Thomas Hariot

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Thomas Hariot
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[Redactor's note: Very little is known of Thomas Hariot; his only
published works are the 'Briefe and true report' (PG#4247) and the
posthumous 'Praxis', a handbook of algebra. He anticipated the law of
refraction, corresponded with Kepler, observed comets, and may have been
the first to recognize that the straight line paths of comets might be
segments of elongated ellipses. The lost 'ephemera' referred to in the
text have since been found (since 1876) and a conference was held in
1970 at the University of Delaware on the current state of Hariot
research, the proceedings of which have been published by the Oxford
University Press, where one may find a fairly current view of the
historical record. Due to the large number of quotations and early
english typography, the casual reader may find the 'html' version easier
to follow than the text version.]

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THOMAS HARIOT
THE MATHEMATICIAN
THE PHILOSOPHER AND
THE SCHOLAR
DEVELOPED
CHIEFLY
FROM
DORMANT MATERIALS
WITH NOTICES OF HIS ASSOCIATES
INCLUDING BIOGRAPHICAL AND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DISQUISITIONS
UPON THE MATERIALS OF THE
HISTORY OF 'OULD
VIRGINIA'

BY HENRY STEVENS OF VERMONT

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PREMONITION

WHEN I YEARS AGO undertook among other enterprises to compile a sketch
of the life of THOMAS HARIOT the first historian of the new found land
of Virginia; and to trace the gradual geographical development of that
country out of the unlimited 'Terra Florida' of Juan Ponce de Leon,
through the French planting and the Spanish rooting out of the Huguenot
colony down to the successful foothold of the English in Wingandacoa
under Raleigh's patent, I little suspected either the extent of the
research I was drifting into, or the success that awaited my
investigations.

The results however are contained in this little volume, which has
expanded day by day from the original limit of fifty to above two
hundred pages. From a concise bibliographical essay the work has grown
into a biography of a philosopher and man of science with extraordinary
surroundings, wherein the patient reader may trace the gradual
development of Virginia from the earliest time to 1585 ; I especially,'
says Strachey, I that which hath bene published by that true lover of
vertue and great learned professor of all arts and knowledges, Mr
Hariots, who lyved there in the tyme of the first colony, spake the
Indian language, searcht the country,' etc ; Hariot's nearly forty
years' intimate connection with Sir Walter Raleigh; his long close
companionship with Henry Percy ; his correspondence with Kepler; his
participation in Raleigh's `History of the World;' his invention of the
telescope and his consequent astronomical discoveries ; his scientific
disciples ; his many friendships and no foeships ; his blameless life ;
his beautiful epitaph in St Christopher's church, and his long slumber
in the 'garden' of the Bank of England.

The little book is now submitted with considerable diffidence, for in
endeavouring to extricate Hariot from the confusion of historical
'facts' into which he had fallen, and to place him in the position to
which he is entitled by his great merits, it is desirable to be clear,
explicit and logical. A decision of mankind of two centuries' standing,
as expressed in many dictionaries and encyclopaedias, cannot be easily
reversed without good contemporary evidence. This I have endeavoured to
produce.

Referring to pages 191 and 192 the writer still craves the reader's
indulgence for the apparently irrelevant matter introduced, as well as
for the inartistic grouping of the many detached materials, for reasons
there given.

It ought perhaps to be stated here that the book necessarily includes
notices, more or less elaborate, of very many of Hariot's friends,
associates and contemporaries, while others, for want of space, are
mentioned little more than by name.

The lives of Raleigh, and Henry Percy of Northumberland, Prisoners in
the Tower, seem to be inseparable from that of their Fidus Achates, but
I have endeavoured to eliminate that of Hariot as far as possible
without derogation to his patrons. All the new documents mentioned have
their special value, but too much importance cannot be attached to the
recovery of Hariot's Will, for it at once dispels a great deal of the
inference and conjecture that have so long beclouded his memory. It
throws the bright electric light of to-day over his eminently scholarly,
scientific and philosophical Life. By this and the other authorities
given it is hoped to add a new star to the joint constellation of the
honored Worthies of England and America.

HENRY STEVENS of Vermont

Vermont House, xiii Upper Avenue Road,
London, N.W. April 10 1885

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THOMAS HARIOT
AND HIS
ASSOCIATES

' chusing always rather to doe some thinge worth
nothing than nothing att all.' _Sir William Lower
to Hariot_ July 19 1611 (see p. 99)

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To

FRANCIS PARKMAN

THE

HISTORIAN and TRUSTIE FRIEND

Who Forty Years ago
When we were young Students of History together
Gave me a hand of his over the Sea
NOW
Give I him this right hand of mine
with
Ever grateful Tribute to
our life-long

FRIENDSHIP

MORIN

Custos juris reimprimendi
Caveat homo trium literarum

[The touching Dedication on the opposite page was penned by my father a
few months before his death on February 18, 1886. I have thought it best
to leave it exactly as he had planned it, although now, alas! Mr.
Parkman is no longer with us. Let us hope the old friends may have again
joined hands beyond the unknown sea.-H. N. S.]

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EXPLANATORY

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

The objects of this Association 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 Association 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 Association 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, manuscripts 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 �s 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 Association, 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 assistance; 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 passage
to the East Indies. The work was printed for the first time from the
original manuscript preserved in the India Office, and the introduction
was written by Sir George Birdwood.

In 1888 I issued _Johann Sch�ner, 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 Maximilianus
Transylvanus, 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 Sch�ner's Third Globe, is marked by a line representing the
route of Magellan's expedition in the first circumnavigation of the
earth; and the facsimile of Maximilianus'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 entitled _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 assistance. The field of editors capable of
this class 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 titles 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 passed 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, �t 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 constituted association (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._

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THOMAS HARIOT

AND HIS

ASSOCIATES

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 pass 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, surpass 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 title, and is highly commended by Ralfe Lane, the late Governor
of the Colony, who testifies, 'I dare boldly auouch It may very well
pass 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 assignment is dated the 7th of
March following. It is probable therefore that the 'influential
quarters' above referred to meant the Assignment 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
circumnavigation 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 illustrated 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-asserted 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.

It is therefore refreshing to catch this mirrored glimpse of Virginia,
her inhabitants, and her resources of primitive nature, before she was
contaminated by the residence and monopoly of the white man. It may have
been best in the long run that the European races should displace the
aborigines of the New World, but it is a melancholy reflection upon ' go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature,' that
no tribe of American Indians has yet been absorbed into the body
politic. Many a white man has let himself down into savage life and
habits, but no tribe of aborigines has yet come up to the requirements,
the honours, and the delights of European civilization. Like the tall
wild grass before the prairie-fire, the aboriginal races are gradually
but surely being swept away by the progress of civilization. Now that
they are gone or going the desire to gather real and visible memorials
of them is increasing, but fate seems to have swept these also from the
grasp of the greedy conqueror. Cortes gathered the golden art treasures
of Montezuma and sent them to Charles the Fifth, but the spoiler was
spoiled on the high seas, and not a drinking-cup or ringer-ring of that
western barbaric monarch remains to tell us of his island splendour.

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