Naturalia: the history of natural history and medicine in the seventeenth century

摘要

In 1712 the poet Elkanah Settle (1648-1724) published a funeral poem, Threnodia Apollinaris, dedicated to the memory of Dr Martin Lister.~1 Settle had a good deal of material to draw upon, because Lister had been Vice-President of the Royal Society, a physician to Queen Anne, and the first arachnologist and conchologist. Marriage and funeral poems were one of Settle's specialties, a lucrative business because the family of the happy couple or the deceased member would purchase a large number of copies in presentation bindings for distribution among friends.~2 Never averse to cutting corners, Settle later wrote several other poems recycling the same title, one to the memory of the physician and naturalist Dr Edward Tyson (1708), another to the essayist Joseph Addison (1719), and another to the poet William Cowper (1723).~3 At least Lister was in rather distinguished company. Despite the rather dubious literary value of Settle's verse (after his death he was described in The Briton as 'a man who lived in the city and had a numerous poetical issue, but shared the misfortune of several gentlemen, to survive them all'~4), Settle identified the importance of Lister's twin contributions to medicine and natural history. After praising Lister's skills as a physician, hyperbolically hailing him as the 'Sacred Anna's Esculapian Choice', Settle continued: when, lo, his Pen ev'n Neptunes; Depths t'explore, Pourtraid the very shells that spangle on the Shore. See next the Tour he made through Earth and Air, In quest of Nature's works, a chase so fair, down to her poorest Reptile Wanderer. Ev'n those minutest Heads he did survey, Their humble Nests and their uncommon Births display~5