THE
Repository
OF
ARTS, LITERATURE, COMMERCE,
Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics,
For FEBRUARY, 1809.
The Second Number.
The suffrage of the wise,
The praise that’s worth ambition, is attain’d
By sense alone, and dignity of mind.
INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE USEFUL AND POLITE ARTS.
(Continued from page 14.)
Roger Bacon was excommunicated by the Pope, and imprisoned ten years, for supposed dealings with the devil. He was celebrated for many ingenious inventions and discoveries in chemistry and mechanics; among others, are mentioned the camera obscura, the telescope, and gunpowder. His works display astonishing sagacity and exactness, and, considering the age in which he lived[1], are composed with no small degree of elegance as well as conciseness; some of them, however, bearing the characters of the times, are mystical and obscure.
In the year 1235, lived Raymond Lully, born at Barcelona. He wrote on strong waters and metals: his last will, one of the most celebrated of his writings, is remarkable for obscurity.
About 1240, lived Arnoldus de Villa Nova, a native of Languedoc in France, In his works we find a clear account of the mineral acids, and he has united to his chemical skill a considerable share of knowledge in medicine: his writings are, however, obscured by all the bombast of alchemical folly.
About the end of the fourteenth
century, Basil Valentine, a German
- ↑ He was born in he county of Somerset, in the year 1214, and died in 1294.
No. II. Vol. I. K
