Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms by Stephen Jay Gould Page B
Authors: Stephen Jay Gould
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His library and collections were also seized and sold at auction.
Mendes da Costa continued his work under confinement, aided by the support and patronage of several well-placed friends. On January 3, 1770, he wrote to a Dr. FrancisNicholls:
I received your much esteemed letter, which honors me with an invitation to your house at Epsom, to review some fine minerals you have lately collected in Cornwall . . . But I am so unfortunate at present as not to be able to embrace the much desired and respected offer you make me; as I am under confinement in this King’s Bench . . . However, the Almighty who had afflicted me withthe confinement, has through His mercies granted me the call of my reason, and I apply myself as much as ever, and assiduously to my studies.
Four years later, Nicholls still remembered, and wrote:
It is with pleasure I hear you are restored to liberty and philosophy; and that you should like to see my collection of Cornish fossils . . . My son will come down next Sunday morning; so, if youwill be at his house in Lincoln’s Inn-fields by nine, he will bring you down, and render your journey less tedious.
Mendes da Costa soldiered on, writing increasingly more obsequious letters in hopes of selling specimens or delivering lectures for a fee. His worst debacle and embarrassment occurred in 1774, when his petition to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford was not only summarily rejected,but scorned with the overt politeness often used by powerful patricians before they squish a plebeian favor-seeker like an insect. Apparently, Mendes da Costa made the mistake of submitting a formal proposal, when he needed to work through channels and secure the verbal permission of the Vice-Chancellor (the boss of the university). (I doubt, in any case, whether a Jewish jailbird would havereceived such sanction under any circumstances at the time.) Mendes da Costa did finally prevail upon a professor to visit the Vice-Chancellor, who promptly spurned the idea: “The course of lectures proposed to be read by Mr. Da Costa could not be read here with propriety. I hope the disappointment will sit easy upon Mr. Da Costa.” In fact, the rejection weighed most heavily, as Mendes da Costawrote to the professor:
I am very certain my attempt has not succeeded by means of some unfriendly and sinister misrepresentations, as well as through mismanagement on my side, for want of proper advice how to proceed. I unluckily had not a friend who chose by a single line to set me right, or inform me what to do . . . Thus left forlorn, absent from the scene of action, and ignorant how toproceed, I became shipwrecked, and my hopes were blasted.
But Mendes da Costa never gave up. He published his conchology book in 1776 to good notices, rebuilt his collections, kept up his correspondences, and died in reasonable honor.
Throughout this various life, one theme keeps circulating in constancy: Mendes da Costa’s Judaism, and the fascination thus inspired among his philo-SemiticAnglican friends. Mendes da Costa must have become a semiofficial source on Jewish matters for the British intelligentsia, at a time when very few English Jews could have traveled in these circles, neatly balancing enough assimilation to find acceptance with sufficient practice of Judaism to be regarded as authentically exotic. In 1751, a physician inquired of him “whether there is extant any wherea print or drawing, or any account of the dress and arms of a Jewish soldier, or whether the Jewish Soldiers did not wear the same dress as the Roman Soldiers.” Mendes da Costa replied that he did not know, since Jewish sources do not permit representation of human images:
In regard to any drawing, etc. , we never permitted any in our books, apparel, etc. , it not being agreeable to the religion . . . yet I do not find that drawings were at all used in books, etc. , even by the Greeks and Romans.
In 1747, Mendes da Costa had to forgo a ducal invitation in
Mendes da Costa continued his work under confinement, aided by the support and patronage of several well-placed friends. On January 3, 1770, he wrote to a Dr. FrancisNicholls:
I received your much esteemed letter, which honors me with an invitation to your house at Epsom, to review some fine minerals you have lately collected in Cornwall . . . But I am so unfortunate at present as not to be able to embrace the much desired and respected offer you make me; as I am under confinement in this King’s Bench . . . However, the Almighty who had afflicted me withthe confinement, has through His mercies granted me the call of my reason, and I apply myself as much as ever, and assiduously to my studies.
Four years later, Nicholls still remembered, and wrote:
It is with pleasure I hear you are restored to liberty and philosophy; and that you should like to see my collection of Cornish fossils . . . My son will come down next Sunday morning; so, if youwill be at his house in Lincoln’s Inn-fields by nine, he will bring you down, and render your journey less tedious.
Mendes da Costa soldiered on, writing increasingly more obsequious letters in hopes of selling specimens or delivering lectures for a fee. His worst debacle and embarrassment occurred in 1774, when his petition to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford was not only summarily rejected,but scorned with the overt politeness often used by powerful patricians before they squish a plebeian favor-seeker like an insect. Apparently, Mendes da Costa made the mistake of submitting a formal proposal, when he needed to work through channels and secure the verbal permission of the Vice-Chancellor (the boss of the university). (I doubt, in any case, whether a Jewish jailbird would havereceived such sanction under any circumstances at the time.) Mendes da Costa did finally prevail upon a professor to visit the Vice-Chancellor, who promptly spurned the idea: “The course of lectures proposed to be read by Mr. Da Costa could not be read here with propriety. I hope the disappointment will sit easy upon Mr. Da Costa.” In fact, the rejection weighed most heavily, as Mendes da Costawrote to the professor:
I am very certain my attempt has not succeeded by means of some unfriendly and sinister misrepresentations, as well as through mismanagement on my side, for want of proper advice how to proceed. I unluckily had not a friend who chose by a single line to set me right, or inform me what to do . . . Thus left forlorn, absent from the scene of action, and ignorant how toproceed, I became shipwrecked, and my hopes were blasted.
But Mendes da Costa never gave up. He published his conchology book in 1776 to good notices, rebuilt his collections, kept up his correspondences, and died in reasonable honor.
Throughout this various life, one theme keeps circulating in constancy: Mendes da Costa’s Judaism, and the fascination thus inspired among his philo-SemiticAnglican friends. Mendes da Costa must have become a semiofficial source on Jewish matters for the British intelligentsia, at a time when very few English Jews could have traveled in these circles, neatly balancing enough assimilation to find acceptance with sufficient practice of Judaism to be regarded as authentically exotic. In 1751, a physician inquired of him “whether there is extant any wherea print or drawing, or any account of the dress and arms of a Jewish soldier, or whether the Jewish Soldiers did not wear the same dress as the Roman Soldiers.” Mendes da Costa replied that he did not know, since Jewish sources do not permit representation of human images:
In regard to any drawing, etc. , we never permitted any in our books, apparel, etc. , it not being agreeable to the religion . . . yet I do not find that drawings were at all used in books, etc. , even by the Greeks and Romans.
In 1747, Mendes da Costa had to forgo a ducal invitation in
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