attainments extended to the power of writing such a paper as the "Discourse" of 1576 seems to me very improbable, and some letters of Gilbert's printed by Mr. Gosling have, from their style, still more confirmed my doubts on this point.

There is one other piece which is without any doubt by Gilbert a proposal for setting up a school in London for the better training of the sons of the nobility and gentry in arms and other public services, described as "Queene Elizabethes Achademy." It is written in a plain and practical style, and is based on the view that for such purposes a merely scholastic education was useless, and that "by erecting this Achademie there shalbe hereafter, in effecte, no gentleman within this Realme but good for somewhat, whereas now the most part of them are good for nothinge." It is thought that this was probably written when Gilbert was living in retirement (after a brief expedition, which proved unsuccessful, to the Netherlands) in Limehouse in 1573.

To come now to the contents of the "Discourse" of 1576. It is a treatise in ten short chapters, from which the following extracts are given in illustration (as will be explained) of my view as to the authorship.

Chapter I." To prooue by authoritie a passage to be on the Northside of America, to goe to Cataia, China, and to the East India."

At the opening of the chapter, the writer reveals himself as a student of geography of unusual reading and speculative imagination :

When I gaue my self to the studie of Geographie, after I had perused and diligently scanned the descriptions of Europe, Asia, and Afrike, and conferred them with the Mappes and Globes both Antique and Moderne: I came in fine to the fourth part of the worlde commonly called America, which by all descriptions I founde to be an Ilande environed round about with the Sea. . . .

He recalls the fact that "Plato in Timeo, and in the Dialogue called Critias, discourseth of an incomparable

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great Ilande, then called Atlantis. . . ."; mentions, with many references to ancient and modern authorities, the tradition of its subsidence, and affirms that America was a part of it, and was therefore an island, and that there was great hope, in consequence, of navigability by a North-West passage; mentions Ochter's northern voyage in the time of King Alfred,' and gives a passage from his account translated from the Anglo-Saxon "by Mr. Nowel, Servaunte to Maister Secretarie Cecill."

In Chapter II., in suggesting reasons for believing that America was an island, the writer shows a desire to discuss the causes of the tides:

Also it [America] appeareth to be an Iland, insomuche as the Sea runneth by nature circularly, from the East to the West, following the Diurnal motion of Primum Mobile, and carrieth with it all inferiour bodies moveable, as well celestial, as elemental : which motion of the waters is most evidently seene in the Sea, which lieth on the Southside of Afrik, where the currant that runneth from East to West is so strong (by reason of such motion) . . .

Marginal note to the foregoing:

The Sea hath three motions:

1. Motum ab oriente in occidentem.

2. Motum fluxus et refluxus.

3. Motum circularem.

Ad caeli motum elementa omnia (excepta terra) moventur.

The conclusion of the author is:

So that it resteth not possible (so farre as my simple reason2 can comprehend) that this perpetual currant can by any means be maintained, but only by continual re-accesse of the same water, which passeth thorow the fret, and is brought about thither againe, by suche Circular motion as aforesaid.

Marginal note to the foregoing:

The flowing is occasioned by reason that the heate of the moone boyleth, and maketh the water thinne by way of rarefaction. And the ebbing cometh for wante of that heate, which maketh the water to fal again by way of condensation.

1 See Hakluyt.

2 See Chapter V.

Regard being had to the state of knowledge at the time, and to the fact that these conclusions are obviously tentative, they are not so fantastic as they may appear at first sight. They represent, in my belief, the early ideas (gathered probably from various sources) for the conclusions which appeared later in Bacon's Latin treatise on the "Ebb and Flow of the Sea." The following abstract of the argument in that treatise (as translated by Spedding 2) will enable the reader to see the bearing of it on my argument for the Baconian authorship of the "Discourse" of 1576.

Discussing the possible causes of the "rising" of the water, "if the flow of the tide be set down as a rising," Bacon says: "For the swelling must be caused either by an increase in the quantity of water, or by an extension or rarefaction of the water in the same quantity, or by a simple lifting up in the same quantity and the same body." He rejects the last hypothesis "absolutely" on the fanciful ground that “if the water be lifted up as it is, there must of necessity be a vacuum between the ground and the bottom of the water, since there is no body to take its place." But he admits: "Certainly this, whether it be ebullition or rarefaction, or agreement of the waters with some one of the higher bodies, does not appear incredible, if it be in a moderate quantity, and a tolerable length of time likewise be allowed for the swelling or increase of the water to collect and rise." This, he thinks, might account for "the excess of water observable between the ordinary tide and the half-monthly which is fuller, or even the half-yearly which is fullest of all"; but that "so great a mass of water should burst forth, as to account for the difference between the ebb and flow; and that this should be done so quickly, namely twice a day; as if the earth, according to the foolish conceit of Apollonius, were taking respiration, and breathing out water every six hours and then taking it in again; is a very great

1 Galileo also wrote on the subject, and Bacon was in touch with him and saw his work in MS.; see Spedding, Life, vii. 35-37. See also Preface to Bacon's treatise by Ellis-Spedding, Works, iii. 39.

2 Spedding, Works, v. 443 sq.

difficulty." He concludes, therefore, subject to further evidence being obtained as to the synchronism of tides in different parts of the world, that the ebb and flow of the sea is a "progressive motion" from east to west, and that "there is at any given hour an ebb in some parts of the globe equal to the flow in others."

He then inquires into the cause of these motions, which, as regards "the half-monthly motion of increase and the monthly motion of restoration, appear to correspond with the motion of the moon"; but, as regards the daily ebb and flow, he finds no correspondence with "any of the conditions of the moon." "Therefore," he says, "dismissing the moon let us inquire of other correspondences." Taking into account the fact that " of all celestial motions the diurnal is plainly the shortest," and that the daily motion of the waters is "so distributed as to correspond to the divisions of the diurnal motion," he finds himself persuaded, and takes it "almost for an oracle that this motion is of the same kind as the diurnal motion."

Taking this "as a foundation," he puts three questions, the first two of which are :

"First, does this diurnal motion confine itself to the limits of the heaven, or does it descend and reach to lower bodies ?"

"Secondly, do the seas move regularly from east to west as the heavens do?"

The answer he gives is interesting, as illustrating the processes of thought under the pre-Copernican hypothesis of the heavens revolving round the earth as a fixed point, which Bacon was never willing to abandon:

"With regard to the first inquiry, I judge that the motion of rotation or conversion from east to west is not properly a celestial but quite a cosmical motion; a motion primarily belonging to the great fluids and found from the summits of heaven to the depths of the water; the inclination being always the same, though the degrees of velocity vary greatly; varying, however, in regular order, so that the swiftness of the motion diminishes the nearer the bodies approach the earth." If this motion were not

continuous throughout space, two inconveniences would follow (a proof that it is continuous): "For as it is manifest to the sense that the planets perform a diurnal motion, we must necessarily, unless this motion be set down as natural and proper to all planets, take refuge either in the violence of primum mobile, which is directly contrary to nature, or in the rotation of the earth—a supposition arbitrary enough, as far as physical reasons are concerned.” 1

As therefore this motion is found in the heavens, he concludes it is "not extinguished" on the earth's surface; and in a subsequent passage he suggests "that this tendency or motion is truly cosmical, and penetrates everything from the heights of heaven to the depths of the earth."

He then comes to the second question, whether the "waters move regularly and naturally from east to west? meaning by waters those collections or masses of water, which form portions of nature large enough to have a correspondence with the fabric and structure of the universe." He concludes that they do, but that the motion is slower than that in the air.

He gives what he regards three "demonstrations" in proof of this. The first only is relevant to my purpose, and I wish to direct special attention to it:

The first is that there is found a manifest motion and flow of waters from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, and that swifter and stronger towards the Straits of Magellan, where there is an outlet to the west; and also a great motion in the opposite part of the world from the German Ocean into the British Channel. And these courses of water manifestly revolve from east to west. Wherein it is to be especially observed, that in these two places only the seas are open and can perform a complete circle;

1 Here, as I take it, Bacon rejects the crude expedient of the primum mobile, mentioned as the causa causans in the early treatise, and substitutes a "cosmical motion." His dislike of the Copernican theory, then gaining ground, was, I think, mainly due to a feeling that it impaired the dignity of man. Cf. Advancement of Learning: "So we may see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to any of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct."