The last chapter, on "Astronomers in Humble Life," consists for the most part of a series of Autobiographies. It may seem, at first sight, to have little to do with the leading object of the book; but it serves to show what a number of active, earnest, and able men are comparatively hidden throughout society, ready to turn their hands and heads to the improvement of their own characters, if not to the advancement of the general community of which they form a part. In conclusion, I say to the reader, as Quarles said in the preface to his 'Emblems,' "I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading as I had in the writing." In fact, the last three chapters were in some measure the cause of the book being published in its present form. London, November, 1884. CHAPTER I. PHINEAS PETT: BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH SHIP-BUILDING. "A speck in the Northern Ocean, with a rocky coast, an ungenial climate, and a soil scarcely fruitful,--this was the material patrimony which descended to the English race--an inheritance that would have been little worth but for the inestimable moral gift that accompanied it. Yes; from Celts, Saxons, Danes, Normans--from some or all of them--have come down with English nationality a talisman that could command sunshine, and plenty, and empire, and fame. The 'go' which they transmitted to us--the national vis--this it is which made the old Angle-land a glorious heritage. Of this we have had a portion above our brethren--good measure, running over. Through this our island-mother has stretched out her arms till they enriched the globe of the earth....Britain, without her energy and enterprise, what would she be in Europe?"--Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1870). In one of the few records of Sir Isaac Newton's life which he left for the benefit of others, the following comprehensive thought occurs: "It is certainly apparent that the inhabitants of this world are of a short date, seeing that all arts, as letters, ships, printing, the needle, &c., were discovered within the memory of history." If this were true in Newton's time, how much truer is it now. Most of the inventions which are so greatly influencing, as well as advancing, the civilization of the world at the present time, have been discovered within the last hundred or hundred and fifty years. We do not say that man has become so much wiser during that period; for, though he has grown in Knowledge, the most fruitful of all things were said by "the heirs of all the ages" thousands of years ago.