737 



WILLIBROD. 



WILLIS, REV. ROBERT. 



733 



on the 18th of November 1678, on a charge of granting commission 

 to Popish officers, but he was released by the king on the same day 

 On the 9th of February following he resigned the secretaryship o 

 state, and was succeeded by the Earl of Sunderland. In Decembe 

 1679, he married the baroness Clifton, widow of Henry, Lord O'Brien 

 and sister and sole heiress to Charles Stuart, duke of Richmond, b; 

 whom ho acquired large property and the hereditary office of high 

 steward of Greenwich. Sir Joseph Williamson died in 1701, and hi 

 wife in the year following. He left 60002. and a valuable collection 

 of heraldic manuscripts and of memoirs relating to his foreign nego 

 ciations to Queen's. College, Oxford : and he left 50002. for the purpose 

 of founding a mathematical school at Rochester, by which town ho hac 

 been frequently returned to parliament. He had sat also several times 

 for Thetford. In the year 1678 he was elected president of the Roya 

 Society. Sir Joseph Williamson appears to have been a diligent publii 

 servant, who, in those times, could not have risen from so humble a 

 beginning to the important situation of secretary of state, without pos 

 sessing some talents for business or perhaps more for courtiership. 

 WILLIBROD. [WILBRORD.] 



WILLIS, BROWNE, an English antiquary of note, grandson of tbj 

 still more celebrated Dr. Thomas Willis [WiLLis, THOMAS], and bj 

 hia mother's side of Robert Browne, of Frampton in Dorsetshire, was 

 born at Blandford in that county, September 14th 1682. After 

 passing through Westminster School, at which time he is said to have 

 first imbibed a taste for the study of architectural and ecclesiastical 

 antiquities, the neighbouring abbey being his favourite haunt, he 

 entered Christchurch, Oxford, as gentleman-commoner. In 1707 he 

 married Catherine, daughter of Daniel Elliott, of an ancient family 

 who bore him ten children. This lady, who died in 1724, was hersel: 

 a person of some literary pretension, and was author of a work entitled 

 ' The Established Church of England the Catholick Church,' London 

 1718, a performance which her husband appears to have thought very 

 meanly of. On the Society of Antiquaries being revived, 1717-18, he 

 became a member of it, and in 1640 the degree of LL.D. was con- 

 ferred upon him by the University of Oxford. In the following year 

 he testified his sense of the compliment by presenting to that body 

 his valuable cabinet of English coins; he was also a considerable 

 benefactor to the Bodleian Library, by his donations of manuscripts. 

 Nor did his liberality confine itself to munificence of that kind ; for, 

 in 1746, he contributed towards rebuilding Stony Stratford church, 

 and in 1752 gave 2002. towards repairing the fine tower of that at 

 Buckingham, for which place he had been returned to parliament 

 nearly half a century before, in 1705. He died at his seat, Whaddou 

 Hall, February 5, 1760. Though Willis had rather a passion for anti 

 quarian researches than the skill and judgment, or even the informa- 

 tion, required to attain eminence as an archaeologist, there can be 

 little doubt that his publications promoted a taste for antiquarian 

 studies. His greatest and most important work is his ' Survey of the 

 Cathedrals of England,' 3 vols. 4to, with plates, which appeared in 

 1727, 1730, and 1733. Of his ' Notitia Parliamentarian the conclusion 

 was not published till 1750, although the first part had been printed 

 in 1715. His last production was a ' History of the Town of Bucking- 

 ham,' 4to, 1755. 



WILLIS, FRANCIS, was a student of Brazennose College, Oxford, 

 and took holy orders in the year 1740. He was soon after appointed 

 to the living of St. John's, Wapping, and afterwards to Greatford in 

 Lincolnshire. Having a taste for the practice of medicine, he used to 

 prescribe for his poor parishioners, which incensed the medical men 

 in the neighbourhood so much, that in his own defence he obtained 

 the degree of doctor of medicine from Oxford in 1759. His medical 

 and theological studies induced him to take up the subject of insanity, 

 and he was very successful in its treatment. It was on this account 

 that he was called in to take charge of George III., when the king 

 was for the first time deprived of the use of his mental faculties. His 

 treatment was successful in this case, and gained for him a great 

 reputation, in addition to a pension of 1500?. per annum for twenty- 

 one years. After curing the king, he was sent for to attend the 

 Queen of Portugal, who was labouring under aberration of mind. He 

 succeeded in restoring her majesty to perfect health, and received 

 for his services 20,0002. He kept an establishment for the treatment 

 of the insane at Greatford, in Lincolnshire, where he died on the 5th 

 of December 1807, in the ninetieth year of his age. 



Willis has left behind him no work on the subject of insanity, and 

 he would perhaps have found it difficult to explain his own success 

 in the treatment of this disease. He was a man of acute mind, and 

 his treatment seemed rather the result of an instinctive perception 

 of what each individual case required, than of the application of any 

 known principles. His personal influence over his patients was im- 

 mense, and it is said that his mode of looking at a maniac " would 

 make him quail more effectually than chains or manacles." 



* WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER, was born January 20, 1807, at 

 Portland, in the State of Maine, North America. His parents removed 

 to Boston during his childhood, and he was educated at Boston, 

 Andover, and at Yale College, which he entered in 1824. He gra- 

 duated in 1827, and was soon afterwards engaged to edit 'The 

 Legendary ' and ' The Token.' In 1828 he established ' The American 

 Monthly Magazine,' which he conducted for two years and a half, 

 when it was merged in ' The New York Mirror.' Mr, Willis then went 



B1OG. DIV. VOL. VI. 



to Paris, where he was attached to the American legation, and in con- 

 nection with it travelled in France, Italy, and Greece, and in parts of 

 European Turkey and Asia Minor. He afterwards camo to England, 

 where he married, and remained two years. While travelling on the 

 continent and residing in England he had published his ' Pencillings 

 by the Way,' in ' The New York Mirror,' in the form of a series of 

 successive letters, in which, in a light and sketchy style, he described 

 the most interesting of the places which he had visited, and related 

 what he had witnessed and heard in societies to which he had been 

 introduced. Many extracts from these letters were published in the 

 English newspapers, and a severe criticism appeared in the ' Quarterly 

 Review.' He was soon afterwards, as he states, offered 3002. for the 

 copyright of the whole, and the 'Pencillings by the Way' were 

 published in London in 1835, in 3 vols. cr. 8vo. In the same year ho 

 published 'Inklings of Adventure,' a series of tales and sketches 

 which had originally appeared in the ' London Magazine ' under the 

 signature of Philip Slingsby. In 1837 he returned to the United 

 States, and retired to a pleasant spot on the banks of the Susquehanna, 

 where he resided two years, and wrote ' Letters from under a Bridge.' 

 In 1839 he became one of the editors of ' The Corsair,' a literary 

 periodical published in New York. In the autumn of that year he 

 revisited England, and in 1840 published ' Letterings of Travel,' 3 vols. 

 cr. 8vo, and ' Two Ways of Dying for a Husband,' containing the two 

 plays of ' Tortesa the Usurer,' and ' Bianca Visconti.' In the same 

 year appeared an illustrated edition of his ' Poems.' 



In 1843, having returned to New York, Mr. N. P. Willis, in con- 

 junction with Mr. George P. Morris, revived 'The New York Mirror,' 

 which had been discontinued for several years. Mr. Willis withdrew 

 from it in 1844, after the death of his wife, when he again visited 

 England, and in 1845 published 'Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil,' 

 3 vols. cr. 8vo, consisting of sketches and stories. On his return to 

 New York he published in 1846 hia ' Complete Works,' in one vol. 

 imp. 8vo, of 900 pages. In October 1846 he married a second time, 

 and settled in New York, where he became again associated with Mr. 

 Morris in conducting ' The Home Journal,' a weekly periodical, chiefly 

 devoted to literature. In 1849 he published ' Rural Letters and other 

 Records of Thought at Leisure,' most of which are re-publications, as 

 are also the series of articles which he published in 1850, under the 

 title of ' People I have met, or Pictures of Society.' In 1851 appeared 

 in London, ' Hurry-Graphs, or Sketches of Scenery, Celebrities, and 

 Society, taken from Life,' cr. 8vo., a series of letters and papers which 

 had been published in ' The Home Journal.' 



In the spring of 1852 Mr. Willis, suffering from a pulmonary com- 

 plaint, made a voyage to the West Indies, for the benefit of his health. 

 On his return to America, he passed through some of the Southern 

 States, and in 1853 published ' A Health-Trip to the Tropics,' 8vo. He 

 visited Bermuda and sojourned some time in the islands of St. Thomas 

 and Martinique. He afterwards travelled in Kentucky and other 

 Southern States, and he works up portions of his memoranda some- 

 what abruptly to form the latter half of his book, describing his visit 

 to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, which extends nine miles under 

 ground, also short visits to the island of Haiti and the city of Havana, 

 and his sojourn in the cities of Savannah and New Orleans. The book 

 is written mostly in the form of letters, which were first published in 

 ' The Home Journal.' It is one of the most carefully written as well 

 as the most entertaining of Mr. Willis's productions, presenting accu- 

 rate as well as picturesque descriptions of scenes and incidents. He 

 has since resided at Idlewild, on the banks of the Hudson, and in 

 1855 published 'Out-Doors at Idlewild,' consisting of sketches of 

 scenes, manners, and characters, in his usual lively style. In the same 

 year he published ' The Rag- Bag, a collection of Ephemera,' which are 

 reprints from ' The Home Journal.' 



Mr. Willis's liveliness of style, especially in his later works, lends a 

 charm to the most trifling matters, and when the scenes and incidents 

 are of more value renders his descriptions and narratives very attrac- 

 tive. He has been blamed, and no doubt justly, for disclosing too 

 much of the private habits and conversation of persons into whose 

 society he has been admitted; but this fault, though perhaps not 

 entirely removed from Lis later writings, has been certainly much 

 .essened. His works have had a large circulation in Great Britain 

 as well as in the United States, but their general character may be 

 said to be ephemeral. 



* WILLIS, REV. ROBERT, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., one of the founders 

 and ornaments of the present school of science in the University of 

 Cambridge, was born in London in the year 1800, and received his 

 superior education in Caius College, where he graduated as B.A. in 

 L826, and gained a fellowship, which he subsequently vacated. He 

 early became a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (in the 

 jusiness and offices of which he has always taken a principal share), 

 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on the 22nd of April 

 1830. On the decease of Professor the Rev. W. Parish in 1837 Mr. 

 Willis was appointed Jacksonian Professor of Natural and Experi- 

 mental Philosophy in his university. 



Professor Willis has devoted himself to a remarkable combination 

 if select departments in applied natural philosophy mathematically 

 reated : acoustics and the physics of oral language ; the philosophy 

 >f mechanism and machinery ; and the mathematical and mechanical 

 ihilosophy of ancient architecture, together with its history, both as 



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