SAMUEL HARTLIB'S PUBLICATIONS. 50 



Samuel Hartlib^ in addressing tlie '^ Eight Honour- 

 able Senators/' says, '^ I make account tliat I can have 

 no true delight in the enjoyment of this Earthly Life of 

 mine any further, then I find myselfe usefull to others -y^ 

 and continues, " I am comforted herein, that I have the 

 testimony of my Conscience assuring mee, that I have 

 sincerely spent and laid out myselfe wholly to this 

 effect. And that although I have been carelesse of my 

 selfe as to this world (sine invidia lucri), yet I have 

 seen alwayes God's hand in the midst of many straits 

 and difficulties supporting me, and shewing a way to 

 proceed, when I found my selfe at a stand/' 



Thirty-six pages of preliminary matter are followed 

 by that which is the principal object of the treatise — 

 ^^ Of the Office of Addresse." Its nature we gather 

 from this remark, that — '^ Wee would advice that 

 a Certaine Place should be designed by the Authority 

 of the State, whereunto all Men might freely come to 

 give information of the Commodities which they have 

 to be imparted unto others," managed by a " Master 

 of Addresses.'^ It was proposed to have it in " two 

 Parts or Branches : the one for Bodily, the other for 

 Spirituall Matters." In each there were to be Inven- 

 tories and Eegisters ofaU "Commodotis, Persons, Em- 

 ployments, Offices, Charges, and Things." The charge 

 for information was to be ^^ but a penny or two" to the 

 rich, '^ but to the Poore all is to bee done freely." At 

 the end is " Anno 1647." 



