Lastly, he deiired ye company to ioyne with him in prayer. &c.
_[Brit. MM. Add._ MSS. 6789.]
Every paragraph of the speech is noted, but not quite in the order of
the speech as variously reported by those who witnessed the execution
and heard it. Circumstances occurred after Sir Walter began to speak,
which may have caused the slight change in the order as here set down.
This argues in favor of its being a note prepared beforehand. If so It
must have been written shortly before the speech, because the order for
the execution was not given in the King’s Bench Court till the
afternoon of the 28th, and the execution was fixed for early the next
morning.
There is a little confusion of the tenses, but this is not strange
considering that the note was penned by a third person. The last two
lines, below the number 12, may have been added by Hariot afterwards,
as they are in the past tense and third person, and are separated from
the rest of the note by a dash. This point is not numbered. It is
possible that thefirst five lines were also added subsequently, as they
are not numbered, and are placed near the top of the paper, as if
interpolated, but they are in the same handwriting, and apparently were
written with the same pen and ink.
At all events, whether written by Hariot before or after the deed, it
is a precious contemporary document, and is another proof, if any more
be needed, of the genuineness of the reported dying speech, and,
consequently, that the famous ‘Spanish papers’ recently reproduced are
forgeries and false. It requires no great stretch of the imagination
with this little messenger in hand to believe that the ingenious
teacher and friend of his youth, and for nearly two score years the
constant companion of his manhood, passed that dreadful night with Sir
Walter in the Gate House at Westminster, and after ‘dear Bess’ had
taken her leave at midnight, penned out this note of remembrance for
his friend’s morning guidance, that nothing should be forgotten in case
the ague returned, which he feared even more than death.
A little more than a month after the execution of his friend, Hariot is
found in his observatory at Sion taking observations of the comet of
December 1618. His valuable observations are preserved among his
mathematical papers. During the eleven years following his primitive
observations of the ‘Hariot’ comet of 1607, first at Ilfracombeand
later at Kidwely, great advances had been made in the science of
astronomy, chiefly in consequence of the invention of the telescope,
and the discoveries by means of it. No mathematician in Europe was
probably further advanced in this science than Hariot.
What particular discoveries belonged to him and what to Galileo, Kepler
and other contemporaries, it is very difficult to determine, since it
is now positively known that from 1609 or 1610 Hariot was a
manufacturer and dealer in lenses, or perspective glasses, as well as
in perspective trunks or telescopes; and that he was in correspondence
with Kepler, and probably with Galileo. He was easily the chief of
astronomers in England, and is known to have possessed the earliest
books of Galileo and to have sent them to his disciples, Lower and
Protheroe, in Wales. Respecting this comet of 1618, he was in
correspondence with Alien and Standish of Oxford and other scholars at
home and abroad.
In ‘Certain Elegant Poems, Written By Dr. [Richard] Corbel, Bishop of
Norwich. R. Cotes for Andrew Crooke, 1647, 16°- The mirth-loving
Bishop, in ‘A Letter sent from Doclor Corbetto MaJler [Sir Thomas]
Ailebury, Decem. 9. 1618’ [on the Comet of that year] is the following
allusion to Hariot:
_Burton_ to _Gunter_ Cants, and _Burton_ heares
From _Gunter,_ and th’ Exchange both tongue & eares
By carriage : thus doth mired _Guy_ complaine,
His Waggon on their letters beares _Charles_ Waine,
_Charles_ Waine, to which they fay the tayle will reach
And at this diftance they both heare, and teach.
Now for the peace of God and men, advise
(Thou that haft wherewithall to make us wise)
Thine owne rich ftudies, and deepe Harriots mine,
In which there is no drosse, but all refine,
O tell us what to trust to, lest we wax
All stiffe and tupid with his paralex ;
Say, shall the old Philofophy be true ?
Or doth he ride above the Moone think you ? _etc._
After the departure of the ‘Blazing Starr’ of December 1618, very
little is known of Hariot, except that he lived at Sion while his
patron the Earl was still in the Tower, where he was probably
frequently visited by his man of science. The following letter, dated
the 19th of January 1619, to him at Sion from Sir Thomas Aylesbury is
interesting as showing the great interest taken in his old master by
his ‘loytering scholar.’ Many other letters of this stamp, breathing
love and ardent friendship, are found among the Hariot papers, from Sir
William Lower, Sir John Protheroe, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Dr Turner,
and Sir Thomas Aylesbury. Here is a sample:
Sr, Though I have bene yet soe little a while att New Mar-kett, that I
have not any thing of moment to ympart; yet I thinke it not amisse to
write a bare salutacons, and let yo know, that in theise wearie
journeys I am often times comforted wth the remembraunce of yor kind
love and paynes bestowed on yor loytering scholar, whose little credit
in the way of learning is all-waits underpropped wt the name of soe
worthie a Maister.
The Comet being spent, the talke of it still runnes current here; The
Kings ma before mycumming spake w’ one of Cambridge called Olarentia,
(a name able to beget beleefe of some extraordinarie qualities) but
what satisfaction he gave, I cannot yet learne; here are papers out of
Spayne about it, yea and fro Roome, wc I will endevor to gett, and
meane yt yo shall partake of the newes as tyme serves.
Cura ut valeas et me ames, who am ever trulie and unfaynedlyr
yors att Commaund. THO: AYLESBURIE.