Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/286

 having received the brevet rank of colonel on 4 June 1814.

Wilks's fame rests chiefly on his admirable work, ‘Historical Sketches of the South of India in an Attempt to trace the History of Mysoor.’ The first volume was published in 1810 (London, 4to), and the second and third in 1814. A second edition in two volumes was published at Madras in 1867. For the early history of Mysore he had access to the state records, while he was himself a participator in the later events he describes, and from his official employments was possessed of an ample knowledge of state transactions. His history is written with rare impartiality, and in a style at once simple and interesting. It won him the praise of Sir James Mackintosh [q. v.], who spoke of the ‘Historical Sketches’ as ‘the first book on Indian history founded on a critical examination of testimony and probability.’

Wilks died at Kelloe House in Berwickshire, the residence of his son-in-law, on 19 Sept. 1831. He was twice married. His second wife, whom he married at Bath on 16 Feb. 1813, was youngest daughter of J. Taubman of Bath. By his first wife he had an only daughter, Laura, married at Bath on 22 July 1817 to Major-general Sir John Buchan (d. 1850) of Kelloe. She was famous for her beauty, on which she was complimented by Napoleon.

Besides the works mentioned, Wilks was the author of ‘A Report on the Interior Administration, Resources, and Expenditure of the Government of Mysoor,’ Fort William, 1805, fol.; new edit., Bangalore, 1861, 8vo. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and was for some years a vice-president of the Asiatic Society, in whose ‘Transactions’ he published an analysis of the philosophical work of Nasír ud dín of Tús entitled ‘Aklak i Naseri.’

[Gent. Mag. 1813 i. 282, 1817 ii. 178, 1831 ii. 469, 1833 ii. 94; Philippart's East India Military Calendar, 1823, i. 140; Dodwell and Miles's Indian Army List, 1838; Memoirs of the Life of Sir James Mackintosh, 1835, ii. 69; Blackwood's Mag. 1834, xxxv. 53; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Asiatic Journal, 1832, new ser. vol. viii.; Brooke's Hist. of St. Helena, 1824, pp. 376–89.] 

WILKS, ROBERT (1665?–1732), actor, a descendant of a Worcester family, the fortunes of which were seriously impaired by the civil war, was the second son of Edward Wilks, who took refuge in Dublin, and became a pursuivant of the lord lieutenant. The actor's grandfather, Judge Wilks, is said to have raised a troop of horse for the king, which his grand-uncle, Colonel Wilks, who is mentioned by Clarendon, commanded. Born at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, in 1665 or, according to another account, 1670, Robert Wilks received a good education, and was appointed, on the strength of his caligraphy, to a clerkship in the office of secretary Sir Robert Southwell [q. v.] On the outbreak of the war in Ireland Wilks was compelled to join the army of King William, but, being appointed clerk to the camp, took no part in active conflict. Rejoining his office, he contracted an intimacy with Richards, a comedian, and after playing privately the Colonel [Pedro] in Dryden's ‘Spanish Friar,’ made his first appearance on the stage under Joseph Ashbury [q. v.] at the Smock Alley Theatre in December 1691 as Othello. There being no regular company, the performance (which was to commemorate the defeat of the Stuart cause in Ireland, and to which the public were admitted gratis) was conducted by amateurs, principally officers. Wilks's success in this was such as to induce him to adopt the stage, and to lead to the establishment of the Smock Alley Theatre. A life by Daniel O'Bryan, which has been discredited, assigns this performance to January 1689, and says that Wilks had two, if not more, children by a wife he had privately married, and that both he and his wife, expelled from their respective homes, were sheltered by a Mr. Cope, a goldsmith.

Somewhere before 1695 Wilks visited London, and was engaged by John Rich [q. v.] at 15s. a week, out of which he had to pay 2s. 6d. to be taught dancing. The only part traced to him at the Theatre Royal is Lysippus in the ‘Maid's Tragedy.’ While in London he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Ferdinando Knapton, town clerk of Southampton and steward of the New Forest. By her he had a son Robert—who was left in the care of an actor named Bowen when Wilks, with his wife, returned to Ireland—and some other children, all but one of whom died in infancy. In 1698 Wilks played in Dublin Sir Frederick Frolic in Etherege's ‘Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub,’ Courtall in ‘She would if she could,’ and Dorimant in the ‘Man of the Mode.’ So popular did he become in Dublin that on returning to London in the autumn of 1698 in company with George Farquhar [q. v.], to whom he showed himself a constant and loyal friend, he had to make an escape, the Duke of Ormonde having, it is said, issued a warrant to prevent him leaving the kingdom.

Wilks reappeared at Drury Lane at a salary of 4l. as Palamede in ‘Marriage à la Mode.’ In 1699 he was the original Sir Harry Wildair