courses on ants, for example, was taken from a report by Dr. King, March 11, 1666, "Concerning Emmets or Ants, their Eggs, Production, Progress, Coming to Maturity, Use, etc."'153 This is a case of malicious misrepresentation. The experiments are puerile enough to be sure, but the effort is an honest one; the truth, whether worth knowing or not, is sincerely sought. By Shadwell's own definition this is not a legitimate field for his satire; for here is no affectation, no presumption. Or, again, he consciously misrepresented facts in his satire on "eels in vinegar", which appears in The Virtuoso and was copied from it in The Basset-Table. The source of this material is a letter to the Secretary of the Royal Society by Leeuwenhoek from Delft, April 21, 1676.154 This scientist had been making some microscopical experiments with "wine of last year's growth". "In this wine, I have divers times observed small living Creatures, shaped like Eels", etc. "Eels in vinegar" are ridiculous enough, but the discovery of microbes (bacilli) is a great and serious scientific event. Or, finally, there is a culpable vilification in the satire on the transfusion of blood, which was in fact a seven days' wonder in London." This operation was tried many times in England as well as in France and Italy. The first case reported to the Royal Society was June 20, 1665,-a transfusion between two dogs. During the month of July, 1667, news reached London of two operations performed in Paris, in which the blood was transfuséd from a sheep into a maniac. Several members of the Society being therefore eager to try it for themselves, a committee waited on Dr. Allen, Physician to the Hospital (Bedlam) to ask for a "victim". "The truth on it is, we shall never get any but Mad-men for that operation".158 The request was not granted, but in November, 1667, the experiment was really performed at the Arundel House where the Society was then meeting. Arthur Coga, a poor student, offered himself a willing sacrifice for a guinea. Pepys says the fellow was "phantastic", and Dr. King writes of him,-"He spoke Latin well, but that his Brain was sometimes a little warm". About twelve ounces of

183 Phil. Trans. Mar. 11, 1666.

164 Ibid. April 21, 1676.

155 Cf. Phil. Trans.

155

158 The Virtuoso, Act IV, Sir Nicholas Gimcrack.

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blood was transfused with success and reported benefit. The operation was repeated December 12th of the same year, again with success. At once the imagination began to picture the most wonderful possibilities, according to the writers of comedy. The words of Oldenburg, however, are words of sober sense and express more clearly the conservative attitude of the scientists. "It seems not irrational to guess aforehand, that the exchange of Blood will not alter the Nature or Disposition of Animals, upon which it shall be practiced; though it may be thought worth while for the satisfaction and certainty to determine that point by Experiments" 157 "The most probable Use of this Experiment may be conjectured to be that one Animal may live with the Blood of another' 158 Modern science has proved this to be true. Thus were facts transformed in the Great Alembic of satire.

As the physicians in the eighteenth century were distinguished by their "full-bottomed wigs, cloudy-headed canes, and sober demeanor," so the scientist was known by his "learned language",in comedies. Sir Nicholas's "emittent and recipient", "humid element", "superficies", cacochymious", Valeria's pedantic Accident, Substance, Lumbricus Laetus, Fossils, Lapis Lydius, were assumed to be the general learned style of speech and writing. The representation is manifestly unfair. Bishop Sprat has stated the ideal of scientific writing fully,159 and followed it himself. Boyle has a clear, unaffected style; Glanvil and Hooke wrote in a terse, compact, direct manner, far on the road toward Addison. The generality of scientists could write and did write, simply and unaffectedly. "The virtues of scientific writing spread .... and wrought with the instinct of conversation and social amenity, and with the love of argument and pleading and oratory, to form Though the terms in comedy are the real terms of science, the style is the style of the rhetorician, not the scientist. Not all scientific material was suited for comedy. The wits

modern style. ''160

157 Phil. Trans. Dec. 17, 1666, p. 357.

158 Ibid. p. 358.

159 Sprat, Thomas, History of the Royal Society, "And to accomplish this they have endeavor'd to separate Knowledge of Nature from the Colours of Rhetoric, the Deceits of Fancy, or the Deceits of Fables," p. 62. "Preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that of Wits and Scholars."

p. 113.

160 Elton, Oliver, The Augustan Ages, p. 420.

knew this and selected with some care the more sensational experiments. By thus emphasizing and exaggerating the startling things all scientific endeavors were made ridiculous. If there had not been a substantial basis of commonsense for the new philosophy, if it had not really been largely established upon "the two great pillars of truth, Reason and Experience", it would have been laughed away, as Cervantes served chivalry.

When a general survey is taken of this form of literary expression for the new science, a sense of disappointment is felt. Among all these "Wits and Railleurs" there is a lack of appreciation of both men and achievements. There is not a single character in the comedies worthy of respect so long as it is dominated by the scientific humor, not one but bears the contempt, justly earned, of all his friends, with the single exception of the sentimental hero, Dr. Easy, in The State of Physick. The man of science, as the play-writers presented him, is despicable because he is a "fool", engaged in the vain pursuit of useless knowledge, a pedant, a pretender to learning, wholly absorbed in an interest outside the social realm of London society folk. He is never wholly relieved from the taint of pseudo-science, but he is no longer a "vague, peevish pedant, much occupied with physiognomies, dreams, and fanatic ideas as to the properties and powers of various substances" 161 This was the old student of occult science, not the Baconian philosopher. The worst fault of the new scientist was to devote his time and money to the investigation of insects and to the collection of rarities; he did not study his " country's good but her insects."

The actual achievement in science was not appreciated by the play-writers. In comedy the scientist frittered away his time in gazing at the moon, in poring over insects, or in useless speculation; he never invented anything so useful as a mouse-trap or an engine to pare cheese with; he collected curiosities only to have a house built for them; he sought knowledge for its own sake. In reality, the scientist discovered the law of gravitation and founded modern botany, geology and physiology; he invented the air-pump, the thermometer, the barometer, the steam-engine; he prepared the way for the later writing of history and saved many a manu

161 Shipley, A. E., Cambridge History of English Literature, VIII, 419.

script which the world would not now willingly let perish. A bricklayer was worth forty philosophers of comedy; and yet the period produced some immortal names. One is led to guess shrewdly that the superficiality of the scientist in comedy is due largely to the superficial knowledge on the part of the play-writers. To them it was a humor and nothing more.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW SCIENCE AND POETRY

The new science was but a minor interest in a complex, unsettled period and was forced to compete with politics, society, and religion for popular attention. It is true, that, where the conflict between "ancient faith" and new philosophy was sharpest, where commonsense and reason met in mortal combat with witchcraft, astrology, and inherited, beliefs, science came into due prominence. It was like the breaking of a wave upon a rugged shoreline, the force of the onward movement being revealed by obstruction. But, necessarily, to the vast majority of men the new interest was a thing apart from the real life of London, merely a voice faint in the distance, and the new ideas were incidental. For the group of men comprising the Royal Society was never large, the active investigators never numbering above a dozen, and they had avowedly sought refuge in study from the turmoil and publicity of the times.

The work of the new philosophers, however, while not set on a candlestick, was not hidden under a bushel. Some knowledge of their observations and experiments made its way into the popular mind through publications, popular lectures, the universities, and rumor. "The town was filled with ballads", it must be remembered, upon the visit of the Duchess of Newcastle to a meeting of the Royal Society. The virtuosi appeared frequently upon the stage in comedies; Sir Nicholas Gimcrack gave his name to scientific apparatus and "rarities" as early as 1676. One may assume that practically all educated men in London and vicinity knew something of the new science. It could not fail, therefore, to receive some manner of representation by the poets of the period, aside from those who were brought into intimate contact with it. A discussion of this literary expression falls naturally into three parts: (1) The exploitation of the new interest by the satirists, (2) the appreciation which the new philosophy found among the men of poetic imagination, and (3) the contribution of "imaginations and similitudes" to poetic imagery.

1 Pepys's Diary, May 30, 1667.