John Wilkins

“ In one of the foremost body-pews sat John Arnold, a large, fair-faced old man, who wore his white hair like a tonsure. He never looked at Hannah. He had a gold-headed cane. He clasped both hands around it, and leaned heavily forward upon it as he listened. It was a habit of his. He settled himself solemnly into this attitude at his entrance. People watched him respectfully. John Arnold was the one wealthy man in this poor country church. Over across the aisle a shattered, threadbare old grandfather leaned impressively upon his poor pine stick in the same way that John Arnold did. ”

“ It has been suggested that he named his hero after John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who, among other curious theories, had seriously discussed the question whether men could acquire the art of flying. ”

“ Memorandum:—Mr. John Davys of Kydwelly tells me that Mr. Thomas Whyte (Blacklowe) , author of De mundo, etc., dyed in Drury lane about 7 yeares since and is buried in St. Giles's Church in the fields. Quaere ubi: as also where his brother Richard is buried?
John Wilkins (1614-1672) .
[1240] Bishop J. Wilkins:—the little picture in 8vo most like him.
[1241] John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester; his father was a goldsmith in Oxford. Mr. Francis Potter knew him very well, and was wont to say that he was a very ingeniose man, and had a very mechanicall head. ”

“ Childs.
"What do you want?" repeated Paulina, like a sweet echo.
Still the girl said nothing. A gust of north wind swept into the room. John's wife shivered, then looked around to see if any one had noticed it.
"You must speak up quick an' tell what you want, so we can shut the door; it's cold," said Mrs. Childs.
The girl's small sharp face was sheathed in an old worsted hood; her eyes glared out of it like a frightened cat's. Suddenly she turned to go. She was evidently abashed by the company.
"Don't you want somethin' to eat?" Mrs. Childs asked, speaking up louder. ”

“ He tells us that Wilkins had his "grammar learning from Mr Sylvester, 'the common drudge of the University,' who kept a private school: that he entered Magdalen Hall from New Inn Hall in 1627 at the age of thirteen, and there was placed under the tutorship of 'the learned Mr John Tombs, the Coryphæus of the Anabaptists.'" Tombs was a man of great ability, notable for his "curious, searching, piercing witt, of whom it was predicted that he would doe a great deale of mischiefe to the Church of England, as great witts have done by introducing new opinions." ”

“ Wilkins, excitedly, interrupting me. “Postlethwaite, you're a genius, and if you ever want a house and lot in Calcutta, just let me know and they're yours.”
You never saw such a change come over a man in all your life. Where he had been all gloom before, he was now all smiles and jollity, and from that time on to his return to India Mr. Wilkins was as happy as a school-boy at the beginning of vacation. The next day the diamond was lost, and whoever may have it at this moment, the British Crown is not in possession of the Jigamaree gem. ”

“ Whether Wilkins' tolerance was of the exalted kind, or alloyed by an admixture of that other tolerance which is no better than indifference and opportunism, it is impossible to say, for we do not know enough about him to pronounce 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 Burnet speak of him with affection and respect: [Pg 131] one note runs through all their eulogies, that he was universally beloved ”

“ This little book is written as an offering to the Members of Wadham College for the Tercentenary of its foundation. The writer makes no pretensions to learning or research: the title of the book would be misleading and ridiculous if taken to imply a profound study of the times of Bishop Wilkins, from his birth in 1614 to his death in 1672, the most important, perhaps, certainly the most interesting, in the history of Great Britain. It has been attempted only to touch on the great questions and events which shaped the life and character of a remarkable man. ”

“ As a loyal son of the College, the writer is prepared to maintain that a Vicar of Bray could not have won love and admiration in his College, his University, and in his Diocese, and in a larger world than these; nor have been "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 preserve consistency, that most negative of virtues. ”

“ Conscious rectitude, I think, was Wilkins's trouble. He was good, and he was aware of it, but he was not content with that. He wanted everybody else to be good. I really believe that Wilkins could have carried on a Platonic love affair with an auburn-haired girl for ten weeks without an effort, he was so terribly good, which did not at all contribute to his popularity. A fellow who talks about ritualism while walking in the moonlight with a sentimental woman, doesn't count for much, and Wilkins was always doing things like that. ”

“ 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 [Pg 91] 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. ”

“ Wilkins was not what one would call an attractive man, and none of the young women of Dumfries Corners who had met him had ever manifested anything but a pronounced aversion to his society.
"I'd rather be a wall-flower than dance with Sam Wilkins," one of these young women had said. "He not only can't dance, but, what is infinitely worse, he doesn't know that he can't dance, and as for his conversation—well, give me silence." ”

“ He edited also a pamphlet of an attractive 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 rank and quality, and of singular worth and eminence in all the learned professions." ”

“ 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 [Pg 78] 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. ”

“ She was as slender as a reed in this marshy country of Virginia, and her voice was a sweet whisper, like the voice of one in a wind, and she had a curious gracefulness of leaning toward one she loved when in his presence, as if, whether she would or no, her heart of affection swayed her body toward him. Always, in thinking of my mother, I see her leaning with that true line of love toward my stepfather or my brother John, her fair hair drooping over her delicate cheeks, her blue eyes wistful with the longing to give more and more for their happiness. ”

“ 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 was associated with the King's Men, and was thus a colleague of Shakespeare. He was chiefly employed in remodelling old plays. He collaborated in 1607 with William Rowley and John Day in The Travailes of the Three English Brothers. In the same year a play was produced which was apparently entirely Wilkins's work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Latitudinarians—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 [Pg 124] 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. ”

“ These also I pocketed as I replied:
"Why, certainly; if I were the Nizam," said I, "I'd lose that diamond."
A shade of disappointment came over Mr. Wilkins's face.
"Lose it? How? Where?" he asked, with a frown.
"Yes. Lose it. Any way I could. As for the place where it should be lost, any old place will do as long as it is where he can find it again when he gets back home. He might leave it in his other clothes, or--"
"Make that two triple magnums, waiter," cried Mr. Wilkins, excitedly, interrupting me. ”

“ The Foundress, so the story runs, chose for her first Warden a clergyman, Dr Robert Wright, whose beaux yeux touched the heart of the lone widow: she loved him, and would fain have married him and reigned with him after the necessary alteration of the Statutes; but he was cold and irresponsive: the obligation of celibacy, save in the case of Warden Wilkins, remained incumbent on a Warden of Wadham till 1806, when it was removed by a special Act of Parliament. Modern criticism respects a love-story no more than it respects the Pentateuch. ”

“ 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 régime 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." ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Alter names and dates, and it will serve as a vindication of Wilkins' deficiency in a "constant mind and settled principles." Therefore the paradox is true that a Trimmer may be a man of firmness and courage; one who is bold enough to make many enemies and few friends; who has convictions of his own, but by a power of sympathy, one of the rarest and highest mental, half moral, half intellectual, qualities, can understand opinions which he does not hold ”

“ London, Printed by I.N. for Richard Thrale, and are to be sold at his Shop at Pauls gate; next to Cheape-side. M.DC.XXXVII. 4to.
INTRODUCTION. George Wilkins, like many other minor poets of his time, has had no memorials concerning him transmitted to us. He wrote no play alone, except that which is here reprinted; but he joined with John Day and William Rowley in "The Travels of the Three English Brothers, Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and Sir Robert Shirley," an historical play, printed in 4to, 1607 [325] . He was also the author of "Three Miseries of Barbary: Plague, Famine, Civill warre." ”