Church, Oxford, for the public benefit of that college, founded five scholarships of ten pounds a year each in Pembroke College, gave upwards of eighteen hundred pounds to the Cathedral of St. Paul, London, and bequeathed a thousand pounds to purchase lands for the augmentation of some small vicarages. This distinguished ornament of our national church, died at Farnham Castle on the 29th of October 1684, in the eightyeighth year of his age, and was buried in his Cathedral of Winchester. In spite of the money left by Bishop Morley to complete the Palace, it was discontinued. Bishop Mew, his successor, finding after the death of Charles II. no prospects of a Court at Winchester, neglected it; but Sir John Trelawney, who succeeded Dr. Mew, in Queen Anne's reign, applied for the money left by Bishop Morley, and completed it.

AMONG Wren's public works this year, was that useful structure, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which owes its foundation to Elias Ashmole, a singular compound of Archaiology, Alchemy, Astrology, Heraldry, and, as much speculative and occult philosophy as procured for him the dubious title of a virtuoso. This singular man offered to bestow upon the University all of the extensive collections in natural history, which had been bequeathed to him by John and William Tradescant, the distinguished naturalists and physic gardeners at South Lambeth, with the additions that he had made to them, if the University would erect a building suitable to their reception. liberal offer was immediately accepted, and the present

This

edifice constructed. He subsequently added to it his books and manuscripts, and thus completed the "Museum Ashmoleanum" in his life-time. The other contributors to this mixed museum of rarities and curiosities of a most miscellaneous nature were numerous; Dr. Plot the naturalist, Messrs. Lloyd, Borlase and Reinhold Forster, were among the earliest followers of Ashmole's good example; the last named traveller presented many curiosities from the South seas. This museum, which may be called the Oxford curiosityshop, also contains the books of Dr. Martin Lister, the eminent physician and naturalist, and the valuable manuscripts of Dugdale, Aubrey and Anthony Wood.

AMONG the public events which signalize the year 1683 are the execution of Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney, the discovery of the Rye House Plot, the reprimand of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Sheriffs of London concerning their charter. This royal correction they received on their knees with due humility, were warned as to their future conduct, and many severe restrictions placed upon them*. Colbert, the distinguished French minister, died this year, to the great loss and regret of France.

IN 1684 Sir Christopher Wren was appointed by letters patent under the great seal Comptroller and chief officer of the works at the Castle of Windsor, and of all the manors, lodges, etc. in the forest thereof, in the room of Hugh May, Esq. deceased. Hugh May, who was one of the Commissioners for the repair

* EVELYN's Diary, June 18, 1683.

of Old St. Paul's, as well as Comptroller of the works at Windsor, was an architect of some repute and of much fashion in his day. He took Palladio for his model, but was far in the rear of that great master, whom he imitated in a coarse and vulgar manner. He was a friend of Evelyn and a patron of Grinling Gibbons, whom he employed to execute some chimney pieces and other sculptures in the Earl of Essex's town mansion in St. James's Square, in conjunction with Verrio, whom Evelyn almost idolized, who painted some of the ceilings. He also designed and built Sir Stephen Fox's house at Chiswick, which Evelyn, a sound architectural critic, complains of as being clumsy, also a large house for the Earl of Berkeley, which was afterwards destroyed by fire, and other works of various descriptions.

THESE additional appointments led Wren to resign the Presidency of the Royal Society, whose meetings he attended less frequently than before. He occasionally presided as Vice-President, and was re-elected of the Council, and one of the Vice-Presidents, at the annual election on St. Andrew's Day.

THE Royal Society, lost at this time, by death, its first royal patron and founder, King Charles II. whose character belongs to history. He was seized with an apoplectic fit* on the 2nd February 1685, when he was bled by Dr. King, who was by accident present, which slightly recovered him. On the 4th he was cupped, bled in both jugulars, physicked and other

* EVELYN's Diary of this date.

powerful remedies applied, which much abated the violence of the attack, that hopes were entertained of his recovery, and a bulletin to that effect was announced in the London Gazette. On Thursday, the 5th, the epileptic symptoms returned, and the King was again physicked and bled, but after many conflicts with a mightier monarch than himself, he surrendered his three crowns to an unworthy successor, at half an hour past eleven in the forenoon of the 6th of February 1685, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth year of his actual reign, reckoning from his restoration, although Evelyn, and other royalists, and the regal tables record it as the thirty-sixth. The religious ceremonies in the royal death chamber are fully detailed in Evelyn's diary of this date, and in the notes to the new edition*, quoted from the authority of King James II. One fact is enough, the dying King joined in the devotions prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Durham, and Ely, but more especially, says Evelyn, Dr. Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells; and after their withdrawal, received the last sacraments of the Romish Church from the hands of Father Huddleston, the Jesuit.

On the day preceding the King's death the Royal Society lost by the same fate their first President, Lord Viscount Brouncker, who died at his house in St. James's Street, on the 5th of April 1684, aged sixtyfour. The Society also had about this time to lament

By WILLIAM BRAY, Esq. F.A.S.

the death of their able and learned coadjutor, Dr. Croune, the founder of the Crouneian Lectures in the University of Cambridge. In this year the Dublin Society, founded on the model of the Royal Society, was established by Sir William Petty, who was then residing in Ireland. The new Society corresponded for many years with its honoured parent in London.

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