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WHE Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Ill luck, however, still pursued him, the expedition being frustrated by the intervention of a Spanish fleet. He describes himself in one of his tracts as a faithful servant of Francis, earl of Bedford. His writings were published at various times from 1576 to 1586, the play above mentioned bearing date 1578. The plot is taken from one of Giraldi Cinthia's novels; and Farmer conjectures that from it Shakspeare derived hints for his Measure for Measure. His acquaintance with Italian is further manifested in a collection of stories, entitled "An Heptameron of Civil Discourses," &c., which is mainly a translation from a work in that language. On the back of the title to his "Enemie to Unthryftinesse," published in 1586, is a contemporary list of his works. It is reprinted in Brydges' Censura Literaria, iv., 273.—R. H.  WHEWELL,, D.D., an eminent man of science, scholar, and philosopher, was born at Lancaster in 1795. He studied with high distinction at the university of Cambridge, where he became a fellow of Trinity college. In 1828 he was appointed professor of mineralogy; in 1838, professor of moral philosophy; and in 1855, he held the office of vice-chancellor of the university. In 1841 he became master of Trinity college. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and of many other learned bodies. His writings are very numerous and various. Amongst them are comprised elementary treatises on mechanics, for the use of students, specially remarkable for the clear, precise, and philosophical manner in which the first principles of mechanics are explained. These were followed by a treatise on the "Mechanics of Engineering," published in 1841—a work of small bulk but of great importance, as having originated much of what has been since done in the way of applying mechanical science to practical purposes. In 1833 his "Astronomy and Physics, considered with reference to Natural Theology," was published as one of the Bridgewater Treatises. Between 1837 and 1861 appeared what is perhaps Dr. Whewell's greatest work—a series of treatises embracing a most comprehensive and clearly-arranged narrative of the progress of those branches of knowledge which are arrived at by induction. The first of those treatises was entitled "The History of the Inductive Sciences," and was followed by "The History of Scientific Ideas," "The Philosophy of Discovery," and "The Novum Organon Renovatum." The "Elements of Morality," and other treatises, contain the doctrines taught by the author as professor of moral philosophy. His long and elaborate series of researches on the tides have appeared in the Philosophical Transactions. His death, the result of a fall from his horse, occurred on the 6th of March, 1866.—R.  WHICHCOTE,, an eminent divine, was born at Whichcote hall, Shropshire, in 1610. He studied at Emanuel college, Cambridge, and in 1633 became a fellow. He acquired great reputation as a tutor, men like Wallis, Smith, and Worthington being among his pupils. In 1636 he was admitted on the same day to deacon's and priest's orders, and became one of the university preachers. His college presented him to the living of Cadbury in Somersetshire, where he settled for a period; but in 1644 he returned to Cambridge as successor to Collins, provost of King's college and professor of divinity, who had been ejected. Whichcote, however, divided the salary with him. He was created D.D. in 1649, and the next year he resigned to Dr. Cudworth his living in Somersetshire, and took that of Milton near the university. At the Restoration he lost his college pref rments, but two years afterwards became minister of St. Ann's, Blackfriars, and then vicar of St. Lawrence, Jewry. He died in 1684. His sermons were published after his death at various times; the earl of Shaftesbury, author of the Characteristics, writing a preface to one of the volumes, which were republished at Edinburgh under the care of Principal Wishart. A good edition was published in 1701-1703 by Dr. Jeffery, archdeacon of Norwich, reprinted at Aberdeen in 4 vols. 12mo, in 1751. Aphorisms selected from his writings were also published in 1703, reprinted with many additions in 1753. Whichcote was a man of great originality, learning, and piety. "He was much," as Burnet says, "for liberty of conscience, and he set young students on reading Plato, Tully, and Plotin." Baxter numbered him with "the best and ablest of the nonconformists."—J. E.  WHISTON,, was born on 9th December, 1667, at Norton in Leicestershire, where his father was rector. He was educated by his father till his seventeenth year, when he was sent as a pupil to Mr. Antrobus of Tamworth, whose daughter he afterwards married. He entered Clare hall, Cambridge, at nineteen, and took his degree in 1690, in which year he was elected a fellow of his college, and began to take pupils. In 1693 he took orders, and in the following year was made chaplain to Dr. More, bishop of Norwich. He had devoted himself chiefly to the study of mathematics and natural philosophy, and his first work, published in 1696, was entitled "A New Theory of the Earth, from its original to the consummation of all things." In this work he undertook to show that the scriptural accounts of the creation, the deluge, and the final general conflagration are perfectly agreeable to reason and philosophy. In 1696 he was made rector of Lowestoft in Suffolk; and in 1701 Sir Isaac Newton appointed him his deputy in the Lucasian chair of mathematics, to which he succeeded by Newton's recommendation in 1703, whereupon he resigned his living at Lowestoft and removed his residence to the university. In 1707, being still of unsuspected orthodoxy, he was appointed to deliver the Boyle lecture; but soon afterwards his theological opinions began to undergo a gradual but rapid change, which ended in his becoming an Arian. It was an age of theological declension and decaying faith, and he yielded to the rapid current of the time. In 1708 he wrote an essay on the Apostolical Constitutions, in which he maintained the paradoxical opinion that "they were the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testament." This conviction had an important influence upon his opinions on doctrinal points. He offered the essay to the vice-chancellor, to be printed at the university press, but it was declined. In 1709 he published a volume of sermons and essays in support of his new views; and in reading the liturgy he began to omit such parts of it as he could no longer approve of. Inevitable troubles followed, and on the 30th of October, 1710, he was deprived of his professorship, and expelled from the university. Nothing daunted, he came out in the same year with the most famous of his writings, "An Historical Preface to Primitive Christianity Revived," which was soon after made the ground of proceedings against him in convocation. The clergy of both houses pronounced a strong condemnation of the book, but the government disliked the transaction, contrived to interpose evasions and delays, and at length all proceedings against him, both in convocation and the spiritual courts, were quashed by an act of grace, published in 1715, by which all accused of heresy were pardoned and protected. In the same year, being refused the eucharist in his parish church, he opened his own house for public worship, and made use of a liturgy of his own composition. During the latter half of his life he was not molested for his opinions. In 1720 his name was proposed as a member of the Royal Society, but Newton, who was president, opposed his election, declaring that if Whiston was chosen a member, he would resign the presidency. His opposition was supposed at the time to be owing to Whiston's Arianism; but Newton's own theological opinions would seem to have been very like Whiston's, though he was more prudent in expressing them, and Whiston alleges a very different motive for Sir Isaac's hostility to his election. "He perceived," says he, "that I could not do as his other darling friends did, that is, learn of him without contradicting him when I differed in opinion from him; he could not in his old age bear such contradiction, and so he was afraid of me the last thirteen years of his life." The egregious vanity of such an explanation is amusing; but, as has been remarked of him as an autobiographer who filled three volumes about himself, and published them too in his own lifetime (1749-50), "there never was a writer of his own life who laid his weaknesses more plainly before the reader, unless it were Boswell." He survived till 22nd August, 1752, dividing his time and attention between theological and scientific pursuits—sometimes delivering philosophical lectures, sometimes speculating on unfulfilled prophecy; finding the longitude, and fixing the date of the millennium; surveying the coasts of England, and writing against pædobaptism, &c. His publications, first and last, were extremely numerous—up to 1737 only, their number amounted to fifty-nine. With the exception of his edition and translation of Josephus, they have all long ago fallen out of sight, and are now only useful as landmarks in the history of opinions.—P. L.  WHITAKER,, an English divine and antiquary, was born at Manchester about 1735. He was educated at Oxford university, and became a fellow of Corpus Christi college. In 1771 he published in quarto the first volume of his "History of Manchester," which he completed in 1774—a work that contains much original information concerning the condition of 