A. D. 1589. 191 



p. 222.] makes this invention eleven years later, viz. in 1600; and 

 adds, that Mr. Lee not only taught this art in England and in France, 

 but his fervants did the fame in Spain, Venice, and in Ireland. 



Henry IV king of France greatly enlarged the filk manufadlures in 

 that kingdom. Before this time the filk-worm and mulberry trees had 

 been propagated only in the Lionois, Dauphine, Provence, and Lan- 

 guedoc ; but this king not only carried it as far north as Orleans, but 

 brought filk to be an univerfal manufadure in Finance. Mezeray fays, 

 that he alfo planted mulberry trees near Paris, and attempted to breed 

 lilk-worms at the Tuillieries, Fountainbleau, and the caftle of Madrid, 

 but without fuccefs. 



The manufadure of cloth, both woollen and linen, in France, was 

 likewife much increafed in that king's reign, as alfo many other me- 

 chanical works : fo that the French (fays De Witt in his Intereft of 

 Holland) could now fupply others with more manufactures than foreign- 

 ers could take off; whereas formerly the bulk of the people of France 

 fubfifted by tillage and vine-dreiling. 



1590. — About the year 1590 the invention of the telefcope, or fpying- 

 glafs, was difcovered, which is juftly efleemed one of the mofl ufeful and 

 excellent difcoveries of modern times, though produced by mere chance. 

 The common account is, that two children of one Janfon, a fpedacle-ma- 

 ker at Middleburg in Zealand, being at play in their father's fhop, and 

 looking through two pieces of glafs which were at Ibme fmall diflance 

 from each other, the weathercock of the church fteeple appeared to 

 them unufually large, and much nearer. Of this they inftantly told 

 their father, who, fui-prifed alfo at firft, made the experiment of fixing 

 two fuch pieces of glafs in brazen circles or cylinders, fo as they might 

 be placed nearer or farther at pleafure. Janfon very foon improved this 

 difcovery fo much, that he prefented a telefcope twelve inches long to 

 Prince Maurice, and another to the archduke Albert. Wotton (in his 

 Refleclions upon antient and modern learning) relates, that Prince 

 Maurice, conjefluring that they might be of great ufe in war, defired 

 him to conceal his fecret ; and for that reafon his name was fo little 

 known, that neither Des Cartes nor Gerard Voflius had ever heard any 

 thing of him, when they attributed this invention to Jacobus Metius of 

 Alcmaer. None of thofe firll teleicopes, however, were above eighteen 

 inches long ; neither were they properly framed lor making aflronomi- 

 cal obfervations, till Galileo, aftronomer to the grand duke of Tufca- 

 ny, hearing of the difcovery, made fuch great improvements, as have 

 gained him, in the opinion of many, the honour of the invention itfelf, 

 by giving to the telefcope the appellation of Galileo's tube. SomiC, in- 

 deed, make this noble invention to have happened eleven years later, 

 and aflert that J. Baptiita Porta, a noble Neapolitan, was the firft 

 inventor ; but the general belief is as above. Our incomparable Sir 



