Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory (59 page)

16
See Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, pp.383–410.

17
Ibid., p.384. See also Preface fol. b1r.

18
Ibid., p.420.

19
Ibid., p.429.

20
M. Hunter, A. Clericuzio, and L.M. Principe,
The Correspondence of Robert Boyle
, 6 vols (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2001) 2, p.387.

21
Moray also explained to Huygens that Hooke was having to put a lot of effort into preparing the lectures he had undertaken under the sponsorship of Sir John Cutler. So Cutler (another who dogged Hooke’s career, and caused him long-running difficulties) is already involved in this episode.

22
Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, p.213.

23
Huygens had already made a note to himself to make the iron circle a modification in his own machine six months earlier.

24
13 September 1664 (Huygens archive, Leiden). In October 1665 Moray (in Oxford) reported to Huygens that Oldenburg had informed him by letter that trials were revealing further problems (Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, pp.503–6).

25
For the intimate (indeed, passionately affective) tone of these letters, at least in the early days of the correspondence, see the first letter sent by Moray, 31 May 1661 (Huygens archive, Leiden; also transcribed in Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
).

26
This is confirmed by the fact that on 2 November 1664 Hooke was admonished to ‘endeavour to have his new instrument for grinding optic-glasses ready against the next meeting’ (T. Birch,
A History of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, from its first Rise
, 4 vols (London, 1756) 1, p.483).

27
McKeon,
Établissement de l’Astronome de Précision
2, pp.209–10.

28
Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, p.156. See McKeon 1965 2, pp.111–12.

29
This interest in Campani’s techniques for making high-accuracy telescopes formed part of a larger debate about the Copernican theory of planetary motion, and the Inquisition’s attitude towards it. See for instance the review of Auzout’s
Lettre à Monsieur l’Abbé Charles
(Paris, 1665) in the
Journal des sçavans
of 11 January 1666.

30
See McKeon,
Établissement de l’Astronome de Précision
2, p.211.

31
Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, p.174, 25 December 1664. McKeon 1965 2, p.112.

32
Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, p.198, minute of a letter dated 15 January 1665.

33
On 2 January 1665 Huygens wrote to Moray impatiently asking for more information about Hooke’s working model of the lathe. He described how, in his own trials, he did better by keeping the circle fixed. Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, p.186. See also ibid., p.346, and
Oeuvres Complètes
22, pp.82–4.

34
This was not the only ‘leak’ of Hooke’s lens-grinding machine. See Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, p.306.

35
Ibid., pp.441–2.

36
Hunter, Clericuzio and Principe,
The Correspondence of Robert Boyle
2, p.493.

37
During the early months of the plague exchange of letters between London and the rest of England was hampered by anxieties over infection.

38
Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, p.529.

39
Ibid., p.538.

40
Hunter, Clericuzio and Principe,
The Correspondence of Robert Boyle
2, pp.610–11.

41
Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, p.474. The original is bound in the back of a copy of A. Auzout,
Réponse de Monsieur Hook aux considerations de M. Auzout. Contenue dans vne lettre écrite à l’auteur des Philosophical Transactions, et quelques lettres écrites de part & d’autre sur le sujet des grandes lunetes. Traduite d’anglois
(Paris, 1665), in the BL.

42
Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, p.516 (author’s translation).

43
Ibid., pp.447, 448, 452–3.

44
The Halls’ annotations to the letters in the Oldenburg
Correspondence
treat Hooke’s contribution consistently as if it were an ill-conceived and botched project, and as if Auzout were self-evidently correct in all his criticisms.

45
Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, p.83. Wren’s position was presumably not helped by the fact that he had recently had to concede Huygens’s superior talent as an observational and theoretical astronomer, when Huygens’s model for the rings of Saturn was demonstrably more plausible than the one Wren had himself come up with.

46
See Hunter, Clericuzio and Principe,
The Correspondence of Robert Boyle
2, p.544, Boyle to Oldenburg, 30 September 1665.

47
Christiaan Huygens’s father is a key figure in the establishing of his official scientific position in Paris. Several letters show Huygens thanking the King for allowing his father’s intercession on his behalf in the matter of the Académie des sciences appointment, and for lavish gifts for his father from the King, sent in appreciation of his efforts.

48
Auzout to Oldenburg, 1 July 1665. Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, p.428.

49
See Hunter, Clericuzio and Principe,
The Correspondence of Robert Boyle
2, p.504; p.517.

50
This was yet another responsibility Hooke had taken over from someone else, this time from Wren, who had given up the job on the excuse that he was about to be sent to France by the King.

51
i.e. Cutler lectures.

52
1 August 1665. Huygens,
Oeuvres Complètes
5, p.427.

53
Oldenburg,
Correspondence
2, pp.294, 297.

54
My own view is that this review is by Auzout, though it might be by Justel.

55
Cit. C.D. Andriesse,
Titan kan niet slapen: een biografie van Christiaan Huygens
(Amsterdam: Contact, 1993), French trans. D. Losman,
Christian Huygens
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1998), p.348.

56
Huygens to Constantijn Huygens, 30 December 1688, cit. R. Westfall,
Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p.473.

57
Cit. Andriesse,
Christian Huygens
, p.377.

58
From the diary of Constantijn Huygens, cit. ibid., p.378.

59
This account is based on Westfall,
Never at Rest
,
Chapter 11
. See also Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p.473.

60
It was during this period that Hooke and Newton met at Halley’s house, and Hooke failed to get satisfaction once again over his being credited with some part in the inverse square law.

61
Ibid., pp.378–9.

62
From the diary of Christiaan Huygens, cit. Andriesse,
Christian Huygens
, p.380.

63
Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p.480.

64
Some scholars maintain that these discussions took place at Hampton Court. The two men were, however, both in London for several months, and had ample opportunity to seek out each other’s company.

65
Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p.488.

66
Ibid., p.496.

67
Christiaan Huygens died at Hofwijk in 1695.

68
Wren also found himself largely out of favour, though his ongoing architectural projects, and his usefulness to Queen Mary in her many rebuilding projects, sustained his public position until her death.

69
Hooke was by now no longer being remunerated as Curator of Experiments, though he continued to appear at meetings, lecture and lead discussions of experiments. It was probably about this time that a letter – evidently orchestrated by Hooke – was sent to Halley as Clerk of the Royal Society, urging him to take Hooke on once more in a salaried position. This letter is reproduced in J.B. Nichols,
Illustrating the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century
(London: J.B. Nichols & Son, 1822) 4, pp.66–7.

70
Westfall,
Never at Rest
, pp.174–5.

71
See Newton to Oldenburg, 19 March 1672, cit. Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p.245.

72
Newton to Oldenburg, 21 December 1675, cit. ibid., p.273.