THE NEW SCIENCE AND COMEDY 107 



courses on ants, for example, was taken from a report by Dr. 

 King, March H, 1666, "Concerning Emmets or Ants, their Eggs, 

 Production, Progress, Coming to Maturity, Use, etc."^" This is a 

 case of malicious misrepresentation. The experiments are puerile 

 enough to be sure, but the effort is an honest one ; the truth, whether 

 worth knowing or not, is sincerely sought. By Shadwell's own 

 definition this is not a legitimate field for his satire ; for here is no 

 affectation, no presumption. Or, again, he consciously misrepre- 

 sented facts in his satire on "eels in vinegar", which appears in 

 The Virtuoso and was copied from it in The Basset-Tahle. The 

 source of this material is a letter to the Secretary of the Royal 

 Society by Leeuwenhoek from Delft, April 21, 1676.^^* This scien- 

 tist had been making some microscopical experiments with "wine of 

 last year's gro^\i:h". "In this wine, I have divers times observed 

 small living Creatures, shaped like Eels", etc. "Eels in vinegar" 

 are ridiculous enough, but the discovery of microbes (bacilli) is a 

 great and serious scientific event. Or, finally, there is a culpable 

 vilification in the satire on the transfusion of blood, which was in 

 fact a seven days' wonder in London.^^^ This operation was tried 

 many times in England as well as in France and Italy. The first 

 case reported to the Royal Society was June 20, 1665, — a trans- 

 fusion between two dogs. During the month of July, 1667, news 

 reached London of two operations performed in Paris, in which the 

 blood was transfused from a sheep into a maniac. Several mem- 

 bers of the Society being therefore eager to try it for themselves, 

 a committee waited on Dr. Allen, Physician to the Hospital (Bed- 

 lam) to ask for a "victim". "The truth on it is, we shall never 

 get any but Mad-men for that operation ".^^'* The request was 

 not granted, but in November, 1667, the experiment was really 

 performed at the Arundel House where the Society was then 

 meeting. Arthur Coga, a poor student, offered himself a willing 

 sacrifice for a guinea. Pepys says the fellow was "phantastic", 

 and Dr. King writes of him, — "He spoke Latin well, but that his 

 Brain was sometimes a little warm". About twelve ounces of 



^Phil. Trans. Mar. 11, 1666. 



>"Ibid. April 21, 1676. 



i«Cf. Phil. Trans. 



"* The Virtuoso, Act IV, Sir Nicholas Gimcrack. 



