hich Stubbe had asserted were known to
the ancients and others of a later period. This forms a perpetual
accusation against the inventors and discoverers, who may often
exclaim, "Perish those who have done our good works before us!" "The
Discoveries of the Ancients and Moderns" by Dutens, had this book been
then published, might have assisted our keen investigator; but our
combatant ever proudly met his adversaries single-handed.

The "Philosophical Transactions" were afterwards accused of another
kind of high treason, against grammar and common sense. It was long
before the collectors of facts practised the art of writing on them;
still later before they could philosophise, as well as observe: Bacon
and Boyle were at first only imitated in their patient industry. When
Sir HANS SLOANE was the secretary of the Royal Society, he, and most
of his correspondents, wrote in the most confused manner imaginable. A
wit of a very original cast, the facetious Dr. KING,[277] took
advantage of their perplexed and often unintelligible descriptions;
of the meanness of their style, which humbled even the great objects
of nature; of their credulity that heaped up marvels, and their vanity
that prided itself on petty discoveries, and invented a new species of
satire. SLOANE, a name endeared to posterity, whose life was that of
an enthusiast of science, and who was the founder of a national
collection; and his numerous friends, many of whose names have
descended with the regard due to the votaries of knowledge, fell the
victims. Wit is an unsparing leveller.

The new species of literary burlesque which King seems to have
invented, consists in selecting the very expressions and absurd
passages from the original he ridiculed, and framing out of them a
droll dialogue or a grotesque narrative, he adroitly inserted his own
remarks, replete with the keenest irony, or the driest sarcasm.[278]
Our arch wag says, "The bulls and blunders which Sloane and his
friends so naturally pour forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful
I am in producing them." King still moves the risible muscles of his
readers. "The Voyage to Cajamai," a travestie of Sloane's valuable
"History of Jamaica," is still a peculiar piece of humour; and it has
been rightly distinguished as "one of the severest and merriest
satires that was ever written in prose."[279] The author might indeed
have blushed at the labour bestowed on these drolleries; he might have
dreaded that humo