Q.gS PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I7I7. 



brance, of that little I do remember, of those admirable inventions which you 

 showed me when I was with you. I should not have believed the world could 

 have afforded such exquisite rarities, and I know not how to stint my longing 

 desires, without some further taste of these selected dainties. Happier had I 

 been had I never known there had been such secrets, than to know no more, 

 but only that there are such. Of all desires the desire of knowledge is most 

 vehement, most impatient: and of all kinds of knowledge, this of the mathe- 

 matics affects the mind with most intense agitations. I doubt not but you can 

 experimentally witness the truth hereof, and one time or other have been no 

 stranger to such thoughts as mine. And therefore, although modesty would 

 forbid me to request any thing, until you give me leave, but what you please 

 voluntarily to impart, yet the vehemence of my desire forces me to let you 

 know how much I desire, and how highly I should prize any thing that you 

 should be pleased to communicate to me in those optic practices. Could I pur- 

 chase it with travel, or procure it for gold, I would not long be without a tele- 

 scope for observing small angles in the heavens, nor want the use of your other 

 device of a glass in a cane upon the moveable ruler of your sextant, as I 

 remember, for helping to the exact point of the sun's rays. But seeing Urania 

 is, &c." 



Thus was the most ingenious Mr. Crabtrie transported with Mr. Gascoigne's 

 devices, though at that time far less perfect than they were in a short time 

 after. And no less affected was the incomparable Horrox, as Mr. Crabtrie sets 

 forth, in his third long letter of Dec. 28, 164O, which has these words: " My 

 friend, Mr. Horrox, professes, that little touch which I gave him of your in- 

 ventions has ravished his mind quite from itself, and left him in an extacy 

 between admiration and amazement. I beseech you, sir, slack not your inten- 

 tions for the perfecting of your begun wonders. We travel with desire till we 

 bear of your full delivery. You have our votes, our hearts, and our hands 

 should not be wanting, if we could further you." And then, after many curi- 

 ous matters, he thus proceeds : " Your diagrams for perspectives I have viewed 

 again and again, and cannot sufHciently admire your indefatigable industry, and 

 profound ingenuity therein. I am much affected with the symbolical expres- 

 sions of your demonstrations. I never used them before, but I will do, yet I 

 understand them all at the first sight, and see well the truth of your demon- 

 strations." 



To these I shall only add one passage more, and this because it shows some 

 other of Mr. Gascoigne's exquisite contrivances, or at least the accuracy of 

 what are mentioned; and that is in Mr. Crabtrie's letter of Dec. 6, 1641, at 

 the beginning of which he says, " That which you give me a full projection of 



