Solomon's Houses

Today I have been working on my essay and doing some research on it. This has focused on the mid-seventeenth century obsession with recreating Francis Bacon's Solomon's House as contained in the New Atlantis. As part of this I read the Chapter 'The Spiritual Brotherhood' from Charles Webster's The Great Instauration. I have been quite surprise by how much I have enjoyed reading it, I was expecting a lot more puritanism and an obsession with millenialism, which I had expected from the synopsis of it by a group in a seminar (I guess this shows that nothing can compensate for reading a book firsthand). What stuck out to me most is that science in this period is more multi-dimensional then is portrayed in the course. The course tends to be Royal Society centric, yet the College of Physicians, and other local centres of learning had relevant things to contribute. It seems that there was a polyphony of competing designs for a society or new seat of learning that would be the nations Solomon's House. I haven't quite worked out what was the prime motive for the desire to create Solomon's House but I hope one day to uncover it.

From this it lead me to some primary sources. The first was a book published by Thomas Bushell called An Extract by Mr Bushell to his late abridgement of the Lord Chancellor Bacon's philosophical theory in mineral prosecutions, (1660) This is an interesting book partly because Thomas Bushell is a neglected figure he was very popular and cited in his time, he had a rock which the King had ordered him to preserve and his mining endeavours were very famous throughout the nation. He attempts many mines, and aims to get parlimentary funding to develop them, and over the years uses Bacon as a legitimizing force. This work seems to be the pinnicle of his prostetution of Bacon's name when he invokes Solomon's House as a model to which he is working towards. He aims to recruit convicts to help him build Solomon's House and develop mining industry as part of this process as he says 'I intend to begin the foundation of that philosophical fabrick (modell'd in my New Atlantis) by placing a select society of aforesaid philosophers in the city of Wells.' A further point to be noted from this work is the way he sells it to the prisoners, by building Solomon's House they would enter the school of Christ and help to become part of the New Jerusalem in the millenium. I think this point brings me back to my ideas on the prevelance of the millennium and need to read Webster's section on it in the above.

The second book I read today was a book called The Immortality of the Human Soul by the light of nature in two dialogues by Walter Charleton (1657). This book is of interest to me in two ways. The primary way was my purpose and that is it describes the College of Physicians what is notable about this is that he says that it 'in the colledge of Physicians... you may behold Solomon's House in reality.' It is this depiction of it as Solomon's House that interests me, however, as I continued to read his description I was intrigued by his mention of Tycho Brahe and astronomy, who he called Hercules the second and one of the three key figures that supports the heavens. This ties into my work on symbolic figures of traditions and how ideological change causes a shift in what they represent. It is also interesting that he refers to them as heros. This is a bit whiggish but I think it may be significant later.