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Shadwell and the Virtuosi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Claude Lloyd
Claude Lloyd*
Affiliation:
University of New Hampshire
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Extract

On may 30, 1667, Samuel Pepys attended a meeting of the Royal Society at Arundell House where he found “much company, indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had been desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe,” he observes, “the town will be full of ballads of it.” Thomas Sprat, in his history of the Society published the same year, after pointing out to “Wits and Railleurs” that experimental science will afford them new material for their “wit” and fancy, declares:

I acknowledge that we ought to have a great dread of their power: I confess I believe that New Philosophy need not (as Caesar) fear the pale, or the melancholy, as much as the humorous, and the merry: For they perhaps by making it ridiculous, becaus it is new, and becaus they themselves are unwilling to take pains about it, may do it more injury than all the arguments of our severe and frowning and dogmatical Adversaries.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1929, pp. 472 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 472 The History of the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge. London, 1667, p. 417.

Note 2 in page 472 The Elephant in the Moon appeared first in Robert Thyer's edition of Butler's Genuine Remains in 1759. The Virtuoso was produced at Covent Garden Theatre in 1676 and was published the same year.

Note 3 in page 473 The Dramatic Works of Thomas Shadwell. . . . . London, 1720. See epistle dedicatory and prologue.

Note 4 in page 473 Ibid., I, 325.

Note 5 in page 473 Ibid., p. 317.

Note 6 in page 473 Ibid., p. 316.

Note 7 in page 473 Ibid., p. 321.

Note 8 in page 474 Ibid., p. 331.

Note 9 in page 474 Ibid., p. 324.

Note 10 in page 474 Ibid., p. 324.

Note 11 in page 474 Ibid., p. 313.

Note 12 in page 474 Ibid., p. 340.

Note 13 in page 475 Ibid., p. 343.

Note 14 in page 475 Ibid., p. 314.

Note 15 in page 475 See The New Science and English Literature in the Classical Period, by Carson S. Duncan, Menasha, Wisconsin, 1913. Mr. Duncan is wrong in saying that Shadwell took “almost all of his material” from the Philosophical Transactions, nor does he mention any other sources. Professor Albert S. Borgman, of New York University, very kindly allowed me to read the proof sheets of the chapter of his book on Shadwell in which he treats The Virtuoso. Mr. Borgman, I find, has made two corrections of Mr. Duncan's statement of sources (see Thomas Shadwell, by Albert S. Borgman, p. 169 n.); but, though he adds Hooke's Micrographia to the list of Shadwell's sources, he makes no mention of Sprat's History. Though Mr. Duncan writes definitely of the influence of the “new” science on English literature, the broad scope of his study does not allow an exhaustive treatment of this one play. Mr. Borgman, in a rather short chapter, gives as much attention to the dramatic as to the scientific aspect of The Virtuoso. He pays slight attention to the circumstances which called forth the play, and does not show precisely how Shadwell made use of his sources and of the general opposition to the Royal Society to effect his satire of the virtuosi.

Note 16 in page 475 See The Discovery of a World in the Moone . . . . To which is added a Discourse concerning the Possibility of a Passage thither, London, 1640.

Note 17 in page 476 See Micrographia, London, 1665, p. 11 ff.

Note 18 in page 476 Op. cit., p. 242 ff.

Note 19 in page 476 Ibid., p. 321.

Note 20 in page 477 Ibid.

Note 21 in page 477 Ibid., p. 349.

Note 22 in page 477 See Sprat, History, p. 307 ff.

Note 23 in page 477 Virtuoso, p. 378 ff.

Note 24 in page 477 Ibid., p. 343.

Note 25 in page 477 Philosophical Transactions, II, 535.

Note 26 in page 478 See Sprat, History, p. 232.

Note 27 in page 478 See No. 25, I, 451-52.

Note 28 in page 479 Op. cit., p. 344.

Note 29 in page 479 Ibid., p. 346.

Note 30 in page 479 Op. cit., p. 450.

Note 31 in page 479 Op. cit., p. 346.

Note 32 in page 480 Ibid., p. 347.

Note 33 in page 480 See Pepys, Diary, 1 February, 1663-4.

Note 34 in page 480 Op. cit., p. 387 ff.

Note 35 in page 480 Ibid., p. 392.

Note 36 in page 481 See Micrographia, p. 236. Hooke himself refers to observations made by “Some considerable Merchants and Men worthy of Credit,” published by Sprat as A Relation of the Rico Tenereffe, See p. 200 ff.

Note 37 in page 481 Op. cit., p. 393.

Note 38 in page 482 No. 89, VII, 5108 ff.

Note 39 in page 482 Op. cit., p. 393 ff.

Note 40 in page 482 No. 79, VI, 3056 ff.

Note 41 in page 482 Op. cit., p. 359.

Note 42 in page 483 No. 23, II, 425 ff.

Note 43 in page 483 Op. cit., p. 360.

Note 44 in page 484 Op. cit., p. 217.

Note 45 in page 484 Op. cit., p. 216 ff.

Note 46 in page 485 Ibid., p. 386.

Note 47 in page 485 Op. cit., p. 127.

Note 48 in page 485 Op. cit., p. 360 ff.

Note 49 in page 486 Op. cit., p. 198 ff.

Note 50 in page 486 Ibid., p. 200 ff.

Note 51 in page 488 No. 77, VI, 3002 ff.

Note 52 in page 488 No. 83, VII, 4066 ff. Borgman (see pp. 169-70) notes another possible source in Philosophical Transactions, II, 660 ff.

Note 53 in page 488 Op. cit., p. 362.

Note 54 in page 488 Ibid.

Note 55 in page 489 Ibid., p. 389 ff.

Note 56 in page 489 Ibid., p. 343.

Note 57 in page 489 Ibid., p. 360.

Note 58 in page 489 Ibid., p. 393.

Note 59 in page 489 Ibid., p. 399.

Note 60 in page 489 Ibid., p. 416.

Note 61 in page 490 Ibid., p. 389.

Note 62 in page 490 Ibid., p. 342.

Note 63 in page 490 Ibid., p. 368.

Note 64 in page 490 Ibid., p. 394.

Note 65 in page 490 Ibid., p. 395 ff.

Note 66 in page 491 Ibid., p. 321.

Note 67 in page 491 Ibid., p. 322.

Note 68 in page 491 Ibid., p. 348.

Note 69 in page 493 Ibid., p. 315. Shadwell might have found this term in Hooke's reproduction of Dr. Clark's “observation on the Humble and Sensible Plants in Mr. Cluffius' Garden in Saint James's Park. . . . .” Op. cit., p. 116 ff.

Note 70 in page 494 See Mac-Flecknoe, I, 182.