[lxxxii:1] Palissy, le Moyen de devenir Riche.
[lxxxiii:1] Praefat ad P. Silvinum; which I earnestly recommend to the serious perusal of our Gentry. Et mihi ad sapientis vitam proximè videtur accedere. Cic. de Senectute.
[lxxxv:1] Ne silvae quidem, horridiorque naturae facies medicinis carent, sacra illa parente rerum omnium, nusquam non remedia disponente homini ut Medicina, fieret etiam solitudo ipsa, &c. Hinc nata Medicina, &c. Haec sola naturae placuerat esse remedia parata vulgo, inventu facilia, ac sine impendio, ex quibus vivimus, &c. Plin. l. 24. c. 1.
[lxxxvii:1] Consult Hist. Roy. Soc. and their Registers.
The Laws of Motion, and the Geometrical streightning of Curve Lines were first found out by Sir Christopher Wren and Mr. Thomas Neile.
The equated isocrone Motion of the weight of a Circular Pendulum in a Paraboloid, for the regulating of Clocks; and the improving Pocket-Watches by Springs applied to the Ballance, were first invented and demonstrated to this Society by Dr. Hooke; together with all those New and useful Instruments, Contrivances and Experiments, Mathematical and Physical, publish’d in his Posthumous Works by the most accomplish’d Mr. Waller, Secretary to the R. Society. And since those the incomparably learned Sir Isaac Newton, now President of the Royal Society; Mr. Haly, the Worthy Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford; Dr. Grew, and several more, whose Works and useful Inventions sufficiently celebrate their Merits: I did mention the Barometer, to which might be added the prodigious effects of the Speculum Ustorium, surpassing what the French pretend to, as confidently, or rather audaciously, they do, and to other admirable Inventions, injuriously arrogated by Strangers, tho’ due of right to Englishmen, and Members of this Society; but ’tis not the business of this Preface to enumerate all, tho’ ’twas necessary to touch on some Instances.
[xciii:1] Neh. 2. 19.
[xciii:2] Neh. 4. 17.
[xcvi:1] Since this Epistle was first written and publish’d the University of Oxford have instituted, and erected a Society for the promoting of Natural and Experimental Knowledge, in consort with the R. Society, with which they keep a mutual Correspondence: This mention, for that some Malevolents had so far endeavour’d to possess divers Members of the University; as if the Society design’d nothing less than the undermining of that, and other illustrious Academies, and which indeed so far prevail’d, as to breed a real Jealousy for some considerable time: But as this was never in the Thoughts of the Society (which had ever the Universities in greatest Veneration) so the Innocency and Usefulness of its Institution has at length disabus’d them, vindicated their Proceedings, dissipated all Surmises, and, in fine, produced an ingenious, friendly and candid Union and Correspondence between them.