[1709]... Hood, M.D.—he practised Physick at Worcester, and printed a booke in 4to called The Geodeticall Staffe[1710].
Robert Hooke (1635-1703).
[1711]Mr. Robert Hooke, curator of the Royall Societie at London, was borne at Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, A.D. <1635>; his father was minister there, and of the family of the Hookes of Hooke in Hants.
[1712]July 19th, 1635, baptized Robert Hooke, the son of Mr. John Hooke.
[1713]Mr. Robert Hooke[FZ], M.A.:—his father, Mr. John Hooke,[1714]had two or three brothers all ministers: quaere Dr. <William> Holder. He was of the family of Hooke of Hooke in Hampshire, in the road from London to Saram, a very ancient family and in that place for many (3 or more) hundred yeares.
[1715]His father was minister of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. He maried ... ..., by whom he had two sonnes, viz. ... of Newport, grocer (quaere capt. Lee) and had been mayer there, and Robert, second son, who was borne[1716] at Freshwater aforesayd the nineteenth day of July, Anno Domini 1635—vide register, et obiit patris.
At ... yeares old, John Hoskyns, the painter, being at Freshwater, to drawe pictures for ... esqre, Mr. Hooke observed what he did, and, thought he, 'why cannot I doe so too?' So he getts him chalke, and ruddle, and coale, and grinds them, and putts them on a trencher, gott a pencill, and to worke he went, and made a picture: then he copied[1717] (as they hung up in the parlour) the pictures there, which he made like. Also, being a boy there, at Freshwater, he made an ... diall on a round trencher; never having had any instruction. His father was not mathematicall at all.
When his father dyed, his son Robert was but ... old, to whom he left one hundred pounds, which was sent up to London with him, with an intention to have bound him apprentice to Mr. Lilly[1718], the paynter, with whom he was a little while upon tryall; who liked him very well, but Mr. Hooke quickly perceived[1719] what was to be donne, so, thought he, 'why cannot I doe this by my selfe and keepe my hundred pounds?' He also had some instruction in draweing from Mr. Samuel Cowper (prince of limners of this age); but whether from him before or after Mr. Lilly quaere?
☞ Quaere when he went to Mr. Busby's, the schoolemaster of Westminster, at whose howse he was; and he made very much of him. With him he lodged his C li.[1720] There he learnd to[1721] play 20 lessons on the organ. He there in one weeke's time made himselfe master of the first VI bookes of Euclid, to the admiration of Mr. Busby (now S.T.D.), who introduced him. At schoole here he was very mechanicall, and (amongst other things) he invented thirty severall wayes of flying, which I have not only heard him say, but Dr. Wilkins (at Wadham College at that time), who gave him his Mathematicall Magique which did him a great kindnes. He was never a King's Scholar, and I have heard Sir Richard Knight (who was his school-fellow) say that he seldome sawe him in the schoole.