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Performing in a different place: the use of a prodigy to the Dublin Philosophical Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2020

PADDY HOLT
PADDY HOLT*
Affiliation:
School of History and Philosophy of Science, the University of Sydney, Carslaw Building F07, Darlington, NSW2006, Australia. Email: paddy.holt@sydney.edu.au.
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Abstract

From 8 February until at least 19 April 1686, the Dublin Philosophical Society was occupied with a prodigiously talented young girl whose name was never recorded. She was less than eleven years of age, but still much older than the society itself, which had begun meeting less than three years previously. Although one of many wonders engaging the curiosity of the nascent society, this girl served a surprising range of purposes, so that accompanying her anonymity was a curious malleability. Pressed into several different roles and identities, her exploitation affords a glimpse into the various qualities that could make a spectacle useful in a philosophical climate that was unique among the British Isles. The use of this girl therefore not only sheds light on the needs of a less familiar learned society, but also shows how these could differ from those of its better-understood counterparts. For a period of time, it was the versatility not of the gentlemen in Dublin, but of the prodigy they used, that best served this group on the periphery.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 371 - 388
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Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2020

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Prof. Ofer Gal and Dr Elena Serrano for some helpful conversations on material discussed in this article. Two anonymous referees and Amanda Rees, the editor of the BJHS, also provided useful comments and suggestions.

References

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2 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 1, p. 79.

3 This version of events is set out in Molyneux, William, ‘A Continuation of the Account of Our Family, Written by Me to My Brother, in July, 1694’, in Molyneux, Capel and Molyneux, Thomas Phillips (eds.), An Account of the Family and Descendants of Thomas Molyneux, Kt. Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, Evesham: J. Agg., 1820, p. 64Google Scholar. For discussion of this account see Hoppen, Theodore K., The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century: A Study of the Dublin Philosophical Society, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970, p. 23Google Scholar.

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6 For the phrase ‘mathematical girl’ see St George Ashe to William Musgrave, 18 March 1685/1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 606; St George Ashe to Thomas Gale and Sir John Hoskins, 27 April 1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 620.

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29 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), p. 81.

30 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), p. 85.

31 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), p. 81.

32 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), p. 74.

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35 Molyneux, op. cit. (3), p. 64.

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37 Petty, op. cit. (36), pp. 90–91.

38 For the attention that these generated see Royal Society Archives EL/P1, no. 36, f. 59, Bodleian Library Lyell Empt. 32, ff. 62–63v.

39 After a long hiatus, Petty seems to have resumed work on these experiments in 1684. For example, see British Library Add MS 72855, f. 34.

40 Petty, op. cit. (36), pp. 90–91. Although it is worth pointing out that Petty's experiments were anything but ‘cheap’.

41 For the coolness displayed towards Petty's projects by the Royal Society see, for example, the minutes for 27 May 1663 in Birch, op. cit. (24), vol. 1, p. 249.

42 Lord Clarendon to John Evelyn, 14 February 1685/1686, in Singer, op. cit. (33), vol. 1, p. 250.

43 Singer, op. cit. (33), p. 250.

44 Petty, op. cit. (36), p. 91.

45 William Molyneux to John Flamsteed, 13 May 1684, in Forbes, Eric G., Forbes, Maria, Murdin, Lesley and Willmoth, Frances (eds.), The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, the First Astronomer Royal, 3 vols., Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1997, vol. 2, p. 166Google Scholar; Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 90.

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50 William Musgrave to St George Ashe, 28 February 1685/1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol 2., p. 604.

51 Shapin, Steven, ‘The house of experiment in seventeenth-century England’, Isis (1988) 79(3), pp. 373–404, 378CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the subsection head see William Molyneux to Edmond Halley, 8 April 1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 615.

52 Shapin, Steven and Schaffer, Simon, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 231Google Scholar. Hooke, Robert, Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made By Magnifying Glasses With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon, London, 1665, A1vCrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on Hooke's epistemology and its relation to instrumentalism see Lawson, Ian, ‘Crafting the microworld: how Robert Hooke constructed knowledge about small things’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London (2016) 70(1), pp. 23–44CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

53 Hooke, op. cit. (52), A2r.

54 These comments were made in a speech delivered by Wren upon his election as professor of geometry at Gresham College and reproduced in Wren, Stephen, Parentalia; or, Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens viz. of Mathew Bishop of Ely, Christopher Dean of Windsor, &c. But Chiefly of Sir Christopher Wren Late Surveyor-General of the Royal Buildings, President of the Royal Society, &c. &c. In which is contained, besides his Works, A great Number of Original Papers and Records; on Religion, Politicks, Anatomy, Mathematicks, Architeture, Antiquities; and most Branches of Polite Literature. Compiled by his son Christopher; Now published by his Grandson, Stephen Wren, Esq; With the Care of Joseph Ames, F.R.S. and Secretary to the Society of Antiquities, London, London, 1750, pp. 200–206, esp. 205Google Scholar. This and similar comments made by Wren are cited and discussed in Lawson, Ian, ‘Bears in Eden, or, this is not the garden you're looking for: Margaret Cavendish, Robert Hooke and the limits of natural philosophy’, BJHS (2015) 48(4), pp. 583–605, discussion of Wren at 593CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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57 Molyneux's complaints to Flamsteed are also discussed in Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 24.

58 Molyneux, op. cit. (3), pp. 63–64; Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 23.

59 St George Ashe, ‘St George Ashe's speech to Lord Clarendon (15 January 1685–6)’, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, pp. 898–900, analogy at 899. For discussion see Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 93. For an example of the supposed rarity of these animals in Ireland see the table of ‘Rare animals in Ireland’ reproduced with notes in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 1, p. 464. For the appearance of this belief in conceptions of the Anglican minority generally see Smyth, Jim, ‘“Like amphibious animals”: Irish Protestants, ancient Britons, 1691–1707’, Historical Journal (1993) 36(4), pp. 785–797CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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61 Mullen, Allen, An Anatomical Account of the Elephant Accidentally Burnt in Dublin on Fryday, June 17 in the Year 1681. Sent in a Letter to Sir Will. Petty, Fellow of the Royal Society. Together with a Relation of new Anatomical Observations in the Eyes of Animals. Communicated in another Letter to the Honourable R. Boyle, Esq; Fellow of the same Society, London, 1684, p. 4Google Scholar.

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63 Ashe, op. cit. (59), p. 199.

64 St George Ashe to Thomas Gale and John Hoskings, 13 March 1685/1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 605.

65 Ashe, op. cit. (64), p. 605.

66 St George Ashe to William Musgrave, 18 March 1685/1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, pp. 606–607, 605; Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 36.

67 Ashe, op. cit. (66).

68 Ashe, op. cit. (66), pp. 606–607.

69 Ashe, op. cit. (66), p. 607.

70 Ashe, op. cit. (66), p. 607.

71 Ashe, op. cit. (66), p. 606.

72 Hooke, op. cit. (52), A1r.

73 Boyle, op. cit. (56), p. 166.

74 St George Ashe to William Musgrave, 18 March 1685/1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 606. For references to the ‘globes’ see the minutes for 1 March in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 81.

75 Hooke, op. cit. (52), A1r; Lawson, op. cit. (52).

76 Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 157.

77 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 1, p. 57; Hoppen, op. cit. (3), p. 157.

78 Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 1, p. 79.

79 Sprat, op. cit. (55), p. 110.

80 William Molyneux to Edmond Halley, 8 April 1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, pp. 614–618.

81 Molyneux, op. cit. (80), p. 615.

82 Molyneux, op. cit. (80), p. 615.

83 Molyneux, op. cit. (80), p. 615.

84 Thomas Gale to St George Ashe, 27 March 1686, in Hoppen, op. cit. (1), vol. 2, p. 608.

85 Aubrey, op. cit. (11), pp. 98–99.

86 See, for example, Coppola, Al, The Theatre of Experiment: Staging Natural Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britiain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, esp. pp. 33–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daston and Park, op. cit. (12), pp. 303–313. The subsection head is from Ashe, op. cit. (59), p. 899.

87 Shapin, Steven, ‘Pump and circumstance’, Social Studies of Sience (1984) 14(4), pp. 481–520CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 A good discussion of some of the earlier Parisian academies is Guerrini, Anita, The Courtiers’ Anatomists: Animals and Humans in Louis XIV's Paris, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015, pp. 86–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the meetings at Pepys's lodgings see Willes, Margaret, The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017, pp. 103–129CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 Mazzotti, The World of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, op. cit. (8), pp. 18–19.

90 Mazzotti, The World of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, op. cit. (8), p. 19.

91 Guerrini, op. cit. (88), pp. 45, 87; Hahn, Roger, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971, pp. 5–6Google Scholar; Klotz, Frieda and Olkonomopoulou, Katerina, The Philosopher's Banquet: Plutarch's Table Talk in the Intellectual Culture of the Roman Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 135–136Google Scholar.

92 Petty, op. cit. (36), p. 91.

93 Ashe, op. cit. (59), pp. 898–900.

94 Ashe, op. cit. (59), pp. 899–900.

95 For reports of this see, for example, Aubrey's, John Brief Lives with an Apparatus for the Lives of our English Mathematical Writers (ed. Bennett, Kate), 2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, vol. 1, pp. 44–47Google Scholar; BL Add MS 72850, particularly ff. 110–111v.

96 Lord Clarendon to John Evelyn, 14 February 1685/1686, in Singer, op. cit. (33), vol. 1, p. 251.

97 Clarendon, op. cit. (96), pp. 250–251.

98 John Evelyn to the Countess of Clarendon, 14 August 1686, in Chambers, Douglas D.C. and Galbraith, David (eds.), The Letterbooks of John Evelyn, 2 vols., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014, vol. 2, p. 804Google Scholar.

99 The Countess of Clarendon to John Evelyn, 29 January 1686/1687, in Singer, op. cit. (33), vol. 2, p. 149.

100 It was also helpful in firming up relations with the Royal Society, since it nudged Clarendon into telling Evelyn, ‘they deserve the patronage of your society at London, and all the encouragement you can give them’. For more on this point see Clarendon, op. cit. (96), p. 251.

101 Clarendon, op. cit. (96), p. 251.

102 It is difficult to find any mention of her after appearing in the Countess of Clarendon's letter to John Evelyn of 29 January 1686/1687, for which see Clarendon, op. cit. (99), p. 149.