."

The passage is inaccurate both in grammar and in facts, but it is
valuable as evidence of the venomous party spirit prevalent in the
seventeenth century,--a spirit to which we can easily rise superior, we
whose station, property, life, do not depend on the triumph of this or
that opinion. In Oxford at least we do not now say such things about
each other. But in another place Wood takes a less unfavourable view of
Wilkins' character, and uses about him the politest language at his
command. "He was a person of rare gifts, a noted theologist and
preacher; a curious critick in several matters; an excellent
mathematician and experimentalist, &c.; and I cannot say that there was
anything deficient in him but a constant mind and settled principles."

This is an outline of the facts and opinions about Wilkins which have
come down to us. What are we to think of him?

Unquestionably there lies against a man who prospered under Cromwell and
Charles II., and was a favourite of both, a presumption of excessive
pliancy, of too much readiness to adapt himself to his environment, of
time-serving, if you like, and insincerity. It cannot be proved that he
was not a Vicar of Bray, the title which at once suggests itself.
Tolerance, geniality, and charity are virtues which have their own
defects, and some measure of austerity is one of the ingredients of a
perfect character. It has been said of Wilkins that two principles
determined his career: a large tolerance of actions and opinions; a
readiness to submit himself to "the powers that be," let them have been
established if they might. These are the marks of a wise man, and of a
man supremely useful in times of bitter hatred and uncompromising
revenge: they are not the marks of a hero or a martyr.

Wilkins was in fact a Trimmer. It may be said of him what has been said
by Mr Herbert Paul of a more famous Trimmer, Lord Halifax (not our Lord
Halifax), that "he was thoroughly imbued with the English spirit of
compromise, that he had a remarkable power of understanding, even
sympathetically understanding, opinions which he did not hold." Wilkins
hated persecution, and that hatred nerves a Trimmer to defend unpopular
persons and unpopular causes, as he did in his College and University
and Diocese. Toleration has a courage of its own equal to that of
fanaticism, and more useful and intelligent. It is now an easier and a
safer virtue than it was two hundred and fifty years ago: it is not