FEW inventions have conferred a greater blessing on the human race than that which assists impaired visions. It is impossible to say how many there are at the present day whose lives would be almost valueless were it not for the use of spectacles. Indeed, Dr. Johnson rightly expressed his surprise that such a benefactor as the discoverer of spectacles should have been regarded with indifference, and found no worthy biographer to celebrate his ingenuity. Unfortunately, however, his name is a matter of much uncertainty; and hence a grateful posterity have been prevented bestowing upon his memory that honor which it has so richly merited. And it may be noted that popular opinion has long ago pronounced in favor of Spina, a Florentine monk, as the rightful claimant, although some are in favor of Roger Bacon. Monsieur Spoon, in his "Researches Curieuses d'Antique," fixes the date of the invention of spectacles between the years 1280 and 1311, and says that Alexander de Spina, having seen a pair made by some other person, who was unwilling to communicate the secret of their construction, ordered a pair himself and found them so useful that he cheerfully and promptly made the invention public. According to an Italian antiquarian, the person to whom Spina was indebted for his information was Salvino, who died in the year 1318, and he quotes from a manuscript in his possession an epitaph which records the circumstance: "Here lies Salvino Armoto d'Armati, of Florence, the inventor of spectacles. May God pardon his sins. The year 1318."