Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/265

 charitable without ostentation. He had, he said, learned economy through his having ‘shaken hands with poverty up to the very elbow.’ At his death he left property worth 3,000l.

In 1757 Wilkie published ‘The Epigoniad,’ in nine books, based on the fourth book of the ‘Iliad,’ and written in heroic couplets in the manner of Pope's ‘Homer.’ To a second edition in 1759 he appended an ingenious apologetic ‘Dream in the manner of Spenser.’ On the appearance of this edition Hume warmly eulogised ‘The Epigoniad’ in a letter to the ‘Critical Review,’ complaining that the journal had unduly depreciated the poem when first published. Wilkie has no genuine right to be called ‘the Scottish Homer,’ but as a mere achievement in verse his ‘epic’ is creditable; it has a fair measure of fluency, its imagery is apt and strong, and it is brightened by occasional felicities of phrase, descriptive epithet, and antithetical delineation. In 1768 Wilkie published a small volume of sixteen ‘Fables,’ in iambic tetrameter reminiscent of Gay, with an added pithy and pointed ‘Dialogue between the Author and a Friend’ in dexterous heroics. The sixteenth fable, ‘The Hare and the Partan’ [i.e. crab], is a notable exercise in the vernacular of Midlothian.

 WILKIN, SIMON (1790–1862), editor of the ‘Works of Sir Thomas Browne,’ born at Costessey (Cossey), Norfolk, in 1790, was son of William Wilkin and his wife Cecilia Lucy, daughter of William Jacomb of London. Losing his father in 1799, he went to reside at Norwich with his guardian, [q. v.], who superintended his education. He became proficient both in ancient and modern languages and in general literature. When of age he came into an ample fortune, and devoted himself largely to natural history, especially entomology, and his fine collection of insects ultimately came into the possession of the Zoological Society. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society, and a member of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. Through the disastrous failure of large paper mills with which he was connected he lost his property, and soon after established himself in Norwich as a printer and publisher, greatly raising the character of the Norwich press, and issuing some very erudite works. In 1825 he published a ‘Catalogue of the Public Library and City Library of Norwich,’ Norwich, 8vo. His edition of Sir Thomas Browne's works occupied the leisure of thirteen years, and he spared no pains in the collation of manuscripts and early editions so as to produce the best possible text; also in the examination and utilisation of Browne's vast correspondence in the libraries of the British Museum and the Bodleian. The work, which was published in 1836 in four volumes (London, 8vo), and was reissued in Bohn's ‘Library’ in 1852 (3 vols.), was pronounced by Robert Southey to be ‘the best reprint in the English language.’

Wilkin was the means of establishing the Norfolk and Norwich Literary Institution, as well as the museum which now holds a foremost rank among provincial collections. He also wrote the catechisms on the use of the globes for Pinnock's series of ‘Catechisms’ (2 parts, Norwich, 1823–6, 12mo), and contributed the introductory chapter and illustrative notes to the life of his guardian, entitled ‘Joseph Kinghorn of Norwich: a Memoir, by Martin Hood Wilkin,’ Norwich, 1855, 8vo.

In 1825 Wilkin married Emma, daughter of John Culley of Cossey, and in the latter part of his life he removed to London, residing at Hampstead until his death on 28 July 1862. He was buried at his native village of Cossey.

 WILKINS, CHARLES (1749?–1836), orientalist, born at Frome, Somerset, in 1749 (or in 1750, for contemporary authorities differ as to his age at death), was the son of Walter Wilkins of that town, and his wife Martha Wray, niece of  [q. v.] the engraver. In 1770 he proceeded to Bengal in the service of the East India Company as a writer, and became superintendent of the company's factories at Maldah. ‘About 1778,’ he writes, his ‘curiosity was excited by the example of his friend Mr. Halhed to commence the study of the Sanskrit’ [see ]. The vernaculars he had of course previously studied, and he also took up Persian. His first important work was the leading part which he played in establishing (also in 1778) a printing-press for oriental languages. Here he was not only organiser, but also (in the words of Halhed) ‘metallurgist, engraver, founder, and printer’ of types for alphabets so elaborate and distinct from one another as Bengali and Persian. He also co-operated with Sir William Jones