Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation: Studies in Intellectual Communications.

Samuel Hartlib was born in Elbing about 1600. His father was a Polish merchant, his mother probably the daughter of a prosperous English merchant who had settled in Danzig. About 1620 Hartlib moved to England, where he lived until his death in 1662. He is usually remembered, if at all, as a friend of John Milton; Milton dedicated his treatise on education to Hartlib and described him as a "master of innumerable curiosities." Hartlib's rational outlook and reformed religious views commended him to the Interregnum Parliaments, who granted him an annuity of [pounds]100. Following the Restoration his fortunes and health declined, but he remained widely respected by an intellectual community which included several members of what was to become the Royal Society.

Hartlib remained obscure and generally forgotten until 1933, when a trunk full of his papers was discovered languishing in the offices of a London firm of solicitors. These had not been seen since 1667. They were acquired by George Turnbull, a lecturer in education at Sheffield University, who had earlier published a pamphlet about Hartlib; when Turnbull retired he took Hartlib's papers with him, and when he died his widow thought of burning them. Fortunately they were retrieved by the Sheffield University librarian and made available to scholars. Charles Webster was the first to use make systematic use of them, but more recently a number of younger scholars have been attracted to the Hartlib archive. The Hartlib Papers Project of the British Academy, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, expects to publish the manuscripts (both originals and transcripts) on CD-ROM. The papers gathered in this volume were originally prepared for a conference held at Sheffield under the auspices of the Academy, the Trust, and the University.

Hartlib's intellectual circle was wide and several of its members were prominent. Among the better known were Sir Francis Bacon, J.A. Commenius, Robert Boyle, Samuel Ward, and John Wilkins. Interesting lesser figures include John Drury, Benjamin Worsley, John Wiesel, Sir Cheney Culpepper, and Joachim Hubner. All of these men receive attention here, in studies that focus on the communication of knowledge and the interrelation between nature and society. Garden design, the natural history of Ireland, and a scheme for the improvement of sanitation in London find a place as well.

Bothwell-established and beginning scholars were asked to contribute. Most readers will be familiar with the work of Charles Webster, who now gives us an interesting piece on Benjamin Worsley and the Navigation Act; Richard Popkin, who contributes an important study of Hartlib and the Jews; T.C. Barnard, who - as might be expected - discusses the cult of improvement in Ireland; and John Dixon Hunt, the dean of garden historians, who has written about Hartlib's interest in "hortulan affairs." Younger writers approaching the Hartlib circle in a variety of ways include both English and American scholars, such as Stephen Clucas, Kevin Dunn, Howard Hotson, Mark Jenner, Michael Leslie, William R. Newman, Malcolm Oster, Stephen Pumphrey, Gerald Strasser, and Timothy Raylor. Pieces by three Czech scholars and writers from Italy and Ireland round out the volume. The senior editor, Mark Greengrass, is a director of the Hartlib Papers Project and lectures at Sheffield.

Readers expecting to learn about Hartlib himself may be disappointed by this book, for it includes little information about his life and little discussion of his works. Indeed several of the chap-teas hardly mention Hartlib at all, while others suggest rather than demonstrate their relevance to his circle. Nevertheless, those who take the subtitle seriously will find a number of fascinating "studies in intellectual communication."

STANFORD LEHMBERG University of Minnesota, Minneapolis