merit with the reft of the world, and hand down the name o f
the inventor to fucceeding ages. Men of great literary abilities
are too apt to defpife the firft dawnings of invention, not con-
fidering that all real knowledge is progreflive, and that what
they deem trifling may be the firft and neceffary link to a new
branch o f fcience.
The microfcope extends the boundaries o f the Organs o f
vifion, enables us to examine the ftrafture o f plants and animals;
prefents to the eye myriads o f beings, o f whofe exiftence we
had before formed no idea; opens to the curious an exhauftlefs
fource of information and pleafure; and furnilhes the philofopher
with an unlimited field of inveftigation. It leads, to ufe the
words o f an ingenious writer, to the difcoVery o f a thoufand
wonders in the works o f his hand, who created ourfelves, as well
as the objefts of our admiration; it improves the faculties, exalts
the comprehenfion, and multiplies the inlets to happinefs; is a
new fource o f praife to him, to whom all we pay is nothing o f
what we owe; and while it pleafes the imagination with the unbounded
treafures it offers to the view, it tends to make the
whole life one continued aft o f admiration.
It is not difficult to fix the period when the microfcope firft
began to be generally known, and was ufed for the purpofe o f
examining minute objefts; for though we are ignorant o f the
name o f the firft inventor, we are acquainted with the names o f
thofe who introduced it into public view, and engaged their
attention to it, by exhibiting fome o f it’s wonderful effefts.
Zacharias Janfens and his fon had made microfcopes before the
year 1619, for in that year the ingenious Cornelius Drebell
6 brought
brought one, which was made by them, with him into England,
and fhewed it to William Borrell and others. It is poffible this
inftrument of Drebell’s was not ftridtly what is now meant by a
microfcope, but was rather a kind o f microfcopic telefcope,
fomething fimilar in principle to that lately defcribed by Mr.
Aepinus, in a letter to the Academy o f Sciences at Peterfburg.
It was formed of a copper tube fix feet long and one inch
diameter, fupported by three brafs pillars in the fhape o f dolphins
; thefe were fixed to a bafe o f ebony, on which the objefts
to be viewed by the microfcope were alfo placed. In contra-
diftion to this, Fontana, in a work which he publiffied in 1646,
fays, that he had made microfcopes in the year 1618: this may
be alfo very true, without derogating from the merit o f the Janfens,
for we have many inftances in our own times o f more than
one perfon having executed the fame contrivance, nearly at the
fame time, without any communication from one to the other.
In 1685, Stelluti publifhed a defcription o f the parts o f a bee,
which he had examined with a microfcope.
I f we confider the microfcope as an inftrument confining o f
one lens only, it is not at all improbable, that it was known to the
ancients much fooner than the laft century, nay, even in a degree
to the Greeks and Romans : for it is certain, that fpedtacles were
in ufe long before the above-mentioned period: now as the
glaffes o f thefe were made o f different convexities, and confe-
quently of different magnifying powers, it is natural to fuppofe,
that fmaller and more convex lenfes were made, and applied to
the examination o f minute objefts. In this fenfe, there is alfo
feme ground for thinking the ancients were not ignorant o f the
ufe of lenfes, or at leaft o f what approached nearly to, and might
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