EDWARD WIGr.LESWORTH. 305 



Those who at the time or in later years had a personal and intimate 

 acquaintance witli Mr. Wigglesworth, and were thus appreciative of the 

 his[h and ahnost morbid conscientiousness, and of tlie even excessive 

 tenderness of sympathy and benevolence, which were so marked in his 

 character, can answer only with an assenting smile when told that he 

 was not, either as a lawyer or a merchant, an effective agent in the 

 collection of even the most honest debts. When put upon such errands 

 his frequent report was that the creditors seemed so much in need, or so 

 reluctant to pay. that he shrank from using any urgency, and so came 

 back empty. Still, he was of service to his father in his business 

 affairs, though he never engaged in such interests with partners or by 

 himself. He acquired sufficient practical knowledge for the care of a 

 paternal estate, his share in which made him •affluent. Intellectual and 

 scholarly culture, with the oversight and administration of a large 

 number of charitable, benevolent, and humane societies, divided in 

 about equal measure the whole half-century of Mr. Wigglesworth's 

 mature life. He was a dil gent reader and student, and acquired a 

 large amount of varied knowledge, which he aimed to have accurate and 

 thorough. When, in 182;), that learned and laborious German scholar, 

 Dr. Fiancis Lieber, who had become naturalized among us, undertook 

 to translate, and to adapt to the uses of American readers, the volumi- 

 nous Encyclopaedia puldished by Brockhaus, of Leipsic, under the 

 title of " Allgemeine deutsche Real-p}ncykiopiedie (Conversations- 

 Lexicon), " he found it necessary to have efficient helpers. The enter- 

 prise was for its time, a very serious and important one, having been 

 preceded in that form of literature here only by the republication of 

 the Loudon edition of Dr. Rees' Cyclopaedia. Dr. Lieber was so for- 

 tunate as to secure the ready and competent co-o|)eration of IMr. Wig- 

 glesworth. as his foremost helper. In the preface to the work, in 

 thirteen volumes, published under the title of the '' Encyclopfedia 

 Americana," Dr. Lieber makes the following recognition of the aid 

 which he had received: ''Above all, I ought to acknowled<ie the zeal- 

 ous and al)Ie co-operation of my friend and associate, Mr. Wiggles- 

 worth, who will not permit me here to express my obligations to him 

 in such terms as my feelings would dictate. With him I shall be 

 hapj)y to share whatever approbation the public may think the work 

 shall deserve." 



If Mr. Wigglesworth had been prompted to devote his years of 

 easy leisure to the examination and exposition of sotne single subject 

 in science or literature, that he might prove his claims as an author, he 

 would undoubtedly have produced one or more works that would have 



VOL. XII. (n. S. IV.) 20 



