I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. Every room hath in it one or more projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.

7

The first man I faw was of a meagre afpect, with footy hands and face, his hair and beard long, rag、 ged and finged in feveral places. His cloaths, fhirt, and skin, were all of the fame colour. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting fun-beams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically fealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement fummers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he fhould be able to fupply the governor's gardens with fun-fhine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his ftock was low, and intreated me to give him fome-thing as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially fince this had been a very dear feafon for cucum-bers. I made him a fmall present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to> fee them.

I went into another chamber, but was ready tohaften back, being almoft overcome with a horrible ftink. My conductor preffed me forward, conjuring me in a whifper to give no offence, which would be highly refented, and therefore I durft not fo much as stop my nose. The projector of this cell was the most ancient ftudent of the academy; his face and beard were of a pale yellow: his handsand cloaths dawbed over with filth. When I was prefented to him he gave me a close embrace, (a compliment I could well have excufed). His em-ployment from his firft coming into the academy was an operation to reduce human excrement to its original food, by feparating the feveral parts, removing the tincture which it receives from the gall,. making the odour exhale, and fcumming off the faliva. He had a weekly allowance from the fo

ciety of a veffel filled with human ordure about the bigne's of a Bristol barrel.

I faw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewife fhewed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houfes by beginning at the roof, and working downwards to the foundation, which he juftified to me by the like practice of thofe two prudent infects the bee and the fpider.

There was a man born b'ind, who had feveral apprentices in his own condition: their employment was to mix colours for painters, which their mas. ter taught them to diftinguish by feeling and fmelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find them at that time not very perfect in their leffons, and the profeffor himself happened to be generally mistaken. This artift is much encouraged and efteemed by the whale fraternity.

In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector, who had found a device of plowing the ground with hogs, to fave the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method is this: In an -acre of ground you bury at fix inches diftance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chefnuts, and other maste or vegetables, whereof thefe animals are fondeft: then you drive fix hundred or more of them into the field, where in a few days they will root up the whole ground in fearch of their food, and make it fit for fowing, at the fame time manuring it with their dung; it is true, upon experiment they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However, it is not to be doubted, that this invention capable of great improvement.

may

be

I went into another room, where the walls and cieling were all hung round with cobwebs, except

a narrow

a narrow paffage for the artit to go in and out. At my entrance he called aloud to me not to disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake the world had been fo long in of ufing filk-worms, while we had fuch plenty of domeftic infects, who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood bow to weave as well as fpin. And he propofed farther, that, by employing fpiders, the charge of dying filks fhould be wholly faved; whereof I was fully convinced, when he fhewed me a vaft number of flies most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his fpiders, affuring us, that the webs would take a tincture from them; and, as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit every body's fancy, as foon as he could find proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to give a ftrength and confiftence to the threads.

There was an aftronomer, who had undertaken to place a fun-dial upon the great weather-cock on the town houfe, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and fun, fo as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

I was complaining of a fmall fit of the cholic, upon which my conductor led me into a room where a great phyfician refided, who was famous for curing that disease by contrary operations from the fame inftrument. He had a large pair of bellows with a long flender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and, drawing in the wind, he affirmed, he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were full of wind, which he difcharged into the body of the patient; then withdrew the inftrun:ent to replenifh it, clapping his thumb ftrongly against the orifice of the fundament; and, this being repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rufh out, bringing the

noxious

noxious along with it, (like water put into a pump,) and the patient recover. I faw him. try both experiments upon a dog, but could not discern any effect from the former. After the latter, the animal was ready to burft, and made fo violent a dif charge, as was very offenfive to me and my compa. nions. The dog died on the fpot, and we left the doctor endeavouring to recover him by the fame operation.

I vifited many other apartments, but fhall not trouble my reader with all the curiofities I obferved, being ftudious of brevity.

I had hitherto feen only one fide of the academy, the other being appropriated to the advancers of fpeculative learning, of whom I shall say something when I have mentioned one illuftrious perfon more, who is called among them the univerfal artist. He told us he had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the improvement of human life. He had two large rooms full of wonderful curiofities, and fifty men at work. Some were condensing air into a dry tangible fubftance by extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate; others foftening marble for pillows and pin-cufhions; others petrifying the hoofs of a living horfe to preferve them from foundering. The artift himself was at that time bufy upon two great defigns; the firft, to fow land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true feminal virtue to be contained, as he demonftrated by feveral experiments, which I was not skilful enough to comprehend. The other was, by a certain compofition of gums, minerals, and vegetables, outwardly applied to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped in a reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked fheep all over the kingdom.

We croffed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have already faid, the projectors in fpeculative learning refided.

The

The first profeffor I faw was in a very large room with forty pupils about him. After falutation obferving me to look earnestly upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he faid perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving fpeculative knowledge by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would foon be fenfible of its ufefulness; and he flattered himself, that a more noble exalted thought never fprang in any other man's head. Every one knew, how laborious the ufual method is of attaining to arts and fciences; whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant perfon, at a reafonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philofophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the leaft affiftance from genius or ftudy. He then led me to the frame, about the fides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks: It was twenty feet fquare, placed in the middle of the room. The fuperficies was compofed of several bits of wood about the bignefs of a dye, but fome larger than others. They were all linked together by flender wires. Thefe bits of wood were covered on every fquare with paper pafted on them; and on thefe papers were written all the words of their language, in their feveral moods, tenfes, and declenfions; but without any order. The profeffor then defired me to obferve; for he was going to fet his engine at work. The pupils at his commandtook each of them hold of an iron-handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and, giving them a fudden turn, the whole difpofition of the words was intirely changed. He then commanded fix and thirty of the lads to read the feveral lines foftly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where. they found three or four words together, that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were

fcribes.