Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/16

387] which is to be ascribed and attributed to Dr. Petty, as the first discoverer of life in her and author of saving her.9 Here he lived and was beloved by all ingenious scholars, particularly Ralph Bathurst, of Trinity College (then Dr. of Physic); Dr. J. Wilkins, Warden of Wadham College; Seth Ward, Professor of Astronomy; Dr. Wood, Thomas Wallis, M. D., etc.10 Dr. Petty was resident in Oxford 1648, 1649, and left it, if Anthony A. Wood is not mistaken, in 1652. He was about 1650 elected Professor of Music at Gresham College by the interest of his friend, Captain John Graunt, who wrote the "Observations on the Bill of Mortality," and at that time was worth but forty pounds in all the world.11 Shortly after (A. D. 1652), in August, he had the patent for Ireland; he was recommended to the Parliament to be one of the surveyors of Ireland, to which employment Captain John Graunt's interest did also help to give him a lift; and Edmund Wyld, Esq., also, then a member of Parliament and a great fautor of ingenious and good men for mere merit's sake (not being formally acquainted with him) did him great service, which, perhaps, he knows not of.12 To be short he is a person of so great worth and learning, and hath such a prodigious working art, that he is both fit for and an honor to the highest preferment. By this surveying employment he got an estate in Ireland (before the restoration of Charles II.) of £18,000 a year. He hath yet there £7,000 or £8,000 a year, and can from Mt. Mangorton, in the county of Kerry, behold 5,000 acres of his own land.

A. D. 1667, on Trinity Sunday, he married the relict of Sir Fenton, of Ireland, Kt., daughter of Sir Hardress Waller, of Ireland, a very beautiful and