Genre:

Introduction; Song, Drollery

Subjects:

Exhibitions, Display, Machinery, Gender, Zoology, Military Technology, Instruments

    Introduces two 'effusions of some highly mechanical bard who has found in the Tank at the Polytechnic another Hippocrene', an allusion to exhibits at the Royal Polytechnic Institution. 'The Song of the Bell, (not Schiller's)', which puns on the word 'belle', invites Miss Brown to dive into the large water tank at the Polytechnic in its famous 'Diving Bell'. Explains how Miss Brown can obtain more air and that she can expect to see various fish and 'pieces of the ship, / That is blown up thrice a day' in the tank. 'He Wore a Suit of Moses' describes an encounter with one of the Polytechnic's divers, who descended to the bottom of the water tank and later placed some gunpowder in a model of the HMS Royal George, which was to be destroyed by Charles W Pasley's 'batteries'. The author notes how the diver later emerged from the tank and drank some beer 'behind the air-pump stand'.