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Science and Literature: The Virtuoso in English Belles Lettres1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Daniel L. McCue Jr.
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Extract

In the year 1676 there appeared on the London stage a new kind of comedy. The play was The Virtuoso, by Thomas Shadwell; and the new element was its satire on the contemporary amateur scientist called a “virtuso.”

Shadwell's play marked the beginning of a trend. For the next hundred years the “virtuoso” became a familiar figure in English literature. He was described, mocked, praised and lectured in plays, poems, and essays. He attracted the attention and interest of such authors as Dryden, Addison, Swift. Pope, Akenside, Johnson, and Shenstone.

Exactly what was a virtuoso? Originally he was a Renaissance gentleman of wealth and leisure who, inspired by the revival of classical learning, became a collector of Greek and Roman antiquities — paintings, sculptures, coins, and medals. His motives were varied: partly sheer curiosity and delight in knowledge for its own sake; partly the need for occupation as an escape from boredom and melancholy. But it must be genteel occupation: one suited to his class and fortune, divorced from manual labor or money-grubbing, and from any kind of practical utility. The reputation to be gained by a note-worthy collection furnished added incentive. Finally, sensibility played a part: the romantic desire for “some living contact, however vicarious, with the heroes of old, classical and national.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , Fall 1971 , pp. 138 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1971

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Footnotes

1

The purpose of the present paper is to present an overview of the virtuoso's nature and activities, and the attitudes of authors toward him, as depicted in English literature during the period of his chief prominence in that literature, roughly 1675-1765. For the virtuoso in real life, see references below.

References

NOTES

2 Satire on science, and on the amateur or pseudo-scientist, is almost as old as English literature itself. Chaucer pilloried the alchemists in his Canon's Yeoman's Tale. Ben Jonson dealt with the same subject in his play, The Alchemist. Shadwell claimed Jonson as his model, and attempted a similar type of classical comedy about “humours” or eccentricities of character. (There are four “humour characters” in this play: Sir Nicholas Gimcrack; his oratorical friend, Sir Formal Trifle, his misanthropic uncle, Snarl; and the aristocratic busybody, Sir Samuel Hearty.) What was new in Shadwell's play was the virtuoso himself, a new figure in society, whose activities had been encouraged and his numbers increased by the rise of science in the mid-seventeenth century and the chartering of the Royal Society in 1662.

Both in real life and in literature, the virtuoso was the logical successor to the alchemist. Both were quasi-scientists. Both groups consisted of private individuals, working in isolation in their own homes or workshops, and supported by their own resources. Though both groups contained some quacks and charlatans, they also included serious seekers after truth; and while neither group was wholly successful, both made ueful contributions — often incidentally — to human knowledge.

There had been other satire on science and scientists in the 1660's and 1670's. Dorothy Stimson prints a satiric “Ballad of Gresham College” (c1663) which circulated in manuscript and reported absurd experiments of members of the Royal Society. The Society in its early years met in the buildings of Gresham College, and members of the two institutions were often identified in the public mind. See Stimson, Dorothy, Scientists and Amateurs: A History of the Royal Society (New York, 1948), 56–63.Google Scholar

Samuel Butler (1612-1680) in several of his works satirized the virtuosi of his day, but only Hudibras was published during his lifetime (Part I, 1663; Part II, 1664; Part III, 1678), and the satire here is scattered over many targets: on Puritanism, chivalry, logic-chopping, and pedantry, as well as on astrology and the new science. For Butler's other works, see following footnote.

Mrs. Aphra Behn also ridiculed the virtuoso-scientist in her farce, The Emperor in the Moon (1687), but this play is later than Shadwell's and its plot is similar to his. See Dorothy Stimson, op. cit., 92, 94.

None of these other early literary treatments of the virtuoso enjoyed as much popularity or persistence as Shadwell's play. Gerard Langbaine, writing in 1691, gives Shadwell exclusive credit for first exploiting the topic of the virtuoso in literature: “… no Man ever undertook to discover the Frailties of such Pretenders to this kind of Knowledge, before Mr. Shadwell …” Langbaine, Gerard, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Oxford, 1691), 451–452Google Scholar; quoted by Rodes, David S., to whom I am indebted for this reference, in Shadwell, Thomas, The Virtuoso, edited by Nicholson, Marjorie H. and Rodes, David S. (Lincoln, Neb., 1966), xiii.Google Scholar

3 The selection of authors and works chosen for discussion in this paper is wholly arbitrary and is designed to show: 1. major literary treatments of the virtuoso; and 2. attitudes of major authors toward the virtuoso. Minor works have been included only when extraneous circumstances have given them importance: e.g. Shenstone's poem because of its date.

The virtuoso also appears or is mentioned in a host of other literary works which were omitted from discussion in the present paper because they shed little significant light on his activites or on the attitudes of major authors toward him. In most of these excluded works either the virtuoso, as virtuoso, plays but a major role, or the allusions to him are too brief or too stereotyped to be of much importance. Such works include (in addition to those mentioned in footnote 2 above):

Samuel Butler: The Elephant in the Moon. Probably written in the 1660's, not published until 1759. See Butler, Samuel, Three Poems (Los Angeles, 1961)Google Scholar Augustan Reprint Society No. 88.

Samuel Butler: Characters. Also written c 1667-1669 but not published until 1759. See especially the characters of “A Virtuoso,” “A Philosopher,” “An Hermetic Philosopher,” “An Antisocordist,” “An Antiquary,” et al. in the new edition by Charles W. Daves (Cleveland, 1970).

Gentlivre, Susannah: The Basset Table (1706)Google Scholar features a female virtuoso, Valeria, “a Philosophical Girl.” It is reprinted in The Works of the Celebrated Mrs. Centlivre (London, 1760–1761), Vol. IGoogle Scholar. See Nicolson, Marjorie, Science and Imagination (Ithaca, 1962), 187–88.Google Scholar

Centlivre, Susannah: A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718).Google Scholar

Pope, and Gay, : Three Hours After Marriage (1717).Google Scholar

Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones (1749), Book XIII, Ch. v.Google Scholar

Fielding, Henry: The Covent Garden Journal, No. 24, Tuesday, March 24, 1752.Google Scholar

Goldsmith, Oliver: Citizen of the World, Letter 34 (1760).Google Scholar

Coventry, Francis: Pompey the Little. (1751), Book I, Ch. iii.Google Scholar

SirReynolds, Joshua: The Idler No. 76 (29 September 1759)Google Scholar. This and the four preceding references were suggested by Mr.Dudden, F. H. in Henry Fielding, His Life, Works, and Times (London, 1952: reprinted Hamden, Conn. 1966), I, 548.Google Scholar

4 For an extended and detailed description of the virtuoso see Houghton, Walter E. Jr., “The English virtuoso in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of thr History of Ideas, III, Nos. 1 and 2 (1942), 51–73, 190–219CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Prof. Houghton states that “painting, antiquities, and science are the major concerns” of the virtuoso, but that the term in early use included several other fields of interest.

5 Ibid., 190.

6 Ibid., 67-72.

7 Shadwell, , The Virtuoso, ed. Nicolson, and Rodes, , (1966), I, ii, 11Google Scholar. 6-10; and II, ii, 297-300. For excellent discussions of the satire on science in this play see Marjorie Nicolson's introduction, pp. xv-xxvi; also Lloyd, Claude, “Shadwell and the Virtuosi,” P[ublications of the] M[odern] L[anguage] A[ssociation], XLIV (1929), 472–494Google Scholar, (to which Prof. Nicolson refers.)

8 Shadwell, , The Virtuoso, I, ii, 240–243.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., II, ii, 111-128.

10 Ibid., II, ii. 180-194.

11 Ibid., II, ii, 78-86.

12 Ibid., IV, v, passim.

13 Ibid., II, i, 303-304.

14 For example, in the elegy, “Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings,” (1649) Hastings is compared to a star, and reference is made to the astronomers Ptolemy and Brahe. In “Annus Mirabilis” (1667) the poet predicts Newton's explanation of tides, and the discovery of the longitude.

The ebbs of tides and their mysterious flow,

We, as art's elements, shall understand,

And as by line upon the ocean go,

Whose paths shall be familiar as the land.

The poem also mentions neighboring planets, possibly inhabited; and praises scientists, epecially members of the Royal Society, who draw “rich ideas” down to the level of common understanding (stanzas CLX-GLXVI.) Dryden makes frequent use of the telescope as metaphor, as in “Epilogue Spoken to the King at the Opening of the Playhouse at Oxford.” (1681), and in “Prologue to the Prophetess” (1690). For a detailed study see Griffith, Richard R., Science and Pseudo-Science in the Imagery of John Dryden, Ph. D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1957Google Scholar. (DA, XVII, 1072).

15 See his Sheldonian oration of 1693 in which he took as his thesis. “Nova Philosophia Veteri Praeferenda Est,” and in which he mentions all three of these scientists. I am indebted for this reference, as for many others, to Marjorie Nicolson.

16 See The Tatler, Nos. 119, 216, 221; and The Spectator Nos. 275, 281, 463, and 519.

17 Shadwell, , The Virtuoso, ed. Nicolson, and Rodes, , xvii.Google Scholar

18 Addison's attitude here is an example of the theory of the “Two Scriptures” preached by Francis Bacon, and described below on pages 14-15.

19 Swift's knowledge of general laws of biology is shown in his descriptions of the Lilliputians and of the Brobdingnagians. He describes the tiny Lilliputians as having short life spans, very keen eyesight at short range, and high, shrill voices — all of these characteristics being generally associated with smaller creatures. Conversely the giant Brobdingnagians have eyesight that is less acute at short ranges, and deep resounding voices — characteristics generally associated with larger creatures.

Magnetism is the force used to propel and direct the Flying Island, the basic principle being that opposite poles of a magnet attract, but like poles repel. Swift uses the earth's magnetic field as one of the poles. (Voyage III. Ch. iii.)

For Swift's knowledge of astronomy, see below in text.

20 Entomology: Gulliver describes how a fly walks upside down across a ceiling, and the size of a wasp's stinger in relation to the rest of the wasp's body. (Voyage II.)

Geography: Swift locates the imaginary lands which Gulliver visits in exactly those portions of the globe which were least well known in the 18th century. For all his readers knew, such countries might actually exist in the locations shown by Swift. See Case's, Arthur commentary in his edition of Gulliver's Travels (New York, 1938) 350–51.Google Scholar

Miscroscope and telescope: In Voyage I, Swift in effect turns the telescope on human nature, describing men as they might seem to an observer on another planet, watching earth through a telescope. Conversely, in Voyage II, Swift turns the microscope on human nature, describing the mottled skin and coarse body hair of the Brobdingnagians, the nurse's enormous breast, the huge sores on the bodies of beggars, magnified as though seen through a microscope. Both points are made by Nicolson, Marjorie in Science and Imagination, (Ithaca, 1962), Chs. I and VI.Google Scholar

21 Mohler, Nora M. and Nicolson, Marjorie H., “The Scientific Background of Swift's Voyage to Laputa,” in Nicolson, M. H., Science and Imagination 110–154.Google Scholar

22 Gulliver's Travels, ed. Greenberg, Robert A. (New York, 1961), 143.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., 140.

24 Ibid., 143.

25 Ibid., 137-138.

26 Ibid., 140ff.

27 See note 21 above. Three doctoral dissertations on Swift's knowledge of, and attitudes toward, science are: DeVane, Mabel Phillips, “Swift's Relations to Science,” (Yale, 1925)Google Scholar; Owens, Robert R., “Jonathan Swift's Hostility to Science,” (Minnesota, 1955), D[issertation] A[bstracts], XVI, 115,Google Scholar; and Griffith, George W., “Jonathan Swift's Relation to Science,” (Vanderbilt University, 1970), DA, XXX, 1229–A.Google Scholar

28 Gulliver's Travels, ed. Greenberg, , 134.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., 137-138.

30 Ibid., 136.

31 Ibid., 151.

32 See Bacon, Francis, Novum Organum (1620)Google ScholarPubMed, and The New Atlantis (1626).

33 Nicolson, Marjorie and Rousseau, G. S., This Long Disease, My Life: Alexander Pope and the Sciences (Princeton, 1968), 24, 138ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Brownell, Morris R. III, Alexander Pope, Virtuoso, Ph.D. dissertation University of California, Berkeley, 1967. DA, XXVII, 3421A–22A.Google Scholar

35 Pope, Alexander, An Essay ov Criticism, ii, 398–405Google Scholar: and The Dunciad, iv, 633-634.

36 Pope, Alexander, An Essay on Criticism, ii, 466–473.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., i, 311-312; also The Rape of the Lock, ii, 53-68.

38 Alexander Pope, The Universal Prayer, line 24; An Essay on Criticism, i, 193-194; The Rape of the Lock, ii, 79-80.

39 Galileo: The Rape of the Lock, v, 137-138; Newton, : An Essay on Man, i, 21–28Google Scholar; ii, 19-22, 31-42; Stephen Hales: On the Characters of Women, line 198.

40 A jibe at the lawyer Lewis Theobald, who had exposed the errors in Pope's edition of Shakespeare. Pope made him the “hero” of The Dunciad.

41 Boswell, James, The Life of Samuel Johnson (New York, 1966), 308Google Scholar. Oxford University Press paperbound edition. Two doctoral dissertations on Johnson's relation to science are: Mitchell, Stephen O., “Samuel Johnson and the New Philosophy: the Effects of the New Philosophy on Johnson's Thought,” Indiana University, 1961, DA, XXII, 3203–04Google Scholar; and Schwartz, Richard B., “Samuel Johnson's Attitudes Toward Science,” University of Illinois, 1967, DA, XXVIII, 3156–A.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., 1029.

43 Dorothy Stimson defines the virtuosi as “lovers of science.” Stimson, op. cit., 36.

44 Houghton, op. cit., 214.

45 The virtuoso movement in England began to decline about 1680. Walter Houghton lists several reasons for the decline, including the satiric attacks of the wits, increasing opportunities for the employment of gentlemen in government and commerce, and triumph of a practical and utilitarian philosophy of education.

46 Shenstone, William, “The Beau to the Virtuosos; Alluding to a Proposal for the Publication of a Set of Butterflies,” in Dodsley's, Collection of Poems by Several Hands, Vol. V, 1758Google Scholar; revised, 1764; conveniently reprinted in Eighteenth Century English Literature, edited by Tillotson, G., Fussell, P. Jr. and Waingrow, M. (New York, 1969), 906.Google Scholar