Going Dutch_ How England Plundered Holland's Glory - Lisa Jardine [137]
The story of the simultaneous attempts in London, Paris and The Hague to develop a machine-method for manufacturing optical lenses is a minor one for the history of science. But we should note that this correspondence, circulating vigorously in Hooke’s absence, and without his knowledge, contains the ‘insider’ remarks supplying clues to the construction of his balance-spring watch which were later to cause him such personal grief and anger.
Indeed, the first ‘leaked’ information concerning the use of a coiled spring to regulate a pocket watch comes in a letter from Moray to Huygens which forms part of the lens-grinding exchanges, sent shortly after Hooke had left London. Hooke, Moray explains, has not yet been able to complete the collating of data on the 1664 comet, collected by virtuosi across Europe, which Huygens has asked for.50 As if to distract his somewhat demanding friend from the fact that he is unable to supply information on this topic, Moray changes the subject:
Up to now I have not ever spoken to you about another thing that he has suggested in his lectures on mechanics (which he gives every Wednesday outside the University term).51 It is an entirely new invention […]52
And Moray proceeds to explain how Hooke uses a spring (’un ressort’) as the regulator for his new watch. Like the ‘iron circle’ Huygens seized on for his lens-grinding equipment, this was quite enough to set Huygens off on the right track – particularly since, as in that case too, Moray proceeded to describe the balance-spring watch to Huygens in increasing detail in succeeding letters.
Hooke and Auzout, by the way, remained on cordial terms during this sequence of events and orchestrated controversies, despite Oldenburg’s promptings to the contrary. Throughout the exchanges, Auzout continued to refer to Hooke in the most respectful of terms, and Oldenburg consistently deleted these from his racy English translations. On 18 December 1666, for instance, writing to Oldenburg to communicate an important astronomical observation, Auzout wrote: ‘I think that Mr Hook, whom I salute wholeheartedly, as well as Mr Wren, will be very interested.’ Oldenburg omitted the phrase ‘whom I salute wholeheartedly’ from the version he published in Philosophical Transactions.53
By contrast with Oldenburg’s tendency to edit the two protagonists’ pronouncements, so as to present Hooke’s work as controversial and his relationship with Auzout as abrasive, the issue of the Journal des sçavans published on 20 December 1666 contained a review of Micrographia, praising it unreservedly and at length, in extravagant terms. Uniquely for the Journal up to that point, the review reproduces two reduced-size versions of the ‘cuts’ or plates for which it expresses enormous admiration (the louse and blue mould).54
The controversy conducted in the pages of the Philosophical Transactions and the Journal des sçavans, and in Auzout’s pamphlet publications issued in the course of 1665, achieved what Auzout wanted: to bring his astronomical expertise to the attention of Colbert and the King of France and secure himself a royal appointment. His opportunism is clear, and is supported by the fact that within two years he had quarrelled with other members of the Paris Académie and left France for Italy.
Oldenburg was more than content that the Philosophical Transactions should have become essential reading among virtuosi across Europe as soon as he began publishing them – by the fourth issue, the one containing the first adversarial exchange of letters between Auzout and Hooke, there was an absolute scramble to get hold of copies immediately they appeared. The élite, high-minded