Thanks are due to Dr. Risdon Bennett, F.R.S., President of the Royal College of Physicians; Mr. Dunkin, of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich; and S. Rowles Pattison, Esq., F.G.S., for valuable assistance in revising those parts of the book which relate to discoveries made by the illustrious men described. Some valuable paragraphs and suggestions by the last of these gentlemen have been gratefully adopted in the sketch of Professor Sedgwick.

WORTHIES OF SCIENCE.

ROGER BACON.

1214-1292.

N the city of Oxford, so classical and so mediæval, there exists a bridge which once spanned the river with forty stone arches; they are now reduced to three, and were rebuilt fifty years ago. The Abbots of Abingdon held their court on this spot, in a building long since swept away; there, also, rose a gateway, over which was a chamber, containing MSS. written in strange characters, also many mysterious instruments and preparations, such as excited the wonder of all observers. Within those walls lived and studied ROGER BACON, who, born about 1214, died in 1292. At night he is said to have ascended the tower stairs, and from the top to have gazed on the stars, and watched the phases of Jupiter and Venus, as they shone over the meadows on the banks of the Isis; by day he is said to have busied himself with retorts and the melting of metals, or, with a rare curiosity, to have sought after the mysteries of nature in studies and experiments connected with the infantine science of

B

chemistry. Scarcely anybody could understand him. Odd stories were told of what he was after; and not a few people imagined that he must be holding intercourse with spirits of the air, or with black prisoners of the lower world.

Oxford then was very different from what Oxford is now. No such pile of buildings existed then as the College of Christ Church, with its tower and bells not far from the bridge. Nor did the tower of Magdalen at that period throw its shadow over the river; nor was the present St. Mary's in being. Charming old cloisters we now see enclosing bright green lawns, suggesting poetic dreams, had not then been built; and the stately edifices of quaint architecture adorning the High Street were among things to come. But Oxford was already a renowned seat of learning, and men came there from all quarters to teach or to study. There were schools established in humble buildings very unlike the colleges of our day. They were ventures of enterprising scholars, who sought a livelihood, or were desirous of diffusing knowledge, rather than grand foundations endowed by kings and queens and

nobles.

Two orders of friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, who made their appearance in the beginning of the thirteenth century, were amongst the most erudite and active teachers of their age; and the latter of these orders took a leading part in the work of tuition in the midland university. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan friar, and might be seen walking Oxford streets, then consisting of low-roofed tenements and little open shops, which straggled about regardless of order. This member of a distinguished brotherhood