An Instance of the Fingerpost (69 page)

He stood up to go.

‘At least, if you will not help, I trust you have no objection to my approaching Mr Lower,’ I said, angered at the lofty way he could dismiss matters of such importance.

That is between you and him, although he is careful of his friends and quick to take offence on their behalf. I doubt he will assist if he knows what you want, as he is greatly taken with the Italian, and prides himself on his good judgement of men.’

Thus forewarned, I asked the doctor to see me the next day. I had some regard for Lower. At that time he affected a frivolous and carefree manner, but even a man less acute than myself could see that he had a burning desire for fame and craved worldly success more than anything else. I knew that staying in Oxford, cutting up his beasts and playing the assistant would not satisfy him for ever. He wanted recognition for his work and a place with the greatest of the experimentalists. And he knew as well as any that to stand a chance in London he would need luck and some very good friends indeed. This was his weak spot and my opportunity.

I summoned him on the pretext of asking his advice about my health. There was nothing wrong with me then and, apart from a weakness about my eyes, nothing wrong with me now either. None the less, I affected a pain in my arm, and submitted to an examination. He was a good physician: unlike many of those quacks who intone ponderously, come up with some complex diagnosis and prescribe an expensive and fatuous remedy, Lower confessed himself quite bemused and said he didn’t think there was really anything the matter with me. He recommended rest – a cheap enough remedy, it must be said, but one which I could not afford, even had it been needed.

‘I understand that you have made the acquaintance of a man called Cola, is that right?’ I asked him when we had settled down and I had given him a glass of wine for his trouble. ‘Taken him under your wing, in fact?’

‘I have indeed, sir. Signor Cola is a gentleman, and a subtle
philosopher. Boyle finds him very useful. He is a man of charm and knowledge and his thoughts on blood are fascinating.’

‘You greatly relieve me,’ I said. ‘For I have a high opinion of your judgement in these matters.’

‘Why do you need relieving? You don’t know him, do you?’

‘Not at all. Think nothing more on the subject. I have always taken it as a principle to doubt the word of foreign correspondents; certainly when their opinion is in contestation with that of an Englishman I set them aside with pleasure. I gladly forget the tales I have heard.’

Lower frowned. ‘What tale is this? Sylvius penned a very favourable portrait of him.’

‘I’m sure, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘And no doubt accurate, as far as he could see. We must always take men as we find them, must we not, and assess contradictory reports in the light of our own experience? “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:8).’

‘Somebody says something evil about him? Come sir, be frank with me. I know you are too good a man to calumnise, but if malicious reports are being spread it is best the subject of them know, so he can defend himself.’

‘You are right, of course. And my only hesitation is that the report is so weak that it is scarcely worth giving it any attention. I have no doubt in my mind that it is utterly false. Certainly it is difficult to believe that a gentleman could act in such a coarse fashion.’

‘Which coarse fashion is this?’

‘It concerns Signor Cola’s days at Padua. A mathematician there with whom I have correspondence mentioned the matter. He is known to Mr Oldenburg of our Society, and I can vouch for his good faith. He said merely that there had been a duel. It seems that one man had conducted some ingenious experiments on blood and had told all about them to this Cola. Cola then claimed the experiments as his own. When called to acknowledge the true author, he issued a challenge. Fortunately the fight was stopped by the authorities.’

‘These misunderstandings do happen,’ Lower said thoughtfully.

‘They do, of course,’ I agreed heartily. ‘And it may well be that your friend was entirely in the right. As he is your friend, indeed, I expect that he was. Some people are greedy for fame, though. I
am glad philosophy is usually so free of such impositions; to suspect one’s friends, and mind one’s words lest they steal the glory that is rightfully one’s own would be intolerable. Although, as long as the discovery is made, what does it matter who is credited with it? We do not conduct ourselves for fame, after all. We are doing God’s work, and He will know the truth of the matter. What should we care, then, for the opinions of others?’

Lower nodded, so firmly that I could see I had successfully put him on his guard.

‘Besides,’ I carried on, ‘nobody would be so foolish as to enter a dispute with someone like Boyle, for who would believe his claims against the word of such a man? It is only those whose reputation is not well established who are vulnerable. So there is no problem, even if Cola is as my correspondent described.’

My reasoning in talking thus to Lower was entirely honourable, even if it involved a deception. I could not tell him of my real concerns, but it was vital that Cola should not have liberty to practise his deceit by exploiting Lower’s trust. ‘He that taketh warning shall deliver his soul’ (Ezekiel 33:5). By exciting Lower’s concern over Cola’s probity, I had made him more likely to discover the man’s duplicity, where it truly lay. I persuaded him not to mention the matter, for I told him that, if the report were true no good would come of it and if it were false it would merely create an enmity where none should exist. He left me a more sober man, more distrustful than he had been when he arrived and that, also, was a goodness. It was unfortunate, however, that his lack of control so nearly frightened Cola away: he was too open to dissemble, and Cola’s manuscript shows all too well how easily his doubts and worries bubbled to the surface in anger and harshness.

During the conversation, Lower also mentioned that Cola had accompanied him to visit Jack Prestcott in his gaol cell, that the Italian had willingly provided the boy with wine and, it appeared, returned to deliver it in person, spending a good long while in his cell conversing with him. This was another curiosity which had to be
examined with care. Cola was a Venetian and Sir James had served that country, and perhaps he was merely showing consideration for the son of a man who had served his country well. The other link was the copy of Livy, for Sir James had encoded a letter using it in 1660, and Cola had received one disguised with the same book three years later. I could not fathom it at all, so realised I would have to interview young Prestcott again – and this time thought I would get the truth from him, as his current situation left him little scope for being difficult with me.

I may say that I was beginning to have some doubts about my understanding of Cola’s aims, for his actions did not correspond with what I assumed he intended to accomplish. I was not (I repeat again) at all dogmatic in my belief; the conclusions I reached derived from fair principles and a reasoned, unprejudiced comprehension. To put it simply, it was borne in on me that if he desired to strike against the king, who now divided his time between Whitehall, Tunbridge and the race course at Newbury, then Oxford was a strange place to be living. And yet, here Cola was and showing no signs whatsoever of moving away. It was for this reason that, when Dr Grove informed me the Italian was to dine in college that day, I overcame my repugnance and concluded that I must be present, so I could see and hear the man for myself.

Perhaps here I should sketch a character of Dr Grove, for his end was tragic and he was, along with Warden Woodward, the only Fellow of New College for whom I had any regard. That we had nothing in common apart from Holy Orders is certainly true; the merits of the new philosophy had entirely escaped him, and he was also even more severe than I in his belief in the necessity for total conformity in the Church. For all that, he was none the less a man of kindly disposition, whose ferocity of policy lay oddly with his generosity of spirit; he had no cause to love me, for I represented everything he detested, yet he sought out my acquaintanceship: his principles were of a general nature, and in no way affected his judgement of individuals.

Apart from being a divine, he thought of himself as a private astronomer, although nothing had ever been published and, I am sorry to say, nothing ever was. Even had he lived, I suspect that
the fruit of his labours would never have seen the light of the day, for Grove was so modest of his skills, and so unconcerned with public acclaim, that he believed publishing both arrogant and presumptuous. Rather, he was one of that ever-rarer breed of man who honour God and university in modest silence, believing learning to be its own reward.

He had returned to his university when the king had returned to his throne, and he now wished to leave and take up a living of his own in the country when the next one came available. The chances of his doing so were good, for against him was ranged merely the paltry and youthful figure of Thomas Ken, whose claim appealed to some simply because they wished to rid themselves of a dreary presence in the college. In some ways his imminent departure saddened me, for Grove’s company I found strangely conducive. I would not say we were friends; that would be going too far, and certainly he had a manner of address that was easily found objectionable by those who did not perceive the goodness within. Grove’s weakness was a quick tongue and a barbed wit, which he had never mastered. He was a man of contradiction, and his conversation could never be taken for granted; he could be the kindest of men, or the most waspish. He had, indeed, perfected the technique of being both at the same time.

It was Grove who invited me to lodge at New College when building works made my home uninhabitable. Death and a delayed election to a Fellowship had created a vacancy in a room and the college, as was its practice, had decided to rent the space out until a new Fellow staked a claim. I had never before enjoyed the common life, even as an undergraduate myself, and was more than content to put it behind me when I gained my first preferment. As professor, of course, I was entitled to marry and keep my own home, and so it was near twenty years since I had lived cheek by jowl with others. I found the experience strangely entertaining and the solitude of my own room suitable for work. I even regretted my youth and wished again for that irresponsibility when all is still to be done, and nothing is certain. But the feeling soon passed, and by this time the appeal of New College was waning fast. Apart from Grove, all the Fellows were of low quality, many were corrupt and most inattentive to their
duties. I withdrew more and more and spent as little time as possible in their midst.

Grove was my companion on many evenings, for he took to knocking on my door in his desire of discussion. I did my best to discourage him at first, but he was not easily put off, and eventually I found that I almost welcomed the disturbance, for it was impossible to brood overmuch when he was there. And the disputes we had were of high quality, even though we were often sadly mismatched. Grove had trained himself in scholastic disputation, which I had done my best to shake off as constricting the imagination. And, as I endeavoured to point out to him, the new philosophy simply cannot be expressed in terms of the definitions and axioms and theorems and antitheses and all the other apparatus of formal Aristotelianism. For Grove this was fraud and deceit, as he held, as a matter of doctrine, that the beauties and subtleties of logic contained all possibilities, and that if a case could not be argued through its forms, then that proved the flaw of the case.

‘I am sure you will find Mr Cola an interesting disputant,’ I said when he told me that the Italian would sup that same evening. ‘I gather from Mr Lower that he is a great enthusiast for experiment. Whether he will understand your sense of humour I cannot predict. I think I will dine in myself, to see what results.’

Grove beamed with pleasure, and I remember him wiping his red, inflamed eye with a cloth. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘We can make up a threesome, and maybe drink a bottle together afterwards and have a real discussion. Will you order one? I hope to have great sport with him, as Lord Maynard is dining, and I wish to show my skills in dispute. Lord Maynard will then know what sort of person will be taking his living.’

‘I hope this Cola does not take offence at being used in such a fashion.’

‘I’m sure he will not even notice. Besides, he has a charming manner and is perfectly respectful. Quite unlike the reputation of Italians, I must say, since I have always heard it said they are fawning and obsequious.’

‘I understand he is Venetian,’ I said. ‘They are said to be as cold as their canals, and as secretive as the doge’s dungeons.’

‘I did not find him so. Muddle-headed and with all the errors of youth, no doubt, but far from cold or secretive. You may find out for yourself, though.’ Here he paused and frowned. ‘But I forget. I have no sooner offered it than I find I must withdraw my invitation.’

‘Why is that?’