London: The Biography полностью

But in London it is impossible to distinguish magic from other versions of intellectual and mechanical aptitude. Dr. Dee, the great Elizabeth magus of Mortlake, for example, was an engineer and a geographer as well as an alchemist. In 1312, Raymond Lully, attracted by its scientific reputation, came to London, where he practised alchemy both in Westminster Abbey and the Tower. The magician Cornelius Agrippa arrived in the city at the end of the fifteenth century, in order to associate with the great divines and philosophers of the period; he struck up a particular friendship with John Colet, dean of St. Paul’s and founder of St. Paul’s school, who had become interested in magic during his Italian travels. An alchemist named Hugh Draper was imprisoned within the Salt Tower of the Tower of London for sorcery and magic; he inscribed upon his cell wall a great horoscope, which he dated on 30 May 1561, and then added that he had “MADE THIS SPHEER” with his own hands.

By chance, or coincidence, many astrologers came to inhabit Lambeth. The name itself, however, may have drawn them. Beth-el was in Hebrew the name for a sacred place, here fortuitously connected with the Lamb of God. At Tradescant’s house in south Lambeth dwelled Elias Ashmole, who convinced John Aubrey of the powers of astrology. The interment of Simon Forman, the great Elizabethan magus, is entered within the Lambeth parish registers. Lully stated that Forman wrote in a book, found among his possessions, “this I made the devil write with his own hand in Lambeth Fields, 1569, in June or July, as I now remember.” Captain Bubb, who was a contemporary of Forman, dwelled in Lambeth Marsh where he “resolved horary questions astrologically,” a pursuit which led him eventually to the pillory. At the north-east corner of Calcott Alley, in Lambeth, lived Francis Moore, an astrologer and physician, who has now entered the realm of the immortals as the author of the almanac which bears his name. In Lambeth there were many rare devices. In the collection of Tradescant, later to become a museum in the area, were gathered salamanders and “Easter egges of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem,” dragons two inches long and two feathers from a phoenix, a piece of stone from the tomb of John the Baptist and “Blood that rained in the Isle of Wight, attested by Sir Jo. Oglander,” a white blackbird and “halfe a hasle-nut with seventy pieces of household stuffe in it.” Those were once the sights of Lambeth.

The close associations between alchemy and the beginnings of science were also present in the very heart of London. When Newton came up to the city in order to purchase the material for his researches, he took the coach to the Swan Tavern in Grays Inn Lane before walking or riding to Little Britain. Here, through a bookseller called William Cooper, he bought such texts of alchemical knowledge as Zetner’s Theatrum Chemicum, and Ripley Reviv’d by the London alchemist George Starkey. In the process, Newton became acquainted with a secret group of London magicians and astrologers. Many of the original founders of the Royal Society, which in later days was explicitly associated with “modern” scientific research and knowledge, were in fact part of the “Invisible College” of adepts who practised alchemy as well as mechanical philosophy. They were part of that tradition adumbrated by John Dee which saw no necessary disparity between the various forms of occult and experimental understanding. Samuel Hartlib was the prime mover among a group of London experimenters who wished to marry rationality and system with alchemy in order to create a practical magic; among his friends and supporters were Robert Boyle, Kenelm Digby and Isaac Newton himself. They corresponded by means of codenames, and used pseudonyms in the publication of their work; that of Newton was “Jeova Sanctus Unus.”

Yet there emerged out of this a society which was, in the words of Macaulay, “destined to be a chief agent in a long series of glorious and salutary reforms.” The Royal Society held its first meetings in Gresham House in Bishopsgate before removing to Crane Court off Fleet Street and beside Fetter Lane; on the nights upon which the members met, a lamp was hung out over the entrance to the court from Fleet Street. The pragmatism and energy of their consultations are evident in some of their earliest labours-“to promote inoculation … electrical experiments on fourteen miles of wire near Shooters Hill … ventilation apropos of gaol feaver … discussion on Cavendish’s improved thermometers.” Not all the experimenters were of London, and not all of them lived in London, but the city became the chief centre of that empirical philosophy and practical experiment which developed out of alchemical research. The pragmatic spirit of London science must be emphasised in all these varied and various areas; it is the spirit that has pervaded its learning ever since.