The Life and Times of John Wilkins

1659, he resigned the Wardenship, and was succeeded on September 5th by Walter Blandford, one of the Fellows who had submitted to the Visitors in 1648, and late

was in 1671 promoted to the See of Worce

n he was presented by Richard Cromwell. Thirty years later Cambridge, as if in exchange for value received, sent Richard Bentl

t elections, probably fallen out of use in the troubles of the fifteen previous years; yet here as elsewhere he was able to win and rule, for "he was honoured there and heartily loved by all." At Cambridge, Burnet tells us, "he joined with those who studied to propagate better thoughts, to take men of

im, he was ejected from the Mastership when the King came back. "The whirligig of

years between his departure from Cambridge and his being made Bishop of Chester. He was

undo, pulchr

ferment may not have brought him happiness, but it must have prevented his fortunes from being, as Pope says they were, "as low as they could be." He suffered indeed one calamity-a cruel one to a man of his pursuits and tastes: in th

of all Ecclesiastical Preferments, entertained a strong prejudice against him." This prejudice the Archbishop, when later, on the introduction of Ward, he came to know him better, acknowledged to have been unjust, a signal instance of Wilkins' power of winning men. The Latitudinarian was at firs

ism was concerned, was not repelled by Wilkins' theological views, and yielded readily to the attractions of a versatile and agreeable man

ds, "of founding a College for the promotion of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning." Among those present were Rooke, Petty, Wren, and Wilkins: a committee was formed, of which Wilkins was appointed chairman: the King gave his approval to the sche

age. The experiments, its chief work, were to be productive both of light and fruit: the influence of Bacon is so great and evident that he might in a sense be called the founder of the Royal Society. Sprat's real preface to his History is Cowley's famous ode. The poet speaks of philosophy-i

d all long err

wandering pre

d Hebrews many

but of sm

oses led us

Wildernes

e very Bo

est promi

ountain Top of

self and s

d never to

ver Worlds an

hort a line

vast depths of

the Christian religion, either its belief or practice. His remarks on this question are of great interest and value, and are strangely modern. He pleads that "experiments will be beneficial to our wits and writers." Alas! the wits at least benefited in a way which Sprat did anticipate. Shadwell in his 'Virtuoso' found material for profane merriment in some of the unquestionably absurd inquir

t of Uniformity: his success in this good work was due to his "soft interpretation of the terms of conformity." They needed softening; no part of Macaulay's 'History of England' is more striking and instructive than his account in chapter ii. of the sufferings of the Puritans and Nonconformists of all descriptions. "It was made a crime to attend a dissenting place of worship. A new and most unreasonable test was imposed on divines who had been deprived of their benefices for Nonconformity; and all who refused to take that test were proh

r jails in England, and that dissenters were allowed to com

er requested by Charles not to go to the House while the Bill was pending, his answer was "That by the law and constitution of England, and by his Majesty's favour, he had a right to debate and vote: and he was neither afraid nor ashamed to own his opinion in this matter, and to act pursuant to it, and the king was not offended with his freedom."[4] He did not hesitate to endanger his favour with the king-perhaps not with him, for Charles was not by temper a persecutor, but with the party then in power. From the 'Church of England in the Reigns of the Stuarts,' I quote another instance of his

end of an unpopular cause. After four years' tenure of his bishopric, he died in the year 1672, at the age of fifty-eight, in Tillotson's house: he was buried in the churchyard of St Lawrence Jewry, his old vicarage. His College pupil, William Lloyd, preached the fune

to his private life. There are many allusion

s whome I value, there talked of several things; Dr Wilkins of the Universal Speech, of which he hath a book coming out, and did first inform me how man was certainly made for society, without which he would be a very mean creature." In 1668 the book was published, carried home by Pepys, and carefully perused. He enjoyed the account given by Wilkins of the ark, and his solutions of the difficulties raised even in his time. The solutions, Pepys says, "do please me mightily, and are much beyond whatever I heard of the subject." This is easy to believe. He must hav

lkins," and met "that miracle of a youth, Mr Christopher Wren." Two years later, on another visit, he "dined with that most obliging and universally curious person Dr Wilkins at Wadham College." There he saw many wonderful things-transparent apiaries, a statue that spoke through a tube, a way-wiser (i.e.,

an one, and might have been taken by an enemy as a summary of the preacher's own career. Under the same entry Evelyn describes his friend as one "who took great pains to preserve the Universities from

hemselves with "contrivances for chariots, and for a wheel for one to run races in,"-the first forms possibly of a hansom, and a cycle. "Perhaps," continues Evelyn, "t

er: Dr Tillotson preached." Then he went to a sumptuous banquet in the Hall of Ely House, where were "the Duke of Buckingham, Judges, the L

ctive title, which the writer has not seen and fain would see, 'The Moderate Man, the best subject in Church and State, proved from the arguments of Wilkins, with Tillotson's opinions on the subject.' Between them they must make a strong case for the Moderate Man. Tillotson says of his father-in-law: "I think I may truly say that there are or have been few in this age and nation so well known, and greatly esteemed, and favoured by many persons of high

aying about Wilkins bears on it the stamp of sincerity: "It was hi

great a mind, as true a judgement, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul, as any one I ever knew. He was natura

Church had quite lost its esteem over the nation." Clarendon, whom he calls "more the friend of the Bishops than of the Church," had, in his opinion, endowed them and the higher clergy too well, and they were sunk in luxury and sloth. The Latitudinarians infused into the Church life, energy, and a sense of duty: they were, he adds, good preachers and acce

e Independants and Cromwell himself, by whose favour he did not only get a dispensation to marry (contrary to the College Statutes), but also, because he had married his sister, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge: from which being ejected at the Restoration, he faced about,

n the triumph of this or that opinion. In Oxford at least we do not now say such things about each other. But in another place Wood takes a less unfavourable view of Wilkins' character, and uses about him the politest language at his command. "He was

inions about Wilkins which have come d

Vicar of Bray, the title which at once suggests itself. Tolerance, geniality, and charity are virtues which have their own defects, and some measure of austerity is one of the ingredients of a perfect character. It has been said of Wilkins that two principles determined his career: a large tole

ven sympathetically understanding, opinions which he did not hold." Wilkins hated persecution, and that hatred nerves a Trimmer to defend unpopular persons and unpopular causes, as he did in his College and University and Diocese. Toleration has a courage of its own equal t

hing words his estimate of the character of Halifax, the Whig: "The most estimable of the statesmen who were formed in the corrupt and licentious Whitehall of the Restoration. He was called inconsistent because the relative position in which he stood to the contending parties was perpetually varying. As well might the Polar Star be called inconsistent because it is sometimes to the east and sometimes to the west of the pointers. To have defended the ancient and legal constitution of the realm against a seditious populace at one conjunction, and against a tyrannical government at another; to have been the foremost champion of order in the turbulent Parliament of 1680, and the foremost champion of liberty in the servile Parliament of 1685; to have been just and merciful to the Roman Catholics in the days of the Popish Plot, and to the Exclusion

nce a judgment. Our data are scanty and incoherent, scattered about in diaries and memoirs written by persons of different stations and opinions. This much is certain, that Pope, Aubrey, Sprat, Evelyn, Pepys, Tillotson, and Bur

laudatus a laudatis viris." It is more rational to believe that Wilkins was a good and wise man, who accepted the situations in which he found himself placed, and made the best of them, being more solicitous to do good than to

TNO

musing article on "The Virtuoso" in th

ssage in Burnet's 'History of his Own

ILLIAM BLACK