This poem is elucidated by notes, which point the allusions to
the works or doings of the old philosophers.--ED.

[259] Evelyn, who could himself be a wit occasionally, was, however,
much annoyed by the scorners. He applies to these wits a
passage in Nehemiah ii. 19, which describes those who laughed
at the _builders of Jerusalem_. "These are the Sanballats,
the Horonites, who disturb our men upon the wall; but _let
us rise up and build_!" He describes these Horonites of wit as
"magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of
their perukes." But the Royal Society was attacked from other
quarters, which ought to have assisted them. Evelyn, in his
valuable treatise on forest-trees, had inserted a new
project for making cider; and Stubbe insisted, that in
consequence "much cider had been spoiled within these three
years, by following the directions published by the
commands of the Royal Society." They afterwards announced
that they never considered themselves as answerable for
their own memoirs, which gave Stubbe occasion to boast that
he had forced them to deny what they had written. A passage
in Hobbes's "Considerations upon his Reputation, &c.," is as
remarkable for the force of its style as for that of sense,
and may be applicable to _some_ at this day, notwithstanding
the progress of science, and the importance attached to
their busy idleness.

"Every man that hath spare money can get furnaces, and buy
coals. Every man that hath spare money can be at the charge of
making great moulds, &c., and so may have the best and
greatest telescopes. They can get engines made, recipients
made, and try conclusions; but they are never the more
philosophers for all this. 'Tis laudable to bestow money on
curious or useful delights, but that is none of the praises of
a philosopher." p. 53.

[260] Glanvill was a learned man, but evidently superstitious,
particularly in all that related to witchcraft and apparitions;
the reality of both being insisted on by him in a series of
books which he published at various periods of his life, and
which he continually worked upon with new arguments and
instances, in spite of all criticism or opposit