FOOTNOTES:

[153] One of the Commissioners was the father of Blaise Pascal.

[154] These instruments were very inferior to those now in use under the same name. See "Treatise on Opt. Instrum."

[155] Theoricæ Mediceorum Planetarum, Florentiæ, 1666.

[156] Circulus affixus virgæ paletorum qui cum eâ de vi movetur.

[157] Utriusque Cosmi Historia. Oppenhemii, 1617.

[158] Huygenii Opera. Lugduni, 1724.

[159] Mémoires de l'Academie, 1717.

[160] See page 84.

[161] De nova Temporis dimetiendi ratione. Londini, 1680.

[162] Storia della Lett. Ital.

[163] Museum Mazuchellianum, vol. ii. Tab. cvii. p. 29.

[164] Almagestum Novum, vol. i.

[165] Quovis horologio accuratius.

[166] Clarorum Belgarum ad Ant. Magliabech. Epistolæ. Florence, 1745, tom. i. p. 235.

[167] Kepleri Epistolæ.

[168] Natural and Political Observations. London, 1665.

[169] See also Hudibras, Part II. Cant. III.

They're guilty by their own confessions

Of felony, and at the Sessions

Upon the bench I will so handle 'em,

That the vibration of this pendulum

Shall make all taylors' yards of one

Unanimous opinion;

A thing he long has vaunted of,

But now shall make it out of proof.

Hudibras was certainly written before 1663: ten years later Huyghens speaks of the idea of so employing the pendulum as a common one.