Baker on the microscope and the polype / by Professor Lorande Loss Woodruff.

  • Lorande Loss Woodruff
Date:
[1918]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Baker on the microscope and the polype / by Professor Lorande Loss Woodruff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Health,” which was published without his sanction in 1723. The same year appeared a pamphlet of “ Original Poems: Serious and Humorous,” printed for the author, and was fol¬ lowed in three years by the “ Second Part of Original Poems: Serious and Humorous.” In 1727 was published his philosoph¬ ical verses entitled “ The Universe. A Poem intended to restrain the Pride of Man.” This was printed for T. Worrall at Judge Coke’s Head, against St. Dunstan’s Church, in Fleetstreet, and sold for one shilling. “The Universe,” as its subtitle indi¬ cates, is an attempt to impress the reader with the vastness and grandeur of nature and the folly of insignificant man believing that it was created for his especial edification. This poem, which attained considerable popularity and was fre¬ quently quoted, reminds one of the poetical works of Eras¬ mus Darwin. An idea of the whole may be gathered from the following extract, which is one of the most interesting, and ap¬ parently one which Baker especially approved since he quoted it before the Royal Society—the first instance of original versi¬ fication appearing in the Philosophical Transactions—and again nearly twenty years later in “ The Microscope Made Easy ”: Each Seed includes a Plant: that Plant, again, Has other Seeds, which other Plants contain: Those other Plants have all their Seeds; and Those, More Plants, again, successively inclose. Thus, ev’ry single Berry that we find, Has, really, in itself whole Forests of its Kind, Empire and Wealth one Acorn may dispense, By Fleets to sail a thousand Ages hence: Each Myrtle-Seed includes a thousand Groves, Where future Bards may warble forth their Loves. So Adam’s Loins contain’d his large Posterity, All People that have been, and all that e’er shall be. Amazing Thought! what Mortal can conceive Such wond’rous Smallness!—Yet we must believe What Reason tells: for Reason’s piercing Eye Discerns those Truths our Senses can’t descry. During the next decade Baker published two volumes en¬ titled “ Medulla Poetarum Romanorum ” and also a translation of Moliere; but his name has been preserved from oblivion almost solely by his two volumes, “ The Microscope Made Easy ” and “Employment for the Microscope,” which exploited the com¬ pound microscope. For Many have been frightened from the Use of it, by imagining it re¬ quired great Skill in Optics, and Abundance of other Learning to comprehend
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