D'israeli. But Thomas Hariot, on the contrary, possessed abundantly what
they all lacked, the necessary credentials. For proof of this assertion
the doubter, as well as the lover of confirmed historical accuracy, is
referred to the Hariot papers still preserved partly at Petworth and
partly in the British Museum.

The Hariot manuscripts, of which there are thousands of folio pages all
in his own handwriting, seem to be still in the same confused state in
which he left them. He directed that the 'waste' should be weeded out of
his mathematical papers and destroyed. But this duty seems, fortunately
for us, to have been neglected by his executors, and hence among this
'waste' one has even now no great difficulty in recognizing in the
well-known Latin handwriting of the' magician,' many jottings in
chronology, geography and science, and many abstracts and citations of
the classics, that in their time must have played parts in the _History
of the World._ The Will now first produced lets in a flood of light on
the history of these valued papers, and dispels a great deal of the
heaps of foreign pretension, domestic assertion, and mixed charlatanism
that have since 1784 beclouded the memories of both Raleigh and Hariot.
It is true that on a hint in the previous century from Camden of a will
by the great mathematician, many conjectures were afloat from the days
of Pell, Collins, Wallis and Wood, but it has not been possible until
now for one, with due knowledge of the main events in the lives of these
two men, each equally great in his own sphere, to satisfactorily clear
away any considerable portion of the misconception and misstatements of
biographers and historians concerning them and their achievements. The
dawn however is coming, when these new materials now first printed by
the Hercules Club, but not worked up, may attract the attention of some
historian competent to give them a thorough scientific scrutiny and 'pen
their doctrine.'