darkness, an insulated individual arrests our 

 attention by merits of no ordinary kind. Roger Bacon was born at 

 Ilchester, in the year 1214 ; it is well known that his experiments had led 

 him to a discovery of the properties of gunpowder, although he humanely 

 concealed the nature of its composition from the public, and described it 

 only in an enigma : the extent of his optical knowledge has been variously 

 estimated, but it was unquestionably much greater than that of the ancient 

 philosophers. He appears, however, to have had some companions in his 

 mechanical pursuits ; he declares that he had seen chariots which could 

 move with incredible rapidity, without the help of animals ; he describes a 

 diving bell ; and he says that he had been informed, on good authority, that 

 machines had been made, by the assistance of which men might fly through 

 the air. Cimabue, who first began to revive the long neglected art of 

 painting, was contemporary with Bacon. The use of oil in painting is 

 commonly supposed to have been introduced by Van Eyck, but there are 

 traces, in the records of this country, of its employment as early as the 

 year 1239.* 



The clepsydrae or water timekeepers of the ancients appear to have been 

 gradually transformed, in the middle ages, into the clocks of the Saracens 

 and of the Arabians : and these were introduced into Europe in the 

 thirteenth century. About the year 1290, turret clocks were erected at 

 Westminster and at Canterbury. The first clock, of which we know the 

 construction, is that which was made by Wallingford in 1326, and which 

 was regulated by a fly ; and the second that of Defondeur, or Fusorius, 

 with a simple balance, made about 1400. But it appears that some portable 

 watches had been constructed in the beginning of the fourteenth century ; 

 and about the year 1460, several clock makers are said to have come to 

 England from Flanders. 



The art of engraving on metal, and of printing with the rolling press, is 

 supposed to have been invented in the year 1423. Some attribute the art 

 of printing with types, to Laurentius Coster of Haerlem,t who, as they 

 say, in 1430, employed for the purpose separate blocks of wood, tied 

 together with thread. Gensfleisch, one of his workmen, went to Mentz, 

 and was there assisted by Gutenberg, who invented types of metal. But 

 the best authors appear to disbelieve this story ; and Gutenberg, in partner- 



* See Lect. XI. 



t Ellis, Ph. Tr. xxiii. 1416. See also Ph. Tr. xxiii. 1507, Boxhoin, de Origine 

 Artis Typographicae. 



