The chief Design of the aforementioned Club, was to
propagate new Whims, advance mechanic Exercises, and
to promote useless, as well as useful Experiments.
In order to carry on this commendable Undertaking,
any frantic Artist, chemical Operator, or whimsical
Projector, that had but a Crotchet in their Heads, or
but dream'd themselves into some strange fanciful
Discovery, might be kindly admitted, as welcome
Brethren, into this teeming Society, where each Member
was respected, not according to his Quality, but the
searches he had made into the Mysteries of Nature, and
the Novelties, though Trifles, that were owing to his
Invention: So that a Mad-man, who had beggar'd himself
by his Bellows and his Furnaces, in a vain pursuit of
the Philosopher's Stone; or the crazy Physician who had
wasted his Patrimony, by endeavouring to recover that
infallible Nostrum, Sal Graminis, from the dust and
ashes of a burnt Hay-cock, were as much reverenc'd here,
as those mechanic Quality, who, to shew themselves
Vertuoso's, would sit turning of Ivory above in their
Garrets, whilst their Ladies below Stairs, by the help
of their He-Cousins, were providing Horns for their
Families.
-NED WARD, The Vertuoso's Club