Conversation Pieces: Science and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England

Steele Richard , The Englishman (1714), 50–52, quoted in King H. C. , Geared to the stars (Toronto, 1978), 154.

The meaning of ‘politeness’ in eighteenth-century English culture has recently been elaborated in the works of Lawrence Klein, including Shaftesbury and the culture of politeness: Moral discourse and cultural politics in early eighteenth-century England (Cambridge, 1994), and “The Third Earl of Shaftesbury and the progress of politeness”, Eighteenth-century studies, xviii (1984–85), 186–214. See also Langford Paul , A polite and commercial people: England 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), esp. chap. 3; Barker-Benfield G. J. , The culture of sensibility: Sex and society in eighteenth-century Britain (Chicago, 1992); Earle Peter , The making of the English middle class: Business, society, and family life in London, 1660–1730 (Berkeley, 1989); and Porter Roy , English society in the eighteenth century (London, 1982). The ‘place’ of politeness is delineated in Borsay Peter , The English urban renaissance: Culture and society in the provincial town, 1660–1770 (Oxford, 1989); and Smith Charles Saumarez , Eighteenth-century decoration: Design and the domestic interior in England (New York, 1993).

For example, Morton Alan Q. Wess Jane A. , Public & private science: The King George III Collection (Oxford, 1993), chap. 2, “Science as polite culture: Early scientific lectures in London, 1700–45”. On the varied manifestations and purposes of scientific lecturing in eighteenth-century England, see the articles in The British journal for the history of science , xxviii/1 (1995), which is devoted to the topic; Schaffer Simon , “The consuming flame: Electrical showmen and Tory mystics in the world of goods”, in Brewer John Porter Roy (eds), Consumption and the world of goods (London, 1993), 489–526; Morton A. Q. , “Lectures on natural philosophy in London: 1750–1765: S. C. T. Demainbray (1710–1782) and the ‘Inattention’ of his countrymen”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1990), 411–34; Stewart Larry , The rise of public science: Rhetoric, technology, and natural philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750 (Cambridge, 1992), esp. Part II; Golinski Jan , Science as public culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge, 1992), esp. chap. 2; Stafford Barbara Maria , Artful science: Enlightenment entertainment and the eclipse of visual education (Cambridge, Mass., 1994); Schaffer Simon , “Natural philosophy and public spectacle in the eighteenth century”, History of science, xxi (1983), 1–43; Porter Roy , “Science, provincial culture, and public opinion in Enlightenment England”, British journal for eighteenth-century studies, iii (1980), 20–46; and Heilbron J. L. , Electricity in the 17th & 18th centuries (Berkeley, 1979), chap. II, section 4. On Richard Steele's own involvement with the scientific lecturing movement, see Loftis John , “Richard Steele's censorium”, Huntington Library quarterly, xiv (1950), 43–66.

Klein Lawrence E. , “Gender, conversation, and the public sphere in early eighteenth-century England”, in Still Judith Worton Michael (eds), Textuality and sexuality: Reading theories and practices ((Manchester, 1993), 100–15; and Klein , “Gender and the public/private distinction in the eighteenth century: Some questions about evidence and analytic procedure”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxix (1995), 97–109. The difficulties of ‘placing’ philosophy in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English living environments are addressed in Stafford , op. cit. (ref. 3); Schaffer , “Consuming flame” (ref. 3), 493–5; and Shapin Steven , “The house of experiment in seventeenth-century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404.

On the role of women in polite society, see Klein , “Gender, conversation, and the public sphere” (ref. 4). On efforts to ‘popularize’ science for women, see, for example, Meyer G. D. , The scientific lady in England, 1650–1760 (Berkeley, 1955); Phillips Patricia , The scientific lady: A social history of women's scientific interests, 1520–1918 (London, 1990); Schiebinger Londa , The mind has no sex? (Cambridge, Mass., 1989); and Mullan John , “Gendered knowledge, gendered minds: Women and Newtonianism, 1690–1760”, in Benjamin Marina (ed.), A question of identity: Women, science, and literature (New Brunswick, 1993), 41–56; and Douglas Aileen , “Popular science and the representation of women: Fontenelle and after”, Eighteenth-century life, xviii (1994), 1–14, which argues that “popularizations of science are [a] realm in which women are identified with the development of culture” (p. 2). The difficult notion of ‘popularization’, and its historiographic awkwardness, has recently been addressed by Cooter Roger Pumfrey Stephen , “Separate spheres and public places: Reflections on the history of science popularization and science in popular culture”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 237–67.

Klein , “The progress of politeness” (ref. 2), 191.

Langford , op. cit. (ref. 2), 71; Klein Lawrence , “Politeness for plebes: Consumption and social identity in early eighteenth-century England”, in Bermingham Ann Brewer John (eds), The consumption of culture 1600–1800: Image, object, text (London, 1995), 362–82, esp. pp. 365–6. See also the definition in Klein , “The progress of politeness” (ref. 2), 190: “‘politeness’ encompassed technique, norm, and social environment: It was the set of attitudes, strategies, and devices that an individual could command to gratify others and thus render the social realm truly sociable.”.

Shapin Steven , “‘A scholar and a gentleman’: The problematic identity of the scientific practitioner in early modern England”, History of science, xxix (1991), 279–327, esp. pp. 289–90, 311–12. See also Syfret R. H. , “Some early reactions to the Royal Society”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, vii (1950), 207–58; idem, “Some early critics of the Royal Society”, ibid, viii (1950), 20–64.

Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 5–6, 34–41, pp. 34 and 39.

Porter , “Science, provincial culture, and public opinion” (ref. 3), 21. Examples of the ‘commoditization’ of science in eighteenth-century England can be found in Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 3); Golinski , op. cit. (ref. 3); Turner G. L'E. , “Scientific toys”, The British journal for the history of science, xx (1987), 377–98, and “The London trade in scientific instrument-making in the 18th century”, Vistas in astronomy, xx (1976), 173–82; Secord James A. , “Newton in the nursery: Tom Telescope and the philosophy of tops and balls, 1761–1838”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 127–51; Rousseau G. S. , “Science books and their readers in the eighteenth century”, in Rivers I. (ed.), Books and their readers in eighteenth-century England (Leicester, 1982), 197–255; and Porter Roy Schaffer Simon Bennett Jim Brown Olivia , Science and profit in eighteenth-century London (Cambridge, 1985), among other works. The lecturer as entrepreneur is characterized in two biographical studies by Millburn John R. , Benjamin Martin: Author, instrument maker, and “country showman” (Leyden, 1976), and Wheelwright of the heavens: The life and work of James Ferguson, FRS (London, 1988).

The publication histories of works published in England between 1701 and 1760 are detailed in Wallis R. V. Wallis P. J. , Biobibliography of British mathematics, Part II (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1986).

Pluche Noël Antoine , Spectacle de la nature, or Nature display'd (London, 1733), i, pp. xiii–xiv.

The publication histories of these works are detailed in (resp.): Millburn , op. cit. (ref. 10, 1976); Secord , “Newton in the nursery” (ref. 10); Millburn , op. cit. (ref. 10, 1988); and Moseley James , “Bonnycastle's Astronomy”, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, xxxii (1979), 354–7.

Secord , “Newton in the nursery” (ref. 10), 133.

See Shteir Ann B. , Cultivating women, cultivating science: Flora's daughters and botany in England 1760 to 1860 (Baltimore, 1996); idem, “Botanical dialogues: Maria Jacson and women's popular science writing in England”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxiii (1989–90), 301–17; and Benjamin Marina , “Elbow room: Women writers on science, 1790–1840”, in Benjamin Marina (ed.), Science and sensibility: Gender and scientific enquiry, 1780–1945 (Oxford, 1991), 27–59. For an Italian perspective on the role of women in late eighteenth-century popular science, see Findlen Paula , “Translating the new science: Women and the circulation of knowledge in Enlightenment Italy”, Configurations, ii (1995), 167–206.

Findlen , “Translating the new science” (ref. 15), 171–2; Shteir , “Botanical dialogues” (ref. 15), 311–14.

Wakefield Priscilla , Mental improvement: Or the beauties and wonders of nature and art. In a series of instructive conversations (London, 1794). On Wakefield and her botanical works, see Shteir , op. cit. (ref. 15), 83–89.

Mullan , “Gendered knowledge” (ref. 5), cites the particular suitability of celestial mechanics for feminine study.

Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 3), esp. chap. 6.

Quote from an advertisement for the globes of John Senex, appended to Thomas Wright (of Durham), The use of the globes (London, 1740). A good overview of the eighteenth-century British globe trade may be found in Dekker Elly van der Krogt Peter , Globes from the Western World (London, 1993), chap. 7. On ‘curiosity’, see Benedict Barbara M. , “The ‘curious attitude’ in eighteenth-century Britain: Observing and owning”, Eighteenth-century life, xiv (1990), 59–98.

Martin Benjamin , Description and use of both the globes, the armillary sphere, and orrery (London, 1762), “Preface”. On contemporary juxtapositioning of the terms ‘gentleman’ and ‘scholar’ see Shapin , “Problematic identity” (ref. 8), 279–80.

Harrington S. Mrs , New and elegant amusements for the ladies of Great Britain (London, 1772), 47.

On the cultural importance of Newton in the early eighteenth-century, see Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 3).

Burke Peter , The art of conversation (Ithaca, 1993), 108–12.

Fielding Henry , “An essay on conversation”, in The works of Henry Fielding (16 vols, New York, 1967), xiv, 245–77, p. 249.

Johnson Samuel , Dictionary of the English language , selections by McAdam E. L. Jr Milne George (New York, 1963); see also Burke , op. cit. (ref. 24), 95–96.

Or, as Fielding puts it, “To render therefore any animal social is to render it inoffensive … and here the reader may observe a double distinction of man from the more savage animals by society, and from the social by conversation”. Fielding , op. cit. (ref. 25), 248. On the ‘art’ of conversation in contemporary French society, Vidal Mary , Watteau's painted conversations: Art, literature, and talk in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France (New Haven, 1992).

Swift Jonathan , “Hints toward an essay on conversation”, quoted in Warren Leland E. , “Of the conversation of women: The Female Quixote and the Dream of Perfection”, Studies in eighteenth-century culture, xi (1981), 367–80, p. 375; [ Forrester J. ], The polite philosopher, or an essay on that art which makes a Man happy in himself, and agreeable to others , fifth edn (Edinburgh, 1751), 28; see also Klein , “Gender, conversation, and the public sphere” (ref. 5), 105; and Warren Leland E. , “Turning reality round together: Guides to conversation in eighteenth-century England”, Eighteenth-century life, viii (1983), 65–87.

Merrill Elizabeth , The dialogue in English literature (Yale Studies in English, no. 42; New York, 1911), esp. pp. 58–68 (quote p. 58). Klein argues that ‘polite’ literature was “specifically conversational”, and he assigns particular importance to the dialogue; Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 6–7, 116, and “The progress of politeness” (ref. 2), 205–11. See also Goodman Dena , The Republic of Letters: A cultural history of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca, 1994), esp. pp. 121–5; Burke , op. cit. (ref. 24), 104–5; and Warren , “Guides to conversation” (ref. 28), esp. p. 73. On conversation, science, and dialogues, see Schiebinger , op. cit. (ref. 5), 238; and Mullan , “Gendered knowledge” (ref. 5), 44.

The Polite Lady: Or a course of female education (London, 1760), 153–4. The work was apparently one of a series of ‘improving’ children's books published (and perhaps written) by John Newbery.

The Polite Lady (ref. 30), 132–3.

Pluche , op. cit. (ref. 12), i, p. ix.

The Guardian, no. 155 (8 Sept. 1713); Gelbart Nina Rattner , “Introduction”, in Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Conversations on the plurality of worlds, transl. by Hargreaves H. A. (Berkeley, 1990), p. xxix.

Secord , “Newton in the nursery” (ref. 10), 134.

Burke , op. cit. (ref. 24), 111; Shapin , “Problematic identity” (ref. 8), 301.

Constable John , The conversation of gentlemen considered in most of the ways, that make their mutual company agreeable or disagreeable. In six dialogues (London, 1738), 141. Eighteenth-century efforts to use dictionaries and encyclopedias to bridge the communications gap between philosophers and the public are discussed in Layton David , “Diction and dictionaries in the diffusion of scientific knowledge: An aspect of the history of the popularization of science in Great Britain”, The British journal for the history of science, ii (1965), 221–34.

Harris John , Astronomical dialogues between a gentleman and a lady (London, 1719), p. v.

Bonnycastle John , Introduction to astronomy, in a series of letters (London, 1786), p. vi. On letters as a polite literary form, Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 115.

On Harris, Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 3), 108.

On the use of Greek proper names in conversation guides, Warren , “Guides to conversation” (ref. 28), 74.

Mullan , “Gendered knowledge” (ref. 5), 51–56; see also Douglas , “Popular science and the representation of women” (ref. 5), 7.

Rothblatt Sheldon , Tradition and change in English liberal education (London, 1976), esp. pp. 24–25; Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 5–7; and Klein , “The progress of politeness” (ref. 2), 202–3.

Bonnycastle , op. cit. (ref. 38), 2; see also Martin Benjamin , Young gentleman and lady's philosophy (London, 1781), i, 3, and Wakefield , op. cit. (ref. 17), ii, 172.

Secord , “Newton in the nursery” (ref. 10), esp. p. 137.

Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 157–69.

Langford , op. cit. (ref. 2), 280–1; Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), esp. p. 158: “… human religiosity had its foundations in natural affection. While the capacity to feel relation to whatever was outside the self exercised itself first in one's closest human relationships, it extended ultimately to the cosmic and divine framework of all existence.”.

Bonnycastle , op. cit. (ref. 38), 43. See also Mullan , “Gendered knowledge” (ref. 5), esp. p. 50.

For example, Martin , op. cit. (ref. 43), 111; and Bonnycastle , op. cit. (ref. 38), 5–6.

Earle , op. cit. (ref. 2), 34.

Bonnycastle , op. cit. (ref. 38), 137–74, esp. pp. 137 (quote), 139–40, 149 (quote).

Rothblatt , op. cit. (ref. 42), 87–92; Schiebinger , op. cit. (ref. 5), 19. However, women in England never governed the world of conversation to the degree enjoyed by their French cousins; Klein , “Gender, conversation, and the public sphere” (ref. 5), esp. p. 103; Goodman , op. cit. (ref. 29), 123–5. On the role of women in the salon, see Goodman Dena , “Enlightenment salons: The convergence of female and philosophic ambitions”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxii (1989), 329–50; Goodman , “Seriousness of purpose: Salonnières, philosophes, and the shaping of the eighteenth-century salon”, Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Western Society for French History, xv (1988), 111–21. On women, science, and the salon, Schiebinger , op. cit. (ref. 5), esp. pp. 30–32, 49; and Outram Dorinda , “Before objectivity: Wives, patronage, and cultural reproduction in early nineteenth-century French science”, in Abir-Am Pnina Outram Dorinda (eds), Uneasy careers and intimate lives: Women in science, 1789–1979 (New Brunswick, 1987), 19–30. On the influence of the salon in constructing English ‘politeness’, Klein , “The progress of politeness” (ref. 2), 189.

The moral utility for women of studying philosophy is discussed in Schiebinger , op. cit. (ref. 5), 39, and Mullan , “Gendered knowledge” (ref. 5).

Ferguson James , The young gentleman and lady's astronomy (first Irish edn, Dublin, 1768), 2, 45–46; see also Millburn , op. cit. (ref. 10, 1988), 220–2. On attitudes towards educated women, Barker-Benfield , op. cit. (ref. 2), 322–6.

On women and their changing role in public places see Klein , “Gender, conversation, and the public sphere” (ref. 5), esp. pp. 100, 109–10; on universities, their exclusion of women, and polite attitudes towards them, Rothblatt , op. cit. (ref. 42), 87–92, and Barker-Benfield , op. cit. (ref. 2), 46–47; on women and the Royal Society, Schiebinger , op. cit. (ref. 5), 24–26; on coffee-houses and ladies, Barker-Benfield , op. cit. (ref. 2), 92, 154. See also Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 36–37, 41; Shapin , “Problematic identity” (ref. 8), 290–1, 294, 305–12; Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 3), 143–51.

In, for example, Morton Wess , op. cit. (ref. 3), 63–64.

Barker-Benfield , op. cit. (ref. 2), esp. pp. 77–103.

Secord , “Newton in the nursery” (ref. 10), 137; Douglas , “Popular science and the representation of women” (ref. 5), 9. Audiences for given works often differed from their publisher's intended “publics”. In this case, the following comment is particularly relevant: “booklets pertaining to the behavior of young ladies did not necessarily attract feminine readers and were probably also of interest to male tutors, or confessors, or guardians.” Eisenstein Elizabeth , The printing press as an agent of change (Cambridge, 1979), 64.

Myers Sylvia Harcstark , The bluestocking circle: Women friendship and the life of the mind in eighteenth-century England (Oxford, 1990), 48–52, 68.

Millburn , op. cit. (ref. 10, 1988), 152–3, 222.

Harris , op. cit. (ref. 37), 31, 60; see also Mullan , “Gendered knowledge” (ref. 5), 47, 51.

Harris , op. cit. (ref. 37), 22. The sexual imagery invested in magnets and magnetic devices in eighteenth-century English culture is explored in Fara Patricia , Sympathetic attractions: Magnetic practices, beliefs, and symbolism in eighteenth-century England (Princeton, forthcoming).

Martin , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, 2; Millburn , op. cit. (ref. 10, 1976), 71–74.

Martin , op. cit. (ref. 43), ii, 256–7.

Quoted in Klein , op. cit. (ref. 2), 190.

Wakefield , op. cit. (ref. 17), ii, 172; see also Hunter Jean E. , “The 18th-century Englishwoman: According to the Gentleman's Magazine”, in Fritz Paul Morton Richard (eds), Women in the 18th century and other essays (Toronto, 1976), 73–88, pp. 78–79.

Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 53), 54.

Franklin to Stevenson , 17 May 1760, in Labaree I. W. (eds), The papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, 1959), ix, 117; see also Franklin to Stevenson , 1 May 1760, ibid, ix, 102–3. The relationship between Franklin and Stevenson and their correspondence is discussed in Bell Whitfield J. Jr , “‘All Clear Sunshine’: New letters of Franklin and Mary Stevenson Hewson”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, c (1956), 521–36. Parallels between the letters and contemporary literature are discussed in Heilbron J. L. , “Franklin as an enlightened natural philosopher”, in Lemay J. A. Leo (ed.), Reappraising Benjamin Franklin (Newark, 1993), 196–220, esp. pp. 214–15, where the correspondence is discussed in the wider context of the dissemination of science in the eighteenth century.

Note in Labaree et al. (eds), op. cit. (ref. 67), viii, 122, which states that eight of the letters between Franklin and Stevenson were included in the 1769 edition of Experiments and observations in electricity.

Franklin to Stevenson , 1 May 1760, in Labaree (eds), op. cit. (ref. 67), ix, 102.

Franklin to Stevenson , 11 June 1760, in Labaree (eds), op. cit. (ref. 67), ix, 121.

Stevenson to Franklin , 13 January 1761, in Labaree (eds), op. cit. (ref. 67), ix, 269. Additional comments on card-playing appear in Stevenson to Franklin, August? 1760, ix, 194; and Franklin to Stevenson , 29 October 1761, ix, 377. For conversation as an alternative to gambling and card-playing, see Schiebinger , op. cit. (ref. 5), 49 and Goodman , “Enlightenment salons” (ref. 51), 333.

Stevenson to Franklin , August? 1760, in Labaree (eds), op. cit. (ref. 67), ix, 194–5.

Stevenson to Franklin , 13 January 1761, in Labaree et al. (eds), op. cit. (ref. 67), ix, 270.

Stafford , op. cit. (ref. 3), esp. pp. 47–58.

Langford , op. cit. (ref. 2), 4–5; Smith Saumarez , op. cit. (ref. 2), 50–53.

See Fara Patricia , “‘A treasure of hidden vertues’: The attraction of magnetic marketing”, The British journal for the history of science, xxviii (1995), 5–36, esp. p. 22, for a similar distinction between the approaches of Martin and Ferguson to their lectures.

The former collection is described in Turner G. L'E. , “The auction sales of the Earl of Bute's instruments”, Annals of science, xxiii (1967), 213–43; the latter in Morton Wess , op. cit. (ref. 3).

On conversation pieces, Paulson Ronald , Emblem and expression: Meaning in English art of the eighteenth century (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), 121–36 (quote p. 123); idem, Popular and polite art in the age of Hogarth and Fielding (Notre Dame, 1979), 44–48; Pointon Marcia , Hanging the head: Portraiture and social formation in eighteenth-century England (New Haven, 1993), 159–75; D'Oench Ellen G. , The conversation piece: Arthur Devis and his contemporaries (New Haven, 1980), 1–4; Praz Mario , Conversation pieces: A survey of the informal group portrait in Europe and America (University Park, Penn., 1971), esp. pp. 33–37; and Smith Saumarez , op. cit. (ref. 2), esp. pp. 70–73, among other works. According to the OED, the use of the English term ‘conversation piece’ to refer to this type of group portrait dates from the early eighteenth century.

D'Oench , op. cit. (ref. 79), 45–46. Other aspects of this portrait are considered in Flint Christopher , “‘The Family Piece’: Oliver Goldsmith and the politics of the everyday in eighteenth-century domestic portraiture”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxix (1995–96), 127–52, esp. p. 138.

Lackington James , Memoirs of the forty-five first years of the life of James Lackington, Bookseller (London, 1830), 236. Though the work was first published 1791, the efforts at self-improvement he describes likely took place in the 1770s.

Langford , op. cit. (ref. 2), 2–4; Earle , op. cit. (ref. 2), 34; the essays in Brewer Porter , op. cit. (ref. 3), esp. Porter Roy , “Consumption: Disease of the consumer society?” (pp. 58–81) and Appleby Joyce , “Consumption in early modern social thought” (pp. 162–73); and the essays in Bermingham Brewer , op. cit. (ref. 7). The essays in the latter two works elaborate on McKendrick Neil Brewer John Plumb J. H. , The birth of a consumer society: The commercialization of eighteenth-century England (London, 1982).

Saul Edward , An historical and philosophical account of the barometer (London, 1730), 1.

Castle Terry , The female thermometer: Eighteenth-century culture and the invention of the uncanny (Oxford, 1995), 21–43.

On Wright's painting, see Egerton Judy , Wright of Derby (London, 1990), 58–61; the painting is also analysed with reference to Shaftesbury's moral philosophy of politeness in Solkin David , “ReWrighting Shaftesbury: The Air Pump and the limits of commercial humanism”, in Brewer John Staves Susan (eds), Early modern conceptions of property (London, 1995), 234–53.

Martin Benjamin , Description and use of a new, portable, table Air-pump (London, 1766), 28–29. Martin noted that the prompt resuscitation of an apparently dead animal provided a socially-useful lesson, by demonstrating the existence of a so-called “temporary death”, and thus leading the experimentalist to think about whether “it not be a Consideration worthy of the Legislature, as sometimes a Temporary Death may be of more Service, and be more consistent with Justice, than an absolute or real Death”.

Secord , “Newton in the nursery” (ref. 10), 137–8. Barker-Benfield draws a link between the rise of sensibility and a new cultural emphasis on kindness to animals, especially in literature intended for children or their mothers; Barker-Benfield , op. cit. (ref. 2), 231–6.

Syfret , “Some early critics” (ref. 8), 49–53; the passage from Addison , The Tatler, no. 216, is quoted on p. 50.

Baker Henry , The microscope made easy (London, 1742), pp. xi–xii (quote), pp. iv–v (quote). On Baker and his books see Turner G. L'E. , “Henry Baker, F.R.S.: Founder of the Bakerian lecture”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxix (1974), 53–79.

Adams George , Micrographia illustrata (fourth edn, London, 1771), p. vi; also quoted in Butler Stella Nuttall R. H. Brown Olivia , The social history of the microscope (Cambridge, 1986), 5. The technical history of solar microscopes is detailed in Clay Reginald S. Court Thomas H. , The history of the microscope (London, 1932), 208–28.

The technical and commercial histories of orreries and planetaria is detailed in King , op. cit. (ref. 1).

King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 154.

King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 161; Morton Wess , op. cit. (ref. 3), 403–5.

The estimate of the fortunes of “the middling people” is from Earle , op. cit. (ref. 2), 15.

Wright Thomas , A description of an astronomical instrument, being the Orrery reduc'd (London, c. 1720), 3. See also the discussion and illustration of the device in Morton Wess , op. cit. (ref. 3), 220, and in King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 160.

Martin Benjamin , The description and use of an orrery of a new construction (London, 1771), 1 (quote).

Turner Thomas , Diary (ed. by Vaisey D. ), quoted in Porter , op. cit. (ref. 2), 225.

Jones William , The description and use of a new portable orrery , second edn (London, 1784), “Preface”; ibid., fifth edn (London, 1799), 43.

Jones , op. cit. (ref. 97, 1784 edn), 18.

Desaguliers J. T. , A course of experimental philosophy (London, 1734–44), i, 448–9; also quoted in King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 171. On Desaguliers's career, see Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 3), esp. Part 3.

Desaguliers , op. cit. (ref. 99), i, 449–52, p. 449. The various suggestions made by Desaguliers are summarized in King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 171–2.

Ferguson James , The use of a new orrery, made and described (London, 1746), 1; King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 180–1. Though Ferguson did offer to make orreries and other instruments for sale, he was known primarily as a lecturer and author, not an instrument maker.

Martin , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, 26.

On Benjamin Martin's inclusion of Uranus, see King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 201; on Jones's William , op. cit. (ref. 97, 1784 edn), “Preface”.

Jones , op. cit. (ref. 97, 1799 edn), 26.

Rowning John , A compendious system of natural philosophy (London, 1734–43), iv, 149, quoted in King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 162.

Martin , op. cit. (ref. 97), 11–12. On hemispherical armillaries and their use in eighteenth-century orreries, see King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 162–7, and 200, where a Martin orrery, complete with armillary, is pictured.

Thompson Isaac , A description of the orrery: Wherein the structure and several parts of that curious machine are fully explain'd (Newcastle, c. 1750), 3–4; see also King , op. cit. (ref. 1), 164, which suggests that the work was published between 1757 and 1782.

On scientific dialogues of the nineteenth century, see the works by Shteir and Benjamin (ref. 15), and Myers Greg , “Science for women and children: The dialogue of popular science in the nineteenth century”, in Christie John Shuttleworth Sally (eds), Nature transfigured: Science and literature, 1700–1900 (Manchester, 1989), 171–200.

Turner G. L'E. , Nineteenth-century scientific instruments (London, 1983), esp. chap. 16.

Cooter Pumphrey , “Separate spheres and public places” (ref. 5), 243–4.