WILKINS' WARDENSHIP.
In 1647 a Commission, as it would now be called, was appointed by
Parliament to conduct the visitation of the University. 'Lord have mercy
upon us; or, the Visitation at Oxford,' is the title of one of the
numerous pamphlets relating to this Oxford revolution; Tragi-comoedia
Oxonienses' is the title of another, and both suggest curious
reflections to Oxonians at the present time. The visitors did their
business effectually. They set to work in 1648, and purged the
University by ejecting from the colleges all who did not by a certain
day give in their assurance that they would submit to the visitors and
their visitation appointed by Parliament. No party in our country can
claim the monopoly of loyalty to conviction attested by self-sacrifice.
In England, non-jurors and dissenters; in Scotland, Episcopalians,
Covenanters, and Free Churchmen; in Ireland, Roman Catholics, have "gone
out," or stayed out, for some lost cause. In Oxford, Royalists, from
Heads to Servitors, stood by their colours manfully. It is uncertain how
many submitted, how many were expelled. The estimates vary from
Clarendon's statement that almost all the Heads and Fellows of Colleges
were ejected, "scarce one submitting," to Wood's estimate of 334; it is
probable that 400--that is, about half of the whole number of Heads,
Fellows, and Scholars then resident in the University--"made the great
refusal," not to accept office, but to retain it. Antony Wood did not
show himself ambitious of martyrdom. On May 12, 1648, he, along with
other members of his College, appeared before the Visitors. When asked
by one of them, "Will you submit to the authority of Parliament in this
visitation?" he wrote on a paper lying on the table, "I do not
understand the business, and therefore I am not able to give a direct
answer." "Afterwards his mother and brother, who advised him to submit
in plaine terms, were exceedingly angry with him, and told him that he
had ruined himself and must therefore go a-begging." Women, then as now,
ready to sacrifice themselves, are less ready to permit those dear to
them to be overscrupulous. Wood's mother made intercession for him to
Sir Nathaniel Brent, President of the Visitors and Warden of Merton, and
"he was connived at and kept in his Postmastership, otherwise he had
infallibly gon to the pot."
At Wadham the Visitors met with an obstinate resistance: Dr Pitt, then
Warden, was a stout Royalist, and refused to acknowledge the authority
of a Parliament acting without the king's consent. He was expelled on
April 13, 1648, along with nine of his thirteen Fellows, nine of his
fourteen Scholars, and many of his Commoners, all of them save one to
return no more. John Wilkins was put in his place by the Visitors on
the same day, and held it till his resignation on September 3, 1659.
Before the end of his stay in London he had taken the covenant and
definitely given his allegiance to the Parliamentarian party. He was
marked out for promotion as a known man of great ability, and he had
made many friends among influential persons by his courtesy and tact. It
was inevitable that a distinguished Oxford man should be chosen for an
important post in the University, which Cromwell desired to convert from
a hotbed of Royalism into a nursery of Puritans. Wilkins was qualified
by his common-sense and genial ways for what would have been a hopeless
task to the clumsy fanatics ready enough to undertake it.
The new Warden must have found himself in a difficult position. There
were in Oxford the three parties into which Englishmen and Scotchmen
invariably divide themselves. These parties are called by different
names at different times, and are formed on different questions, but
remain essentially the same. In Oxford they were called Royalists,
Presbyterians, Independents; the questions at issue were the life,
discipline, and religion of the University.
This classification has all the faults which a classification can have;
it is not exhaustive, for the variations, religious and political, being
infinite, cannot be included under three heads; nor do the _membra
dividentia_ exclude each other: among the Royalists were some members of
the established Church, of Calvinistic opinions, who were hardly
distinguishable from Presbyterians; and some professed Presbyterians
would have stood by Charles had not Laud driven them away, for they had
in their nature some of the best elements of conservatism, the
historical sense, and a love of order and discipline, especially as
administered by themselves. But classifications may be illogical yet
useful, and Wilkins would have accepted this one, in his practical way,
for working purposes.
The Presbyterians were for forcing on the Church of England, the
Covenant, the Westminster Confession, and the deposition of the Bishop
by the Presbyter, or a board of Presbyters. The Independents conceived
that every Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme
jurisdiction in things spiritual; that appeals to provincial and
national synods were scarcely less Scriptural than appeals to the Court
of Arches or to the Vatican, and that Popery, Prelacy, Presbyterianism,
were merely three forms of one great apostacy. In politics the
Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, "root and branch
men," or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, radicals: not
content with limiting the power of the monarch, they were desirous to
erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old English polity. Macaulay's
vigorous words explain the difference between the Presbyterians and the
Independents: that difference is explained also by Wood in words as
vigorous but less dignified and scholarly. "The Presbyterians," he says,
"with their disciples seemed to be very severe in their course of life,
manners or conversation, and habits or apparell; of a Scoth (_i.e._,
Scotch) habit, but especially those that were preachers. The other (the
Independents) were more free, gay, and, with a reserve, frollicsome, of
a gay habit, whether preachers or not." John Owen, Dean of Christ
Church--to be distinguished from Thankful Owen, President of St
John's--seems to have been of a specially gay habit; when
Vice-Chancellor "he had alwaies his hair powdred, cambric bands with
large costly band strings, velvet jacket, his breeches set round at knee
with ribbons pointed, Spanish leather boots with cambric tops, &c.,--all
this was in opposition to prelattical cutt." The habit of a
Vice-Chancellor, even in full dress, is nowadays far less gay, and of
the Presbyterian rather than the Independent fashion. Whatever may have
been their difference in dress, both parties were "void of public and
generous spirits: the Presbyterians for the most part preached nothing
but damnation, the other not, but rather for libertie; yet both joyne
together to pluck downe and silence the prelattical preachers, or at
least to expose their way to scorne." Wood carries his comparisons
further, and tells, perhaps invents, many things about their common
hatred of Maypoles, players, cassocks, surplices, and the use of the
Lord's Prayer in public religious service. He more than hints at darker
sins,--drunkenness, and immorality cloaked by hypocrisy, the favourite
theme of the Restoration dramatists. His account of the Puritan
domination in Oxford is, despite his bitter prejudices, historically
important, and must have been used by Scott when he wrote 'Woodstock.'
It seems at first sight strange that the Independents should have been
"gay," and, even with a reserve, frolicsome, for they were originally
the soldiers of Cromwell's "New Model," "honest and religious men." But
Wood describes them as he knew them many years after Naseby and Marston
Moor, when their character had changed with changing circumstances.
Triumphant success seldom improves the morale of any party. Oxford
proved a Capua to the Independents who lived in it after the strain of
war was over: the very principle of Independency, liberty of opinion and
action given to every Christian congregation, came to be applied to the
life of the individual: freedom to reject any doctrine or practice which
you do not like naturally ends in much gaiety and frolicsomeness,
especially if your lines are cast in pleasant places: it becomes
difficult not to slide into practical Antinomianism. What a place to
live in for eleven years! yet Wilkins did so with success and general
applause. He was inclined by temperament to the freedom of mellowed
Independency rather than to the stiffness of the Presbyterians, who more
successfully than their rivals resisted the enervating influences of
life in Oxford. Circumstances as well as inclination led him to become
an Independent: his marriage with Cromwell's sister, and the appointment
to be one of the Commissioners to execute the office of Chancellor,
perhaps also his appointment to the Wardenship, all tended to draw him
to the side of Ireton and the Protector. Of the latter he saw much, and
was consulted by him on academical and ecclesiastical affairs.
Lord Morley[2] records "a story told by Bishop Wilkins, who was the
husband of Cromwell's youngest sister Robina, that the Protector often
said to him that no temporal government could have a sure support
without a national church that adhered to it, and that he thought
England was capable of no constitution but Episcopacy." Lord Morley
thinks that "the second imputation must be apocryphal." That is by no
means clear: Cromwell may have said what Wilkins probably did not
invent, meaning that he thought Episcopacy good enough for England, for
Englishmen were incapable of any better constitution; or he may have
modified his judgment of Episcopacy,--who knows all that Cromwell came
to think in his latter days, a time when most men revise their opinions?
He may have felt the disenchantment which awaits success.
Wilkins' marked success, both in his College and in his University, can
be explained only by the fact that he possessed the qualities necessary
for the work he had to do,--strong common-sense, moderation, and
geniality. He had to live, as the most prominent man, in a society
composed of three factions crowded together within the narrow limits of
a University town, which even in quiet times is not always the abode of
peace. He had to deal with the most burning questions, religious and
political, which divide communities: questions which had been stifled
for a time by force, and therefore, when force was removed or slackened,
came back into vigorous life, and were constantly and bitterly
discussed. But he was the man for the time and the place.
His College flourished under his wise and kindly rule. Dr Pope tells us
that "many country gentlemen, of all persuasions, but especially those
then called Cavaliers and Malignants for adhering to the King and to the
Church, sent their sons to his College to be under his government. The
affluence of gentlemen was so great that I may fairly say of Wadham
College that it was never before in so flourishing a condition." The
"affluence of gentlemen" of all sorts, Fellow Commoners, Commoners,
Servitors, and migrants from Cambridge, was, in 1649, fifteen; in 1650,
fifty-one; in 1651, twenty-four; in 1652, forty. In the ten complete
years of Wilkins' Wardenship the average of admissions was thirty. The
large admission made in 1650 was due to the reputation of Wilkins as an
able and tolerant College Head, as well as to the belief that the tumult
of war had died away. Men's thoughts were turning to civil affairs and
the ordinary business of life, especially to education, the preparation
for it.
In the registers of the period between 1648 and 1659, are found many
names either of distinction in themselves, or of interest as showing
that the connection of Wadham with the western counties was well
maintained. Walter Pope, who has been already mentioned, was appointed
Scholar by the Visitors in 1648, perhaps on the suggestion of the new
Warden, his half-brother. He filled many offices in the College, was one
of the original Fellows of the Royal Society, and became Professor of
Astronomy in Gresham College. He deserves to be remembered as the author
of a quaint and interesting little book, in which he gives a brief
account of Wilkins, Lawrence Rooke, and Isaac Barrow, as well as a
complete life of Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury. It is full of
digressions on the manners and customs of the time, written with much
humour, and is worthy of a humble place beside the diaries of Evelyn and
Pepys.
Seth Ward was a Scholar of Sidney Sussex, ejected from his College and
from Cambridge because "he refused the Covenant and other oaths." He
went to London, and, like Wren and Wallis, studied mathematics under
William Oughtred, the author of the 'Clavis Mathematica,'--"a little
book, but a great one as to the contents,"--which brought its author a
great name, as well it might. When in London Ward met Wilkins and
formed a lifelong friendship with him. They were both men of learning,
moderate, dexterous, and successful. Ward entered Wadham as a Fellow
Commoner in October 1649, became Savilian Professor of Astronomy, and in
1659 President of Trinity. Like Wilkins, he was ejected from his
Headship at the Restoration, and like him obtained high preferment under
the new _regime_ and became a Bishop. Both of them, when in Oxford,
"became liable to the persecutions of peevish people who ceased not to
clamour, and even to article against them as Cavaliers in their
hearts--meer moral men without the Power of Godliness." "You must know,"
continues Pope, "that a moral and unblamable person, if he did not herd
with them, was an abomination to that Party. I have heard one of them
deliver himself in this manner." The "manner" is impossible to quote; it
is to the effect that the speaker's opponents were hypocrites and
Pharisees of the worst kind, and "in a desperate condition, on whom
Jesus Christ can take no hold." The passage is instructive; it reveals
the exasperation of party feeling in those times, and gives much food
for reflection.
Christopher Wren belongs both to Wadham and to All Souls. He was
admitted Fellow Commoner of Wadham in 1649, and migrated to All Souls in
1653, but maintained his connection with his first College, and for
several years occupied the chamber over the gateway. Of him, the close
friend of Wilkins, the scientist and architect, the President of the
Royal Society, nothing more need here be said. His portrait hangs in
Wadham College Hall, beneath that of Robert Blake.
Less known is Thomas Sprat, admitted Scholar of Wadham in 1651. Of him
Wood says that he was "an excellent poet and orator, and one who arrived
at a great mastery of the English language." His reputation does not
rest on his poetry: he was known by the strange and dubious title of
"Pindarick Sprat." But his History of the Royal Society justifies Wood's
encomium; and he wrote a 'Relation of the late wicked contrivance of
Stephen Blackhead and of Robert Young,' of which Macaulay, who does not
praise lightly, says that "there are few better narratives in the
language." Sprat became Bishop of Rochester and Chaplain to Charles II.,
though in his youth he had written an Ode on the death of Oliver
Cromwell.
Lawrence Rooke was admitted in 1650 from King's College, Cambridge. He
accompanied Ward in his migration to Oxford, "and seated himself in
Wadham College for the benefit of his conversation." Pope "never was
acquainted with any person who knew more and spoke less." He was a
prominent member of the band of philosophers who met in Wilkins'
Lodgings; and after the Restoration held the Professorship of Astronomy
in Gresham College, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Pope's
account of him is well worth reading: of his travels in France; of his
encounter with the redoubtable Thomas Hobbes, whose quadrature of the
circle he proved false: that hard-headed philosopher's logic or
"computation" must have failed him on this occasion, for finding, as he
thought, errors in Rooke's criticism, he concluded that his own solution
must be true. With Ward and Wallis Hobbes had still more fierce
encounters on the same question.
Gilbert Ironside, admitted in 1650, became Warden, Vice-Chancellor of
the University, and, as his father had been, Bishop of Bristol, and
finally of Hereford. He was the "rudest man in the University," and that
without respect of persons, for he remonstrated, in a tone not far
removed from rudeness, with James II. when he visited Oxford in 1687 to
enforce his mandate on Magdalen College.
William Lloyd, who entered Wadham in 1655, was a learned Divine, with
his learning at command, of whom Burnet says that "he had the most
learning in ready cash of any one he knew." He devoted himself to the
interpretation of prophecy. His labours were rewarded by the title of
Pseudopropheta Canus, bestowed on him when he was old and white-haired,
by the _terrae filius_ of 1703. He had himself in his younger days shown
some tendency to irreverent joking, by inventing an Eastern Patriarch, a
native of London, a man of venerable appearance and dressed to suit the
character, who deceived some eminent members of the University, and gave
them his blessing; an incident of which Lloyd used to make his "bragge"
long afterwards. He became Bishop of St Asaph, and was one of the Seven
Bishops committed to the Tower. William III. rewarded him with the
Bishoprics of Lichfield and Coventry, and finally of Worcester.
Samuel Parker matriculated in 1657, and became Bishop of Oxford in 1686.
In the following year he was intruded by James II. into the President's
place at Magdalen College, but held his office for only five months. He
died in his Lodgings, and was buried in the ante-chapel, but honoured by
no memorial to mark the place of his interment. His must have been a
dismal reign.
Beside these names of bishops and philosophers occur names of interest
of various kinds: historic names--Russell, Lovelace, Windham,
Strangways; one also of quite different associations, Sedley, who
entered Wadham in 1656, the boon companion later of Rochester, who, also
a Wadham undergraduate, was his junior by four years. Both of them were
libertines and wits, who received at their College, it may be presumed,
an education the precepts of which they did not practise at the Court of
Charles II. Other entries show the continued connection of the College
with the West of England--with Somerset, the Wadhams' county; with
Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, and Gloucestershire.
Enough has been said to prove that Wadham under Wilkins was a college of
high reputation and efficiency. It was a nursery of bishops,
contributing to the bench no less than six, including Wilkins himself; a
nursery also of Fellows of the Royal Society,--Wilkins, Ward, Rooke,
Wren, Sprat, and Pope were original members of the "invisible college."
Not only to the Church and to Science did Wadham do good service, but
more directly to the State, by educating together impartially the youth
of both the great parties. "When the hurly-burly's done, when the
battle's lost and won," it is above all things desirable to allay bitter
feelings, and bring the former combatants together. For this most
difficult and delicate of tasks Wilkins was well qualified. He was
beloved by the Cavaliers because he treated all his undergraduates
kindly, Royalists and Puritans alike, in marked contrast with other
Heads of Houses, who appear to have dealt faithfully with young
Malignants, the sons of their political opponents.
That Wilkins possessed great administrative abilities and vigour is
shown by his work in the University and in his College. He had seen much
of the world, and was in the prime of life, and already a man of
eminence--a combination of qualities as rare in Heads of Houses as in
Cabinet Ministers. He persuaded the Visitors that Wadham and Trinity
were fitted, specially and immediately, in 1651 for freedom to elect
their Fellows--a privilege of which all the Colleges had been deprived
in 1648. The administration of the College estates and finances was
carefully revised, and the Statutes were amended. Wilkins' life was
varied and full of activities outside as well as within his College. He
was selected to deal with problems more difficult and pressing than
Compulsory Pass Greek, or degrees for women. Was Oxford to be
dismantled? Its security had been threatened by a rising of the
"Levellers"; and in 1649 Wilkins, along with the Proctor and a Canon of
Christ Church, was appointed to confer with the mayor and the citizens
on this important question, not then decided.
Two years later he served on a Commission appointed to consider how to
suppress troubles caused by sturdy beggars, "poore soldiers, cashiered
or maimed, and Irish people with petitions, that pretended to be undon
by the late rebellion there,"--the miserable sequel of the civil war.
He helped in the revision of the College and University Statutes, and on
the nomination of Cromwell was made one of the Commissioners for
executing the office of Chancellor, proving himself a man of affairs as
well as of learning. For ten years, as critical as any in the history of
Oxford, he took a leading part in its academical and municipal
administration.
Yet he found time to avail himself of the privilege to marry given to
the Warden of Wadham: it was accorded to him by a dispensation of the
Visitors, who doubtless thought that enforced celibacy savoured of
Popery. The privilege was withdrawn after the Restoration, as being a
concession made by Puritans, whose views on the marriage of the clergy
were not the views of the High Church party. Leave to marry was given to
all Wardens of Wadham by a special Act of Parliament in 1806, and not,
as the College story goes, by a clause tacked on to a Canal or Turnpike
Bill.
Pope's account of Wilkins' marriage is a strange solution of an always
interesting question, and not altogether complimentary to the lady of
his choice. "Dr Ward," he says, "rid out of this storm,"--the storm of
obloquy which broke out on him and Wilkins as being "mere moral men."
Wilkins "put into the port of matrimony," apparently as a harbour of
refuge in distress. He married Robina, the Protector's sister, widow of
Dr Peter French, Canon of Christ Church. Her first husband was "a pious,
humble, and learned person, and an excellent preacher," the best, in
Pope's opinion, of the censorious party. Ward did not imitate his
friend, though, if we believe Pope, he had many opportunities for doing
so. "He was never destitute of friends of the Fair Sex, never without
proffers of Wives," which became increasingly frequent as he rose in the
world. Pope professes to have known "several persons of great quality
and estates who found ways to make it known to Ward, that if he would
address himself to them in the honourable way of marriage, he should not
want a kind entertainment." But he, then Bishop of Salisbury, had
before his eyes the fate of one of his predecessors who married after he
became a bishop, and "upon that had received so severe a reprimand from
his brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and laid it so much to heart
that it accelerated his death." This story may be apocryphal; it is
certainly startling. Do ladies of quality still give such hints to
bishops? Do bishops die of a rebuke from the archbishop of their
province?
Wilkins' marriage "gained him a strong interest and authority in the
University, and set him at safety, and out of the reach of his
Adversaries." We may trust that it was for his happiness in other ways.
Of his wife little is known, nor is there a portrait of her in the
College. She had a son by her second marriage, Joshua Wilkins, who
became Dean of Down: by her first marriage she had a daughter, Elizabeth
French, the wife of Tillotson. The writer once amused himself with the
fancy that the Archbishop to-be met and courted Miss French in the
Warden's Lodgings at Wadham, which have few romantic associations; but
chronology proves that Tillotson, a Cambridge man, born in 1630, would
probably not have made acquaintance with Wilkins before 1659, when he
became Master of Trinity. The romance had therefore to be transferred to
the Master's Lodge. Even there it could not stay, for Tillotson's first
meeting with his future wife in all likelihood took place in London,
when he was appointed Tuesday Lecturer at St Lawrence Jewry, the
vicarage of which was one of Wilkins' earliest preferments after his
ejection from the Mastership of Trinity. When Tillotson made suit for
the hand of his stepdaughter, Wilkins, upon her desiring to be excused,
said, "Betty, you shall have him, for he is the best polemical Divine
this day in England." Though excellence in polemical divinity has not an
attraction for most women, she consented, and they were married in 1664.
The stories both of Dorothy and Betty are myths, which fade away at the
first touch of criticism.
[Illustration: WADHAM COLLEGE FROM THE COLLEGE GARDEN.]
Wilkins was a diligent student, and wrote books of many kinds. These
books the writer does not pretend to have read, save in the most
hurried, even careless way, except two of them, the 'Real Character' and
'Natural Religion.' The others are of interest to natural philosophers,
as containing anticipations of discoveries and ideas which belong to a
later age, and as showing that Wilkins possessed the inspiring
conviction of all genuine men of Science, that for it the word
impossible does not exist.
In 1638 he published his first work, an Astronomical treatise, the fruit
of his studies at Oxford and at Fawsley. It is entitled 'The Discovery
of a World in the Moone, or a discourse tending to prove that there may
be another habitable World in that Planet': in the third impression,
issued in 1640, is added a "Discourse concerning the Possibility of a
Passage thither." Like Lucian he imagined a voyage to the moon, though
he admits that the journey through the air was a formidable difficulty.
He successfully defended his views against an objection raised by the
Duchess of Newcastle. That clever and eccentric lady, the authoress of
many "fancies," philosophical and poetical, asked him where she was to
bait her horses if she undertook the journey. "Your Grace could not do
better," he replied, "than stop at one of your castles in the air." In
his treatment of the difficulties caused by the apparent conflict
between certain passages of Scripture and the conclusions of
Astronomical Science, which he accepts, he anticipates in a remarkable
way that explanation of them which rests on the understanding of the
meaning of the Bible and of the nature of inspiration. The book was
parodied in the story of 'Peter Wilkins' Journey to the Moon,' which
even usually well-informed persons have been known to attribute as a
_jeu-d'esprit_ to the Warden of Wadham. It was written by Robert
Paltock, and published in 1751.
His next production was 'Mercurie; or the Secret and Swift
Messenger,'--a treatise on Cryptography or ciphers; curious
contrivances whereby A can communicate with C without B's suspecting or
understanding, by signs, gestures, parables, and transpositions of the
alphabet: such as the writer looked at seemed to confirm the view that
every cipher which depends on system, and not on an arrangement of a
capricious kind, can be interpreted by an expert, a title to which he
lays no claim. The book was meant perhaps for use in the Civil War, as
was the system of Wilkins' friend, Dr Wallis, who could both invent and
solve such puzzles, and distinguished himself by deciphering the letters
of the king which fell into the hands of the Parliamentarians at Naseby.
There is also among the "Tracts of Bishop Wilkins," a treatise dated
1648, entitled 'Mathematical Magic; or, the Wonders worked by Mechanical
Powers and Motions,' subdivided, according to that distinction, into two
books, styled Archimedes and Daedalus. The names are quaint, and the
classical illustrations are very numerous. The work is a kind of
handbook for engineers, enlivened by quotations, not always apposite,
from ancient authors, as was the fashion when high literary culture and
science could be more easily combined than in our days of ruthless
specialism. It is dedicated in very courtly language to the Prince
Elector Palatine. Wilkins looks forward to the Prince's restoration to
his dominions--a curious aspiration to be professed by a man who did
not, then at least, put his trust in princes. But he did not foresee
what was to come, both to himself or others.
His two books of a devotional character were, one on 'The Gift of
Prayer,' a formal and elaborate treatise with many divisions and
subdivisions, in spirit earnest and devout. Its companion treatise,
'Ecclesiastes; or the Gift of Preaching,' shows a high conception of the
learning which he thought necessary for one who would preach well;
knowledge of commentators; of preachers, especially of English
sermon-writers; of works on Christian doctrine, on the history of
Christianity; of all subjects which can be included in Theology. The
list of books recommended is enormous, and beyond the reach of any
man--even of Wilkins or Casaubon: it must have been intended to be a
work of reference, a catalogue from which a student might select. It,
like his 'Sermons Preached on Several Occasions,' is illumined by quaint
utterances, humorous, sensible, and devout; qualities more frequently
combined in those days than in our own, when the "dignity of the
pulpit," a lamentable superstition, has weakened its influence, and has
made religion appear to simple people remote from common life.
Wilkins' most original and valuable contribution to Theology is 'The
Principles and Duties of Natural Religion,' written in his later years,
and published after his death by Tillotson. Mr Sanders, the writer of
the too short article on Wilkins in the 'Dictionary of National
Biography,' says that "in this work there are thoughts which anticipate
the argument of Butler's 'Analogy.'" Wilkins, like Butler and Newman,
draws distinctions between different kinds of evidence and different
degrees of consequent assent. He points out that neither Natural
Religion nor Christianity can be proved true by demonstration like a
conclusion in geometry, or in any kind of mathematical reasoning; that
in default of this inference from self-evident premises to propositions
of equal cogency, we must, in a matter of paramount practical
importance, be content to judge, as fairly and soberly as we can, by
that "probability" which Butler calls "the guide of life." Wilkins
perceived, what few in his time perceived, that there are no
"demonstrations" of Christianity, nor even of Theism; that faith is
faith. Further, he emphasises the harmony between Natural and Revealed
Religion, the fact that one is the complement of the other. But in him
there are not the depth, candour, and seriousness of Butler, nor that
sense of mystery which makes him the weightiest of Christian Apologists
in the estimation both of disciples and opponents.
The book by which Wilkins will always be remembered among curious
students and philologers is his 'Essay towards a Real Character and a
Philosophical Language.' It is a quarto of 600 pages, including an
alphabetical dictionary of English words, with their equivalents in what
may be called, without irreverence, Wilkinese. It was written at the
request of the Royal Society, and, by its order, published in 1688. The
meaning of the somewhat obscure title is explained by Wilkins in a very
interesting preface. Character means language, or rather writing, and a
universal character is the script of a language like that which was
spoken before the confusion of tongues; a language for and of all men.
By "Real" is signified that the new language is founded on a study of
things which are "better than words"; of "the nature of things, and that
common notion of them wherein mankind does agree." The making of such a
language "will prove the shortest and plainest way for the attainment of
real knowledge," and the language thus made will be truly philosophical,
or, to use our modern term, scientific. The labour bestowed by Wilkins
on his magnificent project was immense, but the result was failure.
"Sunt lacrimae rerum," and tears were never shed over a greater waste of
ingenuity and heroic toil, if indeed a fine example of fruitless
devotion is to be called waste. With apologies to the Esperantists, it
must be said that the invention of a universal language, of any but the
narrowest compass, seems impossible, for language, in any real sense, is
not made but grows. It is dangerous, however, to dogmatise on
possibilities. Misled, as we can gather from his preface, by the proved
usefulness of mathematical signs, Wilkins attempted to provide for
philosophers of all countries a better means of communication than
Latin, then the universal language of literature and science, but in his
opinion unscientific, full of anomalies and difficult to acquire; for in
it there were, he said, thirty thousand words. In his language there
were only three thousand, and they could be learnt by a man of good
capacity in a month. His estimate of capacity and diligence is somewhat
high. It is possible to explain the principles on which he constructed
his new tongue. He began by dividing the universe, the sum total of
existence, things, thoughts, relations, after the manner of Aristotle,
though not into ten, but into forty categories, or genera, or great
classes, such as World, Element, Animal, and apparently species of
animals, such as Bird, Fish, Beast: for each of these great classes he
devised a monosyllabic name--_e.g._, De for Element, Za for Fish; each
of these genera is subdivided into species indicated by the addition of
a consonant, and these are again subdivided into subordinate species
distinguished by a vowel affixed. For example--De means an Element, any
of the four, Fire, Air, Earth, Water; add to it B, which, as the first
consonant, stands for the first species of a genus, and you will have
the significant word DEB, which means Fire, for it, we know not why, is
the first of the four Elements. Let us take a more complex instance--his
name for Salmon. The salmon is a species of Za or Fish, a particular
kind of fish called N, namely, the Squameous river fish. This class ZaN
is subdivided into lower classes, and the lower class Salmon is called
A, which means the red-fleshed kind of squameous river fish, and so a
salmon is a ZaNA. If you wished to state the fact that a salmon swims,
you would use the words ZaNA GoF, for Go stands for the great category
of motion, F for the particular kind of motion meant, swimming. Voice,
tense, and mood are indicated by lines of different lengths, straight or
curved, crossed, hooked, looped; adverbs and conjunctions by dots or
points differently arranged.
Wilkins' universal character therefore means a kind of shorthand writing
of his Real Language.
The writer fears that he may only have confused his readers and himself
by his bold but poor attempt to express in a few lines the meaning of
six hundred pages. He would be the last to ridicule the "folly" of a
great man, whose system he has made no very laborious effort to
understand, for it seems to be built on sand, on a classification of
things superficial, imperfect, and capricious, which would not have been
accepted by learned men, and if accepted would have become obsolete in a
quarter of a century. The syllable Co stands for all relations between
human beings, and these relations are of eight kinds. What would a
professor of social science now say to this? What would an ichthyologist
say to Wilkins' definition of a salmon? The interest of the book lies in
its being the most striking of many proofs of the wide intellectual
interests, the alert and insatiable curiosity, and the extraordinary
industry of its writer. It has also the pathetic interest of "love's
labour lost," for who now reads the 'Real Character,' or who read it
twenty years after Wilkins' death? His name was "writ in water," for he
spent himself on many things, and did little because he did too much.
The "greatest curioso" of his time relieved his toils by music. Nowhere
are Wood's vanity and self-consciousness shown more vividly than in his
account of a musical entertainment given by Wilkins in honour of Thomas
Baltzar, "the most famous artist for the violin which the world had yet
produced. The books and instruments were carried thither," to the
Warden's lodgings, "but none could be persuaded there to play against
him in consort on the violin. At length the company, perceiving A. W.
standing behind in a corner neare the dore, they haled him in among
them, and play forsooth he must against him: whereupon, he being not
able to avoid it, took up a violin, and behaved himself as poor Troylus
did against Achilles." Wood consoled himself for his failure by the
honour he acquired from being asked to play with the Master, of whom he
maliciously remarks that "he was given to excessive drinking,"--a
characteristic comment.
Wilkins' greatest achievement was the founding of the Royal Society. He
may be called its founder, if that high title can be given to any one of
the eminent men who, in Oxford and in London, revived or regenerated
the study of natural philosophy. Pope, Aubrey, and Sprat differ from
Wallis in their accounts of the origin of the mother of scientific
parliaments. The first three find that origin in meetings held in Wadham
College under the presidency of Wilkins. Wallis traces the beginnings of
the Royal Society to meetings held in London in 1645. "In that year," he
writes, "there had sprung up an association of certain worthy persons
inquisitive in Natural Philosophy, who met together, first in London,
for the investigation of what was called the new or experimental
philosophy, and afterwards several of the more influential of the
members, about 1648 or 1649, finding London too much distracted by civil
commotions, commenced holding their meetings in Oxford." Among those who
removed to Oxford were, "first, Dr Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr
Goddard, whereupon our company divided. Those at London (and we when we
had occasion to be there) met as before. Those of us at Oxford, with Dr
Ward, Dr Petty, and many others of the most inquisitive persons in
Oxford, met weekly for some years at Dr Petty's lodgings, on the like
account, to wit, so long as Dr Petty continued in Oxford, and for some
while after, because of the conveniences we had there (being the house
of an apothecary) to view and make use of drugs, and other like matters
as there was occasion. We did afterwards (Dr Petty being gone to Ireland
and our numbers growing less) remove thence, and (some years before his
Majesty's return) did meet at Dr Wilkin's lodgings in Wadham College."
This account is plain enough: it differs from the story told by Sprat in
this point only, that Sprat omits reference to the first meetings in
London between 1645 and 1648, and to the meetings in Oxford at Dr
Petty's lodgings. The causes of these omissions are not far to seek.
Sprat was a youth of seventeen in 1651, the year of his admission into
Wadham: it is difficult to believe that he was present at the gatherings
of men many years his senior in Dr Petty's lodgings, or knew as much as
Wallis did of the infancy of the Royal Society. No Oxford man is to be
entirely trusted when writing about his own College, and Sprat laudably
claimed for Wadham the honour of being the cradle of the great
association.
In his history of the Royal Society, published in 1667, he gives a full
account of its growth and objects, though not of its beginnings.
"It was some space," he writes, "after the end of the Civil Wars at
Oxford, in Dr Wilkins, his lodgings, in Wadham College, which was then
the place of resort for virtuous and learned men, that the first
meetings were held which laid the foundation of all this that followed.
The University had at this time many members of its own who had begun a
free way of reasoning; and was also frequented by some gentlemen of
philosophical minds, whom the misfortunes of the kingdom, and the
security and ease of a retirement among Gownsmen had drawn thither.
Their first purpose was no more than only the satisfaction of breathing
a freer air, and of conversing in quiet one with another, without being
engaged in the passions and madness of that dismal Age. And from the
Institution of that Assembly, it had been enough if no other advantage
had come but this: that by this means there was a race of young men
provided, against the next Age, whose minds, receiving from them their
first impressions of sober and general knowledge, were invincibly armed
against the enchantments of Enthusiasm. But what is more, I may venture
to affirm that it was in good measure by the influence which these
Gentlemen had over the rest, that the University itself, or at least any
part of its Discipline or Order was saved from ruine. For such a candid
and impassionate company as that was, and for such a gloomy season, what
could have been a fitter subject to pitch upon than Natural Philosophy?
To have been always tossing about some Theological question would have
been to have made that their private diversion the excess of which they
themselves disliked in the public. To have been eternally musing on
Civil business and distresses of their Country was too melancholy a
reflection. It was Nature alone which could pleasantly entertain them in
that estate."
It would be superfluous to praise this noble and pathetic passage. It
shows the weariness of political and religious controversy which
oppressed men's minds; the discouragement, almost hopelessness, which
made the Restoration welcome, and Puritanism odious, for a time at
least, to the majority of Englishmen. The word Enthusiasm is of strange
significance; then and for more than a hundred years later it connoted
extravagance and fanaticism. Worthy of notice also are Sprat's words to
the effect that the influence of Wilkins and his friends was on the side
of discipline and order in the University, and saved it from "ruine."
They ought to please and encourage, perhaps instruct, the modern
apostles of science who are with us now.
From a comparison of Wallis' and Sprat's accounts, it is clear that the
dispute, if dispute there be, whether Wadham or London was the cradle of
the Royal Society, can be settled more easily than most contested claims
of this kind. The facts are ascertained: the question turns on the
meaning of the words "founder" and "foundation." The first meetings of
the Philosophical Club, which became the Royal Society, were
unquestionably held in London, and were continued there, at the Bull's
Head Tavern in Cheapside, after Wilkins had removed to Oxford in 1648,
and gathered round him there the members of a new philosophical society,
which may be called, if that name be preferred, an offshoot from the
parent stem: the two clubs co-existed till the Restoration, when most of
the Oxford philosophers migrated or returned to London, and were
incorporated into one society which received its name and charter from
Charles II. in July 1662.
Metaphors do not always illustrate, but the facts may be stated thus:
the Royal Society was born in London or cradled there; the infant did
not thrive, and was put out to nurse at Oxford where it waxed and
prospered: it was a proper child of three years old when (on Petty's
leaving Oxford in 1651) it found a settled home in the Warden's lodgings
in Wadham for eight years; grown and strengthened, the boy was brought
back to his birthplace, and was recognised and named. In this sense it
may be said that the Royal Society was founded by Wilkins in Wadham:
that College was its early home, and Wilkins was the most prominent and
active man in the Philosophical Club.
A very clear and short account of many of its members is given in the
'History of the Oxford Museum,' by Dr Vernon and Miss Vernon, which, if
I may presume to praise it, resembles the work of Oughtred before
mentioned, as being "a little book, but a great one as to the contents."
Sprat enumerates as "the principal and most constant of those who met at
Wadham, Dr Seth Ward, Mr Boyle, Dr Wilkins, Sir William Petty, Dr
Wallis, Dr Goddard, Dr Willis, Dr Bathurst, Mr Matthew Wren, Dr
Christopher Wren, Mr Rooke, besides several others, who joyn'd
themselves to them, upon occasion." The list is remarkable; it
represents the science of the time,--Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry,
Physics, Engineering, Architecture, Theology, and Political Economy or
Arithmetic, for nothing "scibile" was alien to these inquisitive
persons. "Their proceedings," we are told, "were rather by action than
discourse, chiefly attending some particular Trials in Chymistry or
Mechanicks: they had no Rules nor Method fixed: their intention was more
to communicate to each other their discoveries which they could make in
so narrow a compass, than an united, constant, or regular inquisition."
They were probably "clubbable" persons, friends with a common interest,
each pursuing his own path with perfect freedom, a method which must
have enhanced the harmony and efficiency of their meetings. The Club, or
a branch of it, survived at Oxford the departure of Wilkins and most of
the philosophers. To Robert Boyle was mainly due the continuance of the
faithful remnant. In the year 1659 he imported into Oxford Peter
Sthael, a noted Chemist and Rosicrucian, "a great hater of women and a
very useful man." Among those who attended his lectures were Antony
Wood, Wallis, Wren, Bathurst, and, not least, Locke, who was
troublesome, and "scorned to take notes"--why we are not told, and may
imagine as we please. Wood's account of this survival is obscure--he
seems uncertain as to the relation of Sthael's pupils to the Royal
Society at Oxford: they were probably the same, and incurred the wrath
and misrepresentations of Henry Stubb, who inveighed against them as
dangerous,--the Society had become obnoxious to the University, being
suspected of a desire to confer degrees, against which the University
"stuck," to use Wood's word, not unreasonably.
The Oxford meetings in Wilkins' time, after 1651, were held, not in the
room over the gateway, but in the dining-room or drawing-room of the
Warden's lodgings. By the direction of the Foundress "the chamber over
the great gate" had been assigned to the Warden, as commanding the
entrance into the College, and a view of all who should go in or out: he
was to have also for his own use seven rooms next adjoining on the north
side. It is uncertain at what date he migrated to his present lodgings,
but there is abundant evidence to show that it was before the time of
Wilkins, for from 1640 to 1663 the great chamber was occupied by various
tenants,--among them Seth Ward and Christopher Wren. The writer is
therefore warranted in picturing to the eye of his imagination the
personages of the club assembled in his drawing-room, a club less
famous, but no less worthy of fame, than the Literary Club of Johnson,
Goldsmith, Burke, and Reynolds.
[Illustration: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.]
Fain would he ask questions of Wren or Ward or Wilkins, or any of the
members of the club, most of whom he would recognise by their portraits
in the College or elsewhere.
On September 3, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died. To Wood the exact date is
important, because "some writers tell us that he was hurried away by
the Devill in a terrible raging wind on the 30th of August," a statement
which the chronicler might have been expected to believe. Richard
Cromwell was proclaimed Protector at Oxford on September 6th, in the
usual places where kings had been proclaimed. The ceremony was disturbed
by young scholars, who pelted with carrots and turnips the mayor,
recorder, and town clerk, as well as Colonel Upton and his troopers.
These missiles were symptoms of the reaction which was fast approaching.
It belongs to the history of England, but so far as it showed itself in
Oxford, it is part of the life of Wilkins. It must have given him much
to think of during the last year of his Wardenship. In February 1659 the
Vice-Chancellor wrote to the Dean of Christ Church, then in London, that
"he must make haste to Oxford, for godliness laye a gasping." Nathaniel
Crewe of Lincoln had in the same month drawn up a petition, which Wood
signed, to put out the Visitors. He was a Presbyterian, and ready to
have the Visitors "put downe, notwithstanding he had before submitted
to them and had paid to them reverence and obedience. The Independants,
who called themselves the godly party, drew up a petition contrary to
the former, and said 'twas for the cause of Christ." The feud between
the two parties was no less bitter, when their supremacy in Oxford was
drawing to its end, than it had been many years before. Which of the
petitions did Wilkins sign?
A year later, in February 1660, Monk made a speech to Parliament of
doubtful meaning, exhorting his hearers to be careful "that neither the
Cavalier nor the phanatique party have yet a share in your civil or
military power,"--on which utterance Wood notes that "the word
phanatique comes much into fashion after this." Monk's meaning was
quickly interpreted for him, both in London and in Oxford,--on February
13th "there was great rejoicing here at Oxon for the news of a free
parliament, ringing of bells, bonfires, &c.: there were rumps (_i.e._,
tayles of sheep) flung in a bonfire at Queen's Coll., and some at Dr
Palmer's window at All Soles." The joy of the Royalists especially was
manifested by the reading at Magdalen parish church of Common Prayer,
"after it had been omitted to be read in public places in Oxon since the
surrender of the city or in 1647." All the tokens of Monarchy were
restored: "the signe of the King's Head had been dashed out, or daubled
over, tempore Olivari, and (in its place was written 'This was the
King's Head') was new painted." On the 1st of May "a Maypole was set up
against the Beare in All Hallows parish (_i.e._, opposite the Mitre of
our time) on purpose to vex the Presbyterians and Independants," despite
the interference of Dr Conant, the Vice-Chancellor. On the 10th the new
King was proclaimed: on the 14th letters from Richard Cromwell to
Convocation were read, whereby he resigned the Chancellorship of the
University in dignified and courteous words. By May 29th the Restoration
was complete, and the day was observed in all or in most towns in
England, "particularly at Oxon, which did exceed any place of its
bigness." Wood's comment on these events is worth giving in full: "The
world of England was perfectly mad. They were free from the chains of
darkness and confusion which the Presbyterians and phanatiques had
brought upon them: yet some of them, seeing then what mischief they had
done, tack'd about to participate of the universal Joy, and at length
closed with the Royal partie." Here we take leave, for a time, of Antony
Wood, who has been allowed to tell his story in his own words; unwilling
leave, for though he is provoking, he is charming, with a keen eye for
character, both of parties and individuals, and for the issues and
events of real importance, never dull or lengthy, save when he descants
on his family affairs or on the minutiae of his occasionally meticulous
antiquarianism, and even then to be forgiven for his zeal and industry.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] See 'Cromwell,' p. 368, 2nd edition.