[Sidenote: Adoption of the Copernican doctrine.] But others were not so obtuse as Bacon. Gilbert, one of the best of the early English experimentalists, an excellent writer on magnetism, adopted the views of Copernicus. Milton, in "Paradise Lost," set forth in language such as he only could use the objections to the Ptolemaic, and the probabilities of the Copernican system. Some of the more liberal ecclesiastics gave their adhesion. Bishop Wilkins not only presented it in a very popular way, but also made some sensible suggestions explanatory of the supposed contradictions of the new theory to the Holy Scriptures. It was, however, among geometricians, as Napier, Briggs, Horrox, that it met with its best support. On the continent the doctrine was daily making converts, and nightly gathering strength from the accordance of the tables of the motions of the heavenly bodies calculated upon its principles with actual observation. [Sidenote: Invention of the telescope.] It is by no means uninteresting to notice the different classes of men among whom this great theory was steadily winning its way. Experimental philosophers, Republican poets, Episcopal clergymen, Scotch lords, West of England schoolmasters, Italian physicists, Polish pedants, painstaking Germans, each from his own special point of view, was gradually receiving the light, and doubtless, from such varied influence, the doctrine would have vindicated its supremacy at last, though it might have taken a long time. On a sudden, however, there occurred a fortunate event, which led forthwith to that result by a new train of evidence, bringing the matter, under the most brilliant circumstances, clearly to the apprehension of every one. This great and fortunate event was the invention of the telescope.