That the remarks of Bacon are derived from reflection and imagination only, is further apparent from his asserting that a small army could be made to appear very large, and that the sun and moon could be made to descend, to all appearance, down below, and stand over the head of the enemy. At the same time it is worth notice, that these ideas of Bacon did, in after times, produce either the telescope, or some modification of it, consisting in the magnifying of images produced by reflection, and that before the date either of Jansen or Galileo. Thomas Digges, son of Leonard Digges, in his 'Stratiotikos,' London, 1590, page 359 (second edition, the first being 1579), thus speaks of what his father had done, in the presence, as he asserts, of numerous living eye-witnesses:-- "And such was his Felicitie and happie successe, not only in these conclusions, but also in y^e Optikes and Catoptikes, that he was able by Perspectiue Glasses, duely seituate upon conuenient angles, in such sort to discouer every particularitie of the country round about, wheresoeuer the Sunne beames might pearse: as sithence Archimedes (Bakon of Oxford onely excepted) I have not read of any in action euer able by means natural to perform the like. Which partly grew by the aid he had by one old written book of the same Bakon's Experiments, that by strange aduenture, or rather Destinie, came to his hands, though chiefely by conioyning continuall laborious Practise with his Mathematicall Studies." And the same Thomas Digges, in his 'Pantometria,' London, 1571, Preface (republished in 1591), had previously given the same story, with more detail, omitting, however, all mention of Bacon. He says that his father--"sundrie times hath by proportionall Glasses duely situate in conuenient angles, not onely discouered things farre off, read letters, numbred peeces of money with the very coyne and superscription thereof, cast by some of his freends of purpose upon Downes in open Fields, but also seuen miles off declared what hath beene doone at that instant in priuate places. There are yet living diuerse (of these his dooings) _Oculati Testes_." The question has been agitated whether the invention of spectacles is due to Bacon, or whether they had been introduced just before he wrote. He certainly describes them, and explains why a plane convex glass magnifies. But he seems to us to speak of them as already in use. "Hence this instrument is useful to old persons and those who have weak eyes."