MOST ages have produced some shining models of undaunted virtue and unabating patriotism.—It is the part of the Biographer to select characters from the mass of mankind, and to hold those only up to view who have been most distinguish­ed on the vast theatre of human [Page 2] life. Were men to be promiscu­ously described, little advantage would be derived from reviewing the annals of past or present times, and the eye, after a glance, would turn away with weariness, as from an unbounded plain, or a mirror, where all objects were presented indiscriminately.—But if others have laboured under the disadvantage of describing cha­racters equally mixed with right and wrong, the Author here has little reason to complain of such blended materials.—He gives one, bold, enterprizing, and the same, ever possessing uniform principles, [Page 3] without deviation and without ambiguity.

A man, says Plutarch, to be completely great, must be born in some famous city.— London boasts the birth of Mr. Wilkes— His mother, it is reported, was delivered without pain or labour; and a spectre appeared to the nurse, which foretold that the child she then suckled, should prove the ornament and sup­port of the British Empire: cir­cumstances which to many would have appeared trifling and enthu­siastic, had not his future con­duct [Page 4] evinced the truth of the prediction.

Of his Family nothing is re­ported but in extreams; for whilst some would have him to be the son of a distiller, and bred up to the cask, others trace him up to a most illustrious origin: but when some of his friends judg­ed that he should change his name before he engaged in state affairs, he prettily enough repli­ed, that he would make the name of Wilkes more glorious than that of a Catiline or a Cade; and when having served the high [Page 5] and important office of Sheriff of London, and the citizens were de­sirous of making an oblation of silver plate to him, so far from renouncing his origin, that he desired his figure with a dagger in his hand to destroy a monarch, should be engraved on the side of a large Drinking Cup.

Now he being, as Plato says a scholar ought to be, disposed to all manner of learning, and neglectful of no arts, cultivated, besides his other studies, an early taste for poetry, and with such [Page 6] wonderful success that, in ^* one production at least in point of sentiment he is supposed to have equalled, if not excelled, both a Rochester and an ^† Aristotle. In progress of time he applied him­self to more important studies, and became not only a most ex­cellent [Page 7] ^* orator, but likewise took in subscriptions for publishing ^† the history of his own country; an amazing work this, when one considers all his other occupa­tions, [Page 8] that he was at that time under innumerable difficulties, nay was absolutely engaged to furnish out two-and-thirty para­graphs a day in each news-paper, besides letters, advertisements, epigrams, and intelligence extra­ordinary.

But the never-to-be-forgotten work was the North Briton, or rather the N ^o 45 ^* of that cele­brated [Page 9] paper, written by the late Reverend Mr. Churchill, and containing many spirited attacks against government, which not being well received, a process was preferred against the author. Mr. Wilkes being never likely to have a more fair or honourable introduction to glory, generously declared the paper to be his own, —defied all government, and has been admired and rewarded for it. In short, in all his writings, whether he arraigned the opi­nions of others, or established any doctrines of his own, there were always found both the harmony [Page 10] of order, and the decency of re­ligion. —His reasons were solid and convincing, his inductions pleasing and agreeable; he was master of every subject of which he treated, and treated none but what were amply for the benefit of mankind.

But ^* fearing some Creditors, and having suffered in a Duel, he travelled into France with many other great men, for the recovery of his health and fortune. There [Page 11] he lived in ease and affluence, supplied with money from the disinterested in England, as well as with large sums arising from the sale of Jewels, and other ar­ticles which his skill and ad­dress procured him abroad.—His body daily gaining strength, he was soon most earnestly sollicited to return to England, where he again furbished up his Rhetoric, and re-excited all his political fa­culties. For some time he wish­ed to have retired to his estate at Aylesbury, but thinking it wrong to give the trouble of long jour­nies to those who made suit to [Page 12] him, he gave up his estate there to be divided amongst his friends, and then resided altogether in town, for the convenience of pub­lic business; and indeed there were not fewer attending at his door, than formerly on Croesus for his wealth, or Pompey for his power.

And now being full of ex­pectation, and solely bent on the welfare of the public, he con­sulted an oracle how he should soonest arrive at the Summit of all Political Glory.—The Pythi­an replied, — that he must re­nounce [Page 13] his constituents at Ayles­bury, and make the opinion of the Londoners, the rule and guide of his life.—The decrees of fate are irresistible.—Indeed he would have submitted to have represent­ed the city of London; but his friends most prudently prevented him, and compelled him to blaze out at once as the Member for Middlesex, amidst the united ac­clamations of a grateful king­dom ^*.—From this happy event every Englishman might justly [Page 14] have expected to have dated the aera of his felicity. — A Legisla­tor representing (what is called) the first County, burning with a religious zeal to execute his im­portant charge, and fully qua­lified to regulate with an eye of intuition every the minutest de­viation from the just equilibre of church and state: but such, alas! is the fate of all human things, that the people were no sooner put in possession of their greatest blessing, than they were deprived [Page 15] of it. — The Parliament spoke sparingly of his merits, and as he had been imprisoned for treason and blasphemy, were willing to vindicate one bad action by com­mitting another. — They asserted, that as ‘no felon was eligible in­to any important office, a man so like a felon, that he could not be distinguished, ought certainly to be expelled:’ but let me remind these gentlemen, that the contrary was justified by many of the most experienc­ed lawyers at that time, and has since been well explained by the [Page 16] ^* Majority of the city of London, who are now fully convinced that felony, though punishable in a private man, is by no means a disqualification for a Lord Mayor. —The Head, say the best Lo­gicians, is no Member.

He was now not only deprived of his legal seat, but shut up from day-light within the melancholy confines of a gloomy prison: — but these hardships he could well [Page 17] have borne himself, but his Hu­manity was alarmed for the wel­fare of others.—"All honest Free­holders (as Lord Chatham beauti­fully expressed it) were most dread­fully aggrieved, from the Banks of the Tweed to the Lands-end in Cornwall; they slept not in their beds from horrid dreams and midnight apprehensions: but it was not in dreams, alas! they had in vain implored the just assistance of a relentless Monarch:" — tender and pathetic as this lamentation was, there yet was found a Peer hardy enough to [Page 18] say, "that the County in which he lived, as well as five or six more adjoining, had not only not pe­titioned, but he believed felt no grievances, and he was sorry the Noble Lord would not allow him one honest Freeholder in his neighbourhood."—This appear­ed to many but as ill-timed raillery, and so far from invali­dating the truth of the Great O­rator's assertion, that it only af­forded a melancholy proof of Lord Sandwich's apostacy. — I will not dwell on the many dreadful consequences attending Mr. Wilkes's expulsion, — the [Page 19] reader, the generous reader, feels the weight of them too forcibly, and I see him with tears in his eyes lamenting that luckless hour, when virtue was strip'd of its or­nament, honesty of its robe, and a fatal, an everlasting blow was given to the very vitals of the Constitution.

The Ministerial Hirelings now daily echoed reproaches against him; — they insinuated that he had defrauded the Foundling Hospital, and burnt Mr. Sylva's Notes.—The latter was the only circumstance that seemed to en­danger [Page 20] his credit in the city;— it was a bad precedent, and they feared it might prove dangerous to trade:— weak minds cannot always weigh the comparative merits of actions,—bad measures must frequently be applied to good ends, and private honesty is oft-times absolutely incompatible with publick patriotism; — by many it was called, at least, an act of inattention: —but would it not have been deemed as the height of absurdity that a Cicero or a Maecenas should have stop­ped to have regulated a Grocer's bill, when the welfare of millions [Page 21] depended on their public coun­sels? — Pericles, one of the most admired heroes of antiquity, when his accounts were confused, and could not well be given up, not only destroyed the Notes (if I may so express it) but to drown the remembrance, involved his coun­try in the Peloponnesian war.— But I will place the matter in its true light.— The Notes were given to a Jew—he was im­portunate, — Mr. Wilkes was obliged to turn him out of his house in his own defence; for, is not a Jew bound, whenever it is in his power, to destroy that man [Page 22] who is known to be a strenuous assertor of the laws of Christiani­ty?—As to the Foundling Hos­pital, Mr. Wilkes considered it as a base Institution from the be­ginning,— it encouraged Bas­tardy;—however, he submitted the whole transaction to the ^* Treasurer, whose private virtues might be said to go hand in hand with his own, and from whose representation of the case, the city seemed so well satisfied of their equal integrity, that they gave an entire credit to the one, and by choosing the other Al­derman, [Page 23] not only made him the Guardian of public trust, but of course Governor to almost all other Hospitals.

The Honour of being Alder­man likewise entitled him to the high and important office of She­riff, which afforded him many favourable opportunities of dis­playing his Humanity; — he felt most tenderly for those who partook of one common nature with himself, and in his Zeal for Liberty, not only ordered their chains to be struck off during their trials, but insisted on their [Page 24] removal from Newgate, to be more immediately under his own inspection, that he might occa­sionally instruct them in their several duties, and let them out at proper times to practise their different occupations, in order to discharge the jailors fees.— Nor was this glorious plan of Li­berty confined to one set of men only — all ranks, all orders, in some degree felt the weight of his influence.— The messengers and officers who before had used to take up any man whom the Parliament deemed highly crimi­nal, now tremble least the Lord [Page 25] Mayor should order them to be imprisoned, and their criminal released, and the Magistrate who before looked formidable on the Bench, and intimidated the pri­soner beneath him, now shrinks back from a commitment, least the Patriots being displeased, his house should be burnt down, or his family destroyed; — nay, should the Clergy presume to restrain the people with the shackles of reli­gion, or my Lord Chief Justice himself to bend their necks be­neath the galling load of Power, Mr. Wilkes has explained that all Authority is Tyranny, and Dr. [Page 26] Wilson and Mr. Horne that Reli­gion is Imposture. — Nor is this the system of a day only, but the education of our youth is calcu­lated to inculcate these generous principles:—the poor Apprentice, who before had used to read his Bible in the evening, or play at Cribbage with his Mistress, now leaves the house, and discourses like a Lacedaemonian, ^* ‘not on the price of Pepper, but passes his judgment on some action worth considering,’ — openly ridicules the religion of his coun­try [Page 27] at the Robinhood, or regulates the measures of Government in a more private Assembly.

Not even the Military could repress Mr. Wilkes's ardour: — at his instigation those splendid Hirelings were restrained from carrying arms through the city, — their very drum was silenced, and they were taught, that though they were kept at a vast expence to parade in Hyde-Park, and now and then to be reviewed, yet they were to be considered as the or­nament, not as the security of the State, and it was unconstitutional [Page 28] for them to interfere, though the Life of their Sovereign was at­tacked in his Palace.

Nor were those learned Gentle­men of the Long Robe more se­cure in their dignities. — Mr. Wilkes could explain to a Middlesex Jury, that the King had no right to the Land-tax, — that his power and that of the Parliament was not equal to that of a Petty Con­stable's; and it was illegal for him in any instance to extend his mercy when the people clamour­ed for blood: — nay, when the late Judge Yates presumed only, [Page 29] in passing sentence on Mr. Wilkes, to glance at his poem, by speak­ing of the reverence due to Chri­stianity — the people (such was the Patriot's popularity) laughed him openly to scorn, though Mr. Wilkes himself with great polite­ness and candour said, that ‘now and then it was not amiss to hear a musty sermon.’

He might even be said to be out of the power of Medicine; for on the Parliament desiring a Physician to inspect him, whilst in danger from a duel, he dis­missed Hebberden for being illi­terate, [Page 30] and ordered no one to in­terfere, unless they would send nurse Grenv—e herself to admi­nister a glister.

By extending the liberty of the Press, all public and private characters are now fully delineat­ed: —from this great prerogative, the birth-right of all Englishmen, we are enabled to speak truth with impunity — to say, that ^* a " Mansfield has no integrity, a Grafton no abilities, and that the Duke of Bedford rejoiced at the [Page 31] death of his only son, — that the person of our Sovereign is ungra­cious, — his manners depraved, his private character immoral, and his public one unjust, — that he is the worst orator that ever spoke to a parliament, — a parent un­concerned in the welfare of his family, — has no care for the State, but, like Nero, "fiddles whilst Rome is burning."

The Fine Arts live not but in a state of Liberty, but now they flourish'd in all their branches;— Music was united with Poetry, and Mr. Wilkes, their Apollo, [Page 32] struck the master lyre: — his poetry was a mixed species of the Lyric and Didactic, but managed with such amazing skill, that it was echoed not only from the Tower to Tyburn, but balladed about through every Fair and Mar­ket-town in the kingdom:— but, as Tacitus observes, ^* "Men sooner believe their eyes than their ears;" so he gave great encouragement likewise to all Artists to line their shops with Prints, Emblems, Sketches, and Aenigmatic Charac­ters, [Page 33] — such as should not mere­ly show the Delicacy of their Art, but convey either a Fable, Moral, or History; and he had the pleasing satisfaction to find that a Fox hanging, a Load of Straw, or a suspended Boot, had more effect, not only on the multitude, but even on the City of London, than all the accumu­lated labours of a University Li­brary.

It was Mr. Wilkes's peculiar happiness to be always connected with characters similar to his own, as they say the Magnet at­tracts [Page 34] only those fragments that are of kindred qualities: but now and then these fragments were at enmity amongst themselves:— when altercations arose about the disposal of Places, or the distribu­tion of Public Money, they har­rangued so freely on their compa­rative merits, that though I have no doubt but they all spoke Truth of one another, yet I think it was sometimes rather impolitic so fully to unveil to the common eye the deeper mysteries of Patri­otic Duty.

[Page 35]Every period of History affords some striking instances of the triumphs of Virtue over Power; — a Cromwell at one time, and a Tyler at another, have been equally the Idols of the Many:— the very Children of one ^* Prince not only revolted a­gainst, but destroy'd their Father: —from Mr. Wilkes then, who is a glorious Compound of all these illustrious Characters, what may not be expected? for, unhappily for this nation, it is governed by a King, who holds Principles DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE; he has [Page 36] been justly reviled by his People, ‘and the Voice of the People isthe Voice of GOD.’