

WYNDHAM, SIR WILLIAM. 



WYON, WILLIAM. 



860 



distinguished in the parliaments of Queen Anne and the first two 

 Georges, was born iu 1687. He was of an ancient family in Somerset- 

 shire, and succeeded at an early age to the title and estate. He was 

 educated at Eton and at Christchurch, Oxford, and afterwards 

 travelled for some time abroad. On his return he was chosen to 

 represent his native county in parliament, and married a daughter of 

 the Duke of Somerset. He thus entered upon public life with great 

 advantages, which his abilities well supported. He associated himself 

 with the Tory party, and, fascinated by the talents of Lord Boling- 

 broke, he joined in the pleasures as well as the politics of that 



nobleman. . T> v u i 



When the Tory ministry was formed under Oxford and Bolingbroke 

 in 1710, Wyndham was made master of the buckhounds, and on the 

 18th June 1711, was appointed eecretary-at-war. In August 1713 he 

 was promoted to the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and in, 

 November was sworn a privy councillor. In the dissensions between 

 Oxford and Bolingbroke he sided with the latt.r, and was entirely in 

 his confidence. When the lord high treasurer was disgraced, Lord 

 Boliugbroke wished to have the treasury put in commission, and pro- 

 posed Wyndham as one of the five commissioners ; but this arrange- 

 ment was defeated by the sudden appointment of the Duke of Shrews- 

 bury to the vacant office. This appointment, followed by the death 

 of the queen, put an end to the hopes of the Tory party. The suspi- 

 cion of a treasonable correspondence with the Pretender had attached 

 to many of the Tory ministers, and to none more than to Lord Boling- 

 broke. Wyndham himself was not free from suspicion : his intimacy 

 with Lord Bolingbroke and his close friendship with other reputed 

 Jacobites having pointed him out as one requiring to be watched. He 

 was returned to the new parliament summoned by George I., and pro- 

 tested in such strong language against the proclamation by which the 

 late parliament had been dissolved, that he was only saved from im- 

 prisonment in the Tower by Sir Robert Walpole, who persuaded the 

 House of Commons to spare him with a reprimand from the Speaker. 

 When the rebellion in favour of the Pretender broke out in 1715, in- 

 telligence was brought to the privy council that Sir W. Wyndham 

 was concerned in a projected rising in Somersetshire : his father-in- 

 law the Duke of Somerset offered to be responsible for him, and 

 desired that he might not be taken into custody ; but the council 

 refused to leave him at large, and sent Colonel Haske to arrest him. 

 Sir William, on being taken at his own house, contrived to escape 

 under pretence of making preparations for his journey to London ; 

 and a proclamation was immediately issued offering 1000Z. for his 

 apprehension. For some time be eluded the vigilance of his pursuers, 

 disguised as a clergyman, but finding that he had little chance of 

 escape, he surrendered himself, and was committed to the Tower. 

 He denied all knowledge of any plot whatever in favour of the Pre- 

 tender ; and, whether on account of his innocence, the failure of evi- 

 dence, or the influence of his connections, he was never brought to trial. 



He was henceforth distinguished as one of the most active and able 

 members of the opposition. He opposed Sir Robert Walpole on 

 almost every occasion. The most vehement and perhaps the best 

 speech against Walpole's Excise scheme was delivered by him in 1733. 

 Of all his reported speeches, that in favour of the repeal of the Sep- 

 tennial Act in 1734 may be pronounced the most able and argumen- 

 tative. In 1739, having been in the minority who voted against the 

 address of the Spanish convention, he determined, with many others, 

 to secede from parliament. In expressing this resolution he applied 

 insulting terms to the majority of the House, and was indebted, for 

 the second time, to Sir Robert Walpole's judicious forbearance for his 

 escape from commitment to the Tower. Nothing could have been 

 more absurdly impolitic than the retirement of the opposition from 

 all further contest in the House of Commons : it had been suggested 

 by Lord Bolingbroke, whose counsels were often more mischievous 

 than wise; and the mistake was so evident, that the seceders all 

 returned on the first day of the next session. 



The influence of Wyndham in the House of Commons was proved 

 by the immediate consequences of his death in 1740. He had united 

 the Tories and a considerable party of Whigs in their opposition to Sir 

 Robert Walpole. At his death this union was dissolved the opposi- 

 tion was disarmed of half its power and for sometime the minister 

 had little to dread either from the eloquence or the numbers of his 

 opponents. He died at Wells in Somersetshire, July 17, 1740, and 

 was succeeded by his son, Sir Charles Wyndham, who afterwards in- 

 herited the title of Earl of Egremont from his uncle the Duke of 

 Somerset. By his second wife, relict of William, Marquis of Bland- 

 ford, he left no issue. 



Sir William was one of the most popular men of his day, and in 

 parliament was remarkable for the force and spirit of his eloquence. 

 The character of his oratory has been thus described by a great critic, 

 Mr. Speaker Onslow : " There was much grace and dignity in his 

 person, and the same in his speaking. He had no acquirements oi 

 learning ; but his eloquence, improved by use, was strong, full, and 

 without affectation, arising chiefly from his clearness, propriety, anc 

 argumentation ; in the method of which last, by a sort of induction 

 almost peculiar to himself, he had a force beyond any man I ever 

 heard in public debates. He had not the variety of wit and pleasantry 

 in his speeches so entertaining in Daniel Pulteney ; but there was a 

 spirit and power in his speaking that always animated himself and his 



learers, and, with the decoration of his manner, which was indeed 

 ery ornamental, produced not only the most attentive, respectful, but 

 even a reverend regard to whatever he spoke." 



WYNTOUN, ANDREW, a rhyming annalist, lived during the 

 early part of the 15th century, and was prior of the monastery of 

 3t. Serf's Inch or Island, on Loch Lomond in Scotland. Nothing has 

 jeen discovered as to his parentage or the periods of his birth and 

 death, and he is only known as the author of ' The Orygynale Crony kil 

 of Scotland,' a work of considerable authority in Scottish history 

 during the interval between the commencement of the llth and that 

 of the 15th century. It is valuable also as a specimen of the Scottish 

 .anguage at a time when it closely resembled the English in all but 

 ;he Gallicisms which pervade Chaucer and Gower, and before it had 

 ;aken that distinct provincial form which it exhibits in the Scottish 

 poets of the latter part of the 15th and of the 16th century. Wyntoun 

 ieems to have strongly felt the difficulty under which all rude chroni- 

 lers lie, of drawing a line of demarcation between the domestic and 

 the foreign. The work is divided into nine books : 



"In honoure of the crdrys nync 

 Of haly angelys, the quhilk dywyne 

 Scripture lo\vys, on lyk wys 

 I wylle departe now this tretls- 

 In Xyne Bukis, and noucht ma ; 



And the fyrst Buke of tha 

 Sail trete fra the begynnyng 

 Of the warlde." 



Accordingly the author is as good as his word, and, beginning at the 

 Creation, he passes through the greater part of Scripture history to 

 the mythological period of Greece and Rome, mingling the sacred and 

 profane strangely together, and describing both the deluge of Scripture 

 and Deucalion's flood. The early and completely fabulous part of the 

 Scottish annals is mixed up with these widely-dispersed chronicles. 

 Four books out of the nine are finished before the birth of Christ is 

 narrated. In the printed edition of the chronicle the editor has very 

 properly given only the rhythmical titles of the chapters which do not 

 refer to Scotland, and thus of these four books only a few fragments 

 are printed. Wyntoun is a tedious narrator, but he is spirited in his 

 descriptions ; and the stirring events he has to record, with the curious 

 traditions of national superstition mingled with them, give the book 

 considerable animation. Sir Walter Scott has been obliged to Wyutoun 

 for many striking incidents in his narrative poems. 



There are several manuscripts of Wyntouu's Chronicle ; one in the 

 Cottonian collection, another in the Harleian, and a third in the Advo- 

 cates' Library. The best is however that in the Royal Library in the 

 British Museum, from which Mr. David Macpherson edited the printed 

 edition, collating it with the others. This magnificent specimen of 

 British typography was printed in 1795, in 2 vols. 8vo. All the copies 

 of it seem to have been printed on drawing-paper ; at least the writer 

 of this notice has never met with any copy on ordinary paper. It 

 contains an introduction, notes, and a glossary. 



WYON, WILLIAM, an engraver and designer of medals and coins, 

 was born at Birmingham in 1795. The pursuits and associations of 

 his family (of German descent) were peculiarly calculated to give 

 direction to his mind and to foster whatever natural abilities he pos- 

 sessed. His grandfather, George Wyon, engraved the silver cup em- 

 bossed with a design of the assassination of Julius Caesar, which was 

 presented by the city of London to Wilkes. His father, Peter Wyoii, 

 to whom, in 1809, "William was apprenticed, was a die sinker of repu- 

 tation at Birmingham, and with him was - associated William's uncle, 

 Thomas, as partner, to whom young Wyou was much indebted. The 

 earliest of his productions of which we find any marked notice were 

 copies of the heads of Hercules and of Ceres ; the latter won the gold 

 medal of the Society of Arts, and was purchased by it for distribu- 

 tion as an agricultural prize. A second gold medal from the same 

 body marked the appearance of Wyon's group Victory drawn by 

 Tritons. A few years later he completed a figure of Antinous, which 

 so delighted his father, that he had it set in gold, and wore it con- 

 stantly until his death. 



Wyon came to London in 1816, and won his way through a compe- 

 tition to the post of second engraver at the Mint. Sir Thomas Law- 

 rence was the umpire, aud the trial piece the head of George III. 

 His prospects were now most favourable, aud his situation altogether 

 agreeable to him for the chief engraver, Thomas Wyon, was his friend 

 and cousin. But unexpectedly the latter died, and Mr. Pistrucci was 

 nominated in his place. The new engraver and his chief assistant 

 could not agree. Pistrucci, a skilful artist, is said to have been indo- 

 lent, and while reserving to himself the greater share of the honour 

 and emolument, to have left the greater amount of labour to Wyon. 

 Under a new Master of the Mint these differences were compromised 

 by an arrangement, which left Pistrucci nominally chief engraver until 

 his death, but gave half his salary to Wyon. We need not dwell ou 

 the literary wars that arose out of these occurrences, further than to 

 observe that the younger man found an enthusiastic champion who 

 issued a memoir of his life, and a list of his works, then exceeding two 

 hundred in number. The Royal Academy marked its opinion of this 

 controversy, and of Wyon's own merits, by electing him in 1832, an 

 Associate, and in 1838 an Academician, the first of his department 

 Who had ever obtained these honours. 



