Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/15

into the Greek before he was fifteen. He has told me there happened to him the most remarkable accident of his life (which he did not tell me), and which was the foundation of all the rest of his greatness and acquiring riches. He informed me that about fifteen, in March, he went over to Caen, in Normandy, in a vessel that went hence, with stock, and began to play the merchant, and had so good a success that he maintained himself and also educated himself. This, I guess, was that most remarkable accident that he meant. Here he learned the French tongue and perfected himself in Latin, and had Greek enough to serve his turn. At Caen he studied the arts. At eighteen he was, I have heard him say, a better mathematician than he is now. But when occasion is he knows how to recur to more mathematical knowledge. At Paris he studied anatomy; and read Vesalius with Mr. Hobbes, who loved his company. Mr. Hobbes then wrote his "Optics." Sir William Petty then had a fine hand in drawing, and drew Mr. Hobbes' optical schemes for him, which he was pleased to like. At Paris, one time, it happened that he was driven to a great straight for money, and I have heard him say that be lived a week on two pennyworth (or three, I have forgot which, but I should think the first) of walnuts. Query: whether he was not some time a prisoner there.⁷ Anno Domini 1644 he came to Oxford⁸ and entered himself of Brasenose College. Here he taught anatomy to the young scholars. Anatomy was then but little understood by the university, and I remember he kept a body that he brought by water from Reading a good while to read on, some way preserved or pickled. Anno Domini —— happened that memorable accident and experiment of the reviving Nan Green,