Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/57

 the best of archbishops, bishops, earls, viscounts, barons, knights, esquires, gentlemen, ministers, professors of both Universities, merchants, and all sorts of learned or in any kind useful men.” Himself a voluminous author and translator, he was ever on the look-out for talent in need of assistance, and was rapidly getting through his fortune in the promotion of every Utopian scheme that came under his notice. It was to him and at his request that Milton addressed his essay Of Education (1644).

At this time in easy circumstances, he was living in Duke’s Place, Drury Lane, an address which we may be sure was the centre of Comenius’ London experiences. Here would have met to discuss the intellectual and political problems of the day men like Theodore Haak, John Durie, John Beale, John Wilkins, John Pell, and Evelyn, who had just returned to London after a three months’ journey through Europe. Milton was living in London, and must certainly have met and conversed with the illustrious stranger; while no farther off than at Seven-oaks was Thomas Farnaby, a very remarkable English schoolmaster, who had evinced his interest in the Janua by prefixing a short Latin poem to Anchoran’s edition of 1631.

It was a strange society to which Comenius was introduced. Haak was a naturalised Englishman who had been ordained deacon in 1634 by Hall, Bishop of Exeter. He it was who in 1648 suggested the meetings of learned men that eventually led to the formation of the Royal Society. To No. 5 of Hooke’s philosophical collections he contributed the criticisms of Marin Mersenne and of Descartes upon Dr. John Pell’s An Idea of Mathematics, and, according to Anthony à Wood, translated half of Paradise Lost into High Dutch.

John Durie, the son of Robert Durie, minister of the Scotch Church at Leyden, had been educated for the