you may do God and his church, and this whole state such good service as all that know you do assuredly expect. I shall be ever, Sir, Your most affectionate friend to honour and serve you, CHARLEs Potte R. Mr. Boswell,—Although the course that you have taken in my business, to treat with Mrs. Hare for some remission, be diverse from the intent of my petition, (the preferment whereof to his Majesty and procuring a gracious answer, was my whole suit unto you,) yet have I that opinion both of your true well-meaning toward me, and of your wisdom, that you did it in sincere good-will unto me, and for the best. For by this means, to move the more commiseration of my case, is the extremity of mine adversary’s hard dealing with me, not only manifested and confirmed, but also aggravated, yea doubled. It is manifested and confirmed, in that she hath partly concealed and smothered, and partly altered and falsified, the true state of our controversy, and manner of my debt unto her; as you may perceive by my petition, whereunto, to avoid needless repetitions, I refer you : wherein that I have truly stated and declared the one and the other, both my brothers and nephews grants under their hands and seals, that I have to shew, will evict, and our whole country both can and will testify on my behalf. And this main wrong of her concealing and shifting and falsifying the state of the controversy, is aggravated, yea, at least doubled, by her heaping thereupon a sort of slanderous reports to my defamation, a greater wrong than my five years' imprisonment, (yet I account that so great, that although she were worth a brace of thousand pounds more than she is worth, she could not make me amends for it,) whereby she would make the world believe she hath cause to deal so uncharitably and unconscionably with me, which otherwise she would not choose but be ashamed of . The unlikelyhood of my threatening to feed my brother in prison with her money (whereof I never received nor was surety for —) you may easily conceive by my complaining in my petition of , wilfully defeating me of their grant made unto me, after I had so far engaged myself in their debts. Touching my being wont in Bocardo to flout and jeer her as she passed the streets: in the whole time a year and three quarters) of my being there, I was never aware of her passing by, but only once, that she was shewed me, at which time the party I was then walking and talking with will testify I used no surly unseemly speeches or behaviour toward her. And as for her objecting in special, that I was wont to say I would make her jet it in one silk gown the less; she therein bewrayed herself to be a weak woman, of less wisdom than she would be taken to be. I was never thrice in her company. nor did I ever to my remembrance take so much notice of her, as that she went in a silk gown. Alas! silly woman, as if I had nothing else to busy my wits about, but to mark what gowns she and her like went in. But indeed the defenture of a silk gown is a fit object for a haughty-spirited woman’s malice to work upon. That I am building a new house upon my benefice, and therefore not so poor as I pretend, is a senseless imputation: mine old house being so ruinous as that my predecessor was afraid to lie in it, I began to build a new, and raised it out of the ground girdle steed high, before my brother bewrayed his estate, or ever I had undertaken any part of his debts: at what time there was no staying of it, the old being for the most part already fallen or pulled down, and my workmen entertained for the building of the new ; the building whereof nothing sumptuous, but suitable to the place and living, as every one that sees it acknowledgeth, cost and impoverished me an hundred pounds, which cost should have been at that time spared, and that business at leastwise deferred, if I had been acquainted with my brother's estate before I undertook it; and the finishing thereof, with the building of the outhouses all likewise ruined, for which I have been threatened to be sued for dilapidations, will cost me fifty pounds more; which conscience binds me to repair rather than pay another man’s debt to Mrs. Hare, undertaken upon a grant whereof I am defeated. Thus I find it a calamity common to me with other of my fellow-prisoners, that our adversaries are fain to catch after and blaze abroad slanderous reports against us, to blear the eyes of the world, that they have reason to deal extremely with us. But I hope, Sir, they shall not blear yours, and much less our gracious Sovereign's; unto whose gracious answer to my petition (to be presented by your means, upon the preferment thereof to his Majesty, being my whole and only suit unto you, for which I shall endeavour to shew myself accordingly thankful,) I most humbly recommend me; Remaining yours to be commanded in all Christian duties, Thom As LYDYAT. King's Bench Prison, April 4, 1632. To my dread Sovereign Lord, the King's most ercellent Majesty, Charles, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland; Defender of the Faith, &c. May it please your Majesty,+Mine humble petition to your Majesty is, that you would graciously vouchsafe to grant your Royal Privilege to me and mine assigns, for our sole printing of all such books, tables and writings, as I have made or hereafter shall make ready to be set forth and published in print, and of all other such authors, not yet extant in print, or imperfectly extant, as wanting a good and proportionable part of their whole works, as I shall find and procure to be printed; as also of all such translations into Latin, English, or other languages, and commentaries and annotations, as I shall make thereupon, for their better explanation; with sufficient penalty upon the offenders within your Majesty's dominions. And moreover that your Majesty would vouchsafe me your gracious leave and license to travel into foreign parts, as I shall find fit opportunity, namely, into Turkey, and Ethiopia, or the Abysinian Emperor's country, to search and find copies especially of civil and ecclesiastical histories, to be published in print; and whatsoever other copies may tend to the propagation and increase of good learning; Also, that your Majesty would graciously be pleased, that where you have leiger-ambassadors and agents, with your confederates, emperors, kings and princes of the countries, they may in your Majesty's name, in the behalf of myself and mine assigns, and at our suites, move their highnesses to grant the like privileges as aforesaid to me and mine assigns, within each of their dominions. So desireth, that the whole world may worthily acknowledge your Majesty's care for the advancement of the commonweal of good learning, Your Royal Majesty's loyal subject, The Books and Tables that I have heretofore set forth in print, and now ready to be reprinted. Praelectio astronomica. Disquisitio physiologica de origine fontium. Tractatus de variis annorum formis. Defensio de variis annorum formis contra Josephi Scaligeri obtrectationem. Solis et lunae periodus octodesexcentenaria. Epistola astronomica. Numerus aureus melioribus lapillis insignatus. Emendatio temporum. dearest brother, the Most NoRecensio argumentorum.] ble Prince Henry of blessed memory. These that I have now to print, not before published. May it please your Grace,—Being desirous to finish and publish, as I hope for the greater good of the church of God and of my country, and the commonweal of good learning, sundry books and treatises begun by me, partly before and partly during the time of my long imprisonment, to the finishing whereof I cannot be so conveniently provided of books at my small benefice in the country as in London, Oxford, and other like places, furnished with libraries and shops of books of all sorts; and moreover whereas the publishing of them will require my personal attendance for the correcting of the printer's press; mine humble petition to your Grace is, to grant me to that end and purpose, a dispensation for absence from my small parsonage and rectory of the parish church of Alkerton in the county and diocese of Oxford, for three years; and for the drawing and sealing thereof by the master of your Court of Faculties, to subscribe this petition with your hand, which your gracious respect I shall thankfully acknowledge. Your Grace's humble petitioner, Tendered, July 2nd, 1634, and deferred till Michaelmas following. WALTER WARNER TO ROBERT PAYNE. [MS. Birch, Brit. Mus. 4279, fol. 290, Orig.] Good Mr. Payne,—For the problem of refractions, which you write of, I pray you by any meanes send it to Mr. Hobbes, together with my most harty love and service, or whatsoever els you shall receve from me that may be thought worth the communicating, yf it plese you to impart it to him, you shall do me a plesure. For I have found him free with me, and I will not be reserved with him, yf it plese God I may live to see him again. That analogy which you have, though it be but a particular passion of the subject it concerns, yet it is very conducible to the theory and investigation of the cause of refraction, the intention whereof ex principiis opticis is the rettest magistery in the optik science, and for the practise it is of that consequence, as without it the table of refractions for glasse and crystall, which is of grettest vse, can never be constructed, without which table the dioptrick part of that doctrine, which begins not by reson of the glasses to be in grettest esteem, will still remayne imperfect, at best not in that degree of perfection by much, as by the help of a well constituted table of the angles of refraction the busines, as I conceve it, might be brought to. I would be very glad to see Mons". Mydorge's way; yf he make a secret of it, I doubt not but Mr. Hobbes will know how to trafik with him. So I rest Your very loving and true friend, ROBERT PAYNE TO WALTER WARNER. [MS. Birch, Brit. Mus. 4279, fol. 171, Orig.] Welbeck, June 21, 1635. Worthy Sir, –I have here returned you back your papers, conteining the probleme of the mid-ship-mould. So Charles and myself have perus’d them, but cannot understand more of them then is written in Latine; the rest we suppose are notes of remembrance, which serve well for your use, but give us not light sufficient to understand your meaning. Only the sixtene cases we apprehend well; but the demonstrations of them we yet understand not, farther then that in the Latine - F |