400

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

criAp.

in.

to wear hats and which black velvet caps with peaks, how themace was to be carried and when the heralds were to uncover,these, and a hundred more such trifles, were gravely con-sidered and arranged by men of no common capacity andlearning.* But the time for these visions had gone by; and,if any steadfast republican still continued to amuse himselfwith them, fear of public derision and of a criminal informa-tion generally induced him to keep his fancies to himself. Itwas now unpopular and unsafe to mutter a word against thefundamental laws of the monarchy: but daring and ingeniousmen might indemnify themselves by treating with disdain whathad lately been considered as the fundamental laws of nature.The torrent which had been dammed up in one channelrushed violently into another. The revolutionary spirit,ceasing to operate in politics, began to exert itself with un-precedented vigour and hardihood in every department ofphysics. The year 1660, the era of the restoration of the oldconstitution, is also the era from which dates the ascendencyof the new philosophy. In that year the Royal Society,destined to be a chief agent in a long series of glorious andsalutary reforms, began to exist.** In a few months experi-mental science became all the mode. The transfusion ofblood, the ponderation of air, the fixation of mercury, suc-ceeded to that place in the public mind which had been latelyoccupied by the controversies of the Rota. Dreams of perfectforms of government made way for dreams of wings withwhich men were to fly from the Tower to the Abbey, and ofdouble-keeled ships which were never to founder in the fierceststorm. All classes were hurried along by the prevailing senti-ment. Cavalier and Roundhead, Churchman and Puritanwere for once allied. Divines, jurists, statesmen, nobles,princes, swelled the triumph of the Baconian philosophy.

* See particularly Harrington’s Oceana.

** See Sprat’s History of the Royal Society.