during the whole of the short but brilliant career of the latter, would call here for some more particular notices of circumstances arising out of that intimacy, and of the general proceedings of the civic patriot, during his most active period of agitation, but that the frequent reference to these transactions in the poems, has elicited in the notes most of the material facts connected with them. To those notes we therefore refer the reader; and while we abide by the unqualified censure bestowed in them on the general character and conduct of Wilkes and of most of his associates, we still feel, that, from whatever motives, he was instrumental in rendering service to his country; unlike some of his successors in Parliament, even in a reformed House of Commons, who, equally dissolute in morals, have neither public services nor literary accomplishments to adduce in palliation of their vices.

With no disposition to extenuate the misconduct of Wilkes, we could have wished that the noble and learned author of the Historical Sketches of characters during the reign of George III.* had tempered the unmeasured severity of his invective against Wilkes, by some notice of his classical and literary attainments.

In those Sketches, not only is the claim of Wilkes to be a gentleman denied, because he was the son of a distiller, but the imputation of vulgarity is attached to him for no other reason than

* It has been surmised that the names of Wilkes and Junius have been introduced into these Historical Sketches as the prototypes merely of living individuals, and this sup position will account for many of the omissions and much of the carelessness evident in the Sketches as applicable to the parties named.

that when Lord Mayor he sportively offered invitations to a Mansion House entertainment to Junius, and his Junia, "if he had one.” To refute both charges it may suffice to state, on the authority of the late Mr. Andrew Strahan, that Lord Mansfield, than whom no one could be a better judge in such matters, was of opinion that "Mr. Wilkes was the pleasantest companion, the politest gentleman, and the best scholar he ever knew."

Dr. Johnson also bore testimony to the agreeable qualities of Wilkes, to whom he was at first rather reluctantly introduced at Dilly's table, with, of course, no prepossessions in his favour, as he had been fiercely attacked by him in the North Briton.* But it was one of Wilkes's chief merits never to carry into private society any of his political opinions, except as matter of amusement; this is exemplified by his well known saying, on some allusion to the proceedings of his adherents, that it was true he was Wilkes, but it did not follow that he was a Wilkite.

Wilkes maintained through life an epistolary and social intercourse with some of the most distinguished individuals of his time, both in England and in France, and has left, as the fruit of his leisure and retirement, the most splendid and

Dr. Johnson afterwards met him frequently, and much enjoyed his society, of which Boswell reports him to have said, "Did we not hear so much of Jack Wilkes, we should think more highly of his conversation. Jack has a great

variety of talk; Jack is a scholar; and Jack has the manners of a gentleman. But after hearing his name sounded from pole to pole as the phoenix of convivial felicity, we are disappointed in his company. He has always been at me, but I would do Jack a kindness rather than not. The contest is now over."

correct editions we possess of Catullus and of Theophrastus, for which he received letters of thanks from Lord Mansfield, Lord Spencer, Gibbon, Mr. Pitt, Warren Hastings,* and other eminent statesmen and scholars. His prose compositions, in which he measured almost equal lances with Junius and Horne Tooke, we shall have frequent occasion to notice; and he was the author of some pleasing occasional verses, consisting chiefly of congratulatory lines addressed to his daughter on her successive birthdays.†

We add the following, as the best authenticated of Churchill's juvenile productions, and which was apparently written by him when at Westminster school.

ON THE MONUMENTS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

IN famed Cathedral, who'd expect
Pallas, a heathen goddess,

To lift her shield, come to protect
Lord Stanhope?-this most odd is!

* Warren Hastings was ever grateful to Wilkes for having, in the House of Commons, made the best speech of any that was delivered in his defence; and on Wilkes presenting him with a copy of his Theophrastus, wrote thus in answer.

DEAR SIR,

I return you many thanks for the valuable present of your new edition of Theophrastus; its value to me consists of its being a memorial, and not the first of the kind, of your friendship. As such I shall ever sacredly preserve it, and shall contemplate it with more pleasure than the perusal could afford to many who possess the knowledge which I have unfortunately lost, if I can pretend to have ever attained it, of the language in which it is written. I am, dear Sir, &c.

WARREN HASTINGS.

We subjoin the shortest and the best:

TO MISS WILKES, ON HER BIRTHDAY, 1777.

The noblest gift you could receive,
The noblest gift to-day I'd give,
A father's heart I would bestow,
But that you stole it long ago.

Or to see Hercules, a son

Of Jupiter, as fabled,

Hovering like old nurse o'er an admiral's bust;
As if his pupil, or by him enabled;
What could they more

In days of yore
Do, heroes to defend,

What could our stage exhibit more

Than make the gods descend?

Verger or beadle, who thou art
That hast the supervising part,
Fain would I mace lay thee on;

For Dean's yard boys, with much surprise,
Being thus greatly edified,

May throw their books of heathen gods aside;

And shortly there I fear see rise

In statuary the whole Pantheon.

APPENDIX.

LETTERS FROM CHARLES CHURCHILL

TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.

MY DEAR WILKES,

I AM infinitely obliged to you for the concern you express for my health; but what account to give you of it, I can't well tell. I am better as to acuteness of pain.

After having accused me on account of my indolence, dost thou not now tremble at the sight of a whole sheet? Have you laid in a stock of patience, or sufficiently prepared yourself for the Christian duty of mortification? I shall try the strength of your virtues, and the sincerity of your conversion to the doctrines of patience and forbearance.

The affair of Lord Talbot* still lives in conversation, and you are spoken of by all with the highest respect. Lord Weymouth gives you the greatest encomiums. Your friends at the Beef-Steak enquired after you last Saturday with the greatest zeal, and it gave me no small pleasure that I was the person of whom the enquiry was made. Colonel desires his compliments in the warmest terms, and declares he must be known to you with the first occasion. Nothing ever gave me so high an opinion of myself as not being envious of

you.

I have made the North Briton entirely out of your letters. There is a very decent Irishism, unless for cautious of avoiding, you read careful

*See Vol. ii. p. 250.