‘Aetherial Journies, Submarine Exploits’: The Debatable Worlds of Natural History in the Late Eighteenth Century

Abstract

The eye-catching conjunction of ‘Aetherial journies, submarine exploits’ occurs in William Cowper’s ‘The Winter Evening’, where the poet describes the arrival in his secluded village of newspapers from the great Babel of London — that ‘wilderness of strange / But gay confusion’. Amidst advertisements for ‘Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald’, Cowper lists,

Aetherial journies, submarine exploits, And Katterfelto with his hair on end At his own wonders, wond’ring for his bread.¹