THOMAS HARIOT—1560-1621
By F. V. MORLEY
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
THIS year marks the tercentenary of the death of Thomas Harlot, one of the most interesting of the Elizabethan scientists. He was born at Oxford, and went to St. Mary s Hall in times when there were "menne not werye of theyr paynes, but very sorye to leue theyr studye." The students being without fire were "fayne to walk or runne vp and downe half an houre to gette a heate on theyr feete whan they go to bed." In those times the birch was still in the buttery hatch and the proctors stalked outside the colleges with poleaxes for any "schollers" out after hours. Fines that now come from a student s patrimony were taken from his own skin. And in those far-off days in England there still survived the custom of hazing freshmen.
But apparently Hariot did not suffer overmuch from the discipline. At any rate he made somewhat of a name for himself in mathematics in that subject then still allied to the black arts. Aubrey tells of a contemporary of Hariot's who studied mathematics that he was vulgarly supposed to be a conjuror, and the scout or college servant used to tell freshmen and other simple people that the spirits passed up and down his staircase thick as bees. A jocular mind could have played up the superstition and become another John Dee. Apparently Hariot was too skeptical to believe what would willingly have been credited to him and too honest to gain by what he did not believe. But this is speculation and the only fact to go on is his appointment as a bone fide mathematician with Sir Walter Raleigh.
How this appointment came about is not quite clear. We have for it the authority of Hakluyt addressing Raleigh in 1587 (translated):
By your experience in navigation you saw clearly that our highest glory as an insular kingdom would be built up to its greatest splendor on the firm foundation of the mathematical sciences, and so for a long time you have nourished in your household, with a most liberal salary, a young man well trained in those studies, Thomas Hariot; so that under his guidance you might in spare hours learn those noble sciences, and your collaborating sea captains, who are many, might very profitably unite theory with prac tice. …[1]
Raleigh, one of the most remarkably versatile men of a time that specialized in versatility, had been collecting experts who would be use-
- ↑ Peter Martyr's "De Orbe Novo" (Paris, 1587). The preface, containing this passage, is by Hakluyt.
