143 ARTHUR E. SHIPLEY 



Donne did not of course foresee the appalling 

 part that these insects, by the habits he men- 

 tions, play in the spread of such diseases as 

 bubonic plague and many epizootics in 

 animals. 



The dramatists of the Stewart period hardly 

 afford us the help we need in estimating the 

 position occupied by science and by men of 

 science in the world of the seventeenth century. 

 The astrologer and the alchemist were then 

 stock characters of the drama of everyday life, 

 just as the company promoter and the multi- 

 millionaire are now. "The Gentlemen of 

 Trinity Colledge" presented "before the King's 

 Majesty" a comedy entitled Alhumazar, 

 which takes its name from the chief character, 

 an astrologer, a very arrant knave, and the 

 type of the false man of science. This play, 

 originally printed in 1615, was soon forgotten, 

 but it was revived in 1668 and met with great 

 success. 



Samuel Butler, who was not a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society, for some reason difficult to 

 explain, spent much time in attacking it. He 

 wrote his entertaining satire on the virtuosi 



