The page and line references given in these notes are in all cases first to the Latin edition of 1600, and secondly to the English edition of 1900.
[2] Page 1, line 28. Page 1, line 28. Plato in Ione.—The passage in the Io of Plato is in chap. v. Socrates addressing the poet Io tells him that his facility in reciting Homer is not really an art: θεία δὲ δύναμις, ἥ σε κινεῖ ὥσπερ ἐν τῇ λίθῳ, ἥν Εὐριπίδης μὲν Μαγνῆτιν ὠνόμασεν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ Ἡράκλειαν. καὶ γὰρ ἄυτη ἡ λίθος οὐ μόνον αὐτοὺς τοὺς δακτυλίους ἄγει τοὺς σιδηροῦς, ἀλλὰ καὶ δύναμιν ἐντίθησι τοῖς δακτυλίοις, ὤστ ἄυ δύνασθαι ταυτὸυ τοῦτο ποιεῖν, ὅπερ ἡ λίθος, ἄλλους ἄγειν δακτυλίους, ὥστ' ἐνίοθ' ὁρμαθὸς μακρὸς πάνυ σιδηρίων καὶ δακτυλίων ἐξ ἀλλήλων ἤρτηται πᾶσι δὲ τούτοις ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς λίθου ἡ δύναμις ἀνήρτηται. The idea is that as the loadstone in attracting an iron ring will make it into a magnet, which can in turn act magnetically on another ring, and this on yet another, so the inspiration of the Muse is transferred to the poet, who in turn hands on the inspiration through the reciter to the listener. After further expanding the same idea of the transference of influence, Socrates again mentions the magnet (chap. vii.): Ὄισθ' ὄυν ὅτι οὐτός ἐστιν ὁ θεατὴς τῶν δακτυλίων ὁ ἔσχατος, ὥν ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ὑπὸ τῆς Ἡρακλειώτιδος λίθου ἀπ' ἀλλήλων τὴν δύναμιν λαμβάνειν, ὁ δὲ μέσος σὺ ὁ ῥαψωδὸς καὶ ὑποκριτής, ὁ δὲ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητής; ὁ δὲ θεὸς διὰ πάντων τούτων ἕλκει τὴν ψυχὴν ὅποι ἂν βούληται τῶν ἀνθρώπων, κ.τ.λ. (Edition Didot of 1856, vol. i., p. 391; or Stephanus, p. 533 D).
There is another reference in Plato to the magnet, namely, in the Timæus (p. 240, vol. ii., Edit. citat.). See the [Note] to p. [61].
The reference by Euripides to the magnet occurs in the lost play of Œneus, in a fragment preserved by Suidas. See Fragmenta Euripidis (Ed. Didot, 1846, p. 757, or Nauck's edition, No. 567).
ὡς Εὐριπίδης ἐν Οἰνεῖ· τὰς βροτῶν γνώμας σκοπῶν, ὥστε Μαγνῆτις λίθος τὴν δόξαν ἕλκει καὶ μεθίστησιν πάλιν.
[3] Page 1, line 28. Page 1, line 29. The brief passage from Aristotle's De Anima referring to Thales is quoted by Gilbert himself at the bottom of p. 11.
[4] Page 2, line 1. Page 1, line 29. The edition of 1628 inserts commas between Theophrastus and Lesbius, and between Julius and Solinus, as though these were four persons instead of two.
[5] Page 2, line 8. Page 2, line 5. si allio magnes illitus fuerit, aut si adamas fuerit. An excellent version of this myth is to be found in Julius Solinus, Polyhistor, De Memorabilibus, chap. lxiv., of which the English version of 1587, by A. Golding, runs thus: "The Diamonde will not suffer the Lodestone to drawe yron unto him: or if ye Lodestone haue alreadie drawne a peece of yron to it, the Diamond snatcheth and pulleth away as hys bootye whatsoever the Lodestone hath taken hold of." Saint Augustine repeats the diamond myth in his De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi. Baptista Porta says (p. 211 of the English version of 1658): "It is a common Opinion amongst Sea-men, That Onyons and Garlick are at odds with the Loadstone: and Steers-men, and such as tend the Mariners Card are forbid to eat Onyons or Garlick, lest they make the Index of the Poles drunk. But when I tried all these things, found them to be false: for not onely breathing and belching upon the Loadstone after eating of Garlick, did not stop its vertues: but when it was all anoynted over with the juice of Garlick, it did perform its office as well as if it had never been touched with it: and I could observe almost not the least difference, lest I should make void the endeavours of the Ancients.
And again, When I enquired of Marines, whether it were so, that they were forbid to eat Onyons and Garlick for that reason; they said, they were old Wives fables, and things ridiculous; and that Sea-men would sooner lose their lives, then abstain from eating Onyons and Garlick."
The fables respecting the antipathy of garlick and of the diamond to the operation of the magnet, although already discredited by Ruellius and by Porta, died hard. In spite of the exposure and denunciations of Gilbert—compare p. [32]—these tales were oft repeated during the succeeding century. In the appendix to Sir Hugh Plat's Jewel House of Art and Nature, in the edition of 1653, by D. B. Gent, it is stated there (p. 218): "The Loadstone which ... hath an admirable vertue not onely to draw Iron to it self, but also to make any Iron upon which it is rubbed to draw iron also, it is written notwithstanding, that being rubbed with the juyce of Garlick, it loseth that vertue, and cannot then draw iron, as likewise if a Diamond be layed close unto it."