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Wakefield the slave trade, of which Liverpool was the headquarters. By this time Wakefield had repaired his ignorance of theology and was an ardent student of it. His studies led him gradually to the adoption of Arian or unitarian doctrines, and necessarily involved the resignation of his curacy. In March 1779 he married Anne Watson, the niece of his former rector, and vacated his fellowship. He had not taken priest's orders, nor, as he could no longer subscribe to the articles of the church, could he proceed to the M.A. degree. Neither at this time nor at any other did he formally connect himself with any dissenting body. He held firmly to revealed religion, and described himself in general terms as ‘a genuine votary of a crucified Saviour, who looks for a Better Country, and feels himself impelled to a bold and open profession of the practical principles of Love, Peace, and Liberty to the whole human race.’

Being now without employment, Wakefield accepted in 1779 an invitation to become classical tutor in Warrington Academy, a college founded in 1757 on liberal religious and political principles. He held the office with distinction until 1783, when the academy was dissolved. Joseph Priestley [q. v.], William Enfield [q. v.], and John Aikin (1713–1780) [q. v.] were among his fellow-tutors. While at Warrington he read Hebrew assiduously, and published in 1781 and 1782 respectively translations of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians and of St. Matthew's Gospel, which were intended as part of a translation of the entire New Testament.

From Warrington Wakefield removed in 1783 to Bramcote, a village near Nottingham, with the view of taking private pupils; then to Richmond in Surrey, with the same object; and then to his native Nottingham. His pupils, however, were not numerous; and, though he continued his studies, a painful affection of his arm debarred him for some time from literary work. He published in 1788 an edition of the ‘Georgics,’ and in 1789 the first part of his well-known ‘Silva Critica,’ the design of which was ‘the union of theological and classical learning; the illustration of the Scriptures by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome.’ The first three parts of the work were issued by the Cambridge University Press; the other two were published in London in 1793 and 1795 respectively. In 1790 he left Nottingham, and became classical tutor in the newly established dissenting college in Hackney. He resigned the appointment, however, in the following year, partly because he was dissatisfied with the system of the college, and partly because of his objection to public worship. He defended this singular opinion in ‘An Enquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship’ (London, 1791, 4to). The next few years, during which he continued to reside at Hackney, were devoted entirely to scholarship and controversy. He finished his ‘Silva Critica,’ and produced his ‘Tragœdiarum Delectus’ (London, 1794, 2 vols. 8vo), containing the ‘Hercules Furens,’ ‘Alcestis,’ and ‘Ion’ of Euripides, the ‘Trachiniæ’ and ‘Philoctetes’ of Sophocles, and the ‘Eumenides’ of Æschylus. In these years he also edited Horace (1794), and Moschus (1795), and finally Lucretius (1796–9, 3 vols.). On the last work his reputation as a scholar mainly rests. He completed his translation of the New Testament in 1792; a second edition appeared three years later, and another in 1820. During the same period (1792–7) he also wrote not merely an autobiography and several controversial tracts and pamphlets, but a work on the ‘Evidences of Christianity’ (1793), a ‘Defence of Revealed Religion,’ and a ‘Reply to Thomas Paine's “Age of Reason”’ (1795).

Wakefield's political opinions grew more extreme with his years, and he was ever ready and anxious to uphold them at all costs. He was so completely swayed by the impulse of the moment as to be constitutionally incapable of second thoughts. Henry Crabb Robinson [q. v.], who knew him, describes him as a political fanatic. ‘He had the pale complexion and mild features of a saint, was a most gentle creature in domestic life, and a very amiable man; but, when he took part in political or religious controversy, his pen was dipped in gall.’ John Aikin, his older and more intimate friend, the son of his colleague at Warrington, says of him: ‘He had long upon principle been an enemy to war, thinking it absolutely incompatible, unless as a measure of direct defence, with Christian morality, and especially detesting it when employed to usurp upon the rights of mankind and overthrow the plans of liberty. He thought it bore this character when it was waged against the principles of the French revolution, an event which in its commencements he, in common with many other philanthropists, hailed as the promise of a much improved state of human affairs.’ He hated Pitt, and says, after a visit to the House of Commons in 1792: ‘No words can describe the amazement excited in me by the exhibition of the minister, Mr. Pitt. … Such a