**  voices from the history of science & technology:
a repository for digital transcriptions of writings by men and women  **

 

First Published:  March 2004
Revised (substantive):  7 August 2024

A Written Language, as it is more Operous, so it is more digested, and is permanent, and it reacheth the absent, and posterity, and by it we speak after we are dead.

— WILLIAM HOLDER (1615/16–1698)

On the value of written language (compared with spoken language) in his Elements of Speech (London, 1669), page 9.
   This discourse, presented to the Royal Society in March 1669, described how, in 1660, Holder taught a deaf mute, Alexander Popham, to speak “plainly and distinctly, and with a good and graceful tone.”
   His Elements of Speech also included more of Holder’s research on the workings of the ear (first presented to the Royal Society in 1668), plus gave a detailed analysis of the physical parts of speech as the basis for a universal language — an ongoing project for Holder, which had already born fruit in John Wilkins’ An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (1668).
   Holder’s method and claims in Elements of Speech were soon after disputed by the mathematician and cryptographer, John Wallis (1616–1703), and a bitter confrontation ensued.

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THE LIBRARY SECTION OF She-philosopher.com includes digital reproductions of little-known primary texts by early-modern figures linked to the arts & sciences, in addition to modern scholarly monographs & experimental miscellany.

Its eclectic collection of e-books continues a much-needed dialogue between past & present, in hopes of replaying “the drama in which social groups with differing interests encounter each other in a struggle that produces change, that drives the story forward” (Clover, 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About, 131).

She-philosopher.com’s Library builds on the old model of the respublica literaria (Republic of Letters), wherein diverse voices discussed a range of interesting issues relating to modern science and technology, with all “the heat and abstracted passion of intellectual inquiry” (Hornaday, E2).

As in the case of the 1670s pamphlet wars between William Holder — whose “reputation was probably hampered in his day by his lack of intellectual competitiveness” (ODNB entry by Robert Poole) — and the more disputatious John Wallis (whose first publication, in 1643, was entitled Truth Tried, or, Animadversions on the Lord Brooke’s Treatise on the Nature of Truth), this model of sociable scholarship was never some ideally civil conversation. Men (and an occasional woman) of genius often clashed, in public as in private, and they certainly disagreed about all manner of topics while practicing the 17th-century arts of engagement & confrontation.

Engaging unfamiliar ideas and people is seldom easy, but it can be stimulating. To this end, She-philosopher.com’s Library will expose us to old ideas and debates which are still relevant today, and give us access to plural perspectives beyond those represented in the cultural and political monologues that tend to dominate 21st-century discourse.

In the 17th century, Variety is the spice of life was a commonplace. The early-modern cosmologist, Margaret Cavendish, peppered her works with variations on the theme — e.g., “Nature delights in variety” (Philosophical Letters, 34, 53, 152); “Nature loves variety, and this is the cause of all strange and unusual natural effects” (Philosophical Letters, 391) — even drawing from it the grounds of her natural philosophy. Cavendish believed that “infinite,” “Miraculous,” and “glorious or beautiful ... variety” (Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 1666, e2r; Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 1668, 127; Grounds of Natural Philosophy, 236) is the very essence of “Nature” — and the inevitable outcome of the autopoietic process through which a living organism constructs itself.

Nature has infinite ways of Motions, whereof none is prime or principal, but Self-motion; which is the producer of all the Varieties Nature has within her self.

(M. Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, rev. edn., 1668, 50)

And since Nature is but one Body, it is intirely wise and knowing, ordering her self-moving parts with all facility and ease, without any disturbance, living in pleasure and delight, with infinite Varieties and Curiosities, such as no single Part or Creature of hers can ever attain to.

(M. Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, rev. edn., 1668, 4)

... Nature, being divisible and compoundable, and having Free will, as well as Self-motion; and being Irregular, as well as Regular; as also, Variable, taking delight in variety; it was impossible for all Mankind to be of one Religion, or Opinion.

(M. Cavendish, Grounds of Natural Philosophy, 1668, 245)

As always, Cavendish observed both natural and human worlds through a gendered lens, noting several times in her published work that women are, by nature, more drawn to change and variety than are men; e.g.,

... variety is the life and delight of Natures works, and Women being the only Daughters of Nature, and not the sons of Jove, as men are feigned to be, are more pleased with variety, than men are.

(M. Cavendish, The Unnatural Tragedie, in Playes, 1662, 331)

... Women cannot be Judged of, their Natures being past finding out, for a Woman cannot Guess at her self, should she Study all her Life time; the truth is, our Sex is so Various and Inconstant, that the Length of Time cannot Prove us, no not Death it self, for a Woman may Die in a Humour, which had she Lived, she would have been in another.

(M. Cavendish, CCXI Sociable Letters, 1664, 392–3)

... the nature of Women being much delighted with Change and Variety, after I [the Empress of an island Utopia — an “Imperial City, named Paradise” in the Blazing World] had received an absolute Power from the Emperor, did somewhat alter the Form of Government from what I found it; but now perceiving that the World is not so quiet as it was at first, I am much troubled at it; especially there are such continual Contentions and Divisions ....

(M. Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, rev. edn., 1668, 120)

In general, she felt that humanity thrived on variety:

Education and custome ... often puzzle Life, and incumber Nature’s Works, putting Nature out of the right ways with False Principles, Foolish Customes, and ill Education; this is the reason natural Wits are many times lost, not having time or leasure to exercise them, or use them ... or for want of variety of Subjects or Objects to better them; or dull’d by tedious and unprofitable Studies, or quenched out by base Servitude or Subjection ....

(M. Cavendish, The Worlds Olio, 1st edn., 1655, 213)

and she recognized that creativity and art were an outgrowth of engaging with difference:

This is to let you know, that I know, my Book is neither wise, witty, nor methodical, but various and extravagant, such as my Thoughts entertained themselves withall; rather making it my Recreation, not having much Imployment, than my Trouble, for I have not tyed myself to any one Opinion, for sometimes one Opinion crosses another; and in so doing, I do as most several Writers do; onely they contradict one and another, and I contradict, or rather please my self, with the varieties of Opinions whatsoever, since it is said there is nothing truly known, but Measuring and Reckoning, the which I will leave to Arithmeticians and Geometricians, who have a Rule and Number, which my Brain can neither level at, nor comprehend: but humble and plain Opinions, raised by the Opinions of others, I here present ....

(M. Cavendish, The Worlds Olio, 1st edn., 1655, T3r)

But Cavendish never did figure out how to manage the “continual Contentions and Divisions” attendant on so much diversity in the human and natural worlds. In the duchess’s best-known work of feminist fabulation, the Empress of Paradise in the utopian Blazing World resorted to autocratic fiat to ensure that “both Church and State was now in a well-ordered and settled condition,” and to relieve herself and others from the task of evaluating competing claims in difficult, specialist disciplines. When the applied mathematicians (“Geometricians” or “Lice-men”) engaged in tedious disputes over matters of fact — instead of presenting her highness with a happy positivism which confirmed her imperial world view and policies — the Empress of the Blazing World simply ignored their expertise and dissolved their society (professional institutions):

Then came the Lice-men, and endeavoured to measure all things to a hairs breadth, and weigh them to an Atome; but their weights would seldom agree, especially in the weighing of Air, which they found a task impossible to be done; at which the Emperess began to be displeased, and told them, that there was neither Truth nor Justice in their Profession; and so dissolved their society.

(M. Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, 1st edn., 1666, 56)

Similarly exasperated by trained rhetoricians and logicians narrowly focused on “those finer points of difference which tend to govern the polemics of specialist research” (Matthew Craske, “Plan and Control,” 187), the Empress of the Blazing World rejects their brand of controlled inquiry, in favor of logical positivism and the self-evident truths of common sense (her own “natural wit”). In this case, she does not dissolve the experts’ scholarly organizations, but she severely limits the sociopolitical impact of their expertise, banishing their disputatious points of view to the ivory tower:

After this the Emperess was resolved to hear the Magpie- Parrot- and Jackdaw-men, which were her professed Orators and Logicians; whereupon one of the Parrot-men rose with great formality, and endeavoured to make an Eloquent Speech before her Majesty; but before he had half ended, his arguments and divisions being so many, that they caused a great confusion in his brain, he could not go forward, but was forced to retire backward, with the greatest disgrace both to himself, and the whole society; and although one of his brethen endeavoured to second him by another speech, yet was he as far to seek as the former. At which the Emperess appear’d not a little troubled, and told them, That they followed too much the Rules of Art, and confounded themselves with too nice formalities and distinctions; but since I know, said she, that you are a people who have naturally voluble tongues, and good memories; I desire you to consider more the subject you speak of, then your artificial periods, connexions and parts of speech, and leave the rest to your natural Eloquence; which they did, and so became very eminent Orators.
     Lastly, her Imperial Majesty being desirous to know, what progress her Logicians had made in the Art of disputing, Commanded them to argue upon several Themes or su[b]jects; which they did; and having made a very nice discourse of Logistical terms and propositions, entered into a dispute by way of Syllogistical Arguments, through all the Figures and Modes: One began with an argument of the first mode of the first figure, thus:
               Every Politician is wise:
               Every Knave is a Politician,
               Therefore every Knave is wise.
Another contradicted him with a Syllogism of the second mode of the same figure, thus:
               No Politician is wise:
               Every Knave is a Politician,
               Therefore no Knave is wise.
The third made an Argument in the third Mode of the same figure, after this manner:
               Every Politician is wise:
               Some Knaves are Politicians,
               Therefore some Knaves are wise.
The Fourth concluded with a Syllogism in the fourth Mode of the same figure, thus:
               No Politician is wise:
               Some Knaves are Pol[i]ticians,
               Therefore some Knaves are not wise.
After this they took another subject, and one propounded this Syllogism:
               Every Philosopher is wise:
               Every Beast is wise,
               Therefore every Beast is a Philosopher.
But another said that this Argument was false, therefore he contradicted him with a Syllogism of the second figure of the fourth Mode, thus:
               Every Philosopher is wise:
               Some Beasts are not wise,
               Therefore some Beasts are not Philosophers.
     Thus they argued, and intended to go on, but the Emperess interrupted them: I have enough, said she, of your chopt Logick, and will hear no more of your Syllogismes; for it disorders my reason, and puts my brain on the rack; your formal argumentations are able to spoil all natural wit; ... and disorders mens understandings more then it rectifies them, and leads them into a Labyrinth whence they’l never get out, and makes them dull and unfit for useful imployments; especially your Art of Logick, which consists onely contradicting each other, in making sophismes, and obscuring Truth, instead of clearing it.
     But they replied her Majesty, That the knowledg of Nature, that is, Natural Philosophy, would be imperfect without the Art of Logick, and that there was an improbable Truth which could no otherwise be found out then by the Art of disputing. Truly, said the Emperess, I do believe that it is with Natural Philosophy, as it is with all other effects of Nature; for no particular knowledg can be perfect, by reason knowledg is dividable, as well as composable; nay, to speak properly, Nature her self cannot boast of any perfection, but God himself; because there are so many irregular motions in Nature, and ’tis but a folly to think that Art should be able to regulate them, since Art it self is, for the most part, irregular. But as for Improbable Truth, I know not what your meaning is; for Truth is more then Improbability; nay, [there] is so much difference between Truth and Improbability, that I can not conceive it possible how they can be joined together. In short, said she, I do no ways approve of your profession; and although I will not dissolve your society, yet I shall never take delight in hearing you any more; wherefore confine your disputations to your Schools, lest besides the Commonwealth of Learning, they disturb also Divinity and Policy, Religion and Laws, and by that means draw an utter ruine and destruction both upon Church and State.

(M. Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, 1st edn., 1666, 56–60)

^  The Pons Asinorum [Bridge of Asses], a 17th-century visual parody of the syllogism — the scholastic style of logic which Margaret Cavendish also parodied in the quote given above. Anonymous engraving bound into an MS. held by the Warburg Institute. Reprod. (as Fig. 20) by Michael Evans in his article, “The Geometry of the Mind” (1980), a digital edn. of which is featured here in the She-philosopher.​com Library: see Lib. Cat. No. MWE1980.
     The traditional pons diagrammed the standard theory of the syllogism by figures and moods, embodying Aristotle’s rules of argument-finding in Prior Analytics 43a20–45b12. “Peter Tartaret, who is the first to use the name pons asinorum and gives an elaborately drawn diagram with an allegory about an ass (= logical beginner?) crossing one of a number of bridges between a major and a minor term. By the time of Rabelais the name has become proverbial: it is also sometimes applied to the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, concerning the equality of the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle, which is the first difficult theorem in that work and has a figure slightly reminiscent of the logical diagram.” (C. L. Hamblin, “An Improved Pons Asinorum?”, 131)
     “In the Middle Ages the schema [parodied above] was more usually represented in reverse, with the predicate, or major term, of the syllogism on the left and the subject on the right. These two terms are represented [in the above diagram] by the letters A and E. The three possible relations of the middle term to either (consequent, antecedent and extraneous) are signified by the letters BCD. FGH. The nonce-words inscribed on the ‘planks’ of the bridge are mnemonics for the 19 valid combinations of the three figures of the syllogism with premisses of different strength.... It is unclear whether the present example illustrates the foolishness of those who fail to negotiate the pons asinorum, or of those who bother with it in the first place.” (M. Evans, “The Geometry of the Mind,” 55).

Thus, while the duchess of Newcastle did, at times, recognize the value in learning from our differences, she also fantasized about conformist civil societies with an established church and state which subdued all difference by way of irresistible “gentle perswasions,” reinforced by the magical mechanism of technocracy:

After the Emperess had thus finish’d the Discourses and Conferences with the mentioned Societies of her Vertuoso’s, she considered by her self the manner of their Religion [in the Blazing World], and finding it very defective, was troubled, that so wise and knowing a people should have no more knowledg of the Divine Truth; Wherefore she consulted with her own thoughts, whether it was possible to convert them all to her own Religion, and to that end she resolved to build Churches, and make also up a Congregation of Women, whereof she intended to be the head her self, and to instruct them in the several points of her Religion. This she had no sooner begun, but the Women, which generally had quick wits, subtile conceptions, clear understandings, and solid judgments, became, in a short time, very devout and zealous Sisters; for the Emperess had an excellent gift of Preaching, and instructing them in the Articles of Faith; and by that means, she converted them not onely soon, but gained an extraordinary love of all her subjects throughout that World. But at last, pondering with her self the inconstant nature of Mankind, and fearing that in time they would grow weary, and desert the divine Truth, following their own fancies, and living according to their own desires, she began to be troubled that her labours and pains should prove of so little effect, and therefore studied all manner of ways to prevent it. Amongst the rest, she call’d to mind a Relation which the Bird-men [astronomers] made her once, of a Mountain that did burn in flames of fire; and thereupon did immediately send for the wisest and subtilest of her Worm-men [the empress’s favorite group of natural philosophers, because they reliably confirm her own theories & beliefs], commanding them to discover the cause of the Eruption of that same fire; which they did; and having dived to the very bottom of the Mountain, informed her Majesty, That there was a certain sort of Stone, whose nature was such, that being wetted, it would grow excessively hot, and break forth into a flaming-fire, until it became dry, and then it ceased from burning. The Emperess was glad to hear this news, and forthwith desired the Worm-men to bring her some of that stone, but be sure to keep it secret: She sent also for the Bird-men and asked them whether they could not get her a piece of the Sun-stone? They answered, That was impossible, unless they did spoil or lessen the light of the World: but, said they, if it please your Majesty, we can demolish one of the numerous Stars of the Sky, which the World will never miss.
     The Emperess was very well satisfied with this proposal, and having thus imployed these two sorts of men, in the mean while builded two Chappels one above another; the one she lined throughout with Diamonds, both Roof, Walls and Pillars; but the other she resolved to line with the Star-stone; the Fire-stone she placed upon [the] Diamond-lining, by reason Fire has no power on Diamonds; and when she would have that Chappel where the Fire-stone was, appear all in a flame, she had by the means of Artificial-pipes, water conveighed into it, which by turning the Cock, did, as out of a Fountain, spring over all the room, and as long as the fire-stone was wet, the Chappel seemed to be all in a flaming fire.
     The other Chappel, which was lined with the Star-stone, did onely cast a splendorous and comfortable light; both the Chappels stood upon Pillars, just in the middle of a round Cloyster which was dark as night; neither was there any other light within them, but what came from the Fire- and Star-stone; and being every where open, allowed to all that were within the compass of the Cloyster, a free prospect into them; besides, they were so artificially contrived, that they did both move in a circle about their own Centres, without intermission, contrary ways. In the Chappel which was lined with the Fire-stone, the Emperess preached Sermons of terror to the wicked, and told them of the punishments for their sins, to wit, that after this life they should be tormented in an everlasting fire. But in the other Chappel lined with the Star-stone, she preached Sermons of comfort to those that repented of their sins, and were troubled at their own wickedness; Neither did the heat of the flame in the least hinder her; for the Fire-stone did not cast so great a heat but the Emperess was able to endure it, by reason the water which was poured on the stone, by its own self-motion turned into a flaming fire, occasioned by the natural motions of the Stone, which made the flame weaker then if it had been fed by some other kind of fuel; the other Chappel where the Star-stone was, although it did cast a great light, yet was it without all heat, and the Emperess appear’d like an Angel in it; and as that Chappel was an embleme of Hell, so this was an embleme of Heaven. And thus the Emperess, by Art, and her own ingenuity, did not onely convert the Blazing-world to her own Religion, but kept them in a constant belief, without inforcement or blood-shed; for she knew well, that belief was a thing not to be forced or pressed upon the people, but to be instilled into their minds by gentle perswasions; and after this manner she encouraged them also in all other duties and employments, for Fear, though it makes people obey, yet does it not last so long, nor is it so sure a means to keep them to their duties, as Love.

(M. Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, 1st edn., 1666, 60–63)

Today, some of us, who share in the duchess’s love of variety in the natural world, have expanded her project to the human world — studying “how people differ, where their differences come from, and whether they can live and work together with these differences” (J. Trimbur, “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning,” 610). It is in this spirit that the She-philosopher.com Library offers website visitors a gift “which is curious with variety” and a great source “of pleasant and ingenious meditation” (T. T. de Mayerne, The Theatre of Insects, Ffff4v).

These words were first written by the eminent physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne (1573–1655), in the epistle dedicatory for Thomas Moffett’s posthumously-published Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum (1634), wherein Mayerne recommended that “the Off spring of the most learned Mouffet, which is now at last published and brought to light” be assigned pride of place in all “excellently furnished” libraries. Mayerne, who ushered Moffett’s MSS. through publication in 1634, complained that the text had languished in obscurity for so many years because

of the Printers who were so greedy of Money, that though in many Countreys I invited them by my Letters, and did solicit them to receive the Orphan [MSS.], yet they refused (as they said) to take upon them an unthankful business; they were not pleased with the benefit of a noble Art, unless it would pay more than the fraight. O the times wherein the pains of learned men are valued at the price the work will be sold for, and the money that must be laid out for ink and paper, or by the depraved opinion of the vulgar (who commonly applaud what is worst) and not by the essence of the thing it self, or dignity of the subject, or the solid explanation of the same!

(T. T. de Mayerne, “To the Noble Knight, and the Kings chief Physician, Dr. William Paddy,” in The Theatre of Insects: or Lesser Living Creatures, trans. by Rowland, Ffff2r)

And yet Moffett (1553–1604) was “a notable ornament to the company of Physicians, a man of the more polite and solid learning, and well experienced in most Sciences” who dedicated his history of insects (as completed in 1590) to Queen Elizabeth I, “wise above her Sex, valiant, born to reign well, and ruled so many years by the Votes of her Subjects, and by her own undertakings and actions, that were so successeful that they were envied at” (Mayerne, Epistle Dedicatory, Theatre of Insects, Ffff2r). Moffett

thought it no indignity to Dedicate to the greatest Princess the miracles of Nature, which are most conspicuous in the smallest things; which testifie the infinite power of the supreme Creator of all things, and raise the mindes of Princes who are the children of the most Highest, to the cause of all causes, that they may in all places acknowledge the presence of the Deity, and his bountiful hand in his singular direction in respect of them, and his influence that acts by election, and may adore him with an humble, as with a grateful minde; so weighing by reason the degrees of proportion, that he is most obliged who hath received most.

(T. T. de Mayerne, “To the Noble Knight, and the Kings chief Physician, Dr. William Paddy,” in The Theatre of Insects: or Lesser Living Creatures, trans. by Rowland, Ffff2r)

I have not been anywhere near so high-minded as this in my selection of publications for the She-philosopher.com Library, nor indeed in my own practice of “one continual act of Philosophy” (Mayerne, Epistle Dedicatory, Ffff4v), which is far more pedestrian than anything aimed at by the great Renaissance humanists.

In the end, it is the conversations we choose to have with the past that are most enlightening, regardless of how magnificent the invitational rhetoric.

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A note on fair use of digital editions in the She-philosopher.com Library: She-philosopher.com LIBRARY reproductions are not to be used for any purpose other than individual and/or group study, scholarship, and research, in accord with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Suggested citation formats are given on the Conditions of Use page.

Digital Editions in She-philosopher.com’s 21st-Century Library

Authors with titles in the She-philosopher.com Library are listed below (in alphabetical order):

•  Behn, Aphra (1640–1689)

•  Browne, Thomas, Sir (1605–1682)

•  Burton, Robert (1577–1640)

•  Cavendish, Margaret (duchess of Newcastle; 1623?–1673)

•  Cavendish, William (1st duke of Newcastle; bap. 1593, d. 1676)

•  Chambers, Ephraim (1680?–1740)

•  Cowley, Abraham (1618–1667)

•  Du Verger, Susanne (aka S. Du Verger, Suzanne Du Verger, Du Verger of Douai; fl. 1639–1657)

•  Evans, Michael

•  Flecknoe, Richard (b. c.1605, d. in or after 1677)

•  Harris, John (c.1666–1719)

•  Harris, Kim

•  Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679)

•  Hooke, Robert (1635–1703)

•  Hutchinson, Lucy (1620–1681)

•  Johnson, Thomas (1595x1600–1644)

•  Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor (aka Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramirez de Santillana; 1651–1695)

•  Maguel, Francis (aka “the Irishman Francisco Manuel”; fl. 1610)

•  Oldenburg, Henry (c.1619–1677)

•  “One of That Sex” (anonymous woman; fl. 1678)

•  Paré, Ambroise (aka Parey; 1510?–1590)

•  Platt, Hugh, Sir (aka Sir Hugh Plat; bap. 1552, d. 1608)

•  Rees, Abraham (1743–1825)

•  Ross, Alexander (1591–1654)

•  Scott, George Lewis (1708–1780)

•  Tallmon, James

•  Taylor-Pearce, Deborah (aka Deborah Bazeley)

•  Weston, Elizabeth Jane (aka Elisabetha Joanna Westonia, Elizabetha Johanna Westonia; bap. 1581?, d. 1612)

Not all She-philosopher.com original digital editions are kept in the Library. For example, Robert Hooke’s lectures on the nautilus, and one of John Aubrey’s letters to Anthony Wood dated 1689 (with MS. amendments and enclosure by Hooke), are published elsewhere as second-window asides for the introductory essay on Robert Hooke in the PLAYERS section. Similarly, excerpts from Gerrard Winstanley’s work (outlining the Diggers’ mid-17th-century program of law reform) and from Giovanni Botero’s Counter-reformation treatise on statecraft (giving another radical point of view about “the proper conduct of justice” and the need for law reform) are formatted as second-window asides for the monograph on California’s flawed Good Neighbor Fence Act of 2013 (Assembly Bill 1404) in the STUDIES section. And the article, excerpted from a popular late-17th-century periodical, containing the first printed reference to “mad Madge of Newcastle” has also been formatted as a second-window aside (for the introductory webessay on the evolving phenomenon and legacy of Mad Madge in the PLAYERS section on Margaret Cavendish).

The She-philosopher.com Library Catalog (organized by alphanumeric Library Catalog number) follows.

Library Catalog

LIB. CAT. NO. BEHN1689
Title: “Book VI. Of Trees, by Mrs. A. Behn.” In The third part of the works of Mr Abraham Cowley, being his Six books of plants, never before printed in English: viz. The first and second of herbs. The third and fourth of flowers. The fifth and sixth of trees. Now made English by several hands. With a necessary index. Licensed and entered. London: Printed for Charles Harper, at the Flower-de-luce over against S. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet-street, 1689. 6.131–66.
Author: Aphra Behn, translator (of original by Abraham Cowley)
Issued: 23 March 2013 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. BRNE1646a
Title: “Of the Cameleon.” Book 3, Chapter 21, pp. 157–163 of Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By Thomas Browne Dr. of physick. London: Printed by Tho. Harper for Edward Dod, 1646.
Author: Sir Thomas Browne
Issued: 6 September 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary and an annotated list of works cited)
Revised: 20 August 2014

LIB. CAT. NO. BURT1621
Title: Selections from Partition 2 of The anatomy of melancholy. What it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostickes & severall cures of it. In three partitions, with their severall sections, members & subsections. Philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut-up. By Democritus Junior. With a satyricall preface conducing to the following discourse. Oxford, 1621. Edited by Holbrook Jackson. 1932; rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.
Author: Robert Burton
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 19 August 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 2 May 2018 (updates to Part 1 and Part 2)

LIB. CAT. NO. BURT1621b
Title: “Bad Aire a Cause of Melancholy” (Partition 1, Section 2, Member 2, Subsection 5, pp. 107–111) and “Air Rectified. With a Digression of the Air” (Partition 2, Section 2, Member 3, pp. 317–338). In The anatomy of melancholy. What it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostickes & severall cures of it. In three partitions, with their severall sections, members & subsections. Philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut-up. By Democritus Junior. With a satyricall preface conducing to the following discourse. At Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, Anno Dom. 1621.
Author: Robert Burton
Issued: 11 September 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 12 June 2014

LIB. CAT. NO. COWL1667
Title: “To the Royal Society.” Prefatory verses for Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal-Society of London. London: Printed by T. R. for J. Martyn at the Bell without Temple-bar, and J. Allestry at the Rose and Crown in Duck-lane, Printers to the Royal Society, 1667. B1r–B3v.
Author: Abraham Cowley
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 20 August 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 12 June 2014

LIB. CAT. NO. CYCL1728a
Title: “Design” and “Designing.” Articles from Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopædia, both the original 2-volume edition of 1728, and the 5-volume 8th edition, with supplements by Abraham Rees, of 1783–1786.
   1st edition: Cyclopædia, or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences. Containing the definitions of the terms, and accounts of the things signify’d thereby, in the several arts, both liberal and mechanical, and the several sciences, human and divine ... by E. Chambers. 2 vols. London: Printed for J. and J. Knapton [and 18 others], 1728. 1.191–192, s.v. Design and s.v. Designing.
   8th edition: Cyclopaedia: or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences. Containing an explanation of the terms, and an account of the several subjects, in the liberal and mechanical arts, and the sciences, human and divine. Intended as a course of ancient and modern learning. By E. Chambers, F.R.S. With the supplement, and modern improvements, incorporated in one alphabet. By Abraham Rees, D.D. In four volumes. 5 vols. London: Printed for W. Strahan [and 28 others], 1783–6. 2, s.v. Design and s.v. Designing.
Author: Ephraim Chambers (1st edn.), rev. by Abraham Rees (8th edn.)
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 22 August 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 22 August 2012 (substantive changes to Editor’s Introduction)

LIB. CAT. NO. CYCL1728b
Title: “Antipodes.” Article from the Cyclopædia, or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences. Containing the definitions of the terms, and accounts of the things signify’d thereby, in the several arts, both liberal and mechanical, and the several sciences, human and divine ... by E. Chambers. 2 vols. London: Printed for J. and J. Knapton [and 18 others], 1728. 1.111–112, s.v. Antipodes.
Author: Ephraim Chambers
Issued: 21 March 2006
Reissued: 22 August 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. CYCL1728h
Title: “Memory” and “Mnemonic Tables.” Articles from Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopædia, both the original 2-volume edition of 1728, and the 2-volume Supplement, by George Lewis Scott et al., of 1753.
   1st edition: Cyclopædia, or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences. Containing the definitions of the terms, and accounts of the things signify’d thereby, in the several arts, both liberal and mechanical, and the several sciences, human and divine ... by E. Chambers. 2 vols. London: Printed for J. and J. Knapton [and 18 others], 1728. 2.528–529, s.v. Memory.
   Supplement: A supplement to Mr. Chambers’s Cyclopædia: or, universal dictionary of arts and sciences. In two volumes. 2 vols. London: Printed for W. Innys and J. Richardson [and 18 others], MDCCLIII [1753]. 2, s.v. Memory; 2, s.v. Mnemonic Tables.
Author: Ephraim Chambers (1st edn.), rev. by George Lewis Scott et al. (Supplement)
Issued: February 2013 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 1 May 2018 (updates to Part 2)

LIB. CAT. NO. DC1980
Title: Information packet on D-Charts, with articles from the late-1970s
Author: Kim Harris, et al.
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 20 August 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, in 4 sections)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. DTB1985
Title: Women as Audience and Author of Scientific Discourse: A Study of Early English Popularization Literature (1985)
Author: Deborah Bazeley
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 20 August 2012 (HTML transcript, in 3 sections)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. DTB1990
Title: An Early Challenge to the Precepts and Practice of Modern Science: The Fusion of Fact, Fiction, and Feminism in the Works of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–1673). PhD diss. University of California, San Diego, 1990.
Author: Deborah Bazeley
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 21 August 2012 (HTML transcript, in 12 sections, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. DTP2000
Title: The Growth of Science (2000)
Author: Deborah Taylor-Pearce
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 21 August 2012 (HTML monograph in 2 sections, with critical commentary)
Revised: 26 February 2015

LIB. CAT. NO. DTP2003
Title: Time, Soul, Memory (2003)
   Includes a digital reproduction of Robert Hooke’s “Lecture explicating the memory, and how we come by the notion of time.” (1682)
Author: Deborah Taylor-Pearce, and Robert Hooke
Issued: May 2003 (rev. January 2007)
Reissued: 19 August 2012 (PDF monograph, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. FLECK1656
Title: Letters XXIII and XXIV. Pp. 59–84 of A relation of ten years travells in Europe, Asia, Affrique, and America. All by way of letters occasionally written to divers noble personages, from place to place; and continued to this present year. By Richard Fleckno. With divers other historical, moral, and poetical pieces of the same author. By Richard Fleckno. London: Printed for the author, and are to be sold by, [1656?].
Author: Richard Flecknoe
Issued: 18 December 2004
Reissued: 13 August 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 2 May 2018 (updates to Part 1 and Part 2)

LIB. CAT. NO. HUTCH1671
Title: Excerpt from The Life of John Hutchinson of Owthorpe in the County of Nottinghamshire, written c.1664–1671. Transcribed in Memoirs of the life of Colonel Hutchinson, written by his widow, Lucy. Edited by Harold Child. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, 1904. 407–412.
Author: Lucy Hutchinson
Issued: 21 March 2013 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 22 August 2014 (new content added to Part 2)

LIB. CAT. NO. HUTCH1675
Title: Letter to Lord Anglesey, written in 1675. Epistle dedicatory to a presentation copy of Hutchinson’s MS. translation of Lucretius. Transcribed in Lucy Hutchinson’s translation of Lucretius: De rerum natura. Edited by Hugh de Quehen. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. 23–27.
Author: Lucy Hutchinson
Issued: 21 March 2013 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 22 August 2014 (edits to content in Part 2)

LIB. CAT. NO. JMT2001
Title: “Casuistry.” Article from the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. by Thomas O. Sloane. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 83–88.
Author: James M. Tallmon
Issued: 19 February 2006
Reissued: 21 August 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. JUA1691
Title: “Philosophies of the kitchen.” Excerpt from Respuesta de la Poetisa a la Muy Ilustre Sor Filotea de la Cruz. Issued at Mexico City, on 1 March 1691.
   (in Spanish and in English translation)
Author: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (aka Juana Ramírez de Asbaje), with Eng. trans. by Margaret Sayers Peden
Issued: March 2004
Reissued: 21 August 2012 (bilingual, illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. LEX1704a
Title: “Memory” and “Mnemonics.” Articles from John Harris’ Lexicon Technicum, both the original 2-volume edition of 1704–10, and the Supplement, by a Society of Gentlemen, of 1744.
   1st edition: Lexicon Technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciences: explaining not only the terms of art, but the arts themselves. By John Harris, M.A. F.R.S. 2 vols. London: Printed for Dan. Brown, Tim Goodwin, John Walthoe, Tho. Newborough, John Nicholson, Tho. Benskin, Benj. Tooke, Dan Midwinter, Tho. Leigh, and Francis Coggan, 1704[–10]. 1, s.v. Memory; 2, s.v. Memory.
   Supplement: A supplement to Dr. Harris’s Dictionary of arts and sciences; explaining not only the terms in physics, metaphysics, ethics, theology, history, geography, antiquity, chronology, grammar, rhetoric, logic, poetry, pharmacy, medicine, chymistry, surgery, phytology, war, polity, navigation, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, commerce, trade, husbandry, manage, horticulture, &c. &c. &c. but also the arts and sciences themselves .... London: Printed for the authors; and sold by M. Cooper, in Pater-noster-Row; J. Clarke and T. Comyns under the Royal-Exchange; C. Bathurst, in Fleet-Street; T. Gardner, opposite St. [Clement’s] Church in the Strand; and most other Booksellers in Town and Country, M,DCC,XLIV [1744]. N. pag., s.v. Memory and s.v. Mnemonic Tables.
Author: John Harris (1st edn.), rev. by a Society of Gentlemen (Supplement)
Issued: February 2013 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 2 May 2018 (updates to Part 2)

LIB. CAT. NO. MAG1610
Title: Report to the Spanish council of state “touching Virginia” (21 June 1610)
Author: Francis Maguel (aka “the Irishman Francisco Manuel”)
Issued: 25 June 2006
Reissued: 21 August 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. MC1664a
Title: Letters 17, 37, 51, 59, 76, 86, 87, and 129. In CCXI. Sociable letters, written by the thrice noble, illustrious, and excellent princess, the lady marchioness of Newcastle. London: Printed by William Wilson, Anno. Dom. M.DC.LXIV [1664]. 29–30, 77–9, 103–5, 120–123, 157–160, 171–2, 172–3, and 263–5.
Author: Margaret Cavendish, then marchioness of Newcastle
Issued: 3 March 2013 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. MC1664b
Title: “To His Excellency, the Lord Marquis of Newcastle,” “To the Most Famous University of Cambridge,” and “A Preface to the Reader.” In Philosophical letters: or, Modest reflections upon some opinions in natural philosophy, maintained by several famous and learned authors of this age, expressed by way of letters: by the thrice noble, illustrious, and excellent princess, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle. London: [n.p.], printed in the year, 1664. a1r–c1v.
Author: Margaret Cavendish, then marchioness of Newcastle
Issued: 3 March 2013 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. MWE1980
Title: “The Geometry of the Mind.” Architectural Association Quarterly 12.4 (1980): 32–55.
Author: Michael W. Evans
Issued: 5 June 2007
Reissued: 21 August 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. OLD1669
Title: Excerpt from “An accompt of some books. ... II. Description anatomique d’un cameleon, d’un castor, d’un dromedaire, d’un ours, et d’une Gazelle. A Paris 1669. in 4º.” Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London 4.49 (1669): 991–996.
Author: Henry Oldenburg
Issued: 6 September 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary and an annotated list of works cited)
Revised: 6 December 2012 (substantive changes to Editor’s Introduction)

LIB. CAT. NO. OOTS1678
Title: Advice to the women and maidens of London: shewing, that instead of their usual pastime, and education in needle-work, lace, and point-making, it were far more necessary and profitable to apply themselves to the right understanding and practice of the method of keeping books of account: whereby, either single, or married, they may know their estates, carry on their trades, and avoid the danger of a helpless and forlorn condition, incident to widows. With some essays, or rudiments for young beginners, in twelve articles. By one of that sex. London: Printed for Benjamin Billingsley at the Printing press in Cornhill, 1678.
Author: “One of That Sex”
Issued: 14 August 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. PAREY1634
Title: “The figure of a Chameleon.” In The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latine and compared with the French. By Th: Johnson. London: Printed by Th: Cotes and R. Young, anno 1634. 1024.
Author: Ambroise Paré, with English translation by Thomas Johnson
Issued: 6 September 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary and an annotated list of works cited)
Revised: 6 December 2012 (substantive changes to Editor’s Introduction)

LIB. CAT. NO. PLAT1594a
Title: No. 37, “How to draw any grosse pattern of any beast, fowl, Tree, Fruit, Flower, Personage, or other picture whatsoever.” In The Jewell House of Art and Nature (London, 1594). Rpt. as The jewel house of art and nature: containing divers rare and profitable inventions, together with sundry new experiments in the art of husbandry. With divers chymical conclusions concerning the art of distillation, and the rare practises and uses thereof. Faithfully and familiarly set down, according to the authours own experience. By Sir Hugh Plat of Lincolns-Inne, knight. Whereunto is added, a rare and excellent discourse of minerals, stones, gums, and rosins; with the vertues and use thereof, by D. B. Gent. London: Printed by Elizabeth Alsop, and are to be sold at her house in Grubstreet, near the Upper Pump, 1653. 36–38.
Author: Sir Hugh Platt (aka Sir Hugh Plat)
Issued: 22 August 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. ROSS1651
Title: “The Camelions food is onely aire” and “The Camelion lives on aire onely.” In Arcana microcosmi: or, The hid secrets of mans body disclosed; first, in an anatomical duel between Aristotle & Galen, about the parts thereof. Secondly, by a discovery of the strange and marvellous diseases, symptomes, and accidents of mans body. With a refutation of Doctor Browns Vulgar errors, and the ancient opinions vindicated. By Alexander Ross. London: Printed by Thomas Newcomb, and are to be sold by George Latham at the Bishops Head in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1651. 197–201 and 201–203.
Author: Alexander Ross
Issued: 6 September 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary and an annotated list of works cited)
Revised: 9 March 2013 (substantive changes to Editor’s Introduction)

LIB. CAT. NO. SDUV1657
Title: Selections from Du Vergers humble reflections upon some passages of the Right Honorable the Lady Marchionesse of Newcastles Olio. Or an appeale from her mes-informed, to her owne better informed judgement. London: [n.p.], M.DC.LVII [1657].
Author: S. Du Verger
Issued: 11 September 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

LIB. CAT. NO. THOB1637
Title: A briefe of the art of rhetorique. Containing in substance all that Aristotle hath written in his three bookes of that subject except onely what is not applicable to the English tongue. London: Printed by Tho. Cotes, for Andrew Crook, and are to be sold at the black Bare in Pauls Church-yard, [c.1637].
Author: Thomas Hobbes
Issued: 11 September 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 1 May 2018 (updates to Editor’s Introduction)

LIB. CAT. NO. WC1638
Title: Letter of instructions to Prince Charles for his studies, conduct, and behaviour. MS., written c.1638.
Author: William Cavendish, then earl of Newcastle
Issued: 11 September 2012 (illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 18 April 2017

LIB. CAT. NO. WC1650s
Title: Letter to Charles II. MS., written c.1650s.
Author: William Cavendish, then marquess of Newcastle
Issued: 11 September 2012 (HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: 12 January 2023 (new sidebar links)

LIB. CAT. NO. WEST1608
Title: “Typographia” [“The Printing Press”] and “De & pro Typographis” [“On and for Printers”] from Parthenicôn Elisabethæ Joannæ Westoniæ, virginis nobilissimæ, poëtriæ florentissimæ, linguarum plurimarum peritissimæ, Liber I. Operâ ac studio G. Mart. à Baldhoven, Sil. collectus; & nunc denuò amicis desiderantibus communicatus. Pragae: Typis Pauli Sessii, [1608?]. Fol. D3r–D4v.
   Rpt. in Elizabeth Jane Weston: Collected Writings. Ed. and trans. by Donald Cheney and Brenda M. Hosington, with D. K. Money. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2000. 84–89.
   (in Latin and in English translation)
Author: Elizabeth Jane Weston (aka Elizabetha Johanna Westonia), with Eng. trans. by Donald Cheney and Brenda M. Hosington
Issued: 18 October 2013 (bilingual, illustrated HTML transcript, with critical commentary)
Revised: n/a

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The 17th-Century Library

During the 17th century, the public library was still a commercial endeavor — a value-added service provided by the more prosperous booksellers, such as Henry (d. 1681) and Joanna (d. 1684) Brome. Their thriving shop “at the Gun at the West-end of St. Pauls” was an important cultural institution during the Restoration era, and stocked a variety of scientific/technical books and prints (including maps and geographical playing cards). Many of “the most important figures in the political, social, religious and intellectual life of Restoration England” were customers, including Robert Hooke, who took full advantage of bookseller hospitality and other value-added services (e.g., borrowing and returning books) whenever he could.

Presumably, the Bromes’ shop, with its trademark sign of the Gun, looked something like the generic bookseller’s shop shown in the first illustrated children’s primer, Orbis sensualium pictus. Hoc est, omnium fundamentalium in mundo rerum & in vitâ actionum pictura & nomenclatura, by the great pansophist and Czech educational reformer, Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670).

Comenius’ Orbis Pictus (which developed from his earlier Janua Linguarum Reserta [The Gates of Languages Unlocked], published at Leszno in 1631) aimed at giving readers a multilingual (Latin and vernacular) “picture and nomenclature of all the chief things that are in the world; and of mens employments therein.” This encyclopedic survey of the phenomenal world was completed by Comenius in 151 illustrated chapters.

First published at Nuremberg in 1658, by the bookseller Michael Endter, Comenius’ Orbis Pictus [The World Illustrated], with its “entertaining” delineations (copperplate engravings) and innovative approach (teaching words and things together, hand in hand) had an enormous circulation, and was translated into most European languages, along with some Oriental languages as well. It remained for a long time the most popular textbook in Europe, and was used to instruct girls as well as boys.

In those portions of Germany where the schools had been broken up by the “Thirty years’ war” [1618–1648], mothers taught their children from its pages. Corrected and amended by later editors, it continued for nearly two hundred years, to be a textbook of the German schools.

(History and Progress of Education, by Philobiblius, New York, 1860, 210)

Even about 100 years after its initial publication, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) — whose holistic, participative way of science has been suggested as a model for science in the 21st century (Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature, 1996) — used Orbis Pictus (which took a similarly intuitive approach to the natural world) as a child.

The first English translation of Orbis Sensualium Pictus, by Charles Hoole, was published in 1659. The layout of the English-Latin gloss was updated in the early 18th century, although the copper-plate illustration remained unchanged. The last English edition of Orbis Pictus appeared in 1777, and was reprinted in the United States in 1812. So Comenian pedagogy also made its way across the Atlantic, and was influential in the Americas as well as in Europe. Indeed, the New England Puritan, Cotton Mather, recorded in his Magnalia that Comenius had at one point even been solicited to become President of Harvard College (subsequent to the resignation of President Dunster in 1654):

That brave old man, Johannes Amos Commenius, the fame of whose worth has been Trumpetted as far as more than three languages (whereof everyone is indebted unto his Janua) could carry it, was indeed agreed withal, by one Mr. Winthrop in his travels through the Low Countries, to come over to New England, and illuminate their Colledge and Country, in the quality of a President, which was now become vacant. But the solicitations of the Swedish Ambassador diverting him another way, that incomparable Moravian became not an American.

(qtd. in The Orbis Pictus of John Amos Comenius, ed. by C. W. Bardeen, 1887, ii)

  

^  2-page spread on “Der Buchladen” (with its library identified as callout 6, and library catalog identified as callout 3). From the first edition (published at Nuremberg in 1658, by the bookseller Michael Endter) of Orbis Sensualium Pictus, by Jan Amos Comenius.

  

^  2-page spread on “The Book-sellars Shop.” From Charles Hoole’s 1659 English translation of Orbis Sensualium Pictus, by Jan Amos Comenius.
     The “impression made by the plates is frequently very uneven” in extant copies of Orbis Pictus, including Hoole’s English trans. of 1659, making it difficult to find “a satisfactory copy” for reproduction.
     “Many as have been the editions, few copies have been preserved. It was a book children were fond of and wore out in turning the leaves over and over to see the pictures. Then as the old copper-plates became indistinct they were replaced by wood-engravings, of coarse execution, and often of changed treatment.” (The Orbis Pictus of John Amos Comenius, ed. by C. W. Bardeen, 1887, iii)

^  Single-page layout, introduced in 1727, for “The Booksellers Shop.” Reprod. by C. W. Bardeen in his late-19th-century reprinting of The Orbis Pictus of John Amos Comenius (Syracuse, NY: C. W. Bardeen, 1887).
     The English issue of 1727 was the first translation in which the English words “were so arranged as to stand opposite their Latin equivalents.” (Bardeen, iv)
     Bardeen’s reproduction (which I have digitized here) combines copies of the cuts from the copper-plate of the first edition of 1658 (“from which we have also taken the Latin text”) with English text “unchanged from that of the 1727 edition, except in rare instances where substitutions have been made for single words not now permissible. The typography suggests rather than imitates the quaintness of the original, and the paper was carefully selected to produce so far as practicable the impression of the old hand-presses.” (Bardeen, v)

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