46 LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. 



SAMUEL TURNER TO THOMAS HARRIOT. 



[MS. Addit. 6789. Orig.] 



Sir, These shall request you to forgive me my absence 

 untill to morrowe ; then I shall give you a more particular 

 accounte of my discourse with Mayerne. In the meane time, 

 I shall lett you knowe that he cannot possibly com to Lon- 

 don, thoughe he have manny occasions to invite him to it, 

 but he desiers much to see you there ; but betweene this and 

 twesday he will send you, under his hand, the methode that 

 he wolde advise you in the cure*. Tomorrowe I shall see 

 you myselfe. In the meane time, I remaine 



Your assured frende, 



SAM. TURNER. 



To his very good frende, Mr. Hariot, give these. 



HENRY BRIGGS TO THOMAS LYDYAT. 



[MS. Bodl. 313. Orig.] 



Good Mr. Lydiat, My desire was to have seen you here 

 this Act, and to have enjoyed your company and conference 

 about our common business, the furthering of such as desire 

 to understand the mathematics, and to have desired you to 

 have holpen me to Origanus, whereof I should have some 

 continual use. I pray you therefore send it me safe, and 

 leave it for me, if I be not in town, with Mr. Crane of New 

 College, my very good friend, or when you think good, that 

 at my coming home I may not fail to have it. I am still at 

 my logarithms, and can neither finish them to my mind nor 

 let them alone. If your calling, being of so high a nature, 

 would give you leave seriously to intend other business, I 

 should intreat you to strive to get out your meditations and 

 great pains, and to demonstrate every thing as you go, with- 

 out which I think you cannot have that acceptance and ap- 

 plause that your great pains have deserved. But we that 

 have no such eminent business may be busied about these 



* Harriot died on the 2nd of July, 1621, of a cancerous ulcer in the lip. 1 

 give this short letter as a biographical illustration. In the same volume are drafts 

 of two letters from Harriot to his physicians, detailing the nature of his complaint, 

 and dated in 1614 and 1615, which shows that he must have been harassed with 

 this disease for some years. Theodore Mayerne, mentioned in this note, was a 

 very eminent physician at the time ; but it does not appear to be generally known 

 that several volumes of medical collectanea in his autograph are preserved in the 

 Cambridge Public Library. 



