6 A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 



to show his letter to him, to Mr. Hartlib ; and on 

 the 23 May, solicits the same favour in respect of other 

 correspondence. 



On the margin of one of these documents, dated 

 July 20, 1633, occurs the notification of "Mr. Hartlib, 

 a Prussian." 



In 1634 — 5, John Durie continued writing to Sir 

 Thomas Koe in the same strain of confidential intimacy 

 with Mr. Hartlib, who, he says, would send anything to 

 him, which Sir Thomas desired to have communicated 

 in a secret way.* 



The transactions of the following ten years of his 

 life can only be surmised from his letters, and publi- 

 cations of 1639, 1641, and 1642; carrying out an 

 extensive plan of public agency, with the view of 

 promoting the general good of mankind in the most 

 liberal and unprejudiced manner possible. 



Milton, in the year 1644, addressed his essay "Of 

 Education," a closely printed quarto tract of eight pages, 

 " To Master Samuel Hartlib," to whom he writes in the 

 following encomiastic strain : — 



"I am long since persuaded, that to say, or to do 

 aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect 

 should sooner move us, than simply the love of God, 

 and of mankind. Nevertheless, to write now the re- 

 forming of Education, though it be one of the greatest 



* Ibid, 1634—1635, 8vo, 1864. 



