Dunciad_, book i. ver. 181--

"As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky."

[252] Perhaps, by _Chaerilus_, the juvenile satirist designated
_Flecknoe_, or _Shadwell_, who had received their immortality
of dulness from his master, catholic in poetry and opinions,
Dryden.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY at first opposed from various quarters--their
Experimental Philosophy supplants the Aristotelian methods--suspected
of being the concealed Advocates of Popery, Arbitrary Power, and
Atheism--disappointments incurred by their promises--the simplicity
of the early Inquirers--ridiculed by the Wits and others--Narrative
of a quarrel between a Member of the Royal Society and an
Aristotelian--Glanvill writes his "Plus Ultra," to show the
Improvements of Modern Knowledge--Character of Stubbe of
Warwick--his Apology, from himself--opposes the "Plus Ultra" by the
"Plus Ultra reduced to a Nonplus"--his "Campanella revived"--the
Political Projects of Campanella--Stubbe persecuted, and menaced
to be publicly whipped; his Roman spirit--his "Legends no
Histories"--his "Censure on some Passages of the History of the
Royal Society"--Harvey's ambition to be considered the Discoverer of
the Circulation of the Blood, which he demonstrates--Stubbe describes
the Philosophy of Science--attacks Sprat's Dedication to the
King--The Philosophical Transactions published by Sir Hans Sloane
ridiculed by Dr. King--his new Species of Literary Burlesque--King's
character--these attacks not ineffectually renewed by Sir John Hill.

The Royal Society, on its first establishment, at the era of the
Restoration, encountered fierce hostilities; nor, even at later
periods, has it escaped many wanton attacks. A great revolution in the
human mind was opening with that establishment; for the spirit which
had appeared in the recent political concussion, and which had given
freedom to opinion, and a bolder scope to enterprise, had now reached
the literary and philosophical world; but causes of the most opposite
natures operated against this institution of infant science.

In the first place, the new experimental philosophy, full of
inventions and operations, proposed to supplant the old scholastic
philosophy, which still retained an obscure jargon of terms, the most
frivolous subtilties, and all those empty and