376 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



magnetic discoveries of the philosophers since the world 

 began, in comparison with the marvelous magnetic powder 

 which stood ready to heal the wounds of Edgehill and 

 Marston Moor? In fact does not Walter Charleton, King's 

 Physician, positively tell of the cures "neer allied to 

 miracles" wrought u by Sir Gilbert Talbot upon many 

 wounded in the King's Army ; chiefly in the Western 

 Expedition?" 1 And thus, during the period when 

 Charles and Cromwell were fighting, superstition and 

 ignorance and war all united to bring the condition of 

 scientific learning in England to perhaps about the lowest 

 depths which it has sounded in modern times. Then, 

 perforce, it had to rise. 



Charleton, in his preface to his translation of Van Hel- 

 mont, mentions Fludd, but regards as "the choicest flower 

 in our garden" Sir Kenelm Digby. This was because 

 Digby, being of fairly high station, was the promoter of 

 the new cult at Court, and also because Digby had told so 

 many and such variegated fables about the results pro- 

 duced by his vitriol powder as a cure for wounds, as to 

 leave the less fertile Charleton lost in wonder and admira- 

 tion. 2 He alleged that he had cured a person named 

 Howel, who was pinked in the arm, by the simple expe- 

 dient of rubbing Howel' s garter with the magnetic pow- 

 der, and that he could set Howel writhing in pain at 

 will by dipping the garter in vinegar. But the new rise 

 of science in England began in the person of Digby. It 

 was very like that of a man clambering out of a mud-hole. 

 The adhering filth was most in evidence. 



1 For by his side, a pouch he wore 

 Replete with strange hermetic powder, 

 That wounds nine miles point blank would solder. 



Hudibras, ii, 225. 



2 Poudre de Sympathie, Discours fait . . . par le Chevalier Digby. 

 Paris, 1660. 



