the place.

His College flourished under his wise and kindly rule. Dr Pope tells us
that "many country gentlemen, of all persuasions, but especially those
then called Cavaliers and Malignants for adhering to the King and to the
Church, sent their sons to his College to be under his government. The
affluence of gentlemen was so great that I may fairly say of Wadham
College that it was never before in so flourishing a condition." The
"affluence of gentlemen" of all sorts, Fellow Commoners, Commoners,
Servitors, and migrants from Cambridge, was, in 1649, fifteen; in 1650,
fifty-one; in 1651, twenty-four; in 1652, forty. In the ten complete
years of Wilkins' Wardenship the average of admissions was thirty. The
large admission made in 1650 was due to the reputation of Wilkins as an
able and tolerant College Head, as well as to the belief that the tumult
of war had died away. Men's thoughts were turning to civil affairs and
the ordinary business of life, especially to education, the preparation
for it.

In the registers of the period between 1648 and 1659, are found many
names either of distinction in themselves, or of interest as showing
that the connection of Wadham with the western counties was well
maintained. Walter Pope, who has been already mentioned, was appointed
Scholar by the Visitors in 1648, perhaps on the suggestion of the new
Warden, his half-brother. He filled many offices in the College, was one
of the original Fellows of the Royal Society, and became Professor of
Astronomy in Gresham College. He deserves to be remembered as the author
of a quaint and interesting little book, in which he gives a brief
account of Wilkins, Lawrence Rooke, and Isaac Barrow, as well as a
complete life of Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury. It is full of
digressions on the manners and customs of the time, written with much
humour, and is worthy of a humble place beside the diaries of Evelyn and
Pepys.

Seth Ward was a Scholar of Sidney Sussex, ejected from his College and
from Cambridge because "he refused the Covenant and other oaths." He
went to London, and, like Wren and Wallis, studied mathematics under
William Oughtred, the author of the 'Clavis Mathematica,'--"a little
book, but a great one as to the contents,"--which brought its author a
great name, as well it might. When in London Ward met Wilkins and
formed a lifelong friendship with him. They were both men of learning,
moderate, dexterous, and successful. Ward entered Wa