Life of Count Rumford. 443 



comparatively venial weakness, in turning social caprices 

 to the service of science, was but a slight trial for the 

 dignity of the Institution to bear, in comparison with 

 the flood of sarcasm, contempt, and misrepresentation 

 which had been visited upon the Royal Society. That 

 satirical preacher, Dr. South, in his oration at the 

 opening of the theatre at Oxford, had spoken of the 

 worthies whom the second Charles had endowed with 

 Charter and Mace, as admiring nothing save pulices, 

 pediculos, et se ipsos. Butler, in his " Elephant in the 

 Moon,' had made sharp fun of their subjects and 

 methods of investigation. The witty Dr. King thought 

 it worth his while to gather and publish a burlesque 

 collection of "Useful Transactions in Philosophy and 

 other Sorts of Learning," for the purpose of present- 

 ing a roguish parallel with the veritable treatises and 

 essays of the Royal Society. The excellent Wot- 

 ton, in his "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern 

 Learning," seems to have quailed under this bantering 

 spirit as turned against science and philosophy. He 

 seems even to have thought that knowledge had seen 

 its best days for his generation. " The humor of the 

 age," he writes, <{ is visibly altered from what it had 

 been thirty years ago. Though the Royal Society has 

 weathered the rude attacks of Stubbe, yet the sly in- 

 sinuations of the men of wit, with the public ridiculing 

 of all who spend their time and fortunes in scientific or 

 curious researches, have so taken off the edge of those 

 who have opulent fortunes and a love to learning, that 

 these studies begin to be contracted amongst physicians 

 and mechanics." 



In three very caustic articles contributed by Lord 

 Brougham to the Edinburgh Review, exhibiting his flip- 



