The Life and Times of John Wilkins Part 3

Metaphors do not always ill.u.s.trate, 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 princ.i.p.al and most constant of those who met at Wadham, Dr Seth Ward, Mr Boyle, Dr Wilkins, Sir William Petty, Dr Wallis, Dr G.o.ddard, 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 compa.s.s, 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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.sembled in his drawing-room, a club less famous, but no less worthy of fame, than the Literary Club of Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, and Reynolds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 G.o.dliness laye a gasping." Nathaniel Crewe of Lincoln had in the same month drawn up a pet.i.tion, 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 G.o.dly party, drew up a pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tions 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 partic.i.p.ate 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.

CHAPTER IV.

WILKINS AFTER HIS LIFE AT OXFORD.

Wilkins was spared the pain of witnessing the end of the Commonwealth in Oxford, and of being ejected from his post like other Heads of Houses.

On September 3, 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 later, in that strange time of opinions which "could be changed," had made his peace with the Royalists. During his Wardenship of six years the College flourished. He was made Bishop of Oxford in 1665, and was in 1671 promoted to the See of Worcester, another of the many Wadham Bishops.

Wilkins left Wadham to become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He had been invited there by the Fellows, on whose pet.i.tion he was presented by Richard Cromwell. Thirty years later Cambridge, as if in exchange for value received, sent Richard Bentley to Wadham, who left it to return to Cambridge as Master of Trinity,--an interchange of which neither University can complain.

At Cambridge Wilkins' stay was brief. He was Master of Trinity only for ten months, but in that short reign he proved himself as vigorous and effective as he had been at Wadham: he stimulated and organised the College teaching, and made his Fellows work, by inst.i.tuting disputations, and examinations at 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 off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, from superst.i.tious conceits, and fierceness about opinions." He must have had as his allies there Cudworth and Whichcote, men of his own age, and one younger, Stillingfleet, the Lat.i.tudinarians, from whom our Broad Churchmen are theologically descended.

The evil days came soon: despite the pet.i.tion of the Fellows who wished to keep him, he was ejected from the Mastership when the King came back.

"The whirligig of time brings in his revenges," and what Pitt had undergone Wilkins had to undergo.

Pope describes, surely with some exaggeration, the troubles of Wilkins during the eight years between his departure from Cambridge and his being made Bishop of Chester. He was a man whom no misfortunes could crush--elastic, resolute, resourceful master of his fate,--

"Merses profundo, pulchrior evenit."

He had many friends and a great reputation; they brought him various preferments,--the lectureship at Gray's Inn, the vicarage of St Lawrence Jewry, and the Deanery of Ripon, within a few years after his banishment from Cambridge. Preferment 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 the great fire of London the vicarage house of St Lawrence Jewry was burnt, and with it were destroyed his books and the collection of scientific instruments made during his residence at Oxford with the help of the members of the club.

Add to this that he was out of favour both at Whitehall and at Lambeth on account of his marriage--for that reason "Archbishop Sheldon who had the keys of the Church for a great time in his power, and could admit unto it and keep out of it whom he pleased, I mean (Pope hastens to explain) disposed 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 Lat.i.tudinarian was at first coldly received at Lambeth: the brother-in-law of Cromwell was not acceptable at Whitehall. His friend Ward did not desert him, but "followed up good words with answerable actions," and procured for him the Precentor's place at Exeter,--"the first step which Wilkins ascended to a better fortune."

In Charles II. he soon found a still more powerful friend. The King, who was himself the broadest of Lat.i.tudinarians, as far as Protestantism was concerned, was not repelled by Wilkins' theological views, and yielded readily to the attractions of a versatile and agreeable man of science.

Science was the most creditable of Charles's tastes and occupations; the one in which he took a genuine and enduring interest.

On November 28, 1660, the Invisible College was embodied, and became a tangible reality. At a meeting held in Gresham College, twelve persons of eminence in science and in other ways "formed the design," as the first Journal Book of the Royal Society records, "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 scheme drawn up by the committee, and offered to become a member of the new College: in 1662 he gave it the Charter of Incorporation which pa.s.sed the Great Seal on July 13th of that year.

Wilkins was not chosen President; that honour was given to Lord Brouncker.

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge (its official t.i.tle) took knowledge for its province; that is, natural knowledge, of Nature, Art, and Works, in preference to, though not necessarily to the exclusion of, moral and metaphysical philosophy, history and language. 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.e._, natural philosophy, as the captive and slave of Authority and Words, set free by Bacon: its followers he likens to the Children of Israel wandering aimlessly from one desert to another till Moses brought them to the border of the promised land. The stately lines may well be quoted here:--

"From these and all long errors of the way In which our wandering predecessors went, And like th' old Hebrews many years did stray In desarts but of small extent, Bacon like Moses led us forth at last, The barren Wilderness he past, Did on the very Border stand Of the blest promised land, And from the Mountain Top of his Exalted Wit Saw it himself and shew'd us it.

But Life did never to one Man allow Time to discover Worlds and conquer too; Nor can so short a line sufficient be To fadome the vast depths of Nature's sea."

Like all human inst.i.tutions, the Royal Society was criticised, feared, misunderstood, and ridiculed. There is evidence of this in Sprat's anxiety to show that experiments "are not dangerous to the Universities nor to the Church of England," a contention which now would be admitted or denied if the term "experiments" were first defined. He labours, too, to show that they are not dangerous to 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 antic.i.p.ate. Shadwell in his 'Virtuoso' found material for profane merriment in some of the unquestionably absurd inquiries made or suggested by the natural philosophers. "Science was then only just emerging from the Mists of Superst.i.tion." Astrology and Alchemy still infected Astronomy, Chemistry, and Medicine. A Fellow of the Royal Society, along with the Puritan, made a ridiculous figure on the stage. But Puritanism and Natural Philosophy both survived the "test of truth," and were better for the ordeal.[3]

In 1668, through the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, Wilkins was made Bishop of Chester. The position of a Bishop in some ways resembles that of the Head of a College: Fellows are like canons and archdeacons; undergraduates are the "inferior clergy." The Bishop showed in the management of his diocese the moderation, tact, and charity which had made him a successful Warden. He brought back into the Church of England, or into loyalty to that Church, many ministers who had been ejected from their livings for non-compliance with the Act 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 prohibited from coming within five miles of any town which was governed by a corporation, of any town which was represented in Parliament, or of any town where they had themselves resided as ministers. The magistrates by whom these vigorous statutes were to be enforced, were in general men inflamed by party spirit, and by remembrances of wrongs suffered in the time of the Commonwealth. The jails were therefore soon crowded with dissenters, and among the sufferers were some of whose genius and virtue any Christian society might well be proud."

It is probable that Chester jail was less crowded than other jails in England, and that dissenters were allowed to come within five miles of Chester, even to the Bishop's palace.

Wilkins, like many "moderate" men, had convictions, and was ready to make sacrifices in their defence. Not only in his diocese, but in the House of Lords, he pleaded for a lenient treatment of dissenters. In reference to the second Conventicle Act, Wilkins gained for himself, in the view of all right-minded men, especial honour. He argued earnestly against the Bill in the Upper House. Even when the king desired him to be silent, he replied "That he thought it an ill thing, both in conscience and policy, and therefore as an Englishman and a Bishop, he was bound to oppose it." Being still further requested by Charles not to go to the House while the Bill was pending, his answer was "That by the law and const.i.tution 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 moderation and clear-headedness in the fierce controversies of his time. In a conversation with Cosin, Bishop of Devon, who had censured him for his moderation, Wilkins frankly told him that he was a better friend to the Church of England than his lordship--"for while you," says he, "are for setting the top on the picqued end and downwards, you won't be able to keep it up any longer than you keep whipping and scourging; whereas I am for setting the broad end downwards, and so 'twill stand of itself." The metaphor has obvious defects, but expresses the broadness of the Broad party in the Church.

Of Wilkins' work in his diocese few particulars are recorded: it is called by Wood the "kill Bishop see," a name which now happily it does not deserve. His had been a laborious life, and the last years of it must have been full of difficulties and anxieties to the friend 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 funeral sermon, in which he defends him against the charge of having looked with too much favour on the dissenters, urging as his excuse, "the vehemence of his desire to bring the Dissenters off their prejudices, and reduce them to the Unity of the Church"; no bad defence.

It is pleasant to turn from Wilkins' public to his private life. There are many allusions to him in the Diaries of Pepys and Evelyn.

Pepys made his first acquaintance with Wilkins in 1665: he was now a man widely known in London society, especially among learned men and natural philosophers. Pepys describes his first visit to him, paid at his house, then probably the Vicarage of St Lawrence Jewry. "And so to Dr Merritt"

(a Fellow of the Royal Society), "and fine discourse among them to my great joy, so sober and ingenious: he is now upon finishing his discourse of a Universal Character." At a dinner-party later he met Wilkins, when "I choosing to sit next Dr Wilkins, Sir George Ent, and others 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 have been impressed by Wilkins' contention that "few were the several species of beasts and fowls which were to be in the Arke"; a consequence of the fundamental error of his system, the belief that nature was easily cla.s.sified, and her cla.s.ses few. In Pepys' last important reference to Wilkins, he tells us that he "heard talk that Dr Wilkins, my friend the Bishop of Chester, shall be removed to Winchester and be made Lord Treasurer: though this be foolish talk, I do gather he is a mighty rising man, as being a Lat.i.tudinarian, and the Duke of Buckingham his friend."

Evelyn was a warm friend of Wilkins, and a frequent visitor at his lodgings in Wadham. In 1654 he came to Oxford with his wife and daughter, as London visitors do now for a weekend, or for Commemoration.

He "supped at a magnificent entertainment in Wadham Hall, invited by my dear and excellent friend Dr Wilkins," 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._, a kind of pedometer), dials, perspectives, mathematical and magical curiosities, the property or invention of Wilkins or of "that prodigious young scholar Christopher Wren." Alas! there are none of these magical curiosities in the Warden's lodgings now; they were taken to London and lost in the Great Fire.

In 1665 Evelyn heard his friend preach before the Lord Mayor at St Paul's on the text, "Obedience is better than sacrifice,"--a curious text for him to choose, for it may be interpreted in more ways than 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 the ignorant and sacrilegious commanders who would have demolished all places and persons that pretended to learning"; another indication among many that the "obliging" Dr Wilkins was not invertebrate.

In the same year Evelyn, calling at The Durdans, the home of Wilkins'

former pupil, Lord Berkeley, found there a remarkable group, Petty, Rooke, and Wilkins, amusing themselves 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, "three such persons were not to be found elsewhere in Europe for parts and ingenuity." Lord Rosebery, we may safely presume, would be glad to see them at The Durdans now.

In November 1668, Evelyn went to London, "invited to the consecration of that excellent person, the Dean of Ripon, now made Bishop of Chester: Dr Tillotson preached." Then he went to a sumptuous banquet in the Hall of Ely House, where were "the Duke of Buckingham, Judges, the Lord Keeper, n.o.blemen, and innumerable other company, who were honourers of this incomparable man, universally beloved by all who knew him."

Tillotson, who married Wilkins' stepdaughter, and may therefore have been prejudiced, though such relationships give rise to prejudices of various kinds, was deeply attached to him. He edited and wrote a preface to the book on 'Natural Religion,' and did the same pious duty in respect of the 'Sermons Preached on Several Occasions,' taking opportunity in the preface to defend him against the censures of Antony Wood. He edited also a pamphlet of an attractive t.i.tle, 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 rank and quality, and of singular worth and eminence in all the learned professions." This eulogy has perhaps the ring of a time when rank and quality were made more of than they are now made, but it is quoted as an ill.u.s.tration of the change of feeling which would make it now impossible or indecorous to praise a bishop because he got on well with great people: allowance must be made for the difference between the seventeenth and the twentieth century.

Funeral sermons are not always the naked truth, but Lloyd's fine saying about Wilkins bears on it the stamp of sincerity: "It was his way of friendship not so much to oblige men as to do them good."

Burnet adds another testimony to Wilkins' singular power of winning affection. He writes: "Wilkins was a man of as great a mind, as true a judgement, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul, as any one I ever knew. He was naturally ambitious, but was the wisest clergyman I ever knew. He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in doing good."

Burnet was a partisan, but these are the words of more than partisanship. In his 'History of his Own Time' he introduces Wilkins to his readers in very distinguished company, among the Lat.i.tudinarians--Whichcote, Cudworth, Tillotson, Lloyd, and Stillingfleet,--of whom he says that if such men had not appeared, of another stamp than their predecessors, "the 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 Lat.i.tudinarians infused into the Church life, energy, and a sense of duty: they were, he adds, good preachers and acceptable to the king, who, "having little or no literature, but true and good sense," liked sermons "plain, clear, and short." "Incedo per ignes," but it is impossible to refrain from quoting Burnet's language, which, _mutatis mutandis_, would have expressed what High Churchmen felt towards the leaders of the Oxford movement, and with equal truth and justice.

Here Antony Wood may be called in to play the part of the Advocatus Diaboli. He plays it in the following pa.s.sage, as always, with great vigour and enjoyment: "Dr John Wilkins, a notorious complyer with the Presbyterians, from whom he obtained the Wardenship of Wadham; with the 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, and by his smooth language, insinuating preaching, flatteries, and I know not what, got among other preferments the Deanery of Ripon, and at length by the commendation of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a great favourer of fanaticks and atheists, the Bishopric of Chester."