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philosophers, do in some sort increase the powers of mankind, and differ no more from some of the Virtuosi, than a cat in a hole doth from a cat out of a hole; betwixt which that inquisitive person ASDRYASDUST TOSSOFFACAN found a very great resemblance. 'Tis not the increasing of the powers of mankind by a pendulum watch, nor spectacles whereby divers may see under water, nor the new ingenuity of apple-roasters, nor every petty discovery or instrument, must be put in comparison, much less preferred before the protection and enlargement of empires *."

with no respect for "a Society," though dignified with many other mechanical and experimental by the addition of "Royal," says "a cabinet of Virtuosi are but pitiful reasoners. Ignorance is infectious; and 'tis possible for men to grow fools by contact. I will speak to the Virtuosi in the language of the Romish Saint Francis (who, in the wilderness, so humbly addressed his only friends,) Salvete, fratres asini! Salvete, fratres lupi!" As for their Transactions and their History, he thinks "they purpose to grow famous, as the Turks do to gain Paradise, by treasuring up all the waste paper they meet with." He rallies them on some ridiculous attempts, such as "An Art of Flying;" an art, says Stubbe, in which they have not so much as effected the most facile part of the attempt, which is to break their necks!

Had Stubbe's death not occurred, this warfare had probably continued. He insisted on a complete victory. He had forced the Royal Society Sprat, in his dedication to the king, had said to disclaim their own works, by an announcement that "the establishment of the Royal Society was that they were not answerable, as a body, for the an enterprise equal to the most renowned actions various contributions which they gave the world: of the best princes." One would imagine that the an advertisement which has been more than once notion of a monarch founding a society for the found necessary to be renewed. As for their cultivation of the sciences, could hardly be made historian Sprat, our intrepid Stubbe very unexobjectionable; but, in literary controversy, genius pectedly offered to manifest to the Parliament that has the power of wresting all things to its pur- this courtly adulator, by his book, was chargeable pose by its own peculiar force, and the art of with high treason; if they believed that the Royal placing every object in the light it chooses, and can Society were really engaged so deeply as he thus obtain our attention, in spite of our convic-averred in the portentous Cæsarean Popery of tion. I will add the curious animadversion of Campanella. Glanvill, who had "insulted all Stubbe, on Sprat's compliment to the king:

"Never Prince acquired the fame of great and good by any knick-knacks-but by actions of political wisdom, courage, justice," &c.

Stubbe shows how Dionysius and Nero had been depraved by these mechanic philosophers—that

university learning," had been immolated at the pedestal of Aristotle. "I have done enough," he adds, " since my animadversions contain more than they all knew; and that these have shown that the Virtuosi are very great impostors, or men of little reading;" alluding to the various discoveries which they promulgated as novelties, but which Stubbe had asserted were known to the ancients and others of a later period. This forms a perpetual accusation against the inventors and discoverers, who may often exclaim, "Perish those who have done our good works before us!" "The discoveries of the Ancients and Moderns " by Dutens, had this book been then published, might have assisted our keen investigator; but our combatant ever proudly met his adversaries single-handed.

The "

"An Aristotelian would never pardon himself if he compared this heroical enterprise with the actions of our Black Prince or Henry V.; or with Henry VIII. in demolishing abbeys, and rejecting the papal authority; or Queen Elizabeth's exploits against Spain; or her restoring the Protestant Religion, putting the Bible into English, and supporting the Protestants beyond sea. But the reasons he (Sprat) gives why the establishment of the Royal Society of Experimentators equals the most renowned actions of the best princes, is such a pitiful one as Guzman de Alfarache never Philosophical Transactions" were aftermet with in the whole extent of the Hospital of wards accused of another kind of high treason, Fools To increase the power, by new arts, of against grammar and common sense. It was long conquered nations !' These consequences are before the collectors of facts practised the art of twisted like the cordage of Ocnus, the God of Sloth, writing on them; still later before they could in hell, which are fit for nothing but to fodder philosophise, as well as observe: Bacon and asses with. If our historian means by every little Boyle were at first only imitated in their patient invention to increase the powers of mankind, as industry. When Sir HANS SLOANE was the an enterprise of such renown, he is deceived; this secretary of the Royal Society, he, and most of his glory is not due to such as go about with a dog correspondents, wrote in the most confused manner and a hoop, nor to the practisers of legerdemain, imaginable. A wit of a very original cast, the or upon the high or low rope; not to every mountebank and his man Andrew; all which,|

* Legends no Histories, p. 5.

facetious Dr. KING, took advantage of their perplexed and often unintelligible descriptions; of the meanness of their style, which humbled even the great objects of nature; of their credulity that heaped up marvels, and their vanity that prided itself on petty discoveries, and invented a new species of satire. SLOANE, a name endeared to posterity, whose life was that of an enthusiast of science, and who was the founder of a national collection; and his numerous friends, many of whose names have descended with the regard due to the votaries of knowledge, fell the victims. Wit is an unsparing leveller.

The new species of literary burlesque which King seems to have invented, consists in selecting the very expressions and absurd passages from the original he ridiculed, and framing out of them a droll dialogue or a grotesque narrative, he adroitly inserted his own remarks, replete with the keenest irony, or the driest sarcasm*. Our arch wag says, "The bulls and blunders which Sloane and his friends so naturally pour forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful I am in producing them."

• Sloane describes Clark, the famous posturemaster, Phil. Trans. No. 242, certainly with the wildest grammar, but with many curious particulars; the gentleman in one of Dr. King's Dialogues inquires the secretary's opinion of the causes of this man's wonderful pliability of limbs; a question which Sloane had thus solved, with colloquial ease, it depended upon "bringing his body to it, by using himself to it."

In giving an account of "a child born without a brain"-Had it lived long enough, says King, it would have made an excellent publisher of Philosophical Transactions!

Sloane presented the Royal Society with "a figure of a Chinese, representing one of that nation using an ear-picker, and expressing great satisfaction therein.". "Whatever pleasure," said that learned physician, "the Chinese may take in thus picking their ears, I am certain, most people in these parts, who have had their hearing impaired, have had such misfortunes first come to them by picking their ears too much."-He is so curious, says King, that the secretary took as much satisfaction in looking upon the ear-picker, as the Chinese could do in picking their ears!

But "What drowning is"-that "Hanging is only apoplexy!" that "Men cannot swallow when they are dead!" that "No fish die of fevers!" that "Hogs s―t soap, and cows s―t fire!" that the secretary had " Shells, called Blackmoor'steeth, I suppose, from their whiteness!" and the learned RAY's, that grave naturalist, incredible description of " a very curious little instrument!" I leave to the reader and Dr. King.

King still moves the risible muscles of his readers. "The voyage to Cajamai," a travestie of Sloane's valuable History of Jamaica, is still a peculiar piece of humour; and it has been rightly distinguished as "one of the severest and merriest satires that ever was written in proset." The author might indeed have blushed at the labour bestowed on these drolleries; he might have dreaded that humour, so voluminous, might grow tedious; but King, often with a LUCIANIC Spirit, with flashes of RABELAIS, and not seldom with the causticity of his friend Swift, dissipated life in literary idleness, with parodies and travesties on most of his contemporaries; and he made these little things often more exquisite, at the cost of consuming on them a genius capable of better. A parodist, or a burlesquer, is a wit who is perpetually on the watch to catch up or to disguise an author's words; to swell out his defects, and pick up his blunders-to amuse the public! King was a wit, who lived on the highway of literature, appropriating, for his own purpose, the property of the most eminent passengers, by a dextrous mode no other had hit on. What an important lesson the labours of King offer to real genius! Their temporary humour lost with their prototypes becomes like a paralytic limb, which refusing to do its office, impedes the action of the vital members.

WOTTON, in summing up his "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning," was doubtful whether knowledge would improve in the next age, proportionably as it had done in his own. "The humour of the age is visibly altered," he says,

† Sir Hans Sloane was unhappily not insensible to these ludicrous assaults, and in the preface to his "History of Jamaica, 1707," a work so highly prized for its botanical researches, absolutely anticipated this fatal facetiousness, for thus he delivers himself:-"Those who strive to make ridiculous anything of this kind, and think themselves great wits, but are very ignorant, and understand nothing of the argument; these, if one were afraid of them, and consulted his own ease, might possibly hinder the publication of any such work, the efforts to be expected from them, making possibly some impression upon persons of equal dispositions; but considering that I have the approbation of others, whose judgment, knowledge, &c. I have great reason to value; and considering that these sorts of men have been in all ages ready to do the like, not only to ordinary persons and their equals, but even to abuse their prince and blaspheme their Maker, I shall, as I have ever since I seriously considered this matter, think of and treat them with the greatest contempt."

"from what it had been thirty years ago. Though been collected by Mr. Nichols, with ample the Royal Society has weathered the rude attacks illustrations, in three vols. 8vo, 1776. The of Stubbe," yet" the sly insinuations of the Men" Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other of Wit," with "the public ridiculing of all who sorts of Learning," form a collection of ludicrous spend their time and fortunes in scientific or dissertations of Antiquarianism, Natural Philosocurious researches, have so taken off the edge of phy, Criticism, &c., where his own peculiar those who have opulent fortunes and a love to humour combines with his curious reading. He learning, that these studies begin to be contracted also invented satirical and humorous indexes, amongst physicians and mechanics."-He treats not the least facetious parts of his volumes. King King with good-humour. "A man is got but a had made notes on more than 20,000 books and very little way (in philosophy) that is concerned as MSS., and his Adversaria, of which a portion often as such a merry gentleman as Dr. King shall has been preserved, is not inferior in curiosity think fit to make himself sport*. to the literary journals of Gibbon, though it wants the investigating spirit of the modern philo

* Dr. King's dispersed works have fortunately sopher.

SIR JOHN HILL

WITH

THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, &c.

A Parallel between Orator HENLEY and Sir JOHN HILL-his love of the Science of Botany, with the fate of his "Vegetable System"-ridicules scientific Collectors; his "Dissertation on Royal Societies," and his "Review of the Works of the Royal Society "-compliments himself that he is NOT a Member-successful in his attacks on the Experimentalists, but loses his spirit in encountering the Wits "The Inspector"-a paper-war with FIELDING -a literary stratagem-battles with SMART and WOODWARD-HILL appeals to the Nation for the Office of Keeper of the Sloane Collection-closes his life by turning Empiric.-Some Epigrams on HILL-his Miscellaneous Writings.

IN the history of literature, we discover some who have opened their career with noble designs, and `with no deficient powers, yet unblest with stoic virtues, having missed, in their honourable labours, those rewards they had anticipated, they have exhibited a sudden transition of character, and have left only a name proverbial for its disgrace.

Our own literature exhibits two extraordinary characters, indelibly marked by the same traditional odium. The wit and acuteness of Orator HENLEY, and the science and vivacity of the versatile Sir JOHN HILL, must separate them from those who plead the same motives for abjuring all moral restraint, without having ever furnished the world with a single instance that they were capable of forming nobler views.

This orator and this knight would admit of a close parallel; both as modest in their youth as afterwards remarkable for their effrontery. Their youth witnessed the same devotedness to study, with the same inventive and enterprising genius. Hill projected and pursued a plan of botanical travels, to form a collection of rare plants: the patronage he received was too limited, and he suffered the misfortune of having anticipated the national taste for the science of botany by half a century. Our young philosopher's valuable "Trea

* The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed in "Calamities of Authors."

tise on Gems," from Theophrastus, procured for him the warm friendship of the eminent members of the Royal Society. To this critical period of the lives of Henley and of Hill, their resemblance is striking; nor is it less from the moment the surprising revolution in their characters occurred.

Pressed by the wants of life, they lost its decencies. Henley attempted to poise himself against the University; Hill, against the Royal Society. Rejected by these learned bodies, both these Cains of literature, amid their luxuriant ridicule of eminent men, still evince some claims to rank among them. The one prostituted his genius in his "Lectures ;" the other, in his " Inspectors." Never two authors were more constantly pelted with epigrams, or buffeted in literary quarrels. They have met with the same fate; covered with the same odium. Yet Sir John Hill, this despised man, after all the fertile absurdities of his literary life, performed more for the improvement of the Philosophical Transactions," and was the cause of diffusing a more general taste for the science of botany, than any other contemporary. His real ability extorts that regard which his misdirected ingenuity, instigated by vanity, and often by more worthless motives, had lost for him in the world †.

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The twenty-six folios of his "Vegetable System," with many others, testify his love and his labour. It contains 1600 plates, representing 26,000 different figures of plants from nature

At the time that Hill was engaged in several lagh; was visible at routs; and sate at the theatre large compilations for the booksellers, his em- a tremendous arbiter of taste, raising about him ployers were desirous that the honours of an tumults and divisions *; and in his " Inspectors," F. R. S. should ornament his title-page. This a periodical paper which he published in the versatile genius, however, during these graver London Daily Advertiser, he retailed all the great works, had suddenly emerged from his learned matters relating to himself, and all the little garret, and, in the shape of a fashionable lounger, matters he collected in his rounds relating to rolled in his chariot from the Bedford to Rane- others. Among other personalities, he indulged his satirical fluency on the scientific collectors. The Antiquarian Society were twitted as medalscrapers and antediluvian knife-grinders; conchologists were turned into cockleshell merchants; and the naturalists were made to record pompous histories of stittle-backs and cockchafers. Cautioned by Martin Folkes, president of the Royal Society, not to attempt his election, our enraged comic philosopher, who had preferred his jests to his friends, now discovered that he had lost three hundred at once. Hill could not obtain three signatures to his recommendation. Such was the real, but, as usual, not the ostensible, motive of his formidable attack on the Royal Society. He produced his "Dissertation on Royal Societies, in a letter from a Sclavonian nobleman to his friend, 1751;" a humorous prose satire, exhibiting a lúdicrous description of a tumultuous meeting at the Royal Society, contrasted with the decorum observed in the French Academy; and, moreover, he added a conversazione in a coffeehouse between some of the members.

only. This publication ruined the author, whose widow (the sister of Lord Ranelagh) published "An Address to the Public, by the Hon. Lady Hill, setting forth the consequences of the late Sir John Hill's acquaintance with the Earl of Bute, 1787."-I should have noticed it in the "Calamities of Authors." It offers a sad and mortifying lesson to the votary of science who aspires to a noble enterprise. Lady Hill complains of the patron; but a patron, however great, cannot always raise the public taste to the degree required to afford the only true patronage which can animate and reward an author. Her detail is impressive :

"Sir John Hill had just wrote a book of great elegance I think it was called Exotic Botanywhich he wished to have presented to the king, and therefore named it to Lord Bute. His lordship waived that, saying, that he had a greater object to propose ;' and shortly after laid before him a plan of the most voluminous, magnificent, and costly work that ever man attempted. I Such was the declaration of war, in a first act tremble when I name its title-because I think of hostility; but the pitched-battle was fought in the severe application which it required killed" A Review of the Works of the Royal Society, in him; and I am sure the expense ruined his for-eight parts, 1751." This literary satire is nothing tune- The Vegetable System.' This work was less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its form to consist of 26 volumes folio, containing 1600 and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themcopper-plates, the engraving of each cost four selves; printed as if for the convenience of guineas; the paper was of the most expensive members to enable them to bind the Review with kind; the drawings by the first hands. The the work reviewed. Voluminous pleasantry incurs printing was also a very weighty concern; and the censure of that tedious trifling, which it designs many other articles, with which I am unacquainted. to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no Lord Bute said, that the expense had been con- inconsiderable knowledge is interspersed with the sidered, and that Sir John Hill might rest assured ridicule. Perhaps Hill might have recollected the his circumstances should not be injured.' Thus successful attempts of Stubbe on the Royal Society, he entered upon and finished his destruction. who contributed that curious knowledge which he The sale bore no proportion to the expense. After 'The Vegetable System' was completed, Lord Bute * His apologist forms this excuse for one then proposed another volume to be added, which Sir affecting to be a student and a rake :—“ Though John strenuously opposed; but his lordship re- engaged in works which required the attention of peating his desire, Sir John complied, lest his a whole life, he was so exact an economist of his lordship should find a pretext to cast aside time, that he scarcely ever missed a public amuserepeated promises of ample provision for himself ment for many years; and this, as he somewhere and family. But this was the crisis of his fate- observes, was of no small service to him; as, he died." Lady Hill adds :-" He was a cha-without indulging in these respects, he could not racter on which every virtue was impressed." have undergone the fatigue and study inseparable The domestic partiality of the widow cannot alter from the execution of his vast designs."-Short the truth of the narrative of "The Vegetable Sys- Account of the Life, Writings, and Character, of tem," and its twenty-six tomes. the late Sir John Hill, M.D. Edinburgh, 1779.

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