[178] Wilkins was an eminent mathematician, and one of the first members of the Royal Society. But his reputation as a humourist was his chief recommendation to Buckingham. His character in many respects resembled that of Swift. One of his witticisms is worth recording. After the first appearance of his well-known Voyage to the Moon [“Discovery of a New World, with a Discourse concerning the Possibility of a Voyage thither”], the eccentric Duchess of Newcastle jestingly remarked to him that the only defect in his account was that it omitted to tell where the voyagers would find lodging and accommodation by the way. “That need present no difficulty to your Grace,” said Wilkins; “you have built so many castles in the air that you cannot be at any loss for accommodation on the journey.”
[179] He published the “Pantheisticon,” the most profane of all his works, under this pseudonym. I regret to see that an elaborate attempt to recall this long-forgotten book into notice, is made by Dr. Hermann Hettner, in his “Geschichte der Englischen Literatur von 1660 bis 1770,” the first volume of which has just been published at Leipsic (1856). Dr. Hettner has even been at the pains to translate largely from its worst profanities.
[180] Disraeli’s Miscellanies, p. 110.
[181] Among the crowd of bubble companies which arose about the time of the Revolution, was the “Royal Academies Company,” which professed to have engaged the best masters in every department of knowledge, and issued 20,000 tickets at twenty shillings each. The fortunate holders were to be taught at the charge of the company! Among the subjects of instruction languages held a high place; and the scheme of education comprised Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Spanish! See Macaulay’s History of England, IV., 307.
[182] Disraeli has a curious chapter on Henley, Miscellanies, pp. 73-8.
[183] A plan for the promotion of Oriental studies, under the patronage of the Company, formed one of the many magnificent schemes of Warren Hastings, himself no mean linguist. Hastings consulted Johnson on the subject; and it is observed as an evidence of his extraordinary coolness and self-possession, that his letter, acknowledging Johnson’s present of Sir W. Jones’s Persian Grammar, was written in the midst of the excitement of one of the most eventful days in his chequered life. See Croker’s Boswell’s Life of Johnson. VIII., 38-42, and Macaulay’s Essays, p. 593.
[184] Even during an attack of ophthalmia he did not relax in his application to study, but used to get some of his schoolfellows to read for him while he was himself disabled from reading.
[185] Lord Teignmouth’s Life of Sir William Jones, II., 168.
[186] II., 168.
[187] He displayed great disinterestedness in the public service by voluntarily relinquishing, several years before his death, (1836) a large pension which he held under the crown.