There are many sciences, says Menage, on which we cannot indeed compose
in a florid or elegant diction, such as geography, music, algebra,
geometry, &c. When Atticus requested Cicero to write on geography, the
latter excused himself, observing that its scenes were more adapted to
please the eye, than susceptible of the embellishments of style.
However, in these kind of sciences, we may lend an ornament to their
dryness by introducing occasionally some elegant allusion, or noticing
some incident suggested by the object.
Thus when we notice some inconsiderable place, for instance _Woodstock_,
we may recall attention to the residence of _Chaucer_, the parent of our
poetry, or the romantic labyrinth of Rosamond; or as in "an Autumn on
the Rhine," at Ingelheim, at the view of an old palace built by
Charlemagne, the traveller adds, with "a hundred columns brought from
Rome," and further it was "the scene of the romantic amours of that
monarch's fair daughter, Ibertha, with Eginhard, his secretary:" and
viewing the Gothic ruins on the banks of the Rhine, he noticed them as
having been the haunts of those illustrious _chevaliers voleurs_ whose
chivalry consisted in pillaging the merchants and towns, till, in the
thirteenth century, a citizen of Mayence persuaded the merchants of more
than a hundred towns to form a league against these little princes and
counts; the origin of the famous Rhenish league, which contributed so
much to the commerce of Europe. This kind of erudition gives an interest
to topography, by associating in our memory great events and personages
with the localities.
The same principle of composition may be carried with the happiest
effect into some dry investigations, though the profound antiquary may
not approve of these sports of wit or fancy. Dr. Arbuthnot, in his
Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, a topic extremely barren
of amusement, takes every opportunity of enlivening the dulness of his
task; even in these mathematical calculations he betrays his wit; and
observes that "the polite Augustus, the emperor of the world, had
neither any glass in his windows, nor a shirt to his back!" Those uses
of glass and linen indeed were not known in his time. Our physician is
not less curious and facetious in the account of the _fees_ which the
Roman physicians received.