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viii of so early a date still preserved. Thanks to the venerable Lord Burghley, a few fragments are still preserved, which, though often individually of no great importance, are very curious illustrations of the state of English science at that period. For instance, the letter of Emery Molineux to Lord Burghley, printed at p. 37, is in itself of little interest or value; but when joined with the fact that it is the only known memorial respecting one who was distinguished as the first mathematical instrument-maker of his day, it becomes a document at once curious and valuable, and well worthy of preservation in an available form.

Before the publication of a very able and interesting paper on the early English mathematical and astronomical writers in the Companion to the British Almanac for 1837, written by Professor De Morgan, nothing had been attempted towards even a connected sketch of the scientific labours of our countrymen during the latter half of the sixteenth century. "Far from having," says Professor De Morgan, "such a work as those of Montucla or Delambre in our language, we have not even a chronological compendium like that of Weidler, Heilbronner, or Gerard Vossius." But necessarily imperfect in its details as Prof. de Morgan's sketch is, yet it may fairly rank with its continental companions, and gives, we may safely say, a