John Wilkins (1614-1672),English natural philosopher,Anglican clergyman,and one of the founders of the Royal Society in 1660. Wilkins was Warden of Wadham College,Oxford (1648-1659),and later Master of Trinity College,Cambridge (1659-1660). The Latin text at bottom states that he is Bishop of Chester ('Episcopi Cestriensis'),a position he held from 1668 until his death. His most famous work is 'An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language' (1668),where he proposed a new universal language to replace Latin. This portrait is from the 1694 edition of his work 'Mercury' (1641),the first English-language cryptography book |