THE NEW SCIENCE AND PROSE 171 



must be confessed some scientists were guilty, is satirized by him 

 in his Miscellaneous Writings He has given, indeed, to the 

 character of Robinson Crusoe the inventive genius of a virtuoso, 

 but he was doubtless wholly unconscious of the connection with the 

 new science. On the whole, his attitude is so obscure and his use 

 of the new material is so slight that he may be convicted of in 

 difference, an indifference innate and temperamental. 



The London Spy, after the manner of William King, makes a 

 journey to London and reports in detail what he sees there. In 

 evitably he comes upon the virtuosi in his wanderings. To this 

 Spy the scientist is "a Whimsie-headed Humorist", 101 busied with 

 a study of the weather-glass and the philosopher's stone. He 

 spends his days in a laboratory filled with such " rarities " as a 

 magnet, shells, flies, a unicorn's horn, an aviary of dead birds, 

 serpents, together with other " Rusty-reliques and Philosophical 

 Toys". 102 The routine of his life has been reduced to a mechanical 

 precision; he rises, dines, and sleeps by the tick of the clock. 103 

 "He's a wonderful Antiquary, and has a closet of Curiosities out 

 does Gresham Colledge". 104 Nearly all of these curiosities have 

 become familiar through previous satire. The list includes a 

 ' ' toothpicker of Epicurus", Diogenes 's Lanthorn, the claws of an 

 American Humming-bird, Heraclitus's tears frozen to a crystal, 

 and a tenpenny nail out of the Ark. 105 In the judgment of the 

 Spy, the virtuoso is not distinguishable from those men who dwell 

 in that "Madman's Colledge", Bedlam. "That man . . . 

 that walks like a Mercury," he says of a lunatic, "as if he had 

 wings to his Heels, is a Topping Virtuoso, and a Member of the 

 Royal Society". 108 



There is nothing new in this representation of the new science. 

 It may be seen at a glance that here again is the unjust, undiscrim- 



100 Cf. Life and Recently Discovered Writings, 1716-29, William Lee, vol. II, 

 p. 43, 44, etc. 



101 The London Spy, I, p. 12. 



102 Ibid. II, p. 60. 



103 Ibid. II, p. 13. 



104 Ibid. 



105 The London Spy, II, p. 13. 



106 Ibid. Ill, p. 61. 



