THE NEW SCIENCE AND COMEDY 89 



Captain, Let your next Contrivance be how to get thither, and 



then you'll know a world in every star Are you 



always infected? 



Valeria, Dear, dear Philosophy, what immense Pleasures 

 dwell in thee." 79 



The fish arrives which she has ordered for dissection, and the 

 scene opens upon her laboratory, 'where is a table, with books, a 

 microscope, and the fish lying on it'. Mr. Lovely has found his 

 way here to woo Valeria in her scientific haunts. 



"Valeria, 0, Mr. Lovely! Come, come here, look through this 

 glass, and see how the Blood circulates in the Tail of this fish. 

 Lovely, Wonderful ! 



Valeria, I'll shew you a curiosity, the greatest that ever 

 Nature made. (Opens a Box). In opening a Dog the other 

 Day, I found this Worm. 



Lovely, Prodigious ! 'Tis the Joint- Worm, which the Learned 

 talk so much of. 



Valeria, Ay, The Lumbricus, Lactus, or Faescius, as Hippo 

 crates calls it, or vulgarly in English, the Tape-Worm 



Oh, the profound secrets of Nature!" 80 



The bluff sea captain was soon "put out of conceit" with 

 Valeria's "philosophic Cant", for, frankly, he did not value 

 "the philosophical Gimcrack" worth a "Cockle-Shell". The 

 father, Sir Richard, in great rage goes to the laboratory just as 

 Lovely is urging Valeria to run away with him, and leave her 

 "dear Microscope". As Sir Richard enters Lovely crawls under 

 a tub that has held the fish. 



"Sir Richard, What, at your Whims, and Whirligigs, ye Bag 

 gage! I'll out at the Window with them. 

 Valeria, Oh, dear Father, save my Lumbricus Lactus. Oh, 

 my poor Worm. 



Sir Richard, What is it good for?" 81 



Lovely is of course discovered and his presence explained with 

 comic extravagance. But he is not dismayed. One theory pos 

 sesses him; if he can humor Valeria's hobby until she will deign 



79 Ibid. Act II. 



80 Ibid. Act III, sc. 1. 



n The Basset-Table, Act III, sc. 1. 



