92 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



" sacred room" for his rarities. Let him, too, enter the ranks of 

 the new philosophers, even although he is only "a kind of silly 

 Virtuoso ". 91 



The character of Carlos in Colley Gibber's Love Makes a Man 

 (1701) is at first a pedantic philosopher. He is fresh from the 

 university and the learning acquired there still obsesses him. His 

 servant, Sancho, says of him, "Life, Sir! No prince fares like 

 him ; he breaks into his fast with Aristotle, dines with Tully, drinks 

 at Helicon, sups with Seneca; then walks a turn or two in the 

 Milky Way, and after six hours conference with the Stars, sleeps 

 with old Erra Pater". But he is not a scientist; he is a classical 

 scholar who at first is used as a foil to his man-of-the-world brother, 

 Clodio. Carlos, however, quickly lays by all his speculative phil 

 osophy for the "Practick", when he falls in love with Angelina. 

 The process of love making a man of him is his escape from pedan 

 try to worldly commonsense; the transformation from a vague, 

 absent-minded scholar to the manhood that prompts him to throttle 

 his brother who has for long bullied him. 



The prologue to The Refusal; or, The Ladies Philosophy (1721) 

 characterizes Sophronia as "a Female Philosophic Saint". She 

 proves to be a "she-pedant", not a natural philosopher; she knows 

 the classics, quotes much Latin, but is far from science. She is 

 considered among the experimenters, however, in certain respects. 

 1 ' A handsome Wench, that shuts herself up two or three hours with 

 a young Fellow, only out of Friendship, is making a hopeful Ex 

 periment in Natural Philosophy indeed". 92 As a result of this ex 

 periment, Sophronia herself says, "I am now a Proselyte to that 

 Philosophy which says, Nature makes nought in vain". And to 

 her is given the theme of the play in this rather fine sentence. 

 ' ' In life there 's no philosophy like Love ' '. 93 



John Gay's Three Hours after Marriage (1717) has for its 

 hero Fossil, "a physician interested in rarities". Both of these 

 phases of his character enter into the plot. In his character as a 

 physician hits are made upon the practices of doctors. "Your 

 pulse is very high, Madam", says Fossil to his newly-made bride, 



81 Ibid. Dramatis Personae. 

 The Refusal, Act III. 

 "Ibid. Act V. 



