166 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



tiles, animalcules, and those trifling rarities that furnish out the 

 apartment of a virtuoso". Here is the gist of The Tatler's at- 

 titude; to dig in the muck when the heavens offer so much better 

 and nobler objects for contemplation convicts a man of meanness, 

 makes him a fit subject for satire. And such a man is Sir Nicholas 

 Gimcrack, who has stepped out of Shadwell's The Virtuoso into 

 the pages of Tlie Tatler. But he has fallen into a mortal sickness 

 and on his deathbed has made his will, which is here appended. 

 "I, Nicholas Gimcrack, being in sound health of mind, but in 

 great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament be- 

 stow my worldly Goods and Chattels in the manner follo-^ing; 

 Imprimis. To my daughter Elizabeth, my Receipt for preserving 

 dead Caterpillars. Also my preparation of winter may dew, and 

 embryo-pickle. 



Item. To my little daughter Fanny, three Crockodile 's eggs. And 

 upon the birth of her first Child, if she marries with her mother's 

 consent, the nest of a Humming-Bird. 



Item. To my eldest Brother, as an acknowledgement for the lands 

 he has vested in my son Charles, I bequeath my last year's collec- 

 tion of Grasshoppers. 



Item. To his Daughter, Susanna, being his only Child, I bequeath 

 my English Weeds pasted on Royal paper, with my large Folio 

 of Indian Cabbage. Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac by 

 making over to him some j^ears since, a horned Scarabaeus, the 

 skin of a rattlesnake, and the mummy of an Egyptian King, I 

 make no further Provision for him in my Will. 



My eldest son John, having spoken disrespectfully of his little 

 Sister, whom I keep by me in Spirits of Wine, and in many other 

 instances behaved himself undutifully toward me, I do disinherit 

 and wholly cut off from any part of this my personal estate, by giv- 

 ing him a cockle shell. 



To my second son Charles, I give and bequeath all my Flowers, 

 Plants, Minerals, Mosses, Shells, Pebbles, Fossils, Beetles, Butter- 

 flies, Caterpillars, Grasshoppers" — ."^ 



A few days later appeared a letter to The Tatler from Lady 

 Gimcrack, newly made a widow.'^ She is grateful for the mention 



"T/ie Tatler, Number 216. 

 ^•Ibid. Number 221. 



