favour, he having no less than 1247 votes. Nothing daunted by this repulse, he next became a candidate for the county of Middlesex, and on March 28th was elected one of the knights of the shire.

He was thus far triumphant; but the terrors of the law still hung suspended over his head, and he was now anxious either to dissipate or encounter their fury. He accordingly surrendered himself to the court of king's bench; but as the chief-justice and the other judges declared that they bad no power to commit him, in consequence of his voluntary appearance, he was discharged. A capias ultegatum, however, brought him in due technical form within their jurisdiction, and he was committed to prison. The subject of the outlawry was argued, May 7th, by Mr Sergeant Glynn, as leading counsel in behalf of the defendant, and Mr, afterwards Lord Thurlow, for the crown. In the course of next term this was at length declared illegal; but the two verdicts obtained against him for publishing the North Briton,' and printing and publishing the Essay on Woman,' were unanimously confirmed. For the first offence he was sentenced to pay a fine of £500, and to a further imprisonment of ten months, making twelve in all; and for the second, he was subjected to a like fine, to suffer twelve months' additional imprisonment, and to find two securities for his good behaviour for seven years, of £500 each, while he himself was to be bound in £1000. These sentences were deemed severe even by moderate men.'

On the meeting of parliament, he applied to the house of commons for relief, and was brought twice to the bar; but his petition was declared frivolous. Soon after this, in consequence of a riot in St George's fields, the military were called out. An imprudent letter from Lord Weymouth, then secretary of state, addressed to the chairman of the bench of justices, expressive of the highest approbation of the late proceedings on the part of the magistrates, who had invoked the assistance of the soldiery, having been seen by Wilkes, he immediately published it, with some introductory remarks. Lord Weymouth on this complained of a breach of privilege, and the house of commons, after voting it to be "an insolent, scandalous, and seditious libel," on the motion of Lord Barrington, the secretary at war, and Rigby, the paymaster of the forces, again expelled Mr Wilkes.

The freeholders of Middlesex having met to put a candidate in nomination, the aldermen Sawbridge and Townshend, both of them members of parliament, and at that time strangers to Mr Wilkes, recommended the re-election of their former representative, which accordingly took place. On this, the house of commons declared the election void, and voted Mr Wilkes incapable of sitting in that parliament. The sheriffs immediately proceeded to a new choice, on which he was once more returned; but on the fourth election, Colonel Luttrell, afterwards

While a prisoner, Wilkes was at the zenith of his fame. Subscriptions were opened for payment of his debts; valuable presents were conferred on him; and his likenesses were multiplied to such an extent, that his portrait squinted at the traveller from the sign-boards of half the inns in the kingdom. He used to relate that, one day, an old lady, behind whom he happened to be walking, exclaimed, with much spleen, as she looked up to one of his public-house profiles, "Ah! he swings everywhere but where he ought!" The populace were so incensed, that by way of showing their respect for a man whom they deemed persecuted on account of his attachment to the liberties of their country, they attempted, a short time afterwards, to procure a general illumination on the evening of his birth-day.

Lord Carhampton, who had vacated his seat in parliament expressly for this purpose, and obtained 296 votes, was declared duly elected, although Mr Wilkes had polled 1243. The whole of these proceedings were so scandalous in themselves, and so little consonant to the principles of justice, that the nation became incensed against their representatives; and their successors, as if afraid of sharing their disgrace, would not permit the minutes to remain on the face of their records. Mr Wilkes being no longer incapacitated from obtaining a legal remedy against the secretary of state who had granted the general warrant for his apprehension, now brought an action against Lord Halifax, and recovered a verdict for £4000. This, together with £1000 from Mr Wood, was paid out of the civil list. On the expiration of his imprisonment he was sworn in alderman in opposition to the opinion of the crown-lawyers, who attempted to prove him incapacitated from discharging that office. On July 3d, 1771, he filled the office of sheriff; on October 5th, 1774, was elected lord-mayor; and a few days afterwards returned a fifth time for the county of Middlesex.

During the whole of the memorable and unfortunate contest with America, Wilkes exhibited himself a steadfast enemy to the measures of taxation and subjugation. On February 6th, 1775, when the house of commons passed a vote declaring that a rebellion' existed within the province of Massachusetts bay, he opposed the address on the grounds of its being unfounded, rash, and sanguinary :-" It draws the sword unjustly against America," he said. "But before administration are suffered to plunge the nation into the horrors of a civil war,-before they are permitted to force Englishmen to sheathe their swords in the bowels of their fellow-subjects,-I hope this house will seriously weigh the original ground and cause of this unhappy dispute, and, in time, reflect whether justice is on our side, and gives a sanction to the intended hostile proceedings. The assumed right of taxation, without the consent of the subject, is plainly the primary cause of the present quarrel. Have we then, Sir, any right to tax the Americans? That is the great important question! The fundamental laws of human nature and the principles of the English constitution are equally repugnant to the claim. The very idea of property excludes the right of another's taking any thing from me without my consent, otherwise I cannot call it my own. No tenure can be so precarious as the will of another. What property have I in what another person can seize at his pleasure? If any part of my property is subject to the discretionary power of others, the whole may be so likewise. If we can tax the Americans without their consent, they have no property,-nothing they can call their own with certainty, -for we might by violence take the whole as well as the part. The words liberty and property, so dear to an Englishman, so pleasing in our ears, would become a cruel mockery, an insult to an American. The laws of society are professedly calculated to secure the property of each individual,—of every subject of the state. This point is no less clearly determined by the great principles of that happy constitution under which we live. All subsidies to the crown have always been considered, and expressly declared to be grants from the commons of the realm,-free gifts from the people. Their full consent is stated in the grant. Much has been said of the palatinate of Chester and the principality of Wales, and the period of their taxation; but, Sir, there

is a more remarkable case in point, which alone would determine this question. If gentlemen will search the records in the Tower, and the chapel of the Rolls, they will find that the town of Calais, in France, when it belonged to the imperial crown of this realm, was not taxed till it sent a representative to parliament. A Thomas Fowler actually sat and voted in this house as a burgess of the town of Calais. From that period, and not till then, was Calais taxed. The writ out of chancery and the return in the reign of Edward VI. are still extant."

A few days after this, on a motion for rescinding the famous vote concerning his own expulsion, the member for Middlesex, in still stronger language, expressed his detestation of the contest with the Americans, which he termed "an unjust felonious war; because," added he, "the primary cause and confessed origin of it is, to attempt to take their money from them without their consent, contrary to the common rights of all mankind, and those great fundamental principles of the English constitution for which Hampden bled. I assert, Sir, that it is in consequence a murderous war; because it is an effort to deprive men of their lives for standing up in the just cause of the defence of their property, and their clear rights. It becomes no less a murderous war with respect to many of our fellow-subjects of this island; for every man, either of the navy or army, who has been sent to America, and fallen a victim to this unnatural and unjust contest, has, in my opinion, been murdered by the administration, and his blood lies at their door. Such war, I fear, Sir, will draw down the vengeance of heaven upon this devoted kingdom." "I speak, Sir," he continued, "as a firm friend to England and America, but still more to universal liberty and the righ's of mankind. I trust no part of the subjects of this vast empire will ever submit to be slaves. I am sure the Americans are too high-spirited to brook the idea. Your whole power, and that of your allies, if you had any, even of all the German troops, of all the ruffians from the North whom you can hire,-cannot effect so wicked a purpose. The conduct of the present administration has already wrested the sceptre of America out of the hands of our sovereign, and he has now scarcely even a postmaster left in the whole northern continent. More than half the empire is already lost, and almost all the rest is in confusion and anarchy. The ministry have brought our sovereign into a more disgraceful situation than any crowned head now living. He alone has already lost, by their fatal counsels, more territory than the three great united powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia have, by a wicked confederacy, robbed Poland of, and by equal acts of violence and injustice from administration."

During the whole of the American war Wilkes was the zealous opponent of Lord North and his measures. As lord-mayor of London, he presented petitions, addresses, and remonstrances against it; as a member of parliament, he voted and spoke in opposition to it; he even proposed an impeachment of the premier, and sat as the chairman of a respectable body of citizens who met to discuss the question. During the riots in 1780, he acted the part of an honest, able, and intrepid magistrate, having been eminently serviceable in preserving the bank from pillage; on this occasion he received the thanks of the privy council, and soon after repaired to court, where he was most graciously received.

On the accession of the Rockingham administration, towards the

close of the American war, he seized a critical moment for addressing the house on the subject of his wrongs, and on the 3d of May, 1782, it was at length resolved "that all the declarations, orders, and resolutions of that house, respecting the election of John Wilkes, Esq. be expunged from the journals of the house, as subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors in the kingdom." Considering this, with great propriety, rather as the triumph of his constituents than of the individual who represented them, he immediately addressed a letter to the electors of Middlesex, in which he congratulates them on the signal reparation they had now obtained for their "violated franchise, and the injuries they had sustained under the former flagitious administration."

When a schism had taken place among the whigs in consequence of the death of their leader, the earl of Shelburne attained the supreme power, and concluded a peace with America. This measure, then so much condemned, and now so much praised, received the approbation of Wilkes at a period when the clamour of party drowned the voice of reason; he accordingly defended it at a meeting of his constituents, but was opposed by his colleague, Mr Byng, and lost much of his influence with the freeholders on this occasion. His defence of Mr Hastings, also, tended not a little to alienate the affections of many of his friends. The success of the coalition, which appeared to him a criminal struggle for power, induced him soon after this to retire from parliament. From this period, he rarely meddled with political affairs, deeming himself an extinguished volcano; and occupied, or rather amused, his declining years, by fulfilling his duties as chamberlain of the city of London, which lucrative office he had fortunately obtained in 1779. During the greater part of the year he resided either in his daughter's house in Grosvenor Square, or at his own at Kensington Gore, whence he repaired daily to his office in Guildhall, dedicating the mornings to business, and the evenings to the pleasures of literature, and the society of a few chosen friends. Two or three months of the summer-season were spent at his villa—or villakin, as he was accustomed jocularly to term it-at Sandham in the isle of Wight. He died on the 26th of December, 1797.

In his person Wilkes was tall, and so very thin, that he appeared towards the latter part of his existence to be affected with a marasmus. His face was sallow. His eyes always possessed an unfortunate cast, which but too readily exposed him to the malignity of the artists hired to caricature him. He himself was sensible of this imperfection, and was indeed the first to laugh at it. During the hey-day of his popularity he was accustomed to dress with great elegance, and generally appeared in a sword and laced clothes; but toward the latter part of his life he wore the same suit, consisting of a scarlet coat, and buff waistcoat and breeches, for many years. To the very last he was fond of exercise, and it was usual with him to walk daily, in his cocked hat, rosette, military boots, &c., all the way from Kensington to the city, unmoved by the solicitations of hackney coachmen, who offered their services in vain. England," says a writer in the 'Monthly Review,' "must reckon Wilkes among her most able and successful demagogues. Between the rights of the people, the privileges of parliament, and the prerogatives of the crown, there has ever been a wide tract of debatable ground, of uninclosed property, of undefined boundary. Law is silent and pre

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scription faulters about these constitutional questions. It is therefore the policy of each party to take its claims at the highest, and to wrestle for them at convenient opportunities. Those demagogues who agitate such questions during war, when the influence and patronage of govern. ment are greatest, are commonly foiled; and thus they occasion a retrogression of liberty or of popular power. Those demagogues, on the contrary, who move such questions during peace, or under insipid administrations, when the people gape for the occupation of public and collective effort, have often succeeded. Wilkes was of this wiser class of agitators. The whole force of his talent, which was energetic, and of his industry, which was unrelenting, he heartily devoted to the cause which he undertook, and with a vehemence and perseverance that gave him the victory. He delivered public men from the fear of general warrants; and he obtained for voters the right of setting aside a parlia mentary disqualification. For a statesman, however, he indulged too much in personalities, and became more formidable as an enemy than efficacious as a friend. Great as a speaker, and greater as a writer, he carried perhaps the arts of style to the utmost limits of good and sound taste: but he is not reproached, like Johnson, Gibbon, and Burke, with the wanton and excessive use of ornament."

It was the misfortune of Mr Wilkes, on his first entrance into life, to become acquainted with a number of debauched young noblemen. With these he indulged in a gay but delusive round of dissipation, that ruined his fortune, and added but little to his reputation. A few years after his marriage he separated from his wife, whom he had treated with great injustice and cruelty; but to the last hour of his existence he was fondly attached to his daughter. As a writer he distinguished himself by a variety of publications, all of which discover an easy style, a ready flow of wit, a keen and piercing satire, and a rich variety of classical allusions. He lived for many years in great intimacy with the most eminent literary characters of the day,-such as Lloyd, Churchill, Thornton, Sterne, the bishop of Salisbury, Horne Tooke, &c. As an orator he was deficient in two of the qualifications considered eminently necessary by Cicero, for his person and his voice were but ill-qualified for public exhibition; yet his speeches display much research and information, and were accompanied by a boldness of assertion, and bitterness of invective, that rendered them poignant and delectable to all but the objects of his attack. Throughout life he abused the Scotch with extraordinary bitterness; and never lost an opportunity of expressing his contempt for the land o' cakes.' "Among all the flights"-said he, during a discussion with Johnson on the genius of Shakspeare-"among all the vagaries of that author's imagination, the boldest certainly is that of Birnam wood being brought to Dunsinane; making a wood where there never was a shrub! A wood in Scotland! Ha! ha! ha!"

Lord-Chief-Justice Eyre.

BORN A. D. 1724.-died a. d. 1799.

LORD-CHIEF-JUSTICE EYRE was a native of Wiltshire. His family was connected with that of Lord Pembroke. He received his educa