THE NEW SCIENCE AND POETRY 121 



"The Merchants on the Exchange doe plott 

 To increase the Kingdom's worthy trade; 

 At Gresham College a learned Knott, 

 Unparalleled designs have laid, 

 To make themselves a Corporation, 

 And know all things by demonstration. 



This noble Corporation 

 Not for themselves are thus combin'd, 

 But for the public good o' th' nation, 

 And general benefit of Mankind. 

 These are not men of conunon mould 

 They covet fame, but condemn gold.~ 



The College will the whole world measure. 



Which most impossible conclude, 



And navigation make a pleasure. 



By finding out the longitude; 



Every Tarpaulian shall then with ease 



Saile any ship to the Antipodies. 



The College Gresham shall hereafter 



Be the whole world's university; 



Oxford and Cambridge are our laughter; 



Their learning is but pedantry; 



These new collegiates do assure us 



Aristotle's an ass to Epicurus".'^" 

 The awkwardness of these lines do King an injustice, but they 

 show the spirit of his raillery. Again there is a desire to raise a 

 laugh at whatever expense. There is no calling of knaves and 

 fools, but he usually accomplishes that most difficult feat of making 

 "a man appear a fool, a block-head, or a knave, without using any 

 of those opproprious terms''.^'' He was a master of "the nicest 

 and most delicate touches in fine railery of which satire consists".''^ 

 At the turn of the century there are found a number of satiric 

 thrusts at the new science. Samuel Garth, angered at the quarrel 

 between the physicians and apothecaries over dispensing drugs 



«« See Weld, Ilistory of Royal Society, vol. II, p. 323. 



^'' Dryden, Discourse concerning the original and progress of satire. 



Mlbid. 



