Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Analytical Chemistry, Laboratories, Alchemy, Electricity, Light, Machinery

Institutions mentioned:

Society of Apothecaries—Apothecaries' Hall

    Thinks that the 'analysation' of society into its component parts would be 'a process too vast for the resources of the chemist'. Using an implict comparison of humans and chemical substances, points out that 'combinations of various qualities and properties' which would normally be 'antagonistic', can 'amalgamate' in the opera house. Believes Her Majesty's Theatre, where the 'laws of political chemistry are suspended', witnessed such eirenic chemical processes as the 'correction of Protectionist Acidity' and the fusion of 'Whig Oil with Radical Vinegar'. Regards opera boxes as 'little laboratories [...] for the formation of other unions of a still more delicate kind', including 'Maternal Alchemy, the art of match-making'. Gives a 'manual of maternal chemistry' for those wishing to practice this latter art, which includes advice on the best oils to use for 'capillary attraction' and the claim that the person to be selected for the union must be 'solvent', because an 'insolvent' cannot 'liquidate'. Advice also includes the discreet use of the retort in matrimonial 'as in other chemistry', and the study of 'the theory of refraction and reflection' to ensure that rays of light from the countenance do not fall on a dense body.