The Life of Dr. Robert Hooke.

At the ROYAL SOCIETY, he performed this with the least embarrassment, clearly and evidently explaining the subject at hand. This was sufficient proof of his true knowledge of mechanical powers and his method of applying them to the explanation of nature.

How he spent the next six or seven years of his life, I have not been particularly informed. I understand he was for some time with Sir Peter Lely, though I am not certain for how long. I suppose it was only a short time, as I have heard that the smell of the oil paints did not agree with his constitution, increasing the headaches to which he was always too much subject.

It was after this that he lived with Dr. Busby, the late famous master of Westminster School, as a scholar in his own house. There, he applied himself with more diligence to Latin and Greek, in which he made sufficient proficiency for the time and gained a competent knowledge. At the same time, he gained some insight into Hebrew and other Oriental languages. While he lived with Dr. Busby, he began seriously to study mathematics, with the doctor encouraging him and allowing him specific times for that purpose. In this, he followed the most regular method: he first mastered Euclid’s Elements, then proceeded in an orderly fashion from that sure basis to other parts of mathematics, and finally to the application of them to mechanics—his first and last mistress.

From Westminster School, he went to the University of Oxford in 1653. But as it is often the fate of persons great in learning to be small in other circumstances, his resources were quite modest. I find that he was a student of Christ Church, though not on the foundation; I have heard that he was a servitor A student at Oxford who performed menial duties in return for reduced fees. to one Mr. Goodman. He received his degree of Master of Arts several years later, around 1662 or 1663.

About the year 1655, he began to show himself to the world, proving that he had not spent his youth in vain. There was at that time a gathering of extraordinary persons at Oxford, each of whom was afterwards distinguished for the great light they brought to the learned world through their justly admired labors. He was soon noticed and much prized by them for his facility in mechanical inventions.

As proof of his introduction at this time to the acquaintance of these great men, I shall transcribe some passages I met with among his manuscripts. Speaking first of their philosophical meetings at Oxford, he says:

"At these meetings, which were about the year 1655 (before which time I knew little of them), various experiments were suggested, discussed, and tried with varying success, though no account was taken of them other than what particular persons perhaps did for the help of their own memories. Consequently, many excellent things have been lost; some few only, through the kindness of the authors, have since been made public. Among these may be reckoned the Honorable Mr. Boyle’s Pneumatic Engine Pneumatic Engine—an air pump and experiments, first printed in the year 1660. For in 1658 or 1659, I contrived and perfected the air pump for Mr. Boyle, having first seen a contrivance for that purpose made for the same honorable person by Mr. Gratorix, which was too crude to perform any great matter."