Clarissimo Viro Domino Johanni Winstrop, Amico meo unicè dilecto
Clarissime simul neg non charissime Domine Winstropi,
Ut priores binae tuae: sic et posteriores per Dominum Dogget (et quidem pergratae omnes) recte ad has manus pervenêre. Utinam et mea, per Petrum Petersen, Ambstelodamensem tabellarium, ad Claritatem Tuam missae, redditae sint tibi: quibus condolentiam meam cordialem de (proh dolor!) perdita tua arca, sum testatus. Precatus sum animitus et etiamnum precor, ut cum Deo re362cuperare eam queas. Dolendum est homines sic cum hominibus agere, sic homines ab hominibus spoliari. Deum immortalem quò impietatis â Diabolo seductis et tam horribiliter lapsis devenitur! Semper et ubique, Diabolum opera sua per suos peragere videmus. Beatus ille, qui filius existit lucis, et omnia temporalia caduca et fluxa, quatenus id fieri queat, flocci pendit. Faxit Deus inprimis, ut animo ditemur, filium ipsius Jesum reverâ possidentes. Ah crede mi amantissime Winstropi, quod de hoc tuo infortunio impensissimè doluerim et doleam. Utinam ego ê diverso re quapiam hoc recompensare queam: certè si voluntati facultas responderet, etiam in hoc, quantopere te amem, experireris. Intereà loci, qua ego non possum, ut Deus ter optimus maximus ea praestet, rogo. Suavissimae tuae conversationis non possum oblivisci: utinam eâ, dum vivam, frui possim Quod polliceris, te operam esse daturum, an in Angliâ aliquid praestare possis, quo in praesens possim sublevari, ex eo (ut et omnibus reliquis) cognosco benevolum tuum in me animum quam gratissimo corde amplector, rogoque ut id agere perstes: Quod si, ut nullus ambigo, feceris, nullus et tu dubites, quin adhuc aliquid sim facturus, quod et gratissimum arridet Tibi. quo citiùs me sic juvare poteris, eò gratiùs arridet mihi. Quibus, optime mi Amice, vale, et quidem in Deo, (in quo millies millema prospera et secunda tibi ex animo precor) â me et uxore meâ amicissimè salutatus. Deus sit tecum, et Te in posterum pro paternâ ipsius affectione et voluntate, ab omni malo et infortunio custodiat, Amen. Tuissimus
Joh. Tancmarus
Hamburgi die 28 Octobr. Anno 1642
Endorsed: This Letter was Let fall in the durt per A woman that brought it.
1.
W. 19. 47. Tanckmarus's letters to Winthrop furnish few biographical facts, and no formal account of his life has been found. Dr. Harold S. Jantz of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures of Princeton University, from his extensive research in this period, has kindly supplied the following information. Tanckmarus was a Doctor of Medicine, but of what university is not known. During the years 1632–1635 he is known to have been at Lübeck, where in official documents he is referred to as “Paedagogus” of Heinrich Ottendorff (friend of the poetess Anna Owena Hoyers) and where, like Ottendorff, he was closely associated with a group of mystics and heretics (including Joachim Morsius) who were followers of Jakob Böhme and Valentin Weigel. As a result of these connections he was on more than one occasion in difficulties with the Lübeck authorities, and there is record of his having twice made formal recantation of his errors. Kaspar Heinrich Starck, Lübeckischer Kirchen-Historie (Hamburg, 1724), 796; Heinrich Schneider, Joachim Morsius und sein Kreis (Lübeck, 1929), 48–57. In 1642 he is known to have been in Hamburg, where Winthrop presumably met him upon going there to study (see Sir William Boswell to the Chevalier De Vic, November 1, 1642, printed immediately following). In 1649 he was living in Lauenburg (John Doggett to John Winthrop, Jr., September 25, 1649), and there is trace of him there as late as 1652 (John Doggett to John Winthrop, Jr., February 3, 1651/52).