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Wade  into Cumberland. Carlisle was surprised and captured. Utterly perplexed by contradictory reports as to the route taken by the rebels, Wade marched to Hexham in the hope of intercepting them. Arriving there on 16 Nov., in a snowstorm of unequalled severity, news was received of the capture of Carlisle. The impassable state of the roads prevented Wade from marching further westward. Meanwhile Charles Edward continued his victorious march southward, followed by Wade. A fresh army of eight thousand men, commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, was marching across Staffordshire. The highlanders, under the able leadership of Lord George Murray, outmarched and outmanœuvred Cumberland, and reached Derby on 4 Dec. Two days later they turned their faces homewards. Once more Lord George Murray guided his little army safely between the hostile armies of Wade and Cumberland, and reached the borders of Westmoreland in safety. Cumberland was appointed commander-in-chief of the whole British army, and Wade retired into private life.

He died, unmarried, on 14 March 1748, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. By his will, dated 1 June 1747, Wade left 500l. for the erection of a monument to himself either in Bath Abbey or Westminster Abbey. The monument was erected at Westminster. It is said that the sculptor Roubiliac used to come and stand before ‘his best work,’ the monument to Wade, and weep to think that it was put too high to be appreciated (, Westminster Abbey, p. 267). Two portraits of Wade, one anonymous and the other by Haecken ‘after John Vanderbank,’ are in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (cf., p. 287). A third portrait, painted by Adrian Van Diest, was engraved by Faber (ib.) As a soldier Wade's talents were more solid than brilliant, and did not fit him for successful command. He was a useful lieutenant and an excellent leader in action, but he entirely lacked initiative, and he was discouraged and perplexed by responsibility. Wade left two natural sons, Captain William Wade and Captain John Wade, to whom, with his illegitimate daughter, Mrs. Jane Erle, he left most of his estate, although providing generously for the widow and children of his brother William, canon of Windsor. Besides the above three children, Wade had a natural daughter named Emilia, who was married, in 1728, to John Mason; and secondly, to Mr. Jebb.

 WADE, JOHN (1788–1875), author, born in 1788, was an industrious writer connected with the press throughout his career. He contributed to many periodicals, and was an esteemed leader-writer on the ‘Spectator’ when that paper was under Robert Stephen Rintoul's editorship between 1828 and 1858.

As an author his greatest success was ‘The Black Book, or Corruption Unmasked! Being an Account of Persons, Places, and Sinecures,’ 1820–3, 2 vols. Published by Effingham Wilson, and brought out when the reform excitement was commencing, it produced a considerable sensation, and fifty thousand copies were sold. With some alterations in the title, it was reproduced in 1831, 1832, and 1835. In 1826 he wrote for Longmans ‘The Cabinet Lawyer: a Popular Digest of the Laws of England,’ the twenty-fifth edition of which appeared in 1829. Another popular work was ‘British History, chronologically arranged,’ 1839; supplement 1841; 3rd edit. 1844; 5th edit. 1847. Effingham Wilson paid Wade so much a week for years while he was compiling the ‘British History,’ and supplied him with all the necessary works of reference (Athenæum, 1875, ii. 576). Wade also edited an annotated ‘Junius, including Letters by the same Writer under other signatures,’ (1850, in Bohn's ‘Standard Library,’ 2 vols.). Here he was out of his depth, and the imperfections of his edition, and especially of his introduction, were pointed out by Charles W. Dilke in the ‘Athenæum’ of 2 Feb. et seq. (reprinted in Dilke's ‘Papers of a Critic,’ 1875, ii. 47–124). Literature he did not find a profitable employment, and his main dependence in his later years was a civil-list pension of 50l., granted to him on 19 June 1862 by Lord Palmerston, chiefly on the representations of Effingham Wilson. He was a vice-president of the historical section of the Institution d'Afrique of Paris.

He died at Chelsea on 29 Sept. 1875, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery on 2 Oct. 