Note 480 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The microscope was exhibited in London, by Drebbel, about 1620; and this appears to be the earliest unquestionable notice of its use, though some writers assert that it was invented at the beginning of the seventeenth century, or even in 1590. Compare the different statements, in Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. ii. p. 357; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. pp. 699, 700; Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 337; Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 136; Quekett's Treatise on the Microscope, 1848, p. 2; Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 470; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 202; Leslie's Nat. Philos. p. 52. On the subsequent improvement of the microscope during the seventeenth century, see Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. i. pp. 29, 242, 243.