[1] The translator thinks, as he has not translated that Discourse, it
will not be amiss to insert here the Author’s sentiment on this subject.
In the Essay or Discourse referred to, after reciting the arguments that
have been used to prove the invention came from China, and the claims
that have been made on the behalf of a variety of people, to their being
the inventors; he gives it as his opinion, that Bertoldus Schuvart, a
German Franciscan friar, and an eminent chemist, was the man who invented
it, or at least was the person who, brought the invention to perfection.
[2] This is the same John Locke, of whose writings, as also of those of
Rapin, Sidney, and Bishop Hoadly, the late David Hume, in his History of
Great Britain, gives the following description: “Compositions of the most
despicable kind both for style and matter, which have been extolled, and
propagated, and read; as if they had equalled the most celebrated remains
of antiquity.”
Vid. vol. viii. pag. 323, of the last edition of Hume’s History of Great
Britain, published in 1778.