Robison remarks: “It is not saying too much of this work to affirm that it contains almost everything we know of magnetism. His unwearied diligence in searching every writing on the subject and in getting information from navigators, and his incessant occupation in experiments, have left very few facts unknown to him. We meet with many things in the writings of posterior inquirers, some of them of high reputation and of the present day, which are published and received as notable discoveries, but are contained in the rich collection of Dr. Gilbert.” The Rev. Wm. Whewell says in his “History of the Inductive Sciences” (Vol. III. p. 49) that in the “De Magnete,” a book of only 240 pages, upon which Dr. Gilbert has been engaged for nearly eighteen years, are contained “all the fundamental facts of the science, so fully examined, indeed, that, even at this day, we have little to add to them.” Dr. John Davy remarks (“Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy,” London, 1836, Vol. I. p. 309): “Gilbert’s work is worthy being studied, and I am surprised that an English Edition (translation) of it has never been published.” He also alludes to the well-known reproach thrown upon Gilbert’s philosophy by Francis Bacon, who, in his “De Augmentis Scientiarum,” observes that “Gilbert has attempted to raise a general system upon the magnet, endeavouring to build a ship out of materials not sufficient to make the rowing-pins of a boat.” On the other hand, Digby and Barlowe place Gilbert upon a level with Harvey, Galileo, Gassendi and Descartes (“Nouvelle Biographie Générale,” 1858, Vol. VIII. p. 494) while the celebrated historian of the Council of Trent, Fra Paolo Sarpi--who will not be thought an incompetent judge--names Gilbert, with Francis Vieta (the greatest French mathematician of the sixteenth century) as the only original writer among his contemporaries (“Lettere di Fra Paolo,” p. 31; Hallam, “Intro. to Lit.,” 1859, Vol. II. p. 464). In Thos. Thomson’s “History of the Royal Society,” London, 1812, the “De Magnete” is thus alluded to: “Dr. Gilbert’s book on magnetism, published in 1600, is one of the finest examples of inductive philosophy that has ever been presented to the world. It is the more remarkable because it preceded the ‘Novum Organum’ of Bacon, in which the inductive method of philosophizing was first explained.” How far Gilbert was ahead of his time is best proven by the works of those who wrote on magnetism during the first few decades after his death. They contributed in reality nothing to the extension of this branch of physical science. Poggendorff, from whose “Geschichte der Physik,” p. 286, this is extracted, as already stated, calls Gilbert “the Galileo of Magnetism.” By Dr. Priestley, he was named “the Father of Modern Electricity.”