CHAPTER IV 



The New Science and Poetry 



The new science was but a minor interest in a complex, un- 

 settled period and was forced to compete with politics, society, 

 and religion for popular attention. It is true, that, where the 

 conflict between "ancient faith" and new philosophy was sharp- 

 est, where commonsense and reason met in mortal combat with 

 witchcraft, astrology, and inherited beliefs, science came into due 

 prominence. It was like the breaking of a wave upon a rugged 

 shoreline, the force of the onward movement being revealed by 

 obstruction. But, necessarily, to the vast majority of men the new 

 interest was a thing apart from the real life of London, merely a 

 voice faint in the distance, and the new ideas were incidental. 

 For the group of men comprising the Royal Society was never 

 large, the active investigators never numbering above a dozen, and 

 they had avowedly sought refuge in study from the turmoil and 

 publicity of the times. 



The work of the new philosophers, however, while not set on 

 a candlestick, was not hidden under a bushel. Some knowledge 

 of their observations and experiments made its way into the popu- 

 lar mind through publications, popular lectures, the universities, 

 and rumor. "The town was filled with ballads", it must be re- 

 membered, upon the visit of the Duchess of Newcastle to a meeting 

 of the Royal Society.^ The virtuosi appeared frequently upon the 

 stage in comedies; Sir Nicholas Gimcrack gave his name to scien- 

 tific apparatus and "rarities" as early as 1676. One may assume 

 that practically all educated men in London and vicinity knew 

 something of the new science. It could not fail, therefore, to 

 receive some manner of representation by the poets of the period, 

 aside from those who were brought into intimate contact with it. 

 A discussion of this literary expression falls naturally into three 

 parts : ( 1 ) The exploitation of the new interest by the satirists, 

 (2) the appreciation which the new philosophy found among the 

 men of poetic imagination, and (3) the contribution of "imagina- 

 tions and similitudes" to poetic imagery. 



iPepys's Diary, May 30, 1667. 



