* Samuel Hartlib (d. 1662).
Note '. . . Hartlib . . . was a foreigner by birth, being the son of a Polish merchant of German extraction, who had left Poland when that country fell under Jesuit rule, and had settled in Elbing in Prussia in very good circumstances. Twice married before to Polish ladies, this merchant had married in Prussia, for his third wife, the daughter of a wealthy English merchant of Dantzic ; and thus our Hartlib, their son, though Prussian born, and with Polish connections, could reckon himself half-English. The date of his birth was probably about the beginning of the century, i.e. he may have been eight or ten years older than Milton. He appears to have first visited England in or about 1628, and from that time, though he made frequent journeys to the Continent, London had been his head-quarters. Here, with a residence in the City, he had carried on business as a 搈erchant,丒with extensive foreign correspondences and very respectable family connections . . . But it did not require such family connections to make Hartlib at home in English society. The character of the man would have made him at home anywhere. He was one of those persons now styled 損hilanthropists,丒or 揻riends of progress,丒who take an interest in every question or project of their time promising social improvement, have always some iron in the fire, are constantly forming committees or writing letters to persons of influence, and altogether live for the public. By the common consent of all who have explored the intellectual and social history of England in the seventeenth century, he is one of the most interesting and memorable figures of that whole period. He is interesting both for what he did himself, and also on account of the number and intimacy of his contacts with other interesting people. '
(D. Mason, Life of Milton, as quoted by S.S. Laurie, John Amos Comenius, Cambridge University Press, 1887, Pages 39 丒40.)Note 揙ther writings that may be referred to . . . are some of the tracts of Samuel Hartlib, or Hartlieb, a learned Protestant German Pole, whose parents, under the pressure of Jesuitical dominion, had migrated from Poland to West Prussia. Hartlieb went to England about 1630, and became active as a diplomat and as the promoter of all kinds of movements that aimed at the common weal. He made translations into English of various writings of Comenius, the famous pedagogue of the Bohemian Brethren (1592-1671), besides himself writing various essays on education. Keenly interested in the better cultivation of the soil, he established a small model farm and published popular works on agriculture as practiced in Flanders, bee-keeping, fruit-growing, etc. . . . He had maintained relations with the most eminent men in England. . . . The great Comenius wrote that he did not know of anyone who equalled Hartlib in the extent of his knowledge.丒
(E. Bernstein, Cromwell &ct., pages 101-2.)W. Paul Tabaka
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