Letter 4523

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

Stephen Hales to Hans Sloane – July 15, 1732


Item info

Date: July 15, 1732
Author: Stephen Hales
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4052
Folio: ff. 147-148


Original Page


Transcription

To Sir Hans Sloane Bart. in Bloomsbury Square.

Howletts near Canterbury

July 15. 1732.

Sir,

I received your favour of ye 10th with the enclosed

yesterday, which I have this post sent to Mrs. Hales. I am very sorry to find Mr. Hodges so very unkind to his poor grandchildren who have never offended him; one would think the notorious injury he did their Parents in not settling the promised £500 per annum on them should move him to small amends at least; but it too often happens that those who have greatly injured others rarely forgive the injured. I should have waited on you to thank you for your good offices in the affair, if I had not been prevented by this journey.

I sent for my Haemastatical papers designing to make

some few additions and alterations; but will return them to you before the 26th of October, that you may if you approve of it finish the reading of them before the Society: Do not think of printing them till some time after the reading is over; for I am desirous to have them impartially examined that I may not be guilty of any heresies either in Philosophy or Physick.

I beg my service to Dr. Mortimer whose letter I answer

in this. Sir Thomas Hales who is now very well give his Service to you.

I am, Sir, your obliged humble Servant,

                                                 STEPHEN HALES.

Full transcription taken from: A. E. Clarke-Kennedy, Stephen Hales, D. D., F. R. S., An Eighteenth Century Biography (Cambridge, 1929), p. 115.

It is likely the Dr. Mortimer mentioned is Cromwell Mortimer, as Cromwell Mortimer had previously moved to Bloomsbury in 1729 at the request of Sloane and the letter refers to answering Mortimer also.

Hales received Sloane’s letter and sent it Mrs Hales. He is ‘very sorry to find Mr. Hodges so very unkind to his poor Grand children who have never offended him’ and writes of ‘the notorious injury he did their parents in not settleing the promised’ £500 per annum. Hales sent for his ‘hæmastatical papers’, to which he will ‘make some few additions & alterations’. He will return it for revision before having them read before the Royal Society. Hales wants the reviewer to make sure he does not commit any ‘Heresies either in Philosophy or Physick’.

Stephen Hales (1677-1761) was a clergyman and natural philosopher. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1718 and was celebrated for his experiments on the arterial systems of animals, food preservation, and ventilation (D. G. C. Allan, ‘Hales, Stephen (1677–1761)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11915, accessed 4 Aug 2015]).



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