THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 307 

 Colledge " presented " before the King's Majesty " 

 a comedy entitled " Albumazar," which takes its 

 name from the chief character, an astrologer, a 

 very arrant knave, and the type of the false man 

 of science. This play, originally printed in 1615, 

 was soon forgotten, but it was revived in 1688 

 and met with great success. 



Samuel Butler, who was not a fellow of the 

 Royal Society for some reason difficult to explain, 

 spent much time in attacking it. He wrote his 

 entertaining satire on the virtuosi entitled " The 

 Elephant in the Moon " in short verse, and was 

 so pleased with it that he wrote it over again in 

 long verse. Though this " Satire upon the Royal 

 Society " remains a fragment, enough of it is 

 extant to show Butler did not appreciate what 

 even in these days is not always appreciated, 

 that the minute investigation of subjects and 

 objects which to the ordinary man seem trivial 

 and vain often lead to discoveries of the pro- 

 foundest import to mankind. 



Ben Jonson, with his flair for presenting what 

 zoologists call " type species," showed, as has 

 been seen, in his " Alchemist " an unusual, but a 

 thorough, mastery of the half scientific and half 

 quack jargon of the craft, so that this play is a 



