Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/103

 ii s. i. JAN. 29, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Road, of which he was the founder, and in the grounds of which he and his wife now lie buried, their remains having been removed from the church of St. Dionis Backchurch, in Lime Street, when the latter was demolished in July, 1878. ALAN STEWART.

Evans's ' Catalogue of Portraits ' registers under 4253 a portrait of this worthy, in his robes, chain, &c., as engraved by Trotter.

W. ROBERTS.

MEDMENHAM ABBEY : HELL-FIRE CLUB (10 S. xii. 467 ; 11 S. i. 31). MR. CLEMENT SHORTER'S doubts as to John Wilkes's con- nexion with the "Franciscans' 1 of Med- menham Abbey rest on no solid foundation. In his letter written to Lord Temple in 1762 Wilkes says :

" I added that I was come from Medmenham Abbey, where the jovial moifks of St. Francis had kept me up till four in the morning ; that the world would therefore conclude I was drunk, and form no favourable opinion of his lordship from a duel at such a time." Quoted in ' The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill,' London, 1804, vol. ii. p. 40.

The writer does not say he had been a " guest/' as MR. SHORTER states ; his words imply, on the contrary, that he was well acquainted with " the brethren,"- and furthermore demonstrate the people's opinion of them and their doings. In the same document Wilkes calls himself " an idle man of pleasure." Six years later, duct, November, 1768, expresses a hope that his political virtue may atone ' for the dissipa- tion of too gay a youth.' I am afraid that this dissipation scarcely can claim, with fairness, the indulgence given to youth. His period of riot was certainly not closed (if then) before the year 1764 a time when, as he was thirty-six years of age, one should have thought a man of reflection would luive made up his opinions, and a man of resolu- tion would at least be beginning to act in con- formity to them." 'Memoir of the Life of J. Wilkes, Esq.,' which occupies the first volume of his 'Letters from the Year 1774 to the Year 1796, addressed to his Daughter, the late Miss Wilkes,' 4 vols. (London, 1804), pp. 128-9.
 * ' he himself, in his letter on his own public con-

The anonymous writer of this ' Memoir/ who tries to deal fairly with his subject, after condemning Wilkes's joining the society of titled libertines, adds :

" This censure on the conduct of Mr. Wilkes, of profligacy and Medmenham Abbey, will not, I think, be found too severe, when it is remembered that he himself used to speak in terms of utter contempt for their capacities and to own that no tiling but their condition in. life would have induced him to notice them." Ibid., p. 15. He is said in a foot-note to have excepted Lord Le Despenser, whom he credited with
 * .s far as it relates to his intimacy with the heroes

" some imagination.'* This nobleman, when Sir Francis Dashwood, had much to do with the establishment of " the jovial monks."- If the Club were really started in 1742, it only gained notoriety when " Sir Francis Dashwood, Sir Thomas Stapleton, Paul Whitehead, Mr. Wilkes, and other gentlemen, to the number of twelve, rented the abbey, and often retired there in the summer.' 1 For a description of their doings see Charles Churchill's ' Poetical Works/ edited by W. Tooke, vol. ii. pp. 262-3.

MR. J. CARTON (ante, p. 32) is certainly wrong in attributing Tooke' s quotation to the pen of Wilkes. It is probably taken from one of the books mentioned by MR. BLEACKLEY. This edition of the works of the Rev. Charles Churchill, whose con- nexion with Wilkes did him infinite harm, is the best of all, and is enriched with a ' Memoir ' and many valuable notes on men and things. At Medmenham, says the author of the ' Life * prefixed to his letters to his daughter, " it was acknowledged without reserve that he [Wilkes] was the master-soul of the party, the life of the revel '-' (p. 17). It was there, says the same writer, that he composed his * Essay on Woman,' " the produce of the hours wasted in the society of Medmenham Abbey '* (p. 48).

This collection of letters, addressed to his " dearest Polly,"' shows Wilkes's character better than all else I have read about him, and convinces me of the truth of what Macaulay has so admirably said in his essay on ' The Earl of Chatham ' :

" John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Ayles- bury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and agreeable rakes about town. He was a man of taste, reading, and engaging manners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of green-rooms and taverns, and pleased even grave hearers when he was sufficiently under restraint to abstain from detailing the particulars of his amours and from breaking jokes on the New Testament."

From his letters to his daughter examples might be given of his disregard of morality. As to his jests on the New Testament, Letter LXXV (vol. ii. pp. 180-81) is a sample. When this epistle was composed Wilkes was fifty-two years of age, while his daughter was only twenty-three. JOHN T. CURRY.

No investigator of the subject should fail to consult C. W. Dilke's ' Papers of a Critic, 1 especially the references to Wilkes. Unfortunately, the index to the work is far from complete. NEL MEZZO.