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. 2019 Jan 9;74(1):95–103. doi: 10.1098/rsnr.2018.0055

Robert Boyle's anonymous ‘Crosey-Crucian’ identified: The German alchemist and religious dissenter Peter Moritz

Mike A Zuber 1,*, Leigh T I Penman 1
PMCID: PMC7014662  PMID: 32063657

Abstract

Using previously neglected manuscript sources, this paper sheds light on a puzzling episode in the later life of Robert Boyle and the early career of his laboratory assistant Ambrose Godfrey. Currently, the only account of their disappointing encounter with an unnamed German adept derives from Godfrey's lost manuscript treatise ‘An Apology and Letter touching a Crosey-Crucian’, excerpts of which were published in 1858. Based on a comparison between that source and the papers of the virtually forgotten chymical practitioner and convicted heretic Peter Moritz (1638–ca. 1700), the authors argue that Godfrey's anonymous ‘Crosey-Crucian’ was none other than Moritz himself. The first part establishes that various significant and seemingly insignificant details agree precisely and thus corroborate this identification. The second part focuses on those passages among Moritz's papers that contain explicit evidence of his dealings with both Boyle and Godfrey, a sheet of notes and a lengthy epistolary ‘Memorial’ to an unnamed addressee. The authors contend that Moritz's ‘Memorial’ is a version of the same document that the adept sought to deliver to Boyle who refused to accept it, according to Godfrey's ‘Apology’. For this reason, and on the basis of strong internal evidence, Boyle is identified as the intended recipient of Moritz's ‘Memorial’. Taken together, these two identifications solve a long-standing riddle in Boyle scholarship and introduce a significant addition to his extant correspondence.

Keywords: Robert Boyle, Ambrose Godfrey, Peter Moritz, alchemy, chymistry, religious dissent

Introduction

One of the more puzzling episodes in the life of Robert Boyle FRS (1627–91) first came to scholarly attention in 1858. That year the London pharmacist Joseph Ince (1826–1907) published a study concerning the life of Ambrosius Gottfried Hanckwitz FRS (1660–1741).1 More commonly known as Ambrose Godfrey, he was a German immigrant in London who laid the foundation for his later entrepreneurial career as Boyle's laboratory assistant. After leaving the natural philosopher's service, Godfrey established a celebrated chemical manufacturing firm, based in Covent Garden, and all but monopolized the large-scale production of phosphorus. Among his papers, Ince found a curious manuscript account titled ‘An Apology and Letter touching a Crosey-Crucian’. According to the Victorian pharmacist, this tract described the activities of an unnamed German charlatan, who, at an unknown date, deviously managed to win Godfrey's confidence and sought financial support from Boyle based on claims of alchemical prowess.

Despite its potential importance for our understanding of Boyle's alchemy and laboratory practices, the story of the ‘Crosey-Crucian’ has remained little more than a footnote in studies on Boyle and his milieu. This is not on account of a lack of scholarly interest in Godfrey's story and its repercussions, but rather on account of Ince's largesse. For, after authoring his article, he gave the volume containing the ‘Apology’ to his friend, the Quaker pharmacologist Daniel Hanbury FRS (1825–75).2 Despite the efforts of various scholars, including R. E. W. Maddison, Lawrence M. Principe and the present authors, to locate Godfrey's papers generally and the ‘Apology’ manuscript specifically, only a fraction of these sources appear to be extant.3 In the absence of more comprehensive documentation, scholars have speculated about the identity of the ‘Crosey-Crucian’, with the famous German projector Johann Joachim Becher (1635–82) named as a major, though singularly unlikely, candidate.4 It has also proved difficult to date the events described, although the consensus view tentatively locates the affair at the beginning of the 1680s.

While the present authors have not found the missing Godfrey papers, they are in a position to provide a solution concerning the identity of Boyle's ‘Crosey-Crucian’ and the dating of the episode. As it turns out, the relevant evidence has been preserved at the British Library in a collection of hitherto overlooked papers that have only recently come to scholarly attention.5 These manuscripts belonged to the virtually unknown German alchemist and convicted heretic Peter Moritz (1638–ca. 1700), a former salt worker from Halle an der Saale. Around 1658 he had a born-again experience that inaugurated a turbulent life as a religious dissenter, itinerant medical practitioner and alchemical laborant across Germany, the Low Countries and, ultimately, England. In this article, we argue that the unnamed ‘Crosey-Crucian’ in Godfrey's account is none other than Moritz himself.

This paper is structured in two parts, respectively identifying the ‘Crosey-Crucian’ and the anonymous addressee of Moritz's epistolary treatise. In the first, we compare several distinguishing characteristics of the unnamed adept mentioned in Godfrey's ‘Apology’ and match these with what is known about Peter Moritz and his family. The coincidence of several significant—as well as seemingly insignificant—details establishes the overwhelming likelihood of our proposed identification. In the second section, we engage more fully with Moritz's papers to provide irrefutable proof that he knew both Boyle and Godfrey personally. Specifically, we argue that a lengthy letter among Moritz's papers that deals with events taking place in London in 1687 and 1688 was an epistolary document addressed to Robert Boyle. This previously overlooked source further confirms the identification of Moritz as the ‘Crosey-Crucian’ described in Godfrey's account and represents a significant addition to Boyle's correspondence.6

Godfrey's ‘Crosey-Crucian’ and Peter Moritz of Halle

Godfrey's ‘An Apology and Letter touching a Crosey-Crucian’ is known only through the extracts published by Ince. We do not know its original scope, and although Ince published substantial material from Godfrey's tract, it is impossible to determine what fraction of the original work this selection represents. The ‘Apology’ itself, which apparently dates back to the first decade of the eighteenth century,7 provides Godfrey's side of a fascinating tale involving an unnamed German adept and religious dissenter. This alchemist moved within the orbit of Godfrey and Boyle, and his constant demands for money and support occasioned no small measure of problems for Godfrey and his family. While the name of the troublesome adept does not seem to have appeared in the original manuscript, the excerpts preserved by Ince provide some key details and observations that make it possible to firmly identify the ‘Crosey-Crucian’ as Peter Moritz. The relevant elements concern both Moritz's own interests and statements and those of other members of his family.

One of the most telling observations that Godfrey made regarding the unnamed adept was that he spent his time discoursing chiefly ‘upon two subjects, metals and religion’.8 These were also the chief interests of Peter Moritz. Indeed, he published only two works during his lifetime, printed in 1676 and 1677. The first was devoted to religion—more specifically, to Moritz's conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities of his hometown, Halle, which led to his first conviction for heresy and banishment—and the second to alchemy.9 Godfrey's account elaborates further that the adept claimed to know how to ‘produce gold from baser materials’ and to possess ‘the secret of the Philosopher's Stone’.10 While these claims may have been slightly exaggerated, Peter Moritz did cultivate interests that were firmly chymical, although he usually showed himself more concerned with iatrochemistry than chrysopoeia. Among his papers is at least one alchemical treatise of his own authorship, and there are copies of further pertinent texts by other authors.11 Furthermore, there is solid evidence to document Moritz's practice as a chymical laborant over a lengthy period of time. His papers also include a description of a custom-built laboratory that he briefly operated at Altlandsberg near Berlin around 1678/9, as well as several contracts dating to the first half of the 1680s, documenting his activities as a chymical entrepreneur in Amsterdam.12

Concerning matters of religion, Godfrey's unnamed adept frequently railed against ‘the three antichristian religions as he called it, viz. Popedom, Lutherdom, and Calvinism’.13 This statement not only encapsulates Moritz's attitude to contemporary religion following his born-again experience; it also employs precisely the language that Moritz used in his polemical writings. In fact, Moritz rejected all of the Christian confessions, whether Papist, Lutheran, or Calvinist, and condemned them as ‘the cursed heretics and arch-heretics, P.L.C.’14 He counted himself among ‘the true impartial Christians’ who refused to subscribe to any particular confession.15 During an era in which the character of Christian faith and religious life was crucially determined by confessionalization, this was Moritz's ultimate heresy.

One notable exception to the concurrence of Godfrey's account with what we know of Moritz also needs to be addressed: it concerns the epithet that Godfrey applied to the adept, namely ‘Crosey-Crucian’. This is almost certainly a corruption—likely introduced by Ince himself—of ‘Rosey-Crucian’. Moritz appears never to have described himself as such, even though he did at one stage own copies of the first Rosicrucian manifesto, Fama Fraternitatis (composed ca. 1610; first edition 1614), as well as Johann Valentin Andreae's Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz (1616).16 This was not the first time that Moritz had been described by an opponent as a ‘Rosicrucian’, for in 1669 he had faced a similar accusation during his heresy trial in Halle: his pastor, Andreas Christoph Schubart (1629–89), denounced him as a ‘Rosicrucian … and Paracelsian enthusiast’.17 Similarly, Godfrey most likely applied the epithet disparagingly to Moritz because he considered it synonymous with religious and/or chymical imposture.18

Godfrey's account, as extracted by Ince, also contains information regarding the unnamed adept's family that accords with what we know about Moritz's circumstances. In a seemingly inconsequential passage, Godfrey mentioned that, during the time of their interactions, the anonymous Rosicrucian briefly departed England in order to collect his wife and daughter in ‘Holland’.19 This scenario matches precisely with events described in Moritz's papers, documenting that he travelled back to Amsterdam from England in order to fetch his ‘wife and children’ during the year 1687.20 Throughout the course of this absence, Moritz received at least three letters from ‘Ambr. Godtfried Hängkwitz’, from which the German adept excerpted passages.21 Strikingly, the third of these missives includes the following statement by Godfrey: ‘Monsieur Boyle greets you kindly and promises you every possible assistance here in London.’22 This is incontrovertible evidence that Moritz knew both the eminent experimentalist and his laboratory assistant. While much regarding the timeline of Moritz's early acquaintance with Boyle and Godfrey remains obscure, we do know that he returned to London with his wife and daughter in the last week of October 1687, a circumstance that again conforms with Godfrey's account, which describes the event, albeit without dating it.23

Elsewhere in his ‘Apology’, Godfrey provides still other telling details about the familial circumstances of the troubled adept, which also agree with what we know of Moritz, namely that the ‘Crosey-Crucian’ was married to a woman who was ‘a terrible bawling creature’. During an argument with Godfrey's wife on a London street, Moritz's wife once aggressively followed her about ‘with scolding, spitting at her, and exclaiming, though, thank God, all in German, that the people understood not, but scandalous indeed it was’.24 Such behaviour was entirely in character for Moritz's wife, Sophia Regina (ca. 1644–1694), née Heidemüllerin. Moritz had married her in 1661 at the behest of his family, or so he claimed. He considered his bride a wild and spoilt girl and found that ‘the older, the more evil she became’.25 In Dresden on 17 July 1673, an exchange of insults deteriorated into a brawl between Sophia Regina and another woman. This incident triggered a lengthy investigation by authorities that ultimately led to her husband's second imprisonment under charges of heresy. Two years later, also in Dresden, Sophia Regina was ordered to offer a public apology to the wife of her landlord after insulting her.26 In fact, Moritz's wife was so infamous that she eventually attracted the attention of the Lutheran theologian Johann Heinrich Feustking (1672–1713) and received the dubious honour of inclusion in his 1704 polemical lexicon of female heretics.27

The agreement of specific details provided by Ince concerning Godfrey's ‘Crosey-Crucian’ with what is known of Moritz's interests, character and family provides a body of evidence that suggests strongly that Peter Moritz was the troublesome adept who was the subject of Godfrey's diatribe. In particular, the three Godfrey letters from which Moritz excerpted passages stand out as incontrovertible proof of their interaction. If we now turn our focus to Moritz's papers themselves, we find more evidence for the accuracy of our proposed identification, for these manuscripts contain several explicit references to Moritz's chymical dealings with both Robert Boyle and Ambrose Godfrey in London in the autumn and winter of the years 1687 and 1688.

Moritz, Godfrey and Boyle: the evidence from Moritz's papers

Direct evidence of Peter Moritz's dealings with Boyle and Godfrey, and thus further confirmation of his identity as the unnamed ‘Crosey-Crucian’, can be found in two manuscripts in Moritz's collection. Sloane MS 2701 includes a lengthy epistolary ‘Memorial’, written in German and running to some 28 quarto pages and almost 10 000 words.28 Moritz concluded it on 30 January 1688.29 This was intended as an apologia as well as a record of his interactions with both men. Sloane MS 2709 contains a brief account of funds that Moritz had received from both Godfrey and Boyle. The dates, sums of money and sundry notes in this manuscript tally precisely with those mentioned in the ‘Memorial’, and Moritz likely prepared this document in order to assist his composition of the epistle itself. In short, both documents provide evidence of a business relationship involving Moritz, Boyle and Godfrey that flourished briefly and tempestuously between 1687 and early 1688.

The major issue for the interpretation of Moritz's ‘Memorial’ is that its recipient is not named specifically. The document only addresses a ‘highly esteemed, learned, and especially Christian lord and friend, as well as my particular benefactor’.30 However, Boyle's name is mentioned at least seven times and abbreviated even more frequently throughout the text of the ‘Memorial’.31 Taken at face value, the fact that Boyle is mentioned in the third person might be understood as evidence that he could not have been the intended addressee. However, most of these instances occur in reported speech attributed to Godfrey. Moreover, in early modern German, the third person singular was a common form of address, a grammatical peculiarity that also occurs in Godfrey's letters to Moritz. Lastly, most abbreviated mentions of Boyle as ‘Monsieur B.’ occur in variations of an awkward and tortuous phrase, suggesting that readers of the ‘Memorial’ were to identify the letter's ‘dear reader’ as none other than Boyle.32

A complicating factor in interpreting these statements is that it is unclear precisely what kind of epistolary document the ‘Memorial’ actually represents. The fact that the document is still among Moritz's papers suggests that it could have been the draft of a letter ultimately intended for Boyle or another addressee, an interpretation supported by the plethora of corrections, emendations and deletions that appear throughout the document. Alternatively, it could be an augmented version of the original German text that was handed over to a translator or another intermediary before being forwarded to Boyle. Since Moritz recorded that he was taciturn and inarticulate in conversation, his papers frequently seem to address perceived slights, affording him the opportunity to vent the anger he dared not, or could not, articulate in person.33 He regularly revisited his writings even years after the events described and made changes or added material. In view of this, it is quite possible that some revisions postdate the initial composition considerably, yet the date of 30 January 1688 conforms with our knowledge of how events unfolded.

That the ‘Memorial’ was indeed intended to pass through the hands of a third person before reaching Boyle is a hypothesis supported by evidence preserved in Sloane MS 2709. That volume includes a fragment of a draft letter, in very poor English, written by Moritz and likely intended to be addressed directly to Boyle: ‘My Honourable Sir; This Letter Must u lat Read a Man, The is Impartialle, or Juste, and an Interpretor, and Ther is Mr. or Doctor Shlear Well gut to’.34 This bizarre statement betrays interference from both Dutch and German, which makes it difficult to understand.35 Reconstructed on the basis of Moritz's underlying native language, his letter was probably intended to convey the following meaning, here expressed in proper English: ‘My honourable Sir, you should have this letter read to you by a just and impartial man and translator, and Mr or Dr Slare would be well suited to [this task].’ Of German descent, Dr Frederick Slare FRS (1648–1727) was the son of Friedrich Schloer (d. before 1676), and he began work as Boyle's laboratory assistant no later than 1676. After he obtained his MD at Utrecht in 1679, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1680.36 Slare was evidently Moritz's preferred mediator owing to his background and close familiarity with Boyle.

The fragment in Sloane MS 2709 was probably conceived as a cover letter for Moritz's ‘Memorial’. This circumstance is telling, for it suggests that Moritz was either too poor or not conscientious enough to have the long letter translated into English or Latin before it was presented to its intended recipient. Additionally, the fact that he anticipated that its addressee would hear the letter being read to him by someone else, instead of reading it himself, resolves the issue of Moritz's references to Boyle in the third person that appear throughout the missive. In light of this evidence, and the fact that Moritz's ‘Memorial’ explicitly mentions not only Boyle's former assistant Slare but also ‘Mr Godfrey, your laborant’, there can be little doubt that Robert Boyle was the intended recipient of a letter by Moritz that would have been highly similar to the ‘Memorial’ preserved among his papers.37

The ‘Memorial’ is therefore potentially identical with, or at the very least closely related to, an epistolary document mentioned by Godfrey in his ‘Apology’. There, Godfrey recorded that a ‘letter was writ by this sophister to Mr. Boyle, superabounding I suppose of complaints, and he [i.e. Moritz] brought it himself; and to make the address to Mr. Boyle the more authentic, joined with it some curiosity in a box’.38 Although Godfrey never read the letter, Moritz's epistolary ‘Memorial’ does provide a detailed account of his troubled acquaintance with Boyle's laboratory assistant, as well as his manifold grievances against him. Indeed, Moritz intimated that Godfrey had embezzled payments that Boyle had intended for the support of the German adept and his family.39 Ultimately, despite the pains taken by Moritz, Godfrey's ‘Apology’ notes that Boyle ‘would not accept either the letter or box, but excused it civilly’, having been forewarned of Moritz's motives by a certain ‘Dr. Moulins’—most likely Allen Moulin FRS (also Mullen; ca. 1653–90)—‘and others’.40 The evidence thus indicates that the ‘Memorial’ is a version of the very letter of Godfrey's ‘Crosey-Crucian’ that Boyle refused to accept. As such, it further confirms our contention that Peter Moritz was the mystery adept.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have argued that the anonymous ‘Crosey-Crucian’ who troubled Boyle and his laboratory assistant Ambrose Godfrey, as described in Godfrey's own ‘Apology’, was the German alchemist and religious dissenter Peter Moritz. The evidence presented derives from Moritz's manuscript papers, which include detailed information regarding his interactions with Boyle and Godfrey in London in the years 1687 and 1688. The identification of Moritz solves a long-standing scholarly riddle going back to at least 1858. It allows us to correct earlier conjectures, according to which the episode with the ‘Crosey-Crucian’ had taken place in the early 1680s, and also repudiates, once and for all, the unsubstantiated conjecture that the German projector Johann Joachim Becher could have been involved in the affair. Moreover, we have suggested that Moritz's ‘Memorial’ in Sloane MS 2701 is most likely a version of the German adept's letter which, according to Godfrey's ‘Apology’, Boyle refused to accept. The German ‘Memorial’, together with a draft fragment of an English cover letter for that document preserved in Sloane MS 2709, thus represent two hitherto unnoticed pieces of Boyle's correspondence.

After the firm identification of Moritz as the ‘Crosey-Crucian’, several new research tasks appear on the agenda. These include a more precise exploration of the Moritz episode through the lens of his own account, of the experiments he conducted on behalf of Boyle and of the various factors that contributed to the unfortunate outcome. Moritz's account is deserving of intense scrutiny for what it can teach us about a forgotten chymical practitioner's experience with Robert Boyle and the Royal Society.

Acknowledgements

Lawrence M. Principe provided helpful feedback on an early draft. Mike A. Zuber's research on this subject was supported by an Early Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Footnotes

1

Joseph Ince, ‘Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz’, Pharm. J. 18 (1st series), 126–130, 157–162, 215–222 (1858).

2

Joseph Ince, ‘The old firm of Godfrey’, Pharm. J. 2 (4th series), 166–169, 205–207, 245–248 (1896), at p. 206. Ince had previously written a ‘Memoir’ of his friend's life, included in Daniel Hanbury, Science papers, chiefly pharmacological and botanical (ed. Joseph Ince), pp. 3–40 (Macmillan and Co., London, 1876).

3

A meagre handful of them are preserved at the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (accession nos 1997.069 and 1997.143), which now appears to have ceased responding to the queries of scholars altogether, and the Wellcome Library (MS 2533). For prior efforts to locate the papers, see R. E. W. Maddison, ‘Ambrose Godfrey Hankwitz’, Notes Queries 196, 567 (22 December 1951); Lawrence M. Principe, The aspiring adept: Robert Boyle and his alchemical quest (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998), pp. 134–136.

4

R. E. W. Maddison, ‘Studies in the life of Robert Boyle, F.R.S. Pt. V. Boyle's operator: Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz, F.R.S.’, Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 11, 159–188 (1955), at p. 161. The mistaken identification is uncritically adopted in John Emsley, The 13th element: the sordid tale of murder, fire, and phosphorus (Wiley, New York, 2000), pp. 42–44, but has been rejected by other authorities. For critical discussions, see Principe, op. cit. (note 3), p. 135, n. 166; Philip Ball, Curiosity: how science became interested in everything (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2013), pp. 330–331.

5

Moritz's papers are found in Sloane MSS 2698–2715, excluding the unrelated volumes 2705 and 2710. Concerning this collection, see further Leigh T. I. Penman, ‘Statt “Briefe Böhmes an … ” nun eine erste “Korrespondenz mit … ”: Nachricht von der Entdeckung zweier Briefe Paul Kayms an Jacob Böhme’, in Morgenröte im Aufgang: Beiträge einer Tagung zum 400. Jahrestag der Entstehung von Jacob Böhmes Erstschrift (ed. Günther Bonheim and Thomas Regehly), pp. 197–208 (Weißensee, Berlin, 2017).

6

While this article focuses chiefly on these identifications, Mike A. Zuber is currently preparing a fuller study of Moritz's interactions with Boyle and their broader significance.

7

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 158.

8

Ibid.

9

Peter Moritz, Kurtzer Bericht, Von dem Was in einer Verantwortung, zwischen dem Ministerio zu Halle und Petro Mauritio, Medico, vorgefallen (n.p., [Amsterdam], 1676); Peter Moritz, Ein Compendium Von der Empfängniß und Gebuhrt des Ersten und Andern Adams, in einer klaren Weise: Dabey ein Beschluß, worinnen vermeldet wird, was der Baum des Lebens und der Erkäntniß Gutes und Böses sey gewesen, und noch an jetzo sey (n.p., [Amsterdam], 1677). Regarding Moritz's first trial, see Benjamin Berthold, ‘Kritik an der lutherischen Beichtpraxis in Gottfried Arnolds Unparteiischer Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (1699/1700) am Beispiel von Peter Moritz aus Halle’, Pietismus Neuzeit 36, 11–48 (2010). Berthold's account is based exclusively on printed sources, particularly the archival documents printed in Gottfried Arnold, Fortsetzung und Erläuterung Oder Dritter und Vierdter Theil der unpartheyischen Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie, Bestehend In Beschreibung der noch übrigen Streitigkeiten im XVIIden Jahrhundert (Thomas Fritsch, Frankfurt am Main, 1700), pt 4, pp. 690–737; see also pt 3, pp. 106–110. Two further, hitherto unstudied heresy trials took place in 1673–74 (Dresden) and 1677 (Halle); for documents pertaining to these, see Sloane MS 2699 (Dresden proceedings), MS 2700 and MS 2704 (second Halle investigation).

10

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 158.

11

Sloane MS 2715; MS 2700, ff. 150r–153r; MS 2701, ff. 123r–197v.

12

Sloane MS 2702, ff. 4r–5r, 9v–10r, 81r; MS 2700, f. 149r–v.

13

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 159.

14

Sloane MS 2709, f. 192r: ‘Die verfluchten Ketzer und Ertzketzer, P.L.C.’ For other instances of the abbreviation ‘P.L.C.’, see Sloane MS 2702, f. 86v; MS 2704, f. 95r; MS 2709, f. 63v.

15

Sloane MS 2704, f. 95v: ‘die wahren unpartheischen Christen’.

16

Sloane MS 2702, f. 140r.

17

Sloane MS 2703, f. 266r: ‘Rosen Creutzer … und Theophrastischen Schwermer’.

18

Johann Heinrich Feustking, Gynaeceum Haeretico Fanaticum, Oder Historie und Beschreibung der falschen Prophetinnen, Quäckerinnen, Schwärmerinnen, und andern sectirischen und begeisterten Weibes-Personen (Gottfried Zimmermanns Buchladen, Frankfurt am Main, 1704), p. 494, also described Moritz as ‘the godless Rosicrucian of Halle’ (‘den gottlosen Rosen-Creutzer zu Halle’). In England, the Rosicrucian brotherhood had long been linked with imposture: see, for instance, the note concerning ‘a famed imposter’ or ‘Arch-liar and cheater’ who arrived in London in 1654, ‘pretending to bee sent from a Secret Colledge of certain Rosæ-Crucian Philosophers in Germany’; Yale University, Beinecke Library, Osborn MS 6792, f. 1r. This document was formerly in the possession of Samuel Hartlib (ca. 1600–62).

19

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 159.

20

Sloane MS 2701, f. 93v: ‘mein weib und Kinder’.

21

Ibid., ff. 101r–102r, at f. 101v.

22

Ibid., f. 101v: ‘Mons. Boyle läßet Ihm auch Freundl. grüßen, und hat Ihme alle Mögliche assistentz versprochen, hier in London.’ The third person singular was a common form of address at the time, yet for the sake of clarity this is not reflected in the translation.

23

Sloane MS 2709, f. 95r: ‘Anno 1687. den 27. Octobris … als den 2. tag, da wir sind in London gekommen.’ This means that they would have arrived on 25 or 26 October. In addition to the unnamed daughter mentioned both by Godfrey and in Moritz's papers, Peter and his wife had at least three sons who survived their infancy: Gregor (b. 1662), Peter Paul and Gamaliel. However, they had probably reached adulthood by the second half of the 1680s and apparently preferred remaining in Holland to the uncertain fate that would await the rest of their family in England.

24

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 161.

25

Sloane MS 2711, f. 90r: ‘ie älter, ie ärger Sie war’. The need and necessity that led to his marriage are also mentioned in Sloane MS 2703, f. 123v.

26

Sloane MS 2699, f. 176r–v. This document also mentions her maiden name.

27

Feustking, op cit. (note 18), pp. 494–496.

28

Sloane MS 2701, ff. 91r–104v.

29

Ibid., f. 103r. Moritz's dates follow the Julian calendar (Old Style), albeit with the year starting on 1 January, rather than 25 March, as would have been the English custom.

30

Ibid., f. 91r: ‘Hoch geehrter, gelehrter und sonders Christlicher herr und Freund, wie auch mein sonderbahrer Wohlthä[te]r’.

31

Ibid., ff. 91v, 92r, 92v, 97r (twice), 101v, 102r: ‘Boyle’ (five times), ‘Boyll’, ‘Boylen’.

32

Ibid., ff. 91v, 97v, 98r, 102r, 104r: ‘E. L. als M[o]nsi[eur] Boyle’; ‘Mnse./Mnsi. B. als E. L.’ (three times); ‘E. L. oder Mnse. B.’ ‘E. L.’ or ‘Euer Liebden’ was a common form of address in correspondence; literally, it translates to ‘your dearness’ (similar to ‘your highness’), but in most cases it can simply be translated as ‘you’ and ‘your’, depending on the context. In early modern German, ‘als’ was commonly used to indicate synonymity when appearing in contexts such as this.

33

Sloane MS 2702, f. 19r. In his autobiographical Ypsilon, Moritz wrote that he did not speak a word until he was nearly four: Sloane MS 2703, f. 124v. In modern terms, we might suspect that he suffered from specific language impairment or a form of autism.

34

Sloane MS 2709, f. 95v. This page contains another attempt by Moritz to express the same sentiment, which has been struck through: ‘My Honourable Sir, dees [insertion: This] Letter u must reed [insertion: lat Read] a Man The is Impartiall, or Juste’.

35

Moritz employs the Dutch polite form ‘u’ instead of English ‘you’; owing to homonymy with the German definite article, the relative pronoun ‘der’ is mistranslated as the English definite article ‘the’.

36

Marie Boas Hall, ‘Frederick Slare, F.R.S. (1648–1727)’, Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 46, 23–41 (1992).

37

Sloane MS 2701, f. 91v: ‘Mr. Gottfrieden, E. L. Laboranten’. Slare is mentioned on ff. 97r and 103r.

38

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 161. This letter escaped notice among the ‘lost letters’ discussed throughout the exemplary edition of Boyle's correspondence by Michael Hunter, Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence M. Principe (eds), The correspondence of Robert Boyle, 6 vols (Pickering & Chatto, London, 2001). See also the ‘Supplement’, available at http://www.bbk.ac.uk/boyle/researchers/works/correspondence/boyle_correspondence.htm (accessed 20 November 2018). Moritz's curiosity could have been based on the elaborate spagyric analysis of cow dung described in the ‘Memorial’: see Sloane MS 2701, ff. 102v–103r.

39

Sloane MS 2701, ff. 92r, 96v–97v, 98v–99r, 103v–104v. This is also reflected in Godfrey's ‘Apology’, where he writes that he was ‘mistrusted by the projector whether he had all what Mr. Boyle bestowed’; Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 160.

40

Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 161. By this time, another ‘Dr. Moulin’ had already been expelled from the Royal Society; see G. C. R. Morris, ‘On the identity of Jaques du Moulin, F.R.S. 1667’, Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 45, 1–10 (1991), at p. 8; Michael Hunter, The Royal Society and its Fellows 1660–1700: the morphology of an early scientific institution, 2nd edn (British Society for the History of Science, Oxford, 1994), pp. 208–209 (no. 408) and 180–181 (no. 246), respectively. Godfrey also mentioned Rev. John Clayton FRS (1657–1725); cf. Ince, op. cit. (note 1), p. 160. On him, see Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkely, The Reverend John Clayton: a parson with a scientific mind: his scientific writings and other related papers (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1965), esp. pp. xxxiv–xlvi; Walter Layton, The discoverer of gas lighting: notes on the life and work of the Rev. John Clayton, 1657–1725 (King, London, 1926); Hunter, op. cit. (this note), pp. 216–217 (no. 444). Other, presently unidentified London-based contacts mentioned in Moritz's ‘Memorial’ include ‘Dr. Haerlius Bruder’ (an apothecary at the court), ‘Capit. Richwell’, and ‘Mr. F. Claus.’ or ‘Mr. F. Clausius’; see Sloane MS 2701, ff. 94r, 96r, 97r, 104r; MS 2709, f. 95r.


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