Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-24T04:20:55.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Contemporary List of Hariot References

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David B. Quinn  and
John W. Shirley
David B. Quinn
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
John W. Shirley
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Sometime about 1603, Thomas Hariot (1560-1621) reflected on fame and reputation and on references and allusions that had been made to him personally by contemporary authors. On the back of the final folio of his nearly finished work ‘The Doctrine of Nauticall Triangles Compendious,’ Hariot jotted down a series of references to books which, on examination, seem surely to refer to Hariot or his beliefs. Such a list could have been compiled from curiosity or vanity or for use in conversations with his friends. But it may have had a more specific purpose, since Hariot was a controversial figure frequently called on to account for his ideas or his associations. The making of such a list could therefore have been to forearm himself against the kind of evidence which might be adduced against him from printed sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , Spring 1969 , pp. 9 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 A large number of the scientific papers of Thomas Hariot remain, most in an unfinished or disorganized state. Their division between the British Museum and Petworth House has made it difficult to organize them in a logical fashion, even though interest in their scientific content has been growing steadily. What survives is far from being a complete archive. Hariot kept few letters, and the whole of the considerable collections he made, with John White during his residence on Roanoke Island, 1585-86, have disappeared, as have most of the maps and charts for which he was particularly noted by his contemporaries. Personal materials among his papers are few but may be found in minor jottings interspersed among his scientific memoranda, as is the case here.

2 Petworth MS. 241. This treatise has been studied in some detail by the late professor Taylor, E. G. R. in ‘The “Doctrine of Nauticall Triangles Compendious.” I—Thomas Hariot's Manuscript,’ Journal of the Institute of Navigation, VI (1953)Google Scholar.

Hariot's list appears in Appendix 1. References to it within the text are by bracketed numbers. Pepper, Jon V., ‘The Study of Thomas Harriot's Manuscripts: II. Harriot's Unpublished Papers,’ History of Science, ed. Crombie, A. C. and Hoskin, M. A., VI, Cambridge, England, 1968, 33–36,40,Google Scholar is an independent study. We are indebted to Mr. Pepper for a correction to our remarks on item [14].

3 See Quinn, D. B., Roanoke Voyages, 1 (1955), 173–174.Google Scholar

4 The Writings and Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts, ed. E. G. R. Taylor, II (1935), 366.

5 See Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 1, 359, 387.

6 See Hulton, P. H. and Quinn, D. B., The American Drawings of John White, I (1964), 25–26.Google Scholar

7 See Hakluyt, Richard, The Principall Navigations, ed. Quinn, D. B. and Skelton, R. A., I (1965), xix-xxiii.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., II, 742-744. He was also mentioned in the journal of the 1585 voyage and the list of settlers (pp. 735, 736).

9 Hakluyt, Richard, The principal navigations, II (1599), I (1904), LXVI.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., III (1600), 361.

11 British Museum, Additional MS. 6788, fol. 417v.

12 III (1600), 672.

13 See David W. Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Stuart Times (1958), pp. 188-189; E. G. R. Taylor, The Haven-finding Art (1956), pp. 218-220; E. G. R. Taylor and M. W. Richey, The Geometrical Seaman (1962), p. 40.

14 Hues, like Hariot, was pensioned later by Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland. See Shirley, John W., “The Scientific Experiments of Sir Walter Raleigh, the Wizard Earl, and the Three Magi in the Tower, 1603-1617,’ Ambix, IV, Nos. 1&2 (Dec. 1949). 52–66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He did not fully understand Hariot's ideas on rhumbs.

15 See Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, II, 550.

16 The letter is addressed ‘To my very good frende Master Thomas Hariote at Durham house these’ and dated ‘16 Sept.’ Though the year is missing, it is probably 1586. See Pepper, Jon V., ‘A letter from Nathaniel Torporley to Thomas Harriot,’ British Journal for the History of Science, III, Pt. III, No. II, 285–290.Google Scholar

17 Hariot's will, probated July 6,1621, states: ‘Item, I ordaine and constitute the aforesaid Nathaniell Thorporley first to be overseer of my Mathematicall writings to be received of my Executors to peruse and order and to seperate the Chiefe of them from my waste papers, to the end that after he doth vnderstand them, he may make vse in penning such doctrine that belonges vnto them for publique vses, as it shall be thought conuenient by my Executor and himselfe.’ For his will see Stevens, Henry, Thomas Hariot, London, privately printed, 1900, pp. 193–203 Google Scholar; Tanner, Cicely, ‘Thomas Hariot as Mathematician, A Legacy of Hearsay, Pt. I,’ Physis. Revista Intemazionale di Storia della Scienza, IX (1967), fasc. 2, pp. 235–247.Google Scholar

18 The most complete study of Hariot's navigational mathematics is that of pepper, Jon V., ‘Harriot's Calculation of the Meridional Parts as Logarithmic Tangents,’ Archive for History of Exact Sciences, IV, No. 5 (1968), 359–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 On Hariot's views, see Jacquot, Jean, ‘Thomas Harriot's reputation for impiety,’ Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, IX (1952), 164–187 Google Scholar; Robert H. Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (1966), pp. 24-30; Lefranc, Pierre, Sir Walter Ralegh écrivain (Paris, 1968), pp. 344–352.Google Scholar

20 In his Briefe and true report, there are many expressions of Christian piety as Hariot describes his expositions of science and religion to the Amerinds. How much these can be relied upon is problematical.

21 See Muriel C. Bradbrook's The School of Night (1936), much of which has been superseded by new information. Ernest A. Strathmann's Sir Walter Ralegh: A Study in Elizabethan Skepticism (1951) is a more scholarly study.

22 Ralegh ecrivain, p. 359.

23 Sig. p 4.

24 Sig. Y Iv.

25 ‘The Baines Libel’ in the investigation of Christopher Marlowe, May 12, 1593, reported ‘He amrmeth that Moyses was but a Jugler & that one Heriots being Sir W. Raleighs man can do more then he.’ Harleian MS. 6848, fol. 185.

26 In another similar context, Gabriel Harvey referred to Digges, Hariot, and Dee together. See G. C. Moore-Smith (ed.), Gabriel Harvey's Marginalia (1913), p. 163.

27 The copie of a leter, written by a Master of Arte of Cambridge to his friend in London (1584), sig. [N4v]; FIv.

28 In view of the earlier accusation, it is not surprising that John Dee considered himself to be meant in this case also. See Strathmann, E. A., ‘John Dee as Ralegh's “conjuror,” ‘ Huntington Library Quarterly, VIII (1947), 765–772 Google Scholar. Hariot's acceptance of the taunt as applying to himself settles the matter.

29 Sig. B Iv.

30 Strathmann in Sir Walter Ralegh discusses these criticisms of Raleigh. In 1952 appeared ‘John Pernius’ [Joseph Creswell's] Exemplar Literarum, Missarum, E. Germania, Ad D. Guilielmum Cecilium Consiliarium Regium (1592), pp. 27-28; Richard Verstegen's A Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubles (1592), p. 28; and Thomas Stapleton's Apologia Pro Rege Catholico Philippo II (1592), pp. 28 and 34.

31 Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS. 208, fol. 47v. The printed version by J. O. Halliwell [-Phillips] (1849) is not reliable in detail.

32 In the right hand margin of Hariot's list are two names which were apparently jotted down as memoranda for some other purpose, unconnected with Hariot references in printed books. They are ‘D[ominus] Sauile’ above and ‘Master Adrian Gilbert’ below. The first is probably the eminent scholar Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622) with whom Hariot is likely to have had some contacts but who does not appear to have mentioned Hariot in any of his published writings. The other is Adrian Gilbert, Raleigh's halfbrother, whose common interest with Raleigh and Hariot appears to have been chemistry (Lefranc, Ralegh écrivain, pp. 67911., 346).

33 Reports of the trial vary widely in various accounts, but it is obvious that the final charge to Raleigh pointed to Hariot as an evil influence on Raleigh and referred to him either as a Devil or a Doctor (which he was not). See Harleian MS. 39, fol. 312; Harleian MS. 6849, fols. 183-190.

34 The original letter from Hariot to the Privy Council is still preserved among the Cecil papers at Hatfield House, XVII: 554 (114.41).