ABSTRACT
To these quotes (from Henry Home, Lord Kames, the astute observer of human nature in the Scottish Enlightenment, on his burning passion for novelty as the condition for the curious; Nigel Leask – the recent commentator on the aesthetics of curiosity in relation to travel – on Kames; and Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park on the bifurcation of curiosity during the eighteenth century in the conclusion of their compendious book about the pathways of wonder) must be added Isaac Disraeli’s claim, in one of his books about the
Throughout this essay I use the terms Royal Society, Republic of Letters and Grub Street despite their asymmetry: the Royal Society was an organisation of people as well as a place designated by a building; Grub Street, as much a state of mind as a geographical place, also designated a trade within, or profession of, writing; the Republic of Letters a very loose designation of gentlemen of similar cast, far-flung in different countries, bearing a complex and controversial relation to the European Enlightenment. The distinctions are noteworthy as they codify and separate some of the versions of curiosity discussed here.
