504
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. DEC. 27, im
philosophical and other instruments, and
especially of apparatus for projection and
polarization, now greatly extended by their
new patent oxy hydrogen and electric-light
microscope, has acquired for them a world-
wide fame. It will perhaps be of interest
also to note, by the way, that Messrs. Newton
hold the contract for supply ing His Majesty's
Navy with " transmitters " for the new wire-
less telegraphy. This sign of the "Globe
and Sun " may be seen upon an old shop-
bill in their possession, which, however,
relates to the business as it was con-
ducted in Chancery Lane, and Nathaniel
Hill, apparently the founder of the firm, is
there described as globe-maker and engraver,
and as making and selling "all Sorts of
Mathematical Instruments, in Silver, Brass,
Ivory, Wood, very curious and true graduated
both for Sea and Land with Books of their
Use, and the best Black Lead Pencils, also
New and Correct Globes of 3, 9, 12 and
15 Inches Diameter. Estates surveyed and
Maps." Here we see the reason for the
adoption of the " globe " as a sign, as repre-
senting astronomy and geography, and
signifying the sale of all such appliances as
are necessary in a pursuit of their study.
This Nathaniel Hill was a son-in-law of the
original Mr. Newton, who was first cousin to
Sir Isaac Newton, the former being descended
from a second and the latter from a first son.
A representation of the first Newtonian tele-
scope invented by the great philosopher, and
made with his own hands in 1671, adorns the
stationery used by the present firm. It is
now in the possession of the Koyal Society,
and the circumstances of its invention no
doubt gave rise to the frequency with which
this illustrious name was adopted by opticians
and spectacle-makers, although Archimedes
presumably on account of his burning-
glasses, or, in the case of a rnapseller, of
his planetarium representing the motions of
the heavenly bodies was also a favourite on
their signboard. John Marshall, when ap-
pointed optician to the king, changed his
sign to the " Archimedes and King's Arms "
when, in 1718, he advertised his "chrystall
dressing glasses for ladies, which shew the
face as nature hath made it, which other
looking - glasses do not " (' Hist, of Sign-
boards,' 8vo, 1884, p. 62).
The " Sir Isaac Newton " was the sign of a telescope-maker in what was then called Lud- gate Street about 1795. This was probably identical with "TheSirlsaacNewton and Two Pair of Golden Spectacles" at 23, Ludgate Street, in 1796 (Banks Bills). This long sign was near the west end of St. Paul's. Either
Peter Dollond or his father John Dollond,
who was the son of a Huguenot Spitalfields
weaver, appears to have adopted the sign of
John Marshall, king's optician, at the " Two
Golden Spectacles," as alluded to above. At
all events, Peter Dollond's sign was identical
with Marshall's, with the addition, however,
of a "Sea Quadrant." This appears from an
interesting shop-bill, engraved after the
manner of Hogarth's efforts in this direction,
which is preserved on the premises. It
depicts the pair of spectacles suspended from
the top of the ornamental frame, with the
achromatic lens which Dollond invented on
the left-hand side, other objects shown being
a Gregorian telescope, an ebony sea quadrant,
and an old microscope with amplifying lens,
but the sign is distinctly described as "The
Golden Spectacles and Sea Quadrant."
Whether this was the sign of Dollond pere is
perhaps doubtful, for as there was a " Sir
Isaac Newton " sign in Ludgate Street in
1795 it seems probable that the founder of
the firm adopted it in honour of the philo-
sopher, in the defence of whose doctrine of
refraction he engaged against the illus-
trious Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler, a
defence which, with the fact of his having suc-
ceeded in applying the micrometer to reflect-
ing telescopes, and thefurtherfact that his first
attention, when he adopted the study of astro-
nomy, was directed to the improvement of
refracting telescopes, would render the adop-
tion of this sign singularly appropriate. The
correspondence alluded to was published in
the Philosophical Transactions. He next con-
structed object glasses in which the different
refrangibility of the rays of light was cor-
rected, and to which the name of achromatic
was given by Dr. Bevis on account of their
being free from the prismatic colours. These
achromatic prisms are the objects, three in
number, blazoned in the later arms of the
Spectacle-Makers, and it was their use for
demonstrating the theory of light and colour
which led to the invention of the achromatic
telescope in 1758 by John Dollond. This
telescope, when made public, excited the
jealousy of philosophers at home and abroad,
who pretended to doubt its reality and then
endeavoured to find a previous inventor ;
but Mr. Peter Dollond stated and vindicated
his father's right to the discovery in a paper
read at the Royal Society in 1789 (see 'Life,'
by Dr. Kelly), and was presented with the gold
medal of the Society. In 1721 a fashionable
resort known as "Radford's Toy shop," against
St. Clement's Churchyard, near Arundel
Street in the Strand, was distinguished by
the sign of the " Great Golden Spectacles "
