WHITEHEAD (Paul), a celebrated satirist, the son of a taylor, was born in Westminster in the year 1710, and put apprentice to a woollen-draper. Unhappily he became acquainted with Mr Fleetwood the manager of Drury-lane theatre; who, in one of his difficulties, prevailed on Whitehead to become joint security with him for the payment of 3000 l. which Fleetwood failing to discharge, his deluded friend was reduced to take refuge in the liberties of the Fleet-prison for a considerable time. It was principally owing to him that the town was well diverted with the burlesque procession calculated to ridicule the anniversary parade of the society of Free Masons; whose public appearance has been discontinued from that time. He was very active on the part of Sir George Vandeput in the famous contested Westminster election in 1749; frequently heading numerous bodies of electors in person, and supplying the press with electioneering squibs. He was indeed generally reputed a rank Tory, heightened with a strong tincture of the Jacobite; for which supposition the frequent sneers at the House of Hanover, to be met with in his writings, furnished no small countenance. But if we pay any regard to the spirit of independence and public virtue he likewise manifests, his attachment to tyrants from principle may justly be questioned. The truth seems to be, that having a turn to satire, the party he adhered to was as much owing to accident as to choice: whether such conduct is consistent with any valuable principle, is another question. Sir Francis Dashwood, since lord Le Despencer, became Mr Whitehead's patron; and when he rose to power under lord Bute, he procured a patent place of 800 l. a-year for his favourite bard, which he enjoyed to his death in 1774. He bestowed among other legacies, the uncommon one of his heart, to his noble friend; who deposited it in a solemn manner, in a mausoleum erected for that purpose in his garden at High Wycomb in Buckinghamshire. His principal writings are,
Whitelock Manners, a satire; Honour, a satire; the State Dances, a satire; the Gymnasium, a mock heroic poem; and an Epistle to Dr Thompson: his smaller pieces in prose and verse are numerous; but he could never be prevailed on to collect and publish them. He spent three days before his death in burning MSS.