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WHEATLEY, FRANCIS, R.A. 



WHICHCOTE, BENJAMIN, D.D. 



on Jewish Disabilities in the House of Lords,' 1833; 'Remarks on 

 Transportation, in a Letter to Earl Grey,' 1833 ; 'Sermons on Various 

 Subjects,' 1835; 'Essays on some of the Dangers of Christian Faith 

 which may arise from- the teaching or the conduct of its professors,' 

 1839 ; ' The Kingdom of Christ delineated, in two Essays on our Lord's 

 account of his Person and the Nature of his Kingdom,' 1841 ; ' Thoughts 

 on the Proposed Evangelical Alliance,' 1846; ' Introductory Lectures 

 ou the study of St. Paul's Epistles/ 1849; 'English Synonyms: a 

 collection of, edited by Archbishop Whately,' 1851 ; ' Inaugural 

 Address delivered in the Exhibition Pavilion, Cork,' 1852; 'Address 

 to the Members of the Manchester Athenaeum,' 1852 ; ' On the Origin 

 of Civilisation,' a lecture to the Young Men's Christian Association of 

 London, 1855 ; and 'Thoughts on the New Dogma of the Church of 

 Rome/ 1855. A publication attributed to Archbishop Whately is one 

 entitled ' Lectures on Scripture Revelations respecting Good and Evil 

 Angels,' 1855; an Introduction from his pen is prefixed to 'The 

 Remains of the late E. Coplestone, Bishop of Llandaff,' published in 

 1854 ; and he has recently (1856) published an edition of Bacon's 

 Essays with annotations. A work entitled ' Selections from the 

 Writings of Archbishop Whately ' is now in progress. To the merit 

 of all these writings must be added the value of the influence exer- 

 cised by Archbishop Whately in stimulating and superintending the 

 literary labours of others. Few men of the age have led a life of such 

 activity. 



WHEATLEY, FRANCIS, R.A., an English painter of various sub- 

 jects. He excelled in rural pieces with figures, and in landscape, 

 which he painted in oil and water colours. His father was a tailor 

 in London, where Wheatley was born in 1747. He received his first 

 instruction as an artist in Shipley's school, and when young obtained 

 several premiums from the Society of Arts. He assisted Mortimer in 

 a ceiling which he painted for Lord Melbourne at Brocket Hall, Hert- 

 fordshire. Wheatley led a very irregular life; "he left London," 

 says Edwards, " for Dublin in company with Mrs. Gresse, with whom 

 he had the folly to engage in an intrigue, for which he was prosecuted 

 and cast in the Court of King's Bench." While in Dublin, Wheatley 

 painted an interior view, of considerable merit, of the Irish House of 

 Commons, in which he introduced portraits of several of the members. 

 One of Wheatley's best works, a picture of the London riots of 1780, 

 was burnt in the house of James Heath, the engraver, who had made 

 a print of it for Alderman Boydell, who gave 200?. for the use of it. 

 Wheatley was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1791 : he 

 died in 1801. 



WHEATON, HENRY, an eminent American diplomatist and writer 

 on international law, was born at Providence, Rhode Island, U.S., in 

 November 1785. Having completed his education at Brown Univer- 

 sity in his native city, he graduated there in 1802 ; studied law under 

 Mr. N. Serle ; and was admitted to the bar. He then passed a couple 

 of years in Parid and London, during which he acquired considerable 

 acquaintance with civil law, and rendered himself a complete master 

 of the French language. On his return to America he settled in 

 New York; commenced practice in his profession, and in 1812 became 

 editor of the ' National Advocate,' which journal he continued to 

 conduct for about three years with merited success. He contributed 

 to it, among other things, a series of disquisitions on the law of nations. 

 In 1815 he was appointed one of the justices of the Marine Court, and 

 the same year he published a ' Digest of the Law of Marine Captures 

 and Prizes,' which was received by the profession with much favour. 

 He was about this time appointed reporter to the Supreme Court of 

 the United States, an office he held for twelve years ; his ' Reports of 

 Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the United 

 States/ in 12 vols., are considered to be of great value. He had 

 besides written a life of William Pinckney ; contributed numerous 

 articles to the ' North American Review ; ' published several orations 

 and addresses ; and edited several English and other law books. Mr. 

 Wheaton had by this time taken high rank as a civilian. The degree 

 of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard University in 1819, 

 and by Brown University in 1820. He was called upon to lecture 

 upon the subject of International Law, before the New York His- 

 torical Society, the New York Athenaeum, and other learned societi.es. 

 He was appointed in 1821 a member of the convention for revising the 

 constitution of New York ; and in 1825 a commissioner for revising 

 the laws of that state. He resigned his offices however in 1827, on 

 being appointed by President J. Q. Adams as first charge" d'affaires to 

 the court of Denmark. This important post he held until 1834, when 

 he was transferred to the court of Prussia. During his residence in 

 Denmark Mr. Wheaton greatly increased his reputation as a publicist 

 by his conduct on several matters of considerable importance, and by 

 his despatches, in which various questions of international law and 

 policy were discussed. But he also found time to devote to the study 

 of Scandinavian history and literature, the result of which he pub- 

 lished in London in 1831, under the title of 'The History of the 

 Northmen, or Danes and Normans, from the Earliest Times, to the 

 Conquest of England by William of Normandy; ' this work he after- 

 wards revised and greatly extended for a French version by M. P. 

 Guillot. He also, in conjunction with Mr. Crichton, wrote a history 

 and description of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, under the title of 

 ' Scandinavia.' 



On the accession of Mr. Van Burcn to the Presidency (1837) 



Mr. Wheaton was raised to the rank of minister plenipotentiary to the 

 King of Prussia ; and during his nine years' tenure of this high office, 

 he was regarded as at the head of the American diplomatists in 

 Europe, and his advice was almost invariably sought by other Ame- 

 rican ministers in all matters of difficulty, whilst his attainments as a 

 publicist, and his personal character and bearing, gave him great 

 weight and won for him high esteem and respect with the courts 

 and cabinets of the continent. He was recalled by President Polk in 

 July 1846. 



Mr. Wheaton's chief literary production, ' The Elements of Inter- 

 national Law-/ was published in 1836, and at once took its place as a 

 standard work on the important subject of which it treats, and of 

 which it affords a complete survey. This work ho followed up by a 

 history of International Law, which he wrote in French in con- 

 sequence of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the 

 Institute of France offering a prize for a treatise on the subject ; it 

 was published at Leipzig in 1841, under the title of 'Histoire du 

 Progres du Droit des Gens en Europe depuis la Paix de Westphalie 

 jusqu'au Congres de Vienne, avec un precis historique du Droit des 

 Gens Europe"en avant la Paix de Westphalie.' The author afterwards 

 remodelled the work and published it in English in one thick volume 

 (New York, 1845), under the title of ' History of the Law of Nations in 

 Europe and America from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Washing- 

 ton.' Notwithstanding his advancing years Mr. Wheaton continued after 

 his return to America to pursue his usual studies. He had even accepted 

 the offer of the chair of International Law in Harvard University, and 

 was preparing to enter upon its duties, when he was suddenly cut off 

 on the llth of March 1848. Since his death there has been published a 

 fourth edition of the ' Elements of International Law. By the late Hon. 

 Henry Wheaton, LL.D. Revised, Annotated, and brought down to 

 the present time, with a Biographical Notice of Mr. Wheaton, and an 

 account of the Diplomatic Transactions in which he was concerned. By 

 Hon. William Beach Lawrence, formerly Charge" d'Affaires at London.' 



* WHEATSTONE, CHARLES.* 



WHETSTONE, GEORGE, a voluminous writer of prose and verse, 

 lived in the latter half of the 16th century. Both the place and time 

 of his birth are unknown; but he claimed kindred with Serjeant 

 Fleetwood, the recorder of London. His history was that of a suc- 

 cession of misadventures. He began by wasting his patrimony in 

 seeking a place at court : he then served abroad as a soldier, and 

 was an eye-witness to the fall of Sir Philip Sydney at Zutpheu: 

 he was next an unsuccessful farmer; afterwards he sailed with the 

 abortive expedition of Gilbert to Newfoundland ; and, finally, return- 

 ing to England, he appears to have been chiefly occupied during the 

 remainder of his life in literary labour, which he had previously 

 practised occasionally, and now attempted with indifferent success as 

 a means of subsistence. He is now chiefly known as having been the 

 author of the rude play (or rather two plays) called ' Promos and Cas- 

 sandra/ which, having been printed in 1578, ranks as one of our 

 earliest extant comedies ; while it has the further interest of having 

 the same plot with Shakspere's ' Measure for Measure.' It is reprinted 

 in Steevens's ' Six Old Plays/ 1779. In Chambers's 'English Poets' is 

 Whetstone's Life of George Gascoigne : of his other works, a curious 

 account, with specimens, will be found in Mr. Collier's 'Poetical 

 Decameron.' 



* WHEWELL, WILLIAM.* 



WHICHCOTE, BENJAMIN, D.D., was the sixth son of Christopher 

 Whichcote, Esq., of Whichcote Hall, in the parish of Stoke, Shrop- 

 shire, and was born there on the llth of March 1610. He studied at 

 Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1626, and of 

 which he was elected a Fellow in 1633. Haviug taken holy orders 

 in 1636, he soon after set up an afternoon Sunday lecture in Trinity 

 Church, and was also appointed one of the university preachers. 

 Meanwhile he had attained distinguished reputation as a college 

 tutor. In 1643, being presented by his college to the living of North 

 Cadbury, in Somersetshire, which vacated his Fellowship, he went to 

 reside there, and married ; but early in the next year, on the ejection 

 of Dr. Samuel Collins from the provostship of King's College by the 

 parliamentary visitors, Whichcote, whose principles were less rigid or 

 uncomplying, though scarcely a greater friend to the existing order in 

 Church and State, was appointed to succeed him. Having taken his 

 degree of D.D. in 1649, he was in that year, or soon after, on the 

 death of Dr. Collins, presented by his college to the rectory of Milton, 

 in Cambridgeshire, on which he resigned his Shropshire living. At 

 the Restoration Dr. Whichcote was removed from his provostship by 

 the new government, rather to mark their disapprobation of the cir- 

 cumstances of his induction than from dislike of the man or his 

 conduct; for he had never signed the Covenant, nor taken any part in 

 the violent proceedings of the times. He retained his rectory of 

 Milton, and, coming up to London, was chosen minister of St. Anne's, 

 Blackfriars. From this church he was burned out by the great fire in 

 1666 ; but two years after he was presented by the crown to the 

 vicarage of St. Lawrence, Jewry, on the promotion of Dr. Williams to 



* In some instances, not before pointed out, notices of eminent individuals 

 which have been in preparation have not been received in time for insertion in 

 their alphabetical order. The articles on PROFESSOR WHEATSTOXE and Du. 

 WHEWELL are amongst these ; and, with others, will be supplied in a brief 

 Supplement which will follow the conclusion of this Division. 



