20 



MEMORIALS OF RAY 



it, I find they were not well pleased with it, thinking it 

 imperfect and capable of great amendments, which they 



terbury (Sheldon), who subsequently, after he knew him personally, declared 

 that the prejudice which he had entertained against him was unjust. WHkins 

 died November 19th, 1672, of a suppression of urine, which was mistaken 

 for stone, and mistreated. He was at the time of his death at Tillotson's 

 house in Chancery Lane, London, and he was buried in the church of 

 St. Lawrence, Jewry. TiUotson was appointed executor to his wiU, wMch 

 gave 400/. to the Royal Society, and 200/. to Wadham CoUege. In Bliss's 

 edition of the 'Athenae Oxonienses' are notices of a few other ecclesiastical 

 preferments of Wilkins, not mentioned above. 



Some of Wilkins' s works are exceedingly curious, although, as might be 

 expected from the state of science in liis day, they contain much that is 

 cliimerical and absurd. The principal are the following : 1, ' Discovery of a 

 New World ; or a discourse tending to prove that it is probable that there 

 may be another habitable world in the Moon ; with a discourse concerning the 

 possibility of a passage thither.' This work, which appeared in 1638, and 

 was several times re-printed, excited much ridicule, although but few of the 

 fourteen propositions which the author endeavours to establish would be 

 questioned by modern astronomers and philosophers ; the last, that it is pos- 

 sible for some of our posterity to find out a conveyance to the other world 

 which he supposes to exist in the moon, And if there be inhabitants there, to 

 have commerce with them, is perhaps the only one that could be seriously 

 opposed or called in question. WHkins however endeavours to prove that 

 the construction of a flying-machine of sufiicient capacity for such a voyage 

 is by no means the cliimerical absurdity which most, even in the present 

 day, would consider it. 2, ' Discourse concerning a new Planet, tending to 

 prove that it is probable our Earth is one of the Planets,' pubhshed in 1640. 

 These two works appeared anonymously but were well known to be by 

 Wilkins. 3, 'Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger; showing how a 

 man may with privacy and speed communicate his Thoughts to a Priend at 

 any distance.' This curious volume contains notices of a great number of 

 schemes for telegraphic communication, writing by cipher or in sympathetic 

 inks, and other means of secret or rapid communication. One chapter, the 

 eighteenth, is devoted to suggestions for ' a language that may consist only 

 of tunes and musical notes, without any articulate sound.' 4, ' Mathematical 

 Magic, or the Wonders that may be performed by Mechanical Geometry,' a 

 singular work, the object of which is tolerably denned by its title, pubhshed 

 in 1648. 5, In 1668 appeared, in one folio volume, printed by order of the 

 Royal Society, an ' Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical 

 Language,' a work founded upon or suggested by a treatise pubhshed a few 

 years previously by George Dalgarno. To this is appended an ' Alphabetical 

 Dictionary, wherein all English words, according to their various significa- 

 tions, are either referred to their places in the Pliilosopliical Tables (in 

 the Essay) or explained by such words as are in those tables.' The first 

 four of the preceding works were reprinted in 1708, and again in 1802, in a 

 collected form, together with an abstract of the 'Essay towards a Real 

 Character.' WHldns also pubhshed several theological works, of which 

 ' Ecclesiastes, or a Discourse of the Gift of Preaching as it faUs under the 

 Rules of Art,' passed through several editions, the first having aj)peared in 

 1646. His 'Discourse concerning the Beauty of Providence, in aU the 

 Rugged Passages of it,' first pubhshed in 1649, and ' Discourse concerning 



