This sympathetic magnetic telegraph figures extensively in the scientific literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: some believed in the figment, others condemned it. Addison described it in elegant prose, and Akenside in beautiful verse. Perhaps the most famous composition on the subject is a short Latin poem, written, after the style and vein of Lucretius, in 1617 by Famianus Strada, an Italian Jesuit. A few years after its publication in the author's "Prolusiones," a metrical translation was made by Hakewill and inserted on page 285 of his "Apologie, or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God," 1630. Owing to the interest that attaches to this celebrated composition and the difficulty of getting Hakewill's "Apologie," we append his version of the poem. The Loade above all other stones hath this strange property If sundry steels thereto or needles you apply, Such force and motion thence they draw that they incline To turn them to the Bear, which near the Pole doth shine. Nay, more, as many steels as touch that virtuous stone In strange and wondrous sort conspiring all in one Together move themselves and situate together: As if one of those steels at Rome be stirred, the other The self-same way will stir though they far distant be, And all through Nature's force and secret sympathy; Well then if you of aught would fain advise your friend That dwells far off, to whom no letter you can send; A large smooth round table make, write down the crisscross row In order on the verge thereof, and then bestow The needle in the midst which touch'd the Loade that so What note soe'er you list, it straight may turn unto. Then frame another orb in all respects like this Describe the edge and lay the steel thereon likewise, The steel which from the self-same Magnes motion drew; This orb send with thy friend what time he bids adieu. But on the days agree at first, when you do mean to prove If the steel stir, and to what letter it doth move. This done, if with thy friend thou closely wouldst advise, Who in a country off far distant from thee lies, Take thou the orb and steel which on the orb was set The crisscross on the edge thou seest in order writ. What notes will frame thy words, to them direct thy steel And it sometimes to this, sometimes to that note wheel Turning it round about so often till you find You have compounded all the meaning of your mind. Thy friend that dwells far off, O strange! doth plainly see The steel so stir though it by no man stirréd be, Running now here, now there: he conscious of the plot As the steel-guide pursues, and reads from note to note. Then gathering into words those notes, he clearly sees What's needful to be done, the needle truchman is. Now, when the steel doth cease its motion; if thy friend