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Nature Vol 136-N3436.Indd 358 NATURE SEPTEMBER 7, 1935 Robert Hooke and his Contemporaries "DR. ROBERT HOOKE is generally allowed sophical Collection", and Birch's "History of the to have been one of the greatest promoters Royal Society" go_ far to elucidate obscurities and of Experimental Natural Knowledge, as well as amplify allusions, while the Diary makes the formal Ornaments of the seventeenth century, so fruitful records extraordinarily vivid and personal. of great genius." With suchlike words Richard For general interest this Diary does not, of Waller begins his introduction to the "Posthumous course, challenge comparison with Pepys, but we Works", and the judgment still holds good. must respectfully dissent from the judgment Nevertheless, our information as to Hooke's life implied in the charming words of introduction by and character has hitherto been comparatively the honoured president of the Royal Society, meagre, for Ward's "Life", and most of what has Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, that the difference besides been written of him, derives from Waller's in style is partly attributable to the fact that account, and Waller apparently had little personal Hooke's diary was meant for himself alone, while knowledge of Hooke or his intimates, since he Pepys had his eye on eventual readers. Surely states that his main authorities are Hooke's brief the fact that Pepys, who used a special secret biographical notes and the "Journals" of the shorthand, was essentially a gossip and a man about Royal Society. It is typical that Hooke is one of town, while Hooke was a man whose interests were the few great men of science of whom no portrait is concentrated on pure and applied science, and who available-possibly the only one, for even of had no interest in public affairs and society, as Cavendish we have the well-known sketch prefixed distinct from The Society, supplies a sufficient to George Wilson's "Life" and the "Scientific reason. It is much to be regretted that the two Papers". Hard judgments have been pronounced diaries do not overlap in time, Pepys's concluding on him, without, perhaps, much trouble taken three years before Hooke's starts, but it is amusing about that understanding which is said to lead to to note that the two men, of such different comprehensive pardon. The publication* of temperaments, met and liked one another. There Hooke's diary for 1672-80, now in the possession are several references to Hooke in Pepys, the of the Corporation of the City of London, at least first speaking of "Mr. Hooke, who is the most, and affords us some direct evidence as to his character promises the least, of any man in the world that and mode oflife. ever I saw". Elsewhere we read : This Diary covers the period of the "Cutlerian "Discoursed with Mr. Hooke about the nature Lectures" and "Philosophical Collections". Hooke of sounds and he did make me understand t.he was thirty-seven years old when he started it, and nature of musicall sounds made by strings, had already published the "Micrographia" and mighty prettily; and he told me that having made some of his most important improvements in come to a certain number of vibrations proper instruments, including the first Gregorian telescope to make any tone, he is able to tell how many with a pierced objective mirror, but was still in strokes a fly makes with her wings (those flies his scientific prime. The diary consists of brief that hum in their flying) by the note that it entries in staccato style, as can best be shown by answers to in musique, during their flying. That, a typical entry. I suppose, is a little too much refined; but his discourse in general of sound was mighty fine". "Monday June 15th Rose at 4. Mr . .Amhurst Thus the president-to-be (1684-86) of the Royal desired a meeting this day at 3. Tryd helioscope by reflection. Hurt my eye much-prosecuted Society. On the other hand Hooke, in his briefer Hevelius. Was at Lord Mayors and coffee house style, writes: "I was twise with Mr. Pepys who with Sir Ch. Wren. Lord pleased with accounts. was very civil and kind", and even if he says later Oliver a Rascal!. Dean of Paules angry. .At "Mr. Pepys master of the Trinity House made a Garaways. Met Mr . .Amhurst, 1 Guinny. View long speech to no great purpose", it is only his way in Fleet Street lOsh. .At Mr. Tompions". of stating that it was a "little too much refined". What does the Diary tell us ? We premise that It might be thought that this kind of thing would it is obviously a truthful personal record, written soon pall, but one reader at least has found it without any thought of possible readers. Hooke sets fascinating. The "Cutlerian Lectures", the "Philo- down with a symbol every passage-and at one • The Diary of Robert Hooke, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., 1672-1680. time they were frequent-with his mistress Nell Transcribed from the Original in the possession of the Corporation of the City of London (Guildhall Library). Edited by Henry W. Young and with her successors, and a host of Robinson and Walter Adams. Pp. xxviii +527 +8 plates. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1935.) 25s. pitiful details of his troubled health. Entries like © 1935 Nature Publishing Group SEPTEMBER 7, 1935 NATURE 359 "Drunk. Promised to pay whatever I signed to Halley, and many others whose names occur over be paid" show that he spared himself no less than and over again as his coffee-house companions, others in his directness. The first thing that he cannot have been so difficult as it pleased his stands out clearly is that Hooke was a sick man, enemies to make out. Sydenham invited Hooke trying all the time with medicine and diet to win to stay with him for six weeks. a little ease. He was troubled constantly with If it is clear that Hooke was sharp-tempered, it what appears to have been a form of catarrh in his is equally clear that in most cases he bore no nose, with terrible headaches, with vomiting, with malice. He discharged Nell Young from his giddiness, with sleeplessness, with indigestion in service in 1673, but she continued to make his various forms, and with fearful dreams-possibly clothes and they visited one another, and although also with worms, for he frequently took what he there was a quarrel in 1676, "Paid Nell for suit calls hagiox, which is probably hagiospermum, 6s8d besides the full of her bill 16s6d never more that is, santonin, which nowadays, at any rate, is to do with her", within a few weeks we find "At only used for that trouble. Nevertheless, only Nell's", which thereafter occurs at intervals, as occasionally was he too ill to work-"Ill all day, usual. Occasionally he rails at Tompion, who miserere mei deus". When anything agreed with appears to have been slow and often behind his him, or he slept, he thought it worth noting. time, "a slug", "a rascall", but they continue to "Eat nuts and brandy. Agreed well, and slept". work together through the Diary, and no doubt "Slept well. Deo Gratias". The medicines which knew one another's worth and idiosyncracies he took almost daily make a formidable list.* perfectly well. Even in the case of Oldenburg There is some excuse, then, for Hooke's reputed there is no unkind entry at his death, and Hevelius's ill-temper. Not only, however, was he without fire is referred to sympathetically. ease and sleep ; it is clear that he was prodigiously The people whom Hooke consistently stig:. overworked. "The indefatigable Hooke", Weld matises as rogues-Oldenburg ("a lying dog", may well call him. What is sometimes forgotten "treacherous and a villain") and Sir John Cutler is that Hooke was a considerable architect, so ("a villain", "a cheating knave", "Sir Stingy"­ much so that the College of Physicians in Warwick ! presume that this is Sir John) appear to have Lane has been attributed to Wren, although it done much to earn his just indignation. Oldenburg appears that it was Hooke's. In any event, he first incurs censure for not registering things was the architect for Bethlehem Hospital, to brought into the Society, and there are references which very many entries refer, and he appears to to his not entering experiments long before the have been responsible for the urn on the Monument, controversy over the application of the spiral which gave some trouble. He designed private spring to the balance wheel of watches. This houses for many individuals mentioned in the dispute over the balance wheel seems to have upset Diary. He had been appointed City Surveyor in Hooke more than any of his other troubles. We 1666, in which capacity he was assisting Sir find the entry "Saw the Lying Dog Oldenburg's Christopher Wren all through the period of the Transactions. Resolved to quit all employments Diary, so that there is scarcely a page on which and to seek my health". (Oldenburg was respon­ Sir Christopher is not mentioned. There are sible for the Transactions, which were in a sense frequent records of his being with Sir Christopher his property, as he received all profits on the sales.) and, incidentally, with Robert Boyle, Sir J. It is often held that Hooke was in the wrong, and Hoskins, and other famous men, a circumstance to that Oldenburg was a harmless and devoted servant be noted in connexion with Thomas Molyneux's of the Society, as, indeed, he induced the Society accusation that Hooke was "the most ill-natured, to say.
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