OF SAMUEL HARTLIB. 43 



writer_, many of liis works partaking of tlie subjects of 

 his abstruse researches, such as prophecies, revolutions, 

 the ruining of Antichrist, the millennium, and other 

 polemical and mystical subjects. He was, however, a 

 Protestant divine, and greatly distinguished himself in 

 1631 as a Grammarian. 



Hartlib^s income not exceeding £300 or £400 per 

 annum, he appears to have been necessitated to practise 

 much method in his benevolence, which seems to have 

 been principally bestowed in acknowledgment of some 

 services to forward his great measures of public use- 

 fulness. In this spirit he supported, in his own house, 

 Adam Speed, a gentleman conversant with husbandry, 

 and the author of Adam in Eden, while composing 

 one of his works. Gabriel Plattes was, also, consider- 

 ably indebted to his fostering care, on which account 

 he left Hartlib his unpublished papers- By such con- 

 siderate and timely help did Hartlib strive to support 

 and encourage depressed talent, engaged on any 

 subject of public importance promising a useful prac- 

 tical application. A contemporary, in a letter from 

 Flanders, written to Harthb in 1650, says to him : — 

 '' None but yourself, who want not an enlarged heart, 

 but a fuller handy to supply the world's defects, being 

 found, with some few others, to administer any relief 

 to a man of so great merit " as poor Plattes. Many 

 authors acknowledged his kindly aid in their adversity 

 by addressing their works to him, among whom may 



