He lived, died, and was forgotten in the parish of St Christopher. Henceforward, whenever Englishmen and Americans, merchants and scholars, rich and poor, men of genius and men of money, enter this little’ Garden,’ let them read there in English what Henry Percy originally set up in Latin, the above inscription.
An impression has gone abroad, traceable chiefly to Aubrey and to Anthony à Wood, that Hariot was unsound in religious principles and matters of belief; that he was, in fact, not only a Deist himself, but that he exerted a baleful influence over Raleigh and his History as well as over the Earl of Northumberland. Not to misstate this utterly unfounded imputation, the very words of Wood, as first printed in his Athenæ in 1691, and never since modified, are here given in full: ‘But notwithstanding his great skill in mathematics, he had strange thoughts of the scripture, and always undervalued the old story of the creation of the world, and could never believe that trite position, Ex nihilo nihil fit. He made a Philosophical Theology, wherein he cast off the OLD TESTAMENT, so that consequently the New would have no foundation. He wasaDeist, and his doctrine he did impart to the said Count [the Earl] and to Sir Walt. Raleigh when he was compiling the History of the World, and would controvert the matter with eminent divines of those times; who therefore having no good opinion of him, did look on the manner of his death as a judgment upon him for those matters, and for nullifying the scripture.’
It is needless to say that in all our investigations into the life, actions, and character of this eminent philosopher and Christian, from the time when, as a young man in 1585, he took delight in reading the Bible to the Indians of Virginia, down to the time that he made his remarkable will in 1621, not one word has been found in cor-roboration of these statements; but, on the contrary, many passages have appeared to contradict and disprove them. Let any one notice the numerous citations of the various books of the Bible in Raleigh’s History, and he will surely fail to discover any evidence of Raleigh’s being a Deist, or that Hariot had taught him to undervalue the scripture.
It is not necessary here to say more in this connection than to quote the following passage from one of the Latin letters in 1616 referred to above by Hariot to the eminent physician who had just received a high medical appointment at Court, describing himself and his terrible affliction Think of me as your sincere friend. Your interests are involved as well as mine. My recovery will be your triumph, but through the Almighty who is the Author of all good things. As I have now and then said, I believe these three points. I believe in God Almighty; I believe that Medicine was ordained by him ; I trust the Physician as his minister. My faith is sure, my hope firm. I wait however with patience for everything in its own time according to His Providence. We must act earnestly, fight boldly, but in His name, and we shall conquer. Sic transit gloria mundi, omnia transibunt, nos ibimus, ibitis, ibunt. So passes away the glory of this world, all things shall pass away, we shall pass away, you will pass away, they will pass away.
There is unfortunately no portrait known of Hariot, and we can form no idea of his personal appearance; but, fortunately, the drafts of the three Latin letters to his eminent friend at Court, alluded to above, fully describe his terrible disease and other bodily infirmities in 1615 and 1616, and give us some notion of himself and his personal habits. His regular physician was Dr Turner, and his apothecary Mr May-orne, both employed also by Sir Walter.
Dr Alexander Read, in his ‘Chirurgicall Lectures of Tumors and Vlcers Delivered in the Chirurgeans Hall, 1632-34. London. 1638,’ 4°, says in Treatise 2, Lecture 26, page 307:
Cancerous ulcers also feize upon this part [lips]. This grief haftened the end of that famous Mathematician, Mr. Hariot, with whom I was acquainted but a fhorttime before his death : whom at one time, together with Mr. Hughes, who wrote of the Globes, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Torperley, the Noble Earl of Northumberland, the favourer of all good learning, and Mecænas of learned men, maintained while he was in the Tower for their worth and various literature
A great deal of misconception has hitherto prevailed respecting Hariot’s great printed work on Algebra. His reputation as a mathematician has been permitted to hinge chiefly upon it, very much to his disadvantage. A brief bibliographical statement of facts will probably present the matter in a new light. But first let the book be described as it lies before us and has been described by many others since the days of Professor Wallis, nearly two hundred years ago. The Title is as follows : ‘Artis Analyticæ / Praxis / Ad æquationes Algebraicas nouæ, expeditæ, & generali / methodo, resoluendas : / Tractatus/ E posthumis THOMÆ HARRIOTI Philosophi ac Mathematici ce- / leberrimi sche-diasmatis summæ fide & diligentia / descriptus:/ Et/Illvstrissimo Domino/Dom. HenricoPercio,/ Northvmbriæ Comiti,/Qui hæc primò, sub Patronatus & Munificentiæ suæ auspicjss / ad proprios vsus elucubrata, in communem Mathematicorum / vtilitatem, denuò reuisenda, describenda, & publicanda / mandauit, meritissimi Honoris ergò / Nuncupatus. / Londini / Apud Robertvm Barker, Typographum / Regium : Et Hæred. Io. Billii. /Anno 1631. / Title, reverse blank; Prefatio 4 pages; Text 180 pages, and Errata 1 page (Bbb) followed by a blank page, folio. A very handsomely printed book. In the British Museum, 529 m 8, is Charles the First’s copy in old calf, gilt edges, with the royal arms on the sides. In the Preface the editors (Aylesbury and Prothero aided by Warner)say:
Artis Analyticæ, cuius caufa hîc agitur, port eruditum illud Græcorum fæculum antiquitatæ iamdiù & incultæ iacentis, rcftitutionem Francifcus Viete, Gallus, vir clariflimus, & ob infignem in fcientijs Mathematicis peritiam, Gallicæ gentis decus, primus fingulari confilio & intentato ante hâc conamine aggreffus eft; atque ingenuam hanc animi fui intentionem per varios tractatus, quos in argumenti huius elaboratione eleganter & acutè confcripfit, pofteris teftatem rcliquit. Dùm verò ille veteris Analytices reftitutionem, quam fibi propofuit, feriò molitus eft, non tàm eam reftitutam, quàm proprijs inuentionibus actam & exornatam, tanquam nouam & fuam, nobis tradidifle videtur. Quod generali conceptu enuntiatum paulo fufius explicandum eft; vt, oftenfo eo quod primùm à Vieta in inftituto fuo promouendo actum eft, quid pofteà ab authore noftro doctifiimo Thomâ Harrioto, qui ilium certamine ifto Analytico fequntus eft, praeftitum fit, meliùs innotefcere possit. [Which done into English is substantially as follows]
Francis Vieta, a Frenchman, a most distinguished man, and on account of his remarkable skill in Mathematical Science the honour of the French nation, first of all with singular genius and with industry hitherto unattempted undertook the restoration of the analytic art, of which subject we are here treating, which after the learned age of the Greeks for a long time had become antiquated and remained uncultivated : and by various treatises which he eloquently and ingeniously wrote in the working out of this line of argument, left a record to posterity of this noble design of his mind. But while he seriously laboured at the restoration of the old Analysis, which he had proposed to himself, he seems not so much to have transmitted to us a restoration of that science, as a new and original method, worked out and illustrated by his own discoveries. This, having been enunciated in general terms, must be explained a little more at length ; so that having shown what was first effected by Vieta in promoting his design, it may be more clear, what was afterwards performed by our very learned author Thomas Harriot, who followed him in these analytical investigations.