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.

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

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.

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.

hands of a schoolfellow, (who survives to record the fact,) a letter to be conveyed to the editor of the York paper, which he stated to be "in condemnation of the odious traffic in human flesh."-On the same authority he is reported to have "greatly excelled all the other boys in his compositions, though seldom beginning them till the eleventh hour."

University, had ripened into an affectionate union which none of the vicissitudes of political life could afterwards dissolve. They partook in each other's labours and amusements, and the zest with which Mr. Pitt indulged in these relaxations, throws a new and unexpected light on his character. They joined together in founding a club, at which, From school Mr. Wilberforce was transferred, for two successive winters, Pitt spent his at the age of seventeen, to St. John's College, evenings, while, at Mr. Wilberforce's villa at Cambridge. We trust that the picture which Wimbledon, he was established rather as an he has drawn of the education of a young gen- inmate than as a guest. There he indulged tleman of fortune, in an English University, himself even in boisterous gayety; and it towards the close of the last century, will strangely disturbs our associations to read of seem an incredible fiction to the present mem- the son and rival of Lord Chatham rising bers of that learned society. "The Fellows early in the morning to sow the flower-beds of the College," he says, "did not act towards with the fragments of a dress-hat with which me the part of Christians, or even of honest Lord Harrowby had come down from the men. Their object seemed to be to make and opera. There also were arranged fishing and keep me idle. If ever I appeared studious, shooting parties; in one of which the future they would say to me- Why, in the world champion of the anti-Gallican war narrowly should a man of your fortune trouble himself escaped an untimely grave from the misdiwith fagging?' I was a good classic, and rected gun of his friend. On the banks of acquitted myself well in the College examina-Windermere, also, Mr. Wilberforce possessed tions, but mathematics, which my mind greatly needed, I almost entirely neglected, and was told that I was too clever to require them."

a residence, where the Parliamentary vacation found him "surrounded with a goodly assortment of books." But the discovery was already made that the actumnal ennui of the fashionable world might find relief among the lakes and mountains of Westmoreland, and "boating, riding, and continual parties" fully occupied the time which had been devoted to retirement and study. From these amici fures temporis Mr. Wilberforce escaped, in the autumn of 1783, to pass a few weeks with Mr. Pitt in France. They readily found introductions to the supper table of Marie Antoinette, and the other festivities of Fontainbleau. Louis XVI. does not appear to have made a very flattering impression on his young guests. "The King," says Mr. Wilberforce, in a letter written about that time, " is so strange a being of the hog kind, that it is worth going a hundred miles for a sight of him, especially a boar-hunting." At Paris "he received with interest the hearty greetings which Dr. Franklin tendered to a rising member of the English Parliament, who had opposed the American war."

With such a preparation for the duties of active life, Mr. Wilberforce passed at a single step from the University to the House of Commons. The general election of 1780, occurring within less than a month from the completion of his twenty-first year, "the affection of his townsmen, 'not unaided by' an expenditure of from eight to nine thousand pounds," placed him at the head of the poll for "the town and county of Hull." Although at this time Mr. Wilberforce states himself to have been "so ignorant of general society as to have come up to London stored with arguments to prove the authenticity of Rowley's Poems," yet so rich and so accomplished an aspirant could not long be excluded from the mysteries of the world of fashion which now burst upon him. Five clubs enrolled him among their members. He "chatted, played at cards, or gambled" with Fox, Sheridan, and Fitzpatrick-fascinated the Prince of Wales by his singing at Devonshire House-produced inimitable imitations of Lord North's Graver cares awaited Mr. Wilberforce's revoice and manner-sang catches with Lord turn to England. He arrived in time to second Sandwich-exchanged epigrams with Mrs. Mr. Pitt's opposition to the India Bill, and to Creeve-partook of a Shaksperian dinner at support him in his memorable struggle against the Boar, in East Cheap-"shirked the Du- the majority of the House of Commons. The chess of Gordon"-and danced till five in the Coalition was now the one subject of popular morning at Almack's. The lassitude of fash-invective; and, at a public meeting in the ionable life was effectually relieved by the duties or amusements of a Parliamentary career, not unattended by some brilliant success. Too rich to look to public service as a means of subsistence, and, at this period, ambitious rather of distinction than of eminence, Mr. Wilberforce enjoyed the rare luxury of complete independence. Though a decided opponent of the North American war, he voted with Lord North against Sir Fletcher Norton's re-election as Speaker, and opposed Mr. Pitt on the second occasion of his addressing the House, although he was already numbered amongst the most intimate of his friends. This alliance, commenced apparently at the

Castle-yard at York, in March, 1784, Mr. Wilberforce condemned their measures, in a speech which was received with the loudest applause. The praise of James Boswell is characteristic at once of the speaker and of the critic. In an account of the scene which he transmitted to Mr. Dundas, "I saw," writes Boswell, "what seemed a mere shrimp, mount upon the table, but, as I listened, he grew and grew, until the shrimp became a whale." A still more convincing attestation to his eloquence is to be found in the consequences to which it led. Mr. Wilberforce attended the meeting with the avowed purpose of defeating, at the approaching election, the predominant influence of the

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great Whig families of Yorkshire, and with (now became his preceptor and his spiritual the secret design of becoming a candidate for guide. the county. During his speech the cry of Wilberforce and Liberty" was raised by the crowd; and the transition was obvious and readily made, to "Wilberforce and the Representation of Yorkshire." The current of popular favour flowed strongly in his support. He was the opponent of the Coalition and the India Bill, and the friend and zealous partisan of Mr. Pitt; then rich in hereditary honours, in personal renown, and in the brightest promise. Large subscriptions defrayed the expense of the contest, and, without venturing to the poll, his Whig opponents surrendered to him a seat, which he continued to occupy, without intermission, for many successive Parliaments. With this memorable triumph Mr. Wilberforce closed his twenty-fifth year, and returned to London in possession of whatever could gratify the wishes, or exalt the hopes of a candidate for fame, on the noblest theatre of civil action which the world had thrown open to the ambition of private men.

The day dreams on the subject of religious conversions, which they who list may hear on every side, are like other dreams, the types of substantial realities. Though the workings of the Almighty hand are distinctly visible only to the omniscient eye, yet even our narrow faculties can often trace the movements of that perennial under-current which controls the sequences of human life, and imparts to them the character of moral discipline. In the comprehensive scheme of the Supreme Governor of the world for the progressive advancement of the human race, are comprised innumerable subordinate plans for the improvement of the individuals of which it is composed; and whether we conceive of these as the result of some preordained system, or as produced by the immediate interposition of God, we equally acknowledge the doctrine of Divine Providence, and refer to him as the author of those salutary revolutions of human character, of which the reality is beyond dispute. It is a simple matter of fact, of which these volumes afford the most conclusive proof, that, about the twenty-sixth year of his age, Mr. Wilberforce was the subject of such a change; and that it continued for half a century to give an altered direction to his whole system of thought and action. Waiving all discussion as to the mode in which the divine agency may have been employed to accomplish this result, it is more to our purpose to inquire in what the change really consisted, and what were the consequences for which it prepared the way.

The time had, however, arrived at which a new direction was to be given to the thoughts and pursuits of this favourite of nature and fortune. Before taking his seat in the House of Commons, as member for the county of York, Mr. Wilberforce, accompanied by some female relations, and by Isaac Milner, the late Dean of Carlisle, undertook a journey to the south of France, and thence through Switzerland to the German Spa. This expedition, interrupted by a temporary return to England, during the winter of 1784-5, continued some months, and forms a memorable era in his life. The lessons which he had learned in childhood at Wimbledon had left an indelible impression on a mind peculiarly susceptible of every tender and profound emotion. The dissipation of his subsequent days had retarded the growth of those seeds of early piety, but had not entirely choked them. To the companions of his youth many indications had occasionally been given, that their gay associate was re-most mercurial gayety of heart, the effect was volving deeper thoughts than formed the staple of their ordinary social intercourse. These were now to take entire possession of his mind, and to regulate the whole of his future conduct. The opinions of Whitfield had found a more impressive expositor than the good aunt who had originally explained and enforced them.

Isaac Milner was a remarkable man, and but for the early possession of three great ecclesiastical sinecures, which enabled him to gratify his constitutional indolence, would probably have attained considerable distinction in physical and in theological science. In a narrow collegiate circle he exercised a colloquial despotism akin to that which Johnson had established, and to which Parr aspired, amongst the men of letters and the statesmen of their age. But Milner's dogmatism was relieved by a tenderness of heart not inferior to that of the great moralist himself; and was informed by a theology incomparably more profound, and more fitted to practical uses, than that of the redoubted grammarian. He was amongst the dearest of the friends of Mr. Wilberforce, and

The basis of Mr. Wilberforce's natural character was, an intense fellow-feeling with other men. No one more readily adopted the interests, sympathized with the affections, or caught even the transient emotions of those with whom he associated. United to a melancholy temperament, this disposition would have produced a moon-struck and sentimental “Man of Feeling;" but, connected as it was with the

as exhilarating as it was impressive. It was a combination of the deep emotions, real or pretended, of Rousseau, with the restless vivacity of Voltaire. Ever ready to weep with those that wept, his nature still more strongly prompted him to rejoice with those that rejoiced. A passionate lover of society, he might (to adopt, with some little qualification, a well-known phrase) have passed for the brother of every man, and for the lover of every woman with whom he conversed. Bayard himself could not have accosted a damsel of the houses of Longueville or Coligni with a more heartfelt and graceful reverence, than marked his address to every female, however homely or however humble. The most somnolent company was aroused and gladdened at his presence. The heaviest countenance reflected some animation from his eye; nor was any one so dull as not to yield some sparks of intellect when brought into communication with him. Few men ever loved books more, or read them with a more insatiate thirst; yet, even in the solitude of his library,