In giving an account of “a child born without a brain”—“Had it lived long enough,” said 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 misfortune 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’s-teeth, 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.
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.”
Dr. King’s dispersed works have fortunately been collected by Mr. Nichols, with ample illustrations, in three vols. 8vo, 1776. The “Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of Learning,” form a collection of ludicrous dissertations of Antiquarianism, Natural Philosophy, Criticism, &c., where his own peculiar humour combines with his curious reading. [In this he burlesqued the proceedings of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies with some degree of spirit and humour. By turning vulgar lines into Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon, a learned air is given to some papers on childish subjects. One learned doctor communicates to another “an Essay proving, by arguments philosophical, that millers, falsely so reputed, are not thieves, with an interesting argument that taylors likewise are not so.” A Welsh schoolmaster sends some “natural observations” made in Wales, in direct imitation of the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1707, and with humorous love for genealogy, reckons that in his school, “since the flood, there have been 466, and I am the 467th master: before the flood, they living long, there were but two—Rice ap Evan Dha the good, and Davie ap Shones Gonnah the naught, in whose time the flood came.” The first paper of the collection is an evident jest on John Bagford and his gatherings for the history of printing, now preserved among the manuscripts of the British Museum. It purports to be “an Essay on the invention of samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford, with an account of her collections for the same:” and written in burlesque of a paper in the “Philosophical Transactions” for April, 1697. It is a most elaborate performance, deducing with mock-seriousness the origin of samplers from the ancient tales of Arachne, who “set forth the whole story of her wrongs in needlework, and sent it to her sister;” and our author adds, with much humour, “it is very remarkable that the memory of this story does at present continue, for there are no samplers, which proceed in any measure beyond the first rudiments, but have a tree and a nightingale sitting on it.” Such were the jests of the day against the Royal philosophers.] He also invented satirical and humorous indexes, not the least facetious parts of his volumes. King had made notes on more than 20,000 books and MSS., and his Adversaria, of which a portion has been preserved, is not inferior in curiosity to the literary journals of Gibbon, though it wants the investigating spirit of the modern philosopher.
The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed in “Calamities of Authors.”