THE NEW SCIENCE AND COMEDY 97 



Water-pumps, send all my Serpent's Teeth, Mummy's Bones, and 

 Monstrous Births, to the Oxford Museum ; for the entertainment of 

 other as ridiculous Fools as myself". 11 * This ambitious philoso 

 pher, also, has taken the whole realm of knowledge to be her prov 

 ince. 



But, with all her pretense to learning and college manners, she 

 is despised by all the other characters. Her daughter and her niece 

 mock her ; Haughty deceives her ; Ape-All derides her. ' ' You know 

 what a Pretender the old Lady is to learning and Philosophy", 113 

 says Gainlove, even while he prepares to woo her. The "College 

 Manners" so highly recommended by Lady Science to her niece, 

 "like your College Learning are a Hodge Podge of Contradictions 

 to every Thing in Practice, and only fit for the Place where they 

 are taught". 114 Like Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, she reforms at the * 

 end of the play. 1 1 1 am justly made a Fool of, for aiming to be a 

 Philosopher I ought to suffer, like Phaeton, for affecting to move 

 in a Sphere that did not belong to me". 115 



The special point to this comic satire is the pursuit of the new 

 philosophy by women. The play-writer, however, has been carried 

 so far beyond this end as to satirize all the university interests. 

 There is not a single character who has come to college for serious 

 endeavor. Young Ape-All thinks he has wasted two years of life 

 because he followed his tutor's advice and studied Latin and Greek; 

 Connundrum is a veritable travesty on all pretense to scholarship ; 

 Haughty is a rascal and a fraud. But there is an element of serious 

 criticism in the speech given to Gainlove at the close of the play. 

 " Wh7, People of either Sex, Madam, are generally imposed on, when 

 they concern themselves with what is properly the Business of the 

 other. The Dressing-Room, not the Study, is the Lady's Province 

 and a Woman makes as ridiculous a Figure, poring over Globes, 

 or through a Telescope, as a Man would with a pair of Preservers 

 mending Lace". Philosophy may "fit men as Jack-Boots do"; but 

 it is no business for women. 



A very stupid comedy was published anonymously in 1742, en- 



Ibid. Act V, sc. 1. 



m lbid. Act I, sc. 1. 



U4 lbid. Act II, sc. 1. 



115 The Humours of Oxford, Act V, sc. 1. 



