Catalogue Entry: OTHE00061

^[1] The secondary literature on Comenius is enormous. The fullest biographical account is Milada Blekastad's Comenius: Versuch eines Umrisses von Leben, Werk und Schicksal des Jan Amos Komensky (Oslo and Prague, 1969), which despite its modest title is a detailed and exhaustive account of his life and work, based heavily and usefully (though at times somewhat uncritically) on Comenius's correspondence and autobiographical writings. Still valuable are the many studies written nearly a century ago by Jan Kvačala, particularly Die Pädagogische Reform des Comenius in Deutschland bis zum Ausgange des XVII Jahrhunderts (Monumenta Germaniæ Pædagogica XVII (Berlin, 1903) and XXII (Berlin, 1904)). The standard English sources are Turnbull, HDC part 3 (342-464), Webster, Great Instauration and 'Introduction' to Samuel Hartlib and the Advancement of Learning (Cambridge, 1970), and Hugh Trevor-Roper's rather dismissive and anglocentric 'Three Foreigners: The Philosophers of the Puritan Revolution', in his Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (London, 1967), 237-293 (on Hartlib, Dury and Comenius and their impact in England). Wilhelmus Rood's Comenius and the Low Countries: Some Aspects of the Life and Work of a Czech Exile in the Seventeenth Century (Amsterdam, 1970) contains useful material on his stay in the Netherlands and his relations with the de Geer family (discussed later in this chapter). There are vast numbers of articles on more specific aspects of his life, thought and publishing history in the journals Monatshefte der Comeniusgesellschaft, Acta Comeniana and Studia Comeniana et Historica. See also Dagmar Čapková, 'Comenius and his Ideals: Escape from the Labyrinth', SHUR, 75-92, and, on the background to his thought, Howard Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted: Encyclopedism, Millenarianism and the Second Reformation in Germany (PhD thesis, Oxford, 1991), which has developed since this book was first published into Johann Heirich Alsted 1588-1638: Between Renaissance, Reformation and Universal Reform (Oxford, 2000). The references given below are to the thesis. Alsted's influence on the circle is further discussed in Hotson's 'Philosophical Pedagogy in Reformed Central Europe between Ramus and Comenius: a survey of the continental background of the "Three Foreigners"', SHUR, 29-50. See also John Sadler: Comenius (London, 1969), and Daniel Murphy, Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of his Life and Work (Cambridge, 1995). A critical and very stimulating account of Comenius's concept of education in the context of his millenarian Utopianism forms a major strand of James Holstun's A Rational Millennium: Puritan Utopias of Seventeenth-Century England and America (New York and Oxford, 1987).

^[2] 'das werck, dz ich nach Gottes schickung auf mich genommen vnd nun mehr mein ganzes werck davon mache zum gemeinen besten […] ich hab mich gleichsam darzu abgesondert vnd devotiret' - Moriaen to ? (probably Hartlib), 16 June 1639, HP 37/25B.

^[3] 'der welt nie nichts nuzlichers seÿe angetragen worden als eben diß werckh als dardurch die Schulen vnd vermittelst derselben Ecclesia respublica mundus reformirt werden sollen vnd können' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 28 Oct. 1641, HP 37/92A.

^[4] Blekastad, Comenius, 23-48. He was at Herborn from 1611-13, at Heidelberg from 1613-14.

^[5] See Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 23.

^[6] Ibid., 17-20.

^[7] See Peter Dear, 'The Church and the New Philosophy', Science, Culture and Popular Belief in the Renaissance, ed. Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo L. Rossi and Maurice Slawinski (Manchester and New York, 1991), 119-139, pp. 133-4. The curriculum covered (in order) Greek and Latin grammar and rhetoric, logic, ethics, mathematics (including optics and astronomy), physics and metaphysics. The prominent place of mathematics was a novelty, but in other respects this is very close to the standard university curriculum.

^[8] 'Ich wundere mich offtmahl vber der Iesuiten industriam fatalem […] diese hetten wan sie sich die inquisition der natur so sehr angelegen sein laßen alß den dominium in conscientias, vill guts thun können' - Pöhmer to Hartlib, 25 March 1638, HP 59/10/7A.

^[9] Dury to ?, 26 Nov. 1635, HP 3/4/37B.

^[10] As is stressed (and demonstrated) by Hotson, Alsted, passim.

^[11] Reproduced in KK II, 234; see Blekastad, Comenius, 33-35.

^[12] Cf. Comenius, Pansophiæ prodromus (London, 1639), translated either by or by command of Hartlib, together with the Conatuum pansophicorum dilucidatio (London, 1639), as A Reformation of Schooles (London, 1642): 'Let even the Gentiles, and Arabians therefore be admitted to furnish us with such ornaments, as they are able for the beauty of this house of God' (p. 33).

^[13] Comenius to [Hartlib?], 3 Aug. 1656, HP 7/99/1A: 'opus erit reparari jacturam eorum Authorum qvi mihi adhuc erunt consulendi […] Verulamii opera intelligo, & L. Vivis, & Campanellæ omnia, etc'. Vives (1492-1540) was one of the leading humanist scholars of his day and a favourite pupil of Erasmus: he particularly concerned himself with education and foreshadowed many of the ideas of Alsted, Bacon and Comenius, such as pre-school education, education of women, the primacy of sense impressions over intellect, the dignity of the vernacular and above all the importance of rendering learning applicable to life both practically and ethically. See Foster Watson, Vives on Education (Cambridge, 1913). Campanella (1568-1639) combined an idiosyncratic Neo-Platonism and a fascination with the Renaissance Art of Memory with impassioned championship of new experimental science. See Luigi Firpo's Introduction to Campanella, La Cité du Soleil (tr. Arnaud Tripet, Geneva, 1972) for a succinct but incisive account of his life and thought; also Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London, 1964) and The Art of Memory (London, 1966), and Paolo Rossi, Clavis Universalis (Bologna, 1983). On Campanella's reception among Comenians, see Martin Mulsow, 'Sociabilitas. Zu einem Kontext der Campanella-Rezeption im 17. Jahrhundert', Studia Bruniana et Campanelliana, forthcoming. My thanks to Dr Mulsow for supplying me with an advance copy of this very detailed and interesting study. On Bacon and Comenius, see below, pp. 105-10.

^[14] Reipublicæ Christianopolitanæ descriptio (Straßburg, 1619). Of the hundred short chapters of this work, ch. 51-78 are devoted exclusively to describing the Christianopolitan education system, while more general educational ideas are discussed throughout. Andreæ translated a work of Vives on poor relief, De subventione pauperum, as Johann Ludwig Vives von Versorgung der Armen (Durlach, 1627).

^[15] Campanella, Civitas Solis (1623, but written c. 1602). Andræ's Utopia is often regarded as a pale imitation of Campanella's, but seems to me more like a constructive criticism of it.

^[16] HP 37/167 A-B and 37/5B-6A. On Bodinus's ideas, see W. Toischer, 'Die Didaktik des Elias Bodinus', Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für deutsche Erziehungs- und Schulgeschichte 9 (1899), 209-229 (but Toischer is wrong in his conjecture (p. 217) that Bodinus died soon after 1626; according to Blekastad he died in Prussia in 1651 (Comenius, 334)). It was his Bericht von der Natur- und Vernunfftmessigen Didactica oder Lehr-Kunst (Hamburg, 1621) that gave Comenius the idea of composing the original Czech version of his Didactica magna (Opera didactica omnia I, 3). The work bears the very proto-Comenian motto 'Omnia faciliora facit Ratio, Ordo et Modus' ('Everything is made easier by Reason, Order and Method').

^[17] On Ratke, and the reactions to him of both Comenius and Jungius, see G.E. Guhrauer, Joachim Jungius und sein Zeitalter (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1850), 23-43.

^[18] Methodus institutionis nova quadruplex (Leipzig, 1617).

^[19] A Reformation of Schooles, 77. Cf. the subtitle of the Didactica magna (Amsterdam, 1657, but written 1637-8): the work claims to exhibit 'Universale Omnes Omnia docendi artificium' ('the universal art of teaching all things to all people').

^[20] See Hotson, Alsted, 91-158 on the genesis of the Encyclopædia.

^[21] See Blekastad, Comenius, 170-76 for a fuller account of the genesis and ethos of the Janua, which Blekastad describes as being - in the Alstedian sense - 'eine kleine Enzyklopädie' (173). See also Comenius's own account in Continuatio admonitionis fraternæ de temperando charitate zelo […] ad S. Maresium (Amsterdam, 1670), English translation by Agneta Lunggren in Milada Blekastad (ed.), Comenius' Självbiografi (Stockholm, 1975), 144-6. This is Comenius's most important autobiographical work. The section dealing with his visit to England also exists in English translation in R.F. Young, Comenius in England (Oxford and London, 1932), 25-51. Despite its somewhat mannered archaism, Young's translation is stylistically far superior to Lunggren's (apart from a number of passages lifted verbatim from Young), which it is painfully obvious was never checked by a native speaker. However, Lunggren's is more literal and includes the whole text, and is furnished with excellent notes.

^[22] Blekastad, Comenius, 200-203. As she argues, it was almost certainly the work's efficacy as a pedagogical tool that recommended it to the majority of teachers, rather than its philosophical underpinning.

^[23] Comenius' Självbiografi, 145-147.

^[24] Comenius' Självbiografi, 147.

^[25] Självbiografi, 148 (cf. Young, Comenius in England, 31). See also A Reformation of Schooles, 46-7.

^[26] See Comenius to Hartlib, 26 Jan. 1638, in O. Odlozilík, Casopis Matice Moravské 52 (1928), 164; condensed German translation by Blekastad, Comenius, 255-6. Comenius mentioned in this letter that he and Hartlib had been in touch for six years. Their first contact (a letter from Hartlib with a financial contribution) is described in Självbiografi, 149, but no exact date is given.

^[27] See above, p. 19, and the literature cited there.

^[28] 'das es in causa Antiliana dahin beschloßen das man institutionem puerorum vorauß treiben vnd alß ein fundament zu diesem legen müste' - Fridwald to Hartlib, 10 Feb. 1628, HP 27/34/1A.

^[29] 'weill der H. hierinnen ettwas sonderliches præstiret' - ibid. See also Turnbull, 'John Hall's Letters to Samuel Hartlib', Review of English Studies New Series 4 (1953), 221-33.

^[30] HDC, 16-19, 36-9.

^[31] Described in detail below, pp. 127-34.

^[32] Comenius to Hartlib, 17 Feb. 1641, in two scribal copies at HP 7/84/1B-3B and 7/84/6A-8A; English summary in HDC, 350.

^[33] Trevor-Roper, 'Three Foreigners', passim.

^[34] Trevor-Roper is very fond of this expression: cf. 'Three Foreigners', 258 and 289; 'Introduction' to Margery Purver, The Royal Society: Concept and Creation (London, 1967), xv and xvi.

^[35] 'Three Foreigners', 258. This line of argument is taken furthest by Margery Purver, who sees the Royal Society as having resurrected pure, genuine Baconianism from the fragmented and trivialised form of it propagated by the likes of Hartlib and Haak. She sets out to remove this 'vulgar' stain from the Society's pedigree by denying they had any influence on its genesis at all: see her The Royal Society: Concept and Creation (London, 1967), especially Part Two, chapter 4, 'The Royal Society and "Pansophia"', 193-234. See also Webster's devastating essay review of the book, 'The Origins of the Royal Society', History of Scence 6 (1967), 106-128.

^[36] 'vnder des Verulamij nachgelaßenen schrifften werden ohne zweiffel viel treffliche sachen sein' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 26 May 1639, HP 37/24A.

^[37] Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning Human and Divine, in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding et al. (London, 1857-74) III, 359.

^[38] Bacon, Preparative Towards a Natural and Experimental History (Parasceve), Works IV, 252.

^[39] Advancement of Learning, 268.

^[40] Andrew Clark (ed.), 'Brief Lives,' chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the Years 1669 and 1696 (Oxford, 1898) I, 75-6.

^[41] HP 22/6/2A-5B, undated.

^[42] See for instance Margery Purver, The Royal Society: Concept and Creation (London, 1967), which is very impatient with those who see Bacon as a mere fact-finder, and Lisa Jardine, Francis Bacon and the Art of Discourse (Cambridge, 1974).

^[43] A Reformation of Schooles, 35.

^[44] A Reformation of Schooles, 6.

^[45] Johann Valentin Andreæ (trans. John Hall), A Modell of a Christian Society, (original Latin Societas Christianæ imago, Tübingen, 1620, translation London 1647), reprinted by George Turnbull in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 74 (1955), 151-161, 155. The original, preserved in a single printed copy in Wolfenbüttel and two manuscript copies in the Hartlib Papers reads: 'Nam cum hoc Mundi senio omnia propemodum humana, literis concredita sint, qvarum moles in immensum excrevit, & non tàm veritate qvàm falsitate, soliditate qvàm Vanitate Orbem adimplevit' (HP 55/19/5B).

^[46] Preparative Towards a Natural and Experimental History, Works IV, 258-9. What is under discussion here, it should perhaps be stressed, is the description Bacon gave in this work of what the Natural Histories should be, not the content of the Natural Histories he himself actually produced, which hardly meet his own specifications.

^[47] Eph 40, HP 30/4/54A.

^[48] The remark is unattributed, but Hübner is much the most frequently cited source in the Ephemerides of 1639 and 40, something like half the entries being attributed him. The opinion and the blunt, somewhat truculent manner of its expression are consistent with Hübner's original writings.

^[49] Eph 40, HP 30/4/54B.

^[50] Matthew 25:12.

^[51] Daniel 12:4, Authorised Version (Bacon cited the Vulgate: 'Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia'). Luther, interestingly, gives a completely different reading: 'So werden viel drüber kommen [i.e. über diese Schrift] vnd grossen verstand finden' ('Many will come upon it [this writing] and find great understanding in it'): I am advised that the Authorised Version is the more literal (my thanks to the members of Sheffield University's Classical Hebrew Dictionary Project).

^[52] A Reformation of Schooles, 4 and 29. Cf. Popkin, 'The Third Force', 43-5, on the importance of this passage for the influential Millenarian William Twisse, whose Doubting Conscience Resolved (1652) was written for and published by Hartlib.

^[53] Cf. Stephen Clucas, 'In Search of the "True Logick": methodological eclecticism among the "Baconian reformers"', SHUR, 51-74.

^[54] Advancement of Learning, Works III, 268.

^[55] See Blekastad, Comenius, 257-260, and Comenius's own somewhat hyperbolical accounts in a letter to Hartlib of autumn 1638, KK II, 34-36 and MPG I, 139-141 (in both cases misdated August 1639: see Blekastad, Comenius, 260, n. 174) and Självbiografi, 151. Broniewski's Annotatiunculæ quædam in præludia Comeniana ad Portam Sapientiæ are at HP 7/82/1A-4B and are reproduced in HDC, 452-7.

^[56] Självbiografi, 148-9 (Young, Comenius in England, 32-33).

^[57] A Reformation of Schooles, 6.

^[58] Especially A Treatise of Husbandry (London, 1638) and A Discovery of Infinite Treasure (London, 1639), the treasure in question being the supposedly inexhaustible wealth of well-husbanded nature. The works are aimed emphatically at the ordinary farmer rather than the large landowner and are very practical (and pragmatic) in tone. Plattes was supported for a time by Hartlib but died in poverty. See the entry on Plattes in the Oxford DNB, and mine in Thoemmes Biographical Dictionary of Economists (Bristol, 2004); also Hartlib's Legacie of Husbandry (London, 1651).

^[59] Eph 39, 30/4/18B; the remark is not attributed but it sounds to me like Hübner again.

^[60] Eph 39, 30/4/26B. This is almost certainly Hübner. On 'Cartes glasses', see above, pp. 22-3.

^[61] Conatuum pansophicorum dilucidatio: 'My intent was to epitomize those bookes of God, Nature, Scripture and mans Conscience' (Reformation of Schooles, 65); cf. Panaugia, trans. A.M.O. Dobbie (Shipton on Stour, 1987), 13; Pampædia, trans. A.M.O. Dobbie (Dover, 1986), 130.

^[62] A Reformation of Schooles, 27. Cf. Panorthosia, trans. A.M.O. Dobbie (Sheffield, 1993), 25: I say that you must be Everything in yourself, as a genuine portion of mankind and a true image of God and Christ. For if every individual Being is an image of the Universe […] every member of human society ought also to represent human society as a whole, so that […] one may be or know or wish or do what all men are or know or wish or do.'

^[63] Eph 39, HP 30/4/10A. There is again no clear indication that Hübner is being cited, but the style and content overwhelmingly suggest him.

^[64] Pampædia, 85.

^[65] A Reformation of Schooles, 15.

^[66] A Reformation of Schooles, 15.

^[67] 'vil sachen weist man nit wo man sie hin referiren soll. Mueß sie also entweder vnter dem koth, vieler Vnnützer zerstrewter Aphorismorum verborgen ligen laßen, oder mitt Alstedio, ich weiß nicht, waß vor narrischen farragines artium et particulas systematum den gemeinen Vngestalten systematibus subjungiren, welches ihme dan allein die confusion seiner Encyclopode [sic] gnugsam solt zue verstehen geben haben' - HP 36/4/50A: from a long anonymous tract on combatting atheism, undated but composed c. 1638/9.

^[68] Hotson, Alsted, 156.

^[69] Ibid., 147.

^[70] 'wollen wir ihn doch viel höher halten, als 1000 Alstedios mit allen ihren vermeinten methodis' - Anon. to [Hartlib?], early 1638, HP 59/10/20B.

^[71] Eph 39, 30/4/2A.

^[72] Novum organum, second book of aphorisms, aphorism 29: Works IV, 169.

^[73] An abridged version of this section appears under the same title in Acta Comeniana 12 (1997), 89-99.

^[74] Eph 56, 29/5/89A.

^[75] 'in dieser irrenden vnd verführischen welt [… ist] vnß extra Mathesin fast nichts sichers vnd gewißes vbergelaßen' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 31 Jan. 1639, HP 37/5A.

^[76] 'Ich bin dieser sachen auß der maßen begierig all meine tage gewest nun aber desto mehr weil Ich mir vnd anderen possibilitatem Pansophiæ dardurch einbilden kan, damit Ich berait etliche wiedersprecher stumme vnd zweiffeler glaubig gemacht habe' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 24 March 1639, HP 37/13B.

^[77] Since this book was first published, the study of Pell has been enormously advanced by Noel Malcolm and Jacqueline Stedall's excellent John Pell (1611-1685) and his Correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish: the mental world of an early modern mathematician (Oxford, 2005), in the light of which I have made numerous revisions to this sub-chapter. That Moriaen's mathematical gifts were widely known and respected is evidenced by the fact that he was one of the expert witnesses Pell at least considered approaching for support in his controversy with Longomontanus over the latter's supposed quadrature of the circle. Moriaen did not in fact contribute to the debate (or if he did, Pell forebore to publish his contribution), but the suggestion puts him in the company of Descartes, Joachim Jungius, Adolf Tassius and the professors of Gresham College, all of whom Pell did approach. See Malcolm and Stedall, John Pell, 116.

^[78] See Malcolm and Stedall, John Pell, 25-32 and 61.

^[79] Aubrey, Brief Lives II, 127 and 129. The first two comments are from a memo to Aubrey from Haak.

^[80] Aubrey, Brief Lives II, 130. On the 'Idea Matheseos', see below, p. 114.

^[81] Martinus Hortensius (1605-39), mathematics professor at the Amsterdam Athenæum Illustre since 1634. See NNBW I, 1160-64.

^[82] Moriaen to Hartlib, 26 Dec. 1639, HP 37/50A.

^[83] Moriaen to Hartlib, 2 June 1644, HP 37/117A.

^[84] Ibid. Unfortunately, this is the only surviving letter from Moriaen from the whole period of Pell's stay in Amsterdam. In the print version of this book, I lazily recycled the old DNB's statement that Pell was appointed in 1643, though I should have realised that this is incompatible with the evidence of Moriaen's letter, which describes the inaugural lecture as a recent event and mentions that Pell had not yet found settled accommodation. The appointment was in fact made on 27 April 1644. See Malcolm and Stedall, John Pell, 5 and 102-3.

^[85] DNB XLIV, 262. The Oxford DNB entry is less damning but still distinctly luke-warm (and still gets the date of Pell's appointment at Amsterdam wrong). For a more balanced assessment and detailed analysis of Pell's mathematical achievements, based on his manuscript remains rather than his few printed works, see Jacqueline Stedall's 'The Mathematics of John Pell', which constitutes the second part of Malcolm and Stedall, John Pell (pp. 245-328).

^[86] For the complete English text and the publication date of 1638, see P.J. Wallis, 'An Early Mathematical Manifesto - John Pell's Idea of Mathematics', Durham Research Journal 18 (1967), 139-48. Wallis's dating is borne out by Pell's reference in a letter of October 1642 which cannot be to anyone but Hartlib to 'my letter to you, which you caused to be published just this time four years' (Correspondance de Mersenne XI, 311). Various more or less wild conjectures have been made about the date of the Idea's original composition. According to a mock-up title page in the Hartlib Papers (HP 14/1/6A), it was written in '1634 or m.' (= 'or more' or 'or magis'?), but this only proves that Hartlib himself, possibly writing many years later, could no longer remember the date more precisely than that it was no earlier than 1634. Turnbull thought it might have been conceived as early as 1630, when Pell sent Hartlib 'a rude draught of his Method' (HDC, 88), but Noel Malcolm shows that this refers to a different and much less ambitious pedagogical 'method', possibly for language teaching (John Pell, 31). By Pell's own account, he wrote the work 'about 3 months' before Hartlib published it, i.e. in summer 1638 (Pell to Hartlib, August 1655, BL MS Add. 4364 f. 139r). Elsewhere, in a handwritten annotation to a Latin copy of the Idea, he dates the composition with still more precision to '23 July 1638'. See Malcolm and Stedall, John Pell, 69.

^[87] Comenius derived this term from Alsted's precursor Bartholomæus Keckermann: it refers to Aristotle's assertion that all learning depends on prior knowledge.

^[88] Pell, Idea of Mathematics, ed. P.J. Wallis, in Durham Research Journal 18 (1967), 139-148, p. 143.

^[89] Ibid., 144.

^[90] For a full account of its circulation, see Malcolm and Stedall, John Pell, 71-3.

^[91] Idea of Mathematics, 145.

^[92] Mersenne to Haak, 1 Nov. 1639, Correspondance de Mersenne VIII, 580-584; Pell to Mersenne, 21 Nov. 1639 (ibid., 622-630); Mersenne to Pell, 10 Dec. 1639 (ibid., 685-688). See also Wallis's useful summary of the early reception of the Idea, Durham Research Journal 18 (1967), 145-7.

^[93] Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, trans. Eva Brann (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1968).

^[94] Ibid., 118.

^[95] Ibid., 123. In all quotations from him, the italics are Klein's.

^[96] Ibid., 123.

^[97] The edition finally appeared in 1646 (see Correspondance de Mersenne VII, 33 and 106-9).

^[98] Facsimile in Correspondance de Mersenne VII, facing p. 109.

^[99] Correspondance de Mersenne XI, 308. The letter is also given in Robert Vaughan, The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (London, 1839) II, 347-54. The Moriaen letters in question are those of 2 and 9 Oct. 1642, HP 37/112A-114B, in which Moriaen stated that he had recommended Pell to the Elseviers and urged him to contribute to the edition.

^[100] Ibid., 308-311.

^[101] Hartlib to Tassius, 10 August 1638, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, sup. ep. 100, 60-63; slightly edited transcript in KK I, 32-36. Hartlib said he was sending 'eine andre Idæam Conatuum Mathematicorum eines andern Authoris [than J.L. Wolzogen], darvon ich des H. vnparteyliches judicium mit dem ersten erwarte' (63r; KK I, 36), which given that this is precisely the period when Hartlib was distributing the Idea is almost certainly a reference to it.

^[102] Dury to Hartlib, 13 September 1639, HP 9/1/95B.

^[103] Klein, op. cit., 185, quoting Vieta, In artem analyticen Isagoge, 1591; the capitalisation is Vieta's.

^[104] 'Ich wolte gerne wißen ob sich Mons. Pellii Logistica so weit erstrecke als des Vietæ Nullum non problema soluere' - Moriaen to [Hartlib?], 27 Dec. 1638, HP 37/166A.

^[105] 6 Jan. 1642, Young, Comenius in England, 74.

^[106] Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Works III, 359-360.

^[107] Moriaen to Hartlib, 24 March 1639, HP 37/13B.

^[108] 'fast niemand weit vber den Cubum kommen' - ibid.

^[109] A Reformation of Schooles, 25. Similarly on p. 51: 'Neither in the delivery of these things, though evidently true, do wee presuppose any thing […] but we premonstrate rather, that is we deduce one thing out of another continually, from the first principles of Metaphysickes, untill we come to the last, and least differences of Things: and this with such evidence of truth, as the propositions of the Mathematicians have, so that there is a necessity of yeelding to the last as well as to the first, for the continuall, and nowhere interrupted demonstration of their truth.'

^[110] Moriaen acknowledged receipt on 24 March, HP 37/14A. The Analysis consists of a compilation of extracts from letters to Joseph St Amand of November and December 1637 (HP 1/4/19A-22B), and is further elaborated in another letter to him of 26 February 1640 (HP 1/4/1A-8B). Moriaen intended to have it published, but whether he in fact did so remains unclear (see above, p. 39).

^[111] HP 1/4/20A.

^[112] Eph 35, HP 29/3/14A; transcript in HDC, 167. Cf. Popkin, 'The Third Force', 40-42. Popkin argues persuasively that it was the millenarian writings of Joseph Mede that first suggested to Dury the way out of his labyrinth.

^[113] Eph 35, HP 29/3/14A.

^[114] Dury, Analysis demonstrativa, HP 1/4/20A-B.

^[115] 'dan beÿ vielen gehet der glaub nicht außer den augen vnd ob sie woll gleuben müßen dati certitudinem Mathematicam so glauben sie doch nicht das man einen solchen methodum in relig. scientijs sonderlich aber in Theologia finden vnd practisiren könne vnder welchen auch Mr des Cartes ist' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 24 March 1639, HP 37/14A: the remark is made with specific reference to Dury's Analysis demonstrativa.

^[116] Analysis demonstrativa, HP 1/4/3A; cf. 1 Corinthians 2.

^[117] HP 1/4/21B.

^[118] Panaugia, trans. A.M.O. Dobbie (Shipton on Stour, 1987), ch. 11, para. 101, p. 71.

^[119] Ibid., ch. 15, para. 42, p. 99.

^[120] Reformation of Schooles, 26.

^[121] Isaiah, 11:9, a citation also used by Comenius (Reformation of Schooles, 26).

^[122] Reformation of Schooles, 24.

^[123] 'zue dem werk des heiligthumbs nicht allein Bezaliel und Aholiab erfordert werden sondern auch die Ienige so herbeÿ schaffen was zur arbeit von nothen ist' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 13 Dec. 1638, HP 37/1B. Bezaleel and Aholiab were the craftsmen selected by God to build the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 31:1-6).

^[124] He joined the English church in November 1635 and transferred to the German on 4 Dec. 1639 (Moriaen's letter of the following day, HP 37/49B); cf. O.P. Grell, Dutch Calvinists, 181.

^[125] Blekastad (Comenius, 334 and Unbekannte Briefe, 18) cautiously suggests this may be the Swedish mathematician Niels Buddaeus (1595-1653), but this cannot be right, since Moriaen's Budæus died on 11 Sept. 1642, as he told Hartlib the following month (HP 37/112A).

^[126] Jonston to Hartlib, Aug. 1633, HP 44/1/2A, published with English translation in William Hitchens, Adam Matuszewski and John Young (editors and translators), The Letters of Jan Jonston to Samuel Hartlib (Warsaw, 2000), 67 (original) and 106 (translation).

^[127] Hessels III, no. 2311.

^[128] Grell, Dutch Calvinists, 203.

^[129] Ibid., 203. Turnbull in his account of the incident takes Hartlib's alleged word for it (HDC, 35).

^[130] HDC, 35, n. 4.

^[131] See Mark Greengrass, 'The Financing of a Seventeenth-Century Intellectual: Contributions for Comenius', Acta Comeniana 11 (1996), 71-87 and 141-57.

^[132] Grell (who spells him Strezzo), Dutch Calvinists, 180; Hessels III, nos. 2569 and 2654.

^[133] Moriaen to Hartlib, 13 Feb. 1640, HP 37/57A.

^[134] It is not in Wing, nor in Turnbull's list of Hartlib's publications (HDC, 88-109), and is mentioned nowhere else in the surviving papers.

^[135] HP 23/13/1B. I am almost certain the recipient of five copies is 'Morian', but the list is in Hartlib's very worst handwriting. It is certainly 'Morian et Rulit.' who received fifty. Turnbull (HDC, 343) thinks it likelier that the work in question is the Præludia, but Moriaen's acknowledgement of a number of copies of the Prodromus which had been passed on to him by Rulice (12 May 1639, HP 37/23A) would seem rather to suggest the latter. Hartlib's undated list may, however, refer to an earler consignment of Præludias not mentioned in the surviving letters.

^[136] HP 37/13A.

^[137] Exchange rates fluctuated, but the pound generally equated to something between 4 and 4$\frac{1}{2}$ Imperials over the period of Moriaen's and Hartlib's correspondence.

^[138] Greengrass, 'Contributions for Comenius', Acta Comeniana 11 (1996), 71-87 and 141-57, p. 75.

^[139] HP 26/23/1A-8B; transcript in Greengrass, 'Contributions for Comenius', 146-57. The tract is undated but can be placed between Feb. 1639 and Sept. 1641 (ibid., 84). Turnbull gives what seems to me an unduly unsympathetic summary (HDC, 347-8), and Greengrass a rather more nuanced analysis (op. cit., 84-5).

^[140] 'zue 2 oder 3 collaboratoribus Ieden auff ein hundert lib: geschäzt werden wir wills Gott die mittel woll finden - Moriaen to Hartlib, 7 March 1639, HP 37/11B.

^[141] Moriaen to Hartlib, 1 Sept. 1639, HP 37/39A.

^[142] 'das Ich Gott lob nun mehr den anfang der vnderschrifft hab. vnd mir nun fort an allein guten succes einbilde. Es ist mir recht saur worden ehe Ichs so weit gebracht hab. Gott lob das es vberwunden ist. der gebe ferner seine genade' - HP 37/38A.

^[143] See above, p. 14.

^[144] This appears from the news that 'diese kirche sich am lezten vnderschrieben hatt' ('this church was the last to subscribe': 5 November 1640, HP 37/70A). It is not clear which church he means by 'diese' ('this'), though he would himself presumably have been most closely involved with the German, of which his friend Rulice was then preacher, but in any case the implication is clearly that all the others had already committed themselves.

^[145] HP 37/60B.

^[146] HP 37/66A.

^[147] HP 37/76A.

^[148] HP 23/12/2B. This and a record of the £25 for Hübner (HP 23/7B) are, rather surprisingly, the only mentions of Moriaen in Hartlib's surviving accounts.

^[149] HP 37/97A.

^[150] HP 1/35/3B.

^[151] 'Hem! vis detrahere mihi salarium jam meritum? […] Solve tu tua debita ipsemet.'

^[152] HP 37/127A. It is possible, of course, that this represents repayment of a different and later debt not mentioned in the surviving correspondence, but it seems a good deal likelier (given that the sum mentioned is exactly the same) that this was the money Moriaen had forwarded at the end of 1641.

^[153] Or 'Temple of Christian Pansophy', described in the Dilucidatio: Reformation of Schooles, 64-84. It is an allegorical account of Comenius's proposed education system based on the structure of the temple in the vision of Ezekiel.

^[154] There are excellent accounts of the relations between Hübner and Comenius in Kvacala, MGP II, 51-9, and 'Über die Schicksale der Didactica Magna', MCG 8 (1899), 129-144.

^[155] Moriaen to Hartlib, 22 Sept. 1639, HP 37/40B.

^[156] '[Ich] hoffe das mit nechstem zum anfang etwas remittirn werde damit Dn Pell in guter devotion erhalten bleibe vnd nicht vrsach bekomme seinen wie es scheint Ihme angeborenen Mathematischen gaist zue dempfen vnd anderwerts vielleicht auch wieder sein aigen herz vnd gemuth zue stellen' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 31 Jan. 1639, HP 37/5A.

^[157] 'so müste man so viel müglich ist […] was hin vnd wieder einkommen möchte in einen gemeinen Beutell samblen vnd nach notturft der sachen ins gemein anwenden. vnd nicht zuelaßen das die leuthe von hauß aus Ihre subsidia H Comenio selbsten zueordnen sonst weiß man nicht woran man ist vnd weil es vnder seinen Nahmen gehet, so würd Er alles bekommen vnd andere nichts' - 26 December 1639, HP 37/50B. The grammatical inconsistency of my translation aims to reflect that of Moriaen's original.

^[158] 'Von H Comenio Vernehme ich sehr Ungerne, dass er so gantz jetzo Von seinen Pansophischen Meditationibus abgerissen ist, wan er dass werk ubergibt, wird schwerlich so bald ein ander wider kommen, der auff solche weütleüffige gedankhen gerathen wirdt' - Hübner to Hartlib, 22 March 1637, MGP I, 78.

^[159] Eph 34, HP 29/2/13A: the comment is attributed to Johann Christoph Berger von Berg, himself a Moravian exile, who was cited along with Hartlib as organiser of private charitable collections in the above-mentioned complaint of Jan Sictor to the Austin Friars consistory. See Webster, Great Instauration, 218 and 358-9.

^[160] R.C. Winthrop (ed.), Correspondence of Hartlib, Haak, Oldenburg, and others of the Founders of the Royal Society, with Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, 1661-1672 (Boston, 1878), 10.

^[161] Kumpera, 219-221; Blekastad, Comenius, 657.

^[162] Moriaen to Hartlib, 31 March 1639, HP 37/15A: 'das Ich aber mehr vermuthe dz es Ihm mißluckhen als geluckhen werde, das geschicht auß aigener erfahrung in einer gleichmäßigen sache'.

^[163] L.E. Harris, The Two Netherlanders, ch. 13 (149-159).

^[164] 'Er arbeitete daran nach seiner eigenen Theorie, dass keine irdische Kraft Antrieb dieser Maschine sein könne, da alles Irdische unbeständig sei. Auf eine uns unbekannte Art wollte er den kosmischen "Dunst" oder die Strahlung auf drei Kugeln von verschiedener Grösse und verschiedenem Metall überführen, um an "die Kraft, welche die Sterne bewegt", anzuknüpfen' - Blekastad, Comenius, 303.

^[165] Eph 52, HP 28/2/38B.

^[166] Moriaen to Hartlib, 20 April 1640, HP 37/58A.

^[167] Reformation of Schooles, 24.

^[168] 'Schon als Bestätigung der Richtigkeit eines Weltsystems war es von grösster Wichtigkeit' - Blekastad, Comenius, 304.

^[169] See especially Moriaen to Hartlib, 31 March 1639, HP 37/15A-B.

^[170] HDC, 342.

^[171] See especially Självbiografi, 149-165, HDC, 342-370, and Blekastad, Comenius, 299-339.

^[172] Självbiografi, 152 (Young, Comenius in England, 41); fuller quotation below, p. 133.

^[173] John Gauden, The Love of Truth and Peace: A Sermon Preached before the Honovrable Hovse of Commons Assembled in Parliament Novemb. 29. 1640 (London, 1641), 40-41. Comenius first made the claim publicly in the introduction to Opera didactica omnia (1657). Again in the dedication of the Via lucis (1668) he stated that he had been invited 'by public authority' for discussions on the propagation of the Gospel. He expanded on the account (adding this quotation from the sermon) in the Continuatio admonitionis fraternæ (1669) (Självbiografi, 152-3; cf. Young, Comenius in England, 39-41, 52, 60).

^[174] Självbiografi, 153 (Young, Comenus in England, 41).

^[175] 'Three Foreigners', 262.

^[176] HP 23/13/1A and 23/10A (the donation is also noted at 23/12/2B).

^[177] HP 6/4/159A. The letter survives only in an undated and unaddressed copy, so it is not certain it is to Gauden, but he is the obvious candidate: cf. HDC, 219.

^[178] The Love of Truth and Peace, 43.

^[179] Culpeper to Hartlib, Dec. 1645, HP 13/110A-B.

^[180] 'Three Foreigners', 262. Trevor-Roper omits to suggest who did the approaching and gives no source for his quotation. It is perhaps a paraphrase of Young's translation of the Continuatio admonitionis fraternæ: 'on entering London […] I learnt at length the truth: I had been summoned by command of Parliament' (Young, Comenius in England, 39).

^[181] Englands Thankfulnesse, or, an Humble Remembrance Presented to the Committee for Religion in the High Court of Parliament (London, 1642): extracts in Webster, Samuel Hartlib and the Advancement of Learning, 90-97.

^[182] See Webster, Great Instauration, 49, 71, 221; Självbiografi, 154-5 and n. 42; Blekastad, Comenius, 313-15.

^[183] 'Meinem bedunckhen nach aber würde es der gemeinen Sache fürderlicher sein wan Er an einem einsamen vnd etwas abgelegenen als volkreichen vnd dem zuelauff vnderworffenen ortt sich enthielte' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 12 May 1639, HP 37/32A.

^[184] 'Mitglied einer Kirche, in der "keiner sich selber angehört", […] ihr Wortführer und bedeutender Repräsentant. […] Seine Arbeit an der Pansophie musste unter diesen Umständen mit grösster Verantwortung für die gesamte Unität verbunden sein - oder aufgegeben werden' - Comenius, 302, cf. Självbiografi, 154.

^[185] Självbiografi, 152 (Young, Comenius in England, 39). Comenius did not in fact mention the fundraising mission at all in this work, merely saying the Bishops agreed that he should go and that the co-rector and pro-rector who stood in for him at the school in Leszno in his absence should not know the real reason for his departure, i.e. the summons from Hartlib. The official fundraising mission is mentioned in Hessels III, nos. 2607 and 2673. Blekastad, Comenius, 302-3, draws the inference.

^[186] HDC, 356; the Latin letter from Hotton on which Turnbull bases his account is at HP 9/7/2A-B. De Geer's letter of invitation (19 Oct. 1641) is reproduced in the appendix to Comenius' Självbiografi, 267.

^[187] Moriaen to Hartlib, 3 Oct. 1641, paraphrased and discussed in HDC, 354-6. But note that Moriaen did not report 'that Louis de Geer, being anxious to have good Germans with whom to discuss, has invited Comenius to Sweden' (HDC, 354), which would be a very bizarre motive for a Dutchman to invite a Moravian to Sweden. Turnbull has apparently misread 'wackerer' as 'deutscher': Moriaen's words are 'that Mr Louis de Geer is desirous of worthy men with whom he might pursue good conversation, and Mr Comenius has been summoned to Sweden for that purpose' ('das H. Loys de Geer, wackerer leuthe begehrig were mit denen Er gute conversation pflegen möchte, vnd das herr Comenius zue dem ende nacher Schweden beruffen seÿe') (HP 37/88A).

^[188] Hartlib to de Geer, 4 October 1641, draft version at HP 7/46/1A-2B, English paraphrase in HDC, 356-7.

^[189] Comenius was forty-nine, not young by seventeenth-century standards, but hardly ancient. He had, in fact, another twenty-nine years before him.

^[190] Comenius to Hartlib, 25 May 1646, HP 7/73/1A.

^[191] See especially Självbiografi, 151-2 (Young, Comenius in England, 38-39), and see below.

^[192] Comenius's self-quotation from a letter to Hartlib, Självbiografi, 157 (Young, Comenius in England, 49). Cf. Comenius to Hartlib, 25 May 1646, HP 7/73/1A-6B, and 21 Jan. 1647, Patera, Jana Amosa Komenského Korrespondence (Prague, 1892), no. 107 (pp. 126-9).

^[193] Kotter was a Lutheran by upbringing, a tanner by trade and a Silesian by nationality. He learned to write for the specific purpose of setting his revelations down. Comenius met him in 1625 and translated his visions from German into Czech the same year. Poniatowska, the daughter of a Reformed minister, began experiencing visions in 1627, at the age of seventeen, having been driven, like Comenius, into exile from Bohemia to Leszno. Comenius proceeded to produce a Latin version of both her prophecies and Kotter's.

^[194] For a detailed account of the circumstances leading up to the publication and its aftermath, see Blekastad, Comenius, 573-584. Blekastad tends, however, to play down the extent of the disapproval the work aroused, and takes at face value Comenius's totally unfeasible and indeed (as his correspondence with Hartlib abundantly proves) mendacious claim that the published work was intended only for the eyes of a few selected and responsible figures.

^[195] Rood, Comenius and the Low Countries (Amsterdam, 1970), 170.

^[196] I.e. the headmastership of the school in Leszno.

^[197] Självbiografi, 151-2 (Young, Comenius in England, 38-39).

^[198] 'Wir können an vnß selbsten abnehmen wie den guten herzen beÿ Euch zue muth ist […] fur erst wird vnß angenehm sein zue hören was das Buch mit 7 Siegeln an den tag bringen werde vnd machen vnß die gedanckhen das ein iedweders der 7 Siegel ein besonder wee bedeuten vnd dem einen oder anderen auff den kopff bringen werde' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 10 Dec. 1640, HP 37/71A.

^[199] HP 37/88A-89B.

^[200] Moriaen to Comenius, 10 Oct. 1641, HP 37/90A-B.

^[201] 'Ich habe ja deutlich geschrieben das Er [Comenius] da ohne ambtsgeschäffte oder hinderung sein soll allein zue geselschafft ansprach vnd Rath mit genugsamer gelegenheit seinen conatibus einzig vnd allein obzueliegen' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 28 Oct. 1641, HP 37/92A.

^[202] 'der H hatt uns gantzlich nit recht verstanden: H de Geer begehrt in der welt nichts von H. Comenio nur allein bißweilen mit ihm zu conversiren. […] H. Comenius solte alda gutten vnterhalt haben, recht gelegenheit ohn ander vnkosten mit andern zu correspondiren, vnd otium seine meditationes zu perficiren' - Rulice to Hartlib, 17 Oct. 1641, HP 23/9A-B, summarised in HDC, 357.

^[203] Moriaen to Hartlib, 3 Oct. 1641, HP 37/88B.

^[204] 'Ich sehe die Englische sachen noch nicht an dem ortt da Ich sie gern hette, vnd sorge wo es Gott nicht genadigklich verhutet das es noch blutige köpffe kosten möchte' - HP 37/94A.

^[205] HDC, 360-61. But compare Dury's letter to de Geer of 19 Dec. 1641, promising that he and Hartlib would petition the Brethren in Leszno to grant Comenius leave to visit Sweden (Självbiografi, 268-9). Nevertheless, Dury, who had met with a cool reception from the Lutheran clergy in Sweden, was sceptical of the prospects for Comenius there.

^[206] HP 37/97A-B.

^[207] Självbiografi, 155 (Young, Comenius in England, 48).

^[208] Moriaen to Hartlib, 3/13 July and 24 July 1642, HP 37/110A-111B.

^[209] Moriaen to Hartlib, 24 July 1642, HP 37/111A.

^[210] 'wenig zeit vnd nicht viel mehr muth' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 2 Oct. 1642, HP 37/112A.

^[211] Blekastad, Comenius, 350; Oxenstierna to de Geer, 14 Sept. 1642 (Självbiografi, 271-2).

^[212] Moriaen to Hartlib, 30 Oct. 1642, HP 37/115A, paraphrased in HDC, 367.

^[213] Självbiografi, 164.

^[214] Självbiografi, 164.

^[215] 'Wir haben bißhero viel von Ihme [Comenius] geruhmt vnß selbsten vnd andern grose hoffnung gemacht, wolte mir von herzen lieb sein wan wir in vnserem ruhm vnd hoffnung nicht zue schanden würden' - Moriaen to [Hartlib?], 5 Dec. 1639, HP 37/49A.

^[216] Moriaen to Hartlib, 22 Jan. 1643, HP 37/100A.

^[217] 'höre Ich das Er nur seine Ianuam vnd Vestibulum revidirt vnd auff einen andern schlaag gebracht haben soll, welches ob es zwar ein gut werkh sein möchte so ists doch das Ienige nicht darauff man so lang gewartet vnd den leuthen hoffnung gemacht/ Ich hoffe Ia es werde was anderes dabej sein sonst müste man sich fast schämen das […] nun nichts anders als solche schuhl sachen herauß kommen solten' - Moriaen to Hartlib, 15 Oct. 1643, HP 37/116A.

^[218] Comenius to Hartlib, 25 May 1646, HP 7/73/3A.

^[219] Moriaen to Hartlib, July 1650, HP 37/163A-164B.

^[220] Moriaen to Hartlib, 2 Feb. 1657, HP 42/2/2A.