Revolution. non-resistance. He took Orders during the Commonwealth, probably receiving them at the hands of the deprived Bishop Sydserf of Galloway; in 1660 he became public orator in the University of Oxford, and was also chaplain to Clarendon. His subsequent preferment included a prebendal stall at Westminster (1663), a canonry of Christ Church (1670), and the rectory of Islip, near Oxford (1678). It is said that James II's behaviour to the chapter of Christ Church disgusted him, and he took the oaths at the Revolution. However, he remained a very independent Tory, and, when William Sherlock, South's after figuring as a nonjuror, came back to his allegi- Toryism ance, South attacked him bitterly. Later on he took after the the part of Sacheverell, and declined Harley's offer of the bishopric of Rochester and deanery of Westminster. He survived the fall of the Tory ministry, and died at Westminster in 1716. He is buried in the Abbey. He was a man of extraordinary learning and, although his politics were freely mingled with his religion, of great piety. His reputation rested, to some extent, upon his humour, and he did not scruple to introduce witty anecdotes and repartees into his sermons. Consequently, he has often been accredited with much of that floating capital of pleasantries which is shared by Sydney Smith and later divines. As a humorist he does not appeal very much to the sense of the present day. But his prose, which is contained in his volumes of sermons, is eloquent, weighty, and rhythmical. He dealt in tropes and learned figures, and had a fancy for quaint phrases, which takes us back to the style of an earlier age. To give him his exact place is difficult: he does not stand so high as Barrow; but his intellect, if not so comprehensive, is of much the same order; and to depreciate him in such a comparison is to undervalue an interesting style, and to pay an insufficient tribute to his learning. and wit: His learning their influence on his style. § 9. One of the divines with whom South fell out in his lifetime was EDWARD STILLINGFLEET, called, from his personal beauty and piety, "the beauty of holiness." He was EDWARD born at Cranborne, on the borders of Dorset and STILLINGHampshire, and, after passing through the schools of FLEET (1635-1699). Cranborne and the neighbouring town of Ringwood, he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was elected, in 1653, to a fellowship. Like Tillotson, he left Cambridge to become a private tutor : he took orders from the deprived Bishop Brownrig of Exeter, and was presented in 1657 to the living of Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire. Later on he became preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and, in 1665, rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn. In 1667 he became a prebendary of St. Paul's, and, in 1678, dean. In 1689 he was appointed Bishop of Worcester, and was succeeded at St. Paul's by Tillotson. When Tillotson died in 1694, Stillingfleet was the popular favourite for the primacy, but was passed Ephemeral value of his work. over in favour of Tenison. He died at Westminster, and is buried in Worcester cathedral. He wrote excellent, cool-headed English, and enjoyed a prodigious reputation as a writer, which his Origines Sacræ (1662) maintains. Most of his books, however, are purely controversial, directed against heretics and nonjurors, and their interest and value are, on the whole, ephemeral. He wrote for his age, and not for all time. His chief controversy was with Locke, and began in a dispute over a book (1696) by the deist Toland, which was not likely to make any lasting impression on the age. This led to an attack upon Locke's rationalism, to which Locke replied, and, being perhaps the more acute reasoner of the two, as well as being in touch with public opinion, was considered to have the better of the argument. There is a legend to the effect that Stillingfleet died of mortification at this defeat. THOMAS THOMAS SPRAT was an eminently common-sense prelate. He was born at Beaminster in Dorset, and went to Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1657. His first love was poetry, and, at Cromwell's death, SPRAT he wrote an ode in the Cowleio-Pindaric manner, (1635-1713). which was published in the same volume with Dryden's well-known stanzas. Although he took Orders at the Restoration he never devoted himself to theological writing, save in the matter of sermons. He is said to have had a hand in The Rehearsal-he was chaplain to its chief author, the Duke of Buckingham. But his principal service to literature was his History of the Royal Society (1667). Like so many other churchmen of the period, he had actively co-operated in the founding of that body, and had himself been first and foremost in the advocacy of scientific study. His other works include his Life of Cowley (1668) and his History of the Rye House Plot (1685). He was one of Charles II's chaplains (1676); was given a canonry at Westminster in 1669, another at Windsor in 1681, and was consecrated Bishop of Rochester in 1684. He ruled his see wisely-if we may judge by his charges for more than twenty-eight years, and died at Rochester in 1713. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Sprat had very definite views upon the matter of style, Sprat's views which he pronounced very clearly in his book on the Royal Society; and certainly if anyone attained to what he calls a close, naked, natural way of speaking," or succeeded in reducing style to "a mathematical plainness," it was himself. By totally avoiding quips and fancies he tutored his prose to a level regularity; and, combining with this terseness a certain vigour, he produced work whose quality is really very high, and has an individual interest of its own. In later years he received praise from Johnson, and, in more recent times, from Macaulay. upon style. It would be a great mistake to omit from this array of KEN prelates the name of THOMAS KEN, although he shone as a bishop rather than as a writer. He was the son of a London lawyer, and was born at one or other of the Hertfordshire Berkhampsteads; but, his parents dying,.THOMAS he probably lived for some ume in the house of his brother-in-law, the famous Izaak Walton. He was a scholar of Winchester, and proceeded, in 1656, to Hart Hall, Oxford, until a vacancy at New College occurred. In 1661 he took his degree, and became tutor of his college, taking Holy Orders soon afterwards. He held numerous preferments between 1663 and 1679, when he went for a year to the Hague as chaplain to Princess Mary; but returned to his old home at Winchester, and was made a royal chaplain. He was chaplain to the fleet on Lord Dartmouth's expedition to Tangier. Charles II had marked him out for favour, owing to his refusal to lodge Nell Gwyn in his house at Winchester, the firm consistency of which had appealed to the king's better nature; and consequently, when the see of Bath and Wells fell vacant, Charles insisted on Ken's preferment to it. He was consecrated in 1685, and attended Charles on his deathbed not long afterwards. He also attended Monmouth on the scaffold after Sedgemoor. He was one of the seven bishops who were imprisoned in 1687 for their opposition to James II; but he refused to take the oaths at the Revolution, and was deprived in 1691. For the last twenty years of his life he lived, for the most part, at Lord Weymouth's house of Longleat, where he died in 1711, and was buried beneath the eastern wall of St. John's church at Frome Selwood. His piety and saintly life were the example of his age; but he produced very little that is really worth reading. But, if hymn-writing His hymns. is a department of literature, the hymns which he wrote for the scholars at Winchester are among the noblest in the language, and are familiar to all who have never heard of his prose, or even of himself. It is characteristic of Ken's earnest devotion that he applied his work to the immediate spiritual needs of those with whom he was most nearly in touch. His Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Winchester Scholars (1694) connects him with that city and school with which his life was so closely bound up, and his Prayers for the Use of all resorting to the Baths at Bath (1692) show the interest which he took in the chief town of his diocese. SHERLOCK South's controversy with WILLIAM SHERLOCK has already been mentioned. Sherlock was born in Southwark, was an Etonian, and went to Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1669 he became rector of St. George's, Botolph WILLIAM Lane, and took an active part in controversy. His (1641?-1707). opposition to the faction obnoxious to the Duke of York procured him the mastership of the Temple, but, under James II, he was not so happy. At the Revolution he refused the oaths, was deprived, and in his retirement, wrote his famous The Royal Society and the advance in physical Practical Discourse concerning Death (1689). However, he turned his coat not long after, took the oaths of allegiance and abjuration, and accepted the deanery of St. Paul's, which Tillotson had just left for Canterbury. This stirred up strong feeling against him, and his publication, rather earlier, of a Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity (1690) against the Socinians, brought South about his ears. He lived through it all, however, and died in 1707. He had resigned his mastership of the Temple in 1704, in favour of his eldest son, who became even more famous than his father, and enjoyed still greater preferment. Whether the Discourse concerning Death is really a valuable work must be left to the judgment of the individual reader; but it is not by any means a work of genius. Of the group of authors of which we have just spoken, Sherlock is certainly the dullest and the least characteristic; but, as a controversialist, he handled his weapons boldly, if not skilfully. § 10. The connection of so many of these theologians with the Royal Society reminds us that, although the subject is not directly literary, we are nevertheless bound to take account of that tremendous and universal progress in natural science and physical research, which, with its positive theories, had to do as much as anything with the direction of contemporary thought and style. Moreover, although most of the scientific works of the day were composed in Latin, the universal medium of learned thought, many of our great scientists fortunately chose to write in their own tongue, or at least condescended to publish English versions of their discoveries, and may thus be added to the category of English authors. There are few more surprising episodes in the history of human knowledge than this outbreak of practical philosophy, and its advance towards the end of the seventeenth century. These phenomena were visible in Germany, in Holland, in France, and in England, and nowhere more than in the last country. It was only natural that the lively effect of Bacon's writings and methods should be peculiarly evident among his fellow-countrymen. The seventeenth century in England saw the rapid development of free institutions and open discussion, and from these, at its close, sprang, there is little doubt, a passion for unfettered research, a spirit of enquiry, and an open freedom of expression in doubtful cases of opinion. science. A very prominent part in the cultivation and the spread of experimental research, in all branches of physics and natural history, was played by the Royal Society, which, meeting at first as a desultory club in the houses of a few learned and ingenious men, was incorporated in 1662 by Charles II. Since then the debt of the world to its illustrious labours has been immeasurable. Among the founders of this corporation none was more active than JOHN WILKINS, Bishop of Chester, who was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, for rather less than a year (1659-60), having been previously warden of Wadham. Wilkins was a most energetic and ingenious man, who, with the signal services that, by his writing and conversa- JOHN WILKINS tion, were rendered to the cause of science, com- (1614-1672). bined a vivacious and almost extravagant love for inventions. He was essentially a projector, and, at a period when the first wonderful results of the experimental methods had helped to destroy the balance of the calmest minds and to obscure the distinction between the practical and the visionary, we can hardly wonder that his ardour should have carried him beyond the bounds of common-sense, and should have led him to propose seriously, among other Utopian schemes, a plan by which it would be possible to fly to the moon. Wilkins was a theological writer and preacher of high reputation, but his name is now chiefly associated with his projects and inventions, and in particular with the prominent part he took in the foundation of the Royal Society. He married the sister of Oliver Cromwell, and his stepdaughter was married to Tillotson. His chief works are the treatise called The Discovery of a World in the Moon (1638), which contains, appended to its third edition (1640), the chimerical plan we have already mentioned; and An Essay towards a real Character and a Philosophical Language, printed by order of the Royal Society in 1668. scientists: WILLIAM after the § 11. Even before the Royal Society, the progress of physical science had been very rapid. WILLIAM GILBERT had laid (1600) the foundations of magnetic research; WILLIAM HARVEY had made the immortal discovery of Earlier the circulation of the blood (1628). But to the WILLIAM institution of a great scientific corporation, with a GILBERT kind of central authority, is due the concentration (1540-1603): of the labours of several investigators upon one HARVEY special form of research. We may mention the con- (1578-1657). temporary, or nearly contemporary work of Newton Men of in optics, astronomy, and celestial mechanics; of science Flamsteed, Halley, and others, in the combined Restoration. departments of careful observation and the application of convenient mathematical formulas to the practical solution of problems in astronomy and navigation; of Boyle, in chemical and pneumatic science; of Ray, Derham, Willoughby, and Sydenham in physiology, natural history, and medicine. Most of these great men, independently of their scientific writings, most of which, like Newton's Principia, were, as we have said, in Latin, contributed in a greater or less proportion to the vernacular literature of their own country. Thus Newton left writings in English upon the prophecies and other subjects of a biblical nature, while Boyle enjoyed a high reputation for his moral and religious writings. And it is at once remarkable and pleasant to see the unanimous consent with which these |