Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/71

 … Rendered faithfully out of French into English by R. White, Gent. The second edition …’ London, 1658. Dedicated by R. White to Digby's son, John. ‘The second edition’ is the earliest one known, and is probably the original. A French version appeared in 1658. De Morgan believed ‘R. White’ to be identical with Digby's friend and disciple, Thomas White. 12. ‘A Discourse concerning the Vegetation of Plants, spoken by Sir Kenelme Digby at Gresham College, 23 Jan. 1660–1, at a Meeting for Promoting Philosophical Knowledge by Experiment,’ London, 1661; republished with ‘Of Bodies’ in 1669. 13. ‘Private Memoirs,’ printed by Sir H. N. Nicolas from Harl. MS. 6758 in 1827, with a privately printed appendix of castrations. 14. ‘Journal of the Scanderoon Voyage in 1628,’ printed from a manuscript belonging to Mr. W. W. E. Wynne by John Bruce for the Camd. Soc. 1868. 15. ‘Poems from Sir Kenelm Digby's Papers in the possession of Henry A. Bright,’ with notes by Mr. G. F. Warner (Roxb. Club, 1877). This volume includes a translation by Digby of ‘Pastor Fido,’ act ii. sc. 5, one or two brief poems on his wife, and reprints of many transcripts in his own beautiful handwriting of the poems by his friends Ben Jonson and others on his wife's death. Aubrey ascribes to Digby an unprinted translation of Petronius, and he is also credited with designing a new edition of Roger Bacon's works. An autograph copy of his treatises ‘Of Bodies’ and ‘The Soul’ is in the Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève, Paris.

Although a shrewd observer of natural phenomena, Digby was a scientific amateur rather than a man of science. Astrology and alchemy formed serious parts of his study, and his credulity led him to many ludicrous conclusions. But he appreciated the work of Bacon, Galileo, Gilbert, Harvey, and Descartes, and Wallis, Wilkins, and Ward speak respectfully of him. He is said to have been the first to notice the importance of vital air or oxygen to the life of plants (see his Vegetation of Plants). His extraordinary accounts of his chemical experiments exposed him to much ridicule. Evelyn concludes a description of his Paris laboratory with the remark that he was ‘an errant mountebank.’ Lady Fanshawe refers to his ‘infirmity’ of lying about his scientific experiments, ‘though otherwise,’ she avers, ‘he was a person of excellent parts and a very fine-bred gentleman’ (Memoirs, p. 84). In 1656 he circulated a description of a petrified city in Tripoli, which Fitton, the Duke of Tuscany's English librarian, was said to have sent him. He contrived to have it published in the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ and was liberally abused for his credulity. Henry Stubbes, referring to these circumstances, characterised him as ‘the very Pliny of our age for lying’ (Animadversions upon Glanvil); but Robert Hooke, in his posthumously published ‘Philosophical Experiments’ (1726), shows that Digby knew what he was talking about. On 20 March 1661 Oldenburgh sent to Robert Boyle a report on Digby's alchemical experiments in the transmutation of metals (, Works, v. 302). Digby first described his well-known weapon-salve, or powder of sympathy, in the discourse alleged to have been delivered at Montpellier in 1658. Its method of employment stamps it as the merest quackery. The wound was never to be brought into contact with the powder, which was merely powdered vitriol. A bandage was to be taken from the wound, immersed in the powder, and kept there till the wound healed. Digby gives a fantastic account of the ‘sympathetic’ principles involved. He says that he learned how to make and apply the drug from a Carmelite who had travelled in the East, and whom he met at Florence in 1622. He first employed it about 1624 to cure James Howell of a wound in his hand, and he adds that James I and Dr. Mayerne were greatly impressed by its efficacy, and that Bacon registered it in his scientific collections. All this story is doubtful. There is no evidence that Bacon knew of it, or that it was applied to Howell's wound, or that Digby had learned it at so early a date as the reign of James I. In his treatise ‘Of Bodies’ (1644) he makes the vaguest reference to it, and in 1651 Nathaniel Highmore, M.D., appended to his ‘History of Generation’ (dedicated to Robert Boyle) ‘a discourse of the cure of wounds by sympathy,’ in which he attributes the dissemination of the remedy to Sir Gilbert Talbot, speaks of the powder as ‘Talbot's powder,’ and ignores Digby's claim to it, although in the earlier pages of his work he repeatedly refers to Digby's investigations, and criticises his theory of generation. Digby's originality is thus very questionable. After 1658 his name is very frequently associated with ‘the powder of sympathy.’ In an advertisement appended by the bookseller, Nathaniel Brookes, to ‘Wit and Drollery’ (1661) it is stated that Sir Kenelm Digby's powder is capable of curing ‘green wounds’ and the toothache, and is to be purchased at Brookes's shop in Cornhill. George Hartman, who described himself as Digby's steward and laboratory assistant, published after Digby's death two quack-medical volumes purporting to be accounts of Digby's experiments, ‘Choice and Experimental Receipts in Physick and Chirurgery’ (1668) and ‘Chymical Secrets and