52 



WILKIE WILL. 



after his outlawry was discussed at various hearing*, 

 and solemnly reversed; but this did not procure his 

 liberty ; and he was condemned to an imprisonment 

 of twenty-two months, and a fine of 1000. In 

 1769, in consequence of a pamphlet written by him, 

 in censure of a letter from the secretary of state to 

 a magistrate, advising the employment of the mili- 

 tary in repression of the riots which were the result 

 of Mr Wllkes's confinement, he was again expelled 

 the house. This measure being followed by his 

 immediate re-election, he was declared incapable of 

 becoming a member of the existing parliament, and 

 colonel Luttrell set up against him, who was de- 

 clared the sitting member for Middlesex at the next 

 election, although the votes for him did not amount 

 to a fourth part of those for Wilkes a decision 

 which produced a great sensation, and excited dis- 

 gust even among those who disliked. the person thus 

 opposed. In return for the loss of his seat, he was 

 elected alderman of the ward of Farringdon With- 

 out, and in this magistracy displayed his usual spi- 

 rit against illegal authority. The house of commons 

 having summoned some printers in the city before 

 them, for publishing their speeches, they neglected 

 to attend, when a royal proclamation was obtained 

 for apprehending them ; and when, on its authority, 

 one of the printers was carried before alderman 

 Wilkes, he, who deemed the apprehension a breach 

 of the privileges of the city, discharged the printer, 

 and ordered the captor to give bail. The lord- 

 mayor Oliver, and alderman Crosby, acted the same 

 way in regard to two other printers, for which, be- 

 ing members of the house of commons, they were 

 committed to the Tower, while Wilkes being sum- 

 moned to the bar of the house of commons, instead 

 of obeying, wrote to the speaker, and claimed his 

 seat. The house was now sensible of the difficulty 

 in which it had involved itself, and found no better 

 expedient to save its credit than an adjournment 

 beyond the day on which he was ordered to attend. 

 In 1772, he was chosen sheriff, and, in 1774, 

 elected mayor ; and he knew so well both how to 

 acquire and to retain popularity, that, on the dis- 

 solution of parliament, in the same year, he was 

 once more chosen member for Middlesex. In par- 

 liament he was a strenuous opposer of the measures 

 which led to the American war, but did not render 

 himself very conspicuous as a speaker. In 1779, he 

 was chosen, by a great majority.chamberlain of Lon- 

 don, which lucrative office, so necessary to his brok- 

 en fortune, beheld for the remainder of his life. In 

 1792, upon the dismissal of the North administra- 

 tion, the obnoxious resolutions against him were, 

 on his own motion, expunged from the journals of 

 the house ; from which time, although, in 1784, 

 once more re-elected member for Middlesex, he 

 deemed himself "a fire burnt out." He died 

 December 26, 1797, aged seventy ; for some years 

 previously to which event he was comparatively 

 forgotten. Wilkes, as a writer and speaker, did 

 not reach beyond mediocrity. His private character 

 was very licentious, but he possessed elegant man- 

 ners, fine taste, ready wit, and pleasing conversa- 

 tion. His Letters and Speeches were published by 

 himself in 1787 ; and much light is thrown upon 

 his conduct by the Letters from the Year 1774 to 

 the Year 1796, to his Daughter (1804, 4 volumes 

 12mo.). His correspondence, in 5 volumes, was 

 also published, with a Memoir by Almon, in 1805 

 (5 volumes.) 



WILKIE, WILLIAM, the author of an epic poem 

 which obtained a temporary celebrity, was born in 



the county of Linlithgow, Scotland, on the 5th 

 Oct., 17-1. His father, a small farmer, contrived 

 to give him a liberal education, and at the age of 

 thirteen, he was sent to the university of Edinburgh. 

 Before he completed his academical course, the 

 death of his father obliged him to pay attention to 

 the farm, which was the only inheritance of him- 

 self and three sisters. He still, however, prose- 

 cuted his studies, and was admitted a preacher in 

 the church of Scotland. In 1753, he published his 

 Epigoniad, an epic, which met with much success, 

 especially in Scotland ; and, in 1759, he was chosen 

 professor of natural philosophy in the university ot 

 St Andrews. After settling in St Andrews, the 

 poet purchased some acres of land, and resumed his 

 farming occupations, in which he succeeded so well 

 as to leave at his death property to the amount of 

 3000. Sometime after his appointment to the 

 professorship, the university conferred on him, as a 

 mark of its sense of his merits, the degree of doctor 

 in divinity. In 1768, Dr Wilkie published a series 

 of sixteen "Moral Fables, in Verse," 8vo. ; but 

 these, though sufficiently ingenious productions, 

 did not advance him much farther in public favour 

 as a poet. After a lingering indisposition, he died 

 at St Andrews, on the 10th Oct. 1772, in the fifty- 

 first year of his age. 



WILK1NS, JOHN, bishop of Chester, a learned 

 prelate of the seventeenth century, was born in 

 1614, and, after receiving the rudiments of a clas- 

 sical education at a private seminary in Oxford, was 

 matriculated at New-inn hall in 1627, which he 

 afterwards left for Magdalen hall. Having taken 

 holy orders, he obtained the appointment of domes- 

 tic chaplain to the count palatine of the Rhine. 

 On the breaking out of the civil wars, his opinions 

 and discourses manifested his adherence to the 

 popular party, and his conduct was rewarded by the 

 headship of Wadham college, Oxford, for which 

 celibacy was a qualification. In 1656, he married 

 the sister of Oliver Cromwell ; and the protector 

 gave his brother-in-law a dispensation, which pre- 

 vented his losing his preferment. In 1659, he re- 

 ceived the headship of Trinity college, Cambridge ; 

 but, on the restoration of monarchy in the follow- 

 ing year, he was ejected. But, in 1668, he was 

 elevated to the episcopal bench, through the interest 

 of Buckingham. As a mathematician and a philoso- 

 pher, Wilkins exhibited considerable acuteness and 

 ingenuity. His opinions of the practicability of a 

 passage to the moon, which he conceived to be in- 

 habited, are expressed in his work entitled the 

 Discovery of a New World, or a Discourse on the 

 World in the Moon (8vo., 1638). In 1640, he 

 published a second treatise, the object of which is 

 to prove that the earth is a new planet. His other 

 writings are, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift 

 Messenger (1641); Mathematical Magic (1648); 

 Ecclesiastes, or the Gift of Preaching; On the 

 Principles and Duties of Natural Religion ; a Dis- 

 course concerning Providence ; an Essay towards a 

 Real Character and Philosophical Language (folio), 

 &c. He was one of the literary personages who 

 received a charter of incorporation from Charles II., 

 under the name of the royal society. Bishop Wil- 

 kins died in 1672. 



WILL. The will of man is the power which 

 gives direction to his faculties. What we call the 

 rational will, is the volition operated on by external 

 influences, directing it to the attainment of sup- 

 -posed good, or the avoidance of supposed evil. 

 This will even brutes have, as they are capable of 



