Note 259 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 2)

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.