Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/409

 lli S. 111. AUG., 1917.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

403

on

The Life of John Wilkes. By Horace Bleackley (John Lane,'16s. net.)

f and scholar, John Wilkes is as picturesque anc ! effective a figure as any of his time. Most of the politicians whom he fought or befriended are I forgotten ; his na J\e and fame have survived, anc deserve the excellent chronicler they have at lasl secured. Mr. Bleackley's ' Life ' has been eagerly i expected for some time, and should be a delighl to all competent students and lovers of the !. eighteenth century. The pages of ' N. & Q." f. have shown his untiring research in the period i and now he gives us in apt and easy prose the 1 results of his long and careful inquiries. He has
 * BAKE, agitator, saver of good things, liberator
 * ransacked that large and important body oi

I information in the British Museum known briefly as " Add. MSS." ; he has examined a large dossier of records in the Guildhall Library which had ! previously not been used ; and he has had the I patience to go through the annual file of a journal t from 1760 to the death of Wilkes, as well as all the I principal magazines of the day. Wilkes provided I excellent " copy " for the press, and to this I that Mr. Bleackley knows more about Wilkes than t many a man knows of admired contemporaries f of to-day.
 * source we doubtless owe many of the little touches
 * which brighten the biography, and make us think

He who abuses Wilkes for being a rake can I less conscience. ' The Papers of a Critic,' by the I Dilke who made The Athenceum, remarks that " the character of Wilkes which passes current in our literature is the mere daubing of faction on an I outline sketch by hireling pens." Mr. Bleackley [knows this well, and shows that his hero's claims for historical remembrance are authentic, and not [to be lightly put aside. Wilkes did away with ! tight of the people to select their own Parliamen- tary representatives, and he was a protagonist in the cause of the freedom of the press. No other I agitator that we remember has done so much (for the English people in the way of practical I reform, and these merits certainly outweigh his [political sins. He encouraged the Americans to ! revolt, and it is possible that, much as he loathed Marat in the years of the French Revolution, he i may have implanted in that rascal, when he was .mysteriously resident in England, the seeds of .murder and rapine. " The last mob that he ever [saw, though composed entirely of his fellow- i imperialists, was the first to do him an injury." His beautiful windows were broken, but he refused to prosecute the rioters. " They are only," he said with a smile, "some of my old pupils, now set up for themselves." It was this easy and admirable humour, perhaps, which partly spoiled his career, though it made him a aelightful companion whose ugly face was soon talked down by his wit. There were in the eighteenth century wits who were that and ' nothing else, aristocratic amateurs of thebonmot. On the whole, they are disappointing, though they might cut a good figure to-day. Wilkes, being much else, let off his good things with the naturalness of Sir Andrew Aguecheek. As a
 * accuse many higher-placed contemporaries of
 * imprisonment without trial, he vindicated the

controversialist he was always formidable and generally effective. He was outshone by Junius, but he had much more solid matter behind him than that shadowy ironist. The correspondence between the two is creditable to both. They understood each other's merits pretty clearly ; they were both singularly adroit ; but to take Wilkes for Junius, as the public did with some persistence, is to ignore differences in style and character, as Mr. Bleackley points out. Wilkes was capable of moral turpitude, of belonging to the Medmenham Monks, and of the ' Essay on Woman.' Mr. Bleackley's remarks on that outrageous performance are an instance of his careful judgment. We think his conclusion that Wilkes and Potter collaborated quite the most reasonable, and he adds .to his foot-notes references to the information supplied in our columns from the days of Dilke to Mr. Eric Watson's admirable work in the Eleventh Series. The way in which statesmen who had a sneaking enjoyment of such literature turned against Wilkes when he was attacked in Parliament about it is not creditable to them. Moreover, he was encouraged by such treatment to exaggerate his attitude of insensi- bility. Against much that is degrading, if amusing, we can at least balance his sincere affection for his daughter, of which Mr. Bleackley gives us a very pleasing picture. It is remarkable that, coming of a tempestuous family, Wilkes kept his temper so well. He had, however, good health, and he loved in his cool way to be mis- chievous. Mr. Bleackley should satisfy at once the general reader and the expert, for he has found room in his text for a capital selection of Wilkes's good things, without interfering with the claims of history. The illustrations are a real addition to the book, and do not make Wilkes so ugly as might have been expected. Or shall we say that to-day distinguished ugliness is almost a kind of beauty, though there is no Hogarth to immortalize it ? The book-plate with the motto " Arcui meo non confido " is not the least of Wilkes's humorous achievements, for he certainly believed in his own long bow, and could draw it. His religion seems as indifferent as his verse, and equally occasional. But at least in the conduct of political life he was superior to many of the idmired and over-pensioned creatures of his day. The worst has been so frequently said of him that it was time for Mr. Bleackley to establish a fairer estimate. Apart from his achievements, we like \ye see no reason to apologize for it. In political ife men of his stamp are decidedly useful, but low few of them have been favoured by Providence with a strong sense of humour ! That faculty was often in Wilkes's way, and the real paradox of his ife is his distinction both as wit and reformer. We can think of no person of the present day sufficiently distinguished in both ways to earn a chronicler like Mr. Bleackley.
 * he rogue, and, since Dr. Johnson did the same,

'alend-ar of the Liberate Rolls preserved in the Public. Record Office. Henry III.: Vol. I. A.D. 1226-1240. (Stationery Office, 15s.) THE series of Liberate Bolls of the Chancery, we are told in the Preface, extends from the second ear of John to the fourteenth of Henry VI. The irst four Bolls, however, belong rightly to the se' Bolls ; and that under the title ' Liberate ' vhich belongs to the eleventh year of Henry III. s properly the first of the series.