SCIENCE IN EARLY ENGLAND. 1 



By Charles L. Barnes, M. A., F. C. S. 



Under the ample shelter afforded by the words ''literary' 7 and "philo- 

 sophical/ 7 I feel that a paper on the progress of science in England 

 from the seventh to the thirteenth century, inclusive, may find admit- 

 tance, though that which is new, and not that which is old, is more 

 usually welcomed within these walls. 



The authorities from whom my remarks have been gathered are, in 

 the main, as follows: 



(1) Popular Treatises on Science, written during the Middle Ages in 

 Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Saxon, and English, edited by Thomas Wright, 

 and published for the Historical Society of Science, 1841. This society, 

 whose existence seems to have been forgotten, had for president the 

 Duke of Sussex, and for vice-presidents, the Earl of Munster, Lord 

 Holland, the Bishop of Durham, and three others, while several dis- 

 tinguished names appear on the council, viz, Augustus de Morgan, 

 J. O. Halliwell, Sir Francis Palgrave, the Rev. Robert Willis, professor 

 of natural experimental philosophy at Cambridge, Thomas Wright, 

 and several more. Another of its publications, also issued in 1841, 

 has the following title: A Collection of Letters illustrative of the 

 Progress of Science in England from the Reign of Elizabeth to that of 

 Charles II, and is edited by Halliwell, afterwards better known as 

 Halliwell Phillips. A further list of books in contemplation is given 

 in each of these volumes, but they are not to be found at the reference 

 library, and I have not yet been able to discover when or why the 

 society dissolved, unless it died a natural death on the publication of 

 the Rolls series. 



(2) Biographia Britannica Literaria, by Thomas Wright. Two vol- 

 umes. Published for the Royal Society of Literature, 1842. 



(3) Alexander Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, edited by T. Wright. 

 1863. Rolls series. 



(4) Leechdoms, Wort-cunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 

 edited by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne. Three volumes. 1866. Rolls 

 series. 



iFrom Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical 

 Society, Fourth Series, Vol. X, No. 1, 1895-96. 



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