Pedagogic studies at Leszna. prayed that God would not suffer His truth to fail out of their native land. § 4. Comenius had now, as Michelet says, lost his country and found his country, which was the world. Many of the banished, and Comenius among them, settled at the Polish town of Leszna, or, as the Germans call it, Lissa, near the Silesian frontier. Here there was an old-established school of the Brethren, in which Comenius found employment. Once more engaged in education, he earnestly set about improving the traditional methods. As he himself says,* "Being by God's permission banished my country with divers others, and forced for my sustenance to apply myself to the instruction of youth, I gave my mind to the perusal of divers authors, and lighted upon many which in this age have made a beginning in reforming the method of studies, as Ratichius, Helvicus, Rhenius, Ritterus, Glaumius, Cæcilius, and who indeed should have had the first place, Joannes Valentinus Andreæ, a man of a nimble and clear brain; as also Campanella and the Lord Verulam, those famous restorers of philosophy;-by reading of whom I was raised in good hope, that at last those so many various sparks would conspire into a flame; yet observing here and there some defects and gaps as it were, I could not contain myself from attempting something that might rest upon an immovable foundation, and which, if it could be once found out, should not be subject to any ruin. Therefore, after many workings and tossings of my thoughts, by reducing everything to the immovable laws of Nature, I lighted upon Preface to Prodromus, first edition, p. 40; second edition, p. 79. A Reformation, &c., p. 47. Didactic written. Janua published. Pansophy. my Didactica Magna, which shows the art of readily and solidly teaching all men all things." 5. This work did not immediately see the light, but in 1631 Comenius published a book which made him and the little Polish town where he lived known throughout Europe and beyond it. This was the Janua Linguarum Reserata, or "Gate of Tongues unlocked." Writing about it many years afterwards he says that he never could have imagined that that little work, fitted only for children (puerile istud opusculum), would have been received with applause by all the learned world. Letters of congratulation came to him from every quarter; and the work was translated not only into Greek, Bohemian, Polish, Swedish, Belgian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, but also into. Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and even "Mongolian, which is familiar to all the East Indies." (Dedication of Schola Ludus in vol. i. of collected works.) § 6. Incited by the applause of the learned, Comenius now planned a scheme of universal knowledge, to impart which a series of works would have to be written, far exceeding what the resources and industry of one man, however great a scholar, could produce. He therefore looked about for a patron to supply money for the support of himself and his assistants, whilst these works were in progress. "The vastness of the labours I contemplate," he writes to a Polish nobleman, "demands that I should have a wealthy patron, whether we look at their extent, or at the necessity of securing assistants, or at the expenses generally." § 7. At Leszna there seemed no prospect of his obtaining the aid he required; but his fame now procured him invitations from distant countries. First he received a call Samuel Hartlib. to improve the schools of Sweden. After declining this he was induced by his English friends to undertake a journey to London, where Parliament had shown its interest in the matter of education, and had employed Hartlib,* an enthusiastic admirer of Comenius, to attempt a reform. Probably through his family connections, Hartlib was on intimate terms with Comenius, and he had much influence * Very interesting are the "immeasurable labours and intellectual efforts" of Master Samuel Hartlib, whom Milton addresses as a person sent hither by some good providence from a far country, to be the occasion and incitement of great good to this island." (Of Education, A.D. 1644.) See Masson's Life of Milton, vol. iii; also biographical and bibliographical account of Hartlib by H. Dircks, 1865. Hartlib's mother was English. His father, when driven out of Poland by triumph of the Jesuits, settled at Elbing, where there was an English" Company of Merchants " with John Dury for their chaplain. Hartlib came to England not later than 1628, and devoted himself to the furtherance of a variety of schemes for the public good. He was one of those rare beings who labour to promote the schemes of others as if they were their own. He could, as he says, "contribute but little " himself, but "being carried forth to watch for the opportunities of provoking others, who can do more, to improve their talents, I have found experimentally that my endeavours have not been without effect." (Quoted by Dircks, p. 66.) The philosophy of Bacon seemed to have introduced an age of boundless improvement; and men like Comenius, Hartlib, Petty, and Dury, caught the first unchecked enthusiasm. "There is scarce one day," so Hartlib wrote to Robert Boyle, “and one hour of the day or night, being brim full with all manner of objects of the most public and universal nature, but my soul is crying out 'Phosphore redde diem ! Quid gaudia nostra moraris? Phosphore redde diem !'" But in this world Hartlib looked in vain for the day. The income of £300 a year allowed him by Parliament was £700 in arrears at the Restoration, and he had then nothing to hope. His last years were attended by much physical suffering and by extreme poverty. He died as Evelyn thought at Oxford in 1662, but this is uncertain. The Prodromus and Dilucidatio. on his career. It would seem that Comenius, though never tired of forming magnificent schemes, hung back from putting anything into a definite shape. After the appearance of the Janua Linguarum Reserata, he planned a Janua Rerum, and even allowed that title to appear in "the list of new books to come forth at the next Mart at Frankford.”* But again he hesitated, and withdrew the announcement. Here Hartlib came in, and forced him into print without his intending or even knowing it ("præter meam spem et me inconsulto"; preface to Conatuum Pansophicorum Dilucidatio, 1638). Hartlib begged of Comenius a sketch of his great scheme, and with apologies to the author for not awaiting his consent, he published it at Oxford in 1637, under the title of Conatuum Comenianorum Præludia. Comenius accepted the fait accompli with the best grace he could-pleased at the stir the book made in the learned world, but galled by criticisms, especially by doubts of his orthodoxy. To refute the cavillers, he wrote a tract called Conatuum Pansophicorum Dilucidatio which was published in 1638. In 1639 Hartlib issued in London a new duodecimo edition of the Praludia (or as he then called it, Prodromus) and the Dilucidatio, adding a dissertation by Comenius on the study of Latin. Now, when everything seemed ripe for a change in education, and Comenius himself was on his way to England, Hartlib translated the Prodromus, and when Comenius had come he published it with the title, A Reformation of Schools, 1642.† § 8. It was no doubt by Hartlib's influence that • Dilucidatio, Hartlib's trans., p. 65. + The Dilucidation, as he calls it, is added. All the books above mentioned are in the Library of the British Museum under Komensky. C. in London. Parliamentary schemes. Parliament had been led to summon Comenius, and at any other time the visit might have been "the occasion of great good to this island," but inter arma silent magistri, and Comenius went away again. This is the account he himself has left us : "When seriously proposing to abandon the thorny studies of Didactics, and pass on to the pleasing studies of philosophical truth, I find myself again among the same thorns. After the Pansophie Prodromus had been published and dispersed through various kingdoms of Europe, many of the learned approved of the object and plan of the work, but despaired of its ever being accomplished by one man alone, and therefore advised that a college of learned men should be instituted to carry it into effect. Mr. S. Hartlib, who had forwarded the publication of the Pansophiæ Prodromus in England, laboured earnestly in this matter, and endeavoured, by every possible means, to bring together for this purpose a number of men of intellectual activity. And at length, having found one or two, he invited me also, with many very strong entreaties. My people having consented. to the journey, I came to London on the very day of the autumnal equinox (September 22, 1641), and there at last learnt that I had been invited by the order of the Parliament. But as the Parliament, the King having then gone to Scotland [August 10], was dismissed for a three months' recess [not quite three months, but from September 9 to October 20], I was detained there through the winter, my friends mustering what pansophic apparatus they could, though it was but slender. . The Parliament meanwhile, having re-assembled, and our presence being known, I had orders to wait until they should have sufficient leisure from other business to appoint a Commission of |