WAKEFIELD, Gilbert, a commentator and critic of some celebrity, born at Nottingham on the 22d of February 1756, was the son of the Rev. George Wakefield, rector of the parish of St Nicolas. He was observed in his earliest infancy to be of a serious turn of mind, and he made a rapid progress in the first elements of literature. At the age of seven, he was sent to a free school at Nottingham, and remained there two years, chiefly under the tuition of Mr Beardmore, afterwards master of the Charter House; he was then sent to a school kept by the Rev. S. Pickthall, at Wilfred, an institution which seems to have been only distinguished by the regular imprisonment of the boys for no less than eleven hours a day. After this, when his father obtained the vicarage of Kingston in Surrey, with the chapelry of Richmond, he was placed under the care of his curate, who kept a school at Richmond. He was, however, removed in 1769 to a better conducted establishment in the same neighbourhood, kept by the Rev. R. Wooddeson, of whom he speaks in his Memoirs with high approbation.
At sixteen he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, where his classical studies still continued to be the principal object of his attention, although he was so fortunate as to obtain the rank of second wrangler at the termination of his academical studies in 1776. He has indeed the candour to observe, that the year was below mediocrity with regard
Wakefield, to the performances of the candidates in general; and that, when he obtained the second classical medal, on the Duke of Newcastle's foundation, he had only one competitor. Still it must not be denied, that to be both second wrangler and second medallist in any year implies no ordinary portion of application, as well as some considerable talent. Wakefield was however distinguished, throughout his life, by a singular mixture of opposite habits; and, in the midst of his studies, he confesses that "he sometimes felt himself almost incapable of reading a single page for months together;" and in summer especially, he could only wander about the fields in a state of perfect inactivity. On the other hand, he says that, "for five years he rose almost without exception, by five o'clock, winter and summer, but never breakfasted, drank tea, or supt [supped], or of course dined, "alone half a dozen times during all that space, enjoying society, from the first, beyond measure."
He became a fellow of Jesus College in 1776, and he gained, in two successive years, the second bachelor's prizes given by the chancellor. In 1778 he was ordained by the Bishop of Peterborough, though he did not subscribe the articles without great reluctance. He obtained a curacy first at Stockport in Cheshire, and then at Liverpool. The year after, he married Miss Watson, a niece of the rector of Stockport, and thus vacated his fellowship. His domestic life appears to have been happy and harmonious, though the only merit of his wife, that he has left upon record, is the singular hereditary qualification, that her great-grandfather and great-grandmother had lived together as man and wife for seventy-five years. Soon after his marriage, he became classical tutor in the dissenting academy at Warrington, though he did not professedly unite with any specific community of dissenters as adopting all their opinions; but he soon began openly to attack those of the Established Church, in a multitude of controversial writings, and especially in the notes accompanying his new translations of some parts of the Scripture; a work for which he had diligently laboured to prepare himself by the study of various dialects of the oriental languages. After the dissolution of the academy of Warrington, he lived at Bramcote in Nottinghamshire, at Richmond, and at Nottingham; partly occupied in the instruction of a few pupils, and partly in pursuing his own studies and illustrations of antiquity. In 1786, and for two or three years after, he suffered greatly from acute pain in his shoulder, which interfered materially with the prosecution of his theological investigations.
In the year 1790, he accepted the classical professorship at Hackney. Here his lectures and instructions were generally approved and admired, but he carried his dissent from the articles of faith of any established society of Christians so much farther than any of his colleagues, that he was thought too independent to continue in his situation; and he consequently left the institution in 1791; and for a similar reason he failed of obtaining the charge of two private pupils whom he expected to have been placed with him. He continued to reside at Hackney, employing himself partly as an author and editor, and partly in the education of his own children. Among his original productions were several polemical and political pamphlets, relating to the war with France, and to the various controversies of the day. Of these the most remarkable for its consequences to himself was his Reply to the Bishop of Landaff's Address, which occasioned a prosecution to be brought by the attorney-general, against his publisher first, and then against himself; and he was sentenced to be confined for two years in Dorchester jail; a punishment which was probably intended to be somewhat severe, but which was most fortunate in its operation on his subsequent comfort, since it was the cause of his obtaining, by the exertions of his friends and his partisans at large, a subscription of about £5000; a sum which not only alleviated
the rigour of his imprisonment, but also enabled him to leave his family in a state of comparative affluence. Wakefield.
He was principally occupied during his confinement in continuing his literary labours for the press, and in preparing a series of classical lectures, beginning with the illustration of the second book of Virgil's Aeneid, the first course of which he delivered in London immediately after his liberation in May 1801. The effect of unusual exertions of body and mind, after so long a cessation of exercise, and in hot summer weather, appears to have predisposed his constitution to typhus fever, of which he died, after a fortnight's illness, on the 9th of September 1801, leaving a widow and six children, four sons and two daughters. His brother, the Rev. Thomas Wakefield of Richmond, also survived him, and died in 1806. The catalogue of his literary offspring is so multitudinous, that it partly tells its own story by its length, and admits of very few particular remarks.
Poemata; quibus accedunt quaedam in Horatium Observations, Cantab. 1776, 4to. A plain and short Account of the Nature of Baptism, Warrington, 1781, 12mo. An Essay on Inspiration, Warr. 1781, 8vo. A new Translation of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, Warr. 1781, 8vo. A new Translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew, Warr. 1782, 4to. Directions for the Student in Theology, Lond. 1784, 12mo. A Sermon preached at Richmond on the Peace, Lond. 1784, 8vo. An Inquiry concerning the Person of Jesus Christ, Lond. 1784, 8vo. On the Origin of Alphabetical Characters, Manchester, Mem. 1. 1785. Life, ii., attempting to cut the knot of their invention by referring their origin to inspiration. Several Letters signed Nepiodidascalos, in the Theological Repository, Lond. 1785. The Poems of Mr Gray, with Notes, Lond. 1786, 8vo. Virgilii Georgica, Cantab. 1788, 8vo. Remarks on Dr Horsley's Ordination Sermon, Lond. 1788, 12mo. Four Marks of Antichrist, Lond. 1788, 8vo. A new Translation of Parts of the New Testament wrongly translated, Lond. 1789, 8vo. An Address to the Inhabitants of Nottingham, Lond. 1789, 8vo. Remarks on the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, Lond. 1789, 8vo. Silva Critica, i. 8vo, Cantab. 1789. ii. 1790. iii. 1792. iv. Lond. 1793, v. 1795; Intended for the illustration of the Scriptures from the Greek and Roman writers. The last two parts were printed at the expense of the Rev. Robert Tyrwhitt. An Address to the Bishop of St David's, Birm. 1790, 8vo. On the Liturgy, Curatory Reflections, Birm. 1790, 8vo. On the Corporation and Test Acts. An Inquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship, Lond. 1791, 8vo. Ed. 3, 1792. Memoirs of his Life, Lond. 1792, 8vo. Ed. 1804, 2 vols. 8vo. Continued by Mr Rutt and Mr Walnewright. A Translation of the New Testament, Lond. 1792, 3 vols. 8vo. 2d edit. 1795, 2 vols. 8vo. Strictures on Dr Priestley's Letter concerning Public Worship, Lond. 1792, 8vo. Reply to the Arguments against the Inquiry, Lond. 1792, 8vo. Evidences of Christianity, Lond. 1793, 8vo. The Spirit of Christianity compared with the Spirit of the Times, Lond. 1794, 8vo, two editions. An Examination of the Age of Reason, Lond. 1794, 8vo, two editions. Remarks on the General Orders of the Duke of York, Lond. 1794, 8vo. Horatii quae superant, Lond. 1794, 12mo. Tragediarum Graecarum Delectus, Lond. 1794, 2 vols. 8vo. The Eumenides, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, Heracles, Aetis, and Ion. Pope's Works, with Remarks and Illustrations, vol. i., Warr. 1794, 8vo. A Reply to Paine's Second Part of the Age of Reason, Lond. 1795, 8vo. Poetical Translations, Lond. 1795, 12mo; especially from Horace and Juvenal. Bionis et Moreti quae superant, Lond. 1795, 12mo. Virgilii Opera, Lond. 1796, 12mo. Observations on Pope, Lond. 1796, 8vo. A Reply to the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq., Lond. 1796, 8vo, twice reprinted. Homers' Iliad, by Pope, with Notes, Lond. 1796, 11 vols. 8vo. Lucretius de Rerum Natura, Lond. 1796-7, 3 vols. 4to. and 8vo. A splendid book, with some collations of manuscripts, and some notes of Bentley. But the collations are said to be inaccurate, and the commentary more prolix than judicious. See Porson in Br. Critic, 1801, xvii. p. 452, and Elmsley in the Classical Journal. He received, however, many grateful panegyric acknowledgments from his German correspondents. The edition is dedicated to Mr Fox, with whom he commenced an acquaintance on the occasion. In Euripidis Hecuba Diatribe, Lond. 1797, 8vo. On Porson's Hecuba. A Letter to Jacob Bryant, Esq. on the War of Troy, Lond. 1797, 4to. A Letter to William Wilberforce, Esq., Lond. 1797, 8vo, reprinted. A Reply to some parts of the Bishop of Landaff's Address to the People of Great Britain, Lond. 1798, 8vo, twice reprinted. A Letter to Sir John Scott, His Majesty's Attorney-General, on the subject of a late Trial, Lond. 1798, 8vo. Defence delivered in the Court of King's Bench. Address to the Judges in April. Address to the Judges in May, printed but not published. The first Satire of Juvenal Imitated, 1800, 12mo. Life, vol. ii. Correspondence with the late Right Hon.
Wakes. C. J. Fox, Lond. 1813, 8vo; chiefly on subjects of classical literature.
But few of the characters that have ever employed the pen of a biographer have exhibited more remarkable contrasts, either in a moral or a literary point of view, than that of Gilbert Wakefield; and he has accordingly been depicted, by critics and historians of various sentiments, in colours the most opposite and the most discordant. "Of his particular modes of thinking on religious and political subjects," says Dr. Lindsay, "different men will form different opinions: concerning the integrity of his heart, and the consistency of his character, there can be but one opinion amongst those who enjoyed the happiness of his acquaintance." It would indeed be difficult to find a more splendid example of high honour and self-denial, and of magnificent liberality, even under actual pecuniary embarrassment, than Mr. Wakefield displayed, at a time when he had to support himself, with a wife and six or seven children, on about £150 a year, in voluntarily paying the expenses of Mr. Cuthell on his protection for publishing the Reply to the Bishop of Landaff's Address, which exceeded the whole yearly amount of his income. "His devotedness to study," says his friend Dr. Alkin, "was by no means attended with a reserved or unsocial disposition; for no one could delight more in free conversation, or bear his part in it with a more truly social spirit; and if, in controversial and critical writings, he was apt to indulge in the contemptuous and severe expressions which he found too much sanctioned by polemical use, in disputation by word of mouth he was singularly calm and gentle, patient in hearing, and placid in replying. To conclude the topic of [his] moral character, it was marked by an openness, a simplicity, a good faith, an affectionate ardour, a noble elevation of soul, which made way to the hearts of all who nearly approached him, and rendered him the object of their warmest attachment." But "he wanted time or patience," says Dr. Parr very justly, "for that discrimination which would have made his conjectures fewer, indeed, but more probable, and his principles more exact: [yet] I shall ever think of him as one of the best scholars produced by my own country in my own age." The compliments of Heyne, and of his pupil Jacobs, are still more elaborate; but it is well known, that when Porson was one day asked for a toast, with a sentiment from Shakespeare, he gave "Gilbert Wakefield, What's Hecca to him, or he to Hecca?" and there was quite as much of truth as there was of neatness in the application. A reviewer of his Life in the British Critic, by no means favourably disposed towards him, readily admits that "he was strictly and enthusiastically honest, and seems to have acquired even a passion for privations: these feelings, added to his pride of independent thinking, led him, we doubt not," he says, "to abstain from wine; to have relinquished in part, and to be tending entirely to give up, the use of animal food, with various other instances of peculiarity. Knowing his own assiduity, and giving himself ample credit for sagacity, he thought that he was equal to the decision of every possible question; and thus he became bigoted to almost every paradox which had once possessed his very eccentric understanding. He was as violent against Greek accents as he was against the Trinity, and anathematized the final N as strongly as episcopacy. Whatever coincided not with his ideas of rectitude, justice, elegance, or whatever else it might be, was to give way at once, and to be rescinded at his pleasure, on pain of the most violent reprehension to all opponents: whether it were an article of faith, a principle of policy, a doctrine of morality, or a reading in an ancient author, away it must go, aviserit sicut vi vares, to the dogs and the vultures. These exterminating sentences were also given with such precipitancy as not to allow even a minute for consideration. To the paper, to the press, to the [public], all was given at once, frequently to the incurring of the most palpable absurdity. Thus the simple elegance of O leatē Stāt, in Horace, was proposed, in an edition of that author, to be changed to O lea Tē Stāt, though the alteration, besides being most bald and tasteless, produced a blunder in quantity so gross, that no boy, even in the middle part of a public school, would have been thought pardonable in committing it. By faults [either] original or habitual, his sincerity became offensive, his honesty haughty and uncharitable, his intrepidity factions, his acuteness delusive, and his memory, assisted by much diligence, a vast weapon which his judgment was totally unable to wield." (r. y.)