BY DR. DERHAM. 



19 



and Mr. Ray, who were the best able of any men hving 

 for such an undertaking ; but yet, when they had done 



chief recommendation for the last-mentioned appointment, which gave him 

 much opportunity for prosecuting his favorite studies. During this time he 

 wrote several small treatises on mechanical philosophy. His early education 

 had given him a strong bias towards puritanical principles, and accordingly 

 on the breaking out of the civil war he took part with the parliament and 

 Presbyterians, and became a party to the " solemn league and covenant." 

 Academical studies at the universities being much interrupted by the dis- 

 turbances of that period, Wilkins assiduously promoted those meetings in 

 London which eventually led to the formation of the Royal Society. Accord- 

 ing to Bishop Sprat and Dr. WaUis, indeed, he was the principal promoter 

 of the meetings referred to, at wliich political and theological discussions 

 were strictly avoided, while every branch of natural philosophy was made a 

 subject of inquiry. In 1648 he was selected by a committee appointed for 

 the reformation of the university of Oxford to fill the office of warden of 

 Wadham CoUege, and on the 13th of April, having taken the degree of B.D. 

 on the preceding day, he was put in possession of the wardenship, which was 

 rendered vacant by the ejection of the loyalist warden, Mr. John Pitt. On 

 the 18th of December, 1649, he became D.D., and about the same time he 

 took the required engagement of fidelity to the new commonwealth. Being 

 unable after his removal from London to attend the philosophical meetings, 

 he took part in the estabhshment of an association of similar character at 

 Oxford, and from the year 1752, prior to which the society had met at the 

 lodgings of Dr. Petty, to the end of liis wardenship, the meetings were held 

 in Wadham CoUege. In or about the year 1656 Wilkins married Eobina, 

 widow of Peter Prench, and sister of Oliver CromweU, from whom he ob- 

 tamed a dispensation for retaining his office, notwithstanding the rules of 

 the coUege, which imposed cehbacy on the warden. Burnet states, in his 

 ' History of his Own Time,' that he made no other use of this alliance " but 

 to do good offices, and to cover the University of Oxford from the sourness 

 of Owen and Goodwin." In the early part of the year 1659, after the death 

 of Oliver, Richard CromweU appointed WUkins master of Trinity CoUege, 

 Cambridge, and there also he exerted himself to increase a taste for experi- 

 mental pMosophy, as weU as to substitute a spirit of universal benevolence 

 for narrow party feelings. At the restoration, in the foUowing year, he was 

 ejected from his mastership, and for some time he remained out of favour, 

 both at court and with the Archbishop of Canterbury, on account of his 

 marriage. WhUe his fortunes were at this low ebb, WUkms was chosen 

 preacher to the Society of Gray's Inn; and being thus again brought to 

 reside in London, he entered with ardour into the proceedings of the philo- 

 sophical association with which he had formerly been connected, and which 

 now assumed a more organized form. In 1662 he was presented to the 

 rectory of St. Lawrence, Jewry, in the gift of the crown, and on the forma- 

 tion of the Royal Society, in the foUowing year, he became one of the 

 council. Having obtained favour at court, he was soon promoted to the 

 deanery of Ripon, and in 1668 to the bishopric of Chester, to which he was 

 consecrated on the 15th of November : Dr. TiUotson, who had married his 

 step-daughter, preached his consecration sermon. It is related that he ob- 

 tained this bishopric through the interest of the Duke of Buckingham ; and 

 Walter Pope, in his Life of Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, says that he 

 had it not only without, but against the consent of the Archbishop of Can- 



