- There is no complete bibliography of Charleton's works. The fullest available is appended to Rolleston Humphrey Walter Charelton Bull. Hist. Med. 1940 8 403 416 D.M., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.
- Some idea of his reputation can be gathered from John Dryden's famous poem, dedicated to Charleton Walter Chorea Gigantum, or the most Famous Antiquity of Great Britain, Stonehenge, Standing on Salisbury Plain, restored to the Danes London 1663 which prefaces which became Charleton's most popular work. Dryden numbered his friend amongst a group that includes Bacon, Gilbert, Harvey, and Ent. Even with the natural bias of the poet taken into consideration, it is clear that Charleton's contemporary reputation as a scientist was high in 1663.
- For this aspect of Charleton's work see Mayo Thomas Epicurus in England (1650–1725) , facsimile ed. University Microfilms High Wycombe, , England 1970 (henceforth cited as Mayo: Epicurus); Robert Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966 (henceforth cited as Kargon: Atomism)
- Webster , C. 1967 . The College of Physitians; “Solomon's House” in Commonwealth England . Bull. Hist. Med. , 41 : 393 – 412 . (henceforth cited as Webster: ‘Solomon's House’)
- Webstor , C. 1967 . English Medical reformers of the Puritan Revolution: A background to the Society of Chemical Physitians . Ambix , 14 : 16 – 41 . (henceforth cited as Webster: Medical Reformers)
- Gelbart , Nina Rattner . 1971 . The Intellectual Development of Walter Charleton . Ambix , 3 ( 18 ) : 149 – 168 . (henceforth cited as Gelbart:Charleton.)
- 1747–1767 . These include Biographia Britannica , First Ed. Vol. ii , 1286 – 1292 . A. Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis, ed. P. Bliss, Oxford, 1813–1820, vol. iv, pp. 752–756; John Aubrey, Brief Lives, Andrew Clark ed., 2 vols., Oxford, 1898; vol. i, p. 1, 16; Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, 11 vols., Oxford, 1844–1918, contain fragmentary evidence; D.N.B.; Humphrey Rolleston, loc. cit.; Robert Kargon, ‘Walter Charleton’ in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. ii, New York, 1971; W. Munk, The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, vol. i, 1861, pp. 262–274.
- Biographica Britannica , ii 1286 – 1286 .
- For Wilkins' biography see D.N.B.; Barbara Shapiro, John Wilkins 1614–1672, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969; Grant McColey, ‘The debt of Bishop John Wilkins to the Apologia pro Galileo of Tommaso Campanella’ Ann. Sci. 1939 4 150 168
- Charleton , Walter . 1657 . The Immortality of the Human Soul Demonstrated by the Light of Nature: In two Dialogues London Between pp. 43 and 48 Charleton indicates a knowledge of the work and environment in which Wilkins researched at Oxford, 1648 to 1657.
- These underlying attitudes are present in Charleton's work throughout the decade. They form part of the intellectual matrix in which his more immediate concerns are set. The analysis of such attitudes is an important question as far as Charleton is concerned. Some peripheral research has been done on this topic, in relation to his ideas, but a proper treatment remains to be attempted. The following sources are relevant Van Leeuwen H.G. The Problem of Certainty in English Thought 1630–1690 The Hague 1963 references to Wilkins, Chillingworth, et al.; Richard S. Westfall, Science and Religion in Seventeenth Century England, New Haven, 1958, references to Charleton et al.; Shapiro op. cit., especially Chapter 8, pp. 224–250.
- Charleton , Walter . 1652 . The Darknes of Atheism dispelled by the Light of Nature: A Physico-Theological Treatise London in ‘An Advertisement to the Reader’ sig. b 2.
- John Prideaux (1578–1650): see article in D.N.B.
- Charleton . Immortality of the Human Soul , 3 – 3 . There are many cumulative indications that Lucretius represents John Evelyn. For an investigation of this, see below, pp. 16–17.
- There is a possibility that Charleton occasionally acted as a medical practitioner in the Royal Army. For example in A Ternary of Paradoxes … London 1650 Prolegomena, Subsection 10. Charleton refers to the sympathetic medicine used by Sir Gilbert Talbot: ‘Other Cures, so near allied to a miracle, as the former, and no less conspicuous, have been wrought with the same Magneticall Balsam, by Sir Gilbert Talbot, upon many wounded in the King's Army; Chiefely in the Westerne Expedition: of which few Gent. Attendant on his Majesty, in that march, can be ignorant’. Charleton may well have attended the King on the campaigns in the West of England in 1644, and during the two battles of Newbury.
- See Webster Solomon's House 398 399 especially 400–1, and p. 409. This excellent article only partially explores the connexion between Charleton and the Harveian circle at Merton. Included in this group were Scarburgh, How, Merrett, Sir Edward and John Greaves, George Bathurst and Thomas Johnson. Also working in Oxford at the time were Thomas Clayton, George Joyliffe and Francis Potter. Harvey's associates were predominantly medical men, and following the Royalist defeat many went on to frequent the College of Physicians. The question of the detailed activities of the circle awaits further research. Equally the problem of the relationship between Charleton's later ideas (such as those in his Natural History of Nutrition, Life and Voluntary Motion, London, 1659) and those of other members of the group demands full scale study of their physiological and medical work over the whole period of the mid-seventeenth century. On Harvey at Merton see: Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of William Harvey, Oxford, 1966, pp. 304–314.
- Rolleston , Humphrey and Charelton , Walter . 1940 . Bull. Hist. Med. , 8 : 404 – 404 . D.M., F.R.C.P., F.R.S. reports that the British Museum contains a copy of the Disquisitio anatomica de formato foetu, 1667, by Walter Needham, in Charleton's characteristic and beautiful script, thus indicating his continued interest in the subject. In 1654 Charleton had included a long section on generation in the final part of his work, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltonia … Later he paid open tribute to Harvey in the three anatomical lectures he gave before the Royal College of Physicians in March, 1683
- Biegraphica Britannica , ii 1286 – 1287 . See Note A, p. 1287. It would appear that Charleton's degree was awarded for a mixture of reasons. His medical erudition was of a genuinely high standard, and concrete proof of his ability, rather than mere suspicion of talent was probably elicited, possibly under the stringent conditions of warfare. The circumstances surrounding the degree were quite normal for the war years in Oxford, as the Convocation records for January 15, 1643, show.
- See The Royal Society, its Origins and Founders Hartley Harold The Royal Society London 1960 article ‘William, Viscount Brouncker, P.R.S.’ J. F. Scott and Sir H. Hartley, pp. 147–158
- Charleton . 1650 . A Ternary of Paradoxes: The Magnetick Cure of Wounds, The Navity in Tartar in Wine, The Images of God in Man. Written originally by John Bapt. Van Helmont, and Translated, Illustrated and Ampliated by Walter Charleton, Doctor in Physick and Physician to the Late King London
- See Nethercot A.H. Abraham Cowley: the Muses' Hannibal Oxford 1931 78 80 Cowley left Oxford in 1646 and was in Baron Jermyn's household in Paris by June of that year. He was employed as secretary to Jermyn and Queen Henrietta-Maria until 1654, when he returned openly to England.
- Nethercot , A.H. 1931 . Abraham Cowley: the Muses' Hannibal 81 – 81 . Oxford See also Keynes op. cit., pp. 310–311. Cowley celebrated this friendship in a final tribute to the great medical thereotician: see his ‘Ode to Dr. Harvey’ in A. Cowley, Verses written upon Several Occasions, London, 1663, pp. 18–21.
- For Sir Theodore de Mayerne's life (1573–1655) see Keynes G. The Life of William Harvey Oxford 1966 136 137 (n. 16)
- See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Addenda 1625–1649 Hamilton W.D. London 1897 717 717
- See The Annals of the Royal College of Physicians of London All references to this source are to the type script copy of the Annals, translated into English from the Latin original, and kept in the library of the College. The present writer wishes to thank the Registrar of the College for permission to use this material. The references to Charleton's first appearance at the College comes in Book IV of the typescript copy, p. 18. It is the record of the ‘Censoria Comitia’ of June 6, 1649, and reads, ‘Walter Charleton, Doctor of Medicine in the University of Oxford, as he said, appeared and promised to obey the College in all matters in the future’. A discussion of Charleton's official medical career is given in the forthcoming paper, written by the present author: ‘Walter Charleton, William Petty and the College of Physicians, 1646 to 1658: A study in vocational and institutional politics during the Commonwealth’
- Webster . Solomon's House , 396 – 397 .
- See Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Advance of Money Green Mary A.E. London 1642–1656 1141 1141 1888 Part 2
- See Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Advance of Money Green Mary A.E. London 1642–1656 1141 1141 1888 Part 2
- See Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding Green M.A.E. London 1892 2221 2221 1643–1660 Part 5
- Charleton . The Darknes of Atheism This dedicatory epistle to Prujean is in Latin: it is unpaginated, and incorrectly dated ‘Kal: August anno 1641’. The date of its composition was probably late 1651.
- Green , M.A.E. , ed. 1892 . Annals 25 – 25 . London Part 5 The prospective doctor who wished to join the College as a ‘candidate’, which was the intermediate stage between being merely licensed to practice medicine and a full fellowship, had to undergo three examinations, spread over soveral months, which tested his medical knowledge. Only when his skill proved to be of an acceptable standard could he be proposed and elected as a candidate.
- Rolleston and Charelton , Walter . 1940 . Bull. Hist. Med. , 8 : 405 – 405 . D.M., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.
- Charleton . 1650 . Spiritus Gorgonicus vi, sua Saxipara exutus, sive de causis, signis, et sanatione litheaseos diatriba Leyden
- Charleton . 1650 . A Ternary of Paradoxes Leyden this work was probably published early in the summer of 1650. This is made clear by his comments in the Prolegamena (subsections 34 and 35) where Charleton talks of previous experiments already described in his published disseration Spiritus Gorgonicus. More than likely. A Ternary … had circulated in manuscript form by mid-1649, because a dedicatory poem at the front of the book, written by Pierre de Cardonnell, is dated ‘V. Kal. VIII. BR. IS. Aerae Christ. MDCXLIX’. The work was so popular that a second edition ‘reformed and enlarged with some Marginal Additions’ was on sale in the same year. All references in the present article are to this edition
- See Gelbart N.R. Charleton Ambix 1971 3 18 18 for his intellectual development during this period. This article describes the nature of his ideas on Van Helmont, and how they evolved towards eventual disenchantment. It is commendable in that it recognizes the chronology of this evolution and the underlying influence that hermeticism continued to exert on Charleton's natural philosophy. However the article does not live up to its somewhat grandiose title. Charleton's attitudes were far more complex, and wider of origin and awareness than has been depicted by Nina Gelbart. Furthermore, she has clearly failed to describe the broad literary tradition within which Charleton consciously set his works.
- Charleton . 1650 . Deliramenta Catarrhi: or the Incongruities, Impossibilities and Absurdities couched under the Vulgar Opinion of Defluxions. The Author, That great Philosopher by Fire, Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont, etc. The Translator and Paraphrast Dr. Charleton, Physician to the late King London This was produced as a separate book in its first edition, but was later included with the second edition of A Ternary of Paradoxes, where it was bound in at the back.
- For comments on Charleton's career as a Helmontian see Rattansi P.M. Paracelsus and the Puritan Revolution Ambix 1963 11 24 32 also Rattansi, ‘The Helmontian-Galenist Controversy in Restoration England’, Ambix, 1964, 12, 1–23, especially pp. 9–10 and 12.
- Charleton . A Ternary of Paradoxes, the Epistle Dedicatory to Brouncker sig. B. 3
- Charleton . A Ternary of Paradoxes, the Epistle Dedicatory to Brouncker sig. B.4
- Charleton . A Ternary of Paradoxes, the Epistle Dedicatory to Brouncker sig. B.1
- For Boyle's interest see Louis Trenchard Morse Boyle as Alchemist J. Hist. Ideas 1941 11 61 76 also C. Webster, ‘The Helmontian George Thomson and William Harvey: The Revival and Application of Splenectomy to Physiological Research’, Medical History, 1971, 15, 2, 154–168, especially see pp. 154–157 for a description of other scientific figures interested in Helmontianism in the 1650s.
- Charleton, A Ternary of Paradoxes, ‘Prolegomena’, Subsection 10. For Digby's biography see Peterssen R.T. Sir Kenelm Digby—The Ornament of England London 1956
- Charleton . Deliramenta Catarrhi … , lsThe Translator to the Judicious and (therefore) unprejudicate Reader’. Sig. A 2.R. ‘… that though they [‘these semi-criticks’] have privately accused, yet would it have stood more with their Honour publickly to have convicted me of such improprieties of expression …’
- Charleton, The Darknes of Atheism, ‘An Advertisement to the Reader’, sig. B.3 to B.4. Charleton had clearly read one of the editions of Descarte's Meditations de prima philosophia in quibus Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstrantur, first published under the editoral direction of Mersenne in 1640. Appended to these Meditations were objections by Hobbes, Arnauld, Gassendi and others. There was a second edition in 1642. There is extensive material available on the general development of Cartesian thought in England. For Charleton see especially Laudan L. The Clock Metaphor and Probabilism. The Impact of Descartes on English Methodological Thought, 1650–1665 Ann. Sci. 1966 22 73 104 particularly the note on p. 90 for similarities in the work of Charleton and Boyle. The general material is noted in C. Webster, ‘Henry More and Descartes, Some New Sources’, Brit. J. Hist. Sci., 1969, 4, 16, 359–377.
- 1966 . Annals , 22 : 32 – 32 . records Charleton's appearance before the ‘Comitia Censoria’, December 6, 1650: pp. 42–3 notes his attendance at the ‘Comitia Menstrua’, March 5, 1652
- Kargon , R. Atomism , 3 84 – 84 . ‘A friend of Hobbes and a correspondant of Lady Margaret Cavendish, Charleton probably first came into contact with the ideas of Gassend through them. At any rate, shortly after their return to England, Charleton abandonned his earlier adherence to the ideas of Van Helmont and became an enthusiastic atomist’. This statement is highly misleading; Nina Gelbart, ‘Charleton’, loc. cit., p. 159, gives Hobbes an even greater role in the transformation of Charleton's ideas, but does not investigate the exact conditions surrounding their early relationship. This is unfortunate, for the chronology of her theory depends on the date of Hobbes's meeting with Charleton in England. On p. 158 she gives this date as ‘before the end of 1650’. In fact Hobbes did not return to England till late in 1651.
- Charleton . The Darknes of Atheism . Epistola Dedicatoria , refers to the sickness as, ‘epidemica superioris anni Dysenteria gravissime’.
- Charleton . The Darknes of Atheism
- Charleton . “ Prepatory Advertisement to the Reader ” . In The Darknes of Atheism sig. C.3.
- Charleton . Deliramenta Catarrhi . Translator's Introduction , Sig. a.1. He is quoting from Thomas Hobbes, Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Polity, Oxford, 1650, which is dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle.
- de Beer , E.S. 1955 . The Diary of John Evelyn Vol. iii , 41 – 41 . Oxford and p. 163.
- For a short biography of Hobbes, see Peters Richard Hobbes Peregrine 1967 13 42
- For the scientific activities of the Cavendish family see Jacquot Jean Sir Charles Cavendish and his Learned Friends Ann. Sci. 1952 8 13 28 and 175–192; also Helen Hervey, ‘Hobbes and Descartes in the Light of Correspondance between Sir Charles Cavendish and John Pell’, Osiris, 10, 1952, 67–90
- Gassendus , Petrus . 1649 . Animadversiones in decimum Librum Diogenes Laerti Lyons It is clear that at least one copy was known of as early as 1650, because Thomas Browne makes reference to Gassendi's defence of Epicurus, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents and Commonly Presumed Truths, London, 1650, Book VII, p. 324. This would suggest a quick reception of the French work in England. Charleton in fact gives a clear reference to Gassendi's Animadversiones … in The Darknes of Atheism, ‘Preparatory Advertisement to the Reader’, sig. B.5, where he provides an erudite list of sources: ‘… many of our Apodictical Reasons, alleadged for the comprobation of Providence Divine, both General and Special, were gleaned from those more fertil Fields of Lactantius (de opific. Dei) Raymundus de Sabunde ‘Theologia Natural) Aquinas (contra Gentes) Ludovicus Vives (de Verit fidei Christinae) Brodwardinus (de causa Dei) and chiefly Gassendus (In animadvers, in phys. Epicuri) the leaves of whose most learned Works, we blush not to confesse ourselves to have been so conversant in, that we have sulleyed them by open revolution’.
- For Evelyn's botanical interest see Hiscock W.G. John Evelyn and his family Circle London 1955 18 36
- De Beer . 1955 . The Diary of John Evelyn Vol. iii , 94 – 94 . Oxford
- This translation, with Evelyn's commentary, appeared in print as An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura Interpreted and Made English Verse by J. Evelyn Esq. London 1656 A letter from Evelyn's cousin, Richard Fanshawe, is included in the front of the book (pp. 6–9) and is dated ‘27 Decem, 1653’. It is clear from Fanshawe's comments that he has seen a copy of the translation. Presumably Evelyn was working on this after he returned from France in 1652.
- Aubrey , John . 1898 . Brief Lives Edited by: Clark , Andrew . Vol. i , 371 – 371 . Oxford
- For a good description of this controversy, see Mintz Samuel The Hunting of Leviathan Cambridge 1962 39 62 especially
- For Margaret Cavendish's life see Grant Douglas Margaret the First: A Biography of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle London 1623–1673 1957
- See the reference in The Philosophical and Physical Opinions Written by her Excellency, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle London 1655 ‘An Epiloge to my Philosophical Opinions’, where Margaret Cavendish states that ‘I never spake to Master Hobbes twenty words in my life … I asked him if he would please to do me that honour to stay at dinner, but he with great civility refused me …’.
- For example, in Cavendish Margaret The Philosophical and Physical Opinions ‘Letter to the Reader’, she says ‘I am my Lord's Schollar’ referring to her husband, and maintains that her knowledge of anatomy comes solely from ‘everything they discourse of (I say they) that is my husband and brothers’.
- Grant , Douglas . Margaret the First , 116 – 117 . and 196–198, discusses her atomic theory of matter, and her later materialistic but anti-atomistic ideas. These bear clear parallels with a similar system constructed by Charleton. These issues need to be reconsidered in much greater detail
- This letter is to be found in Letters and Poems In Honour of the Incomparable Princess Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle London 1676 142 149 The letter is dated ‘London, January 1, 1654 [1655 N.S.]’. For the quotation above see pp. 143–144. There can be no doubt that Charleton did meet privately with Margaret Cavendish, for he says (p. 145), ‘insomuch as it might render me suspected for something of a Scholar, and consequently incapable of the Honour and Pleasure of sometimes attending you, and hearing you more than ingenious Discourses’.
- Charleton . 1654 . Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltonia or a Fabrick of Science Natural Upon the Hypothesis of Atoms Founded: Epicurius, Repaird: Petrus Gassendus, Augmented: Walter Charleton, Dr. in Medicine, and Physician to the late Charles, Monarch of Great Britain London Extensive comments on this work are to be found in: Mayo, Epicurus, especially pp. 33–42 and 129–132: Kargon, Atomism, especially pp. 76–92; Nina Gelbart, ‘Charleton’, pp. 160–168. Between them, Charleton's works of 1652 and 1654 add up to over 800 pages. They represent a major effort in writing.
- For the biography of Sir John Danvers (1588–1655) see D.N.B.
- The Annals of the College of Physicians 66 67 This event is discussed in the forthcoming article mentioned above (n. 25).
- Charleton . 1656 . Epicurus Morals Collected Partly out of his owne Greek Text, in Diogeres Laertius And Partly out of the Rhapsodies of Marcus Antoninus, Plutarch, Cicero and Seneca, and faithfully Englished London The frontispiece to the book is an engraving of Epicurus. The same engraving is to be found as the frontispiece to Gassendi'a Animadversiones … of 1649, which probably expresses Charleton's desire to create a direct link between the two works. The Bodleian copy of Epicurus' Morals is a superb example, bound in blue morrocco, with gilt edgings. It was clearly intended as an expensive presentation gift.
- Charleton . 1656 . Epicurus Morals Collected Partly out of his owne Greek Text, in Diogeres Laertius And Partly out of the Rhapsodies of Marcus Antoninus, Plutarch, Cicero and Seneca, and faithfully Englished London Sig. A.3, ‘An Apologie for Epicurus As to the three Capitall Crimes whereof he is accused, Written in a Letter, to a Person of Honour’.
- For Fauconberg (1623–1670), see D.N.B.
- See Webster Solomen's House 389 412 especially This article fully documents the comprehensive nature of Charleton's description of the scientific work carried out in England during the Commonwealth. However it does not investigate the more autobiographical material contained in Dialogue I of The Immortality of the Human Soul.
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 188 – 188 . The book was clearly regarded as a fascicle in the larger work, made up of the two earlier pieces of 1652 and 1654. Hence ‘Lucretius’ says: op. cit., p. 9, ‘For … in the Conclusion of your Physiology … you promise a second part thereof, in a way of discovery of the Nature and Immortality of the Reasonable Soul of Man’. In this fashion, all of Charleton's works between 1652 and 1657 can be regarded as developing highly interrelated themes, which were consciously inter dependant.
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 28 – 30 .
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 15 – 17 .
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 32 – 33 . The description itself is extensive, filling pages 33 to 48.
- This passage is signed by the printer, though there is some doubt that Henry Herringman composed it himself. See Dryden: Facts and Problems , revised ed. Gainesville 1965 184 193
- 1965 . Dryden: Facts and Problems , revised ed. 12 – 12 . Gainesville Charleton includes a long catalogue of these troubles.
- See Munk W. The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians 1861 i 262 274 (n. 7) 390–391, Previously, Charleton had described himself as ‘physician to the late Charles, Monarch of Great Britain’ (Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charletonia: title). From 1656 to 1660 he made no reference to his royal duties, presumably to avoid personal attack. However, he is unlikely to have continued to use the old honour in 1654, if he could refer to the new one, especially if in political terms they were equally embarrassing.
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 3 – 3 .
- For this see D.N.B.; Hiscock W.D. John Evelyn and his family Circle London 1955 18 36 Geoffrey Keynes, John Evelyn. Oxford, 1968.
- For the numerous references to these visits see de Beer E.S. The Diary of John Evelyn ii especially pp. 52–54, 187, 422–423, 466, 475, 534–535, 565; vol. iii, pp. 3, 13 and 49.
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 8 – 8 .
- Contained in Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn Bray W. London 1852 iii the letter is dated ‘Aug. 29, 1657’. An earlier letter from Taylor to Evelyn of April, 1656, also expresses mixed feelings about Evelyn's enterprise: Bohn, op. cit., p. 72, ‘For your Lucretius I perceive you have suffered the importunity of your too kind friends to prevail with you’.
- For Pierrepoint's life (1606–1680) see D.N.B.; Munk W. Diary and Correspondance of John Evelyn Bray W. London 1852 iii 282 292
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 18 – 18 .
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 20 – 20 .
- Charleton . The Immortality of the Human Soul , 19 – 19 .
- Charleton . The Epistle Dedicatory Sig. b.2.R. In this letter, Charleton makes it quite clear that Pierrepoint was widely recognized and envied as one of the leading scientific figures of the day. Even taking the natural motive of flattery into consideration, this account adds significantly to Pierrepoint's contemporary status as an active experimentalist. This is supported by the comments of Dr. John Collop who wrote Poesis Rediviva, or, Poesie Reviv'd, in 1656, which he dedicated to Pierrepoint. Collop was a unique contemporary commentator on the London medical world of the day. For an investigation of his work and relationships see: F. N. L. Poynter, ‘An unnoticed Contemporary English Poem in Praise of Harvey, and its Author, John Collop, M.D.’, J. Hist. Med., 1956, 11, 374–383. Conrad Hilberry, ‘Medical Poems from John Collop's Poesis Rediviva (1956)’, Ibid., pp. 384–411.
- Charleton . 1659 . Exercitationes physico-anatomicae de oeconomia animali Amsterdam This became one of Charleton's most popular works. A second edition with the title, Natural History of nutrition, life and voluntary motion … London, 1659, was dedicated to both George Ent and Thomas, Viscount Fauconberg. It is clear that Fauconberg continued to ‘confer the favour’ of his companionship on Charleton. Subsequently there appeared another five editions of this work.
- There is a possibility that Dryden was employed by the Commonwealth government between 1656 and 1658, and also by Henry Herringman. A full discussion of this issue is to be found in Osborn J.M. Dryden: Facts and Problems , revised ed. Gainesville 1965 184 193 If Charleton and Dryden knew each other by 1657 this might explain Dryden's knowledge of natural philosophy, and why Charleton so readily sponsored him for membership of the Royal Society, on November 12, 1662. See also L. I. Bredvold, ‘Dryden, Hobbes and the Royal Society’, Modern Philology, 1928, 25, 417–438.
- For this period of Cowley's life see Nethercot A.H. Abraham Cowley: the Muses' Hannibal Oxford 1931 140 187 No. 21 Cowley returned to England, with government permission, in 1654. He became friendly with Hobbes and members of his circle, and obviously maintained an interest in natural philosophy. In 1655 Dr. Charles Scarburgh bailed him out of trouble. In 1656 he went up to Oxford, and in 1657 was created ‘Doctor of Physick’, though it is unlikely that he practised medicine professionally. At this time he was working on his tract on education. It is clear that he knew John Evelyn, with whom he shared an interest in botany. This contact makes it likely that he also knew Charleton. Cowley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on February 27, 1661, though he failed to attend the Society's meetings.
- See de Beer E.S. The Earliest Fellows of the Royal Society Bull. Inst. Hist. Res. 1929 15 79 93 of these Brouncker, Evelyn, Glisson, Goddard, Pierrepoint and Wilkins were certainly known to Charleton, and were probably the most active of his associates in the field of natural philosophy. He would also have known other fellows who belonged to the College of Physicians, and those who were in Oxford 1642–1646.
- For an extended discussion of this problem see; Webster C. The Origins of the Royal Society Hist. Sci. 1967 6 106 128 an Essay Review from
Annals of Science
Volume 30, 1973 - Issue 3