THE NEW SCIENCE AND PROSE 171 



must be confessed some scientists were guilty, is satirized by him 

 in his Miscellaneous Wi'itiugs.^^'^ He has given, indeed, to the 

 character of Robinson Crusoe the inventive genius of a virtuoso, 

 but he was doubtless wholly unconscious of the connection with the 

 new science. On the whole, his attitude is so obscure and his use 

 of the new material is so slight that he may be convicted of in- 

 difference, — an indifference innate and temperamental. 



The London Spy, after the manner of William King, makes a 

 journey to London and reports in detail what he sees there. In- 

 evitably he comes upon the virtuosi in his wanderings. To this 

 Spy the scientist is "a Whimsie-headed Humorist ",^°^ busied with 

 a study of the weather-glass and the philosopher's stone. He 

 spends his days in a laboratory filled with such "rarities" as a 

 magnet, shells, flies, a unicorn's horn, an aviary of dead birds, 

 serpents, together with other " Rusty-reliques and Philosophical 

 Toys"."^ The routine of his life has been reduced to a mechanical 

 precision; he rises, dines, and sleeps by the tick of the clock.^"^ 

 ''He's a wonderful Antiquary, and has a closet of Curiosities out- 

 does Gresham Colledge"."* Nearly all of these curiosities have 

 become familiar through previous satire. The list includes a 

 "toothpicker of Epicurus", Diogenes 's Lanthorn, the claws of an 

 American Humming-bird, Heraclitus's tears frozen to a crystal, 

 and a tenpenny nail out of the Ark.^"^ In the judgment of the 

 Spy, the virtuoso is not distinguishable from those men who dwell 



in that "Madman's Colledge", Bedlam. "That man 



that Avalks like a Mercury," he says of a lunatic, "as if he had 

 wings to his Heels, is a Topping Virtuoso, and a Member of the 

 Royal Society "."« 



There is nothing new in this representation of the new science. 

 It may be seen at a glance that here again is the unjust, undiscrim- 



'"o Of . Life and Recently Discovered Writings, 1716-29, William Lee, vol. II, 

 p. 43, 44, etc. 



!« The London Spy, I, p. 12. 



i^Ibid. II, p. 60. 



lo^Ibid. II, p. 13. 



iM Itid. 



^<*rfte London Spy, II, p. 13. 



i»«Il3id. Ill, p. 61. 



