account of the dispute with Sanchey down to 13 July, 1659[1] and the succeeding year he followed it up with a volume of nearly two hundred pages[2] describing the work of survey and distribution, answering the charges brought against him, and explaining how they arose "from the envy and hatred of several parties promiscuously" and "from particular designing persons and parties" in Ireland. About October, 1659, he also prepared for the press, at great length, a History of the Down Survey[3], containing what he regarded as a complete vindication of his conduct, and two further works, now probably lost, upon the same subject[4].
Among the clubs of the virtuosi to which, as Petty's will relates, it was his privilege to be admitted[5] soon after he came to London[6], none is more memorable than that company of "capacious and searching spirits inquisitive into natural philosophy and other parts of human knowledge," whose habit it was to meet for discussion either at Dr Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street or at the Bull's Head Tavern in Cheapside[7]. There is no evidence that Petty was an original member of this company. But it appears probable that he was early invited to join their Invisible College[8], and it is certain that when parliamentary reorganization of the more visible colleges at Oxford brought Goddard, Wallis, Wilkins, and other followers of
- ↑ A Brief of Proceedings between Sr Hierome Sankey and Dr William Petty, 1659. See Bibliography, no. 4.
- ↑ Reflections upon some Persons and Things in Ireland, 1660. See Bibliography, no. 5.
- ↑ It was not published until 1851, see Bibliography, no. 31 and cf. pp. xiii, xiv. Mr Hardinge declares that "the accuracy of the facts adduced" by Petty "in his defence have [sic] been fully borne out by the researches I have made amongst the yet surviving documents of the period." Trans. R. I. Acad. xxiv. Antiquities, p. 21.
- ↑ They are known only by his account of them in the Reflections (pp. 60—61): "I have also written a profest Answer to Sir Hieromes Eleven last and greatest Articles, containing the proofs of what is herein but barely alledged, which I may not publish till after my tryal.... There is another piece of quite a contrary nature, being indeed a Satyre; which though it contain little of seriousness, yet doth it allow nothing of untruth: 'Tis a Gallery wherein you will see the Pictures of my chief Adversaries hang'd up in their proper colours; tis intended for the honest recreation of my ingenious friends."
- ↑ P. 23, note.
- ↑ Ante, p. xiv.
- ↑ Dr John Wallis's Account of some passages in his own Life, in Hearne's ed. of Langtoft's Chronicle (1725), vol. i. p. clxiv. This with Sprat's History of the Royal Society, gives nearly all that is known of Petty's connection with the inchoate Society.
- ↑ Masson, Life of Milton, iii. 665; Fitzmaurice, 15.
