Chapter 3

Raleigh was unquestionably the designer, the architect and the finisher of his History of the World. To him is due the honor and credit of the work. But who was the builder ? The answer manifestly is Thomas Hariot of Sion on Thames, learned, patient, self-forgetting, painstaking, long-waiting, devoted Hariot. Many writers have claimed to be, or have been named as, Sir Walter’s assistants and polishers. Ben Jonson, Rev. Dr Burhill, John Hoskins the poet, and others have each had their advocates,but without sufficient evidence. It may well be questioned if any one of them possessed either the ability, the time, the access to the Tower, or the opportunity to perform such herculean labors of love. These claims are apparently all based on pure conjecture, or unrectified gossip, as shown by Mr Bolton Corney in his razorly reply to Mr Isaac D’israeli. But Thomas Hariot, on the contrary, possessed abundantly what they all lacked, the necessary credentials. For proof of this assertion the doubter, as well as the lover of confirmed historical accuracy, is referred to the Hariot papers still preserved partly at Petworth and partly in the British Museum.

The Hariot manuscripts, of which there are thousands of folio pages all in his own handwriting, seem to be still in the same confused state in which he left them. He directed that the ‘waste’ should be weeded out of his mathematical papers and destroyed. But this duty seems, fortunately for us, to have been neglected by his executors, and hence among this ‘waste’ one has even now no great difficulty in recognizing in the well-known Latin handwriting of the’ magician,’ many jottings in chronology, geography and science, and many abstracts and citations of the classics, that in their time must have played parts in theHistory of the World.The Will now first produced lets in a flood of light on the history of these valued papers, and dispels a great deal of the heaps of foreign pretension, domestic assertion, and mixed charlatanism that have since 1784 beclouded the memories of both Raleigh and Hariot. It is true that on a hint in the previous century from Camden of a will by the great mathematician, many conjectures were afloat from the days of Pell, Collins, Wallis and Wood, but it has not been possible until now for one, with due knowledge of the main events in the lives of these two men, each equally great in his own sphere, to satisfactorily clear away any considerable portion of the misconception and misstatements of biographers and historians concerning them and their achievements. The dawn however is coming, when these new materials now first printed by the Hercules Club, but not worked up, may attract the attention of some historian competent to give them a thorough scientific scrutiny and ‘pen their doctrine.’

It is not our purpose here to dwell upon Raleigh’s masterpiece. From the preface of theHistory of the World,which opens with ‘the boundless ambition of mortal man,’ to the epilogue which closes up the work with the glorious triumph of Death, the whole book is replete with lessons of wisdom and warning. No one can rise from its perusal without perceiving that the modern author has made himself by apt illustration an accomplished actor in ancient history, while the ancient characters are made in their vera effigies to strut on modern stages. His pictures of great actions and great men, noble deeds and nobler princes, are drawn with such masterly perspective of truth, that they serve for all time ; while his portraiture of tyrants, villains, and dishonorable characters are no less lifelike and human. One marvels not therefore that King James, whose political creed was that the people are bound to princes by iron, and princes to the people by cobwebs, should see in Raleigh’s portraiture of the upright kings no likeness to himself, but had no difficulty in recognizing in the deformed greatness and selfish virtues of the old monarchs qualities suggestive of himself and his favorites. This grand history, extending from the creation over the four great monarchies of the world, near four thousand years, closes with the final triumph of Emilius Paullus in these memorable and oft-repeated words from the first edition of 1614.

Kings and Princes have alwayes laid before them, the actions, but not the ends, of those great Ones which precededthem. They are alwayes transported with the glorie of the one, but they never minde the miserie of the other, till they finde the experience themselves. They neglect the advice of God, while they enioy life, or hope it; but they follow the counsell of Death, upon his first approach. It is he that puts into man all the wisdome of the world, without speaking a word ; which God with all the words of His Law, promises, or threats, doth not infuse. Death which hateth and destroyeth man, is beleeved ; God, which hath made him and loves him, is alwayes deferred. I have considered, saith Solomon, all the workes that are under the Sunne, and behold, all is vanitie and vexation of spirit: but who beleeves it, till Death tells it us. It was Death, which opening the conscience of Charles the fift, made him enjoyne his sonne Philip to restore Navarre ; and King Francis the First of France, to command that justice should be done upon the murderers of the Protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected. It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man know himselfe. He tells the proud and insolent, that they are but Abjects, and humbles them at the instant ; makes them crie, complaine, and repent; yea, even to hate their forepassed happinesse. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked begger, which hath interest in nothing, but in the grauell that filles his mouth. He holds a glasse before the eyes of the most beautifull, and makes them see therein their deformitie and rottennesse; and they acknowledge it.

O eloquent, just and mightie Death ! whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou onely hast cast out of the world and despised : thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition, of man, and covered it all over with those two narrow words :Hic jacet.

With this outburst of true eloquence the historian of the world laid down his pen in 1614. Four short years later the same historian himself, wickedly sacrificed by his hispaniolized monarch, laid down his life on the scaffold, with an apotheosis scarcely less eloquent. No death recorded in ancient or modern history is more grand or instructive than that of Sir Walter Raleigh, in many respects the greatest man of his age.

On the execution being granted in the King’s Bench Court, on the afternoon of the 28th of October 1618, he asked for a little time for pre- paration, but his request was refused, Bacon having already in his pocket the death warrant duly signed by the King before the meeting of the Court! Sir Walter then asked for paper, pen and ink; and when he came to die that he might be permitted to speak at his farewell. To these last requests he appears to have received no reply, but was with indecent haste hustled off to the Gate House for execution early the next morning, the 29th of October, Lord Mayor’s day, when it was expected that the crowd would go cityward. However, there was a crowd, and probably in consequence he was not prohibited from speaking. He had prepared himself, and is said to have consulted a‘Note of Remembrance’which he held in his hand while speaking. It is possible, nay, probable that this very sameNotestill survives in ‘paper-saving’ Hariot’s ‘waste,’ for a precious little waif, all crumpled and soiled, just such a ‘Note of Remembrance,’ it is believed, as Raleigh held in his hand and consulted during that ever memorable speech, has comedown to us, and is now preserved among the Hariot papers in the British Museum. It has been recently recognized and identified by Mr Stevens, who has placed it, with other newly discovered documents respecting our philosopher, at the disposition of the Hercules Club. It is thought to possess internal evidence of having been drawn outbeforethe speech, and is not therefore Hariot’s jottings of remembranceafterit. But positive proof is wanting.

It is beyond all doubt, however, in the well-known handwriting of Hariot, and is presumed to be the ‘note of remembrance’forthe speech, made in the Gate House, probably from dictation, during the night before the execution. It appears as if hurriedly penned with a blunt quill, and is on a narrow strip of thin foolscap paper such as Hariot used. It is about twelve inches long and nearly four inches wide, about one-third of the lower part of the paper being blank. There is no heading, date, or anything else on the paper. It is rather difficult to read, but every word, letter and point have been made out, and the wholeNoteis here given, line for line, and verbatim, the heading and press-mark only being added :

[SIR WALTER RALEIGH’S ‘NOTE OR REMEMBRANCE’for his speech on the ScaffoldOct. 29 1618.]Two fits of an agew.Thankes to god.of calling god to witness.noteThat He Speake iustly & truely.I.) Concerning his loyalty toyeKing. French Agent,& Comission fro yefrench King.2.) of Slanderous fpeeches touchinghis majty. a french man.SrL. Stukely.3.) SrL. Stukely. My lo: Carewe.4.) SrL. Stukely. My lo: of Danchaster.5.) SrL. St: S’ Edward Perham.6.) Sr L. St. A letter on london hyway l0000li.7.) Mine of Guiana.8.) Came back by constreynt.9.) My L. of Arundell.10.) Company ufed ill in ye Voyadge.11. Spotting of his face & counterfeiting sicknes.12 TheE. ofEflex.Lastly, he deiired ye company to ioyne with him in prayer. &c.[Brit. MM. Add.MSS. 6789.]

[SIR WALTER RALEIGH’S ‘NOTE OR REMEMBRANCE’

for his speech on the ScaffoldOct. 29 1618.]

Two fits of an agew.

Thankes to god.

of calling god to witness.

note

That He Speake iustly & truely.

I.) Concerning his loyalty toye

King. French Agent,

& Comission fro yefrench King.

2.) of Slanderous fpeeches touching

his majty. a french man.

SrL. Stukely.

3.) SrL. Stukely. My lo: Carewe.

4.) SrL. Stukely. My lo: of Danchaster.

5.) SrL. St: S’ Edward Perham.

6.) Sr L. St. A letter on london hyway l0000li.

7.) Mine of Guiana.

8.) Came back by constreynt.

9.) My L. of Arundell.

10.) Company ufed ill in ye Voyadge.

11. Spotting of his face & counterfeiting sicknes.

12 TheE. ofEflex.

Lastly, he deiired ye company to ioyne with him in prayer. &c.

[Brit. MM. Add.MSS. 6789.]

Every paragraph of the speech is noted, but not quite in the order of the speech as variously reported by those who witnessed the execution and heard it. Circumstances occurred after Sir Walter began to speak, which may have caused the slight change in the order as here set down. This argues in favor of its being a note prepared beforehand. If so It must have been written shortly before the speech, because the order for the execution was not given in the King’s Bench Court till the afternoon of the 28th, and the execution was fixed for early the next morning.

There is a little confusion of the tenses, but this is not strange considering that the note was penned by a third person. The last two lines, below the number 12, may have been added by Hariot afterwards, as they are in the past tense and third person, and are separated from the rest of the note by a dash. This point is not numbered. It is possible that thefirst five lines were also added subsequently, as they are not numbered, and are placed near the top of the paper, as if interpolated, but they are in the same handwriting, and apparently were written with the same pen and ink.

At all events, whether written by Hariot before or after the deed, it is a precious contemporary document, and is another proof, if any more be needed, of the genuineness of the reported dying speech, and, consequently, that the famous ‘Spanish papers’ recently reproduced are forgeries and false. It requires no great stretch of the imagination with this little messenger in hand to believe that the ingenious teacher and friend of his youth, and for nearly two score years the constant companion of his manhood, passed that dreadful night with Sir Walter in the Gate House at Westminster, and after ‘dear Bess’ had taken her leave at midnight, penned out this note of remembrance for his friend’s morning guidance, that nothing should be forgotten in case the ague returned, which he feared even more than death.

A little more than a month after the execution of his friend, Hariot is found in his observatory at Sion taking observations of the comet of December 1618. His valuable observations are preserved among his mathematical papers. During the eleven years following his primitive observations of the ‘Hariot’ comet of 1607, first at Ilfracombeand later at Kidwely, great advances had been made in the science of astronomy, chiefly in consequence of the invention of the telescope, and the discoveries by means of it. No mathematician in Europe was probably further advanced in this science than Hariot.

What particular discoveries belonged to him and what to Galileo, Kepler and other contemporaries, it is very difficult to determine, since it is now positively known that from 1609 or 1610 Hariot was a manufacturer and dealer in lenses, or perspective glasses, as well as in perspective trunks or telescopes; and that he was in correspondence with Kepler, and probably with Galileo. He was easily the chief of astronomers in England, and is known to have possessed the earliest books of Galileo and to have sent them to his disciples, Lower and Protheroe, in Wales. Respecting this comet of 1618, he was in correspondence with Alien and Standish of Oxford and other scholars at home and abroad.

In ‘Certain Elegant Poems, Written By Dr. [Richard] Corbel, Bishop of Norwich. R. Cotes for Andrew Crooke, 1647, 16°- The mirth-loving Bishop, in ‘A Letter sent from Doclor Corbetto MaJler [Sir Thomas] Ailebury, Decem. 9. 1618’ [on the Comet of that year] is the following allusion to Hariot:

BurtontoGunterCants, andBurtonhearesFromGunter,and th’ Exchange both tongue & earesBy carriage : thus doth miredGuycomplaine,His Waggon on their letters bearesCharlesWaine,CharlesWaine, to which they fay the tayle will reachAnd at this diftance they both heare, and teach.Now for the peace of God and men, advise(Thou that haft wherewithall to make us wise)Thine owne rich ftudies, and deepe Harriots mine,In which there is no drosse, but all refine,O tell us what to trust to, lest we waxAll stiffe and tupid with his paralex ;Say, shall the old Philofophy be true ?Or doth he ride above the Moone think you ?etc.

After the departure of the ‘Blazing Starr’ of December 1618, very little is known of Hariot, except that he lived at Sion while his patron the Earl was still in the Tower, where he was probably frequently visited by his man of science. The following letter, dated the 19th of January 1619, to him at Sion from Sir Thomas Aylesbury is interesting as showing the great interest taken in his old master by his ‘loytering scholar.’ Many other letters of this stamp, breathing love and ardent friendship, are found among the Hariot papers, from Sir William Lower, Sir John Protheroe, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Dr Turner, and Sir Thomas Aylesbury. Here is a sample:

Sr, Though I have bene yet soe little a while att New Mar-kett, that I have not any thing of moment to ympart; yet I thinke it not amisse to write a bare salutacons, and let yo know, that in theise wearie journeys I am often times comforted wth the remembraunce of yor kind love and paynes bestowed on yor loytering scholar, whose little credit in the way of learning is all-waits underpropped wt the name of soe worthie a Maister.The Comet being spent, the talke of it still runnes current here; The Kings ma before mycumming spake w’ one of Cambridge called Olarentia, (a name able to beget beleefe of some extraordinarie qualities) but what satisfaction he gave, I cannot yet learne; here are papers out of Spayne about it, yea and fro Roome, wc I will endevor to gett, and meane yt yo shall partake of the newes as tyme serves.Cura ut valeas et me ames, who am ever trulie and unfaynedlyryors att Commaund. THO: AYLESBURIE.Newmarkett. 19, Jan. 1618/1619Addressed:To my right woorthie frend Mr. THOMAS HARRIOTatt Syon, theise, fro Newmarkett.

The Comet being spent, the talke of it still runnes current here; The Kings ma before mycumming spake w’ one of Cambridge called Olarentia, (a name able to beget beleefe of some extraordinarie qualities) but what satisfaction he gave, I cannot yet learne; here are papers out of Spayne about it, yea and fro Roome, wc I will endevor to gett, and meane yt yo shall partake of the newes as tyme serves.

Cura ut valeas et me ames, who am ever trulie and unfaynedlyryors att Commaund. THO: AYLESBURIE.

Newmarkett. 19, Jan. 1618/1619

Addressed:To my right woorthie frend Mr. THOMAS HARRIOT

att Syon, theise, fro Newmarkett.

Between 1615 and 1620 there are evidences of Hariot’s failing health. He was greatly troubled with a cancerous ulcer on the lip. How early this began is not apparent. In 1610 his friend Lower cautions him to be careful of his health. There is in the British Museum among the Hariot papers the drafts of three beautiful letters in Latin written from Sion in 1615 and 1616 to a friend of distinction, name not mentioned, who had been recently appointed to some medical office at court, in which he describes himself and his disease.

These letters show great resignation and Christian fortitude. He seemed to be getting better in 1616, and expressed himself as somewhat hopeful. The progress of the cancer and other troubles cannot now probably be traced, but he is found in the summer of 1621 lodging with his old friend Thomas Buckner, in Threadneedle Street, near the Royal Exchange, in the parish of St Christopher. Buckner had been one of Raleigh’s ‘First Colonie’ to Virginia in 1585 with Hariot, and Hariot, now in 1621, had come up from Sion probably for medical advice near the hospital. On the 2gth of June he made or executed his Will, and died three days after at Buckner’s, on the and of July 1621. He was buried the next day, according to the wish expressed in his will, in the old parish church of St Christopher in Threadneedle Street.

Sifte viator, leviter preme,Iacet hic juxta, Quod mortale fuit,C. V.THOMÆ HARRIOTT.Hic fuit Doftiffimus ille Harriotusde Syon ad Flumen Thamefin,Patria & educationeOxonienfis,QVM omnes fcientias Caluit,Qui in omnibus excelluit,Mathematicis, Philofophicis, Theologicis.Veritatis indagator ftudiofiffimus,Dei Trini-uniui cultor piiffimus,Sexagenarius, aut eo circiter,Mortalitati valedixit, Non vitæ,Anno Christi M.DC.XXI. Iulii 2.

Shortly after there was erected to his memory in the chancel, at the expense, it is understood, of his noble friend the Earl of Northumberland, a fine marble monument, bearing the above neat and appropriate inscription.

St Christopher’s, a very old church, with its records (still preserved) extending back in an almost unbroken series to 1488, passed through many vicissitudes before itwas finally swallowed up by the leviathan of the world’s commerce. The site of it is now occupied by the south-west cornerof the Bank of England on Princes Street, to the left of the entrance, nearly opposite the Mansion House. The church was restored and redecorated the year of Hariot’s death, and again twelve years later, but was burnt in the great fire of 1666. Hariot’s monument perished with it, but the inscription had been preserved by Stow. The church was rebuilt on the same foundation by Sir Christopher Wren in 1680.

About a century ago the church, with the whole parish of St Christopher (called then St Christopher-le-stocks because near the stocks standing at the east end of Cheapside), together with a large portion of two other parishes, St Margaret’s and St Bartholomew’s, was purchased by the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street for the site of the new Bank of England. Thus one great bank of this modern metropolis covers a large part of three parishes of old London.

The whole area of the Bank, however, was not given up to mammon, though still here men most do congregate, and worshippers most do worship. One small consecrated spot, enough perhaps to leaven and memorize the whole site, was respected, and not built over. It was the churchyard of St Christopher. This ‘God’s acre’ the architect and the governors have dedicated to Beauty, Art, and Nature. The little ‘Garden of the Bank of England,’ the loveliest spot in all London at this day, measuring about twenty-four by thirty-two yards, was just a hundred years ago the little churchyard of St Christopher, where still repose the bones of THOMAS HARIOT.

Virginia, which once comprehended the present United States from South to North, has been called the monument to Sir Walter Raleigh. So the Bank of England, built round the churchyard of St Christopher, may be called the monument to Thomas Hariot.

The present year, 1879, is just three centuries since Hariot went forth, a youth of twenty, from the University of Oxford. We have briefly told his story. England is all the richer for his life, and the world itself acknowledges the wealth of his science and the worth of his philosophy. The Bank of England is built round his bones, but it cannot cover his memory.

Stay, traveller, tread lightly ;Near this spot lies what was mortalof that most celebrated manTHOMAS HARRIOT.He was the very learned Harriotof Sion on Thames ;by birth and educationan Oxonian, Who cultivated all the sciences,and excelled in all,In Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Theology.A most studious investigator of truth, A most piousworshipper of the Triune God,At the age of sixty, or thereabouts,He bade farewell to mortality, not to life,July 2d A.D. 1621.

He lived, died, and was forgotten in the parish of St Christopher. Henceforward, whenever Englishmen and Americans, merchants and scholars, rich and poor, men of genius and men of money, enter this little’ Garden,’ let them read there in English what Henry Percy originally set up in Latin, the above inscription.

An impression has gone abroad, traceable chiefly to Aubrey and to Anthony à Wood, that Hariot was unsound in religious principles and matters of belief; that he was, in fact, not only a Deist himself, but that he exerted a baleful influence over Raleigh and his History as well as over the Earl of Northumberland. Not to misstate this utterly unfounded imputation, the very words of Wood, as first printed in his Athenæ in 1691, and never since modified, are here given in full: ‘But notwithstanding his great skill in mathematics, he had strange thoughts of the scripture, and always undervalued the old story of the creation of the world, and could never believe that trite position,Ex nihilo nihil fit.He made aPhilosophical Theology,wherein he cast off the OLD TESTAMENT, so that consequently the New would have no foundation. He wasaDeist, and his doctrine he did impart to the said Count [the Earl] and to Sir Walt. Raleigh when he was compiling theHistory of the World,and would controvert the matter with eminent divines of those times; who therefore having no good opinion of him, did look on the manner of his death as a judgment upon him for those matters, and for nullifying the scripture.’

It is needless to say that in all our investigations into the life, actions, and character of this eminent philosopher and Christian, from the time when, as a young man in 1585, he took delight in reading the Bible to the Indians of Virginia, down to the time that he made his remarkable will in 1621, not one word has been found in cor-roboration of these statements; but, on the contrary, many passages have appeared to contradict and disprove them. Let any one notice the numerous citations of the various books of the Bible in Raleigh’s History, and he will surely fail to discover any evidence of Raleigh’s being a Deist, or that Hariot had taught him to undervalue the scripture.

It is not necessary here to say more in this connection than to quote the following passage from one of the Latin letters in 1616 referred to above by Hariot to the eminent physician who had just received a high medical appointment at Court, describing himself and his terrible affliction [a cancer on the lip]. The passage is given in English, but the original Latin may be seen in the British Museum (Add. 6789). It seems to have been written on purpose to refute such slanders. He writes :

Think of me as your sincere friend. Your interests are involved as well as mine. My recovery will be your triumph, but through the Almighty who is the Author of all good things. As I have now and then said, I believe these three points. I believe in God Almighty; I believe that Medicine was ordained by him ; I trust the Physician as his minister. My faith is sure, my hope firm. I wait however with patience for everything in its own time according to His Providence. We must act earnestly, fight boldly, but in His name, and we shall conquer. Sic transit gloria mundi, omnia transibunt, nos ibimus, ibitis, ibunt. So passes away the glory of this world, all things shall pass away, we shall pass away, you will pass away, they will pass away.

There is unfortunately no portrait known of Hariot, and we can form no idea of his personal appearance; but, fortunately, the drafts of the three Latin letters to his eminent friend at Court, alluded to above, fully describe his terrible disease and other bodily infirmities in 1615 and 1616, and give us some notion of himself and his personal habits. His regular physician was Dr Turner, and his apothecary Mr May-orne, both employed also by Sir Walter.

Dr Alexander Read, in his ‘Chirurgicall Lectures of Tumors and Vlcers Delivered in the Chirurgeans Hall, 1632-34. London. 1638,’ 4°, says in Treatise 2, Lecture 26, page 307:

Cancerous ulcers also feize upon this part [lips]. This grief haftened the end of that famous Mathematician, Mr. Hariot, with whom I was acquainted but a fhorttime before his death : whom at one time, together with Mr. Hughes, who wrote of the Globes, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Torperley, the Noble Earl of Northumberland, the favourer of all good learning, and Mecænas of learned men, maintained while he was in the Tower for their worth and various literature

A great deal of misconception has hitherto prevailed respecting Hariot’s great printed work on Algebra. His reputation as a mathematician has been permitted to hinge chiefly upon it, very much to his disadvantage. A brief bibliographical statement of facts will probably present the matter in a new light. But first let the book be described as it lies before us and has been described by many others since the days of Professor Wallis, nearly two hundred years ago. The Title is as follows : ‘Artis Analyticæ / Praxis / Ad æquationes Algebraicas nouæ, expeditæ, & generali / methodo, resoluendas : / Tractatus/ E posthumis THOMÆ HARRIOTI Philosophi ac Mathematici ce- / leberrimi sche-diasmatis summæ fide & diligentia / descriptus:/ Et/Illvstrissimo Domino/Dom. HenricoPercio,/ Northvmbriæ Comiti,/Qui hæc primò, sub Patronatus & Munificentiæ suæ auspicjss / ad proprios vsus elucubrata, in communem Mathematicorum / vtilitatem, denuò reuisenda, describenda, & publicanda / mandauit, meritissimi Honoris ergò / Nuncupatus. / Londini / Apud Robertvm Barker, Typographum / Regium : Et Hæred. Io. Billii. /Anno 1631. /Title, reverse blank;Prefatio 4 pages; Text 180 pages, and Errata 1 page (Bbb) followed by a blank page, folio. A very handsomely printed book. In the British Museum, 529 m 8, is Charles the First’s copy in old calf, gilt edges, with the royal arms on the sides. In the Preface the editors (Aylesbury and Prothero aided by Warner)say:

Artis Analyticæ, cuius caufa hîc agitur, port eruditum illud Græcorum fæculum antiquitatæ iamdiù & incultæ iacentis, rcftitutionemFrancifcus Viete,Gallus, vir clariflimus, & ob infignem in fcientijs Mathematicis peritiam, Gallicæ gentis decus, primus fingulari confilio & intentato ante hâc conamine aggreffus eft; atque ingenuam hanc animi fui intentionem per varios tractatus, quos in argumenti huius elaboratione eleganter & acutè confcripfit, pofteris teftatem rcliquit. Dùm verò ille veteris Analytices reftitutionem, quam fibi propofuit, feriò molitus eft, non tàm eam reftitutam, quàm proprijs inuentionibus actam & exornatam, tanquam nouam & fuam, nobis tradidifle videtur. Quod generali conceptu enuntiatum paulo fufius explicandum eft; vt, oftenfo eo quod primùm àVietain inftituto fuo promouendo actum eft, quid pofteà ab authore noftro doctifiimoThomâ Harrioto,qui ilium certamine ifto Analytico fequntus eft, praeftitum fit, meliùs innotefcere possit. [Which done into English is substantially as follows]Francis Vieta, a Frenchman, a most distinguished man, and on account of his remarkable skill in Mathematical Science the honour of the French nation, first of all with singular genius and with industry hitherto unattempted undertook the restoration of the analytic art, of which subject we are here treating, which after the learned age of the Greeks for a long time had become antiquated and remained uncultivated : and by various treatises which he eloquently and ingeniously wrote in the working out of this line of argument, left a record to posterity of this noble design of his mind. But while he seriously laboured at the restoration of the old Analysis, which he had proposed to himself, he seems not so much to have transmitted to us a restoration of that science, as a new and original method, worked out and illustrated by his own discoveries. This, having been enunciated in general terms, must be explained a little more at length ; so that having shown what was first effected by Vieta in promoting his design, it may be more clear, what was afterwards performed by our very learned author Thomas Harriot, who followed him in these analytical investigations.

Francis Vieta, a Frenchman, a most distinguished man, and on account of his remarkable skill in Mathematical Science the honour of the French nation, first of all with singular genius and with industry hitherto unattempted undertook the restoration of the analytic art, of which subject we are here treating, which after the learned age of the Greeks for a long time had become antiquated and remained uncultivated : and by various treatises which he eloquently and ingeniously wrote in the working out of this line of argument, left a record to posterity of this noble design of his mind. But while he seriously laboured at the restoration of the old Analysis, which he had proposed to himself, he seems not so much to have transmitted to us a restoration of that science, as a new and original method, worked out and illustrated by his own discoveries. This, having been enunciated in general terms, must be explained a little more at length ; so that having shown what was first effected by Vieta in promoting his design, it may be more clear, what was afterwards performed by our very learned author Thomas Harriot, who followed him in these analytical investigations.

And at the end of the volume, on page 180, is the following explanatory note :

AD MATHIMATICIS STUDIOSOS.‘Ex omnibusThoma Harriotifcriptis Mathematicis,quòd opus hoc Analyticum primum in publicum emiflum fit, haud inconfulto factum eft. Nam, quùm reliqua eius opera, multiplici inuentorum nouitate excellentia, eodem omnino quo tractatus ifte (Logiftices fpeciofsæ exemplis omnimodis totus compofitus) ftilo Logiftico, hactenùs inufitato, confcripta fint, eâ certè ratione fit, vt prodromus hic tractatus, vltra proprium ipfius inæftimabilem vfum, reliquisHarriotifcriptis, de quorum editione iam ferio cogitatur, pro neceffario preparamento fiue introductorio opportunè inferuire poffit. De quâ quidem accefforiâ operis huius vtilitate rerum Mathematicarum ftudiofos paucis his præmonuiffe operæprecium efle duximus.’ [Which being interpreted reads as follows in English]TO STUDENTS OF MATHEMATICS.It is not without good reason that, of all Thomas Harriot’s Mathematical writings, this on Analysis has been published first. For whereas all his remaining works, remarkable for their manifold novelties of discovery, are written precisely in the same, hitherto unusual, logical style as this treatise (which consists entirely of varied specimens of beautiful reasoning); this was certainly done that this preliminary treatise, besides its own inestimable utility, might suitably serve as a necessary preparation or introduction to the study of Harriot’s remaining works, the publication of which is now under serious consideration. Of this accessory use of this treatise we have thought it worth while to remind mathematical students in these brief remarks.

AD MATHIMATICIS STUDIOSOS.

‘Ex omnibusThoma Harriotifcriptis Mathematicis,quòd opus hoc Analyticum primum in publicum emiflum fit, haud inconfulto factum eft. Nam, quùm reliqua eius opera, multiplici inuentorum nouitate excellentia, eodem omnino quo tractatus ifte (Logiftices fpeciofsæ exemplis omnimodis totus compofitus) ftilo Logiftico, hactenùs inufitato, confcripta fint, eâ certè ratione fit, vt prodromus hic tractatus, vltra proprium ipfius inæftimabilem vfum, reliquisHarriotifcriptis, de quorum editione iam ferio cogitatur, pro neceffario preparamento fiue introductorio opportunè inferuire poffit. De quâ quidem accefforiâ operis huius vtilitate rerum Mathematicarum ftudiofos paucis his præmonuiffe operæprecium efle duximus.’ [Which being interpreted reads as follows in English]

TO STUDENTS OF MATHEMATICS.

It is not without good reason that, of all Thomas Harriot’s Mathematical writings, this on Analysis has been published first. For whereas all his remaining works, remarkable for their manifold novelties of discovery, are written precisely in the same, hitherto unusual, logical style as this treatise (which consists entirely of varied specimens of beautiful reasoning); this was certainly done that this preliminary treatise, besides its own inestimable utility, might suitably serve as a necessary preparation or introduction to the study of Harriot’s remaining works, the publication of which is now under serious consideration. Of this accessory use of this treatise we have thought it worth while to remind mathematical students in these brief remarks.

From this it appears that Hariot’s system of Analytics or Algebra was based on that of his friend and correspondent Francois Vieta, as Vieta’s was avowedly based on that of the ancients. There appears to have been no attempt whatever on the part of the Englishman to appropriate the honors of the Frenchman, as many foreign writers have charged. Full credit was given by Hariot and his friends to the distinguished French mathematician.

But Hariot’s modifications, improvements, and simplifications were so distinct and marked that from the first, and long before publication, they were called among his students and correspondents ‘Hariot’s Method,’ meaning thereby only Hariot’s peculiarities, without reference to the great merits of Vieta’s restoration, modification, adaptation, and improvement of the old analyses from the times of the Greeks.

Vieta’s’ Canon Mathematicus’ was published at Paris in 1579, and was reissued in London with a new title in 1589 as his ‘Opera Mathematica.’ But this work does not contain the Algebra. That was first published in 1591 under the following title :

‘Francisci Vietæ/InArtem Analyticam/Isagoge/Seorfim excuffa ab Opere reftitutæ Mathematicæ/Analyfeos, seu, Algebraicâ nouâ. / Tvronis,/ Apud Iametivm Mettayer Typographium Regium. / Anno 1591.’ / folio. A Supplement appeared in 1593. Seven years later there came out under the auspices of Ghetaldi, a young Italian nobleman of mathematical tastes, who had been studying in Paris, the following:—‘De Nvmerosa Potestatvm / Ad Exegefum / Resolvtione. / Ex Opere reftitutæ Mathematicæ Analyfeos, / feu, Algebrà nouà / Francisci Vietæ. / Parisiis, / Excudebat David le Clerc. / 1600.’ / folio. On the last page of this book is an interesting letter from Marino Ghetaldi to his preceptor Michele Coignetto, dated at Paris the I5th of February 1600.

These three thin folio volumes of great rarity are models of typographic beauty. They manifestly served as the model for printing Hariot’s Algebra in 1631. The set here described (the three bound in one volume), Prince Henry’s own copies, bearing his arms and the Prince of Wales’ feathers, is preserved in the British Museum, press-marked 530, m. 10.

Thus Vieta’s method appears to have been given to the world in three instalments between 1591 and 1600, while the author himself died in 1603. It was probably in reference to one or both of these works that Lower gently reproached Hariot for having allowed himself to be anticipated in the public announcement of his discoveries in Algebra by Vieta. It has already been seen, on page 101 above, what Torperley, the friend of Vieta, wrote of his two masters in 1602, and also, on page 121, what Lower wrote to Hariot in 1610.

One is forced, therefore, to the conclusion that by 1600, if not some time before, Hariot had completed his method in Algebra, and distributed his well known problems to his admiring scholars. It has also been seen how, from 1603 to the day of his death, he was occupied in many other absorbing matters connected with Raleigh and Percy. Yet he may have felt, as Lower expressed it, that when he surveyed his storehouse of inventions this one of Algebra might seem in ‘comparison of manie others smal or of no value.’ The matter is introduced here mainly because certain foreign writers,rebutting Wallis’s patriotic claims in behalf of Hariot, have not only accused Hariot of appropriating Vieta’s rights, but they even describe the distinguished English mathematician as working on the ‘Cartesian Method.’ While the truth appears to be that Hariot’s method in Algebra, though not published for more than thirty years after its invention, must date from a time when Descartes was scarcely four years old.

On the other hand, on looking into Descartes’ great and original work on geometry, first published in 1637, six years after Hariot’s Algebra first saw the light in print, one is not disposed to accuse the great philosopher of plagiarism because in working out his problems of great novelty in reference to geometrical curves he employed any systems of notation and calculation in algebra (Hariot’s among the others) that happened to be before the world. The point or essence of Descartes’ work was geometry and not algebra. Therefore, in climbing to his loft, he was perfectly justified in using the ladder which Hariot had left, as it was then in general use, and was only an incidental aid in his independent calculations, especially as the fame of his great mathematical brother was well established, and he had been already sixteen years in St Christopher’s. Vieta therefore had manifestly no just reason to complain, and Descartes stands acquitted.

The history of Hariot’sPraxishas attracted a great deal of attention for more than two centuries and has long been obscured by many misconceptions and erroneous statements. In the first place it has been always said from the days of Collins that it was edited by Walter Warner, and Wood adds that Warner was to have his pension continued by Algernon Percy, for that scientific labor. There is evidence that Warner, though employed on the work by Sir Thomas Aylesbury, was not the sole editor. See Aylesbury’s Letter to the Earl on page 189.

The book led to a great deal of international or patriotic controversy, and with great injustice to Hariot was treated by the English advocates as his masterpiece in science. Wallis in 1685 in his History of Algebra, after much correspondence with Collins and others on the subject between 1667 and 1676, became Hariot’s English champion. The controversy respecting the Methods of Hariot and of Descartes became as warm as that respecting the discoveries of Leibnitz and of Newton.

Wallis ranked Oughtred’sClavisand Hariot’sPraxisvery high, and because both were first printed in 1631, treated them as productions or inventions of that year, whereas Hariot’s method, as we have seen, had been long practically before his disciples; and was, ten years after the author’s death, given to the world avowedly as an’ accessory’ only, or preliminary treatise, that it ‘might suitably serve as a necessary preparation or introduction to the study of Hariot’s remaining works, the publication of which is now under serious consideration.’ Unfortunately this excellent scheme fell through, probably in consequence of the death of the Earl of Northumberland, and perhaps partly because of the death of Nathaniel Torporley who had long been engaged in ‘penning the doctrine’ of Hariot’s mathematical papers. They both died in 1632, shortly after the publication of the Praxis. Wallis’s charge had a basis of truth, but it was narrow and petty. As an Algebraist he seems to have lost sight of the main point, that Descartes’ great work was on Geometry and not on Algebra, and that Hariot’s method, though first printed in 1631, was almost as old as Descartes himself. Montucla the French mathematician, near the close of the last century, in his History of Mathematics, summed up the controversy raised by Wallis including the minor one raised by Dr Zach in 1785, clearing Descartes of Wallis’s charges and relegating Hariot to the respectability of a second-rate mathematician. If Montucla’s verdict be based on mathematical reasoning as loose and slipshod as is his statement of the historical points of the case, to say nothing of his utter ignorance of Hariot’s biography and true position as an English man of science, one feels justified in rejecting it as worthless : as one also is compelled to do the vapid conclusions drawn from Montucla which have since found their way into many recent biographical dictionaries and into many pretentious articles in learned encyclopædias respecting Hariot and his works. The truth seems to be that Hariot was unlucky and fell into oblivion accidentally. He was a man of immense industry and great mental power, but perhaps careless of his scientific and literary reputation. As has been seen, he always had many irons in the fire, and was overtaken by death in the prime of life, leaving, as his will shows, many things unfinished, and none of his papers in a state ready for publication. He was surrounded by the best of friends, but time and opportunity, as so often happens in the affairs of busy men, worked against him, and he was well nigh consigned to forgetfulness.

However, after a half century’s slumber, when the great fire of London had destroyed his monument, and too late many scholars were minded to attempt the recovery and preservation of memorials of the past, John Collins the mathematician began soundings in the pool of oblivion for Hariot and his papers. He and his correspondents fished up a great deal of truth and history, but so mixed with error and conjecture that the results, though interesting, are misleading.

In the ‘Correspondence of Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century, Edited by Professor S.J. Rigaud, 2 volumes, Oxford 1841,’ 8°, are found the following instructive and amusing passages :

As for Geysius, he published an Algebra and Stereometria divers years before the first edition of the Clavis [of Oughtred, 1631] was extant in Mr. Harriot’s method, out of which Alsted took what he published of algebra in his Encylopasdia printed in 1630, the year before the Clavis was first extant (see Christmannus and Raymarus). Mr. Harriot’s method is now more used than Oughtred’s, and himself in the esteem of Dr. Wallis not beneath Des Cartes. Dr. Hakewill, in his Apology, tells you Harriot was the first that squared the area of a spherical triangle; and I can tell you, by the perusal of some papers of Torporley’s it appears that Harriot could make the sign of any arch at demand, and the converse, and apply a table of sines to solve all equations, and treated largely of figurate arithmetic. His papers fell into the hands of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, father to the Lord Chancellor’s lady, where I hope they still are, unless they had the hard fate to be lent out, before the fire, and be burned, as some have said.Collins to Wallis, no date, circa1670,vol. ii, page478.As to Harriot, he was so learned, saith Dr. Pell, that had he published all he knew in algebra, he would have left little of the chief mysteries of that art unhandled. His papers fell into the hands of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who was father to the late Lord Chancellor’s [Clarendon] Lady,by which means they fell into the Lord Chancellor’s hands, to whom application was made by the members of the Royal Society to obtain them: his lordship (then in the height of his dignity and employments) gave order for a search to be made, and in result the answer was, they could not be found. I am afraid the search was but perfunctory, and that, if his lordship (now at leisure) were solicited for them, he might write to his son the Lord Cornbury to make a diligent search for them. One Mr. Protheroe, in Wales, was executor to Mr. Harriot, and from him the Lord Vaughan, the Earl of Carbery’s son, received more than a quire of Mr. Harriot’s Analytics. The Lord Brounker has about two sheets of Harriot de Motu et Collisione Corporum, and more of his I know not of: there is nothing of Harriot’s extant but that piece which Mons. Garibal hath.Collint to Vernon, not dated but circa1671,vol. i, page153.

Collins to Wallis, no date, circa1670,vol. ii, page478.

As to Harriot, he was so learned, saith Dr. Pell, that had he published all he knew in algebra, he would have left little of the chief mysteries of that art unhandled. His papers fell into the hands of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who was father to the late Lord Chancellor’s [Clarendon] Lady,by which means they fell into the Lord Chancellor’s hands, to whom application was made by the members of the Royal Society to obtain them: his lordship (then in the height of his dignity and employments) gave order for a search to be made, and in result the answer was, they could not be found. I am afraid the search was but perfunctory, and that, if his lordship (now at leisure) were solicited for them, he might write to his son the Lord Cornbury to make a diligent search for them. One Mr. Protheroe, in Wales, was executor to Mr. Harriot, and from him the Lord Vaughan, the Earl of Carbery’s son, received more than a quire of Mr. Harriot’s Analytics. The Lord Brounker has about two sheets of Harriot de Motu et Collisione Corporum, and more of his I know not of: there is nothing of Harriot’s extant but that piece which Mons. Garibal hath.

Collint to Vernon, not dated but circa1671,vol. i, page153.

Upon this passage Professor Rigaud makes the following note, written at Oxford in 1841:

Harriot’s will is not to be found, but Camden says that he left his property to Viscount Lisle and Sir Thomas Aylesbury. Lord Lisle’s share of the papers appear to have been given up to his father-in-law, Henry earl of Northumberland, who had been Harriot’s munificent patron, and they descended with the family property to the E. of Egremont, by whom a large portion has been given to the British Museum, and the remainder are still preserved at Petworth. Sir Thomas Aylesbury’s share became the property of his son-in-law Lord Chancellor Clarendon, to whom the Royal Society applied, but, as it appears, without obtaining them. (See Birch, Hist. Royal Society, vol. ii, pp. 120, 116, 309.)—Vol. i, page153.

Here seems to be the germ of Professor Wallis’s charge of plagiarism against Descartes, written to Collins twelve years before it appeared in thefirst editionof his History of Algebra in English in 1685. It subsequently took a wider range, and was strenuously defended by Wallis when opposed:

That which I most valued in his [Des Cartes] method, and which pleased me best, was the way of bringing over the whole equations to one side, making it equal to nothing, and thereby forming his compound equations by the multiplication of simples, from thence also determining the number of roots, real or imaginary, in each. This artifice, on which all the rest of his doctrine is grounded, was that which most made me to set a value on him, presuming it had been properly his own; but afterwards I perceived that he had it from Hariot, whose Algebra was published after his death in the year 1631, six years before Des Cartes’ Geometry in French in the year 1637 : and yet Des Cartes makes no mention at all of Harriot, whom he follows in designing his species by small letters, and the power: of them by the number of dimensions, without the characters ofj, c, qq, &c.Walla to Collins, Oxford,12April1673,vol, ii, page573.And had I but known of any precedent, (as since in Harriot I find one, and I think but one √—dddddd,)I should not have scrupled to follow it; but I was then too young an algebraist to innovate without example. Since that time I have been more venturous, and I find now that others do not scruple to use it as well as I. [Just what Descartes did. He ‘innovated’ prior to 1637, when he took Hariot’s well recognized notation in algebra to work out his problems in geometry for which Hariot himself would have thanked him.]Wallis to Collins, May 6,1673,vol. ii, page578.One Torporley, long since, left a manuscript treatise in Latin in Sion College, wherein is a much more copious table of figurate numbers, which I have caused to be transcribed, with what he says de combinationibus, to send to Mr. Strode.

Walla to Collins, Oxford,12April1673,vol, ii, page573.

And had I but known of any precedent, (as since in Harriot I find one, and I think but one √—dddddd,)I should not have scrupled to follow it; but I was then too young an algebraist to innovate without example. Since that time I have been more venturous, and I find now that others do not scruple to use it as well as I. [Just what Descartes did. He ‘innovated’ prior to 1637, when he took Hariot’s well recognized notation in algebra to work out his problems in geometry for which Hariot himself would have thanked him.]

Wallis to Collins, May 6,1673,vol. ii, page578.

One Torporley, long since, left a manuscript treatise in Latin in Sion College, wherein is a much more copious table of figurate numbers, which I have caused to be transcribed, with what he says de combinationibus, to send to Mr. Strode.

On this passage, extracted from a letter from Collins to Baker, dated the 19th of August, 1676, Professor Rigaud has the following note, written in 1841, vol. ii, page 5 :

Nath. Torporley left his manuscripts to Sion College, where he spent the latter years of his life ; but the greater part of them was destroyed by the fire of London. Reading, in his catalogue of the library, mentions only one, “Corrector Analyticus,” which is an attack on Warner for the manner in which he had edited Harriot’s “Artis Analyticæ Praxis.” This is a short tract, and incomplete. There is, however, another volume, A. 37-39, entitled, “Algebraica, Tabulæ Sinuum,&c.” in which Torporley’s hand may be certainly recognized. Wood, in the list of his works, speaks of "Congestor opus Mathematicam,— imperfect." A perfect copy of this treatise is in Lord Maccles-field’s possession, and probably once belonged to Collins.

Perhaps the best comment that one can make on the wild and extraordinary statements contained in the above extracts is to ask the reader to read over Hariot’s Will,given entire on pages 193-203, and especially thisItemrespecting his Mathematical and other Writings, and the Rev. Nathaniel Torporley, from which it will appear that all his valued papers were bequeathed with great care to the Earl of Northumberland, to be deposited in his library in a trunk with lock and key, after they had been looked over and perused, by Mr Torporley, and (the waste papers having been weeded out) the whole arranged by him ‘to the end thatafter hee doth vnderstand themhe may make use in penning such doctrine that belongs unto them for publique use.’ This, of course, was to be done under the supervision of the four Executors, who were persons of no less distinction than Sir Robert Sidney Knight Viscount Lisle, John Protheroe Esquire, Thomas Aylesbury Esquire, and Thomas Buckner Mercer.

ITEM I ordayne and Constitute the aforesaid Nathaniel Thorperley first to be Overseer of my Mathematical Writings to be received of my Executors to peruse and order and to separate the Chiefe of them from my waste papers, to the end that after hee doth vnderstand them hee may make use in penninge such doctrine that belongs vnto them for publique vses as it shall be thought Convenient by my Executors and him selfe. And if it happen that some manner of Notacions or writings of the said papers shall not be understood by him then my desire is that it will please him to confer with Mr Warner or Mr Hughes Attendants on the afore said Earle Concerning the aforesaid double. And if hee be not resolued by either of them That then hee Conferre with ihe aforesaid John Protheroe Esquier or the aforesaid Thomas Alesbury Esquior. (I hopeing that some or other of the aforesaid fower last nominated can resolve him). And when hee hath had the use of the said papers soe longe as my Executors and hee have agreed for the use afore said That then he deliver them againe unto my Executors to be putt into a Convenient Truncke with a locke and key and to be placed in my Lord of Northumberlandes Library and the key thereof to be delivered into his Lordshipps hands. And if at anie tyme after my Executors or the afore said Nathaniell Thorperley shall agayne desire the use of some or all of the said Mathematicall papers That then it will please the said Earle to lett anie of the aforesaid to have them for theire use soe long as shall be thought Convenient, and afterwards to be restored agayne unto the Truncke in the afore said Earles Library. Secondly my will and desire is that the said Nathaniell Thorperley be alsoe Overseere of other written bookes and papers as my Executors and hee shall thincke Convenient.

This will, of extraordinary interest, has fallen to our lot to exhume, after many antiquaries and scholars had long sought it in vain. It was recently discovered in the Archdeaconry Court of London, just the place where one would least expect to find it. One has only to read the document to read the character of the man—good, learned,affectionate, charitable and just. He was carried off by a terrible disease, away from home, but among friends. He left his affairs and fame in loving hands. His will was proved on the 4th day after his death by two of the Executors, Sir Thomas Aylesbury and Mr Buckner, with the right reserved to the other two to act subsequently. It is found by papers in the British Museum that Sir John Protheroe did act, for there is a very long list of manuscripts, copied from Protheroe’s list of papers delivered to Mr Torporley, which served as a receipt for them, and which was returned with the papers.

Mr Torporley then, it is manifest, had in hand the papers and returned them, but it is not apparent what amount of labor he bestowed upon them. They do not appear to be properly arranged, nor have the waste papers been weeded out. From Protheroe’s list and other circumstances it is likely that nothing has been destroyed, except perhaps the Raleigh accounts and the Irish papers in the ‘canvas baggs.’ The papers were at Sion, and were placed in a trunk and delivered to the Earl, who left the Tower only sixteen days after Hariot’s death. They subsequently found their way to Petworth, another seat of the Earl, where the trunk and half of the papers still remain, in the possession of the Earl of Leconsfield, a branch of the Northumberland family. They are briefly described in this manner by Mr Alfred J. Horwood in the Sixth Report of the Historical Manuscript Commission for 1877, page 319, folio.

A black leather box containing several hundred leaves of figures and calculations by Hariot.

A large bundle of Hariot’s papers. They are arranged in packets by Professor Rigaud. Spots on the Sun. Comets of 1607 and 1618. The Moon. Jupiter’s Satellites. Projectiles, Centre of Gravity, Reflection of bodies. Triangles. Snell’s Eratosthenes Batavus. Geometry. Calendar. Conic Sections. De Stella Martis. Drawings of Constellations, papers on Chemistry and Miscellaneous Calculations. Collections from Observations of Hannelius, Warner, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe. On the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the solstices, orbit of the Earth, length of the year, &c. Algebra.

A similar collection, but not yet arranged, catalogued, numbered or bound, is carefully preserved in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum (Additional, 6782-6789), in eight thick Solander cases, probably as much in bulk as the Petworth papers. They were presented to the Museum by the Earl of Egremont in 1810. Why the two collections were separated does not appear. The Museum papers contain much that is waste, but much also that is of importance equal probably to those at Petworth. Mr Torporley was in effect appointed by Hariot his literary and scientific editor under the direction of the Executors. No papers were left ready for publication. It must have required great study and labor to master them sufficiently to pen for public use such doctrine or science as belonged to them. Torporley lived in Shropshire, but a few years after Hariot’s death he retired from his rectorship and removed to London,taking rooms in 1630 at Sion College in London Wall, when that institution was first founded. It contained then as now a library for the use of the Clergy, and a few suites of apartments for those who desired to reside on the premises. It never was a College or place of instruction, but a sort of guild or Clergyman’s Club. At this time Mr Torporley was about seventy years old. He died in his chambers at Sion College in April 1632, and was buried on the 17th of that month in the Church of St Alphage, close by. In a nuncupative will spoken the 14th ofApril, a copy of which is before the writer, he left his books and manuscripts to the Sion Col ege Library. A complete list of about 170 books and several manuscripts is preserved in the ‘Donors’ Book.’ A few of the books are said to have been destroyed by the fire of London, but probably none of the manuscripts were lost.

Torporley’s manuscripts, as has been stated, have often been referred to, and sometimes copied, but their true history and character is explained by Hariot’sWill. There are really but two manuscripts relating to Hariot. The more important one comprises 116 closely-written folio leaves, or 232 pages, all in Torporley’s handwriting. It bears no title or designation. Hence various writers who have seen it, from Collins, Wood, and Dr Zach, have given it different names, such as,‘Ephemeris Chysometria,’ ‘Congestor opus Matbematicum,’etc. but it appears to be nothing more nor less than Torporley’s attempt to pen out such doctrine as he found in Hariot’s papers. The leaves are numbered, 1 to 16 containing a Treatise on Hariot’s Theory of Numbers. Leaves 17 to 25 are tables of the divisors of odd numbers up to 20,300. On the verso of leaf 25 the Theory of Numbers is resumed, extending to the recto of 27. On the verso of leaf 27 begins the treatise on the properties of Triangles and ends on leaf 34. Leaves 35 to 55 comprise examples of Algebraical processes, and leaves 56 to 116 contain Tables (probably tabulæ sinuum ?) up to 180°. On the second leaf the Author speaks of himself as working out, or working on Hariot’s principles, and also as making use of the writings of Vieta. He adds:

‘And since it is our principal design to explain the improvement in this science[the Properties of Numbers and Triangles] discovered by our friend Thomas Hariot; but he neither completely reformed it (which indeed was not necessary) nor gave a full account of it, but only strengthened it where it was defective, and by treating in his own way the points of the science which were heretofore more difficult, rendered them clear and easy.’

This manuscript was probably intended for another printed volume of Hariot’s mathematical works, but owing to the deaths about the same time, 1632, of the venerable editor and the noble patron this work never bore a definite name and never saw the light of the press.

CORRECTOR ANALYTICUSArtis pofthumxTHOMÆ HARIOTIVt Mathematici eximij, perraroVt Philofophi Audentes, frequentius errantisVt Hominis evanidi, infigniterAdFidedigniorem refutationem PhilopfeudofophiæAtomifticæ;, per cum Reducis, et præcæteris eius Portentisferiòcorripiendæ, anathematyzandæqCompendiu Antimonitorfi, et Speciminaleexanthorati ia SeniorisNa: Torporley.VtNoverit Arbiter Caveat Emptor.non bene RipæCreditur, ipfe Aries etiam nunc Vellera ficcat.Virgil, Ecl.iii. 94,95,]

This Second Manuscript is a pretentious but small affair. It was manifestly written at Sion College after thePraxisappeared in 1631. It is only the preface or the opening of a growl of envy or disappointment. It shows clearly that Torporley himself was not the editor of the Algebra or Praxis. The above is the pedantic title-page, given line for line and verbatim.

The manuscript is in small quarto, and exclusive of the title (which, indeed, is the nub of the achievement) contains only nine pages, breaking off abruptly in the middle of a sentence. He criticises the editors of Hariot’s Algebra, the executors Aylesbury and Protheroe, aided by Warner, who were all eminent mathematicians. He speaks of the administrators or editors as if more than one, and does not mention Warner, or lead us to believe that he was sole editor. Only a small portion of this projected criticism seems ever to have been written. It appears to have been begun in senile peevishness, containing only a few prefatory remarks and discussing some algebraical questions with the fancied errors of the editors. No mention is made of the’Atomic Theory,’as promised on the title-page, which is here done into English, and is as follows:—

THE ANALYTICAL CORRECTORof the posthumous scientific writingsof THOMAS HARRIOT.As an excellent Mathematician one who very seldomerredAs a bold Philosopher one who occasionally erred,As a frail Man one who notably erredForthe more trustworthy refutation of the pseudo-philosophicatomic theory, revived by him and, outside hisother strange notions, deserving ofreprehension and anathema.A Compendious Warning with specimens by the agedand retired-from-active-lifeNa: Torporley.So thatThe critic may knowThe buyer may beware.It is not safe to trust to the bank,The bell-wether himself is drying his fleece.

The ‘Corrector Analyticus’ may be found printed in full (but without the quaint titles) in ‘The Historical Society of Science. A Collection of Letters illustrative of Science, edited by J. O. Halliwell,’ London, 1841, 8°, Appendix, pages 109-116. ForTorporley’s curious paper entitled ‘A Synopsis of the Controversie of Atoms,’ see Brit. Mus. Mss, Birch 4458, 2.

Mr Torporley informs us, and the papers appear to bear him out in the statement, that Hariot wrote memoranda, problems, etc. on loose pieces of paper, and then arranged them in sets fastened together according to the subjects treated of. He adds, ‘First then let me speak of Hariot’s method, of which frequent mention will have to be made in the following pages; so that the reader may understand why some things are stated and some passed over: here I cannot but complain, that I find it a serious defect that his Commentators have so completely transformed it [the Praxis] that they not only do not retain his orderbut not evenhis language.’ Again he writes, ‘But not even those well-thought-out and necessary to be known matters, which have been delivered to us, have been handed down to posterity by his administrators with the fidelity and accuracy promised.’ The suspicion is raised that Torporley’s age and dilatoriness compelled the accomplished executors to take the editorial matter in hand themselves and hinc iliae lacrymæ.

On the back of the above title-page is another attempt of the same sort as follows, showing that this deed of pedantry was committed at Sion College:

CORRECTORsiveNotæ in AnalyticamNovam, Novatam, PosthumaquatenusFallacem, Defectivam, ExtrariamcumApodictica refutatione AtomorumSomnij, præ cæteris Novatorumportentis corripiendi Ana-thematizandiqEx Collegio Sion Londinenfiperfuncti Senis Artemq reponentisNTExtremu hoc munus morientishabetor :Σĸηρον προς κέντρονλ α κτρον λακτίζειν[Greek Text]nee bene RipæCreditur ipse Aries etia nunc Vellera ficcat.

There are one or two unimportant papers among the Torperley manuscripts that bear marks of having belonged to the Hariot papers, and there is a manuscript by Warner, entitled, ‘Certayne Definitions of the Planisphere.’ Any one curious in the history of Torperley may find in the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1636, page 364, how his property was purloined by Mr Spencer, the first Librarian of Sion College. He was sued by Mistress Payne the administratrix and was compelled to disgorge£4.0in money, eleven diamond rings, eight gold rings, two bracelets, etc. Then Archbishop Laud took away Spencer’s librarianship, and let him drop.

Mr William Spence of Greenock published in Nov. 1814, a work entitled, ‘Outlines of a Theory of Algebraical Equations deduced from the Principles of Harriott, and extended to the Fluxional or differential Calculus. By William Spence. London, for the Author, by Davis and Dickson, 1814, 8°,iv and 80 pages.Privately printed, intended ‘exclusively for the perusal of those gentlemen to whom it is addressed.’ He says in his prefatory note that—

‘As the principles are drawn from that theory of equations, by which Harriott has so far advanced the science of algebra.’ The author says, page I,’ Until the publication of Harriot’sArtis Analytica Praxis,no extended theory of equations was given. Harriot considered algebraical equations merely as analytical expressions, detached wholly from the operations by which they might be individually produced ; and, carrying all the terms over to one side, he assumed the hypothesis, that, as in that state the equation was equal to nothing, it could always be reduced to as many simple factors as there were units in the index of its highest power.’

Between 1606 and 1609 a very interesting and historically instructive correspondence took place between Kepler and Hariot upon several important scientific subjects. Five of the letters are given in full in ‘Joannis Keppleri Alio-rumque Epistolæ Mutuæ. [Frankfort] 1718,’ folio, to which the reader is referred, but a brief abstract of them may not be out of place here. The letters are numbered from 222 to 226 and fill pages 373 to 382. The correspondence was begun by Kepler:

Letter122,dated Prague,11October,1606,from John Keplerto Thomas Hariot,Kepler had heard of Hariot’s acquirements in Natural Philosophy from his friend John Eriksen. Would be glad to know Hariot’s views as to the origin and essential differences of colours; also on the question of refraction of rays of light; and the causes of the Rainbow; and of haloes round the sun.Letter223,dated London,11December, 1606,fromThomas Hariot to John Kepler,Had received with pleasure Kepler’s letter; but should not be able to answer it at length, being in indifferent health, so that it was not easy to write or even carefully to reflect. Sends a table of the results of experiments on equal bulks of various liquids and transparent solids (thirteen in number, including spring, rain, and salt water; Spanish and Rhenish wine; vinegar; spirits of wine; oils and glass). The angle of incidence is 30° in each case; also the specific gravity of each substance is given. Then he discusses the reason why refraction takes place. Promises to write on the Rainbow; but will merely say at present that it is to be explained by the reflection on the concave superficies and the refraction at the convex superficies of each separate drop.Letter224is from John Kepler to Thomas Hariot, dated at Prague,11August,1607.Thanks Hariot for his table, which supplies matter for serious consideration. Asks questions as to how he defines the angles of incidence and refraction; and goes on to discuss the reasons of refraction. Agrees with Hariot as to his views about the Rainbow; but will be very glad to receive his treatises on Colours and the Rainbow.Letter225is from Thomas Hariot to John Kepler, dated at Syon,near London,13July(o.s.), 1608.The departure of Eriksen and other matters do not allow leisure to write at length. The turpentine (oleum terebinth inum) was not the same as that experimented on by Kepler but a purer and lighter article (Sp. grav. ’87). The angle of incidence is understood as defined by Alhazen and Vitellio [first published 1572]. Points out some errors in Vitellio’s second table of refractions. As to the causes of refraction, Hariot believes in the theory of the vacuum; ‘where we still stick in the mud’. Hopes God (Deum optimum maximum) will soon put an end to this. Wishes for Kepler’s meteorological records for the last two years, and will send his own notes in return. Gilbert, author of a work on the magnet, had recently died, leaving in his brother’s hands a book entitled ‘De Globo et Mundo nostro sub lunari Philosophia nova contra Peripateticos, lib. 5." [A treatise, in five books, on Natural Philosophy, in answer to the Peripatetics.] The book is likely to be published before the end of the year. Hariot had read some chapters; and saw that Gilbert defends the doctrine of a vacuum. Not to leave a vacuum on this page (says Hariot), it is remarkable that though gold is both heavy and opaque, when beaten out into gold-leaf the light of a candle can be seen through it, though it appears of a green colour.Letter 226, from John Kepler to Thomas Hariot, it dated fromPrague, September,1609.Excuses himself for not having replied sooner; having been very busy; but would not lose the present opportunity of writing. Discusses the questions of refraction and the vacuum. Commentaries on Mars entitled ‘Astronomia Nova [Greek Text] or Physica Cælestis,’ have been published at Frankfort; has not a copy by him. Regrets to hear of the death of Gilbert. Hopes his work on Magnetism will also be published; and that Erikson will bring a copy with him. Promises to send a copy of his own meteorological observations; and hopes to receive Hariot’s.

Letter122,dated Prague,11October,1606,from John Kepler

to Thomas Hariot,

Kepler had heard of Hariot’s acquirements in Natural Philosophy from his friend John Eriksen. Would be glad to know Hariot’s views as to the origin and essential differences of colours; also on the question of refraction of rays of light; and the causes of the Rainbow; and of haloes round the sun.

Letter223,dated London,11December, 1606,from

Thomas Hariot to John Kepler,

Had received with pleasure Kepler’s letter; but should not be able to answer it at length, being in indifferent health, so that it was not easy to write or even carefully to reflect. Sends a table of the results of experiments on equal bulks of various liquids and transparent solids (thirteen in number, including spring, rain, and salt water; Spanish and Rhenish wine; vinegar; spirits of wine; oils and glass). The angle of incidence is 30° in each case; also the specific gravity of each substance is given. Then he discusses the reason why refraction takes place. Promises to write on the Rainbow; but will merely say at present that it is to be explained by the reflection on the concave superficies and the refraction at the convex superficies of each separate drop.

Letter224is from John Kepler to Thomas Hariot, dated at Prague,11August,1607.

Thanks Hariot for his table, which supplies matter for serious consideration. Asks questions as to how he defines the angles of incidence and refraction; and goes on to discuss the reasons of refraction. Agrees with Hariot as to his views about the Rainbow; but will be very glad to receive his treatises on Colours and the Rainbow.

Letter225is from Thomas Hariot to John Kepler, dated at Syon,

near London,13July(o.s.), 1608.

The departure of Eriksen and other matters do not allow leisure to write at length. The turpentine (oleum terebinth inum) was not the same as that experimented on by Kepler but a purer and lighter article (Sp. grav. ’87). The angle of incidence is understood as defined by Alhazen and Vitellio [first published 1572]. Points out some errors in Vitellio’s second table of refractions. As to the causes of refraction, Hariot believes in the theory of the vacuum; ‘where we still stick in the mud’. Hopes God (Deum optimum maximum) will soon put an end to this. Wishes for Kepler’s meteorological records for the last two years, and will send his own notes in return. Gilbert, author of a work on the magnet, had recently died, leaving in his brother’s hands a book entitled ‘De Globo et Mundo nostro sub lunari Philosophia nova contra Peripateticos, lib. 5." [A treatise, in five books, on Natural Philosophy, in answer to the Peripatetics.] The book is likely to be published before the end of the year. Hariot had read some chapters; and saw that Gilbert defends the doctrine of a vacuum. Not to leave a vacuum on this page (says Hariot), it is remarkable that though gold is both heavy and opaque, when beaten out into gold-leaf the light of a candle can be seen through it, though it appears of a green colour.

Letter 226, from John Kepler to Thomas Hariot, it dated from

Prague, September,1609.

Excuses himself for not having replied sooner; having been very busy; but would not lose the present opportunity of writing. Discusses the questions of refraction and the vacuum. Commentaries on Mars entitled ‘Astronomia Nova [Greek Text] or Physica Cælestis,’ have been published at Frankfort; has not a copy by him. Regrets to hear of the death of Gilbert. Hopes his work on Magnetism will also be published; and that Erikson will bring a copy with him. Promises to send a copy of his own meteorological observations; and hopes to receive Hariot’s.

These studies in optics and this correspondence with the learned Kepler indicate Hariot’s great advancement in natural philosophy as early as 1606 to 1609 and give an earnest of his inventive genius and scientific enterprise with his telescope in the astronomical discoveries which immediately followed in 1609 to 1613. Before awarding all the prizes for discoveries and inventions in mathematics, philosophy and natural science to claimants throughout the wide Republic of Letters, let modest Hariot be heard and examined. Let his papers and all his credentials be laid out before the high court of science, not in the light of today, but contemporaneously with those of Tycho, Kepler, Galileo, Snell, Vieta and Descartes. Hariot himself has claimed nothing, but Justice and Historical Truth are bound to assign him a niche appropriate to his merits.

To show that Hariot, like his friends Hakluyt and Purchas, was alive to everything geographical as well as mathematical going on, the following is given from the original manuscript among the Hariot papers in the British Museum (Add. 6789):

Three reasons to prove that there is a passage from the North’ west into the South-sea.

1. The tydes in Port Nelson (where Sr. Tho : Button did winter, were constantly, 15, or, 18, foote ; wcis not found in any Bay Throughout the world but in such seas as lie open att both ends to the mayne Ocean.

2. Every strong Westerne winde did bring into the Harbor where he wintered, soe much water, that the Neap-tydes were equall to the Spring-tydes, notwtstanding ytthe harborwas open only to ye E.N.E.

3. In comming out of the harbor, shaping his course directly North, about, 60, degrees, he found a stronge race of a tyde, set-ting dueEast and West, wc in probabilitie could be noe other thing, than the tyde comming from the West, and retourning from the East,

Among the manuscripts in the handwriting of Hariot in the British Museum (Add. 6789) are these samples of ingenious trifling. No evidence is forthcoming that he was ever a married man, but that he occasionally let himself down from pure mathematics and high philosophy and amused himself with anagrams is plain enough. Here are a few specimens on his own name.

ANAGRAMS ON THOMAS HARIOTUS

If the pertingent Reader still craves more evidence of the extent of Hariot’s friendships, and the universality of his acquirements, let him read the following pithy, quaint, and beautiful tribute paid to him by blind Old Homer’s Chapman in 1616. It is found in the Preface to the Reader in the first complete edition of Homer’sworks translated by George Chapman, London [1616], fo.

No coference had with any one liuing in al the noueltiet I prefume I haue found. Only fome one or two places I haue fhewed to my worthy and moft learned friend, M. Harriots, for his cenfure how much mine owne weighed: whofe iudgement and knowledge in all kinds, I know to be incomparable, and bottomlefle ; yea, to be admired as much, as his moft blameles life, and the right facred expence of his time, is to be honoured and reuerenced. Which affirmation of his cleare vnmatchednefle in all manner of learning; I make in contempt of that naftie objection often thruft vpon me ; that he that will iudge, muft know more then he of whom he iudgeth ; for fo a man fhould know neither God nor himfelf. Another right learned, honeft, and entirely loued friend of mine, M. Robert Hews, I muft needs put into my confest conference touching Homer, though very little more than that I had with M. Harriots. Which two, I proteft, are all, and preferred to all.

It remains to say two words more about Baron Zach’s’ discovery’ of the Hariot papers at Petworth in 1784. This remarkable story has been told many times, in many books, and in many languages. It has found its way into many modern dictionaries and grave encyclopædias, but it always appears with an unsatisfactory and suspicious flavor. Dr Zach’s ‘discovery’ is found cropping up all over the continent, and everywhere is made paramount to Hariot’s papers, while Oxford is blamed for not giving the young German his dues!

It seems that Dr Zach, a young man, was in England with Count Bruhl, who had married the dowager Lady Egremont. He thus had easy access to the old Percy Library at Petworth, in Sussex, where was stored, as we have seen by Hariot’s will, the black trunk containing his mathematical writings as bequeathed to the 9th Earl of Northumberland. In 1785 Dr Zach announced with a truly scholastic flourish in Bode’s Berlin Ephemeris for 1788 his remarkable ‘discovery’ of the papers of Thomas Hariot previously known as an eminent Algebraist or Mathematician, but now elevated to the rank also of a first-class English Astronomer. The next year, 1786, is celebrated in the annals of English science from the circumstance of Oxford’s having accepted a proposition from Dr Zach to publish his account of Hariot and his writings. The Royal Academy of Brussels in 1788 printed in its Memoirs Dr Zach’s paper on the planet Uranus, with a long note relative to the discovery at Petworth.

The Berlin paper immediately upon publication was translated into English and extensively circulated in this country, conducing, it is suspected, more to the renown of Dr Zach than to that of Hariot. In 1793 Bode’s Jahrbuch gave from the pen of Dr Zach an account of the Comets of 1607 and 1618, with Hariot’s Observations thereon. But these observations were given with so many errors and misreadings, as shown by Professor Rigaud, that they were soon pronounced worthless, to the discredit of Hariot rather than of his eminent editor. But matters came to a crisis in 1794, nine years after the grand flourish of the first announcement at Berlin. Dr Zach sent to Oxford for publication his abstract of certain of the scientific papers, and the Earl of Egremont intrusted to the University Dr Zach’s selection of the original papers. Zach’s abstracts were merely sufficient to identify himself with the works of Hariot, but he had performed no real editorial labours, and had not ‘pen’d the doctrine’ contained in them. Here were years of useful work to be done which the University dreamed not of, so the whole matter was referred to Professors Robertson and Powell, who both reported adversely in 1798, or before. In 1799 all the Hariot papers were returned to Petworth.

In the mean time the full translation of Dr Zach’s account of his ‘discovery,’ with some curious additions, found its way into Dr Hutton’s Dictionary of Mathematics, under Hariot, 1796, 2 volumes in quarto. This publication gave an air of solemn record and history to the transactions, insomuch that Oxford began to be blamed for withholding from the press Dr Zach’s great work. Oxford preserved a becoming silence. In 1803 Dr Zach published at Gotha in his Monatliche Correspondenz a fragment of that remarkable letter from the Earl of Northumberland to Hariot (which letter we have shown to be Lower’s, see p. 120). This publication, together with the reprint of the original Berlin paper by Zach in the second edition of Hutton’s Dictionary in 1815 without alteration, seemed to bring the matter to a point. Oxford was obliged to rise and explain.

The whole question was inquired into. Professor Robertson’s original report was brought out and sent to Dr David Brewster, who printed it in his Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 1822, volume vi, page 314, in an article on the Hariot papers. In the meanwhile, in 1810, that portion of the Hariot papers that did not go to Oxford was presented to the British Museum by the Earl of Egremont. The division of the papers (on what principle it is difficult to guess) was unquestionably Dr Zach’s. The value is no doubt much depreciated by the separation. Under all these circumstances no one can wonder at the Oxford decision, or that the papers were deemed not worthy of publication. Yet under other circumstances it is almost certain that the two collections when worked together will yield valuable materials for the life of Hariot and the history and progress of English science, discovery, and invention. To Professor S. F. Rigaud is due the credit for the most part of working out the crooked and entangled history of the Zachean fiasco, which has apparently depreciated the real value of these papers. Professor Rigaud’s papers may be seen in the Royal Institution Journal, 1831, volume ii, pages 267-271, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, iii, 125, and in the Appx to Bradley’s Works. Now to pick up a few dropped stitches. Notices of Hariot by Camden, Aubrey, Hakewill, and others are omitted from press of matter. Gabriel Harvey in 1593, in his’ Pierces Supererogation,’ page 190, exclaims ‘and what profounde Mathematician like Digges, Hariot, or Dee esteemeth not the pregnant Mechanician?’ MrJ.O.Halliwell’s Collection of Letters referred to on page 174, though falling late under our eye, is most acceptable and thankfully used. Several letters of Sir William Lower are printed from the originals in the British Museum. And so is John Bulkley’s dedication to Hariot of his work on the Quadrature of the Circle, dated Kal. Martii, 1591, the original manuscript of which is in Sion College. There is also an interesting letter from Hariot to the Earl dated Sion June 13, 1619, respecting the doctrine of reflections as communicated to Warner and Hues for the use of the Earl. But the most important letter is the following on page 71 from Sir Thomas Aylesbury, one of Hariot’s executors, to the Earl of Northumberland, respecting some remuneration for the extra services of Warner in assisting him in passing Hariot’s ‘Artis Analyticæ Praxis’ through the press :

Rt. Ho. May it plese your löp. July 5, 1631.I presumed heretofore to moue your löp on the behalf of Mr. W. for some consideration to be had of his extraordinary expense in attending the publication of Mr. H. book after the copy was finished. The same humble request I am induced to renew by reson of his present wants occasioned by that attendance.For his literary labour and paines taken in forming the work and fitting it for the publik view, he looks for no other reward then your löps acceptance therof as an honest discharge of his duty. But his long attendance through vnexpected difficulties in seeking to get the book freely printed, and after that was vndertaken the friuolous delaies of the printers and slow preceding of the presse, wchno intreties of his or myne could remedy, drew him to a gretter expence then his meanes would here, including both your löps pencion and the arbitrary help of his frends. It is this extraordinary expense, wchhe cannot recouer wchmakes both him and me for him appele to your Löps goodnei and bounty for some tollerable mitigation thereof.I purpose God willing to set forth other peeces of Mr. H. wherein by reson of my owne incombrances I must of necessitie desire the help of Mr. W. rather then of any other, whereto I find him redy enough because it tends to your löps service, and may the more freely trouble him, yf he receive some little encouragement from your löp towards the repairing of the detrement that lies still vpon him by his last imploiment. But for the future my intention it to haue the impression at my owne charge, and not depend on the curtesy of those mechaniks,making account that wchmay seeme to be saued by the other way will not countervaile the trouble and tedious prolongation of the busines. But the copies being made perfect and faire written for the presse they shall be sufficiently bound to deliuer the books perfectly clen out of theire hands, and by this meanes the trouble and charge of attending the presse will be saued. Therfore my Lo. what you do now will be but for this once, and in such proportion as shall best like you to favour the humble motion of him who isAllway most redy at your Löps commaund _ .Endorsed in the handwriting of Warner,SrTh. A. letters about my busines.[B. M. Birch, 4396, 87.]

Rt. Ho. May it plese your löp. July 5, 1631.

I presumed heretofore to moue your löp on the behalf of Mr. W. for some consideration to be had of his extraordinary expense in attending the publication of Mr. H. book after the copy was finished. The same humble request I am induced to renew by reson of his present wants occasioned by that attendance.

For his literary labour and paines taken in forming the work and fitting it for the publik view, he looks for no other reward then your löps acceptance therof as an honest discharge of his duty. But his long attendance through vnexpected difficulties in seeking to get the book freely printed, and after that was vndertaken the friuolous delaies of the printers and slow preceding of the presse, wchno intreties of his or myne could remedy, drew him to a gretter expence then his meanes would here, including both your löps pencion and the arbitrary help of his frends. It is this extraordinary expense, wchhe cannot recouer wchmakes both him and me for him appele to your Löps goodnei and bounty for some tollerable mitigation thereof.

I purpose God willing to set forth other peeces of Mr. H. wherein by reson of my owne incombrances I must of necessitie desire the help of Mr. W. rather then of any other, whereto I find him redy enough because it tends to your löps service, and may the more freely trouble him, yf he receive some little encouragement from your löp towards the repairing of the detrement that lies still vpon him by his last imploiment. But for the future my intention it to haue the impression at my owne charge, and not depend on the curtesy of those mechaniks,making account that wchmay seeme to be saued by the other way will not countervaile the trouble and tedious prolongation of the busines. But the copies being made perfect and faire written for the presse they shall be sufficiently bound to deliuer the books perfectly clen out of theire hands, and by this meanes the trouble and charge of attending the presse will be saued. Therfore my Lo. what you do now will be but for this once, and in such proportion as shall best like you to favour the humble motion of him who is

Allway most redy at your Löps commaund _ .

Endorsed in the handwriting of Warner,

SrTh. A. letters about my busines.

[B. M. Birch, 4396, 87.]

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