284 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



the closing of the theatres, and, on the Restora- 

 tion, was one of the first plays to be revived. 

 Jonson certainly had mastered the jargon of this 

 form of quackery, and showed a profound know- 

 ledge of the art of its professors. In " Epicoene, 

 or the Silent Woman/' he refers to the love philtres 

 of one Forman, a most flagrant rascal who was 

 mixed up with the Overbury trial. 



It has been said that a competent man of 

 science should be able to put into language 

 " understanded of the people " any problem, no 

 matter h6w complex, at which he is working. 

 This seems hardly possible in the twentieth 

 century. To explain to a trained histologist 

 double functions or to a skilled mathematician 

 the intricacies of karyokinesis would take a very 

 long time. The introduction in all the sciences 

 of technical words is due not to any spirit of 

 perverseness on the part of modern savants ; 

 these terms, long as they usually are, serve as 

 the shorthand of science. In the Stewart times, 

 however, an investigator could explain in simple 

 language to his friends what he was doing, and 

 the advance of natural science was keenly followed 

 by all sorts and conditions of men. 



Whatever were the political and moral de- 



