Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/169

 ii s. ix. FEB. 28, i9u.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

163

" Of this parody, which not five but fifty times we have seen outrageously condemned, let us say that it was never our fortune to meet with a single man who had read it. We are not satisfied, indeed, that copies are now in existence. Wilkes asserted at the time that 'the most vile blasphe- mies were forged and published ' as extracts from the work ; and we suspect that the copies which are mysteriously sold at high prices have been manufactured and the 'vile blasphemies' inserted therein." 'Papers of a Critic,' ii. 229.

Dilke's reference is to Wilkes's Letter to the Aylesbury Electors (22 Oct., 1764), where the patriot thus delivers himself :

"The most vile blasphemies were forged and published as part of a work which in reality con- tained nothing but fair ridicule of some doctrines I could not believe, mock panegyric, flowing from mere envy, which sickened at the superior parts and abilities as well as wondrous deeds of a man 1 could not love, a few portraits drawn from warm life with the too high colouring of a youthful fancy."

It is difficult to know what weight to assign to this charge of forgery. A strict regard for the truth was not a virtue of the patriot ; thus we find him writing to Cotes (who was financing him during this time) in March, 1764, that he is being very " oeco- nomical " in Paris ; and again to Cotes, on 20 Aug. of that year, that " I will act a fair and honest part in private life as I have a great and noble one for the public ' ' at the very time when we know from his MS.' autobiography he had installed La Corradini in a suite of expensive rooms, and " had furnished them in the gayest taste of the Parisians," in a street named, with curious infelicity, " La Rue Neuve des Bons Enfans " (Add. MS. 30,865 B, p. 16).

Yet in a measure we find him borne out in this allegation by letters written in after years by the ruined Kidgell to the Earl of March, from two of which (only copies, as appears from a comparison of writing, in Guild. MSS. 214/3) I will quote :

"Utrecht, 6 Oct., 1767.

"My LORD, Be the consequence what it

will, I am determined to lay the whole Affair before my Lord Chief Justice, who, I take it for granted, will either rehear the Cause or take such Methods to satisfie the injured Party as shall be consistent w r ith strict Justice and the publick Tranquillity Permit me to reassure your Lord- ship that I have never had any Correspondence with Mr. Wilkes or any of his Friends. 80 far you will allow me not to have been influenced by mer- cenary Considerations, since the Intelligence I could have given him was above all Price. But as from the beginning of that Process I never had any per- sistent Interest in the Disgrace of Mr. Wilkes, t)ut of that licentious and profane Publication of which

the Author was unknown so by my present

Determination I neither sollicithis Favour nor hope for his Protection. I have nothing to ask of Mr. Wilkes but his Forgiveness."

On 18 Sept. of the same year he had written from Utrecht as follows :

' MY LOKD, I therefore made no Hesitation

to inform you that I had seen a Forgery inserted in-

Wilkes's Papers If after haying seen that same

Forgery (two Months after this Discovery) made instrumental to Mr. Wilkes's Condemnation, as I did, I should presume your Lordship was the Victim of those unjustifiable Politicks, you will the more

easily forgive me Had I been disposed to sell

my Intelligence (at a Time in which publick and private Credit was at an end with me) could not I have had my Price for it ? "

A cringing letter of apology followed, after an interval of some months, on 6 May,. 1768, but no light was ever thrown on what this alleged forgery was.

During May, 1768, the " King's friends " were anxiously awaiting the Court's decision on the outlawry of Wilkes. If, as the event proved, he was liberated from this, then the only remaining weapons of his enemies were these two convictions for libel. Kid- gell's last letter does not give us any definite clue that he had received money from March to hold his tongue he merely craves forgiveness without renewing threats ; but if he were not paid, or otherwise induced by the Ministry to keep silent, why did he not approach Wilkes then before he was sen- tenced by Mansfield on 18 June ?

Had Kidgell any secret the disclosure of which would have compelled the Chief Justice, on motion in arrest, or other process, to quash the conviction ? If he had, we may feel sure that any letter from him to- any " Wilkite " would have been inter- cepted, for all Wilkes's correspondence was opened, and when in France he had letters directed to a Mile. Prochasson, who seems, from a pathetic little note of congratulation on his election in after-life to the office of City Chamberlain, to have had tender relations with him.

Wilkes was not present at his trial in 1764, no notes were allowed by Mansfield to be taken, and, according to Halifax, Wilkes had a faithless attorney. See his letter infra.

Subject to its possibly including a forged passage, the Information exhibited by Fletcher Norton in Michaelmas Term, 1763, unquestionably sets out the libel correctly. This document (Rec. Off. Indictments K.B. 10/34), misdescribed by Dilke, Ashbee, and the ' Report of the Hist. MSS. Com- mission.' iv. Appx. 398, as an " indictment," sets out a great many " obscene and im- pious " passages from the ' Essay ' (of which, closely following Pope line by line, there are ninety-four verses), from the notes