140 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 



In deserts, but of small cxteut, 



Bacou ! like Moses, led us lorth at last 



Tlie buneu wilderness be pass'd — 



Did on tbe very border stand 



Of the bless'd promis'd land. 



And from the mountain's top of bis exalted wit, 



Saw it himself, and show'd us it. 



If the poet has somewhat overstated the claims of Lord Bacon as the herald 

 of experimental philosophy, he seems to have been gifted with a clearer vision 

 of the future aclncvements of the Society, which he thus apostrophises : 



From you, great champions ! we expect to get 

 Those spacious countries but discover'd yet ; 

 Countries where yet, instead of Nature, we 

 Her image and her idols worship'd see. 



New scenes of heaven already we espy, 



And crowds of golden worlds on high. 



Which from the spacious plains of earth and sea 



Could never yet discover'd be 



By sailor's or Chaldean's watchful eye. 



Nature's great works no distance can obscure, 



No smallness her near objects can secure: 



Ye'avc taught the curious sight to press 



Into the privates! recess 



Of her imperceptible littleness; 



Ye'ave learn'd to read her smallest hand. 



And well begun her deepest sense to understand. 



Cowley possessed other claims than merely literary ones to scientific fellow- 

 ship ; he had taken a degree in medicine and Avritten, elegantly at least, on 

 plants and trees. He had besides, as Dr. Sprat assures us, accelerated the 

 foundation of the Royal Society by the publication of s^ proposition for the ad- 

 vancement of experimental philosophy, which is still found among his works, 

 and though the form of his proposed " college" was not adopted, it cannot be 

 denied that he has comprehensively, if quaintly, stated the objects to which 

 such an institution would necessarily be destined : " To weigh, examine, and 

 prove all things of nature, and detect, explode, and strike a censure through 

 all false moneys, with which the world has been paid and cheated so long, and 

 (as I may say) set the mark of the college iipon all true coins, that they may 

 pass hereafter without any further trial. Secondly, it will recover the lost in- 

 ventions, and, as it were, di'owned lauds of the ancients. Thirdly, it will im- 

 prove all arts which we now have, and, lastly, discover others which we yet 

 have not." 



It cannot but aflford a curious insight into the state of natural knowledge at 

 this early stage of the labors of the Society, if we glance at the manner iu 

 which it proceeded to deal Avith the currency of which Cowley speaks, in order 

 to explode what was spurious and accredit what was genuine. With this view 

 a few entries from the journal are here given : 



" Dr Clarke was entreated to lay before the Society Mr. Pellin's relation of the production 

 of young vipers from the powder of the liver and lungs of vipers. 



"Sir Gilbert Talbot promised to bring in what he knew of sympatbeticall cures. Those 

 tbat bad any powder of sympathy were desired to bring some of it at the next meeting. 



" The Duke of Buckingham promised to cause charcoal to be distill'd by his chj'mist, and 

 to bring into the Society a piece of unicorue's horn. 



"Sir Kenelui Digby related that the calcined powder of toads reverberated, apjjlyed in 

 bagges upon the stomach of a pestiferate body, cures it by several applications. [Digby 

 delighted in the marvellous, and is said to have fed bis wife on capons fattened with the 

 flesii of vipers, in order to preserve her beauty.] 



" A circle was made with powder of unicorue's borne and a spider set in the middle of it, 

 but it immediately ran out scverall times repeated. The spider once made some stay upoa 

 the powder. 



"A letter was introduced treating of a petrified city and its inhabitants." &c., &c. 



