October 14.--The anniversary of the birth of William Penn, one of the
greatest names among the early English Quakers, and immortal as the
founder of the Colony of Pennsylvania. He was born at London, in 1644.
His father was the celebrated Admiral Sir William Penn, who greatly
distinguished himself in the war against the Dutch in the reign of
Charles II. At the age of sixteen Penn was sent to Christ Church,
Oxford; and it was while at the University that he was converted to the
tenets of the Friends by a discourse which he heard from one of their
preachers. The course of conduct which he adopted in consequence of his
new views, exposed him to a great deal of harsh treatment from the
authorities of the University: and he at length returned home. His
father then, in the hope of curing him of what he conceived to be his
fanatical notions, sent him to travel in France and the Low Countries.
On his return, he entered as a student of law at Lincoln’s Inn, but was
soon after sent over by his father to Ireland to take charge of some
landed property which the Admiral possessed in that country. He was at
this time in his twenty-second year. His visit to Ireland completed his
conversion to Quakerism. Having met there with the same preacher who had
made the first impression upon him at Oxford, he was soon brought to
join himself openly and without reserve to the sect whose opinions he
shared, and to adopt all the peculiar habits by which they were
distinguished. His father upon this sent for him home; but he was now
too decidedly convinced of the necessity of persevering in the course to
which he had committed himself to be disposed to make any concession or
compromise, and accordingly it is said, on his first appearance before
the old Admiral he confounded him by advancing with his hat on, and
addressing him with the singular salutation, “I am very glad, friend, to
see thee in good health.” Sir William thought his son had gone mad, and
ordered him to the door. Such is the story, told originally, we believe,
by Voltaire; but it may possibly be after all little more than a fiction
of that accomplished jester. The grossest misrepresentations of the
conduct and language of Penn and his brethren are to be found in graver
works than the one in which this anecdote appears. Let one example
suffice. On the accession of James II, the Quakers, among many other
public bodies, presented an address to the new monarch, of which the
principal object was to crave toleration for their inoffensive and
peaceful tenets. It contained no singularity of expression whatever,
beginning, “Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God (by whom kings reign)
to take hence the late King Charles the Second, and to preserve thee
peaceably to succeed; we thy subjects heartily desire that the Giver of
all good and perfect gifts may please to endue thee with wisdom and
mercy in the use of thy great power, to His glory, the King’s honour,
and the kingdom’s good”--and proceeding throughout in the same dignified
and perfectly respectful and unpresuming style. Yet this address, the
historian Echard, professing to transcribe its exact words, has thought
proper to give in the following ridiculous form; “We are come to testify
our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy
being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of
the Church of England, no more are we; therefore we hope that thou wilt
grant us the same liberty which thou allowest thyself.” This most
dishonest and malignant travesty has been copied by subsequent
historians. In 1668 Penn first appeared publicly as a preacher in favour
of Quakerism and against the Established Church, for which he was
committed to the Tower. He endured an imprisonment of seven months; and
then, having obtained his liberty, proceeded a second time to Ireland,
and recommenced preaching. In 1670 we find him again in London, where,
having been brought before the lord-mayor on the charge of illegal
preaching in the streets, he was afterwards tried at the Old Bailey,
and, although acquitted by the jury, was by the scandalous tyranny of
the time once more sent to prison, and detained in confinement till his
father secretly purchased his release. He then proceeded in company with
the celebrated George Fox to France and Germany, in both of which
countries the two friends laboured unsparingly in the propagation of
their opinions. The serious illness of his father, however, soon
recalled him to England, where on his arrival he found the Admiral on
his death-bed, but very anxious not to leave the world without being
reconciled to his son. Penn indeed tells us in one of his works that he
found his father now become almost a Quaker as well as himself. The
death of Sir William left him in possession of landed property to the
value of £1500 a year, besides a claim upon the Crown to the amount of
£16,000 more. He now therefore married, and settled at Rickmansworth in
Hertfordshire. Finding it difficult or impossible to obtain payment of
his debt from the Crown in money, he at length petitioned for a grant of
land in North America; and after some delay he obtained a large tract of
country lying immediately to the west of New Jersey, by a charter dated
the 1st of March, 1681. The same year he left England to take possession
of his purchase, accompanied by numerous families of his own persuasion,
to colonize the new territory. One of the first steps which the
incipient legislator took was to enter into a treaty with the Indian
chiefs of the neighbourhood, to whom, having assembled them around him
under an old ash tree, he deliberately explained by an interpreter the
several articles which he proposed, that each might be formally assented
to after it was fully understood. The late Mr. West, himself a native of
Pennsylvania, has painted this scene, which took place on the spot where
the town of Philadelphia now stands, and which future events have
invested both to Americans and to civilized man in every clime with so
deep an interest. The remainder of Penn’s life was chiefly spent in
superintending the growth and government of the colony which he had thus
founded, and which he had the happiness of seeing every day become more
populous and flourishing. He returned to England in 1683; and, on the
accession of James II. about two years afterwards, became a great
favourite at court. On the Revolution, indeed, his intimate connexion
with the deposed monarch brought him into such suspicion, that his
American colony was seized by the Crown, and he was obliged to conceal
himself for some years. It was not till 1696 that his possessions and
their government were restored to him. Soon after this, his wife having
died, he married a second time, and in 1699 he returned to America,
taking his family along with him. Here he was received with joy and
blessings, both by the British colonists and by the Indians. After
residing in Pennsylvania about two years, and taking an affecting
farewell of its population, who regarded him almost as a father, he
again set sail for England. The close of Penn’s life was clouded and
distressed by pecuniary embarrassments in which he had become involved;
and in 1712 he sustained a stroke of apoplexy, which greatly enfeebled
both his body and his mind. He languished, however, under the
consequences of this attack for six years longer, dying on the 30th of
July, 1718, at his seat at Ruscomb in Berkshire.
[Illustration: Portrait of William Penn.]
October 20.--On this day in the year 1632, exactly two centuries ago,
was born Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN, the celebrated architect of St. Paul’s.
His birth-place was East Knowle, in Wiltshire, of which parish his
father was rector. He early gave proof of that ingenuity and aptitude
for scientific pursuits by which he was afterwards so eminently
distinguished, having in his thirteenth year invented a new astronomical
instrument, and soon afterwards various other mathematical contrivances.
At the age of fourteen he was sent to Wadham College, Oxford, and here
his remarkable proficiency in various branches of learning, and
especially in the mathematics, soon made him known to various persons of
distinction and influence. Young as he was at this time, he was one of
the original members of the club which was formed at Oxford in 1648 for
philosophical discussion and experiments, and which eventually gave rise
to the Royal Society. In 1657 he was chosen Professor of Astronomy at
Gresham College; and on the Restoration was appointed to the Savilian
professorship of Astronomy at Oxford. It was very soon after this that
he was first called upon to exercise his genius in architecture (a
study, however, which had previously engaged a good deal of his
attention) by being appointed assistant to the Surveyor-General, Sir
John Denham, who, in truth, neither knew, nor pretended to know,
anything of the duties of the office which he held. This led to Wren’s
employment on the work on which his popular fame principally rests, the
re-building of the cathedral of St. Paul’s after the great fire. The
erection of this noble edifice occupied him for thirty-five years; but
neither prevented him from designing, during the same period, and
superintending the completion of many other buildings, nor even
interrupted his pursuit of the most abstract branches of science. We are
accustomed to speak of Sir Christopher Wren only as a great architect;
but he was also, in truth, one of the first mathematicians that England
has ever produced. Among the host of eminent cultivators of mathematical
physics by whom that age was distinguished, there is perhaps scarcely a
name, with the exception of that of Newton, which deserves to be placed
before his, His mechanical inventions were very numerous, and many of
them of sterling ingenuity. Among other things there is every reason to
suppose that to him we are really indebted for the invention of the art
of mezzotinto engraving, of which Prince Rupert has generally had the
credit. Wren was created LL.D. by the University of Oxford in 1661, and
was knighted in 1674. In 1680 he was elected to the Presidency of the
Royal Society, and in 1685 he entered Parliament as representative of
the borough of Plympton. While superintending the erection of the
cathedral of St. Paul’s all the salary that Wren received was only £200
a year. He was also used in other respects by the Commissioners with
extreme illiberality and meanness; and at last the ingratitude of his
country, or rather of his times, was consummated by his dismissal in
1718 from his place of Surveyor of Public Works. He was at this time in
the eighty-sixth year of his age. This great and good man died at
Hampton Court on the 25th of February, 1723, in the ninety-first year of
his age. His remains were accompanied by a splendid attendance to their
appropriate resting-place under the noble edifice which his genius had
reared; and over the grave was fixed a tablet with the inscription in
Latin (since placed in front of the organ,) “Beneath is laid the builder
of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived above ninety years,
not for himself but for the public good. Reader, if thou seekest for his
monument, look around.” Amongst the London Churches which were built
from the designs of Sir C. Wren, one of the most beautiful, as to its
interior, is that of St. Stephen’s Walbrook, of which the following cut
may give some notion.
[Illustration: Interior of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
⁂ The Office of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is at
59, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.