forming the offence, it will exasperate the offender, and lay the reprover justly open to reproof.

If a person be passionate, and give you ill language, rather pity him than be moved to anger. You will find that silence, or very gentle words, are the most exquisite revenge for reproaches; they will either cure the distemper in the angry man, and make him sorry for his passion, or they will be a severe reproof and punishment to him. But, at any rate, they will preserve your innocence, give you the deserved reputation of wisdom and moderation, and keep up the serenity and composure of your mind. Passion and anger make a man unfit for every thing that becomes him as a man or as a Christian.

Never utter any profane speeches, nor make a jest of any Scripture expressions. When you pronounce the name of God or Christ, or repeat any passages or words of Holy Scripture, do it with reverence and seriousness, and not lightly, for that is taking the name of God in vain.'

If you hear of any unseemly expressions used in religious exercises, do not publish them; endeavour to forget them; or, if you mention them at all, let it be with pity and sorrow, not with derision or reproach.

Read these directions often; think of them seriously; and practice them diligently. You will find them useful in your conversation; which will be every day the more evident to you, as your judgment, understanding, and experience increase.

I have little further to add at this time, but my wish and command that you will remember the former counsels that I have frequently given you. Begin and end the day with private prayer; read the Scriptures often and seriously; be attentive to the public worship of God. Keep yourselves in some useful employment; for idleness is the nursery of vain and sinful thoughts, which corrupt the mind, and disorder the life. Be kind and loving to one another. Honour your minister. Be not bitter nor harsh to my servants. Be respectful to all. Bear my absence patiently and cheerfully. Behave as if I were present among you and saw you. Remember you have a greater Father than I am, who always, and in all places, beholds you, and knows your hearts and thoughts. Study to requite my love and care for you with dutifulness, observance, and obedience; and account it an honour that you have an opportunity by your attention, faithfulness, and industry, to pay some part of that debt which, by the laws of nature and of gratitude, you owe me. Be frugal in my family, but let there be no want; and provide conveniently for the poor.

I pray God to fill your hearts with his grace, fear, and love, and to let you see the comfort and advantage of serving him; and that his blessing and presence, and direction, may be with you, and over you all. I am your ever loving father.

JAMES HARRINGTON, descended from an ancient and noble family of Rutlandshire, was born at Upton, in Northamptonshire, on the first Friday in January, 1611. He was admitted, in 1629, into Trinity College, Oxford, and had the happiness to be placed under the tuition of the celebrated Chillingworth, who had recently been elected fellow of that college. He afterwards went abroad for several years, passing the principal part of his time at the courts of Holland and Denmark. While residing at the Hague, and subsequently at Venice, he imbibed many of those republican views which afterward distinguished his writings. Visiting Rome, he attracted very considerable attention by refusing to kiss the Pope's toe-conduct which he afterward adroitly justified to the King of England, by saying that, 'having had the honor of kissing his majesty's hand, he thought it beneath him to kiss the toe of any other monarch.'

During the civil war, Harrington was appointed by the parliamentary commissioners one of the personal attendants of King Charles, who, in 1647, nominated him one of the grooms of his bed-chamber. The king was fond of conversing with him on every other subject but politics; and the impression made on him by the royal condescension and familiarity, was such as to render him very desirous that a reconciliation between his majesty and the parliament might be effected, and to excite in him the most violent grief when the king was brought to the scaffold. He has, nevertheless, in his writings, placed Charles in an unfavorable light, and spoken of his execution as the consequence of a divine judgment. During the early part of Cromwell's administration, Harrington was occupied in composing his Oceana, which was published in 1656, and dedicated to the Protector. The work is a political romance, illustrating the author's ideas of a republic so constituted as to secure that general freedom of which he was so ardent an admirer. Hume characterizes it as 'well adapted to that age, when the plans of imaginary republics were the daily subjects of debate and conversation; and even in our time, it is justly admired as a work of genius and invention. The style of this author wants ease and fluency, but the good matter which his work contains makes compensation.'

After the publication of the 'Oceana,' Harrington continued to exert himself in diffusing his republican sentiments, by founding a debating club, called the Rota, and holding conversations with visitors at his own house. This brought the suspicions of the restored government upon him, and on pretence of treasonable practices, he was put into confinement, and there kept, until an attack of mental derangement made it necessary that he should be delivered to his friends. His death occurred at Westminster, on the eleventh of September, 1677; and he was there buried in St. Margaret's Church, on the south side of the altar, next to the grave of Sir Walter Raleigh.

Besides his 'Oceana,' which is his great work, Harrington was the author of various other productions, both in prose and verse; but after a careful examination, we have been unable to find a single passage adapted to our purpose.

Lecture the Chirtieth.

JOHN WILKINS-JOHN PEARSON-HENRY MORE-RICHARD BAXTER-JOHN OWEN

RALPH CUDWORTH - SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE -ELIAS ASHMOLE-WALTER

CHARLETON-JOHN EVELYN.

TH

HE formation of the Royal Society of England is one of the most prominent events in the history of science and literature in that country; and as Dr. Wilkins, whom we are next to notice, may be regarded as one of the few scholars with whom the idea of such an association originated, we shall here introduce Dr. Sprat's account of the circumstances out of which it arose.

'It was some space after the end of the civil wars, at Oxford, in Dr. Wilkins his lodgings, in Wadham College, which was then the place of resort for virtuous and learned men, that the first meetings were made, which laid the foundation of all this that followed. The university had, at that time, many members of its own, who had begun a free way of reasoning; and was also frequented by some gentlemen of philosophical minds whom the misfortunes of the kingdom, and the security and ease of a retirement amongst grown men, had drawn thither. Their first purpose was no more

age.

than only the satisfaction of breathing a freer air, and of conversing in quiet with one another, without being engaged in the passions and madness of that dismal ** For such a candid and unpassionate company as that was, and for such a gloomy season, what could have been a fitter subject to pitch upon than natural philosophy? To have been always tossing about some theological question, would have been to have made that their private diversion, the excess of which they themselves disliked in the public: to have been eternally musing on civil business, and the distresses of their country, was too melancholy a reflection: it was nature alone which could pleasantly entertain them in that estate. The contemplation of that draws our minds off from the past or present misfortunes, and makes them conquerors over things in the greatest public unhappiness: while the consideration of men, and human affairs, may affect us with a thousand disquiets that never separate us into mortal factions; that gives us room to differ without animosity,

and permits us to raise contrary imaginations upon it, without any danger of a civil war.'

JOHN WILKINS, the son of a goldsmith of Oxford, was born at Fawlsey, Northamptonshire, in 1614. He was taught Latin and Greek at a private school, conducted by Edward Sylvester, an eminent instructor of that period; and such was his proficiency that, in 1627, at thirteen years of age, he entered a student of New Inn college, Cambridge. He soon after removed to Magdalen Hall, where he remained till he had taken his master's degree, and then entered into orders. He commenced his career as a clergyman by becoming chaplain, first to Lord Say, and afterward to Charles, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and Prince Elector of the Empire, with whom he remained for some years.

When the civil war broke out Wilkins joined the parliamentary party, and took the oath of the solemn league and covenant. In April, 1648, he was made warden of Wadham College, and on the following day created bachelor of divinity. The degree of doctor of divinity was conferred upon him in the following year; and in 1656 he married a widow lady, the sister of Oliver Cromwell, in consequence of which he forfeited the wardenship of the college, the statutes of which prohibited the marriages of such officers. He, however, obtained a dispensation from the Protector, and thus retained his office. In 1659, he was placed at the head of Trinity College, Cambridge, by Richard Cromwell; but upon the Restoration of Charles the Second, in the following year, he was ejected from his college, and became preacher of the honorable society of Gray's Inn, and rector of St. Lawrence, London. He soon after became dean of Rippon, and, in 1668, was raised, chiefly through the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, to the see of Chester. He did not, however, long survive this last preferment, but died soon after at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Tillotson, in Chancery Lane, London, on the nineteenth of November, 1672.

Bishop Wilkins, says Bishop Burnet, 'was a man of as great mind, as true judgment, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul, as any I ever knew. Though he married Cromwell's sister, yet he made no other use of that alliance but to do good offices, and to recover the university of Oxford from the sourness of Owen and Goodwin. At Cambridge, he joined with those who studied to propagate better thoughts, to take men off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, from superstitious conceits and fierceness about opinions. He was also a great observer and promoter of experimental philosophy, which was then a new thing, and much looked after. He was naturally ambitious; but was the wisest clergyman I ever knew. He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in good.' Bishop Wilkins, like his friend and son-in-law, Tillotson, and the other moderate churchmen of the day, was an object of violent censure to the high-church party; but fortunately he possessed, as Burnet farther remarks, a courage which could stand against a current, and against all the reproaches with which ill-natured clergymen studied to load him.'

The works of Bishop Wilkins were numerous, ingenious, and learned. His first publication, and perhaps his most ingenious performance, appeared in 1638, and is entitled, The Discovery of a New World: or a Discourse tending to prove that it is probable there may be another Habitable World in the Moon; with a Discourse concerning the Probability of a Passage thither. In this ingenious but fantastical treatise, he supports the proposition, That it is possible for some of our posterity to find out a conveyance to this other world, and if there be inhabitants there, to have commerce with them. Besides this singular work, Wilkins published several other essays of a similar nature; such as, A Discourse concerning a New Planet, Mercury, or, The Secret and Swift Messenger, and Mathematical Magic; or, The Wonders that may be performed by Mechanical Geometry. Of his theological works, the first that made its appearance was Ecclesiastes: or, A Discourse of the Gift of Preaching, as it falls under the Rules of Art. The design of this publication was to reform the prevailing cant of the times, which, to every clergyman of well-regulated taste, was extremely offensive. His next publication was A Discourse concerning the Beauty of Providence, in all the Rugged Passages of it; and this was soon followed by A Discourse concerning the Gift of Prayer, showing what it is, wherein it consists, and how far it is attainable by industry. After the death of Bishop Wilkins, Dr. Tillotson published two volumes that the bishop had left unfinished; the first of which was, Sermons preached on Several Occasions, and the other, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion. We shall conclude our notice of this interesting writer with the following brief extract from his earliest production:

HOW A MAN MAY FLY TO THE MOON.

If it be here inquired, what means there may be conjectured for our ascending beyond the sphere of the earth's magnetical vigour, I answer, 1. It is not perhaps impossible that a man may be able to fly, by the application of wings to his own body; as angels are pictured, as Mercury and Dædalus are feigned, and as hath been attempted by divers, particularly by a Turk in Constantinople, as Busbequius relates. 2. If there be such a great ruck in Madagascar as Marcus Polus, the Venetian, mentions, the feathers in whose wings are twelve feet long, which can soop up a horse and his rider, or an elephant, as our kites do a mouse; why, then, it is but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may ride up thither, as Ganymede does upon an eagle.

Or if neither of these ways will serve, yet I do seriously, and upon good grounds, affirm it possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such a motion unto it, as shall convey him through the air. And this, perhaps, might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum, and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of any thing in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat.

This engine may be contrived from the same principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove, and Regio-montanus a wooden eagle.

I conceive it were no difficult matter (if a man had leisure), to show more particularly the means of composing it.