LITERATURE AND SCIENCE OF ENGLAND. 39 



science, and in some measure of the science of a 

 still more enlightened people, he appears to have 

 been himself an inquirer into nature, and an original 

 discoverer. His writings are probably known to 

 very few, as they are to me, except by their titles. 

 He wrote on the Abacus and the Astrolabe, which 

 were the first attempts at making the skill of the 

 mechanic minister to the views of the philosopher ; 

 on the causes of natural compositions, in which it 

 may be supposed that some of the principles of 

 chemical affinities are to be found; and seventy-six 

 problems in natural philosophy, which Leland, no 

 incompetent judge, pronounces to be highly valuable. 

 An account of his travels was once to be read in a 

 manuscript preserved in the library of Corpus 

 Christi College, in Oxford. We must join with Dr. 

 Wallis in the regret which he expresses in the pre- 

 face to his Algebra, that some wicked hand has torn 

 away the precious leaves. [6] 



Such a man as this must have given a character 

 to society at Bath. He could not but diffuse around 

 him a spirit of inquiry and research; and he who 

 could unlock the secrets of Arabian philosophy, then 

 known to few, must one supposes have attracted 

 hither a multitude of inquirers eager to sit at his 

 feet. We are not informed on whom the rich trea- 

 sures of his knowledge were more peculiarly poured 



