C

CRITICAL

AND

MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.

BY

JAMES STEPHEN.

IN ONE VOLUME.

BOSTON:

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY. NEW YORK: J. C. DERBY.

STEPHEN'S MISCELLANIES.

LIFE OF WILLIAM WILBERFORCE BY HIS SONS.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1838.]

THESE Volumes record the Life of a man, | boarder. I was sent at first among the lodgers, who, in an age fertile beyond most others in and I can remember, even now, the nauseous illustrious characters, reached, by-paths till food with which we were supplied, and which then unexplored, an eminence never before I could not eat without sickness." attained by any private member of the British Parliament. We believe we shall render an acceptable service to our readers, by placing them in possession of a general outline of this biography.

William Wilberforce was born at Hull on the 24th of August, 1759. His father, a merchant of that town, traced his descent from a family which had for many generations possessed a large estate at Wilberfoss, in the East Riding of the county of York. From that place was derived the name which the taste, or caprice of his later progenitors, modulated into the form in which it was borne by their celebrated descendant. His mother was nearly allied to many persons of consideration; amongst whom are numbered the present Bishops of Winchester and Chester, and the members of the great London banking-house, of which Lord Carrington was the head.

His early years were not, however, to pass away without some impressions more important, if not more abiding, than those which had been left on his sensitive nerves by the 'red beard of one of his Scotch teachers, and by the ill savour of the dinners of the other. His uncle's wife was a disciple of George Whitfield, and under her pious care he acquired a familiarity with the Sacred Writings, and a habit of devotion of which the results were perceptible throughout the whole of his more mature life. While still a school-boy, he had written several religious letters, "much in accordance with the opinions which he subsequently adopted," and which, but for his peremptory interdict, the zeal of some indiscreet friend would have given to the world. “If I had stayed with my uncle, I should probably have been a bigoted despised Methodist," is the conclusion which Mr. Wilberforce formed on looking back to this period, after an interval of nearly thirty years. His mother's foresight, apprehending this result, induced her to withdraw him from his uncle's house, and to place him under the charge of the master of the endowed school at Pocklington, in Yorkshire, a sound and well-beneficed divine, whose orthodoxy would seem to have been entirely unalloyed by the rigours of Methodism. The boy was encouraged to lead a life of idleness and pleasure, wasting his time in a round of visits to the neighbouring gentry, to whom he was recommended by his social talents, especially by his rare skill in singing: while, during his school vacations, the religious impressions of his childhood were combated by a constant succession of such convivial gayeties as the town of Hull could afford. Ill as this discipline was calculated to lay the foundation of good intellectual habits, it was still less adapted to substitute for the excitement and dogmatism of Whitfield's system, a Life of William Wilberforce. By his sons ROBERT piety resting on a nobler and more secure ISAAC WILBERFORCE. M. A., Vicar of East Farlough, basis. One remarkable indication, however, late Fellow of the Oriel College; and SAMUEL WILBER was given of the character by which his future FORCE, M. A., Rector of Brightstone. 4 vols. 8vo. Lon-life was to be distinguished. He placed in the

The father of William Wilberforce died before his son had completed his tenth year; and the ample patrimony which he then inherited was afterwards largely increased on the death of a paternal uncle, to whose guardianship his child was committed. By that kinsman he was placed at a school in the immediate neighbourhood of his own residence at Wimbledon, in Surry. The following are the characteristic terms in which, at the distance of many years, the pupil recorded his recollections of this first stage of his literary education:-" Mr. Chalmers, the master, himself a Scotchman, had an usher of the same nation, whose red beard, for he scarcely shaved once a month, I shall never forget. They taught French, Arithmetic, and Latin. With Greek we did not much meddle. It was frequented chiefly by the sons of merchants, and they taught therefore every thing, and nothing. Here I continued some time as a parlour

don, 1838.

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