THE

BOOK OF AUTHORS.

Roger Bacon.

1214-1292.

THE resemblance between Roger Bacon and his great namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the "Opus Majus" I know not, but it is singular that his favourite quaint expression, prærogative scientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman Comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the "Opus Majus" upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype in spirit of the "Novum Organum."-Hallam.

Our great Roger Bacon, by a degree of penetration which perhaps has never been equalled, discovered some of the most occult secrets in Nature. She seems indeed-if I may so express myself to have stood naked before him. His honours have been stolen from him by more modern authors, who have appeared inventors when they were copying Bacon. Yet, for the reward of all his intense studies, the holy brethren and the infallible majesty of Rome occasioned him to languish in prison during the greater part of his life.—I. D'Israeli.

His are wonderful discoveries for a man to make in so ignorant an age, who had no master to teach him, but struck it all out of his own brain; but it is still more wonderful that such discoveries should be so long concealed; till in the next succeeding centuries other people should start up and lay claim to those very inventions to which Bacon alone had a right.—Dr. Friend.

Bacon discovered the art of making reading-glasses, the camera obscura, microscopes, telescopes, and various other

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