OF SAMUEL HARTLIB. 35 



hearmg_, in preference to more assured friends of the 

 new government^ who were seeking some amelioration 

 of as many or more years of acute suffering. Hartlib's 

 claim, as compared to that of hundreds of i*eturned exiles, 

 must have appeared trifling indeed to cool calculating 

 politicians, disposed to no conciliatoi^y view of the events 

 and supporters of the Commonwealth. 



Hartlib's simple and confiding nature is but too well 

 illustrated by the unfortunate result of his improvident 

 liberality. ITie Commonwealth having allowed his 

 salary to fall into arrear, it was not until after two 

 years' income remained due to him, that he became 

 fully alive to his precarious situation. At the close of 

 1659, public subscriptions were raised for his support, 

 which had to be repeated in 1660, by which time his 

 circumstances had become so desperate that he left no 

 means untried to obtain some small relief from old 

 familiar correspondents and from persons of quality 

 with whom his connection was but slender. Nothing 

 can be more lamentable than the necessitous condition 

 of one who has manfully played the part of a public 

 servant for a long series of years by acknowledged 

 beneficent actions. At the same time we are naturally 

 perplexed to understand how a man of such acute 

 observation, enlarged experience, and not wholly un- 

 possessed of business habits, should have been so short- 

 sighted as to make no provision whatever for the future, 

 and to expend his entire means in public services, without 



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