I guide the Pilot's course, his helping hand I am, The Mariner delights in me, so doth the Marchant man. My vertue lies unknowne, my secrets hidden are, By me, the Court and Commonweale, are pleasured very farre. No ship could sail on Seas, her course to run aright, Nor Compass shew the ready way were Magnes not of might. Blush then, and blemish all, bequeath to mee thats due, Your seats in golde, your price in plate, which Jewellers do renue. Its I, its I alone, whom you usurp upon, Magnes my name, the Loadstone cal'd, the prince of stones alone. If this you can deny, then seem to make reply, And let the painfull sea-man judge, the which of us doth lie. THE MARINER'S JUDGEMENT. The Loadstone is the stone, the onely stone alone, Deserving praise above the rest whose vertues are unknown. THE MARCHANT'S VERDICT. The Diamonds bright, the Saphires brave, Are stones that bear the name, but flatter not, and tell the troath, Magnes deserves the same. (Edition of 1720.) Norman's _Newe Attractive_ was well known to Gilbert, as were also the _Epistola_ of Peregrinus, the _Magiae Naturalis_ of Porta, and indeed all books treating of the lodestone, the magnet, or the compass-needle. His own work _De Magnete_, published in the year 1600, is a compendium of the world's knowledge of magnetism and electricity at the time. In its pages, he not only discusses the opinions of others, but describes discoveries of his own made during the twenty years which he ardently devoted to the pursuit of experimental science, crowning his investigations with theories in electricity and magnetism as became a true philosopher. Impressed by the originality of Gilbert's treatise, the practical ingenuity and philosophic acumen displayed throughout, Hallam wrote in his _Introduction to the Literature of Europe_: "Gilbert 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 received after the lapse of ages and are almost universally received into the creed of science."