The Correspondence of Dr. Martin Lister (1639–1712). Volume One: 1662–1677 History of Science and Medicine Library
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The Correspondence of Dr. Martin Lister (1639–1712). Volume One: 1662–1677 History of Science and Medicine Library VOLUME 48 Medieval and Early Modern Science Editors J.M.M.H. Thijssen (Radboud University, Nijmegen) C.H. Lüthy (Radboud University, Nijmegen) P.J.J.M. Bakker (Radboud University, Nijmegen) Editorial Consultants Joël Biard (University of Tours) Simo Knuuttila (University of Helsinki) Jürgen Renn (Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science) Theo Verbeek (University of Utrecht) VOLUME 24 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hsml The Correspondence of Dr. Martin Lister (1639–1712). Volume One: 1662–1677 Edited and translated by Anna Marie Roos LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Letter of Martin Lister to Henry Oldenburg, 12 March 1673/4, shelfmark EL/L5/70. © The Royal Society of London. Illustrations done by William Lodge to accompany Martin Lister’s catalogue of English snails. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The correspondence of Dr. Martin Lister (1639–1712) / edited and translated by Anna Marie Roos. p. ; cm. — (History of science and medicine library, ISSN 1872-0684 ; volume 48) (Medieval and early modern science ; volume 24) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22553-4 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-26332-1 (e-book) I. Roos, Anna Marie Eleanor, editor, translator. II. Series: History of science and medicine library ; v. 48. 1872-0684 III. Series: History of science and medicine library. Medieval and early modern science ; v. 24. 1567-8393 [DNLM: 1. Lister, Martin, 1638?–1712. 2. Physicians—Great Britain—Collected Correspondence. 3. History, 17th Century—Great Britain. 4. History, 18th Century—Great Britain. 5. Natural History—history—Great Britain. WZ 100] R486 610.941—dc23 2014046999 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1872-0684 isbn 978-90-04-22553-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-26332-1 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. To Ian, again. To K. ∵ Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Illustrations xii Calendar of the Lister Correspondence xiii section 1 Introduction 3 An Introduction to the Letters (1662–1677) 3 Lister’s Biography (1639–1677): A Summary 6 Lister’s Correspondence in Historical Context 21 A Note on the Ray Letters 24 Stylistic Considerations 27 Section 2 The Lister Correspondence (1662–1677) 37 Bibliography 879 Index 910 Acknowledgments A number of colleagues, friends and institutions helped make this project possible. First, I would like to thank the Cultures of Knowledge Project in the Faculty of History at Oxford where I began the Lister Correspondence Project. The Mellon Foundation sponsors Cultures of Knowledge, and they were very gen- erous with supporting this endeavor. I have had the distinct pleasure of work- ing at Oxford with Philip Beeley, James Brown, Sue Burgess, Pietro Corsi, David Cram, Peter Harrison, Kateřina Horníčková, Howard Hotson, Neil Jeffries, Rhodri Lewis, Miranda Lewis, Noel Malcolm, Kim McLean-Fiander, Richard Ovenden, Leigh Penman, Michael Popham, William Poole, Richard Sharpe, and Kelsey Jackson Williams. Jim Bennett and Stephen Johnston at the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford have been extraordinarily helpful and kind. A big thanks also to my “Cultures of Knowledge” colleagues at the University of Wales—Helen Watt, Brynley Roberts, and Daffyd Johnston. In the course of publishing this volume, I have been given a new position as a senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln, where I have been made to feel welcome in a most beautiful and collegial atmosphere. I am most grateful to my colleagues in the Lincoln School of History and Heritage for their patience and kindness. Mary Stuart, our Vice-Chancellor, welcomed me with a private meeting and coffee to ask what I needed after I began the post, which was exceptionally considerate. Lister and I both now have significant ties to Lincolnshire. The assistance of the University of Oxford has also been essential to this project. The bulk of Lister’s correspondence and papers is in the Bodleian Library, and librarians in Special Collections have acceded to my numerous requests to examine manuscript material with consummate efficiency and professionalism. Clive Hurst, Alexandra Franklin, Colin Harris, and Bruce Barker-Benfield gave me the provenance of several manuscripts. Richard Ovenden was kind and generous with assisting me with finding appropriate images. Andrew Honey cogently answered my queries concerning Lister’s travel pocketbook (MS Lister 19). The Royal Society has also been extraordinarily supportive of this project, and many of Lister’s scientific letters from the 1660s and 1670s are in their col- lections. The Royal Society Librarian, Keith Moore, is especially to be thanked not only for his expertise, but also for his energy, wicked sense of humor and his friendship. Rupert Baker, Felicity Henderson and Jo McManus are simply super, as is the lovely Robert Fox. I was treated with every courtesy by the Royal x acknowledgments Society’s Centre for the History of Science and continue to look forward to my visits. The bulk of the letters between Lister and John Ray are in the Botany Library at the Natural History Museum, and Armando Mendez assisted me with puz- zling out their provenance. Lister Correspondence also resides in the collec- tions of the British Library, Trinity College, Dublin, the University of Utrecht, the Durham Cathedral Library, and the Yorkshire Archaeological Society of Leeds. I greatly appreciated the cooperation and encouragement from these institutions. The masterly Michael Hunter kindly assisted with my queries about schol- arly editing. I have also learned a good deal about the editorial process in con- versations with Philip Beeley, David Cram, Kim McLean-Fiander, Felicity Henderson, Lisa Jardine, Dorothy Johnston, Miranda Lewis, Noel Malcolm, William Poole, Richard Sharpe, Richard Serjeantson, and Helen Watt. I have been extraordinarily lucky to work with many scientists who assisted me in identifying the myriad of flora and fauna that Lister discussed in his cor- respondence. Christopher Preston, with the assistance of John Edgington and David A. Pearman, provided many of the botanical identifications. Tim Birkhead gently and carefully corrected my preliminary and often fallacious identifications of birds. Aydin Örstan and Bob Cameron helped me identify land snails, and I could not have possibly commented on the arachnids were it not for the expertise of the late John Parker, whose edition of Lister’s English Spiders was so crucial to this work. Bill Ausich and Hans Hess provided their expertise about fossil crinoids that Lister collected, and Monica Price assisted with questions about the mineral samples that Lister was swapping with other virtuosi. Jeff Carr, who wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation about Lister, was as usual a wealth of information about his biological studies. Being a virtuoso meant that Lister was also interested in archaeology. Roger Tomlin introduced me to the wonderful world of epigraphy so I could analyze the Roman altars that Lister liked to collect. Arthur MacGregor supplied many crucial insights about the culture of collecting during the early modern period. My colleagues at Brill, including Christoph Lüthy, Sabine Steenbeek, Michiel S. Thijssen and Rosanna Woensdregt have made the publication pro- cess a pleasure. I have been pleased to publish with Brill a third time, this time as an editor rather than monograph author. Victor Boantza, Tom Holland, Vivienne Larminie, Noel Malcolm, and Ruth Whelan assisted me with the translations from Latin and French. Richard Sharpe assisted with the Greek. Miranda Lewis employed her eagle eye as edi- tor and copywriter, though of course any mistakes made in the text are my acknowledgments xi own. I also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this edition whose comments enriched and improved the work. Other colleagues and friends that provided encouragement and support through this process included Helen Bynum, Pratik Chakrabarti, Julie Davies, Mordechai Feingold, Robert Fox, Alex Franklin, Sallyanne Gilchrist, Anita Guerrini, Mark Harrison, Jo Hedesan, Sachiko Kusukawa, Lisa Jardine, Mike Jewess, Karin Leonhard, Belinda Michaelides, Margaret Pelling, Will Poole, Richard Serjeantson, Jon Sheard, Anke Timmermann, Kathie Way, Charles Webster, and Jeremy Woodley. My colleagues on the Council of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry have been unfailingly kind and encour- aging during this process. Andrew, Ruth, and Joseph Bramley, June Benton, Lori Rausch, Sally Sheard, and Connie Jacoby and Mari Trine remind me there is more to life than editing, and Neil Storch, my dear mentor and friend, has always been a calm and wise presence. And last but not least, my husband Ian Benton continues to support my scholarly endeavors with good grace, humor, and much love. Like Lister, my husband is also a Lincolnshire man. Nunc scio quid sit amor. List of Illustrations 1 and 2 The token of a wax seal given by Sarah Jenyns to her uncle, Martin Lister, affixed to the wrapper of her mother Frances’s letter of 30 May 1667. The Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford 95–96 3 Ulisse Aldrovandi’s figure of door snails to which Lister refers in his correspondence.