470 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



of those temporary halting-places which are easily dis- 

 cernible in looking back over its path. The latest problem 

 had apparently been solved. To many it no doubt ap- 

 peared that all the capabilities of the rubbed electric had 

 been revealed. It had given light, attracted and directed 

 threads, yielded effluvia sensible to the touch and trans- 

 mitted its virtue to other bodies near it so as to cause them 

 to glow. No new possibilities were in sight. For nearly 

 twenty years no one sought for any, and the very few ex- 

 periments that are recorded merely thrash over old straw. 

 The philosophical world was devoting all its energies to 

 the digestion of the colossal intellectual banquet which 

 Newton had spread before it. 



*'A masterpiece of English charity" is what old Fuller 

 says of it that ancient foundation of James I., in the 

 chapel whereof the boys of Grey Friars school and the 

 fourscore old pensioners of the Hospital used to assemble 

 on Founder's Day listening to the prayers and psalms. 



Who does not know Thackeray's description of the 

 place? It is one of those old Charterhouse brethren whom 

 I have now to call back; an old brother who sat on the 

 same old benches in the ancient chapel, and who passed 

 away and gave place to another old brother, and he to an- 

 other, and another, long before Thackeray's time, and one 

 whom, if we may credit what another philosopher high 

 in favor in court said about him, was a testy and crusty old 

 gentleman. But philosophers high at court, and philoso- 

 phers who are poor brothers, rarely appreciate all one an- 

 other's excellences; and besides, the young Cistercians had 

 a much better opportunity of knowing this particular poor 

 brother than the dignified gentry at Whitehall. For 

 Stephen Gray never hung up his chief critic, the Reverend 

 Joseph Desaguiliers, tutor to his Royal Highness, by the 

 neck and heels and drew sparks from him and that is 

 what he did, besides many other astonishing things, to the 



