Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/77

Rh trust, will be universally acknowledg'd, when I shall have nam'd the Men. The principal and most constant of them were Doctor Seth Ward, then Lord Bishop of Exeter, Mr. Boyle, Dr. Wilkins, Sir William Petty, Mr. Matthew Wren, Dr. Wallis, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Willis, Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Christopher Wren, Mr. Rook, besides several others who join'd themselves to them, upon Occasions. Now I have produc'd their Names, l am a little at a stand how to deal with them. For, if I should say what they deserve; I fear it would be interpreted Flattery, instead of Justice: And yet I have now lying in my Sight, the Example of an Elegant Book, which I have profess'd to admire, whose Author sticks not to make large Panegyricks on the Members of that Assembly, whose Relation he writes. But this Precedent is not to be followed by a young Man, who ought to be more jealous of publick Censure, and is not enough confirm'd in the good Liking of the World, to think, that he has such a weighty and difficult Work, as the making of Characters, committed to him. I will therefore pass by their Praises in Silence; though I believe, that what I might say of them, would be generally confess'd; and that if any ingenuous Man, who knows them, or their Writings, should contradict me, he would also go near to gainsay himself, and to retract the Applauses, which he had some Time or other bestow'd upon them.

For such a candid and unpassionate Company, as that was, and for such a gloomy Season, what could have been a fitter Subject to pitch upon than Natural Philosophy? To have been always tossing about some Theological Question, would have been, to have made that their private Diversion, the Excess of Rh