Letter 2771

Copley asks Sloane, if he visits the Temple Coffeehouse, to ask if there is a letter waiting for him from Mr Smith, recently returned from France. He then recounts that he possessed two sheep which ‘should have been of the male kind & they have a penis that is of no use nor perforated but they have another hole more backward where their urine comes out, one of them is fatt & I shall kill him shortly’. These odd sheep ‘are not capable of Generation’ in Copley’s view. Sir Godfrey Copley was a politician and active member of the Royal Society. He was elected a Fellow of the latter in 1691 (C. I. McGrath, Copley, Sir Godfrey, second baronet (c.16531709), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6269, accessed 24 June 2013]).