655 



WEYERMAN, JACOB KAMPO. 



WHARTON, MARQUIS OF. 



of them Dutchmen by birth, but of whom the father wrote exclusively 

 in Latin and the son in French. Van de Weyer, in a ' Letter to 

 M. Munch on the National Language,' showed a fondness for the 

 French language and a contempt of bis native Flemish, which drew on 

 him the indignant remonstrances of his countryman Willems. "I 

 have the honour," said Willems, in a printed letter addressed to him 

 in 1829, " to know you and to know something of the language that 

 has always been spoken in your family and mine. When you protest" 

 aloud before the public that a man like M. Van de Weyer would think 

 himself dishonoured if he had written in favour of that language, I 

 think I have some right to place myself among the public as one of 

 your judges." The question of language was one of the many that 

 embittered the disputes then pending between the Belgian people and 

 its governors. Van de Weyer became a writer in the leading news- 

 paper called the ' Courier des Pays Bas,' the principal organ of the 

 popular party, and when M. de Potter was prosecuted by the govern- 

 ment for sedition, he made his first conspicuous appearance as an 

 advocate as one of the counsel on his trial. A verdict was pronounced 

 against De Potter, and Van de Weyer was dismissed from his post as 

 librarian, but the Paris revolution of 1830, and the Belgian revolution 

 in consequence, followed so immediately, that he had no time to 

 regret the loss. He was one of the members of the Committee of 

 Safety appointed to re-establish order in Brussels after the retirement 

 of the Dutch authorities, and also a member of the provisional 

 government named on the 24th of September. At the beginning of 

 November he was charged with an important mission to the English 

 government, his brilliant success in which fixed him during the prime 

 of his life to a diplomatic career. He procured the assent and support 

 of the British government to a proposition for consolidating the changes 

 which had taken place in Belgium by a conference of the great powers, 

 to be held in London. To this conference Van de Weyer was accre- 

 dited, and achieved further diplomatic success. Under the regency 

 of Surlet de Chokier he was nominated to the ministry of foreign 

 affairs in Belgium, and in this position proposed the name of Prince 

 Leopold as a candidate for the Belgian throne, and materially con- 

 tributed to promoting his election. He was sent by King Leopold as 

 his ambassador to the court of London, and in 1839 married Miss 

 Bates, the daughter of an American partner in the great commercial 

 house of Baring. In 1845, on the fall of the Nothomb cabinet, he 

 was recalled to Brussels as premier ; but in his endeavours to reconcile 

 the conflicting views of the Catholics and Protestants on the education 

 question he did not meet with his wonted success, and he returned 

 the next year to his London embassy, in which (1857) he still con- 

 tinues. M. Van de Weyer is in great favour with the highest London 

 society ; his name stands high as an authority in literature and the 

 arts, and he has frequently given evidence before royal commissions 

 and committees of the House of Commons on questions in which they 

 were concerned. His political career put an end to his appearance as 

 a writer, except that he wrote his two pamphlets on the Belgian 

 question uuder the assumed names of Victor de la Marre and Goubeau 

 de Rospoel. He has lately shown an inclination to resume his inter- 

 rupted studies. He is one of the members of the recently-established 

 Philobiblon Society of London, which circulates an occasional volume 

 of 'Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies,' in an edition of a 

 hundred copies only, and has commenced what promises to be an 

 interesting series of articles ' On the English Authors who have written 

 iij. the French Language.' 



WEYERMAN, JACOB KAMPO, a Dutch fruit and flower painter, 

 was born at Breda in 1679. Weyerman, though a clever painter, is 

 chiefly notorious for his bad character and scandalous writings. He 

 wrote a set of lives of Dutch painters, which, according to Van Gool, 

 are full of calumnies ; and Descamps says of him, " II a rempli ses 

 Merits d'ordures, d'impie'te's, et de calomnies." His work is entitled 

 ( Levensbeschryvingen der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilder- 

 essen,' 4to, 'Sgravenhage, 1729. In one of his scandalous writings he 

 attacked the Dutch East India Company ; and in 1739 he was con- 

 demned to perpetual imprisonment at his own cost, in which he died 

 in 1747. Weyerman learnt painting of Ferdinand van Kessel, and 

 had great skill in his style and great facility in writing ; he however 

 neglected his art and abused his abilities, and, according to all ac- 

 counts, appears to have been a thoroughly bad man in every respect. 



WHARTON, REV. HENRY, was born on the 9th of November 

 1664, at Worstead in Norfolk, of which his father, the Rev. Edmund 

 Wharton, the descendant of an ancient family, and afterwards rector 

 of Saxlingham in the same county, was then vicar. After being 

 tanght Latin and Greek by his father, he was admitted of Caius 

 College, Cambridge, February 17th, 1680, and at Michaelmas in the 

 same year was chosen to one of the scholarships founded by Mr. 

 Matthew Stockys, who was his great-uncle. Having taken his degree 

 of B.A. in 1684, he resided in his college till 1686, when he was taken 

 into the employment of Dr. William Cave, then engaged in the com- 

 pilation of his ' Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria, in 

 which Wharton assisted him not only as an amanuensis, but to so 

 great an extent, in at least the collection of materials, that a dispute 

 afterwards arose as to his claim to be considered the author of a con- 

 siderable part of the work. Cave himself acknowledges his obligations 

 in large terms hi his Preface ; but after Wharton's death he addressed 

 a long letter to Archbishop Tenison, which is printed in Chalmers's 



' Biographical Dictionary,' in confutation of an account of the matter 

 which Wharton had left behind him. The publication of Cave's work 

 (in 1688) immediately made Wharton's name known, and brought him 

 into reputation as a young man of remarkable talents and acquire- 

 ments. The year before it appeared he had been ordained deacon, 

 and had also taken his degree of M.A., and he was now sought out by 

 Dr. Tenison, then vicar of St. Martin's, afterwards primate, -who 

 employed him to translate and epitomise a Latin manuscript on ' The 

 Incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome,' written by Jean de la 

 Placette, the French Protestant divine, which it was thought desirable 

 to make public in an English dress. He was also, on Tenison's recom- 

 mendation, engaged by the second Lord Arundel, of Trerice, as tutor 

 to his son ; and about the same time he was presented to Archbishop 

 Sancroft, who soon after made him one of his chaplains, and otherwise 

 took him into great favour. Having been ordained priest in November 

 1688, he was collated the following year both to the vicarage of Min- 

 ster in the Isle of Thanet, and to the rectory of Chartham. The 

 catalogue of the works which he wrote or compiled, or in the publi- 

 cation of which he was concerned from his first appearance as an 

 author till the close of his short life, makes one of the most notable 

 displays of literary ardour and exertion on record. His biographers 

 enumerate eight or nine treatises which he had already published or 

 edited even before he had taken priest's orders ; their titles may be 

 found in the account of hi? Life prefixed to his Sermons, and, 

 abstracted thence, in the ' Biographia Britannica.' They were princi- 

 pally directed against Popery. The most important was a quarto 

 volume, entitled 'A Treatise of the Celibacy of the Clergy, wherein 

 its Rise and Progress are historically considered,' which appeared in 

 1688, the imprimatur being dated November 3rd, 1687. In 1691 he 

 brought out at London, in 2 vols. folio, his great work entitled ' Anglia 

 Sacra,' being a collection of original histories of archbishops and 

 bishops in England from the introduction of Christianity to the year 

 1540. In this undertaking his patron had been Bishop Lloyd, who 

 appears to have generously defrayed all the expenses of transcribing 

 the manuscripts and printing the work. Unfortunately very much of 

 it has been hurriedly prepared, and it abounds with errors both of 

 the printer and of the amanuensis ; but the original matter that 

 Wharton has supplied evinces a great command of antiquarian learn- 

 ing ; and of many of the pieces in the collection there is as yet no 

 other edition. The ' Anglia Sacra,' accordingly, with all its defects, 

 still retains a high value. In 1692 Wharton published, in 8vo, 'A 

 Defence of Pluralities,' which was held to display great ability. In 

 1693 he edited, in a 4to volume, some hitherto unpublished works of 

 Bede, under the title of ' Bedae Venerabilis Opera quaedem Theolo- 

 gica,' &c. ; and the same year, under the fictitious name of Anthony 

 Harmer, he published an 8vo pamphlet entitled ' A Specimen of some 

 Errors and Defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church 

 of England, written by Gilbert Burnet, D.D.' Buruet replied, acknow- 

 ledging the ability of his assailant, but complaining of his bitterness 

 and bad temper ; and Wharton did not continue the controversy. In 

 1695 appeared another of the most elaborate and valuable compilations 

 of this indefatigable illustrator of our ecclesiastical history the first 

 volume, in folio, of ' The History of the Troubles and Trials of Arch- 

 bishop Laud." This is Laud's own account, written during his 

 imprisonment in the Tower, accompanied with his Diary of his Life 

 and other papers, printed from the originals, which had been placed in 

 Wharton's hands by Archbishop Sancroft a few days before his death. 

 A second volume, consisting of further collections relating to Laud, 

 was left ready for the press by Wharton, and was published by his 

 father in 1700. 



Wharton died at Newton in Cambridgeshire, worn out by his 

 labours, on the 5th of March 1695. Two octavo volumes of his 

 Sermons were printed after his death ; and his papers, among which 

 were several transcripts of old English historians, and notes upon 

 various printed books, were purchased by Archbishop Tenison, and 

 are now in the library at Lambeth. The second edition of Cave's 

 ' Historia Literaria,' printed at Oxford, in 2 vols. folio, 1740, 1743, is 

 enriched with many additions from Wharton's manuscripts. 



WHARTON, THOMAS WHARTON, MARQUIS OF, was the 

 eldest son of Philip, Lord Wharton, one of the few noblemen who 

 adhered to the parliament in the civil wars, and who is characterised 

 by Clarendon as "a man very fast" to that side, by his second wife, 

 Jane, daughter and heiress of Arthur Goodwyn, of Upper Wichendon, 

 in Buckinghamshire, Esq. Mr. J. T. Rutt, in a note to his edition of 

 Burton's ' Diary ' (i. 367), makes him to be the son of whom Lord 

 Wharton's lady is recorded in the Diary to have been delivered on 

 Tuesday, 13th January 1657 an event which his lordship's relation, 

 Sir Thomas Wharton, is stated to have related to the writer " with 

 great joy ; " but this we apprehend must be a mistake. The common 

 account is that he was born about 1640. In a note on a passage of 

 Burnet's ' History of his Own Time ' (i. 790), in which mention is 

 made of Lord Wharton, Swift says " famous for his cowardice in the 

 rebellion of 1642;" upon which the Oxford editor remarks, "It was 

 Mr. Wharton, his son, as Speaker Onslow has noted." It is evident 

 that this bad repute, on whatever it was grounded, could not have 

 been earned by a person born only in 1657- Besides, Swift, to whom 

 he was personally well known, elsewhere speaks of him in 1710 as 

 having "passed some years his grand climacteric." Mr. Thomas 



