W I L 
060 W I L 
wildly of itself, is worth nothing. More. —Without tame¬ 
ness ; with ferity; with disorder; with perturbation or dis¬ 
traction. 
Young mothers wildly stare with fear opprest. 
And strain their helpiess infants to their breast. Dry den. 
Without attention; without judgment; heedlessly. 
As the unthought accident is guilty 
Of what we wildly do, so we profess 
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies 
Of every wind that blows. Shakspeare. 
Capriciously; irrationally.—Who is there so wildly scep¬ 
tical as to question, whether the sun shall rise in the east ? 
Wilkins. —Irregularly. 
She, wildly wanton, wears by night away 
The sign of all our labours done by day. Drydeti. 
WILDNESS, s. Rudeness; disorder like that of uncul¬ 
tivated ground.—The heath which was the third part of our 
plot, I wish to be framed, as much as may be, to a natural 
wildness. Bacon. —Inordinate vivacity; irregularity of man¬ 
ners. 
He is giv’n 
To sports, to wildness, and much company. Shakspeare. 
Savageness; brutality.—lie came in like a wild man; but 
such a wildness as shewed his eye-sight had tamed him, full 
of withered leaves, which though they fell not, still threat¬ 
ened falling. Sidney. —Ferity ; the state of an animal un¬ 
tamed : contrary to tameness. —Uncultivated state. 
Their wildness lose, and quitting nature’s part, 
Obey the rules and discipline of art. Dry den. 
Deviation from a settled course ; irregularity.—A delirium 
is but a short wildness of the imagination ; a settled irregu¬ 
larity of fancy is distraction and madness. Watts. —Aliena¬ 
tion of mind. 
Ophelia, I wish 
That your good beauties be the happy cause 
Of Hamlet’s wildness ; so shall I hope your virtues 
May bring him to his wonted way again. Shakspeare. 
WILDSCHITZ, a village of Bohemia, in the circle of 
Bitschow. Population 900. 
WILDSTEIN, Upper and Lower, two villages of 
Bohemia ; 7 miles uorth of Egra, with 1000 inhabitants. 
WILDS WORTH, a hamlet of England, in Lincolnshire; 
5 miles north-by-east of Gainsborough. 
WILDUNGEN, Lower, a town of Germany, in the 
county of Waldeck, surrounded with an old wall; 6 miles 
south-south-east of Waldeck. Population 1200. 
WILDUNGEN, Old, a town of the county of Waldeck. 
Population 900. 
WILE, s. [pile, Sax.; wiel, Icel.] A deceit; a fraud ; a 
trick; a stratagem ; a practice artful, sly, and insidious. 
My sentence is for open war; of wiles 
More unexpert, I boast not; them let those 
Contrive who need. Milton. 
To WILE, v. a. [wiela , Icel. pi^lian. Sax.] To deceive; 
to impose upon; to beguile. 
So perfect in that art was Paridell, 
That he Malbecco’s halfen eye did wile, 
His halfen eye he wiled wondrous well. Spenser. 
WILES, Cape, a steep head of land on the south coast 
of New r Holland. Lat. 34. 57. S. long. 135.38j. E. 
WILFORD, a parish of England ; 1| mile from Notting¬ 
ham. Population 494. 
WILFUL, adj. Stubborn; contumacious; perverse; 
inflexible.—The wilful never want woe. Proverb. —Done 
or suffered by design. 
Thou to me 
Art all things under heaven, all places thou. 
Who for my wilful crime are banish’d hence. Milton. 
The silent stranger stood amaz’d to see 
Contempt of wealth, and wilful poverty, Dryden. 
WI'LFULLY, adv. Obstinately ; stubbornly. — The 
mother, who being determinately, lest I should say of a great 
lady wilfully, bent to marry her to Demagoras, tried all 
ways which a witty and hard hearted mother could devise. 
Sidney. —By design; on purpose. 
This let him know; 
Lest, wilfully offending, he pretend 
Surprisal. Milton. 
WI'LFULNESS, s. Obstinacy; stubbornness; perverse¬ 
ness. 
Never hydra-headed wifulness 
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, 
As in this king. Shakspeare. 
W1LHAMSTED, or Wilshamstead, a parish of Eng¬ 
land, in Bedfordshire; 4 miles south-by-east of Bedford. 
Population 597. 
W1LHELMSBAD, a village, with a well frequented 
mineral spring; about a mile from Hanau, in the west of 
Germany. 
W1I.HELMSBURG, an island situated in the Elbe, not 
far from Hamburg, of which it is considered the key. 
WILIIELMSDORF, formerly Nider Aalbach, a popu¬ 
lous village of the Bavarian states, in the principality of 
Bayreuth. 
W1LHELMSHOHE, a village of Germany, electorate of 
Hesse; about 2 miles from Cassel. 
WILHELMSTEIN, a small but strong fort of Germany ; 
19 miles west-north-west of Hanover. 
WILHELMSTIIAL, or Neustadtee, a small town of 
Prussian Silesia ; 18 miles south-by-east of Glatz. 
WILHERMSDORF, a market town of Germany, in 
Bavarian Franconia, on the river Zenn. 
WI'LILY, adv. By stratagem ; fraudulently.—They did 
work wilily, and went and made as if they had been.am¬ 
bassadors. Josh. 
Wl'LINESS, s. Cunning; guile. — She supplied the 
weakness of force by wiliness of art, and advantage of treaty. 
Howell. 
WILK, s. [pealc. Sax.] A kind of periwinkle; a sea- 
snail.—The scallop cordial judg’d, the dainty wrVZrand limp. 
Drayton. 
WILKES (John), was born in London in 1727, and fi¬ 
nished his studies at the university of Leyden. Soon after his 
return to England, he married a Miss Mead, who was a lady 
of large fortune, and settled at Aylesbury. This lady, though 
highly respectable both in her character and connections, and 
belonging to a dissenting family as well as himself, was older 
than he, and in other respects an unsuitable wife, so that the 
attachment was originally formed, on his part, from lucrative 
motives : one daughter was the fruit of this connection. Mr. 
Wilkes, thus furnished with the means of profusion, lived in 
an expensive style, and being little anxious about domestic 
happiness, associated with the gay and licentious, to whose 
habits and manners his principles and character were sacri¬ 
ficed. Urged by his partial friends, who thought him quali¬ 
fied for public life, he offered himself, in 1754, as a candi¬ 
date for the town of Berwick, but his views were disappoint¬ 
ed. In this and in several other instances, he counteracted 
the inclinations and wishes of his wife, so that their continued 
connection was a source of disquietude, and they determined 
to separate. In 1757 he was returned as a member tor the 
borough of Aylesbury, the consequence of which was an in¬ 
crease of expenditure, that involved him in pecuniary embar¬ 
rassments, and led him to dishonourable practices, and par¬ 
ticularly to an attempt of freeing himself from the obligation 
of paying his wife’s annuity, in which he failed of success. 
His parliamentary patron was earl Temple, by whose influ¬ 
ence he was chosen representative for Aylesbury; and from 
whose interest he expected to obtain some place under govern¬ 
ment, which the perplexity of his circumstances rendered 
particularly desirable. But he was once and again disap¬ 
pointed ; and he ascribed his failure to the interference of 
lord Bute. In 1762 he connected himself, as a political wri¬ 
ter, 
