Jxxviii NOTES. 



79, 288, and 404. It has been justly denied (Wilde, Geschiehte der Optik, 

 Th. i. S. 9296), that knowledge derived from Alhazen, of the magnifying 

 power of segments of spheres, actually led Bacon to construct spectacles ; that 

 invention appears either to have been known as early as 1299, or to belong 

 to the Florentine Sal vino degli Armati, who was buried, in 1317, in the 

 Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Florence. If Roger Bacon, who com- 

 pleted his Opus Majus in 1267, speaks of instruments by means of which 

 small letters appear large, "utiles senibus habentibus oculos debiles," his 

 words, and the practically erroneous considerations which he subjoins, shew 

 that he cannot himself have executed the plan which floated before his mind 

 as possible. 



(3 s5 ) p. 250. See my Examen crit. T. i. p. 61, 6470, 96108; T. ii. 

 p. 349. " II existe aussi de Pierre d'Ailly, que Don Fernando Colon nomme 

 toujours Pedro de Helico, cinq memoires de Concordantia Astronomies cum 

 Theologia. Us rapellent quelques essais tres moderues de Geologic helsrais- 

 sante publics 400 ans apres le cardinal." 



(S 86 ) p. 250. Compare Columbus's letter (Navarrete, Viages y Descubri- 

 mientos, T. i. p. 244) with the Imago Mundi of Cardinal d'Ailly, cap. 8, and 

 Roger Bacon's Opus Majus, p. 183. 



(W) p. 252. Heeren, Gesch. der classischen Litteratur, Bd. i. S. 284~ 

 290. 



(388) p. 252. Klaproth, Memoires relatifs a 1'Asie, T. iii. p. 113. 



(S 89 ) p. 252. The Florentine edition of Homer of 1488 ; but the first 

 printed Greek book was the grammar of Constantino Lascaris, in 1476. 



(3 90 ) p. 252. Villemain, Melanges historiques et litteraires, T. ii. p. 135. 



t 391 ) p. 252. The result of the investigations of the librarian Ludwig 

 Wachler, at Breslau (see his Geschiehte der Litteratur, 1833, Th. i. S. 12 

 23). Printing without moveable types does not go back, even in China, 

 beyond the beginning of the tenth century of our era. The first four books 

 of Confucius were printed, according to Klaproth, in the province of Szut- 

 chuen, between 890 and 925 ; and the description of the technical manipula- 

 tion of the Chinese printing press might have been read in western countries 

 as early as 1310, in Raschid-eddin's Persian history of the rulers of Cathay. 

 According to the most recent results of the important researches of Stanislas 

 Julien, however, an ironsmith in China itself would seem to have used move- 

 able types, made of burnt clay, between the years 1041 and 1048 A.D. or 

 almost 400 years before Guttenberg. This is the invention of the Pi-aching, 

 which, however, remained without application. 



