WILLIAM GILBERT. 63
Gilbert further laid the foundations of future scientific progress
by founding a sort of society, or college, which met monthly at his
house in Peter's Hill, Knightrider Street, for the discussion of
philosophical subjects, and which, though it fell into abeyance at his
death, was afterwards revived by Sir Christopher Wren and others,
and received the patronage of King Charles II., and was called the
Royal Society in honour of its pious founder.
He did not live to add, as he purposed, an appendix of six or
eight sheets to "De Magnete" ; no such addition appearing in either of
the German editions published at Stettin in 1628 and 1633 respect-
ively. He left behind him, however, the manuscript of another
work of lesser merit, which was posthumously published in 1651 by
the famous printing-house of Elzevir, entitled "De mundo nostra
sublunari Philosophia novo." It is chiefly a meteorological and cos-
mical treatise, remarkable indeed for one speculative point, namely,
a suggestion that the reason why the moon always presents the same
face towards the earth is because the moon, like the earth, is
magnetic.
His fame as physician and physicist won him the favour of
Queen Elizabeth, by whom, in February, 1601, he was appointed
chief physician. He even received from her, as has been men-
tioned, an annual pension ; and was continued as chief physician to
James I., an honour which he only enjoyed for seven months, as he
died on November 30th, 1603.
The partial oblivion into which Gilbert's fame has been allowed
to fall is due probably mainly to the loss of all personal relics of
him. With the exception of a single doubtful inscription, "ex dono
auctoris," in a single copy of "De Magnete," not a line of his hand-
writing is known to exist,2 unless his hand wrote the signature "Ye
President and Societie" at the end of a petition, preserved amongst
the manuscripts in the British Museum, addressed by the Royal
College of Physicians in 1596 to the Lords of the Privy Council,
complaining of the exactions of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of
London. It is pretty certain that the MS. copy of "De Mundo
Nostra," in Latin, in the British Museum, is not in the author's hand-
writing ; for in the Elzevir print there is a note which states that the
author's original manuscript was partly in English. It is sad to
relate that the manuscripts, maps, letters, magnets and minerals,
2 Two other specimens, believed to be in Gilbert's handwriting, have been recently unearthed.
S.P.T., April, 1891.