While Wilkins was experimenting and philosophising in London, events had been marching rapidly in England and in Oxford. In Wood's 'Life and Times' is written the history of the city of Oxford, of the University and of himself, from the day of his birth till his death in 1681. The three histories are mingled in a quaint and incoherent fashion. Wood is a chronicler like Aubrey, his friend, with whom he quarrelled, as antiquarians and historians do. Both were industrious, uncritical, and--Wood especially--sometimes venomous; both were vivid and picturesque, keen observers, and had a wonderful power of saying much in few words. Antony Wood, the son of Thomas Wood, Bachelor of Arts and of Civil Law, was born in 1632 at Oxford, where his father lived, in the Collegiate parish of St John Baptist de Merton. He was educated at New College School, in Oxford, and later at Thame Grammar School; was admitted into Merton College at the age of fifteen as a "filius generosi," and became Bible Clerk in 1650. When ten years old he saw the king, with his army of foot, his two sons, Charles and James, his nephews, Rupert and Maurice, enter Oxford after the battle of Edgehill. The incident was impressed on his memory by the expulsion of his father from the house in Merton Street, and the removal of the boys of New College School to the choristers' chamber at the east end of the College hall, "a dark nasty room, very unfit for such a purpose, which made the scholars often complaine, but in vaine." From this time onward Wood, a clever and observant boy, kept both his ears and eyes open, and accumulated from all quarters materials for his narrative which covers fifty years, the most interesting and important half century in the history of Oxford. "Your orthodox historian puts In foremost rank the soldier thus, The redcoat bully in his boots That hides the march of men from us." The "redcoat bully," as Thackeray somewhat harshly calls him, figures largely in the early pages of Wood's 'Life and Times,' but does not hide the march of men. In August 1642, "the members of the University began to put themselves in a posture of defence," and till June 1646, when Oxford was surrendered to Fairfax, it was a garrison town, the centre and object of much fighting, and of many excursions and alarms, as being "the chiefest hold the King had." Fain would the writer extract almost bodily Wood's description of the four years' occupation, but some things he cannot forbear from mentioning, for they throw light on the history of Wilkins' Oxford, and on the problems with which he had to deal after the war was ended. Mr Haldane would read with interest and approval how the Oxford undergraduates of 1642 responded to a call to arms, as he hopes their successors will respond, if and when need comes.