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‘Dr. White requested of Dr. Gabriel that this letter might not be published, but Dr. Gabriel would give no promise. Dr. White then desired that Mr. S. Smith’s name might be omitted, if he should publish the letter. Dr. Gabriel replied that he would make no promise whatever; that Mr. $. Smith was a friend of his; and Dr. Gabriel addressed himself particularly to Mr. S. Smith, when he said that Mr. S. Smith need entertain no fears from his conduct;—that it was not his intention to publish it, unless he should be pressed, and find it necessary. Mr. S. Smith then took leave, but not without expressing great satisfaction that he liad embraced, by Dr. Gabriel’s advice, so favourable an opportunity of vindicating himself from the indirect charge which Dr. White had brought against him, and of detecting the falsity of it; and Mr. S. Smith expressed his thanks to Dr. Gabriel for the friendly part Dr. G. had acted with respect to him in this extraordinary transaction!’

“I was as much astonished and disgusted too as you could be on reading the rhapsody, abounding with spleen, and ridiculously circumstantial, which seems by your letter, received late last night, to have given you so much concern. The author of it has treated you ill, by relating disingenuously the transaction you refer to, and me by making so flippant a use of my name, not only without my consent, but against my earnest desire, as well as his own positive promise. When the doughty Doctor asked me, somewhat abruptly, in the Concert Room, whether I had ever paid Professor White 10l. for writing a sermon for me, I expressed my surprise at the question, and in part denied the fact, acquainting him at the same time with the true state of the case, as well as I could recollect it, which I will now repeat for your satisfaction. You was with me at this place when I received a note from a friend at Bath urging me to preach a sermon on a public occasion then so near at hand that I expressed some doubt whether I should have time to be properly prepared for it. You immediately made ( me ah offer of assistance, which I readily accepted', andt would accept such an offer again and again under similar circumstances. The assistance came to me by post, and though it consisted of only a few trite pages, and proved of little use to me, yet it was more in quantity than I happened to want, and the promise of it afforded you sufficient ground for saying that you stood engaged to furnish me with a sermon. In regard to the 10l. your candid and unequivocal acknowledgment of that mysterious and very culpable falsehood was considered by me as a reasonable atonement for it; and I know not what right any one else had to concern himself about the matter. The interposition of a third person was malicious and pragmatical. You thought yourself indebted to me for some little services I had rendered you, which you have always spoke of with a sensibility that did you honour and you probably meant in this instance, the only one that ever occurred, to make me some compensation for it.

“When I had related the particulars of the case to Dr. G. in the Concert Room, he, with more rancour than discretion or humanity, urged the necessity of my meeting you at his house the next day, and requiring an apology for what you had written to your supposed friend on this subject. I at first objected to this proposal, and endeavoured to convince Dr. G. that as the affair in question was so trifling in itself, and had nothing to do with the charges he had brought against you, it was most prudent and most generous to let it drop. This remonstrance, however, and some others, appearing to have no weight with him, I considered that if I should persist in declining to confront you, the matter would not rest there, but might be represented to my disadvantage, and that I might by an interview prevent its being a town-talk, and likewise soften Dr. G's unprovoked and wanton acrimony: all which I attempted when I received your apology, with what you call fairness and moderation. I now declare that the apology, and the manner in which it was offered, was handsome and liberal on your part; that it ‘referred solely to your having made an unwarrantable discovery of my name to Mr. Badcock— to the account you gave him of my application to you for the sermon—and of the sum which you said I had offered you.’

“Though I cannot forbear to resent the having been dragged into public notice by means of a controversy which has so manifestly a mischievous tendency in every view of it, yet you are at liberty to make any use of this letter (written in haste to gratify your excessive impatience) which may serve to expose malevolence and justify your conduct.” About the same year, 1790, in which these transactions occurred, the professor vacated his fellowship by marriage, and accepted of a college living, the rectory of Melton, in Suffolk, on which he resided during a considerable part of the year. In 1800, appeared his “Diatessaron, sive integra historia Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Grsece,” &c. 8vo. This was founded on the “Harmony” of archbishop Newcome, and is elegantly printed on a type cast originally under the direction of the professor. In 1801, he published his “Ægyptiaca or Observations on certain. Antiquities of Egypt. In two parts I. The History of Pompey’s Pillar elucidated. 2. Abdollatif’s Account of the Antiquities of Egypt> written in Arabic, A. D. 1206. Translated into English, and illustrated with Notes.” 4to. This is perhaps, as to research and learning, the most profound of his works on the subject of antiquity.

Dr. White’s next publication was an edition of the Greek Testament, “Novum Testamentum, Greece. Lectiones variantes, Griesbachii judicio, iis quas Textus receptus exhibet, anteponendas vel eequiparandas, adjecit Josephus White,” &c. 2 vols. cr. 8vo, 1808. This edition is particularly valuable for the ready and intelligible view it affords, first, of all the texts which in Griesbach’s opinion ought either certainly or probably to be removed from the received text; secondly, of those various readings which the same editor judged either preferable or equal to those of the received text; thirdly, of those additions which, ou the authority of manuscripts Griesbach considers as fit to be admitted into the text. From this Dr. White observes that it may be seen at once by every one how very little, after all the labours of learned men, and the collation of so many manuscripts, is liable to just objection in the received text. As a kind of sequel, and printed in the same form, he published in 1811, “C risers Griesbachianse in. Novum Testamentum Synopsis,” partly with a view to familiarize the results of Griesbach’s laborious work, by removing from them the obscurity of abbreviations, but principally, as he says himself, to demonstrate, by a short and easy proof, how safe and pure the text of the New Testament is, in the received editions, in all things that affect our faith or duty, and how few alterations it either requires or will admit, on any sound principles of criticism.

This was the last of Dr. White’s publications. His constitution had now suffered much by a paralytic attack, which interrupted his studies, although he continued at intervals his favourite researches. He died at his canonry residence at Christchurch, May 22, 1814. From the number of works Dr. White published, and the assiduity with which he cultivated most branches of learning, particularly Oriental languages and antiquities, it may be thought improbable that there was a considerable portion of indolence in his habit. Yet this certainly was the case, and, in the opinion of his friends, must account for his needing assistance in the composition of his Bampton Lectures. Even in the composition of a single sermon, he was glad to accept of aid, if ife was wanted at a time when he felt a repugnance to study. In his private character, he united a degree of roughness with great simplicity of manners; few men were ever more deficient in what is called knowledge of the world. Yet he was friendly, liberal, and of great integrity. He owed all he had to his talents and fame, and however grateful he might be for favours, he never knew or practised the arts of solicitation. To his parents, after he attained promotion, he was a most dutiful son, and it is yet remembered at Gloucester, with what eagerness he left his dignified friends on the day he was installed prebendary, to embrace his aged father, who stood looking on among the crowd.

, an English historian, was born at Basingstoke, in Hampshire, of the great part of which place his ancestors had been proprietors. He was educated at Winchester school, whence he was admitted fellow of New college, Oxford, in 1557. In the beginning of queen Elizabeth’s reign he obtained leave of absence for a set time, but his attachment to the Roman catholic religion being discovered, his fellowship was declared void, in 1564. He had gone abroad, and after Remaining some time at Louvain, settled at Padua, where he studied the canon and civil law, and received his doctor’s decree in both those faculties. Afterwards, being invited to Douay, he was made regius professor, and taught civil and canon law nearly twenty years. The universityappointed him their chancellor, or rector magnificus, not only on account of his own merit, but in consequence of the particular recommendation of the pope. At length he was created count palatine, a title conferred by the emperor upon lawyers that have distinguished themselves in their profession. He had married two wives, by both of whom he had fortunes, and when the last died, being desirous of entering into the church, he obtained a dispensation from the pope for that purpose. He was now ordained priest, and made a canon of St. Peter’s church, in Douay. He died in 1612, and was buried in St. James’s hurch, the cemetery of most of the English catholics.

Besides his skill in the law, he is said to have been an able antiquary, and in this character is chiefly known by his “Historiarum Britannise insulae ab origine mundi ad ann. Dom. octingentesimum, libri noveui,” Douay, 1602. The object of this history, according to Nicolson, is to assert the rights of the papacy in this kingdom; and therefore, having settled religion by Augustine, the monk, and other emissaries, he ends his story in the year 800, He is said to have been first noticed by the learned world for the explanation he gave of the well-known enigmatical epitaph near Bononia in Italy. This he published under the title of “Ælia Laelia Crispis. Epitaphium antiquum in agro Bononiensi adhuc videtur a diversis interpretation varienovissime autem a Richardo Vjto Basingstochio, amicorum precibus explicatum.” Padua, 4to, 1568. Two other publications are attributed to him, “Orationes quinque,” 1596, 8vo, which was read as a classic at Winchester school; “Notse ad leges Decemvirorum in xii tabulas,” 159.7, 8vo; “Explicatio brevis privilegiorum juris et consuetudinis circa ven. sacramentum eucharistiae,” Douay, 1609, 8vo; and “De reliquiis et veneratione Sanctorum,” ibid. 1609. It is said there is a tenth and eleventh book of his history in existence, a copy of which was in Mr. West’s Catalogue.

, an eminent engraver, was born in London in 1645, and became the disciple of David Loggan, for whom he drew and engraved many architectural views. He applied himself mostly to the drawing of portraits, in black lead upon vellum; and his success in taking likenesses procured him much applause. His drawings are said to have been much superior to his prints. He drew the portraits of sir Godfrey Kneller and his brother, and sir Godfrey thought so well of them, that he painted White’s portrait in return. White’s portrait of sir Godfrey is in Sandrart’s Lives of the painters. In 1674, which is two years before Burghers was employed on the “Oxford Almanack,” White produced the first of that series. For the generality of his portraits for books, which are, however, generally disfigured by the broad borders that were then the fashion, he received at the rate of four pounds each, with the occasional addition of ten shillings; thirty pounds, which was paid hirn by Mr. Sowters of Exeter for a portrait of the king of Sweden (which was probably of much larger dimensions), has been spoken of as an extraordinary price. So great, however, is,the number of his engravings, that in the course of forty years he saved from four to five thousand pounds; and yet, say his biographers, by some misfortune or sudden extravagance, he died in indigent circumstances at his house in Bloomsbury in 1704.

, founder of St. John’s college Oxford, was born at Reading in 1492, the son of William White, a native of Rickmansworth, by Mary, daughter of John Kiblewhite of South Fawley in Berkshire. His father carried on the business of a clothier, for some time, at Rickmansworth, but removed to Reading, before our founder was born. The former circumstance has given rise to the mistake of Fuller, Chauncey, and Pennant, who say that he was born at Rickmansworth. But this was rectified by Griffin Higgs, a member of this college, and afterwards fellow of Merton, in his Latin memoir of the founder. Hearne appears to have been of the same opinion.

He is said to have been educated at Reading, but probably only in the elements of writing and arithmetic, as at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a tradesman or merchant of London. His apprenticeship- lasted ten years during which he behaved so well that his master, at his death, left him an hundred pounds. With this, and the patrimony bequeathed by his father, who died in 1523, he commenced business on his own account, and in a few years rose to wealth and honours, and became distinguished by acts of munificence. In 1542 he gave to the corporation of Coventry 1000l. which, with 400l. of their own, was laid out ifi the purchase of lands, from/ the rents of which provision was made for twelve poor men, and a sum raised to be lent to industrious young men of Coventry. This estate in 1705 yielded 930l. yearly. He gave also to the mayor and corporation of Bristol, by deed, the sum of 2000l. and the same to the town of Leicester, to purchase estates, and raise a fund from which sums of money might be lent to industrious tradesmen,- not only of those but of other places specified, which were to receive the benefits of the fund in rotation, and by the same the poor were to be relieved in times of scarcity. These funds are now in a most prosperous state, and judiciously administered.

Sir Thomas White was sheriff of London in 1546, and lord mayor in 1553, when he was knighted by queen Mary for his services, in preserving the peace of the city during the rebellion of sir Thomas Wyatt. Of the rest of his history, or personal character, sentiments, and pursuits, no particulars have been recovered, except what may be inferred from his many and wise acts of liberality. He must have been no common man who showed the first example of devoting the profits of trade to the advancement of learning. He died at Oxford, Feb. 11, 1566, in the seventysecond year of his age, and was buried in the chapel of his college.

Some accounts relate that toward the latter-end of his life he fell into extreme poverty, a circumstance, Mr. Coates observes, that seems very improbable, as, by his will, he left 400 marks to his widow, and 3000l. to St. John’s, with legacies to the children of his brother Ralph, and the Merchant Taylors’ Company of which he was a member, to a considerable amount.

He was twice married; first to a lady whose name was Avisia or Avis, but whose family is unknown. She died in 1557 without issue, and was buried, with great pomp and ceremony, in the parish church of St. Mary Aldermanbury. His second wife was Joan, one of the daughters and coheiresses of John Lake of London, gent, the widow of sir Ralph Warren, knight, twice lord mayor of London, by whom she had children. She survived sir Thomas, and died in 1573, and was buried by her first husband in the church of St. Bennet Sherehog, London. There is a portrait of him in the town-hall of Leicester, habited as lord mayor of London, with a gold chain, and collar of S S. a black cap, pointed beard, his gloves in his right hand, and on the little finger of his left, a ring. There are similar portraits in the town-hall at Salisbury, at Reading, Merchant Taylors’, and St. John’s college.

At what time he first projected the foundation of a college is not known. His original intention was to have founded it at Reading, but he relinquished tliatin favour of Oxford, and on May 1, 1555, obtained a licence from Philip and Mary, empowering him, to the praise and honour of God, the Virgin Mary, and St. John Baptist, to found a college, for divinity, philosophy, and the arts; the members to be, a president, thirty scholars, graduate or non-graduate, or more or less as might be appointed in the statutes; and the site to be Bernard-college, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, without the north-gate of the city of Oxford, and to be called St. John Baptist college in the university of Oxford.

St. Bernard’s college was founded by archbishop Chichele for scholars of the Cistertian order who might wish to study in Oxford, but had no place belonging to their order in which they could associate together, and be relieved from the inconveniencies of separation in halls and inns, where they could not keep up their peculiar customs and statutes. On representing this to the king, Henry VI. he granted letters patent, dated March 20, 1437, giving the archbishop leave to erect a college to the honour of the Virgin Mary and St. Bernard in Northgate-street, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, on ground containing about five acres, which he held of the king in capite. According to Wood, quoted by Stevens, it was built much in the same manner as All Souls college, but the part they inhabited was only the front, and the south-side of the first court, as the hall, &c. was not built till 1502, nor the chapel completed and consecrated until 1530. Their whole premises at the dissolution were estimated at only two acres, and to be worth, if let to farm, only twenty-shillings yearly, but as the change of owners was compulsory, we are not to wonder at this under-valuation. It was granted by Henry VIII. to Christ-church, from whence it came to sir Thomas White, who obtained from Christ-church a grant of the premises, May 25, by paying twenty shillings yearly for it, and they covenanted with him that he should chuse his first president from the canons or students of Christ-church, and that afterwards the fellows of St. John’s should chuse a president from their own number, or from Christ-churcb, to be admitted and established by the dean and chapter, or in their absence by the chancellor or vice-chancellor of Oxford; and they farther wished to covenant that the dean and chapter should be visitors of the new college. With some reluctance, and by the persuasion of his friend. Alexander Belsire, canon of Christ-church, and first president, Sir Thomas was induced to consent to these terms, but the last article respecting the visitor must have been withdrawn, as he appointed sir William Cordall, master of the Rolls, visitor for life; and the right of visitation was afterwards conferred on the bishops of Winchester.

He next gave them a body of statutes, which are supposed to have been drawn up by sir William Cordall, by the founder’s desire, and were taken, as to substance, from, the statutes of New-college. According to these, the society was limited to a president, fifty fellows and scholars, of whom twelve were to study law, three chaplains, three clerks, and six choristers; but the chaplains, clerks, and choristers were discontinued in 1577, owing to a decrease of the funds for their maintenance. Of the fifty fellows, two were to be chosen from Coventry, two from Bristol, two from Reading, and one from Tunbridge the remaining forty- three from Merchant Taylors’ school, London, out of which number six fellowships are reserved for the kindred of the founder.

About this time he enlarged the bounds of the college by the purchase of about four acres, which were inclosed by a wall, by the benefaction of Edward Sprot, LL.B. sometime fellow, who died Aug. 25, 1612. This is commemorated by an inscription over the president’s garden-­door, “Edvardus Sprot hujus Coll. Socius, hunc murum suis impensis struxit, 1613.” It has already been noticed that the founder left by will 3000l. for the purchase of more lands. On the 17th December 1565, the college was admitted a member of the university, and the society declared partakers of all the privileges enjoyed by other colleges or societies. In 1576, the college purchased the ground before the gate from sir Christopher Brome, knt. lord of Northgate hundred, and enclosed it by a dwarf wall and row of elms, some of which are still standing.

, founder of Sion college, London, the.son of John White, was born in Temple parish, in the city of Bristol. His family was a branch of the Whites of Bedfordshire. He was entered of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, about 1566, took his degrees in arts, was ordained, and became a noted and frequent preacher. He afterwards settled in London, where he had the living of St. Gregory’s, near St. Paul’s, and in 1575 was made vicar of St. Dunstan’s, Fleet-street, where his pulpit services were much admired. In 1584 he was licensed to proceed in divinity, and commenced doctor in that faculty. In 1588 he had the prebend of Mora/ in the church of St. Paul, conferred upon him, and in 1590 was made treasurer of the church of Sarum by the queen’s letters. In 1591 he was made canon of Christ Church, and in 1593, canon of Windsor. He died March 1, 1623-4, according to Reading, but Wood says 1622-3; and was buried in the chancel of St. DunStan’s church. In his will he ordered a grave-stone to be placed over his remains, with a short inscription, but this was either neglected, or has been destroyed. As soon as an account of his death arrived at Oxford, the heads of the university, in honour of his memory as a benefactor, appointed Mr. Price, trie first reader of the moral philosophy lecture, to deliver an oration, which, with several encomiastic verses by other members of the university, was printed under the title of “Schola Moralis Philosophise Oxon. in funere Whiti pullata,” Oxon. 1624, 4to.

Dr. White published, 1. “Two Sermons at St. Paul’s in the lime of the Plague,” 8vo. 2. “Funeral Sermon on sir Henry Sidney,” Lond. 1586, 8vo. 3. “Sermon at St. Paul’s Cross on the queen’s day (Nov. 17) 1589,” ibid. 1589, 8vo. But his memory Js chiefly to be venerated for his works of charity, and his liberal encouragement of learning. In 1613 he built an hospital in Temple parish, Bristol, endowing it with 92l. per ann. He also founded the moral philosophy lecture at Oxford, for the maintenance of which he gave the manor of Langdon Hills, in the county of Essex, which was conveyed by him to the university, under the form of a purchase, by his deed enrolled, bearing date June 2.0, 1621. Out of the revenues of this manor, besides an anriuttl stipend of 100l. to the philosophy lecturer, he appointed several sums to be paid to other uses as, to Christ Church library to the Tuesday’s preachers of the university to the Easter sermons to the prisoners in the castle, &c. He founded also small exhibitions for four poor scholars, and for five divinity students of Magdalen Hall, most of which are still continued. But his greatest benefaction was to Sion college. He directed in his will that 3000l. should be applied in building a college and alms-house on the ruins of Elsynge priory, London- wall. His executors accordingly purchased the site of this priory for 2,450l. and erected Sion college. The charters of incorporation are dated July 3, 6 Charles I. and June 20, 16 Charles II. By these authorities, a president, two deatis, and four assistants, with all the rectors, vicars, &c. of the city of London and suburbs, were constituted a corporation. At the same time, alms-houses for ten men, and as many women, were established. Dr. White had appropriated by will separate funds for the maintenance of these poor people. The library, now the most copious in the city of London, was principally the foundation of the rev. Thomas Wood, rector of St. Michael’s, Crooked-lane. Dr. White left his own library to the dean and canons of Windsor.

, an English philosopher, and Roman catholic priest, who obtained considerable celebrity abroad, where he was usually called Thomas Anglus, or Thomas Albius, was the son of Richard White, esq. of Hatton, in the county of Essex, by Mary, his wife, daughter of Edmund Plowden, the celebrated lawyer in queen Elizabeth’s reign. His parents being Roman catholics, he was educated, probably abroad, in the strictest principles of that profession, and at length became a secular priest, in which character he resided very much abroad. He was principal of the college at Lisbon, and sub-principal of that at Douay; but his longest stay was at Rome and Paris. For a considerable time he lived in the house of sir Kenelm Digby; and he shewed his attachment to that gentleman’s philosophy by various publications. His first work of this kind was printed at Lyons, in 1646. It is entitled “Institutionum Peripateticarum ad mentem summi clarissimique Philosophi Kenelmi Equitis Digbaei.” “Institutions of the Peripatetic Philosophy, according to the hypothesis of the great and celebrated philosopher sir Kenelm Digby.” Mr. White was not contented with paying homage to sir Kenelm on account of his philosophical opinions, but raised him also to the character of a divine. A proof of this is afforded in a book published by him, the title of which is “Quaestio Theologica, quomodo secundum principia Peripatetices DigbsEanae, sive secundum rationem, et abstrahendo, quantum materia patitur, ab authoritate, human! Arbitrii Libertas sit explicanda, et cum Gratia efficaci concilianda.” “A Theological question, in what manner, according to the principles of sir Kenelm Digby’s Peripatetic Philosophy, or according to reason, abstracting, as much as the subject will admit, from authority, the freedom of a man’s will is to be explained and reconciled with efficacious grace.” Another publication to the same purpose, which appeared in 1652, was entitled “Institutiones Theologicae super fundamentis in Peripatetica Digbacana jactis exstructae.” “Institutions of Divinity, built upon the foundations laid down in sir K. Digby’s Peripatetic Philosophy.” By his friend sir Kenelm Mr. White was introduced, with large commendations, to the acquaintance of Des Cartes, who hoped to make a proselyte of him, but without success. White was too much devoted to Aristotle’s philosophy to admit of the truth of any other system. In his application of that philosophy to theological doctrines, he embarrassed himself in so many nice distinctions, and gave such a free scope to his own thoughts, that he pleased neither the Molinists nor the Jansenists. Indeed, though he had a genius very penetrating and extensive, he had no talent at distinguishing the ideas which should have served as the rule and foundation of his reasonings, nor at clearing the points which he was engaged to defend. His answer to those who accused him of obscurity may serve to display the peculiarity of his disposition. “I value myself,” says he, “upon such a brevity and conciseness, as is suitable for the teachers of the sciences. The Divines are the causg that my writings continue obscure; for they refuse to give me any occasion of explaining myself. In short, either the learned understand me, or they do not. If they do understand me, and find me in an error, it is easy for them to refute me; if they do not understand me, it is very unreasonable for them to exclaim against my doctrines.” This, observes Bayle, shews the temper of a man who seeks only to be talked of, and is vexed at not having antagonists enough to draw the regard and attention of the public upon him. Considering the speculative turn of Mr. White’s mind, it is not surprising that some of his books’ were condemned at Rome by the congregation of the “Index Expurgatorius,” and that they were disapproved of by certain universities. The treatises which found their way into the “Index Expurgatorius” were, “Institutiones Peripatetica?;” “Appendix Theologica de Origine Mundi” “Tabula suffragialis de terminandis Fidei Litibus ab Ecclesia Catholica Fixa;” and “Tessera3 Romanae Evulgatio.” In opposition to the doctors of Douay, who had censured two-and-twenty propositions extracted from his “Sacred Institutions,” he published a pieoe entitled “Supplicatio postulativa Justitiae,” in which he complains that they had given a vague uncertain censure of him, attended only with a respective, without taxing any proposiiion in particular; and he shews them that this is acting like prevaricating divines. Another of his works was the “Sonitus Buccina?,” in which he maintained that the church had no power to determine, but only to give her testimony to tradition. This likewise was censured. Mr. White had a very particular notion concerning the state of souls separated from the body, which involved him in a dispute with the bishop of Chalcedon. Two tracts were written by him upon this subject, of which a large and elaborate account is given in archdeacon Blackburne’s Historical View of the controversy 'concerning an intermediate state. The conclusion drawn by the archdeacon is, that Mr. White entered into the questibn with more precision and greater abilities than any man of his time; and that it is very clear, from the inconsistencies he ran into to save the reputation of his orthodoxy, that if the word purgatory had been out of his way, he would have found no difficulty to dispose of the separate soul in a state of absolute unconscious rest.

Our author spent the latter part of his life in England. Hobbes had a great respect for him, and when he lived in Westminster, would often visit him. In their conversations they carried on their debates with such eagerness as seldom to depart in cool blood; for “they would wrangle, squabble, and scold,” says Anthony Wood, “about philosophical matters, like young sophisters,” though they were both of them eighty years of age. In consequence of Hobbes’ s not being able to endure contradiction, those scholars who were sometimes present at these wrangling disputes, held that the laurel was carried away by White.

Mr. White’s book *‘ De medio Animarum Statu,’ was censured by the House of Commons. In the Journal of that House is the following resolution:

As to call in question the natural immortality of the human soul was understood to imply atheism, White’s treatise had certainly a tendency to weaken the arguments for that immortality, by weakening the common proofs of the soul’s consciousness in a future state; but there was nothing else in his work which could justly be construed as being of an atheistical nature. It does not appear that the bill against atheism and profaneness ever passed, or that the Commons proceeded farther in their censures of White and Hobbes. White was also obnoxious to the politicians of the time on another account. “To understand this,” says archdeacon Blackburne, “it will be necessary to observe, that White was a disciple of sir Kenelm Digby, not only in philosophy, but also in politics. The knight has been accused, and upon very authentic evidence, of intriguing with Cromwell, to the prejudice of the exiled Stuarts. Whether White was in the depth of the secret or not, it is probable that he knew something of the transaction, and that Digby might set him to work with his pen, in favour of Cromwell’s government. Be this as it might, White wrote a book, about that time, intituled,” The Grounds of Obedience and Government;" wherein he held, ‘That the people, by the evil management, or insufficiency of their governor, are remitted to the force of nature to provide for themselves, and not bound by any promise made to their governor; that the magistrate, by his miscarriages, abdicateth himself from being a magistrate, proveth a brigand or robber, instead of a defender; that if he be innocent, and wrongfully deposed, and totally dispossessed, it were better for the common good to stay as they are, than to venture the restoring him, because of the public hazard.’

Mr. White died at his lodging in Drury-laue, on the 6th of July 1676, aged 94 years; and, on the ninth day of the same month, was buried in the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-fields. “By his death,” says Wood, " the Koman Catholics lost an eminent ornament from among them; and it hath been a question among some of them, whether ever any secular priest of England went beyond him in philosophical matters.

The names by which Mr. White was occasionally distinguished, besides that of Thomas Anglus, were Candidus, Albius, Bianchi, Richworth, and Blackloe. Descartes generally called him Mr. Vitus.

Dodd has given a catalogue of forty-eij*ht publications by White, and endeavours to vindicate his character with considerable impartiality. He says, White was “a kind of enterprizer in the search of truth, and sometimes waded too deep; which, with the attempt of distinguishing between the schoolmen’s superstructures, and strict fundamentals, laid him open to be censured by those that were less inquisitive. It must be owned he sometimes lost himself, by treading in unbeaten paths, and adhered too stiffly to dangerous singularities. This created him adversaries from all quarters. Besides Protestants, who engaged with him. upon several controversial matters, he had several quarrels, both with the clergy and religious of his own communion, who attacked his works with great fury. His book of the” Middle State of Souls’.' gave great scandal, (though I find mention made of it by the learned Mabillon, as a master-piece in its kind). This performance was so represented by his adversaries, as if it rendered prayers for the dead an insignificant service: and the representation was so prejudicial to many of the clergy, that they were neglected in the usual distributions bestowed for the benefit of the faithful deceased. Another work, which drew a persecution upon him, was entitled, “Institutiones Sacrae,” &c. from whence the university of Douay drew twenty-two propositions, and condemned them, under respective censures, Nov. 3, 1660, chiefly at the instigations of Dr. George Leyburn, president of the English college, and John Warner, professor of divinity in the same house. He was again censured for his political scheme, exhibited in his book styled “Obedience and Government;” wherein he is said to assert an universal passive obedience to any species of government which has obtained an establishment; and, as his adversaries insinuated, was designed to flatter Cromwell in his usurpation, and incline him to favour the Catholics, upon the hopes of their being influenced by such principles. These, and several other writings, having given great offence, and the see of Rome being made acquainted with their pernicious tendency (especially when he had attacked the pope’s personal infallibility), they were laid before the inquisition, and censured by a decree of that court, May 14, 1655, and Sept. 7, 1657. Mean time, a body of clergymen, educated in the English college at Douay, signed a public disclaim of his principles. Mr. White had several things to allege against these proceedings. It appeared to him, that neither the court of inquisition, nor any other inferior court, though assembled by his holiness’s orders, were invested with sufficient power to issue out decrees that were binding over the universal church: he exposed, at the same time, the methods and ignorance of the cardinals and divines who were sometimes employed in censuring books; and hinted, how unlikely it was that his holiness either would or could delegate his power to such kind of inferior courts. As to his brethren who had disclaimed his doctrine, he takes notice that they were persons entirely under Dr. Leyburn’s direction, who was his grand adversary, and was continually labouring to discredit his writings. Afterwards, when prejudices were removed, and passion had sufficiently vented itself on both sides, they both came to temper; and Mr. White submitted himself and his writings to the catholic church, and, namely, to the see of Rome. Yet, notwithstanding this submission, a great many, who had conceived almost an irreconcileable idea both of his person and writings, could scarce endure to hear him named. They represented him to be as obstinate as Luther, who, at first, humbled himself to the pope, only to gain time to spread his pestiferous opinions: they would have it, that his design was, visibly, to establish a new heresy. Nay, they pryed into his morals and conduct in private life; miscarriages, in that way, being commonly the forerunners of heresy. But those that were not hurried away with passion and prejudice judged more favourably of him. They owned his rashness, and that he had propagated several singularities, that had given scandal, were erroneous, and carried on with too much violence and disrespect to superior powers: yet that all this was done without any intention of breaking out of the pale of, the church, or opposing the supremacy of the see of Rome. Some, who have calmly reflected upon these matters, have been pleased to observe the wise conduct of the see of Rome upon the occasion, which was far different from that of Mr. White’s adversaries; who, transported with zeal for religion, and, it is to be feared, sometimes with less commendable views, made every thing appear with a formidable aspect: whereas the see of Rome, governed by milder counsels, proceeded with their usual caution, and only barely censured some of his works, wherein Mr. White had the fate of a great many other pious and learned authors, when they happened to advance propositions any way prejudicial to religion. Whatsoever opinion the see of Rome might have of Mr. White’s case, tney judged it a piece of wisdom to let it die gradually. They were well assured, that though he had wit and learning sufficient to have raised a great disturbance in the church, yet he wanted interest to make any considerable party; and they had the charity to think he wanted a will. It is true, several eminent clergymen, who had been his scholars, and were great admirers of his virtue and learning, were unwilling to have his character sacrificed, and his merits lie under oppression, by unreasonable oppositions; and therefore they supported him in some particular controversies he had with doctor Leyburn and others: which was misrepresented by some, as a combination in favour of the novelties he was charged with in point of doctrine. But, adds Dodd, time and recollection have placed things in a true light."

, founder of the Calvinistic methodists, was born at Gloucester, where his father kept the Bell inn, Dec. 16, 1714. He was the youngest of a family of six sons and a daughter; and his father dying when he was only about two years old, the care of his education devolved on his mother, who brought him up with great tenderness. Being placed at school, he made considerable progress in classical learning; and his eloquence began to appear when he was about fourteen or fifteen, in the speeches which he delivered at the annual school visitations. During this period, he resided with his mother; and as her circumstances were not so easy as before, he sometimes assisted her in the business of the inn. By some means, however, he was encouraged to go to Oxford at the age of eighteen, where he entered of Pembroke college. He had not been here long, before he became acquainted with the Wesleys, and joined the society they had formed, which procured them the name of Methodists. Like them, Whitefield, who had been of a serious turn in his early days, began now to live by rule, and to improve every moment of his time. He received the communion every Sunday, visited the sick and the prisoners in jail, and read to the poor; and he shared in the obloquy which this conduct brought upon his brethren.

In the mean time, he became a prey to melancholy, which was augmented, if not occasioned, by excessive bodily austerities; and at last, in consequence of reading some mystic writers, he was led to imagine, that the best method he could take was, to shut himself up in his study, till he had perfectly mortified his own will, and was enabled to do good, without any mixture of corrupt motives. From this, however, he was recovered, returned to society, and we may suppose was not neglectful of his studies; for when only twenty-one years of age he was sent for by Dr. Benson, bishop of Gloucester, who told him that though he had purposed to ordain none under twenty-three, yet he should reckon it his duty to ordain him whenever he applied. He was accordingly admitted to deacon’s orders at Gloucester June 20, 1736, and the Sunday following preached his first sermon in the church of St. Mary de Crypt. Curiosity brought a vast auditory to hear their young townsman. Some idea of the sermon may be learned from what he says himself of it in one of his letters. “Some few mocked, but most, for the present, seemed struck; and I have since learned, that a complaint had been made to the bishop, that I drove fifteen mad the first sermon. The worthy prelate, as I am informed, wished that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday.”

The week following he returned to Oxford, and took his bachelor’s degree in arts, soon after which he was invited to London to officiate at the chapel of the Tower. He preached also at various other places, and while here letters came from the Wesleys at Georgia, which made him desirou’s to join them, but he was not yet quite clear as to this being his duty. He afterwards supplied a curacy at Durnmer, in Hampshire, and being at length convinced that it was his duty to go to Georgia, he went in Jan. 1737 to take leave of his friends in Gloucester, and then set out for London. General Oglethorpe detaining him here for some months, he preached in various churches, and appears at this time to have attained as great popularity as at any subsequent period of his life, and he met also with part of the same opposition which be had afterwards to encounter.

On the last day of December he set sail, and arrived at the parsonage-house at Savannah May 7, 1738, where he remained until August. In our article of Wesley we noticed how very unsuccessful he had been in this employment from a variety of causes, but principally of a personal nature. Whitefield met with a very different reception, and appears to have deserved it. When he began to look about him, he found every thing bore the aspect of an infant colony, and was likely to continue so, from the very nature of its constitution. “The people,” he says, “were denied the use both of rum and slaves. The lands were allotted them, according to a particular plan, whether good or bad; and the female heirs prohibited from inheriting. So that, in reality, to place people there, on such a footing, was little better than to tie their legs and bid them walk,” &c. As some melioration of their condition, he projected an Orphan-house, for which he determined to raise contributions in England, and accordingly embarked in September, and after a boisterous passage, landed at Limerick in Ireland. There he was received kindly by bishop Burscough, who engaged him to preach in the cathedral; and at Dublin, where he also preached, he was courteously received by Dr. Delany, bishop Rundle, and archbishop Bolton. In the beginning of December he arrived at London, where the trustees of the colony of Georgia expressed their satisfaction at the accounts sent to them of his conduct, and presented him to the living of Savannah (though he insisted upon having no salary), and granted him five hundred acres of land for his intended Orphan-house, to collect money for which, together with taking priest’s orders, were the chief motives of his returning to England so soon.

In the beginning of January 1739 he was ordained priest at Christ-church, Oxford, by bishop Benson, and on the following Sunday resumed his preaching in London; and now the vast crowds which attended, first suggested to him the thought of preaching in the open air. When he mentioned this to some of his friends, they judged it was mere madness, nor did he begin the practice until he went to Bristol in February, and finding the churches denied to him, he preached on a hill at Kingswood to the colliers, and after he had repeated this three or four times, his congregation is said to have amounted to near twenty thousand. That any human voice could be heard by such a number is grossly improbable, but that in time he was enabled to civilize the greater part of these poor colliers has never been denied. “The first discovery,” he tells us, “of their being affected, was to see the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they came out of their coal-pits,” After this he preached often in the open air in the vicinity of London, particularly in Moorfields and on Kennington common, and made excursions into various parts of the country, where he received contributions for his Orphan-house in Georgia. In August he embarked again for America, and landed in Pennsylvania in October. Afterwards he went through that province, the Jerseys, New York, and back again to Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, preaching every where to immense congregations, and in the beginning of Jan. 1740 arrived at Savannah, where he founded, and in a great measure established, his Orphan-house, by the name of Bethesda. He then took another extensive tour through America, and returned to England in March 1741.

On his arrival he found it necessary to separate from Wesley, whose Arminian sentiments he disapproved of; and he now, with the help of some colleagues, began to form distinct societies of persons who held Calvinistic sentiments. This produced in a short time a new house at Kingswood, and the two Tabernacles in Moorfields and Tottenham-court-road, which were supplied by himself and certain lay preachers, He visited also many parts of England, where similar societies were established, and went to Scotland, where he preached in all the principal towns. In Scotland he was more generally welcomed than any where else, the doctrines he preached according with those of that church, but some refused communion with him, as being a clergyman of the church of England, and of course a friend to prelacy, which in Scotland is abjured. Such was his encouragement, however, upon the whole, that he was induced to repeat his visit in 1742. From this time to August 1744 he remained in England, preaching from place to place, and always with astonishing effect on the minds of his hearers. In August 1744 he embarked again for America, whence he returned in July 1748.

Soon after his return he had become acquainted with Lady Huntingdon, who hearing of his arrival invited him, to her house at Chelsea. He went, and having preached twice, the countess wrote to him that several of the nobility desired to hear him In a few days the celebrated earl of Chesterfield, and others of the same rank, attended, and having heard him once, desired they might hear him again. “I therefore preached again,” says he, “in the evening, and went home, never more surprised at any incident in xny life. All behaved quite well, and were in some degree affected. The earl of Chesterfield thanked me, and said,” Sir, I will not tell you what I shall tell others, how I approve of you,‘ or words to this purpose. At last lord Bolingbroke came to hear, sat like an archbishop, and was pleased to say, ’ I had done great justice to the Divine Attributes in my discourse'." Those who know the characters of Bolingbroke and Chesterfield will probably think less of these compliments than Mr. Whitefield appears to have done.

It would extend this article beyond all reasonable bounds were we to follow Mr. Whitefield’s biographer throughout the whole of his peregrinations in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America. His last great movement was his seventh voyage to Georgia, where he exhausted his strength in his painful labours, and died, of a fit of the asthma, at Newbury Port, in New England, Sept. 30, 1770, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

His biographer informs us, that his person was graceful and well-proportioned; his stature above the middle size. Excepting a squint with one eye, his features were good and regular. His countenance was manly, and his voice vras exceeding strong; yet both were softened with an uncommon degree of sweetness. His deportment was easy, without any formality, and his manner polite, and rather engaging. That he possessed a high degree of eloquence, cannot well be doubted, but he had no affectation, and seemed quite unconscious of the talents he possessed. At first he was more attentive to the apparent than the real effects of his eloquence, but as he grew older distrusted those sudden conversions of which he was perpetually told.

Although we have called Whitefield the founder of the Calvinistic rnethoclists, it would perhaps be more proper to say that he was the reviver of Calvinism in these kingdoms. He left indeed a few places of worship, yet in most instances, he was satisfied with impressing upon the multitudes who flocked to hear him, the importance of their salvation, and leaving them to the constant care of their regular clergymen, or dissenting ministers with whom he maintained communion. But to those distinct congregations which he had raised, have been added, what is called lady Huntingdon’s connection; and since his death the successors at his chapels have laboured diligently to extend their pale, and have formed what is called the union of the Calvinist methodists, which may be considered as having amalgamated the different parties into one body. It has been remarked by a late writer, as a striking difference between Wesley and Whitefield, that “while Wesley was drilling his followers into a regular system, with all the policy of the catholic fathers of Paraguay, and thus raising a well-disciplined army, which moved obsequious to his commanding voice; his less politic brother neglected to provide for the perpetuity of his name, and with generous indifference to self, raised only a popular standard, around which detached parties of flying troops voluntarily ranged themselves.” Whitefield’s Works, practical and controversial, were published in 6 vols. 8vo.

, an eminent divine of the sixteenth century, was of the family of Whiteheads of Tuderiey in Hampshire, and was educated at Oxford, but whether at All Souls or Brasenose colleges, Wood has not deter* mined. He was chaplain to queen Anne Boleyn. Wood says, he was “a great light of learning, and a most heavenly professor of divinity.” Archbishop Cranmer says that “he was endowed with good knowledge, special honesty, fervent zeal, and politic wisdom,”' for which, in 1552, he nominated him as the fittest person for the archbishopric of Armagh. This nomination, however, did not succeed. lit the beginning of the tyrannic reign of queen Mary, he retired, with/many pf his countrymen, to Francfort, where he was chosen pastor to the English congregation of exiles, and when differences arose respecting church discipline, endeavoured to compose them by the moderation of his opinions. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, he “returned to England, and was one of the committee appointed to review king Edward’s liturgy; and in 1559 was also appointed one of the public disputants against the popish bishops* In this he appeared to so much advantage, that the queen is said to have offered him the archbishopric of Canterbury, but this he declined, as well as the mastership of the Savoy, excusing himself to the queen by saying that he could live plentifully by the preaching of the gospel without any preferment. He was accordingly a frequent preacher, and in various places where preaching was most wanted. He remained a single man, which much pleased the queen, who had a great antipathy against the married clergy. Lord Bacon informs us that when Whitehead was one day at court, the queen said,” I like thee better, Whitehead, because thou livest unmarried.“” In troth, madam,“he replied,” I like you the worse for the same cause.“Maddox, in his examination of Neal’s History of the Puritans, thinks that” Whitehead ought to be added to the number of those eminent pious men, who approved of the constitution, and died members of the church of England;“but it appears from Strype’s life of Grindal, that he was deprived in 1564 for objecting to the habits; how long he remained under censure we are not told. He died in 1571, but where buried, Wood was not able to discover. The only works attributed to his pen are,” Lections and Homilies on St. Paul’s Epistles“and in a” Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Francfort,“1575, 4to, are several of his discourses, and answers to the objections of Dr. Home concerning matters of discipline and worship. In Parkhurst’s” Epigram. Juvenil." are some addressed to Whitehead; and from the same authority we learn that he had been preceptor to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk.

, an eminent person among the Quakers, was born at Snnbigg in the parish of Orton, Westmoreland, about 1636, and received his education at the free school of Blencoe in Cumberland. After leaving school he was for a time engaged in the instruction of youth, but before he had attained the age of eighteen, the journal of his life exhibits him travelling in different parts of England, propagating with zeal, as well as success, the principles of the Quakers, then recently become known as a distinct religious denomination. Of the Quakers and their tenets, he had obtained some information a considerable time before an opportunity occurred for his being at any of their meetings. At the first which he attended, it happened that there was a young person present, who feeling deep distress of mind, went out of the meeting, and seated on the ground, unaware or regardless of being observed, cried out “Lord, make me clean; O Lord, make me clean!” an ejaculation which, he says, affected him more than any preaching he had ever heard. Continuing to attend the meetings of the Quakers, he became united with them in profession, and, as has been mentioned, a promnlgator of their doctrine. His first journey was southward, and his first imprisonment, for to one in, this character imprisonment may be mentioned as then almost an event in course, was in the city of Norwich. Another imprisonment of fourteen or fifteen months followed not long after at Edinondsbury, attended with circumstances of much hardship. From this he was released by virtue of an order from the Protector; but was soon again apprehended while preaching at Nayiand in Suffolk, and by two justices sentenced to be whipped, under pretence of his being a* vagabond; which was executed with severity, but neither the pain nor the ignominy of the punishment damped the fervency of the sufferer; and as persecution commonly defeats its own object, so in this case the report of the treatment he had met with spreading in the country, the resort to hear his preaching was increased.

In the course of his travels he was frequently engaged in disputes with opponents who seern to have anticipated an easy triumph by their expertness in the forms of scholastic logic. Although uneducated in this art of logomachy, an art which has long since so deservedly sunk into disesteem, he soon became ready in detecting the fallacies of his antagonists; all of which indeed did not require equal penetration; for instance, in a public dispute at Cambridge he was attacked by a man of erudition with this syllogism “He that refuses to take the oath of abjuration is a Papist; but you (the Quakers) refuse to take the oath of abjuration; ergo, you are Papists!”

In fact the Acts in force against the Roman Catholics were not un frequently the means of suffering to the Quakers But soon after the restoration of Charles II. the latter were made the express objects of a law, the precursor of others of the same tendency, and imposing penalties that extende 1 to banishment. In the progress of the bill through the House of Commons,' Whitehead with three others was admitted to the bar of the house to be heard in defence of their society; but they pleaded in vain. The bill passed into a law; and two of the four who had thus advocated the cause soon died in a crowded and unhealthy prison, to which they had been dragged from their meetings Whitehead was also imprisoned with them, but escaped the destructive effects of confinement.

In 1672, when the kiog had issued his declaration for suspending the penal laws against nonconformists, a very acceptable service was rendered by Whitehead to the society of which he was a member, by obtaining an order under the great seal for the discharge from prison of about four hundred of their persuasion, many of whom had been for years in a state of close and rigorous restraint. Some other dissenters also partook of the benefit of his exertions, which he records with satisfaction.

On several other occasions he was concerned in applications on behalf of the Quakers to Charles II. and to his successor. After the happy event of the revolution he was eminently assisting to his friends at the time when the Toleration bill was before parliament; and afterwards bore a very considerable part in making those representations which led to the legal allowance of an affirmation instead of an oath, and to other relief. When the bill which has just been adverted to was pending in the House of Commons, a declaration of faith was proposed to be introduced, which to the Quakers, who seem to have been particularly aimed at by it, would not have tyeen perfectly free from objection. In lieu of the declaration so proposed, Whitehead and those who acted with him on behalf of the society, on this important occasion procured another to be substituted, which (thus he expresses himself) "we proposed and humbly offered as our own real belief of the Deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, viz. * I profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for ever; and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration. 7 '

Respected and esteemed by his brethren, whom he continued to edify by his ministry and by his example, Whitehead lived to a very advanced age, and appears to have retained his mental faculties to the last. For some weeks, and some weeks only, before his decease, he was prevented from attending meetings for public worship by infirmities which he bore with Christian patience and resignation, waiting for his dissolution, and signifying that the sting of death was taken away. He died in March 1722-3, aged about eighty-six.

He was twice married, but appears to have left no issue. During the latter and considerably the greater part of his life he resided in or near the metropolis. Besides various publications, chiefly controversial, he left behind him some memoirs of his life, which were printed in 1725, in one volume 8vo.

, a physician, and preacher among the Methodists in the connexion of Wesley, whose life he wrote, was born of honest industrious parents in the country. At an early age he exhibited proofs of genius; and, before twenty, was a proficient in the Latin and Greek languages. Early in life he was connected with the Messrs. Wesley, and preached at Bristol. He left them, however, and set up as a linen-draper in that city, but failed in business; after which he became a Quaker, and a speaker in the congregations of that respectable body, who, by their beneficent friendship, set him up in a large boardingschool at Wandsworth, where many of their children were educated. Mr. Barclay, wishing his son to travel, proposed Dr. Whitehead to be his companion, paid all his expences, and settled on him \00l. a year. They went to Leyden, and his thirst for knowledge induced him to attend the anatomical, philosophical, and medical lectureship; and, about 1790, he had arrived at such a pitch of knowledge that his correspondence with Dr. Lettsotn determined the latter to bring him forward; so that, even while at Leyden (Dr. Kooystra, physician of the London Dispensary in Primrose-street, dying) the Doctor introduced him to that most excellent charity. After he had been in London two years, the Friends endeavoured to bring him into the London Hospital, Mileend, which was only lost by one vote, occasioned by giving a draft on a banker for payment the next day instead of the present at the time of the election. In about three years the Doctor left the Quakers, and united himself again to the Wesleys; and Mr. Wesley said to Mr. Ranken, “Do what you can to unite Dr. Whitehead with us again.” He succeeded; and Dr. W. preached very often, and was highly esteemed both as a physician and v preacher; so much so, that he attended Mr. Wesley in his last illness, and preached his funeral sermon. He afterwards published “The Life of the Rev, John Wesley, M. A. some time fellow of Lincoln college, Oxford, collected from his private Papers and printed Works, and written at the request of his Executors.” Of this work, which professedly forms <c a History of Methodism,“the first volume appeared in 1793, the second in 1796. This valuable and candid work occasioned a rupture between Dr. Coke and his associates, who were styled” The Conference," and Dr. Whitehead; as they intended themselves to publish a Life; and the publication caused much party-dispute among the Wesleys, so as to exclude the Doctor from preaching; but a reconciliation took place, and he was again admitted to the pulpit. He died March 7, 1804.

, an English poet and satirist, the youngest son of Edmund Whitehead, a taylor, was born at his father’s house, in Castle-yard, Holborn, Feb. 6, 1709—10, St. Paul’s day, O. S. to which circumstance he is said to owe his name. As he was intended for trade, he received no other education than what a school at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, afforded; and, at the usual age, was placed as an apprentice to a mercer or woollen-draper in London. Here he had for his associate the late Mr. Lowth, of Paternoster-row, long the intimate friend, and afterwards the executor, of the celebrated tragedian, James Q,uin. Whitehead and Lowth were both of a lively disposition, and fond of amusement: Lowth had attached himself to the theatre, and by his means Whitehead became acquainted with some of the theatrical personages of that day; and among others, with Fleetwood, the manager. Lowth, however, continued in business, while Whitehead was encouraged to enter himself of the Temple, and study the law.

Fleetwood was always in distress, and always contriving new modes of relief: Whitehead was pliable, good-natured, and friendly; and being applied to by the artful manager, to enter into a joint security for the payment of three thousand pounds, which he was told would not affect him, as another name, besides Fleetwood’s, was wanted merely as a matter of form, readily fell into the snare. It is perhaps wonderful that Whitehead, who knew something of business, and something of law, should have been deceived by a pretence so flimsy: but, on the other hand, it is not improbable that Fleetwood, who had the baseness to lie, had also the cunning to enjoin secresy; and Whitehead might be flattered, by being thus admitted into his confidence. The consequence, however, was, that Fleetwood was unable to pay; and Whitehead, considering himself as entrapped into a promise, did not look upon it as binding in honour, and therefore submitted to a long confinement in the Fleet Prison. If this transaction happened, as one of his biographers informs us, about the year 1742, Whitehead was not unable to have satisfied Fleetwood’s creditors. He had, in the year 1735, married Anna Dyer, the only daughter of Sir Swinnerton Dyer, bart. of Spains Hall, Essex, with whom he received the sum of ten thousand pounds. By what means he was released at last, without payment, we are not told.

Long before this period , Whitehead, who from his infancy had discovered a turn for poetry, and had, when at school, corresponded in rhime with his father, distinguished himself both as a poet and a politician. In the latter character, he appears to have united the principles of Jacobitism and republicanism in no very consistent proportions. As a Jacobite, he took every opportunity of venting his spleen against the reigning family; and, as a republican, he was no less outrageous in his ravings about liberty; which, in his dictionary, meant an utter abhorrence of kings, courts, and ministers. His first production of this kind was the “State Dunces,” in 1733, inscribed to Mr. Pope, and written with a close imitation of that poet’s satires. The keenness of his abuse, and harmony of his verse, and, above all, the personalities which he dealt about him with a most liberal hand, conferred popularity on this poem, and procured him the character of an enemy who was to be dreaded, and a friend who ought to be secured. He was accordingly favoured by the party then in opposition to sir Robert Walpole; and, at no great distance of time, became patronized by Bubb Dodington, and the other adherents of the Prince of Wales’ s court. The “State Dunces” was answered, in a few days, by “A Friendly Epistle” to its author, in verse not much inferior. Whitehead sold his poem to Doclsley for ten guineas; a circumstance which Dr. Johnson, who thought meanly of our poet, recollected afterwards, when Dodsley offered to purchase his “London,” and conditioned for the same sum. “I might, perhaps, have accepted of less, but that Paul Whitehead had a little before got ten guineas for a poem, and I would not take less than Paul Whitehead.”

In 1739, Whitehead published his more celebrated poem, entitled “Manners;” a satire not only upon the administration, but upon all the venerable forms of the constitution, under the assumption of a universal depravity of manners. Pope had at this time taken liberties which, in the opinion of some politicians, ought to be repressed. la his second dialogue of “Serenteen Hundred and Thirtyeight,” he gave offence to one of the Foxes, among others; which Fox, in a reply to Lyttelton, took an opportunity of repaying, by reproaching him with the friendship of a lampooner, who scattered his ink without fear or decency, and against whom he hoped the resentment of the legislature would quickly be discharged. Pope, however, was formidable, and had many powerful friends. With all his prejudices, he was the first poet of the age, and an honour to his country. But Paul Whitehead was less entitled to respect: he was formidable rather by his calumny than his talents, and might be prosecuted with effect.

Accordingly, in the House of Peers, lord Delawar, after expatiating on the gross falsehoods and injurious imputations contained in a poem against many noblemen and prelates of high character, moved that the author and publisher should attend at the bar of the house. On the day appointed, Dodsley appeared as the publisher, Whitehead having absconded. Dodsley pleaded that he did not look into the contents of the poem, “but that imagining there might be something in it, as he saw it was a satire by its title-page, that might be laid hold of in law, he insisted that the author should affix his name to it, and that then he printed it.” In consequence of this confession he was taken into the custody of the usher of the black rod, but released after a short confinement and payment of the usual fees. In order to procure this lenity, Dodsley drew up a petition to the House, which the earl of Essex, one of the noble personages libelled in the poem, had the generosity to present. Victor, in one of his letters, informs us that he had the boldness to suggest this measure to the earl.

No farther steps were taken against the author of “Man-r ners;” the whole process, indeed, was supposed to be intended rather to intimidate Pope than to punish Whitehead; and it answered that purpose: Pope became cautious, “willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,” and Whitehead for some years remained quiet. The noise, however, which this prosecution occasioned, and its failure as to the main object, induced Whitehead’s enemies to try whether he might not be assailed in another way, and rendered the subject of odium, if not of punishment. In this pursuit the authors of some of the ministerial journals published a letter from a Cambridge student who had been expelled for atheism, in which it was intimated that Whitehead belonged to a club of young men who assembled to encourage one another in shaking off what they termed the prejudices of education. But Whitehead did not suffer this to disturb the retirement so necessary in his present circumstances, and as the accusation had no connection with his politics or his poetry, he was content to sacrifice his character with respect to religion, which he did not value, in support of the cause he had espoused. That he was an infidel seems generally acknowledged by all his biographers; and when he joined the club at Mednam Abbey, it mustbe confessed that his practices did not disgrace his profession.

In 1744 he published “The Gymnasiad,” a just satire on the savage amusements of the boxers, which were then more publicly, if not more generally encouraged, than in our own days. Broughton, who died within these few years at Lambeth, was at that time the invincible champion, and Whitehead accordingly dedicated the poem to him in a strain of easy humour. Soon after, he published “Honour *,” another satire at the expence of the leading men in power, whom he calumniates with all that relentless and undistinguishing bitterness in which Churchill afterwards excelled. We next find him an active partizan in the contested election for Westminster between lord Trentham and sir George Vandeput, in 1749. He not only canvassed

visit; and it was my fate to be once shocking in it, that the finest genius

avoid it. However, at last I was drag- provoking than to see fine talents so

verse fortune to hear part of a satyre letter from Mrs. Carter (in her Mejust ready for the press. Considered moirs lately published by the Rev. M as poetry and wit, it had some ex- Pennington) and, dated April 1745. tremeljrfine strokes but the yilepracfor sir George (for whom also his patron Dodington voted) but wrote the greater part of his advertisements, handbills, and paragraphs. He wrote also the “Case of the hon. Alexander Murray,” who was sent to Newgate for heading a riot on that occasion.

In 1755 he published “An Epistle to Dr. Thomson.” This physician was one of the persons who shared in the conviv.al hours of Mr. Dodington, afterwards lord Melcombe, although it is not easy to discover what use he could make of a physician out of practice, a man of most slovenl) habits, and who had neither taste nor talents. It was at his lordship’s house where Whitehead became acquainted with this man, ancUooked up to him as an oracle both in politics and physic; and here too he associated very cordially with Ralph, whom he had abused with so much contempt in the “State Dunces.” From his Diary lately published, and from some of his unpublished letters in our possession, it appears that Dodington had no great respect for Thomson, and merely used him, Whitehead, Ralph, and others, as convenient tools in his various political intrigues. Whitehead’s epistle is an extravagant encomium on Thomson, of whose medical talents he could be no judge, and which, if his “Treatise on the Small- pox” be a specimen, were likely to be more formidable to his patients than to his brethren.

Except a small pamphlet on the disputes, in 1768, between the four managers of Covent- garden theatre, the “Epistle to Dr. Thomson” was the last of our author’s detached publications. The lesser pieces to be found in his works, were occasional trirles written for the theatres or public gardens. He was now in easy, if not affluent circumstances. By the interest of lord Le Despenser, he got the place of deputy- treasurer of the chamber, worth 800l. and held it to his death. On this acquisition, he purchased a cottage on Twickenham common, and from a design of his friend Isaac Ware, the architect, at a small expence improved it into an elegant villa. Here, according to sir John Hawkins, he was visited by very few of the inhabitants of that classical spot, but his house was open to all his London acquaintance Hogarth, Lambert, and Hayman, painters; Isaac Ware, Beard, and Havard, &c. In such company principally, he passed the remainder of his days, suffering the memory of his poetry and politics to. decay gradually. His death happened at his lodgings in Henrietta-street, Covent-garden, Dec. So, 1774. For some time previous to this event he lingered under a severe illness, during which he employed himself in burning all his manuscripts. Among these were the originals of many occasional pieces of poetry, written for the amusement of his friends, some of which had prohably been published without his name, and cannot now be distinguished. His Works were published in an elegant quarto volume (in 1777) by Capt. Edward Thompson, who prefixed memoirs of his life, in which however there is very little that had not been published in the Annual Register of 1775. The character Thompson gives of him is an overstrained panegyric, inconsistent in itself, and more so when compared with some facts which he had not the sense to conceal, nor the virtue to censure.

Whitehead’s character has never been in much esteem, yet it was not uniformly bad. Those who adopt a severe sentence passed by Churchill, in these lines,

will want nothing else to excite abhorrence; but Churchill has taken too many liberties with truth to be believed without corroborating evidence. Besides, we are to consider what part of Whitehead’s conduct excited this indignation. Paul’s great and unpardonable crime, in Churchill’s eyes, was his accepting a place under government, and laying aside a pen, which, in conjunction with Churchill’s, might have created wonders in the political world. Churchill could not dislike him because he was an infidel and a man of pleasure. In point of morals, there was surely not much difference in the misfortune of being born a Whitehead or a Churchill.

How very erroneous Whitehead’s life had been, is too evident from his having shared in those scenes of blasphemy and debauchery which were performed at Medmenham, or Mednam Abbey, a house on the banks of the Thames, near Marlow in Buckinghamshire. His noble patron (then sir Francis Dashwood), sir Thomas Stapleton, John Wilkes, Whitehead, and others, combined at this place in a scheme of impious and sensual indulgence, unparalleled in the annals of infamy; and perhaps there cannot be a more striking proof of want of shame, as well as of virtue, than the circumstance which occasioned the discovery of this refined brothel . Wilkes was the first person to disclose the shocking secret, and that merely out of a pique against one of the members who had promoted the prosecution against him for writing the “Essay on Woman.” In the same note, to one of Churchill’s poems, in which he published the transactions of this profligate cabal, he was not ashamed to insert his own name as a partner in the guilt.

That Whitehead repented of the share he took in this club, we are not told. His character suffered, however, in common with that of the other members; and he appears to have been willing to “buy golden opinions of all men” by acts of popularity, and gain some respect from his social, if he could gain none from his personal virtues. Sir John Hawkins represents him, as by nature a friendly and kind-hearted man, well acquainted with vulgar manners and the town, but little skilled in knowledge of the world, and little able to resist the arts of designing men. He had married a woman of a good family and fortune, whom, though homely in her person, and little better than an ideot, he treated not only with humanity, but with tenderness, hiding, as well as he was able, those defects in her understanding, which are oftener the subjects of ridicule than compassion. At Twickenham, adds sir John, he manifested the goodness of his nature in the exercise of kind offices, in healing breaches, and composing differences between his poor neighbours.

But whatever care Whitehead took to retrieve his character, and throw oblivion over the most blameable part of his life, he unintentionally revived the whole by a clause in his will, in which, out of gratitude, he bequeathed his Heart to lord Le Despenser, and desired it might be deposited, if his lordship pleased, in some corner of his mausoleum. These terms were accordingly fulfilled, and the valuable relic deposited with the ceremony of a military procession, vocal performers habited, as a choir, in surplices, and every other testimony of veneration. The whole was followed by the performance of an oratorio in West Wycombe church. The following incantation which was sung at the placing of the urn in the mausoleum, may be a sufficient specimen of this solemn mockery:

His poems were appended to the last edition of Dr. Johnson’s collection, yet it may be doubted whether any partiality can assign him a very high rank even among versifiers. He was a professed imitator of Pope, in his satires, and may be entitled to all the praise which successful imitation deserves. His lines are in general harmonious and correct, and sometimes vigorous, but he owed his popularity chiefly to the personal calumnies so liberally thrown out against men of rank, in the defamation of whom a very active and extensive party was strongly interested. Like Churchill’s, therefore, his works were forgotten when the contending parties were removed or reconciled. But he had not the energetic and original genius of Churchill, nor can we find many passages in which the spirit of genuine poetry is discoverable. Of his character as a poet, he was himself very careless, considering it perhaps as only the temporary instrument of his advancement to ease and independence. No persuasions could induce him to collect his works, and they would probably* never have been collected, had not the frequent mention of his name in conjunction with those of his political patrons, and the active services of his pen, created a something like permanent reputation, and a desire to collect the various documents by which the history of factions may be illustrated.

, another English poet, of a more estimable character, was born at Cambridge in the beginning of 1715. His father was a baker in St. Botolph’s parish, and at one time must have been a man of some property or some interest, as he bestowed a liberal education on his eldest son, John, wtio after entering into the church, held the living of Pershore in the diocese of Worcester. He would probably have been enabled to extend the same care to William, his second son, had he not died when the boy was at school, and left his widow involved in debts contracted by extravagance or folly. A few acres of land, near Grantchester, on which he expended considerable sums of money, without, it would appear, expecting much return, is yet known by the name of White head’s Folly* William received the first rudiments of education at some common school at Cambridge, and at the age of fourteen was removed to Winchester, having obtained a nomination into that college by the interest of Mr. Bromley, afterwards lord MonttorC. Of his behaviour while at school his biographer, Mr. Mason, received the following account from Dr. Balguy. " He was always of a delicate turn, and though obliged to go to the hills with the other boys, spent his time there in reading either plays or poetry; and was also particularly fond of the Atalantis, and all other books of private history or character. He very early exhibited his taste for poetry; for while other boys were contented with shewing up twelve or fourteen lines, he would till half a sheet, but always with English verse. This Dr. Burton, the master, at first discouraged; but, after some time, he was so much charmed, that he spoke of them with rapture. When he was sixteen he wrote a whole comedy. In the winter of the year 1732, he is said to have acted a female part in the Andria, under Dr. Burton’s direction. Of this there are some doubts; but it is certain that he acted Marcia, in the tragedy of Cato, with much applause. In the year 1733, the earl of Peterborough, having Mr. Pope at his house near Southampton, carried him to Winchester to shew him the college, school, &c. The earl gave ten guineas to be disposed of in prizes amongst the boys, and Mr. Pope set them a subject to write upon, viz. Peterborough. Prizes of a guinea each were given to six of the boys, of whom Whitehead was one. The remaining sum was laid out for other boys in subscriptions to Pine’s Horace, then about to be published. He never excelled in writing epigrams, nor did he make any considerable figure in Latin verse, though he understood the classics very well, and had a good memory. He was, however, employed to translate into Latin the first epistle of the Essay on Man; and the translation is still extant in his own hand. Dobson’s success in translating Prior’s Solomon had put this project into Mr. Pope’s head, and he set various persons to work upon it.

“His school friendships were usually contracted either with noblemen, or gentlemen of large fortune, such as lord Drumlanrig, sir Charles Douglas, sir Robert Burdett, Mr. Try on, and Mr. Mundy of Leicestershire. The choice of those persons was imputed by some of his schoolfellows to vanity, by others to prudence; but might it not be owing to his delicacy, as this would make him easily disgusted with the coarser manners of ordinary boys? He was schooltutor to Mr. Wallop, afterwards lord Lymington, son to the late earl of Portsmouth, and father to the present earl. He enjoyed, for some little time, a lucrative place in the college, that of preposter of the hall. At the election in September, 1735, he was treated with singular injustice; for, through the force of superior interest, he was placed so low on the roll, that it was scarce possible for him to succeed to New-college. Being now superannuated, he left Winchester of course, deriving no other advantage from the college than a good education: this, however, he had ingenuity enough to acknowledge, with gratitude, in a poem prefixed to the second edition of Dr. Lowth’s Life of William of Wickham.”

Although he lost his father before he had resided at Winchester above two years, yet by his own frugality, an,d such assistance as his mother, a very amiable, prudent, and exemplary woman, could give him, he was enabled to remain at school until the election for New college, in which we have seen he was disappointed. Two months after, he returned to Cambridge, where he was indebted to his extraction, low as Mr. Mason thinks it, for what laid the foundation of his future success in life. The circumstance of his being the orphan son of a baker gave him an unexceptionable claim to one of the scholarships found at Clarehall by Mr. Thomas Pyke, who had followed that trade in Cambridge. His mother accordingly got him admitted a sizar in this college, under the tuition of Messrs. Curling-, Goddard, and Hopkinson, Nov. 26, 1735. After every allowance is made for the superior value of money in his time, it will remain a remarkable proof of his poverty and economy, that this scholarship, which amounted only to four shillings a week, was in his circumstances a desirable object.

The production with which, in Mr. Mason’s opinion, he commenced a poet, was his epistle “On the Danger of Writing in Verse.” This, we are told, obtained general admiration, and was highly approved by Pope. But that it is “one of the most happy imitations extant of Pope’s preceptive manner,” is a praise which seems to come from Mr. Mason’s friendship, rather than his judgment. The subject is but slightly touched, and the sentiments are often obscure. The finest passage, and happiest imitation of Pope, is that in which he condemns the licentiousness of certain poets. The tale of “Atys and Adrastus,” his next publication, is altogether superior to the former. It is elegant, pathetic, and enriched with some beautiful imagery. “The Epistle of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII.” which followed, will not be thought to rank very high among productions of this kind. “The truth is,” says Mr. Mason, “Mr. Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard is such a chef (TceuvrC) that nothing of the kind can be relished after it.” Our critic has, however, done no credit to Whitehead by this insinuation of rivalship, and yet less to himself by following it with a petulant attack on Dr. Johnson. In his eagerness to injure the reputation of a man so much his superior, and with whom, it is said, he never exchanged an angry word, he would exclude sympathy from the charms which attract in the Eloisa, and, at the expence of taste and feeling, passes a clumsy sarcasm on papistical machinery.

The “Essay on Ridicule” was published in 1743. It is by far the best, of his didactic pieces, and one upon which, his biographer thinks, he bestowed great pains. “His own natural candour led him to admit the use of this excellent (though frequently misdirected) weapon of the mind with more restrictions than, perhaps, any person will submit to, who has the power of employing it successfully.” The justice of this observation is proved by almost universal experience. Pope and Swift at this time were striking instances of the abuse of a talent which, moderated by candour, and respect for what ought to be above all ridicule and all levity, might contribute more powerfully to sink vice into contempt than any other means that can be employed!.

This poem is not now printed as it came from the pen of the author on its first publication. Some lines at the conclusion are omitted, in which he was afraid he had authorized too free a use of ridicule, and the names of Lucian and Cervantes, whom he held as legitimate models, are omitted, that honour being reserved for Addison only.

His next essay was the short epistle to the earl of Ashburnham on “Nobility.” His biographer is silent concerning it, because it was not inserted in either of the editions of his works, nor can he assign the reason, although it does not appear to be very obscure. With much excellent advice, there is a mixture of democratic reflection on hereditary titles, and insinuations respecting

In the publication of the poems now enumerated, while at college, Mr. Mason informs us that he was less eager for poetical fame than desirous of obtaining a maintenance by the labours of his pen, that he might be less burthensome to his mother. With this laudable view, he practised the strictest economy, and pursued his studies with exemplary diligence. Whether his inclination led him to any particular branch of science we are not told. In 1739 he took his degree of bachelor of arts, and in 1742 was elected a fellow of his college. In 1743, he was admitted master of arts, and appears about this time to have had an intention to take orders. Some lines which he wrote to a friend, and which are reprinted among the additional fragments to his works, treat this intention with a levity unbecoming that, which, if not serious, is the worst of all hypocrisy. He was prevented, however, from indulging any thoughts of the church by an incident which determined the tenour of his future life.

William, third earl of Jersey, was at this time making inquiries after a proper person to be private tutor to his second son, the late earl, and Whitehead was recommended by Mr. commissioner Graves as a person qualified for this important charge. Mr. Whitehead accepted the offer, as his fellowship would not necessarily be vacated by it, and in the summer of 1745, removed to the earl’s house in town, where he was received upon the most liberal footing. A young friend of the family, afterwards general Stephens, was also put under his care, as a companion to the young nobleman in his studies, and a spur to his emulation. Placed thus in a situation where he could spare some hours from the instruction of his pupils, he became a frequenter of the theatre, which had been his favourite amusement long before he had an opportunity of witnessing the superiority of the London performers. Immediately on his coming to to.vvb, he had written a little ballad farce, entitled, “The Edinburgh Ball,” in which the young Pretender is held up to ridicule. This, however, was never performed or printed. He then began a regular tragedy, “The Roman Father,” which was produced on the stage in 1750. He appears to have viewed the difficulties of a first attempt with a wary eye, and had the precaution to make himself known to the public by the “Lines addressed to Dr. Hoadly.” Those to Mr. Garrick, on his becoming joint patentee of Drury-lane theatre, would probably improve his interest with one whose excessive tenderness of reputation was among the few blemishes in his character.

It is not necessary to expatiate on the merits of the Roman Father, which still retains its place on the stage, and has been the choice of many new performers who wished to impress the audience with a favourable opinion of their powers, and of some old ones who are less afraid of modern than of antient tragedy, of declamation than of passion. Mr. Mason has bestowed a critical discussion upon it, but evidently with a view to throw out reflections on “Irene,” which Johnson never highly valued, and on Garrick, whom he accused of a tyrannical use of the pruning-knife. To this, however, he confesses that Whitehead submitted with the humblest deference, nor was it a deference which dishonoured either his pride or his taste. He avowedly wrote for stage- effect, and who could so properly judge of that as Garrick

The next production of our author was the “Hymn to the Nymph of the Bristol Spring,' 7 in 1751,” written in the manner of those classical addresses to heathen divinities of which the hymns of Homer and Callimachus are the archetypes.“This must be allowed to be a very favourable specimen of his powers in blank verse, and has much of poetical fancy and ornament.” The Sweepers,“a ludicrous attempt in blank verse, would, in Mr. Mason’s opinion, have received more applause than it has hitherto done, had the taste of the generality of readers been founded more on their own feelings than on mere prescription and authority. It appears to us, however, to be defective in plan: there is an effort at humour in the commencement, of which the effect is painfully interrupted by the miseries of a female sweeper taken into keeping, and passing to ruin through the various stages of prostitution. About this time, if we mistake not, for Mr. Mason has not given the precise date, he wrote the beautiful stanzas on” Friendship,“which that gentleman thinks one of his best and most finished compositions. What gives it a peculiar charm is, that it comes from the heart, and appeals with success to the experience of every man who has imagined what friendship should be, or known what it is. The celebrated Gray, according to Mr. Mason’s account,” disapproved the general sentiment which it conveyed, for he said it would furnish the unfeeling and capricious with apologies for their defects; and that it ought to be entitled A Satire on Friendship.“Mr. Mason repeated this opinion to the author, who, in consequence, made a considerable addition to the concluding part of the piece.” Still, however, as the exceptionable stanzas remained, which contained an apology for what Mr. Gray thought no apology ought to be made, he continued unsatisfied, and persisted in saying, that it had a bad tendency, and the more so, because the sentiments which he thought objectionable were so poetically and finely expressed."

This is n singular anecdote; how far Gray was right in his opinion may be left to the consideration of the reader, who is to remember that the subject of these verses is school-boy friendship. Some instances of its instability Whitehead may have experienced, and the name of Charles Townshend is mentioned as one who forgot him when he became a statesman. But it is certain that he had less to complain of, in this respect, than most young men of higher pretensions, for he retained the greater part of his youthful friendships to the last, and was, indeed, a debtor to friendship for almost all he had. What Gray seems to be afraid of, is Whitehead’s admission that the decay of friendship may be mutual, and from causes for which neither party is seriously to blame.

The subject of this poem is not indirectly connected, with the verses which he wrote about this time (1751) to the rev. Mr. Wright, who had blamed him for leading what some of his friends thought a dependent life, and for not taking orders, or entering upon a regular profession. For this there was certainly some plea. He had resigned his fellowship in 1746, about a year after he became one of lord Jersey’s family, and with that, every prospect of Advantage from his college. He had now remained five years in this family, and had attained the age of thirty-six, without any support but what depended on the liberality of his employer, or the sale of his poems. It was not therefore very unreasonable in his friend to suggest, that he had attained the age at which men in general have determined their course of life, and that his present situation must be one of two things, either dependent or precarious.

In the verses just mentioned, Whitehead endeavours to vindicate his conduct, and probably will be found to vindicate it like one too much enamoured of present ease to look forward to probable disappointment. He is content with dependence, because he has made it easy to himself; his present condition is quiet and contentment, and what can his future be more thus ingeniously shifting the subject from a question of dependence or independence, to that of ambition and bustle. But although this will not apply generally, such was his temper or his treatment that it proved a sufficient apology in his own case. Throughout a long life, he never had cause to repent of the confidence he placed in his noble friends, who continued to heap favours upon him in the most delicate manner, and without receiving, as far as we know, any of those humiliating or disgraceful returns which degrade genius and endanger virtue.

About this time, lord Jersey determined that his son should complete his education abroad, and the late lord Harcourt having the same intentions concerning his eldest son lord viscount Nuneham, a young nobleman of nearly the same age, Mr. Whitehead was appointed governor to both, and gladly embraced so favourable an opportunity of enlarging his views by foreign travel. Leipsic was the place where they were destined to pass the winter of 1754, in order to attend the lectures of professor Mascow on the Droit publique. They set off in June, and resided the rest of the summer at Rheims, that they might habituate themselves to the French language, and then passed seven months at Leipsic, with little satisfaction or advantage, for they found the once celebrated Mascow in a state of dotage, without being quite incapacitated from reading his former lectures.

Mr. Mason complains that these elegies were not popular, and states various objections made to them; he does not add by whom: but takes care to inform us that the poet bore his fate contentcrdly, because he was no longer under the necessity of adapting himself to the public taste in order to become a popular writer. He had received, while yet in Italy, two genteel patent placesf, usually united, the badges of secretary and register of the order of the Bath; and two years after, on 'he death of old Gibber, he was appointee) poet laureat. This last place was offered to Gray, by Mr. Mason’s mediation, and an apology was made for passing over Mr. Mason himself, “that being in orders, he was thought, merely on that account, less eligible for the office than a layman.” Mr. Mason says, he was glad to hear this reason assigned, and did not think it a weak one. It appears, however, that a higher respect was paid to Gray than to Whitehead, in the offer of the appointment. Gray was to hold it as a sinecure, but Whitehead was expected to do the duties of the Laureat. In this dilemma, if it may be so called, Mr. Mason endeavoured to relieve his friend by an expedient not very promising. He advised him to employ a deputy to write his annual odes, and reserve his own pen for certain great occasions, as a peace, or a royal marriage: and he pointed out to him two or three needy poets who, for the reward of five or ten guineas, would be humble enough to write under the eye of the musical composer. Whitehead had more confidence in his powers, or more respect for his royal patron, than to take this advice, and set himself to compose his annual odes with the zeal that he employed on his voluntary effusions. But although he had little to fear from the fame of his predecessor, he was not allowed to enjoy all the benefits of comparison. His odes were confessedly superior to those of Gibber, but the office itself, under Gibber’s possession, had become so ridiculous, that it was no easy task to restore it to some degree of public respect. Whitehead, however, was perhaps the man of all others, his contemporaries, who could perform this with most ease to himself. Attacked as he was, in every way, by “the little fry” of the poetical profession, he was never provoked into retaliation, aud bore even the more dangerous abuse of Churchill, with a real or apparent indifference, which to that turbulent libeller must have been truly mortifying. He was not, however, insensible of the inconvenience, to say the least, of -a situation which obliges a man to write two poems yearly upon the same subjects; and with this feeling wrote “The Pathetic Apology for all Laureats,” which, from the motto, he appears to have intended to reach that quarter where only redress could be obtained, but it was not published till after his death.

For some years after his return to England, he lived almost entirely in the house of the earl of Jersey, no longer as a tutor to his son, but as a companion of amiable manners and accomplishments, whom the good sense of that nobleman and his lady preferred to be the partner of their familiar and undisguised intimacy, and placed at their table as one not unworthy to sit with guests of whatever rank. The earl and countess were now advanced in years, and his biographer informs us, that Whitehead “willingly devoted the principal part of his time to the amusement of his patron and patroness, which, it will not be doubted by those who know with what unassuming ease, and pleasing sallies of wit, he enlivened his conversation, must have made their hours of sickness or pain pass away with much more serenity.” The father of lord Nuneham also gave him a general invitation to his table in town, and to his delightful seat in the country; and the two young lords, during the whole of his life, bestowed upon him every mark of affection and respect. During this placid enjoyment of high life, he produced “The School for Lovers,” a comedy which was performed at Drury-lane in 1762. In the advertisement prefixed to it, he acknowledges his obligations to a small dramatic piece written by M. de Fontenelle. This comedy was not unsuccessful, but was written on a plan so very different from all that is called comedy, that the critics were at. a loss where to place it. Mr. Mason, who will not allow it to be classed among the sentimental, assigns it a very high station among the small list of our genteel comedies. In the same year, he published his “Charge to the Poets,” in which, as Laureat, he humorously assumes the dignified mode of a bishop giving his visitatorial instructions to his clergy. He is said to have designed this as a continuation of “The Dangers of writing verse.” There seems, however, no very close connection, while as a poem it is far superior, not only in elegance and harmony of verse, but in the alternation of serious advice and genuine humour, the whole chastened by candour for his brethren, and a kindly wish to protect them from the fastidiousness of criticism, as well as to heal the mutual animosities of the genus irritabile. But, laudable as the attempt was, he had not even the happiness to conciliate those whose cause he pleaded. Churchill, from this time, attacked him whenever he attacked any, but Whitehead disdained to reply, and only adverted to the animosity of that poet in a few lines which he wrote towards the close of his life, and which appear to be part of some longer poem. They have already been noticed in the life of Churchill. One consequence of Churchill’s animosity, neither silence nor resentment could avert. Churchill, at this time, had possession of the town, and made some characters unpopular, merely by joining them with others who were really so. Garrick was so frightened at the abuse he threw out against Whitehead, that he would not venture to bring out a tragedy which the latter offered to him. Such is Mr. Mason’s account, but if it was likely to succeed, why was it not produced when Churchill and his animosities were forgotten? The story, however, may be true, for when in 1770, he offered his “Trip to Scotland,” a farce, to Mr. Garrick, he conditioned that it should be produced without the name of the author. The secret was accordingly preserved both in acting and publishing, and the farce was performed and read for a considerable time, without a suspicion that the grave author of “The School for Lovers” had relaxed into the broad mirth and ludicrous improbabilities of farce.

In 1774, he collected his poems and dramatic pieces together, with the few exceptions already noticed, and published them in two volumes, under the title of “Plays and Poems,” concluding with the Charge to the Poets, as a farewell to the Muses. He had, however, so much leisure, and so many of those incitements which a poet and a moralist cannot easily resist, that he still continued to employ his pen, and proved that it was by no means worn out. In 1776 he published “Variety, a tale for married people,” a light, pleasing poem, in the manner of Gay, which speedily ran through five editions. His “Goat’s Beard,” (in 1777) was less familiar and less popular, but is not inferior in moral tendency and just satire on degenerated manners. It produced an attack, entitled “Asses Ears, a Fable,” addressed to the author of the Goat’s Beard, in which the office of Laureat is denied to men of genius, and judged worthy to be held only by such poets as bhadwell and Gibber.

The “Goat’s Beard” was the last of-Whitehead’s publications. He left in manuscript the tragedy already mentioned, which Garrick was afraid to perform; the name Mr. Mason conceals, but informs us that the characters are noble, and the story domestic. He left also the first act of an “CEdipus” the beginning, and an imperfect plan of a tragedy founded on king Edward the Second’s resignation of his crown to his son, and of another composed of Spanish and Moorish characters; and a few small poetical pieces, some of which Mr. Mason printed in the volume to which he prefixed his Memoirs, in 1788.

After he had taken leave of the public as an author, except in his official productions, he continued to enjoy the society of his friends for some years, highly respected for the intelligence of his conversation and the suavity of his manners. His death, which took place on April 14, 1785, was sudden. In the spring of that year he was confined at home for some weeks by a cold and cough which affected his breast, but occasioned so little interruption to his wonted amusements of reading and writing, that when lord Harcourt visited him the morning before he died, he found him revising for the press a paper, which his lordship conjectured to be the birth- day ode. At noon finding himself disinclined to taste the dinner his servant brought Up, he desired to lean upon his arm from the table to his bed, and in that moment he expired, in the seventieth year of his age. He was interred in South Audley-street chapel.

Unless, with Mr. Mason, we conclude that where Whitehead was unsuccessful, the public was to blame, it will not be easy to prove his right to a very high station among English poets. Yet perhaps he did not so often fall short from a defect of genius, as from a timidity which inclined him to listen too frequently to the corrections of his friends, and to believe that what was first written could never be the best. Although destitute neither of invention nor ease, he repressed both by adhering, like his biographer, to certain standards of taste which the age would not accept, and like him too, consoled himself in the hope of some distant sera when his superior worth should be acknowledged. As a prose writer, he has given proofs of classical taste and reading in his “Observations on the Shield of Æneas,” originally published in Dodsley’s Museum, and afterwards annexed to Warton’s Virgil; and of genuine and delicate humour in three papers of The World, No. 12, 19, and 58, which he reprinted in the edition of his Works, published in 1774.

, an ingenious English philosopher, was born at Congleton in the county of Cheshire, the 10t.h of April 1713, being the son of a clock and watchmaker there. Of the early part of his life but little is known, he who dies at an advanced age leaving few behind him to communicate anecdotes of his youth. On his quitting school, where it seems the education he received was very defective, he was bred by his father to his own profession, in which he soon gave hopes of his future eminence.

It was very early in life that, from his vicinity to the many stupendous phenomena in Derbyshire, which were constantly presented to his observation, his attention was excited to inquire into the various causes of them. His father, who was a man of an inquisitive turn, encouraged him in every thing that tended to enlarge the sphere of his knowledge, and occasionally accompanied him in his subterraneous researches.

At about the age of 2 1 his eagerness after new ideas carried him to Dublin, having heard of an ingenious piece of mechanism in that city, being a clock with certain curious appendages, which he was very desirous of seeing, and no less so of conversing with the maker. On his arrival, however, he could neither procure a sight of the former, nor draw the least hint from the latter concerning it. Thus disappointed, he fell upon an expedient for accomplishing his design; and accordingly took up his residence in the house of the mechanic, paying the more liberally for his board, as he had hopes from thence of more readily obtaining the indulgence wished for. He was accommodated with a room directly over that in which the favourite piece was kept carefully locked up; and he had not long to wait for his gratification, for the artist, while one day employed in examining his machine, was suddenly called down stairs; which the young inquirer happening to overhear, softly slipped into the room, inspected the machine, and, presently satisfying himself as to the secret, escaped undiscovered to his own apartment. His end thus compassed, he shortly after hid the artist farewell, and returned to his father in England.

About two or three years after his return from Ireland he left Congleton, and entered into business for himself at Derby, where he soon got into great employment, and distinguished himself very much by several ingenious pieces of mechanism, both in his own regular line of business and in various other respects, as in the construction of curious thermometers, barometers, and other philosophical instruments, as well as in ingenious contrivances for water-works, and the erection of various larger machines being- consulted in almost all the undertakings in Derbyshire, and in the neighbouring counties, where the aid of superior skill, in mechanics, pneumatics, and hydraulics, was requisite.

In this manner his time was fully and usefully employed in the country, till, in 1775, when the act passed for the better regulation of the gold coin, he was appointed stamper of the money-weights; an office conferred upon him altogether unexpectedly and without solicitation. Upon this occasion he removed to London, where be spent the remainder of his days in the constant habits of cultivating some useful parts of philosophy and mechanism. And here too his house became the constant resort of the ingenious and scientific at large, of whatever nation or rank, and this to such a degree as very often to impede him in the regular prosecution of his own speculations. In 1778 Mr. Whitehurst published his “Inquiry into the original State and Formation of the Earth;” of which a second edition appeared in 1786, considerably enlarged and improved; and a third in 1792. This was the labour of many years; and the numerous investigations necessary to its completion were in themselves also of so untoward a nature as at times, though he was naturally of a strong constitution, not a little to prejudice his health. When he first entered upon this species of research it was not altogether with a view to investigate the formation of the earth, but in part to obtain such a competent knowledge of subterraneous geography as might become subservient to the purposes of human life, by leading mankind to the discovery of many valuable substances which lie concealed in the lower regions of the earth.

May the 13th, 1779, he was elected and admitted a fellow of the royal society. He was also a member of some other philosophical societies, which admitted him of their respective bodies without his previous knowledge; but so remote was he from any thing that might savour of ostentation, that this circumstance was known only to a very few of his most confidential friends. Before he was admitted a member of the royal society, three several papers of his had been inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, viz. Thermometrical Observations at Derby, in vol. LVII. an Account of a Machine for raising Water at Oulton in Cheshire, in vol. LXV.; and Experiments on ignited Substances, in vol. LXVI.; which three papers were printed afterwards in the collection of his works in 1792.

In 1787 he published “An Attempt toward obtaining invariable Measures of Length, Capacity, and Weight, from the Mensuration of Time,” His plan is, to obtain a measure of the greatest length that conveniency will permit, from two pendulums whose vibrations are in the ratio of 2 to 1, and whose lengths coincide nearly with the English standard in whole numbers. The numbers which he has chosen shew much ingenuity. On a supposition that the length of a seconds pendulum, in the latitude of London, is 39-i inches, the length of one vibrating 42 times in a minute must be 80 inches; and of another vibrating 84 times in a minute must be 20 inches; and their difference, 60 inches, or 5 feet, is his standard measure. By the experiments, however, the difference between the lengths of the two pendulum rods was found to be only 59.892 inches, instead of 60, owing to the error in the assumed length of the seconds pendulum, 39^ inches being greater than the truth, which ought to be 3) very nearly. By this expement Mr. Whitehurst obtained a fact, as accurately as may he in a thing of this nature, viz. the difference between the lengths of two pendulum rods whose vibrations are known; a datum from whence may be obtained, by calculation, the true lengths of pendulums, the spaces through which heavy bodies fall in a given time, and many other particulars relating to the doctrine of gravitation, the figure of the earth, &c. &c. The work concludes with several directions, shewing how the measure of length may be applied to determine the measures of capacity and weight; and with some tables of the comparative weights and measures of different nations; the uses of which, in philosophical and mercantile affairs, are self-evident.

Though Mr. Whitehurst for several years felt himself gradually declining, yet his ever-active mind remitted not of its accustomed exertions. Even in his last illness, before being confined entirely to his chamber, he was proceeding at intervals to complete a treatise on chimneys, ventilation, and the construction of garden-stoves, announced to the public in 1782; and containing, 1. some account of the properties of the air, and the laws of fluids; 2. their application and use in a variety of cases relative to the construction of chimneys, and the removal of such defects as occasion old chimneys to smoke; 3. modes of ventilating elegant rooms, without any visible appearance or deformity, calculated for the preservation of pictures, prints, furniture, and fine cieliugs, from the pernicious effects of stagnant air, smoke of candles, &c. 4. methods of ventilating counting-houses and workshops, wherein many people, candles, or lamps, are employed likewise hospitals, jails, stables, &.c. 5. a philosophical inquiry into the construction of garden-stoves, employed in the culture of exotic plants; 6. a description of some other devices, tending to promote the health and comfort of human life. The manuscripts and drawings, since his death, have been in the hands of several of his friends, and were published by Dr. Willan in 1794.

Mr. Whitehurst had been at times subject to slight attacks of the gout; and he had for several years felt himself gradually declining. By an attack of that disease in his stomach, after a struggle of two or three months, it put an end to his laborious and useful life, on the 18th of February 1788, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, at his house in Bolt-court, Fleet-street, being the same house where another eminent self-taught philosopher, Mr. James Ferguson, had immediately before him lived and died. He was interred in St. Andrew’s burying- ground in Gray’s-inn-lahe, where Mrs. Whitehurst had been interredin Nov. 1784. In Jan. 1745 he married this lady, Elizabeth, daughter of the rev. George Gretton, rector of Trusley and Daubery, in Derbyshire; a woman ever mentioned with pleasure by those who knew her best, as among the first of female characters. Her talents and education were very respectable; which enabled her to be useful in correcting some parts of his writings. He had only one child by her, and that died dn the birth.

However respectable Mr. Whitehurst may have been in mechanics, and those parts of natural science which he more immediately cultivated, he was of still higher account with his acquaintance and friends on the score of his moral qualities. To say nothing of the uprightness and punctuality of his dealings in all transactions relative to business; few men have been known to possess more benevolent affections than he, or, being possessed of such, to direct them more judiciously to their proper ends. He was a philanthropist in the truest sense of that word. Every thing tending to the good of his kind, he was on all occasions, and particularly in cases of distress, zealous to forward, considering nothing foreign to him as a man that relates to man. Though well known to many of the great, he never once stooped to flattery, being a great enemy to every deviation from truth.

In person fee was somewhat above the middle stature, rather thin than otherwise, and of a countenance expressive at once of penetration aod mildness. His fine grey locks, unpolluted by art, gave a venerable air to his whole appearance. In dress he was plain, in diet temperate, in his general intercourse with mankind, easy and obliging. In company he was cheerful or grave alike, according to the dictates of the occasion; with now and then a peculiar species of humour about him, delivered with such gravity of manner and utterance, that those who knew him but slightly were apt to und-erstand him as serious when he was merely playful. Where any desire of information on subjects in which he was conversant, was expressed, he omitted no opportunity of imparting it. But he never affected, after the manner of some, to know what he did not know; nor, such was his modesty, made he any the least display of what he did know. Considering all useful learning to lie in a narrow compass, and having little relish for the ornamental, he was not greatly given to reading; but from his youth up be observed much, and reflected much; his apprehension was quick, and his judgment clear and discriminating. Unbiassed from education by any earlyadopted systems, he had immediate recourse to nature herself; he attentively studied her, and, by a patience and assiduity indefatigable, attained to a consequence in science not rashly to be hoped for, without regular initiation, by minds of less native energy than his own. He had many friends, and from the great purity and simplicity of his’" manners, few or no enemies; unless it were allowable to call those enemies, who, without detracting from his merit openly, might yet, from a jealousy of his superior knowledge, be disposed to lessen it in private. In short, while the virtues of this excellent man are worthy of 1 being held up as a pattern of imitation to mankind in general; those in particular, who pride themselves in their learning and science, may see confirmed in him, what among other observations they may have overlooked in an old author, that lowly meekness, joined to great endowments, shall compass many fair respects, and, instead of aversion or scorn, be ever waited on with love and veneration.

, a learned English lawyer, was descended of a good family near Oakingham, in Berkshire, and born in London, November the 28th, 1570. He was educated in Merchant Taylors’ school, elected scholar of St. John’s college, in Oxford, in 1588, and July 1, 1594, took the degree of bachelor of civil law. He afterwards settled in the Middle Temple, became summer-reader of that house in the 17th year of king James I. a knight, member of parliament for Woodstock in 1620, chief justice of Chester, and at length one of the justices of the king’s bench. Kitig Charles I. said of him, that he was “a stout, wise, and learned man, and one who knew what belongs to uphold magistrates and magistracy in their dignity.” In Trinity term 1632, he fell ill of a cold, which so increased upon him that he was advised to go in the country; on which he took leave of his brethren the judges and serjeants, saying, “God be with you, I shall never see you again;” and this without the least disturbance or trouble of his thoughts; and soen after he came into the country he died, June 22. “On his death,” says his son, “the king lost as good a subject, his country as good a patriot, the people as just a 'judge, as ever lived. Ail honest men lamented the loss ui huri: no man in his age left behind him a more honoured memory. His reason was clear and strong, and his learning deep and general. He had the Latin tongue so perfect, that sitting judge of assize at Oxford, when some foreigners, persons of quality, being there, and coming to the court to see the manner of our proceedings in matters of justice, this judge caused them to sit down, and briefly repeated the heads of his charge to the grand jury in good and elegant Latin, and thereby informed the strangers and the scholars of the ability of our judges, and the course of our proceedings in matters of law and justice. He understood the Greek very well, and the Hebrew, and was versed in the Jewish histories, and exactly knowing in the history of his own country, and in the pedigrees of most persons of honour and quality in the kingdom, and was much conversant in the studies of antiquity and heraldry. He was not excelled by, any in the knowledge of his own profession of the common law of England^ wherein his knowledge of the civil law (whereof he was a graduate in Oxford) was a help to him. His learned arguments both at the bar and bench will confirm ­this truth.” He was interred at Fawley near High Wyr comb in Bucks, where a monument was erected to him by his son. There are extant of his: 1. Several speeches in parliament, particularly one in a book entitled “The Sovereign’s Prerogative and the Subject’s Privileges discussed, &c. in the 3d and 4th year of king Charles I. London, 1657, in fol. 2. Lectures or readings in the Middle Temple hall, August the 2d, 1619, and on the statute on 21 Henry VIII. c. 13. in the Ashmolean library at Oxford. 3. Of the antiquity, use, and ceremony of lawful combats in England, formerly in the library of Ralph Sheldon, of Beoly, esq. and since printed with other pieces by him, among Hearne’s” Curious Discourses."

, son of the preceding, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Edward Bulstrode, of Hugeley, or Hedgley Buistrode, in Buckinghamshire, esq. was born August 6, 1605, in Fleet-street, London, at the house of sir George Crooke, serjeant-at-law, his mother’s uncle. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, and in 1620 went to St. John’s college, Oxford, of which Dr. Laud, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was then president. Laud was his father’s contemporary and intimate friend, and shewed him particular kindness; and Whitelocke afterwards made an acknowledgment of it, in refusing, when that prelate was brought to trial for his life, to be one of the commissioners appointed to draw up a charge against him. He left the university before he had taken a degree, and went to the Middle Temple, where, by the help of his father, he became eminent for his skill in the common law as well as in other studies. We find him also one of the chief managers of the royal masque which was exhibited by the inns of court in February 1633,^ before Charles I. and his queen, and their court, at Whitehall.

In 1640 Mr. Whitelodke was chosen a burgess for Marlow in Buckinghamshire, in the long parliament; and was appointed chairman of the committee for drawing up the charges against the earl of Strafford, and one of the managers against him at his trial. All the papers relative to the proceedings against the earl were drlivered into Mr. Whitelocke’s custody: but a very material one happening to be missing, which had been previously conveyed away in a private manner, this brought a suspicion of treachery on Whitelocke, though it is said he was sufficiently cleared afterwards, when that paper was found in the king’s cabinet at the battle of Naseby, and proved to have been conveyed away by lord Digby.

Of the previous conduct and principles of Whitelocke, we are only told that he was often consulted by Hampden when he came to be prosecuted for refusing the payment of ship-money; and that at the beginning of the commotions in Scotland, when solicited in behalf of the covenanters, his advice was, not to foment these differences, far less to encourage a foreign nation against thrir natural prince. About the beginning of the first session of the long parliament, a debate arose respecting writs of habeas corpus, upon which Mr. Selden and other members, who had been committed for their freedom of speech in the parliament of 1628, demanded to be bailed, and had been refused. This svas so far aggravated by some, that they moved that Selden and the rest might have reparation out of the estates of those judges who then sat on tht king’s bench; but when they named, as the obnoxious judges, Hyde, Jones, and Whitelocke, our young member stood up in defence of his father, and vindicated him with great spirit. Except in the case of Strafford, a considerable degree of moderation at first marked his conduct. During the debates in the House of Commons on the question, whether the power of the nSilitia was in the king or in the parliament, he gave it as his opinion that it was not either in the king or parliament separately, but in both conjointly; and when 'it was afterwards debated, whether an army should not be raised for the defence of parliament, he represented in a very strong manner the miseri s of a civil war. As to the origin of the present state of affairs, he says, “It is strange to note how we have insensibly slid into this beginning of a civil war, by one unexpected accident after another, as waves of the sea, which have brought us thus far; and we scarce know how, but from paper combats, by declarations, remonstrances, protestations, notes, messages, answers, and replies, we are now come to the question of raising forces, and naming a general, and officers of an army.” After many other remarks of a similar kind, he added, “Yet I am not for a tame resignation of our religion, lives, and liberties, into the hands of our adversaries, who seek to devour us. Nor do I think it inconsistent with your great wisdom, to prepare for a just and necessary defence of them.” Still he recommended them to consider, whether it was not too soon to take up arms; and advised them to try if means might not be found to accommodate matters with the king before they proceeded to extremities. It must have been his opinion that such means could not Ue found, for as soon as the war commenced, Whitelocke adhered closely to the parliamentary party, and accepted the office of deputy-lieutenant of the counties of Bucks and Oxford, in 1642. Having also a company of horse under his command, he dispersed the commissioners. o,f array at Wellington, and then marching to Oxford, it was proposed to fortify that city and appoint him governor but this was prevented by lord Say, for which that nobleman was much censured by the parliamentary party. We find Whitelocke again among the forces which opposed the king at Brentford, and being now at open war with his sovereign, his seat at Fawley-court was plundered by a party of royalists. In January 1643, he was appointed one of ttie commissioners to treat of peace with the king at Oxford, and there seems no reason to doubt that he was not only active, but sincere in his efforts to accomplish thjs purpose. Why they were not more successful mus be sought ift the conduct of those who employed him, Against which he seems to have ventured to remonstrate Adhering, however, still to the cause he had espoused, he was one of the laymen appoiated to sit in the Westminster assembly of divines and there, as well as in parliament, was the strenuous opponent of those who were for asserting the divine right of presbytery.

In 1644 he was constituted lieutenant-governor of Windsor castle, and the same year he was again appointed one, of the commssioners for peace at Oxford. On this occasion the king expressed much esteem for Mr. vVmtelocke, and Mr. Holies, and said he believed them sincere in their wishes for peace. As they were about to take leave, the king desired they would set down in writing what they apprehended might be proper for him to reuiru in answer to the propositions that they had brought from the parliament, and what they thought most likely to promote a peace between turn and them. At first they were somewhat averse to this, thinking it rather inconsisU'n; i.i the trust repostd in tu m by parliament. But the king urging it, they at length complied with his request, and going into a private room, and disgiusing his huuVinteiocke wrote down wli.it ne and Holies judge i iu Ik iu r the sub-, stance of his majesty’s answer to t-,o piUjVi^iLs of peace they had brought, and left it upon the ublcj of his withdrawing-room. Fair as this proceeding might be considered by men really disposed to peace, it met with a very different reception from the parliamentary party. Lord Savile, who was then with the king at Oxford, but afterwards went over to the parliament, having heard of the transaction, sent to the House of Commons in July 1645, an accusation of high treason against Whitelocke and Holies. They were accordingly prosecuted, but after a long and strict examination, were acquitted by a vote of the House, July 21, of any misdemeanour in this business; and were left at liberty to prosecute Lord Savile, then a prisoner in the Tower, for the injury he had done them in this accusation. About this time Whitelocke was nominated attorney of the dutchy of Lancaster; and in 1645 was made steward of the revenues of Westminster college, and one of the commissioners of the admiralty. The same year he was appointed one of the commissioners at the treaty of Uxbricige, and attended there.

In the same year (1645) the House of Commons ordered, that all the books and manuscripts of the lord keeper Littleton (whose estate had been sequestered) should be bestowed upon Mr. Whitelocke; and the speaker was directed to issue his warrant for that purpose. In his “Memorials” Whitelocke says, “he undertook this business, as he had done others of the like kind, to preserve those books and manuscripts from being sold, which the sequestrators would have done; but he saved them, to have the present use of them; and resolving, if God gave them an happy accommodation, to restore them to the owner, or to some of his family. 17 On other occasions, Whitelocke shewed his regard to the interests of literature, particularly in preventing the king’s library and collection of medals from being sold or embezzled.” Being informed,“-he says,” of a design in some to have them sold and transported beyond sea, which I thought would be a dishonour and damage to our nation, and to all scholars therein; and fearing that in other hands they might be more subject to embezzling, and being willing to preserve them for public use, I did accept of the trouble of being library keeper at St. James’s, and therein was encouraged and much per* suaded to it by Mr. Selden, who swore that if I did not undertake the charge of them, all those rare monuments of antiquity, those choice books and manuscripts, would be lost; and there were not the like of them, except only in the Vatican, in any other library in Christendom. "He was also very serviceable in preserving the herald’s office, and in promoting the ordinance for settling and regulating the same. And while general Fairfax was engaged in the siege of Oxford, he sent for Whitelocke, who was admitted into the council of war, and used all his interest to procure honourable terms for the garrison, and to preserve the colleges and libraries from being plundered.

Whitelocke was one of those who opposed in the House of Commons the disbanding of the parliamentary army, and from this time was much courted by Cromwell and his adherents. He says himself that he resorted much with sir Henry Vane, and “other grandees of that party.” As to Cromwell, he had been once consulted by general Essex’s party, who were jealous of him, whether he could not be proceeded against as an incendiary. Whitelocke was of opinion that he could not, but at the same time expressed his sentiments^of him in the following language: “I take lieut.-gen. Cromwell to be a gentleman of quick and subtle parts, and one who hath (especially of late) gained no small interest in the House of Commons, nor is he wanting of friends in the House of Peers, nor of abilities in himself to manage his own part or defence to the best advantage. If this be so, it will be the more requisite to be well prepared against him before he be brought upon the stage, lest the issue of the business be not answerable to your expectations.” Wood says that Whitelocke gave Oliver. notice of this plot against him, but Whitelocke attributes the discovery to some present who were false brethren, and informed Cromwell of all that passed among them. Be this as it may, he was now quite in the confidence of Cromwell and his adherents. As he had attended at the siege of Oxford, so he did also at that of Wailingfoud, where he acted the part of secretary, and kept a strong garrison in his seat of Fawley-court, for the use of the prevailing powers. In Dec. 1646, we find him earnestly promoting the ordinances for taking away all coercive power of committees; and all arbitrary power from both or either of the houses of parliament, or any of their committees, in any matter between party and party, judging that to be for the honour of parliament, and the ease and right of the people; and being well skilled in foreign affairs, he was usually in every committee relating to them. At the same time he did not neglect his profession, but attended the assizes, and was much employed. In Sept. 1647, the city of London were very desirous of appointing him to the office of recorder, but this he declined, as well as that of speaker of the House of Commons. He was soon after appointed one of the commissioners of the great seal, and sworn into that office April 12, 1648, with a salary of 1000l. a year. He now resigned his place of attorney of the duchy of Lancaster, which, -with his practice, amounted to more than he gained by his new office, while even in it he soon began to think himself insecure, and looked upon the self-denying ordinance, as it was called, to be contrived to remove him. When the army began to controul the House of Commons, he made some of those salutary reflections, which, it is to be regretted, did not occur sooner to him. “We may take notice,” said he, “of the uncertainty of worldly affairs; when the parliament and their army had subdued their common enemy, then they quarrelled among themselves, the army against the parliament; when they were pretty well pieced together again, then the apprentices and others made an insurrection against the parliament and army. Thus we were in continual perplexities and dangers, and so it will be with all who shall engage in the like troubles.” The fate of the unhappy king being determined, Whitelocke was appointed one of the committee of thirty-eight, who were to draw up a charge against his tnajesty; but he never attended, as he totally disapproved of that measure, and therefore went into the country. He returned to London, however, while the king’s trial was pending, but took no concern with it, and refused afterwards to approve the proceedings of the high court of justice, as it was called, His memorandum on the king’s death is thus expressed: “Jan. 30, 1 went not to the House, but stayed all day at home in my study and at my prayers, that this day’s work might not so displease God, as to bring prejudice to this poor afflicted nation.” That he was sincere in all this, or in some of his former professions respecting peace, seems very doubtful, for on Feb. 1 following, he declared in the House of Commons his disapprobation of the vote of Dec.

'tovjOn Feb. 8, he was appointed one of the three lords commissioners of the new great seal of the commonwealth, pf England, He appears disposed to apologize for accepting this office, and his apology is a curious one; “because he was already very deeply engaged with this party: that, dje business to be undertaken by him was the execution of law and justice, without which men could, not live one by another; a thing of absolute necessity to be done.” On the 14th of the same month, he was chosen one of the thirty persons who composed the council of state. A few months after he was elected high-stewardof Oxford. The commissioners of the great seal being about this time in want uf a convenient dwelling, parliament granted them the duke of Buckingham’s house. In Jane, Whitelocke made a learned speech to the new judges in the court of Common-pleas, who were then sworn into their offices. In November, he opposed a motion made in the House of Com* inons, that no lawyers should sit in parliament; and in 1650 made a very learned speech in the House, in defence of the antiquity and excellence of the laws of England.

In vSept. 1651 Whitelocke was appointed, with three other members of parliament, to go out of town to meet Cromwell, then on his way to London, and congratulate him upon his victory at Worcester. Shortly after Whitelocke was. present at a; meeting at the speaker’s house, where several members of parliament, and principal officers of the army were assembled, by Cromwell’s desire, to consider about settling the affairs of the kingdom (See Cromwell, p. 57), and soon after he had a private conference in the Park with the usurper, who seemed to pay much regard to his advice, but, not finding him so pliable as he could wish, contrived to get him out of the way by an ap< parently honourable employment, and therefore procured him to be sent ambassador to Christina, queen of Sweden. This appointment was preceded by some singular circumstances very characteristic of the times. Whoever has looked into Whitelocke' s “Memorials” will perceive the language of religion and devotion very frequently introduced. That in this he was sincere, we have no reason to doubt,“' but it would appear that he had not come up exactly to the standard of piety established under the usurped government. When the council of state reported to the parliament that they had fixed upon Whitelocke as a fit person for the Swedish embassy, a debate arose in the house, and one of the members objected,” that they knew not whether he were a godty man or not,“adding, that” though he might be otherwise qualified, yet, if he were not a godly man, it was not fit to send him ambassador.“To this another member, who was known not to be inferior in godliness to the objector, shrewdly answered,” that godJiness was now in fashion, and taken up in form and words for advantage sake, more than in substance for the truth’s sake; that it was difficult to judge of the trees of godliness or ungodliness, otherwise than by the fruit; that those who knew Whitelocke, and his conversation, were satisfied thathe lived in practice as well as in a profession of godliness; and that it was more becoming a godly man to look into his own heart, and to censure himself, than to take upon him the attribute of God alone, to know the heart of another, and to judge him.“After this curious debate, it was voted,” that the lord commissioner Whitelocke be sent ambassador extraordinary to the queen of Sweden."

Whitelocke accordingly set out from London on this embassy Nov. 2, 1653, and a very few weeks after his departure, Cromwell assumed the supreme authority under the title of lord protector. Whitelocke was received in Sweden with great respect, and supported his character with dignity. Queen Christina, who shewed him many civilities, entertained him not only with politics, but with philosophy; and created him knight of the order of Araarantha, and hence he is sometimes styled sir Bulstrode. He displayed great abilities for negotiation, and concluded a firm alliance between England and Sweden about the beginning of May 1654. In 1772, Dr. Morton, secretary of the Royal Society, published the history of this embassy, under the title of “'A Journal of the Swedish Ambassy, in the years 1653 and 165 4-. From, the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Written by the ambassador the lord commissioner Whhelockv. With an Appendix of Original Papers,” 2 vols. 4to, These papers Dr Morton received from Whitelocke’s grandson, Carieton Whitelocke, of Prior’s wood, near Dublin, esq. This very cunious work may be considered as a necessary addition to his “Memorials,” and contains a large assemblage of facts and characteristic anecdotes illustrative of the times and the principal personages, printed literally from the author’s manuscript.

After his return home he received the thanks of the parliament, and had also 2000l. ordered him for the expenses of his embassy, but according to his own account these favours were not bestowed with a very good grace. He says in the conclusion of the journal of the embassy, “The sum of all was, that, for a most difficult and dangerous work, faith/ully and successfully performed bj Whitelocke, he had little thanks, and no recompense, from those who did employ him; but not long after was rewarded by them with an injury: they put him out of his office of commissioner of the great seal, because he would not betray the rights of the people, and, contrary to his own knowledge, and the knowledge of those who imposed it, execute an ordinance of the Protector and his council, as if it had been a law. But in a succeeding parliament, upon the motion of his noble friend the lord Bmghill, Whitelocke had his arrears of disbursement paid him, and some recompense of his faithful service allowed unto him.” it was indeed not until 1657 that the 2000l. above-mentioned was paid, with the addition of 500l. which is probably what he means by “some recompense.” The ordinance to which he alludes, was one framed by Cromwell, after the dissolution of his little parliament, for what he pretended was “the better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of t4*e high court of Chancery.” Whitelocke, finding his opposition to this in vain, resigned the great seal in June 1655. In Jan. 1656, he was chosen speaker of the House of Common^ pro lemporc, during the indisposition of sir Thomas Widdrington, who had been appointed to that office. During the remainder of Oliver Cromwell’s protectorate, Whitelocke Appears to have been in and out of favour with him, as he more or less supported his measures. The last instance of Oliver’s favour to him, was his signing a warrant for a patent to make him a viscount, but Whitelocke did not think it convenient to accept of this honour, although he had received his writ of summons as one of the lords of the “other house,” by the title of Bulstrode lord Whitelocke. M,^ Jc j:&&&&<<

Richard, the new protector, made him one of the keepers of the great seal, but this ceased when the council of officers had determined to displace Richard, on which occasion Whitelocke became one of their council of state. Puring this confusion, he was accused of holding a correspondence with sir Edward Hyde, and other friends of Charles II. which he positively denied, and by joining in the votes for renouncing the pretended title of Charles Stuart, and the whole line of king James, and of every other person as a single person pretending to the government of these realms, as well as by other measures, he endeavoured to prove his attachment to the republican cause. In the rest of his conduct he seems, even by his own account, to have been irresolute, and inconsistent, or if consistent in any thing, it was in so yielding to circuraf^ances as not to appear very obnoxious to either party. As he had, however, attached himself so long to the enemies of the king, the utmost he could expect was to be allowed to sink into obscurity. Yet it was by a small majority only that he was included in the act of pardon and oblivion which passed after the restoration. When he had obtained this, he was admitted into the presence of Charles II. who received him very graciously, and dismissed him in these extraordinary words; “Mr. Whitelocke, go into the country; don't trouble yourself any more about state affairs; and take care of your wife and your sixteen children.” This must have mortified a man who had acted so conspicuous a part in state affairs. He took his majesty’s advice, however, and spent the remaining fifteen years of hi$ life at Chilton-park in Wiltshire, and died there January 28, 1676. He was interred in the church of Fawley in Buckinghamshire.

Mr. Whitelocke was thrice married, first to Miss Bennet, of the city of London, by whom he had a son James, who was settled at Trumpington near Cambridge, and left two sons, both of whom died unmarried; His second wife was Frances, daughter of lord Willoughby of Parhii'm, by whom he had nine children. His third wife was Mrs. Wilson, a widow, whose maaiden name was Carleton. She survived him, and by her also he had several children. The eldest of this last marriage inherited Chiltbn Patfe. J

The editor of his “Memorials” give* him this character. “He not only served the state in several stations and plaices of the highest trust and importance botn at *Wn‘e and in foreign countries, and acquitted himself with success and reputation answerable to each respective character; but likewise conversed with books, and made himself a large provision from his studies and contemplation. Like that noble Roman, Portius Cato, as described by Nepos, he was `Reipublicae peritus, et jurisconsultus, et’nfttgnus iniperator, et probabilis orator, cupidissimus titerafttuf:' a statesman and learned in the law, a great commander, an eminent speaker in parliament, and an exquisite scholar. He had all along so much business, one would not imagine he ever had leisure for books yet who considers his studies might believe he had been always shut up with his friend Selden, and the dust of action never fallen on his gown. His relation to the public was such throughout all the revolutions, that few mysteries of state could be to him any secret. Nor was the felicity of his pen less considerable than his knowledge of affairs, or did less service to the cause he espoused. So we find the words apt and proper for the occasion; the style clear, easy, and wichout the least force or affectation of any kind, as is shewn in his speeches, his narratives, his descriptions, and in every place where the subject deserves the least care or consideration.” Lord Clarendon has left this testimony in favour of Whitelocke: whom, numbering among his early friends in life, he calls, a man of eminent parts and great learning out of his profession, and in his profession of signal reputation. “And though,” says the noble historian, “he did afterwards bow his knee to Baal, and so swerved from his allegiance, it was with less rancour and malice than other men. He never led, but followed; and was rather carried away with the torrent than swam with the stream; and failed through those infirmities, which less than a general defection and a prosperous rebellion could never have discovered.” Lord Clarendon has elsewhere described him, as “from the beginning concurring with the parliament, without any inclinations to their persons or principles and,” says he, “he had the same reasons afterwards not to separate from them. All his estate was in their quarters and he had a nature, that could not bear or submit to be undone ‘though to his friends, who were commissioners for the king, he used his old openness, and professed his detestation of all the proceedings of his party, yet could not leave them.’”

The first edition of his “Memorials of the English Affairs,” was published in 1682, and the second, with many additions and a better Lulex, in 1732: called “An historical Account of what passed from the beginning of the reign of king Charles the First to king Charles the Second his happy Jlestauration; containing the public transactions civil and military, together with the private consultations and secrets of the Cabinet,” in folio. Besides these memorials, he wrote also “Memorials of the English Affairs, from the supposed expedition of Brute to this island, to the end of the reign of king James the First. Published from his original manuscript, with some account of his life and writings, by William Penn, esq. governor of Pennsylvania; and a preface by James Welwood, M.D. 1709,” folio. There are many speeches and discourses of Mr. Whitelocke to be found in his “Memorials of English Affairs,” and in other collections. Oldmixon, who stands at the head of infamous historians, has drawn a comparison between Whitelocke and Clarendon; there is also an anonymous pamphlet entitled “Clarendon and Whitelocke farther compared,” which was written by Mr. John Davys, some time of Harthall, Oxford. It ought to be remarked that our author’s “Memorials” are his Diary, and that he occasionally entered facts in it when they came to his knowledge but not always on those days in which they were transacted. This has led his readers into some anachronisms. It has been remarked also that his “Memorials” would have been much more valuable, if his wife had not burnt many of his papers. As they are, they contain a vast mass of curious information, and are written with impartiality.

, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of queen Elizabeth and king James, and one of the most intrepid supporters of the constitution of the church, of England, was descended of the ancient family of Whitgift in Yorkshire. His grandfather was John Whitgift, gent, whose son was Henry, a merchant of Great Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Another of his sons was Robert Whitgi ft, who was abbot de Wellow or Welhove juxta Grimsby in the said county, a monastery of Black Canons dedicated to the honour of St. Augustin. He was a man memorable, not only for the education of our John Whitgift, but also for his saying concerning the Romish religion. He declared in the hearing of his nephew, that “they and their religion could not long continue, because,” said he, “I have read the whole Scripture over and over, and could never find therein that our religion was founded by God.” And as a proof of this opinion, the abbot alleged that saying of our Saviour, “Every plant that my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Henry, the father of our archbishop, had six sons, of whom he was the eldest, and one daughter, by Anne Dy newel, a young gentlewoman of a good family at Great Grimsby. The names of the other five sons were William, George, Philip, Richard, and Jeffrey; and that of the daughter Anne.

John was born at Great Grimsby in 1530, according to his biographers Strype and Panle, but according to Mr. Francis Thynne, quoted by Strype, in 1533: the former, however, is most probably the right date. He was sent early for education to St. Antony’s school, London, then a very eminent one, and was lodged in St. Paul’s churchyard, at his aunt’s, the daughter of Michael Thaller, ar verger of that church. Imbibing very young a relish of the doctrine of the reformation, he had of course no liking to the mass; so that though his aunt had often urged him togo with her to mass, and procured also some of the canons of St. Paul’s to persuade him to it, he still refused. By this she was so much exasperated, that she resolved to entertain him no longer under her roof, imputing all her losses and domestic misfortu-nes to her harbouring of such an heretic within her doors; and at parting told him, “that she thought at first she had received a saint into her house, but now she perceived he was a Devil.”

He now returned home to his father in Lincolnshire; and his uncle, the abbot, finding that he had made some progress in grammatical learning, advised that he should be sent to the university. Accordingly he entered of Queen’s college, Cambridge, about 1548, but soon after removed to Pembroke- hall, where the celebrated John Bradford, the martyr, was his tutor. He had not been here long before he was recommended by his tutor and Mr. Grindal (then fellow, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) to the master, Nicholas Ridley, by which means he was made scholar of that house, and chosen bibleclerk. These advantages were the more acceptable to him, as his father had suffered some great losses at sea, and was less able to provide for him. When Bradford left Cambridge in 15.50, Whitgift was placed under the care of Mr. Gregory Garth, who continued his tutor while he remained at Pensbroke-hall, which was until he took his degree of bachelor of arts in 1553-4. The following year, he was unanimously elected fellow of Peter-house, and commenced master of arts in 1557.

Soon after this, as he was recovering from a severe fit of sickness, happened the remarkable visitation of his university by cardinal Pole, in order to discover and expel the heretics, or those inclined to the doctrines of the reformation. To avoid the storm, Whitgift thought of going Abroad, and joining the other English exiles; but Dr. Perne, master of his college, although at that time a professed papist, had such an esteem for him, that he undertook to screen him from the commissioners, and thus he was induced to remain; nor was he deceived in his confidence in Dr. Perne’s friendship, who being then vicechancellor, effectually protected him from all inquiry, not withstanding the very strict severity of the visitation. In 1560 Mr. Whitgift entered into holy orders, and preached his first sermon at St. Mary’s with great and general approbation. The same year he was appointed chaplain to Cox, bishop of Ely, who gave him the rectory of Teversham in Cambridgeshire. In 1563 he proceeded bachelor of divinity, and Matthew Button, then fellow of Trinity-college, being appointed regius professor of divinity, the same year Whitgift succeeded him as lady Margaret’s professor of divinity. The subject of his lectures was the book of Revelations and the whole Epistle to the Hebrews, which he expounded throughout. These lectures were prepared by him for the press; and sir George Paule intimates, that they were likely in his time to be published; but whatever was the reason, they have never appeared. Strype tells us, that he saw this manuscript of Dr. Whitgift' s own hand -writing, in the possession of Dr. William Payne, minister of Whitechapel London; and that after his death it was intended to be purchased by Dr. John More, lord bishop of Ely. This manuscript contained likewise his thesis, when he afterwards kept his act for doctor of divinity, on this subject, that “the Pope is Antichrist.”

Soon after this he joined his brother professor, Hutton, and several heads of colleges, in a petition to sir William Cecil, their chancellor, for an order to regulate the election of public officers, the want of which created great disturbance in the university at that time. Two years after this he distinguished himself so eminently in the pulpir, that sir Nicholas Bacon, then lord- keeper, sent for him to court to preach before the queen, who heard him with great satisfaction, and made him her chaplain. The same year (1565) being informed that some statutes 'were preparing to enjoin an uniformity of habits, particularly to order the wearing of surplices in the university, he promoted the writing of a joint letter privately to Cecil, earnestly desiring him to stop (if possible) the sending down any such orders, which he perceived would be very unacceptable to the university. But this letter gave so much offence at court, that he found.it necessary to make, an apology for the share he had in it. In the mean time he was so highly esteemed at Cambridge, both as avpreacher and a restorer of order and discipline there, that in June of the following year, the university granted him a licence under their common seal, to preach throughout the realna, and in July following the salary of his professorship was raised, out of respect to him, from twenty marks to twenty pounds.

He had the year before been a considerable benefactor to Peter-house, where, in 1567, he held the place of president, but was called thence in April to Pembroke-hall, being chosen master of that house, and not long after was appointed regius professor of divinity. In both these prejfertnents he succeeded his old frrend Dr. Hutton, now made dean of York, and to the first was recommended, as Dr. Hutton had been, by Grindal, then bishop of London. But he remained at Pembroke-hall only about three months, for upon the death of Dr. Beauchamp, the queen promoted him to the mastership of Trinity-college. This place was procured for him, chiefly by the interest of sir William Cecil, who, notwithstanding some objections had been made tq his age, secured the appointment. The same year he took his degree of doctor in divinity; and in 1570, having first applied to Cecil for the purpose, he compiled a new body of statutes for the university, which were of great service to that learned community.

This work he finished in August, and the same month was the principal agent in procuring an order from the vice-chancellor and heads of houses, to prohibit the celebrated Cartwright (See Cartwright), who was now Margaret professor, from reading any more lectures without some satisfaction given to them of his principles and opinions. Dr. Whitgift informed the chancellor of this step, and at the same time acquainted him with Cartwright’s principles, and the probable consequences of them, on which he received the chancellor’s approbation of what had been done. Cartwright, having refused to renounce his opinions, was deprived of his professorship; but as he gave out that those opinions were rather suppressed by authority, than refuted by reason, Dr. Whitgift took an effectual method to remove that objection. At the chancellor’s request, he wrote a confutation of some of the chief of Cartwright’s sentiments, and sent them to archbishop Parker, in a letter dated Dec. 29, with an intention to publish them, which, however, was not done untii afterwards when they were combined in his “Answer to the Admonition, &c.” hereafter noticed.

In 1671 Dr. Whitgift served the office, of vice-chancellor. The same year an order was made by the archbishop and bishops, that all those who had obtained faculties to preach, should surrender them before the third of August; and that upon their subscription to the thirty-nine articles, and other constitutions and ordinances agreed upon, new licences shouldbe granted. This being signified to the university, and an order sent, requiring them to call in all the faculties granted before, Whitgift surrendered his former licence, obtained in 1566, and had another granted him in September 1571, in which he was likewise constituted one of the university preachers. In June, in consequence of the queen’s nomination, he had been appointed dean of Lincoln, and in October the archbishop granted him a dispensation to hold with it his prebend of Ely and rectory of Teversham, and any other benefice whatsoever; but in the following year he resigned the rectory of Teversham.

He was now, by particular appointment from the archbishop of Canterbury, writing his “Answer to the Admonition,” which requiring more leisure than his office as master of Trinity college could admit, he desired to leave the university, but this the 'other heads of houses succeeded in preventing. He had a little before expelled Cartwright from his fellowship for not taking orders in due time, according to the statute; and before the expiration of the year 1572 published his “Answer to the Admonition to the Parliament,” 4to. The “Admonition” was drawn up by Field, minister of Aldermary, London, and Mr. Wilcox. As archbishop Parker was the chief person who encouraged Whitgift to undertake the “Answer,” he likewise gave him considerable assistance, and other prelates and learned men were also consulted, and every pains taken to make it, what it has been generally esteemed, as able a defence of the Church of England against the innovations of the puritans, as bishop Jewel’s was against the doctrines of the Church of Rome. A second edition appeared in 1573, with the title “An answer to a certain libel, entitled An Admonition to the Parliament, newly augmented by the author, as by conference shall appear.” To this a reply being published by Cartwright, Dr. Whitgift published his defence, fol. 1574, Cartwright published in 1574, 4to, “The second Reply of T. C. against Dr. Whitgift’s second Answer touching Church-Discipline.” What the opinion of Dr. Whitaker, who was thought to be a favourer of puritawsm, was concerning tjiis book of Mr. Cartwright, will appear from the following passage in a Latin letter of his preserved by Dr. Richard Bancroftand sir George Paule in his “Life of archbishop Whitgift.” “I have read a great part of that book, which Mr. Cartwright hath lately published. I pray God I live not, if I ever saw any thing more loosely written, and almost more <$ildishly. It is true, that for words he hath great store, and those both fine and new; but for matter, as far as I can judge, he is altogether barren. Moreover, he doth not only think per-r versely of the authority of princes in causes ecclesiastical, but also flyeth into the papists holds, from whom he would be thought to dissent with <a. mortal hatred. But in this point he is not to be endured, and in other points also h& borroweth his arguments from the papists. To conclude, as Jerom said of Ambrose, he playeth with words, and is lame in his sentiments, and is altogether unworthy to be confuted by any man of learning.” And Whitgift, being advised by his friends to let Cartwright’s “Second Reply” pass as unworthy of his notice, remained silent.

About the same time, Dr. Whitgift appeared in opposition to a design then meditated, for abolishing pluralities, and taking away the impropriations and tithes from bishops and spiritual (not including temporal) persons, for the better provision of the poorer clergy. He did not, howv ever, proceed farther in this than to express his sentiments in private to the bishop of Ely, who had proposed the scheme, which does not appear to have been brought for-r ward in any other shape, probably in consequence of the arguments he advanced against it. In March 1577 he was made bishop of Worcester; and as this diocese brought him into the council of the marches of Wales, he was presently after appointed vice-president of those marches in the absence of sir Henry Sidney, lord president, and now lord-lieutentxnt of Ireland. In June following he resigned the mastership of Trinity college; and just before procured a letter from the chancellor, in order to prevent the practice then in use, of taking money for the resignation of fellowships.

The queen, as we noticed in our account of archbishop Grindal, had some thoughts of placing Whitgift in that worthy prelate’s room, even in his life-time, and Grindal certainly would have been glad to resign a situation in which his conduct had not been acceptable to the court, and he had at the same time such an opinion of Whitgift as to be very desirous of him for a successor. But Whitgift could not be prevailed upon to consent to an arrangement of this kind, and requested the queen would excuse his acceptance of the office on any terms during the life of Grindal. Grindal, however, died in July 1533, and the queen immediately nominated Whitgift to succeed him as archbishop of Canterbury. On entering on this high office he found it greatly over-rated as to revenues, and was obliged to procure an order for the abatement of lOOl. to him and his successors, on the payment of first fruits, and he shortly after recovered from the queen, as part of the possessions of the archbishopric, Long-Beach Wood, in Kent, which had been many years detained from his predecessor by sir James Croft, comptroller to her majesty’s household. But that in wbich he-was most concerned was to see the established uniformity of the church in so great disorder as it was from thenon-compliance of the puritans, who, taking advantage of his predecessor’s easiness in that respect, were possessed of a great many ecclesiastical benefices and preferments, in which they were supported by some of the principal men at court. He set himself, therefore, with extraordinary zeal and vigour, to reform these infringements of the constitution, for which he had the queen’s express orders. With this view, in December 1583, he moved for an ecclesiastical commission, which was soon after issued to him, with the bishop of London, and several others. For the same purpose, in 1584, he drew up a form of examination, containing twenty-four articles, which he sent to the bishops of his province, enjoining them to summon all such clergy as were suspected of nonconformity, and to require them to answer those articles severally upon oath, ex officio mero, likewise to subscribe to the queen’s supremacy, the book of Common Prayer, and the thirty-nine articles.

At the same time he held conferences with several of the puritans, and by that means brought some to a compliance; but when others appealed from the ecclesiastical commission to the council, he resolutely asserted his jurisdiction., and vindicated his proceedings, even in some cases agahist the opinion of lard BuHeigh, who was his chief friend there. But as archbishop Whitgiit’s conduct has been grossly misrepresented by the puritan historians and by their successors, who are still greater enemies to the church, it may be necessary to enter more io detail on his correspondence with Burleigh, &c. at this time. Some ministers of Ely being suspended for refusing to answer the examination above mentioned, applied to the council, who wrote a letter to the archbishop in their favour, May 2.6, 1583. To this he sent an answer, in the conclusion of which, so well was he persuaded in his own mind of the propriety of his conduct, he told the council, “that rather than grant them liberty to preach, he would chuse to die, or live in prison all the days of his life, rather than be an occasion thereof, or ever consent unto it.” Lord Burleigh, thinking these ministers hardly used in the ecclesiastical commission, advised them not to answer to the articles, except their consciences might suffer them; he at the same time informed the archbishop that he had given such advice, and intimated his dislike of the twenty-four articles, and their proceedings in consequence of them, in several letters. To these the archbishop answered separately, in substance as follows: In a letter dated June 14, from Croydon, he declares himself content to be sacrificed in so good a cause; and that the laws were with him, whatever sir Francis Knollys (who, he said, had little skill) said to the contrary. This alludes to a paper written by sir Francis, treasurer to the queen’s household, in defence of the recusants, and sent to the archbishop. Burleigh, in a second letter, dated July 1, expressing himself in stronger terms against these proceedings, concludes with saying that the articles were branched out into so many circumstances, that he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to trap others; and that this critical sifting of ministers was not to reform, hut to insnare: but, however, upon his request, he would leave them to his authority, nor “thrust his sickle into another man’s harvest.”

To this the archbishop sent an answer, dated July 3, to the following purport That, as touching the twenty-four articles, which his lordship seemed so much to dislike, as written in a Romish style, and smelling of the Romish inquisition, he marvelled at his lordship’s speeches, seeing it was the ordinary course in other courts, as in the starchamber, the courts of the marches, and other places; and that the objection of encouraging the papists by these courses, had neither probability nor likelihood. That as to his lordship’s speech for the two ministers, viz. that they were peaceable, observed the book, denied the things wherewith they were charged, and desired to, be tried, the archbishop demanded, now they were to be tried, why they did refuse it qui male egit odit lucem? That the articles he administered unto them were framed by the most learned in the laws, and who, he dared to say, hated both the Romish doctrine and Romish inquisition; and that he ministered them to the intent only that he might truly understand whether they were such manner of men, or no, as they pretended to be, especially, seeing by public fame they were noted of the contrary, and one of them presented by the sworn men of his parish for his disorders, as he was informed by his official there. That time would not serve him to write much; that he referred the rest to the report of the bearer, trusting his lordship would consider of things as they were, and not as they seeded to be, or as some wonld have them; that he thought it high time to put those to silence who were and had been the instruments of such great discontentment as was pretended; that conscience was no more excuse for them than it was for the papists or anabaptists, in whose steps they walked. He knew, he said, that he was especially sought, and many threatening wordscame to his ears to terrify him from proceeding; that the bishop of Chester (Chaderton) had wrote to him of late, and that in his letter a little paper was inclosed, the copy whereof he sent to his lordship; “You know (said the archbishop) whom he knoweth; but it moves me not; he can do no more than God will permit him. It is strange to understand what devices have beert used to move me to be at some men’s becks;” the particularities of all which he would one day declare to his lordship, and added, that he was content to be sacrificed in so good a cause, “which I will never betray nor give over, God, her majesty, all the laws, my own conscience and duty, being with me.” He concludes with beseeching Burleigh not to be discomfited, but continue; the cause was good, and the complaints being general, were vain, and without cause, as would appear when they descended to particularities.

Lord Burleigh, in another letter, still insisting that he would not call his proceedings rigorous and captious, but that they were scarcely charitable, the archbishop sent him, July 15, a defence of his conduct in a paper entitled “Reasons why it is convenient that those which are culpable in the articles ministered judicially by the archbishop of Canterbury and others, her majesty’s commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, shall be examined of the same articles upon their oaths.” In this paper he maintained, 1. That by the ecclesiastical laws remaining in force, sucli articles may be ministered: this is so clear by all, that it was never hitherto called into doubt, 2. That this manner of proceeding has been tried against such as were vehemently suspected, presented, and detected by their neighbours, or whose faults were notorious, as by open preaching, since there hath been any law ecclesiastical in this realm. 3. For the discovery of any popery it hath been used in king Edward’s time, in the deprivation of sundry bishops at that time, as it may appear by the processes, although withal for the proof of those things that they denied, witnesses were also used. 4. In her majesty’s most happy reign, even/rom the beginning, this manner of proceeding has been used against the one extreme and the other as general, against all the papists, and against all those who would not follow the Book of Common Prayer established by authority; namely, against Mr. Sampson and others; and the lords of the privy council committed certain to the Fleet, for counselling sir John Southwood and other papists not to answer upon articles concerning their own facts and opinions, ministered unto them by her highness’s commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, except a fame thereof were first proved. 5. It is meet also to be done ex officio mero, because upon the confession of such offences no pecuniary penalty is set down whereby the informer (as in other temporal courts) may be considered for his charge and pains, so that such faults would else be wholly unreformed. 6. This course is not against charity, for it is warranted by law as necessary for reforming of offenders and disturbers of the unity of the church, and for avoiding delays and frivolous exceptions against such as otherwise should inform, denounce, accuse, or detect them; and because none are in this manner to be proceeded against, but whom their own speeches or acts, the public fame, and some of credit, as their ordinary or such like, shall denounce, and signify to be such as are to be reformed in this behalf. 7. That the form of such proceedings by articles ex officio mero is usual; it may appear by all records in ecclesiastical courts, from the beginning; in all ecclesiastical commissions, namely, by the particular commission and proceedings against the bishops of London and Winton, in king Edward’s time, and from the beginning of her majesty’s reign, in the ecclesiastical commission, till this hour; and therefore warranted by statute. 8, If it be said that it be against law, reason, and charity, for a man to accuse himself, quia nemo ienetur seipsum prodere aut propriam turpitudmem revelare, I answer, that by all charity and reason, Proditus per denundationem alterius sive per famam, tenetur seipsum ostendere, ad evitandum scandalum, et seipsum pur gandum. Prælatus potest inquirere sine prævia fama, ergo a fortiori delegati per principem possunt; ad hæc in istis articulis turpitudo non inquiritur aut flagitium, sed excessus et errata clericorum circa publicam functionem ministerii, de quibus ordinario rationem reddere coguntur. (The purport of our prelate’s meaning seems to be, that although no man is obliged to inform against himself, yet, if informed against by others, he is bound to come forwards, in order to avoid scandal, and justify himself; that a bishop may institute an inquiry upon a previous fame, much more delegates appointed by the sovereign; and besides, that in these articles no inquiry is made as to tur-' pitude or criminality, but as to the irregularities and errors of the clergy, in matters relating to their ministerial functions, an account of which they are bound to render to their ordinary) 9. Touching the substance of the articles, first, is deduced there being deacons and ministers in the church, with the lawfulness of that manner of ordering; secondly, the establishing the Book of Common Prayer by statute, and the charge given to bishops and ordinaries for seeing the execution of the said statute; thirdly, the goodness of the book, by the same words by which the statute of Elizabeth calls and terms it. Fourthly, several branches of breaches of the book being de propriis factis. Fifthly, is deduced detections against them, and such monitions as have been given them to testify their conformity hereafter, and whether they wilfully still continue such breaches of law in their ministration. Sixthly, Their assembling of conventicles for the maintenance of their factious dealings. Jo. For the second, fourth, and sixth points, no man will think it unmeet they should be examined, if they would have them touched for any breach of the book. 11. The article for examination, whether they be deacon or minister, -ordered according to the law of the land> is most necessary; first, for the grounds of the proceeding, lest the breach of the book be objected to them who are not bound to observe it; secondly, to meet with such schismatics, whereof there is sufficient experience, which either thrust themselves into the ministry without any lawful calling at all, or else to take orders at Antwerp, or elsewhere beyond the seas. 12. The article for their opinion of the lawfulness of their admission into the ministry is to meet with such hypocrites as, to be enabled for a living, will be content to be ordained at a bishop’s hands, and yet, for. the satisfaction of their factious humour, will afterwards have a calling of Certain brethren ministers, with laying on of hands, in a private house, or in a conventicle, to the manifest slander of the Church of England, and the nourishing of a flat schism; secondly, for the detection of such as not by private, but by public speeches, and written pamphlets spread abroad, do deprave the whole order ecclesiastical of this church, and the lawfulness of calling therein; advouching no calling lawful but where their fancied monstrous signorie, or the assent of the people, do admit into the ministry. 13. The sequel that wo^ild follow of these articles being convinced or proved, is not -so much as deprivation from ecclesiastical livings, if there be no obstinate persisting, or iterating the same offence; a matter far different from the bloody inquisition in time of popery, or of the six articles, where death was the sequel against the criminal. 14. It is to be considered, what encouragement and probable appearance it would breed to the dangerous papistical sacraments, if place be given by the chief magistrates ecclesiastical to persons that tend of singularity, to the disturbance of the good peace of the church, and to the discredit of that, for disallowing whereof the obstinate papist is worthily punished. 15, The number of these singular persons, in comparison of the quiet and conformable, are few, and their qualities are also, for excellence of gifts in learning, discretion, and considerate zeal, far inferior to those other that yield their conformity; and for demonstration and proof, both of the numbers, and also of the difference of good parts and learning in the province of Canterbury, there are but — hundred that refuse, and — thousands that had yielded their conformities. These sentiments of the archbishop, although the detail of them may seem prolix, will serve to shew the nature of that unhappy dispute between the church and the puritans which, by the perseverance of the latter, ended in the fatal overthrow both of church and state in the reign of Charles I. They also place the character of Whitgift in its true light, and demonstrate, that he was at least conscientious in his endeavours to preserve the unity of the church, a,nd was always prepared with arguments to defend his conduct, which could not appear insufficient in the then state of the public mind, when toleration was not known to either party. That his rigorous protection of the church from the endeavours of the puritans to new mould it, should be censured by them and their descendants, their historians and biographers, may appear natural, but it can hardly be called consistent, when we consider that the immediate successors of Whitgift, who censured him as a persecutor, adopted every thing, that was contrary to freedom and toleration in his system, established a high commission-court by a new name, and ejected from their livings the whole body of the English clergy who would not conform to their ideas of church-government: and even tyrannized over such men as bishop Hall and others who were doctrinal puritans, and obnoxious only as loving the church that has arisen out of the asbes of the martyrs.

In 1585, we find Whitgift, by a special order from the queen, employed in drawing up rules for regulating the press, which were confirmed and published by authority of the Star-chamber in June. As he had been much impeded in his measures for uniformity by some of the privycouncil, he attached himself in a close friendship with sir Christopher Hatton, then vice-chamberlain to the queen, to whom he complained of the treatment he had met uith from some of the court. The earl of Leicester, in particular, not content with having made Cartvvright master of his hospital, newly built at Warwick, attempted, by a most artful address, to procure a license for him to preach without the subscription; but the archbishop peremptorily refused to comply. About the beginning of next year, the archbishop was sworn into the privy-council, and the next month framed the statutes of cathedral-churches, so as to make them comport with the reformation. In 1587, when the place of lord-chancellor became vacant by the death of sir Thomas Bromley, the queen made the archbishop an offer of it, which he declined, but recommended sir Christopher Hatton, who was accordingly appointed.

On the alarm of the Spanish invasion in 1588, he procured an order of the council to prevent the clergy from being cessed by the lord-lieutenants for furnishing arms, and wrote circular letters to the bishops, to take care that their clergy should be ready, with a voluntary appointment of arms, &c. This year the celebrated virulent pamphlet, entitled “Martin Mar-prelate” was published, in which the archbishop was severely handled in very coarse language, but without doing him any injury in the eyes of those whom he wished to please. The same year, the university of Oxford losing their chancellor, the earl of Leicester proposed to elect Whitgift in his stead; but this, being a Cambridge-man, he declined, and recommended his friend sir Christopher Hatton, who was elected, and thus the archbishop still had a voice in the affairs of that university. In 1590, Cartwright being cited before the ecclesiastical commission, for several misdemeanours, and refusing to take the oath ex officio, was sent to the Fleetprison, and the archbishop drew up a paper containing several articles, more explicitly against the disciplinarians than the former, to be subscribed by all licensed preachers. The next year, 1591, Cartwright was brought before the Star-chamber; and, upon giving bail for his quiet behaviour, was discharged, at the motion of the archbishop, who soon after was appointed, by common consent, to be arbitrator between two men of eminent learning in a remarkable point of scripture-chronology. These were Hugh Brouohton the celebrated Hebraist, and Dr. Reynolds, professor of divinity at Oxford. The point in dispute was, “Whether the chronology of the times from Adam to Christ could be ascertained by the holy Scriptures?” The first held the affirmative, which was denied by the latter. (See Broughton, p. 82.)

In 1595, when the disputes respecting churth-disciplise appeared to be in a good measure appeased, the predestinarian-controversy took place; and on this occasion, the archbishop had the chief direction in drawing up the famous “Lambeth articles,” in concert with Bancroft, then bishop of London, Vaughan bishop of Bangor, Tindaldean of Ely, Whitaker, and others. Our readers are apprized that these articles are favourable to the doctrines of Calvin. The archbishop’s declaration was, “I know them to be sound doctrines, and uniformly professed in this church of England, and agreeab-le to the articles of religion established by authority.” The archbishop of York made a similar declaration, and the articles were forwarded to Cambridge, accompanied by a letter from Whitgift, recommending that “nothing be publicly taught to the contrary.”

This year (1595) he obtained letters patent from her majesty, and began the foundation of his hospital at. Croydon. The same year he protected the hospital of Harbledown, in Kent, against an invasion of their rights and property: and the queen having made him a grant of all the revenues belonging to the hospital of Eastbridge, in Canterbury, he found out, and recovered next year, some lands fraudulently withheld from it. In 1599, his hospital at Croydon being finished, was consecrated by bishop Bancroft. The founding of this hospital (then the largest in the kingdom) having given rise to an invidious report of the archbishop’s immense wealth and large revenues, he drew up a particular and satisfactory account of all his purchases since he had been bishop, with the sums given for the same, and the yearly value of the lands, and to what and whose uses, together with the yearly value of the archbishoprick.

On the death of queen Elizabeth, in 1602, the archbishop sent Dr. Nevile, dean of Canterbury, into Scotland W king James, in th name of the bishops and clergy of England, to tender their allegiance, and to understand life majesty’s pleasure in regard to the government of the church; and though the dean brought a gracious message to him from the king, assuring his grace that he would maintain the settlement of the church as his predecessor left it, yet the archbishop was for some time not without his fears. The puritans, on the death of the queen, conceived fresh hopes of some countenance, and began to speak with more boldness of their approaching emancipation from ecclesiastical authority. A book had been printed the year before, by some of their party, entitled “The Plea of the Innocents,” and in this year, 163, appeared “The humble Plea of the thousand Ministers for redressing offences in the Church,” at the end of which they required a conference. In October a proclamation was issued concerning a meeting for the hearing aivd determining things said to be amiss in the church. This issued in the famous conference held at Hampton-court, Jan. 14, 16, and 18, an account of which was drawn up by bishop Bariow. It only served to shew the puritans that the king was decidedly against them. vU

Archbishop Whitgift did not survive this conference long. He was not well in December before, but troubled with jaundice, which, together with his age, made him unftt to wait upon the king and court abroad the last summer. But soon after the conference at Hampton-court, going, in his barge to Fulham in tempestuous weather, he caught cold; yet the next Sunday, being the first Sunday in Lent, he went to Whitehall, where the king held a long discourse with him and the bishop of London, about the affairs of the church. His grace going thence to the council-chamber to dinner, after long fasting, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, and his speech was taken away. He was then carried to the lord treasurer’s chamber, and thence, after a while, conveyed to Lambeth. On Tuesday he was visited by the king, who, out of a sense of the importance of his services at this particular juncture, told him, “that he would pray to God for his life; and that if he could obtain it, he should think it one of the greatest temporal blessings that could he given him in tins kingdom.” The archbishop would have said something to the king, but his speech failed him, so that he uttered only imperfect words. But so much of his speech was heard, repeating earnestly with his eyes and hands lifted up, “Pro Eeclesia Dei I” Being still desirous to have spoken his mind to the king, he made two or three attempts to write to him; but was too far gone, and the next day, being February the 29th, he died. “Whether grief,” says Strype, “was the cause of his death, or grief and fear for the good estate of the church under a new king and parliament approaching, mingling itself with his present disease, might hasten his death, I know not,” But Camden says, “Whilst the king began to contend about the liturgy received, and judged some things fit to be altered, archbishop Whitgift died with grief.” “Yet surely,” says Strype, “by what we have heard before related in the king’s management of the conference, and the letter he wrote himself to the archbishop, he had a better satisfaction of the king’s mind. To which I may add, that there was a `Directory,‘ drawn up by the Puritans, prepared to be offered to the next parliament, which, in all probability, would have created a great deal of disturbance in the house, having many favourers there; which paper the aged archbishop was privy to, and apprehensive of. And therefore, according to another of our historians, upon his death-bed, he should use these words, c Et nunc, Domine, exaltata est Anima mea, quod in eo tempore succubui, quando mallem episcopatfts mei Deo reddere rationem, quam inter homines exercere; i. e And now, O Lord, my soul is lifted up, that I die in a time, wherein I had rather give up to God ati account of my bishoprick, than any longer to exercise it among men.’”

He was interred in the parish church of Croydon, where a monument was erected, with an inscription to his memory. He is described as being in person of a middle stature, a grave countenance, and brown complexion, black hair and eyes. He wore his beard neither long nor thick. He was small-boned, and of good agility, being straight and weli shaped in all his limbs, to the light habit of his body, which began somewhat to spread and fill out towards his latter years. His learning seems to have been confined to the Latin language, as Hugh Broughton often objected to him, nor does he appear to have been much skilled in the deeper points of theology; but he was an admired and diligent preacher, and took delight in exercising his talent that way; it was, however, in ecclesiastical government that his/brte lay, in the administration of which he was both indefatigable and intrepid. It is by his conduct in this that his character has been estimated by posterity, and has been variously estimated according to the writer’s regard for, or aversion to, the constitution of the church of England.

In his expences it appears that he was liberal and even munificent. Both when bishop of Worcester and archbishop of Canterbury, he took for many years into his house a number of young gentlemen, several of quality, to instruct them, as their tutor, reading to them twice a day in mathematics and other arts, as well as in the languages, giving them good allowance and preferments as occasion offered. Besides these, he kept several poor scholars in his house till he could provide for them, and prefer them, and maintained others at the university. His charitable hospitality extended likewise to foreigners. He relieved and entertained at his house for many years together several distressed ministers (recommended by Beza and others) out of Germany and France, who were driven from their own homes, some by banishment, others by reason of war, shewing no less bounty to them at their departure. Sir George Paule assures us, that he remitted large sums of his own purse to Beza.

He was naturally of a warm temper, which however he learned to correct as he advanced in years. Cecil earl of Salisbury said of him, after his death, that “there was nothing more to be feared in his government, especially towards his latter time, than his. mildness and clemency.” The judicious Hooker confirms this opinion, by averring that “He always governed with that moderation, which useth by patience to suppress boldness.” It does not appear that he printed any thing except what we have mentioned in the controversy with Cartwright, but in Strype’s Life of him, are many of his letters, papers, declarations, &c. the whole, like all Strype’s lives, forming an excellent history of the times in which he lived.

, the puritan dean of Durham, the son of William Whittingham, esq. by a daughter of Haughton, of Haughton Tower, was born in the city of Chester, in 1524. In his sixteenth year he became a commoner of Brasenose college, Oxford, where he made great proficiency in literature. After taking his degree of bachelor of arts, he was elected fellow of All Souls in 1545, and two years afterwards was made one of the seniors of Christ-church, on the foundation oi Henry VIII. In May 1550, having obtained leave to travel for three yearsj he passed his time principally at Orleans, where he married the sister of Calvin. He returned to England in the latter end of the reign of Edward VI. but, as he was a staunch adherent to the doctrines of the reformation, he found it necessary to leave home, when queen Mary came to the throne, and joined the exiles at Francfort. Here he became one of those who took part against the ceremonies of the Church of England being observed among the exiles, and afterwards became a member of the Church of Geneva. On the Scotch reformer, Knox, leaving that society to return to his own country, Whittingham was prevailed upon by Calvin to take orders in the Geneva form, and was Knox’s successor. While here, he undertook, along with other learned men of the same society, an English translation of the Bible, which was not completed when those employed upon it had an opportunity to return to England, on the accession of queen Elizabeth. Whittingham, however, remained at Geneva to finish the work, during which time he translated into metre five of the Psalms, inscribed W. W. of which the 119th was one, together with the ten commandments, and a prayer, all which make part of the collection known by the names of Sternhold and Hopkins. Soon after his return to England, he was employed to accompany Francis, earl of Bedford, on his embassy of condolence for the death of the French king, in 1560. And he attended Ambrose, earl of Warwick, to Havre de Grace, to be preacher there, while the earl defended it against the French; and Wood says, he preached nonconformity in this place. Warwick appears to have had a very high opinion of him, and it was by his interest that Whittingham was promoted to the deanery of Durham in 1563, which he enjoyed for sixteen' years. During this time he was one of the most zealous opponents of the habits and ceremonies, and so outrageous in his zeal against popery, as to destroy some of the antiquities and monuments in Durham cathedral, and even took up the stone coffins of the priors of Durham, and ordered them to be used as troughs for horses to drink in.

Notwithstanding his opposition to the habits, when in 1564 the order issued for wearing them, he thought proper to comply, and being afterwards reproached for this by one who was with him at Geneva, he quoted a saying of Calvin’s, “that for external matters of order, they might not neglect their ministry, for so should they, for tithing of mint, neglect the greater things of the law.” It had been well for the church had this maxim more generally prevailed. Whittingham did essential service to government in the rebellion of 1569, but rendered himself very obnoxious at court, by a zealous preface, written by him, to Christopher Goodman’s book, which denied women the right of government. He was probably in other respects obnoxious, generally as a nonconformist, which at last excited a dispute between him and Dr. Sandys, archbishop of York. In 1577 the archbishop made his primary visitation throughout the whole of his province, and began with Durham, where a charge, consisting of thirty- five articles, was brought against Whittingbam, the principal of which was his being ordained only at Geneva. Whittingham, refused to answer the charge, but denied in the first place the archbishop’s power to visit the church of Durham. On this Sandys proceeded to excommunication. Whittingbam then appealed to the queen, who directed a eowimission to the archbishop, Henry earl of Huntington, lord president of the north, and Dr. Hutton, dean of York, to hear and determine the validity of his ordination, and to inquire into the other misdemeanours contained in the articles; but, this commission ended only in some countenance being given to Whitaker by the earl and by Dr. Hutton, the latter of whom went so far as to say, that “Mr. Whittinghgm wasordained in a better sort than even the archbishop himself.” Sandys then obtained another opmmission directed to himself, the bishop of Durham, and 10rd president, the chancellor of the diocese, and some others. This was dated May 14, 1578, and maybe seen in Rymer’s Feedera, vok XV. Here, as Whittingham had Bothing to produce but a certinqate or call from the church of Geneva, it was objected to, but the lord president said that “it would be ill taken by all the godly and learned, both at home and abroad, that we allow of popish massing priests in our ministry, and disallow of ministers leade in the reformed church.” It does not appear that any thing was determined, and Whittingham’s death put an end to the question. He died June 10, 1579, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and his remains were interred in the cathedral of Durham, with a monumental inscription, which was afterwards destroyed by another set of innovators. He appears to have been a man of talents for business, as well as learning, and there was a design at one time of advancing him at court. He published little except some few translations from foreign authors to promote the cause of the reformation, and he wrote ome prefaces.

, one of our early grammarians, was born in Lichfield about 1480, and educated under the famous grammarian, John Stanbridge, in the school adjoining to Magdalen college, Oxford. He afterwards made a considerable progress in philosophy, but took more pleasure in classical and grammatical studies, in which he fancied himself destined to shine. In 150.1 he began to teach a grammar-school, probably in London, as all his publications were dated thence. In the beginning of 1513, he supplicated the congregation of regents of the university of Oxford, by the name of Robert WhittingtOn, a secular chaplain, and a scholar of the art of rhetoric, that whereas he had spent fourteen years in the study of the said art, and twelve years in teaching, “it might be sufficient for him that he might be ia'ureated.” This being granted, he composed an hundred verses which were stuck up in public places, especially on the doors of St. Mary’s church, and was solemnly crowned with a wreath of laurel, &c. that is, he was made doctor of grammar, an nnusual title and ceremony, and the last of the kind. This appears to have conferred no academical rank, for he was afterwards admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts. From this time, however, he called himself in several of his works Protovates Angli<e, an assumption which his fellow-grammarians, Herman and Lily, did not much relish. He appears indeed to have been very conceited of his abilities, and to have undervalued those who were at least his equals. Yet historians allow him to have been an excellent Greek and Latin scholar, and a man of a facetious turn, but too much given to personal satire both in conversation, and in his literary disputes with Lily, Aldridge, and others. He was alive in 1530, but' how long afterwards does not appear. He wrote a great many grammatical treatises, some of which must have long been in use in schools, for they went through many editions. They are enumerated by Wood, and, more correctly, by Mr.Dibdin in his Typographical Antiquities. Warton also mentions a few of them, and says that some of.his Latin poetry is in a very classical style, and much, in the manner of the earlier Italian poets.

, author of a very curious account of the Russian empire, was son of Richard Whitwonh, esq. of Blowerpipe, in Staffordshire, who, about the time of the revolution, had settled at Adbaston. He married Anne Moseley, niece of sir Oswald Moseley, of Cheshire, by whom he had six sons and a daughter: Charles; Richard, lieutenant-colonel of the queen’s own royal regiment of horse; Edward, captain of a man of war; Gerard, one of the chaplains to king George the First; John, captain of dragoons; Francis, surveyor-general of his majesty’s woods, and secretary of the island of Barbadoes, father of Charles Whitworth, esq. member of parliament in the beginning of the present reign for Minehead in Somersetshire; and Anne, married to Tracey Pauncefort, esq. of Lincolnshire.

Charles, the eldest son, was bred under that accomplished minister and poet Mr. Stepney; and, having attended him through several courts of Germany, was, in 1702, appointed resident at the diet of Ratisbon. In 1704 he was named envoy -extraordinary to the court of Petersburg!), as he was sent ambassador-extraordinary thither on a more solemn and important occasion, in 1710. M. de Matueof, the Czar’s minister at London, had been arrested in the public street by two bailiffs, at the suit of some tradesmen, to whom he was in debt. This affront had like to have been attended with very serious consequences. The Czar demanded immediate and severe punishment of the offenders, with threats of wreaking his vengeance on all English merchants and subjects established in his dominions. In this light the menace was formidable, and the Czar’s memorials urged the queen with the satisfaction which she had extorted herself, when only the boat and servants of the earl of Manchester had been insulted at Venice. Mr. Whitworth had the honour of terminating this quarrel. In 1714, he was appointed plenipotentiary to the diet of Augsbourg and Ratisbon; in 1716, envoy-extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the king of Prussia; in 1717, envoy-extraordinary to the Hague. In 1719, he returned in his former character to Berlin; and in 1721 the late king rewarded his long services by creating him baron Whitworth of Galway, in the kingdom of Ireland. The next year his lordship was entrusted with the affairs of Great Britain at the congress of Cambray, in the character of ambassador-extraordinary and plenipotentiary. He returned home in 1724, and died the next year at his house in Gerard street, Londou. His body was interred in Westminster-abbey.

His “Account of Russia, as it was in the year 1710,” was published by the late lord Orford at Strawberry-hill, who informs us that besides this little piece, which must retrieve and preserve his character from oblivion, lord Whitworth left many volumes of state letters and papers in the possession of his relations. One little anecdote of him lord Orford was told by the late sir Luke Schaub, who had it from himself. Lord Whitworth had had a personal intimacy with the famous Czarina Catherine, at a time when her favours were not purchased, nor rewarded at so extravagant a rate as that of a diadem. When he had compromised the rupture between the court of England and the Czar, he was invited to a ball at court, and taken out to dance by the Czarina. As they began the minuet, she squeezed him by the hand, and said in a whisper, “Have you for got little Kate?” 1

Lord Whitworth’s ms Account of Russia was communicated to lord Orford, by Richard Owen Cambridge, esq. having been purchased by him in a very curious set of books, collected by Mons. Zolman, secretary to the late Stephen Poyntz, esq. This little library relates solely to Russian history and affairs, and contains, in many languages, every thing that perhaps has been written on that country.

, an eminent physician, born at Edinburgh Sept. 6, 1714, was the son of Robert Whytt, esq, of Beunochy, advocate. This gentleman died six months before the birth of our author, who was also deprived of his mother before he had attained the seventh year of his age. After receiving the first rudiments of school-education, he was sent to the university of St. Andrew’s; and after the usual course of instruction there, in classical, philosophical, and mathematical learning, he came to Edinburgh, where he entered upon the study of medicine, under those eminent teachers, Monro, Rutherford, Sinclair, Plummer, Alston, and Innes. After learning what was to be acquired in this university, he visited other countries in the prosecution of his studies, and after attending the most eminent teachers at London, Paris, and Leyden, he had the degree of M. D. conferred upon him by the university of Rheims in 1736, being then in the twenty-second year of 'his age. Upon his return to his own country, he had the same honour conferred upon him by the university of St. Andrews, where he had before obtained, with applause, the degree of M. A. In 1737, he was admitted a licentiate of medicine in the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and the year following he was raised to the rank of a fellow of the college. From the time of his admission as a licentiate, he practised physic at Edinburgh; and the reputation which he acquired for medical learning, pointed him out as a fit successor for the first vacant chair in the university. Accordingly, when Dr. Sinclair, whose eminent medical abU lities, and persuasive powers of oratory, had contributed not a little to the rapid advancement of the medical school of Edinburgh, found that the talents which he possessed, could no longer be exerted consistently with his advanced age, he resigned his academical appointments in favour of Dr. Whytt

This admission into the college took place June 20, 1746, and Dr. Whytt began his first course of the Institutions of Medicine at the commencement of the next winter session, in which the abilities he displayed were answerable to the expectations his fame had excited. The Latin tongue was then the language of the university of Edinburgh, and he both spoke and wrote in Latin with singular propriety, elev gance, and perspicuity. At that time the system and sentiments of Boerhaave, which, notwithstanding their errors, must challenge the admiration of the latest ages, were very generally received by the most intelligent physicians in Britain. Dr. Whytt had no such idle ardour for novelties as to throw them entirely aside because he could not follow them in every particular. Boerhaave’s “Institutions,” therefore, furnished him with a text for his lectures; and he was no less successful in explaining, illustrating, and establishing the sentiments of the author, when he could freely adopt them, than in refuting them by clear, connected, and decisive arguments, when he had occasion to differ from him. The opinions which he himself proposed, were delivered and enforced with such acuteness of invention, such display of facts, and force of argument, as could rarely fail to gain universal assent from his numerous auditors, and he delivered them with becoming modesty and diffidence.

From the time that he first entered upon an academical appointment, till 1756, his prelections were confined to the institutions of medicine alone. But at that period his learned colleague, Dr. Rutherford, who was then professor of the practice of medicine, found it necessary to retire; and on this occasion, Dr.Whytt, Dr. Monro senior, and Dr. Cullen, each agreed to take a share in an appointment in which their united exertions promised the highest advantages to the university. By this arrangement, students who had an opportunity of daily witnessing the practice of three such teachers, and of hearing the grounds of that practice explained, could not fail to derive the most solid advantages. In these two departments the institutions of medicine in the university, and the clinical lectures in the royal infirmary (which were first begun by Dr. Rutherford) Dr. Whytt’s academical labours were attended with the most beneficial consquences both to the students, and to the university. But not long after the period we have last mentioned, his lectures on the former of these subjects underwent a very considerable change. About this time the illustrious Gaubius, who had succeeded to the chair of Boerhaave, published his “Institutiones Pathologiae.” This branch of medicine had indeed a place in the text which Dr.Whytt formerly followed, but, without detracting from the character of Boerhaave, it may justly be said, that the attention he had bestowed upon it was not equal to its importance. Dr T Whytt was sensible of the improved state in which pathology now appeared in the writings of Boerhaave’s successor; and he made no delay in availing himself of the advantages which were then afforded. Accordingly, in 1762, his pathological lectures were entirely new modelled. Following the publication of Gaubius as a text, he delivered a comment, which was heard by every intelligent student with the most unfeigned satisfaction. For a period of more than twenty years, during which he was justly held in the highest esteem as a lecturer at Edinburgh, it may readily be supposed that the extent of his practice corresponded to his reputation. In fact he received both the first emoluments, and the highest honours, which could there be obtained. With extensive practice in Edinburgh, he had numerous consultations from other places. His opinions on medical subjects were daily requested by his most eminent contemporaries in every part of Britain. Foreigners of the first distinction, and celebrated physicians in the most remote parts of the British empire, courted an intercourse with him by letter. Besides private testimonies of esteem, many public marks of honour were conferred upon him both at home and abroad. In 1752, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London; in 176!, he was appointed first physician to the king in Scotland; and in 1764, he was chosen president of the royal college of physicians at Edinburgh.

At an early period of life, soon after he had settled as a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, he married Miss Robertson, sister to general Robertson, governor of New York; by her he had two children, both of whom died in infancy, and their mother did not long survive them. A few years after he again entered into the married state with Miss Balfour, sister to James Balfour, esq. of Pilrig. By this lady he had fourteen children, six of whom only survived him. His wife died in 1764, and it is not improbable that the many deaths in his family, and this last loss had some share in hastening his own; for in the beginning of 1765 his health was so far impaired, that he became incapable of his former exertions. A tedious complication of chronical ailments, which chiefly appeared under the form of Diabetes, was not to be resisted by all the medical skill which Edinburgh could afford and at length terminated in death, April 15, 1766, in the fifty- second year of his age.

Dr. Whytt’s celebrity as an author was very great. His first publication was, “An Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary motions of animals,” which was written fifteen years before publication in 1751. His next publication was his “Essay on the virtues of Lime-water and Soap in the cure of the stone,” 1752, part. of which had appeared several years before in the “Edinburgh Medical Essays.” His “Physiological Essays,” were first published in 1755. In 1764 appeared his principal work, entitled “Observations on the nature, causes, and cure of those disorders which are commonly called nervous, hypochondriac, and hysteric.” The last of his writings, “Observations on the Dropsy of the Brain,” did not appear till two years after his death, when all his works were collected and published in one volume quarto, under the direction of his son, and of his intimate friend the late sir John Pringle. Besides these five works, he wrote many papers which appeared in different periodical publications; particularly in the Philosophical Transactions, the Medical Essays, the Medical Observations, and the Physical and Literary Essays.

, Wicliff, de Wyclif, or Wiclef (John), a very learned English divine in the fourteenth century, and the first champion of that cause which was afterwards called Protestantism, was born at a village then called Wickliffe, from which he took his surname, near Richmond in Yorkshire, in 1324. Of the parents of one who lived in so remote a period, it cannot be expected that we should be able to procure any account. He was sent early to Oxford, and was first admitted commoner of Queen’s college, and afterwards of Merton, where he became probationer, but not fellow, as has been usually reported. While he resided here, he associated with some of the most learned men of the age who were members of that college, and it is said that Geoffry Chaucer was at one time his pupil. Among his contemporaries, he was soon distinguished both for study and genius. He acquired all the celebrity which a profound knowledge of the philosophy and divinity then in vogue could confer, and so excelled in wit and argument as to be esteemed more than human. Besides the learning of the schools, he accumulated a profound knowledge of the civil and canon law, and of the municipal laws of our own country, which have been rarely an object of attention until the establishment of the Vinerian professorship. He also not only studied and commented upon the sacred writings, but translated them into English, and wrote homilies on several parts of them; and to all this he added an intimate acquaintance with the fathers of the Latin church, with St. Austin and St. Jerome, St. Ambrose and St. Gregory.

With these acquisitions, he did not hastily obtrude the novel opinions to which they had given rise. He was thirty-six years of age before his talents appeared to the world, and even then they were called forth rather by necessity than choice. In 1360 he became the advocate for the university against the incroachments made by the mendicant friars, who had been very troublesome from their first establishment in Oxford in 1230, and had occasioned great inquietude to the chancellor and scholars, by infringing their statutes and privileges, and setting up an exempt jurisdiction. Their misconduct had decreased the number of students from thirty thousand to six thousand, parents being afraid to send their children to the university, where they were in danger of being enticed by these friars from the colleges into convents; and no regard was paid to the determination of parliament in 1366, that the friars should receive no scholar under the age of eighteen. But Wickliffe now distinguished himself against these usurpations, and, with Thoresby, Bolton, Hereford, and other colleagues, openly opposed the justification which the friars had advanced in favour of their begging trade from the example of Christ and his apostles. Wickliffe also wrote several tracts against them, particularly “Of Clerks Possessioners,” “Of the Poverty of Christ, against able Beggary,” and “Of Idleness in Beggary.” These were written, with an elegance uncommon in that age, in the English language, of which he may be considered as one of the first refiners, while his writings afford many curious specimens of old English orthography. His controversies gave him such reputation in the university, that, in 1361 he was advanced to be master of Baliol college; and four years after he was made warden of Canterbury-hall, founded by Simon de Islip, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1361, and now included in Christ-church. The letters of institution, by which the archbishop appointed him to this wardenship, were dated 14 Dec. 1365, and in them he is styled, “a person in whose fidelity, circumspection, and industry, his grace very much confided; and one on whom he had fixed his eyes for that place, on account of the honesty of his life, his laudable conversation, and knowledge of letters.” Wickliffe amply fulfilled these expectations, till the death of the archbishop in 1366, who was succeeded in che archiepiscopal dignity by Simon Langham. This prelate had been a monk, and being inclined to favour the religious against the seculars, was easily persuaded by the morrks of Canterbury to eject Wickliffe in 1367 from his wardenship, and the other seculars from their fellowships. He also issued out his mandate, requiring WicklifFe and all the scholars to yield obedience to Wodehall as their warden. This Wodehall had actually been appointed warden by the founder, but he was at such variance with the secular scholars, that the archbishop was compelled to turn him and three other monks out of his new-founded hall, at which time he appointed Wickliffe to be warden, and three other seculars to be scholars. The scholars now, however, refused to yield obedience to Wodehall, as being contrary to the oath they had taken to the founder, and Langham, irritated at their obstinacy, sequestered the revenue, and took away the books, &c. belonging to the balL Wickliffe, and his expelled fellows, appealed to the pope, who issued a bull, dated at Viterbo 28 May, 1370, restoring Wodehall and the monks, and imposing perpetual silence on Wickliffe and his associates. As this bull was illegal, and interfered with the form of the licence of mortmain, the monks in 1372 screened themselves by procuring the royal pardon, and a confirmation of the papal sentence, for which they paid 200 marks, nearly 800l. of our money.

About this time the pope (Urban) sent notice to king Edward, that he intended to cite him to his court at Avignon, to answer for his default in not performing the homage which king John acknowledged to the see of Rome; and for refusing to pay the tribute of 700 marks a-year, which that prince granted to the pope. The king laid this before the parliament, and was encouraged to resist the claim. One of the monks having endeavoured to vindicate it, Wickliffe replied; and proved that the resignation of the crown, and promise of a tribute made by king John, ought not to prejudice the kingdom, or oblige the present king, as it was done without consent of parliament. This introduced him to the court, and particularly to the duke of Lancaster, who took him under his patronage. At this time he styled himself peculiaris regis clericus, or the king’s own clerk or chaplain, but continued to profess himself an obedient son of the Roman church. Shortly after he was presented, by the favour of the duke of Lancaster, to the living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, but in the diocese of Lincoln, and it was here that he advanced in his writings and sermons, those opinions which entitle him to the rank of reformer. But as he did not in the most open manner avow these seaiiments until he lost this living, his enemies then and since have taken occasion to impute them to a motive of revenge against the court of Rome which deprived him. This, however, is not strictly the truth, as he seems to have uttered and maintained some of his reforming opinions before he was turned out of the rectorship. This is evident from a tract entitled “Of the last age of the Church,” published in 1356, fourteen years before, in which he censures the popish exactions and usurpations.

It must be allowed, however, that his boldness increased with his sufferings. In 1372 he took his degree as doctor of divinity, and read lectures with great applause, in which he more strongly opposed the follies and superstitions of the friars, exposed their corruptions, and detected their practices without fear or reserve. The conduct of the court of Rome in disposing of ecclesiastical benefices and dignities to Italians, Frenchmen, and other aliens, became so notorious and oppressive, that in 1374, the king issued out a commission for taking an exact survey of all the dignities and benefices throughout his dominions, which were in the hands of aliens. The number and value of them appeared enormous, and he determined to send seven ambassadors to require of the pope that he would not interfere with the reservation of benefices. He had tried a similar embassy the yea before, which procured only an evasive concession. On the present occasion Wickliffe was the second person nominated, and, with the other ambassadors, was met at Bruges by the pope’s nuncio, two bishops and a provost. This treaty continued two years, when it was concluded that the pope should desist from making use of reservations of benefices. But the very next year, the treaty was broken, and a long bill-was brought into parliament against the papal usurpations, as the cause of all the plagues, injuries, famine, and poverty of the realm. They remonstrated that the tax paid to the pope amounted to five times as much as the tax paid to the king; and that God had given his sheep to the pope to be pastured, not fleeced. Such language encouraged Wickliffe, who boldly exposed the pride, avarice, ambition, and tyranny of the pope, in his public lectures and private conversation; and the monks complained to the pope that Wickliffe opposed the papal powers, and defended the royal supremacy; on which account, in 1376 they drew up nineteen articles against him, extracted from his public lectures ard sermons, of which some notice will be taken hereafter. It may be sufficient to add in this place, that they tended to oppose the rights which the popes had assumed, and to justify the regal,' in opposition to the papal pretensions of an ecclesiastical liberty, or an exemption of the persons of the clergy, and the goods of the church from the civil power, in advancing such opinions, he had the people on his side, and another powerful protector appeared for him in Henry Percy, earl-marshal. This alarmed the court of Rome, and Gregory XL issued several bulls against Wickliffe, all dated May 22, 1377. One was directed to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, whom he delegated to examine into the matter of the complaint; another was dispatched to the king himself, and a third to the university of Oxford. In the first, addressed to the two prelates, he tells them, “he was informed that Wickliffe had rashly proceeded to that detestable degree of madness, as not to be afraid to assert, and publicly preach, such propositions, as were erroneous and false, contrary to the faith, and threatening to subvert and weaken the estate of the whole church.” He therefore required them to cause Wickliffe to be apprehended and imprisoned by his authority; and to get his confession concerning his propositions and conclusions, which they were to transmit to Rome; as also whatever he should say or write, by way of introduction or proof. But, if Wickliffe could not be apprehended, they were directed to publish a citation for his personal appearance before the pope within three months. The pope requested the king to grant his patronage and assistance to the bishops in the prosecution of Wickliffe. In the bull to the university, he says, the heretical pravity of Wickliffe tended “to subvert the state of the whole church, and even the civil government.” And he orders them to deliver him up in safe custody to the delegates.

King Edward III. died before these bulls arrived in England, and the university seemed inclined to pay very little respect to the one addressed to them. The duke of Lancaster and the earl-marshal openly declared they would not suffer, him to be imprisoned, and as yet, indeed, the bishops were not authorized by law to imprison heretics without the royal consent. The archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, however, on the 19th Feb. 1378, issued out their mandate to the chancellor of the university of Oxford, commanding them to cite Wickliffe to appear before them in the church of St. Paul, London, within thirty days. But in such reputation was Wickliffe held at this time, that when, in the interval before his appearance, the first parliament of king Richard II. met, and debated “whether they might lawfully refuse to send the treasure out of the kingdom, after the pope required it on pain of censures, by virtue of the obedience due to him?” the resolution of this doubt was referred by the king and parliament to doctor Wickliffe, who undertook to prove the, legality of their refusal.

Sueh confidence reposed in him by the higher powers augured ill for the success of the prelates who had summoned him to appear before them. On the day appointed, a vast concourse assembled, and Wickliffe entered, accompanied by the duke of Lancaster and the earl-marshal Percy, who administered every encouragement, to him. But before the proceedings began, an altercation was occasioned by the bishop oi London’s opposing a motion of the earl-marshal, that Wickliffe should be allowed a seat. The duke of Lancaster replied to the bishop in warm terms, and said, although rather softly, that “rather than -take such language from the bishop, he would drag him out of the church by the hair of his head.” But this being over-s heard, the citizens present took part with their bishop, and such a commotion ensued that the court broke up without entering on the examination, while Wickliffe was carried off by his friends in safety. The Londoners, in revenge, plundered the duke of Lancaster’s palace in the Savoy, and the duke turned the mayor and aldermen out of the magistracy for not restraining their violence. From these circumstances it would appear that at this time WicklihVs principles had not been espoused by many of the lower classes, as is generally the case with innovations in religious matters; yet it was not long before he had a strong party of adherents even among them, for when he was a second time cited by the prelates to appear before them at Lambeth, the Londoners forced themselves into the chapel to encourage him, and intimidate his judges and accusers, On this occasion Wickliffe delivered a paper to the court, in which he explained the charges against him, but the proceedings were again stopped by the king’s mother, who sent sir Lewis Clifford to forbid their proceeding to any definitive sentence against Wickliffe. This completely disconcerted them, and according to the evidence of their own historian, Walsyngham, changed their courage into pusillanimity. “Qui quam iodevote,” says he, “ quamsegniter commissa sibi mandata compleverint, inelius est silere quam loqui.” All they could do was to enjoin him silence, to which he paid no regard; his followers increased; the death of pope Gregory XI. put an end to the commission of the delegates; and when a schism ensued by the double election of two popes, Wickliffe wrote a tract, “Of the Schism of the Roman Pontiffs,” and soon after published his book “Of the Truth of the Scripture,'” in which he contended for the necessity of translating the scriptures into the English language, and affirmed that the will of God was evidently revealed in two Testaments; that the law of Christ was sufficient to rule the church; and that any disputation, not originally produced from thence, must be accounted profane.

About this time, the fatigued he underwent in his attendance on the delegates, threw him into a dangerous illness on his return to Oxford. The mendicant friars took this opportunity to send a deputation to him, representing the great injuries he had done to them by his sermons and writings, and, as he was at the point of death; exhorting him to recant. Wickliffe, however, recovering his spirits at this unintended acknowledgment of the success of his writings, raised himself on his pillow, and replied, “I shall not die, but live to declare the evil deeds of the friars.” On his recovery he embraced every opportunity in his lectures, sermons, or writings, of exposing the Romish courts and detecting the vices of the clergy, both religious and secular; and his efforts were supported by certain proceedings of the parliament, which in 1380 rendered foreign ecclesiastics incapable of holding any benefices in England; and at the same time petitioned the king to expel all foreign monks, lest they should instil notions into the people repugnant to the welfare of the state.

But what gave most uneasiness to his enemies, was his having undertaken to translate the Holy Scriptures into English. These had never been translated, except by Richard Fitz-ralph, archbishop of Armagh, and John de Trevisa, a Cornish-man, who both lived in the reign of Edward III. Mr. Lewis is of opinion that Wickliffe began his translation about 1379 or 1380. But it is more probable that it was his chief employment for the last ten years at least of his life, and he had the assistance of some of his followers. He translated from Latin into the vulgar tongue, the twenty-five canonical books of the Bible, which he reckoned in the following order, and we transcribe as a specimen of the style and spelling of his language. “1. Genesis. 2. Exodus. 3. Levitici. 4. Numeri. 5. Deuteronomi. 6. Josue. 7. ludicum, that encloseth the story of Ruth, 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. ben the 4 Bokes of Kyngand tweie Bokes of Paralipomenon. 14. Is Esdre, that comprehendeth Neemy. 15. Is Hester. 16. Is Job. 17. Psalter. 18. 19. 20, ben the 3 Bokes of Solomon. 21.22.23. 24, ben the four great prophets. 25. Is a Boke of 12 small Prophets, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdie, Jonas, Michee, Nahum, Abacuc, Sophonie, Aggie, Zacharie, and Malachie.” He adds, “That whatever boke is in the Olde Testament without these 25 aforesaid, shal be set among Apocrypha, that is, withouten autoritie of belive. Therefore as holie chirch redith Judith and Tobit, and the Bokes of Machabeis but receiveth not thos amonge holi scriptures; so the chirch redith these 2 Bokes Ecclesiastici, and Sapieme to edifying of the people, not to confirme the autoritie of techyng of holi chirch. And that therefore he translated not the 3 ne 4 Boke of Esdree that ben Apocrypha.” The books of the New Testament he reckons in this order. “The 4 Gospellers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; 12 Epistles of Poule; 7 small Epistles; the Dedes of Apostles, and the Apocalyps, which ben fulli of autoritie of byleve.” Mr. Lewis observes, he translated word for word, without always observing the idioms or proprieties of the several languages; by which means this translation in some places is not very intelligible to those who do not understand Latin. The reason why he made his version from the Vulgate was, not that he thought it the original, or of the same authority with the Hebrew and Greek text, but because he did not understand those languages well enough to translate from them.

Of this translation several manuscript copies are extant in the libraries of our universities, the British museum, and other public and private collections. The New Testament was published in 1731 fol. by Mr. John Lewis, minister of Margate; with a History of the English Translations of the Bible; which History was reprinted in 1739, 8vo, with large additions. Of the style we shall now exhibit a farther, and more perfect specimen, in these three verses of Romans viii. 28, 29, 30. “And we when, that to men that louen God alle thing is worchen to gidre into good to hem that aftir purpose been clepid seyutis. For thilk that he knew bifore, he bifore ordeynyde bi grace to be maad lyk to the ymage of his Sone, that he be the firste bigeten among manye britheren. And thilke that he bifore ordeynyde to blisse, hem he clepide, and whiche he clepide hem he justifiede, and which he justifiede, and hern he glorifiede.”

In 1381 we find Wickliffe attacking the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was first asserted by Radbertus about the year 820, and had been always propagated by the Romish church. Wickliffe offered to support his opinion in a public disputation, but as that was prohibited, he published it in a tract entitled “De Blasphemia,” which was condemned by William de Barton, chancellor of the university, and eleven doctors, of whom eight were of the religious. Wickliffe maintained that they had not refuted his assertions, and appealed from their condemnation, to the king. In the mean time William Courtney, bishop of London, succeeded archbishop Sudbury in the see of Canterbury, and was entirely devoted to the interest of his patron the pope. This prelate had before shewn himself a violent opposer of Wickliffe, and now proceeded against him and his followers. But as soon as the parliament met in 1382, Wickliffe presented his appeal to the king and both houses. Walsingham represents this as done with a design to draw the nobility into erroneous opinions, and that it was disapproved by the Duke of Lancaster, who ordered Wickliffe to speak no more of that matter. Others say that the duke advised Wickliffe not to appeal to the king, but submit to the judgment of his ordinary upon which, the monks assert, he retracted his doctrine at Oxford in the presence of the archbishop of Canterbury, six bishops, and many doctors, surrounded with a great concourse of people. But the confession which he read, in Latin, was rather a vindication of his opinion of the sacrament, as it declares his resolution to defend it with his blood, and maintains the contrary to be heresy.

The persecution which followed plainly proves this to be the case. After the death of the queen, Anne of Luxemburg, in 1394, who was a favourer of the Wickiffites, the archbishop, Courtney, assembled a court of bishops, in the monastery of the preaching friars, London, who declared fourteen conclusions of Wickliffe and others, heretical and erroneous. It is said that Wickliffe was prevented from appearing at this court by his friends, who thought that a plot was laid to seize him on the road. His cause, however, was undertaken by the chancellor of Oxford, the two proctors, and the greatest part of the senate, who, in a letter, sealed with the university seal, and sent to the court, highly commended his learning, piety, and orthodox faith. His particular friends and followers, Dr. Nicholas Hereford, Dr. Philip Rapingdon, and John Ayshton, M. A. defended his doctrines both in this court and in the convocation. The archbishop still persisted in his endeavours to punish the Wickliffites, but their doctrines increased, while Wickliffe himself, although obliged to quit his professorship at Oxford, lived peaceably at Lutterworth, still divulging his principles, and increasing the number of his followers. In 1382, soon after he left Oxford, he was seized with the palsy; and about the same time the pope cited him to appear at Rome, to which he sent an excuse, pleading, that “Christ had taught him to obey God rather than man.” He was seized with a second stroke of palsy on Innocent’s day 1384, as he was in his church of Lutterworth, and soon after expired, in the sixtieth year of his age.

On the 5th of May, 1415, the council of Constance condemned forty-five articles maintained by Wickliffe, as heretical, false, and erroneous. His bones were ordered to be dug up and cast on a dunghill; but this part of his sentence was not executed till 1428, when orders were sent by the pope to the bishop of Lincoln to have it strictly performed. His remains, which had now lain in the grave forty-four years, were dug out and burnt, and the ashes cast into an adjoining brook, called the Swift. It is said that the gown which Wickliffe wore now covers the communion-table of the church of Lutterworth.

The principles which this eminent reformer endeavoured to introduce may be gathered from the nineteen articles before-mentioned, which were extracted from his public lectures and sermons, by the monks, and sent to the pope. It appears that he held the doctrine of predestination in as strong a sense as any who have since supported it, and, in the opinion of a late writer, carries it much farther than any modern or ancient writers have attempted. He was, indeed, an absolute necessitarian, and among certain articles extracted from his works by Thomas Netter (commonly called Thomas of Walden, who flourished about 1409) we find the following, “That all things come to pass by fatal necessity; that God could not make the world otherwise than it is made; and that God cannot do any thing which he doth not do.” Other less unguarded expressions have been laid to his charge, of which Fuller observes, that were all his works extant, “we might read the occasion, intention, and connection of what he spake, together with the limitations, restrictions, distinctions, and qualifications, of what he maintained. There we might see what was the overplus of his passion, and what the just measure of his judgment.” He maintained, with the church in after-times, the doctrine of pardon and justification by the alone death and righteousness of Christ. The several points in which he differed from the then established popery were these; the reading of the bible in the vulgar tongue, and making them the sole rule of a Christian’s faith and practice, without faith in tradition, or any human authority; his opposing the pope’s supremacy and infallibility; his rejecting and condemning transubstantiation, indulgences, confession, and absolution, extreme unction; the celibacy of the clergy; forced vows of chastity; prayers to, and worship of saints, shrines and pilgrimages. But the opinions which rendered him most obnoxious in his day, were those which struck at the temporal dominion of the pope, and which occasioned many of his followers to be persecuted in the subsequent reigns of Richard II. Henry IV. and Henry V.

His works are very voluminous, yet he seems not to have engaged in any great work. They are, more properly speaking, tracts, some of which were written in Latin, and some in English; some were on school-questions; others on subjects of more general knowledge; but the greatest part on divinity. Mr. Gilpin has given a list of the more remarkable. Bale has a more particular account. Some are preserved in Trinity and Corpus colleges, Cambridge, a few in Trinity college, Dublin, in the Bodleian, and in the British museum. Mr. Baber, in his late edition of the New Testament, has given the fullest and most accurate account of these. The following list comprises all that have been printed 1. “Trialogus,” a dialogue in Latin, between Truth, Falsehood, and Wisdom,“printed somewhere in Germany, about 1525, 4to, pp. 175. This is very scarce, having been mostly destroyed by the Romanists , but a new edition of it was printed at Frankfort, 1733, 4to. 2.” Wicklif’s Wicket, or, a learned and godly treatise of the Sacrament,“Norimberg, 1546, 8vo, and Oxford, 1612, 4to. 3.” The pathway to perfect knowledge, or Wickliffe’s Prologue to the Bible,“published by Robert Crowley, 1550, 12mo. 4.” The dore of the Holy Scripture,“1540, 8vo. 5.” De Christianorum villicatione,“in English, published in 1582, under the name of R. Wimbledon. 6.” A Complaint of John Wickliffe, exhibited to the king and parliament.“7.” A Treatise of John Wickliffe against the order of Friars.“These two were published together at Oxford in 1608, 4to, by Dr. James, from two ms copies, one in Bene't college, Cambridge, the other in the Bodleian library. 8.” Why poor Priests have no Benefices,“published by Mr. Lewis in his life of Wickliffe, Who has also published there, his Determination, Confessions, and large extracts from his works remaining in ms. together with his New Testament. His opinions are also particularly detailed in Dr, Thomas James’s” Apologie for John Wickliffe, shewing his conformitie with the pew Church of England;" collected chiefly out of his ms works in the Bodleian library, and printed at Oxford, 1608, 4to, now very scarce.

We have mentioned Lewis’s edition of Wickliffe’s New Testament. Of this a new, elegant, and very correct second edition was published in 1810 by the rev, Henry Hervey Baber, M. A. F. R. S. librarian of printed books in the British museum, in a 4to volume. To this are prefixed “Memoirs of the Life, opinions, and writings” of Wickliffe, to which we would refer our readers for much original information and ingenious research and a very learned “Historical account of the Saxon and English versions of the Scriptures, previous to the opening of the fifteenth century.” It was the intention of this excellent editor to have attempted an edition of Wickliffe’s translation of the Old Testament, but no sufficient encouragement, we add with surprize and shame, has yet been offered to so important an addition to our translations of the Holy Scriptures.

, famous for his embassies and his writings, was a Hollander, and born in 1598; but it is not certain at what place, though some have mentioned Amsterdam. He left his country very young, and went and settled in France, where he applied himself diligently to political studies, and sought to advance himself by political services. Having made himself known to the elector of Brandenburg, this prince appointed him his resident at the court of France, about 1626 and he preserved this post two- and-thirty years, that is, till 1658. Then he fell into disgrace with cardinal Mazarin, who never had much esteem for him, and particularly disliked his attachment to the house of Conde. The cardinal accused him of having sent secret intelligence to Holland and other places; and he was ordered to leave the court and the kingdom: but, before he set out, he was seized and sent to the Bastille. M. le Teilier wrote at the same time tp the elector of Brandenburg, to justify the action; which he did by assuring him that his minister was an intelligencer in the pay of several princes. The year after, however (1659), he was set at liberty, and escorted by a guard to Calais; whence he passed over to England, and thence to Holland. There De Witt, the pensionary, received him affectionately, and protected him powerfully: he had indeed been the victim of De Witt, with whom he had carried on a secret correspondence, which was discovered by intercepted letters. He reconciled himself afterwards to France, and heartily espoused its interests; whether out of spite to the prince of Orange, or from some other motive; and the count d'Estrades reposed the utmost confidence in him. JFor the present, the duke of Brunswic-Liwienburg made him his resident at the Hague; and he was appointed, besides this, secretary-interpreter of the States General for foreign dispatches.

The ministry of De Witt being charged with great events, the honour of the commonwealth, as well as of the pensionary, required that they should be written; and Wicquefort was selected as the properest person for such a work. He wrote this history under the inspection, as well as protection, of the pensionary, who furnished him vxithsuch memoirs as he wanted, and he had begun the printing of it when, being accused of holding st-cret correspondence with the enemies of the States, he wa> made prisoner at the Hague in March 1676; and, November following, condemned to perpt tual imprisonment, and to the forfeiture of all his effects. His son published this sentence in Germany the year after, with remarks, which he addressed to the plenipotentiaries assembled then at Nimeguen to treat of peace: but these powers did not think proper to meddle with the affair. Wicquefort amused himself with continuing his history of the United Provinces, which he interspersed, as was natural for a man in his situation, with satirical strokes, not only against the prince of Orange, whom he personally hated, but also against the government and the court of justice who had condemned him. This work was published at the Hague in 1719, with this title, “L'Histoire des Provinces Unies des Pays-Bas, depuis le parfait etablissement de cet Etat par la Paix de Munster:” it contains 1174 pages in folio, 246 of which were printed off when the author was thrown into prison.

He continued under restraint till 1679, and then contrived to escape by the assistance- of one of his daughters, who ran the risk of her own liberty in order to procure his. By exchanging clothes with the lady, he went out, and took refuge at the court of the duke of Zell; from which be withdrew in 1681, disgusted, because that prince would not act with more zeal in procuring his sentence to be reversed at the Hague. It is not known what became of him after; but he is said to have died in 1682. His “L'Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions,” printed at the Hague, 1681, in 2 vols. 4to, is his principal work, and is a very curious miscellany of facts and remarks, the latter not always profound, but often useful. He published also in 1677, during his imprisonment, “Memoires touchant les Ambassadeurs et les Ministres publics.” He translated some books of travels from the German into French and also from the Spanish, “L'Ambassade de D. Garcias de Silva f igueroa en Perse, contenant la Politique de ce grand Empire,” &c. These works, which Wicquetort was at the pains to translate, are said to contain many curious and interesting things.

, an eminent lawyer, and speaker of the House of Commons, during the usurpation, was of an ancient family in Northumberland, and was educated partly at Oxford and partly at Cambridge. He afterwards entered pf Qray’s-inn, to study the law, in which he advanced with considerable rapidity, and was chosen recorder, first of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and secondly of York. He was knighted by Charles I. in 1639 at York, and, as recorder, congratulated his majesty both at York and Berwick, when he was on his way to be crowned king of Scotland. Both his addresses on this occasion are said to have been perfectly courtly and even fulsome, but he was soon to change his style as well as his opinions. Being returned member of parliament for Berwick, he became a warm advocate for the liberty then contested; avowed himself in religion, one of the independent sect, and took the covenant. In June 1647, he was so much a favourite with the parliament that they appointed him one of the commissioners of the great seal, which office he was to retain for one year, but held it till the king’s death. The parliament also named him, in Oct. 1648, one in their call of Serjeants, and soon after declared him king’s s’erjeant. But far as he had gone with the usurping powers, he was by no means pleased with the commonwealth form of government, and immediately after the king’s death, surrendered his office of keeper of the great seal, first upon the plea of bad health, and when that was not allowed, he set up some scruples of conscience. The parliament, however, as he continued to allow their authority, in requital of his former services, ordered that he should practice within the bar, and gave him a quarter’s salary more than was due. His merit also recommended him to Cromwell, who heaped honours and great employments upon him. In April 1654, he was appointed a commissioner of the great seal and a commissioner of the treasury, for which he received a saJary of 100Q/.; and all his conscientious scruples seemed now at an end. In August of the same year, he was elected member of parliament for the city of York; and in the following year, became a committee-man for ejecting scandalous ministers in the north riding of that county.

In 1656, he represented both Northumberland and the city of York in parliament, and being chosen Speaker, was approved by Cromwell. His salary as speaker was 1829l. besides 5l. for every private act, and the like sum for every stranger made a free denizen; when ill he appointed Whitelock for his deputy, as we noticed in the life of that statesman. In June 1658 he was appointed lord chief baron of the exchequer, and in Jan. 1660, one of the council of state and a commissioner of the great seal. He was returned both for Berwick and York in the parliament called in this year, and by some interest in the court of the restored king, Charles II. he was included in the call of serjeants, June 1, 1660. It was thought somewhat singular, and even mean that be should have submitted to this, as he had so long borne that title, had filled high offices in the state, was by no means a young man, and was possessed of a considerable fortune. With regard to his fortune, however, he had suffered some loss. He and Thomas Coghill, esq. had purchased the manor of Crayke, belonging to Durham cathedral, which was now ordered to revert to the church again. On the other hand, as some compensation, he was appointed temporal chancellor for life of thai bishopric. He died May 13, 1664, and was buried in the chancel of St. Giles’s in the Fields, where a handsome monument against the north wall was placed by his four surviving daughters, ten years after, but it does not now exist Although sir Thomas had drank deep in the spirit of the times, we are told that his great abilities were only equalled by his integrity, and it was probably the latter which procured him favour after the restoration. He married Frances, daughter of lord Fairfax, of Cameron, and sister of lord Fairfax, the parliamentary general; she died in 1649, and likewise lies buried in St. Giles’s.

Mr. Noble, from whose “Memoirs of Cromwell” we have borrowed the above account, says that sir Thomas published in 1660 “Analecta Eborensia, or some remains of the ancient city of York,” &c. but this is a mistake. He only left a ms. account, under the title of <r Analecta Eboracentia or some remains of the ancient city of York, collected by a citizen of York.“Mr. Gough informs us that the above ms. was in the hands of Thomas Fairfax of Menston, eq, Sir Thomas began his researches in Charles I's time, and after the restoration ohWed to print this work, and dedicate it to the city of York, who seem to have refused it on account of the indifference he shewed to their interests when he represented them in Cromwell’s parliament. Upon this he is said to have expressly forbid his descendants to publish it. Besides the Menston ms. there was another copy at Durham, in the Shaftoe family, one of whom married a daughter of the author Mr. Drake had the use of one among the city records, and another from sir Richard Smyth of St. Edmund’s Bury, which he thinks was prepared by the author himself for the press, and might have passed through different hands on the death of lord Fairfax, and dispersion of his effects. Another copy, or perhaps one of those just mentioned, is among Mr. Gough’s topographical treasures in the Bodleian library. There are some of sir Thomas’s public speeches in Rushworth’s” Collections," and others, according to Wood, were printed separately.

, John. See John Alberti, but ought to have been placed here, as we have since discovered by Chaufepie. His proper name was John Albert Widmanstadt.

, a voluminous German writer who has been complimented with the title of the Voltaire of Germany, was born in 1733, at Biberach. Of his life no authentic account has, as far as we know, reached this country, but the following few particulars, gleaned from various sources, may perhaps be genuine, His father was a clergyman, who gave him a good education, and his attachment to the Muses discovered itself very early. At the age of fourteen, he wrote a poem on the destruction of Jerusalem, Two years after he was sent to Erfurt to study the sciences, where he became enamoured of Sophia de Gusterman, afterwards known by the name of Madame de la Roche. The youthful lovers swore eternal fidelity to each other, but Wieland’s father thought proper to interrupt the connection, and sent his son to Tubingen to study law. For this he probably had little inclination, and employed most of his thoughts and time on poetry, producing at the age of eighteen an “Art of Love” in the manner of Ovid, and a poem “On the nature of things,” in which we are told he combined the philosophy of Plato and Leibnitz. After this he appears to have devoted himself entirely to study and writing, and acquired considerable reputation as a poet of taste and fancy. For some time he appears to have resided in Swisserland, and in 1760 he returned to his native place, where he was appointed to the office of director of the chancery, and during his leisure hours wrote some of those works which completely established him in the opinion of his countrymen, as one or the greatest geniuses of the age, and honours were liberally bestowed upon him. The elector of Mentz made him professor of philosophy and polite literature at Erfurt, and he was soon after appointed tutor to the two young princes of Saxe Weimar; he was also aulic counsellor to the duke, who gave him a pension; and counsellor of government to the elector of Mentz. In 1765 he married a lady at Augsburgh, of whom he speaks so highly that we may conclude ke had overcome or moderated his attachment to the object of his first love. In 1808 Bonaparte sent him the cross of the legion of honour, and after the battle of Jena, partook of a repast with Wieland, and, we are gravely told, “conversed with him at great length on the folly and horrors of war and on various projects for the establishment of a perpetual peace!” Wieland’s latter days were employed in translating Cicero’s Letters. A paralysis of the abdominal viscera was the prelude to his death, which took place at Weimar, in January 1813, in the eighty-first year of his age.

Wieland was the author of a prodigious number of works (of which there is an edition extending to forty-two volumes, quarto), both in prose and verse, poems of all kinds, and philosophical essays, dialogues, tales, &c. Of these, the “Oberon,” (by Mr. Sotheby’s elegant translation) the “Agathon,” and some others, are not unknown, although they have never been very popular, in this country. In what estimation he is held in his own, may appear from one of the many panegyrics which German critics have pronounced on his merit: “No modern poet has written so much, or united so much deep sense with so much wit, such facility and sweetness. It may be truly said of him, that he has gone through the wide domain of human occupations, and knows all that happens in heaven and in earth. A blooming imagination and a creative wit; a deep, thinking, philosophical mind; fine and just sense, and a thorough acquaintance with both the moderns and ancients, are discernible in all his various writings. Re knows how to make the most abstract metaphysical ideas sensible, by the magic of his eloquence; he can make himself of all times and all countries; he observes the customs of every country, and knows how to join truth with miracles, sensible with spirited imagery, and romance with the most profound morality. In the `Agathon' he seems a Grecian; and in the `Fairy Tales’ a knight-errant; who wanders amidst fairies, vizards, and monsters. All his tales abound in portraits, comparisons, and parallels, taken from old and modern times, full of good sense and truth. The understanding, the heart, and the fancy, are equally satisfied. His verse is easy; there is not a word too much, or an idle false thought. He is as excellent in comical portraits as in the delineations of manners. The knowledge of Epicurus, the muses of frolic and satire, of romance and fairy land; the solidity of Locke, and the deep sense of Plato; Grecian eloquence, and Oriental luxuriance, what excites admiration in the writings of the best masters, are united in his immortal works.” Such is the opinion of his countrymen; to which, however, it is our duty to add, that in many of his works the freethinkingsystem is predominant, and that the moral tendency of others is very doubtful.

, an able physician, called in Latin Wierus, and sometimes Piscinarius, was born in 1515, at Grave, on the Meuse, in the duchy of Brabant, of a noble family. He studied philosophy under the famous Henry Cornelius Agrippa; made several voyages even to Africa, but returned again into Europe, and was physician to the duke of Cleves during thirty years. Wier had so strong a constitution, that he frequently passed three or four days without eating gr drinking, and found not the least inconvenience from it. He died suddenly Feb. 4, 1588, at Tecklenbourg, a German town in the circle of Westphalia, in the seventy-third year of his age. His works were printed at Amsterdam, 1660, one volume, quarto, which includes his treatise “De Prestigiis et Incantationibus,” translated into French, by James Grevin 1577, 8vo. He maintains in this work, that those accused of witchcraft were persons whose brain was disordered by melancholy, whence they imagined falsely, and without any reason, that they had dealings with the devil, and were therefore deserving of pity rather than of punishment. It seems strange that, with this opinion, Wier should in other instances give the readiest credit to fabulous stories. The above mentioned book made much noise.

, a learned divine of the reformed religion, was born at Mansfeld in Upper Saxony in 1523. His parents, who were of the middle rank, perceiving his love of learning, gave him a good education at school, whence he was sent to the university of Wirtemberg, where he studied the arts and languages for about three years; attending, at the same time, the lectures of Luther and Melancthon. He became also acquainted with other contributors to the reformation, as Gruciger, Justus Jonas, &c. and heard the Greek lectures of Vitus. In 1541, by the advice of his tutors and friends, he went to Noriberg, where he was made master of St. Lawrence-school, and taught there for three years; but being desirous of adding to his own knowledge, under the ablest instructors, he returned to Wirtemberg again. There he commenced M. A. before he was twenty-two years old, and begun the study of divinity, which he engaged in with gr/eat assiduity, until the events of the war dispersed the students of this university. He then was invited to his native place, Mansfeld, where he was ordained, and is said to have been the first who was ordained after the establishment of the Protestant religion. He soon became a very useful and popular preacher, and on the week-days read lectures to the youth in logic and philosophy. While here, at the request of the superintendent, John Spangenberg, he wrote a confutation of Sidonius’s popish catechism, which was afterwards printed both in Latin and Dutch. He wrote also a confutation of George Major, who held that a man is justified by faith, but not saved, &c. He was one of those who strongly opposed the Interim.

His great delight, in the way of relaxation from his more serious engagements, was in his garden, in which he formed a great collection of curious plants. Haller mentions his publication “De succino Borussico, de. Alee, de Herbis Borussicis, et de Sale,” 1590; 8vo, which Freher and other biographers speak of as three distinct publications. In 1553 he was chosen superintendant of Magdeburg, but the count Mansfeld and his countrymen strongly opposed his removal from them, yet at last, in consequence of the application of the prince of Anhalt, consented to it. At Magdeburg, by his preaching and writings he greatly promoted the reformed religion, and had a considerable hand in the voluminous collection, entitled “The Magdeburg Centuries,” which Sturmius used to say had four excellent qualities, truth, research, order, and perspicuity. In 1560, on the foundation of the university of Jena by the elector of Saxony, he was solicited by his highness to become professor of divinity, and performed the duties of that office until some angry disputes between Illyricus and Strigelius inclined him to resign. He was after a short stay at Magdeburg, chosen, in 1562, to be superintendant at Wismar. He now took his degree of doctor in divinity at the university of Rostock, and remained at Wismar seven years, at the end of which a negociation was set on foot for his return to Jena, where he was made professor of divinity and superintendant. Five years after he was again obliged to leave that university, when the elector Augustus succeeded his patron the elector William. On this he went to the duke of Brunswick who entertained him kindly, and he was soon after invited to the divinity-professorship of Konigsberg, and in two years was appointed bishop there. He died 1587, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. He wrote a prodigious number of works, principally commentaries oa different parts of the Bible, and treatises on the controversies with the popish writers. He was esteemed a man of great learning, a profound theologian and no less estimable in private life. He ranks high among the promoters of the reformation in Germany.

, a late amiable and ingenious writer, was the only son of Dr. Joseph Wilcocks, of whom we have the following particulars. He waa born in 1673, and was educated at Magdalen-college, Oxford, where he formed a lasting friendship with Mr. Boulter, afterwards primate of Ireland; Mr. Wilcocks was chosen a demy of his college at the same election with Boulter and Addison, and from the merit and learning of the elect, this was commonly called by Dr. Hough, president of the college, “the golden election.” He was ordained by bishop Sprat, and while a young man, went chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon; where, as in all the other scenes of his life, he acquired the public love and esteem, and was long remembered with grateful respect. While here, such was his sympathy and his courage, that although he had not then had the small-pox, yet when that dreadful malady broke out in the factory, he constantly attended the sick and dying. On his return to England, he was appointed chaplain to George I. and preceptor to his royal granddaughters, the children of George II. He also had a prebend of Westminster, and in 1721 was made bishop of Gloucester, the episcopal palace of which he repaired, which for a considerable time before had stood uninhabited; and thus he became the means of fixing the residence of future bishops in that see. In 1731 he was translated to the bishopric of Rochester, with which he held the deanry of Westminster. Seated in this little diocese, he declined any higher promotion, even that of the archbishopric of York, frequently using the memorable expression t>f bishop Fisher, one of his predecessors, “Though this my wife be poor, I must not think of changing her for one more opulent.” The magnificence of the west-front of Westminster-abbey, during his being dean, is recorded as a splendid monument of his zeal for promoting public works, in suitable proportion to his station in life. He wouJd doubtless have been equally zealous in adorning and enlarging his cathedral at Rochester, had there been ground to hope for national assistance in that undertaking; but its episcopal revenues were very inadequate to the expence. He was constantly resident upon his diocese, and from the fatigue of his last Visitation there, he contracted the illness which terminated his life by a gradual decay, March 9, 1756, aged eighty-three. He was buried in a vault in Westminster-abbey, under the consistory court, which he had built the year before, by permission from the Chapter. His son erected a monument for him next to that of Dr. Pearce. He married Jane, the daughter of John Milner, esq. sometime his Britannic majesty’s consul at Lisbon, who died in her twenty-eighth year. By her he hd Joseph, the more immediate subject of the present article.

Mr. Joseph Wilcocks was born in Dean’s-yard, Westminster, Jan. 4, 1723, during the time his father was bishop of Gloucester, and a prebendary of Westminster. Jn 1736 he was admitted upon the foundation at Westminsterschool, whence he was elected to Christ-church, Oxford in 1740, and proceeded regularly to the degree of M. A. in 1747. He very early distinguished himself at college, and obtained the second of three prizes before the end of the year he entered, the first of them being gained by his friend and contemporary, Mr. Markham, afterwards archbishop of York.As his estate was considerable he chose no particular profession, but devoted his property to various acts of beneficence, and his time to study. He was particularly attentive to biblical learning, and to every thing that could promote the cause of piety. His humility and diffidence were carried rather to an extreme; and from the same excess in the sensibility of his conscientious feelings, he forebore to act as a magistrate, having for a short time undertaken it as a justice, in the county of Berks. Having in early life paid his addresses to a lady whom his father deemed it imprudent for him to marry in point of circumstances, he submitted to parental authority, but continued unmarried ever after.

One of his very amiable qualities was to consider himself as a citizen of the world, and mankind in general as his brethren and friends; consequently, he endeavoured to do them all the good in his power. I think I may also safely say, the great rule of his life and conduct was to be a true disciple and follower of all the beneficent actions of our Saviour, and to interweave his examples into his daily exercise and practice. He used to rise early, and was a very great oeconomist of his time; labouring to keep a most exact account of all his domestic concerns, and every thing that belonged to his receipts and expenditure. Even his numerous gifts and charities, I believe,were daily committed to paper, and all looked over in the evening, and balanced, noting every error and deficiency; and if he did not perceive he had done one or more acts of charity and beneficence, he thought he had lost a dayl He was the most dutiful and affectionate son, the most kind nephew, cousin, or relation to all who stood in any degree of “kindred. To servants, workmen, and tenants, the most gentle and beneficent; and to his poor neighbours an affectionate father, paying for schooling for their children, and even erecting schools, which is, perhaps, too well known to require mentioning. When travelling, he would inquire at the inns, who was in sickness or necessity in the place, leaving money for their relief. He frequently released debtors from prison, and had great charity to beggars. He frequently sent medical assistance to the sick, and gave large sums to hospitals; when abroad, he gave large sums also to poor convents, and to the necessitous of all countries and religions. He was always ready to assist every increase or improvement of learning, witness the very large and laborious share he took in assisting the collation of the Hebrew text of the Bible, by opening many of the foreign libraries in Europe, through his interest and labour, and employing professors to collate at his own expence. His humanity to the brute creation was very great, and his tenderness even to insects. He preserved a reverential respect for the place of his nativity, for the places where he had received his education, and for those who hail been companions of his youth; likewise fortne memory of those who had been in any way instrumental in forming his morals and perfecting his learning; and this was preserved even to their friends and posterity.”

These, and many other acts of beneficence, both of a public and private nature, the latter always performed with the utmost delicacy, are specified at large in the very interesting memoirs prefixed to the last edition of his “Roman Conversations,” by Mr. Bickerstaff, the successor of Mr. Brown, the bookseller, to whom he bequeathed that edition, with an express provision, “to indemnify him from any loss which might be incurred by the expences of the first edition.” His classical taste, contracted by long reading, led him to Italy, and it appears to have been in the once “metropolis of the world,” that he laid the foundation of the “Roman Conversations,” his principal work, which may justly be recommended to the young, and indeed to readers in general. In it he separates the truth of Roman history from the errors which disfigure it, bestowing just praise on the real patriots of Rome, and equally just censure on those whose patriotism was only feigned; and distinguishing between the insidious arts of demagogues, and the integrity of true friends to the public. In nice investigations of character, he appears to be free from prejudice, attentive to truth, and often strikingly original in his remarks. The chief defect is a want of regard to style, and a prolixity of remark and digression, which perhaps will be more easily pardoned by the old than the young, fur whom the work was chiefly calculated; yet it is a work which cannot fail to be perused by every student of Roman history with the greatest advantage. It is calculated to excite religious and moral reflections on that history, and to adapt and direct the study of it to the, best and wisest purposes of a Christian education.

In the “Carmina Quadragesimalia” are many good verses written by Mr. Wilcocks, who also was the compiler of the “Sacred Exercises,” now in use at Westminsterschool. We are not informed of any other publication from his pen, except a little piece in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. liii. entitled “An Account of some subterraneous Apartments, with Etruscan Inscriptions and paintings, discovered at Civita Turchino, in Italy.” These, we are told, were explored as here described, at the sole expence of our author.

Mr. Wilcocks died, of repeated attacks of the palsy, Dec. 23, 1791, at the close of his sixty-ninth year. He left behind him the “Roman Conversations” prepared for the press. They were composed by him, indeed, at an early period of his present majesty’s reign; but modest diffidence would not allow him to publish them in his lifetime, otherwise than by printing off a few copies, which he distributed among his intimate friends. With the hope, however, that the work might be more extensively useful, and particularly to younger minds, he gave directions that it should appear soon after his decease. Accordingly, in May 1792, the first volume was published; but, in consequence of a written injunction left by the worthy author, the second volume did not come out until a year after. In 1797, a new and much corrected edition was published by Mr. Bickerstaff, with memoirs of the author, to which we are indebted for the preceding sketch. Many particulars of Mr. Wilcocks’s life are evidently, although under some disguise, interwoven in his “Roman Conversations.”

, a tailor, who, from an extraordinary love of study, became a professor of the Oriental languages, was born in the city of Norwich about 1684, where he was educated at a grammar-school till he was almost qualified for the university; but his friends, wanting fortune and interest to maintain him there, bound him apprentice to a tailor, with whom he served seven years, and afterwards worked seven years more as a journeyman. About the end of the last seven years, he was seized with a fever and ague, which continued with him two or three years, and at last reduced him so low as to disable him from working at his trade. In this situation he amused himself with some old books of controversial divinity, in which he found great stress laid on the Hebrew original of several texts of scripture; and, though he had almost lost the learning he had obtained at school, his strong desire of knowledge excited him to attempt to make himself master of that language. He was at first obliged to make use of an English Hebrew grammar and lexicon; but, by degrees, recovered the knowledge of the Latin tongue, which he had learned at school. On the recovery of his health, he divided his time between his business and his studies, xvhich last employed the greatest part of his nights. Thus, self-taught, and assisted only by his great genius, he, "by dint of continual application, added to the knowledge of the Hebrew that of all or most of the oriental Ianguages, but still laboured in obscurity, till at length he was accidentally discovered. The worthy Dr. Prideaux, dean of Norwich, being offered some Arabic manuscripts in parchment, by a bookseller of that city, thinking, perhaps, that the price demanded for them was too great, declined buying them; but, soon after, Mr. Wild hearing of them, purchased them; and the dean, on calling at the shop and inquiring for the manuscripts, was informed of their being sold. Chagrined at this disappointment, he asked of the bookseller the name and profession of the person who had bought them; and, being told he was a tailor, he bad him instantly to run and fetch them, if they were riot cut in pieces to make measures: but he was soon relieved from his fears by Mr. Wild’s appearance with the manuscripts, though, on the dean’s inquiring whether he would part with them, he answered in the negative. The dean then asked hastily what he did with them: he replied, that he read them. He was desired to read them, which he did. He was then bid to render a passage or two into English, which he readily performed, and with great exactness. Amazed at this, the dean, partly at his own expence, and partly by a subscription raised among persons whose inclinations led them to this kind of knowledge, sent him to Oxford; where, though he was never a member of the university, he was by the dean’s interest admitted into the Bodleian library, and employed for some, years in translating or making extracts out of Oriental manuscripts, and thus bad adieu to his needle. This appears to have been some time before 1718. At Oxford, he was known by the name of the Arabian tailor. He constantly attended the library all the hours it was open, and, when it was shut, employed most of his leisure-time in teaching the Oriental languages to young gentlemen, at the moderate price of half a guinea a lesson, except for the Arabic, for which he had a guinea, and his subscriptions for teaching amounted to no more than 20 or 30l. a year. Unhappily for him, the branch of learning in which he excelled was cultivated but by few; and the reverend Mr. Gagnier, a Frenchman, skilled in the Oriental tongues, was in possession of all the favours the university could Bestow in this way, being recommended by the heads of colleges to instruct young gentlemen, and employed by the professors of these languages to read public lectures in their absence.

Mr. Wild’s person was thin and meagre, and his stature moderately tall. He had an extraordinary memory; and, as his pupils frequently invited him to spend an evening with them, he would often entertain them with long and curious details out of the Roman, Greek, and Arabic, histories. His morals were good; he was addicted to no vice, but was sober, temperate, modest, and diffident of himself, without the least tincture of vanity. About 1720 he removed to London, where he spent the remainder of his life under the patronage of Dr. Mead. When he died is not known, but in 1734, which is supposed to have been after his death, was published his translation from the Arabic of “Mahomet’s Journey to Heaven,” which is the only piece of his that was ever printed. The writer of his life informs us that it was once suspected that he was a Jesuit in disguise, but for this there appears to have been no foundation. Before he went to Oxford, we have the following notice respecting him in a letter from Dr. Turner to Dr. Charlett, dated Norwich, March 4, 1714. “A taylor of this town, of about thirty years of age, ha within seven years, mastered seven languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, and Persic. Mr. Professor Ockley being here since Christmas has examined him, and given him an ample testimonial in writing of his skill in the Oriental languages. Our dean also thinks him very extraordinary. But he is very poor, and his landlord lately seized a Polyglot Bible (which he had made shift to purchase) for rent. But there is care taken to clear his debts, and if a way could be thought of to make him more useful, I believe we could get a subscription towards part of his maintenance.” This we find by the above narrative was accordingly done.

, a nonconformist divine, poet, and wit, was born at St. Ives in Huntingdonshire in 1609, and was educated at the university of Cambridge. In 1642 he was created bachelor of divinity at Oxford, and, probably had the degree of doctor there also, as he was generally called Dr. Wild. In 1646 he was appointed rector of Aynho in Northamptonshire, in the room of Dr. Longman, ejected by the parliamentary visitors; and on this occasion Calamy’s editor gives us one of his witticisms. He and another divine had preached for the living, and Wild being asked whether he or his competitor had got it, he answered “We have divided it; I have got the Ay, and he the No.” Wood says he was “a fat, jolly, and boon presbyterian,” but Calamy asserts that those who knew him commended him not only for his facetiousness, but also his strict temperance and sobriety; and he was serious, where seriousness was wanted. He was ejected from Aynho at the restoration. He died at Oundle, in Northamptonshire in 1679, aged seventy. His works afford a curious mixture. 1. “The tragedy of Christopher Love at Tower-hill,” Lond. 1660, a poem in one sheet 4to. 2. “Iter Boreaie, attempting something upon the successful and matchless march of the L Gen. George Monk from Scotland to London,” ibid. 1660, 4to, in ridicule of the republican party. This was at that time a favourite subject, and Wood mentions three other Iter Borealt’s by Eades, Corbet, and Master. 3. “A poem on the imprisonment of Mr. Edmund Calamy in Newgate,” 1662, printed on a broad sheet, which produced two similar broadsheets in answer, the one “Antiboreale, an answer to a lewd piece of poetry upon Mr. Calamy, &c.” the other “Hudibras on Calamy’s imprisonment and Wild’s poetry.” These, with his Iter Boreaie, and other pieces of a similar cast and very indifferent poetry, but with occasional flashes of genuine humour, were published together in 1668 and 1670. Wood mentions “The Benefice, a comedy,” written in his younger years, but not printed till 1689. Wood adds, that there “had like to have been” a poetical war between Wild and Flaxman, but how it terminated he knows not. Wild had the misfortune to have some of his poems printed along with some of lord Rochester’s. He has a few serrrjons extant.

, an ingenious mathematician, was born in Nottinghamshire, and educated at the Blue Coat school of Nottingham. Of his early history we have little information, but it appears that he kept an academy at Bingham, in the above county, for some years, and afterwards was preferred to the living of Sulney, where he died at an advanced age, Oct. 30, 1802. In his latter days he had a remarkably strong and retentive memory, as a proof of which, he told a friend that he made a common practice of solving the most abstruse questions in the mathematics without ever committing a single figure, &c. to paper till finished and, upon its being observed how much pen and paper might assist him!" he replied, “I have to thank God for a most retentive memory and so long as it is enabled to exercise its functions, it shall not have any assistance from art.” When is mind was occupied in close study, he always walked to and fro in an obscure part of his garden, where he could neither see nor be seen of any one, and frequently paced, in this manner, several miles in a day.

Though so skilful in mathematics, he did not favour the world with any separate publication bearing his own name, and often used the signature of Eumenes; but he poured much light upon the regions of science through the medium of those periodical publications which are chietiy devoted to mathematical researches. He contributed a number of valuable articles to Martin’s “Miscellaneous Correspondence,” between the years 1755 and 1763, particularly an excellent paper, in which he made it his business to prove that the moon’s orbit was always concave, with respect to the sun He began his contributions to the “Gentleman’s Diary” in 1759, when that performance was conducted by Mr. T. Peat. In the same year he commenced his communications to the “Ladies’ Diary,” which was edited by professor Simpson, of Woolwich. In 1773 and 1774 hecarried on a spirited but amicable controversy, in Dr Hutton’s “Miscellanea Mathematica,” with Mr. John Dawson, of Sedbergh, a gentleman well known at Cambridge, and the tutor of many pupils who have been senior-wrangiers of that university. The subject of this controversy was “the velocity of water issuing from a vessel when put in motion.” In 1780 his friend Dr. Hutton procured for him the editorship of the “Gentleman’s Diary,” an honour which he had long wished to attain, and he was highly gratified by the circumstance. From that period his valuible communications to this publication always appeared under the character of Eumenes, and those in the Ladies’ Diary under that of Amicus. The prize-question in the Diary for 1803 is by Mr. Wildbore, and is a very curious and intricate question in the diophantine algebra.

At an early period of life he was a reviewer of the Philosophical Transactions, in which trust, as well as several others committed to his care and inspection, he so well acquitted himself, that he was solicited to become a member of the royal society; but this honour he very modestly declined, in a letter to the then president, remarking, amongst other things, “that his ambition had never led him to visit the metropolis; and if he accepted the honour of being one of that learned society, he should wish, not to be a passive, but an active member; to be which he supposed that it would be necessary for him to come forward in the world, which he had not the least inclination to do, preferring his village retirement infinitely beyond the `busy hum of men,‘ and to be styled `the humble village pastor,’ without the addition of the initials F. R. S.” He was intimately acquainted, by correspondence, with many learned men (for he scarcely ever saw any of them), particularly with Dr. Hutton, for whom he entertained a very high esteem.

, a lawyer, and a very prominent character during the usurpation, was the eldest son of a lawyer, as his father is said to have been serjeant George Wilde of Droitwich, in Worcestershire. He was of Baliol college, Oxford, and in 1610, when he took his degree of M. A. was a student in the Inner Temple. Of this society he became Lent reader 6 Car. I. afterwards a serjeant at law, one of the commissioners of the great seal in 1643, and in Oct. 1648, chief baron of the exchequer, and one of the council of state. In 1641 he drew up the impeachment against the bishops, and presented it to the House of Lords, and was prime manager not only in that, but on the trial of archbishop Laud. “He was the same also,” says Wood, “who, upon the command, or rather desire, of the great men sitting at Westminster, did condemn to death at Winchester one captain John Bucley, for causing a drum to be beat uf) for God and king Charles, at Newport, in the Isle of Wight, in order to rescue his captive king in 1647.” Wood adds, that after the execution of Burley, Wilde was rewarded with 1000l. out of the privy purse at Derby-house, and had the same sum for saving the life of major Edmund Rolph, who had a design to have murdered the king. When Oliver became protector “he retired and acted not,” but after Richard Cromwell had been deposed he was restored to the exchequer. On the restoration he was of course obliged to resign again, and lived in retirement at Hampstead, where he died about 1669, and was buried at VVherwill, in Hampshire, the seat of Charles lord Delawar, who had married his daughter. Wilde married Anne, daughter of sir Thomas Harry, of Tonge castle, serjeant at law and baronet, who died in. 1624, aged only sixteen, “being newly delivered of her first born.” She lies buried in Tonge church, in Staffordshire.

Such are the particulars Wood has given of this lawyer, and they are in general supported by Clarendon and other contemporary authorities, and attempted to be contradicted only by Oldmixou and Neal. Oldmixon’s evidence will not be thought to weigh much against Clarendon’s. Neal calls him "A great lawyer, and of unblemished morals; and after the restoration of king Charles II. was made lord chief baron, and esteemed a grave and venerable judge.' 7 But it is grossly improbable that such a man should have been thus promoted, and it is besides expressly contrary to fact, for sir Orlando Bridgeman was chief baron at the trial of the regicides, and was succeeded by judge Hale. It was the rump parliament only who bestowed the honour on Wilde.

Neal, perhaps, we know others have, confounded his favourite hero, serjeant Wilde, which was his only legitimate title, with sir William Wild, who was recorder of London in 1659, created a baronet Sept. 13, 1660, appointed king’s serjeant Nov. 10, 1661, and made one of the justices of the common pleas in 1668. He was advanced to be a justice of the court of king’s bench Jan. 21, 1672. In 1661 and 1674 he published “Yelverton’s Reports,” in French. He died Nov. 23, 1679, leaving issue sir Felix Wilde, of St. Clement Danes, in Middlesex, bart. The title is now extinct. Sir William Wilde was indeed “a grave and venerable judge,” and it must not be forgot to his honour, that, because he disbelieved the evidence of the perjured Bedloe, in the popish plot, he was deprived of his office a few months before his death.

, a very singular political character in the early part of the present reign, was born Oct 17. 1727, O. S. in St. John’s street, Clerkenwell, where his father, Nathaniel, carried on in a very extensive way the trade of a distiller, and lived in the true style of ancient English hospitality, to which both he and his lady were always particularly attentive. Their house was consequently much frequented, particularly by many characters of distinguished rank in the commercial and literary world. It was in such society that their son John imbibed that taste for letters which he continued to cultivate through life. His education, therefore, though liberal, was domestic; and, though not severe, yet sufficiently sober. His philosophy (thai uf enjoying the world, and passing laughingly through it) was all his own, and adopted in compliance with his view of human nature. And this he was himseJf very willing to have believed. His parents (one of them at least) were not of the church of England; and Mr. Wilkes having passed his school years partly at Hertford, and partly in Buckinghamshire, was sent, not to either of our English universities, but with a private tutor, to the university of Leyden, where his talents attracted much notice.

In 1749 he married Miss Mead, heiress of the Meads of Buckinghamshire, from which marriage probably originated his connection with that county. This lady was about ten years older than himself, that is, about thirtytwo. Their dispositions, we are told, were perfectly dissimilar, yet he treated her for a time with decent respect. Afterwards he became quite alienated from her, and a final separation took place in 1757. So depraved were his morals, and so destitute was he of a sense of honour, that amidst the distresses which his loose pleasures brought upon him, he endeavoured to defraud this lady of the annuity stipulated in the articles of separation; but this was prevented by a law-suit. In April 1754-, he offered himself as a candidate to represent in parliament the borough of Berwick, and addressed the electors in terms not ill according with that political spirit which afterwards marked his public conduct. He was not, however, successful, but in July 1757, was elected burgess for Aylesbury, and was again chosen at the general election in 1761 for the same place. Before this period he had formed connections with various inen of rank, but not of the purest character for morals, who seem to have admitted him into their society as a companion who was not likely to lay them under any restraint. He had, however, formed some connections of a better stamp. It appears that as early as 1754 he was known to lord Temple, and to Mr. Pitt, afterwards lord Chatham.

In 1762 he began to engage in political discussion. In March of that year he published “Observations on the papers relative to the rupture with Spain, laid before both houses of parliament on Friday, Jan. 29, 1762.” As much of his information on this subject was supplied by lord Temple (who, with Mr. Pitt, had retired from the cabinet in consequence of a negative being put upon their proposition for an immediate war with Spain) the success of this pamphlet is little to be wondered at. As he did not put his name to it, it was ascribed to Dr. Douglas, or Mr. Manduit, by the sly suggestions of the real author. In the beginning of June following he commenced his celebrated paper called “The North Briton.” The purpose of this was ostensibly to expose the errors of the then ministry, and hold them up to public contempt, but really, to give the author that sort of consequence that might lead to advantages which his extravagant mode of living had by this time rendered necessary. We have his own word that he had determined to take advantage of the times and to make his fortune, and that he soon formed an idea of what would silence and satisfy him. “If government,” says he, “means peace or friendship with me, I then breathe no longer hostility. And, between ourselves, if they would send me ambassador to Constantinople, it is all I should wish.” Again, “It depends on them (the ministry) whether Mr. Wilkes is their friend or their enemy It he starts as the latter, he will lash them with scorpions, and they <ire already prepared; I wih, however, we may be friends; and I had rattier follow the plan I had marked out in my letter from Geneva/' alluding to the embassy to Constantinople. In a subsequent letter he says,” If the ministers do not find employment for me, I am disposed 10 find employment for them." In these extracts we have anticipated the order of time, for they were written in 1764, when he was an exile, but they are necessarily introduced here to unfold the real character of Mr. Wilkes, and to determine to what species of patriots he belonged. We see nt the same time here how very near the most popular character of the age was to dropping into comparative obscurity, and at what a cheap rate the ministry might have averted the hostility of Wilkes, and all its consequences, which we have always considered as more hurtful than beneficial to his country.

In the mean time he went on publishing his “North Britons,” which, although written in an acute and popular style, and unquestionablv very galling to ministers, had not produced any great commotion, nor seemed likely to answer the authors purpose. Ministerial writers were employed to write against him, and in this way a literary warfare might have gone on for years, without any of the consequences he expected. One duel, indeed, he had with lord Talbot, but neither party was hurt, and Wiikes was not benefited. At length, therefore, he began to think he had been too tame, or that ministers were become too callous, and with a view to a provocation, which could not fail to irritate, he made a rude attack on his majesty in No. 45 of the “North Briton,” which appeared on the 23d of April 1763, and on the morning of the 30th Mr. Wilkes was served by a king’s messenger with a general warrant, in consequence of which he was on the same morning conveyed to the Tower. That “a warrant to apprehend and seize, together, with their papers, the authors, printers, and publishers of a work,” without naming who those authors, printers, and publishers were even suspected to be, has an appearance of illegality, cannot be denied. But in justice to the secretaries of state who signed it, it should be remembered, that for a hundred years the practice of their office had been to issue such; and that in so doing they did no more than what precedents seemed to justify. That they did not, however, in this case, act wisely the event shewed. Upon his commitment to the Tower, an application was instantly made to the court of common pleas for his habeas corpus, and he was brought up on the 3d of May. On the 4th he was dismissed from his situation as colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia. On the 6th the validity of his warrant of commitment was argued, his plea of privilege was allowed, and he was in consequence discharged. He immediately erected a printing-press in his house in George-street, published a narrative of the transactions in which he' had been engaged, and renewed the publication of the “North Briton.” He visited Paris a few months after, and was there challenged, in the month of August, by a captain Forbes, who, standing forth as the champion of Scotland, asked satisfaction of him, as the editor and conductor of the “North Briton,” for the calumnies heaped upon his native country. Mr. Wilkes behaved on this occasion with much moderation, and declared himself no prize-fighter. Being again urged, however, though in terms of politeness, he half complied, but being in the mean while put under an arrest, he pledged his honour not to fight on French ground. When set at liberty he proceeded to Menin, and there awaited his challenger, but no meeting took place.

The winter now advancing, Mr. Wilkes returned to England, previous to the opening of parliament, and resumed his labours in the “North Briton,” which soon after involved him in another duel with Mr. Martin, member for Camelford, and late secretary to the treasury. In this Wilkes received a dangerous wound in the groin; but appeared in parliament on the first day of the session, and had risen to address the chair of the speaker on the subject of his privilege, as a member of that house, having been violated. It had usually been considered as the established custom of parliament to enter upon the discussion of breaches of privileges before all other matters, In this instance the custom was overruled, and a message from the sovereign was conveyed to the commons, informing them, that J. Wilkes, esq. was the author of a most seditious and dangerous paper, and acquainting them with the measures which had been resorted to by the servants of the crown. The house, the proofs of the libel being entered upon, proceeded to vote, that No. 45 of the “North Britain” was, as it had been represented to be, a false, scandalous, and malicious libel, &c: and it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. A day having been appointed for the hearing of Mr. Wilkes’s defence against the charge of being the author of the libel, he thought it proper to acquaint the hoase of the incapacity occasioned by his wound, and further time was in consequence allowed him. The house, however, suspecting some unnecessary delay, appointed Dr. Heberden and Mr. Hawkins to attend him, in addition to his own physician and surgeon; and further, ordered them to report the state of his health. Mr. Wilkes politely rejected the offer of their visit. The house, he said, had desired them to visit him, but had forgotten to desire him to receive them, which he most certainly should not. At the same time, in vindication of the professional gentlemen whom he himself had employed, he sent for Dr. Duncan, one of his majesty’s physicians in ordinary, and Mr. Myddleton, one of his majesty’s serjeant-surgeons, humorously telling them, that as the House of Commons thought it fit that he should be watched, he himself thought two Scotchmen most proper for his spies. About a week after he suddenly withdrew to France; a retreat which prudence rendered very necessary, his circumstances being very much involved.

From Paris, where he sought an asylum, he certified to the speaker of the House of Commons, by the signatures of the physician of the king of France, and other gentlemen, his confinement to his room, and the impossibility, from his state of health, of his venturing to undertake the journey back to England. In the mean time, although the House of Commons had neglected his complaint of privilege, he derived his first considerable triumph from the verdict found for him in the court of common pleas. He had early brought his action against Robert Wood, esq. the under secretary of state, for the seizure of his papers, as the supposed author of the “North Briton.” It was tried before a special jury on the 6th of December, and 1000l. danlages were given. The charge to the jury, delivered by lord chief justice Pratt, concluded thus: “This warrant is unconstitutional, illegal, and absolutely void; it is a general warrant, directed to four messengers, to take up any persons, without naming or describing them with any certainty, and to apprehend them together with their papers. If it be good, a secretary of state can delegate and depute any of the messengers, or any even from the lowest of the people, to take examinations, to commit, or to release, and do every act which the highest judicial officers the law knows, can do or order. There is no order in our law-books that mentions these kinds of warrants, but several that in express words condemn them. Upon the maturest consideration, I am bold to say, that this warrant is illegal; but I am far from wishing a matter of this consequence to rest solely on my opinion; I am only one of twelve, whose opinions I am desirous should be taken in this matter, and I am very willing to allow myself to be the meanest of the twelve. There is also a still higher court, before which this matter may be canvassed, and whose determination is final; and here I cannot help observing the happiness of our constitution in adiiiitting these appeals, in consequence of which, material points are determined on the most mature consideration, and with the greatest solemnity. To this admirable delay or the law (for in this case the law’s delay may be styled admirable) I believe it is chiefly owing that we possess the best digested, and most excellent body of law which any nation on the face of the globe, whether ancient or modern, could ever boast. If these higher jurisdictions should declare my op-nion erroneous, I submit, as will become me, and kiss the rod; but I must say, I shall always consider it as a rod of iron for the chastisement of the people of Great Britain.”

We have already mentioned in our account of lord Camden how very popular this decision made him throughout the kingdom, and the same enthusiasm made it be considered as a complete triumph on the part of Mr. Wilkes, who, however, perhaps, thought differently of it, conscious that he had other battles to fight in which he might not be so ably supported. On Jan. liJ, 1764, he was expelled from the House of Commons; and on Feb. 21 was convicted in the court of King’s Bench for re- publishing the 46 North Briton, No. 45,“and also upon a second indictment, for printing and publishing an <; Essay on Woman.” This was an obscene poem which he printed at his private press, but can scarcely be said to have published it, as he printed only a very small number of copies (about twelve) to give away to certain friends. The great offence was (and this was complained of in the House of Lords), that he had annexed the name of bishop Warburton to this infamous poem, and it was hoped, by the ministry, that holding Mr. Wilkes forth as a profligate, might cure the public of that dangerous and overpowering popularity they were about to honour him with. But this was another of their erroneous calculations.- The populace at this time, at least the populace of London, were more anxious about general warrants, which might affect one in ten thousand, than about morals, which are the concern of all; and even some of the better sort could see no immediate connection between Wilkes’s moral and political offences.

In the mean time being found guilty on both informalions, and neglecting to make any personal appearance, when called upon to receive the judgment of the court of King’s Bench, he Was, towards the close of the year, outlawed. He had again repaired to France, whence he addressed a letter, in defence of his conduct, to the electors of Aylesbury, which, like all his publications, was read with much avidity. It was in this year (1764), and when at Paris, that he addressed those letters to his friends, of which we have already given extracts, to prove that, whatever his popularity, he had no very high expectations from it, and had sense. enough to perceive that his deranged circumstances could be restored only by making peace with administration. His terms, we have seen, were not exorbitant, and might probably have been agreed to, had they been known, which it is doubtful whether they were.

The years 1765 and 1766 he passed in a journey through Italy. But as he knew too well the nature of the multitude, not to be aware that a long retirement would soon cause him to be forgotten, even by those whose sympathy in his favour was most warm, when the duke of Grafton became minister, towards the end of 1766, Mr. Wilkes solicited, in a letter to him, the clemency of his sovereign; and finding. his address but faintly listened to, he, in a second letter to the same nobleman, again called the public attention to his case. He endeavoured also to keep his name alive, by publishing in 1767, “A collection of the genuine Papers, Letters, &c. in the Case of J. Wilkes, late member for Aylesbury in the county of Bucks; a Paris, chez J. W. imprimeur, Run du Columhier, Fauxburgk St. Germain, a I' Hotel de Saxe” In 1768 he again appeared personally upon the theatre of public action. On the 4th of March he addressed a letter of submission to the king, which was delivered by his servant at Buckingham Gate. This, like his first letter to the duke of Grafton, supplicated pardon, which one of his biographers says he was enabled to do without meanness, because “in no one syllable of his otherwise offensive publications had he offended against the personal respect due to the prince on the throne.” But this writer surely forgets the obvious tenour-of his No. 45, as well as the repeated and atrocious attacks he made on the princess dowager, his majesty’s mother.

No attention was paid to this petition, and probably he had no great reliance on it, but as he had so long been the idol of the people of London, on the 16th of the same month, he offered himself a candidate to represent the city of London. In this he did not succeed, although at the close of the poll on the 23d he was found to have polled 1247 votes. Not disheartened at this failure, he immediately declared his intention of becoming a candidate for the county of Middlesex, and on the 28th was chosen by a vast majority. On the 27th of April he was taken up on a capias utlagatum, and committed to the King’s Bench, and on the 18th of June was sentenced, on the two verdicts against him, to be imprisoned twenty- two months, to pay two fines of 500l. each, and to give security for his good behaviour for seven years, himself in 1000l. and two sureties in 500l. each. This judgment was far milder than had been expected by the public, and it is said that Mr. Wilkes might have made his peace with government at this time, but one condition was proposed to him in which he could not concur, namely, not to present a petition relative to his case, which he had told the freeholders of Middlesex he should present. He conceived that a public pledge had been given to the contrary, and from this public pledge he resolved not to withdraw. The petition was accordingly laid before the House on the following day by sir J. Mawbey, and was received as the declaration of a second war.

On the 10th of May, 1768, the populace had assembled in great numbers about the neighbourhood of the King’s Bench prison, where Mr. Wilkes was in confinement. The riot-act was read by the justices of Surrey, and the mob not dispersing, the military was ordered to fire: several persons were slightly wounded, some more seriously, and one was killed on the spot. Lord Weymouth, the secretary of state, had written to the magistrates a letter dated April 17, exhorting them to firmness in the suppression of any popular tumult which might arise: and lord Barrington, the secretary at war, returned thanks, after the 10th of May, in the name of his majesty, to the officers and soldiers of that regiment of guards, which had been employed upon the occasion. These two letters were transmitted to the newspapers by Mr. Wilkes, accompanied with some prefatory remarks, in which he termed the unhappy transaction a massacre. Of these remarks he avowed himself, at the bar of the House of Commons, to be the author. The remarks were voted libellous, and he, as the author of them, was expelled but his conduct appearing? still more meritorious in the eyes of his constituents, hewas re-chosen on the 16th of February, 1769, without opposition. On the following day he was declared by a majority of the House of Commons incapable of being electee! into that parliament, and the election was vacated, upotv the principle that the expulsion of a- member of parliament was equivalent to exclusion but notwithstanding this resolution, he was a third time elected, again without opposition; a Mr. Dingley indeed offering himself as a candidate, but without the least success. In April, Wilkes was elected a fourth time by a majority of 1143 votes against "Mr. Luttrell, a new candidate who had only 296. and the same day the House of Commons confirmed Mr. Luttrell’s election. These proceedings were not carried on, however, without long discussions in the fiouse, and a warm controversy from the press, in which many eminent writers took a part.

In the mean time, Wilkes, now within the walls of the King’s Bench, was approaching nearer to those substantial rewards which he valued more than the erapty noise of a triumph. From the time of his first election for Middlesex in March 1768,. through the whole of 1769, and even far into 1772, he was the sole unrivalled political idol of the people, who lavished upon him all in their power to bestow, as if willing, to prove that in England it was possible for an individual to be great and important through them alone. A subscription was opened for the payment of his debts, and 20,000l. are said in a few weeks to have been raised for that purpose, and for the discharging his fine. A newly established society for the support of the “Bill of Bights” presented him with 300l. Gifts of plate, of wine, of household goods, were daily heaped upon him. An unknown patriot conveyed to him in a handsomely embroidered purse five hundred guineas. An honest chandler enriched him with a box containing of candles, the magic number of dozens, forty-five. High and low contended with each other who most should serve and celebrate him. Devices aod emblems of all descriptions ornamented the trinkets conveyed to his prison: the most usual was the cap of liberty placed over his crest: upon others was a bird with expanded wings, hovering over a cage, beneath a motto, “I love liberty.” Every wall bore his name, and very window his portrait. In china, in bronze, in marble, he stood upon the chimney-piece of half the houses in the metropolis: and he swung upon the sign-post of every village, and of every great road throughout the environs of London.