SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
467
1620. In this year William Janson Blabu, a printer at Amsterdam, made considerable im- piDventents in the printing press, and succeeded so mnch to his expectation, that he caused nine presses to be made, which he named after the nine muses. The excellence of the improTements soon became known to other printing offices, vrhich induced their proprietors to follow Blaeu's example; so that presses of his coustniction became, in the course of a few years, almost general throughout the low countries, and from thence, notwithstanding the opposition of the ig:norant, were introduced into England.
This ingenious artist was famous for his as- tronomical aiid geometrical productions. In the early part of his life he was brought up to joinery, in which emplojrment he served an ap- prentioeship. Being of an inquisitive disposition, he rambled to Denmark, about the time the famous Tycho Brahe established his astronomical observatory, by whom he was entertained, and under whose instruction he waa employed in making mathematical instruments, which curious art he greatly improved ; and it was generally reported that all or most of the sideral observa- tions published in Tycbo's name were made by Blaeu, as well as the instrument
Before .these observations were published to the worldi Tycho, to gratify Blaeu, gave him the copies of them, with which he went to Am- sterdam, and there practised the making of globes according to those observations. As his trade increased, he found it necessary to deal in geographical maps and books, and became so particmarly curious in his plates, that many of the best globes and maps were made by himself; and by his frequent connexion wiJi the printing of books, got so good an insight into the practicu part of the art, that he set up a printing office; be here soon found the inconveniences attending the structure of the old presses, which induced him to contrive remedies. He was born at Amsterdam in 1571, and died in 1638.
John Janson Blaed, son of the above, was also a printer at Amsterdam, and produced a great many classics, which yield in beauty and correctness only to the Elzevirs.
The liberal policy of queen Christina of Swe- den introducea into Stockholm one of the family of Blaens, of Amsterdam, as a printer, to whom she allowed an annual pension, aitd granted several privileges, amongst which was the valu- able one of importing all his paper duty free.
16'J0. Thomas Adams gave to the stationers' company £100 towards defraying the public charges of the company, at the discretion of the court.
1620. LoBD Bacon published his celebrated work. Novum Orgatwn Scieniiarum; or. New Method of Studying the ScxMcet. London, folio.
In this great work, Lord Bacon taught the proper method of studying the sciences : that 18, he pointed out the way in which we should begin and carry on our pursuit of knowledge, in order to arrive at trutn. He gave a set of rules by which mankind might deliver them-
selves from davery to names, and from wandering fanciful systems, and return once more, as litUe children, to the school uf nature. The task he chose was far more useful to the world, and honoiuable to himself, than that of being, like Plato or Aristotle, the author of a new sect: he undertook to expose the errors of those who had gone before him, and to show the best way of avoiding them for the future : he had the principal share in pulling down the old building oi^ a false philosophy, and, with the skill of a superior architect, be laid the foundation, and sketched the plan of another fabric ; and gave masterly directions to those who should come after him — how, upon the ruins of the first, the temple of science must be erected anew. As, in a great army, there are some whose office it is to construct bridges, to cut paths along moun- tains, and to remove various impediments, so lord Bacon may be said to have cleared the way to knowledge ; to have marked out the road to truth ; and to have left future travellers little else to do than to follow his instructions: he was the miner and sapper of philosophy, the pioneer of nature ; and he eminently promoted the dominion of man over the material world. He was the priest of nature's mysteries ; and he taught men in what manner they might discover her proloundest secrets, and interpret those Uws which nature has received from the great Author of all. In the Notmm Oryanum, we find the principles of that improved method of conducting the inquiries of science, which has now to long and so happily prevailed. But to under- stand the benehis which this great philosopher has conferred upon tis, we must carry our minds back to that state in which Bacon found the world, as to knowledge and science, at tbe time when he flourished. For as the returning light appears more glorious after the sun has been eclipsed — and the order and beauty of nature would look doubly striking to an eye that had seen that chaos from whiefi she first arose, when all was without form and void, — so, if we glance, but for a moment, at that darkness which so long overshadowed the human mind, and gave birth to so many phantoms and prodigies, under the name of science, this retrospect will serve to show more clearly the merits of a philosopher, who may be regarded as the morning star of that illustrious day which has since broken out upon mankind; and in the spint of whose metliod, even the immortal Newton himself explored to the heavens — by the aid of a sublime geometry, as with the rod of an enchanter, dashed in pieces all the cycles, epicycles, and crystal orbs of a visionary antiquity; and estab. lisned the true Copemican doctrine of astronomy on the solid basis of a most rigid and infallible demonstration.
In several of the fine arts, in which chiefly the taste and imagination are concerned, such as poetry, rhetoric, statuary, and architecture, the ancients, according to general opinion, have equalled, if not surpassed, any of the moderns. Homer and Demosthenes continue, notwithstand-
VjOOQ IC
