USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I > Part 95
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Many years before Wilkes' election as Chamberlain, when he was stationed with his regiment at Winchester, he was fond of visiting the
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Isle of Wight. There he became acquainted with a very beautiful young woman of obscure position (perhaps the "favorite object" alluded to in his letter to Earl Temple, on page 531, ante). 'The offspring of this acquaintance was a boy whom Wilkes inade great efforts to have turn out a celebrity. He placed him in the finest school in Paris, and afterwards sent him to be taught at Hamburg ; but finally the boy- whose name was William Smith, and who was brought up under the belief that lie was Colonel Wilkes' nephew-persisting in being stupid, was sent to serve the East India Company. The mother had long be- fore died.
Wilkes had, for years, a sneaking fondness for the Isle of Wight, and acquired a peculiar reputation there. Female servants in the inns where he lodged timidly refused to attend him. Old conservative inn- keepers were known to have turned him out of their houses, after he had registered his name; on which occasions, however, he was sure to be called in and lodged like a prince by some partizan hater of the King and Lord Bute. He was known as the "Liberty Boy," and he certainly seems to have understood how to take liberties. He did not hesitate to call his London residence his "Seraglio," and his significant name for the Isle of Wight was "Cypria."
From 1775 till 1786 Wilkes was a frequent visitor, for health and pleasure, at Brighton, then known as Brighthelmstone; but in 1788 he took on lease for fourteen years "Sandown Cottage," on Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight, and retired there amumnally during the Summer months, "perfectly happy," as he said, "with a few intelligent friends and a well- chosen library." His library was, indeed, an excellent one, and he had also in his cottage large collections of fine china and rare prints. In his grounds he maintained a well-stocked fish-pond, because, as he said, everything was to be had at the sea-side but fish. He raised classic tombs and columns in his garden, and inscribed them to the objects of his admiration, including himself. One built after the model of Virgil's tomb at Naples he used as a wine-bin.
Now an elderly man, with powdered queue (he was credited with the introduction into England of blue hair-powder), clothes of scarlet and gold-lace, ruffles and laces, and boots reaching above his knees, he employed his time in writing clever literary essays and his memoirs, and in startling the boys and girls as often as he walked about Sandownl. He was very affable, however, opening his queer premises to all visitors, and doing the honors of the place himself to all comers. Under all his scarlet and gold he showed himself the most genuine revolutionist of the French school that England ever produced, by inviting the tradesmen of Sandown with whom he dealt to dine with him at his "villakin" (as he called it), giving them the most expensive wines, and enjoying hugely their queer remarks and behavior under such novel circumstances. He still indulged in the luxury of a private printing-press-though with more decorons results than of old, for he published translations or editions of such congenial classics as "Catullus," "Tiberius," and "Propertius," quaintly ending up with the severe moralist Theophrastus. He sent Lord Mansfield a copy of "Theophrastus," thus issued, and received the following reply-the delightful irony of which he no doubt fully ap- preciated : "Lord Mansfield returns many thanks to Mr. Wilkes for his "Theophrastus,' and congratulates him upon his elegant amusement.
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Theophrastus drew so admirably from nature that his characters live through all times and in every country." Wilkes had, before this, won the friendship of Lord Mansfield, who declared that Colonel Wilkes was "the pleasantest companion, the politest gentleman and the best scholar" he ever knew.
Colonel Wilkes died at his residence, 30 Grosvenor Square, London, December 26, 1797, and was interred in the vaults of Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street, without other memorial than a mural tablet bear- ing this inscription : "The remains of JOHN WILKES, a Friend to Liberty, born at London 17 October, 1727, O. S .; died in this Parish." The following announcement of his death was printed in The Wilkes- barre Gazette of March 13, 1798: "Died, at London, the celebrated JOHN WILKES, aged 71. The person from whom Wilkesbarre derived a part of its name." No further mention of Wilkes was made in that or any later issue of the Gazette.
Wilkes was survived by his daughter Mary-a very estimable woman, to whom he was greatly attached-and by two natural children (William Smith, previously mentioned, and a daughter bearing the name of Harriet Wilkes, a woman of character and culture, who was treated with much consideration by Colonel Wilkes in his lifetime and by his daughter Mary after his death.) Miss Mary Wilkes died, unmarried, March 12, 1802, at the house in Grosvenor Square which she had occu- pied with her father, as well as after his death. She was possessed of a considerable estate, portions of which she devised to Harriet Wilkes, mentioned above, and to her cousin Charles Wilkes (see page 526), re- siding in the United States.
John Wilkes was somewhat above the middle height, and very spare. His complexion was sallow, and his features were irregular to the point of ugliness-his squint-eye and a curious leer lending them a sinister expression. His personal appearance certainly was not prepossess- ing, but he had fine manners and an inexhaustible fund of wit and humor which made his society acceptable even to those who distrusted him. John Almon,* who knew him intimately, and who showed no un- due desire to extenuate his faults, summed up his character in these words : "His social qualities will live in the esteem of every one who knew him. An uncommon share of wit, an easy and happy flow of language, and a strong memory, all contributed to make his society a truly elegant and classic entertainment to his friends." No man, though helped by his enemies, could have achieved what he did without courage, resolution and profound sagacity, and he must have possessed much charm of character, as well as manner, to have won such pious souls as Hannah More,t Charles Butler (the English jurist, Roman Catholic historian, and miscellaneous writer), and the monks of Chartreuse, and have converted into friends the hostile Mansfield and the still inore pre- judiced Johnson.
By many writers of eminence Wilkes is never mentioned except in language of obloquy. Lord Broughamn, in his sketches of "Public Characters," originally published in the Edinburgh Review in 1839, has this to say of Wilkes :
"Though of good manners and even a winning address, his personal appearance was so revolting as to be hardly human. High birth he could not boast. Of fortune he had but a moderate share, and it was all spent before he became a candidate for popular
* See page 569. t See "The Memoirs of Hannah More," II : 109.
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favor, and his circumstances were so notoriously desperate that he lived for years on patriotic subscriptions. Of those more sterling qualities of strict moral conduct, regular religions habits, temperate and prudent behavior, regular, industrious life-qualties which are generally required of public men, even if more superficial accomplishments should be dispensed with-he had absolutely nothing; and the inost flagrant violations of decency on moral as well as religious matters were committed, were known, were believed and were overlooked by the multitude. * *
* Wilkes was a fair classical scholar. He was more than this, he was a first rate Latinist-that is to say, he had a perfect critical acquaintance with the niceties of the Roman authors, especially the poets, whom he dearly loved. His knowledge of Greek literature, though not profound, was far from being contemptible ; and some great classical scholar, who spent a day with himn at the Isle of Wight not long before his death, expressed surprise at the extent of his acquaint- ance with the orators and dramatists of Greece.
"But here our panegyric must stop. He was a heartless reprobate, who made a trade of politics and a deliberate, systematic study of libertinism. Though one of the ugliest dogs in Christendom, with a big, chuckle head, white, glittering back-teeth, or rather tusks, and an infernal squint that might have scared a ghost, Wilkes, strange to say, was a prodigious favorite with women, and used often to boast that, give him half an hour's use of his tongue, he would supplant the handsomest man in England in the affections of a lady !"
Lord John Russell, a less impulsive writer and a much sounder critic than Lord Brougham, has said :
"No man can now consider Wilkes as anything but a profligate spendthrift, without opinions or principles, religious or political ; whose impudence far exceeded his talents, and who always meant license when he cried liberty."
Just as it is possible that every man is a liar at heart, it is possible that Wilkes was a hypocrite from first to last. But to affirm this, as Earl Russell does, is not enough. Evidence of some value should be adduced to support the charge that the great agitator of the eighteenth century-the steadfast friend and zealous advocate of the rights of the American Colonies-was in every respect unprincipled, and in every particular an imposter. Taking his private utterances as fairer tests of his real opinions than any public declarations, the result is the reverse of unfavorable to him.
To pronounce a panegyric upon Wilkes because others have reviled him, would be a piece of absurdity-although not unprecedented. He was neither a perfect inan nor a perfect monster. In his life, which was not that of an ascetic, and in his actions, which were not always defensible, he was but a type of the society wherein he moved, and a natural product of the age in which he lived. One of his misfortunes was to be frequently in debt; but in this matter he erred no more grievously than several great British statesmen of the same period whom their fellow-countrymen have delighted to honor-Lord Chatham and William Pitt, Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox. Wilkes was, however, free from one of the greatest vices of his age, for he was 110 gamester.
Another shortcoming was his proneness to free talk and loose living ; but in these respects he was no worse than Sir Robert Walpole and Henry Fox, Lord Chesterfield and Lord Sandwich, Lord Chancelor Northington and Lord Chancelor Thurlow, while he was a pattern of purity compared with that polished gentleman, George, Prince of Wales (afterwards King George IV). Gibbon, who, in his autobiography, repre- hends the tendency of Wilkes to unclean speech, has demonstrated, by many an allusion and many a foot-note in his history, that his own mind dwelt frequently on impure and unsavory topics. Lord Marchi- who, in order that he inight curry favor with the Court and in order that the Government might have a plausible pretext for prosecuting Wilkes, exerted himself to prove the latter guilty of the writing and publishing
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of the "Essay on Woman" (see page 537)-was the most systematic corrupter of female innocence and the most thorough-paced rascal of the century .*
The personal shortcomings of Wilkes were perfectly well known to his contemporaries, yet they availed nothing in lessening his popu- larity among the great bulk of the people. Some persons, indeed, tried to disparage him by contrasting his private life with his public profes- sions. The reply made at the time by "Junius" was accepted by all sensible inen as conclusive, nor has its force and appositeness been weakened by time.
"It is not necessary to exact from Mr. Wilkes the virtues of a stoic. They were in- consistent with themselves, who, almost at the same moment, represented him as the basest of mankind, yet seemed to expect from him such instances of fortitude and self- denial as would do honor to an apostle. It is not, however, flattery to say that he is obstinate, intrepid and fertile in expedients. That he has no possible resource but in the public favor is, in my judgment, a considerable recommendation of him. I wish that every man who pretended to popularity were in the same predicament. I wish that a retreat to St. James' were not so easy and open as patriots have found it."
Wilkes' tender affection for his daughter and the constancy of his friendship are redeeming traits in his character. His free-thinking was only skin-deep. By nature unquestionably he was no demagogue, but a man of fashion, and dilettante. His part in public life he played with courage and consistency. Those who deny that he performed any service for which either his country or America ought to be grateful, and those who eulogize him as a patriot of the purest water, equally misap- prehend his real position and misconstrue his actual achievements. That a man of the most despicable and abandoned character should for many years have waged a bitter and, in the end, a triumphant contest with the Court, with successive Ministries and with the Parliament, simply to gratify liis personal malice and to gain a purely personal victory, is absurd and preposterous. A mere agitator can easily produce a temporary excitement in the public mind, and a momentary annoyance in Administration circles ; but the utmost power of a demagogue is only a figment, where it depends solely upon individual prepossessions and personal antipathies. Had the aiin of Wilkes been to make a position for himself by writing and speaking against the Government, and to make money out of sham patriotism, he would have been the scandalous hero of the hour, but would never have risen to be the leader of a strong party and "the most useful man in the kingdom." Personally he was subordinate to his cause-which was really that of the nation.
Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, who was a contemporary of Wilkes, wrote of him as followst :
"Wilkes could not properly be considered as a member of the Minority [in 1781- '82], because, though he always sat on that side of the House and usually voted with them, yet he depended neither on Lord Rockingham nor on Lord Shelburne; ; but his
* WILLIAM DOUGLAS, tracing his descent from the "Black Douglas" of Scottish history, was born in 1724. He succeeded his father as Earl of March, and in 1778 succeeded his consin as fourth Marquis of Queensberry. This marquisate, created in 1682, belongs to the Scottish peerage, and its motto is "For- ward !" It would seem that the family have endeavored-in their own way-to live up to this motto, at least from the time of the fourth Marquis. He was for many years known as "Old Q," was famous for a long time as a patron of the turf, and was infamous always for his shameless debaucheries. Thackeray has given us graphic, yet revolting, glimpses of him. He is said to have "displayed great taste in a song," but to-day he lives solely through Wordsworth's indignant sonnet, composed at Neidpath, whose venerable trees "degenerate Douglas" had felled, either to spite his heir or to dower one who he flattered himself was his daughter. After long fearing death he died, unmarried and worth over £1,000,000, Decem- ber 23, 1810, and was buried beneath the communion-table of St. James' Church, Piccadilly, London.
John Sholto Douglas (born in 1844), who bore the title of Marquis of Queensberry from 1858 till his death in January, 1900, was far and away the most eccentric peer of his day. He was an avowed agnostic, and his unconventionalites were numerous. He was the author of a code of rules governing pugilistic encounters, and known as the "Marquis of Queensberry Rules."
+ See "Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall" (1772-1784), 11 : 48.
See page 580.
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predilections leaned towards the latter nobleman. Representing, as he did, the county of Middlesex, he spoke from a great Parliamentary eminence. He was an incomparable comedian in all he said or did, and he seemed to consider human life itself as a mere comedy. In the House of Commons he was not less an actor than at the Mansion House or at Guildhall. His speeches were full of wit, pleasantry and point, yet nervous, spirited, and not at all defective in argument. They were all prepared before they were delivered, and Wilkes made no secret of declaring that, in order to secure their accurate transmis- sion to the public, he always sent a copy of them to Willian Woodfall* before he pro- nounced them.
"In private society, particularly at table, he was pre-eminently agreeable, abounding in anecdote, ever gay and convivial, converting his very defects of person, manner or enunciation to purposes of merriment or entertainment. If any man ever was pleasing who squinted, who had lost his teeth, and lisped, Wilkes might be so esteemed. His powers of conversation survived lis other bodily faculties. I dined in company with him not long before his decease, when he was exteimated and feeble to a great degree ; but his tongue retained all its former activity, and seemed to have outlived his other organs. Even in corporeal ruin, and obviously approaching the termination of his career, he formed the charm of the assembly. His celebrity, his courage, his imprisonment, his outlawry, his duels, his intrepid resistance to Ministerial and royal persecution, his writ- ings, his adventures, lastly, his triumph and serene evening of life, passed in tranquillity amidst all the enjoyments of which his decaying frame was susceptible (for to the last hour of his existence he continued a votary to pleasure )-these circumstances combined in his person rendered him the most interesting individual of the age in which he lived. "Since the death of Lord Bolingbroke, who died in 1751, and whose life bore some analogy to Wilkes' in various of its features, no man had occupied so distinguished a place in the public consideration. His name will live as long as the records of history transmit to future times the reign of George III. Notwithstanding the personal collision which may be said to have taken place between the King and him during the early por- tion of His Majesty's reign, Wilkes, like Burke, nourished in his bosom a strong senti- ment of constitutional loyalty. He gave indelible proofs of it during the riots of June, 1780 [see page 562, ante], when Bull, one of the Members for London, with whom he had long been intimately connected, crouched under Lord George Gordon's mob, while Kennett, the Lord Mayor, exhibited equal incapacity and pusillanimity. And, though Wilkes lent his aid to overturn Lord Nortli's Administration, yet he never yoked himself to Fox's car."
Wilkes' contemporaries, although they differed as to the value of his services, yet concurred in allowing him to have no living superior as a wit. One of them tells us: "He abounded in anecdote ; wit was so constantly at his command that wagers have been gained that, from the time he quitted his home till he reached Guildhall, no one would address him who would leave him without a smile or a hearty laugh." He was endowed with a gift which is so un-English that an exact equiva- lent for it does not exist in our language. The French call it esprit, the English representative of which is "chaff"-which is esprit in the rough. J. E. Thorold Rogers says: "Wilkes may have been 'dull in Parliament'; he did bright things there, but he said his brightest among his private friends. His wit was easy and brilliant ; not played off for effect, but often uttered for the conveyance of truth. Like Chesterfield, he uttered more wit than he wrote. It was bold, often impudent, but spontaneous. As for the wit by which he expressed a seeming hatred to the Scots, it was made all the sharper by the rage with which it in- spired Scottish men. He seemed to hate the nation, when he really hated only an individual [Lord Bute] belonging to it, in whom he recognized an enemy to the Britishi country and Constitution." Pages might be filled with the clever sayings attributed to Wilkes ; but many things which were palpable hits and excellent jokes a century and more ago, appear pointless and weak now.
Once Wilkes asked an elector to vote for himn. "No," replied the man warmly, "I'd rather vote for the devil !" "Yes," responded Wilkes, "but in this case your friend doesn't stand." At a city banquet Alder-
* WILLIAM WOODFALL (1746-1803) was for many years a Parliamentary reporter, a dramatic critic and a newspaper editor in London.
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man Burnell-who had begun life as a bricklayer-was clumsily attempt- ing to serve a soft pudding with a spoon, whereupon Wilkes called to him to "take a trowel to it !" When the King was about to go to St. Paul's upon a certain occasion to offer public thanksgiving, Wilkes expressed a hope that Lord George Germain (who had fallen into dis- grace on account of blunders committed at the battle of Minden, in 1759, and had been dismissed from the army) would be appointed "to carry the sword" before His Majesty in the procession. Once in the House of Commons Wilkes went up to the Speaker and privately told him that he had a petition to present to the House fromn a set of the greatest scoundrels and miscreants on earth. When called upon, however, shortly afterwards to present it, he said with the gravest possible face : "Sir, I hold in my hand a petition from a most intelligent, independent and enlightened body of men." In a chop-house a rude-mannered customer annoyed the other customers by impatiently shouting for his steak. On its being finally set before him Wilkes observed : "Usually the bear is brought to the stake, but here the steak is brought to the bear." Lord Eldon, recording that the respectable Company of Mer- chant Tailors had honored him with the freedom of their Company, added : "Their motto is 'Concordia parve res crescunt.' " Wilkes construed these words thus: "Nine tailors make a man !" In his latter years Wilkes became reconciled to George III, and occasionally was found at the Court levees. "How is your old friend, Glynn, Mr. Wilkes?" asked the King on one occasion. "My old friend, your Majesty ?" answered Wilkes. "He is no friend of mine. He was a Wilkesite, which I never was." One day the Prince of Wales (sub- sequently George IV) was entertaining at dinner a number of guests, one of whom was Wilkes. The Prince being then estranged from the King, his father, said bitter things against him. During the dinner Wilkes proposed the King's health. "Why, how long is it since you became so loyal?" asked the Prince. "Ever since I have had the pleasure of knowing your Royal Highness," was the saucy reply.
The following paragraphs are from the pen of Joseph Dennie, who was, for a number of years, editor of The Portfolio (Philadelphia). They were printed in that periodical in August, 1809.
"During the debate in the House of Commons in the year 1770, Burke observed of the famous 45th number of The North Briton, written by the patriot Wilkes, that it was a spiritless though a virulent performance, a mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once sour and vapid. The expression of this sentiment is perhaps not more happy than the correctness of the criticism. It is amazing that any of Wilkes' writings should ever have been popular, in the best sense of the word. They are certainly, for the most part, tanie and inelegant productions. This is the more wonderful when we reflect that Mr. Wilkes was confessedly a man of wit and genius, an elegant classical scholar, and very advantage- ously distinguished for the fluency and felicity of liis colloquial powers. In this respect he seems to have had some resemblance to Charles Fox, who certainly could talk well, though, in our opinion, he was never very famous for writing well.
"In the hands of John Wilkes and Charles Fox the pen appears to have moved sullenly over the page. But theirs was the voluble tongue to declaim and to delight ! One spoke in the Senate, and men thought Demosthenes was resuscitated from the dead ; another talked with his jovial friends, and it seemed as if they were listening to Aristip- pus, to Alcibiades or to Petronius Arbiter. But when Wilkes and Fox retired to their closets they produced nothing but awkward memorials of their own imbecility."
Of the writings of Wilkes which are in print and accessible, the present writer has consulted the following: (1) "The Correspondence of the late John Wilkes with his Friends, printed from the Original Manuscripts ; in which are introduced Memoirs of his Life." By John
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Almon. Five volumes, London, 1805. (2) "The North Briton, Num- bers 1 to 68. Revised and corrected by the Author, with Explanatory Notes." Two volumes, London, 1769. (3) "Speeches of John Wilkes in the Parliament appointed to meet at Westminster November 29, 1774 ; to its Prorogation, June 6, 1777." Two volumes, London, 1777. (4) "Speeches in the House of Commons by John Wilkes." One vol- ume, London, 1786. (5) "A Letter to George Grenville, occasioned by the publication of the Speech he made February 3, 1769, for ex- pelling Mr. Wilkes." London, 1769. (6) "J. Wilkes, Patriot; an unfinished Autobiography." Two volumes, Harrow, 1888. (7) "A Letter to Samuel Johnson, on 'The False Alarm' by Johnson." Lon- don, 1770. (S) "Letters from John Wilkes to his Daughter, 1774 to 1796; with a Collection of his Miscellaneous Poems, and prefixed with a Memoir of J. Wilkes." Four volunnes, London, 1804.
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