John Hall (writer)
John Hall (* 1627 in Durham ; † 1656 ) was an English writer, political pamphleteer and poet.
He was baptized on August 20, 1627 in Durham, went to school there and was to start studying in Cambridge in 1640 , which was prevented by the troubled times leading up to the English Civil War . Instead, he continued his self-study and only attended St John's College in Cambridge as a commoner from 1646 . In the same year he published the volume of essays Horae vacivae (heavily influenced by Francis Bacon's essays), encouraged by his tutor John Pawson. The volume, which also contains a portrait of him, was a success. It made new contacts for him in intellectual circles and z. B. to Samuel Hartlib , who was well connected and brought him into contact with John Milton (whom Hall admired for life) and Robert Boyle . A volume of poetry followed in 1647, which reinforced his contemporary fame. He became a fellow at his college, but then decided to study law at Gray's Inn in London from June 1647. Around the same time, despite opposition from both families, he married, as both he and his wife were destitute.
Later he was particularly active as a translator, for example, at Hartlib's request, the utopia by Johann Valentin Andreae (A model of Christian Society 1647) and he also tried his own utopia (Leucenia), but it was lost. Also in 1647 he published a political pamphlet (A true account and character of the times, under the initials N. LL.), Some of which still showed royalist tendencies. Soon afterwards he took Republican views and founded the magazine Mercurius Britannicus in 1648 and was officially paid as a political pamphleteer by the Cromwell government from 1649. He accompanied Oliver Cromwell on his campaign in Scotland in 1650 and published the political treatise The Ground and Reasons of Monarchy in 1651 and wrote anonymous pamphlets in political disputes on payment. In 1649 he assisted the attorney general in the indictment against John Lilburne . He defended Cromwell's disempowerment of Parliament and assumption of the Lord Protectorate, and the contributions from Cromwell's side for his pamphlets continued until 1655. He died of unknown causes but after a prolonged illness from which he recovered by traveling to the country and to his hometown Durham the year before.
Because he did not move much (he broke his leg in his youth) he later became obese. He placed little emphasis on appearance and had a reputation for being an atheist or at least indifferent to the church. He had an excellent memory and was able to work at a fast rate, it is this Lusus series of Michael Maier have translated one afternoon over a glass of wine in a tavern, as his biographer Davies in the posthumous edition of his translation of the Neo-Platonic work Hierocles upon the golden verses of Pythagoras wrote. According to Thomas Hobbes , he could have done more if it had not been for debauchery and impatience, for no one would have done such great works at his age.
literature
- Joad Raymond, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , 2004, Online Edition 2008
Individual evidence
- ↑ Had not his debauches & intemperance diverted him from the more serious studies, he had made an extraordinary person; for no man had ever done so great things at his age . So Hobbes, based on the biography of Hall by Davies, quoted by Raymond, Dictionary of National Biography
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hall, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English writer, political pamphleteer and poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | baptized August 20, 1627 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Durham |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1656 |