CHARM. Stasime, fac te propere celerem recipe te ad dominum domum; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cape vorsoriam Recipe te ad herum. (in _Trinum._ Act. IV., sc. 3.)
The word _magneticum_ is also of Gilbert's own coinage, as a noun; as an adjective it had been certainly used before, at least in its English form, _magneticall_, which appears on the title-page of William Borough's _Discourse of the Variation of the Compasse_ (London, 1596). Gilbert does not use anywhere the noun _magnetismus_, _magnetism_. The first use of that noun occurs in William Barlowe's _Magneticall Aduertisements_ (1616), in the _Epistle Dedicatorie_, wherein, when speaking of Dr. Gilbert, he says "vnto whom I communicated what I had obserued of my selfe, and what I had built vpon his foundation of the _Magnetisme_ of the earth." Gilbert speaks of the _virtus magnetica_, or _vis magnetica_; indeed, he has a rich vocabulary of terms, using, beside _virtus_ and _vis_, _vires_, _robur_, _potestas_, _potentia_, _efficientia_, and _vigor_ for that which we should now call _magnetism_ or _the magnetic forces_. Nor does he use the verb _magnetisare_, or its participle, _magnetisatus_: he speaks of _ferrum tactum_, or of _ferrum excitatum a magnete_. In spite of certain obscurities which occur in places in his work, he certainly shows a nice appreciation of words and their use, and a knowledge of style. One finds occasionally direct quotations from, and overt references to, the classic authors, as in the references to Plato and Aristotle on page 1, and in the passage from the Georgics of Vergil on p. 21. But here and there one finds other traces of unmistakable scholarship, as in the reference to goat's wool on p. 35, or in the use, on p. 210, of the word _perplacet_, which occurs in the letter of Cicero _ad Atticum_, or in that of _commonstrabit_, occurring on p. 203, and found only in Cicero, Terence and Plautus; whilst the phrase on p. 3, in which Gilbert rallies the smatterers on having lost both their oil and their pains, has a delightfully classical echo. { 3} The term _orbis virtutis_, defined by Gilbert in the glossary, and illustrated by the cuts on pages 76, 77, and 96, might be effectively translated by _sphere of influence_, or _orbit within which there is sensible attraction_. It has been preferred, however, to translate it literally as the _orbe of virtue_, or _orbe of magnetick virtue_. This choice has been determined by the desire to adopt such an English phrase as Gilbert would himself have used had he been writing English. T. Hood, writing in 1592 in his book _The Vse of both the Globes_, in using the word _orbe_, says that the word _globe_ signifies a solid body, while a _sphere_ is hollow, like two "dishes joyned by the brimme"; "The Latines properly call _Orbis_ an Orbe"; "Moreouer the word _Sphaera_ signifieth that instrument made of brasen hoopes (wee call it commonly a ringed Sphere) wherewith the Astronomers deliuer unto the nouices of that Science the vnderstanding of things which they imagine in the heauen." Further, Dr. Marke Ridley in his _Treatise of Magneticall Bodies and Motions_ (1613), has a chapter (XIIII) "Of the distance and Orbe of the Magnets vertue," throughout which the term Orbe is retained. Sir Thomas Browne also writes of "the orb of their activities."