of a two-pence compris’d the Lords prayer, the Apostles Creed, the ten Commandments, and about half a dozen verses besides of the Bible, whose lines were so small and near together, that I was unable to number them with my naked eye,) a very ordinary Microscope, I had then about me, inabled me to see that what the Writer of it had asserted was true, but withall discover’d of what pitifull bungling scribbles and scrawls it was compos’d, Arabian and China characters being almost as well shap’d, yet thus much I must say for the Man, that it was for the most part legible enough, though in some places there wanted a good fantsy well preposest to help one through.  If this manner of small writing were made easie and practicable (and I think I know such a one, but have never yet made tryal of it, whereby one might be inabled to write a great deale with much ease, and accurately enough in a very little roome) it might be of very good use to convey secret Intelligence without any danger of Discovery or mistrusting.  But to come again to the point.  The Irregularities of it are caused by three or four coadjutors, one of which is, the uneven surface of the paper, which at best appears no smother then a very course piece of shag’d cloth, next the irregularity of the Type or Ingraving, and a third is the rough Daubing of the Printing-Ink that lies upon the instrument that makes the impression, to all which, add the variation made by the Different lights and shadows, and you may have sufficient reason to guess that a point may appear much more ugly then this, which I have here presented, which though it appear’d through the Microscope gray, like a great splatch of London dirt, about three inches over; yet to the naked eye it was black and no bigger then that in the midst of the Circle A. And could I have found Room in this Plate to have inserted an O you should have seen that the letters were not more distinct then the points of Distinction, nor a drawn circle more exactly so, then we have now shown a point to be a point.

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Observ.  II. Of the Edge of a Razor.

The sharpest Edge hath the same kind of affinity to the sharpest Point in Physicks, as a line hath to a point in Mathematicks; and therefore the Treaty concerning this, may very properly be annexed to the former.  A Razor doth appear to be a Body of a very neat and curious aspect, till more closely viewed by the Microscope, and there we may observe its very Edge to be of all kind of shapes, except what it should be.  For examining that of a very