[Dr. Johnson expressed his surprise that the inventor of
spectacles was regarded with indifference, and has found no
biographer to celebrate his deeds. Most authorities give the
latter part of the thirteenth century as the period of their
invention, and popular opinion has pronounced in favour of
Alexander de Spina, a native of Pisa, who died in the year 1313.
In the Italian Dictionary, _Della Crusca_, under the head of
"Occhiale," or Spectacles, it is stated that Friar Jordan de
Rivalto tells his audience, in a sermon published in 1305, that
"it is not twenty years since the art of making spectacles was
found out, and is indeed one of the best and most necessary
inventions in the world." This would place the invention in the
year 1285. On the other hand, Dominic Maria Manni, an eminent
Italian writer, attributes the invention to Salvino Armati, who
flourished about 1345. (See his Treatise, _Degli Occhiali da Naso,
inventati da Salvino Armati_, 4to. 1738.) On the authority of
various passages in the writings of Friar Bacon, Mr. Molyneux is
of opinion that he was acquainted with the use of spectacles; and
when Bacon (_Opus Majus_) says, that "this instrument (a
plano-convex glass, or large segment of a sphere) is useful to old
men, and to those who have weak eyes; for they may see the
smallest letters sufficiently magnified," we may conclude that the
particular way of assisting decayed sight was known to him. It is
quite certain that they were known and used about the time of his
death, A.D. 1292.]
_Stoke._--What is the meaning of the word _stoke_, with regard to the
names of places, as Bishopstoke, Ulverstoke, Stoke-on-Trent, &c.?