The Life and Times of John Wilkins

ege hangs the portrait of John Wi

s ingeniose." In the portrait these characteristics, physical and mental, are well displayed: sanity of mind-that is, clearness, shrewdness, courage, kindliness, the contentment which makes the best of good and evil fortune, are, to the imaginative mind, written i

on "ingeniose, and of a very mechanicall head, which ran much upon the perpetuall motion,"-a problem less hopeful th

er, 'the common drudge of the University,' who kept a private school: that he entered Magdalen Hall from New Inn Hall in 1627 at the age of thirteen, and there was placed under the tutorship of 'the learned Mr John Tombs, the Coryph?us of the Anabaptists.'" Tombs was a man of great ability, notable for his "curious, searching, piercing witt, of whom it was predicted that he would doe a great deale of mischiefe to the Church of England, as great witts have done by introducing new opinions." He was a formidable disputant, so formidable that when he came to Oxford in 1664, and there "sett up a challenge to maintain 'contra omnes

ons, could admire and praise sincerity in opponents: he was heard to say that "though he was much opposite to the Romish religion, truly for his part should he see a poor ze

(as the phrase was),-the common resource then, as now, of young Oxonians, who think themselves qualifi

imes that the first rise, or hint of his rising, was from goeing accidentally a coursing of a hare, when an ingeniose gentleman of good quality falling into discourse with him, and finding him to have a very good witt, told him that he would never gett any considerable preferment by continuing in the University, and that his best way was to betake himself

hare was, perhaps is, an amusement equally of University men and of the country clergy: the last alone can tell us whether they still "goe a courseing accidentally"-(the word is worth noting)-and whether conversations of this profitable kind

erved his nickname, Old Subtlely, for he had a clear insight into the real issues from the very beginning of the great quarrel: he headed in Oxfordshire the resistance to the levying of Ship-money, and was the champion of the Independents, t

yed at Broughton "with very good likeing" for five or six years, it may be presumed that the discreet and morigerous man concealed the difficulty which he felt in accepting some of the views maintained at Broughton. Some light is thrown on his real opinions by words found in the sermon preached at his funeral by Lloyd, his friend and pupil. "When some thought these di

and, hoping to be restored to his dominions by the aid of his uncle, who was then struggling to hold his own inheritance. During his seven years' residence in London, Wilkins became the friend, perhaps the leader, of the natural philosophers,

ast sentence refers mainly to Wilkins' life after the Restoration; but he had travelled before then, and his acquaintance with the Fiennes', with the Elector, and with London society, had taught him "gentlemanlike behaviour" before he became a Head of a House,-a lesson which, apparently, some other Heads in his time had not learnt; for Pope goes on to say

y and of himself, from the day of his birth till his death in 1681. The three histories are mingled in a quaint and incoherent fashion. Wood is a chronicler like Aubrey, his friend, with whom he quarrelled, as

. When ten years old he saw the king, with his army of foot, his two sons, Charles and James, his nephews, Rupert and Maurice, enter Oxford after the battle of Edgehill. The incident was impressed on his memory by the expulsion of his father from the house in Merton Street, and the removal of the boys of New College School to the choristers' chamber at the east end of th

hodox his

rank the s

t bully in

he march of

of men. In August 1642, "the members of the University began to put themselves in a posture of defence," and till June 1646, when Oxford was surrendered

ey throw light on the history of Wilkins' Oxford, and on the problems with which he had to deal after the war was ended. Mr Haldane would read with int

so intent, docile, and pliable to their business." Town and gown took opposite sides: the citizens were, most of them, ready to support the Parliament, or the King and Parliament, but not the King against the Parliament. Long before the Civil War began there were in Oxford and in the kingdom, as always in our history, though called by different names, three parties, divided from each other by no very fast or definite lines; the King's, the Parliament's and the party of moderate men, to which Wilkins belonged; the Constitutional party in the strict meaning of the word, who wished both to preserve and reform the constitution. In those days of confusion and perplexity, when men's hearts were failing them for fear and for looking after those things wh

." What did that mean? Almost any answer might have been given to the question. His lordship's opinions soon became clearer than his puzzling proclamation; on September the 24th he sent for the Heads of Houses to rebuke them for having "broken the peace and quiet of the University," so much broken it that "they had nowe left no face of a Universitie, by taking up armes and the like courses." He had before th

and the hed of her child which she held in her right arme: another discharged his musket at the image of our Saviour over All Soule's gate, and would have defaced all the worke there, had it not been for some townsmen, who entreated them to forbeare, they replienge that they had not been so well treated here at Oxford as they expected: many of them came into Christ Church to viewe the Church and paynted windowes, much admiringe at the idolatry thereof, and a certain Scot, beinge amongst them, saide that he marvaylled how the Schollers could

d that one is tempted to believe it to be history: it is that, and not mere fiction, for it is based on a careful study of facts, and, allowance made f

d beautiful college, for his home. He was a dreamer, and in no place could he have dreamt more peacefully and happily than there, though sometimes perhaps, even in his first term, he must have been disturbed by the ominous sounds of axe and hammer, pick and spade, busy on the "fortifications i

E FROM THE WA

d the grimmest of forebodings. It was becoming clearer every month that Edgehill had not broken the rebellion; that the struggle would be long, and that the issue was uncertain; events soon justified these fears. On January 10, 1643, "the Kinges letters came to all the Colledges and Halls for their plates to be brought into the mint at Oxford, there to be coyned into money with promise of refunding it, or payeinge for it again after five shillings the ounce for silver, five and sixpence for silver and gilt." The fruitless sacrifice was made by no college with more unhesitating devotion than by Wadham, which

s his Majestie that the Church of England might be made conformable in all points to the Church of Scotland." To Charles, himself a Scot, this request must have seemed an outrageous insult, inf

d less benefit from the Royalist occupation than their seniors; the latter had gained "great store of wealth from the court and royalists that had for several years continued among them"; the former he "found many of them to have been debauched by bearing arms, and doing the duties belonging to soldi

in 1644, three; in 1645, none; in 1646, seven; in 1647, when the worst of the fighting was over, they rose to nineteen. The Independents and the Presbyterians were now in possession of Oxford. In spite of both oppressors the undergraduates, of Wood's College at least, enjoyed themselves, as unde