WILKINS, John (1614–1672)

An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language

London: Samuel Gellibrand, John Martyn, 1668

Folio, large paper copy; 374 x 242mm (page height 366mm); pp: [2] blank/order, [2] t.p./blank, [16], 1-454; + 79 leaves of Dictionary, unpaginated (158 pages); Illustrations: folding plates before pp. 167, 187, and two folding plates before p. 443.

Collation: π2 a-d2 B-Z4 Aa-Zz4 Aaa-Mmm4 aaa4 Aaa-Tttt4

Full speckled calf, later polished calf spine with raised bands, double fillet ruled gilt compartments, crimson label with gilt lettering, margins sprinkled red. Text block in exceptional condition; clean, unmarked and amost untouched throughout; very slight mis-folding to the larger folding plates but again much better than usual; binding generally good but the front hinge weak and the leather cracked; spine worn; covers scuffed and edges bumped

[together with:]

WILKINS, John (1614–1672); (?) PASCHALL, Andrew (1631?–1696)

A set of copperplate printed tables, one of which titled ‘A Summary of Directions, both for the CHARACTER and LANGVAGE’

Loose sheets, all but one mounted on heavy paper; plate-marks approx. 220 x 255 each; the first sheet somewhat damaged with minor loss, also poorly printed (double-struck and faint)

[together with:]

PLOT, Robert (bap. 1640, d. 1696)

Manuscript with the docket title ‘Dr. Plots table of Earths’

Single sheet, folded once, with older flattened folds; slightly irregular but 220 x 382 at its tallest; three circles and crown watermark; very good condition

Essay

A fine large-paper copy of John Wilkins’ famous Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, which offers a universal classification system, linked to a new language and notation (‘character’):

Calls for a universal language had increased as a result of the flourishing of vernacular literature and an increasing dissatisfaction with Latin, partly with regard to the difficulty of learning it, but also with regard to its ambiguities and complexities. The vocabulary of this new language was to be built up by systematic modifications of the basic generic terms that were deemed to cover all the major categories of existence. A knowledge of the system would enable the reader, or listener, not just to recognize the signification of a word but also to understand how the referent fitted into the entire scheme of things. This is what made Wilkins’s artificial language ‘philosophical’, not just universal in the sense that a unanimously agreed upon lingua franca would be. (DNB)

Large-paper copies of the Essay are very rare, with only six auction records, and none since 1986 (Rare Book Hub). In addition, the present copy has impeccable provenance, and two exceptional archival items loosely laid in: an early manuscript of Robert Plot’s 1683 mineralogical ‘Table of Earths’, and a group of copperplate printed tables summarizing the Essay.

Wilkins was Bishop of Chester, and was a founder member of the Royal Society. He studied at New Inn Hall and then Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and became Warden of Wadham College. During the interregnum Wilkins was at the centre of the Oxford Philosophical Club, a precursor of the Royal Society, and the immediate ancestor of the Oxford Philosophical Society. His interests ranged widely, and he was an important writer on natural theology. The Essay is his most celebrated work, and its project, of a universal language, was one of the major early concerns of the Royal Society.

The present copy comes from the famous Macclesfield Library, amassed at Shirburn Castle by successive Earls of Macclesfield through the eighteenth century. Although post-dating the foundation of the Royal Society, the collection has very close links to its early members, as most of the early works are thought to have come from the working collection of John Collins (1625–1683), who acted as intermediary for a large number of mathematicians and natural philosophers, and wrote extensively on practical mathematics himself.

Beyond its intrinsic merits and provenance, this copy also poses a number of questions, owing to the two pieces of ephemera loosely laid in. The first is a set of four copperplate printed tables title ‘A Summary of Directions, both for the CHARACTER and LANGVAGE’. This is the same title given to the large folding plate in the book, bound before p. 443. However, these four sheets are clearly a separate and perhaps later production – the book’s folding plate is letterpress, and is differently formatted. A clue to the significance of these tables is in the Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1820B, which contains a two similar copperplate tables (though the content does not overlap), along with a group of manuscript tables of a similar design, in the hand of Andrew Paschall (1631?–1696). We therefore tentatively attribute the project of summarizing, tabulating and extending the contents of the Essay to Paschall, though evidently further research is needed.

The other insert is a single sheet, located at pp. 66–67 – and clearly (thanks to offsetting) having resided there for some time. This manuscript bears the docket title to the verso ‘Dr. Plots table of Earths’ and consists in a tabulated form of Robert Plot’s lecture at the Old Ashmolean building on or just prior to 23 November 1683.

Plot was, at this time, the first Curator of the new Ashmolean Museum, in which capacity he expanded the collections and conducted experiments in the building now home to Oxford’s History of Science Museum. Plot’s researches in mineralogy go back at least as far as his book The Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677), and constitute one of the most important steps towards an analytical approach – by the time of his Curatorship he was beginning to conduct chemical analyses of rocks, marking an important extension of the experimental method into earth science.

Plot’s lecture is known from a letter from William Musgrave to Francis Aston, but the present manuscript preserves the original tabular format and may be Plot’s original, or a copy made during the lecture or potentially soon after. The handwriting is close to Plot’s, but again this requires further research.

The question remains of when and why this group – book, printed tables and manuscript – became associated, and the person or people responsible. John Collins, thought to be the source of the early scientific books in the Macclesfield Library, died just over a week prior to Plot’s lecture, so perhaps the book passed from Collins to another savant, potentially Paschall. However, given the various Oxford connections it seems likely that the book was at some time resident in that city, and was perhaps in the posession of Plot, or someone linked to the Oxford Philosophical Society.

A final clue from the book itself: the text-block is partially decorated with ochre to the page edges, and this has apparently been used to pick out the section of the book titled ‘Concerning Natural Grammar’, and the dictionary that makes up the final section of the book. This unusual and highly functional decoration may be another clue to the book’s original or at least most energetic owner.