46!) 



WAKE, WILLIAM, D.D. 



WAKEFIELD, EDWARD GIBBON. 



470 



Syntaxe Latina, traduit de 1'Anglais,' published in 1773; the'Dic- 

 tionnaire portatif de laLanguo Francoise,' 2 vols., 1774; the 'Diction- 

 iiiiire des Rimes;' the ' Histoires choisi< s du Nouveau Testament;' 

 but especially his ' Nouveau Vocabulaire Fran<jais, ou Abrege" du Dic- 

 tionnaire do 1'Acaddmie,' deserve mention : this last work, in which 

 he was assisted by his son, and to which his grandson afterwards con- 

 tributed, went through thirteen editions. He also revised the standard 

 translations of Persius, Quintilian, Sallust, Cicero, Caesar, and Eutro- 

 pius. He was a member of the Institute from its foundation, and 

 was also a member of several academies. He married in 1766; he had 

 several children, and lived in the midst of his family, in comparative 

 tranquillity, through the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the 

 first years of the Consulate. He died at Paris, April 7, 1801. 



ETIENNE-AUGUSTIN DE WAiLLT, his son, was born on the 1st of 

 November 1770, and died in June 1821. Besides the assistance he 

 rendered his father in compiling lexicographical works, he produced 

 an edition of the works of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, the lyric poet, with 

 notes, and a translation in verse of the first three books of Horace's 

 Odes. In this translation he has adopted the metre of Rousseau, 

 which he greatly admired. From 1802 to 1810 he was one of the 

 editors of the ' Mercure de France.' Shortly before his death he was 

 proposed for the Acade'mie Frangaise, with every likelihood of his 

 being elected. 



CHARLES DE WAILLT (born November 1729, died November 1798), 

 the principal founder of the Society of the 'Amis des Arts,' and dis- 

 tinguished in his day as an architect, was a member of the same 

 family. 



WAKE, WILLIAM, D.D., a distinguished English prelate, was 

 born in 1657 at Blandford in Dorsetshire, where his father, William 

 Wake, Esq., the descendant of an old family, possessed considerable 

 property. In 1672 he was admitted a student of Christchurch, 

 Oxford ; and having taken his degree of B.A. in. 1676, and that of 

 M.A. in 1679, he resolved to enter the church, although his father is 

 said to have designed him for a commercial life. Having accordingly 

 taken holy orders, he went in 1682 to Paris as chaplain with Viscount 

 Preston, despatched as envoy-extraordinary to that court. Returning 

 home with his lordship in 1685, he was soon after elected preacher to 

 Gray's Inn. His first publication appears to have been ' A Preparation 

 for Death, being a Letter to a young Gentlewoman in France,' a fourth 

 edition of which appeared in 1688. In 1686 he published a tract in 

 4to, entitled 'Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England,' 

 in answer to Bossuet's recently -published ' Exposition of the Roman 

 Catholic Faith,' which Wake charged the author with having found 

 himself compelled by the objections of the doctors of the Sorbonne to 

 alter materially from the form in which he had originally written it, 

 and in which it had not only been extensively circulated in manuscript, 

 but actually printed. This tract, which is commonly called ' Wake's 

 Catechism,' gave rise to a long controversy, in the course of which 

 Wake published ' A Defence ' of his Exposition in 1686, and ' A Second 

 Defence,' in two parts, in 1688. He also took an active part in the 

 general controversy between the Romish and Protestant churches, 

 which was carried on in England through the press in 1687 and 1688. 

 In October of the latter year he married Miss Ethelred Hovel, daughter 

 of Sir William Hovel, of Illington in Norfolk. Immediately after the 

 Revolution he was appointed deputy-clerk of the closet to King 

 William; and in June 1689 he was preferred to a canonry of Christ- 

 church, Oxford. He now either accumulated his degrees in divinity, 

 or, according to another account, was created D.D. In 1693 he 

 obtained the rectory of St. James's, Westminster ; and the same year 

 he published one of his principal works, ' An English Version of the 

 Genuine Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers, with a Preliminary Dis- 

 course concerning the use of those Fathers.' He greatly improved 

 this work in a second edition of it, which he brought out in 1710 ; and 

 it was afterwards twice reprinted during his lifetime. The next sub- 

 ject in the public discussion of which he engaged was that of the 

 powers of the Convocation ; in the controversy respecting which he 

 published in 1697 an octavo tract entitled ' The Authority of Christian 

 Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods asserted ; ' in 1698, ' An Appeal 

 to all the true Members of the Church of England in behalf of the 

 King's Ecclesiastical Supremacy;' and finally, in 1703, a folio volume 

 entitled ' The State of the Church and Clergy of England, in their 

 Councils, Synods, Convocations, Conventions, and other public assem- 

 blies, historically deduced from the Conversion of the Saxons to the 

 present times.' To this elaborate work no answer was attempted by 

 Atterbury or any of his fellow-disputants on the other side. In 1701 

 Wake had been made dean of Exeter, and in 1705 he was raised to 

 the bishopric of Lincoln. In the earlier years of his episcopacy he 

 continued to adhere to what was called the Low Church party ; but 

 he afterwards became more conservative at least, and if he did not 

 actually change his principles and go over to the other side, he was 

 thrown in opposition to those who were now the leaders of the party 

 with which he had originally acted. In January 1716, on the death 

 of Archbishop Tenison, he was translated to Canterbury; and in 1718 

 he exerted himself in the House of Lords to prevent the repeal of the 

 Schism and Occasional Conformity Bill, and the year following, more 

 successfully, against the attempt to repeal the Test and Corporation 

 Acts. About the same time his zeal broke out in a Latin letter 

 directed against Bishop Hoadly and his partisans, which he addressed 



to the superintendent of Zurich, and which was immediately published 

 in that city. It exposed him to some severe strictures. In 1721 also 

 he got into a controversy with Whiston, whom he had formerly endea- 

 voured to protect, by the part he took in support of the bill for the 

 more effectual suppression of blasphemy and profaneness, brought into 

 the House of Lords by the Earl of Nottingham, which was understood 

 to be chiefly levelled against Arianism, but did not pass. The most; 

 remarkable affair however in which Archbishop Wake was involved 

 was the negociation which he entered into with M. Dupin and aome of 

 the heads of the Jansenist party in France, for the bringing about of a 

 union between the church of that country and the Church of England. 

 The correspondence upon this subject, which commenced on the part 

 of Dupin in 1718, is most fully given in an appendix to Maclaine's 

 translation of Mosheim's 'Ecclesiastical History,' published in 1768. 

 The part which Wake took subjected him long afterwards, while the 

 facts were but imperfectly known, to much obloquy, especially from 

 Archdeacon Blackburne, in ' The Confessional,' published in 1766 ; 

 but it does not appear that he really made any concession of principle 

 to his Romish correspondents, or indeed went farther than merely to 

 express his willingness to assist in bringing about the proposed union 

 if it could be managed without any such concession. The last years 

 of Archbishop Wake's life were clouded by great infirmity ; and he 

 died at Lambeth January 24th, 1737. He bequeathed his library and 

 his collection of coins, together valued at 10,0001., to Christchurch 

 College, Oxford. A collection of his ' Sermons and Charges,' in 3 vols. 

 8vo, was published after his death. By his wife, who died in 1731, he 

 left six daughters, who all made good marriages. He was succeeded 

 in the primacy by Dr. John Potter. 



* WAKEFIELD, EDWARD GIBBON, is a son of Edward Wake- 

 field, who died May 18, 1854, aged 86, and who published 'An 

 Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political,' 2 vols. 4to, 1812. This 

 bulky compilation was chiefly intended to bo an exposition of the 

 industrial resources of Ireland, and much of it is consequently occu- 

 pied with observations on matters connected with political economy. 

 Edward Gibbon Wakefield seems to have become interested in the 

 speculations which engaged so much of his father's attention, and in 

 1833 published 'England and America, a Comparison of the Social 

 and Political State of both Nations,' 2 vols. 8vo. This work was 

 distinguished not only by the popular boldness of the author's 

 opinions on questions relating to the government and administration 

 of Great Britain and the United States, but by many original and 

 correct views of the social condition and peculiarities of the respective 

 countries. The greatest part of the second volume is occupied with a 

 treatise on Colonisation, in which the author shows very distinctly what 

 have been the causes of failure and success in modern colonies, and lays 

 down the principles which ought to be observed in their foundation 

 and establishment. In this treatise he restricts the meaning of the 

 words colonisation and colony to " the removal of people from an old 

 to a new country, and the settlement of people on the waste land of 

 the new country." The author was probably connected, though not 

 ostensibly, with the South Australian Land Company, instituted in 

 1832, the object of which was to found a colony on the shores of 

 Spencer's Gulf. Lord Goderich, then minister for the colonies, refused 

 to grant a charter, and the company was dissolved. The work of E. 

 G. Wakefield, ' View of the Art of Colonisation,' published in the 

 following year, attracted much attention, but seems not to have led to 

 any result till 1837, when he became the founder of the New Zealand 

 Association, which was also refused a charter by the colonial office. 

 The Association however, with permission of the government, resolved 

 to acquire land and form settlements in New Zealand in the manner 

 which had been previously sanctioned by the crown. With this view 

 a number of persons were collected who were disposed to go out as 

 settlers under the direction of an agent, who was instructed to acquire 

 land from the natives by the usual method of purchase, but if possible 

 upon a far larger scale than had ever been necessary for purposes of 

 cultivation and trading by individuals. 



The agent appointed by the association was Colonel William Wake- 

 field, a brother of E. G. Wakefield, who was authorised to select the 

 spot, purchase land, and make preparations for the reception and 

 settlement of the colonists. Colonel Wakefield, accompanied by a 

 few passengers, including Edward Jerningham Wakefield, a son of E. 

 G. Wakefield, set sail from Plymouth May 12, 1839, in the Troy, a 

 fine new vessel of 400 tons, which entered Cook's Strait on the 16th 

 of August. Colonel Wakefield selected the vicinity of Port Nicholson, 

 at the south end of the North Island, or New Ulster, as a suitable 

 locality for a colony, and there he purchased land, and prepared for 

 the reception of the emigrants, of whom the first shipment arrived 

 early in 1840. The colony flourished, other emigrants came, and a 

 town was founded on the eastern shore of Port Nicholson, and was 

 named Britannia, but the name was afterwards changed to Wellington. 

 At length, in the early part of 1841 New Zealand was proclaimed an 

 independent colony, the association was incorporated by royal charter, 

 and a governor was appointed by the crown. New Plymouth was 

 founded by the association on the west coast of New Ulster, and 

 another set of colonists afterwards arrived, under the direction of 

 Captain Arthur Wakefield, a naval officer, and another brother of E. 

 G. Wakefield, by whom the town of Nelson was founded at the bottom 

 of Blind Bay, at the north-western end of the Middle Island, or New 



