Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar Part 1

Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar Part 1

Thomas Hariot.

by Henry Stevens.

EXPLANATORY

IN the year 1877 the late Mr. Henry Stevens of Vermont, under the pseudonym of ' Mr. Secretary Outis,' projected and initiated a literary a.s.sociation ent.i.tled THE HERCULES CLUB. The following extracts from the original prospectus of that year explain this platform:

The objects of this a.s.sociation are literary, social, antiquarian, festive and historical ; and its aims are thoroughly independent research into the materials of early Anglo-American history and literature. The a.s.sociation is known as THE HERCULES CLUB, whose Eurystheus is Historic Truth and whose appointed labours are to clear this field for the historian of the future.

" Sinking the individual in the a.s.sociation the Hercules Club proposes to scour the plain and endeavour to rid it of some of the many literary, historical, chronological, geographical and other monstrous errors, hydras and public nuisances that infest it . . . . Very many books, maps, ma.n.u.scripts and other materials relating alike to England and to America are well known to exist in various public and private repositories on both sides of the Atlantic. Some unique are of the highest rarity, are of great historic value, while others are difficult of access, if not wholly inaccessible, to the general student. It is one of the purposes therefore of the Hercules Club to ferret out these materials, collate, edit and reproduce them with extreme accuracy, but not in facsimile. The printing is to be in the best style of the Chiswick Press. The paper with the Club's monogram in each leaf is made expressly for the purpose".

The following ten works were selected as the first field of the Club's investigations, and to form the first series of its publications.

1. Waymouth (Capt. George) Voyage to North Virginia in 1605. By James Rosier. London, 1605, 4

2. Sil. Jourdan's Description of Barmuda. London, 1610, 4

3. Lochinvar. Encouragements for such as shall have intention to bee Vndertakers in the new plantation of Cape Breton, now New Galloway.

Edinburgh, 1625, 4

4. Voyage into New England in 1623-24.. By Christopher Levett. London, 1628, 4

5. Capt. John Smith's True Relation of such occurrences of Noate as hath hapned in Virginia. London, 1608, 4

6. Gosnold's Voyage to the North part of Virginia in 1602. By John Brereton. London, 1602, 4

7. A Plain Description of the Barmudas, now called Sommer Islands.

London, 1613, 4

8. For the Colony in Virginia Brittania, Lavves Divine Morall and Martiall, &c. London, 1612, 4

9. Capt. John Smith's Description of NewEngland, 16l4-15, map. London, 1616, 4

10. Hariot (Thomas) Briefe and true report of the new foundland of Virginia. London, 1588, 4

'Mr. Secretary Outis' undertook the task of seeing the reprints of the original texts of these ten volumes through the Press, and almost the whole of this work he actually accomplished.

The co-operative objects of the a.s.sociation, however, appear never to have been fully inaugurated, although a large number of literary men, collectors, societies and libraries entered their names as Members of the Club. All were willing to give their pecuniary support as subscribers to the Club's publications, but few offered the more valuable aid of their literary a.s.sistance; hence practically the whole of the editing also devolved upon Mr. Henry Stevens.

He first took up No. 10 on the above list, Hariot's Virginia. His long and diligent study for the introduction thereto, resulted in the discovery of so much new and important matter relative to Hariot and Raleigh, that it became necessary to embody it in the present separate volume, as the maximum dimensions contemplated for the introduction to each work had been exceeded tenfold or more.

Owing to Mr. Stevens's failing health, the cares of his business, and the continual discovery of fresh material, it was not till 1885 that his investigations were completed, although many sheets of the book had been printed off from time to time as he progressed. The whole of the text was actually printed off during his lifetime, but unfortunately he did not live to witness the publication of his work, perhaps the most historically important of any of his writings. Publication has since been delayed for reasons explained hereinafter.

On the death of my father, on February 28, 1886, I found myself appointed his literary executor, and I have since devoted much time to the arrangement, completion, and publication of his various unfinished works, seeking the help of competent editors where necessary.

Immediately after his decease I published his

_Recollections of Mr. James Lenox of New York, and the formation of his Library,_ a little volume which was most favourably received and ran through several impressions.

In the same year I published _The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies as recorded in the Court Minutes of the East India Company._ This volume contained an account of the formation of the Company and of Captain Waymouth's voyage to America in search of the North-west pa.s.sage to the East Indies. The work was printed for the first time from the original ma.n.u.script preserved in the India Office, and the introduction was written by Sir George Birdwood.

In 1888 I issued _Johann Schoner, Professor of Mathematics at Nuremberg.

A reproduction of his Globe of 1523 long lost, his dedicatory letter to Reymer von Streytperck, and the 'De Moluccis' of Maximilia.n.u.s Transylva.n.u.s, with new translations and notes on the Globe by Henry Stevens of Vermont, edited, with an introduction and bibliography, by C.

H. Coote, of the British Museum._ This Globe of 1523_,_ now generally known as Schoner's Third Globe, is marked by a line representing the route of Magellan's expedition in the first circ.u.mnavigation of the earth; and the facsimile of Maximilia.n.u.s's interesting account of that voyage, with an English translation, was consequently added to the volume. Mr. Coote, in his introduction, gives a graphic account of many other early globes, several of which are also reproduced in facsimile.

The whole volume was most carefully prepared, and exhibits considerable originality both in the printing and binding, Mr. Henry Stevens's own ideas having been faithfully carried out.

In 1893 I issued to the subscribers that elegant folio volume which my father always considered as his _magnum opus._ It was ent.i.tled _The New Laws of the Indies for the good treatment and preservation of the Indians, promulgated by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, 1542-1543. A facsimile reprint of the original Spanish edition, together with a literal translation into the English language, to which is prefixed an historical introduction._ Of the long introduction _of_ ninety-four pages, the first thirty-eight are from the pen of Mr. Henry Stevens, the remainder from that of Mr. Fred. W. Lucas, whose diligent researches into American history are amply exemplified in his former work, _Appendiculae Historicae, or shreds of history hung on a horn,_ and in his recent work, _The Annals of the Voyages of the Brothers Zeno._

Ever since 1886 I have from time to time unsuccessfully endeavoured to enlist the services of various editors competent to complete the projected eleven volumes of the Hercules Club publications, but after a lapse of nearly fourteen years I have awakened to the fact that no actual progress has been made, and that I have secured nothing beyond the vague promise of future a.s.sistance. The field of editors capable of this cla.s.s of work being necessarily very limited, and death having recently robbed me in the most promising case of even the slender hope of future help, I determined to ascertain for myself the exact position of the work already done, with the hope of bringing at least some of the volumes to a completion separately, instead of waiting longer in the hope of finishing and issuing them all _en bloc_ as originally proposed and intended. On collating the printed stock I found that the two volumes, _Hariot's Virginia_ and the _Life of Hariot,_ were practically complete, the text of both all printed off, and the t.i.tles and preliminary leaves and the Index to _Hariot's Virginia_ actually standing in type at the Chiswick Press just as my father left them fourteen years ago! (Many thanks to Messrs Charles Whittingham and Co.

for their patience.) The proofs of these I have corrected and pa.s.sed for press, and I have added the Index to the present volume. My great regret is that I did not sooner discover the practical completeness of these two volumes, as owing to the nature of the contents of the _Life of Hariot_ it is not just to Hariot's memory, or to that of my father, that such important truths should so long have been withheld from posterity.

These two volumes being thus completed, it remained to be decided in what manner they should be published. I did not feel myself competent to pick up the fallen reins of the HERCULES CLUB, which, as I have said before, appears never to have been fully inaugurated on the intended co-operative basis.

There being now no const.i.tuted a.s.sociation (such having entirely lapsed on the death of Mr. ' Secretary Outis'), and many of the original subscribers, who were ipso facto members, being also no longer with us, it appeared impossible to put forth the volumes as the publications of the HERCULES CLUB. Consequently I resolved to issue them myself (and any future volumes I may be able to bring to completion) simply as privately printed books, and I feel perfectly justified in so doing, as no one but Mr. Henry Stevens had any hand in their design or production either editorially or financially. No money whatever was received from the members, whose subscriptions were only to become payable when the publications were ready for delivery. The surviving members have been offered the first chance of subscribing to these two Hariot volumes and I am grateful for the support received. They and the new subscribers will also be offered the option of taking any subsequent volumes of the series which I may be enabled to complete.

HENRY N. STEVENS,

_Literary Executor of the late Henry Stevens of Vermont.

39, Great Russell Street, _ London, W.C.

_ 10th February, 1900._

THOMAS HARIOT

AND HIS

a.s.sOCIATES

COLLECTORS OF RARE English books always speak reverently and even mysteriously of the 'quarto Hariot' as they do of the 'first folio.' It is given to but few of them ever to touch or to see it, for not more than seven copies are at present known to exist. Even four of these are locked up in public libraries, whence they are never likely to pa.s.s into private hands.

One copy is in the Grenville Library; another is in the Bodleian; a third slumbers in the University of Leyden; a fourth is in the Lenox Library; a fifth in Lord Taunton's; a sixth in the late Henry Huth's; and a seventh produced 300 in 1883 in the Drake sale.

The little quarto volume of Hariot's Virginia is as important as it is rare, and as beautiful as it is important. Few English books of its time, 1588, surpa.s.s it either in typographic execution or literary merit. It was not probably thrown into the usual channels of commerce, as it bears the imprint of a privately-printed book, without the name or address of a publisher, and is not found entered in the registers of Stationers' Hall. It bears the arms of Sir Walter Raleigh on the reverse of the t.i.tle, and is highly commended by Ralfe Lane, the late Governor of the Colony, who testifies, 'I dare boldly auouch It may very well pa.s.s with the credit of truth even amongst the most true relations of this age.' It was manifestly put forth somewhat hurriedly to counteract, in influential quarters, certain slanders and aspersions spread abroad in England by some ignorant persons returned from Virginia, who 'woulde seeme to knowe so much as no men more,' and who ' had little vnderstanding, lesse discretion, and more tongue then was needful or requisite.' Hariot's book is dated at the end, February 1588, that is 1589 by present reckoning. Raleigh's a.s.signment is dated the 7th of March following. It is probable therefore that the 'influential quarters' above referred to meant the a.s.signment of Raleigh's Charter which would have expired by the limitation of six years on the 24th of March, 1590, if no colonists had been shipped or plantation attempted.

It is possible also that Theodore De Bry's presence in London, as mentioned below, may have hastened the printing of the volume.

Indeed, the little book professes to be only an epitome of what might be expected, for near the end the author says, ' this is all the fruits of our labours, that I haue thought necessary to aduertise you of at present;' and, further on, ' I haue ready in a discourse by it self in maner of a Chronicle according to the course of times, and when time shall bee thought conuenicnt, shall also be published.' Hariot's 'Chronicle of Virginia ' among things long lost upon earth ! It is to be hoped that some day the historic trumpet of Fame will sound loud enough to awaken it, together with Cabot's lost bundle of maps and journals deposited with William Worthington ; Ferdinand Columbus' lost life of his father in the original Spanish; and Peter Martyr's book on the first circ.u.mnavigation of the globe by the fleet of Magalhaens, which he so fussily sent to Pope Adrian to be read and printed, also lost! Hakluyt, in his volume of 1589, dated in his preface the 19th of November, gives something of a chronicle of Virginian events, 1584-1589, with a reprint of this book. But there are reasons for believing that this is not the chronicle which Hariot refers to. As White's original drawings have recently turned up after nearly three centuries, may we not still hope to see also Hariot's Chronicle?

However, till these lost jewels are found let us appreciate what is still left to us. Hariot's 'True Report' is usually considered the first original authority in our language relating to that part of English North America now called the United States, and is indeed so full and trustworthy that almost everything of a primeval character that we know of 'Ould Virginia' may be traced back to it as to a first parent. It is an integral portion of English history, for England supplied the enterprise and the men. It is equally an integral portion of American history, for America supplied the scene and the material.

Without any preliminary flourish or subsequent reflections, the learned author simply and truthfully portrays in 1585-6 the land and the people of Virginia, the condition and commodities of the one, with the habits and character of the other, of that narrow strip of coast lying between Cape Fear and the Chesapeake, chiefly in the present State of North Carolina. This land, called by the natives Wingandacoa, was named in England in 1584 Virginia, in compliment to Queen Elizabeth. This name at first covered only a small district, but afterwards it possessed varying limits, extending at one time over North Virginia even to 45 degrees north.

Raleigh's Virginia soon faded, but her portrait to the life is to be found in Hariot's book, especially when taken with the pictures by Captain John White, so often referred to in the text. This precious little work is perhaps the most truthful, trustworthy, fresh, and important representation of primitive American human life, animals and vegetables for food, natural productions and commercial commodities that has come down to us. Though the 'first colonie' of Raleigh, like all his subsequent efforts in this direction, was a present failure, Hariot and White have left us some, if not ample, compensation in their picturesque account of the savage life and lavish nature of pre-Anglo-Virginia, the like of which we look for in vain elsewhere, either in Spanish, French, or English colonization.

Indeed, nearly all we know of the uncontaminated American aborigines, their mode of life and domestic economy, is derived from this book, and therefore its influence and results as an original authority cannot well be over-estimated. We have many Spanish and French books of a kindred character, but none so lively and lifelike as this by Hariot, especially as afterwards ill.u.s.trated by De Bry's engravings from White's drawings described below.

The first breath of European enterprise in the New World, combined with its commercial Christianity, seems in all quarters, particularly the Spanish and English, to have at once taken off the bloom and freshness of the Indian. His natural simplicity and grandeur of character immediately quailed before the dictatorial owner of property and civilization. The Christian greed for gold and the civilized cruelty practised without scruple in plundering the unregenerate and unbaptized of their possessions of all kinds, soon taught the Indian cunning and the necessity of resorting to all manner of savage and untutored devices to enable him to cope with his relentless enemies for even restrained liberty and self-preservation; nay, even for very existence, and this too on his own soil that generously gave him bread and meat. All these by a self-a.s.serted authority the coming European civilizer, with Bible in hand, taxed with tribute of gold, labour, liberty, life. This has been the common lot of the western races.