94 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



the opportunity comes for Plotwell and Underplot to escape. The 

 scene is pretty well done. 



This phase of Fossil's character is most thoroughly treated. 

 "The Museum of the Curious ", he says, "is a lasting Ornament. 

 And I think it no degradation to a dead person of quality, to bear 

 the rank of an anatomy in the learned World". 98 Dr. Nautilus 

 thinks the finest decorations for the "closets of Ladies" would be 

 "preserved Butterflies, and beautiful Shells, instead of China- 

 Jars, and absurd Indian pictures." 99 "Ah, Dr. Nautilus", says 

 Fossil, "how I have languished for your feather of Phorphyrion! 

 the dust of Manchora, the antediluvian Trowel, the fragment of 

 Seth's Pillar, and the Entire Leaf of Noah's Journal". 100 Mrs. 

 Townley declares, "A Mummy is his intimate Friend". The 

 variety of Fossil's collection is astonishing. When Mrs. Townley 

 finds two of her lovers in the museum, she turns to the other rari 

 ties with, "I don't know but I may have twenty lovers in this col 

 lection. You Snakes, Sharks, Monkeys, and Man-Tygers, speak, 

 and put in your claim before it is too late". 101 The strange sailor 

 finds his way to Fossil's house by the fame it has in the community 

 for containing "the raree-show of oyster-shells and pebble-stones". 

 So it be a rarity, it mattered not of what, there was a place for it 

 in his museum. 



Once more the "fanatic branches" of science do not escape. 

 That strange theory regarding tarantulas is here. Fossil, "New- 

 married men are treated like those bit by the Tarantula, both must 

 have music". 102 Alchemy, too, finds expression here, 



"Plotwell, Me make dat gold my own self of de lead of the 

 great Church of Cracow. 

 Fossil, By what operations? 



Plotwell, By calcination, reverberation, precipitation, sub 

 limation, amalgamation, volatilization. ' ' 103 



Here again the old and the new science are confused. There 



98 Three Hours after Marriage, Act III. 

 98 Ibid. 



100 Ibid. 



101 Ibid. 



102 Ibid. Act I, sc. 1. 

 *Ibid. Act II. 



