8 A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 



have wandered into, hath pressed and almost con- 

 strained you into a persuasion, that what you require 

 from me in this point, I neither ought, nor can in 

 conscience defer beyond this time, both of so much 

 need at once, and so much opportunity to try what 

 God hath determined. I will not resist, therefore, 

 whatever it is either of divine or human obligation 

 that you lay upon me; but will forthwith set down 

 in writing, as you request me, that voluntary idea 

 which hath long, in silence, presented itself to me, of 

 a better education, in extent and comprehension far 

 more large, and yet of time far shorter, and of attain- 

 ment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice." 



Cromwell's secretary was not likely to employ court 

 flattery, what he said came pure from his heart ; and 

 they were no idle or inconsiderate words, when he 

 expressed his estimation of Hartlib, as to his being 

 " a person sent hither by some good providence from a 

 far country, to be the occasion and incitement of great 

 good to this island." Nor was he mistaken in the 

 opinion thus deliberately and prominently expressed. 

 Although Hartlib could only then have been 16 years 

 in this country, yet his popularity was such that our 

 great poet lauds him as one in "repute with men 

 of most approved wisdom," and as being worthily 

 engaged in "learned correspondence." The fact of 

 Milton's having written his treatise "Of Education," 

 principally at the urgent solicitation of Hartlib, offers a 



