Chapter Wilson to Wolcot of W by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Wilson to Wolcot

Wilson, Thomas (1525?-1581).—Scholar and statesman, born in Lincolnshire, was at Cambridge, and held various high positions under Queen Elizabeth. He was the author of The Rule of Reason containing the Arte of Logique (1551), and The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), and made translations from Demosthenes. He endeavoured to maintain the purity of the language against the importation of foreign words.

Wingate, David, (1828-1892).—Poet, was employed in the coal-pits near Hamilton from the time he was 9. He published Poems and Songs (1862), which was favourably received, and followed by Annie Weir (1866). After this he studied at the Glasgow School of Mines, became a colliery manager, and devoted his increased leisure to study and further literary work. Lily Neil appeared in 1879, followed by Poems and Songs (1883), and Selected Poems (1890). Wingate was a man of independent character. He was twice married, his second wife being a descendant of Burns.

Winthrop, Theodore (1828-1861).—Novelist, born at New Haven, Conn., descended through his flourished from Governor Winthrop, and through his mother from Jonathan Edwards, educated at Yale, travelled in Great Britain and on the Continent, and far and wide in his own country. After contributing to periodicals short sketches and stories, which attracted little attention, he enlisted in the Federal Army, in 1861, and was killed in the Battle of Great Bethel. His novels, for which he had failed to find a publisher, appeared posthumously—John Brent, founded on his experiences in the far West, Edwin Brothertoft, a story of the Revolution War, and Cecil Dreeme. Other works were The Canoe and Saddle, and Life in the Open Air. Though somewhat spasmodic and crude, his novels had freshness, originality, and power, and with longer life and greater concentration he might have risen high.

Wither, George (1588-1667).—Poet, born near Alton, Hampshire, was at Oxford for a short time, and then studied law at Lincoln’s Inn. In 1613 he published a bold and pungent satire, Abuses Stript and Whipt, with the result that he was imprisoned for some months in the Marshalsea. While there he wrote The Shepheard’s Hunting, a pastoral. Wither’s Motto, Nec Habeo, nec Careo, nec Curo (I have not, want not, care not) was written in 1618, and in 1622 he collected his poems as Juvenilia. The same year he published a long poem, Faire Virtue, the Mistress of Philarete, in which appears the famous lyric, “Shall I wasting in despair.” Though generally acting with the Puritans he took arms with Charles I. against the Scotch in 1639; but on the outbreak of the Civil War he was on the popular side, and raised a troop of horse. He was taken prisoner by the Royalists, and is said to have owed his life to the intercession of a fellow-poet, Sir John Denham. After the establishment of the Commonwealth he was considerably enriched out of sequestrated estates and other spoils of the defeated party; but on the Restoration was obliged to surrender his gains, was impeached, and committed to the Tower. In his later years he wrote many religious poems and hymns, collected as Hallelujah. Before his death his poems were already forgotten, and he was referred to by Pope in The Dunciad as “the wretched Withers.” He was, however, disinterred by Southey, Lamb, and others, who drew attention to his poetical merits, and he has now an established place among English poets, to which his freshness, fancy, and delicacy of taste well entitle him.

Wodrow, Robert (1679-1734).—Church historian, son of James Wodrow, Professor of Divinity in Glasgow. Having completed his literary and theological education there, he entered the ministry of the Church of Scotland, and was ordained to the parish of Eastwood, Renfrewshire. Here he carried on the great work of his life, his History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland 1660 to 1688. Wodrow wrote when the memory of the persecutions was still fresh, and his work is naturally not free from partisan feeling and credulity. It is, however, thoroughly honest in intention, and is a work of genuine research, and of high value for the period with which it deals. It was published in two folio vols. in 1721 and 1722. Wodrow made large collections for other works which, however, were not published in his lifetime. The Lives of the Scottish Reformers and Most Eminent Ministers and Analecta, or a History of Remarkable Providences, were printed for the Maitland Club, and 3 vols. of his correspondence in 1841 for the Wodrow Society. The Analecta is a most curious miscellany showing a strong appetite for the marvellous combined with a hesitating doubt in regard to some of the more exacting narratives.