665 



WHITAKER, REV. JOHN. 



WHITAKER, REV. THOMAS DUNHAM, LL.D. 



C66 



as just iu the next world as my lord chief justice is in this; where are 

 we then ? ' To which he made no answer ; and to which the late 

 Queen Caroline added, when I told her the story, ' Mr. Whiston, no 

 answer was to be made to it.'" On another occasion (and this story 

 does not come from Whiston himself, but from the 'Biographia 

 Britauuica,' iu which the writer assures us that he has it from un- 

 doubted authority), being in company with Pope, Addison, Walpole, 

 Craggs, and others, they appealed to Whiston on the subject they 

 were debating, namely, whether a secretary of state could be an honest 

 man. Winston's reply may be imagined ; on which Craggs said, " It 

 might do for a fortnight, but not longer." To which Winston replied : 

 " Mr. Secretary, did you ever try it for a fortnight ? " To which 

 Craggs answered nothing, and Mr. Walpole said he could not answer. 

 The story of his telling Queen Caroline, at her request, one of her 

 faults, talking during public worship, and refusing to tell another till 

 she had amended that one, is well known. Such readiness in conver- 

 sation, it may easily be supposed, was invaluable to a person in 

 Whiston's position. 



There are various circumstances of Whiston's life which it is not 

 necessary to do more than name : his formation of a religious society 

 which met at his own house his various philosophical lectures, oral 

 and printed his multifarious speculations on prophecy, particularly 

 his decision that the Jews were to be restored and the millennium to 

 commence in 1766 ; his speculations on finding the longitude, whether 

 by attempting to moor fixed light-vessels in the sea (which lie thought 

 everywhere fathomable), by the dipping-needle, or by Jupiter's satel- 

 lites, &c. ; his survey of the coasts of England by subscription, which 

 produced a useful chart, &c. He died on the 22nd of August 1752, 

 in London, at the age of eighty-five, having never remitted his efforts 

 for the diffusion of his opinions, nor forfeited in the smallest point his 

 character for courageous consistency. He left several children, one of 

 whom, John Whiston, made a fortune as a bookseller, and published 

 many of his father's later works. The titles of Whiston's writings, up 

 to 1737 only, are 59 in number. Only one has lasted, the translation 

 of Josephus, published in 1737. This book has been reprinted a great 

 many times, but is of little value. [JOSEPHUS.] 



WHITAKER, REV. JOHN, was born at Manchester about 1735, 

 and studied at Oxford, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1759, and 

 B.D. in 1767 : he was also a fellow of Corpus Christi College. In 

 Reuss's 'Register of Living Authors of Great Britain' (8vo, Berlin, 

 1791), there is attributed to Whitaker a 'Survey of the Doctrine and 

 Arguments of St. Peter's Epistle, with a Paraphrastical Exposition,' 

 published in 1751 ; but this is probably a mistake. His first publi- 

 cation appears to have been the first volume, in 4to, of ' The History 

 of Manchester,' which appeared in 1771, and which was followed by a 

 second volume in 1775 ; the first having been reprinted, with cor- 

 rections, iu 2 vols. 8vo, in 1773. Meanwhile also he had published, in 

 an 8vo volume, in 1772, his ' Genuine History of the Britons asserted,' 

 in answer to James Macpherson's ' Introduction to the History of Great 

 Britain and Ireland,' which had appeared the preceding year. Macpher- 

 son (already made famous by his ' Ossian '), and the Rev. Dr. John 

 Macphersou of Skye, whose 'Dissertations on the Caledonians' James 

 Macpherson had published, with a preface, in 1768, had maintained 

 that the modern Scotch Highlanders were the descendants of the 

 ancient Caledonians spoken of by Tacitus and other Roman writers ; 

 Whitaker endeavoured to show that they were sprung from an Irish 

 colonisation subsequent to the Roman invasion of the country. Which- 

 ever of the two opinions may be true, or nearest to the truth, it will 

 now be admitted that neither the Macphersons nor Whitaker threw 

 much light upon the subject, and that the speculations of both have 

 been superseded and made quite valueless by subsequent investi- 

 gations. 



In November 1773 Whitaker was appointed morning preacher of 

 Berkeley Chapel, London; but the person, Mr. Hughes, who had given 

 him the situation, thinking proper to remove him in about two months 

 after, Whitaker published a statement, under the title of ' The Case 

 between Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Hughes, &c.,' in which, his biographer 

 in Chalmers (a personal acquaintance) tells us, " he expressed himself 

 so indiscreetly that his 'Case' was considered as a libel by the covrt 

 of King's Bench." This would seem to mean that the publication 

 had been made the subject of an indictment or an action. Having 

 soon after this given substantial proof of his scrupulous orthodoxy 

 by refusing a living in the Church which was offered to him by a 

 Unitarian patron, he remained with nothing but his fellowship till 

 1778, when he succeeded, on the presentation of his college, to the 

 valuable rectory of Ruan-Langhorne in Cornwall. Taking up his 

 residence here, he became involved in a contest with his parishioners 

 about his tithes, which appears to have almost wholly occupied him 

 for some years ; but he proved finally victorious in the courts of law, 

 and after a time, we are told, he had also "the satisfaction to perceive 

 a visible alteration in the behaviour of the principal parishioners, and 

 a mutual good understanding was established between the pastor and 

 his flock." He was an animated and impressive preacher, and in all 

 respects an attentive and zealous clergyman. His principal publi- 

 cations after this were an 8vo volume of 'Sermons upon Death, 

 Judgment, Heaven, and Hell,' in 1783 ; ' Mary Queen of Scots vindi- 

 cated,' in 3 vols. 8vo, 1787, of which a second edition, much enlarged, 

 appeared, in the same number of volumes, in 1790 ; Gibbon's ' History 



of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Reviewed,' 8vo, London, 

 1791 ; 'The Origin of Arianism disclosed,' 8vo, 1791; 'The Course of 

 Hannibal over the Alps ascertained,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1794 ; 'The Ancient 

 Cathedral of Cornwall historically surveyed,' 2 vols. 4to, 1804 ; and 

 'The Life of St. Neot,' > published in 1809, after his death. He had 

 besides projected and in part executed a History of London and a 

 History of Oxford, and at least talked of bringing out Notes on 

 Shakspere and Illustrations of the Bible. He also wrote some fugitive 

 poetry, printed in the collection of the works of ' The Cornwall and 

 Devon Poets/ 2 vols. 8vo; and he contributed many articles to the 

 'English Review,' the 'British Critic,' and the ' Antijacobin Review.' 

 He died at his rectory some time after having had a stroke of paralysis, 

 on the 30th of October 1808. 



As a man, Whitaker appears to have been a person of warm and 

 hasty but generous feelings, better liked by those to whom he was 

 well known than by those who were only for a short time or occa- 

 sionally brought into contact with him. As a writer he is lively and 

 ingenious, and scatters about a great quantity of curious reading and 

 research ; but his learning is more excursive and various than pro- 

 found or exact, and his fancy is much too active for the strength of his 

 judgment. His most important work certainly is his 'History of 

 Manchester,' which is in fact a description of the general state of the 

 country during the Roman and Saxon Times ; much of it indeed is 

 merely conjectural, though set down in the most dogmatic style; but 

 valuable ideas an I luminous views are occasionally thrown out. 



WHITAKER, REV. THOMAS DUNHAM, LL.D., was descended 

 from an elder brother of Dr. William Whitaker, the Cambridge pro- 

 fessor of divinity and eminent polemic of the 16th century. At the 

 time when he was born, June 8th, 1759, at the parsonage-house of 

 Rainham in Norfolk, his father was curate there ; but the next year 

 he succeeded to the family estate of Holme, in Lancashire, which his 

 ancestors had possessed from about the year 1431. In 1775 he was 

 sent to St. John's College, Cambridge; and in 1780 he proceeded 

 LL.B., with the design of following the profession of the civil law ; 

 but having by the death of his father, in 1782, become proprietor of 

 the family estate, he changed his views, and determined to enter the 

 Church. He was ordained deacon in 1785, and priest the next year. 

 It is not stated however that he held any preferment till he became 

 perpetual curate of Holme, in 1797, probably on his own presentation. 

 Having taken the dtgree of LL.D. in 1801, he was in 1809 presented 

 by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the vicarage of Whalley, and in 

 1818 to that of Blackburn. On being inducted into the latter living, 

 he resigned the rectory of Heysham, which he had previously held 

 along with Whalley, but for how long is not stated. He died at 

 Blackburn, on the 18th of December 1821, leaving by his wife Lucy, 

 daughter of Thomas Thoresby, Esq., of Leeds, who survived him, 

 three sons and one daughter, besides a daughter whom he had lost in 

 1816, and a son, his eldest, who had been killed by a fall from his 

 horse the year aft^r. 



Dr. Whitaker's publications consist of a number of single sermons 

 and of the following antiquarian works : 'A History of the Original 

 Parish of Whalley and Honour of Clitheroe, in the Counties of Lan- 

 caster and York,' 4to, 1801 (reprinted, with additions and corrections, 

 in 1806, and again in 1818 ; ' History of the Deanery of Craven,' royal 

 4to, 1805, reprinted 1812 ; an account, in Latin, of the rebellion of 

 1745, 'De Motu per Britanniam Civico annia 1745 et 1746,' 12mo, 

 1809 ; ' The Life and Original Correspondence of Sir George Radcliffe, 

 Knt.,' 4to, 1810 ; an edition of ' The Visions of Peirs Ploughman,' 4to, 

 1810; a uew edition of Thoresby's 'Ducatus Leodinensis, or the Topo- 

 graphy of Leeds/ fol., 1816; 'Loidis and Almete, or an Attempt to 

 Illustrate the Districts described in these words by Bede, and supposed 

 to embrace the lower portions of Aredale and Wharfdale, together 

 with the entire Vale of Calder, co. York,' 4to, 1816. To these is to 

 be added a portion of an intended ' History of Yorkshire/ compre- 

 hending Richmondshire and Lunedale, which he left ready for the 

 press, and which was published in folio after his death. He also pub- 

 lished, in 1812, an edition in 8vo of ' The Sermons of Dr. Edwin 

 Sandys, formerly Archbishop of York, with a Life of the Author ; ' and 

 ' The Substance of a Speech delivered at a General Meeting of the 

 Magistrates, Clergy, Gentry, and other Inhabitants of the Hundred of 

 Blackburn, convened at Blackburn, Monday, February 10th, 1817, to 

 support the existing Laws and Constitution of England.' This speech 

 (which is inserted in full in the ' Gentleman's Magazine/ vol. Ixxxvii., 

 part i., pp. 213-220) is a strong expression of such anti-democratical 

 and conservative opinions as, whether right or wrong in themselves, 

 might be expected from an enthusiastic antiquary. As an illustrator 

 of the national antiquities, Dr. Whitaker a good deal resembled his 

 namesake, the author of ' The History of Manchester/ with whom he 

 has sometimes been confounded. He was not a mere grubber in the 

 earth for forgotten facts, deriving for the most part their only value 

 from their having dropped out of sight and been thus laboriously 

 recovered, but looked at the past in a poetical spirit, with fancy and 

 feeling which no doubt however sometimes led him wrong where a 

 colder or duller investigator might not have made the same mistakes. 

 He was also, like the other Whitaker, a good classical scholar, as well 

 as conversant with the learning of the middle ages. Some able articles 

 on antiquarian subjects in the early numbers of the 'Quarterly Review' 

 are understood to have been contributed by Dr. Whitaker. 



