(For fruitless actions seldom pass for wise),
But were the mighty ruins left, they'd show
To what degree that untaught age did know."


I believe a very diverting account might be given of this, but I
shall not attempt it. Some are apt to say with Solomon, "No new
thing happens under the sun; but what is, has been:" yet I make no
question but some considerable discovery has been made in these
latter ages, and inventions of human origin produced, which the
world was ever without before, either in whole or in part; and I
refer only to two cardinal points, the use of the loadstone at sea,
and the use of gunpowder and guns: both which, as to the inventing
part, I believe the world owes as absolutely to those particular
ages as it does the working in brass and iron to Tubal Cain, or the
inventing of music to Jubal, his brother. As to engines and
instruments for handicraftsmen, this age, I daresay, can show such
as never were so much as thought of, much less imitated before; for
I do not call that a real invention which has something before done
like it--I account that more properly an improvement. For
handicraft instruments, I know none owes more to true genuine
contrivance, without borrowing from any former use, than a mechanic
engine contrived in our time called a knitting-frame, which, built
with admirable symmetry, works really with a very happy success, and
may be observed by the curious to have a more than ordinary
composition; for which I refer to the engine itself, to be seen in
every stocking-weaver's garret.

I shall trace the original of the projecting humour that now reigns
no farther back than the year 1680, dating its birth as a monster