The tribute of Henry Hallam is to the following effect: “The year 1600 was the first in which England produced a remarkable work in physical science; but this was one sufficient to raise a lasting reputation for its author. Gilbert, a physician, in his Latin treatise on the magnet, not only collected all the knowledge which others had possessed on the subject, but became at once the father of experimental philosophy in this island, and, by a singular felicity and acuteness of genius, the founder of theories which have been revived after a lapse of ages, and are almost universally received into the creed of science. Gilbert was one of the earliest Copernicans, at least as to the rotation of the earth, and, with his usual sagacity, inferred, before the invention of the telescope, that there are a multitude of fixed stars beyond the reach of our vision” (“Introduction to the Literature of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” London, 1859, Vol. II. p. 463). In the “Principal Navigations ...” Edinburgh, 1889, Vol. XII. p. 10, Richard Hakluyt speaks of “... my worshipfull friend M. douctour Gilbert, a gentleman no lesse excellent in the chiefest secrets of the Mathematicks (as that rare iewel lately set forth by him in Latine doeth euidently declare) then in his oune profession of physicke.” We conclude this account of Gilbert in the quaint words of old Dr. Fuller: “He has (said my informer[40]) the _clearness of Venice Glass_ without the _Brittleness_ thereof, soon _Ripe_ and long _lasting_ is his Perfection. He commenced _Doctor_ in _Physick_, and was _Physician_ to Queen _Elizabeth_, who stamped on him many marks of her Favour, besides an annuall Pension to encourage his studies. He addicted himself to _Chemistry_, attaining to great exactness therein. One saith of him that he was _Stoicall_, but not _Cynicall_, which I understand _Reserved_; but not _Morose_, never married, purposely to be more beneficial to his brethren. Such his _Loyalty_ to the Queen that, as if unwilling to survive, he dyed in the same year with her, 1603. His _Stature_ was _Tall_, Complexion Chearful, an Happiness not ordinary in so hard a student and so retired a person. He lyeth buried in _Trinity Church_ in Colchester under a plain monument.” “_Mahomet’s Tombe_, at Mecha, is said strangely to _hang_ up, attracted by some invisible _Loadstone_, but the memory of this _Doctor_ will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable book ‘De Magnete’ will _support_ to eternity” (“The History of the Worthies of England Endeavoured by Thomas Fuller, D.D.,” London, 1662, p. 332--Essex). In his Epistle to Dr. Walter Charleton, physician in ordinary to King Charles I (Epist. III. p. 15, Vol. XI of the Works of Dryden, London, 1803) the celebrated English poet predicts that: “_Gilbert shall live till loadstones cease to draw Or British fleets the boundless ocean awe._”