- Theodore Haak
Theodore Haak (
Neuhausen 1605 – London 1690) was a GermanCalvinist scholar. He came to England aged about 20 ["Concise Dictionary of National Biography"] . He worked as a translator, from 1645, on the "Dutch Annotations Upon the Whole Bible" (1657) [ [http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/gatt/criticism/catalog.asp?CN=72 Biblical Criticism Catalogue Number 72 ] ] .He studied in Oxford, Cambridge and Leiden. He was in Cologne in 1626 [J. T. Young (1998), "Faith, Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle", p.12.] . Apart from a short time in Leiden, and in the Palatinate, he was resident in England, but kept up an international correspondence, including with
Mersenne . He acted as secretary toCharles I Louis, Elector Palatine , who was in England 1644-9; he turned down the offer of a post in Germany with Charles Louis after the 1648Peace of Westphalia . [Lisa Jardine , "On a Grander Scale" (2002), p. 66.] He was still an agent for the Palatinate. In 1643-4 he was a diplomat inDenmark for the Parliamentary regime.He became an "Original Fellow" of the Royal Society in 1661. He had previously participated in the 'Invisible College' (active from 1645). [Pamela Barnett, "Theodore Haak and the early years of the Royal Society", Annals of Science, Volume 13, Number 4, December 1957, pp. 205-218(14)] He is sometimes credited with the idea of the Society; this is apparently based on a casual remark of
John Wallis at the end of the century [http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Johnson%20Gresham.htm] [ [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/01546/excerpt/9780521801546_excerpt.pdf PDF] , p. 2.] [ [http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Wood-NuttallEncyclopaedia/r/royalsocietyoflondon.html Royal Society of London (Nuttall Encyclopædia) ] ] . Jardine points out [ "On a Grander Scale", p. 111.] the geography: Haak was in London, held by the Parliamentarians during the war, because the court of the Palatinate was there, while others contributing to the eventual foundation of the Royal Society were in royalist Oxford. Haak taught at the PuritanGresham College .He also translated part of "
Paradise Lost " into German [Pamela R. Barnett, "Theodore Haak (1605-1690): The First German Translator of Paradise Lost"] , though his work was not published as such. He tried it onHenrich Ludolff Benthem [Christopher Hill, "Milton and the English Revolution" (1977), p. 391.] .References
*Dorothy Stimson, "Hartlib, Haak and Oldenburg: Intelligencers", Isis, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Apr., 1940), pp. 309-326
Notes
External links
* [http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/haak.html Project Galileo page]
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