An early critique of Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum: Edmund Chilmead's treatise on sound

References

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• 1651 . Hartlib papers, ‘Emphemerides’ , E – E3 . Sheffield University Library . The Hartlib papers were consulted with the kind permission of Lord Delamere.
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• Bodleian Library MS Tanner 204. All future references to the treatise will be by folio number only. Chilmead's commentary is on Bacon's Francis Sylva Sylvarum, or a Naturall Historie London 1626 centuries 2 and 3. All future references to Bacon's work will be by the number of the experiment referred to, each century consisting of 100 of these.
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• Wood . 1813–20 . Athenae Oxonienses Edited by: Bliss , P. Vol. III , 350 – 350 . Oxford 4 vols.
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• Green , B.L. 1969 . “ The Harmonic Series from Mersenne to Rameau ” . In Ph.D. thesis , 389 – 389 . Ohio State University .
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• Most of the available information on Chilmead originates from Wood's account, and is found in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Sadie S. London 1980 IV 241 241 20 vols
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• Bloxham , J.R. , ed. 1853–83 . A Register of the Presidents, Fellows, Demies … of … Magdalen College Oxford Vol. II , 282 – 282 . Oxford 7 vols
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• In 1633 he was paid 10s., while the following year he was rewarded with £2 18s. for his labours. Bloxham A Register of the Presidents, Fellows, Demies … of … Magdalen College Oxford Bloxham J.R. Oxford 1853–83 II 282 282 7 vols
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• For the donations, see Macray W.D. Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford , 2nd edn Oxford 1890 68 73 For Chilmead's catalogue, which was very popular among scholars, see Bodleian MS Tanner 269, fols 10–75. A copy made for Archbishop Ussher may be found in Dublin, Trinity College, MS 361.
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• Thompson , E.M. , ed. 1875 . Letters of Humphrey Prideaux to John Ellis … , 16 – 16 . Westminster : Camden Society . Chilmead's transcipts and notes taken from Bodl. MSS Barocci 182, 194 are in Bodl. MS Auct. T. Infr. 2. 14.
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• Wood . 1813–20 . Athenae Oxonienses Edited by: Bliss , P. Vol. III , Oxford 4 vols col. 350
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• Burrows , M. , ed. 1881 . The Register of the Visitors of the University of Oxford from AD 1647 to AD 1658 , 485 – 485 . Westminster : Camden Society .
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• For King Henry The Poems of Henry King Crum M. Oxford 1965 see and the references cited therein
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• See Hawkins J. A General History of the Science and Practice of Music London 1875 II 17 17 3 vols and footnote 67
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• Hawkins , J. 1875 . A General History of the Science and Practice of Music Vol. II , 713 – 713 . London 3 vols
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• Sir Henry Holcroft and not Sir Henry Holbrooks as Wood and the entry in the Dictionary of National Biography incorrectly state
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• Hartlib . 1651 . “ Ephemerides ” . In Hartlib papers, ‘Emphemerides’ , E – E2 . Sheffield University Library . Chilmead's name, however, does not appear among the list of candidates for the chair drawn up by I. Adamson, ‘The Foundation and Early History of Gresham College, London, 1596–1704’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1975), p. 280. Chilmead was probably pursuaded to waive his candidacy in the face of the competition.
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• Walker , D.P. 1941–2 . Musical Humanism in the 16th and early 17th Centuries . Music Review , 2 : 1 – 13 . 111–21, 220–7, 288–308; 3 (1942–43), 56–71.
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• Bodl. MS Selden supra 108, fols 180, 228. See Feingold M. Science, Universities and Society in England, 1560–1640 D.Phil. thesis Oxford University 1980
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• Bodl. MS Selden supra 109, fols 302, 304 verso, 309 verso, 313. On Meibom, see Hawkins A General History of the Science and Practice of Music London 1875 I 110 111 3 vols II, 642 4; New Grove (footnote 7), XII, 68–9.
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• BL Add. MS 29396, fols 71 verso-72 verso. See Chan M. Edward Lawe's Manuscript, British Library Add. Ms 29396: the case for re-dating Music and Letters 1978 59 448 9 idem., Music in the Theatre of Ben Jonson (Oxford, 1980), p. 284.
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• For a fuller discussion of changing theories of sound in seventeenth-century England, see chapter 1 of Gouk P.M. Music in the Natural Philosophy of the Early Royal Society Ph.D. thesis London University 1982
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• Bacon . 1626 . Sylva Sylvarum, or a Naturall Historie London no. 101
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• Walker . 1941–2 . Musical Humanism in the 16th and early 17th Centuries . Music Review , 2 : 1 – 13 .
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• Gouk . 1982 . “ Music in the Natural Philosophy of the Early Royal Society ” . In Ph.D. thesis , 32 – 34 . London University .
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• Fols 12 verso-13. A full account of the harmony of the spheres is found in Macrobius' Commentary on the Dream of Scipio Stahl W.H. New York 1952 185 187 A good introduction to the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition of speculative music is found in S. K. Heninger, Jr., Touches of Sweet Harmony: Pythagorean Cosmology and Renaissance Poetics (San Marino, Cal., 1974).
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• Mersenne , M. 1635 . Harmonicorum libri 14 – 15 . Paris lib. 2, prop. xxi This work is generally bound with the Harmonicorum instrumentorum libri IV (Paris, 1635), although the two are separately paginated. Much of the information found in these works appears in Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle, 2 vols (Paris, 1636–7), although no systematic study has yet been carried out to determine the extent of the overlap between the Latin and French texts.
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• Fol. 16 Chilmead's diagram is a slightly modified; Mersenne's does not have the line AFB
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• Fol. 17 verso Mersenne Harmonicorum libri Paris 1635 Harm. lib., lib. 2, prop. xxxvi, p. 28.
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• Fols 20–21 Green The Harmonic Series from Mersenne to Rameau Ph.D. thesis Ohio State University 1969 157 311 on the problems of discovering the acoustical properties of pipes and bells.
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• Mersenne . 1635 . Harmonicorum libri Paris lib. 4, prop. xviii, p. 159. Mersenne believed that a string vibrates with a single motion, and so had to evolve a theory which could accommodate a single, continuous movement of the string and multiple movements of the air. Green (footnote 6), 341.
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• The two Oxford musicians were Noble William Pigott Thomas Wood Athenae Oxonienses Fasti Oxonienses Bliss P. Oxford 1813–20 II 4 vols cols 366–7. For the best-known account of the discovery, see ‘Dr Wallis's Letter to the Publisher containing a New Musical Discovery’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 12 (1677), 839–44.
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• (Pseudo-) Aristotle Problemata XI 899a 899a 903a, 903b, 904a.
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• Fol. 34 verso. The bells used by Mersenne were 1 1/3 doigts (3·646 cm) in diameter inside, 18 1/2 lines (4·276cm) outside. Mersenne Harmonicorum libri Paris 1635 Harm. inst., lib. 4, prop. viii, p. 154. (12 lines = 1 doigt = 2·735 cm.)
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• Palisca , C.V. 1961 . “ Scientific Empiricism in Musical Thought ” . In Seventeenth-Century Science and the Arts Edited by: Rhys , H.H. 91 – 137 . Princeton, New Jersey in (pp. 101–12); D.P. Walker, Studies in Musical Science in the Late Renaissance (London, 1978), pp. 12–13.
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• Fol. 39. In the Ficinan doctrine of spiritus, the peculiar power of music was explained by the similarity between the human spirit and the air through which it is transmitted Walker D.P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella London 1958 3 11
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• For an explanation of temperament, see Barbour J. Tuning and Temperament , 2nd edn East Lansing, Michigan 1953 New Grove (footnote 7), XVIII, 660–74.
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• Fols 45 verso-46 verso. Chilmead gives a fuller version of this in his essay De musica antiqua Graeca in Annotationes in Eratostheneum et Hymnos Dionysii Fell J. Oxford 1672 56 69
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• See Gouk P.M. Acoustics in the Early Royal Society, 1660–1680 Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 1982 36 155 175 Charleton's paper is in the Royal Society Classified Papers, II, no. 35.
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• The account by Dean Wren is found in his annotated copy of the Sylva Sylvarum , 3rd edn London 1631 46 46 Powle's paper is in T. Birch, History of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols (London, 1756–7), I, 120–3.
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• Jacquot , J. 1952 . Sir Charles Cavendish and his Learned Friends: A Contribution to the History of Scientific Relations between England and the Continent in the Earlier part of the Seventeenth Century . Annals of Science , 8 : 13 – 27 . 175–91 (p. 16); R. H. Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford, 1966).
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• Butler , C. 1636 . Principles of Musick 33 – 33 . London
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• See for example Mace D.T. Musical Humanism, the Doctrine of Rhythmus, and the St. Cecilia's Ode of Dryden Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 1964 27 251 292
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